BILLS

2013-05-28 43 1 9 House of Reps 0 0

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

The SPEAKER ( Ms AE Burke ) took the chair at 12:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.

BILLS 3967 BILLS Aged Care (Living Longer Living Better) Bill 2013 3967

Aged Care (Living Longer Living Better) Bill 2013

Explanatory Memorandum 3967 12:01 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin Speaker, I present a correction to the explanatory memorandum of the Aged Care (Living Longer Living Better) Bill 2013. Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012, Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013 3967

Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012

Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013

Second Reading 3967 12:01 Mrs PRENTICE 217266 Ryan The committee received very strong evidence that this bill will impact most heavily on low-income families. GMHBA Health Insurance, a not-for-profit private health insurance provider in regional Victoria, said that this measure will result in a one per cent to 18 per cent, with an average of 10.6 per cent, price increase from 1 July 2013 and will impact on 40,000 private health insurers in their fund alone. GMHBA have also said quite clearly, 'Taking the rebate away from those with a lifetime health-cover loading is, in fact, highly discriminatory to low-income earners who have taken responsibility for their own health by insuring themselves privately.' These bills are aggressive and, as the committee was told, they will heavily impact on low-income families. The coalition also noted in its dissenting report the impact of the government's unstable policy setting that has arisen as a result of the third change that the government is proposing in relation to private health insurance. It is putting forward measures before we can even discern the full impact of previous changes to private health insurance. Passing this bill today would make that job even harder. Furthermore, the changes to the LHC loading create further complexity for patients and health-insurance providers. The previous means-testing changes had already created around 12 pricing structures for premiums, adding complexity to the private health insurance system. Providers have only until 1 July 2013 before these new regulations come into effect—a further increase in the compliance cost and the administrative burden on private health insurers. This bill will cease the claiming of private health insurance rebates through the Department of Human Services, which is known as the Incentives Payment Scheme—a change that will take effect from 1 July 2013. The explanatory memorandum to this bill states that at present over 99.9 per cent of rebate claims are made through the Premium Reduction Scheme, PRS, and tax offset claiming, leaving very few rebate claims done through the incentive payment scheme. This figure has been confirmed by organisations in the private health insurance industry—such as Private Healthcare Australia, which has said that a limited number of people will be affected by this change. If elected, the coalition will deliver a strong, prosperous economy and a safe, secure Australia. We will do this by building a five-pillar economy, including in-advance services and the delivery of better health services. We will do this by strengthening Medicare and taking pressures off the public hospital system by restoring the private health insurance rebate as soon as we can do so responsibly. We will also work with the states to ensure that hospitals are managed by local hospital boards so all communities can have better health services and better value for their money. We will improve mental health services, fund diabetes research and restore the commitment of the federal government to medical research. That is the coalition's plan for health services for Australians, and part of our plan to improve the lives of all Australians. Taken together, this bill is a further move by this Gillard Labor government to damage the private health insurance industry which it has been doing since it was elected in 2007. Previously, Prime Minister Gillard and the Labor Party promised that there would not be any change to the private health insurance rebate, a promise to the Australian people on which they have now reneged. This bill is a backward step for this government. The government continues to make cuts and so-called savings measures that hurt the hip pocket of Australians. Today's changes will discourage Australians from obtaining private health insurance and, worse, low-income Australians will be disproportionately affected. As the shadow minister for health highlighted when speaking on these bills, the record debt and deficits that the Labor government has racked up has left the budget in an urgent situation, which leaves the coalition with many tough decisions to make in this and other policy areas, as is so often the case. It will be therefore up to the coalition to right so many of the wrongs that this incompetent Labor government has left for Australia. Only the coalition can offer hope, reward and opportunity. 12:06 Dr SOUTHCOTT TK6 Boothby Labor's debt and waste have now led to the situation where we have a budget emergency. Instead of reining in the waste, instead of addressing the debt, Labor have used this opportunity to attack those who hold private health insurance. This is not the first time Labor have done that. Despite going to the 2007 election saying there would be no changes to the private health insurance rebate, there has not been a Labor government budget since then which has not attacked those who hold private health insurance. When Labor left office last time, the private health insurance industry was in a terrible state. Levels of insurance were about to fall below 30 per cent. The situation required a combined package of lifetime health cover, the Medicare levy surcharge and rebates to restore the levels of private health insurance to a sustainable level. Lifetime health cover is a loading on private health insurance premiums for those who do not take out hospital cover before they turn 30. The loading rate is two per cent for every year that the individual is over 30 when they take out hospital cover. It has a cap of 70 per cent. It was introduced to address the situation whereby people would self-insure or people would make a judgement about whether they would need health insurance. You tended to have younger, fitter, healthier people not taking out health insurance and the insured population, as a result, being more likely to claim. That led to an unsustainable position. Lifetime health cover was introduced by the Howard government. It came into effect on 1 July 2000. It is one part of those private health cover reforms that significantly increased private health insurance coverage. It was intended to ensure that people take out private health insurance at an early age and maintain their cover. The previous coalition government's changes to private health insurance reforms—the 30 per cent rebate, Medicare levy surcharge and lifetime health cover—saw coverage increase 75 per cent from 6.1 million to 10.7 million. The coalition has a strong track record in supporting private health insurance. We understand the very important role private health insurance play in taking pressure off the public system. This bill enacts the changes which were announced in MYEFO 2012-13. The changes to lifetime health cover are due to take effect on 1 July 2013. Currently, the government pays the private health insurance rebate on the value of the total premium paid by the policyholder, including the lifetime health cover component. This bill will remove the private health insurance rebate on the lifetime health cover component. It will bank $386.3 million in savings on top of the $2.8 billion that Labor have already ripped out of private health insurance by means-testing the rebates from 1 July 2012. The changes to lifetime health cover in this bill will increase premiums by up to a reported 27½ per cent. This change will add extra complexity to the private health insurance system. This complexity is on top of the 12 different private health insurance premium pricing structures created by the means test. These changes to lifetime health cover increase the red tape, increase the regulatory and administrative burden, for private health insurers. What is worse, once again, there is a very short time frame for insurers to implement these changes. The coalition does not support the changes to the treatment of lifetime health cover in this bill and will move amendments to oppose this aspect of the bill. This is not the first time the government have broken their promises on private health. The Prime Minister and other ministers repeatedly ruled out any changes to the private health insurance rebates before they were elected. They did one thing before they were elected and did another thing once they were elected. As I said before, 10.6 million Australians have hospital cover. In my electorate, 76.3 per cent of voters are covered by private health insurance. The government's own Private Health Insurance Administration Council found that, in five years of the Labor, government exclusions and restrictions became much more prevalent. The increased use of exclusions may work against the policy objective of private health insurance easing the burden on public hospitals. The full effect of Labor's changes to private health insurance still has not been felt. PHIAC reports that there were $1.2 billion in prepayments as people tried to defer their premium increases. This has delayed the pain of Labor's cuts to private health insurance. I would like to touch briefly on the second bill, which deals with the base premium. This bill has been rushed through the parliament without allowing the opposition enough time to consider it through normal processes. Those opposite have broken another convention of government. It was only introduced in the last sitting week, and it was then rushed through for debate today. They have listed this bill in cognate because they are trying to hide from the responsibility for their incompetent budgets. They are playing politics to shift the blame for their own terrible decisions. This government has turned a $20 billion surplus into five budget deficits. What we now have is a budget emergency. The opposition has problems with this bill but, in light of the budget emergency, we will not be opposing it. I would like to say a little bit about the key role that private health insurance plays. Private health insurance is important for giving choice. In my electorate, as I said, three-quarters of voters hold private health insurance. Since this government has been in, at every opportunity they have made a tax on those people who hold private health insurance. We have said that we will restore the private health insurance rebate as soon as we responsibly can. Unlike those opposite, this commitment is part of our DNA. We think that the private sector plays a very important role. It is a very important part of the capacity of our hospital system. It is very important in the area of allied health—dental, physio, OT, speech therapy and optometry. 12:14 Mr TUDGE M2Y Aston I rise also to speak on the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012 and the cognate bill in front of the parliament today and express my grave concerns in relation to them. These bills represent another hit to the private health insurance rebate by the Rudd-Gillard government. They have already means tested the private health insurance rebate, which experts recommend will put up premiums by 10 per cent across the board. With these bills, the lifetime health cover loading will no longer be covered by the private health insurance rebate. Secondly, the rebate will be worth less each and every year once the new indexation arrangements are brought in. For a government that promised time and time again not to alter the private health insurance rebate, they have now ripped about $4 billion out of it and have made things tougher for families. For those who are not aware, the lifetime health cover loading was introduced by the Howard government as part of package of reforms aimed at increasing the uptake of private health insurance, particularly for younger people. It is a loading on private health insurance premiums that is applied at a rate of two per cent for every year that an individual over the age of 30 takes out hospital cover, and a cap of 70 per cent is applied. It is intended to ensure that people take out private health insurance at an early age and maintain their cover. Currently the government pays the private health insurance rebate on the total value of the premium paid by the policyholder, including the loading component. This first bill will cease that arrangement. The second bill takes a further hit to the private health insurance rebate. It effectively reduces the value of the rebate each and every year. As you would be aware, it is a 30 per cent straight health insurance rebate presently. But the impact of this second bill is that, over the years, it will effectively reduce from 30 to 29 to 28 to 27—and keep going. I do not support these bills and will not be voting for them. I would like to outline, in the time I have available today, why I do not support these two bills. In essence, I can summarise it by saying this: the legislation will put up prices; that means that people will drop out of private health insurance; if people drop out of private health insurance that puts more pressure on the public health system, which is already under pressure; and, fourthly, it is a broken promise—another one—from this Labor government. If I come to that first point, the impact of these two bills is that the prices of private health insurance will be put up for everyday families across Australia. If there is one thing that people are concerned about in our community today it is cost-of-living pressures. They see their electricity bills go up, they see their gas bills go up, their water is going up, their rates are going up, child care is going up. Many of these things are going up because of government policy: through additional regulations, things like the carbon tax and, not content with putting up those other costs, through these bills which will put up the cost of the private health insurance. There are 1.2 million people across Australia who are subject to a lifetime health cover component. That is about 14 per cent of all people who take out private health insurance, and in my electorate that translates to 12,000 people. For each of these 1.2 million people, their costs for private health insurance will rise for the simple reason that that loading will no longer receive the rebate. It is very straightforward: that loading will no longer receive the rebate, which means their costs will go up. The industry believes that this measure alone will put costs up by an average of 10 per cent and for some people it will be up to 27 per cent. Further, the lifetime health cover will no longer be removed after 10 years, short-changing those who have, in good faith, been waiting to have their loading removed. That is just the first bill. The second bill applies across the board to every single private health insurance policyholder because that bill, the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill, has the effect over time of reducing the amount rebatable. As I said earlier, everybody knows that it is a 30 per cent private health insurance rebate. But the effect of this bill—even though it does not expressly state this—is that over time that 30 per cent will be reduced every single year and will continue to be reduced. The mechanism the government has for doing this is an indexation mechanism whereby the government's contribution to the private health insurance rebate would be indexed annually by the CPI rather than by the increase in actual premiums. Quite frequently, there are two to three percentage points difference between those two measures, between the CPI—which, as you would know, Madam Speaker, is targeted between two and three per cent—and the cost increases of actual premiums, which are frequently five to six to seven per cent per annum. That difference makes all the difference on this occasion. What it effectively means in plain English is that the rebate is worth less every year. That means that out-of-pocket expenses for every single family across Australia that has private health insurance will go up. Make no bones about that. There are approximately like 85,000 people in my electorate who have private health insurance. About 70 per cent of all families take out private health insurance. What happens if out-of-pocket expenses for private health insurance go up? The simple answer is that many people will drop out. That is the simple answer. They will not do so immediately, and many people will try to hold on to their private health insurance cover for as long as possible, because—as you know, Madam Speaker—people want private health insurance for the peace of mind of being able to get their own doctor or their own specialist and being able to go to the particular hospital that may be near them, such as the Knox Private Hospital in my electorate. They will do everything they can to maintain their private health insurance for as long as possible. But if the prices continue to go up, as these bills will cause them to do, some families will simply have to drop out of private health insurance. Labor would have you believe that it is only the wealthy people that take out private health insurance, but that is simply wrong. If you look at my electorate alone, 70 per cent of people take out private health insurance. I live in a very middle-class electorate. It is Middle Australia, and 70 per cent of people take out private health insurance. When you look at the annual statistics, 5.6 million people with private health insurance have an annual household income of less than $50,000; 3.4 million people have an annual household income of less than $35,000, and they take out private health insurance. Those families on that sort of annual income are already struggling with the increases in electricity prices, in gas prices, in childcare prices, in their rates, in water prices and in all of the other things which are going up well in excess of inflation. These bills are just going to make it so much harder for them, and I think that, particularly for those low-income families, many of them will have to drop out. They will have to drop their private health insurance because they can simply no longer afford to keep it. If people drop out of private health insurance, what does that mean? It does not mean they no longer have health problems. That is preposterous. What it means is that, instead of going to the private hospital, they go across to the public hospital. As you know, these public hospitals are already stretched to capacity. There are already long waiting lists at public hospitals, and the waiting lists in part got longer because they had $1.6 billion of cuts made to them in the last midyear financial update, last December, as the shadow minister for health has pointed out. How are these public hospitals supposed to cope if even a small number of the people who are currently covered by private health insurance drop their cover and then go into the public system? When you look at the procedures that are done in the private hospitals, it is quite incredible—78 per cent of knee procedures are done in private hospitals, as are 81 per cent of same day mental health treatments, 60 per cent of cancer therapy and 57 per cent of hip replacements. One has to ask the question: what happens if all of those surgeries and operations have to be done in the public system? The public system will not cope and it just means longer waiting lists for those in the public system who are waiting for their knee procedure. There are longer waiting lists for those people who are waiting for a hip replacement. My final argument as to why I will not support these bills is because this is a further broken promise by this government. Look back through the transcripts, the comments and the promises which the Labor ministers have made going back for the last eight years, starting in 2004, then in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009. Every single year, the Labor ministers, the Labor government and Labor in opposition promised that they would not touch the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate. Nicola Roxon said in February 2009, plainly, simply and unambiguously, very clearly: The Government is firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates. Steve Lewis asked her, as health minister at the time, on Meet the Press earlier: So you will not wind back that 30% private health rebate, despite the fact that Labor has been ideologically opposed to it in the past? Roxon replied: No, we won't. It does not get much clearer than that. Labor promised through thick and thin that they would not touch the private health insurance rebate. They did so because they know how many people rely upon that rebate to make private health insurance affordable for them. This is another broken promise. That is what these bills represent. The Australian public is sick of broken promises. They are sick of having the carbon tax which was promised to never come in. They are sick of the fact that billions of dollars are spent now on border security, despite a promise not to unravel that system. They are sick of all the other broken promises which they have to put up with. They should not have to put up with further broken promises in these bills. In the last minute or so maybe I should address the question why the government is putting forward these bills. Given they are going to put up prices for families, given it is a broken promise, given that it is false economics because it will just put more pressure onto the public system, why is the government going ahead with these two bills? There are two simple answers to this. The first is that they have always had an ideological objection to the private health insurance rebate scheme. Steve Lewis, a very respected journalist, noted that in his comments and his questions on Meet the Press that I referred to earlier. We know that Labor do not like it and they never have. They have supported it through gritted teeth on the eve of elections but they do not like it. The second reason that we have these bills is because Labor have completely blown the budget, that they are now in such a financial mess that they are looking at every avenue to try to make savings. These are bad bills which we will not support. The private health insurance rebate is part of the coalition's DNA and, should we win government, we will seek to restore the full rebate as quickly as the budget— (Time expired) 12:29 Dr STONE EM6 Murray I too wish to speak about the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2013 and the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013. It should be an abiding principle in this country that Australians are encouraged to meet their own health related costs where they have the capacity to do that. Under the Howard government, in particular with the first Howard minister for health, Michael Wooldridge, the coalition changed policy to particularly target younger Australians, to encourage younger Australians to take up health insurance and to take it up for a lifetime. We wanted them to maintain that insurance during their most active years but in particular into their older age or during their family and child-bearing time so that we could ensure the always finite resources for health covered as many in the Australian community as possible. There was not going to be good health for those who could afford it and a poorer health outcome for those who were less financially secure. All of that requires a substantial number of people in Australia to have private health insurance. We understood only too well the pressures on the public health and hospital systems as they battled to keep down their waiting lists and as they battled to have reasonable waiting times for those needing non-emergency medical procedures, because we were appalled by stories of the elderly waiting for years for hip or knee replacements that would give them a pain-free and more active life. And why were they waiting for years? Because they did not have private health insurance. We were appalled by the fact that people without private health insurance would put off seeking medical diagnoses for issues and problems and therefore come late to treatment, often leading to very much poorer outcomes for those individuals. An efficient private hospital sector is key to reducing waiting times and providing a competitive environment for the provision of health services in Australia. But this is the third destabilising move by Labor which leaves those with private health insurance less able to afford it and in a real quandary about what is the future in relation to what they can afford in premiums in, say, five, 10 or 15 years. What can they actually afford to drop in terms of the package that they are currently covered by under their private health insurance given their age or other family circumstances? This is introducing a real quandary in the minds of families who know how important it is to be able to get that medical support when their family or their loved ones need it but who have to make very serious assessments about what they can afford and what the Labor changes really mean in terms of costs in the near and further future. The government has in fact failed to model the impacts of these latest changes. We are not quite sure what the lifetime health cover initiative impacts will be. We know they are going to put the prices up for private health insurance but we do not know exactly how, and that is a significant problem for both the insured and the insurers trying to work out what is going to be best for them into the future. Of course, a Labor government did give what was supposedly a cast-iron election commitment that they would not destabilise the policy environment for private health insurers and customers but, sadly, like so many other of their promises, this was not worth the paper it was written on. As I say, this is their third go at the private health insurance system and sector in Australia. We have just heard from the previous speaker that in his electorate he had 70 per cent of his constituency privately health insured. I know him well and I know the member for Aston, Mr Tudge, has a middle-class outer-eastern-suburb constituency in Melbourne and they are 70 per cent privately insured. In Murray the proportion of people with private health insurance is 40.4 per cent. It is almost half the rate for the equivalent population size in metropolitan Melbourne—only 40.4 per cent can now afford private health insurance in the electorate of Murray. Tragically, there is a much more profound impact of that reduction in private health insurance in a place like the electorate of Murray, only three hours from metropolitan Melbourne. For example, in the small town of Euroa there is a hospital that was once a bush nursing hospital. There are no public beds available in the Euroa hospital. So unless you are privately health insured in that town or in the surrounding districts of Euroa, you cannot access that local hospital. You have to be put in an ambulance and taken to Shepparton, about a 45- to 50-minute drive away, or to Benalla, a similar distance away because there is, in reality, no public bed provision at the Euroa hospital. You would think that would mean that just about everybody in the Strathbogie Shire—which is the shire where you will find the town of Euroa—would be privately health insured because they know of this circumstance. They know that it is deadly to have a heart attack in Euroa because you are going to have to be accommodated for your emergency help somewhere else. But no—there are very low incomes, and it is a socio-economically disadvantaged area. So the 40.4 per cent of those privately insured extends to the actual shire of Strathbogie. This is therefore, I think, a significant human rights issue in this country. We have people who are not close to big public hospitals who are therefore substantially disadvantaged in an emergency—a crisis, an accident—on the farm or on the highways. They cannot quickly get access to a place to be treated or, perhaps, to have a longer-term treatment. They might be suffering from cancer and need oncology services. There is a very different business in Australia now between the haves and the have nots. That is not fair, and it is un-Australian. The measures in this bill are going to make it less affordable and less likely that younger Australians will take out lifetime health cover. How absurd is that? How ridiculous is that in a country which does have an ageing population? In a country that does have significant issues, particularly in regional and rural Australia, with sun-exposure-related cancers, with a lot of respiratory illnesses and with Indigenous communities that have some of the poorest health diagnoses and conditions in the world? I also have in my electorate a significant number of refugees who have very profound issues in terms of their physical and mental health. They will no doubt be less able to afford this private health insurance in the future. It is not a case in Australia that only the affluent buy private health insurance. That is not the case, and the member for Aston made that very clear in his stating of the statistics, where we have people who are on $50,000 income and less who are doing their best to afford their private health insurance. A family on $50,000 in Australia is not an affluent family, but they are taking out private health insurance because they do not want a long wait for their child or for their elderly parent or one of their family for non-emergency, elective surgery or some health service. Of course, it is the case that this initiative is all about saving this cash strapped government some funds. We know that there is $1.6 billion already removed from the public hospitals' budgets. We know that is putting many of our public hospitals in an almost economically non-sustainable context. This is a serious time for hospitals and other health services in Australia as they look at the extraordinarily increasing costs of their energy bills, of their wages and when they look at how much it costs to keep themselves in business but they have had to meet a $1.6 billion reduction in budget from this federal government. Yes, I can understand—but be appalled—by the rationale behind this move to claw back some of the support which in the past has encouraged people to take out lifetime health insurance, but it is a false economy. As you have people who delay seeking a diagnosis of a medical condition and as you have people having to wait in longer queues for things like a hip or a knee replacement, at the end of the day that in fact costs the economy in lost productivity in more serious conditions as those people are not supported in their earliest times of need. These bills show no respect for the Australians who are quite a distance from the big public health providers in this country. They show no sensitivity or understanding for the real costs now confronting families or younger people as they battle to deal with the impacts of the carbon tax and as they battle to deal with lower employment prospects—particularly in rural and regional Australia. For example, in my electorate we have just had some 100 orchards no longer able to supply their fruit to the local SPC Ardmona canning factory. While that is an extraordinary catastrophe for those more than 100 orchards, the impacts on their employed workforce, whether permanent or seasonal workers—who include pickers or pruners, packers, those in the transport sector and the more than 800 in the factories themselves—is that they all now face a very unpredictable future in terms of their employment. How are they going to view these new costs and unsure outcomes in terms of private medical insurance? I can tell you that they understand the importance of being privately medically insured, particularly with a lifetime health cover, but they cannot afford it. They certainly deserve to have health services equal to the best available in other parts of the country. Murray is only 40.4 per cent privately health insured now and, no, that does not compare at all with the 70 per cent and the 80 per cent you will find in metropolitan Melbourne. I think that is going to play out in the statistics of the future when we will see even more disparity between morbidity in country versus metropolitan areas in terms of lifetime expectations and of cancer outcomes, and the numbers of people who are diagnosed earlier with significant heart conditions or renal or diabetic conditions, and we are going to see a very sad unravelling of what has been a country with equitable access to health services in the past. So I condemn these moves. It is one thing to say that they were not supposed to be on the agenda of this government. They promised they would not meddle with private health insurance. It has happened. This is the third time it has happened. I am concerned that the budget emergency that this government is now in is placing other elements of the Australian community in jeopardy and those elements include the lower socioeconomic status Australians and those who do not have access to the health services that you find in metropolitan Australia. 12:42 Mr FLETCHER L6B Bradfield I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2013 and the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013. This package of measures is part of the Labor Party's relentless and ideologically driven attack on private health insurance. As the cost to the Commonwealth of the health system continues to increase, Labor's curious response is to consistently weaken and erode one of the most effective public policy tools to address and contain that cost explosion, namely, private health insurance and measures to encourage take-up of it. In the time available to me today, I want to make three points about the measures before the House this afternoon. The first point is that there are good policy reasons to support private health insurance and that is what the coalition has consistently done. Secondly, I want to contrast that with the record of relentless hostility to private health insurance that we have seen from the Labor Party and, thirdly, I want to argue that these two bills are bad policy driven by Labor's agenda of hostility to private health insurance. Let me turn to the first proposition, that there are good policy reasons to support private health-insurance. The coalition believes that we should encourage every Australian who is able to do so to provide for his or her own medical expenses through taking out private health insurance. The more people who have private health-insurance the better the prospect we have of containing the cost to the budget and to taxpayers of the health system. Let us remind ourselves that this cost is relentlessly expanding and that in 2013-14 it will be $65 billion or some 16 per cent of the entire Commonwealth budget. The coalition also believes in Australians being able to make choices about their health care and choosing, should they wish to do so and should they wish to be insured to do so, to go, for example, to private hospitals. In my electorate of Bradfield, according to data provided to me by the industry group Private Healthcare Australia, over 96 per cent of my constituents have chosen to have private health insurance. They have taken the decision to incur out of their household budgets expenditure against their future health needs. They are seeking to make sure that they do what they can to provide for the cost of their health needs, rather than simply leaving it to the public purse. I commend them and congratulate them for doing that. We hear quite regularly the misleading claim from Labor that private health insurance is the preserve of wealthy of Australians. The numbers show otherwise: 5.6 million people with private health insurance have an annual household income of less than $50,000; 3.4 million have an annual household income of less than $35,000. Unfortunately, what we have consistently seen from the Labor Party is a track record of mismanagement in this very important area of public policy. When Medicare was introduced in 1984 a decline began in the percentage of the population covered by private health insurance. By 1998, only 30.4 per cent of the population was covered by private health insurance, leaving the vast majority of Australians drawing on the publicly funded system and putting it under substantial pressure. The Howard government inherited a health insurance crisis, and it tackled the crisis with measures that were well designed and which achieved their desired outcome of increasing the proportion of Australians with private health insurance cover—that is, increasing the proportion of people who took upon themselves the burden of funding their own health needs rather than simply leaving it to the public purse. The measures introduced by the Howard government involved a mixture of carrot and stick. The carrot, of course, was the introduction of a tax rebate—the one which has subsequently been weakened by the Rudd-Gillard Labor government. One of the sticks was that, if you did not take out private health insurance above certain income thresholds, you were required to pay the one per cent Medicare levy surcharge. Another stick was the introduction of the lifetime healthcare loading mechanism. That measure was introduced by the Howard government in 2000. It is designed to encourage Australians to take out private health insurance at an early age. It does this by providing a loading on private health insurance premiums that steps up at the rate of two per cent for every year over the age of 30 at which the individual is when he or she takes out private health insurance. The maximum loading that can be applied is 70 per cent. These measures were successful in achieving their policy objective, and by 2007 private health insurance coverage had climbed to 44.6 per cent of the population. I turn now to my second proposition, which is the relentless hostility of the Labor Party towards private health insurance. Labor is hostile to private health insurance. Labor is hostile to private hospitals. Labor is hostile to the notion of Australians seeking to rely on their own resources, seeking to make provision for themselves and their families, rather than relying solely and exclusively on the public system. Consistent with that ingrained and deep-rooted hostility to private health insurance that we see on the other side of the chamber, the Labor Party has consistently acted to make private health insurance less attractive to Australians. We saw the Labor Party act in this way in 2012 when it legislated to impose a more onerous means test governing the payment of the private health insurance rebate. Health minister Plibersek likes to claim that the changes that were introduced in 2012 have had no effect on the proportion of people with private health insurance. There are, however, two powerful responses to this misleading claim and both of them are based on data and evidence from the government's own regulator, the Private Health Insurance Administration Council, known as PHIAC. The first response is that many Australians responded to the changes introduced in 2012 by prepaying at the old rates before 30 June 2012; hence deferring the true effect of the changes introduced last year. In fact, PHIAC reported $1.2 billion of prepayments in the June quarter of 2012 as Australians sought to defer the resulting premium increases. Indeed, many policyholders prepaid for 12 months or more. The second piece of evidence is that it is clear that many Australians have responded to the reduction in the scope of the rebate by reducing the level of the health insurance cover they have taken out. Indeed, PHIAC has found that, in the five years to 2012, 'exclusions and restrictions have become much more prevalent' and the increased use of exclusions, it goes on to note, 'may work against the policy objective of private health insurance in easing the burden on public hospitals'. In the lead-up to the 2007 election, of course, the Labor Party made every effort to conceal its ideological hostility towards private health insurance, and so effective was its concealment that it made a series of commitments which it has since systematically failed to live up to. For example, in the lead-up to the 2007 election, the then shadow health minister and member for Gellibrand had this to say: On many occasions for many months, Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing Private Health Insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians. Then opposition leader Kevin Rudd, just before the 2007 election, made this written commitment in a letter to the industry peak body: Both my Shadow Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, and I have made clear on many occasions this year that Federal Labor is committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians. As the historical record shows, these specific commitments were abandoned last year when the government, after previous failed attempts, passed legislation to break these commitments and impose significantly more onerous means tests on the availability of the private health insurance rebates. I turn to my third proposition, which is that the two bills before the House this afternoon are bad policy driven by Labor's agenda of relentless hostility to private health insurance, because the measures contained within both of these bills are designed to erode the value of the private health insurance rebate to Australians. The first bill before us is the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill, and its effect is to restrict the rebate so that it is not paid on the Lifetime Health Cover loading component. As the arrangements currently stand, if a rebate on private health insurance is payable to an individual, then the rebate is calculated on the total premium, including any Lifetime Health Cover loading component. What the government announced in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook was a change to take effect from 1 July this year designed to remove the rebate from the loading component, therefore significantly reducing the value of the rebate. Now, we are told that this is a savings measure, but the savings need to be weighed up against the likely impact on health expenditure of a reduction in the number of people with private health insurance and hence the imposition of a greater load on the public hospital system. The measures in this bill bring with them some very nasty side-effects. They add further substantial complexity to the private health insurance system, and it is estimated that they will cause a further increase in premiums for 1.1 million Australians. Indeed, they will be a disproportionate increase in premiums for low-income earners because the means-testing changes which have already been implemented have already reduced and, in some cases, removed the rebate for higher income earners. It is estimated that changes to the Lifetime Health Cover arrangements proposed in this bill will increase premiums by up to an amount as high as 27.5 per cent from 1 July 2013 and, troublingly, this is likely to have a direct impact on lower income Australians who have or wish to have private health insurance. It will also materially increase the administrative burden on private health insurance. It leaves a very short time frame in which to change systems so that the new arrangements are in place by 1 July 2013. The means-testing changes have already created around 12 different pricing structures for premiums, and changes to the Lifetime Health Cover loading will further increase the administrative burden on private health insurers. That is why the coalition has indicated its opposition to the bill. The second bill, the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013, will have the effect of reducing the amount paid in the private health insurance rebate, because, rather than the rebate being calculated on the actual premium paid by Australians each year, it will now be calculated based on a lower amount called the base premium. The base premium will be indexed annually by whichever is lower—the CPI or the actual increase in premiums imposed by insurers. After a few years, what this is likely to mean is that the base premium will be considerably lower than the actual premium. In turn, a rebate calculated based on the base premium will be less valuable over time in relation to the true cost incurred by the holder of the policy. The minister in her second reading speech argued that this is necessary because the number of people with private health insurance has grown and the rebate is costing too much. Again I make the point that if the minister were really concerned with minimising cost to the Commonwealth over the long term she would be pleased to see the growth in private health insurance, because the more people who have such insurance the more cost pressure is taken off the public hospital system. As we have made clear, the coalition does not like the measures contained in this bill at all. But we are also conscious that, thanks to the sustained fiscal mismanagement of the government, Australia, or the federal government, is facing a budget emergency. We will inherit a fiscal position, should the coalition come to government at the next election, in which gross debt is heading towards $400 billion. On that basis, we are reluctantly not opposing this measure—because of the urgent need to return the budget to surplus—but we do reiterate that we do not like this attack on private health insurance and we do not like the attack contained in the other bill on private health insurance. It has always been the coalition's view that there are good policy reasons to support private health insurance. That is what the coalition has consistently done. I conclude by once again congratulating my constituents, who, in almost all cases, choose to pay for private health insurance and take responsibility for their own healthcare expenditures. 12:57 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong I rise to follow a very good speech by my colleague and friend the member for Bradfield on a very important topic—namely, the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012 and the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013. Both bills have come before this House because this government has a budget crisis—indeed, a budget emergency. They are approaching $300 billion of debt and have overseen the five largest budget deficits in Australia's history. So they are having to embark on broken promises and to claw back money from those Australians who have taken the decision themselves, based on personal responsibility and their freedom to choose, to undertake private health insurance. As a result, all premiums for all Australians who undertake private health cover will go up. Not only will a private health insurance rebate no longer cover the loading component of lifetime health cover but it will also see premiums for those currently receiving the rebate go up. This will hit many people in my electorate of Kooyong. Based on figures provided by Private Healthcare Australia, the percentage of voters in my electorate with private health insurance is 84.5 per cent. That is over 105,000 persons in my electorate, including 25,000 singles. That is a lot of people in my electorate and that is repeated across the country, because more than 12 million Australians have taken out private health cover. It is a deep shame that the Labor Party has undertaken these measures, because not only did they promise before previous elections that they would never touch private health insurance but the measures will increase the cost of living for all Australians and will increase the burden on our public hospitals, which are already suffering from Labor government cuts. We on this side of the House have a different philosophy to those on the other side. Politics is not just about management but it is actually about ideas. On our side of the House we believe in an individual's freedom to choose. We believe in an individual taking personal responsibility for their decisions. In fact, in a speech in Camberwell Town Hall back in 1946, the founder of the Liberal Party and a previous member for Kooyong, Sir Robert Menzies, delivered an important speech that kick-started the federal election campaign. In that speech he said: We need to return to politics as a clash of principles and to get away from the notion that it is a clash only of warring personalities. There is no more important issue than the private health sector, the private education sector and an individual's freedom to choose. That is why we on this side of the House will always defend the private health sector and allow an individual the right to choose. In Australia, nearly 12½ million Australians have made the decision to take out private health insurance. This increased substantially during the time of the Howard government—indeed, it increased 75 per cent from just over six million Australians to 10.7 million Australians. That was a result of inspired policies that the Howard government undertook: the Medicare levy surcharge, in 1997; the 30 per cent rebate, in 1999; the lifetime health cover policy, in 2000. As a result, we now have a flourishing private health sector which is under threat from Labor's cuts. Nearly 600 private hospitals in Australia provide nearly 40 per cent of the services to those who go to hospital. Nearly two out of every three elective surgeries are conducted within private hospitals. Private hospitals play an important role in our community in alleviating the burden on the public system. The Howard government not only had a very proud record of increasing its support for the private health system but also supported the public system. Spending on public hospitals increased 110 per cent between 1996 and 2007, the period when John Howard was in office. Let me repeat these facts: we increased the number of people on private health insurance by 75 per cent and at the same time we increased the amount spent on public hospitals by 110 per cent. Contrast this with Labor's record, where in MYEFO last year they ripped more than $1 billion out of Australia's public hospital system. In my state of Victoria some of that money was ripped out retrospectively. We saw that when beds were closed and elective surgery was cancelled. Then the Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, did a public backflip because she saw the pain this was creating for thousands of Victorians. We know that this government has introduced the means test to private health insurance, which companies like Deloitte had estimated would cause more than 500,000 Australians to drop out of private health insurance or diminish their levels of cover. We have not seen the full impact of the means-testing of the rebate, because more than $1 billion was spent by Australians prepaying their private health insurance. This is a very important fact. They prepaid for 12 months or more, and as a consequence we have not seen flow-through of the impact of the higher premiums that have already resulted, and will result, from the government's means-testing of the private health insurance rebate. There is one significant mistaken belief that those on the other side of the House have about private health insurance. It is part of their class warfare. They think that every Australian who has private health insurance is a rich Australian. I tell you that they are not rich. In fact, they are aspirational and take responsibility for their own health care, just as many of them take responsibility for the education of their children. But you are attacking them with your means-testing of the rebate and with your new measures affecting the loading and so forth under these bills. There are over 5½ million Australians with an annual household income under $50,000 who have private health insurance, and nearly 3½ million Australians who have less than $35,000 as their annual household income who have private health insurance. These people are not rich but have taken the conscious decision to take out private health care because they want to make that choice for themselves and their families. We have learnt in the last five years what a bad government can do to damage the Australian economy. The Australian people have learnt never to trust the words of another Labor government, and they will find this out on 14 September. But what we are debating now about private health insurance brings into focus the commitments by senior members of those opposite to retain the private health insurance rebate in its form. The current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, when she was shadow minister for health back in 2004, said: I grow tired of saying this—Labor is committed to the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate. Well, we now know that that is not true. Then Julia Gillard, in a letter to the editor of The Weekend Australian on 15 October 2005, said: For all Australians who wanted to have private health insurance, the private health insurance rebate would have remained under a Labor government. I gave an iron-clad guarantee of that during the election. The difference between Tony "rock solid, iron-clad" Abbott and me is that when I make an "iron-clad commitment", I actually intend on keeping it. That is laughable. That is absolutely laughable, because the now Prime Minister was comparing herself to the now Leader of the Opposition, saying that you cannot believe him but you can believe her. We have seen not only with the carbon tax but now with private health insurance that the government's word cannot be taken at face value. Nicola Roxon, the shadow minister for health, who became the Minister for Health and Ageing, said this on 23 September 2007 on Meet the Press: We've committed to it. Namely, the private health insurance rebate. She said: We've committed to the 30%. We've committed to the 35% and 40% for older Australians. It's similar to the safety net. We know that many people rely heavily on the assistance that is now provided and would not be able to have private health insurance if that rebate wasn't paid. And lifetime health cover and others that go with it, we are committed to those. We understand that Australia now has a mixed health system, both private and public, and we need them both to be strong in order for the community to be able to get the services. Well, I'll be damned. That was the former minister for health committing to the private health insurance rebate as we introduced it. Now we have had backflip after backflip, not only cutting more than a billion dollars out of the public health system but ripping money out of the private system, when we know that the private system is responsible for dealing with 40 per cent of the patients in Australia and two out of every three elective surgery operations. That is the role of the private healthcare system, and this government is ripping the guts out of it. Nicola Roxon, in a media release on 26 September 2007, said: On many occasions for many months, Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing Private Health Insurance rebates … We know that is not true. And Kevin Rudd in 2008, as Prime Minister, in a press conference, said: The Private Health Insurance Rebate policy remains unchanged and will remain unchanged. This is laughable. This is laughable because this government has destroyed our private health system, has cut our public health funding, has not kept its promises on the Medicare Chronic Dental Disease Scheme, has slowed down our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the subsidies that are provided under that and has increased the number of bureaucracies—at last count, nearly 12 in the health sector alone, costing more than a billion dollars—and now we have the private health insurance debacle. I call it a debacle because this government promised time and time again—from Kevin Rudd to Nicola Roxon to today's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard—to keep the private health insurance rebate as it was. These bills, which this government has brought before the parliament in a rushed manner, without proper consultation and deliberation, are going to lead to a substantial increase in premiums—up to 27 per cent—for more than 1 million Australians. It is going to lead to 12 different price mechanisms for private health insurance. It is going to increase complexity. I finish where I started. For the coalition, Liberals and Nationals, this is not just a debate about the services that are provided to ordinary Australians; it is also a debate about the philosophy of our party. It is a debate about why we are in this place to start with and about what differentiates our side from theirs. The late, great Margaret Thatcher, whom we recently lost, talked about private health insurance. She said: I, along with something like 5 million other people, insure to enable me to go to hospital on the day I want, at the time I want, and with a doctor I want. For me, that is absolutely vital … … … Like most people, I pay my dues to the National Health Service; I do not add to the queue, and if I said, 'Look, because I cannot come when you want me, I must come when I want to' you would accuse me of jumping the queue. I exercise my right as a free citizen to spend my own money in my own way, so that I can go in on the day, at the time, with the doctor I choose and get out fast. We will always support the private health system because we believe it allows an individual to have the right to choose in a society which stands, as we will always stand, for individual freedom. 13:12 Mrs GRIGGS 220370 Solomon I rise today to speak on the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012. While this bill is part of a cognate debate with the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013, due to the Gillard Labor government once again rushing legislation through the House without allowing the coalition appropriate time to consider the bill through the normal processes, I will be focusing much of my contribution on the first bill: the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill. Those on the other side just do not understand how important it is to have a strong private health insurance system in order to support a dynamic public system. The coalition recognises the importance of planning for the long term to meet the challenges which will come with an ageing population. On this side of the House we recognise the importance of encouraging the growth of the private health insurance system, which will help reduce the pressures the ageing population will place on our public health system. The Howard government left office with a legacy of encouraging uptake of private health insurance and of supporting those Australians who wish to take out private health insurance for their families while still supporting a vibrant public health system. The Gillard Labor government, on the other hand, continues to mislead the Australian people. Before the election they supported private health insurance; now, after the election, they are doing all they can to discourage the uptake of private health cover. In The Courier Mailon 23 September 2004, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who was then the opposition spokesperson for health said: 'Labor is committed to the maintenance of this rebate'. Yet only the members of the coalition stand here today in this chamber ready to defend the private health insurance rebate. Again it is left to this side of the House to defend a promise made by the Gillard Labor government at the last election. All the government's broken promises are creating huge stress and anxiety among Darwin and Palmerston residents. As I have discussions with mums and dads and grandparents, I am told over and over again that they are so worried for their children's futures that they just do not know how they can cope. They talk about the chaos and the instability wreaking havoc inside the Gillard Labor government and the uncertainty it is creating in their lives. On the ground throughout Solomon I hear people's huge concerns about the introduction of the carbon tax—the carbon tax which we were told we were never going to have; another broken promise—and about the failure to deliver the surplus that Treasurer Swan promised would come hell or high water. But the people of Solomon cannot handle any more policy on the run. They have, quiet frankly, had enough. Yet today we are in this place again discussing another Gillard Labor government broken promise. This is now the second time the Gillard Labor government has reneged on their commitment not to cut the private health insurance rebate. This is just another blow to the already struggling, hardworking families of Darwin and Palmerston. In my electorate, we have a huge defence population and, according to the 2011 census, a median age of 32, while Australia-wide it is 37. Yet, according to Private Healthcare Australia, as of 1 January 2013 over 53 per cent of my constituents had some sort of private health insurance. As we know, back in July 2000, Lifetime Health Cover was introduced by the Howard government, at a rate of two per cent per year loading on insurance premiums applied to individuals over the age of 30 when they took up private health insurance; it was capped at 70 per cent and removed after 10 years of continuous cover. This initiative was introduced to promote the uptake of private health insurance at a young age and to encourage individuals to retain their cover over their lifetime. I certainly did that. The Howard government understood, as the coalition continues to do today, the challenges of an ageing population and that supporting the growth of the private health system would reduce the pressure on an already strained public health system. Currently, the private health insurance rebate is paid on the total of the premium and includes the Lifetime Health Cover loading. The legislation being put forward today takes away the part of the rebate which covers the Lifetime Health Cover loading. This legislation will also cease the incentive payment schemes which allow the direct claiming of the private health insurance rebate through the Department of Health services. It is estimated that these new measures will see a budgetary saving of around $386.3 million. This comes at the expense of the mums and dads throughout my electorate in Darwin and Palmerston. It has been estimated that the premiums will increase by up to 27.5 per cent from 1 July 2013 under these new measures. Constituents across Solomon tell me they just cannot continue to endure the financial pain that this Gillard Labor government is inflicting on them. Some of them are struggling to keep their heads above water. Since the changes to the private health insurance rebate were announced in the latter part of last year, I have been contacted by a number of constituents from across the electorate who are opposed to these changes, and I would like to share some of those stories with you. Yesterday, I received an email from Robert Milliken of Fannie Bay, who raised his deep concern that these changes would force prices up for private health insurance. Robert told me how he was worried that these changes would be 'yet another legacy from a failed Labor government'. Kelly Hawes of Bellamack emailed me, deeply concerned about these changes. Kelly said it was becoming too 'expensive for me to be insured'. Shirley Andrews of Malak emailed me to say that the 'private health insurance rebate is of vital importance to allow me to provide health cover for my family' and that 'because of the changes … I may well have to consider dropping my cover'. Kathrine Carver of Alawa and Anita Goodgame of Parap contacted me to say that they fear the changes to the private health insurance rebate will mean that private health insurance for their families would be out of their reach. Then Julie Donohue of Wanguri emailed me to say that she was worried that these new changes would mean it was no longer affordable for her family to have cover. I was contacted by Judith Pouliot of Stuart Park who was upset that 'these new proposed changes will hurt Australians like me'. Darrel Holmes of Leanyer has contacted me several times to raise his concerns about the proposed changes. In March, he told me how he had recently undergone back surgery at a private hospital in Sydney—a procedure that has an extended waiting period in the public system. If Darrel had not had private cover and had been forced to be on the public waiting list, the wait would have been too long, causing permanent damage and forcing him to be reliant on a wheelchair for the rest of his life. For Darrel, the public system was just not an option. He sent me another email only last weekend telling me how he feared these changes because it was likely he would have to 'drop out or downgrade' his insurance. It is not fair or reasonable to expect that hardworking people of Darwin and Palmerston live their life with such uncertainty. The Gillard Labor government have overindulged, broken their surplus commitment and are now cutting the rebates to hardworking families that provide them with the support they need to gain access to frontline health services. This comes after we have seen the means testing of the private health insurance rebate, saving $2.8 billion. On 24 February 2009 the former health minister and member for Gellibrand, Nicola Roxon, said, 'The government is firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebate.' And yet they have broken that commitment, not once but twice: one rebate, two broken promises. It is not good enough. I could not talk about health without mentioning my local hospital, the Royal Darwin Hospital, which services the residents of Darwin and Palmerston. According to the Gillard Labor government's own MyHospitals website, it treated over 50,000 patients between June 2010 and June 2011. This is a tremendous achievement and it is very much due to the hardworking staff of the hospital. However, Royal Darwin Hospital is strained to capacity. According to the MyHospitals website, the Gillard Labor government set its own target for 2011-12, the final full financial year of the former Territory Labor government, of 69 per cent of all patients to be in and out of the emergency departments of Northern Territory hospitals within four hours. Sadly, only 54 per cent of patients at Royal Darwin Hospital departed the emergency department in four hours. Again according to the government's figures, the median wait time for general surgery is 31 days nationally and at the Royal Darwin Hospital it is 49 days. So the Gillard Labor government's own figures show that the Territory health system is under pressure, yet it is ignoring these indicators and putting more pressure on the system. It can be argued that the Darwin Private Hospital alleviates a lot of the pressure on the Royal Darwin Hospital because the two hospitals work closely together and because 50 per cent of the people in my electorate have private health insurance. The private hospital has around 100 beds, which is a third of the capacity of the Royal Darwin Hospital, and it is significantly reducing pressure on the Territory health system, as I said. According to the Private Health Insurance Administration Council, in the five years to 2012 private health insurance has seen 'exclusions and restrictions … becoming more prevalent', which is what those constituents of mine are telling me they are having to look at. They have also found that the increased exclusions 'may work against the policy objective of private health insurance easing the burdens on public hospitals', and that is my fear. The Private Health Insurance Administration Council also reported $1.2 billion worth of prepayments in the June quarter last year as people tried to defer the pain of the Gillard Labor government's cuts causing premium increases. That means that we really have not seen the full implications yet of the prepayments. We have seen slashes to frontline services through the cuts to the private health insurance rebate, public hospitals and the closure of the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme. This bill will only further add complexity to the private health insurance industry. The Gillard Labor government's means-testing measures last year have led to the establishment of 12 pricing structures for private health premiums. These measures introduced by the Gillard Labor government today are forcing the private health insurance sector back decades. Private health insurance companies are seeing dramatic increases in their administrative costs to deal with the measures—only escalating premiums further. The Howard government, as previously said, cemented the growth of the private health sector. In fact, under the previous coalition government, the number of people with private health insurance had increased by over 75 per cent. I finish by saying that along with my coalition colleagues we understand on this side of the House that communities are far better off when the public and private health systems work hand in hand. Labor is not a friend of private health insurance. It consistently has tried to make private health insurance unattractive to Australians and has broken promise after promise on private health insurance. Unfortunately, because of Labor's reckless spending, its poor economic management and its incompetence, there is now a budget emergency. This government is saying these changes are savings measures. We on this side of the House do not like these changes one little bit. They go against our DNA. Unlike Labor, we are strong supporters of private health insurance. Those on the other side, as the member for Kooyong said, are engaging in class warfare and think that if you have private health insurance you must be rich. My electorate is not rich—but 54 per cent of those people have private health insurance. They are just hardworking mums and dads who want a choice, who want to take responsibility for themselves. It is outrageous that Labor thinks it a crime to be aspirational or to take responsibility for yourself. Labor's attack on private health insurance is not fair. This government cannot be trusted. I hope that on 14 September the people in my electorate see what is happening and vote me back in so that I can be a member of a, hopefully, Abbott-led government. We will not let this sort of stuff happen. 13:27 Mrs ANDREWS 230886 McPherson I rise today to speak on the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012 and the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013. I support private health insurance and the coalition supports private health insurance. Over a year ago this House debated changes to the private health insurance rebate, a rebate that benefited millions of Australians. For years, Labor denied that they would tamper with the 30 per cent rebate, yet last year they imposed means testing on a program that affects just over 50 per cent of Australians. The full effect of Labor's changes to the private health insurance rebate are yet to be felt. This is because, as the Private Health Insurance Administration Council has reported, $1.2 billion in prepayments were made in the June quarter of last year, with many policyholders prepaying for 12 months or more to defer the resulting premium increases caused by the changes. We also know that the means testing has resulted in 12 pricing structures for premiums and has certainly made the system far more complicated. These changes were made even though figures show that the private health insurance rebate saw an additional eight million patients treated in private hospitals over the past 10 years, saving taxpayers $26 billion because of the pressure it relieved from the public health system. This is an important function of private health insurance and therefore helps to ensure the overall wellbeing of our health system. To highlight its importance, it needs to be remembered that in Australia over 10.6 million people have private hospital cover. In my electorate of McPherson alone there are over 72,000 people who have private-health cover—an astonishing number. These are strong numbers which demonstrate that the private health sector does some fairly heavy lifting to reduce demand on the public sector. When considering who has private health insurance in Australia, it is encouraging to note that 5.6 million Australians with private health insurance have an annual household income of less than $50,000 whilst 3.4 million have an annual income under $35,000. Clearly, private health insurance is not a scheme just for the wealthy. Many Australians are making the choice to take out private health insurance. The private health insurance rebate was an important step in helping these Australians protect themselves when times get tough, as was lifetime health cover, the central aspect of one of the bills being debated today. The bill being debated will further modify the private health insurance rebate so that it will restrict the rebate from being payable on the lifetime health cover loading that is attached to a person's private health insurance premium. This measure was announced in the 2012-13 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook and if this legislation is passed by the parliament it is set to come into effect on 1 July this year. Lifetime health cover was first introduced by the Howard government and came into effect on 1 July 2000 as part of reforms to private health insurance. As a result of these reforms, private health coverage increased dramatically from 6.1 million Australians to over 10.7 million, a 75 per cent increase. As it currently stands, lifetime health cover places a two per cent loading on a person's premium for every year that an individual is over the age of 30 when they decide to take out private health cover. For example, if a person is 40 when they take out cover they would pay a 20 per cent loading on top of their premium. However, this bill will restrict the private health insurance rebate, which, as I have mentioned, has now been means tested from being payable on this component. Reports indicate that premiums may increase by up to 27 per cent on 1 July as a result of these changes. This may well force some individuals and families to reduce or stop their level of cover for private health insurance. Only after 10 years of an individual holding hospital cover will the lifetime health cover component of a person's premium be removed. There would be a sizeable number of policyholders in the community who have been paying their premiums, including the lifetime health cover component, as required for a number of years and who have been assisted in their payments by the rebate. However, if this bill passes through the parliament these policyholders will now find themselves having to pay for the full cost of the loading without any assistance from the rebate. When these new changes come into effect it would be disappointing, at the very least, if they resulted in policyholders being forced to make the choice between continuing their private health insurance or having to opt out so that they cater for the other competing and rising costs that they face such as groceries, fuel and electricity. Implementing such changes to lifetime health coverage on the tight time frame being contemplated today will increase the administrative burden on private health insurers, who may have barely a month to make sure their systems are in order. Encouraging people to take up private health insurance, as I mentioned previously, is important to help ease the burden on our public health system. Not only does this help patients in getting the medical treatment they need but it also assists our doctors, nurses and allied health professionals who do a fantastic job across the country but who are under workload pressures in many instances. Nonetheless, the Private Health Insurance Administration Council has noted that for the five years leading to 2012 exclusions and restrictions have become much more prevalent in private health insurance, with such increased use of exclusions perhaps working against decreasing the burden on public hospitals. If such changes as those being discussed today further affect the number of people taking out policies this may also work contrary to alleviating the pressure on the public system. The gravity attached to easing the burden off the public system becomes more apparent when taking into consideration that $1.6 billion had been cut out of hospital funding in last year's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, including retrospective cuts to public hospital funding that had already been spent and allocated in 2011-12 and 2012-13. These cuts have already resulted in the closure of beds and operating theatres and in delays to surgery. In an effort to try and salvage its budgetary position the government has been focusing its scalpels on areas which, when cut, will detrimentally affect millions of Australians, rather than refocusing the scalpel towards its wasteful spending, which has resulted in debt reaching over a quarter of a trillion dollars and another consecutive deficit. I will just note that one such program that got caught by the government's scalpel was the Medicare Chronic Disease Dental Scheme. Taking away that scheme meant the loss of a Howard government legacy, which had assisted over a million patients since 2007, and the introduction of a replacement program that will leave some of the most vulnerable dental patients in this country with a year-long plus wait to get the assistance that they need. Private health insurance is crucial to the preservation of our health system. Further strengthening it can only be a good thing. I fear that the changes to lifetime health cover may not achieve that objective, and will make the system more complex and expensive for Australians looking to do what is in the best interests of their health and wellbeing. 13:36 Mr HARTSUYKER 00AMM Cowper I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2013. Lifetime health cover loading legislation epitomises why so many Australians are turning their backs on this government. If members opposite are concerned why they have lost the trust of millions of Australians; if members opposite are concerned and would like an insight into why Australians believe this country is going down the wrong track; or if members opposite are seeking a snapshot of why Australians believe this government is out of touch, then I would suggest that those members should cast their eye over this lifetime health cover loading legislation we have before us today. What lifetime health cover loading legislation represents is just another broken promise by this federal Labor government. On the back of the Prime Minister's broken promises on carbon tax and delivering a surplus, we now have another broken promise from a Prime Minister and a government which believe they have a mandate to say one thing and do the exact opposite. Another broken promise from a Prime Minister and a government which treat Australians as real mugs. Another broken promise from a Prime Minister and a government which will do anything to hold onto power and will make ordinary Australians pay the price for the government's own waste and mismanagement. I say this because the government had claimed prior to both the 2007 and 2010 elections that they would retain the private health insurance rebate in its totality. But the reality is that the lifetime health cover legislation we are talking about today is just another step in the government's commitment to dismantle the private health insurance rebate. Last year, we saw the government break its promise to retain the rebate when it introduced means testing for private health insurance. After wasting billions of dollars on border protection, after wasting billions on overpriced school halls and blowing billions on installing pink batts and then taking them out again, the government targeted the wallets of Australians with private health insurance. Through the introduction of means testing the private health insurance rebate, the government has effectively dumped the principle of universal health care, which is based on the same Medicare rebate going to everyone and the same private health insurance rebate also being available to everyone. With the stroke of a pen, Labor abandoned its pre-election commitment and deserted 12 million Australians who have private health insurance. I would like to take a few moments to remind the members opposite why this decision was a breach of trust. In the lead-up to both the 2007 and 2010 elections various senior members from this government were questioned about their commitment to the private health insurance rebate. Let me remind the House what the response to those questions was. Just a few weeks before the 2007 election, the member for Gellibrand and then shadow minister for health was asked a question on Meet the Press on the Ten Network in September 2007, and this is what she said. Steve Lewis from News Limited asked: Let's move to another integral part of the health system, the private health rebate, the 30% rebate. Labor has said, "Yes, we will keep it," but you have not said whether you will keep it in total. Can you say now that Labor, if elected, will maintain all of the ancillary measures that encompass the private health rebate? NICOLA ROXON: Yes, I can. We've committed to it. I would just like to repeat that. She said: Yes, I can. We've committed to it. After the 2007 election, Prime Minister Rudd was further questioned in 2008, and this is what he said: The Private Health Insurance Rebate policy remains unchanged and will remain unchanged. In 2009, the member for Gellibrand was the federal Minister for Health and Ageing and was again asked about the government's commitment to private health insurance rebates. This is what she said: The Government is firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates … And of course the current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, when she was the shadow minister for health, said the following: YOUR correspondent … should have no concern that Labor will "erode" or abolish the 30 per cent government rebate for private health insurance. Labor is committed to the maintenance of this rebate and I have given an ironclad guarantee— I think that the member for Denison had an ironclad guarantee on gambling reform too— of that on a number of occasions. Today, in 2013, we have now seen federal Labor under the leadership of this Prime Minister wind back their commitment to the private health insurance rebate to the tune of some $4 billion. The rebate has become the government's cash cow to bankroll their own waste and their own mismanagement. It is now very clear to all Australians that last year's introduction of means-testing the private health insurance rebate was simply the first step in winding back the subsidy. The government ignores the fact that everyone with a private health insurance rebate will pay more for their private health insurance because of the means-testing. While there are a range of views on what the eventual impact will be, Deloitte's study highlights how federal Labor simply does not understand the importance of private health insurance. The study revealed that having higher premiums for higher income earners, who are generally younger and healthier, will eventually cause around six million Australians to drop out or downgrade their private cover. It is estimated that this will raise premiums for everyone else by around 10 per cent. That is a 10 per cent rise for 3.4 million privately insured Australians earning under $35,000 a year, in addition to the 30 per cent increase for higher income earners. These people are already suffering from rises in the cost of living as a result of the carbon tax and a host of other new levies, fees and charges which this government has imposed on both businesses and consumers. It is beyond belief that the government, which constantly claims to be standing up for the worker, would milk the savings of low-income earners who are easing the pressure on our public health system by taking out their own private health insurance. We must remember this important point: this lifetime health cover loading legislation is a further attack on private health insurance, which has an impact on health funding in general, because, in subsidising 30 per cent of private health costs, the government avoids having to subsidise nearer 100 per cent of public health costs. We all know that the public health system is already under extreme pressure. These private health insurance cuts will put more pressure on public hospitals, which are struggling under the $1.6 billion cuts to funding under Labor's MYEFO. These cuts have caused the closure of public hospital beds and operating theatres and delays to elective surgery. As more Australians drop or downgrade their private cover because of the government's dismantling of the rebate, the pressure on the hospitals and the broader health system will only increase. The Deloitte study I referred to earlier showed that as a result of the cuts already made—that is, cuts that do not include the legislation we are debating today—a reduction in the number of Australians with private health insurance will lead to a further 845,000 patients over the next five years seeking treatment in public hospitals. Paying for these additional procedures will cost the states an estimated $3.8 billion a year. It is against this backdrop of means-testing the rebate that the government has now introduced this legislation which I am speaking about today. If passed, the legislation will restrict the private health insurance rebate being paid on the part of the premium with a lifetime health cover loading, or LHC loading. The lifetime health cover loading is applied at a rate of two per cent for every year that an individual is over the age of 30 when they take out hospital cover. Currently the rebate is paid on the total premium, but the government intends to remove the rebate from any LHC loading. With the government's budget in complete disarray, Labor announced in last year's MYEFO that it would dip its hand into the back pockets of those with private health insurance to try and prop up their disastrous budget balance sheet. The government also announced in MYEFO that the government's contribution to the rebate would be capped and indexed to the CPI or premium increases—whichever is the less. All these announcements further undermine the rebate offered to those who pay for private health insurance. It is forecast that withdrawing the rebate on the LHC loading will see 1.1 million Australians pay more for their private health insurance. Many of those who will be hardest hit will be low-income earners. High-income earners will not be hit, because they lost their rebate when the means testing was introduced. As the shadow minister for health and the member for Dickson has pointed out to me, the government's own body, the Private Health Insurance Administration Council, has expressed reservations about the changes the federal government is about to make to this rebate. After acknowledging the exclusions and the restrictions of the rebate had become 'more prevalent', the PHIAC said the increase in exclusions may 'work against the policy objective of private health insurance in easing the burden on public hospitals'. Whilst that might be stating the obvious, it just confirms how desperate this government has become. A number of constituents in my electorate have contacted me concerned about what federal Labor is doing to the health insurance rebate system. This is what one constituent said in an email with regard to the lifetime health cover loading: I have heard that more changes might soon be made to the Private Health Insurance Rebate, which will make it even more expensive for me to be insured. I am emailing you to ask you to vote against these changes, as I am finding the increases in all the various costs which I now pay are making it considerably more difficult to budget. If I do give up my Health Insurance I will need to go to a public hospital if I get sick, where the waiting lists are too long. Please do not vote for the legislation. This is an insight from just one Australian, out of the millions of Australians who will be impacted by Labor's ongoing dismantling of the private health insurance rebate system through this lifetime health cover loading legislation. In conclusion, just like the carbon tax, this legislation is a breach of trust with all Australians. It is a further reminder that when it comes to federal Labor you simply cannot trust them to do what they say they are going to do. This mistrust has Australians now living in a land of uncertainty, which is sapping the confidence of families and businesses alike. As I said at the beginning of the speech, if the members opposite want to know why Australians are completely disillusioned with this government, they need look no further than this legislation. It is bad for Australians with private health insurance, it undermines our system of universal health care and it betrays the trust which is so important to the self-esteem of the nation. 13:48 Mrs MARKUS E07 Macquarie I rise to speak on the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012 and the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013, presented together in this debate. Before examining the serious issues inherent in the provisions of the bills before the House today, it is important to reflect on the significant factors that have shaped the development of lifetime health cover loading to its current regulatory and legislative form. LHC is a loading on private health insurance premiums that is applied at a rate of two per cent for every year that an individual is over the age of 30 when they take out hospital cover. A cap of 70 per cent is applied. LHC was an initiative of the Howard government as part of reforms, which came into effect in 2000, that significantly increased private health insurance coverage. It aimed to provide concessions to support hardworking Australians who chose to take out private health insurance for themselves and their families. The latest changes to private health insurance that this bill enacts were announced in MYEFO 2012-13 and the proposed changes to lifetime health cover are due to take effect on 1 July this year. These changes are in spite of many years of promises and undertakings made by the Prime Minister and Labor politicians that they want not to seek to change the private health insurance rebate provisions. The real cost impact of the proposed and developed changes is significant. Through MYEFO and means-testing changes, Labor's broken promise on private health insurance amounts to nearly $4 billion: $386 million through changes to LHC contained in this bill, $700 million by limiting the government contribution to the rebate by a maximum of CPI as announced also in MYEFO and $2.8 billion for means testing. I am particularly concerned by the misrepresentative rhetoric that this government has employed whilst trying to both force through and justify the changes to the rebate system. Labor is wrong to imply that private health insurance is for the wealthy. Some 10.6 million Australians have private insurance, whilst 5.6 million people with private health insurance have an annual household income of less than $50,000 and 3.4 million have an annual household income of less than $35,000. In the electorate of Macquarie close to 60 per cent of all residents have private health insurance. In large sections of both the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury regions household incomes are either at or below the national average. To claim therefore, as this government is attempting to, that private health insurance is for the rich or wealthy is totally absurd. I am also at a loss to understand why the Prime Minister and her colleagues think it is at all advisable or even morally defensible to place even greater pressure on families who are choosing to ease the pressure on public hospitals and provide choice in health for their families, to place additional pressure on those who are already struggling to cover the basic costs of living. The government's changes to private health insurance are already having a negative impact. The government's own Private Health Insurance Administration Council, the PHIAC, has found in the five years to 2012 that 'exclusions and restrictions have become much more prevalent' and that the increased use of exclusions 'may work against the policy objective of private health insurance in easing the burden on public hospitals'. The private health insurance cuts will put more pressure on public hospitals, which are already struggling under the $1.6 billion cut to hospital funding in Labor's MYEFO. This includes retrospective cuts to public hospital funding that has already been spent and allocated in 2011-12 and 2012-13. It has caused the closure of some public hospital beds, operating theatres and delays to elective surgery. It seems extraordinary, therefore, that this government can seek to argue that, by making private health insurance less affordable, public hospitals will be able to provide a better service. This assertion again is simply absurd. The full impact of Labor's means-testing changes are yet to be felt. The PHIAC reported $1.2 billion in repayments in the June quarter as people tried to defer the resulting premium increases. Many policyholders prepaid for 12 months or more, delaying the pain of Labor's cuts. Federal Labor has spent approximately $1 billion establishing nearly 12 new bureaucracies which appear immune to cuts while funding has been slashed for private health insurance, public hospitals and dental health. The changes to Lifetime Health Cover in this bill will increase premiums by up to a reported 27.5 per cent on 1 July this year. This will directly affect lower income Australians. Presently the LHC loading is removed after 10 continuous years of hospital cover. Once again, the government is changing the rules of the game for ordinary Australians. There will be people who are close to having their loading removed, having paid their loading in good faith and abided by the appropriate rules and regulations. Now they will be slugged with a 27 per cent increase in premiums and forced to receive the impact. The means-testing changes already created around 12 different pricing structures for premiums, further complicating a system that many Australians find very difficult to navigate. Changes to LHC will further increase the administrative burden on private health insurers, with short time frames to change systems by 1 July this year. The changes proposed by this government can only be counter-productive and will discourage many battlers from taking out and maintaining private health insurance. The previous coalition government's private health insurance reform in the form of rebates, Medicare levy surcharge and lifetime health cover saw the number of people with private health insurance increase 75 per cent from 6.1 million people to over 10.7 million people. The Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013 covers the base premium. It is clear that these measures have been introduced because of the disastrous fiscal situation of this current government. My concluding points must necessarily refer to the irregular pattern during the tenure of the current Labor government, namely the manner in which the current Prime Minister has sought to rush this legislation through the House. The coalition believes that the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012 is not in the best interest of the Australian people. 13:56 Ms MARINO HWP Forrest The Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012 before the House is not a health bill at all. It is not concerned with providing health services to the people of Australia. The reality is this is actually a Treasury bill. It is concerned with an illegitimate government and its dodgy smoke and mirrors budget. It actually should be being presented by the Treasurer, certainly not the Minister for Health, and we should be discussing the $386 million that the government is planning to claw back out of the hands of those Australians who take responsibility, who are directly concerned with their health and who invest in their own health. However, since the Labor government is prepared to use this duplicitous manner, we will discuss the impacts of this measure on the health of the Australian people. The bill amends the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to remove the private health insurance rebate from the lifetime health cover loading. We should take note that the explanatory memoranda of the bill trumpets it proudly that the intention of this bill is to ensure that all recipients of the income-tested rebate receive a comparable benefit relative to their premium cost disregarding any lifetime health cover loading that applies. This statement, I believe, could be straight from the lines of Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister. It is a Labor government sugar coated spin—one thing we are used to—way of telling us that this government is actually slashing the rebate received by private health insurance holders—ordinary Australians. The government is actually trying to convince private health insurance holders that they will be better off when they say that all recipients of the income tested rebate receive a comparable benefit relative to their premium costs. The reality is far different. For Australians who did not take out private health insurance before their 31st birthday and who will therefore have to pay the additional fee imposed, the lifetime health cover loading cost will not be rebated. This means a reduced rebate for the consumer whose private health insurance will actually cost them far more. In fact, it is reported it will increase premiums from 10 to 27.5 per cent on July 2013, directly affecting—as we know—lower-income Australians and the 67,396 with private health cover in my electorate of Forrest. Of course it is going to be the government that makes the most money out of this deal, not the Australian citizen, yet the government has the dreadful gall to hide this fact in what is deceptive prose. It might be argued by those opposite that it improves the incentive to take up private health cover but in reality this is again—as we are used to with this government—a spurious and misleading argument. It implies that there is not a sufficient incentive now to take out private health insurance. Debate interrupted. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 3994 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE National Security 3994 14:00 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah My question is to the Prime Minister. I remind her of budget cuts to Australia's security agencies described as disgraceful and unacceptable by the member for Holt. I also remind the Prime Minister of the reported theft of blueprints for the new ASIO headquarters, amongst other security breaches. Can the Prime Minister guarantee that cuts to the AFP, Customs, ASIO and other agencies have not hurt the government's capacity to keep our country safe? 14:01 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor Thank you very much. To the Leader of the Opposition I can certainly say that all our agencies are in a position to keep our country safe with the resources that they have. I believe it is very important when we are talking about resources that we actually have the facts on the table, so let us go through the facts. Mr Frydenberg interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order, the member for Kooyong! Ms GILLARD 83L I reject any suggestion that funding to Australia's intelligence agencies has been cut. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! Ms GILLARD 83L Well, I did assume the Leader of the Opposition was raising a serious issue, not something for political catcalling, so I hope that when we are talking about national security we may see a little decorum on the opposition back benches and the front bench otherwise people will conclude that they are not at all interested in national security. They are just interested in a bit of cheap politics. But if they are genuinely interested in national security, then they would be genuinely interested in the facts. The parliamentary committee review tabled yesterday relates to the 2010-2011 budgets of the Australian intelligence community, that is, the budgets that were announced by the Treasurer more than three years ago. As announced in the 2013-14 budget, from 1 July the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation will receive an increase of $32.3 million, a 10 per cent rise in funding. Since coming to government in 2007, this government has increased funding for ASIO from $291 million in 2007-08 to $369 million in 2013-14. That represents a funding increase of 27 per cent. Over the same period the average staffing level for ASIO has increased from 1,349 to 1,778, a 32 per cent increase. So I would say to the Leader of the Opposition that before he makes any wrong claims about resourcing our national security, he checks the facts. Since coming to office the government has invested around $18 billion from 2008-09 to 2013-14 on national security matters. On the question of Four Corners last night, there were a number of unsubstantiated allegations of hacking in the Four Corners report. As the Attorney-General has stated, neither he nor the Director-General of ASIO intend to comment further on these inaccurate reports in accordance with the long-standing practice of both sides of politics not to comment on very specific intelligence matters. National Security 3995 14:03 Mr SYMON HW8 Deakin My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister inform the House about the arrest of a man in Sydney last night by officers from the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team? 14:04 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor I thank the member for Deakin for his question. By now members of the House will be aware that agents of the Australian Federal Police and the New South Wales Police Force last night arrested a 23-year-old man in Sydney. The man is charged with using a carriage service to make a threat and threatening to cause harm to a Commonwealth official. He has been refused bail. Speaker, I do not intend to comment on the specifics of this case as it is before the courts, but I do want to make some more general remarks about Australian national security at this time. In recent days Australians have seen the footage of an horrific attack in London on an individual soldier, and I think that members across the House would acknowledge, as I most certainly do, that that footage contained some of the most disturbing images I have ever seen. The implication of this incident for Australia has been considered by our National Security Committee. Of course an incident like this emphasises the effective and ongoing preventative work of federal and state agencies in countering similar terrorism threats to Australia. We all rely on their work, necessarily done without fanfare or publicity, and they have served us all well in the past 12 years. We must also remember the importance to that work of the continuing support and cooperation of both the leadership of Australia's Muslim communities and the Australian Muslim community as a whole. These Australians are very committed to our inclusive, diverse and tolerant society and without their engagement and support our intelligence agencies would be much less well advised about extremist elements and individuals. What this shows is what we said in the National Security Statement, that the continuing threat of terrorism always has the capacity to shock and surprise us. I can also advise the House that the Chief of the Defence Force, General Hurley, has provided specific advice to Defence Force personnel regarding the need for enhanced security awareness and vigilance. I wish to emphasise Australia's terrorism alert level remains unchanged at medium and the government will continue to work to secure Australia against terrorist threats. Budget 3996 14:06 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah My question is to the Prime Minister. I remind her that since Friday seven boats carrying 500 people have been intercepted off Christmas Island, adding to the over 10,000 people arriving illegally this year. Given that more than 10,000 people have been released into the community without appropriate ASIO security checks already, what guarantee can the Prime Minister give that the community is as safe today as it was under the former government? 14:07 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor What we see from the opposition is the cheapest playing of politics. Indeed, when the shadow minister for immigration raised similar spectres to this he was quickly repudiated by members of the opposition backbench and the shadow Treasurer refused to associate himself with those remarks. So it will be interesting to see today whether or not opposition members of goodwill are prepared to associate themselves with the implications of the Leader of the Opposition's question. What the Leader of the Opposition well knows is the following: No. 1—he came to the parliament and voted for more boats; No. 2—the Australian government, of course, operates a system where there are detention arrangements and security work undertaken. The Leader of the Opposition knows that. For the Leader of the Opposition to try to raise fear and alarm in the community about these matters is truly disgraceful, one of the new lows in Australian politics, and I trust he will not continue down this ugly path and, if he does, that those members of the opposition who have been prepared to stand up and be counted for decency in the past will do it again. 14:08 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Does the Prime Minister seriously maintain that her government's cuts to our security agencies have had no impact on their ability to carry out security checks on illegal boat arrivals when the member for Holt clearly does not believe her? 14:09 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor To the Leader of the Opposition, I know when you are so engaged in the politics of fearmongering you have to suspend any engagement with the facts. But no amount of fearmongering by the Leader of the Opposition, no amount of playing this kind of despicable politics, will change the facts. I have been through the facts once in the House today but I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that instead of just reading the next question he actually stops for a moment, takes a breath and listens to what I have to say. The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member for Mackellar is warned. Question time is actually a time to listen to answers. The Prime Minister has the call. Ms GILLARD 83L There we have it. The responsible approach of the opposition on display! If you say the word 'facts', they say the word 'never' because they know if they absorb the facts that it undercuts their claims. Let the Leader of the Opposition listen to this. Mr Frydenberg FKL Madam Speaker, on a point of order— Ms Macklin interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The Minister for Community and Family Affairs is not assisting and is warned. I will not take gratuitous advice any longer from anybody. Mr Frydenberg FKL I have a serious point. The Prime Minister has misled the House. She has said to the House that the ASIO budget has increased, that the ASIO report, page 9— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Kooyong will resume his seat. There are other forms of the House in which to raise that concern. The Prime Minister has the call and will be heard in silence. Ms GILLARD 83L The facts are the facts and the facts are these: government funding has increased for ASIO from $291 million in 2007-08 to $369 million in 2013-14. This represents a funding increase of 27 per cent, a fact. Opposition members interjecting— Ms GILLARD 83L Over the same period, the average staffing levels—for those who are yelling, and I know the facts do not suit you but these are the facts—have increased by 32 per cent. They are the facts. The Leader of the Opposition should stop misrepresenting them and this despicable— (Time expired) 14:11 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah Madam Speaker, I have a second supplementary. I refer to the remarks of the member for Holt who said: … agencies are tasked to protect our national security and I, frankly, find it astonishing that these agencies would have been effectively sequestered from funding to perform their tasks. I think it is disgraceful and it should be addressed. Why does the Prime Minister deny that funding has been cut and the capacity has— (Time expired) 14:12 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor The Leader of the Opposition may be startled to learn that there is a budget delivered every year. He may not have followed that. But there is a budget delivered every year. The parliamentary review tabled yesterday relates to the 2010-11 budget. Instead of shouting, the Leader of the Opposition might want to listen. Which budget has been delivered in the course of this parliamentary session? Well, it is the 2013-14 budget. What do you see in the 2013-14 budget? A 10 per cent rise in funding for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Then, if you want to take a broader view and say what has happened from the period in which the government came to office to now, that leads you to the figure of a 27 per cent increase in funding. If you say to yourself, how many people does that mean at task in ASIO, that leads you to the figure of a 32 per cent increase in the number of staff there doing important work. Nothing the Leader of the Opposition can say or do, nothing he can shout, no spectre that he can raise of fear in our community changes those facts and I direct the Leader of the Opposition's attention to them. The SPEAKER 83S Is the Leader of the Opposition seeking to table a document? Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Madam Speaker, I seek leave to table the speech yesterday from the member for Holt describing these matters as disgraceful and compromising national security. The SPEAKER 83S Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Leader of the House, is leave granted to table the document? Mr Albanese R36 I seek your clarification, Speaker. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! As I said gratuitous advice is wearing very thin. The Leader of the House has the call. Mr Albanese R36 I seek your advice, Speaker, over whether it is possible even to table Hansard in Hansard. The SPEAKER 83S Leave is not granted. Economy 3998 14:14 Mr GEORGANAS DZY Hindmarsh My question is to the Treasurer. Why is it important to get the big decisions right when it comes to building a stronger economy for the future and what will be the consequences of getting those decisions wrong? 14:14 Mr SWAN 2V5 Lilley I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his very important question, because today we have had a timely reminder of why it is important to get the big, long-term decisions right for the future of the country. Today we have had the Better Life Index published by the OECD, which shows that Australia is the best country in which to live and work in the global economy. I know everybody on this side of the House is proud of that result, and we know if we want to keep it that way we have to keep getting the big economic decisions right, just as we did during the global financial crisis and just as we have done in our recent budget. Always supporting jobs and growth, because when you are always supporting jobs and growth you are strengthening the underlying resilience of your economy. They are the conditions in which you can put in place the very big reforms for the future, to keep reforming your economy for tomorrow. That is what we have done in the recent budget because budgets are really about choices, and in the recent budget we made two very significant choices: to put in place the long-term savings to fund a major reform of our education system, to improve our schools, which will benefit our country for decades to come; and we put in place savings to fund disability care, to make our country fairer. These decisions have to be taken and they have to be taken from a position of budgetary strength. This government put in place the savings that are required to do that, and today we have had a demonstration from those opposite of how ill-equipped they are to do that. We have heard a lot from them about how they are supposedly supporting savings in the budget; we have heard a lot from the shadow Treasurer about what he is going to do. But today in the party room he was again rolled by the member for Menzies. He was again rolled by the member for Menzies when it came to our initiative to pay an additional sum to young mums on the birth of their babies. Rolled by the member for Menzies, as he was back in March. Rolled by the member for Menzies, and rolled again on another very important piece of legislation delivering long-term savings to fund disability care, rolled on lifetime cover in the private health insurance area—so in both those areas. What we have seen is a lack of discipline and what we have seen is a lack of transparency, because they do not want to tell the Australian people what they will do to fund their promises. They want to hide it all the way through to the election and do a Campbell Newman. If they are elected, they will have a commission of cuts and that will be when the Australian people will find out about their cuts to the bone. National Security 3999 14:17 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the member for Holt's speech yesterday, saying that the capacity of our security agencies has been impaired by budget cuts. I quote him: … that is now happening—and that is completely unacceptable. Does the Prime Minister deny her own committee chairman's careful and considered judgement? Mr Dreyfus HWG He said 'I believe'. The SPEAKER 83S The Attorney-General— Mr Dreyfus interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S The Attorney-General is now warned! The Prime Minister has the call. 14:18 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor To the Leader of the Opposition: the facts are the facts. I have taken the Leader of the Opposition to the facts for ASIO—that is, a 27 per cent funding increase since 2007-08; a 32 per cent increase in staffing. I take the Leader of the Opposition to some more facts. Mr Abbott EZ5 Speaker, I rise on a point of order: I specifically referred the Prime Minister, in my question, to the statement in this House by the member for Holt yesterday, and she should direct her answers specifically to the member for Holt's— The SPEAKER 83S The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Prime Minister has the call. Ms GILLARD 83L Thank you very much. When we are talking about budget figures, then I think it pays to look at the budget and the clear facts that are revealed there. I have outlined those facts to the House. Can I take the Leader of the Opposition to these facts in another way? The Leader of the Opposition, I know, is familiar with the Australian government general government sector average staffing levels. I know he is familiar with that because he has gone to these numbers in the past. For example, in March this year in a media interview he referred to these numbers specifically and said, 'We don't need the extra 20,000 Commonwealth— The SPEAKER 83S The Prime Minister will return to the question before the chair. Ms GILLARD 83L Thank you very much. I am asked about intelligence staffing, and I am coming— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The Manager of Opposition Business: one question on relevance has already been asked. The Prime Minister has the call. Mrs Bronwyn Bishop interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Mackellar does not. The Prime Minister has the call. Ms GILLARD 83L Thank you very much, and I am answering the Leader of the Opposition's question about intelligence staffing and people who work in national security. I am referring him to a set of figures I know he is familiar with, because he referred to them— The SPEAKER 83S The Prime Minister will resume her seat. The Manager of Opposition Business on a point other than relevance. Mr Pyne 9V5 Madam Speaker, I do not intend to raise the issue of relevance; I intend to raise the issue of the Prime Minister defying you asking her to answer the question she was asked, rather than redefining it in the way she is quite deliberately trying to do to avoid the member for Holt's speech yesterday. The SPEAKER 83S The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Prime Minister has been asked to refer to the question before the chair, and to be relevant to the question. The Prime Minister has the call. Ms GILLARD 83L I am very happy to be relevant. The question necessarily raises issues about intelligence, budget and staff. It necessarily raises that and I am going directly to that, but I am using a figure I know the Leader of the Opposition is familiar with because he referred to these figures in a media report in March this year where he said, 'We don't need the extra 20,000 Commonwealth public sector employees revealed in these budget papers'. The Leader of the Opposition ought to acknowledge that those figures show 7,500 extra defence military personnel— The SPEAKER 83S The Prime Minister will return to the question. Ms GILLARD 83L 2,400 extra defence reservists, extra AFP and extra ASIO staff. So of the 20,000 public servants he wants to get rid of, 12,200 of them work in our security services. So if the Leader of the Opposition wants to have a debate about staffing in security, he can answer to the Australian people what would happen with Australia's national security if he took those 12,200 people away. Climate Change 4000 14:22 Mr OAKESHOTT IYS Lyne My question is to the Prime Minister—and, with indulgence of the House, I invite the Leader of the Opposition to also answer this question. The SPEAKER 83S I respectfully deny the request. The Leader of the Opposition does not have the opportunity to take the question. The member has the call. Mr OAKESHOTT IYS Will the Prime Minister and the leader of the other major party, if allowed, confirm for the House today, in a bipartisan way, their personal acknowledgement, acceptance and confidence in the facts and evidence of man-made climate change? Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S The Prime Minister has the call. I am a bit perplexed that people are groaning at the question. The Prime Minister has the call. 14:23 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor To the member's question, I absolutely confirm to him that I accept the science of climate change. I absolutely confirm to him that I accept that science, as I accept other scientific conclusions. Consequently that means that I understand that carbon pollution, in particular, is making a difference to our climate and so if we are to tackle climate change then we need to tackle carbon pollution in our atmosphere. It is that that has driven the government's policy about carbon pricing, because we believe that the cheapest, most effective way of reducing carbon pollution is by pricing it and we believe in terms of the government's carbon pricing scheme and Renewable Energy Target that the evidence is already in, that it is working to reduce carbon pollution. I absolutely accept the science and do not believe that it is possible for a person of reason to have any other view. Mr Albanese R36 Speaker, on a point of order, given the succinctness and the clarity of the Prime Minister's answer, in terms of the timing, we certainly would have no objection to the Leader of the Opposition stating his response. The SPEAKER 83S The Leader of the House will resume his seat. I have an objection under the standing orders. The Leader of the Opposition can make a comment at the end of question time; he cannot during question time. Mr Windsor interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Member for New England, that was uncalled for! The member for Lyne has the call. 14:24 Mr OAKESHOTT IYS Lyne Speaker, I ask a supplementary question—and, with the indulgence of the House, this can be answered at the end of question time as well. Does the Prime Minister also confirm for both major parties in the House today that there is a shared policy commitment to reach a five per cent reduction in carbon dioxide equivalents by 2020? The SPEAKER 83S Before I ask the Prime Minister to answer, she obviously cannot answer on behalf of anybody else. The Prime Minister has the call but can only answer in respect of her own party. 14:25 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor Certainly it is the government's policy that our nation needs to reduce the amount of carbon pollution in our atmosphere by five per cent by 2020. That is why we have enacted carbon pricing. I absolutely accept from the Speaker that it is not for me to speak for other political parties, though I think I can probably say that in the public debate to date it has been viewed as bipartisan policy that we are aiming as a nation for a five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020. Mr Albanese R36 Certainly the government would have no objection to the Leader of the Opposition being granted leave. The SPEAKER 83S The Leader of the House will resume his seat. I have made my views on this under the standing orders very clear. The standing orders make it very clear that the individuals who can answer the questions are those who have responsibility for government initiatives. MOTIONS 4001 MOTIONS Climate Change 4001 14:27 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler by leave—I move: That so much of standing orders be suspended as would allow the Leader of the Opposition to address the House for three minutes to advise whether he accepts scientific evidence on climate change and advise whether he will commit to a reduction of five per cent in carbon emissions. Mr Tudge interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Aston will leave the chamber under 94(a). If anybody else wishes to slam the standing orders and denigrate this parliament any further, feel free—you will be joining the member for Aston. I give that as a general warning to everybody. The question is that the motion moved by the Leader of the House be agreed to Question agreed to. The SPEAKER 83S Leader of the Opposition has the call. 14:28 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah I do welcome the opportunity to briefly put on record the coalition's position in this area. We accept the science that says that something is happening to our planet. We accept that—we always have, we always will. Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! I gave a warning not more than five seconds ago! Mr ABBOTT EZ5 The question is not whether or not our climate is impacted by human activity—clearly there is a human impact on our climate. The question is: how is it best dealt with? The government believes that it should be dealt with with a great big new tax; the coalition believes that it should be dealt with by direct action measures—more trees, better soils, smarter technology. That will actually reduce our domestic emissions by five per cent by 2020. That is the big difference. Our Direct Action policy will actually reduce domestic emissions by five per cent; the government's will not. Under the government's policy, despite a carbon tax—a crippling carbon tax—forecast by the government's own modelling to reach $37 a tonne by 2020, Australia's domestic emissions do not decrease; they increase from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes. I welcome this opportunity which the Leader of the House, in his genius—in his tactical brilliance—has given me to point out just what the government's policy is doing. It is clobbering our economy and it is increasing emissions. What genius from members opposite! They only achieve their five per cent reduction by purchasing some 100 million tonnes from the foreign carbon traders. That is what they are doing. It is a $3½ billion gift to the foreign carbon traders—$3½ billion that the consumers of Australia will pay because of this government's policies. The choice is clear: you can have good environmental protection under the coalition or you can have a great big new tax and a worse environment under the government. Opposition members interjecting— Mr Laming E0H More, more! The SPEAKER 83S The member for Bowman will leave the chamber under 94(a). That behaviour is not acceptable in this chamber. The member for Bowman then left the chamber. Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Madam Speaker, I am happy to take further questions in this chamber. The SPEAKER 83S The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat! Can I actually ask people, genuinely, to maybe once in a while read a standing order. It would be highly entertaining for anybody to understand what is actually in those standing orders. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 4002 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Carbon Pricing 4002 14:31 Ms SMYTH 172770 La Trobe My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, why is a market based solution the most effective way to drive down carbon emissions? Opposition members interjecting— Dr Jensen interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Tangney will leave the chamber under 94(a). The member for Tangney then left the chamber. 14:32 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor Thank you very much, Speaker. I thank the member for La Trobe for her question. Following the Leader of the Opposition's recent rant, it is the right question to be asking. It is good to hear the Leader of the Opposition back to his negative best, back to his over-claiming, back to his ridiculous claims about the effect of carbon pricing on our economy. It is good to see the Leader of the Opposition back to claiming that this is a 'wrecking ball in our economy', when we know that our economy has continued to grow with carbon pricing and when we know that more than 150,000 jobs have been created since carbon pricing came into effect. It is good to hear the Leader of the Opposition back to his best when he misclaims the impact of cost-of-living changes from carbon pricing. We have all been through the 'astronomical increases in the cost of living', where of course the change in the cost of living is exactly what was anticipated. And the Leader of the Opposition finally had to concede that he could not take away from families the assistance that had been provided to them, because it was making millions of families better off. It is good to hear the Leader of the Opposition back to his best, too, when he is trying to deny the fact that government policies between carbon pricing and the renewable energy target have meant that carbon pollution is coming down. To take one example of that: emissions from electricity are already down by 7.7 per cent in nine months. But why I particularly appreciated the Leader of the Opposition's address today is I sat here yesterday in question time bemused by the interventions of the shadow Treasurer. I was absolutely bemused by those interventions. The Leader of the Opposition has been going around the country with his fear campaigns—'Whyalla wiped off the map'; 'This great big new tax'; 'This wrecking ball in our economy' and on and on it has gone—and then the shadow Treasurer comes in yesterday and he is chiding the Deputy Prime Minister because the carbon price is, in his view, 'vanishingly small'. Well, it cannot both be true, can it—a 'huge wrecking ball' and 'vanishingly small'? Who is in charge on the opposition frontbench—the Leader of the Opposition with, 'Its so big' or the shadow Treasurer with 'Its so small'? To the shadow Treasurer who came in with that critique yesterday: one wonders why he would bother abolishing a tax which he is chiding for being too small. One question the opposition has never answered, though—and this is the key question for the forthcoming election—is whether their direct action policy is going to reduce carbon pollution at a cheaper rate per tonne than the government's policy? Answer that question and then we will know exactly what the opposition's plan is. (Time expired) National Security 4003 14:35 Mr KEENAN E0J Stirling My question is to the Prime Minister. I remind the Prime Minister of evidence given in Senate estimates that the government held an accused Egyptian terrorist, an individual who was the subject of an Interpol red notice, at the low-security Inverbrackie detention centre in the Adelaide Hills for almost a year. Does the Prime Minister agree that it was appropriate to hold an accused terrorist, subject to Interpol's highest form of alert, at this low-security facility? 14:36 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor For obvious reasons I am not going to canvas an individual example. I trust that those opposition members who in the past have come forth in support of decency when the shadow minister for immigration has been out in the community trying to raise these kinds of fears again come forth. I hope that those members of the opposition do step forth, because what we are seeing from the opposition here is an ugly campaign to try to raise fear in the Australian community. It is a very ugly campaign. Coming here with false claims about national security, when it is actually the Leader of the Opposition who wants to take 20,000 jobs out of the public sector, including in national security; coming in here with false claims designed to raise fear in the community— Mr Pyne 9V5 I rise on a point of order obviously on relevance, Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister was asked whether she agreed that an accused Egyptian terrorist had been held in low-security for a year, and she has to answer that question. Does she agree? The SPEAKER 83S The Prime Minster has the call and will refer to the question before the chair. Ms GILLARD 83L Let us name this ugly campaign for what it is. From the government's point of view, of course, what we will do and continue to do is to make appropriate security arrangements for Australians with our security agencies resourced as I have described to the House today. Polio 4004 14:37 Mr ADAMS BV5 Lyons My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the historic announcement to increase funding to help eradicate polio? 14:38 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor I thank the member for Lyons for his question and his advocacy on this important cause. I know a number of members of the parliament and so many community members beyond the parliament have been very taken by the cause of eradicating polio from our planet and have put a lot of their own personal efforts into advocating polio eradication and raising money to eradicate polio. I remember as a young person, older children, admittedly, within my school who had had a personal battle with polio. I think members of the parliament would remember that Kim Beazley, who served here with such distinction and continues to serve our nation, fought his own battle with polio as a child. Our nation has been a leader in eradicating polio, thanks to the work of a great Australian Sir Clem Renouf, who led the international Rotary campaign to vaccinate every Australian child against polio. That campaign has had a lot of success. In the modern world, polio only exists in four nations, which means that we can see the end is in sight when polio will be eradicated in the same way that we eradicated smallpox from the planet. I was very pleased today to meet again—I have had the opportunity to meet him before—with Bill Gates. Bill and Melinda Gates, through their foundation, do remarkable work towards the end of eradicating polio. There is US$1.8 billion that the Gates foundation is contributing for the Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan. This private contribution makes up one-third of the total international budget for polio eradication. For private individuals to be donating at that level is truly impressive indeed. We would all give thanks that there are individuals prepared to put so much of their wealth and resources into such a good cause. Governments need to partner too, and we have been partnering. We allocated $50 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative from 2011 to 2014. I announced that in October 2011. I am delighted to announce today that Australia will provide $80 million over four years, from 2015 to 2018, to help finish the job, so that our ongoing contributions are seamless from what we have already announced and we can keep putting resources in to eradicate this dreadful scourge around the world. Four countries to go; we can make a difference and our nation will be proudly doing so. Asylum Seekers 4005 14:40 Mr SIMPKINS HWE Cowan My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, can you confirm that a Sri Lankan accused of murdering his girlfriend arrived in Australia illegally and was then released into the community on a bridging visa? 14:41 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor Once again, for obvious reasons, I am not canvassing individual issues or individual cases. But what I can say to the member who asked the question and to members of the community generally is that we do work to have appropriate security arrangements for people who arrive unauthorised in Australia. Education Funding 4005 14:41 Ms SAFFIN HVY Page My question is to the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth. Will the minister please update the House on how Indigenous students will benefit under A National Plan for School Improvement? How will the government's smarter investments make our schools stronger and improve student results? 14:42 Mr GARRETT HV4 Kingsford Smith I thank the member for Page for her question. I know how passionate she is about Closing the Gap. She has seen significant investment in her electorate, improving 29 libraries, 19 multipurpose halls and nine science and language centres in education. But for Indigenous students, whether they are in the member's electorate or around Australia, the delivery of additional support under A National Plan for School Improvement will be absolutely critical. It is National Reconciliation Week, and I know that schools around the country will be embarking on a range of different activities to highlight that important event. I was with Minister Macklin, Minister Dreyfus, the Leader of the Opposition and others on Sunday morning in Melbourne at the start of the Journey to Recognition. When we look at education and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, we can take some heart that we have intermittent progress in some areas. We are seeing some good gains in some areas in reading and numeracy at rates of improvement that are welcome. Likewise, we are seeing some good levels of attainment for Indigenous students as they finish year 12. But it is still patchy and there are some very big challenges in front of us, in particular if we look at the average performance of Indigenous students in reading and numeracy. They are two to three years below the average of other students in the nation. In the Northern Territory, the gap is equivalent to around four years. These are the reasons why we need a loading to specifically support Indigenous students. That was part of the Gonski recommendations and it is part of A National Plan for School Improvement which would see $5.5 billion of the total public funds directed to support around 200,000 Indigenous students in around 8,000 schools. Of course, this is part of the higher expectations that many in the community and in the teaching sectors want to see for Indigenous students: kids making the effort, families committed to education. Particularly, we need a plan that provides the structure, the certainty and the funding support to deliver reforms over time that will make a difference for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. In short, for these students, education is a passport out of poverty. It is particularly important that we have targeted investment and things like individual learning plans, making sure that we have the specific support in the early years of school for these students so they go on to be confident learners. New South Wales, incidentally, has shown the way by signing up to our plan and delivering a better deal for almost 54,000 Aboriginal students in that state. I think we agree that Indigenous people can no longer not be recognised in our Constitution, and we understand that building a better life for Indigenous students has its foundation in school, but we now need A National Plan for School Improvement that delivers that commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. (Time expired) National Security 4006 14:45 Mr RANDALL PK6 Canning My question is for the Prime Minister. I remind the Prime Minister of evidence given in Senate estimates that police are not notified of the whereabouts of illegal arrivals by boat due to privacy reasons. Given the cuts to Australian government security agencies and given that more than 10,000 asylum seekers have been released into the community without appropriate ASIO checks, does the Prime Minister support this position? Mr Albanese R36 Madam Speaker, on a point of order. There is a bit of argument there. The SPEAKER 83S There was a great deal of argument in the question. I was going to give them the member for Canning the opportunity to rephrase if he wants. Mr Pyne 9V5 Madam Speaker, on the point of order, the first sentence of the question delivers a testimony from the evidence given in Senate estimates last night and quotes from Senate estimates last night. It talks about the cuts to security agencies, which have occurred every year for the last five years— Mr Dreyfus interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Attorney-General will leave the chamber under 94(a). Continuing after warnings is not to be tolerated from anybody. The member for Isaacs then left the chamber . Mr Albanese R36 Madam Speaker, on the point of order, I think the Manager of Opposition Business has just confirmed the argument that is in the question. The SPEAKER 83S I was going to seek the member for Canning to rephrase the last part of the question. Mr RANDALL PK6 We were aware that there are cuts, so does the Prime Minister support— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member for Canning has the call. He has been put on the spot, so I will ask him to commence again and to be given the courtesy of silence in the chamber. Mr RANDALL PK6 I refer to the cuts and the 10,000 asylum seekers that have been released into the community, and the security implications. Does the Prime Minister support this position? 14:47 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor Point No. 1: I refer the member who asked the question to everything that I have said in question time about the resourcing of our security agencies, including the increased resourcing in ASIO. I ask him, if he is capable of doing so, to absorb the facts. No. 2: in terms of proposals for cutting back national security efforts, the one that is clearest in my mind is the Leader of the Opposition's proposal to reduce the public sector by 20,000, pointing to 20,000 growth as unacceptable and therefore pointing to a growth in ASIO, AFP and Defence personnel— Mr Randall PK6 Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. I asked the question in relation to the evidence of the Senate estimates committee and about her position, not the Leader of the Opposition's— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Canning will resume his seat. The Prime Minister will be relevant to the question before the Chair. Ms GILLARD 83L I was asked about security resourcing and I am being relevant to that section of the question. I am saying that I think it is a good thing that we have more Defence personnel than we used to. I think it is a good thing that we have more reservists than we used to. It is a good thing that we have more AFP than we used to. And it is also a good thing that there are more people employed in ASIO than there used to be. I would certainly not be advocating, as others in this parliament have, that that should be cut to the bone. On the question of notification of police, police can always get information which they require. I refer the member to the shadow minister for immigration who, at an earlier point this year, floated a proposal for notification of communities. When the shadow Treasurer was asked about this proposal the best he could say was, 'That is an issue for debate.' When the member for McMillan was asked about this proposal he said that the kind of vilification— The SPEAKER 83S The Prime Minister will resume her seat. The Manager of Opposition Business: a point of relevance has already been taken. Mr Pyne 9V5 Madam Speaker, on another point of order on relevance. You have asked the Prime Minister to answer the question. She was asked whether she agreed that the whereabouts of illegal migrants should not be disclosed for privacy reasons— The SPEAKER 83S The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Prime Minister has the call. Ms GILLARD 83L I have indicated that police can get the information they need and I am now going to reactions to proposals about notifications. The proposal was put out by the shadow minister for immigration. The shadow Treasurer distanced himself from it— Mr Morrison interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Cook! Ms GILLARD 83L The member for McMillan described it as the kind of vilification of asylum seekers that is unacceptable in this nation. Senator Brandis denied ever discussing it with the shadow minister for immigration. Parliamentary secretary Scott Ryan said that he is not familiar with the detail, and it all ended up with a rather embarrassing admission from Tony Jones that it was the shadow minister's proposal—his own proposal—and he acknowledged that on the opposition benches people were not prepared to stand alongside it. So if we are going to have this kind of material put before the House then let us have all of it put before the House, including that members of the opposition have been revolted by policy suggestions put forward by the shadow minister for immigration, and for good reason. Heath Services 4007 14:51 Mr LAURIE FERGUSON 8T4 Werriwa My question is to the Minister for Health. How is the government delivering better and more affordable health care in a financially responsible way and how is this plan a fairer choice for Australians— Mr Morrison interjecting— Ms Gillard 83L Madam Speaker, on a point of order. In amongst the continuing stream of abuse, the shadow minister for immigration has just made a grossly unparliamentary remark, and I ask that it be withdrawn. The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member for Cook will withdraw. Mr Morrison interjecting— Mr Abbott interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Cook does not get to debate with the Leader of the Opposition. He either withdraws or leaves the chamber under 94(a). Mr Morrison E3L Madam Speaker, the term I referred to was 'hypocrite' and I withdraw. The SPEAKER 83S The member for Cook will leave the chamber under 94(a). You do not get to make the withdrawal in that way. The member for Cook then left the chamber. The SPEAKER 83S If everybody would like to go to the House of Reps Practice and read through issues of what is or is not unparliamentary, perhaps you could all answer that question for yourselves. I have asked him to remove himself from the chamber for gross misconduct at the dispatch box. The member for Werriwa has the call. 14:52 Mr LAURIE FERGUSON 8T4 Werriwa I will repeat the question. My question is to the Minister for Health. How is the government delivering better and more affordable health care in a financially responsible way and how is this plan a fairer choice for Australians? 14:52 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney Good government is about making the right choices and that is what we have done in the area of health. We are making choices to build a smarter, stronger and fairer nation, and that includes our area of health. The opposition want to cut to the bone. They want to cut $1.2 billion out of Medicare Locals— Mr Simpkins interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member for Cowan will leave the chamber under 94(a). The member for Cowan then left the chamber. Ms PLIBERSEK 83M like the one in the member's electorate that is delivering after-hours GP services. We are investing in better primary health care. Our 2013-14 budget is a record investment in hospitals, cancer care and mental health funding. This week is Kidney Health Week. We saw yesterday increased support for GPs doing kidney function tests on diabetics and, from 1 July, our six weeks of paid leave will start for living donors. Tomorrow is MS Day. Last week, we announced $1 million of extra funding for MS research, a very important contribution. Members on this side know that, to pay for those very important investments, we need to have a sensible and rigorous approach to finding savings. We need to choose; we need to prioritise. We means-tested the private health insurance rebate some time ago, saving $100 billion over 40 years. And now the House is considering two other private health insurance measures. I was very pleased about reports that the coalition will back one of these measures. I see in the media today that one of the measures will receive support from the coalition. What is really curious is that one will receive support and one will not. Another measure here is with respect to Lifetime Health Cover. A fine is imposed on people who delay taking out private health insurance but who currently receive a subsidy from the government. The coalition are going to knock over that change. They are going to knock over that saving. I ask members: in what other area where the government imposes a fine does the government then pick up 30 per cent of that fine? It is like imposing a speeding ticket or a parking fine and then going and paying 30 per cent of that speeding ticket or parking fine. It makes no sense at all. Together, these two measures will save $1.1 billion. That is money for the kids dental program Grow Up Smiling, and it is money for DisabilityCare. You cannot support the spends—and the opposition say they support these spends—and then oppose the saves that pay for them. Government is about choices. It is about the right choices. Sometimes that means the right choices in savings, savings that pay for priorities such as the kids dental program Grow Up Smiling, and DisabilityCare. These are programs that will change the lives of millions of Australians in years to come—3.4 million children and 400,000 people with disabilities. If you back the spends, you must back these savings. (Time expired) Asylum Seekers 4009 14:55 Dr STONE EM6 Murray My question is to the Prime Minister. I remind the Prime Minister of evidence given in Senate estimates that there is a backlog of over 19,000 people waiting to have their asylum claims processed, having arrived after 14 August last year. Does the Prime Minister believe that the cutting of funding to our security agencies will speed up or slow down the processing of these claims? 14:56 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor To everybody in the parliament now and to everybody listening to this broadcast, it is absolutely apparent to all what the opposition are trying to do. If you say a falsehood often enough, they hope that you confuse people and get them to believe that it is the truth. We have seen this tactic from the opposition before, when they have raised fear about other things and then the Leader of the Opposition has ended up looking idiotic as a result. Dr Stone EM6 Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Obviously, it is about relevance. We need the question to be answered. Ms GILLARD 83L I was addressing that section of the question that falsely claimed that there had been cuts. I have given the parliament the figures on more than one occasion today. The opposition of course came in with their strategy—no work done, too hard for them. 'Get out the budget.' 'Oh, it makes my head hurt.' So what do they do? They just come in with a false claim and, despite the facts having been laid out in front of them time and time again in question time, they lack the intellect or the wit to change the strategy. Or they are hoping that if they go through falsehoods time after time after time, then they might get someone to believe those falsehoods. So my first answer to the member is that the claim made in her question is false and, if she wants to be honest with people, she should not repeat it. Then on the second part of her question, the member opposite ought to have heard of an expert panel, involving Angus Houston, Paris Aristotle and Michael L'Estrange. She ought to have heard of that. She ought to have heard of their 22 recommendations, which the government accepted in full. She ought to have heard that one of those recommendations was that we made sure there was no advantage by getting on a boat and, consequently, as a result of making sure that there is no advantage to getting on a boat we do not want to see people getting protection outcomes more quickly than if they had stayed where they were and were processed where they were. That explains what the member went to in her question. I believe that you should not be put in an advantage position because you got on a boat. Maybe the member does not agree with me on that. That is a legitimate debate, but that is what is informing the government's policy, guided by experts, whose recommendations we have accepted in full. National Broadband Network 4010 14:59 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, and Minister for Regional Development and Local Government representing the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. Will the minister update the House on the rollout of the National Broadband Network in my community in Blacktown and across Australia? How does the NBN offer a clear choice for Australians who want to build a stronger, smarter and fairer nation? 14:59 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for Greenway for her question and note that it was just a few weeks ago that the NBN was switched on in Blacktown. The member, who is a proud advocate of the Blacktown community and the NBN, was present. I note also the recent article from the Blacktown Advocate that said, 'Blacktown an NBN town divided.' That article spoke about how if the opposition policy gets up there will be some people in Blacktown with high-speed broadband and some people without high-speed broadband, some people with fibre technology and some people with copper technology to their house. The shadow minister for fraudband and the copper economy had this to say in the local paper about this. He acknowledged that the technology under their plan would need to be upgraded down the track. So it is now acknowledged that you would put in a second-rate system knowing that you are passing on to future generations the need to upgrade the system. Mr Abbott EZ5 How awful. Mr ALBANESE R36 He just doesn't get it. How awful, says the Leader of the Opposition. Why not try to get it right the first time and use 21st century technology rather than 19th century technology that was put in by the PMG? That is where they are stuck. The problem is that those opposite will create a digital divide in communities right around the country. They think it is all about downloading but it is about uploading. This is as short-sighted as the famous quote of the late 1970s by Ken Olsen, who said, 'There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.' We know today how fast technology has moved on. We know how vital the infrastructure of the 21st century is. We need to compete in the Asian century— Mr Turnbull 885 Madam Speaker, my point of order is on relevance. The member for Greenway asked the minister to update the House on the rollout of the NBN and I am very anxious that with only 44 seconds left he has not had time to tell us that it is only— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Wentworth will resume his seat. That is an abuse of points of order. The minister has the call. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! Mr ALBANESE R36 The shadow minister for the copper economy is on the ball. It might be that he gets into the 20th century before he gets to the 21st. The truth is that he was so embarrassed by his Leader of the Opposition when they launched the policy. Remember that? There is the Leader of the Opposition and Sonny Bill Williams. Is it an apparition, is it computer-generated? No idea. The rollout is happening and it is happening in Blacktown, it is happening in Marrickville today, it is happening in Vaucluse, Malcolm. They know the benefit of the NBN. It is happening right around Australia and it is important that we do not create a digital divide. (Time expired) Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! I would have thought, given the number of people who I have asked to leave the chamber, that that would have sent some kind of signal. Obviously not. The member for Greenway has the call. 15:03 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Minister, you have spoken about rolling out the NBN across Australia. Why is it important that we remove the digital divide— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member will commence her question again. Ms ROWLAND 159771 Minister, you have spoken about rolling out the NBN across Australia. Why is it important that we remove the digital divide that exists between regional and urban Australia? 15:04 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for her question. One of the great benefits of the NBN is overcoming the tyranny of distance that has made it more difficult to do business in regional Australia than in the CBDs of our capital cities. That is why new areas switched on to the NBN so far this year include Gungahlin, Toowoomba, Coffs Harbour, Bacchus Marsh and Gosford. Right around the country in regional communities the NBN is overcoming that tyranny of distance. That is why it is important that it be rolled out throughout regional communities so as to overcome the digital divide. But there is something even worse from the opposition which comes to pricing policy. We have ensured uniform national wholesale pricing so that, whether you live in Coffs Harbour or you live in Camperdown, you do it for the same price. But under the opposition policy that would go. The National Party pretend leader, Barnaby Joyce, told the Senate less than two years ago, 'The National Party believes in uniform pricing absolutely.' Well, they have been pretty quiet in recent times. And Fiona Nash has said: … they are either deluding themselves, and at the same time the Australian public, if they think a FTTN will deliver high-speed broadband to rural and regional areas, or they are being deliberately deceitful and are trying to trick the public into supporting a plan they know is flawed. Indeed it is a flawed plan. It is 'fraudband' and we need to make sure that the whole of Australia benefits from the NBN. (Time expired) National Security 4011 15:05 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah My question is to the Prime Minister. I remind the Prime Minister of the member for Holt's statement that he would inform the House 'if the efficiency dividend and its continued implementation affected operability of the intelligence agencies. I believe that this report establishes that that is now happening and that is completely unacceptable.' I ask the Prime Minister: is the member for Holt right or is the member for Holt wrong? If the member for Holt is wrong, will she remove him as chairman of the ASIO committee? 15:06 Ms GILLARD 83L Lalor I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to the House about bullyboy conduct in education. Now I am invited to engage in some of that conduct myself. No, I do not agree with the member for Holt, but this is the nation's parliament and what happens in the nation's parliament is that people should be free to come and put a view. It does not mean that I will agree with all of the views put; in fact, sometimes, when we are getting ready for question time or as we are moving towards divisions and I am sitting in the parliament, I listen to some of the contributions made opposite and I have never heard such unmitigated rubbish and nonsense in all my life. But I would always defend their right to come to the parliament and put whatever perspective they want. So, when I listen to the climate change scepticism from those opposite, I think, 'That's their right.' When I listen to others in the parliament put views I do not agree with— Mr Abbott EZ5 Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was about a statement from the government chairman of the ASIO committee—a rather important personage—and the Prime Minister should answer the question about his statement that the security agency— The SPEAKER 83S The Prime Minister has the call. Ms GILLARD 83L I have indicated the facts of this matter to the parliament. The facts of this matter, as outlined by me, mean I do not agree with the member for Holt. Having said that, this is a democracy. This is the nation's parliament, and I believe that people should be able to come here and put their views. So the Leader of the Opposition is asking me to thug the member for Holt and I will not do so; I am not that kind of person. The SPEAKER 83S Before I call the member for McEwen: I saw the students from Glenvale School earlier today, and one of them cheekily asked me to acknowledge them, so I am going to do so. The member for McEwen, as to 'favouritism': they are from the member for Bendigo's electorate, so I think it is! But they did ask, and so I am going to grant the request because I am going to give myself some solace for five seconds. Regional Australia 4012 15:08 Mr MITCHELL M3E McEwen My question is to the Minister for Regional Services, Local Communities and Territories. What is the government doing to build a stronger economy and fairer communities across regional Australia? What are the benefits of the government's investments in delivering these and why is it important that they continue? 15:09 Ms KING 00AMR Ballarat I thank the member for McEwen for his question. The member, like me, has made his home in regional Australia, and he sees firsthand the benefits of the government's commitment to supporting and improving our regions. Regional Australia will be the biggest beneficiary of the next phase of the government's Nation Building Program. Two-thirds of our infrastructure budget is going to projects in rural and regional Australia, delivering major safety and capacity improvements to roads such as the Bruce Highway, the Pacific Highway, and the Hume and Midland highways. The redevelopment of major freight corridors and freight hubs is critical to the economies and livelihoods of towns and the communities alongside them, and we are getting this job done. Under this government, regional communities are at the centre of the rollout of Labor's affordable high-speed broadband services. We are prioritising the National Broadband Network rollout in regional Australia, with towns like Armidale, Coffs Harbour, Gosford, Townsville, Bacchus Marsh in my own constituency, Toowoomba and Willunga already connected and reaping those benefits. These are very smart investments that will bridge the divide between the city and the regions like never before, in education, health services and economic opportunities for businesses. This year's budget is also delivering $300 million to bring qualified early-childhood professionals to regional Australia and ensure that they stay—a fair and responsible investment for kids in regional Australia, making sure they get access to the same services as those in the cities and that they can learn and develop to their full potential. This is on top of Labor's Building the Education Revolution. We are proud to have delivered the state-of-the-art classrooms and facilities to towns that have never dreamed of having access to such assets. There are small rural communities with access to libraries that have never had that before; electronic whiteboards in small rural schools—important investments. We are prioritising regional health services: 25 regional cancer centres providing world-class treatment to over 7½ thousand patients annually and more than 127,000 additional chemotherapy students each year, bridging the divide in health outcomes to rural and regional cancer patients. People in regional Australia will have a choice: a stark choice, between a government that has a plan for our regions, a plan to sustain and improve our access to high quality education and health services, to sustain and improve our services and our job opportunities, or a leader of the opposition without a plan for regional communities. The Leader of the Opposition says there will be hope, and reward and opportunity. Opposition members interjecting— Ms KING 00AMR Well, you may well like to peddle that across regional communities but not for regional Australia. The opposition has no plan for this nation's future, no plan for jobs, no plan for economic growth, no plan to improve regional Australia—only a hidden agenda that will slash regional services to the bone. (Time expired) Ms Gillard 83L Madam Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. QUESTIONS TO THE SPEAKER 4013 QUESTIONS TO THE SPEAKER Question Time: Privilege 4013 15:12 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt Madam Speaker, I have a serious question to you about the proceedings in question time today. I refer you to the answer that the Prime Minister gave to the member for Deakin concerning the arrest of a 23-year-old man in Sydney overnight, and I ask you, Madam Speaker, if you would investigate whether in fact there is an order arising over the arrest of the 23-year-old and the reporting of his arrest overnight, and whether in fact the Prime Minister has not breached any privileges of the House by answering a question which media outlets have been advised they are not capable of reporting on. Yet, if there is no court order, can you advise the House of whether she has, by her actions, prejudiced the trial of the accused. National Security 4013 15:13 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong Madam Speaker, I seek leave to table a document— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! Could we have some order! The member for Kooyong, could you please start again. Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Madam Speaker, I seek leave to table a document. During question time, the Prime Minister said she rejected any suggestion that the ASIO budget had been cut— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member for Kooyong will resume his seat. The Leader of the House? Mr Albanese R36 No. The SPEAKER 83S Does the member for Kooyong have other issues he wishes to raise? The document has already been— Mr FRYDENBERG FKL The Manager of Government Business does not know which document I am referring to. I am referring to the ASIO submission— The SPEAKER 83S The member for Kooyong will resume his seat. Leave has not been granted. The member for Dickson was seeking to make a personal explanation. Mr Abbott EZ5 Madam Speaker, if I may respectfully submit to you: it is very difficult for the government to give or deny leave until the member has had a chance to state exactly what the document is. With respect, he should have been allowed to state what the document is and then the Leader of the House would have the opportunity to say whether leave was given or not. Mr Albanese R36 Madam Speaker— The SPEAKER 83S The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Leader of the House will resume his seat. The member for Dickson has the call. Mr Pyne 9V5 Madam Speaker— The SPEAKER 83S The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. Whether a document is tabled or not is within the decision of the government. The government has not granted leave. Mr Abbott EZ5 Madam Speaker, I am reluctant to detain the House on this matter— Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! Mr ABBOTT EZ5 but there is more than one document in the world and there may well be more than one document that the member for Kooyong has sought to table. I respectfully put it to you, Madam Speaker, that it is simply contrary to all traditions in this House for leave to be denied before the document is identified. The member for Kooyong should be given the opportunity to identify the document that he wished to have tabled and then the government has the chance to give or to deny leave. The SPEAKER 83S The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. Mr Albanese R36 Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If it helps the House, the member identified the document during question time. And what is absolutely certain is that when this mob get on a track they do not go off it! Opposition members interjecting— Mr ALBANESE R36 He identified it— Ms O'Dwyer interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member for Higgins will leave the chamber under 94(a). The member for Higgins then left the chamber. The SPEAKER 83S I have given every indication that this behaviour is unacceptable! The member for Kooyong: are there any other documents you are seeking to table? Mr Frydenberg FKL Yes, there are, Madam Speaker. I would like to table the ASIO submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, document No. 11 2011-12, which states at page 9 that revenue from the government— The SPEAKER 83S No! Order! Member for Kooyong: are there any other documents besides this one? Mr Frydenberg FKL That is the document I would like to table. The SPEAKER 83S The member for Kooyong will resume his seat. I asked if there were further documents. Mr Albanese R36 And it is the same one, and the answer is 'no'! The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member for Dickson has the call. Mr Albanese R36 You could have thought of a new one! A government member: It's an embarrassment— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The embarrassment today is on all sides! The complete lack of any decorum shown during this question time again heightens the public's concern about how this parliament is progressing. The member for Dickson has the call. PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS 4015 PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS 15:17 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson I wish to make a personal explanation. The SPEAKER 83S Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr DUTTON 00AKI Most egregiously. During our question time today the health minister suggested somehow that the coalition wanted to pull money out of primary care. In fact, our desire is to take money away from their great big— The SPEAKER 83S Order! The member for Dickson will resume his seat. The member for Dickson must show where he has been misrepresented. DOCUMENTS 4015 DOCUMENTS Presentation 4015 15:18 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings and Hansard. AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS 4015 AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS Report No. 39 of 2012-13 4015 15:18 The SPEAKER 83S I present the Auditor-General's Audit No. 39 of 2012-2013, entitled AusAID's management of infrastructure aid to Indonesia: Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper. BILLS 4015 BILLS Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy) Bill 2013, Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013, Corporations and Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, Statute Law Revision Bill 2013, Not-for-profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013 4015

Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy) Bill 2013

Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013

Corporations and Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill 2013

Statute Law Revision Bill 2013

Not-for-profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013

Reference to Federation Chamber 4015 15:19 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler by leave—I move: That the bills be referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration. I remind the House that as a result of the resolution I moved before the parliament yesterday, the Federation Chamber will resume at 3.30 pm this afternoon, and that this legislation will be the first items of business. Question agreed to. MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE 4016 MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE Donations to Political Parties 4016 15:19 The SPEAKER 83S I have received letters from the honourable member for Lyne and the honourable member for Cook proposing that definite matters of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion today. As required by standing order 46(d), I have selected the matter which, in my opinion, is the most urgent and important; that is, that proposed by the honourable member for Lyne, namely: The urgent need for real political donation reform. I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places— 15:20 Mr OAKESHOTT IYS Lyne Madam Speaker, I am actually seeking leave to move a motion concerning the recognition and acceptance of the science of climate change. The SPEAKER 83S My apologies: can I ask the member for Lyne to do that after the MPI? Mr OAKESHOTT IYS I can, yes. The SPEAKER 83S We will go to that other matter later. Mr OAKESHOTT IYS Thank you, Madam Speaker. The fix is in on political donation reform. In a week of racing scandals—in fact, a month of racing scandals—the only ones 'More Joyous' about this failed donation reform that looks to be coming before the House today, looks to be the cosy relationship between the head offices of the Australia Labor Party and the Liberal National Party. This arrangement over a one-dollar administration fee per vote, without what the joint select committee actually recommended for further funding reform of donations down to $1,000 being declared, is wrong. Likewise, what is increasingly obvious is the increase in the amount of public funding that comes in political donations that is not reducing private or corporate donations, as is the model that everyone recommends. Rather, what we are continuing to see is the rise and rise of public funding as we also see the rise and rise of private and corporate funding. I refer the government in particular to a certain agreement they reached three years ago with a few of us. In section 3 called 'Promoting open and accountable government' it states: 3.1 The Parties will work together and with other parliamentarians to: a) Establish a Leaders' Debate Commission— well, that is going along swimmingly, and— b) Seek immediate reform of funding of political parties and election campaigns by legislating to lower the donation disclosure threshold from an indexed $11,500 to $1,000; to prevent donation splitting between different branches of political parties; to ban foreign donations; to ban anonymous donations over $50; to increase timeliness and frequency of donation disclosure; to tie public funding to genuine campaign expenditure and to create a 'truth in advertising' offence in the Commonwealth Electoral Act. Madam Speaker, you would have to agree from what has been presented to the House today that we are a long way from achieving those principles. They are principles that work for all. The arms race of corporate donations does not help any single representative in this chamber. It is an influence that should be unwelcome for those who truly believe in their role as a representative first and foremost. The power of the dollar has an influence over policy positions taken. That cannot be denied. So it is in all of our interests that the agreements reached place as many boundaries as possible over that influence that can come from the corporate dollar and the vested interests that we all know are alive and kicking in the corridors of this building and will do what they have to do and are allowed to do to influence the policy direction of this nation. If we are truly the representatives we all like to say we are, we should not be supporting some sort of watered down, washed out, head office cosy deal as political donation reform; we should be supporting genuine reform that protects our roles as representatives in this place and builds a better nation as a consequence. I agree with John Faulkner. Some say I am wedded to the Labor Party. I do not actually walk into their caucus meetings but, if the report is true, he stated that he is beyond being disappointed, he is beyond being angry and he is now just ashamed. I think they are words that should ring true for all MPs in this chamber. This is a deal that should not stand and both sets of MPs should be rattling the cage on their leadership, on their head offices, and saying: 'How on earth could you have cut this deal that sees $58 million extra into the kitty? What for? For reporting one extra time per year?' If that, as reported, is true, if this is some sort of deal done across the chamber in the bipartisanship that we have been seeking on so many other issues, if this is what it has come to, then this definitely is one of those sad days and is beyond disappointment, as John Faulkner referred to. We all have our adversaries in politics. Some may like John Faulkner and some may not, but he has been around awhile. He is a bit of a doyen on one side. If the roles were reversed, then I imagine it would be a senior figure on the coalition side lamenting the same about the ongoing arms race that no-one is really wanting to substantially address. When do we say, 'Enough'? When do we say, 'Let's really have a go at putting representation first'? I compare that with Clive Palmer running around in Queensland. I do not know Clive Palmer from a bar of soap. I know colleagues have been seen in Glen Innes having beers with him, but I do not know him from a bar of soap. This quote should really make us wonder what we are doing. This is Clive Palmer's view: 'It's a battle of ideas, not money.' Here we have a billionaire coming into the system with all that corporate wealth behind him trying to hide behind the fig leaf of an argument that it is not about the money; it is a battle of ideas. If this truly is a battle of ideas, whatever this head office arrangement is and whatever this leadership agreement is, it has to stop, it has to be broken. We have to do much more if we are serious about genuine political donation reform. Do you know how bad this is? Funding is attached to the party members who lose as candidates. It is not only about those who win at the ballot box; there is a dollar per vote for losing candidates. What sort of fix is this? What sort of joke of a policy in the nation's interest is this? All we should want in this chamber is, as much as possible, a fair and level contest at the ballot box. Everyone gets their one vote. Sure, there are going to be advantages leading into the ballot of being part of an organised political party, but when written into our laws is a weighting of undue advantage we really are starting to distort the very principles of our democratic process. Colleagues, this is a huge opportunity for reform that we can grab or we can lose. I know there are 15 sitting days left and everyone is focused on the next four months, but I urge my colleagues in this House to do what they can in whatever capacities they serve to try to break open this cosy arrangement that seems to have been reached that is not in the interests of anyone in this chamber. It is a huge opportunity missed to end the arms race between the major parties over private sector donations that are now tipping into the half millions and millions of dollars. If we are going to follow the precedent of other jurisdictions, like the US, it is only going to get worse and the corporate dollar will run this joint, if it does not already. I hope that is not the sentiment contained in the bill before the House today. I hope there are enough people who still believe in Australian representation and local member representation to do something about this. But it is a deal that should not have been done. It is a deal that has been done for the wrong reasons. It is a deal that does not uphold the recommendations from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters from 2011 for the very reason that you are taking the good bits of extra cash in the kitty but not lowering the threshold to $1,000. You are stopping at $5,000—why? What sort of evidence is there to back up $5,000 as the threshold? And I say this collectively, we are not dealing with this real issue of increasing the amount of money from taxpayers that is going into the kitty of major parties and attaching it to the votes so that everyone gets a bit of a lick of the lolly. We are not dealing with a lowering of private sector donations coming in as well. It is all just going up and up. Where is that conversation? Where is the evidence of that conversation? Where is the evidence of the effort that we are trying to deal with that very real issue that we face? The range of issues here is great and of course I have only had a couple of hours to have a look at this. Another issue that jumps out is the 28 days to report single donations over $100,000. That is, arguably one month before an election anyone can receive a very large sum of money and not report it. It does not influence the ballot box at all. I would have thought that the pub test would say that $100,000 is worth voters having a look at and having a consideration at the ballot box as to why. There are the few little gems like that one in there. Another one concerns candidates who lose at the ballot box. If they are a member of a political party they get a dollar a vote. This does not apply to Independents—and I am not sure whether minor parties are involved. We have got another issue of $300,000 for compliance funding for parties with at least five MPs or five senators. There are all these little sleepers. They are not examples of reform; they are just examples of being on the teat. That is where we have got this place today: it is just public sector money going out for no clear purpose other than dealing with what seems to be, on the surface anyway, some low donations. It is a chance for both sides to get a bit more money in. Where is the validity explained for this actually happening? I do not need to speak for my full time. The donations declared should tell the story from all sides. We are seeing corporate donations now in the multiples of millions of dollars going to both sides, and that is not going to stop any time soon if this is our so-called 'best effort' at political donation reform. We can do better. For future generations in this place we must do better. I would certainly encourage both sides to have a deeper look at this and a bit of a think and reflection and come back with something that has some substance and some meaning behind it, rather than just what looks on the surface to be a grab for some more coin with four months to go before an election. 15:33 Mr GRAY 8W5 Brand I rise to speak today on this MPI because it is an important matter for the governance of our political parties and of our nation. For nigh on 30 years, Australia has been a great example to the democratic world for the way in which our donation disclosure laws operate at the federal level. I do not believe that at any time in the past three decades has there ever been a substantial allegation, and certainly never an allegation upheld, of corruption in our federal political system. It is an outstanding beacon both of decency and of transparency, and one that stands as testament to the hard work done over the years by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, by our political parties themselves and by the leadership in this chamber. I am so pleased that during my time as Special Minister of State I was able to work across the political divide to establish this range of reforms to our donation and funding system. The reasons I am proud about that are because what we have achieved here is a set of reforms that creates a sustainable and transparent funding system for parties of government and which also supports Independent members of parliament too and members of minor and very minor parties. The consideration that has gone into this bill grows not only from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters reports over the course of the past decade, but also from a tough set of learnings to this place from the Fair Work Australia investigation into the Health Services Union, a report which was presented to the Australian Electoral Commission and then resulted in a number of recommendations that, frankly, were embraced by the government and driven hard by the opposition. I do not believe there would have been another way or another time in which the compliance requirements in this act could have been achieved, and achieved in such a seamless manner. They were achieved both with goodwill and with good intention. Why? Because we in this place take seriously the need for an electoral system in which transparency works and a system which itself works. What do I mean by that? I have been a fundraiser for my party during my time as the General Secretary of the Australian Labor Party. At that time I often sought contributions simply on the basis that moderate contributions to both sides of politics make our system stronger. They make it better. They make our system responsive and they make our system capable. They make our system professional and recognisable in the world as a clean and transparent electoral donations management system supporting great political parties, parties of government, while also creating room both for Independents and minor parties to grow and thrive. The measures in this bill are measures that grow from years of hard work. Recommendation No. 1 grows from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report from 2011. In that report, consideration was given to reducing the donation threshold. The way in which we interpreted that debate was to say, 'Let us have that threshold lowered to $5,000 but without indexation.' All members would know that the removal of indexation means that the efflux of time will ensure that that threshold itself is both meaningful and operable. Reducing the disclosure period to six months, ending 31 December and 30 June respectively, creates a situation of regular financial returns from political parties. That again is a recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. These are bipartisan recommendations carefully thought through. Independent candidates, associated entities and third parties will be banned from receiving foreign gifts. That is again a Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommendation from 2011. Anonymous donations over $1,000 to political parties and associated entities will be banned. Why $1,000? I have heard people say it should be a lower number. It is simply because political parties run at multiple levels when it comes to fundraising. At the most basic level it is chook raffles. At the most basic level it is a $5 or $10 raffle ticket. Sometimes if you are really lucky it might be $20 or $50. But when you are running raffle ticket contributions of that level, to have an anonymous donation below $1,000 simply makes it impractical for ordinary branch members or for the secretary of a branch of a political party in Gulargambone, Port Augusta, Boulder, Kambalda or Darwin to run their books, to make sure that documentation is properly kept. I advise the House that this measure is far more likely to be generous, benign and facilitating for Independent members of parliament who do not have party structures, who do not have cultures of organisations, who do not have experience as small business operators or, on my side of politics, being trade union officials who can support candidates and campaigns. That is a good measure for Independents and for minor parties. We also took tough decisions to ensure that, as part of the Health Services Union inquiry carried out by Fair Work Australia, we carried forward the issues around compliance. I firmly believe that our electoral system is a good system and, in managing donations and in accounting for the money that goes to political parties, second to none in the world. It is pragmatic. It is understandable. It is not complex and yet at the same time it allows the variety of funding sources that drives our great political parties. You see our parties do need to have the chook raffle to support local branch activities. Our parties also need to have the $1,000 dinner. Our parties also need to be able to say to corporations, to high net worth individuals and to trade unions, 'Make a donation and it will be disclosed. Please, make your donations.' Donations are appreciated by our system. Donations assist our system to work and a donation well given and well intended is a genuine contribution to the strength of our political system, a contribution to our democracy. It is not a grubby underhand act by a person seeking an advantage. This parliament and our parties have, to their eternal credit, put in place not just a donations disclosure system but a whole culture of behaviour and of codes of conduct that govern how we behave as individuals and each of our parties has these codes of conduct. More importantly, through the Australian Electoral Commission we have a process that manages, as best as it possibly can, the laws that we have to ensure transparency and disclosure. Then we do more. We say after every election we will have a Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters consideration of how that election went. That is what we have done here in election after election, looking at how our elections were run and how disclosure worked. Over the years we have had many recommendations and very, very few of them carried forward into law. This particular set of recommendations does make a very substantial contribution to the administration of our parties. That contribution is made via a dollar contribution from the Australian taxpayer to each political party on the basis of its primary vote. That contribution helps ensure our political parties are funded by the chook raffles, as I said, by the higher level fundraising activities of events and by donations. It is also funded by the internal resources of political parties. On my side of politics, traditionally that has meant John Curtin House. On the coalition side of the fence, that has often meant organisations such as Vapold. But it has also meant that with the creation of this additional pillar—and it is a pillar of support for the integrity of our system—we have a substantial contribution from the taxpayer. What that does is ensures our political system will at no point become beholden to any individual donor. That is important. It is important on my side of politics because increasingly the donations come from a smaller and smaller number of very, very big trade unions. What it means when you have this broad base of support, as I have just described, is that our party structures can operate with greater integrity, not less. And the disclosure measures themselves introduce procedures that have more integrity and not less at all levels. I am particularly pleased that we were able to meet, as a party of government and a party of the opposition aspiring to be the government, and ensure that what we have done here is create a sustainable funding process for our political parties. A sustainable, transparent funding process that will ensure not only the professionalism of our parties but also ensure that our parties themselves can function regardless of what high net worth individuals or willing contributors from trade unions want to do. That is a good thing, and that has never happened before. It also requires proper disclosure of expenditure by political parties on the administrative side of the equation. That has never happened to the detail that we are doing it here today. It has been speculated upon by many over the years as, 'Wouldn't it be nice to know exactly how political parties operate'. There are academics who have written PhDs on this subject; there are political operatives who just wished that it were possible to have political parties who, through their own support mechanisms, were able to ensure that they could operate with great certainty. I believe what these changes do is not only live out the letter of the agreement between the government and those Independents, but it also does it even better. It does it because the processes involved participants from all sides, and it does it because what eventually was determined as this package is a balance between pragmatism, necessary reform and transparency—ensuring at all times that the highest measure of transparency is in place for these reforms. Now transparency in the context of donations walks a fine line between the voyeurism of who pays what to whom and a real need for our voters to know. I understand, because the member for Lyne has expressed it with great clarity, the concern of knowing when donations are made during the final 28 days of an election campaign. The fact of it is this: the final 28 days of an election campaign, should disclosures occur publicly during that period, would become entirely around the voyeuristic side of who is paying what to whom. We have that transparency; those donations are already disclosed. We in this place have parties that are made of people who work hard selling chook raffle tickets, supporting us as members of parliament, and they expect and they assume that we aspire to the highest standard of lawmaking when it comes to making our political parties as effective as they can be and for the public knowing where our money comes from, and this bill does just that. 15:48 Mrs BRONWYN BISHOP SE4 Mackellar In rising to speak to this matter of public importance, I do so supporting the motion of the member for Lyne saying that there is a need for political donation reform. I absolutely concur on that need. And because I am the shadow special minister of state and I also sit on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, and have taken part in both inquiries that have resulted in the reforms that are proposed—that is, the inquiry into the review of the AEC report on HSU and the earlier report into the funding of political parties in election campaigns—I feel that it is necessary to look at the complexity of the area in order to expand on the case that was put forward by the former Special Minister of State and now Minister for Resources and Energy, the member for Brand. In the course of the creation of these reports, of course we had many public hearings. In those public hearings we took evidence from a variety of people—some who obviously did not mind coming along and were quite prepared to put in submissions and then be questioned upon them, and others who were obviously more reluctant about giving evidence. I think it is fair to cite a couple of examples that I think highlight the need for this sort of reform. I want to preface my remarks by saying that I believe, and the coalition believes, that it is not only the right and entitlement of individuals and corporations to participate in the political process by raising money, which is used to fight election campaigns, but indeed there is also a moral obligation for those people who benefit from the democratic system and seek the great rewards of being in an open and free society to make a contribution towards its continuance. In our view nothing could be worse than having all political activity funded out of the public purse. That would make us like some of the totalitarian regimes that we have seen in other countries. The fact that people participate freely and willingly and take part in the fundraising efforts to sustain a political campaign and a political party—as the former Special Minister of State in his speech outlined very simply—although we do not have chook raffles, I don't think, we certainly do have raffles of a different sort and other fund-raising activities, as indeed do Independents and minority parties. I know that the Greens have been making a great to-do about the fact that the reforms that are coming forward may not be what they have dictated. But I think it is worthwhile going through the evidence that was given to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters regarding the Greens and the fact that they were calling for a $1,000 cap on donations whilst at the same time they accepted a donation of $1.6 million from the founder of Wotif and, against their own internal policies, failed to disclose that donation until after the election. You could be forgiven for thinking that that would be a hypocritical position to take. Mr Frydenberg FKL No! Never! Mrs BRONWYN BISHOP SE4 I do think that some people might think that that was the case. It is quite instructional if we go to the actual quotes that were given by Mr Brett Constable, National Manager of the Australian Greens. Senator RYAN: Thank you, Mr Constable. Senator Brown, I understand, was involved in discussions—and I am using as less inflammatory language as I can—with Mr Wood about the donation, was he not? Mr Constable: At the time of making the donation? Senator RYAN: Yes. … … … Senator RYAN: Whose decision was it not to disclose it prior to the election? Mr Constable: That was really out of respect to the donor. Yes, we have an aim to improve the disclosure regime. We have an internal policy within the party which looks at how to review as best we can within the resources we have available the capacity of the donor and the alignment of the donor with the aims of the party, and then we have a rule about disclosing donations well in advance of what is currently required. Later it was reported into The AustralianFinancial Review, when Dr Wood gave an interview, he said: Wood has certainly forged a unique path and his donation to the Greens is hardly typical of Australian corporate philanthropy, but it is not woolly do-gooding either. He saw the $1.6 million donation as a defensive move that saved him many millions of dollars. ‘I was a bit concerned that if the Coalition got in a lot of my investments in environmental causes would have been down the plughole,’ he says. ‘It will hopefully save me a whole lot of money in fighting other environmental wars or battles.’ I asked Mr Constable a further question: … could you tell me what influence he has exerted as a result of his donation? You would, like others, assert that we have to restrain donations because they influence political parties. Could you tell me how Mr Wood has influenced your party and what gain he has had from that? Mr Constable: I would say that he has not exerted any influence on the party. Yet this is the sole basis on which the Greens are criticising the need for reform, which, as the former Special Minister of State has said, is needed to have a fair and transparent system of disclosure in order that we can bring about reform that improves the fairness of the system and allows our free and open democracy to continue. I think it was important, too, that when we took evidence concerning Mr Thomson, the member for Dobell, we saw that the use of credit cards had enabled him to circumvent the electoral laws as they exist, and this certainly made out a need for reform. The case for further reform was made out with regard to the timing of disclosure. Further need for reform was identified when I questioned the Electoral Commission as to what their form of, I will use the term, 'auditing'—people will understand that better, but it was an appraisal of various third parties known as associates—had filed. I found that in 256 so-called audits done between 2007 and November 2011 not one trade union had had such an investigation. On further investigation the AEC said, 'Well, we didn't get any extra resources to do that sort of thing. They were much bigger entities and therefore we didn't do it.' Clearly there is a need for reform in this area. Another area for reform that was disclosed was that the HSU itself had put in three returns which showed, in the first one, from within a very short space of time, that their political expenditure had been minimal but ultimately the third return showed that in fact the expenditure had been $25 million. Clearly there was need for reform. So when you looked at the evidence that was before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and you saw the evidence that was taken, a case for reform was very clearly made out. It was quite proper that there be discussions about the best way in which this could be effected to enable the disclosure, to enable the fair working of the parties, to enable all participants in the political system to be able to continue to put their case forward but in a way that the public could feel confident that there was no corruption in the system. As I said, there was no evidence given that there had been any distortion of political decisions made because of donations made. The closest we came was the donation to the Greens themselves, who are one of the loudest voices of criticism. I would simply say, as we are bringing forward debate on a bill we are yet to have presented to the House, that there will be opportunity to elaborate further on why these reforms are needed and why I suggest they will be adequate to warrant support. 15:58 Mr HAYES ECV Fowler I also thank the member for Lyne for bringing this matter before the House. Can I start my contribution in this debate by briefly talking about my own electorate. One of the best things in the electorate of Fowler is its colour, vibrancy and diversity. I get to celebrate with many people who come from all over the globe. As a matter of fact, two-thirds of the people in my electorate were born overseas. A constant theme with people, and bear in mind that I do have probably one of the largest shares of refugees—people who have fled persecution, sought to flee oppression in search of freedom and democracy—is that they tell me stories about corruption in the countries they come from—the way that power and influence can be bought. They also talk about how elected officials can be influenced inappropriately, either by money, power or the influence of others. Whilst we have an electoral system and a process of government where, despite the challenges of competing views of government and opposition, I think you would have to say there is integrity in the process, it is not something that we should take for granted. There are many people out there who still have a view of democracy, and it is certainly not just about having a vote. To use the situation in Cambodia at the moment, the opposition leader unfortunately must reside in exile in France and will not actually be in Cambodia to contest the next election. So there are many things that we need to have regard to. One of the constant themes I get advised of in my electorate is the inappropriate influence that wealth and power can buy within an electoral system. Our system is strong, but that does not mean that we should not be looking to make sure that it is more transparent and that its integrity is on display for others and can be monitored and reviewed in terms of its compliance. The bill that will be introduced in the House largely seeks to do that. I think it is worthwhile having a look at the history of this. In the last five years the government has been trying to look at electoral donation reform. A bill was introduced in the House back in 2008 and a political donations bill passed the House in 2011—but it passed the House by only one vote. You would not actually say that it was a success in terms of bipartisanship. When we are talking about an issue such as political donations, you would think that, within a Westminster system, there should be between the two major competing parties and also the minor parties some consistency of view in terms of approach. But, as I say, it only passed this House by one vote and then stayed in the other place, and is still yet to see the light of day. There have been discussions at senior levels between parties trying to resolve this and get a degree of bipartisanship between the government and those on the other side who would aspire to be the government. That resulted in a number of changes to be brought forward in the bill to be introduced later this week. I am not sure whether people are aware that the current disclosure threshold for political donations is $12,100. It is not $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000 at the moment; it is $12,100. I am pretty sure that most on my side of the chamber have probably never had a need to disclose that because we have not received those sorts of payments, but the fact is that that is the current level. So, regardless of the fact that we carried a bill in this place by one vote and it goes to the other place and stays there, the legal threshold for disclosure is still $12,100. Between the two parties—and I am not sure of the view of all of the crossbenchers on this—the view is to more than halve that and bring it down to $5,000. Some would say that is a compromise—and perhaps that is right—but it is certainly more rigorous than what currently applies. Another thing that I think is important in the legislation that will be introduced in this place is the proposal to increase the transparency of donations—making sure that there is a more timely process as to when donations need to be declared and ensuring that that information is freely available to the public. Another thing that is important when talking about transparency is to include the enforcement regime available through the Australian Electoral Commission. Again, that is a good thing. We, in elected office, have the privilege of being here and in terms of how we run our campaigns I think we have an obligation not only to our immediate constituents or those who seek to donate to us but also to the Australian public to be fully transparent in the way we go about receipting donations. And if parties are not transparent in that they should feel the full weight of the AEC. Political donation reform was originally contemplated back in 2008. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in 2011 brought down a report entitled Inquiry into the funding of political parties and election campaignsand there was another report in 2012, which the member for Mackellar mentioned, entitled Review of the AEC analysis of the FWA report on the HSU. Recommendations were made and those recommendations have largely been picked up in what is being sought to be brought before the House later this week. Effectively, there are five key areas, which I will recap: increasing the transparency of political donations; the frequency and timing with which those donations and our expenditure need to be reported; reform of the public funding of elections; an infringement notice scheme for people who fail to honour the time line, so that they can actually be reported; and registered political parties and their state branches to be treated as body corporates for the purpose of the Australian Electoral Act. Again, I would have thought that was something that is highly relevant, so funds are not spirited between various parts of organisations and can be treated as one. These things have increased the public scrutiny of political donations. One way of achieving that is to ensure that the expenditures and reports are available on the AEC website. The member for Lyne is probably of the view that there is an element of compromise in the whole scheme of arrangement. He may be right in that, but you must believe this goes a long way from where we currently stand. Whilst the bill of 2010 had an electoral donation threshold of $1,000, the current legal threshold is $12,100. Efforts have been made to curtail that, to make it reasonable and acceptable in a bipartisan way. Going back to the people of my electorate, if we are clearly to ensure that we do not take steps to breach electoral reporting and we take positive steps to ensure the integrity of the system and minimise the potential of corruption, what is being proposed goes a long way down the track to achieving that. I commend the member for Lyne for bringing this matter on for debate. We have probably pre-empted many things that we will say when the bill is introduced in to the House. 16:08 Mr WINDSOR 009LP New England I rise to support the member for Lyne in relation to the issues that he raised, particularly the dollar per vote for the administration of the major political parties. That is an issue that we should have a very serious look at. Rather than go back through the various issues that have been raised, I support everything that the member for Lyne raised. Political donations are raised in this parliament from time to time. I would like to raise a couple of issues that a number of people who currently reside in the parliament may be able to cast some light on. In the seat of New England, there are significant rumours that the National Party candidate for New England, who is currently a senator in Queensland, is to receive a quite substantial donation—some hundreds, perhaps even $700,000—from mining magnate Gina Rinehart. That is an easy statement to make, but I would like Ms Rinehart to clarify her position on how many hundreds of thousands she is giving to a candidate in New England. She does not reside in New England and I do not think she has any interest in New England. One has to ask why she is providing that sort of funding to a candidate in New England. The issue I particularly want to raise is associated entities that the major political parties have. If a mining magnate does want to relay money to a particular political party because of some favour that might be granted at some future date, they can do that without being traced through a whole range of funds and associated entities that the major political parties currently have. This is an issue that needs to be explored very closely, because we could be moving towards an American system where money does buy favour and where money does lobby for particular policy changes. We have seen this quite blatantly in recent years in New South Wales with one of the political persuasions, and now the ICAC and others are dealing with some of those issues. I raise the issue of associated entities again. I do so with some memory of former Independent Peter Andren. Most of us in this place would remember that Peter Andren constantly raised this issue. Even though various members have said that restricting reporting declarations from $12½ thousand to $5,000 would help, there is a whole range of other ways that these major donations can be headed through associated entities and other organisational groups. I would suggest to Ms Rinehart that she clarify her interest in the seat of New England. Does it have anything to do with coal seam gas on the Liverpool Plains? Does it have something to do with the water trigger, the amendment to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act that is currently before the Senate? Senator Joyce, who is a candidate in New England, was part of the delaying tactics to prevent that amendment getting through the parliament the week before last. We know that the Senate does not sit again until 17 June. Are any of these things related? Another issue I would like to raise in the context of political donations relates to the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition was in Tamworth recently. I met him in the street and we discussed the university's department of rural health and some of the initiatives put in place when he was Minister for Health and Ageing. I congratulate him for those initiatives, as those programs have been most successful. I also thank the former Labor Minister for Health and Ageing, the member for Gellibrand, for the university's department of rural health work and other medical school work that both she and the Leader of the Opposition, when he was minister for health, were involved in at different times. Whilst the Leader of the Opposition was in Tamworth he did attend a dinner. That dinner was held at the home of local businessman Greg Upton. There were a number of people at that dinner. That dinner, I am told, was about fundraising for the campaign in New England and whether businessmen would put money into a fund—presumably to be disclosed, but maybe not—to fight the campaign in New England. That is fine; the Leader of the Opposition has that right, as do businesspeople, to get together. But there is a curious thread through all of this that the person who organised that dinner was a fellow called Greg Maguire. He has two names: Gregory Kenneth and Gregory Kevin. He has 43 companies. He was with the former member for the Northern Tablelands Richard Torbay the day before he resigned. He was a contributor to Richard Torbay, who was to be the candidate for New England. Greg Maguire, in fact, organised that function at Greg Upton's home. The Leader of the Opposition needs to explain a couple of things here as to what role Greg Maguire is playing in this campaign. Many would remember—and the member for Gellibrand would well remember because she was the one who referred this matter to the Australian Federal Police many years ago—that this was the same Greg Maguire who was involved with John Anderson and Sandy Macdonald. John Anderson stayed at his motel when Greg Maguire was an intermediary about me in terms of some suggestions that I should, in fact, leave the party. He made some suggestions as to how that could happen. Now, another strange thing has happened in relation to the seat of New England. That very person, John Anderson, has been associated with Greg Maguire; the Leader of the Opposition has been associated with Greg Maguire not only at that dinner but also staying with him on Hamilton Island some years back. Now John Anderson has come out of the woodpile and is going to head up Senator Joyce's campaign for the seat of New England. Mr John Cobb interjecting— Mr WINDSOR 009LP I am glad the frontbencher has risen from his sleep. What do all these things have in common? What do Gina Rinehart, John Anderson, Greg Maguire and these other people have in common? There are a number of issues, but in terms of the seat of New England I think they have in common the attempts to block the people from having their say in relation to water issues on the Liverpool Plains. What has happened in the Senate in the last few weeks? Delay tactics were put forward to make sure that the so-called water trigger did not get through the Senate. Hopefully, that will occur on the 17th. I think it is of concern not only to the people of New England but also to many others that if money is allowed to buy favour in that regard, and if there is a change of government, all of those things will suddenly disappear. The legislative framework for water and objective science et cetera in terms of the termination of those processes will suddenly disappear. Electoral funding is something we should have a very close look at, and we should be looking at it now. 16:19 Ms ROXON 83K Gellibrand I acknowledge the other contributors to this debate on the matter of public importance regarding political donation reform. Obviously, it is an important issue. When you talk about money and politics and the way that they combine there are many contentious issues that people want to have clarified. What has been interesting in this discussion is a realisation and acceptance from everybody that there is a need for reform, but perhaps some disagreement about how it is that we go about that reform. I have said many times before that my view of politics is that you have to be prepared to be an incrementalist or else you will never get anything done; you do not always get everything that everybody wants at any one time. What I think is important in this discussion is to acknowledge that the proposals that the government is announcing and that have been discussed—and I understand that they have been substantially agreed by the Liberal Party—are important improvements on the system that we have in place now. When complaints are made, rightly, by both the member for New England and the member for Lyne about the way that money can be donated without being disclosed we can all say it would be better if the thresholds were lower, but the proposals the government is putting forward intend to lower by more than half the thresholds that currently exist. I, and many other people, in a perfect world would like what the Labor Party has been arguing for for a long time—for those thresholds to return to $1,000. I understand that, despite the law having changed many years ago, the federal ALP continues to disclose according to those rules. I think we are living isolated from the current practice, saying it would be better to end up here, when, actually, we will have shortly before us a bill in parliament that, with the support of both major parties, may get through this parliament in the remaining sitting weeks. This bill will mean there will be a system in place that has many advantages compared to the current one, and I think that is worth considering. Many committees have looked at this work and most of the members who have spoken have been those committees in various capacities—they know that there are certain changes that will be very beneficial. One of them is the lowering of the threshold from over $12,000 now. The member for New England particularly mentioned some individuals: I will not comment on those particular individuals, but the concern is that individuals can own a certain number of companies and related entities, and donate from all of those companies. Of course, that rule currently applies and, every time their figure is bigger, the more that problem is exacerbated. When you reduce it you still have that as a core problem, but you actually reduce the scale of that problem. I think we need to acknowledge all of those important steps. They are maybe not as great as everyone would like, nevertheless, it is important progress. Another thing that has not really been mentioned in the debate in much detail, which I think is a huge improvement and which I think we should be spending a little bit of time on, is the timeliness with which declarations will have to be made. If the concerns raised by both the member for Lyne and the member for New England are circulating about the way people might make donations to affect the outcome of an electionor even to affect the outcome of a particular policy issue, it is a concern that the public always has, that money might be donated at a particular time when certain debates are on. The member for New England used the example of coal seam gas and water issues. Of course, in the time of my political life here we have had issues of tobacco reform. We have had many issues where people have asked: exactly what are companies donating for? The proposed change that those donations need to be declared every six months rather than every year means that the opportunity to have a timely reference and disclosure of donations is a very important advance. From our political party's perspective, we are very clear about the rules that apply, that people do not buy influence by making donations and, as Minister Gray said in his comments, in his time as the national secretary many businesses actually donated to both major parties and sometimes also to minor parties as a way of supporting democracy generally and not necessarily favouring particular parties. I think the pattern is more often that particular parties are chosen by particular organisations and that is something that people are free to do. The reason for my interest in this matter and why the government is announcing a new proposal is that we want there to be a maximum level of disclosure. We want there to be timely disclosure and we want the changes to be workable through this parliament, which is why negotiations have been conducted with the other major party, potentially the government, to ensure that if changes are there they will be enduring changes. I think that that is an important consideration. I am also concerned that some of the other benefits of the proposed changes that the government is putting forward have not been mentioned that much. One change is that there would be a restriction and a declaration process for anonymous donations that are made. I have not been in the situation where people have anonymously wanted to donate large or small amounts of money to my campaign. But I think the fact that that has been possible and that proper processes have not been in place would also raise questions that people are legitimately worried about, if they are concerned about ensuring that there is integrity in our politics. From all speakers so far, I think there is screaming agreement in the terms of the motion, because everyone agrees that there is an urgent need for real political donation reform. When these proposed changes are put before the House, I hope that people will equally be enthusiastic about the need for change. We need to have a continued discussion into the future about how we might improve, at each stage of the way, processes that are workable for political parties and for those who want to donate to political parties. Our concern has been a consistent and long-held one. When the previous government changed the threshold, we did not agree to it. That has increased over time. It is now at the very significant figure of $12,100, being a threshold under which people can donate without making any disclosure. I think that, to the vast majority of the public, it is a very large sum of money to be the threshold. We are proposing to cut that by more than half and believe that that is a very significant step in the right direction. It will restore some common sense. In the same way that making more regular disclosures touches upon something that people have been concerned about, while contentious debates might be in the parliament and donations might come in at particular times, there will be much higher visibility of those donations. Indeed, changes to the way information will be able to be accessed on the Electoral Commission's website is interesting. I am also surprised that no-one has touched upon the fact that MPs actually have a much more rigorous regime of any contributions that are made directly to us or any hospitality or any gifts that we receive. Obviously, there is a difference between donations and gifts or hospitality that might be provided directly to an MP and a large donation to a particular campaign. But for those who are concerned that these rules might be strict, I would just draw their attention to the fact that we have far more restrictive rules that already apply that, by and large, members have no difficulty complying with. Sometimes there are problems and of course they are usually rectified very quickly when they are drawn to people's attention. It is always a contentious issue, but sometimes looking across the spectrum would help our perspective, because we already have regimes that we are quite comfortable with and are used to and that have been longstanding. I want to speak on this matter simply to say that I share the concern of the member for Lyne, who moved this motion, that it is important for us to reform these processes. I am pleased that the member for Melbourne Ports is here because he has been a very passionate advocate for electoral reform for a long time and a number of the issues that have been part of his passion will be, if not completely resolved, partially resolved by these proposals. We are keen to see them go through parliament and be supported in this parliament. We are pleased that the opposition is indicating its general agreement to that. We hope that if there are others in the chamber who would like them to go further, that does not stop support for important changes. It just leads to further debate into the future about how we can continue to ensure not only that money and politics do not entwine in a way that is damaging to democracy but that it can be used in a way that is transparent and open for public scrutiny and which therefore strengthens our democracy rather than weakens it. 16:29 Mr FLETCHER L6B Bradfield I am pleased to rise to speak on this matter of public importance motion moved by the member for Lyne on the urgent need for real political donation reform. This is a complex area and I think we can all agree that there are a range of important legal and ethical principles. I will come to those in a moment. What we also see in this area, though, is arguments which are made which purport to be from a position of high principle but in fact go to a calculation of the political advantage or disadvantage of the people making them. On that point I want to turn briefly to the substance of the remarks made by the member for New England. It is not surprising that as a candidate you would view with some disquiet the fact that a candidate who is going to be opposing you in a forthcoming election is attracting political donations. But that is really not a policy argument or criticism of the donation system that a rival candidate is raising donations. Nor I think is it a substantive policy argument to say, 'I have a suspicion that these donations are being raised because this candidate takes a particular position.' I have no idea, as it happens, as to the particular claim that the member for New England makes as to the basis on which donations may or may not be being received. But it is surely an unsurprising proposition that candidates for political office put positions to electors which they say, should they be elected, they would seek to give effect to. It is not a good policy argument against the existence of political donations that persons who are candidates seeking political donations put forward particular policy positions that they are advancing, nor is it a good policy argument that those providing donations are in support of particular policy outcomes. Indeed, the very purpose of our democratic political system is to arrive at outcomes on particular issues based upon a political process, and a key element of the political process is the campaign process. During campaigns, citizens should be informed about the policies of the particular parties and the particular candidates who are seeking election, and it is of particular importance that parties which have a realistic prospect of forming government are able to inform citizens of the positions that they intend to take should they come to government. Our very democracy depends on that. But there is no getting around the fact that the process of communicating to electors is an expensive one. The process of communicating to even the 95,000 constituents in a mainland House of Representatives seat is an expensive one. Multiply that by 150 seats, add the Senate candidates as well and you have a large and expensive communications process. In turn that must necessarily be paid for. On the coalition side we do not think it would be a good system that the only people who are effectively able to politically campaign were those who had sufficient personal means to be able to afford that exercise, nor do we think it is a good idea that the totality of the funding for that should come from the public purse. On the contrary, we think it is desirable that those who are motivated to support particular candidates or particular positions are in a position to donate to candidates whose positions they support. We think that is something that should be encouraged. We also note that there is a strong strand of voluntary activity in the work certainly of the Liberal and National parties but also, it must be agreed, of the Labor Party. Where you have voluntary organisations, organisations of concerned members of the community coming together to advance particular positions which they think are important, it is natural and proper and desirable that those organisations and their members would wish to raise money towards campaign activities. That is work that is often done by volunteers and, yes, there must be disclosure, and I will come to that important ethical principle in a moment. But it is also important that we have a recognition of considerations of practicability. It is important that we recognise the sheer mechanics of disclosing, for example, the name of every person who bought a raffle ticket. The point I am making is that we need to properly weigh up the relevant considerations. One consideration is disclosure, another one is practicability. There is a real danger if we impose disclosure obligations which in their practical effect work to discourage citizens from making donations, work to discourage citizens from being voluntary members of parties and being involved in fundraising activities, and that is absolutely a legitimate and proper consideration for this parliament as we consider the appropriate regime that ought to apply to the raising of political donations. It is an entirely uncontentious proposition that there are vital safeguards that must be in place against those who make donations obtaining undue or improper influence by reason of that fact. The principle of disclosure is certainly one that on this side of the House we support. It is also important that all parliamentarians understand the ethical principles and duties to which they are subject and the importance of considering issues on their merits uninfluenced by considerations of donations. But I think there is one other important point, which is that those who speak most loudly in this area, those who so often make the argument that political donations are inherently problematic and who demand the most detailed and prescriptive reform, often do so with decidedly mixed motives. I cannot help remarking that it was the New South Wales Labor Party which introduced very restrictive conditions on the disclosure and collection of donations in New South Wales political affairs after its own decidedly inglorious conduct over a number of years. Nor can I help noting that the Greens claim to have substantial objections to the existing system of political donations, but in the 2010 federal election the largest single political donation ever received was received by the Greens party, $1.68 million from Graeme Wood. Extraordinary but true. Indeed, on the very day the donations figures were released by the Australian Electoral Commission, Greens party Senator Lee Rhiannon issued a press release criticising the two major parties for accepting large donations. Dr Norman Thompson, who is described on the relevant website as 'Director of the Democracy4sale project', responded to some questions from the well-known journalist Paul Barry about this. In a statement he said that Lee Rhiannon 'queried the value of accepting this donation', that none of the money was spent on her campaign in New South Wales, and that 'many members and supporters are disturbed accepting this cheque'. Well, I think that, as we approach this issue seriously, we ought to be disturbed about a political party, the Greens party, which claims to stand for one set of principles but behaves according to another. What we need to have is clear, consistent rules about political donations which are followed by all political parties and parliamentarians. Of course it is not just the Greens who say one thing and do another. Let me refer you to GetUp! In its annual report in 2008-09, it noted that, on 3 August 2009, GetUp! members signed a petition to call for a ban on corporate and third-party political donations. Yet, according to its disclosures made to the Australian Electoral Commission, over the last few years GetUp! has received numerous donations, including $1.12 million from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and numerous donations from individuals exceeding $10,000. Let me just make the point: there is nothing wrong with being a political organisation. There is nothing wrong with accepting political donations which comply with the law. But, as we consider what the law should say about political donations, as we apply the ethical principles that we all agree are appropriate and need proper recognition, we must do so in a clear and consistent way, and I suggest that we need to be a little bit sceptical about the motives of some of those who speak most loudly on this particular topic. The DEPUTY SPEAKER DZY Order! The discussion is concluded. BILLS 4032 BILLS Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Compliance Measures No. 2) Bill 2013 4032

Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Compliance Measures No. 2) Bill 2013

Assent 4032 Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Bill 2012 4032

Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Bill 2012

Report from Committee 4032 16:39 Mr PERRETT HVP Moreton On behalf of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, I present the committee's advisory report on the Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Bill 2012, the Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2012 and the Public Interest Disclosure Bill 2013, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee. In accordance with standing order 39(f) the report was made a parliamentary paper. Mr PERRETT HVP by leave—On 1 November 2012 the Selection Committee referred the Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Bill 2012 and the associated Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2012 to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs for inquiry and report. The Selection Committee suggested that the committee further examine the detail contained within the bills and any unintended consequences that may follow. On 21 March 2013 the Selection Committee referred the Public Interest Disclosure Bill 2013 to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs for inquiry and report. The Selection Committee suggested that the committee consider the circumstances under which a protected disclosure may take place. The committee conducted separate inquiries for each bill and has chosen to present the results of both inquiries in the one report. The bills propose two different public interest disclosure schemes for the Commonwealth public sector. The Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Bill 2012 aims to strengthen public integrity by encouraging and facilitating the disclosure of corruption, maladministration and other wrongdoing in the Commonwealth public sector. It will do so by providing protection for public officials to make such disclosures. The second bill, the Public Interest Disclosure Bill 2013, aims to encourage a pro-disclosure culture by facilitating disclosure and investigating wrongdoing and maladministration in the Commonwealth public sector. It will promote the integrity and accountability of the Australian government public sector. The emphasis of the scheme is on disclosures of wrongdoing being reported to and investigated within government. This emphasis is designed to ensure that problems are identified and rectified. The bill establishes a scheme with clear procedures for officials to follow when a disclosure of suspected wrongdoing is reported. The committee notes the strong support for a public interest disclosure scheme. The committee considers that legislation for public interest disclosure is overdue and welcomes the introduction of these public interest disclosure bills. On balance, it is the view of the committee that the Public Interest Disclosure Bill 2013 is more appropriately situated in terms of providing a comprehensive framework for public interest disclosures across the Commonwealth public sector. Given that there is a view from stakeholders that introduction of public interest disclosure legislation is long overdue, and the expectation that the final sitting day of the 43rd Parliament will be 27 June 2013, this committee urges the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee to conclude its deliberations on this bill as a matter of urgency so that the bill may be considered by both Houses prior to the parliament rising for the election. The committee unanimously recommends passing the Public Interest Disclosure Bill with due consideration given to some of the issues raised in the committee's advisory report. I thank the Deputy Chair and committee and secretariat for the work in this report and commend it to the chamber. 16:43 Mrs MOYLAN 4V5 Pearce by leave—I rise to make a few comments in relation to the Public Interest Disclosure Bill—indeed, to the advisory report. I would just like to acknowledge the Chair, the member for Moreton, and endorse his comments of support for the secretariat for the work they have done on this. The inquiry by the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee into the Public Interest Disclosure Bill follows in a long line of investigations into the adequacy of legislative protection for whistleblowers in Australia. It is needed, as my colleague said, to strengthen the integrity of governance. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, then chaired by the now Attorney-General, the member for Isaacs, published a comprehensive report in February 2009 and within that document provided a robust framework for whistleblower protection. This legislation has been long in the making, as the government did not respond to the report until 2010. However, they substantially agreed with its recommendations and undertook to introduce a bill, and that bill is partially the subject of this committee's inquiry. The Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee also considered the private member's bill from the member for Denison, which was on the same subject. I would like to compliment the member for Denison for also raising the interest in this particular matter. The committee considers that protecting people who speak out against illegal or improper practices in government departments or other institutions is a critical part of maintaining integrity in those organisations and in our democracy generally. During the course of the inquiries it was clear that there have been criticisms of elements of both this bill and what is commonly referred to as the 'Wilkie Bill'. The committee notes the broader scope of the 'Wilkie Bill' in its coverage of types of disclosures and scope of protections offered, and that it is well supported by many of the stakeholder groups. There was a general concern with regard to the government's Public Interest Disclosure Bill, about its overall complexity. Mr Howard Whitton, in his submission to the committee stated, 'intending whistleblowers will need a lawyer at their elbow to understand the many procedural steps required for a disclosure to be granted protection'. It is to be hoped, therefore, that there will be greater clarification with regard to some of the more complex points so as to avoid deterring intending whistleblowers from reporting. Professor AJ Brown listed 10 principles—and I understand that Professor Brown has been very involved in this issue—that he believed needed to be reflected in effective legislation. They are that: it must promote an 'if in doubt can report' attitude for public officials; alleged public interest related wrongdoing in all areas of Commonwealth government should be covered; any carve-outs or special procedures should be fully justified, not just blanket exclusions or exemptions; obligations on agencies to protect and support should be direct, proactive and preventative; implementations should be supported by a single oversight agency; that oversight agency should be properly resourced to do the job; reporting and protection systems should not be complaint-dependent; rules on when officials may/should disclose to the media should be clear and workable; compensation remedies should be clear, simple and accessible; and finally, there should be basic safeguards against abuse and misuse of the system. The committee recommends that the House of Representatives pass the Public Interest Disclosure Bill 2013 with amendments to address the deficiencies raised during the course of the inquiry, and suggests that it would also be prudent to await the report from the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee so as to improve the operation of this bill with particular regard to: the scope of protections offered where disclosures are made in good faith, though they may later be found to be false or misleading; the scope and clarity of protections offered for external disclosures; and the scope of protections for the whistleblowers from reprisals. I commend the advisory report to the House. COMMITTEES 4035 COMMITTEES Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry Committee 4035 Report 4035 16:48 Mr ADAMS BV5 Lyons On behalf of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry I present the committee's report on the inquiry into the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation annual report 2011-2012, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee In accordance with standing order 39(f) the report was made a parliamentary paper. Mr ADAMS BV5 by leave—The RIRDC is one of 15 rural research and development corporations—RDCs—charged with delivering the Australian government's investment in rural research and innovation. Broadly, the RIRDC's investment program is guided by the Australian government's National Research Priorities that outline key areas targeted for their economic, social and environmental benefits to Australia. Complementing these are the Australian government's Rural Research and Development Priorities that define how public investment in rural research and development should be directed. The RIRDC's work supports the principles espoused in both sets of priorities through its recently approved corporate plan, guiding its research and development investment for the next five years. The committee's report focused on a number of themes: governance and cross-sectoral collaboration; smaller industries and innovation; regional development; and the evaluation of projects. Australia's system of RDCs is complex both in the way it operates and the way it is funded. The committee acknowledges significant Australian government efforts towards sector reform, most recently through its Rural Research and Development Policy Statement. At the heart of the statement were responses to reports into RDCs by the Productivity Commission and the Rural Research and Development Council. However, the committee highlights the ongoing need for an active increase in cross-sectoral collaboration. The committee considers that this can be achieved through existing initiatives, such as the National Primary Industries Research, Development and Extension Framework. The framework was reviewed in 2012 and the committee recommends a timely and public response from the Australian government, addressing its findings. In particular, the government's response should clarify whether the RIRDC holds additional coordination functions—as espoused in the policy statement—above its current cross-sectoral collaborative work. Coordination of efforts with other jurisdictions and research bodies is also a key governance factor. Evidence to the committee suggested that support, such as access to publicly funded laboratories provided on an 'in-kind' basis by state governments to smaller, innovative industries, has diminished. The committee has recommended that the Australian government work with state and territory governments to ensure their contribution to the national research effort remains proportional to the Australian government's response. Regarding smaller industries and innovation, the RIRDC provides strong support to industry sectors that fall within its remit. The committee was particularly impressed by its approach in developing assistance tailored to the needs of particular new and emerging industries and through the adoption of a life cycle approach to this support. The committee is pleased to see the RIRDC's renewed commitment to regional development through its latest corporate plan. This specific intention is best characterised by RIRDC projects currently underway in both North Queensland and Tasmania that work with a wide variety of local stakeholders to consider how agriculture benefits regional development more broadly. The committee's report stresses that the RIRDC should ensure that regional development projects are strongly supported at a local level. Projects should also be thoroughly evaluated on completion to assess both performance and contribution to regional development. The committee's report also considered the evaluation framework as developed by the RIRDC. The evaluation framework allows the corporation supported projects to be consistently evaluated for accountability and to inform future investment. The committee recommended that the RIRDC continue the practice of evaluation and to promote more of these through future annual reports. The committee also recommended that the Australian government complete the development of a proposed common evaluation methodology to be used by all RDCs and that, once developed, it be adopted by the RIRDC. Lastly, the committee recommended that all RDCs continue to engage in the development of a common methodology to assess the cost-benefit analyses of projects across RDCs. Finally, I would like to thank staff of the RIRDC for their contribution to this inquiry. It is clear that their continued commitment to Australia's development of rural research and innovation contributes to placing the Australian agricultural sector in a competitive position. I also thank members of the committee, including the member for Wannon, who is in the chamber and will speak on this report, and staff of the secretariat for their contribution. I recommend the report to the House. 16:54 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon by leave—I would like to add to the comments made by the Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry on its inquiry into the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation annual report 2011-12. I would like to thank the committee and the chair for the cooperative way in which this inquiry took place. It was pleasing to see that both sides of the House showed their commitment to the importance of research and development when it comes to agriculture. If we are to benefit from a globalised world and be able to feed that globalised world—the growing middle classes of Asia, Latin America and Africa—then research and development are going to be vital to Australia's future. It was very pleasing to be able to undertake this report in a bipartisan way and for us to all be able to commit to the importance of research and development. As the report highlights, we have statutory authorities for cotton, fisheries, grains, grape and wine, rural industries and sugar. We also have industry corporations for eggs, livestock exports, meat processing, pork, wool, dairy, forestry and wood products, horticulture, and meat and livestock. We must ensure that this research and development money is well spent and is targeted to what industries need and are looking for in the coming years. I was very pleased to see the cooperation across the committee to making sure that research and development, as best it can be, is targeted so we can take advantage of the growing opportunities that will be there. I thank the chair and fellow members of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry for their cooperation in putting this report together. BILLS 4037 BILLS Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012, Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013 4037

Private Health Insurance Amendment (Lifetime Health Cover Loading and Other Measures) Bill 2012

Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Base Premium) Bill 2013

Second Reading 4037 16:57 Ms MARINO HWP Forrest As I was saying, the government in its explanatory memoranda to these private health insurance bills implies there is not sufficient incentive now to take out private health insurance. Presumably, the Lifetime Health Cover loading is not an adequate incentive and a bigger stick is required. This is a duplicitous approach, showing a lack of understanding and utter disrespect for the Australian community. Does the government not understand that young people in their 20s often struggle to pay their bills? Is the government of the view that everybody who needs private health insurance can afford it at all times or is it the Labor position that those young people, like low-paid workers or students, who get through their 20s do not need any private health insurance later? These people are already punished for their poverty once with the Lifetime Health Cover loading. Now the Labor government seeks to punish them again. Some 5.6 million people in Australia with private health insurance have an annual household income of less than $50,000 and 3.4 million have an annual household income of less than $35,000. We really do need to remember those repeated Labor promises to rule out any changes to the private health insurance rebates. In a letter the Prime Minister wrote to one of the newspapers, she said: The truth is that I never had a secret plan to scrap the private health insurance rebate … For all Australians who wanted to have private health insurance, the private health insurance rebate would have remained under a Labor government. I gave an iron-clad guarantee of that during the election. What value do we place on those promises today, like so many other Labor promises? The Labor Party, led by the nose by union bosses and the Greens, repeatedly demonstrate that private health insurance is something they morally oppose. This should probably surprise nobody, because the Gillard government opposes all things private be it private health, the private school system and, what we have seen in the last few years, the entire private business sector. However, this ideological drive comes at the expense of the goals and aspirations of Australian working families. Some principles apply and really need to be recorded. Parents who send their children to private school receive less in total government investment, both state and federal, than those who use the public system. This means that every parent who is paying private school fees is subsidising by default the public education system and the students who are in it. Workers in private industry pay the taxes that pay the wages of those working in the public sector, and those Australians who invest their hard-earned dollars in private health insurance subsidise the public health system and all those patients who rely on it. Does this deceptive government really have to keep attacking those who are personally investing in their own education, their own industry and their own health, those who are taking personal responsibility and often going without in other key parts of their lives because health is so important to them? Why is this issue of taking personal responsibility such an anathema for Labor? It clearly is, given the government's open assault on those who do so. Everyone other than this government knows that every person who pulls out of private health insurance adds to the cost of the public health system, yet this government seeks with these bills to provide another disincentive. Making private health insurance more expensive naturally drives more people out of it. According to the government, this will save it $386 million over the next three years. Of course it may well cost the government and therefore the Australian taxpayers more in the longer term as more Australians slip out of the private health system and rely on the public system. We just see this as part of the government's dodgy budget figures, one of their short-term fixes. We have to remember that it is not, as I said in the first instance, a health action; it is a short-term budget fix. The proposed $1.5 billion surplus at this point is a $19.4 billion deficit, and that is not the end of it. We are not at the end of the financial period yet. This is the only reason for this bill and this action by the government. The government claims that the change will be 'an incentive for a person to take out private health insurance earlier in their life and maintain cover to avoid the LHC loading'. Such an incentive already existed under the LHC loading. This new imposition is simply another penalty. So to avoid being hit with an LHC loading, people currently must hold appropriate hospital cover before they reach what is defined as their LHC base day—usually 1 July following their 31st birthday. According to the government's Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, total expenditure on health goods and services in Australia in 2008-09 was estimated at $112.8 billion. Recurrent expenditure was $107.1 billion or 94.9 per cent of total expenditure, which equated to nine per cent of Australia's GDP. Of that funding, $49 billion came from federal government funding and $30 billion from state government funding. The remaining $34 billion was privately funded and included $19 billion paid by consumers themselves in using services, $6 billion from other nongovernment sources and $9 billion from private health insurance funds. According to the Private Health Insurance Administration Council, as at June 2011 private health funds were paying out $15 billion in health benefits to provide for the needs of the nearly 12 million Australians who carry private health insurance. That is over half the Australian population. Of these, some 10 million have hospital cover, which accounts for about half of the costs. More recently the Private Health Insurance Administration Council has found in the five years to 2012 that 'exclusions and restrictions have become much more prevalent' and that the increased use of exclusions 'may work against the policy objective of private health insurance in easing the burden on public hospitals'. An Econtech report said that every dollar of funding provided for private health insurance rebates saves $2 of costs that are then paid by private health insurers. Yet this government continues its attack on private health insurance, undermining it yet again with the bills before the House today. The coalition, as we know, has been a strong supporter of private health insurance. We know that these bills add even more complexity to private health insurance and will raise premiums, including for those Australians on lower incomes. We are a friend of private health insurance and have demonstrated this directly. We recognise the benefits it provides and are not ideologically opposed to personal responsibility, such as we see with the Labor Party and the Greens. The bills before the House are simply more evidence of that fact. I will just remind people who may be interested in this debate that the government has repeatedly made commitments that are then reneged on. Remember that Nicola Roxon, then the minister for health, said in 2009: The government is firmly committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates. So the average person out there believed this. Even Kevin Rudd at a press conference in February 2008 said: The Private Health Insurance rebate policy remains unchanged and will remain unchanged. As I said, the Prime Minister herself has on more than one occasion confirmed her commitment, and has even in letters to the editor indicated that this was a 'rock solid, iron-clad guarantee'. It certainly would not appear that way to anybody who has private health insurance at this time. Unfortunately, it is just a repeated pattern by this government to make commitments to the Australian people, and we certainly remember the most famous one—'that there would be no carbon tax'. Well, as far as private health insurance is concerned, this is the same type of promise; it is just the latest broken promise. We know, because the Australian people tell us out in our electorates that they simply do not trust anything that this government says. And of course we have the evidence. The evidence is in front of people. They see repeatedly that they simply cannot trust anything that the government says. I do know how important people take their health to be. I see people in my electorate—like so many other members do—who go without the simple, most important things in their lives just to be able to afford to pay their health-insurance. It is probably one of the most important issues in people's lives, particularly as they age, but even for young people who may have some form of medical problem early on in their lives. We know that health-insurance and health are often people's No. 1 priority. I know that there are people in my electorate who face a number of medical challenges right at this moment. I do know how important having private medical insurance has been and is to those people who are facing these types of challenges in their lives. The average person who goes out of their way to take personal responsibility and take out private health insurance is in no doubt as to how important it is. It is not only important to them but it is important to the whole health system. When you talk to people, there are very few things in their lives that are more important than their access to the health services they need when they need them most, particularly if they are facing a serious health challenge. In rural and regional areas this is never more apparent. I conclude my remarks on those points. Debate adjourned. International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012 4040

International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012

Second Reading 4040 17:09 Mr KELVIN THOMSON UK6 Wills The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development is a specialised multilateral organisation of the United Nations. It is based in Rome and dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries. It is an incredibly important issue and it is one that I had the opportunity to discuss in Melbourne in April with the Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, Dr Jose Graziano da Silva. Seventy five per cent of the world's poorest people—1.4 billion women, children and men—live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. The International Fund for Agricultural Development projects help poor rural people improve their food security and nutrition, raise their incomes and increase their access to financial services, markets, technology, land and other natural resources. Around the world the International Fund for Agricultural Development is a valued international development partner. It has a portfolio that is valued at US$10.3 billion, inclusive of co-financing. With the donor contributions made in 2011, the International Fund for Agricultural Development has a target of lifting 80 million people out of poverty between 2013 and 2015. The fund focuses on agricultural production and productivity, rural finance, support for women and Indigenous peoples and building institutions. Australia was a founding member of the fund back in 1977 but in 2004 decided to withdraw as a member owing to a misalignment with the then government's geographical and sectoral development priorities as well as internal governance issues. Australia's withdrawal came into effect in 2007. Since Australia left the fund, the International Fund for Agricultural Development has gone through a major reform making it a highly regarded development partner by donor countries around the world and by the developing countries in which it works. In 2012, the Australian multilateral assessment of the International Fund for Agricultural Development concluded that it was performing strongly and delivering results, transparency and alignment with Australia's aid priorities and national interests. It is now timely that Australia renews its membership. Australia's membership of the International Fund for Agricultural Development will complement and strengthen Australia's existing support for food security, rural development and poverty reduction, and provide a direct engagement with smallholder producers who are disproportionately represented among the poor and vulnerable. This is consistent with the fundamental purpose of the Australian aid program of helping people overcome poverty. It will address poverty issues in rural areas where the International Fund for Agricultural Development is focused and where Australia has an interest but limited current engagement. It will offer in-depth country and technical knowledge in regions and sectors where Australia wishes to expand but lacks expertise and it will offer expertise and experience in rural development in fragile and conflict-affected areas where Australia has a strategic interest but may not be able to directly engage. We cannot overestimate the critical importance of food security to every human being. The physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food is surely a fundamental human right. But tragically for nearly a billion people in the world this is not the case. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that nearly one billion people go hungry every day. Two-thirds of these people live in the Asia-Pacific region. They are our neighbours. In Sub-Saharan Africa almost one in three people suffers from chronic hunger. Climate change, drought, conflict, lack of resources and land to grow food all shape this gross inequality. The impact of these challenges is compounded by the high cost of food, higher even than the 2008 levels when the food crisis was at its peak. We can attribute the high cost of food largely to the failure of global food production to keep pace with growing demand. Population growth, income growth, changing diets and climatic variability are just some of the critical factors in this trend. Forecasts by the United Nations and World Bank indicate that this trend of high food prices is likely to continue for at least the next 10 years. The magnitude of this challenge cannot be underestimated. Australia has long been at the forefront of global efforts to improve food security. We as a nation are very fortunate to enjoy food security ourselves. At the same time, we have had to grapple with issues like climate, water management and natural disasters that plague less food secure nations. And as a wealthy country we develop world-class research and expertise in these areas. This is something we can share. Food security is integral to Australia's aid program. Our approach to food security focuses on lifting agricultural productivity for agricultural research and development, improving rural livelihoods by strengthening markets and market access, and building community resilience with social protection programs. These three elements will together increase the food available in markets and in poor households and increase the incomes and employment opportunities of poor men and women. Right now, Australia is responding to the emergency food needs of people in the Horn of Africa, increasing funding for rural development and pursuing trade policy reforms to open up markets and allow more free and fair access to food. The International Fund for Agricultural Development's approach to food security marries with our own. As I have said, it is dedicated to enabling poor rural people to improve their access to food and nutrition, increase their incomes and strengthen their resilience. The fund also works in regions of importance to Australia: Asia, the Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. Developing countries value the fund's work, and this was made clear during the most recent replenishment of the fund in 2011. Argentina increased its pledge by 300 per cent, Indonesia by 100 per cent, Brazil by 25 per cent and India by 20 per cent: all during a time of economic hardship. The fund has reformed its organisational structure to increase efficiency, aligned human and financial resources with strategic objectives and expanded its role as a knowledge institution. For every dollar contributed, the International Fund for Agricultural Development mobilises another $6 for rural development. In 2011 there was a review of the fund conducted by AusAID, which found that the fund had implemented significant reforms and that it was now considered by donors and developing countries to be an increasingly effective, results focused, value-for-money fund. The review recognised the fund's clear mandate to reduce rural poverty and hunger through working with smallholder farmers who are disproportionately represented amongst the poor, vulnerable and food insecure. Fund projects currently work with more than 36 million poor men and women, supporting them to become food secure through increasing productivity, access to markets including microfinance, and business development. Renewing our membership of the International Fund for Agricultural Development is clearly in Australia's national interest. It will allow Australia to expand existing support for food security and help the world's most vulnerable to fight hunger. The fund has also increased its focus on Australia's priority region, the Asia-Pacific, with some 31 per cent of fund allocations going there at the end of 2011, as opposed to seven per cent at the time of withdrawal in 2004. The fund's senior management values Australia's unique technical expertise in tropical and dryland farming, fisheries, biosecurity and quarantine. We are considered to have attractive policy and regulatory approaches in these areas. Membership will also allow Australia to draw on the fund's considerable experience to strengthen Australia's own approach to food security and rural development in our aid program. Australia's priorities for engaging with the International Fund for Agricultural Development are: improving food security, raising incomes and strengthening the resilience of smallholder producers in priority countries for Australia; continued commitment to reform to improve governance and management of the organisation, including strength and focus on results and value for money; and ensuring disability inclusiveness and gender equality across all of the fund's programs. Investment in the fund will not detract from existing support for food security programs. Financial contributions to the fund will be decided through the Australian government's annual budget process. The 2011 review of the fund conducted in-depth analysis of alternative additional food security funding mechanisms and found that rejoining the International Fund for Agricultural Development would be the best option for additional Australian support in this sector. Finally, membership of this fund will allow Australian firms and Australian individuals to be engaged with or employed in fund projects. Only citizens of member states can work on fund projects. With the increasing urgency of our global food security challenges and obligations, this bill to enable Australia to rejoin the International Fund for Agricultural Development will have considerable benefit for not only our national interests but also for the billions of people worldwide who remain acutely vulnerable to food shortages and whose lives would be immeasurably improved if they could achieve the basic human right to food security. I commend this bill to the House. The SPEAKER 83S The question is that this bill be now read a second time.

The House divided. [17:24]
(The Speaker—Ms Anna Burke)

71 AYES Adams, DGH Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Bradbury, DJ Brodtmann, G Burke, AS Butler, MC Byrne, AM Champion, ND Cheeseman, DL Clare, JD Collins, JM Crean, SF Danby, M D'Ath, YM Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Ferguson, LDT Ferguson, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Garrett, PR Georganas, S Gibbons, SW Gray, G Grierson, SJ Griffin, AP Hall, JG Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jenkins, HA Jones, SP Kelly, MJ King, CF Leigh, AK Livermore, KF Lyons, GR Macklin, JL Marles, RD McClelland, RB Melham, D Mitchell, RG (teller) Murphy, JP Neumann, SK Oakeshott, RJM O'Connor, BPJ O'Neill, DM Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD (teller) Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rowland, MA Roxon, NL Rudd, KM Saffin, JA Shorten, WR Sidebottom, PS Smith, SF Smyth, L Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Symon, MS Thomson, CR Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Wilkie, AD Windsor, AHC Zappia, A 70 NOES Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coulton, M (teller) Crook, AJ Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Forrest, JA Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gash, J Griggs, NL Haase, BW Hartsuyker, L Hawke, AG Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Jones, ET Katter, RC Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF Mirabella, S Morrison, SJ Moylan, JE Neville, PC O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Prentice, J Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Randall, DJ Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Ruddock, PM Schultz, AJ Scott, BC Secker, PD (teller) Simpkins, LXL Slipper, PN Smith, ADH Somlyay, AM Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX 3 PAIRS Combet, GI Hockey, JB Emerson, CA Washer, MJ Gillard, JE Abbott, A

Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Third Reading 4043 17:32 Mr KELVIN THOMSON UK6 Wills by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Parliamentary Service Amendment (Parliamentary Budget Officer) Bill 2013 4043

Parliamentary Service Amendment (Parliamentary Budget Officer) Bill 2013

Second Reading 4043 17:32 Mr TONY SMITH 00APG Casey On behalf of the shadow Treasurer, I rise to speak on the Parliamentary Service Amendment (Parliamentary Budget Officer) Bill 2013. The coalition is supporting this bill. This bill amends the Parliamentary Service Act 1999 to give the Parliamentary Budget Officer the function of preparing a report, including costings of the publicly announced policies of the designated parliamentary parties, within 30 days after a government forms following a general election. Let me begin with some history. The establishment of a parliamentary budget office was a coalition election commitment in the 2010 federal election. The establishment of a PBO was also a key element of the agreement between the government and the member for Lyne, the member for New England and the member for Denison, along with the Greens. On 23 March 2011, following the federal election, the government established a joint select committee inquiry into the proposed parliamentary budget officer, which subsequently recommended that the PBO be established. The coalition pushed ahead and introduced its own version of a parliamentary budget office on 22 August that year and the government immediately followed and introduced its own legislation. The government introduced its own bill into the parliament on 24 August 2011 and it is this bill which is now being amended. The PBO currently performs services across five functions. First, it prepares policy costings on request by parliamentarians outside of the caretaker period. Second, it prepares policy costings on request by authorised members of parliamentary parties or Independent members during the caretaker period. Third, it prepares responses other than policy costings to parliamentarian requests relating to the budget. Fourth, it prepares submissions to inquiries of parliamentary committees at the request of committees. Finally, it conducts research on and analysis of the budget and fiscal policy settings on its own initiative. The bill before the House seeks to make an amendment to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's functions by adding a sixth function. This function will be to audit election costings of all parties within 30 days after a government is formed. Specifically, the PBO will be required to prepare a report before the end of 30 days after the election for each parliamentary party on the costings of publicly announced policies and the impact the total combined cost of those policies would have on the Commonwealth budget. We have already indicated in public that we would support this amendment. The coalition has nothing to fear from a review of its election costings and, indeed, looks forward to receiving the PBO verification. What is strange is that, even though the coalition indicated its support for this legislation, the government are today moving another set of amendments—so the government are amending their own amendments. This is typical of the chaotic approach of the Labor government to the business of this House. They did not take the time with the original drafting but rushed a half-baked bill into the House in order to score political points. It did not work, and we said it, 'Bring it on,' but now they realise their bill is deficient and needs further work—another example of total ineptitude. It would be best to discuss the government's amendments together, both the original amendments and the new ones that are flagged to be introduced in the consideration in detail stage, as they flow together and make more sense as a whole unit. It would be best if the government withdrew its original amendments and introduced a new corrected set; however, that is not the way it is being done. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer indicates, he is determined to stick to their chaotic approach; so I will restrict my comments on the second reading to the original bill. The bill confers new information-gathering powers on the PBO. At present the PBO has no legislative powers to require information to be provided to it. All it has is the power to enter into a memorandum of understanding with Commonwealth bodies. These MOUs are just agreements and are non-enforceable. To date the PBO has said these MOUs are largely working well. The information powers within this bill will expand the PBO's functions to require heads of Commonwealth bodies to comply with requests in time to allow information to be taken into account in preparing relevant policy costings. This is unless it is not practicable and lawful, or if it would disclose confidential commercial information or prejudice national security. This requirement applies only during the caretaker period. The amendments also compel political parties to do certain things. Specifically parties must before 5 pm on the day before polling day in an election give the PBO a list in writing of the policies the party has publicly announced it intends to implement after the election. This compulsion is unusual. Up until now the PBO legislation has not mandated that any party should provide information to the PBO. It has been a voluntary arrangement struck under these agreements. Although these new provisions entail compulsion, we note that there are no penalties for noncompliance, so the provisions cannot be said to be onerous. There is no definition as to which person will be responsible for ensuring the parties' commitments are met, but presumably the ultimate responsibility lies with the leader of each parliamentary party. I note that the PBO is not required to take account of any comments provided by parliamentary parties. However, the post-election report must set out comments provided and note if no comments were provided. Finally, I note each parliamentary party will be provided with a copy of the PBO post-election report at least 48 hours before its public release. That would allow the parties the time to properly consider the report and, if necessary, prepare a response. That is appropriate. It will prevent parties being ambushed. Parties will be able to submit comments to the PBO on this report. The PBO may either include those comments in the report or revise the report to take account of the comments. These arrangements are an improvement on the post-election audit that the coalition was subjected to after the 2010 election. At the time there was no opportunity for discussion of assumptions or parameters with Treasury or finance. There was little opportunity to discuss the report before its release. Having the opportunity to provide comments is a big step forward. Receiving the report 48 hours prior to its release is also a significant improvement. Another new provision of this bill is that the PBO can request information for the purposes of preparing policy costings from an authorised member of the party or from any other person the PBO believes has been associated with the preparation of the policy costings. Anyone—a member of parliament, a member of their staff or third parties involved in the compilation of election policies—can be approached by the PBO for information. There is no compulsion. This provision is intended to provide the PBO with the capacity to obtain information to clarify a policy for costing. We would envisage that the information necessary for the costing of coalition policies would be provided by designated individuals, and that the PBO would not need to go to third parties. Nevertheless, the coalition will have no secrets and is supportive of full transparency in the provision of information. Finally, the bill before the House also allows for the Australian Taxation Office to provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with otherwise protected taxpayer information, so that he or she can properly perform or exercise his or her statutory functions or powers under the Parliamentary Service Act 1999. I note that the Parliamentary Budget Officer discussed the need for this legislative change in additional estimates held back in February. The coalition views this as a sensible initiative and is supportive of this change. In summary, the coalition welcomes these amendments to the operation of the Parliamentary Budget Office. They apply equally to all parties. They will ensure that all parties are honest in their policy commitments and that all policies are fully and accurately costed. The coalition will support these amendments. However, to understand and appreciate this bill requires consideration of the new amendments the government will introduce in the consideration in detail. I cannot help but make the point that it would have been highly preferable if the government had got its act together up-front and produced a full and well considered set of amendments for proper consideration and debate by this House. Amending your own amendments is not the proper way to run a legislative agenda. Nevertheless, as indicated, the coalition will support the passage of the bill. Now for the amendments. The government is moving substantive amendments, as I said, to its amendments to this PBO legislation. The scope of the policies on which the PBO is to prepare its post-election report is being broadened. The original amendment required this report to be prepared on 'publicly announced policies'. This is being changed to 'election commitments'. The definition of 'election commitments' is: A policy that a Parliamentary party has publicly announced it intends to seek to have implemented after the election. It sounds broadly the same, but there is a twist. In preparing its list of election policies, the PBO does not have to limit its analysis to policies that are provided by the party to the PBO. It can also include any public announcements made by the party before or during the caretaker period. The final list of policies to be costed is being left to 'the best professional judgement of the PBO'. This provision is designed to account for promises that are designed to win votes but are then not costed or presented in the official policy documents. The coalition will not do that. If we make a promise, it will be a commitment. It will be included in our policy documents and fully costed. The new amendments also introduce another element of compulsion on parliamentary parties, in that within three days of receiving a list of policies to be costed from the PBO the party must provide comments on that list to the PBO. The PBO is not required to take account of these comments. The coalition welcomes this additional requirement to comment. It means there will be full interaction with the PBO at every stage of the costing process. The coalition will submit its fully costed set of policies to the PBO. The coalition will comment on the list of policies sent back by the PBO before it prepares its final report. And the coalition will comment on the PBO's final report before publication. As indicated on behalf of the shadow Treasurer, the coalition will support these amendments. However, as the shadow Treasurer said in his second reading comments, it would have been preferable for the government to have gotten these amendments correct in the first place, rather than having to come back to the floor and amend its own amendments. This is a point I have reiterated again today. 17:44 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fraser Although this is a topic that I feel very strongly about, there is a large number of bills before the House so I will speak briefly today. The Parliamentary Budget Office was established on the recommendation of a joint select committee of parliament including support from all parties. The aim of the PBO is to ensure that elections are fought around values, so that there are two well-costed sets of policies which face the Australian people. The alternative to the Parliamentary Budget Office is what we saw in the 2010 election where the coalition avoided the Charter of Budget Honesty, a charter set up by Peter Costello, and then went to the election offering policies which instead had been so-called 'audited' by a private accounting firm. That accounting firm was later fined for professional misconduct because they had not conducted an audit. We had the farce of the member for North Sydney claiming that they had conducted only a small 'a' audit. Unfortunately, audit only has a small 'a'. The coalition were, needless to say, embarrassed by this, embarrassed by the $11 billion hole in their costings which Treasury exposed. We saw some deeply disappointing scenes in here when members of the opposition criticised former Treasury secretary Ken Henry for doing his job and simply scrutinising coalition costings. But what the Parliamentary Service Amendment (Parliamentary Budget Officer) Bill 2013 will do is now place the role of a post-election audit in the hands of the Parliamentary Budget Office. So even if a party does what the coalition did at the last election and fails to put forward policies under the Charter of Budget Honesty, the Parliamentary Budget Office will still go ahead after the election and assess their costings. It will use its best professional judgement and it will draw on data provided by agencies including the Australian Taxation Office. That is an important reassurance to the Australian people, that if a party attempts to circumvent the Charter of Budget Honesty they will be caught in the noose of the Parliamentary Budget Office's post-election audit. It is a guarantee to the Australian people that they should have costed policies put in front of them. But the Australian people are not yet seeing that from the opposition. The opposition have, on their own admission, a $70 billion gap. That is not my number. That is a number which was first put forward by the member for North Sydney on the Sunrise program on 12 August 2011, when he said: Therefore finding $50, 60 or 70 billion is about identifying waste and identifying areas where you do not need to proceed with programs. On Meet the Press the member for Goldstein said: We came out with the figure, right? That was on 4 September 2011, and on ABC's AM, on 12 August 2011, the member for Goldstein said, 'It's a case of simple arithmetic.' They did regret it a little later, with the member for North Sydney saying on 8 February 2012, 'Okay, I shouldn't have said any figure because it was part of a debate and now it has been taken as a statement of fact.' But the cat at that stage was well and truly out of the bag. We have that significant costings hole on the coalition side and the coalition now suggesting to the Australian people that they will do the mathematically impossible, that they will manage to cut taxes, raise spending and pay down debt faster than Labor. At the same time as promising the mathematically impossible, the coalition are repeatedly attempting to avoid scrutiny. They are saying to the Australian people that they will not produce their policies until PEFO, the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. Unfortunately, Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson directly rejected the allegation of the opposition that budget numbers cannot be a basis for costings. Treasury secretary Parkinson said, on 21 May 2013: I can say on behalf of David Tune, the secretary of the department of finance, and myself—and get this right—were PEFO to have been released on the 14th of May it would have contained the numbers that were in the budget. As Senator Wong has said, the numbers are the numbers. The figures in the budget are not figures which have a partisan hue to them. They are the figures that are the best estimates of Treasury as to the state of the nation's finances. Based on those figures, the Australian people are entitled to hear what the opposition would do in order to close that $50 billion, $60 billion or $70 billion hole. The member for North Sydney has said: I would have expected Martin Parkinson to say nothing different yesterday because he is—quite appropriately—a servant of the Government. That is a slur on a professional public servant who upholds the best of frank and fearless advice; not the kind of flaccid and fearful public servants that the coalition would like to see but a frank and fearless tradition. The member for North Sydney should withdraw the slur on the Secretary to the Treasury, which is in essence arguing that the Treasury secretary is a liar and a law-breaker. I commend the bill to the House. I commend the hard work of public servants, particularly Treasury officials, and their professionalism in discharging their duty. 17:50 Mr BUCHHOLZ 230531 Wright I join with my colleagues in supporting the Parliamentary Service Amendment (Parliamentary Budget Officer) Bill 2013. Like it has done on many occasions, the coalition has come into this House and supported legislation by this government. I think we support 87 per cent of the bills that come before this House, so it perplexes me somewhat how often I hear in the media of the negativity of the coalition, when the facts speak for themselves on how we have worked. The bill before us today speaks of the development of the PBO, the Parliamentary Budget Officer. This is a well-overdue—and agreed by the coalition—position helping to understand costings, because, by jingo, it can be difficult at that time of the year trying to forecast what revenues could look like. I am going to get to some absolute crackers of revenue forecasts and some expenditure that hopefully in future the PBO will be able to enlighten me about. One of the other things that the PBO will do is start us all from the same assumption points. Suppose I were to make an assumption in an expenditure over the forward estimates and I were to use an assumption from an economic perspective. Just say I was in the mining sector and I was going to use the long-term average of sales. The flow-on assumptions over the forward estimates, if I were to use a different set of assumptions—say over the short-term average—would be vastly different. There would be billions and billions of dollars difference over the forward estimates. One of the benefits that this bill gives us is being able to compare apples and oranges. There are actually five parts to this bill, and it introduces a sixth, which I will get to. It came about from the Joint Select Committee on the Parliamentary Budget Office, out of the parliamentary process, which subsequently recommended that the PBO be established. I touched on the assumptions. The PBO prepares costings on request by parliamentarians outside the caretaker period, and it prepares policy costings on request by authorised members of the parliamentary parties. It can prepare responses to parliamentarians' requests relating to the budget, and it prepares submissions to inquiries of parliamentary committees at the request of committees. It can conduct research and analysis on budget and fiscal policy settings of its own initiative. During the course of an election campaign, parties on both sides will make commitments to what they want to fund. Some of those will be funded internally. Just say you had a rogue person in your ranks who went out and promised something collectively in their electorate that was not part of the party's funding mechanism, the PBO would be able to bring that in in the evaluation process and say, 'Hey, you've got too many dollars being spent twice here'—and money being spent twice is often the case. The amendments to the bill include a period of 48 hours for rebuttal, where you can go back to the PBO about the post-election report, which I will speak on at length. That is a welcome addition, because in the past it seemed like the PBO was just too quick to get to a camera to highlight inefficiencies, as opposed to doing the job that it is supposed to do. One of the outcomes I think we are trying to achieve here is to see who gets the 'pants on fire' award when it comes to budget costings! An unknown member interjecting— Mr BUCHHOLZ 230531 You know about that one! The PBO will be required to prepare a report before the end of 30 days after the election for each parliamentary party on the costings of publicly announced policies and the impact the total combined costs of those policies would have on the Commonwealth budget. So you will put your costings in and 30 days later you will have the outcome of the PBO's decisions. There do not seem to be any real consequences for or negative impact on a party if they do it wrong, because—guess what—the election will already be over. That is probably an area that we could look at bringing forward to give people a little bit more information. With regard to the amendments, this bill keeps on morphing. It morphs. There seem to be a million amendments to the government's original amendments to the legislation. The coalition indicated its support for the legislation before us today. Up to now, the PBO legislation has not mandated that any of the parties provide information to the PBO; it has been a voluntary arrangement struck under agreements. Although these new provisions entail compulsion, there are no penalties, as I said. This amendment bill really focuses on honesty and the Charter of Budget Honesty. The PBO is not required to take account of any comments provided by parliamentary parties. However, the post-election report must set out comments provided and note if no comments were provided. That is just a summary of what I said before. These arrangements are an improvement on the post-election 'audit' that the coalition was subjected to after the 2010 election. As a result, we do welcome the bill. The PBO is something that we can work with. We support it in its entirety. We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of this. We trust that the intent of the bill is sound, and therefore it has our support, along with the many other bills that come before this House that have our support. 17:58 Mr RIPOLL 83E Oxley Firstly, I would like to thank very much all those members who have contributed to this debate. It is pleasing that there has been so much interest in this Parliamentary Service Amendment (Parliamentary Budget Officer) Bill. Fiscal transparency from all political parties is an essential component of Australia's budgetary framework, and the public must be able to see what political parties stand for and what their policies cost. Political parties need to be accountable for their promises and should not be able to make a series of uncosted assurances that never get subjected to rigorous independent scrutiny. Such scrutiny is exactly what this bill will achieve. The PBO's post-election report will become an important and enduring reference document for the costs of political party promises. If parties try to evade the official costing options available to them during elections, it will all come home to roost in the post-election report. I again thank all members who contributed to this debate and I acknowledge that the opposition will be supporting this bill and these amendments. The bill positions the PBO as a non-partisan and objective assessor of the fiscal responsibility of political parties at election time. It is an important role, not a role given lightly, and it is a measure of the confidence and trust that the PBO has established with the parliament in a relatively short time. Ultimately, it is up to the public to decide the government it wants and the policies it prefers; but, to make those important choices, the public needs good information. With the establishment of the PBO last year, parties were given another option to have their election commitments costed outside of using Treasury and Finance. So there are no excuses for any party to get to the election without a fully costed and transparent policy platform. However, regrettably not all parties may want to embrace fiscal transparency during an election campaign and could seek to avoid scrutiny. The PBO's post-election report will expose those parties and impose discipline on the promises made in the lead-up to elections. I will shortly be moving amendments to shore up these processes, to protect against political avoidance of this exposure. The post-election report will ensure that our public debate is informed by properly costed and properly funded policies and that our focus is on the policies that will make Australia stronger, smarter and fairer. A better informed public is a better democracy. I commend this bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Consideration in Detail 4050 18:01 Mr RIPOLL 83E Oxley I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and I ask leave of the House to move government amendments (1) to (13), as circulated, together. Leave granted. Mr RIPOLL 83E I move government amendments (1) to (13), as circulated, together: (1) Schedule 1, page 3 (after line 16), after item 2, insert: 2A Section 7 Insert: election commitment, in relation to a general election, means a policy that a Parliamentary party has publicly announced it intends to seek to have implemented after the election. (2) Schedule 1, item 5, page 3 (lines 27 and 28), omit "publicly announced policies", substitute "election commitments". (3) Schedule 1, item 10, page 5 (line 33), after "setting out", insert ", for each designated Parliamentary party". (4) Schedule 1, item 10, page 6 (lines 1 to 10), omit paragraphs 64MA(1)(a) and (b), substitute: (a) costings of all the election commitments of that party that the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in his or her best professional judgement, reasonably believes would have a material impact on the Commonwealth budget sector and Commonwealth general government sector fiscal estimates for the current financial year and the following 3 financial years; and (b) the total combined impact those election commitments would have on the Commonwealth budget sector and Commonwealth general government sector fiscal estimates for the current financial year and the following 3 financial years. (5) Schedule 1, item 10, page 6 (lines 11 to 13), omit note 1, substitute: Note 1: The post‑election report must be prepared in accordance with section 64MAA. (6) Schedule 1, item 10, page 6 (after line 39), after subsection 64MA(4), insert: (5) Within 3 days after the end of the caretaker period for the election, the Parliamentary Budget Officer must prepare, for each designated Parliamentary party, a list in writing of all the election commitments of that party that the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in his or her best professional judgement, reasonably believes would have a material impact on the Commonwealth budget sector and Commonwealth general government sector fiscal estimates for the current financial year and the following 3 financial years. (6) In preparing the list of election commitments of a designated Parliamentary party under subsection (5), the Parliamentary Budget Officer must have regard to: (a) any list of policies given to the Parliamentary Budget Officer by the party under subsection (3); and (b) any public announcements made by the party before or during the caretaker period for the election. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is not required to include any of those policies or public announcements in the list of election commitments prepared by the Parliamentary Budget Officer under subsection (5). (7) As soon as practicable after preparing the list of election commitments of a designated Parliamentary party under subsection (5), but not later than 3 days after the end of the caretaker period for the election, the Parliamentary Budget Officer must: (a) give the list to the party; and (b) if the party has given the Parliamentary Budget Officer a list of policies under subsection (3) and the Parliamentary Budget Officer's list of election commitments is different from the party's list of policies—give the party a statement explaining the reasons for the difference. (8) Within 3 days after a designated Parliamentary party receives the list of election commitments under subsection (7), the party must give the Parliamentary Budget Officer comments on the list. (7) Schedule 1, item 10, page 7 (lines 1 to 16), omit subsections 64MA(5) and (6), substitute: 64MAA Requirements for post ‑election report of election commitments (1) The Parliamentary Budget Officer must comply with this section in preparing the post‑election report for a general election required by subsection 64MA(1). (2) The Parliamentary Budget Officer may, but is not required to, take account of any comments given to the Parliamentary Budget Officer under subsection 64MA(8). (3) The post‑election report must: (a) set out any comments given to the Parliamentary Budget Officer by a designated Parliamentary party under subsection 64MA(8); and (b) if a designated Parliamentary party did not give the Parliamentary Budget Officer any comments under that subsection—include a statement to that effect. (4) The post‑election report: (a) must not include costings of election commitments other than: (i) those in the list prepared by the Parliamentary Budget Officer under subsection 64MA(5); and (ii) those referred to in any comments given to the Parliamentary Budget Officer under subsection 64MA(8); and (b) in relation to each election commitment for which a costing is included in the report: (i) must include an explanation of the reason the Parliamentary Budget Officer decided that the commitment was an election commitment (as defined in section 7) and that a costing of the election commitment should be included in the report; and (ii) must state the source (or sources) of information from which the Parliamentary Budget Officer identified the election commitment. (5) The post‑election report does not have to include information that the Parliamentary Budget Officer considers should not be included because: (a) it is confidential commercial information; or (b) its disclosure in the report could prejudice national security. Note: The post‑election report must not include any information given to the Parliamentary Budget Officer by the Head of a Commonwealth body under subsection 64MB(4), if the Head requested that the information be kept confidential under subsection 64MB(5) (see subsection 64V(4A)). (6) If the Parliamentary Budget Officer does not have sufficient information, or has not had sufficient time, to assess the cost of any election commitment, the Parliamentary Budget Officer may reflect this in the post‑election report. (8) Schedule 1, item 10, page 7 (lines 19 to 29), omit subsection 64MB(1), substitute: (1) If the Parliamentary Budget Officer needs more information about an election commitment of a designated Parliamentary party for the purpose of preparing the post‑election report required by subsection 64MA(1), the Parliamentary Budget Officer may ask any of the following for that information: (a) an authorised member of the Parliamentary party that made the election commitment; (b) any other person who the Parliamentary Budget Officer believes, on reasonable grounds, has been associated with the calculation, review or announcement of the financial implications of the election commitment. (9) Schedule 1, item 10, page 8 (lines 25 and 26), omit paragraph 64MB(7)(b), substitute: (b) the policy is an election commitment that is to be included in the post‑election report; (10) Schedule 1, item 10, page 9 (lines 4 and 5), omit "a post‑election report under section 64MA", substitute "the post‑election report required by subsection 64MA(1)". (11) Schedule 1, item 10, page 9 (lines 8 to 14), omit subsection 64MC(2), substitute: (2) At least 48 hours before publicly releasing the post‑election report under subsection (1), the Parliamentary Budget Officer must give each designated Parliamentary party a copy of the part of the report setting out the costings of that party's election commitments and the information required under paragraph 64MA(1)(b) in relation to those election commitments. (12) Schedule 2, page 11 (after line 2), after the heading to Schedule 2, insert: Parliamentary Service Act 1999 1A Paragraph 65A(2)(c) Omit "writing; and", substitute "writing.". 1B Paragraph 65A(2)(d) Repeal the paragraph. (13) Schedule 2, item 1, page 11 (table item 9), omit the table item, substitute: The bill we introduced on 14 March 2013 included a statutory obligation for political parties to provide a list of their election commitments to the PBO. Those lists were to form the basis of the election commitments that the PBO would cost in its post-election report. The reason for this approach was simple: political parties should be accountable and responsible for telling the public and the Parliamentary Budget Office what their election commitments are. We believed that requiring political parties to provide their list of election commitments to the PBO would be sufficient, that that would be enough to achieve what we all agree in this place should be the proper process. However, more work needs to be done here—and that is why we are moving these amendments—as political parties may choose to play games or obfuscate their responsibilities with the PBO's post-election report. This could mean that they do not provide the PBO with their list of election commitments at all or provide incomplete, ambiguous or even downright misleading information. This would be inexcusable. It would not be in keeping with the law and it would go completely against what the government is trying to achieve with these reforms. So we are moving amendments to make sure that the parties now and into the future cannot mess around with the PBO's post-election report. The amendments I have moved will strengthen the approach outlined in the bill to determine the list of election commitments to be included in the post-election report. These amendments still rely on the fundamental premise that parties have to comply with their statutory obligations to provide a list of their election commitments to the PBO before polling day. However, they also mean that parties will be completely caught out if they only tell the PBO half the story, half-truths or nothing at all. The amendments I have moved will mean that the PBO will be the ultimate arbiter of what election commitments are to be included in the post-election report. The PBO will prepare lists of election commitments the PBO then reasonably believes will have a material impact on the budget. The PBO's list will be based on the lists the parties gave to the PBO and the public announcements of the parties before and during the caretaker period. So the PBO will run the ruler over the lists that the parties gave them and reconcile them with the election commitments the parties have announced. There may well be differences between the lists of election commitments parties give to the PBO and what the PBO consider those parties' election commitments are. As I mentioned before, this could be due to the fact that the lists do not fully reflect what parties said publicly. Where there are differences, the PBO will provide reasons if they diverge from the lists that the parties gave to them. Where a party chooses not to provide a list at all, the PBO will put together their own comprehensive list using their best professional judgement. Of course, parties will have the chance to comment on the PBO's list, and the PBO may take the parties' comments into account. Further, to be abundantly transparent, the PBO will be required to justify why each specific election commitment has been included in the post-election report. Whilst we have preferred to rely on parties complying with their statutory obligations, we are now going further to ensure that the post-election report will expose anyone trying to evade budget scrutiny. The bill as introduced would allow the Australian Taxation Office to provide confidential taxpayer information to the PBO for the purpose of the PBO performing its statutory functions. However, the PBO does not require access to specific identifying information about taxpayers in order to carry out its statutory functions effectively. Like the Treasury, it needs only de-identified information to carry out its policy-costing work. For that reason, I am moving an amendment to provide that only information that does not include the name, contact details or ABN of any entity may be provided by the ATO to the PBO under this provision. Finally, the government is moving an amendment on behalf of the Presiding Officers. The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives have asked that I move an amendment to the Parliamentary Service Act 1999 to remove the requirement that the Parliamentary Budget Officer be a member of the Security Management Board. The President and the Speaker note that the PBO, unlike the other parliamentary departments, has no role in the management of security for the parliamentary precincts. I am advised that the Parliamentary Budget Officer himself agrees with this amendment, and I commend these amendments to the House. Question agreed to. Bill, as amended, agreed to. Third Reading 4054 18:06 Mr RIPOLL 83E Oxley by leave—I move: That this bill be read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Australian Jobs Bill 2013 4054

Australian Jobs Bill 2013

Second Reading 4054 18:07 Mrs MIRABELLA 00AMU Indi I rise to speak on the so-called Australian Jobs Bill 2013. In doing so I wish to express my frustration with not only the content of the bill but the government's lack of accountability in explaining and justifying the reasons for its introduction and its apparent determination to yet again push through legislation that will increase regulatory and compliance costs for Australian businesses. Given that it has misled the Australian people hundreds and hundreds of times, it is difficult to take almost anything that this government says at face value. But it is even harder to find reason to support one of its bills when there is so little clarification around even the very basic details in the legislation—the precise reasons for the change and exactly how those changes will be financed. Prior to February this year, I cannot recall in my time as a shadow minister ever having been refused a briefing by the government. In February was when my office asked Minister Combet's office if I could receive a briefing from the government following the release of the so-called Industry Innovation Statement—otherwise described as a 'jobs plan', another Orwellian phrase—of which these changes form a part. That request was pointedly refused. One of a number of reasons why I sought that briefing was to try and obtain more detail about the changes to which this bill potentially would give effect. Such conduct points not only to a disturbing lack of accountability on the part of the minister but also to a complete arrogant disregard for accepted protocol, good governance and accountability—especially when a staff member in the minister's office tells a staff member in mine that the basic reason for the refusal is that I apparently had the temerity, the gall, the nerve, to make some public criticisms of a number of elements of the government's policies in this area. 'How dare I criticise the government or question its policies' was effectively what was being said at a time when former members of the frontbench of this government had not only disputed and questioned policies that their own government and party had pursued but also condemned this opposition, whose job it is to question, to query, to sift through new policy and funding announcements with a fine-tooth comb. All we were told was, 'No, you can't do that. How dare you criticise us!' No wonder the business community are sick to death of the veiled and sometimes overt bullying that they get from this government when they dare to do what any good corporate citizen should do and contribute to public debate. If they dare disagree with this government, watch out! This attitude has unfortunately become its trademark as a government. Remember what was once said by them, that they wanted to let the sunshine in—from a government that proclaimed it was supposedly going to be the most open, transparent and accountable in Australian history. I suppose the kindest reflection you could make is that they have become very transparent in their actions and their motives, but regrettably far from the way that they originally meant. Not the least of the problems with this bill is how its changes are being financed. The government has said that it is funding its various changes in the industry statement, some of which are subject to this bill, by making another deep cut to the R&D tax incentives system. It said comically that its last round of changes was revenue neutral. Now it asserts that the cut this time amounts to around $1 billion. Not only is there absolutely no evidence anywhere on the public record that verifies that that figure can be correct, but it represents quite a difference from the figures that were calculated by the government's own Business Tax Working Group when it was modelling the same numbers last year. It is also at odds with the nature of those previous changes the government made to the R&D tax breaks system from 2011. That set of changes was specifically designed to reduce the claims on the system by the largest investors in innovative R&D activity in Australia and pointers to the fact can be found numerous times in Labor's legislation and its own words, not to mention in the words of the Greens as well, albeit that those words of the Greens proved that they have plainly never had a clue about the sort of damage they were agreeing to inflict on the system when they foolishly passed Labor's 2011 changes. So it would be very instructive to know, from the minister and from others on the Labor benches during this debate, on what basis the $1 billion has been calculated. One would have to assume that figures for the old R&D tax concession have been used to underpin that calculation, in which case the savings would almost certainly have been overestimated. I would also add that the government first cited the $1 billion in February, long before most claimants had calculated all of their R&D spending for the first year of the new system and at which time the government still could not have been anywhere near sure of the full impact their changes have inflicted on large R&D spending businesses. In other words, there is absolutely no reason to be anything other than deeply suspicious and cynical about the claim that the savings they are supposedly making by decimating R&D incentives, for the second time in this government's history, have been accurately calculated. If I am wrong about this then the next Labor speaker in this debate should immediately point out why and how and give financial details to back up their argument. The government has also publicly tried to create the pretext that its industry statement somehow represents an injection of $1 billion in new funding in the Industry portfolio. But anyone who takes anything more than a cursory look at their summary figures knows that cannot be true. Instead it seems to incorporate around $600 million worth of cuts. Of course, all of that is bad enough in itself, but that is even before we get to the specifics of the Australian Jobs Bill itself. To put it very simply, the coalition's view has always been that there are a number of obvious benefits to the nation in encouraging greater use of local firms' capabilities in major public and private sector projects. That obviously stands on its own merits as a beneficial thing for our economy, and that is, after all, why the Howard government was the architect of the Australian Industry Participation scheme in 2001. We have always been very open to the idea of making or helping make incremental changes to the system that are likely to increase and improve its effectiveness. I have also long said publicly that I am not at all averse to the idea of making changes to EPBS arrangements either, as long as they are constructive and will genuinely benefit Australian industry. If there are widespread demonstrable benefits that will be created by changing the arrangements around things like the capital expenditure threshold at which the production of Australian Industry Participation Plans becomes necessary, or even the trigger dates, then we are not inclined to object to those things out of hand at all. But the bill that is now before us honours none of those goals. Unfortunately, if it is passed, it will diminish rather than improve the operation of the system, not least because there is not a clearly defined need for the establishment of yet another bureaucracy to administer the AIP system. After more than 21,000 new regulations under Labor, surely the government are not serious about setting up this agency, which they are calling the Australian Industry Participation Authority, to create even stricter rules, more extensive compliance requirements and stiffer penalties. Do we really seriously need another bureaucracy to do the job that the existing bureaucracy should be quite capable of administering in the first place, let alone in an area of policy like this one, where the best results are generally going to be achieved through more sensible encouragement rather than coercion? There is also more confusion and ambiguity than there is practicality in the approach to the concept of the trigger date. Not only is it problematic in itself that there are a plethora of definitions in the bill of what a trigger date can be, but that in turn leads to further questions as to whether it will be conceivable that a meaningful procurement plan can genuinely be drafted in a number of these situations. The problem is exacerbated even further, as the Business Council of Australia notes, because of the requirement in the bill that project proponents must provide a draft AIPP to the authority 90 days before even the earliest of all the possible trigger dates on the list. Undoubtedly, another consequence of passing this bill would be a substantial upsurge in the number of AIPPs that need to be generated. It stands to reason that, if you widen the range of projects to which the system applies and increase the number of businesses which need to participate in the system, particularly by lowering the capital expenditure threshold, then reporting and compliance requirements are inevitably going to rise significantly. In the course of drafting and promoting the industry statement, the government has also, sadly, found little time to acknowledge the reality that most firms in the resources sector are genuinely keen to partner with smaller local firms. It is not a matter of bringing out a big stick that represents the answer here; it is finding practical ways of capitalising upon the reality that most local resource companies genuinely would welcome closer interaction with Australian suppliers. And of course it is completely unacceptable that any government should think it appropriate to legislate, as this bill does, to seek to embed public servants into private companies' workforces in order to wield influence over their purchasing decisions. This is anathema to a modern industrialised economy. Time will probably not permit me to focus on a number of other potential problems with the bill or indeed the industry statement more generally, so let me defer instead to some comments made by a number of stakeholders in order to present a more general encapsulation of the impact that this bill would have if it were passed. The Queensland Resources Council said: We … strongly disagree with the mechanisms proposed in the policy … We would urge government to pursue a far less costly, and more effective way of achieving these policy objectives. They also said: … this type of intervention is unnecessary, and indeed deeply patronising to the sector— that is, the resources sector. The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said that, without significant further attention to a range of issues, the government's approach 'will not have any significant impact on increased local content outcomes' and: …compliance costs will increase, again, … without commensurate additional benefit to Australian industry. The Australian Mines and Metals Association said that the government's proposal 'does not contain rigorous cost benefit analysis' and: It does not provide adequate justification for the increase in costs. It also said that the bill would 'comprise a heavy-handed and undue intervention by government', would not address concerns with 'reduced labour productivity and increased cost' and 'may exacerbate them'. The Business Council of Australia said: The Bill does not pass the test of good legislation—the problem is poorly defined, the costs and risks of the Bill are understated and the costs and benefits of sensible, alternative policy options have not been properly assessed. It added: The government should seriously rethink this Bill and instead pursue alternative policies that can help grow the participation of local suppliers in major projects without adding to the regulatory burden on business. CCI of Western Australia said: … the Bill should not proceed in its current form. The Government has not presented a persuasive case for a legislated instrument on local industry participation. Instead, the Federal Government should acknowledge that there are already a number of policies in place to address local industry participation, that local content penetration in major projects is significant, and looks to ways of coordinating these efforts more effectively as a means of promoting full, fair and reasonable opportunity for local suppliers. As an excellent encapsulation of the excessive regulatory impact the bill will have, Xstrata Coal said: … the proposed … bill … only adds to the regulatory red-tape and cost of projects which are becoming increasingly marginal as a result of Australia’s high cost structure, regulatory burden, tax regime and currency exchange rate. The reality is that the government's industry statement is a misnomer. The government has done almost nothing of substance for Australian industry in its time in office, and that remains the case now. It does not have a jobs plan, as it came keeps claiming. In fact, it would be far more accurate to dub it a retrenchment plan. Over 5½ years, the government has never taken any action to seriously help arrest the mass decline in manufacturing jobs in Australia. It only ever seems to succeed in accelerating it. It has presided over the worst rate of manufacturing job losses in Australia's history, with more than 140,000 gone in net terms and one disappearing, on average, every 19 minutes—which contrasts very, very sharply with the record of the Howard government, when we had well over one million manufacturing jobs and losses of only between 6,000 and 7,000 over that whole period of 11½ years. So, whenever this government talks about manufacturing and wanting Australia to be the country that makes things, it is all a farce, it is all a con, it is all a try-on—just as some of the members on the other side have realised. A job they thought they would have for life in a so-called safe seat is now under threat because this government has trashed the Labor brand and has betrayed the manufacturing workers it has continually said it supports. And what do we find? We find backbenchers on the other side saying anything— Mr Champion interjecting— Mrs MIRABELLA 00AMU they think will carry them through the next election— Mr Champion HW9 I said that in 2010. You have a very short memory. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 83D Order! The member for Wakefield should familiarise himself with standing order 65(b). Mrs MIRABELLA 00AMU And I can understand why some members on the other side are very sensitive—but, colleague, you should have acted earlier with the Labor caucus to ensure that this government did not inflict the single greatest act of self-harm on the Australian economy, particularly on manufacturing, with the world's biggest carbon tax. Mr Champion HW9 I'm not sensitive. What nonsense! The dollar. It's the dollar. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 83D Order! The member for Wakefield should familiarise himself with standing order 65(b). The member for Indi has the call. Mrs MIRABELLA 00AMU Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Give the member for Wakefield some leniency in this matter. I can understand he is under extraordinary stress. Why wouldn't you be when you think you have got a seat for life and then your Prime Minister trashes the Labor brand and you see thousands of manufacturing jobs disappear around the country and in your own state? Of course you would be beside yourself. Of course you would sit there interjecting when someone tries to point out the facts of what has happened under this government. When this government leaves office, it will leave behind an atrocious situation in the sector for its successor to have to try and fix. Sadly, this government has no vision and no clear or sensible priorities. All it has is an insatiable desire to spend and to delay the difficult decisions. It has an incapacity to make the hard decisions. In fact, the only thing it truly knows how to do in the industry and innovation portfolio is to mislead, spin, increase bureaucracy and suffocate Australian businesses with ever more insidious regulatory requirements and costs and the world's biggest carbon tax. This government has a tin ear. Australian businesses, Australian manufacturers, deserve so much more. To that end, the coalition is disappointed but not surprised that the government is introducing this bill and again ignoring common sense and sound and sensible advice from the business community in the process. The government is very good at cute and clever Orwellian language, but the Australian people have heard enough and they have seen through the veneer of this government. There is nothing there but spin. There is nothing there but sheer desperation to survive. This Prime Minister has sold out working people to appease the Greens. Her judgement was so poor that she thought she needed to sell out working people and Australian families—sell out working people who work in manufacturing, sell out Australian families by increasing their cost of living with a carbon tax—because she thought that was what she needed to do to get the Greens' support. I do not know which will go down in history as the worse political judgement—her decision to betray the Australian people with the carbon tax or her decision to announce an election date so early that it has put a hold on businesses for the months until 14 September. This is a bad bill. This is bad for jobs. This is bad for Australian competitiveness. We will not be supporting this bill. 18:27 Mr CHEESEMAN HW7 Corangamite It is my pleasure tonight to rise to speak on the Australian Jobs Bill 2013. This bill will help support and create Australian jobs in manufacturing for the next decade plus. We all know that manufacturing has been doing it particularly tough, principally because of the high Australian dollar and the difficult trading and retail conditions that have come in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. But we do have hope in the manufacturing sector, and this bill is a significant part of that. There are very significant projects happening right now in Australia, principally in the mining states. The Australian Jobs Bill will require that major projects submit a specific plan that will ensure Australian businesses have full, fair and reasonable access to bid for jobs and opportunities. I think that is the Australian way. The bill will require all major projects that have capital expenditure of $500 million or more to develop an Australian industry participation plan. The Australian industry participation plan will be prepared at an early stage of a project's approval, to enable Australian industry to participate in the design and, importantly, the development of the project. This will increase the chances of Australian companies in securing work opportunities that come from those projects, and it will enable Australian industry to participate in and to influence the tender specifications of these very large projects. I think, and the government believes, that it is important to enable Australian industry to participate in these large projects. The whole process will be managed by the Australian Industry Participation Authority. The authority will evaluate and approve Australian Industry Participation Plans and publish those plans in summary to enable those companies to have full access. The authority will also take responsibility for delivering and supporting arrangements to help Australian businesses to develop the capabilities and the connections that they need to take advantage of and capture those opportunities within those very large projects which are not exclusively but principally within the mining sector. The authority will have the opportunity to coordinate in these important areas and will also take a significant role in the Buy Australian at Home and Abroad initiative, with relevant expertise and assistance provided by AusIndustry and, importantly, Enterprise Connect. The authority will be a one-stop shop for Australian firms seeking to build their capabilities so that they can link into these new business opportunities. For projects of $2 billion or more they will have an embedded Australian industry opportunity officer in those projects to enable procurement teams to help promote Australian firms into the global supply chain. The bill will also give workers in the manufacturing industry hope. These very large projects will enable Australian industry to directly participate, and pre-existing arrangements and employment with those Australian companies will provide those workers that opportunity to work directly in partnership in accessing these particular projects. It is estimated that these changes that the Labor government is pursuing will create up to $6.4 billion worth of economic activity for firms in this nation. I come from the very proud manufacturing town Geelong, and this will provide opportunities for Geelong fabricators and Geelong industry to participate in these very large, globally significant projects. Further to these reforms Labor will also introduce much stronger rules with respect to dumping. Dumping of products can undercut local manufacturers and in some cases deny them the opportunity to be able to compete in the type of manufacturing they do. A new antidumping commission is being created to investigate complaints of dumping which is injuring local industry and costing local jobs right throughout the nation. We will invest $24.4 million to increase our investigative capability with respect to this, almost doubling the number of investigators available to stop the insidious activity of dumping in Australia. Having more investigators out there will send a very strong message to foreign firms that any dumping will be cracked down upon immediately. It also sends the message to investors in the industry that Customs will investigate their concerns immediately and be empowered to take action to stop dumping behaviour. As part of the Australian jobs announcement Labor will also commit to establishing 10 industry innovation precincts. This will be a significant additional investment in manufacturing. In my community in the Geelong region we have incredible research capacity. We have a very strong university in Deakin University, which has been at the forefront of linking our major employers within the Australian economy, particularly those in the manufacturing sector, to expertise from universities. These 10 industry innovation precincts, which will be located around Australia, will add significantly to the partnership led by industry and universities. Deakin University is working, as we speak, with a consortium and will be making an application to the Commonwealth in due course. I have spoken at length with senior people at Deakin University, and I look forward to doing my piece as a local member, along with the member for Corio, to advocate that one of these potential innovation precincts be located within our region. I think we have a very strong case to make. We have the expertise in the region at play and of course Geelong is a passionate and proud manufacturing community. We will certainly do everything we can to take full advantage of these innovation precincts to enable us to harness the best and the brightest minds, from academia, universities, CSIRO and, importantly, partner them with, and led by, the private sector. This will ensure that we can use the full grunt that comes from Australian universities to innovate our manufacturing sector and to develop new opportunities for Australian companies to develop product that is ready for the marketplace, that is innovative and that is high-tech. That is certainly the path that we as a Commonwealth government wish to go down and it is certainly a path we have gone down in the Geelong community. There is no doubt that this bill provides a very strong way forward. Last week we had some terrible news: the decision of Ford to cease production of Ford motor cars from October 2016. Geelong has had a long, strong and proud association with the Ford Motor Company that goes back to about 1925. Our region is a strong region. We are proud manufacturers, but we know that as community leaders we have a lot of work to do in Geelong to build new opportunities for people. I believe that the Australian Industry Participation plan, which stems from the Australian Jobs Bill, is the way forward and will provide us those opportunities into the future. We also need to carefully note some of the policy positions that the coalition have adopted, particularly with respect to manufacturing. We know that, if they are elected to government in September, they will immediately rip $500 million out of the New Car Plan. They have further plans to rip a $1.5 billion out of the New Car Plan but they are not, at this stage, admitting to that upfront. The reality is that, if the coalition are elected, the car industry will have no choice but to leave Australia, creating a crisis for some 200,000 workers in the auto sector across this nation. We are certainly making very plain to the Australian community the stark choices, particularly with respect to the auto sector, that people will have come September this year. As I have indicated, Geelong had some very confronting news last week with respect to the Ford decision. But we have a plan to help support the Geelong community and the workers at Ford and, indeed, those workers at Broadmeadows. We have a funded plan to help support the supply chain which of course has companies scattered right throughout Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales. It is Labor that supports manufacturing, it is Labor that supports manufacturing communities and it is Labor that will stand up for manufacturing workers across this nation, whereas Tony Abbott, if he is elected as Prime Minister, will not stand up for those workers and those communities. In fact, he will put some very significant cuts in place that will have severe consequences for the manufacturing capabilities of this nation. In conclusion, I certainly recognise the importance of this particular bill, the Australian Jobs Bill, and I commend the passing of this legislation to parliament, to enable us to move forward as a nation and to help strengthen manufacturing opportunities in this country not only for those companies but also in recognition that Australian industry works in partnership with its workers and unions. This legislation will provide every opportunity for our industry to move forward with a strong, comprehensive plan around supporting Australian jobs. I commend these measures to the House. 18:42 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell The member for Corangamite is precisely wrong in his interpretation of what we will do if we are elected in relation to this bill, the Australian Jobs Bill 2013, and manufacturing in Australia. We have indicated that we will immediately repeal the carbon tax. I note that the member for Corangamite will be very concerned about the impact of the carbon tax on Australian business. You certainly do not help Australian workers and Australian jobs by passing a bill called the Australian Jobs Bill, although we know that this government has some sort of fetish for Orwellian titles of its bills. It thinks that by calling it the Australian Jobs Bill that, somehow, this will create jobs in Australia. The coalition of course rejects such a proposal. In fact, when you look through this legislation it really gives you the sense that we are having a bill for a bill's sake—and certainly we have Bill at the table at the moment, so maybe we are having a bill for a Bill's sake. But we have grave concerns about this bill, which proposes meaningless changes to the Australian Industry Participation plan. Mr Shorten 00ATG Deputy Speaker Cheeseman, I rise on a point of order. I would ask that the member for—I don't know—parental leave to, at least, refer to me by my correct title. The DEPUTY SPEAKER HW7 I do remind the parliament that it is appropriate that all parliamentarians refer to one another by their titles. Mr HAWKE HWO Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I want to thank the minister. Perhaps, Mr Deputy Speaker, you could draw his attention to the same standing order in the light of the fact he did not refer to me by my title. The DEPUTY SPEAKER HW7 Indeed. Mr HAWKE HWO That was brilliantly done, again, Minister. I would be the member for Mitchell and you would be the minister. That would be the correct way to handle that point of order. Moving on to the substance of what we are here to deal with today, the Australian Industry Participation system, which the government is proposing to amend and also to make some revisions to the system implemented by the Howard government. The coalition have no problem with the Australian Industry Participation scheme but the government is yet to convince or provide any set of compelling arguments—we certainly did not hear compelling arguments from the member for Corangamite—about why this bill should be revised. In fact, there is no part of industry in Australia today or any of the sectors that we have consulted with that is calling for a new, heavy-handed regulator to help them create jobs. So while the objective of an Australian Industry Participation scheme is to assist in the local sourcing of products, there is nobody saying to government and there is nobody saying to the opposition, 'What we need to buy more Australian products and employ more people in Australia is a new regulator, a regulator with new powers, a heavy-handed regulator.' Yet in this bill we see the proposal for the establishment of an IPA because a new bureaucracy, according to the government, will help us source more products locally. That seems to be their thinking in relation to a lot of things: a new regulator, a new committee, a new government approach will somehow produce a better benefit for the sector. Given the fact that this scheme has been in operation since 2001, if there was a body of argument that said we need a new regulator, it would be well-established in public argument and public policy. That argument has not been made and we have not heard any arguments in relation to this bill discussion today. I think it is objectionable that this proposal of the government should seek to embed public servants into private companies' workforces to shape and perhaps even dictate their purchasing decisions. We heard from the member for Corangamite that perhaps they could help with procurement. I do not believe that government employees or government appointed people into this scheme will help with private sector procurement. The coalition takes a different approach, that it is an anathema to the operation of a vibrant private sector to have such people embedded into companies by government, especially for the success of a modern economy. When you look around at different reactions in the Senate inquiry and certainly to the exposure draft that was released, and it does not matter where you look, you can see the in comments on the draft legislation from Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, who say: APPEA considers that the proposed legislative approach is unlikely to significantly increase opportunities beyond those created by the extensive efforts already employed by the oil and gas industry to provide full, fair and reasonable opportunity to local suppliers. We have many other comments from many industries—the big miners, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata, civil contractors, the South Australian Chambers of Mines and Energy, the Queensland Resources Council, the Minerals Council of Australia, New South Wales Minerals Council, the Department of Commerce Western Australia and the Industry Capability Network—all of whom are not expressing any support for such new proposals from government, in fact highlighting that there is a lack of clarity in the legislation around the items such as the proposed trigger date at which the production of an Australian industry participation project becomes mandatory. That is a legitimate concern. Again, we are adding to this idea of sovereign risk in Australia with these sorts of bills that float around proposing to do something for Australian industry but again adding to the red tape and regulatory burden that companies have to face in making decisions about whether they are going to invest and whether they are going to employ. One of the concerns I have in particular is that by passing this bill we would be adding to that regulatory burden, we would be adding to that concept of sovereign risk and we would not be doing anything to enhance the ability of industry to make good-quality decisions in relation to their own businesses at the moment. In this climate is this sort of approach needed? No case has been made about this particular bill. We are very concerned at the approach of the government. Mr Shorten 00ATG Are you talking about Tony's parental leave? The DEPUTY SPEAKER HW7 Order! The member will be heard in silence. Mr HAWKE HWO Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would hate to call the minister out. In relation to this bill, whenever you look at the cost-benefit analysis the government goes through in relation to the cost of new legislation, once again we find evidence of mendacious activity from the government. It is not clear exactly what cost this would be in terms of the new regulator and it is not clear where the money is coming from. In relation to what we can tell, we have a stated figure that the changes will be accompanied by spending of around $98.2 million over the next five years. I want to note that this expenditure is supposedly offset by cuts of $1 billion overall to the R&D tax incentive that do not appear to have been appropriately modelled and have certainly never been publicly clarified or justified. So, again, whenever we see new legislation presented with heavy-handed regulation, overregulation, we do not really even have an understanding of how much it will cost, or a rigorous cost-benefit analysis. Why is a rigorous cost-benefit analysis important in relation to new legislation? There is a good 280 billion reasons why a cost-benefit analysis matters in terms of public debt, net debt, and perhaps some $300 billion of reasons very shortly in terms of gross debt, why we need cost-benefit analysis, why we need to look at what is the actual benefit of this new regulator and legislation versus the cost that it will have to government. When you consider the response of stakeholders, including small to medium enterprises, industry associations and indeed all of the major industry sectors, you can see that there is a grave level of concern about the way this bill would operate. Ideas which could be seen to be reasonable, and indeed the reduction of the capex of $500 million or more for AIP projects, could be seen to be a good thing. However, I want to note the dissenting report by coalition senators, who raise an excellent argument in relation to the proposed reduction of capex—that is, that there could be a range of problems. In particular, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA provided a calculation that said that the changes would mean that the share of affected projects would rise from six per cent to around 26.2 per cent. That is by anybody's benchmark a dramatic increase. That sort of dramatic increase is something that ought to be considered quite carefully before we proceed with something like this and would have a lot of effects in terms of cost and assessments and the involvement of government in so many other projects. It is something which again does not appear to be desirable. While the coalition is certainly supportive of the scheme introduced by the Howard government in 2001, the core purpose—to give Australian firms increased opportunity to secure work on major local projects—is a worthy one. When you look at the actual provisions of this bill, however, and you examine what the government is proposing, it has not been demonstrated, and it is not obvious, how this particular bill—with its Orwellian title, the Australian Jobs Bill—will in fact achieve that objective. And I take with grave concern the concerns of industry and other serious players in this sector suggesting that, in many ways, the increased regulatory burden and the new regulator may indeed achieve much of the opposite or add to the sovereign risk of doing business in Australia. So, with those features in the forefront of our minds, I would advocate opposing this bill. I know the coalition is opposing this bill. We are looking for something more meaningful from the government than a new, heavy-handed regulator and a series of changes which are uncosted and really have no substantive backing from the sector involved. 18:53 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston I am very pleased to be speaking on the Australian Jobs Bill 2013, because I believe in actually boosting our manufacturing sector. I am disappointed to hear tonight that the opposition has decided not to support this bill; however, I am not surprised. I heard you, Mr Deputy Speaker Cheeseman, talk about the car industry. The opposition has shown very clearly where their true colours lie when it comes to the car industry, and that is: not to support the car industry and not to ensure that we keep innovating in the car industry. So it is not surprising that the opposition has decided not to support what I think is a very important bill. It is an important bill but it is the government that has decided to put jobs first, and this has been something that we have done since the day we came to government. Our focus has constantly been on jobs, and it is good to have the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations—otherwise known as the minister for jobs—here at the table. He worked, as did the rest of the government, to support jobs through the global financial crisis. That was a very, very difficult period. But this government took action to ensure that there continued to be economic growth and that people continued to be in jobs, and that is why we have seen, under this term of the Labor government, over 900,000 jobs created. That is a significant number when, in many other nations around the world, jobs are in decline. They cannot boast such job creation. However, we have to recognise that part of the success has led to significant challenges for the manufacturing industry. In particular, the high Australian dollar and greater international competition have put pressure on the industry. So we need to make sure that there is continuing support for manufacturing in this country. This is very important, considering the challenges and how important this is to our next stage of job creation. The manufacturing sector employs nearly 1,000,000 Australians across the country, and one in 10 of those employees live in my electorate of Kingston. Their message to me is loud and clear: they expect their government to stand up for jobs and stand up for opportunities for them, and this bill before the House today does exactly that. In the past we have seen Australian companies working on major projects and they have demonstrated that they can successfully compete against global competitors to win work in supplying goods and services. Often it is the innovation that Australian companies can show and the excellent services that they can provide that put them ahead of the pack when it comes to actually winning in open tenders. Unfortunately, though, we need to ensure that we are giving those companies an opportunity to compete for this work and, through the Australian Jobs Bill, the government will be supporting the creation and retention of Australian jobs by requiring Australian Industry Participation Plans for major projects, and this will ensure that Australian businesses have full, fair and reasonable opportunities to bid for key goods and services. This approach will assist Australian industry to gain a foothold in major projects by encouraging them to innovate and develop competitive capabilities to take advantage of investment opportunities. What this actually means for Australian industry is quite significant, and it is disappointing that the member for Mitchell was criticising this legislation and saying it would amount to nothing when what we have seen through the modelling is that Australian industry could receive an additional $1.6 billion to $6.4 billion worth of work. I do not know about the member for Mitchell, but to me that is significant work. Many companies around Australia could benefit, and many workers could find meaningful and interesting employment in that. So I think this is a really important part of the bill, and it makes sure that there is an opportunity for businesses, with their innovation and their great products and services, to actually gain a foothold. But it is simply not enough to have rules requiring organisations to have Australian Industry Participation Plans if there is no-one to oversee them. For this reason, the Australian Jobs Bill will create a new entity known as the Australian Industry Participation Authority, whose duty it will be to administer the AIP Plans and make sure that the AIP Plans are compliant and administered and that there will also be consequences for non-compliant plans. The authority will act as an independent entity from the government and ensure that Australian firms are offered every opportunity to grow and prosper. But it will also directly advise the minister on the Australian Industry Participation Plans and issues around those, and will administer programs aimed at improving the capacity of Australian firms to win work on major projects. At no stage—and I think this is a myth sometimes peddled by those opposed to this legislation—will the Australian Industry Participation Authority ever force an organisation to use one supplier over another. What this bill really aims to do is to create a fairer playing field, to increase the opportunities for Australian firms to win work on major projects, and not—and I make this very clear—to require that Australian firms must be used but to really ensure that they do get a look in. But I have to say that this is one part of a very important package that the Labor government has put forward. In fact, it is a $1 billion package because we recognise the importance of the manufacturing sector, the importance of jobs that go along with that, the importance of the workers and also of the companies in the area of manufacturing. So the plan was launched on 17 February. It has three objectives at its heart. First is backing Australian firms to win more work at home, and this has been a critical part of the Australian Jobs Plan. The second is supporting the Australian industry to increase exports and win business abroad. That is really important; we have always been a big exporting nation and we need to ensure that industry, and especially our manufacturing industry, gets the opportunity to export overseas. I have a number of manufacturers in my electorate that really have taken the opportunity to innovate. They have, at times, had assistance to export overseas from this federal Labor government that has resulted in an increase in some of these companies from a few employees to just under 100 employees. So we can really help industry win those export opportunities. Thirdly, helping Australians in small and medium businesses to grow also creates new jobs. I think this is incredibly important. The plan is about what we can do right now to get more work for Australian factories, workshops, offices, construction sites, services and businesses. We have put the money on the table: $1 billion into the productivity, prosperity and jobs of the 21st century. As I said, it is very, very disappointing that the opposition have said they will oppose this part—obviously, we are not sure which parts. They have also been on record saying that they will oppose the industry precincts, which are another part of this package—a very innovative way to bring industry together and build capacity. They have said that is the 'old' way to do business, but I see in my electorate the collaboration that goes on with a range of different industries and that is really one of the ways for the future. Through our plan, we will see our nation's research efforts translate into better economic outcomes by promoting collaboration between business and research institutes through a major new network of industry innovation precincts. We will also see small- to medium-size businesses and start-up companies be provided with expanded business assistance and better access to finance through measures to further stimulate Australia's venture capital. These are incredibly important measures; this is an incredibly important package. I believe this will really improve the manufacturing sector as we go forward. As I mentioned earlier, in my electorate of Kingston, one in every 10 workers are employed in the manufacturing sector. We have been through a transition in our local area as well—it was incredibly disappointing when in 2008 Mitsubishi announced it would close its doors at the Tonsley Park site, and this had also occurred at the engine site, which had been in Lonsdale—this actually took interventionist federal and state Labor governments, working to retrain workers who lost their jobs and also supporting the creation of new jobs through co-investment with industry as part of the SA Innovation and Investment Fund. I have been able to visit a number of recipients that have received grants as part of this fund, and seen how they are thriving. In fact, the minister at the table, Minister Bird, visited one of those sites—Redarc Electronics—which has a very exciting model. They do sales, investment and research and development on site, as well as the manufacturing. But they are also participating with another site in working to educate their workers and helping with literacy and numeracy as well. That is just one of a number of very successful businesses that transformed as a result of the Mitsubishi closure. Another very important part of the Mitsubishi story, though, is that the South Australian government had the foresight to buy this site—to buy the old site at Tonsley. Now, they are working to reactivate this site as an employment hub, focusing on high-value, advanced manufacturing that integrates industry, education, research and affordable living options, as well as community facilities. This is a very important site because it not only has a connection to public transport that is going to be upgraded as a result of the most recent federal budget but it is also connected to Flinders University, and a TAFE is being constructed on the site. So we see that real connection now with translating research. Not only is Flinders University across the road; there will be buildings on that site as well that start to connect that. I see a real opportunity there at Tonsley. There is a lot of commercial interest in Tonsley as well, and a lot of discussion about the type of place it is going to be. It will become an integral manufacturing hub and, while it was disappointing to see the exit of Mitsubishi for so many, it is great to see that this industrial area will be transformed to create the jobs of the future. This story is really important. We need to continue to seek out those types of stories, support those types of stories right through Australia and ensure that we are doing everything we can to support innovation right around this country. As I said at the beginning of this speech, it is disappointing that the Liberal Party and the National Party have chosen to put their heads in the sand when it comes to supporting manufacturing. It is disappointing because when I am out there talking with people they do want to ensure that local companies are getting a bite at the cherry when it comes to work that is here in Australia. They also want to know that their government is supporting and promoting their manufacturing and services overseas and that they have increased opportunities. Importantly, they want to know that their government is supporting venture capital research and development, and stimulating the research sector. These are all very important parts of this bill and the package, and I commend the bill to the House. 19:07 Mr CRAIG KELLY 99931 Hughes I rise to speak on this rather Orwellian named bill: the Australian Jobs Bill 2013. I would like to comment on a few of the statements made by the member for Kingston—that this government is somehow supporting Australian manufacturing. This government, that the member for Kingston is a member of, supports smashing Australian industry with the world's largest carbon tax. The member for Kingston cannot come into this parliament, stand at the dispatch box and claim the wonderful things her government is doing to support manufacturing while at the same time belting them with the world's largest carbon tax. On the Australian Jobs Bill, the member for Kingston also mentioned all the wonderful jobs that this Labor government has created. Firstly, governments do not create jobs; it is the private sector entrepreneurs who create jobs in our economy. Also, if we have a close look at the ABS statistics for jobs, there are currently, as at April 2013, 682,900 Australians on the unemployment lines. An extra 211,000 people have been added to the unemployment lines since this government came to office, an increase of 45 per cent. We can fill two Melbourne Cricket Grounds or four Sydney Football Stadiums and still have people left over. That is the number of people who have been added to the unemployment lines of this country since this Labor government took office. We hear that this government has created close to 900,000 jobs—it is actually 885,000. Again, these jobs were not created by government unless they were blow-outs in public servants; they were created by the private sector. What is not said is that, in the time this government has been in office, we have seen our Australian population increase by 1,858,000—close to two million people more live in Australia now than when this government came to office. If the government were doing a good job, we would expect to see 65 per cent or more of those people being employed. Let me go through those numbers again. Some 1.85 million people have been added to the Australian population but we have had an increase in employment of only 885,000. That is less than 50 per cent. We are going backwards as fast as we can. Of course, those are the official ABS statistics. We also have the Roy Morgan figures. They do a slightly different measure of unemployment. For March 2013 Roy Morgan estimated there were 1.37 million Australians unemployed, or 10.8 per cent of the workforce, and a further 936,000 Australians underemployed. We know the definition of 'employed' counts those who have worked for one hour a week. So we should add the number of people underemployed—that is, people working part time and looking for more work. According to the Roy Morgan figures, there are an additional 936,000 people underemployed. Roy Morgan notes: … what should concern the Government is that a large 2.305 million Australians (18.2% of the workforce) were unemployed or under-employed in March … So we really do have to look at what we can do to ensure we see the growth and protection of Australian jobs, but this bill does not do it. This bill bizarrely creates Australian industry opportunity officers. These bureaucrats will be embedded into private companies to second-guess their purchasing decisions. This is something you would expect of a mad socialist plan. This is something we saw in old Soviet Russia, where the government would appoint a bureaucrat into second-guess a private company's decision. We can just see the government thinking this up. They dreamed: 'If only we can get a government bureaucrat in every business. The government knows best. We can plan exactly the way it will work.' This is simply a mad decision. It creates red tape. It does the exact opposite of what businesses need to create jobs in our society and our economy. Let us look at a few comments. Minerals Council of Australia Chief Executive, Mitch Hooke, said this proposal was simply unnecessary. He said: The proposal to embed public servants inside companies is both unnecessary, unwarranted and inefficient. Australian mining companies use more than 80 per cent local goods and services. We are already buying Australian when it makes good business sense to do so. If we are going to make sure that Australian companies buy Australian goods, we do not need new bureaucracy, we do not need government bureaucrats meddling in private businesses; what we need is to reduce business red tape and get their taxes down, especially their carbon tax. Some Australian businesses are becoming uncompetitive simply because this government has hit them with the world's largest carbon tax. When an Australian company is quoting to provide goods and services to a large new project and it is competing with someone from overseas, the Australian business employing Australian workers is penalised by this government in having to pay the carbon tax but the overseas company simply does not pay it. We have a government placing our own businesses here in Australia at a competitive disadvantage. You guys just do not get it. You do not understand or realise the damage that you are doing. But of course, this gets worse. We know that at 1 July this year the carbon tax will increase. Elsewhere around the world we have seen a collapse in the EU carbon price and we have seen energy prices in the US fall, and we in Australia are putting our carbon tax up. This is complete insanity. This is going to cost Australian jobs, like we have been seeing over the past weeks and months. Let us not forget the Treasurer's promise from last budget that the economy would create 500,000 new jobs this financial year. There are only two months left. So far there have only been 123,000 jobs created in the economy despite the population increasing by over 600,000 people. So with two months left, the Treasurer is 75 per cent short of that target. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to work out why. It is simply because the same government, the same Treasurer, has put Australian industry at a competitive disadvantage with the carbon tax. So is it any wonder we have this big increase in our population but only a very small increase in our employment numbers? And as I said, the carbon tax does get worse. We know that it goes up. Not only that, what we do have and what there has not been any commentary in the media about, is that this government plans to extend the carbon tax to our trucking industry from 1 July 2014. This would effectively increase the tax on diesel fuel by 7c a litre. And that is just in 2014. So every time every small business truck owner goes out there to fill his truck to deliver goods anywhere in Australia, starting in 2014 if this government is re-elected, they are going to be paying an extra 7c a litre for their diesel fuel. Again, this policy is complete insanity. It is the exact opposite of sanity and it will kill jobs. Take a few examples. If an Australian business is manufacturing in Melbourne and has to shift goods by road to Northern Queensland, they will pay the increase in the carbon tax through diesel fuel. Similarly, a business in Western Sydney in my electorate of Hughes might be manufacturing or quoting for a job for a mining project in Perth. Those goods must be transported across Australia, again incurring the increase in the carbon tax on diesel fuel. But if I am a manufacturer overseas, I can ship my goods into the Port of Perth or the Port of Brisbane or the Port of Melbourne, reducing the road transport cost and the distance in Australia, thereby avoiding the tax. Again, it is the carbon tax and these other taxes that are putting Australian industry at a competitive disadvantage and costing Australian jobs. We have seen some bad bills come from this government, but the ideology behind this bill that wants to put a government bureaucrat into private businesses to second-guess their purchasing decisions just shows that this government has completely lost the plot. They have no idea and they are unfit for office. That is why the coalition opposes this bill. If the coalition is successful at the next election, we will deliver tax cuts without a carbon tax. We will take the pressure off business. We will try to ensure that Australian business can compete on a level playing field. That is what will create Australian jobs. That is what creates the incentive for people to employ. This is just another bad bill from a bad government in its dying days. Therefore the coalition has no alternative than to oppose this bill. 19:19 Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B Throsby I am pleased to be speaking on a bill about Australian jobs. The Labor government supports the Australian Jobs Bill 2013. It is good Labor legislation. I follow the member for Hughes who opposes the bill, because that is what the coalition does—they say no. In his 15-minute dissertation on all things except the matter before the House, we never heard one skerrick on policy about what the coalition would do if they were to sit on this side of the House and deal with the challenges that are currently confronting the manufacturing industry in this country. There is a very simple reason for that: they do not have a policy except to say no. I am pleased to speak about this bill today because it demonstrates the importance that Labor attaches to the manufacturing industry. As members of parliament—and I see the member for Cunningham in the chamber as well—the member for Cunningham and I represent the areas of Illawarra, and in my case the Southern Highlands as well, and the manufacturing industry is very important. Still over one in 10 jobs in our electorates comes from manufacturing. Manufacturing is critically important. From anywhere in the Illawarra you can see the Port Kembla steelworks, an iconic part of the Illawarra landscape. The blast furnace and smoke stacks are an ever-present part on our horizon. Manufacturing is critical as an employer but also critical in terms of generating wealth and economic opportunities within the region. The distortion to Australia's economy that is being driven by not only the mining boom but also the historically high Australian dollar is creating inequality and not just between industry sectors. It is also exacerbating inequality even within states and between regions and their capital cities. What might be a boon to one part of the economy is a burden in another, because their export-exposed industries are labouring under the pressures created by the high Australian dollar. All bubbles burst, and when the mining bubble bursts it could leave behind a very altered landscape. If we do nothing we will sacrifice the manufacturing capabilities of this country, which have been built up over many generations. I believe, and I know the member for Cunningham believes, that manufacturing matters. Manufacturing is critical not only to our economy but also to the sort of country that we want live in. This is because, quite simply, a country that makes stuff knows stuff. The engineering know-how that accompanies a manufacturing industry creates a culture and knowledge within a town and within a society which I believe is critical to the future of this country. It is not only critical to our economy but it is critical to the sort of country we want to live in. Manufacturing and the engineering trades create the ecosystems of knowledge that are critical to being a clever country. The skills and know-how involved take generations to develop. This can only be done by being involved in all elements of the production process. I want to ensure that through legislation and policies such as this we have a manufacturing industry, manufacturing and engineering know-how and skills in this country for many decades to come. Manufacturing invests in the equipment and technology. It drives innovations and capabilities which we need to maintain our productivity and our economic capacity. While manufacturing makes up only about 8.3 people cent of all employment across the nation and about 8.6 per cent of gross domestic product, it contributes to more than 25 per cent of all business investment in research and development. Put simply, the manufacturing sector is boxing well above its weight when it comes to investing in our future know-how and our technological capacity. Australia's mining boom of the past decade should be a bonanza for Australian manufacturing and for steel production in particular, but it has not been. When coupled with the high Australian dollar we are seeing less work going into the fabrication shops and the manufactured product that is being used in these mining developments. The Australian Steel Institute has estimated that Australian steel is only getting around 10 to 12 per cent of the share of the local business being done in our major resource projects, despite steel fabrication factories having capacity to at least double their current output. We know there are a number of reasons behind this, including as I have said the high Australian dollar but also because we are not a part of established global supply chains and because of tendering arrangements for large projects. This is something that the member for Hughes in his 15-minute tirade failed to focus upon. He fails to understand how work is done in large mining developments, these large resource projects and other large developments around the country. These businesses are often multinational companies who come to this country. We welcome their investment but they bring with them established global supply chains, the same contractors and suppliers they use when they do a development in Indonesia or Brazil or in China or in India. They use the same established supply chains, often derived from the same designs and the same specifications that they use in each of those different countries. That is why the centrepiece for A Plan for Australian Jobs is a detailed and fully funded policy which contains long-term reforms to ensure Australian industry gets a slice of the pie. The policy will ensure that Australians continue to have high-skilled, well-paid jobs in competitive industries that will be the backbone of the modern broad based economy. Today's legislation will bring in new laws which will help Australian businesses gain access to major investment projects. By being required to complete Australian Industry Participation Plans, every large investment project worth $500 million or more must show that they will provide opportunities to local businesses, ensuring that Australian industry is able to grow and generate jobs through these projects. Industry Participation Plans require projects to open up their supply chains so that Australian industry has a fair go at gaining work. Industry Participation Plans will mean that projects cannot simply import supply chains from overseas or lock local suppliers out by using exotic standards. In my own electorate I have heard examples of how fabricators have been invited to a tender for large projects that could have made the difference between them staying open or closing the doors. They receive an invitation to tender on the Friday which closes on the Monday. Quite clearly that is not a bona fide invitation to tender. It is quite clearly just a ruse, if you like, to be able to demonstrate to somebody that they are attempting to give local industry a go at winning the tenders. This is not good enough. These are not the sort of arrangements that we want to see in place to create a level playing field. Projects need to get to know Australian industry and provide every opportunity to Australian businesses to gain the work. I have given lots of examples in the House before where this has not occurred, where specifications and designs within the plans for a project have almost mandated that overseas products or overseas companies win that work because they are designed in a way which excludes local businesses from properly tendering. This is the sort of thing that we are focused on. It is too late once the designs are done. It is too late once the specifications are put in place. It is also too late once the invitations to tender are gone. We want to be there on the ground at the very get-go to ensure that we are not locked out, that we develop those relationships and are integrated into those supply chains. Analysis conducted by the government indicates that as a result of broadening industry participation requirements under the jobs bill Australian industry could see an additional $1.6 billion to $6.4 billion worth of extra work. This could be keeping fabrication shops around my electorate and right around the country busy with work. It would lead to the employment of new apprentices and the retention of existing staff. That is why manufacturing matters to the government and it is why the Gillard government is investing billions of dollars to support and grow new jobs. In the current budget environment a billion dollars is a major investment but A Plan for Australian Jobs has three core strategies: backing Australian firms to win more work at home, supporting Australian industry to increase exports and win businesses abroad, and helping Australian small and medium businesses grow and create new jobs. Put simply, we are looking after the jobs of today while planning and investing in the jobs of the future. The package builds on the support we have already delivered since coming into office, including measures such as the $300 million Steel Transformation Plan. I never heard the member for Hughes mention the Steel Transformation Plan. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams, and the minister at the table, the member for Cunningham, can tell you—she and I worked very hard on pulling together the Steel Transformation Plan—it delivered much-needed relief to the steelmakers, including Arrium and BlueScope, both of whom have businesses in our electorates. The Steel Transformation Plan is the difference between BlueScope being open today and it being closed before Christmas last year. It is as simple as that. Ms Bird DZP Did he support it? Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B And the member for Cunningham reminds me: probably the reason why the member for Hughes, who has employees within his electorate who work at BlueScope, never mentioned it in a debate around the future of manufacturing and the future of Australian jobs is because when he had the opportunity to come into this House and cast a vote in support of local manufacturing jobs, he voted against it. He had the opportunity to put his hand in the air, to stand with those on the government side of the House and say, 'We vote for BlueScope, we vote for the Steel Transformation Plan, we vote for keeping the steelworks open in the Illawarra,' but he declined to do so. He voted against it, and that should be known. It is a matter to his eternal shame in this place. It is not just that plan. The $5.4 billion New Car Plan is providing the automotive manufacturing sector the certainty it needs to attract long-term investment to 2020. I never heard mention of that in any of the earlier speeches either, which is a tragedy because we have seen in recent days the difficulties that that sector is going through in Australia. Of particular importance is the announcement by Ford that it intends to close down its domestic production facilities in Victoria by 2016. Well, that story will be repeated in two other car production plants—in both Toyota and in Holden—if the coalition wins at the September election because their policy is to halve the amount of assistance and co-investment that the government puts into the car industry right from the get-go. It is something the Leader of the Opposition does not tell the manufacturing industry workers when he dons a hardhat and a yellow vest and does doorstops in manufacturing shops around the country. He keeps it secret from them, the fact they voted against the steel industry transformation plan. He keeps it secret from them that the coalition wants to rip millions of dollars' worth of assistance for research and development out of the car industry. And there is no secret there are no other policies in the coalition policy drawer when it comes to manufacturing. The $1.2 billion Clean Technology Program is critical to helping businesses transform the way they do their work, ensuring they can invest in clean energy processes, reduce their electricity bills and reduce their power usage as well. It is $1.2 billion for a co-investment program—also on the chop if the coalition wins. There are businesses around the country that are developing new programs, that are putting in bids for grants right now that must be wondering about the uncertainty that will be visited upon them if there is a change of policy following a change of government. There is a lot in the package. It is not, as previous speakers have attempted to characterise this—laughable in their simplicity—a means of just placing somebody inside a mining company. And if that was the only thing that was contained in the policy, what a difference that would make. What a difference that would make to ensure that local manufacturers and local businesses got a fair shake when it came to tendering for these projects, multi-billion dollar projects. Local businesses get a feed out of some this work that is going on; it will keep those businesses open. If that was all it was, that would be good enough. But we are going far beyond that in this far-reaching project. I would ask those on the other side of the House to rethink their plan to say no, to rethink their plan to reject this bill. There is a lot in it for workers in my electorate. There is a lot in it for businesses around the country. And there is a lot in it for manufacturing around the country. For those reasons, I commend the bill to the House. 19:34 Mrs PRENTICE 217266 Ryan I rise to speak on the Australian Jobs Bill 2013. Today's bill is yet another example of this Labor government's interventionist approach to industry policy. It says it is part of its plan to support and create jobs, but realistically the primary consequences of this bill are to install further bureaucratic oversight of private operators within our economy. This bill contains too many impractical and unreasonable measures; it is symptomatic of the government's command-and-control approach to industry and we should therefore oppose the bill. The passage of today's bill would result in changes to the Australian Industry Participation system. The AIP system was introduced by the Howard government in 2001. Its core purpose is to give Australian firms increased opportunity to secure work on major local projects. Currently, companies seeking customs duty concessions under the Enhanced Project By-law Scheme and entities tendering for Commonwealth government procurements worth $20 million or more need to produce Australian Industry Participation plans. Through these plans, companies show how they will provide local firms with optimal opportunities to tender for and perform some of the work on their project. The system has generally worked very effectively, and has been accompanied by a number of complementary changes at state level. As its architect, the coalition is a supporter of the system and we would therefore support sensible refinements to the system if they are likely to enhance its operation. The government claims its aim is to make changes to the system which will potentially increase the number of Australian suppliers for major local projects. The bill and the accompanying material show little regard for the historical evolution of the AIP system or for the progress that had already been made over many years of increasing local industry participation on major projects. Further, there is little evidence that this bill is based on a rigorous cost-benefit analysis. As the Business Council of Australia noted in its submission to the exposure draft for this bill: The Bill does not pass the test of good legislation—the problem is poorly defined, the costs and risks of the Bill are understated and the costs and benefits of sensible, alternative policy options have not been properly assessed. This is not rational policy. The changes have not arisen in response to an identified need in industry. It is merely an attempt to justify the Labor government's Industry and Innovation Statement of 17 February 2013, where they proposed a number of changes that will supposedly 'strengthen the capacity of Australian firms to win more work on major projects'. It is all very well for this Labor government to pay lip service to supporting Australian jobs. However, we must look at the detail of this bill. Some of the changes include: the establishment of a new Australian Industry Participation Authority to supposedly 'raise the profile of these activities, coordinate opportunities arising from AIP Plans (AIPPs) and help business gain access to opportunities'; the requirement of AIPPs to be generated for all projects with a capital expenditure of $500 million or more; the revision of EPBS for projects worth $2 billion or more by requiring 'Australian Industry Opportunity Officers' to be embedded in the procurement teams of individual companies. These proposals amount to a new bureaucracy, more red tape and more bureaucrats. They claim that in some way it is a measure to improve Australian industry rather than admit it is just one more way they can increase the intrusion of government into industry. I also remain concerned about the lack of clarity in the legislation around the proposed 'trigger date' at which the production of an AIPP in the conception and/or planning phases of a project becomes mandatory. Further, there will likely be a substantial rise in the number of AIPPs that need to be produced. There will also, no doubt, be an increase in reporting and compliance requirements as a result of any lowering of the capital expenditure threshold. These revisions are heavy-handed, misguided, and will collectively compromise the operation of the Australian Industry Participation system. It is the coalition's view that a number of the changes in this bill will weaken rather than improve the system and are an anathema to the operation of a vibrant private sector and a successful modern economy. Against this background, it is unsurprising that almost all of the submissions provided to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee raised multiple and significant concerns about the content of the exposure draft. Stakeholders within industry have already expressed their opposition to the changes in the Australian Jobs Bill 2013. Xstrata Coal, in its submission on the exposure draft, said the bill: ... only adds to the regulatory red-tape and cost of projects which are becoming increasingly marginal as a result of Australia's high cost structure, regulatory burden, tax regime and currency exchange rate. The Business Council of Australia went further, stating that it: ... establishes a worrying new precedent for government intervention ... This will add to Australia's reputation as a costly and unpredictable place to invest in major capital projects. The introduction of a new regulator to oversee project procurement risks creating an antagonistic instead of a cooperative and constructive relationship with business. The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association in its submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics, said: Overall, APPEA does not believe that a case has been made to justify the imposition of a complex and potentially time consuming regulatory process. They noted that this bill will: … increase complexity, uncertainty and the cost of compliance. I absolutely agree with these sentiments. Finally, the government has stated that these changes will be accompanied by spending of $98.2 million over the next five years. This expenditure is supposedly being offset by cuts which total over $1 billion to the research and development tax incentives, which does not appear to have been appropriately modelled and publicly clarified or justified. However, there can be a role for government as a facilitator to support Australian industry and jobs. For example, the Export Market Development Grants have been very successful in assisting our small and medium-sized exporters engage in international markets to export Australian products and to grow the Australian economy. These grants are not about having government bureaucrats embedded in export companies telling them what or to whom they can export. However, instead of supporting this successful industry policy, this Labor government recently cut $25 million dollars for no rational reason except to cover up their $192 billion in accumulated government debt. This bill is a complete anathema to the idea of free enterprise. It is not about supporting industry or supporting the Australian economy; it is about expanding the power of government and creating yet another new layer of bureaucracy. Embedding public servants in companies, no matter how big or small, belongs in the works of an Orwellian novel, not in the pages of Commonwealth legislation. I therefore oppose this bill. 19:43 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy I have great respect for the previous member of parliament but, with all due respect, I was reading statements by Senator Madigan yesterday and I most certainly shared the sentiments of a person who was very angry because he saw the coalface—he saw the reality of this place. The previous speaker clearly has never talked to a truck driver, because every truck driver in my area screams and complains that there is no work for them, because of all the big contractors from down south. All the big contractors from down south now complain that they are not getting any work because of the big contractors from overseas. They are not getting any work either. In Western Australia they tell me that a whole mining processing plant will come in from overseas and be loaded and taken on a semi and it is all bolted together. The steel comes from overseas. The work is done overseas. All we get is laying a concrete foundation, and that will be, typically, contractors coming in bringing in 457 workers or whatever to do the work and then flying back out again, leaving no benefit behind for our communities in Australia, whether it is the bloke that owns the truck or whether it is the small contractors and loaders. Quite frankly, if we were building the Snowy Mountains scheme now, Thiess Brothers would not get a contract. Les Thiess and his seven or eight brothers who worked in the firm with him would not get a contract. In those days we put immense pressure upon government corporations to employ Australians and he was able to get a small contract, and when the tendering was highly competitive he ended up with all of the contracts. Dillingham and Utah were both sidelined. Over 40 per cent of the entire building of the Snowy was done by Thiess contractors and only 20 per cent by Dillingham, Utah and all of the other mostly foreign corporations. When there was a prejudice working to give Australians a fair go, not only did they get a fair go but they were so good that they made sure the others were gone. That was the history of the Snowy. The previous speaker's husband belonged to a government in which all road construction was done with local owner-drivers. That was the policy of the Queensland government. In that period some 10,000 kilometres of roads were built or sealed in Queensland, all with owner-drivers. This is from a government that was spending $3,000 million—which, in today's money, would be about $6,000 million—a year. The current Queensland government and this one are spending $45,000 million a year and there are no jobs for local truckies at all—and they are not putting down much bitumen at all. In fact, it is quite fascinating to figure out what the hell they are spending the money on. Whatever else may have been said about the government of those days in Queensland, no-one would ever question the economic effectiveness and the great economic success story that was Queensland in the 1970s and 1980s. The previous speaker said that this proposal is a complete anathema to free trade, and she is dead right—it is. We have a saying in my party that 'free market' means big foreign monopolistic corporations are free to mark up to whatever level they please. That is what 'free market' means as far as we are concerned—free to mark up to whatever price you feel like. It is very seldom and rare for me to give any praise to either side of this parliament but in this case, with this bill, at least the Australians will be able to have a go. I have a constant and continuous complaint that we did not even know there were any tenders being called for the job. We did not even know that. I think Leighton is a very excellent company. I have had very good experience with them. They are very good Australians. But, at the end of the day, the three Leighton companies are all foreign owned. We will often get three tenders on a job and they will be from the three Leighton companies that are owned by Leighton Holdings in Australia. So whilst I do not in any way denigrate these people—I think that they have done an excellent job—by the same token, the tendering process is not really a tendering process at all. All the jobs have been stitched up and all the tendering has been done long before the action comes down. I quoted in my book a New Guinea example. Bechtel was contracted to build the Ok Tedi pipeline for $82 million—I think that was the figure, if my memory serves me correctly—and Curtain Brothers came along and said they could do it for $17 million. The American who was in charge of Ok Tedi said, 'Do you know Curtain?' and I said, 'Yes, I do.' He said, 'Not only did I stupidly give him the contract, because I did not think he could do it, when Bechtel had bid $82 million and this bloke was effectively bidding $20 million to do the same job, but he came in six months ahead of schedule and so we made a huge amount of extra money.' In that case the decision was taken by a big American mining company—I think it was American but it was foreign anyway—to do a deal with a big American contracting construction company and no Australian was allowed to go in. But, when the Australian beat his way through the door, he did it for a quarter of the price that the big international corporation had tendered for and came in six months ahead of schedule, which enabled them to make an extra $60 million of profit that year. I am going from memory in that case, but you would have to be blind and deaf not to know that Australian companies are just not getting a look in. All of the great, giant mining companies of Australia, with the exception of Andrew Forrest, are all foreign owned. There are only front men or front women for foreign corporations. Those that purport to be Australian are just fronts for foreign corporations. They have their contacts overseas and they just simply bring the overseas operators in and do the whole lot. The head of one of the biggest mining companies in Australia—and I will not mention his name—said that in Africa they ring up the Chinese and a huge construction crew comes in and six months later they fly out—you have got a mine and camp living conditions and a town built and away they would go. That is what is going to happen in Australia. That might be all very wonderful for the mining company but it sure ain't very wonderful for Australia. We are being bypassed all the time. I would say that in most of the little midwest towns in north Queensland, where I come from, they would have had 10 contracted truck drivers. I doubt that I could count 10 in the whole of the midwestern gulf country now, because all of the work is going to big corporations and the locals get no look-in at all. That is on a local scale, a regional scale if you like, but on a national scale it is happening in exactly the same way—the Australians are not getting a look-in at all. If you tell me that this is going to solve the problem, no, it does not. But at least it gives an Australian company and an Australian contractor or subcontractor the right to put his name forward. In 'realityland' this gives the opportunity to someone like me to put up a hell of a stink to ensure that the contractors and subcontractors get a look-in at construction sites. I quote the case of Adani. It seems to me they are building a two-kilometre airstrip. Some of my First Australian friends said when negotiating native title, 'Why do you need a two-kilometre airstrip?' They said, 'We get big planes coming in from overseas flying in workers.' 'But you said, when Mr Katter attacked you in the paper, that you weren't flying in workers from overseas.' The bloke concerned said there was a thundering silence for two minutes and then they started on another subject. They are going to fly workers in from overseas, thanks to the initiatives taken by the current federal government. Congratulations, you have given to foreigners hundreds of thousands of jobs that should have gone to Australians. You call yourself the Labor Party, but Ben Chifley would turn in his grave and have convulsions if he saw a Labor government flying 100,000 workers in from overseas. When you walk out of the parliament through the door behind the chair, you see a big picture of Charlie McDonald, the first member of parliament for Kennedy, the seat that I represent. Those men fought and died—literally died with three people shot dead at the picket line at Dagworth Station, where Waltzing Matilda was written a couple of weeks later—for pay and conditions. And when they won those conditions they saw the big corporates of the day simply bringing people in from overseas to work the mines and the cane fields. The entire executive of the AWU in Queensland was jailed for three years with hard labour for having a strike. After all those fights we saw all those conditions being taken away from us. Of the first seven speeches by Charlie McDonald in this place, six were about people coming in from overseas to take jobs away from us. The root cause of this is that the six great mining companies in Australia were allowed to be sold to foreigners. They were all owned by Australians and now they are all owned by foreigners. If that is a step forward then I think there is a most peculiar value system in this parliament. If it is a sign of free markets then you can stick your free markets up your jumper. I would like to see Australia owned by Australians. If that sounds a bit xenophobic, as TheAustralian newspaper described those attitudes and values, those were the attitudes and values of Essington Lewis and John Corbould who created the Mount Isa Mine and BHP. They created the Australian steel industry and these great structures in Australia. These mines and structures have been sold to foreigners by the greatest group of grubby worms, the slithering suits of Sydney. They have made fortunes selling the country. A lot of the mining magnates of Australia have made fortunes by simply selling their country to foreigners. There is a name for that. Here today we are moving the Australian Industry Participation Plan. Far be it for me to say anything good about this government, but there is a tiny bit of light, of opportunity, that will be provided to my contractors, the people that I grew up with, went to school with and who are my friends. They have no work, because the contractors are coming in either from down south in the big cities or from overseas. This will provide us with at least the opportunity to put in a bid. All we are asking for is the right to put in a bid. I do not know how many times people have come up to me and said: 'Bobby, we didn't even get the opportunity to put in a bid. It was all over, red rover. The first we knew about it was all the trucks coming in from outside, all the semis, all the D9s, all the scrapers, all the construction crews.' In my little home town of Cloncurry, a First Australian who had a very successful engineering operation told me the five engineering operations in Cloncurry had all gone. They have been taken over by contractors coming in with 457 workers, so there is no benefit for my little home town of Cloncurry. Once upon a time we rejoiced that a mine was opening up in our area. Now it is really a taxing of our infrastructure. (Time expired) 19:58 Mrs D'ATH HVN Petrie It is my pleasure to sum up the debate on the Australian Jobs Bill 2013. The Gillard government has a strong commitment to supporting and creating Australian jobs, and to support the future of our businesses and industries. There is no doubt that parts of the economy are under pressure from fundamental changes in the global economy since the global financial crisis. The government's industry and innovation statement, A Plan for Australian Jobs, is a detailed and fully funded response to these pressures, containing long-term systemic changes to ensure we can increase prosperity, broaden our economic base and compete in an increasingly competitive world. The important issues for manufacturing to innovate and to improve productivity are equally important for businesses and jobs across our entire economy. After detailed consultations with industry and workers, the Gillard government firmly believes that higher priority should be given to identifying and taking advantage of untapped opportunities for Australian businesses to participate in major projects. This bill supports the creation and retention of Australian jobs by requiring Australian Industry Participation Plans, or AIP Plans, for major projects which will ensure that Australian businesses have full, fair and reasonable opportunity to win work and provide key goods and services. Under this bill, any domestic project worth $500 million or more must demonstrate how it will provide opportunities to local businesses through an Australian Industry Participation plan. This requirement will effectively unlock the international supply chains used by major projects and provide the opportunity Australian businesses need to demonstrate their capability and professionalism and to win work not just domestically but also all over the world. The bill also creates a new Australian Industry Participation Authority to administer these changes, as well as related programs to build capability and capacity within local business and to link them with new business opportunities. Through consultations and consideration in the Senate Economics Legislation Committee we know there is strong stakeholder support for the measures included in this bill. Australian industry knows it is the right thing to do. Australian workers know it is the right thing to do. There is one overriding objective in all of this: the Gillard government's strong commitment to supporting and creating Australian jobs. I thank members for their support in passing this bill and I urge our colleagues in the other place to pass this bill into law without delay. The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 The question is the bill be read a second time.

The House divided. [20:05]
(The Speaker—Ms Anna Burke)

71 AYES Adams, DGH Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Bradbury, DJ Brodtmann, G Burke, AS Butler, MC Byrne, AM Champion, ND Cheeseman, DL Clare, JD Collins, JM Crean, SF Danby, M D'Ath, YM Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Ferguson, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Garrett, PR Georganas, S Gibbons, SW Gray, G Grierson, SJ Griffin, AP Hall, JG Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jenkins, HA Jones, SP Katter, RC Kelly, MJ King, CF Leigh, AK Livermore, KF Lyons, GR Macklin, JL Marles, RD McClelland, RB Melham, D Mitchell, RG (teller) Murphy, JP Neumann, SK Oakeshott, RJM O'Connor, BPJ O'Neill, DM Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD (teller) Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Roxon, NL Rudd, KM Saffin, JA Shorten, WR Sidebottom, PS Smith, SF Smyth, L Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Symon, MS Thomson, CR Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 69 NOES Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Bishop, JI Briggs, JE Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coulton, M (teller) Crook, AJ Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Forrest, JA Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gash, J Griggs, NL Haase, BW Hartsuyker, L Hawke, AG Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Jones, ET Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF Mirabella, S Morrison, SJ Moylan, JE Neville, PC O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Prentice, J Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Randall, DJ Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Ruddock, PM Schultz, AJ Scott, BC Secker, PD (teller) Simpkins, LXL Smith, ADH Somlyay, AM Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wyatt, KG 3 PAIRS Combet, GI Hockey, JB Emerson, CA Washer, MJ Gillard, JE Abbott, A

Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.

Consideration in Detail 4080 20:13 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne by leave—I move Green amendments (1) to (2), as circulated in my name, together: (1) Clause 8, page 12 (lines 15 and 16), omit subclause (2), substitute: (2) For the purposes of this Act, major project threshold amount means: (a) for the period of 10 years starting on the day on which this section commences—$250 million; and (b) after the end of that period: (i) $250 million; or (ii) if the legislative rules specify another amount—that other amount. (2) Clause 8, page 14 (after line 13), at the end of the clause, add: Project may be deemed to be major project in special and extraordinary circumstances (11) The Minister may, by legislative instrument, declare that a specified project is a major project for the purposes of this Act if the Minister is satisfied that: (a) project expenditure as referred to in subsection (1) is or will be less than the major project threshold amount; and (b) there are special and extraordinary circumstances that make it appropriate to treat the project as a major project. (12) The legislative instrument may specify that the declaration is subject to any conditions imposed by the Authority, including conditions that the Minister directs the Authority to impose. Project proponent may request that project be treated as major project (13) A project proponent may, in writing, request the Authority to treat the proponent's project as a major project for the purposes of this Act, if the project proponent believes that: (a) project expenditure as referred to in subsection (1) is or will be less than the major project threshold amount; but (b) project expenditure is or will be at least $50 million. (14) The Authority may: (a) reject the request; or (b) accept the request and declare, in writing, that the project is a major project for the purposes of this Act. (15) The declaration may be subject to conditions imposed by the Authority and specified in the declaration. The Greens are pleased to support this bill and commend the government on taking, at least, some small steps to deal with some of the problems that have arisen and the pressures on industry, especially manufacturing, as a result of the high Australian dollar. Also, we note and commend the emphasis on advanced manufacturing that came as part of the package and the announcement. I have had the pleasure of visiting some of those sites, for example, at CSIRO, where I have seen that advanced manufacturing in action where they are able to save up to 90 per cent of their material costs. As far as general manufacturing goes, had we been in the position to draft this bill we would have gone further and imposed local content requirements on some local projects, something that is done elsewhere around the world and something that has proved to be successful. When we know we have the situation on some resource projects here in Australia that, in addition to 83 per cent of the profits being sent overseas, as little as 10 per cent of the steel used is sourced in Australia, we have a significant problem. There is a real concern that we are essentially playing by rules that we do not ask others around the world to play by at all. There is 20 tonnes of steel, I am told, in the average wind turbine, and yet what we are doing in this country is digging up a lot of the ore and shipping it off and then having it processed elsewhere, and then it comes back to us in the form of a wind turbine which may be erected, or often may not in my state of Victoria, where we face restrictive planning laws that are putting a dent in the clean energy industry as well as domestic manufacturing. A lot of those renewable energy projects are in the range of $200 million to $300 million. At the moment, they would fall under what counts as a major project threshold amount. Accordingly, one of the Greens amendments would have the effect of lowering the threshold so that the measures in the bill regarding Industry Participation Plans would apply to more projects in this country, particularly some of those projects that I have referred to. Indeed, some of the analysis that has been done by the Manufacturing Workers Union suggests that dropping the threshold to $250 million would increase the number of projects that would be caught by the bill by 25 to 30. The total value of those projects that would be caught by the bill is somewhere in the order of $12 billion. I note the WA state government encourages a threshold of $300 million for its AIP Plans. There is a second part to the amendments, which is to allow in certain exceptional situations the government to declare a particular project to be a major project. This would also allow the government to identify particular projects as being of national significance and national importance, perhaps because of the region they are located in or perhaps because of the kind of work or jobs that they would attract, to identify those as being major projects. That is entirely appropriate because there may be particular needs for particular regions, particular skills that are being used, particular areas where there is high unemployment or particular areas where one project is coming off the boil and it may be appropriate to designate the next project in the line as a major project. These are sensible amendments and, although they do not go as far as ultimately the Greens would like with respect to local content and so on, they are sensible amendments that I do hope that the government, and indeed the opposition, will be able to support. They are amendments that come with the strong urging of not only the Manufacturing Workers Union but the Australian Steel Institute. They are considered and they would make a significant difference and enhance the scope of this bill. I commend the amendments to the House. 20:18 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy I second the amendments. Probably my only regret is that we are not going down to $50 million. 20:18 Mrs MIRABELLA 00AMU Indi I rise to speak against the amendments. I was not going to but I was moved by the sheer hypocrisy of the statements made by the member for Melbourne. When I hear a member of the Greens talk about Australian jobs in manufacturing I get very angry, because I have seen the result of the Greens blackmailing the other side of the House into supporting the world's biggest carbon tax and I have seen that impact across manufacturing businesses across the country. These amendments make a bad bill worse and they are not genuinely intended for the interests of manufacturers. I tell you what has happened to manufacturing under this regime. We have seen 140,000 manufacturing jobs go— The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! These are two amendments— Mrs MIRABELLA 00AMU I am speaking to the amendments. The member for Melbourne— The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! The honourable member will listen to the chair. These are two amendments which are limited in their scope. It is not a general second reading debate. I asked the shadow minister to come back to the amendments. Mrs MIRABELLA 00AMU I will come back to the amendments and address the comments directly made by the member for Melbourne. He talked about wind turbines being imported from overseas. You have to ask yourself the question why are so many manufactured products now coming from overseas. It is because they are more competitive against Australian manufactured goods, and a significant reason for that uncompetitiveness of Australian made goods is the carbon tax. So before the Greens try to pretend by moving these amendments that they are actually care for manufacturing, let people on both sides of this House look at the track record of the Greens and look at what they have done to Tasmania, that great state with extraordinary potential, over decades—destroying the economic potential, the manufacturing, the agricultural exports, the timber industry and the mining industry in that state—and ask yourselves whether these amendments are genuinely intended in the best interests of Australian manufacturing. Of course they are not, because if we really followed the Greens' agenda we would have no manufacturing in this country. This is feigned concern for the manufacturing sector. It makes a bad bill worse and the Greens will stand condemned for what they have done to the uncompetitiveness of manufacturing in this country. 20:21 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy I was not going to speak again on the Australian Jobs Bill but I will, as a result of the last speaker. I would agree with everything she said. But when she attributes the destruction of manufacturing in Australia, I would remind her that her Treasurer took the dollar from 52c to 90c, which halved the income for every manufacturer and every— Mrs Mirabella 00AMU Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Kennedy is not referring to me in the appropriate manner. The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! The member for Kennedy will refer to members by their correct titles. Mr KATTER HX4 I think that is the greatest intellectual thrust that she has made in this parliament since she has been here! The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! I ask members to address the matter before the chair. Mr KATTER HX4 The member said that the Greens were responsible for destruction in the Australian community, which is a proposition I agree with 100 per cent, but to attribute the destruction to the Greens when her party took the dollar—I am sorry; I will withdraw the word 'her'; when the honourable member's— Mrs Mirabella 00AMU Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order on relevance: this debate has nothing to do with the previous administration and everything to do with the Australian Jobs Bill. The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! I do ask the member for Kennedy to address the amendments before the chair. Mr KATTER HX4 Mr Deputy Speaker, the previous speaker attributed the collapse of manufacturing in Australia to the Greens. That is what she said. She was entitled to say that. Well, I am entitled to say that under her party—and she does not want me to say it, but I will be saying it in her electorate during the election campaign, the honourable member representing the area near Shepparton—the dollar was driven from 52c to 90c, which halved the income of every single farmer in her electorate. Does she want to deny that—that the dollar being driven from 52c to 90c destroyed agriculture in her region? Does she want to deny that? It would be interesting to see it in her paper if she denies that. The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! I remind the honourable member for Kennedy that we are addressing two amendments. I ask him to address those amendments. Mrs Mirabella 00AMU Mr Deputy Speaker— The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! The honourable member will resume her seat. Mr KATTER HX4 Oh, come on, Mr Deputy Speaker! She is just trying to stall for time because she cannot cop the pain. The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! Resume your seat. Mrs Mirabella 00AMU Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. To be of assistance, it appeared that the member for Kennedy was having some problems identifying my electorate; it is called Indi. The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! The shadow minister will resume her seat. The member for Kennedy: address the amendments before the chair. Mr KATTER HX4 Mr Deputy Speaker, if she gets up again you know that she is trying to shut me up— The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 Order! Mr KATTER HX4 because she cannot cop the pain. The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 The honourable member will address the amendments. Mr KATTER HX4 Well, Mr Deputy Speaker, the issue before the House is industry—the construction of industry. And we are not, as Australians, getting a look-in at the tendering process. This is not going to solve that problem. But it will help to at least give us the opportunity to have a go, because we are not getting the opportunity to have a go. This is something, clearly, that the honourable member who spoke previously does not understand, and I hope that someone in her party will explain it to her later on because it requires explanation. If you are creating a new mine in this country—and the only construction that is taking place in this country is mining—the parts, the components, everything, are being flown in or shipped in from overseas, and then they are being put together by construction crews from overseas. Our local contractors do not get a look-in anywhere along the line. Under the honourable member's government and the previous ALP government, all the great mining companies in Australia were flogged off to foreigners. So now they do deals with their foreign mates at Bechtel and the big international building corporations, and the locals do not get a look-in at any stage whatsoever. It is extraordinary to me that no-one on the right-hand side of the House would be taking the position that Australians should be able to get a look-in at the tendering process, and that is all that this bill is about. I wish it went further, but it really does not do much substantially at all. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 The question is that the amendments be agreed to. A division having been called and the bells having been rung— The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 As there are fewer than five members on the side for the ayes, I declare the question resolved in the negative in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. Question negatived, Mr Bandt, Mr Katter and Mr Wilkie voting aye. The DEPUTY SPEAKER BV5 The question now is that the bill be agreed to. Question agreed to. Third Reading 4084 20:32 Mrs D'ATH HVN Petrie by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. BUSINESS 4084 BUSINESS Rearrangement 4084 20:32 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I move: That business intervening before notice No. 1, government business, be postponed until a later hour this day. Question agreed to. 20:32 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I move: That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the private Members’ business notice relating to the disallowance of the Building Code 2013, dated 25 January 2013, made under the Fair Work (Building Industry) Act 2012 and presented to the House on 6 February 2013, being called on immediately. Question agreed to. MOTIONS 4084 MOTIONS Building Code 2013 4084 Disallowance 4084 20:34 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer I move: That the Building Code 2013, dated 25 January 2013, made under the Fair Work (Building Industry) Act 2012 and presented to the House on 6 February 2013, be disallowed. One can attack this introduction of a building code from many perspectives. But the main ones that I want to highlight to the House tonight are that the motivation for such an introduction of this piece of legislation is suspect, and that the drafting has been appalling. The motivation was suspect and the drafting was appalling. As members know, the Fair Work (Building Industry) Act 2012 enables the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations to issue a code of practice. The code would apply to builders tendering for federal government work and would apply to their privately funded work once they are covered. The act provides that where work is to be carried out in a territory or Commonwealth place that a person who is a building contractor, a constitutional corporation or a building industry participant is required to comply with the building code. On 30 January this year, the minister announced, out of the blue, that there would be an introduction of this building code. Previously, everyone had operated under a code and guidelines and had not been locked into legislation. A process that began in 1997 admittedly has been watered down by the present government—I think in 2009 in 2012—because it is very clear that the government does not want the tough cop on the beat in the building industry that the coalition have pledged that we will have, and that we have always had. They watered down the code but then suddenly created this piece of legislation. I keep coming back to why. It was under the cover of the Prime Minister's announcement of an election campaign: the minister actually announced it on 30 January and then said it was to come into effect, as in fact it did, two days later on 1 February. The point is that this code introduces extensive obligations that appear not to have been completely and properly assessed in terms of the regulatory burden placed on the industry. The hapless department was left, as usual, holding the baby after the minister stepped out and made his announcement. Of course the stakeholders approached the department saying: 'What does this all mean? What does it mean for us? What about the existing Victorian code?'—and we will come back to that—'How does it match up with this new Commonwealth code that we never expected, and will it mean a whole lot more red tape? The department promised 'frequently asked questions', as they often do when they try to cover the minister's back. But the frequently asked and answered questions were promised two weeks later and I think they appeared perhaps in the last couple of weeks. They are on the website, but I do not think that builders and people involved in this critical construction industry should rely on frequently asked questions on the department's website to get information that they should have got directly from this minister and directly through an appropriate consultation process. Indeed, Senator Eric Abetz, the shadow minister in the other place, was quite rightly concerned that a regulation impact statement was deemed not to have been required. The code was issued, as the senator said, with no stakeholder consultation and has imposed significant new requirements and replaces implementation guidelines immediately—there are no transitional provisions. In particular, though not required by the Fair Work Act, similar to the 2012 implementation guidelines, the previous watered-down version, the code now mandates that arbitration clauses be included in all enterprise agreements entered into by participants. There will be some enterprise agreements previously assessed as being code compliant that do not contain such clauses and suddenly obviously cause problems. The Department of Finance and Deregulation has issued a reply that does not satisfy the coalition. It simply says that the proposal was unlikely to have a huge impact. We completely disagree. I will take you back briefly to some of the history. The coalition established the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner in 2005 in response to the Cole royal commission that found that the building and construction industry was characterised by widespread disregard for the law. It catalogued over 100 types of unlawful and inappropriate conduct. The commission found that existing regulatory bodies had insufficient powers and resources to enforce the law. We implemented a code of conduct for the building and construction sector following the Cole royal commission because we do support that tough cop on the beat and a strong code, but Labor have weakened the code, have abolished the ABCC and have allowed a culture of thuggery and intimidation to develop. We believe this must be addressed. Our policy released a fortnight ago does exactly that. As we all know, we will restore the ABCC. It was indeed a tough cop on the beat. It took a strong stand against union thuggery in the building and construction industry. It had a strong and effective building code. It helped that industry to increase productivity by 10 per cent, providing an annual economic welfare gain of $6.2 billion a year. It reduced inflation by 1.2 per cent and increased GDP by 1.5 per cent. The number of working days lost annually per 1,000 employees in the construction industry has fallen from 224 in 2004 to 24 in 2006. At the same time building costs have fallen by 20 to 25 per cent and long project delays have been dramatically reduced. These are the criteria by which we should judge measures such as this. How much does it cost a state like Victoria to build its infrastructure? If a code of conduct restricts the actions of unions and union thuggery in the workplace and therefore keeps those costs viable and competitive in a tough international market then why would the government do anything less than this? Today we seek to disallow this instrument so we may send a clear message that the coalition supports the tough cop on the beat and that the coalition importantly believes that state governments should be allowed to set their own procurement guidelines. The rushed and botched implementation of this code was of course in response to the Victorian government implementing its own code. Why shouldn't the states have the right to build their infrastructure in a cost-effective manner? The commercial reality is that construction costs are 20 to 30 per cent more than they should be. Victoria has recognised this and Victoria has introduced its own code. The guidelines require tenderers for public sector work in Victoria to commit to compliance with the law, productivity, safety and freedom of association. Unlike this national code of practice, Victoria requires that tenderers for major projects submit detailed plans that identify their approach to various matters, including workplace safety, dispute resolution, response to industrial action, right of entry, management of subcontractors, and communication and consultation with the workforce. It is a perfectly sensible plan that the Victorian government requires of anyone wishing to do government paid building work. I want to know what it is about the Victorian code that the minister disliked so much that he had to introduce this national code. Mr Shorten interjecting— Ms LEY 00AMN The minister mentioned the Federal Court. I understand the decision is on appeal. The Victorian government has agreed to make some changes to its code in recognition of some of the concerns that were raised and it has decided to appeal to the full court. We will wait and see what happens to that. I want to reflect on some of the concerns that have been raised about this building code by the Master Builders, who represent an enormous cohort of the industry. I think they have been treated very poorly in this process. They have not been consulted. They have been directed to the department's website where frequently asked questions have eventuated and they have been basically left to work it out for themselves. The issue of no consultation is important because it is easy to say 'regulatory burden' and 'red tape' but that actually adds enormous costs, and the costs of compliance are weighing down people operating in this sector. So there was no consultation. The minister has a clear obligation to take into account recommendations, for example, of the FSC. The FSC has an interesting relationship with the body that will implement the FWBC. The explanatory statements have not made it clear how the FSC and its requirements will interact with occupational health and safety measures that will be introduced by the FWBC. Importantly, this code creates new work health and safety obligations. The explanatory statement does not acknowledge that, because it says and the minister says that it is just business as usual; it just codifies existing obligations. You would think a new code would bring about the streamlining and certainty that people in the industry expect. It should make the administration of complying with work health and safety obligations easier. It should not make complying with work health and safety obligations harder by adding another layer of regulatory requirements and burdens. As it stands, building and construction industry enterprises wishing to undertake Commonwealth construction projects must meet work health and safety obligations that are established by various statutes in various jurisdictions and administered by a range of regulators and agencies. This code does not actually replace those requirements; it has been imposed on top of this bewildering body of entwined arrangements. The building and construction industry will now be obliged to meet the requirements set out in: the Building Code 2013; that code's supporting guidelines; the Fair Work (Building Industry) Act; the Fair Work (Building Industry-Accreditation Scheme); the Australian Government Building and Construction OHS Accreditation Scheme; state and territory OHS laws; state and territory accreditation schemes; and obligations established by modern awards and other industrial instruments. It is ridiculous that this code's explanatory statement says that there are actually no new obligations created. That is not the case. The introduction of the code has brought about this huge range of new compliance obligations. With the introduction of the code there are more work health and safety requirements on building and construction industry enterprises as well as more regulators. Section 20 of the code requires that building and construction enterprises must have a Work Health, Safety and Rehabilitation Management System in place and it specifies what the system must entail. Everyone must be exhausted when they hear words like this—another plan, another system! Of course the system has to show all sorts of things. You have to say that you have a management system, and I guess that is not in itself a revolutionary redevelopment, but making it mandatory under a Commonwealth statutory instrument is a material change. Such a requirement does not exist under current work health and safety laws. There is no direct prescription of a specific management system approach elsewhere, but under this code building and construction industry enterprises will need to conform to a prescription when establishing and implementing their management systems. One of the things I noticed in the requirements of this system is that it has to demonstrate how they will improve practices over time. How can you demonstrate that? Who is looking at this? Who is there with the statutory backing of compliance behind them to be able to say, 'I do not think that is good enough. That does not measure up to the type of plan we expect.'? Imagine the regulatory burden this is imposing in the area. The broad nature of the code's obligations raise the question of how it is intended that the extent of these obligations will be placed not just on contractors but also on subcontractors, a sector that generally is not completely captured by the code. There is a section—section 6 of the code—that draws subcontractors into compliance with the code in a way that extends wholly beyond work on government projects. The effect is that a building contractor and a building industry participant, the subcontractor, will be compelled to comply with the code for all the work they undertake, government related or otherwise, as soon as they submit an expression of interest or tender for work on a government project. Once the threshold of government-related work has been triggered, the section of the code sets out that contractors and subcontractors are subject to the code for all their building work. So if you submit to a government project and you are unsuccessful, you and your subcontractors are subject to the code, it would appear, for all future building work. I would like the minister to actually address that point in his response. I know that the frequently asked questions on the website and the not-so-frequently answered questions sort of do hint that maybe that would not be the case, but it is not appropriate, really, that builders rely on a website to get their information from a government that refused to consult with them in the first place. How ridiculous that if you tender for government work and you are unsuccessful, you and the subcontractors that may be associated with you are then captured and caught by this code even for your privately funded building work. That is a regulatory bridge that is totally unacceptable. The ramifications would be extraordinary and it is difficult to contemplate realistically how these requirements of the code could be regulated with any effect anyway by Fair Work Building and Construction without the imposition of yet another burdensome paper based compliance and reporting system. The obligation on contractors to comply with the code before doing business with them has the effect again of drawing in the work undertaken by subcontractors on nongovernment projects. Another regulator is now enforcing work health and safety obligations in respect of the building and construction sector. FWBC, Fair Work Building and Construction, will be required to monitor and ensure that work health and safety requirements are met. So we are drawing work health and safety into the federal jurisdiction, with Fair Work Building and Construction holding the power to investigate the compliance of builders with OHS law, which it did not previously have to do, which previously came under a completely different set of regulations. I am getting tied up talking about this, but it is not surprising and I cannot imagine how anyone can untangle the mess, the regulatory and compliance mess, that will be imposed by this. I would like to conclude by just reiterating the coalition's approach in this area and make it quite clear that we will ensure right of entry by unions with provisions that are sensible and fair. The coalition government will ensure that union right-of-entry provisions are sensible and fair by making sure that they are modelled on the Prime Minister's 2007 promise that said, 'We will make sure that the current right-of-entry provisions stay.' This promise was broken. Unions were given much easier and far broader access to workplaces under the Fair Work laws—in one case up to 200 visits in three months. A coalition government will change the law so that these provisions are modelled on the promise that Labor made in 2007 and we will oppose Labor's recent attempts to go even further. We will re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission to ensure that it maintains the rule of law, that it drives productivity on commercial building sites and construction projects whether onshore or offshore. We recognise how effective the ABCC was in addressing workplace militancy and improving productivity in the building and construction industry, and we have seen how productivity has dropped in that industry under this government. We will replace this government's failed Fair Work Building and Construction unit and will administer a national code and guidelines that will govern industrial relations arrangements for government projects. This step will ensure that taxpayers' dollars are used efficiently. We will work with state governments who have put in place their own codes—a New South Wales code is underway and I understand that a Queensland code is being talked about. We believe in state rights. We do not want to jump all over the right of individual states to manage their own infrastructure projects according to their own procurement guidelines in ways which ensure that they get value for the dollar. So I am very pleased to have moved this disallowance motion this evening. I encourage members who may not have made up their minds to urgently consider supporting the coalition and I present this motion to the House. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 Is there a seconder to this disallowance motion? 20:52 Mr BALDWIN LL6 Paterson I will second this motion. I reserve my right to speak. I will speak directly after the minister. 20:52 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong It is a sorry state of affairs when the time in the parliament is taken up with stunts like this. There were five propositions advanced by the member for Farrer who do I acknowledge heroically took 18 minutes to put her case. There were five arguments put by the opposition on this disallowance resolution. The first one is that there has been insufficient consultation. All we have done is make as a regulation something that has been in the guidelines of the Commonwealth since May of last year. So every man and their dog has had the opportunity to see these propositions for some 12 months. The second objection which was put forward is that somehow this is an intrusion on state rights. This straw clutching by the opposition fails to recognise that the Federal Court has examined the Victorian building code and thrown it out on its ear. This patched together, cobbled document by a bunch of ideologues out of Spring Street in Melbourne had their code found wanting. It was found, in fact, to lead to breaches of the Fair Work Act and the Federal Court said it was not good enough. There is this argument that we should defend state rights, to defend shonky codes which could not withstand the scrutiny of the court system. You can only wonder why the opposition here are trying to adhere to codes which breach the Fair Work Act. It beggars belief. The more substantial debate though comes down to the proposition where the opposition say there is a militancy, flexibility and productivity problem in Australian workplaces. They use these allegations, these vagrant prejudices unsubstantiated by the facts, to justify an attack on the rights of employees and employers to arrive at collective agreements in a civilised fashion, thus creating productivity, flexibility and fair outcomes all round. We should not be surprised at this disallowance resolution. We know the first rule of conservative politics is to never let the facts get in the way of a good story. That is certainly the case here with the remaining trifecta of arguments presented by the member for Farrer. Those conservatives would say there is a productivity problem but let us look at the facts, not the conservative sloganeering. Productivity growth under the Fair Work Act is around triple the rate of that experienced under the former coalition government's disastrous Work Choices. This includes at a time when their Australian Building and Construction Commissioner was in effect. The second leg of their trifecta was that there is an alleged militancy problem. Let us look again at the facts. Industrial disputation is down. That is right, members of parliament. It is not up, it is down. The ABS shows industrial disputation is down under a Labor government. In fact, it is around one-third of the average that we saw under the Howard government. Very importantly, in the building and construction industry the rate is on average less than one-fifth of the rate of industrial action that we saw under the Howard government in Australia's building and construction sites. The third leg of the trifecta which still has not come in is their allegation there is a flexibility problem. It is clear here that the only thing that the conservatives are proposing when they support resolutions such as the disallowance motion and their so-called policy on industrial relations is that they wish to re-introduce individual contracts that would allow penalty rates to be traded away for pizza. They would allow people working in video rentals to be paid in videos. This is not a way to drive productivity or support working Australians. There has never been a case that you lift flexibility, or you lift productivity and you decrease disputation in the workplace by cutting away people's conditions. The way for Australia in the future and for all of our industries, including building and construction, is high-skilled, high-performing, well-remunerated work sites with cooperative workplace relations and with a central role in many cases for collective bargaining. There we have it: the five objections used by the member for Farrer to support the disallowance motion. Look at what the Victorian government has done. That is in the legal bin. Have a look at the consultation issue. This code has been in guidelines form since May of last year, unchanged, so that argument goes into the dustbin of history. Then, of course , we have the bigger myths around flexibility, militancy and productivity. Productivity is up under Labor. Labour productivity is up under Labor. Industrial disputation is down. Flexibility under the Liberals always means cutting conditions. In conclusion, just as those opposite may be uncomfortable with the facts that I have just referred to, they will be uncomfortable at the facts with regard to the building code. The building code commenced on 1 February this year. It is based on the most recent version of the government's implementation guidelines which were released in May 2012. Our building code is simple. Out building code requires compliance with the law. Our building code means simpler compliance for contractors. In fact, Justice Wilcox's review of the Commonwealth building regulatory system recommended disallowable instruments. Indeed, the Master Builders Association believed that the guidelines should be a disallowable instrument. The motion proposed by the member for Farrer and the debate today show that the conservatives will say and do anything on workplace relations matters so long as it involves undermining the conditions of employees. They certainly are never guilty of letting good policy and a centrist approach on workplace relations get in the way of their far right ideology. We saw it with Work Choices, we see it now. The government opposes this motion. 20:58 Mr BALDWIN LL6 Paterson I seconded the motion, supporting the member for Farrer, that the Building Code 2013 dated 25 January 2013 made under the Fair Work (Building Industry) Act 2012 and presented to the House on 6 February 2013 be disallowed. I have just listened to the diatribe from the minister who does not seem to understand what productivity is all about. Productivity is about getting the government out of the way of industry. What this minister wants to support is thuggery, union involvement to the benefit of the union movement and not to the workers and not to the industry. This is about the union movement, not actually the workers. It is not about protecting workers rights or opportunities. It is about union interference. This minister has form as did his predecessor, Mr Howes. They have stood up for what they claim to be the union members but in actual fact they have done very little to support their union members. In fact, not so long ago corruption was being discussed and people were taking money out of the union movement for personal benefit. I clearly remember Paul Howes saying, 'We should stamp this out and we should recover the money.' That did not seem to reach down to previous union people in the AWU who took money out of the union movement. This includes the allegations against the Prime Minister and her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, and Ralph Blewitt. No recovery actions on that money, and that involved the building industry unions standing over a company in Western Australia. In fact there are many aspects of the thuggery that have continued under these new regulations put forward by the minister, including the Grocon dispute, the Queensland Children's Hospital dispute, the Little Creatures dispute and the City West Water Melbourne dispute. I understand the corruption in the building industry because prior to coming to this place I was an advocate for the Crown in the Department of Fair Trading in New South Wales, in the building services corporation, helping to clean up the corruption and thuggery revealed by the Giles royal commission. I actually understand what the member for Farrer is objecting to. The only reason the minister and the government want to oppose this disallowance is because they want to see a continuation of union thuggery, union involvement: 'unions are supreme'—hello, you're waving to me across the box, are you? Mr Shorten 00ATG Mr Deputy Speaker, the member opposite is impugning the motivations of myself and my speech by saying that I support criminality. I do not; I never have. You want to be careful about saying that. I would like you to withdraw, mate. Mr BALDWIN LL6 I will not withdraw it because it is fact. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 I ask the member to withdraw. Mr BALDWIN LL6 If he is so tender, I will withdraw it. But it does not dispute the fact that the— Mr Shorten 00ATG That's not a withdrawal, mate. Mr BALDWIN LL6 I said I withdrew it. Mr Shorten 00ATG Do it like the grown up you pretend to be. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 I ask you to withdraw. Mr BALDWIN LL6 I said I withdraw, Mr Deputy Speaker. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 Thank you. Mr BALDWIN LL6 But it does not stop me alluding to the corruption by union officials, in particular in relation to the building industry. It has gone on; it continues to go on. The standover merchants in the union movement who stand over the building industry, purportedly to the benefit of the workers but actually to the detriment of the workers in the building industry, to the detriment of productivity, to the detriment of this country. That is why I support the disallowance motion moved by the shadow minister at the table, the member for Farrer. And, as I say, I never fail to look in despair at the actions of union officials and those former union officials who occupy seats in this House. The SPEAKER 83S The question is that the disallowance motion moved by the member for Farrer be agreed to.

The House divided. [21:15]
(The Speaker—Ms Anna Burke)

70 AYES Alexander, JG Andrews, KJ Andrews, KL Baldwin, RC Billson, BF Bishop, BK Briggs, JE Broadbent, RE Buchholz, S Chester, D Christensen, GR Ciobo, SM Cobb, JK Coulton, M (teller) Crook, AJ Dutton, PC Entsch, WG Fletcher, PW Forrest, JA Frydenberg, JA Gambaro, T Gash, J Griggs, NL Haase, BW Hartsuyker, L Hawke, AG Hockey, JB Hunt, GA Irons, SJ Jensen, DG Jones, ET Keenan, M Kelly, C Laming, A Ley, SP Macfarlane, IE Marino, NB Markus, LE Matheson, RG McCormack, MF Mirabella, S Morrison, SJ Moylan, JE Neville, PC Oakeshott, RJM O'Dowd, KD O'Dwyer, KM Prentice, J Pyne, CM Ramsey, RE Randall, DJ Robb, AJ Robert, SR Roy, WB Ruddock, PM Schultz, AJ Scott, BC Secker, PD (teller) Simpkins, LXL Smith, ADH Somlyay, AM Southcott, AJ Stone, SN Tehan, DT Truss, WE Tudge, AE Turnbull, MB Van Manen, AJ Vasta, RX Wyatt, KG 71 NOES Adams, DGH Albanese, AN Bandt, AP Bird, SL Bowen, CE Bradbury, DJ Brodtmann, G Burke, AS Butler, MC Byrne, AM Champion, ND Cheeseman, DL Clare, JD Collins, JM Crean, SF Danby, M D'Ath, YM Dreyfus, MA Elliot, MJ Ellis, KM Ferguson, LDT Ferguson, MJ Fitzgibbon, JA Garrett, PR Georganas, S Gibbons, SW Gray, G Grierson, SJ Griffin, AP Hall, JG Hayes, CP Husic, EN Jenkins, HA Jones, SP Katter, RC Kelly, MJ King, CF Leigh, AK Livermore, KF Lyons, GR Macklin, JL Marles, RD McClelland, RB Melham, D Mitchell, RG (teller) Murphy, JP Neumann, SK O'Connor, BPJ O'Neill, DM Owens, J Parke, M Perrett, GD (teller) Plibersek, TJ Ripoll, BF Rishworth, AL Rowland, MA Roxon, NL Rudd, KM Saffin, JA Shorten, WR Sidebottom, PS Smith, SF Smyth, L Snowdon, WE Swan, WM Symon, MS Thomson, CR Thomson, KJ Vamvakinou, M Wilkie, AD Zappia, A 3 PAIRS Abbott, AJ Gillard, JE Bishop, JI Combet, GI Washer, MJ Emerson, C

Questioned negatived.

BILLS 4093 BILLS Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy) Bill 2013 4093

Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy) Bill 2013

Report from Federation Chamber 4093 Third Reading 4093 21:13 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013 4093

Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013

Report from Federation Chamber 4093 Third Reading 4093 21:14 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Corporations and Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 4093

Corporations and Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill 2013

Statute Law Revision Bill 2013

Report from Federation Chamber 4094 Third Reading 4094 21:15 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Not-for-profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013 4094

Not-for-profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013

Report from Federation Chamber 4094 Third Reading 4094 21:16 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Corporations Amendment (Simple Corporate Bonds and Other Measures) Bill 2013 4094

Corporations Amendment (Simple Corporate Bonds and Other Measures) Bill 2013

Second Reading 4094 21:16 Mr TONY SMITH 00APG Casey I rise on behalf of the member for North Sydney, the shadow Treasurer, to speak on the Corporations Amendment (Simple Corporate Bonds and Other Measures) Bill 2013. The bill has two schedules. The first deals with amending the Corporations Act to facilitate improved trading of retail corporate bonds in Australia. These measures were part of the Treasurer's banking plan, announced back in December 2010. As members would be aware, the shadow Treasurer has been calling for the establishment of a deep and liquid corporate bond market in Australia since October 2010. We note that it has taken the Treasurer almost three years to bring forward this legislation. The coalition will, as part of its financial services inquiry and commitment to a reduction in red tape for business, monitor the progress of this legislation. The government claims that the changes contained in schedule 1 will establish a strong and liquid retail debt market in Australia by facilitating increased offerings of corporate bonds to retail investors in Australia through a streamlined disclosure process, changes to civil liability provisions in respect to corporate bonds issued to retail investors and clarifying the application of the defences in respect of misleading and deceptive statements and omissions in disclosure documents relating to corporate bonds issued to retail investors. The Corporations Act governs the fundraising practices of corporate entities in Australia. Currently the act requires a corporation to prepare a full prospectus for the offer of corporate bonds to retail investors. In a full prospectus a corporation is required to disclose all of the information that investors and their professional advisers may reasonably require to make an informed assessment. While the issue of corporate bonds to retail investors requires a full prospectus, the issue of corporate bonds to sophisticated or professional investors—commonly referred to as wholesale investors—does not require a disclosure document such as a prospectus, on the basis that wholesale investors are considered to have sufficient resources and bargaining power to evaluate investments. The amendments in schedule 1 introduce a mandatory two-part prospectus for certain bond issuances to simplify the disclosure obligations. While the framework of the two-part prospectus will be contained in the act, the content and structure of it will be specified by regulations. Directors and proposed directors of a body making an offer have liability for any misstatement in or omission from the document where they are involved in a contravention of subsection 728(1). The amendments to the directors' liabilities have been designed to reduce the burden on directors when issuing corporate bonds to retail investors under the two-part prospectus. The second schedule deals with issues that are a legacy of the 2009 inquiry into financial products and services in Australia by the Joint Committee of Corporations and Financial Services, which considered a variety of issues associated with corporate collapses, including Storm and Opes Prime. Schedule 2 seeks to amend the Corporations Act in order to restrict the use of the terms 'financial planner' and 'financial adviser' and terms of like import, taking effect from 1 July 2013. The government argues that by restricting these it will be able to provide consumers with certainty that a person using the term is authorised to do so under a licence. The act defines and restricts the use of a number of other terms—for example, 'stockbroker', 'futures broker' and 'issuance broker'—however, there have been no specific restrictions on the terms 'financial planner' and 'financial adviser'. The government argues that restricting the use of terms 'financial planner' and 'financial adviser' enable the corporate regulator, ASIC, to take specific action against persons who hold themselves out to be either of those without being able to do so under a licence. The changes within schedule 2 make it an offence for a person to assume or use the terms or terms of similar importance unless they meet the statutory criteria of the bill. The coalition is committed to striking the right balance between improving consumer protection on the one hand while keeping costly red tape to a minimum so that access to high-quality financial advice remains available and as affordable possible. The change to enshrine the definition of these terms in the legislation is unlikely to make much of a positive difference from the current position. The law already requires anyone providing financial advice to hold an appropriate Australian Financial Services Licence through ASIC. To provide advice without such an AFSL is already an offence. The coalition cautions against the risk of further regulatory expansion of the regime from the platform of enshrinement of the terms 'financial planner' and 'financial adviser'. Other terms in the finance industry are not enshrined—terms like 'accountant' are not. Through the pursuit of high professional standards by various accounting bodies, the industry has effectively self-regulated and achieved public trust for that profession. Accountants use accreditation by industry bodies, such as the CPA or Chartered Accountants, to signal their professional standing or bona fides. At best the coalition considers enshrinement will make little difference. Clearly the dividing line in policy terms between what ought to be enshrined and what ought not to be is difficult to agree upon even within the industry. There was some evidence of that through some recent inquiries. I point out, in addition, the Association of Financial Advisers have argued for mandatory sign-plating. An example is for offices and business cards to also be a requirement of this legislation. The legislation should not be the first step towards more red tape and complexity, with costs of business compliance being passed on to consumers for very little protection. I point that out because some in the industry are foreshadowing future changes. Indeed, in the FPA submission the Industry Super Network was quoted as saying that the legislation should include regulation-making powers to provide flexibility in the future to identify additional requirements which would need to be met in order to make use of the restricted terms and ensure it extends to the use of terms when providing advice and online tools. The coalition will keep a watching brief on the implementation of this legislation and any flow-on consequences it may have, particularly for unnecessary regulatory burdens with minimal policy outcomes. The coalition will not be opposing the passage of this bill. 21:24 Ms O'NEILL 140651 Robertson I rise to address the Corporations Amendment (Simple Corporate Bonds and Other Measures) Bill 2013. The matters are covered in two schedules. Firstly, with regard to the issuing of retail corporate bonds we had an excellent hearing with the sector, which provided some considerable feedback to us. With the establishment of this piece of legislation the bond market will be able to expand, and that will provide investment opportunity for Australian residents and nonresidents and improve access to the simple corporate or vanilla bonds. The second schedule deals with the terms 'financial planner' and 'financial adviser'. Sadly, some unlicensed people or unscrupulous people have been exploiting those who thought they were getting careful financial advice and personal financial advice but found that not to be the case. This tightens up the naming of people who call themselves financial advisers. In effect, it will definitely help consumers by clarifying where you can go to get excellent financial advice. That should improve consumer confidence. I commend the bill to the House. 21:25 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong I present a replacement explanatory memorandum for the Corporations Amendment (Simple Corporate Bonds and Other Measures) Bill 2013. I thank honourable members for their contributions to the debate on this bill. The establishment of a deep and liquid retail corporate bond market in Australia is a key priority for the Gillard government. A well-performing and efficient retail corporate bond market will provide an alternative funding source for Australian companies and increase competitive pressure on lending rates. The reforms in schedule 1 of the bill reduce the regulatory burden on issuers of corporate bonds, while at the same time ensuring that appropriate standards of consumer protection are maintained. The reforms follow on from the recent reforms that led to the commencement of retail trading of the Australian Government Bonds, AGB, on the ASX on 21 May 2013. They deliver on our commitment to reduce regulatory burdens and barriers for offers of corporate bonds to retail investors. There are clear benefits in growing the size of the retail corporate bond market. For Australians living longer, simple corporate bonds provide an appropriate alternative for managing longevity risk, which is of particular interest to self-managed superannuation fund trustees. The reforms in schedule 1 enable companies to offer simple corporate bonds by releasing a shorter offer-specific prospectus, as long as they have lodged a base prospectus with ASIC for the purposes of making an offer under the new two-part simple corporate bond market. In addition to these critical reforms, the bill also facilitates future parallel trading of simple corporate bonds into wholesale and retail markets. In streamlining the disclosure requirements, we will help build investor confidence and establish a strong foundation for future growth. The other measures in the bill contain a schedule to amend the Corporations Act 2001 to define in law the terms 'financial planner' and 'financial adviser'. The amendments will also make sure we can allow ASIC to take action against property spruikers and other individuals who seek to deceive Australian consumers by holding themselves out as genuine providers of financial product advice when they are actually not. These reforms are strongly supported by stakeholders in the industry. I commend the legislation to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Third Reading 4097 21:27 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. ADJOURNMENT 4097 ADJOURNMENT Broadband 4097 21:28 Mr VASTA E0D Bonner Tonight I rise to voice my strong support for the coalition's policy objective that every Australian should be able to access fast, reliable and affordable broadband in their homes and places of work. Unfortunately, nothing has changed since my last speech about broadband in this chamber earlier this year. The lack of reliability and access to broadband services continues to cause untold frustration, not to mention the loss of business dollars, for many Bonner residents, especially in the suburbs of Wakerley, Carindale, Wynnum Manly, Tingalpa, Gumdale, Ransome and Mackenzie. It is a disappointing fact that many of these residents continue not to be able to access broadband at all—let alone faster broadband. As such, it has been a relief for me to be able to give Bonner residents some clear direction and hope about the coalition's NBN policy. I was immensely pleased to be able to tell them that under our policy regions and suburbs with the poorest existing service, or no service at all, will be given priority. The coalition's policy bridges the gap between those who are on very fast broadband and those who have nothing. Put simply, this policy ticks all the boxes because is it offers flexibility and, above all, affordability. It gives people choice and it is fair. I have been able to reassure many of the discouraged small-business owners in Bonner that the coalition's policy is flexible, because if you are a business owner who needs speed you can get it. But, most importantly, I have been able to assure Bonner residents that under our policy if you are an average householder, a pensioner or student, you will not be paying for speed you do not need. It provides a choice—so for many of my constituents, as their needs change, they can still upgrade and make use of the latest technology. This policy is affordable, and I applaud the way our broadband policy will save consumers $300 per year by 2021. It will be cheaper for households regardless of whether or not they are in a city, regional or remote area—unlike Labor, whose plan will increase charges by an eye-watering 177 per cent by 2021. In today's technologically driven society access to broadband is not so much a privilege as it is an everyday necessity. As Brendon from Carindale phrased it, 'Access to internet is an essential service, like access to electricity.' I could not agree more. Let us take a moment to do some number crunching. The coalition's NBN plan is projected to cost $29.5 billion and to be completed by 2019. On the other hand, Labor's plan is expected to cost $44.1 billion and to be completed by 2021. The numbers and the dollars speak for themselves. Senator Conroy has openly admitted that his government's $8 billion NBN rollout has gotten off to a discouraging start, with the scheme lucky to meet 15 per cent of its June 30 target. Modelling shows that only two per cent will be finished mid-way through this year. It is obvious that fiscal responsibility does not rank highly on this government's list of priorities. But, as I continue to reassure Bonner residents, the coalition will continue to hold the Labor government accountable for the hard-earned taxpayer dollars that it wastes on its delayed NBN scheme. Previously, I have advised this chamber that only 10 per cent of Bonner is scheduled for NBN in the next three years, with 90 per cent having no schedule at all for the foreseeable future. But now residents are concerned that they may never be included in the rollout, given the recent budget cuts to the scheme. The Prime Minister and Senator Conroy owe it to Bonner residents to provide them with an honest and open account of which suburbs will miss out. Instead, all we get is a veil of secrecy around this project with a lot of misleading statistics. I take this opportunity to thank my good friend and colleague the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull on his outstanding performance as he has been able to brilliantly articulate the coalition's policy. It has been critical for the coalition to get the balance right. Our policy gets it right and I stand strong with my colleagues in supporting our policy position. Broadband 4098 21:33 Mr RUDD 83T Griffith I was entertained then by the member for Bonner's presentation on broadband in his electorate for the simple reason that between 1996 and 2007 the previous Howard government had 16 separate plans on broadband and did not one jot of work in all of metropolitan Brisbane. Secondly, he talked about a 10 per cent rollout in his electorate—that is 10 per cent more than would be delivered under the coalition's so-called broadband plan. I think the member for Bonner had better look long and hard at the precise implications of the policy enunciated by the very articulate member for Wentworth. For my own electorate on Brisbane's southside broadband is indeed important. Everywhere I go to mobile offices in the electorate this is the one thing which comes up constantly. People running small businesses from home are demanding more speed, more reliable speed, because that is the part of the future. It will also improve telecommuting, telemedicine and digital education, as well as our ability to run businesses from home. It is universal across our community. In a recent community survey, 89 per cent of respondents felt that their household would benefit from faster, more reliable broadband. And 87 per cent of respondents felt that their fibre connection should be provided direct to all households. I have not seen any similar surveys from the Liberal and National parties on their broadband policy. Perhaps a survey which the member for Bonner and Mr Abbott's hand-picked candidate in the electorate of Griffith could roll out these questions: (1) Do you support the Liberal and National parties' policy of slower internet connections? (2) Do you support the Liberal and National parties' policy of making you pay up to $5,000 to have fibre connected to your home? (3) Do you support the Liberal and National parties' policy of spending three quarters of the money of the government's National Broadband Network program for one quarter of the speed? (4) As people say in my own district, why on earth would the Liberal and National parties' policy allow people on Brisbane's southside to be last in line for any form of internet upgrade? If you ask the Leader of the Opposition, the alternative prime minister of the country, my good friend the member for Bonner and Mr Abbott's hand-picked candidate in the federal electorate of Griffith, Dr Glasson—their answers to these four questions on the Liberal and National parties' survey would be: 'Yes, yes, yes and yes. We want slower internet connections. We want everyone to pay $5,000 to have it connected to their home.' If you happen to live in suburbs like Coorparoo, full of high-rise developments, there is this bizarre policy of wanting 75 per cent of all the occupants of the high-rise to reach an agreement through the body corporate before the connection occurs. When I explain that to the good burghers of Coorparoo and those elsewhere in my electorate, they think your policy is stark, raving mad. The opposition's policy has been described as 'the opposition's NBN', the 'Liberal and National parties' broadband'. It is not broadband; it is 'fraudband'—#fraudband. It is not just a Twitter hashtag; 'fraudband' is a clinical description of the opposition's policy. The National Broadband Network Company, NBN Co., has recently updated its three-year plan for the period 2013-16, which will involve fibre construction starting progressively to 30 June 2016 to all homes, businesses, schools and hospitals in the federal division of Griffith. I am very happy to advise the House that, by June 2016, NBN Co. will have commenced or completed construction or connection of 77,300 homes and businesses on the southside to the National Broadband Network. Nationally, there will be some six million premises connected. I am here with my good friend the member for Bass. There is a rollout occurring in his electorate as well. It is actually revolutionising the way in which people do business. It is also important for the schools in my electorate. Some 7,365 computers have been provided to southside schools, thanks to the Australian government's program of putting computers into high schools. All these will now be connected to the National Broadband Network, but under 'fraudband' there will be no possibility of connection whatsoever. Consider what will happen with our local hospitals—for example, the Mater Hospital and the PA Hospital? What is their ability through the local Medicare Locals, as well as local GPs, to put electronic health records across the country, across the state if people get sick? If you are not connected to high-speed broadband you cannot actually do that. For those opposite, whether it be the member for Ryan, the absent member for Brisbane or the member for Bonner, to stand up in this parliament on behalf of any resident of the city of Brisbane and say, convincingly, that 'fraudband' represents a viable outcome for their constituents is fraudulent in itself. We stand for a high-speed broadband, a broadband with sufficient bandwidth to make a real difference to people's future. (Time expired) Aged Care 4100 21:38 Mr ROBB FU4 Goldstein There are few more pressing issues that face Australia today than that of aged care. Our population is getting older. Today, at least one out of every seven Australians is aged over 65 and that number is predicted to double in coming decades. By 2050, over 3½ million Australians are expected to use aged-care services at some point each year. The issue of aged care is particularly relevant to my electorate of Goldstein, which has 23,000 constituents, or 16.5 per cent, aged 65 and older. Furthermore, an additional 17,000 people are aged 55 to 64 and will start to consider their aged-care needs in the coming years. There are 34 aged-care facilities in my electorate doing their best to cater for the increasing demand, which, like facilities across the country, are dealing with the growing and alarming evidence that the aged-care sector cannot provide the care that Australians expect. Yet, despite increasing demand across the country, only around 40 per cent of residential facilities are operating at a profit. Providers are walking away from the aged-care sector, due to the lack of viability in providing high-care beds and the increasing red-tape requirements imposed by this Labor government. Providers are handing back licences and senior Australians are having to wait longer and travel further to find a bed, which in turn places higher pressure on the public hospital system and on families. This is in stark contrast to the situation under the last coalition government, when aged-care places were highly sought after. The Labor government's Living Longer Living Better aged-care reform package was announced 13 months ago. It has taken the government all this time to bring the legislation to this place and now it wants to ram these bills through without proper consideration. The coalition referred these bills to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee to examine the full impact on how these changes will affect providers, older Australians, their families and carers. The inquiry heard evidence that facilities with 60 beds or less would be worse off financially and may be forced to close or amalgamate. The inquiry raised many issues about the complexity of the bills with the Department of Health and Ageing which are still outstanding. The government ignored almost all of the Productivity Commission's inquiry findings and recommendations. About seven or eight per cent of the Productivity Commission's findings are incorporated in this legislation. That is typical of the way in which this government has conducted itself on so many fronts. It is a government which is highly dysfunctional, a government which is ignoring good advice and a government which is not consulting with those sectors about which it is passing very significant legislation. This is another example, again, in the aged-care area of such an approach. The government is ramming things through. It is like a conveyor belt of regulations passing us each day, of bills being guillotined and passed to the Senate, rammed through there with the help of the Greens, and with the consideration of industries and sectors being the last thought on this government's mind. It is only concerned about its own future, not the future of the country. The coalition will consider amendments, following the reporting of the Senate inquiry and will seek to pass amendments in the Senate. There is another way: the coalition would negotiate an aged-care provider agreement with the aged-care sector. This first-ever aged care provider agreement would set the framework for ageing and aged-care arrangements in Australia over the next four years and into the future. It would consult and it would involve the industry. It would only be settled with the industry, with agreement and consensus around the table. Taking into account as well the Productivity Commission's Caring for older Australians report we would reduce needless bureaucracy in the sector, while ensuring the sector remains focused on high-quality care. We would protect and strengthen Medicare by restoring the private health insurance rebate as soon as we responsibly could. This can only happen with a change of government. Workplace Relations 4101 21:43 Mr LYONS M38 Bass Today I want to highlight concerns of mine about the Liberal Party's recently announced IR policy. Every Australian worker should be aware of their plans. The Liberal Party are, once again, trying to attack workers' rights. They have made no secret that if they do not erode workers' rights in their first term, they will do it in their second. The coalition have released its industrial relations policy promising sensible, careful changes, but what exactly might that mean? The details in their document are scant. However, they did give us a small insight into their plans. Let me tell you: they send a shiver down my spine. The Leader of the Opposition has removed any doubts that the Liberal Party want to reintroduce individual agreements and allow the return of unfair contracts which undermine the wages and working conditions of working people. I will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the people in my electorate of Bass are aware of this policy. The people in my electorate of Bass deserve a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. All Australians deserve this. The opposition have had five years to come up with a detailed IR policy, yet the document released last week by the Liberal leader was scant. So either they have been doing nothing for the last five years, except saying no, or they have a plan for industrial relations in this country and they are deliberately keeping the details quiet from the Australian public. The Leader of the Opposition has tried to rewrite history by suggesting that he has always been against Work Choices, and yet in 2009 he said, 'workplace reform was one of the greatest achievements of the Howard Government'. And in 2008 he said Work Choices was: 'good for wages, it was good for jobs, and it was good for workers. And let's never forget that.' In their policy document, the Liberals make mention of 'militant building unions and dishonest union officials who continue to abuse their position'. I object to this language but it is typical of what we have come to expect from those sitting opposite. Now, let us be clear. When Labor refers to flexibility, we are talking about genuine flexibility. True flexibility benefits both employees and employers. When the Liberal Party talks about flexibility, they mean the ability to rip away pay and conditions. They want to bring back the schoolyard bully, and this argument is strengthened by the reappearance of the ABCC, the king of bullies. Buried at the back of their policy document, they have opened the door wide open to undermining the Better Off Overall Test. On page 36, they opened the door to allowing 'non-monetary benefits' under the Better Off Overall Test. What that means is workers get pizza instead of penalty rates. I can only imagine what some unscrupulous employers would try to do in this area. I cannot imagine that those members of the Liberal Party who sit opposite agree that this is the best policy for Australian workers. Indeed, we have seen recently how hopelessly divided the coalition is. First a number of coalition MPs attacked the Leader of the Opposition's rolled-gold paid parental leave policy, where he feels only women of 'calibre' are entitled to a family. And yet another group of Liberal MPs have criticised the direct action policy. There is a reason why the member for Warringah talks in slogans—because he fails on the substance. As soon as the coalition start talking about policy they fall apart. The Leader of the Opposition's own MPs know that he is just not up to it. The people of Australia have an important decision to make come September. They can place their vote in the Liberals and face an uncertain future. Or they can place their vote with the Australian Labor Party, the party that has delivered the NBN, fair paid parental leave, fair workplace relations laws and the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Gillard Labor government supports a fair and effective industrial relations system. We abolished Work Choices and created a balanced industrial relations system that returns fairness to our workplaces while boosting national productivity. All the data shows that our industrial system is working well, with low unemployment, low levels of industrial disputation and record levels of successful workplace agreements. Under Work Choices, more than four million workers lost basic protections and more than a million suffered real pay cuts of up to $90 a week. Many Australian Workplace Agreements cut penalty rates, overtime, holidays, shift allowances and rest breaks. Young workers, women and casuals were the worst affected. The Leader of the Opposition and the Liberal Party cannot be trusted on workplace relations. Superannuation 4102 21:48 Mrs PRENTICE 217266 Ryan This Labor government continues to demonstrate its complete inability to listen by rushing through changes which will damage the retirement savings of Australians. Superannuation is an incredibly important issue for the electors in Ryan, whether it is properly supporting those who want to voluntarily contribute to their super funds or helping those who want to run their own self-managed super funds. Yet, over the last five years in government Labor has hit Australians' savings with more than $8 billion in increased taxes and charges on superannuation. And they have not stopped there—they are also making it harder for Australians to save for their retirement. The House recently debated the fourth tranche of legislation to implement the MySuper proposals, recommendations from the Cooper super system review. Australians were fortunate that the government finally listened to the warnings of the coalition and implemented belated amendments to allow trustees to cap asset-based administration fees. These amendments reflected the inherent nature of superannuation account administration—that is, they involve large fixed costs such as in set-up and reporting relative to the variable costs. Without such an amendment which would cap asset-based administration fees, a $500,000 account could, for example, be charged one hundred times greater than a $5,000 account, irrespective of the fact that the cost to administer the two accounts should be quite similar. This would lead to an inherently inequitable situation for Australians. The coalition also proposed amendments that would require superannuation boards to comprise at least one-third independent directors or trustees. This is one of the key recommendations of the Cooper review to improve governance standards on superannuation boards. Appointing genuinely independent directors would assist in part to break the stranglehold that unions have on Australians' superannuation accounts. What the Labor government does not understand is that superannuation is and should always be about Australians saving for their retirement, yet how they treat superannuation accounts and boards is yet another way they try to entrench union influence—and because the actual representation of the interests of Australian workers by unions in the public and private sectors continues to decline, this Labor government is determined to enforce that influence through government legislation. Australians were fortunate that these amendments passed and were in place, if only for a few hours. The coalition was able to pass these amendments because some Labor government members thought that attending a lunch in the Great Hall was more important than attending the chamber and voting in a division. If successful at the next election, the coalition will pursue this important change to superannuation corporate governance arrangements in government. The government cut $3.3 billion in its hit on low-income earners through their various reductions to the government super co-contributions established under the previous coalition government. The government reduced the contribution from $1,500 to just $500. The government are also lowering the thresholds at which they are phased out. A coalition government would look to provide certainty and stability in superannuation by not making unexpected detrimental changes to the superannuation system in the next term. This will allow people to save for their retirement and to plan with confidence. The coalition would increase the compulsory superannuation contribution from nine per cent to 12 per cent; improve corporate governance arrangements for superannuation; properly address the issue of excess contributions to make sure Australians saving for their retirements are not unfairly penalised for genuine unintended errors; pursue opportunities to cut unnecessary red tape in superannuation; remove regulatory barriers currently restricting product innovation and improved options to manage financial risks in retirement; and revisit concessional contribution caps and super co-contributions for lower income earners once the budget is back in a strong enough position. The coalition will conduct a financial systems inquiry which will include the superannuation industry. We will continue to consult with the broad cross-section of stakeholders in the superannuation industry in the lead-up to this year's election. Earlier this year, the Association of Financial Advisers called for an amnesty on making changes to the taxation of superannuation in the budget in order to restore consumer faith in the Australian retirement system. AFA president Michael Nowak said that if governments want more people to fund their own retirement, consumer confidence in superannuation must be strengthened rather than undermined. He said: If consumer confidence falters, Australia will have nothing more than a mandatory superannuation system which offers insufficient incentive for additional voluntary contributions … This superannuation policy, like so many other areas, demonstrates a chaotic, divided and dysfunctional Labor government which has no plans for Australia's future. The coalition's plan will deliver a strong, prosperous economy and a safe and secure Australia. The coalition will deliver hope, reward and opportunity. Coal Seam Gas 4104 21:53 Mrs ELLIOT DZW Richmond Tonight I would like to update the House on our community campaign to make the North Coast of New South Wales coal seam gas mining free. This is an issue of great community concern to people on the North Coast. It is a concern for a number of reasons—the impact of this mining on agricultural lands and, in particular, on our water resources—and right across the electorate of Richmond people have extensive concerns. In fact, in the electorate of Richmond there is a current exploration licence known as PEL 445, which extends from Lennox Head in the south to Tyalgum in the north, from Byron in the east through to Nimbin in the west. It also covers the Clarrie Hall Dam, which is the primary water source for the Tweed Shire. There is also a current application before the state government which covers Tweed Heads, Banora Point, Tweed Coast and Murwillumbah. In fact, the member for Page and I have a petition calling on the New South Wales Liberal-National government to make the North Coast CSG free. I would like to thank the thousands of people who have so far signed our petition. It is, indeed, very unfortunate and quite shameful that the state National Party MPs on the North Coast all strongly support the expansion of coal seam gas mining. In fact, the state members for Tweed, Ballina and Lismore are all vocal in their pro-CSG drilling and fracking agenda. This sentiment extends right throughout the National Party, and one of the strongest supporters of CSG mining and the CSG industry is, in fact, the Nationals' candidate for Richmond, Matthew Fraser. The fact is that this election is indeed a referendum on CSG mining on the North Coast, and the choice is very clear: a vote for me is a vote to stop CSG mining and a vote for Matthew Fraser is a vote to expand harmful CSG mining. But the Nationals in fact have a very strong history of supporting CSG mining, and we see reports, even today, which show just how committed the Liberal and National parties are to the growth of the CSG industry. Let us go to the front page of today's The Australian. The front page of The Australian confirms the true agenda of the Liberal and National parties: to expand the industry. We read on the front page of The Australian that: … federal Coalition leaders, backed by Tony Abbott, urged their state allies to unlock huge gas reserves … They are saying that. And in fact the coalition resources spokesman, the member for Groom, we read, has: … urged Mr O'Farrell and his ministers to act urgently … So there we see their urgency with this matter of CSG mining. Mr Laming E0H Where is it? Show us where. Where? Mrs ELLIOT DZW I thank the member for Bowman for pointing that out. I will point out some more examples. We will go to the Nationals' five-point plan. That is right— The SPEAKER 83S Order! Individuals have the right to be heard. Mrs ELLIOT DZW the Nationals have a five-point plan to expand the coal seam gas industry and, for the benefit of members opposite, I will point out a media release that the member for Wide Bay and Leader of the Nationals put out in November 2011. It is called 'Nationals launch coal seam gas blueprint' and the first line of it says: FEDRAL Leader of The Nationals Warren Truss has today outlined a blueprint for coal seam gas development in Australia. That is right! They have actually got a blueprint, a five-point plan, to roll out coal seam gas mining across Australia. They say in that that they adopted a policy and finalised a set of principles, so they have a very strong commitment to rolling out coal seam gas mining. I would now like to turn to the visit that we had from Senator Barnaby Joyce to the North Coast. He also was able to confirm the commitment the Nationals have to coal seam gas mining, and I would like to refer to a story on the front page of The Byron Shire Echo, from 9 April. I will quote from the interview that Senator Joyce did with them. It says: Mr Joyce told The Echo that CSG is a hot button issue for the upcoming election. He said however that many Byron Shire residents may not agree with his view that the CSG industry should continue. 'We shouldn't have a moratorium,' he said … So there it is on the front page of The Byron Shire Echo. That is what the Nationals stand for, and that was reiterated in that front-page article on 9 April. I think it shows that it is no surprise that the Nationals candidate there, as I have already said, is a big, strong supporter of CSG mining. It is no surprise he had Senator Barnaby Joyce up there campaigning for him; they are great mates in supporting the CSG industry. But it goes on—we just see so many instances of the Liberal and National parties supporting the coal seam gas industry. Of course we know that recently we had an amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Bill 2013 in which we had water as a trigger in relation to CSG activities. Speaking in the Senate, the Liberals' Senator Birmingham, the shadow parliamentary secretary for the environment, told the Senate that the coalition does not like the legislation but they would not oppose it. What he did say was: We will work to fix these issues should we succeed later this year. So there we see it: that is their secret agenda. They want to roll it out right across the board, and it was seen there very, very clearly. Mr Laming interjecting— The SPEAKER 83S Where is the courtesy of the member for Bowman? Mrs ELLIOT DZW So there we have it—that is the Liberal and National parties' agenda right across the board. When we look at the North Coast of New South Wales they want to roll it out. So, as I said before, the fact is: this election is a referendum on CSG mining on the North Coast, and the choice is very clear—a vote for me is a vote to stop CSG mining; a vote for Matthew Fraser of the Nationals is a vote to expand CSG mining. Budget 4106 21:58 Ms O'DWYER LKU Higgins A few weeks before delivering his sixth budget, his fifth deficit, the Treasurer penned an essay saying how important it was to get the big economic calls right. Well, I could not agree with him more. It is just a pity that he has not yet managed it. With a $300 billion debt, with $192 billion worth of deficits and with interest bills of more than $35 million a day, it is very clear that this Treasurer has not been able to get the big economic calls right. I rise today to speak on a change that has been brought forward in this budget—to rip $500 million out of education, out of self-education expenses. This is a piece of policy that the government is introducing because of its fiscal mismanagement. Up until now, many in this House would be aware, professionals have been able to deduct from their tax the expenses that they incur through training and further education. The logic of course is fairly obvious: to incentivise, through tax relief, so that people will continue to upskill themselves, to further their education, and to further their professional development. With no warning at all the government imposed a cap on the total claimable amount to $2,000 per annum. The Treasurer justified this by saying: Without a cap on the amount that can be claimed under this deduction, it's possible to make large claims for expenses such as first class airfares, five star accommodation and expensive courses. The Treasurer basically claimed that the system was being rorted, yet no evidence was produced to support these claims. It reminds me of the Minister for Immigration, who claimed the 457 visas were being rorted. When he was challenged on the basis on which he made his claims, he said, 'Well, I just made it up'. I suppose the Treasurer has done much the same. Clearly, he has not consulted anybody who actually has to make these claims when he said that a typical claim is usually around $905, and therefore falls very much below the cap. Anyone in the medical profession would tell you otherwise. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Early Management of Severe Trauma course costs $2,735. It is a mandatory course taken by all surgeons, and exceeds the cap in one hit. On top of this, many courses are only available overseas. I will read into the Hansard a letter from one very concerned doctor, who told me: The Medical Board of Australia and medical colleges require doctors to maintain their skills through continuing professional development, while hospitals have in place credentialing systems as part of quality assurance arrangements. The cost of the education and training required to comply with these regimens are significant and generally well above $2000 per annum. For example, the Australian and New Zealand Surgical Skills Education and Training (ASSET) program cost is $3280, the Care of the Critically Ill Surgical Patient course cost is $2735, while a GP attending the Clinical Emergency Management Program (CEMP) workshops can face combined costs of over $3000. These types of courses equip doctors with essential skills in caring for patients, yet from the government's approach, they appear to be regarded as excessive. Doctors must also travel both within Australia and overseas to learn about the latest medical research and innovations, innovative surgery techniques, and advances in overall patient care. Rural doctors are often unable to access this type of training locally and would seem to be particularly penalised by the government's policy change. The government's policy will hit junior doctors, salaried doctors, GPs and other specialists alike and is simply not in the public interest. It will create a huge disincentive for doctors to pursue specialised education that could help save lives and improve the quality of life for many Australians. So there you have it. Another recently qualified haematologist wrote: This initiative is mean-spirited, short-sighted and deeply disturbing. This policy is the antithesis of supporting a 'knowledge nation'. No profession better exemplifies lifelong education, teaching and learning than ours,— That is, the medical profession— and this proposed budget cut sends the message loud and clear that the Labor Government does not value education. And it certainly does not. It has ripped more than $2.8 billion out of education. So much for the education revolution. Why does the government need this money? The government needs this money because it has substantially mismanaged the economy. It has got its priorities wrong. It promised a surplus more than 500 times and has delivered deficit after deficit. That is why this government is going after $500 million of self education expenses. (Time expired) Peters, Dr Christopher, AM OI JP, Canberra Electorate 4107 22:03 Ms BRODTMANN 30540 Canberra I begin tonight by finishing a statement I made yesterday about the late Chris Peters AM, a true champion of the Canberra community. My time was cut off yesterday after saying that Chris had once said that his greatest achievement was uniting the Canberra business community to help after the 2003 Canberra bushfires. I want to add now that he will be remembered for that, and so much more. My condolences and sympathies go to his wife, Jo, and his family and friends. Chris Peters was an extraordinary Canberran. Last week I had the privilege of visiting a wonderful school in my electorate, St Bede's Primary School in Red Hill, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary assembly. St Bede's Primary School was founded in 1963 by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan to provide children from the local community with a Catholic education that was grounded in the school's philosophy to 'Walk in Love and Peace'. Throughout its 50 years the 'Walk in Love and Peace' motto has continued to be a hallmark of the St Bede's primary education, and is actively fostered through the current '5Cs' program that promotes cooperation, courtesy, consideration, compromise and consequences. The Sisters of the Good Samaritan ran the school until 1985, and the school continues to maintain strong links with the Good Samaritan communities in Canberra and Queanbeyan. Celebrations for the anniversary also included a special Grandparents Day event, a whole-school mass and a 'big bash' birthday party. I congratulate the school on the significant milestone and its 50 years of educating Canberra children to live a life of love and peace. Happy birthday, St Bede's: it was great to join you last week for your celebrations, and it was great to share with you those people who have been educated over generations. Another institution in my electorate of Canberra also celebrated its 50th anniversary a few weeks ago, and that is Canberra's Italo-Australian Club in Forrest. On Saturday 18 May, I had the pleasure of attending the Italo-Australian Club's 50th anniversary dinner. The club was officially opened in March 1963 by Sir Alexander Downer and Pasquale Damiano. In a beautiful piece of symmetry, Pasquale's nephew, Angelo Damiano, is the current director of the club, and the guest speaker at the anniversary dinner was Sir Alexander Downer's son, former foreign minister—and my former boss for a very short time—Alexander Downer. Since its opening, the Italo-Australian Club has become an important part of the Canberra community, and I am sure many of my parliamentary colleagues and predecessors would have spent some time there over the last 50 years. I would like to acknowledge Angelo Damiano and the board, staff and founding members for having me there that evening and to thank them for their continuing contribution to the Canberra community. I would also like to thank Gary Kent from the Inner South Community Council for his work in organising the celebrations. Buon compleanno, Italo-Australian Club. I recently saw firsthand the incredible results of the government's investment in trade training centres when I opened the Chiara Centre at St Clare's College of behalf of Minister Garrett. I have been watching the building work at St Clare's for months, and I was very excited to be asked to open it. St Clare's College is one of four schools in a cluster application submitted by lead school, St Mary MacKillop College—also in my electorate—in round 2 of the Trade Training Centres in Schools Program, and was awarded funding of over $5.7 million to construct four trade training centres. Other schools in this cluster to benefit from the trade training facility are Merici College and St Francis Xavier College. I was totally blown away by the new trade training centre. It is a state-of-the-art and very impressive facility. The project is an example of how cooperative partnerships, coupled with long-term vision, can help promote quality education, can address national skills shortages—and we have skill shortages here in Canberra in every profession except for community pharmacy apparently; it was actually the late darling Chris Peters who told me that—and enhance the productivity of our nation. St Clare's put on a very professional and dignified opening. I thank Sallie-Fay Rodriguez, the college captain, Courtney Barton, the Indigenous college captain, Philip Tammen, chair of college board, Father Francis Kolencherry for delivering a moving liturgy and blessing of the new facilities, Moira Najdecki, the Director of the Catholic Education Office, Paul Carroll, the college principal, and all the other Catholic educators who were there that day. This is a life-changing investment in training and education by Labor. It was indeed my pleasure to unveil the plaque and officially declare the St Clare's trade training centre open. South Australia: Ports 4108 22:08 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey South Australia is the smallest state on the mainland by population. South Australians are sick of that becoming, in relative terms, worse. We are losing population in comparison with the rest of Australia. It is a great place to live. There are many good things about South Australia. The thing that is really suffering is our economy. Unfortunately, like here in Canberra, it is due largely to local mismanagement by the government—the South Australian Labor government. The three biggest projects they have invested in in recent times are a $2 billion desalination plant, which we now find we do not need, a $2.5 billion hospital, which will cost the South Australian taxpayers $1 million a day for the next 20 years to service the contract, and $375 million on the Adelaide Oval. All of the projects have reasons and some good points about them but, unfortunately, none of them produce any real new income for the state. The big thing that was supposed to rescue South Australia was the expansion at Roxby Downs. When that fell over the government had no plan B. Unfortunately, it was sunk by rising costs, carbon taxes and low uranium prices in particular in the wake of Fukushima. It is not likely to come back on stream in the near term. We have had a few wins. There has been the establishment of a few mining projects—Iluka's Jacinth-Ambrosia project out near Ceduna, Prominent Hill and Southern Iron—but many more are stalled and stopped. What we need is governments, both federal and state, to take a proactive stance and get some of these projects on the slate. South Australia is blessed with great mineral resources. We are looking to get into the game and make some real strides. Tonight I am speaking particularly about the possibility of expanding the iron ore industry in South Australia. Iron and steel making in Australia started in my electorate at Iron Knob. That deposit is still mined. In fact, only a few years ago we were mining around two million tonnes a year and now there are about seven million tonnes coming out of that deposit, with six million tonnes going in direct export. The operators—Arrium—have opened up a new prospect near Woomera. They will be exporting six million tonnes a year from that directly out of Whyalla. But there are other undeveloped fields on the Eyre Peninsula. There are billions of tonnes of magnetite in the Woomera region, where there are a number of other prospects, and the Braemar deposits stretch between roughly Peterborough and the New South Wales border. Unfortunately, they were all stopped because there is no major port in South Australia. The iron ore that now goes out through Whyalla goes out through a barging process. At the moment there are six different port proposals on the books around the Spencer Gulf in South Australia: two down on the lower Eyre Peninsula; one near Whyalla; one at Port Pirie, which would be another barging process; one at Cowell, which would be another barging process; and a proposal for a slurry pipeline to deliver slurry onto a vessel offshore. We have a chicken and egg situation here. A lot of junior explorers need to find a path to export their ore for them to get their financial backers to get their mines off the ground. We have a number of people who would like to build ports, but they need the certainty that some of the iron ore producers are going to come on stream. I think the proposal to build five or six ports is ridiculous and clearly will not happen. What we need is for the government to take a proactive stance and pick a winner. We need one superport in South Australia. The six proposals I have spoken about are separated by around 200 kilometres as the crow flies. No-one would think we are going to have that number of ports in that area. We need governments to get the players all in one room to make some concrete decisions and say, 'This is the path forward.' For my mind we build one superport and then we build the transport links so that iron ore can efficiently be delivered to the port. I am relaxed about where this port might be, but I tend to think that one of the ports on the southern Eyre Peninsula will get up before the rest. It will be either the Centrex proposal or the proposal by Iron Road. Two hundred kilometres of rail would largely fix the problem and allow these new projects to get off the ground. Herbert Electorate: Volunteers 4109 22:13 Mr EWEN JONES 96430 Herbert Let me read a poem. Let's get dressed in pink and white And put on our comfy shoes Put on our make-up, grab our specs And go out and spread the news About this city, which we love, And all it has to give. What a wonderful place to visit And better still, to live We tell about the north and south, And always include the west, So that folk can choose to visit Whichever they fancy best. Some people ask us why we do this. Why do we even bother? The smiling faces when we meet says, The reward is each other. Estelle Wilson is a volunteer at our peak visitation and economic development body, Townsville Enterprise Ltd, and she wrote that poem. These men and women are the faces of our city for tens of thousands of visitors to our city and region. They save the city millions of dollars by volunteering their time and their experience to help anyone and everyone—from, 'Where are the toilets?' to, 'Which is the best seafood restaurant?' They are what make my city the best and brightest regional city in the country. I was lucky enough to be invited to a barbecue held in their honour recently. They were hosted by Townsville Enterprise CEO, David Kippin, and tourism chief, Trish O'Callaghan, They know them by name like family and by their feisty reputations. I can tell you, they are all quick and lively when you leave an opening for someone to have a funny go at you. Such are the volunteers of Townsville. They give of themselves and they give generously. They give willingly not just because they can, but because they love it. They meet new friends every day and help people because they love it. Over the past month or so, Townsville has been at the forefront not just of Volunteers Week but for the Cancer Council, the Red Shield Appeal, and other events and organisations, all day every day. I was able to be at the launch of the Red Shield Appeal along with my friend and mentor, the member for Berowra. My friend Eleni Millios and I attended the Greek Community Cancer Council Australia's Biggest Morning Tea. I have been to Rotary and Lions Clubs and have seen what they do and work with them. I would also like to make special mention of a number of groups and organisations that have always gone above and beyond the call of duty. They do this with a smile on their faces. And on behalf of this grateful city, I would like to say thank you. There is the RSPCA, and the Million Paws walk which was held just the other week, and the National Servicemen's Association with Warren and Lorraine Hegarty. And there is all the work the others do through the RSL in the Townsville region for our veteran population. The Museum of Tropical Queensland is a professional organisation, but they could not possibly operate without their great band of volunteers. There is the Camp Quality Convoy launch which was launched by Karina and Coasty from Zinc FM, and the YWAM that is used with the mission and the work they do with the medical ship in PNG, where we raised $80,000 at a breakfast for them. To the Filipino community and the migrant resource centre which never stop caring for others and for their people still at home, to all of you, I say thank you. To all these organisations and more, to all the volunteers at Scouts and Guides, to the people who give blood, to the ladies at the hospital, to all the drivers at North Queensland Community Transport, to the great people at Food Bank and the Pyjama Foundation, I say thank you. To the committee members of the schools' P&Cs and P&Fs, to the tuckshop workers, to those who help out at school working bees, I say thank you. My son Andrew is 11 year old. He plays soccer and rugby. He swims and he boxes. He could not do it without the help of parents and friends who chip in and make these things happen. To Vincenzo MacDonald, a year 12 student at Townsville Grammar School, struggling with exams and life as a 17-year-old, who coaches him in the mighty North Ward Sand Crabs, I say thank you. To Ken Taylor, not only a senior partner in a major law firm in Townsville but also the coach of the famous Saints Eagles Souths Sand Crabs from under-sixes all the way through to under-11s, I say thank you. To all the people involved in the Kokoda Spirit Swimming Club, I say thank you. To Chris Condon and Gonzo Hooper who have been so good to me and my family, I say thank you and to all the others who have helped. To all the coaches, officials, umpires, referees, touchies, and people involved in the development of our youth and their character, I say thank you. To the people involved in our PCYCs and our youth programs—yes, some may get paid, but they put in double what they will ever get—and they do it with a smile on their face, I say thank you. If I had the time to name every Townsville group who give of themselves without a thought of something in return other than a smile or a new friend, I would take up all the time this parliament has to offer. We are a great city and we are part of a great country which offers others a helping hand when they need it. To all those groups and to all those people, I say thank you very much. Apple Australia 4111 22:18 Mr HUSIC 91219 Chifley In February, during a debate on another matter in this place, I had reason to reflect on the Australian operations of Apple. At the time news reports revealed that after generating over $6 billion in revenue here, Apple paid only $40 million in tax—apparently because it racked up $5.5 billion in costs. Trying to get a breakdown of these costs is hard to track down and even harder to understand, considering it does no local product R&D or manufacture. Following months of wrangling and the extraordinary issue of a summons, Apple Australia appeared before a hearing in March of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications which is inquiring into why there are major price differences in the cost of IT products compared to overseas. At the hearing I tried repeatedly to get answers as to how it sets prices. I quizzed Apple Australia's Managing Director Tony King, for example, asking him: So it would be an agreement between you and your Apple US parent in terms of obtaining hardware to sell here. iPads, iPhones, Macbooks are all purchased from your overseas parent? He answered: Correct. Apple Australia would purchase hardware and software from Apple overseas. Just note the last few words and contrast those to the first concrete response to my question. He went on to say a number of other things including: We have very robust and deep accounting systems in place to ensure that all of the revenues associated with doing business in Australia are fairly reported and all of the cost of sale in terms of the hardware, transformation costs and shipping costs are fairly reported … And he went on: Certainly at a global level we are setting consistent product costs for internal use around the world. Those are a function of a number of different things but I am not privy to the underlying details within the product costs. Apple Australia also said: We set our prices worldwide from Cupertino with input from the local team ... But the US Senate report says the price is determined by Apple Singapore, not the US. I am concerned the committee inquiry has been misled, either deliberately or accidently. The corporate structure detailed in the US Senate report was never offered by Apple Australia and when pressed on its transfer pricing or price setting, I put it to the House that Apple deliberately avoided setting out the detail that became evident in the US Senate report. The only thing I agree with Apple Australia on is their statement that Apple: … have very robust and deep accounting systems. Given the global web of arrangements detailed in the US Senate report, that is the understatement of the year. I call on Apple Australia to either correct the record or provide further detail as to the way it actually prices its products for Australian consumers. Calwell Electorate: Ford 4112 22:23 Ms VAMVAKINOU 00AMT Calwell In the light of Ford's announcement to cease its vehicle and engine manufacturing operations in Broadmeadows and Geelong from 31 October 2016, I want to note the passing of an iconic employer with deep historical roots in my electorate and in my local community. Much will be said about the closure of Ford's production line and the impact it will have on the future of manufacturing jobs in both my electorate and in Australia generally. But I want to voice my profound disappointment with this decision and tonight pay tribute to the many people in my electorate who have worked at Ford since it was opened in Broadmeadows by Sir Henry Bolte in 1959. Thousands have worked at Ford in the last 54 years. It has been a diverse, committed and faithful workforce. In many instances, second and third generations of families have worked at Ford. I would like to share the reflections of two of my constituents who themselves were long-term Ford employees of days passed and now, of course, are retired—Andrea Zariogiannis from Campbellfield and Yusuf Saad from Coolaroo. They, like many thousands of migrants, became part of an extended family at Ford, who found a nurturing work environment where co-workers became lifelong friends and neighbours in an era of Melbourne's north which became a settlement for new and emerging migrant communities, so much so that the growth of suburbs such as Broadmeadows and Craigieburn can be attributed to people moving into the area to work at Ford. Andrea, having migrated from his native Greece, began work at Ford as an electrical repairman before becoming a health and safety representative and then a senior shop steward with the Vehicle Builders Union, eventually retiring after 32 years of service. Ford was also a love story for Andrea, who met his wife Vicky on the production line. The two married and had two children. Andrea's son, Bill, still works at Ford in the engineering department and the entire family drives Ford vehicles—always has, always will, he tells me. Andrea recalls: There were more than 67 different nationalities at Ford … Lots of Italians, Greeks, Turks, and Vietnamese. Management ran different programs to teach us English, they understood English was our second language. Yusuf Saad worked at Ford for 39 years before his retirement. He arrived from Lebanon with his wife and two children. He said: Ford is like my home. I spent three quarters of my time there. My friend got me a job there and I helped my other friends get jobs there. I know people who have worked there for 47 and 50 years, we worked like a family. I attended Yusuf's retirement party a few years ago. It was a big event attended by colleagues from the factory floor, union secretaries and, of course, management. All turned out to farewell the man with the immaculately groomed moustache. With the growth of Ford's importance as an employer and with a workforce steadily growing to peak at about 5,000, supporting new migrants and their families, it was no surprise that Ford also became the first employer to support a multicultural childcare centre for its workers. This initiative was born from a vision of the Ford shop stewards from the Vehicle Builders Union and its realisation was ably and passionately led by my good friend, Frank Argondizzo, and developed into a partnership between Ford Australia, the Broadmeadows Migrant Resource Centre and the local community. Through union negotiations, led by Frank and his shop stewards, the childcare centre was built on Ford land with a peppercorn lease. The Broadmeadows Multicultural Early Learning Centre was officially opened in 1988 by the then Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon. Bob Hawke. The founding director of the centre was Helen Patiskatheodorou and the first management committee was made up of Ford shop stewards, community members and parents. The Vehicle Builders Union and, in particular, the Ford shop stewards, continued to support the centre from its inception, ensuring that money was allocated to the service through their enterprise bargaining agreements. The centre provided access to much needed child care for Ford employees, especially those who had to work on weekends. Ford's 20th anniversary in 1979 saw Henry Ford II, grandson of the company's founder, visit Australia to launch the XD Falcon. The XD Falcon was the fourth generation Falcon built at Broadmeadows and featured plastic bumpers and a plastic fuel tank, a world first for a mass produced vehicle. The X-series Falcon went on to be the bestselling car in Australia by 1982. In 2009, I attended the 50th anniversary celebrations. It was a major milestone for the Broadmeadows plant, vastly different to the greenfield site built in 1959. At the time Ford Australia announced that it would invest $230 million in the development of three new engine technologies. On Thursday 23 May 2013, Ford announced that it would cease its production lines in Geelong and Broadmeadows, and although it will maintain its engineering and design capacity, it has in fact now chartered a new direction which sees the end of an era in Australia. It is a sad occasion indeed for all, especially for the people of my electorate. Question agreed to. House adjourned at 22:28 NOTICES 4113 NOTICES

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms K Livermore) took the chair at 12:10.

BILLS 4116 BILLS Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 4116

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014

Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014

Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014

Second Reading 4116 12:10 The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms K Livermore) ( 83A 12:): I remind the chamber that it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering this bill, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014. 12:10 Mr SIMPKINS HWE Cowan If you have read some of the headlines today, you would think that the timing of what I want to speak about is somehow linked to revelations about hacking, but that is not what I want to focus on. I want to speak about and pay tribute to ASIO. Looking around the world in recent times—and I am not just talking about last week but over many years—we have seen great internal threats to Western nations, threats which have come from radical followers of Islam who interpret the religion to give them some justification for attacks on civilians—terrorism by any other name. As is the nature of terrorism, they are acts designed to create fear, acts designed to elicit a media response, which is always quite successful, and nevertheless acts designed to push a philosophy which is inconsistent with Western values and Western thinking. Looking particularly at the recent event in Boston, people who had come from Chechnya were responsible for the attacks which took lives at the Boston marathon. They were people who had sought a better life in the United States but then, having taken all the advantages offered by the West, they chose to find such fault with those systems and attacked innocent, undefended civilians, taking lives for a political cause in the name of religion. Similarly, in Stockholm an immigrant population is resisting the rule of law. In Paris, the attack on the soldier in the metropolitan area was by a member of an immigrant population which has chosen not to be part of the mainstream or to benefit from the opportunities provided to them, but instead to find fault and try to change the nature of the country which had so willingly and generously provided them support and protection. What happened a week ago in London shocked us all. We heard the matter of fact manner in which one of those murderers, having run down the innocent soldier Lee Rigby, then set upon him in the worst, cruellest and most violent way. He justified his actions in such a broad English second-generation accent. He justified the killing, the ambush and the murder of that young soldier on the basis of aggrievement by what happens in, as he described, 'our lands'. He defined himself as no longer a citizen of Britain and owed his allegiance to a higher authority in his mind—that being his interpretation of his religion. Again, he was aggrieved by perceived injustices in a foreign land. It is the case that western democracies face the threat of those who have been offered sanctuary and a better life and benefited from that law-and-order safe environment and been afforded an education by the taxpayers of those western democracies. Those people come to find so much fault with that society—the society that has given them succour—that they then choose to attack it. It is a philosophy that we struggle with and one that I find difficult to comprehend. Here in Australia the reality is that we too face exactly these problems. The arrests that have taken place in the last few years—such as the planned attack on Holsworthy army barracks—these are exactly the same threats that other countries face. High-profile cases seem to be focused in Melbourne and Sydney, but I can tell the parliament—in tribute to ASIO—that I was approached last year by a person who had been a Christian, converted to Islam and came out of Islam to find Christianity again. This man witnessed and heard the conversations of young Islamic men in a mosque in Perth discussing the political benefits and value of attacking infrastructure in Perth. Having heard this, I contacted ASIO. I was very pleased to have seen that man who had come to me several weeks or so later at a public event—I did not wish to follow up with ASIO to make sure they did their job—and he told me he was up to his third interview with ASIO. I am very grateful that this country is so well protected by such a dedicated group of professionals as ASIO. While they are completely different organisations, ASIS and the Office of National Assessments are other organisations in which we should have great faith. The only trouble is that there has been a very severe increase in workload, coupled with an unfortunate series of cutbacks in their budgets, and this has added pressure on organisations like ASIO. When a professional and a highly competent organisation such as ASIO is faced with a mountainous workload, we cannot have faith that the best interests of the country are being served—no matter how good they are. As we know, since the 2008 changes to the border protection policies brought in by the Rudd government and furthered by the Gillard government, there have been some 40,000 illegal arrivals by boat who have come from places where there has been fighting, who may possibly be terrorists or used to fighting and who may have causes that are unlikely to be in the best interests of this countr When we are faced with that sort of incoming group of people, the need for ASIO to do a security assessment on them obviously is paramount. But if you are faced with a reduction in your budget, not enough staff to do the job, and pressure from some media and some irresponsible fringe parties such as the Greens, then there is always a risk that people will slide through. When you look at some of the people that have been arrested in this country for terrorism related charges then there is obviously a history of people having slipped through. That is a terrible situation. The incident that I referred to before, which I reported to ASIO—again I pay tribute to the quick and very effective manner in which ASIO responded to that—was a counterterrorism security matter. I understand that there has been an 11 per cent rise in counterterrorism security assessments that have been required. When that is coupled with, in recent years, 34,000 in visa assessments, there is a big strain for ASIO to do their job. They do not have enough staff to do that job. When we look at exactly what has happened around the world, we must know that the threat is as real here as it is in other places. There might be different numbers per capita of immigrant populations in various places around the world, but the reality is that we, too, have that sort of threat here. I have heard from one of my constituents of that threat. There is no doubt that we are facing a problem in the future and a problem right now. At the start of 2011, in a speech I made—this fact was well reported at the time—it was said that in the four months leading up to February 2011 there were some 22 Australian citizens that had effectively disappeared in the Middle East trying to enter terrorism training camps in Yemen. I am sure those 22 Australians were all from immigrant backgrounds—first or second generation. An honourable member: Are you sure? Mr SIMPKINS HWE I am certain of it, mate. You can draw a comparison between that and one of the murderers in London, Michael Adebolajo, who was arrested in Kenya. He was part of the al-Shabaab movement, which is an al-Qaeda linked terrorist organisation. That suspect—one of the murderers in London—pretty much falls into the same sort of category as some of those 22 Australians that have entered training camps in Yemen. What we see is that there is a very real threat to the security of this country posed by Australians—or people who are now Australian citizens—and in that context we should be very careful about undermining or rendering less effective the great job that ASIO can do. When we have ASIO and other security organisations within this country—organisations that serve the interests of our nation—hamstrung by a reduction in their budget and further challenged by a massive increase in their workload due to the policies of government, then that threat becomes worse and worse. The job of any government—the job of those of us who serve the nation in this place—is to make sure that our country and our people are safe, first and foremost. We are not lords of the manor here. We are not VIPs. We are merely the chief servants of our electorates and of our nation. We should keep in mind always to not increase the dangers or limit our ability to keep safe our population. What needs to change in the future is that we make sure that ASIO, that great organisation, is properly resourced for the benefit of all Australians. 12:25 Mr DANBY WF6 Melbourne Ports It is a great pleasure for me to rise to speak on the 2013 appropriation bills. I have spoken on many budgets since being elected to this House in 1998, in opposition and in government, but this is the first time I have been able to do so as a member of the executive, as the new Parliamentary Secretary for the Arts. So I am delighted to be able to say that this is an excellent budget for the arts. The credit for that goes to many people, including the former Minister for the Arts Mr Crean, and the current minister, Mr Tony Burke. Above all, credit goes to the arts sector itself. Since I have been in this job, and for a long time before that, I have been impressed by the dynamism, imagination, enthusiasm and vision of the people who work in Australia's arts sector. That includes the arts practitioners themselves—Australia's visual artists, writers, classical, jazz and contemporary musicians and film and theatre people—as well as the dedicated administrators who manage the myriad of arts organisations. This budget rewards their talent and their commitment. The fact that, despite difficult economic circumstances, we stayed with our budgetary commitments to them shows that the Australian government does value their work. There is a perception in some sections of the community that government funding for the arts is a luxury. Recently, the Institute of Public Affairs think tank, which is the ideological spear point of the Liberal Party, and which seems to get such a free ride in the media, published an article by John Roskam, Chris Berg and James Paterson called '75 radical ideas to transform Australia'. No. 62 of these radical ideas was: 'End all public subsidies to sport and the arts.' Last week I saw an example of what it would mean if this radical anti-government agenda were to be put into practice. At Glenorchy in Hobart, I had the pleasure last Friday of opening stage 2 of the Glenorchy Arts and Sculpture Park, locally known as GASP. This project has transformed a rundown industrial area into nine hectares of recreational and environmental reserves, including a bird sanctuary, boardwalks and educational facilities, as well as a showplace for art and sculpture, linked to the legendary MONA gallery, making that whole area into an arts precinct. GASP will provide direct employment for many people in Glenorchy, but it will also bring more visitors to Hobart and stimulate growth and employment in tourism and related industries. This was all made possible by $2 million of federal funds. If the IPA has its way under a future coalition government, arts projects like this will become much more difficult to fund, perhaps impossible. Australia, and particularly regional Australia, would be poorer if that were to happen. Our most important arts funding organisation is the Australia Council for the Arts, founded by the Whitlam government in 1973. New funding is now being provided for the Australia Council. This investment by the Australian government will respond to the 2012 review of the Australia Council, giving it greater flexibility to meet the challenges of rapid change in music, performance, art, literature and emerging arts and increasing its base funding by $75 million over four years, or more than $18 million per annum. As the new Parliamentary Secretary for the Arts, I had the opportunity to introduce that legislation, my first. That was a great honour and this is a great development for the Australia Council, its first reform in 40 years. New funding of over $20 million will also be provided in this budget to our national elite arts training organisations such as the Australian Ballet School and the Australian Youth Orchestra. This will sustain and increase training available to students and ensure that these organisations continue to provide leadership in the performing arts and creative industries. New funding of over $9 million will also be provided to six major performing arts companies: Bangarra Dance Theatre and Belvoir (Company B) in New South Wales; the West Australian Ballet and the Black Swan State Theatre Company in Western Australia, and the Malthouse Theatre and Circus Oz in Victoria. This initiative will secure the financial bases of these companies. It will ensure that they are able to meet the standards of excellence, creativity and innovation expected of major performing arts companies. It will enable them to continue to deliver their core program of activities while increasing access for Australian audiences to their high-quality performances and educational services. This government is committed—and I am personally committed—to supporting the growth of Indigenous art in Australia. I recently opened a wonderful exhibition of Indigenous women's paintings from Western Australia and the Northern Territory at Alliance Francaise in St Kilda in my own electorate. The budget includes continued funding of over $11 million over four years to support and strengthen the Indigenous visual arts industry. This supplements the government's already significant investment in this area. There is new, additional funding of nearly $14 million over four years to develop community driven digital and multimedia language resources and activities as an extension to the Indigenous Languages Support program. I am particularly pleased that $8 million has also been provided in the budget to the Creative Young Stars program. This is a program that will encourage, support and celebrate creative young people up to 25 years old, funding available in every federal electorate. This is a completely non-partisan program, which I hope all members of the House will take part in. The great trumpeter James Morrison, when I was inducting him into the Hall of Fame at the Bell Awards recently, explained to me that 3,500 young Australians were that weekend in Mt Gambier participating in jazz training with all of the leading jazz musicians in Australia—3½ thousand young Australians out of a population of 23 million. It does say something about the yearning for creativity in this country. Arts policy in Australia has generally not been the subject of partisan controversy and I do not wish to make it one, but I think it is fair to note that the opposition has committed itself to budget cuts of something like $70 billion. That was the figure put on it by the honourable member for North Sydney. Would the arts sector be immune from these cuts? It is hard to believe they would. Has the opposition given a commitment that would not cut arts funding? Not so. As I noted earlier, the IPA, which is becoming increasingly the theoretical arm of the Liberal Party, suggests cutting off funding to the arts, taking us back to the 1930s. I do not expect the opposition would go that far, but the IPA's radical agenda gives us an indication of where conservative thinking on arts policy—and, indeed, on other policy—is heading. It is headed back to an era where only the wealthy had access to the arts, when artists were solely dependent on patronage. I am pretty sure that that is not where the arts sector wants to go and not where the Australian people want to go. I want to reflect on some of the comments made just briefly by the member for Cowan, talking about the excellent work that ASIO does and some critique of my dear old friend, the member for Holt, the 'M', the chairman of the intelligence committee, in the budget. Within its budget it is true that ASIO does excellent work. We have had seven groups of people arrested, charged and convicted—jailed—for attempting terrorism within Australia. There have been no effective attacks in mainland Australia. Of course, 88 of our countrymen were foully murdered in Bali. But ASIO is doing an excellent job and there is no evidence—the member for Cowan was talking about ASIO's checking of overseas people—that any of the people who were involved in these terrible potential crimes against the Australian people were boat refugees. It is absolute nonsense. Of course, the major threat to the activities of ASIO comes from the very ideological zealots in the Institute of Public Affairs that I have pointed to time and time again and who should really have been the focus of the intelligence committee's report to this parliament, because the ideological zealots in the Institute of Public Affairs are very influential in the Liberal Party, very influential on people like Mr Ciobo and Mr Turnbull—some people would even suggest Senator Brandis—who have said that they do not support the security services' concern about the fact that they are 'going dark'. This is an expression which explains the security services' concern with the fact that they have less and less ability to intercept telephones and telecommunications compared to what they were able to do in the past when we all had more primitive forms of technology—one telephone line, one fax line. If the security services are not able to fulfil their tasks because of the influence of the IPA and its influence on the Liberal Party that will be the real reason, Member for Cowan, why we cannot prevent attacks on mainland Australia, as we have successfully to date. That will be the real reason. Be assured that, if I am the only person in this place who remembers these facts, I will slate it home to the Liberal Party and the IPA for their wilful neglect of the requests of all of the different security services to have the ability to see that there is a fair policy of data retention. Any serious person interested in the issue of privacy, unlike the ideological zealots of the IPA and some of the people in the coalition who are influenced by them, would know that in New Zealand and other countries there is a piece of legislation called 'data breach legislation'. If you are really concerned about privacy you could pass legislation with the extra ability of the security services to retain data and examine data under warrant with the same kinds of conditions they are forced to undergo now. You could safeguard against commercial people or terrorists accessing Australians' private data by having a severe program of data breach, which exists in other countries. There are fair ways of addressing privacy. There is a severe interest in the ability of the security services to continue to perform their tasks and to keep Australians safe, but it is not being addressed by the IPA through the great influence they have over the Liberal Party. If anything happens in this country as a result of the security services not being able to intercept these people before they commit their act, the blame should be slated home to the people preventing this legislation. That is the issue which the intelligence committee should have been primarily concerned about, and I hope the government will take it up. In the remaining time I will make some comments about the budget as it affects my electorate. The government and I are proud to present the fully funded National Disability Insurance Scheme, DisabilityCare. Around 1,980 carers in Melbourne Ports will now receive a $600 carer's supplement boost to assist with financial pressures associated with caring for a loved one. Those who care for a child with disability will now receive an extra $1,000 per year. Over 1,600 local people with disability may be eligible for Labor's DisabilityCare Australia scheme, giving people with significant disability and their carers lifetime support and the care they need. We recognise working parents for how much they put into their families; working, caring for children, managing cost-of-living pressures and often supporting ageing parents. We are making sure that new families can spend time with each other through the Dads and Partner Pay initiative, providing two weeks leave to spend time with the new child and their family. Indeed, someone in my office has had the opportunity to experience that program, and I congratulate Sean Carroll and Natalie on their baby, Duncan. Mazel tov from all of your friends in the office: well done. Also, 6,170 local families will benefit from the childcare rebate, which will deliver up to $7½ thousand a year to assist with the cost of full-time child care. We are also looking after older people on fixed incomes and those with disability, as well as their carers. More than 9,200 local pensioners in my electorate are now benefiting from the biggest increase in the pension in 100 years. We have over $200 more being received per fortnight. This budget will keep the economy smart by making investments in education. More than 2,850 eligible families in my electorate, with 5,000 schoolkids, will get help with Labor's Schoolkids Bonus, with $410 per primary school kid and $820 for each high school kid. Of course, Mr Abbott has pledged to abolish those assistances to families with primary and high school students, and this will affect 5,000 children in my electorate. Labor's balanced approach supports both jobs and economic growth with real local rewards such as the one I have outlined. The budget is about making the right choices for Australia's economic growth while keeping Australia fair and supportive of those most in need. The average Australian family with a mortgage of $300,000—not an enormous mortgage these days—is $3½ thousand better off in annual interest rate payments than they were in the last days of the Howard government. That is a measure of which the Treasurer and this government can be very proud. It is a budget which I am proud to present to Melbourne Ports with a government I am proud to be part of. 12:39 Dr SOUTHCOTT TK6 Boothby It is a very important principle to have budgets in balance over the economic cycle, something that the Labor Party have been completely incapable of delivering. We have seen Labor go from temporary budget deficits to, now, a string of six budget deficits and budget deficits to come as far as the eye can see. One seasoned Canberra observer described it as the worst budget since 1974. Ross Gittins described it as the strangest pre-election budget he had seen and that any of us were ever likely to see. It is a budget which confirms that the government is in chaos. It is a budget which delivers more debt, more deficits, more taxes, more broken promises and more uncertainty. Families who are struggling with rising cost-of-living pressures will get no reprieve from this budget. In fact, they have already had snatched away from them what was promised in last year's budget. To read last year's budget papers and what was promised then and see what we ended up with is illuminating. Only last year, the Treasurer forecast a surplus of $1.5 billion this year. What he has delivered is a $19.4 billion deficit. Gross debt is likely to exceed $300 billion, and we will be borrowing almost $50 million every single day. The major concern is that those opposite have a spending problem. Every excuse under the sun has been given about revenue, but the problem is a spending problem. Revenue in 2013-14 is almost $80 billion higher than in the last year of the previous coalition government; however, spending is $120 billion higher. This is a government that has lost control of its spending and has spent more than it has earnt from the very first day that it occupied the government benches. Families understand, households understand, the importance of living within your means. As I move around the electorate, I hear a lot of wise heads saying they have seen all this before: Labor will wreck it and the Liberals will come in to fix it. The coalition's real solutions plan will take pressure off households and strengthen our economy so that over time there is more to go around, for everyone. The coalition will abolish the carbon tax, but we will retain the income tax cuts, fortnightly pension and benefit increases associated with it. So, under our plan, people including families will have tax cuts without a carbon tax. We will keep interest rates low by ending government waste, paying back the debt and balancing the budget. We will undertake a commission of audit in government to identify the waste and ensure that government is only as big as it needs to be. A strong economy is the fundamental responsibility of an Australian government. It is key to everything. It means more jobs, higher wages, more government revenue, better services and, eventually, stronger and more cohesive communities. We will cut government red tape by $1 billion per year to give small business and everyone else a break. I would like to focus on some of the specific announcements made in this budget—firstly, the GP MBS freeze. The government will realign the indexation of the MBS fees to the financial year. The indexation, currently on 1 November each year, will now be on 1 July each year. The last indexation date was November 2012 and the next indexation date is 1 July 2014, so there will be no indexation of their schedule fees for 18 months. This is a demonstration of the fact that this is an emergency budget situation. This is a budget in crisis. There is real chance we will see increased out-of-pocket costs for patients. By doing this, the government are pocketing $664 million over four years. It is not a change which will lead to improvements in health care—it has been driven by the budget emergency and by fiscal desperation. This is the end result of years of wasteful government spending and it is the only reason the government have had to make this change. The government have also announced in the budget $10 million for a communications campaign to 'inform Australians about the benefits of Medicare Locals', and $6½ million will be spent in 2012-13. That means that in the next 33 days or so there will be $6½ million spent on informing Australians about the benefits of Medicare Locals, and $3½ million will be spent in 2013-14, presumably by 14 September. At a time when we have a budget emergency and with the sort of budget deficit that we have seen, this is an outrageous waste of taxpayers' money. Just think what $10 million could have done in front-line services; instead we have a $10-million vanity program from the government. I want to touch on South Road in Adelaide. The Leader of the Opposition last month announced that the coalition will support the continuing upgrade of the North-South road corridor in South Australia. This is a $500 million commitment for South Australia and it is a stretch of road that the state and federal Labor governments have been promising to fix since 2006—specific promises, costed promises that have not happened. The coalition understands the importance of a proper non-stop North-South corridor from Darlington to Wingfield. In August 2007 John Howard announced that South Road, south of Sir Donald Bradman Drive, would be added to the National Road Network. The North-South corridor is the RAA's biggest priority in South Australia. It has been understood in South Australia since 2006 that one of the major priorities to address was the South Road-Sturt Road intersection. The RAA's Towards 2020 report said this: Inclusion of this section on the national road network ensures that federal funds can be allocated to major works complementing the State Government's own funding and forward commitments for the upgrade of the Anzac Highway and Sturt Road intersections. These two locations are the two busiest intersections and most congested on the corridor. The next largest intersection, Grand Junction Road, is located at the far end of the route and has also been identified for improvements in the short term. In this report from 2009, the RAA assumed that the state government and the federal government were going to fix Sturt Road. The South Australian government, in their own discussion paper to update their infrastructure plan, made it very clear that the biggest cause of delay was Anzac Highway, which was dealt with by the Gallipoli Underpass. The roads coming equal second were Grand Junction Road and Sturt Road. Grand Junction Road has been dealt with by the Superway. After seven years of being in the state's own infrastructure update plan, only two weeks ago—at five minutes to midnight—the federal government announced what they would like to do post-2014 on a different section of the road. According to the RAA, in their traffic surveys, none of the major north-south arterial roads in the south meet minimal, acceptable standards for travel times during peak travel. In 2012, the RAA said that motorists are opting to take Goodwood Road, which is also slow and congested, as an alternative to South Road. The upgrades to South Road need to be completed to reduce the pressure on Goodwood Road and ease congestion around the city. In the latest RAA traffic survey, they found for a commuter who travels from Majors Road, O'Halloran Hill, all the way down Main South Road, Ayliffes Road, Fiveash Drive and Goodwood Road into the city that nearly all sections of this road fall far below minimum standards, but the section between Majors Road and Flinders Drive is the worst with cars inching forward at just 11 kilometres an hour during the morning peak. This is followed closely by the stretch near Sturt Road, which averages 14 kilometres an hour. When you look at the Southern Expressway, for someone travelling from Morphett Vale into Bedford Park—this is a 100-kilometre-an-hour expressway—the slowest sections during the afternoon are before Sturt Road and also between Sturt Road and Flinders Drive. Here vehicles slow to just 25 kilometres an hour—well below the acceptable level. In the morning, traffic generally moves at an acceptable speed, but with major congestion around Sturt Road. Unfortunately, the announcements by federal Labor on South Road in this budget will not address this traffic congestion. What we see is a whole lot of roads—Marion Road, South Road, Goodwood Road, Belair-Unley Road and Fullarton Road—falling below the threshold level of 30 kilometres an hour during peak times. Completing the entire north-south corridor upgrade will benefit residents right across metropolitan South Australia. A failure to invest in infrastructure over decades has seen increasing traffic congestion and transit times throughout Adelaide. The RAA have been advocating for a true north-south corridor for years. They have stated that improving the South Road corridor will greatly decrease traffic pressure on other arterial roads like Marion Road, Brighton Road, Goodwood Road and Belair Road. The stretch of South Road at Darlington is the most congested part of South Road that is yet to see any upgrades. This is outlined in the state government's strategic infrastructure plan discussion paper. This state government document clearly identifies Darlington as the next priority for the north-south corridor upgrade. The north-south corridor upgrade needs to be done in stages, and Darlington is clearly the next step. The coalition has committed $500 million for reconfiguration of South Road between the Southern Expressway and north of Sturt Road, to expressway standard, for underpasses below Flinders Drive and Sturt Road, and for connection of the Darlington interchange with the Southern Expressway to provide for two-way flow. We have not just plucked this out of the air. These were actually Labor Party promises at a state level in 2006 and 2010,and federal Labor promises in 2007. They promised them, they costed them; they just did not do them. In addition, the coalition will work with the SA government to develop a business case for this project and for the remaining sections of the north-south corridor over time. We understand that the entire north-south corridor upgrade is a major project that will take many years, but we will work with the SA government to make it happen over time. We expect construction to begin with in the first term of a future coalition government. This is something that, on behalf of my constituents, I have been fighting for since 2007. I am proud to say that a coalition government will follow through on its commitment and upgrade the stretch of South Road at Darlington near Flinders University and Flinders Medical Centre. This will make a massive difference to traffic congestion and to commuters in the south. 12:53 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair I speak in support of the appropriation legislation. This legislation is about making Australia stronger, smarter and fairer, and making the Ipswich and Somerset regions in south-east Queensland stronger, smarter and fairer. We are supporting jobs and growth—I will outline how that happens in the budget—and we are also making it smarter, through our historic investments in the national plan for school improvement, and making it fairer by delivering DisabilityCare Australia to 3,800 people with disability in the Blair electorate, and 4,300 carers who care for them. In really challenging times—at a time when revenue write-downs have made a huge impact on the budget—this federal Labor government has made a very big commitment to jobs, growth and economic development. We have seen the economy grow by 13 per cent—five times faster than the US and Germany—since we have been in power and since the global financial crisis. We have seen 960,000 jobs created while the rest of the world has seen about 28 million jobs lost during this time. We have a AAA credit rating and have kept inflation low. And people in my electorate are paying, on average, about $100 less in terms of interest payments every week than they were under the coalition government led by John Howard. So this government has been economically responsible but has invested strategically in Ipswich and Somerset as well is in Queensland generally. I will talk about a couple of portfolio areas before I talk about the local issues in my electorate. First, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Attorney-General I am pleased to see the increase in legal aid funding. The previous coalition government gutted legal aid funding in this country. Everyone knows it, they know it, the law societies know it, the bar associations know it. The impact on disadvantaged and disabled people, Indigenous and low-income Australians was felt very tragically and the systems in the courts were clogged as a result of the coalition's attitude to legal aid. We have reversed this in large part. In our first budget we put in about $53 million extra in legal aid funding in 2008 and we have increased legal aid funding in this budget. We have increased legal aid funding over the next two years to legal aid commissions by an additional $30 million on top of the $420 million already allocated. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services received a $12 million boost, and it was a great privilege to call Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services around the country to advise them of that increase and to speak with people like Shane Duffy from Queensland, to talk to him and see the impact that that is going to have on the services they deliver not just in Queensland but throughout the country. Community legal centres will be boosted by $10 million over four years, and this is in addition to the $32 million they received this financial year and the $160 million since federal Labor came to office. The contribution of 138 community legal centres to this country cannot be underestimated in creating a fairer society. Sadly, in my home state of Queensland the LNP state government under Campbell Newman has seen fit to cut funding to legal aid, to legal services and to community legal centres, to get rid of the drug courts, the Murri courts, to get rid of funding to organisations that help those in need. They reckon they are tough on crime but they are not tough on crime, they are not even tough on the causes of crime. They are more interested in boot camps than they should be and they are obsessed about those sorts of things. At the same time they are happy to boot out tenants in Housing Commission facilities across Queensland and in low income areas in my electorate like Riverview and Redbank Plains and elsewhere. That is what they are doing at this time. We have budgeted for an increase in funding to those types of services, having to step in last year with $3 million. We have stepped in again with $2.5 million at a time when Liberal governments around the country do not have a problem with this, nor do Labor governments' tenancy advice services, but the Campbell Newman government did. So we have provided funding recently in relation to this budgetary item. I am very pleased to see what we have done in that regard. I am also pleased as Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing to see the commitment that we have made in relation to two independent clinical registers for cardiac devices and breast implants, a $5.1 million commitment. We have got several successful clinical registers run by medical craft groups, professional organisations. These are in relation to joints—shoulders, hips et cetera—and these registers we are going to create follow in the footsteps of the National Joint Replacement Register established by the Australian Orthopaedic Association in 1998 with the help of the Australian government. That is a budgetary item of about $5.1 million and I am pleased to see that happen. I am pleased too that we have followed up the commitment we announced on 7 April this year in supporting what is now known as paid leave for living organ donors. It is a $2.6 million commitment. It means that if you wish to donate, say, a kidney, and 90 per cent of living donors donate a kidney, or partial a liver, you will get paid to employers six weeks of salary support to be passed on to the donor, who usually gives that kidney to a loved one or a close friend, often to a child or spouse or partner. This is the commitment over two years and we will review and consider outcomes of the trial in early 2015. Living donors make an incredibly generous offer. We believe this act of kindness should be financially supported. Clinicians tell us that the six-week period is appropriate, that it will be paid at the minimum rate of pay, the national minimum wage, which is $606.40 a week. I reject the headline on the Sunday Telegraph which talks about 'Cash the kidneys'—it is completely erroneous. The six-week period is for two weeks of pre-surgery evaluation and four weeks for the convalescence. Living donors will be able to apply to the Department of Human Services and the funding will be paid to their employers by the DHS. I am very pleased to see those sorts of items. We have also provided another $800,000 to the Food and Health Dialogue, which I chaired at a roundtable this morning. That money will continue the good work done to take about 2,200 tons of sodium out of our food on staples such as bread and cereals. The work being done by the Australian Food and Grocery Council, the Australian Heart Foundation, other health providers and other interested parties is making a difference. That $800,000 has been budgeted for as well. We have a record amount of funding for health and hospital services, particularly contrasting the LNP government in Queensland, which sacked 4,140 public servants, frontline doctors, nurses and clinicians, and gutted $3 billion out of the health system. We are increasing funding to Queensland a record $3 billion, an extra $1.1 billion across the forward estimates to hospitals in Queensland. At a time when the coalition in Queensland sees fit to defund services, we are increasing services to Queensland and nothing contrasts more to Queensland in the budget we have produced compared to the LNP government in Queensland, and more so to those opposite. Let me give a couple of illustrations of that. In my electorate we have a number of rural towns. We have a little town called Esk at the heart of the Somerset region where there is a civic centre opened with $2 million of federal government money, through the Regional Infrastructure Fund. Those opposite opposed it—they opposed every last cent. We see in this budget $500,000 for the Kilcoy showgrounds upgrade. Those opposite opposed it. We have just announced another $500,000 for the Toogoolawah arts and cultural project to the Summerset Regional Council, which will revitalise Esk, Kilcoy and Toogoolawah. Those opposite claim they support regional and rural areas, but they oppose the funding for them. When it comes to road funding, the budget contrasts what we say compared to those opposite. Election after election, vote after vote, those opposite have opposed the Ipswich Motorway upgrade between Ipswich and Brisbane—every election. They went to the last federal election with a policy to stop construction on the Ipswich Motorway. That is what Warren Truss, the Leader of the National Party, announced: stop construction and put 10,000 jobs in south-east Queensland at risk. This budget, having provided $2.5 billion or more in previous budgets, we have provided for the last section of the Ipswich Motorway $279 million. The first instalment, the down payment, is on the Darra to Rocklea section, all in the electorate of the member for Moreton and a bit in the electorate of the member for Oxley. My electors in Blair use it every day on their way to and from Brisbane. Those opposite have not said a word about this. The LNP candidates in Blair and Oxley are hiding from the media. That is what the Queensland Times records on their front page. The LNP candidates in Oxley and Blair are hiding and will not make one cent of a commitment. It took the Leader of the Opposition five years, six months and 16 days to come to the electorate of Blair. He does not announce a dollar in his budget reply speech to our community. He does not even tell the local media he will be there so that you will look at the transcript of what happened. There is nothing on local issues, no commitment to the Ipswich Motorway and no commitment to Kilcoy, Esk or Toogoolawah. Nothing there. But in the budget, we provide those sorts of things. What a contrast between those opposite—who could not care less about regional and rural Queensland—and us. What about important rail projects in Queensland? What about the Brisbane Cross River Rail? Having agreed with the LNP Lord Mayor of Brisbane, the Brisbane council and the LNP Queensland state government, and having signed up memoranda of understanding, with letters back and forward, we agreed to provide money in the budget. We provided $715 million towards the construction of this core project—10 kilometres of new underground tunnel—from Yeerongpilly to Victoria Park. There will be four new underground stations that will help increase the capacity of the Brisbane rail network. And the member for Brisbane opposes it. The LNP members opposite oppose it. They claim they support Brisbane and South-East Queensland. This is a rail project for all of South-East Queensland—for members in Oxley, Blair, Moreton, Brisbane, Griffith, Ryan and Bonner. But those opposite oppose it. They need to get onto their colleagues and comrades in Queensland and tell them to not bother turning up to the events when we are announcing it. We agreed with the Queensland government to do it and we put a record amount of funding into road projects. All the opposition leader can say is that he will do parts of the Bruce Highway. They put in $1 billion in 11½ years for the Bruce Highway in Queensland—we put in over $8 billion. Look at a map of the Bruce Highway and a map of Queensland. There is project after project done by this government. Those opposite are opposed to one of the most important projects currently under construction in South-East Queensland: the Blacksoil Interchange. It is the most important project, said the mayor of the council of south-East Queensland. It is a $93.4 million project and the federal government put $54 million into it. Those opposite voted against it again and again. It is now under construction. There are 100-odd jobs being created by Fulton Hogan, the construction company. That is the difference between Labor governments and conservative governments. We invest. We believe in jobs, growth and economic development in Queensland—those opposite oppose jobs, growth and economic development in Queensland. We believe in disability care—those opposite have more positions than you could poke a stick at. We believe in national improvement in schools—those opposite believe in school autonomy and class sizes going up. That is their only answer. We believe in making sure that every kid gets an opportunity and every child, whether they be from a working-class background in Ipswich or a rural community in Somerset, gets a chance in life. This budget is all about jobs, growth and economic development. Those opposite should hang their heads in shame that they oppose so many budget measures. They oppose everything that is for the benefit of Queensland, everything that is for the benefit of Ipswich and everything that is for the benefit of the Somerset Region. 13:08 Ms MARINO HWP Forrest The electorate of Forrest has not been well served by the 2013 Labor budget. But then for the last six years it has not been well served by the Labor government, by either the Rudd or Gillard Labor governments. We all know that the budget has a number of very questionable and rubbery fiscal predictions, but none more so than those on the carbon tax. The Labor Party has had a reality check on its carbon tax, which was effectively the EU saying, 'Tell 'em they're dreaming!' Following the set carbon price next year of $29 a tonne, the reality of forward estimates shows an expected carbon price of $12.10 from 1 July 2015, based on EU carbon-trading price predictions. That is in the budget figures and is another questionable assumption. We all know—certainly in my electorate—that the carbon tax is a major cost for business and industry. Collie is one of those great centres of industry in the south-west and a place where a fair proportion of the electricity for Western Australia is produced. The annual carbon outputs of the major electricity generators in Collie are, for Muja Power Station, five million tonnes of CO2; Collie A, 2.2 million tonnes; and Bluewaters 1 and 2, 2.6 million tonnes. That is a total of 9.8 million tonnes. With Labor's carbon tax high of $29 a tonne, this puts the Gillard government carbon tax cost to the Collie industries at $284 million in the 2014 financial year. They are costs that have to be recouped. Even with the cost expected to come down to $12.10 per tonne in 2015, the impact on the power generators in Collie will still be $118 million. A coalition government will provide the best savings for Collie industry and for people throughout my electorate of Forrest by scrapping what is an altogether punitive and ineffective carbon tax. The reality of linking the Australian and EU carbon prices is a great big $6 billion black hole—at least, and counting— in Labor's budget. I would have thought that a $6 billion budget black hole would have left the Treasurer red-faced. Of course, with the government's duplicitous approach to aged care, there should actually be more than one red face. The government's changes to aged-care funding which came into effect on 1 July last year, under the misnomer Living Longer Living Better, shows that they have no understanding of the issues facing small regional aged-care service providers and clearly no intention of trying to understand the additional costs of providing a quality aged-care service in regional and rural areas. When the Labor government unveiled their plan last year, they deliberately failed to tell the Australian people that this program is in fact an attempt to claw back $750 million from the aged-care sector over the next 2½ years—another short-term budget fix. The real result, as opposed to the misrepresentations of the government, is that residential aged-care providers will get less funding for new patients than they got for patients last year. The 2013-14 budget alone will see $500 million of ACFI funding ripped out of a sector that is already doing it tough. In aged care, as it has in child care, the Labor government has sought to enhance union control and government interference. It offers more money for wages, but to get it can cost providers more than they receive. Aged and Community Services WA estimates that an aged-care provider who operates a small 31-bed regional facility would be eligible to receive $17,000 under the workforce supplement principles but, in order to receive this, would have to commit to an additional $30,000 in wages. The Labor government's response to the crisis in aged care is to provide less support and simply more union bosses in control. So who are they looking after? Is it aged Australians or union leaders? As I said, their response to child care appears to be the same. Again Labor is prepared to sacrifice, in my view, our children's opportunities for the sake of union leadership. The budget for natural resource management has also taken a hit from the Labor government in 2013, and as a very passionate advocate for practical, effective environmental management, and certainly for the issue of biosecurity in the south-west, I cannot believe that we have seen more funding disappear from the flagship for local cooperation on environmental outcomes, a key part of delivering outcomes on the ground and developed by the Howard government. That is another $145 million taken out of the NRM budget to be redirected into pet projects picked by the government, which you would have to question. Either way, it shows that the Labor government has contempt for the good works and community engagement that the NRM actually was developed to deliver, and does. I know that about 96 per cent of farmers have historically been actively involved with NRM groups. With issues like Phytophthora dieback still not adequately addressed in my region and many others, the contempt Labor shows for the environment cannot pass unremarked. Dieback response is a critical issue for the south-west of Western Australia. Beyond this one pathogen, the issue of climate change adaptation needs to be better addressed, and it is the NRM groups on the ground in regional Australia that will be best placed to manage that adaptation. Preparing for changing rainfall patterns and managing invasive weed and pest species are best handled at the local level on the ground, as is bushfire control. The Howard government understood this and invested heavily in regional capacity through the NRM process. It is not the time to be undermining that investment given the issues on the ground. I want to touch on the issue of cybersafety, which is quite relevant here today. We know that 2.4 billion people in the world are on the internet and one billion are on Facebook. There is probably no greater threat to the safety of our citizens, especially our young people, and, more broadly, the business sector than the misuse of this great resource. The internet is not just a great asset; it may also be a great risk factor. This is why cybersafety is such an important issue. We know that cybercriminals are becoming constantly more sophisticated. We need an Australian population that is much more cybersavvy than we are now. As the reach of the internet expands and develops, with constantly changing IT and faster speeds, the threat grows proportionately. This is why it is so important to educate Australians on how to protect themselves and their families. According to Telstra, Aussie kids aged between 10 and 17 are online for an average of two hours a day, amongst the highest internet usage rates in the world. We need to address whether this is two hours a day of safety, enjoyment and learning or two hours a day of risk. This is a national problem that needs a national, coordinated solution. I know firsthand that education is the key. I believe it needs to be part of the national curriculum. The only way to assist people, particularly young people, is to help them to protect themselves. I see that happening as a key part of the school curriculum, so that current and future generations will know how to protect themselves. I have delivered countless cybersafety presentations in schools across the length and breadth of my electorate in the past three years. I recognised early the risk and the threat to our great young people. I want them to be aware, alert and better prepared to protect themselves. I see the need as so great that I am prepared to spend as much time as I can in helping to educate them. I want to teach them how to be safe. Equally I want to help parents—and I do—to help their children to be safe. I believe that young people are part of the answer in managing the risk. They are great ones to educate their parents and their grandparents as well as subsequent generations. This should be an Australia-wide activity. The only way to deliver cybersafety is to put in into the national curriculum. It is impossible to look at cybersafety without looking at the provision of internet services more generally. In regions like mine, the government is playing catch-up to the coalition's broadband policy, which will bring better broadband sooner to everyone in the south-west of WA, including Margaret River, Augusta and Cowaramup residents. We have been waiting six years so far and nothing has changed. It is totally unacceptable that many regional people—six years after Labor's first election promise—are still unable to connect to broadband or are extremely frustrated by slow internet speeds. People tell me constantly that all they want is a decent internet speed. They just want to have access, for a start. People will receive better broadband sooner under a coalition government. By the end of 2016, everyone will be able to enjoy speeds of at least 25 megabits per second and certainly better mobile coverage. The right thing to do for the people of the Forrest electorate is to get the speeds up to a level that at least enables people to do everything they want to, whether it is at home or at work. We know the government never even did a cost-benefit analysis of the NBN. We will do that, and I am positive that will show that regional areas like mine will benefit from improved broadband under the coalition. We will offer a mix of fibre to the node, wireless and satellite, and the cost will be about a third of Labor's at least $94 billion cost. That was the figure that early on was exactly what those who worked in the industry were telling the engineers and others. The system will be flexible enough for upgrades. Constantly, as technology improves and demand increases it is going to keep changing. It is not going to stay the same. We know that the government's NBN is going to bypass communities like I have with less than 1,000 premises. That includes a lot of small towns in Forrest. This group of communities will rely on wireless and satellite connections with their slower connection speeds. In contrast, our plan will deliver fibre to the node and direct connection by a copper cable to many of these residents, and—a really important and critical thing for people in my electorate—we are actually going to improve mobile coverage at the same time. How often is this raised with me? It is a constant issue. So many small regional communities will be much better off under a coalition plan. This will be the legacy of a coalition government, amongst other things, if we are lucky and fortunate enough to be successful in September. I look and think of what Labor's legacy will be: we do know that this will be a legacy of budget mismanagement, budget deficits and what will be intergenerational fiscal debt, without any question. They are going to leave a total gross debt breaching the $300 billion-debt ceiling within the forward estimates. We have structural deficits now. They will leave record net debt of $192 billion—$192 billion! That is $35 million a day in interest alone. And, of course, record deficits over five years and at least two more deficits to come. There is no credible pathway to surplus in what we have seen from the Labor government. Unfortunately for Australia and Australians—people in my electorate—this will be the legacy. There is going to have to be a significant amount of consistent surpluses to go anywhere near paying off at least $300 billion in debt. $300 billion! People have got so used to hearing the word 'billion' that they actually do not think a much it is, and how tough that is to pay off. Of course, no amount of spin can erase the impact that this debt legacy is going to have on future generations of Australians. What do you need to deal with this? Labor has not dealt with it in the last six years. You actually need a fair bit of discipline. You need some experience and you need to put a lot more confidence back into people; people and businesses on the ground and people in my electorate—whether they are in families or small business,. No matter what business you are in, you need some confidence. We have not seen any confidence on the ground with people, and no wonder when you look at what we have seen: just a chaotic process throughout this government. But as I said: when you think of people looking back on this Labor government, what will they see? They will see a debt ceiling of over $300 billion breached. The debt and deficit are just unbelievable. They are really unbelievable! When you actually talk to people about this they cannot believe that there is no plan, that Labor has no plan, 'We actually ran up the debt but we have no plan to pay it off'. Here we are, six years on with a Labor government, and there is no plan to pay off a debt and deficit that they have created in this time in government. (Time expired) 13:23 Mr FITZGIBBON 8K6 Hunter The contribution from the member for Forrest is a reminder that the economic debate in this country has become so forced and fake. We get unmerciful spin from the Leader of the Opposition and, indeed, at the member for North Sydney, the shadow minister, rather than a serious contribution to economic debate in this country. Of course, unfortunately, that unmerciful spin from the opposition drives the government I think by necessity, to enter into the spin game. The general public out there must be wondering what in the hell is going on in the Australian economy and what is going on in terms of fiscal management. Never these days do we hear the opposition leader take up the fight in some ideological sense; a debate about where we want our country to be in 10 or 20 years time both in economic terms and in terms of our social fabric—what will be the key drivers of increases in economic wealth and how we can best evenly distribute that wealth throughout our community. The Leader of the Opposition does not want to have that debate. It is called a small-target strategy. That is what the opposition leader has embraced. He wants to roll himself up in a small ball, say nothing controversial and ride the wave into government. Well, we have other plans for him. He does, of course, go down the path of ideology on the rare occasion. The most obvious standouts come to the surface when he is talking about the carbon price and the mining tax. Why? Because these are articles of faith for the opposition leader. These are policies which from our perspective are responsible and make absolute sense in public policy terms but from his perspective are just another weight on some of the largest companies in this country. It is his ideological position to always oppose any additional responsibility on those big companies. But, other than paid parental leave, the baby bonus and superannuation, we are not really having a serious economic debate in this country. We are not, because of the small-target strategy adopted by the Leader of the Opposition in not having a serious debate about where we want this country to go. All the opposition leader can do is attack the Treasury on the forecasts it delivers to the government—forecasts which the government relies upon when framing and shaping its budget—and then time after time after time again talk about the level of government debt, which of course by international standards is very low and is a direct consequence of the stimulus initiatives this government put in place post the global financial crisis to successfully keep this country out of recession. We have a plan to retire that debt. We have a solid plan to return the budget to surplus and to retire that debt. This has been a responsible budget. That plan is a slow and steady plan, one which puts us back on the path to surplus without taking a sledgehammer to the Australian economy, not acting on a way which is going to be a brake on further growth, which would impact negatively on the economy and therefore affect jobs in the economy. I have said in this place many, many times that, when I was first elected here, 17 years ago, I coined the famous Neville Wran—the former New South Wales Premier—phrase: 'There are only three issues in politics. They are jobs, jobs and jobs.' I have been very proud of the fact that since I have been representing the Hunter electorate we have gone from an unemployment rate of about 13 per cent to something like 3½ per cent. Maybe I should repeat that, because it is pretty hard to believe: from 13 per cent to 3½ per cent. At the moment it is rising, and these are challenges for us. It is mainly rising because the heat has come out of the mining boom, so we are going from 3½ probably back up to what might be described as our natural rate of unemployment—I would like to think so, because that is very low still, but we are going back to a higher rate of unemployment. This is what makes it so important that at this point in the economic cycle we do not take that sledgehammer to the Australian economy. The Leader of the Opposition says he would have us return to surplus more quickly, yet he is going to abolish all the revenue which flows from the carbon price. He is going to abolish the mining tax. And let us not forget that, while the mining tax is not raising what Treasury had originally predicted it would raise, it is still raising a significant amount of money. Some of that money, I am very happy to say, is being returned to my electorate in the form of infrastructure expenditure. There is no magic pudding here. You cannot say you are going to spend more and take less in revenue and say you are going to go back to surplus more quickly. If he is going to go down that path, he is going to put a big brake on the Australian economy. That would be bad news for my constituents at a time when unemployment is creeping back up to around five per cent. I should be very happy that the election of Tony Abbott is not a fait accompli. I do not believe it is a fait accompli. I believe that, as we approach the election, people will have a look at what this Labor government has achieved and give us some credit for it. Let me talk about the Hunter electorate. The $1.7 billion Hunter Expressway is something that I have been fighting for since the early 1990s, a project which was on track when we lost government in 1996 and which stagnated for 12 years under the leadership of John Howard and his government. Having had a Labor government plan it, it took a Labor government to fund it and build it, which it did, thankfully, in 2008. By Christmas this year, Hunter residents and others will be driving their vehicles along that Hunter expressway. In the most recent budget, we got $45 million to address a very serious problem in Scone in my electorate, a significant town with a major highway through it—ridiculously cut off by a level railway crossing for up to eight minutes these days because of the length of coal trains—a very welcome investment in my local electorate. All members in this place, including the member for Barker, have had their schools refurbished. We have all been to the school openings—I have done more than 80 of them. These are facilities which cannot be described as wants of the communities; these are needs. I had classes sitting on the floor in school halls, and many in unacceptable demountable buildings, before we embarked on this investment program in our schools. I have a new TAFE college, new trades training centres, new science labs and new community colleges. The list goes on and on and on. We have had a huge investment in social housing. These are projects which were on the books of the state governments but would never have been funded if it were not for the stimulus package put forward by this government. We are also investing in housing infrastructure, like roads in inner Maitland to allow the council to open new building blocks for affordable housing—something they were not able to do previously because as a developer they were not able to meet the infrastructure costs. We have more money for all of our local hospitals. We have more GPs than ever before. We have new GP clinics in Lochinvar, Greta and Denman, and we are about to have one in Kurri Kurri. The list goes on and on and on. This is a government with a deep-seated commitment to economic and social infrastructure in this country. These are projects that people have been crying out for for many, many years, projects John Howard could have funded in 12 years of government because he had rivers of gold in that first phase of the mining boom but projects he did not address. In not doing so, he had a deep impact on productivity in this country. Whenever you hear Tony Abbott try to explain how his magic pudding is going to work, he goes to productivity, but he never explains how he is going to lift it—but we do get a hint of Work Choices in there. There is no doubt about that. He goes to the cutting of Public Service jobs and more efficient running of government. We have heard that before. John Howard did that in 1996. He took a knife to the Public Service, only to have Public Service employment restored to a higher level three years later. There is no magic solution in this budget, and I believe this budget got it absolutely right. This is a message for both sides of the parliament and for the broader community. Beginning with John Howard, when we were in that first mining boom, we started to give people more and more of what they wanted. He did not do anything like the investment in infrastructure we have done, but there was money spent on infrastructure. I think there was an increase in infrastructure spending, particularly on the national highway network. We were awash with middle-class welfare. Since his days, we have had pension increases, healthy wage rises and significant increases in public expenditure. Most of that expenditure, of course, has been welfare. On the other side of the equation, there is a growing expectation of smaller government and smaller taxes. So everyone wants more money spent on everything, including health and education, but they want the government to take less money, they want the government to tax them less. I am talking about individuals and companies. At the same time, in response to community expectations, we have put a constraint on the economy in terms of the carbon price—an initiative begun by John Howard. If you recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, John Howard had a policy to put in place an emissions trading scheme, Malcolm Turnbull had one, Brendan Nelson had one. In fact. Tony Abbott has one now with the same commitment to a greenhouse gas reduction target as the government. So we have all got this commitment to a carbon constraint. Why? Because the community has been making it pretty clear that a carbon constraint is what it wants. But at the same time we want to compensate everyone for any consumer impacts of the carbon constraint; indeed, we are compensating industry as well and, in fact, we are subsidising the renewable industry to meet these community expectations. These are not initiatives that give us a net income stream; they give us a net outflow. I do not see anything ahead which suggests a huge increase in our population. We have an ageing population, like most Western countries, so there is no great hope of any windfall in terms of population or demographics. We do not have any magic solution, despite what the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, might say on the productivity front, albeit we should always be working for greater productivity, and we do. But there is no magic solution ahead for us and so the community, while it calls for a more efficient government—as it should—is going to have to decide what it wants. Does it want more expenditure or does it want lower taxes? There is no magic pudding. It is no different from the family budget: only so much income is coming in and only so much expenditure can go out—unless, of course, you want to continue to rack up debt, and that is unsustainable in the long term. That is why the government has a plan to retire debt. The community has to come with the political parties on this question. We have developed an expectation that we can have our cake and eat it too. The reality, in this global environment in particular, is that there are no easy solutions. We cannot expect growth to accelerate dramatically any time soon, particularly given the very long period it is going to take the Europeans to come out of recession, given the sluggishness of the US economy and given the relative sluggishness of many of the Asian communities, more particularly China. This is all part of the reason we have to ensure that in communities like those I represent we take maximum benefit from the opportunities that serve us now. That means doing all we can to allow the mining companies to stay afloat through this difficult time and to take the new opportunities like the coal seam gas industry which I spoke about in the House yesterday, an industry which has the potential to bring great wealth to our communities with a minimal footprint. There will be some projects that might not be appropriate because of threats to watertables, for example, but there will be projects that can bring significant wealth to the Hunter and create many jobs in the Hunter with minimum, if any, environmental impact. We should not close our eyes to those opportunities. Some would have the coalmining industry and the CSG industry closed down in the Hunter. Well, what fools they are. Our unemployment rate would go through the roof overnight. It is important to our local economy and we all need to be standing behind it. 13:38 Mr SECKER 848 Barker The member for Hunter raised an interesting issue: people expect more services, more products, more government help but they also want lower taxes. We all know that does not add up. What we really have to try and do is achieve the best use of taxpayers' money and more efficient use of taxpayers' money and not throw it away on things like pink batts, which this government did. I hasten to say also that I think you will find this election will be unusual in that there will not be a lot of promises out there for huge extra parcels of funding. I think in some ways that is a good thing. It is a good thing that people are starting to realise that we cannot keep up the continual spending of money that this Labor government has done in the nearly six years it has been in power. He raised another point, about subsidising green industry. But unfortunately we have the perverse result, now, of poor people subsidising rich people, who can afford to put the solar panels on their roofs. That is one of the perverse results of subsidising industries. Those who most need the help to reduce their power costs—which have come about as a result of the carbon tax and other policies of this government—are not helped at all. I was very disappointed with Labor's budget, but I was not alone in that. In my lifetime I have never seen such little and poor comment about a budget as we had this year. It was a very interesting phenomenon that we did not have much comment. I think there was not much expectation. Certainly the feeling I get out in the electorate is: 'The sooner we can get rid of this government the better. We have made up our minds; let's just get to the election as quickly as possible.' This budget is in deficit for the fifth time in a row. The government promised last year that they will finally deliver years of surpluses—in fact they said they were delivering surpluses this year and the next three years—and we never thought that was achievable by this government, and we have been confirmed correct. It just further confirms the government's inability to manage money. It confirms that Labor's financial and budget management is in complete chaos—a stark contrast to the Howard government's strong economic record and consecutive surpluses. We achieved that through careful management. In my lifetime I have seen three Labor governments. We had the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975. I certainly remember their attempt to borrow $4 billion outside the normal constraints of government borrowing. That was nearly 40 years ago. I have not done the sums of what $4 billion would be worth today, but it would have to be something between $30 billion and $40 billion. The Whitlam government was trying to borrow that money outside the normal way. In fact, they tried to borrow it from the Baathist Party, of all places, which was Suddam Hussein's Party in Iran. The Whitlam government racked up debt and spending, and that is certainly in the DNA of Labor whenever they have come to government. The second Labor government that I lived through was the Hawke and Keating governments. I point out to a lot of people that from Federation, in 1901, to 1991—in that 90 years—the government accumulated $16 billion of debt. We had to fund two wars, and as we all know they take a lot of extra funding that you would not normally spend. We had other skirmishes along the way. We built Canberra. We built the law courts, and certainly the federal government had to spend a lot of money over that 90 years. In fact, there was $16 billion accumulated debt over 90 years. But in the next five years the Hawke-Keating government repeated that 90-year block of debt every year for the next five years, so that when we came into government there was $96 billion worth of debt. That was a record debt, until we got this government. We are already up to $176 billion of net debt. We have a gross debt which is going to go well over the $300 billion mark. Certainly that is a record in anyone's history books, by a long, long way. That is the problem with Labor: they do not know how to manage the budget. They promise surpluses but deliver deficits. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, recognises that like families and businesses we have to live within our means. And it is with this guiding principle that we were able to deliver surplus after surplus when we were in government. It will also be the guiding principle for any incoming coalition government. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 Order! It being approximately 1.45 pm the debate is interrupted. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour. The member for Barker will have leave to continue his remarks. Sitting suspended from 13:45 to 15:30 Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy) Bill 2013 4137

Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy) Bill 2013

Second Reading 4137 15:30 Mr TONY SMITH 00APG Casey On behalf of the opposition, it is my pleasure to indicate our support for this bill. It is, as members would be aware, a bill that comes before the parliament after each budget each year. As the Assistant Treasurer pointed out in his introductory remarks the day after the budget, it is important to amend the Medicare Levy Act to increase the Medicare levy low-income thresholds in line with the consumer price index. Otherwise, as he pointed out, it would be the case that those who were exempt from the Medicare levy in the previous income year without that adjustment—without that increase in line with inflation—would not continue to remain exempt. As the Assistant Treasurer is probably also aware, he and I have discussed this legislation most years when it has come in, and so when people look back at the record of the parliament in a hundred years they will think that the member for Lindsay and the member for Casey were experts in the field of the Medicare levy threshold. This has happened every year: it happened under our government. I will correct myself there: it did not happen one year, I recall, and that was when inflation was negative and there was no need for any adjustment. We support this piece of housekeeping legislation. 15:32 Mr BRADBURY HVW Lindsay I would like to take the opportunity to thank the member for Casey for his contribution not just today but for all of those Medicare levy bills that have seen the threshold increased to ensure that low-income earners do not have to contribute to the Medicare levy until such time as they reach that threshold. The Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy) Bill 2013 amends the Medicare Levy Act 1986 to increase the Medicare levy low-income threshold for families in line with the consumer price index. The families threshold amount is to be increased from $32,743 to $33, 693 so that families in this cohort do not pay the Medicare levy when they do not have a tax liability. For each dependent child this threshold increases, and the amount this threshold increases will also change from $3,007 to $3,094. The amendments to the Medicare levy low-income thresholds apply to the 2012-13 year of income and to future income years. The Medicare levy low-income thresholds for individuals and pensioners have already been increased for 2012-13 as part of the Clean Energy Future Plan Household Assistance Package. Full details of the measures in this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the presence in the gallery of members of the Penrith Christian School, from my electorate, who are visiting Canberra today and to welcome them as they get an insight into the way in which important legislation is passed through this place. I commend the bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment. Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013 4138

Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013

Second Reading 4138 15:35 Mr TONY SMITH 00APG Casey I rise to speak, on behalf of the shadow Treasurer, on the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013. This tax law amendment bill has eight schedules. Some of those schedules the coalition supports. Some of those schedules we will not be opposing. As a consequence, I say at the outset that the coalition will not be opposing the passage of this tax law amendment bill. On behalf of the shadow Treasurer, I will run through the relevant schedules, six of which relate to tax and two of which relate to superannuation. Schedule 1 deals with the definition of 'documentary' for film tax offset purposes. The schedule amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to define 'documentary' in accordance with the Australian Communications and Media Authority guidelines and to restore its intended meaning. 'Documentary' in tax law, for film tax offset purposes, becomes 'a creative treatment of actuality that is not an infotainment or lifestyle program or a magazine program'. As the explanatory memorandum and the detail of the bill make clear, the schedule also clarifies that the exclusion of light entertainment programs from film tax offset eligibility does extend to game shows. This is done by adding game shows to the list of light entertainment programs explicitly excluded from film tax offset eligibility. The offset is designed to encourage Australian investment in film production. These amendments are a response to litigation—the decision in the Lush House case—where the taxpayer successfully argued that their infotainment-like production Lush House, a six-part television series, qualified as a documentary for film tax offset eligibility purposes. As this judicial interpretation was wider than the intention of the original policy, amendments were proposed to make the legislative boundaries clearer around documentary and game shows and restore the original intent and the integrity of the offset. This proposal was announced in the budget of 8 May 2012. The amended definition applies from 1 July last year. The coalition considers these amendments—primarily a response to the decision in that case that I mentioned—to be sensible integrity measures that better target eligibility for, and access to, the key film industry tax concession. Schedule 2 of the bill deals with ex gratia payments for natural disasters and amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to exempt from income tax any ex gratia disaster income recovery subsidy that was received by individuals who lost income, whether as an employee, small business person or farmer, as a direct result of the floods that occurred in Queensland from 21 January this year. It also exempts from income tax the ex gratia payment for the eligible New Zealand special category visa holders, equivalent to the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment, made in relation to the natural disasters occurring across Australia in the financial years of 2011-12 and 2012-13. These exemptions apply to payments relating to disasters occurring in those financial years, and the coalition supports these amendments in schedule 2. Schedule 3 deals with the GST instalment system and amends the goods and services tax law to enable entities that are paying their GST by instalments and subsequently moving to a net refund position to continue to pay their GST by instalments, albeit a zero-instalment amount if they choose to. The purpose of this is to address an issue in the current law which leads to otherwise eligible entities being excluded from the GST instalment system, when they move to a net refund position, and therefore lose the compliance-cost advantages of submitting their BAS, their business activity statement, annually. It otherwise has to be submitted quarterly. This amendment will allow entities that use the instalment option and move into a net refund position to choose to continue to pay their GST instalments and therefore retain the compliance-cost advantages they see in annual reporting. Somewhat ironically, the choice to remain in the GST instalment system provides the entity with compliance-cost advantages with not having to complete a quarterly BAS. The amendments result in those entities that decide to remain in that system receiving their refund after they have submitted their annual return. The option for GST instalment payers to elect, where it suits them, for a lower BAS compliance cost is available from 1 July, after royal assent. It gives those businesses the choice in that system. It will benefit only a small proportion of businesses and not-for-profit organisations. It will reduce compliance costs for electing entities, in an ongoing sense. There will be some transitional costs by those that elect but presumably they will choose the overall benefits to outweigh those costs. The coalition supports these amendments, albeit quite technically and narrowly applicable ones, but they have our support. We do note that this was announced two budgets ago, on 10 May 2011, and we do wonder why it has taken the government two years to deal with this. Schedule 4 is a regular schedule that appears in these tax law amendment bills. It amends the Income Tax Act of 1997 to again update the list of deductible gift recipients by adding six entities: the Conversation Trust, the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples Limited, the National Boer War Memorial Association Incorporated, the Anzac Centenary Public Fund, the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project Incorporated and Philanthropy Australia. We are told from the explanatory memorandum that the financial impact of these listings will be just under $10 million over the forward estimates—in fact, $8.6 million I think is the figure. Schedule 5 is one of the schedules I highlighted at the start that deals with superannuation and it amends the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, known colloquially as the SIS Act, to expand the duties of trustees of particular superannuation funds to establish and implement procedures to consolidate accounts where a member of a fund has multiple accounts within a fund and consolidation is in the member's best interests. This measure will facilitate a reduction in the number of unnecessary accounts, boost superannuation balances by ensuring members avoid paying unnecessary fees and insurance premiums on multiple accounts and, at the same time, reduce the number of lost accounts. This proposal was announced in September 2011 by the minister. It is a measure that has the coalition's support. It will lead to greater efficiencies and less red tape, in an ongoing sense. I should point out that the industry raised several concerns in the hearing of the Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, inquiring into unclaimed money late last year and its likely interaction with the consolidation process. In particular, there were comments that the requirements of the unclaimed money bill were likely to lead to increased double-handling and complexity in this accounts autoconsolidation process; that the unclaimed money time lines could have been better chosen—in other words, delayed to better dovetail with this consolidation process, instead of the haphazardness and haste of the bill, just to help the government meet an unlikely cash surplus target for 2012-13 which it abandoned only two months later; and that all parts of the consolidation process should be stipulated before systems are designed and automated, otherwise the costs and risks of getting things wrong will mount. Those are some of the concerns that were raised. With better coordination, consultation and policy processes, systems to automatically consolidate accounts can be designed once and holistically, with double-handling costs and risks kept to a minimum. I turn to the last three schedules. Schedule 6 is the other schedule dealing with superannuation, and with it the Gillard government is again seeking to quietly reduce the Howard government superannuation co-contribution scheme for low-income workers. It will halve the government's maximum co-contribution under the scheme from the current $1,000 down to $500. Under the Howard government, the government super co-contribution for low-income earners was up to $1,500. It also, again, reduces the government's co-contribution matching rate by half, from the current dollar-for-dollar rate down to 50c for every dollar put in by the low-income earner. It was originally $1.50 for every dollar. It also halves the income band across which the co-contribution phases out or tapers. Instead of the higher-income threshold being set at $30,000 above the lower-income threshold, as it is currently, it will be reduced to $15,000. Lastly, indexation of the lower-income threshold, which has been frozen for two years, since the 2010-11 budget, will be frozen for another income year, 2012-13. These amendments will commence from the date of royal assent and apply from the 2012-13 year. The financial impact of these amendments is around $330 million a year on assessment, once matured. The government asserts that the compliance cost impact of these amendments will be minimal. Once again, it is necessary to point out the hypocrisy of the government on superannuation. This is yet another example of the government not living up to their word to not change superannuation, 'not one jot, not one tittle', and it is another illustration of the tendency of those opposite to run a class war in the lead-up to elections and then cut benefits for low- and middle-income earners when they need to plug their budget black holes. After this sixth change to the government's super co-contribution benefits for low-income earners, the current government, by the time they are finished, will have cut those benefits by more than $3.3 billion. Schedule 7 rationalises and consolidates the dependency tax offsets. It amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 to create new consolidated dependency tax offsets for taxpayers maintaining certain classes of dependants who are genuinely unable to work; it amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to preserve the existing dependency offsets for taxpayers eligible for the zone, overseas forces and overseas civilian tax offsets; and it amends the 1936 act to reflect the impact of the consolidation of the dependency tax offsets on the net medical expenses tax offset. To provide a bit of history and context, the rationalisation of numerous dependency tax offsets did have some merit, but I cannot help thinking this government is only doing so to feed its massive spending addiction. As described in the Henry review of 2010, the dependent spouse tax offset in its original form had become somewhat outdated. It was often holding back participation in the workforce. The Gillard government's announcement in 2011-12 restricted that, of course. All in all, given the state of the budget, the coalition will not be opposing this measure—as I said, because of the state of the budget. The last schedule deals with the taxation of financial arrangements, known as the TOFA regime, and, again, this is another regular entrant in the tax law amendment bills that come before this chamber. Like a few before it, it seeks to clarify and refine the operation of certain aspects of the regime. They are largely of a technical and housekeeping nature. They flow from ongoing monitoring of the implementation of the TOFA reforms and they have been developed in consultation with the industry. The government argues these amendments refine and clarify the operation and provide lower compliance costs and additional certainty for affected taxpayers. These proposals were announced some time back, in June 2010, and apply from the commencement of that regime. The coalition supports these amendments to the schedule which appear generally beneficial to taxpayers with compliance costs unlikely to be significant at all. So the coalition will not be opposing the passage of this legislation. As I have noted, the government's change to the super co-contributions will be the sixth change and that will mean the cuts to benefits of those low-income earners will be more than $3.3 billion. As I noted with the other schedule, given the parlous state of the budget handed down a fortnight ago, where a $1 billion surplus forecast only six months ago for this financial year is now a $19 billion deficit, the coalition will in this instance elect not to oppose the passage of this bill through the House of Representatives. 15:51 Ms BRODTMANN 30540 Canberra There are many improvements to our tax and superannuation systems that are enabled by the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013. Among other things, this bill provides certainty to those small businesses who use the GST instalment system and in schedule 3 we have amendments that will reduce compliance costs by allowing taxpayers to estimate their annual GST liability, allowing them to pay by instalment and submit an annual activity statement rather than quarterly or monthly activity statements, which is a great relief for many small businesses. This measure arose from a suggestion made by a member of the public to the Tax Issues Entry Scheme, which allows the public to put forward suggestions for minor policy changes. So it is great that it has been responsive to actual needs and suggestions from the public. The bill also ensures that tax offsets will continue to encourage Australian documentary, film and television production and it furthers the government's ongoing efforts to reduce the number of lost superannuation accounts. At June 2012 there were almost 32 million superannuation accounts in Australia, which is almost three accounts for every worker. This measure has been released for public consultation twice, in March 2012 and also August 2012. The bill is part of a broader package of superannuation measures that are aimed at reducing fees on unnecessary superannuation accounts, protecting members' retirement savings from being eroded by those fees and charges. All these improvements are very worthy and very worth while for small businesses and the general community and will be of great benefit to the individuals they affect. However, there is one particular aspect of this bill that I want to speak about today and that is the listing, as a deductible gift recipient, of the National Boer War Memorial Association. Members would be aware that I have an interest in the Boer War and that I support the works of this worthy association. Just yesterday we were talking about the Boer War and the memorial, which I will touch on later. From memory, it was one of our fellow members in the House who had just come back from a function on the weekend wearing a rather loud tie commemorating some Boer War functions. Last year I spoke in this House to mark the 110th anniversary of the signing of the treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the second Boer War. I spoke then about the importance of remembering this war, which is often referred to as the forgotten war. For Australia the Boer War is particularly significant because in many ways the Boer War marked the beginning of Australia as an independent nation and it played a pivotal role in forming our national character. At the start of the war in 1899, Australia was six self-governing Crown colonies in the final stages of forming a federation and in June 1899 the people of all colonies except Western Australia had voted in favour of federation—and in 1900 Western Australia would join them. By then Australians, including our first servicewomen to serve overseas, were already serving alongside Britons, Canadians and New Zealanders as part of the imperial forces. The British commanders particularly valued the Australians for their horsemanship, their bush skills and their initiative. The Australians were becoming known for a special type of mounted infantry which would become the light horse of the First World War. For the first time, Australians and New Zealanders fought together, as they would in future conflicts, a tradition that has bonded our nations in the most exceptional way for over 100 years now. The Australian tradition of raising specific volunteer forces to serve overseas was also established. As would happen later in the 20th century, men were recruited from individual states, but they fought together as Australians. In all, some 23,000 Australians, including 60 women, served in the Boer War. Unfortunately, 589 lost their lives and 1,400 sustained serious wounds. Australia also lost its first servicewoman when Sister Frances Emma—Fanny—Hines died of pneumonia in August 1900. It is sobering to think that almost half of all deaths were from disease or accident. The National Boer War Memorial Association is a very important association in commemorating our role in the Boer War because, while the Boer War was the first war to be commemorated by public memorials in many small towns across Australia, to date no specific national memorial to the war has been built. About a month ago, I was up in Norfolk Island for committee work, but prior to that I was also there with the minister for territories, and I had the opportunity to visit the Norfolk Island RSL and speak to them about a $2½ thousand grant that they had just received from the Labor government that will help them build a memorial in their RSL: a cabinet to house their memorabilia. The National Boer War Memorial Association has been campaigning tirelessly to rectify the need for a specific national memorial, and now, more than 110 years after the event, preparations for the building of such a national memorial are well and truly underway. The site for the memorial is on Anzac Parade in Canberra and was dedicated on 31 May 2008. The design was unveiled by CDF, General David Hurley, in Canberra on 1 March 2012. The listing as a deductible gift recipient of the National Boer War Memorial Association will enable the raising of much-needed funds to pay for this important memorial. The timing of this legislation could not be more fitting, because 31 May, which is this Friday, will mark the 111th anniversary of the end of the Boer War, and across Australia commemorations will be held. There were some on the weekend, and there will be some in Canberra this weekend. In Canberra we have a service and wreath laying at St John's church in Reid, which is just behind the intended site for the memorial; a dedicated closing ceremony at the Australian War Memorial; and an official observance at the site of the future National Boer War Memorial on Anzac Parade. Today I ask that we all remember the brave men and women who served in Australia's first national war, the Boer War, and I look forward to one day being able to commemorate an anniversary of the Boer War at a beautiful National Boer War Memorial. The site that is dedicated is a beautiful site, but what is even more stunning is the actual design, with the men on horses and the tufts of grass that surround it that look like little puffs of dust rising up behind the horses as they ride. It is a very active and quite passionate representation of a scene from the Boer War. It is a stunning memorial, and I really look forward to seeing it in place in the near future. Fortunately, the association has received a seeding grant of $200,000 from the Department of Veterans' Affairs, and that will go some way towards getting us to the final stages of this beautiful memorial. I commend the bill to the House. 15:59 Ms OWENS E09 Parramatta Can I also join the previous speaker and make my comments about the Boer War Memorial. In my electorate, I have the Lancer Barracks. The Lancers are the oldest and most decorated unit in the Australian military. They, of course, were a cavalry regiment in the Boer War and are very strong advocates for the Boer War Memorial, as am I. I am speaking once again on one of the TLAB bills, in this case the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013. I think I have said in this house a number of times how much I enjoy the TLABs. This one is actually a tax and superannuation law amendment bill, which is called a TSLAB, so we now have two versions of these bills that cover a range of things to do with tax laws. I have been accused at various times of having a character flaw for enjoying speaking on TLABs and TSLABs, but for me they bring together in one bill a whole range of things that government is doing and indicate the complexity and sometimes the fine detail of work that goes on behind the scenes when you deliver a major policy. In some ways they follow along behind, clean up, fix and adjust things that change in major policy areas. This bill has eight schedules. If you are a small business person, you earn less than $35,000 a year, you are in film or you like Australian film, this one has something for you. In fact, probably just about everybody in the country would find something in this bill that relates to them. I am going to mention briefly all of the schedules but I am going to concentrate on a couple of them more than others. The first one is one that I am going to spend a little bit of time on. It amends the film tax offsets to restore the intended meaning of 'documentary' and clarifies that game shows are not eligible for tax offsets. Income tax law provides tax offsets to encourage expenditure on films in Australia if certain criteria are satisfied. The producer offset, for example, requires a minimum level of Australian expenditure. It varies for different genres, but the level required is lower than for documentaries, and this schedule is specifically about documentaries. Screen Australia is the film authority that administers the producer offset, which involves assessing whether or not a film satisfies the criteria set out in division 376.65 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, and I will not repeat the name of that act. This includes determining whether a film is a documentary and calculating the amount of QAI, which is qualifying Australian production expenditure. Documentaries are an evolving form. If you consider what you see on television at the moment, you see the growth of reality television and the new forms of game show. Over time, the new forms that emerge weave their way into other forms. In a very short period of time we have seen a rapid change in the ways that documentaries tell their stories. At the moment in the act there is not actually a definition of documentary so Screen Australia has been using the definition from the Australian Communication and Media Authority's guidelines in order to administer the producer offset when it comes to documentaries. Not so long back, in 2011, a series was made called Lush House. It follows a householder management expert, Shannon Lush, working with a different family or household in each of 10 episodes to improve their household management. The program satisfied the conditions of 376.65 of the tax act for the offset but failed as far as Screen Australia was concerned in respect of the documentary requirement, based on ACMA's guidelines. So the producers of Lush House disagreed with the decision and went to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. They ruled that there was no definition in the act. They used a different definition and ruled that Lush House was in fact a documentary. I will say upfront that documentary is such an evolving form that no matter what definition you have producers are going to push against it and the form is going to push against it. It will continue to move very quickly in Australia and internationally. It is a highly competitive form, so being at the edge of it in terms of selling your work is incredibly important. But what schedule 1 does is reinstate the definition which Screen Australia was using by inserting that definition from the guidelines into the act. So it reinstates, if you like, the situation that was in place before Lush House went to the Administrative Review Tribunal. This is one of those decisions which will always be controversial in a highly emerging form. It is incredibly important that Screen Australia continues to liaise with the industry to make sure that the definitions that they are using continue to be responsive and interpreted within the rapidly emerging concept of what makes a documentary—but it is a particularly interesting schedule. Schedule 2 exempts from income tax the disaster income recovery subsidy paid to individuals, small business persons and farmers who lost income as a result of ex-tropical cyclone Oswald and related flooding in Queensland. Every time the government provides disaster income recovery funding of one form or another in the community following any of the disasters we have had in recent decades, the tax law is amended to make sure that those recovery payments are not taxable. Schedule 2 makes sure that the disaster income recovery subsidy payments for Oswald and associated flooding in Queensland are tax-exempt. Schedule 2 also exempts from income tax the exgratia payments equivalent to those payments for eligible New Zealand non-protected special category visa holders who were affected. It is a very complex language but basically it makes sure that New Zealanders who were affected by the disaster and who received the payments in Australia had the same tax treatment as Australians. You get used to this sort of language of TLABs and TSLABs. Ultimately underneath it there are some very common sense things. That one is simply making sure that payments that people receive to help them recover from a disaster are not taxed. It is a perfectly fine and logical schedule. Schedule 3 relates to the GST instalments system. It amends the GST act to enable those small-business taxpayers who are paying their GST by instalments and who subsequently move into a net refund position can continue to pay their GST by instalments if they wish to do so. It provides certainty for those small business entities that use the GST instalment system and it ensures that as their business moves from doing well to doing less well they will be able to continue to use the instalment system they are familiar with. It is a logical change. It came about because a member of the public asked for it through the tax issues entry scheme, which allows the public to put forward suggestions for major policy changes. This is community consultation at the most grassroots level working. It is a very good change and has been quite welcomed by number of small businesses in my area. Schedule 4 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to include a few more organisations on the list of DGR's, deductible gift recipients, which allows tax deductibility for donations. Is that what it means? An honourable member: Tax deductible. Ms OWENS E09 I knew it was something like that. I knew what it did. The Conversation Trust is a charity that publishes analysis and commentary on current affairs from the university and research sector. It delivers directly to the public through its website, Twitter and Facebook. That one is backdated to 21 November 2012. The National Congress of Australia's First Peoples Ltd, which is a national representative organisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples also goes on the list. The National Boer War Memorial Association goes on the list. The Anzac Centenary public fund, which collates donations to fund a range of Anzac Centenary initiatives and projects as agreed by government goes on the list. The Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Fund Project Inc., which seeks donations to build a memorial on Anzac Parade in Canberra to recognise the service of Australians who have served in peacekeeping missions goes on the list and is also backdated to 31 December 2012. Philanthropy Australia, which is the national membership body for the philanthropic sector primarily servicing Australia's philanthropic trusts and foundations also goes on the list. Almost every TLAB or TSLAB has a number of organisations of that quality and calibre added to the DGR list. Schedule 5 relates to the merging of multiple accounts in a superannuation entity. Most people would know that the Labor government has engaged in a number of reforms designed to make superannuation more transparent and simpler to manage. We found ourselves in a position in this country of people having many superannuation accounts, sometimes being unaware that they do. As they moved from one employer to the other over the past decades it was sometimes easy for superannuation account to be left behind somewhere and for it to be eaten up in fees. We have done a considerable amount of work through the lost super, MySuper and other reforms to reintroduce people to their lost accounts. This one deals with a particular set of circumstances where a person will have more than one account with the same superannuation entity. As of June last year there were almost 32 million superannuation accounts in Australia—that is almost three accounts for every worker. We all know that if an account sits there for a while it is possible for fees and insurance costs to start to eat up the account. So this one places a general duty upon superannuation trustees to identify members with multiple accounts within their fund on an annual basis and to consider whether it would be appropriate to merge them, having regard to the best interests of members. This will apply regardless of the balances of the accounts concerned. There was considerable consultation in the early days of putting this policy together. A number of kinds of accounts have been exempted from this, but it is a very good measure that should result in a more rational approach to multiple accounts within superannuation entities. And I will point out that a number of the major entities have already begun the process of finding ways to join accounts where it seems clear that the person has two accounts either without their knowledge or because that is the way it happened at the time, without a conscious choice. Schedule 6 deals with the superannuation co-contribution and, again, it is part of a larger reform. The federal government has introduced a new way to contribute to the superannuation savings of eligible low- and middle-income earners. It was announced in the 2010-11 budget and is called the low income super contribution. It provides a payment of up to $500, not indexed annually, into the superannuation accounts of low-income earners. By the way, the schedule I am talking about is not about the new contribution; it is about the old one, which I will get to in a moment. The purpose of this new one is to compensate low-income earners for the fact that when they contribute to their superannuation account they do not receive the same tax benefit as a person earning a higher income receives. Essentially, the payment of up to $500 compensates a low-income earner and gives them a reasonable tax advantage for putting money into super, which those on higher incomes get automatically. Part of the change is that we are reducing the contributions that made through the Howard government's superannuation co-contribution, which was introduced in 2003. Under that scheme, individuals were matched at a 100 per cent—dollar for dollar—rate up to $1,000 for people with incomes up to $31,920. Unfortunately, only about one in five people who were eligible to claim that actually did. The views of the industry were quite clear in the submissions they made on this bill: they preferred the low-income superannuation contribution, which went to all low-income earners, rather than the co-contribution, which was only being claimed by one in five. I am nearly out of time so I had better be very fast. Schedule 7 consolidates eight existing dependency tax offsets into a single streamlined offset and schedule 8 deals with the TOFA arrangements to clarify the operations, with lower compliance costs, and to provide additional certainty to affected taxpayers. So there are eight schedules—sorry I did not get enough time on 7 and 8—with very interesting amendments to tax law covering a broad range of areas. Again, there is something in there for everyone. 16:14 Mrs ANDREWS 230886 McPherson I would like to speak very briefly on the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill. In particular, I would like to speak on schedule 4, which amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, to update the list of deductible gift recipients by adding six entities, which are the Conversation Trust, the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples Limited, the National Boer War Memorial Association Incorporated, the ANZAC Centenary Public Fund, the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project Incorporated, and Philanthropy Australia Incorporated. I note that the member for Canberra took the opportunity to speak about the National Boer War Memorial Association Incorporated. I would like to speak about the ANZAC Centenary Public Fund, and in particular the ANZAC Day celebrations that will be coming up in the next two years. I note in the schedule that the donations collected in the ANZAC Centenary Public Fund will be used to fund a range of ANZAC centenary initiatives and projects as agreed by government for the commemoration of the ANZAC centenary and Australia's involvement in World War I—1914 to 1918. I certainly support the inclusion of the ANZAC Centenary Public Fund as a deductible gift recipient. We are approaching a most important ceremony—the commemoration of ANZAC Day in two years time—and I know that many of the communities around Australia are now actively working towards the celebrations that will take place on that day. My electorate of McPherson is certainly preparing already. We have four RSLs in that community—Coolangatta-Tweed, Currumbin, Mudgeeraba and Burleigh Heads—and I am sure that many people around Australia would be aware of the ceremony at Elephant Rock on the Gold Coast every ANZAC Day, and particularly the dawn service that is held there. I know that the Currumbin RSL will be working towards making the centenary celebration an event which we will all remember—as will many of the RSLs throughout Queensland and Australia, particularly the four in my electorate. Having the ANZAC Centenary Fund included in the deductible gift recipients gives many people the opportunity to contribute to that fund. Having it tax deductible is absolutely wonderful, because it gives us the opportunity to recognise and publicly demonstrate our commitment to those people who have served in Australia and overseas, and who have done so much to support our nation in the past, and to support those who will continue to do so in the future. 16:18 Ms O'NEILL 140651 Robertson I rise to speak on the legislation before the House, and to support it. I would like to make some comments with regard to four of the schedules that are before us this afternoon. Firstly, I would like to comment in relation to the taxation treatment in terms of film tax offsets. One of the great joys of being an Australian is to be able to travel around the world and know that people have seen our country and have some understanding of our quirky sense of humour through the films that we produce. I know, from my own children's viewing habits, that documentaries about places are a really important part of their education about the world. This particular offset is established to encourage expenditure on films in Australia if they meet certain criteria. It does not seek to define the term 'documentary', but we are responding to ensure that when this tax offset is applied it is genuinely for pieces of work that are documentaries. I doubt that we could ever say that a game show would constitute a documentary in the same sense that you and I might understand the normal use of that word; however, I understand that this piece of legislation ensures that the offsets that we are hopefully going to put through the parliament with the passage of this bill will encourage the sorts of film and television programs that they were intended to encourage rather than genres that were definitely intended to be excluded when the legislation was first put before the House. By our doing so, those who watch us from afar will be able to find out what Australia is really like and get the flavour of Australian documentaries. The third schedule of the bill is a very significant improvement which answers to a point so often raised in my conversations with local small businesses in my area—that is, the burden that they have carried ever since they were asked, with the imposition of a GST under the Howard government, to become tax collectors. This schedule seeks to amend the GST act to enable those small-business taxpayers who are paying their GST by instalments and subsequently moving to a net refund position to continue to use the GST instalments if they wish to do so. At the moment, small-business taxpayers who are not using the instalment option and are already in a net refund position remain ineligible to pay their GST by instalments while they remain in the refund position. The change we are proposing will allow taxpayers who move into a net refund position to continue to access the instalment system and to retain the accompanying compliance cost advantages of submitting their BAS statement annually if they choose to do so. The great thing about this proposed change is that it has come from the suggestion made by a member of the public through the Tax Issues Entry System. Never let it be said that an Australian with a brilliant idea is unable to participate in the fine processes of this place. Putting ideas forward, looking to the future and solving some of the problems that face our small businesses in order to improve our productivity and the life of those working in small business are all very worthy activities. This government has responded to suggestions from the public for minor tax policy changes. In the fourth schedule before us in this bill, I, like the member for McPherson, am very pleased to see the Anzac Centenary Public Fund listed. In my own electorate preparations for the centenary of ANZAC are well underway, and the $100,000 grants from the federal government to each of the electorates around this fine country will enable a broad vision of how we want to celebrate. We are beginning a collective journey as a community in our unique and different ways across this country. The Anzac Centenary Public Fund's receiving DGR status will allow those who make contributions to the fund a certain degree of tax deductibility on their contributions. The conversation trust is also listed in the fourth schedule of the bill. The trust serves a very important public purpose in analysing and providing written commentary by the university and research sectors on current affairs. In a 24/7 cycle of news, of which were all aware and sometimes victims, it is very important that there be those who can stand back, make some considered and sensible observations and contribute their observations to the public space for consideration. Another listing in the fourth schedule of the bill is for the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples. I do not think there would be any objection to the listing of this agency, which states as its goal a movement towards the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights and towards securing a better economic, social, cultural and environmental future. The National Boer War Memorial Association is listed here with DGR status, which will be provided from 1 January 2013, and so is Philanthropy Australia. Philanthropy Australia is a national membership body which pulls together philanthropic agencies, and it is very helpful for members of our community who are seeking to do good works in the community to be able to find out where they might seek philanthropic grants. Philanthropy Australia is serving a vital role in pulling the goodwill of the larger community together into a place where it becomes more accessible for people right across the country rather than perhaps just people in cities who might, by happenstance or friendship or networks, be able to access the good offers of Philanthropy Australia to improve our national wellbeing in a range of ways. I am more than delighted to see the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project Inc. there. It will create a memorial on Anzac Parade in Canberra for Australian peacekeepers. People who have served this country in international peacekeeping operations will be provided with proper recognition of their service to this country and the cause of freedom and peace around the world. I am in my electorate privileged to know a number of these peacekeepers. Indeed, one by the name of Milan Nikolic approached my office the year before last with an idea to honour and acknowledge all those men and women who have served, by providing a badge of honour for their family members to wear. This was a great initiative. It is like the reform we were talking about before, when an individual Australian saw a way to cut red tape for Australian business, brought it to the government and we put it forward. Milan approached me and asked for my assistance in moving forward. I was able to take it to the Prime Minister, and last year, I am delighted to say, we were able to provide an ongoing recognition, in the form of a badge, for the family members of all of those who have served or are serving in our forces. So the kids whose mum or dad might be serving away will be recognised in their school by their teachers and by their friends as doing their own sort of service by doing without their mum and dad. It is similar for the brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and partners of those who are serving. I am pleased to have spoken in this place on many occasions about the very significant reform that this government has undertaken in superannuation. We are the party of superannuation. I grew up in a working-class family. Happily my father was able to start his own business. He worked very hard and became quite successful. But I can tell you we did not have many conversations about superannuation around the kitchen table. Those conversations were certainly happening in other houses around the country. The advantage of careful saving for the future and putting that money aside is obvious to all of us now, with trillions of dollars sitting there as the wealth of this nation and an investment for a dignified retirement. The reality is that, for many people, superannuation was not even a word that they knew about, let alone a reality that they could experience and have the comfort of in their later years. The amendment in this schedule will place a general duty upon superannuation trustees to identify members who have multiple accounts within their particular fund. They need to do this on an annual basis and consider whether it would be appropriate to merge them, having regard to the best interests of the members. This seems like such common sense. If you are a trustee and you are in charge of making sure that somebody's retirement nest egg grows, it would be a terrible thing to find out that moneys were kept in separate accounts with the deliberate intention of increasing revenue flow to the superannuation company at the cost of the people whose money they were supposed to be looking after. This schedule means that the 32 million superannuation accounts in Australia—roughly three for each worker—should begin to reduce in number. With that reduction in number, there should be an increase in the benefit to those account holders as their money is gathered to one nest egg, under the trustees' guidance, which should grow in value without constantly being eroded by servicing fees. There are a number of other amendments in the schedules before us. Essentially these amendments refine and clarify the operation of the taxation of financial arrangements regime. They collectively lower the compliance costs and they provide additional certainty to affected taxpayers. They are the outcome of ongoing monitoring and implementation of the taxation of financial arrangements, and they have been achieved in consultation with the industry and the Australian Taxation Office. I commend the bill to the House. 16:29 Mr BRADBURY HVW Lindsay I acknowledge those who have contributed to this debate, in particular the member for Casey, the member for Canberra, the member for Parramatta, the member for McPherson and most recently the member for Robertson, and I thank her for her genuine interest in these matters. Schedule 1 of the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013 makes some amendments to ensure that the meaning of 'documentary' in the film tax offset provisions is consistent with the meaning explained in the Australian Communications and Media Authority's guidelines—that meaning applied for tax purposes until the decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in 2011—so that these amendments restore the previously understood meaning. Restoring the original meaning ensures that the taxation incentives for the production of film and television in Australia continue to encourage the sorts of productions the Commonwealth intends to support. Schedule 2 exempts from income tax certain disaster relief payments. This includes the ex gratia payment equivalent to the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment made to New Zealand special category visa holders and the Disaster Income Recovery Subsidy. In the wake of recent disasters, it is important that these payments are tax free. Exempting these payments from tax maximises the value of the payments so that people can get on with the job of cleaning up after the floods and fires and, hopefully, get on with their lives. Exempting these payments from tax also ensures consistency with previous disaster relief payments that were also tax exempt. It also ensures the New Zealand special category visa holders who have been affected by recent disasters receive the same support as Australians. Schedule 3 allows small business taxpayers using the GST instalment system to temporarily move into a net refund position to continue to use the instalment system if they choose to do so. These amendments aim to assist such entities that consider the compliance cost advantages of submitting their business activity statement annually outweigh the cash flow cost of delayed refunds. The amendments will ensure greater certainty for those small business taxpayers who use the GST instalment system. These amendments will apply in relation to GST instalment quarters starting on or after 1 July, following royal assent of this bill. Schedule 4 adds six entities to the list of named deductible gift recipients in division 30 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. Taxpayers can claim an income tax deduction for gifts to organisations that are DGRs. Therefore, DGR status will assist these bodies in attracting public support. The new DGRs listed are the Conservation Trust, the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples Limited, the National Boer War Memorial Association Incorporated, the Anzac Centenary Public Fund, the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project Incorporated and Philanthropy Australia Incorporated. Schedule 5 to this bill amends the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 to require trustees to establish procedures for consolidating multiple superannuation accounts they hold for the same member on an annual basis when it is in the member's best interests. Defined benefit interest accounts, accounts supporting an income stream and first home saver accounts will all be exempt. The measure will commence on 1 July 2013, with the first round of consolidations to occur by 30 June 2014. This will apply regardless of the balances of the accounts concerned. The amendments will contribute to a steady reduction in the number of unnecessary accounts in the superannuation system. This measure was developed in consultation with industry and was released as an exposure draft on two occasions prior to introduction, with the views of stakeholders being incorporated at each stage. Schedule 5 provides a flexible regulatory framework for a process that many fund trustees are already undertaking. The amendments will simply ensure that the process is an industry-wide practice. Schedule 6 of this bill will freeze the income threshold above which the maximum contribution phases down at $31,920 for 2012-13. The income threshold above which no cocontribution is payable will be reduced to $15,000 above the lower income threshold—that is, $46,920 for the 2012-13 income year. These changes are supported by the low-income superannuation contribution. From 1 July 2012 the low-income superannuation contribution allows most people with income up to $37,000 to effectively pay no tax on their super contributions, by providing a benefit of up to $500 a year. This is better targeted, more widely available than the current co-contribution and does not require individuals to make additional after-tax contributions. The opposition has publicly stated that it will discontinue the low-income superannuation contribution. This will result in 3.6 million low-income earners effectively paying more tax. The co-contribution scheme continues to be generous and provides a significant incentive for low-income individuals to make voluntary contributions into superannuation. The government is deeply concerned by these attempts to cut away at this important concession that has been reducing taxation levels for low-income earners. Schedule 7 consolidates eight separate tax offsets for dependants into one new tax offset that is available to taxpayers who maintain a dependant who is unable to work because of invalidity or carer obligations. The eight tax offsets to be consolidated are the: carer spouse, invalid relative, parent, parent-in-law, child-housekeeper, child-housekeeper with child, housekeeper, and housekeeper-with-child tax offsets. Consolidating the dependency tax offsets removes out-dated barriers to dependants seeking employment. It builds on the government's participation agenda and allows the government to target more assistance to dependants who are genuinely unable to work. Schedule 8 refines and clarifies the operation of the taxation and financial arrangements regime. The amendment's lower compliance costs provide certainty for effective taxpayers. The amendments respond to issues raised by industry and the Australian Taxation Office as part of ongoing monitoring of the implementation of the taxation and financial arrangements regime. The amendments have been developed following extensive consultation with industry. I commend the bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment Corporations and Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 4151

Corporations and Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill 2013

Second Reading 4151 16:38 Mr TONY SMITH 00APG Casey I rise on behalf of the shadow Treasurer and the coalition to speak on this Corporations and Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill 2013. Let me say at the outset that the coalition will not be opposing this bill. As was made clear in the introductory speech and in the explanatory memorandum it deals with a number of issues that largely flow from the global financial crisis, where the G20 endorsed a global transition of over-the-counter derivatives and products that are currently traded through bilateral agreements towards recognised exchanges or trading platforms, where appropriate, in order to boost market transparency. The G20 also agreed that certain trading activities should be cleared through a central counter-party to reduce systemic risk and should be reported to trade repositories in order to enhance market information. The key measures are intended to: assist central counterparties (CCPs) in managing defaults of clearing participants; improve the allocation of resources by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in assessing the compliance of Australian market licence (AML) and clearing and settlement facility licence (CFSL) holders with their legal obligations; allow certain Australian regulators including the RBA to exchange protected information with other entities in Australia and overseas in the execution of their duties subject to appropriate safeguards; and allow ASIC to gather and share protected information with regulatory entities overseas for supervision and enforcement purposes; and require ASIC to report on the use of those powers. The bill is divided into seven parts. Part 1 deals with the payments system and netting, and seeks to amend the Payments System and Netting Act 1998, the PSN Act, in order to provide a range of protections and carve-outs for certain retail payment systems. The amendments within this bill to the PSN Act allow client positions and associated collateral of a defaulting participant in a clearing facility to be ported to another, solvent participant regardless of obstacles presented by other legislation, including the insolvency provisions in the Corporations Act. The amendments will also ensure that central counterparties can enforce they security they hold over all types of assets, including dematerialised securities. Part 2 of the bill deals with a review of licences. The amendments will enable ASIC to focus on reviewing some aspects of a licensee's operations each year, with a full review taking place over a number of years. Reviewing licences in this way may allow for a more comprehensive examination of their operations. These amendments seek to reduce the misallocation of resources that results from the requirement to conduct annual assessments on all licences and will allow ASIC to allocate resources to assessments in which they will be more effective. Part 3 deals with international business regulators. In this section, the bill will amend the Mutual Assistance in Business Regulation Act 1992 and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001. The proposed amendments to both acts will bring pan-European regulators such as the European Securities and Markets Authority, and the European Systemic Risk Board into the definition of 'foreign regulator', and thereby put beyond doubt ASIC's ability to render assistance in their administration and enforcement of foreign business laws. Part 4 deals with reporting on ASIC's information-gathering powers. The amendments address concerns raised back in 2010 in the Senate economics committee about the lack of reporting by ASIC in relation to its use of information-gathering powers. So these amendments seek to formalise ASIC's reporting commitments by imposing a statutory obligation on ASIC to report annually, and insert a provision for Treasury ministers—such as the parliamentary secretary opposite—with notice given to ASIC, to request that ASIC report additional information if required. Part 5 of the bill deals with the disclosure of information by the Reserve Bank. The amendments relate to section 79A of the Reserve Bank Act 1959 and contain a number of provisions relating to the sharing of information by RBA officers. The intention of these amendments is to provide permission for the RBA to share protected information and documents to a person approved by the RBA governor or prescribed delegates in writing. A similar provision was previously in the Reserve Bank Act but was automatically repealed under a sunset provision; it is now proposed to reinstate it. A further amendment allows the RBA to impose confidentiality restrictions on persons to whom protected information is provided. Part 6 of the bill deals with consequential amendments relating to derivative trade repositories and arises from the passage of the Corporations Legislation Amendment (Derivative Transactions) Act 2012—that is, the act that provided the legislative framework for implementing Australia's G20 commitments in relation to over-the-counter derivative reforms. It contains a number of consequential amendments to the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 and the Clean Energy Regulator Act 2011 that have become necessary, according to the government. As members in this chamber are aware, the coalition remain opposed to the government's carbon tax. In government we will repeal the carbon tax. Whilst these measures are linked to this government, the passage of this legislation does improve the framework in which these products are traded. So we will repeal the carbon tax and, given the overriding importance of this legislation, we will not be opposing these amendments. The last section seeks to rewrite section 1317E(1) of the Corporations Act, which lists those provisions in the act which are the subject of the civil penalty provisions of part 9.4B, in order to simplify the legislation without changing its substance. In conclusion I point out that the parliamentary secretary, on introduction, pointed out that ministerial council approval—that is, MINCO approval—had occurred with respect to the ASIC changes in the bill. 16:45 Mr RIPOLL 83E Oxley In summing up on this bill, the Corporations and Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, I want to thank all the honourable members who have shown interest in this particular area. I want to particularly mention the member for Casey, who has made some brief comments in relation to this bill and shown support for the good things that are being done with these amendments. I also want to note that the member for Robertson was due to speak on this bill but, being in the chair, that is not quite possible so at least I wanted to note that she would have made a contribution because she has an enormous interest in all these bills and in the corporations and financial services sector as well. This bill delivers a number of very important measures to improve the functioning of our financial system. While many of the amendments in the bill may seem highly technical in nature, they have a very real impact on the work of our financial markets and our regulators. They will also complement the existing legislative framework to implement our core G20 commitments in relation to over-the-counter derivatives. Passage of the bill will provide crucial protections to clearing facilities, which are critical parts of our financial system. These important reforms will allow our clearing facilities to better protect themselves against a default by one of their participants. The work of clearing facilities is at the heart of our financial system and the reforms in this bill are therefore important in guaranteeing market confidence in the stability of the financial system, which ultimately benefits the economy as a whole and ultimately everyone in Australia. The reforms in the bill will also allow ASIC and the RBA to better focus their resources on supervising those licensed markets as well as clearing and settlement facilities, which pose the highest risk to our system and to retail investors. Finally, the bill will provide appropriate powers to our regulators, allowing them to cooperate as required with other regulators and official bodies. This in turn will facilitate the business activities of our financial industry in overseas markets. These important reforms are part of the Gillard government's broad agenda to promote Australia as a leading financial services hub and boost our reputation as one of the most attractive investment destinations in that world. I commend the bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment. Statute Law Revision Bill 2012 4154

Statute Law Revision Bill 2012

Second Reading 4154 16:48 Mr KEENAN E0J Stirling I rise to talk on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2012. This bill corrects technical errors caused by drafting and clerical mistakes, repeals obsolete legislation and makes other technical corrections. Bills of this nature are traditionally noncontroversial and receive the support of parliament because they are regarded as an essential tool in the process of keeping the Commonwealth statute books accurate and up to date. The acts to be repealed relating to air passenger ticket levies imposed as a result of the collapse of the Ansett group are self-evidently obsolete. The levy was discontinued in 2003 and all of the mandated distributions have been completed. Of the acts to be amended, most of the proposals relate to spelling, grammatical and technical errors. A small number of obsolete provisions will be repealed. The bill also proposes amendments to provisions of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 and the Legislative Instruments Act 2003, which have been rendered redundant by other enactments. This bill is clearly of an exceptionally technical nature. It does nothing that we would regard as remotely controversial, apart from essentially tidying up the statute books. I hope that the next speaker is in the parliament—I think she is. So, on that note, I can conclude my remarks. 16:50 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway I am delighted to be able to make a contribution to this Statute Law Revision Bill 2013. As you may well know, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I have a very healthy obsession with the proposed statute stocktake legislation as and when it comes before the House. As any practitioner would know, it is always a source of great angst to be attempting to interpret provisions in legislation and to advise clients when there are things like grammatical errors and incorrect cross-referencing. Often this has the potential to change the meaning of the intention of the parliament itself. Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, as you would well remember—you were in the chair when I made my last contribution on this matter in August 2012—I specifically discussed Ireland's statute law revision project, which identified more than 3,225 statutes that required repeal or amendment, which is probably the largest single repealing process that has ever been enacted. Thankfully, because we have such excellent people in Australia looking after this area, such as the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, we do not have such a requirement, and bringing on these regular statute law updates means that we are in a constant position where we can update our statute law in a most timely and robust way. I want to talk about a few thing to do with this bill. Schedule 1 has a very diverse list of principal acts that are to be amended, ranging from the Australian Meat and Live-Stock Industry Act, the Competition and Consumer Act, the old Trade Practices Act, the Native Title Act, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act—a very diverse range. Some of the items that are being amended are to do with things that are redundant—redundant section items, items that are consequential on previous items that may have been made redundant, incorrect punctuation, updating of references, grammatical errors, incorrect cross-referencing, and incorrect concepts and spelling errors. So I think it is very appropriate that we should be amending legislation to account for things such as these. I would note that it is very useful that we have in the bill itself some notes to state why certain things are being amended. It is something that goes to an issue that I will talk about in a minute—consequence clauses of legal complexity. It is a real tribute to the drafting quality that we have in Australia that we have these very useful notes. I would also like to point out schedule 2 of the bill, which goes to misascribed or redundant amendments or errors contained in amending acts. Again, it is very appropriate that we look at the wide range of issues that can arise and the unintended consequences that can often arise from such errors. I want to look to some of the guidance that is given by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, specifically the issue of causes of legal complexity and strategies to address them. There are some very useful documents that I think all members of this place and anyone who is tuning in and is interested in the development of statute law would be interested in some very useful documents published by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel that are very readily able to be accessed. I will give some examples of the causes of legal complexity because I think they are instructive for all of us. The Office of Parliamentary Counsel states some of the drivers of complexity in legislation and gives some common examples, which I think are useful to quote. The examples are: unnecessary complexity in the underlying policy a tendency to respond to events with legislative changes even when legislation is not necessary to address the issues pressure to prepare legislation in constrained timeframes, so that the focus becomes getting the legislation drafted rather than making it clear an aversion to principles-based legislation leading to a tendency to have rules that accommodate very small variations in circumstances Principles based legislation is the underlying mantra of the Westminster system. They go on: an aversion to judicial discretion, so that the courts are not left to evolve detailed rules in a common-law fashion, and an aversion to official discretion, so that officials are not left to evolve administrative practice. I think it is also very useful to look at a couple of the strategies the Office of Parliamentary Counsel outlines to address the causes of complexity. Again, I think these are useful universal rules. They mention things such as consulting drafters early in the policy development process; making sure legislation is comprehensible—enabling people to read bills—making sure instructing officers have access to the necessary training and guidance materials; and, where it is necessary, review entire legislation. I think it is very important to note, particularly since we are looking at some problems that have been caused by amending acts, that amending legislation often makes patchwork amendments to existing legislation, and in some cases more than one area of the same department may be working on several items of legislation that amend the principal legislation, and a lack of coordination would have detrimental outcomes. I also think it is useful to examine some of the techniques that have led to where we are today in terms of a strategy for statue law revision. I took the time to have a look at an article by Jonathan Teasdale in the European Journal of Law Reform. I will give the citation because I know people are very eager to read it. It is in volume 11, No. 2, page 157. Teasdale makes some really good points. He talks about how statue law revision started systematically in the United Kingdom in the 1860s, and it had two aims: to remove from the statute books enactments that had ceased to be enforced or that had become unnecessary, and to produce a revised edition of what they called live statutes, which I think today would equate to a consolidated version of a particular statute. I agree with the conclusion that is set out very succinctly in Jonathan Teasdale's abstract. His conclusion is: … statute law 'revision' delivers more than the sum of its parts … I think that is a very apt description of what this particular bill before us does. I would like to take the time to quote, because I think it is really important for us to remember that we in this place are lawmakers and we should look at some of the principles of statute law. Teasdale says that statute law is enacted so that society can have access to it, which means that it must be physically accessible, reliable and in a format which is comprehensible. He says that the user needs to be able to access a statute book which has integrity, which is up to date, and which makes sense. These are minimum requirements for a society which is governed through representative and binding democracy. I think that it is useful for all of us to remember, and to remind ourselves, that we are lawmakers in this place—as I said—and to look at things that might help us become better lawmakers when it comes to legislative drafting. One of the other very useful items that I find from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, is its excellent summary on plain language. One of the most valuable legislative techniques, I believe, is the ability to draft in plain language. I know I have regaled this place on many occasions with my expeditions in the Pacific, the Middle East and South-East Asia drafting laws and regulations, but I think it is very useful to remember that one of the reasons Australians are often called on to take up consultancy or advisory positions—and why the government is called on to provide capacity-building to other countries to develop their legal systems—is that we do it so well. And I think it is important for us to pat ourselves on the back. And the Office of Parliamentary Counsel note that they use the term 'plain language' rather than 'plain English' because they believe it covers a wider range of techniques and practices. The OPC quotes a landmark paper given to the Emerging Trends in Legislative Drafting conference in Dublin, where Professor Ruth Sullivan of the University of Ottawa gave a description of plain language. She said: Plain language drafting refers to a range of techniques designed to create legislation that is readable and easy to use by the relevant audience(s) for that legislation. At the level of vocabulary, plain language drafters try to use words and expressions that are familiar to everyone … At the level of syntax, plain language drafters try to create sentence patterns that are easy for the average person to process. … … … Plain language drafters also draw on the research and insights of experts in document design. They pay as much attention to fonts and white space as they do to choice of words. They try to devise methods of presenting material visually that will assist the reader to use the statute book effectively, and with minimum effort. Finally, plain language drafters try to provide information that will help readers to interpret the text. Such information typically takes the form of purpose statements, explanatory notes, examples, summaries, overviews and the like Taking all that into account, I would like to conclude with what I think is a very practical example of the accessibility where statute law intersects with technology. There is a great example of innovation in Australia, as I have been talking about, in our legal practice. I want to mention the launch earlier this year of the telco iPad app by my good friends Gilbert and Tobin lawyers in Sydney who have launched Telco Navigator, an iPad app that provides a one-stop shop for all legislative and regulatory documents for people in the telco industry. As anyone who has worked in this sector knows, there is a lot of legislation and a lot of regulation. It is a co-regulatory scheme so not only do we have the hard regulation in the form of acts and also regulations arising out of those acts but also codes of practice, standards and many other elements in between. I think what is so innovative about the design of this is that I do not know of any other such apps. It is available for free. You can access it from the Apple App Store. It also has a function which enables push-up dates so that legislation can be updated automatically. As I said, I think it is an excellent example of innovation and of accessibility. I did happen to mention Peter Waters, the lead partner in this project, in one of my previous contributions on the statute law revision measures last year in the context of drafting the first competition law in Hong Kong. I congratulate Peter and everyone at Gilbert and Tobin who was involved in the development of this app. I would encourage anyone who is listening to check it out if you are interested in telecommunications law. I know you will be interested in this, Mr Deputy Speaker Symon. It has a very detailed design which covers the transition from copper world to the NBN fibre world. I am sure you will enjoy it very much. I commend the bill to the House. 17:03 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair I thank members for their contribution to the debate, particularly the member for Greenway for her insightful and interesting speech. I used to make a lot of those speeches myself on statute law revision. Lest anyone think that this particular piece of legislation is uninteresting and has no impact on Australian life, its economy, its community and society let me say this Statute Law Revision Bill 2013 deals with areas such as financial framework, telecommunications, corporations law, aviation and transport, FaHCSIA, native title, fishery management, exports, excise, farm work, farm household support, superannuation industry supervision and many other pieces of legislation that impact on Australian life each and every day. Statute law revision bills perform a vital service in improving the quality of Commonwealth legislation. The regular review of legislation by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel enables minor errors in the Commonwealth statute books to be efficiently addressed and improves the accuracy and usability of Commonwealth acts. It also enables the repeal of obsolete and otiose provisions in acts. The member for Greenway was talking about a number of things that were done like getting rid of sections and subsections that were no longer relevant and legislation that has previously gone, replacing wrongly placed semicolons with full stops, modernising language to use the word 'authorise' in a more contemporary way rather than authorize and changing divisions which were wrongly placed. These things sound unsexy but they are very important. They make the comprehension of Commonwealth law far easier for Australians. These improvements complement the government's commitment to creating clearer and more accessible Commonwealth laws and the bills are prepared at the initiative of the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. I commend the office on the quality of this bill and its commitment to maintaining the accuracy and clarity of the Commonwealth statute book. I commend this bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Ordered that this bill be returned to the House without amendment. Not-for-profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013 4158

Not-for-profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013

Second Reading 4158 17:08 Mr BRADBURY HVW Lindsay I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Not-for-Profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013 will promote ongoing positive engagement, together with open communication and debate, between the federal government and the not-for-profit sector. The bill will prohibit and invalidate clauses in Commonwealth agreements that seek to limit or restrict not-for-profit entities from advocating on Commonwealth policy issues. An unfettered not-for-profit sector is essential to building a democratic and inclusive community. Other governments have mandated 'gag clauses' in agreements with the not-for-profit sector, preventing them from advocating on government policy. This bill will prevent this from occurring at the Commonwealth level. The Commonwealth government recognises that a strong, independent and innovative not-for-profit sector is essential to building an inclusive community. The not-for-profit sector is made up of around 600,000 organisations and accounts for approximately eight per cent of employment nationally. Providing Commonwealth funding to not-for-profit entities or entering into other agreements should not prohibit the sector from engaging in policy and debate. The bill will apply to all Commonwealth agreements with the not-for-profit sector, regardless of whether they were entered into prior to the commencement of the legislation. The bill specifically addresses circumstances where, despite current Commonwealth government policy to the contrary, there may still be 'gag clauses' in existing Commonwealth agreements with the not-for-profit sector. The bill will invalidate any such clauses in existing agreements. This will ensure that not-for-profit entities are not disadvantaged due to clauses in existing Commonwealth agreements that should not have been included. The bill will also prevent any clauses in future Commonwealth agreements that purport to 'gag' the not-for-profit sector. The bill will operate retrospectively, and includes a clause relating to compensation. This is intended to cover the highly unlikely circumstance where a party suffers loss because a 'gag clause' in a pre-existing agreement is invalidated by the legislation. In that rare and unlikely situation, the Commonwealth will pay 'reasonable compensation' to that person. This bill should be supported as it protects the rights of the not-for-profit sector and not-for-profit entities to engage in debate and advocate on Commonwealth policy. It recognises and supports the critical role that the not-for-profit sector has in developing public policy and advocating on behalf of the community. 17:11 Mr ANDREWS HK5 Menzies I rise to speak on the Not-for-profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013. This bill seeks to introduce provisions which would prohibit and invalidate clauses in Commonwealth agreements with the not-for-profit sector that limit or prevent not-for-profit entities from advocating on Commonwealth law, policy or actions—including so-called gag clauses. The bill would prevent an agency from including specified prohibited content in a Commonwealth agreement. Prohibited content is defined broadly to enable the not-for-profit sector to advocate freely on the breadth of Commonwealth law, policy or practice. This freedom to advocate should be read to include the release of nonconfidential information. Parties to the agreement must be able to justify why particular information is confidential. The government's approach to civil society is entirely disingenuous. Unlike Labor the coalition understands civil society—we get it—and I am pleased that last year I announced the coalition's approach to civil society. Despite introducing this bill into the parliament, the government has done nothing to unwind the great big new bureaucracy it has created to increase the regulatory burden on charities and not-for-profits. I put my remarks, therefore, in this broader context. Under the pretext of simplifying and easing the regulatory burden on civil society, the government has established the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission. Unfortunately, what was initially promised and what has emerged from the bureaucracy and since been legislated are poles apart. A primary concern of the current government's reform was that the new commission should reduce administrative compliance and duplication of reporting by agencies, so enabling them to direct more of their limited resources to charitable and related activities. Yet the final product of the legislation fails to meet this objective. It has become yet another great big new bureaucracy focusing on assessing compliance rather than streamlining it. Furthermore, the commissioner has been vested with a range of powers to interfere with and remove responsible office-bearers in a manner which is simply unprecedented. As things stand, the government is still yet to satisfactorily make out the mischief which it sees and which would warrant such extraordinary regulatory overreach. In contrast to the current government, the coalition will not seek to treat charities and not-for-profit agencies as arms of government. The coalition supports transparency and accountability of public funds. We also support simplicity and efficiency. The charity and not-for-profit sector has a long history in this country of responsible governance and management, and the coalition will continue to respect this fact. We recognise that there is a place for a national body to enhance the role of institutions of civil society. Accordingly, we will support a small organisation as an educative and training body and will work with the sector to ensure that the body represents the sector. Indeed, we will work with the sector to transfer responsibility and governance of the commission, or of the new body to replace it, to the sector over the next few years. Under the coalition, the independent body will provide education and support services to registered charities, provide information to assist with the process of registration of new charities and not-for-profit agencies, act as a one-stop shop for information on charitable organisations and agencies operating within Australia, advocate for the rights of charities and not-for-profit agencies, represent the interests of charities and not-for-profit agencies to government, help facilitate the interaction between government and the charitable and not-for-profit sector, undertake research and cross-sector evaluation on issues of concern to the sector and help to foster innovation within the sector. We will also work with the new body to coordinate with the sector, the Commonwealth, states and territories to propose a new common financial and other reporting standard that will negate the practice of numerous reports being prepared each year for different funding and regulatory bodies. We will return the regulatory powers which existed in the ATO, ASIC and other similar bodies to those bodies. Until and unless there is harmonisation of various Commonwealth, state and territory laws, the proposed commission simply adds yet another layer of regulation and bureaucracy on the sector. We will respect the role of the states but we will work with them to achieve harmony in relation to the fundraising codes and other various regulations. Secondly, we will retain the current common law definition of 'charity' and maintain the public benefit test. This is consistent with evidence-based reviews of the 2001 charities definition inquiry, the 2008 Henry review and the 2010 Productivity Commission report. We will examine any particular issues that are the cause of concern. For example, it has been suggested that the charity sector needs review and regulation because the sector receives substantial tax concessions. Arguments about tax concessions for charities and not-for-profits do not belong in the consultation formation of policy on the definition of 'charity', the ACNA, not-for-profit governance arrangements and charitable fundraising. The issue should not be conflated. Instead, tax reform should be considered in specific responses such as the unrelated business income test and the 'in Australia' proposed reforms. Consistent with this approach the coalition will work with the sector to address any particular issues that arise regarding the taxation treatment of charitable organisations. We will not use discrete taxation issues as a Trojan horse, to impose a burdensome new regulatory system on the sector. When it comes to civil society, there is a clear choice between Labor's approach and that of the coalition, between Labor's complex, burdensome regulation and big-stick approach, which includes a new regulator and between the coalition's approach, one where the government treats civil society with the respect and the trust it deserves. In closing, I am pleased to advise that the coalition supports this bill. I only wish that the government supported our broader approach to civil society as well. 17:17 Mr BRADBURY HVW Lindsay I thank the member for Menzies for his contribution and for his indulgence a little earlier. The Not-for-profit Sector Freedom to Advocate Bill 2013 will introduce provisions that would prohibited and invalidate clauses in Commonwealth agreements with the not-for-profit sector that restrict or prevent not-for-profit entities from advocating on Commonwealth law, policy or action. It is an important bill given that we have recently seen Liberal state governments across Australia prohibiting community and not-for-profit organisations from speaking out against their savage cuts. For example, the New South Wales government has recently followed in the Queensland government's footsteps by proposing to introduce gag clauses into funding agreements with community legal centres. State Liberal governments are making their approach to the not-for-profit sector clear. They cut to the bone and then they try to silence any criticism. Insulting gag clauses, I am afraid, are a part of the Liberal Party's DNA. They clearly have no respect for the independence of the not-for-profit sector. They used gag clauses when the Howard government was in power and it took a Labor government to remove them in 2008. If the opposition genuinely values and recognises the independence of the not-for-profit sector and the contribution it makes to policy debates, then the Leader of the Opposition must publicly condemn the use of gag clauses by his Liberal state colleagues. Indeed, I noted with interest the comments of the member for Menzies about the suggestion that, when it comes to the not-for-profit sector, 'they get it', to quote him. If they do get it, I would suggest that he should, at the very least, pick up the phone and call Premier Newman and Premier O'Farrell and ask them to overturn the positions they have implemented which have sought to gag the not-for-profit sector, to silence their opponents, people who have stood up in defence of a range of organisations, from community development organisations through to domestic violence services, organisations which have sought to speak out against cuts to government programs. The response of those respective Liberal governments has been to impose gag clauses, to silence their opponents under the threat of withdrawing any remaining government funding that they may be entitle to. That is what the not-for-profit sector could look forward to if the Leader of the Opposition and the coalition were to be elected. I commend the bill to the House. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 17:20 to 17:35 Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 4162

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014

Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014

Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014

Second Reading 4162 17:37 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon I rise tonight to talk on these appropriation bills and, more specifically, talk about Labor's budget that was delivered—and what a budget we saw. Let us start with the Treasurer's speech on that Tuesday night. He started by introducing his budget as a budget for growth and a budget for jobs, yet ultimately in the end what did the detail of the budget show? It showed quite clearly that this budget for growth and this budget for jobs actually did the opposite. It showed that growth was going to diminish. It showed that unemployment was going to increase. So our growth and jobs budget turned out to be completely the opposite. As we continued to go into the budget we started to see that the Treasurer had been laid bare, that his rhetoric over 5½ years had come to nothing. This idea of being an economic conservative, this idea of being able to deliver proper financial reform for this country, was laid bare as being absolutely hollow. This idea that the budget would be returned to surplus over a period of time was seen to be absolutely flawed, absolutely fundamentally wrong. Being kind, I would say that the Australian people have been misled and misled and misled by the Treasurer ever since the Labor government came to office. What we saw with that budget was that all the chickens had come home to roost. All of a sudden we had a Treasurer having to be honest. The facts had caught up with him. There was no surplus to be seen. As a matter of fact, what we have seen both from the Parliamentary Budget Office and then from the Treasury is this. Since 2007 Australia's finance have deteriorated to the extent that we now have a fiscal imbalance, a structural deficit to the tune of around $16 billion. So in 2016-17 our budget, if it continues on this trajectory, will hit a deficit of $16 billion to $17 billion if all other things stay consistent. As we know with this government, sadly, that is not the case. What this government has shown beyond any other thing is that it is addicted to spending. It cannot help but spend, spend, spend. That is its answer to everything. At some stage the spending has to stop. I think the truth of the matter is that the Australian people will get the chance to make the decision come election time. If Labor is re-elected history tells us that the spending will not stop. What did the budget also show us? It showed us that gross debt, which is at $250 billion, will hit $300 billion. Yet the Treasurer will not have the honesty to go to the Australian people and say, 'Through my forward policies, through my spending addiction, I will lift the gross debt ceiling.' They are going to leave it to a future government. Once again, we are seeing budget dishonesty. Why not admit to the fact it is a mess? Why not say: we realise we have got a mess, now we are going to have the honesty to say okay, although it is too late, we are going to admit that we got it so wrong. What happens to the budget in this financial year? Sadly, we are going to see a budget deficit in the vicinity of roughly $19 billion. And if history over the last few years shows us anything it shows us that that will be a conservative estimate. It is likely that $19 billion potentially could hit $30 billion if not $40 billion. It also adds to the fact that we have had the five largest budget deficits in a row in Australia's history. What a record this Treasurer will take when he leaves this parliament. He has never delivered a surplus although he promised to deliver one well over 100 times. He will leave gross debt over $300 billion. He will have delivered the five largest budget deficits in Australia's history—what a record. It is going to be interesting to see how this record is tried to be buried, how this record is tried to be changed. It is practically indefensible. The sad thing is where is this going to leave the nation? We are currently seeing a lot of problems within the Australian economy. We are seeing them in our manufacturing sector, we are seeing them in our agricultural sector, we are seeing them in retail and there are no solution to these problems in the economic plan which was set out by the Treasurer in the budget. It is very interesting to contrast that with what the Leader of the Opposition had to say on the Thursday night because he did set out an economic plan, a clear economic plan of what a coalition government if elected would do for the Australian economy. Business confidence, consumer confidence would be restored. We would get rid of the carbon tax but keep the tax cuts. I will repeat that because it was a very important message from that Thursday night. Get rid of the carbon tax but keep the tax cuts. I think you are going to hear that said long and loud between now and election day because it is a key component that really goes to the heart of our ability to manage the economy. Cut the taxes, cut the carbon tax and deliver tax cuts. You will hear it between now and election day. Prepare as you can to try and combat it because it is a powerful message. To back it up, we have our record in government of reducing debt, cutting taxes and making sure the budget surpluses are delivered. Boy oh boy, do we need to make sure that we get the finances of the nation back in order, because the spending addiction we have seen has been like no other spending addiction any government has overseen. This one has the five largest budget deficits in Australia's history—the $300 billion debt ceiling having to be lifted again, but the political courage is not there for this government to do it themselves. They are going to leave it as a legacy to the next parliament. The Treasurer will have delivered more than $25 billion in higher taxes over the next four years. Chaos, debt and spin. Fortunately, there is an alternative plan. It will see the Australian economy set a trajectory of growth, will see unemployment decline and will see our key industries—agriculture, manufacturing, retail and services—have the confidence to grow. This is because we will reduce taxes and make sure that those taxes that are hurting our economy, most particularly the carbon tax, will go. It was an outstanding speech by the Leader of the Opposition because it was honest and frank with the Australian people. It was a speech that called the Labor government to account. It revealed all the warts that were presented by Wayne Swan on the previous Tuesday night and started the process of saying, 'There is a better way that we can manage this economy.' It was backed by the shadow Treasurer at the National Press Club the following week, laying out detailed plans of how we will find the savings within the budget to make sure that we live within our means. Done properly, it will not be that difficult. It will be about having a serious economic discussion with the Australian people, laying out the plans, showing where the Commonwealth spends its funds and saying, 'Okay, if we're to tighten our belts, this is how we will have to do it.' We cannot say to the Australian people: 'We want you to tighten your belts during these times' and not have the government do the same itself. That is the clear message we will be delivering. If we are to get rid of this structural deficit—which will hit $16 billion if nothing is done about it—we have to take action. That action was laid out there for everyone to see. We will not make shock decisions. We will not make radical changes of policy. We will have a consistent approach to running the nation's finances. That is all the Australian people are asking for, at this stage. They just want a government that will deliver them some certainty, a government that has a philosophy about the way it will run the nation, a government that will not focus on the opposition and the opposition leader, and a government that will focus on running the economy and running the country—and doing so in the interests of all Australians. That is what you will get from us, if we are elected at the next election. We will forget the spin. We will start to address the debt. We will start to address the deficit. We will give business confidence, we will give consumers confidence and we will get the economy tracking where it should be. We need to do it if we are to have an economy which can live and operate in a globalised world. We have to make sure that production costs come down and that businesses can compete globally, because whether you operate in the domestic environment or whether you export and operate in the global environment, you do so in a globalised world. You have to be able to compete. One of the fundamental things that the Treasurer and the current Prime Minister have never, ever understood is that we are not isolated; we do not live in an incubator. We actually have to operate now in a globalised world, and this presents real challenges. It means that we have to keep our costs down if we are to compete with what is occurring in the US, where we are seeing a new energy source providing a cheap form of input to their industries. If we are to compete with that, we have to make sure that our input costs are kept down. That is why the carbon tax, when it comes to electricity prices, has hurt so much. I give one example: Murray Goulburn, the dairy processor. Their carbon tax bill is $14 million annually. That makes it a lot harder for them to compete internationally. You can run through industry after industry after industry and the same thing is happening. We have to keep our costs down so that we can compete. It is no longer okay to say that we are going to put up some sort of protective blanket around our economy and that we will be able to survive. In a globalised world that will get us nowhere. We have to be able to compete. We have to make sure that our industries are able to compete. That is the key to our retail sector, to our services sector, to our manufacturing sector and, most importantly, to our agricultural sector. The opportunities are there with the growing middle classes in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. There are opportunities there for the Australian economy, for Australian businesses, but we have to be able to compete to make the most of those opportunities. Sadly—and I wish I could say otherwise—the budget that was delivered does not do that. But there was a budget reply on the Thursday night which showed a clear direction on how it can be done, and I commend that budget reply to the House. (Time expired) 17:52 Mr CRAIG THOMSON HVZ Dobell It always amazes me when someone gets up and says, 'Let's cut the spin,' and then spends 15 minutes spinning around like a top. It is almost unbelievable that you could give a speech about the economy and history of the Rudd and Gillard governments and not actually mention that a global financial crisis happened somewhere in there. We just heard a contribution that went for 15 minutes and did not mention that there had been a global financial crisis. Come on! You want to talk about spin, you want to talk about economic credibility, let us get a little bit real. The previous member tried to talk about global comparisons. Give us one where Australia does not look far superior to every other country in the world in terms of economic growth, unemployment, inflation, productivity, debt and deficit. What measure are you on? You want to have an argument on spin and you want to have an argument on economics—well, argue the economics. Do not argue the spin. Really, what a pathetic contribution we have just heard. In my contribution on these appropriation bills, I am going to be critical of the government in relation to some of their management over the past six years, but they are going to be real criticisms; they are not going to made-up ones. I am not going to be in fairy land. I am not going to pretend things did not happen. I am not going to not talk about what happened around the world in terms of the global financial crisis. If you want to have some credibility in economics, you have to talk about what occurred and what the situation was in Australia. I think this most recent budget was perhaps the Treasurer's most honest budget and, taken in isolation, a very good budget. The problem for the government in terms of where they are with their messaging is not that they have not responded to the global financial crisis but that they have tried to do too much. If we could just imagine for a second—and I know this might cause shivers for the Deputy Speaker—that it had been John Howard who was the Prime Minister for the last term, what we probably would have seen would have been no spending on any social and important issues such as education, the NDIS, health and those sorts of things. That is an approach that he could have taken and it might well have seen us get closer to a budget surplus. Alternatively, you could set out a program of social reform, a program of trying to address issues that are important to Australians. Either of those approaches is possible and you could debate their merits. My criticism of the government was that they tried to do both, and clearly that has not worked. That is where I do agree with the previous speaker about the issues in relation to going on about a surplus for year after year when clearly the program that this government was on was about improving people's lives through a range of social measures. They should have said for the last number of years: 'Look, these are the things that we want to do and it is going to take us longer to get back to a surplus. But, compared to the rest of the world, look how well we're going.' I think if they had taken that approach they would have taken the Australian community with them. That is my major criticism of the government in terms of the way in which they have dealt with these issues. Yes, there has been spin from the government, but not nearly as much spin as we saw from the previous speaker in his contribution, because you have to look at what the issues are. There were two alternative approaches, but you could not do them both—and this government tried. I want to talk about some of the local initiatives that were in this budget and in previous budgets, since the previous speaker has set the scene of putting this budget, quite rightly, in the context of previous budgets. Most importantly for the people of the Central Coast, where I live, and the seat that I represent was the commitment to fixing the missing road link between the F3 and the M2, where 21 sets of traffic lights create a logjam as more than 45,000 commuters from the Central Coast travel down to Sydney and back every day. This is called the missing link because it is something that governments should have done years and years ago. This budget has finally got there, and the government should be commended for that, as should the state government for agreeing to pay its share for this vital piece of road infrastructure. But the budget went further in terms of roads for my electorate: to widening the F3 pretty much from Tuggerah right up to Doyalson. We have three lanes for most of it, but the significant part of the F3 that goes through my electorate is two lanes each way, again causing the very difficult commute that 45,000 people from the Central Coast do every day to be that much more difficult. So these are really important, real commitments that happened in this budget, because spending time at home with your family is what it is about for most people, not sitting in traffic jams on freeways because the infrastructure money has not been spent. Those are concerns for everyone. Can I say with some pride that that is the second missing link that I have been responsible for in terms of fixing things in my electorate. The first, and I think the most significant, was a missing pipeline link in our water system. The Central Coast almost ran out of water just a few years ago—we had less than 10 per cent water. We were able to secure over $80 million to build a pipeline to help harvest the water from the catchment area and take it up to the storage dam. We have just celebrated our dam having more than 50 per cent water for the first time in 30 years. This would not have occurred without vital infrastructure being paid for and delivered on the Central Coast for the first time, and I will come back to the importance of water in my contribution. In looking at the budget over a period of time I did a comparison between the previous six years in my electorate and the six years that will be up later this year. You can characterise it in a number of ways. We have gone from flagpoles to libraries. We have gone from cutting health budgets to super GP clinics and our own area health service for the Central Coast, something we have been after for years. We have gone from drought to drought-proofing. We have gone from the infamous rort of money for Tumby Creek to significant millions of dollars in terms of an environmental program to help fix up Tuggerah Lakes. We are in the process of going from copper wire to fibre with the NBN. These are stark differences between what happened when there was a coalition member in the seat that I occupy and what we have been able to achieve in the last six years. These are things that make a difference to people's lives, and that is what budgets are primarily about—they are about making sure there are resources going to the right places. I want to briefly go back to the issue of our water supply because it is being threatened at the moment by mining interests. We have a catchment area in the Wyong valleys through which this pipeline goes and we have a proposal for a mine. For the last two or three state and federal elections, the major parties have come along and said, 'There will be no mine; we are going to stop the mine,' and then, as soon as the election has ended, the mine has been back on the table. The reason that we have a real issue with this is that even the miners themselves are estimating that there will be more water lost in a day through this mine than the average rainfall for the area. The experts have said that it will take 200 years, if it will happen at all, for the aquifers to be refilled to supply the water for the Central Coast if this mine goes ahead. Significantly, in relation to government investment, we have a pipeline that has drought-proofed the Central Coast that could drop by over a metre with subsidence and crack, meaning all that important drought-proofing that has taken place in relation to infrastructure investment in the Central Coast would be for nought. It is an issue. It is the No. 1 issue on the Central Coast and it is something that we need to continue to fight for. I also wanted to say a few things about the coalition's candidate in the next election. The Liberal Party have made an interesting choice of candidate. The Central Coast candidate's husband ran in the last election, and, like her husband, this candidate was also not preselected by the Liberal Party rank and file—someone else won the preselection. Apparently, on the Central Coast, if anyone other than a McNamara wins the preselection you have to kick them out and put a McNamara in. So for two elections in a row we are going to have a McNamara. One of the really interesting things about the current candidate is that two years ago she wanted to join the Labor Party, surprisingly. So we have a candidate who actually did not want to be in the Liberal Party--she wanted to be in the Labor Party—and whose husband ran as the Liberal Party candidate last time. She has decided that she will have a shot at it anyway. You look at what she stands for, and she does not really stand for terribly much, so probably the label did not mean that much to her. Her main supporter on the Central Coast is the current mayor, Mayor Eaton. It is very interesting to look at his policies because the current candidate has wrapped herself around this mayor. This is the mayor who came up with a terrific idea—they should get rid of green bins! Who really wants to recycle? It is bit of a cost for council so we should get rid of green bins! He opposed the super GP clinic that I was able to secure for the electorate. He opposed it vehemently, as did the last Liberal candidate for Dobell—'Oops! that is the present candidate's husband. Again, those are the sorts of policies they are looking at. He actually supports a mine under the catchment area even though the council does not support it. The Liberal Party candidate cannot bring herself to say, 'The issues for the community are more important than what my mayor instructs me to say as a Liberal Party candidate.' He wants to transform the Central Coast into a Chinese theme park. That will be a great success—we can see Chinese tourists flooding over to look at imitations of what they have in their own country. We are sure that will be a remarkable success. The crowning moment for the mayor and now his Liberal Party partner was a much more novel idea than mine—I was able to secure $20 million to help fix up Tuggerah Lakes. Their idea was to drain the lakes, cement them up and have them catch water to help us with our drought problems. Some of the policies this mayor has and this Liberal candidate has tied herself to are quite crazy. The government has, in the last six years, really got its messages wrong about what it wants to do. But it cannot say it is going to deliver surpluses when it embarks on a different social program. It can say: 'We're going to have a social program and we're not going back into surplus,' but they cannot say both. That is the great shame and the great story that the Treasurer is going to have to live with. In relation to my electorate, The choice and the difference for infrastructure, investment and quality of life that investment has made over the last six years compared to the previous six years—when the coalition was in government and had a coalition member in the seat of Dobell—is so stark that no one on the Central Coast wants to go back to those days, when we missed out on vital infrastructure that changes people's lives. People on the Central Coast appreciate that we have been able to secure more money and investment in infrastructure in six years than the previous years that this seat has been in existence. That is something that everyone on the Central Coast can be proud of. As the member for Dobell, I am certainly very proud of that record over the last six years. (Time expired) 18:07 Mr HUNT 00AMV Flinders The 2013-14 budget is the one that broke a nation's faith. This is the budget that was framed against the background of the Treasurer's opening statement a year ago. That opening statement was to the effect of 'Tonight I deliver a budget which will deliver four successive surpluses.' A year later, there are no four surpluses in evidence. The year that was to have been the first of those years had a $19 billion deficit. The second of those years had an $18 billion deficit, and then an over-$10 billion deficit. Then, in the final year, we have an $800 million notional surplus—which is an entirely fictional figure. Why does all of this matter? It matters for two reasons, because somebody has to pay back the debt. Somebody always has to pay back the debt. Every family knows this. Every small-business owner knows this. Every farmer knows this. And every responsible government knows that somebody always has to pay back the debt. Since the election of the ALP in 2007 the actual budget that they have delivered—not what they promised; not what they pledged—has been a $27 billion deficit, a $54 billion deficit, a $47 billion deficit, a $43 billion deficit and a $19 billion deficit. And now we have projections of an $18 billion deficit, for the sixth budget, and a $10 billion deficit for the seventh budget. That is a history of failure. That is not about returning the budget to surplus on average over the cycle; that is a cycle of deficit. And it comes after a similar period of deficit under the previous ALP government. So what we see here are 12 major successive deficits on either side of a coalition which, through 12 budgets, delivered 10 surpluses. So, at its heart—at its core—this shows that there is a fundamental difference between two sides. The ALP answer is that the Liberals are just terribly lucky and the ALP are terribly unlucky. The say, 'For some reason they always govern in good times and we always govern in bad times.' The Labor Party inherited a more than $20 billion surplus. They inherited a more than $50 billion bank account in the black and they have sent our deficit to the bottom. They have created a national debt which will now head towards $190 billion in net terms alone. Gross debt is inevitably likely to exceed the $300 billion figure. These figures have consequences, because there is interest and repayment, and there is opportunity foregone. And who can say that there have been fabulous infrastructure programs which have delivered long-term permanent reductions in national bottlenecks? The money has just gone. I lived through the pink batts program and the green loans program. I saw the cash for clunkers announced and abolished. I saw the citizens' assembly announced and abolished. I saw nine consecutive changes in the carbon tax in its structural performance in just under a year. All of this money that has gone has not produced anything of great national significant. If it had been spent with a purpose—if it had achieved an outcome—it would have been irresponsible to have done this to the national balance sheet but at least we would have had something. Sadly, we have an absence of infrastructure and an absence of outcomes for this massive process of consecutive budget deficits on a grand scale, the likes of which we have never seen in Australia. These dollar deficits are the five highest deficits in Australian history. So, against that background we have this fiction of a surplus in 2015-16 at $0.8 billion—or $800 million—and then roughly $6 billion in 2016-17. Both of those figures are also deeply susceptible to any analysis. On the first grounds we have seen that the mining tax revenue is projected to soar one thousand per cent. Those figures cannot be trusted. Secondly, the arrival of boats are benchmarked against the Howard era rather than against the Rudd and Gillard era. We have gone from barely a couple of boats a year to 40,000 arrivals in four years. Those are two fundamental flaws, where the figures cannot be believed. But in my particular area we have seen a $6 billion black hole on the basis of a $2 billion revenue gap against projections in 2015-16, which would wipe away the surplus, and a $4 billion gap in 2016-17 which, on its own, would almost wipe away the surplus. What is the basis of this? The basis is very simple. The carbon tax revenue projections cannot be believed. The government knows it. The bureaucracy knows it. In the bureaucracy's defence, they have actually made it clear that these are not their real projections; these are what they were required, as policy statements, to put into budget paper no. 1. And the public knows that the government's carbon tax revenue projections cannot be believed. How can this be? Already in this year's budget for the year just passing, 2012-13, we have a $5 billion write-down. That is because the budget had relied on a $29 price for carbon in 2015-16. It now turns out that the European price for that period is just under $6 rather than the $29 that was projected. The EUAs, European Union forward allowances for 2015-16 for tendering on 30 June 2016, are currently trading at a figure well under A$6, in the mid-$5.50. That means that we have already seen a write-down in revenue of $5 million. But the government has only written it down to a projected price of $12.10 in 2015-16 and $18.60 in 2016-17. Then you ask how could they have a figure which is more than double what the market is projecting as the basis for the revenue they have calculated in the budget? How can you have a figure which is more than triple what the market is projecting for the second of those years, 2016-17? The answer is very simple. It is helpfully set out at page 2-48 of Budget Paper No. 1. In terms of the explanation under box 9 of updated carbon price estimates, what we see is that the bureaucracy has made it absolutely clear that these are not their figures; these are not their projections; these are what they were required to put in place. These advance auctions in the Budget forecast years are based upon average EU-ETS market futures prices for 2013-14 and 2014-15. However, carbon prices in the Budget projection years are not forecasts of carbon prices. It goes on to say: Projections for carbon prices for emissions liabilities for 2015-16 and 2016-17 incorporate the straightforward approach of a linear transition from market prices in 2014-15 to the modelled price of $38 in 2019-20 … It goes on: The longer-term modelled carbon prices from SGLP reflect the price levels required to meet long-term global environmental goals as well as the international commitment pledges for 2020 … In other words, these are not market projections of what the market price will be. These are working back from what the government requires in order to meet its emissions targets using the carbon tax. My point and our point is very clear: the budget is fundamentally broken. We said this last year and we were right. The revenue forecasts were wildly over inflated for the budget. There was not a collapse in revenue. Revenue came in at what people would reasonably have expected. The only failing was that the government, the ALP, predicted that they would win TattsLotto. They spent as if they would win TattsLotto and when they did not win TattsLotto they suddenly claimed that revenue had collapsed. It did not. They had six per cent growth in government receipts last year. They are projecting seven per cent growth in government receipts this year. Any business which had six and seven per cent growth year-on-year in gross revenue would see itself in a very good position. That then leads me to the final conclusion that not only have they failed in past projections but this year the government has failed to learn from their past failures. So the fact that we see a carbon price estimate in revenue, which is twice what the market had projects in 20 2015-16 and triple what the market projects in 2016-17, shows that there is no connection to reality. That means a $2-billion black hole in 2015-16 and $4-billion black hole in 2016-17. The figures cannot be believed. They were wrong last year. They are wrong this year. In the meantime, we have the highest electricity taxes in the world. The Australian government is driving up electricity prices with enormous damage to abattoirs. I met with the meat and livestock council today. These taxes are driving up the cost to aluminium smelters. They are driving up the cost to manufacturers and to car makers—to everybody involved in fabrication and manufacturing in this country. There is a massively high impact on them because of the electricity price rises—14½ per cent on average, according to the Australian Industry Group. After 1 July 2015, if you believe this government, one of two things will happen: either electricity prices will continue to skyrocket or there will be a massive budget black hole. This all comes about from the folly of tying our national revenue and our national electricity prices to decisions taken in Brussels. I have no issue with the European Union, but I do have an issue with abandoning our sovereignty over our electricity prices and our national budget. For those reasons, whilst we will not stand in the way of supply because we do not wish the country to suffer from instability, we think this budget should be condemned on the basis that it is established and founded on forecasts which cannot be believed. We will repeal the carbon tax beginning on day one because, above all else, not only is it poor economics and poor for our competitiveness but it fails utterly to achieve the task of reducing emissions. It does not do the job economically; it does not do the job environmentally. Ultimately, we can reduce our emissions, achieve our outcomes, without a carbon tax by doing direct things which actually clean up the environment on a lowest cost basis rather than having the highest carbon tax in the world today and a collapse in budget revenue in 2015-16. 18:22 Mr SECKER 848 Barker As I was saying in the previous sitting of this chamber, we have experienced three large areas of debt—firstly under the Whitlam government, then under the Hawke-Keating government and now under this government. They tried to come up with all sorts of excuses that really resembled things like 'the dog ate my homework'. There is the excuse that the government has a revenue problem. In fact, revenue in 2013-14 is over $80 billion higher than it was in the last year of the coalition government, just six years ago; but spending is $120 billion higher. So revenue is $80 billion higher but spending is $120 billion higher. The government really has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and so it cannot use that lame excuse with any credibility. The Australian people deserve better than the empty 'surplus' promise and spin. They work hard for their money and deserve a credible economic strategy. Australia cannot afford to keep running up record debts and deficits, and only a coalition government has the right people and experience to get this country back on track. To pay off the debt that we have already accumulated under this government, we, the taxpayers, are paying $35 million a day to pay the interest charges on that debt. In my electorate, I have 35 communities that would love to have $1 million to spend in their community, but we are using it to pay off our debt—well, it does not actually pay off the debt; it only pays the interest on the debt bill. When we look at this budget, we see that it does nothing to help Australian families with the rise in the cost of living. The budget will deliver more than $25 billion in higher taxes over the next four years, and 99 per cent of that will hit Australians after the next election. The coalition does have a plan to take the pressure off families, and it starts with abolishing the carbon tax. Abolishing the carbon tax will take pressure off electricity and gas prices, and that will provide much needed relief to household budgets. Families and pensioners will also benefit by fully retaining the income tax cuts and fortnightly pension and benefit increases associated with that carbon tax. This is a commitment that is fully funded and accounted for by equivalent reductions in government spending—something that this government does not seem to understand. The Productivity Commission will also be tasked with examining ways to make child care more flexible for people like shift workers, who cannot access the mainstream childcare system. The coalition do get it when it comes to family living costs and they understand how important it is to take the pressure off family living costs. But we know that it can only be done with the right economic plan. Only this Labor government could invent a mining tax that hardly raises any revenue but destroys confidence. The forecast revenues from the mining tax have collapsed from $22.5 billion to $3.3 billion over the first four years. Despite the failure of the mining tax to raise any meaningful revenue so far, Wayne Swan's 2016-17 surplus promise relies on mining tax revenue increasing by more than 10 times its level this year. That is a big call. We will abolish the mining tax, and abolishing the mining tax means supporting investment and jobs. We will also help small businesses grow and create more jobs by cutting red- and green-tape costs by $1 billion every year. Under a carbon tax, small businesses are paying at least 10 per cent more for their electricity and nine per cent more for their gas. The coalition will abolish this carbon tax. The blow-out in the management of Australian borders is at least $4.7 billion since the last budget and is just getting worse. Overall, it has cost taxpayers more than $10 billion over budget, when in the last years of the Howard government it was costing virtually nothing. This budget also assumes that boat arrivals will phase down—that is the term used—over the next four years, despite arrivals now at a record and increasing level. We need to stop the boats. The coalition has the experience and the right plan to stop the boats—after all, we have done it before. We can do it again. Remember, John Howard inherited a problem and crafted a solution. The current government inherited a solution and created a problem. To stop the boats, we need rigorous offshore processing for illegal arrivals. We need to reintroduce temporary protection visas and we need to give the Navy the option of turning back the boats where it is safe to do so. Labor, unfortunately, has no interest in Australia's primary sector or in the regional communities dependent on agriculture. Labor has cut millions from the department's already strained resources and has cut millions from cooperative research centres, which means fewer CRCs are funded each year and, as most of the CRCs are agriculturally based, there will be less funding for agriculture. Labor has also reduced the exceptional circumstances budget by hundreds of millions of dollars and has refused to acknowledge the exceptional circumstances of the floods in many states. Labor has cut cargo-screening resources at ports and airports, resulting in 4.7 fewer air-cargo consignments being inspected each year and 2,150 fewer vessels being boarded on arrival. That puts our security at risk. Labor has also cut $63 million from agriculture research within the CSIRO and closed CSIRO agricultural research sites in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia. We all know that Labor's kneejerk reaction to suspend live exports to Indonesian abattoirs severely damaged our $1 million industry, weakened industry confidence and threatened jobs. The coalition will stop farmers, regional communities and the agricultural sector paying more for electricity and gas, by abolishing the carbon tax. It will also support the live export industry, as it has in the past. We believe that maintaining the live export trade will be the best way to improve animal welfare and to reward those abattoirs who do the right thing. The coalition in government will be able to restore confidence by reversing the damage that Labor has done—and they have done a lot of damage. The Labor Party are very good at announcing big-ticket items but hopeless at paying for them. Debt continues to rise. The gross debt is most likely to exceed the $300 billion limit within the forward estimates, and this government is wasting $7.8 billion a year on interest payments alone. The spending spree has to end, and the coalition has identified savings that will be implemented if the coalition is elected to government in September. We will rescind the increase in the humanitarian intake. We will reduce through natural attrition by at least 12,000 the size of the Commonwealth public sector, which is now 20,000 bureaucrats bigger than it was in 2007. We will scrap Labor's green loans scheme for a project that banks will not touch. (Time expired) 18:30 Mr MITCHELL M3E McEwen Boy, we regret letting Patrick get in there, don't we! I rise to talk about the bill before the chamber tonight—Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014—because it is part of probably one of the most important budgets that we are going to see in a long time. We have known for a while about the revenue write-downs. We have known about the GFC, which has had a very long tail and which affects a lot of people in a lot of ways. The Treasurer delivered a budget which seems foreign to those opposite because it is not full of election bribes and handouts. It is a sensible budget which puts us on track to make sure that this country continues in the position that it is in now. Those on the other side are running a scare campaign—the fairy tales about the economy being dead, the world going to pieces and the Australian economy going to pieces—but the facts on the table prove that the reality is completely otherwise. They prove that the only failure is the failure of the opposition to put forward a plan. They have come up with a magic pudding—'we're going to give everyone tax cuts; we're going to give everyone the world and not collect any money for it'—and then they have the audacity to come into this place and the other place and complain about what the Labor government is doing. They did have budget surpluses when they were in government, but they also cut the guts out of spending. They did not cut it to the bone; they cut right through it. That is why our hospitals are in such trouble. There was as much money spent on golf balls by former health minister Abbott as there was money spent on patient care. Compare this to what this government have done and to what we have had to do in such tough economic circumstances. We have invested money in health. We have delivered cancer centres right across the nation. Those opposite did not do that. We have delivered superclinics, which means that families do not have to drive for many miles, particularly in my electorate, to see a doctor or specialist when they need to. We have delivered right across the education portfolio with the Gonski reforms. The report by David Gonski looked at a better and fairer way to get education funding for our kids which would be based on their needs, not their postcodes. But the silver-spooners over there would like to see something different, and that is why they never invested money in schools. You only have to look at what is going on with state governments to see exactly what will happen if those opposite get their claws into the Australian economy. In Victoria, before the Liberal government was elected, every school was to be rebuilt over the period from 2012 to 2016. But that has been totally scrapped by the state Liberal government to the point where there are kids in learning facilities where you cannot even open a window or where you have to nail the windows shut because otherwise they would fall out. What has happened to Woodend Primary School in my electorate is an example of what will happen if the coalition is elected to federal government. The coalition in Victoria have totally stopped every bit of maintenance on Woodend Primary School. There is an example of what we will see if those opposite are elected. Let us look at the very fundamentals of our budget and Australia's position in the global economy. We have extremely low unemployment. We have low interest rates—a lot lower than what they were when those opposite were in government. We have contained inflation. These are pretty big fundamentals to have right and for the Australian people to look at on 14 September. The average person in McEwen has a home with a mortgage of about $300,000, and that is rising. Because of this government they are now more than $100 a week better off than they would have been, in exactly the same place, had we unfortunately kept a Howard or Costello, or whoever had the guts to stand up and do it, government under the coalition. That is direct money into people's pockets that they are using to spend and keep the economy going along. We hear those opposite constantly carp and whinge and complain about debt in this country. There are any number of studies and reports around the world showing just how strong our economy is. We are one of only eight countries that still hold a AAA credit rating by all three rating agencies. That is something those opposite can only aspire to, because they could never achieve it. Even through the glorious days of the Howard era, as they call it, they could not achieve a AAA credit rating from all three agencies. It has only been done by our government, by a Labor government, and we have done that because we stick to the fundamentals of what is right for the economy. We stick to what needs to be done to ensure that Australian families are better off. When we look back to the GFC we see the 200,000 jobs that would have been lost had they had their way and not supported the stimulus package that was put through by the Labor government. We did that because it needed to be done to keep the economy afloat. We are getting the benefits of that now, because we are not in double-digit unemployment, we are not in recession, we are actually going along quite strongly. Yes, it is a patchwork, it is up and down—that is a reality of the Australian economy. You only have to look to that great conservative icon Mr Howard, a man who it is fair to say none of us on this side admire too much but who put it well when he told a Sydney conference: When the current Prime Minister and the Treasurer and others tell you that the Australian economy is doing better than most—they are right. Those are pretty powerful words coming from the great leader of the conservatives; when he comes out and says our government, this Labor government, has got it right and that 'we are fortunate that we have an unemployment rate with five in front of it'. Even he did not think that was possible, and it is something that would not be possible if those opposite get their hands on the economy. We have also invested in DisabilityCare. This is something that strikes, I think, to the morals of your heart. This is about protecting and supporting people who are the most vulnerable, who are not able to actively participate in the workforce because of a range of issues, usually because they are not getting the support that they need. We have brought that in to ensure that people with disabilities can have a fair start to life and a fair opportunity to become participants in the workforce and do what they want to do, which is to be contributors to our society. The fundamentals of our budget are being stronger by supporting jobs and supporting growth. We have seen nearly a million jobs created under this government—something those opposite only wish they could do. We have seen investing in our classrooms to give kids the best possible opportunities, to skill them up for the future to make sure they can get job opportunities in the future. Again I look to those opposite and say: let's look at your track record. The track record of the conservatives is to cut skills education, to cut TAFE, to cut the VET and VCAL programs in Victoria. We inherited a massive skill shortage when we came to government in 2007 because of the direct actions of those opposite in cutting the funding for training and support and for further education. We took the cap of university places. We have actually invested all this money for our future. If you look at the Victorian government, the Queensland government and the New South Wales government, there is a window to what will happen if those opposite win the 14 September election. We will see exactly the same thing: everything is cut to the bone. That is a term we do not use lightly, a term we do not like to use, but it is a clear fact that that will happen if they get in. You only have to look at what they have done in Victoria and New South Wales, where everywhere you go, right across those states, unemployment is going through the roof. It is going through the roof because they are doing what they do best, and that is sack people and take away wages and conditions. We have already seen the Leader of the Opposition talk about a tax review and about increasing the GST, and that is exactly what they will do. They will increase the GST. It is the first thing that came out on their Thursday night speech. Look at Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition's, carefully scripted and crafted words. He talked about how people's personal income tax will not be affected. But what it means over here is that they will be pushing to support a rise in the GST by at least 2.5 per cent. They have never been able to come out and deny it and they will not stand up and say absolutely categorically it will not happen—and I will resign if it does. They will not say that because they know they cannot. They have already had discussions with their state colleagues about the redistribution of GST. They have already gone through that. We have already seen that they are going to put in an impost on Australian families with a 1.6 per cent tax increase to businesses to pay for the paid parental leave scheme that is going to help people who are earning $150,000 a year more than it is going to help those that need the money the most, those on the lower end of the scale. We already know now that because of what they are doing, the banks are saying, 'We will just pass that onto people; we will pass that on to interest rates, credit card rates et cetera.' No one is going to wear what they have said, what they have done and what they are threatening to do without passing it on so it is going to be a cost to every single one of us. When I look at the budget and to some of the direct things that have been an absolute improvement to my community, I look at the Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Walk. What is really important to notice about this is there are two levels of government in Victoria that have funded this as well as the shire that gifted the land and did the work. The Victorian government funded it. The federal Labor government funded it. When I say the Victorian government, I mean both state governments, Labor and Liberal. The only people who have never ever committed one cent to supporting these veterans through this commemorative work is the federal Liberal Party. They have gone to two elections and have not committed a cent. In fact, one of the candidates actually said, 'Not a chance. We are not going to build something like that in Seymour,' which just goes to show how much contempt they show for regional areas. We are putting in a Huey helicopter and a Howitzer gun as well as lighting and pathways for the Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Walk. Out of the two parties, at state level both supported it but at the federal level only Labor supported it. I think it is a real blight on those opposite that they are not prepared to support our veterans. The commemorative walk is delivering many benefits. It not only recognises the people who worked on the volunteer committee but also what it is doing for local businesses and tourism, which is amazing. It is actually delivering people. Every single day or night when you get there people are going for this walk. They go back to look at their own names on the wall, their father's, their grandfather's, their mother's and their grandmother's. It is an exciting thing that is being done and an absolute credit to a bunch of blokes who sat round the table over a cup of coffee and said we should do this because it has never been done before. They should be absolutely congratulated for the work that they have done and for their dedication. The other thing I want to talk about is our NBN policy, which is being supported by my community. The opportunity to be part of the digital future is astronomical. You only have to look at things like business productivity, health and education. There are many things that can be done with NBN today and in the future that are actually going to save money for our health budgets, for education and it will also take cars off the congested roads that we have leading into the city. The things we talk about cannot be done with copper and that is why the opposition refused to say what their upload speed will be. They refuse because they know that what you have got today is what you will get for the future. You would have thought that those opposite would be supporting a national broadband network that actually meant that country areas can have the same access to medical treatment. Dr Stone interjecting— Mr MITCHELL M3E You might sit there and laugh. Let us note that the member for Murray sits there and laughs. Dr Stone interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 Order! Member for Murray. Mr MITCHELL M3E Doing live breast-screen examinations in country towns hooked to the NBN can be done straight away, and you think that is funny. Dr Stone interjecting— Mr MITCHELL M3E You were laughing. You are being untruthful saying that you are not laughing. You even admitted you were laughing through interjection. I am glad you think that is funny, because it shows the calibre of person you are. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 Members! Mr MITCHELL M3E And your friend laughs too, but that is because she is not real bright. The fact of the matter is— The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 Member for McEwan, members will be called by their correct titles. Ms Gambaro 9K6 I rise on a point of order. I ask the member to withdraw the insulting comment that he made. Mr MITCHELL M3E What insulting comment? Ms Gambaro 9K6 You made an insulting comment and I ask you to withdraw. You know what you said. Mr MITCHELL M3E I am happy to withdraw. This is the person who actually reckons our migrants stink. She cannot deny that. Ms Gambaro 9K6 I was misrepresented in the press. I made an explanatory statement. I ask the member to withdraw that untrue statement. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 Members, there is another place for this to be done. Please withdraw unconditionally and finish. Mr MITCHELL M3E I withdraw. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M38 Your time has now expired. 18:46 Ms GAMBARO 9K6 Brisbane I rise to speak on these appropriation bills. It can only be hoped that it is the last act of chaotic, divided, dysfunctional government that has no plans for Australia's future. But we are not without hope. As my parliamentary colleague and leader of the coalition, Tony Abbott, said in his budget reply speech: While it is easy, and understandable, that you should be pessimistic about this government, everyone should be optimistic about our country. There is an end in sight to this very bad government. This is a government that gave us pink batts, overpriced school halls and cash for clunkers—all failed programs. As of tonight there are 109 days until a federal election, when the people of my electorate in Brisbane and the people of Australia have the opportunity of bringing this bad government to an end. There is no better way of highlighting the contrast between where we are now under Labor and where the coalition was when it delivered government and what we saw in the federal budget just a few weeks ago. What we saw was a clear contrast between Labor with its debt, deficit, broken promises, new taxes and no plan for Australia's future, and the coalition with its plan to build a strong, prosperous country, more jobs, higher wages and better services for all Australians. The budget papers reveal that Australia's gross debt will breach Labor's $300 billion debt ceiling within the forward estimates. In a space of less than two weeks, that $300 million ceiling is already forecast to beyond $400 billion. Since coming to office in 2007, the first five Labor budgets have resulted in $192 billion in deficits. There is one thing we can be certain of: Labor will never deliver a surplus. The Treasurer has now delivered Labor's 12th deficit from the last 12 budgets. Disturbingly, the last surplus delivered by a Labor government was in 1989—almost 2½ decades ago. Last year Treasurer Wayne Swan promised a surplus of $1.5 billion but instead he delivered a deficit more than 12 times as big at $19.4 billion. He did not just miss the target by a little tiny bit—this is really taking the adage 'If you miss by an inch you might as well miss by a mile' to a whole new depth. It must be remembered that this towering achievement of budgetary incompetence came after the government promised on more than 500 occasions that they were delivering a surplus for 2012-13, with the Prime Minister even boasting that the surplus had already been achieved. All of this from a bunch that have the audacity to call themselves fiscal conservatives. The delusion is truly spectacular. Fiscal conservative was one of the many meaningless Kevin Rudd slogans adopted by the Treasurer and then recycled by the Prime Minister. It must go down as one of the most cynical, political cons of all time—right up there with: 'There will not be a carbon tax under a government I lead.' Both unbelievable; both false. The electorate of Brisbane has to deal with significant cost-of-living pressures, and under Labor the price of essentials such as electricity, education, child care and health services continues to go up and up. Labor's reckless policy making plays a significant part in these price rises. Labor cannot claim to care about the cost of living while imposing policies that add to those pressures. For example, increases in electricity prices are Labor's carbon tax at work and increases in medical and hospital services are in part because of Labor's chopping and changing of the private health insurance rebate. With child care, for example, on 1 July 2012 the government cut and capped the childcare rebate to a maximum of $7,500. If the childcare rebate was still being indexed parents in my electorate would be receiving $700 a year more in assistance. Since Julia Gillard became Prime Minister, childcare costs have increased by 26 per cent. In the 2013-14 budget, the government extended its freeze on the childcare rebate for another three years. The rebate was capped at $7,500 two years ago and will now remain capped until 30 June 2017. While the government has capped the rebate, it is also spending $8 million advertising what government assistance is available to families to help meet childcare costs, confirming that Labor is more about spin than they are about substance. With private health insurance the government imposed a means test on 1 July 2012. It placed a 30 per cent rebate on private health insurance. This will mean that some families in my electorate will be paying up to 43 per cent more for their insurance while everyone else will pay an additional 10 per cent on top of the existing cost of their policy. This measure will impact very hard on the electorate of Brisbane: 79 per cent of people in my electorate have private health insurance. In the 2012-13 MYEFO the government announced that from 1 July 2013 it would no longer provide a rebate for the lifetime health cover component of one's private health insurance premium. The lifetime health cover component is an additional two per cent charge on a person's premium for every year that they have not taken out private health insurance after turning 31 years of age. This represents a $386 million cut to private health insurance. In the 2012-13 MYEFO the government announced that from1 April 2014 funding for private health insurance rebate would be linked to the CPI rather than keeping it linked to the average industry premium increase that is set each year at around four per cent. This represents a $700 million cut to the rebate over four years. In the 2013-14 budget the government has cut more $1.8 billion from Medicare rebates, the extended Medicare Safety Net and the Net Medical Expenses Tax Offset, while incredibly still managing to deliver more debt, more deficits and taxes. These cuts from the health budget, which follow years of waste and mismanagement across all areas of government, will hit the sickest and the most vulnerable the hardest. There will be no increase to the Medicare rebates between November 2012 and July 2014, despite continued growth in the cost of delivering health care. This means the costs are likely to be passed on to patients directly, particularly in general practice where there is a high volume of pensioners and concession cared holders. Deputy Speaker, as you can see, Labor cuts will force up out-of-pocket costs for families in my electorate as they are already struggling with the cost-of-living pressures and all of this on top of the increased costs that came in on 1 July 2012, when the dreaded carbon tax started. On the government's own figures, under a carbon tax there will be an immediate 10 per cent in electricity prices, a nine per cent increase in gas bills. The increase in electricity in the September quarter of 2012 was 15.3 per cent—the largest quarterly increase since ABS electronic records began. The rise since Labor came to power has been 94 per cent. In education, the Gonski numbers change from day-to-day. When the Prime Minister announced her school funding a few weeks ago she said it would result in an extra $14.5 billion over six years, with her government contributing $9.4 billion. This week the Prime Minister said it would be $16.2 billion and the Commonwealth would contribute $9.8 billion over six years, but the actual budget papers show that the Commonwealth has only put aside $2.8 billion over the next four years for school funding, leaving a shortfall of $7 billion to be delivered in just two years—that is, two elections from now. Labor is cutting more than $300 million out of school funding over the next four years. The forward estimates show that under this government funding for schools is going down, not up, and that is very bad news for schools, for parents and for students in my electorate. This government is not giving schools more money; it is giving schools less money and that is on top of cuts to university to pay for the so-called Gonski changes. Labor's funding continues with them ripping funds out of education and cutting the indexation at three per cent. Labor is fiddling the figures yet again. Thankfully, the coalition offers a clear choice which guarantees that no school will be worse off because we will keep the existing system at least until such time as we have a consensus on the need for change. One of the precious few pieces of good news in this budget relates to the announcement of a new headspace in Brisbane. As the federal member for Brisbane, for some time I have been calling for a headspace facility to be based in central Brisbane. I am advised that one of the 15 centres being funded in 2013-14 will be based in Brisbane and headspace advise that the new facility will be up and running by January 2014. That is great news for Brisbane residents. My only reservation regarding this announcement relates to the need for the government to resist any temptation to hijack the original headspace charter set up under the Howard government, which ensured the locations of these facilities were determined on a needs basis and not as part of some desperate political pork barrelling campaign to try to save failed Labor MPs. I wish to turn to DisabilityCare and the funding in the budget for disability. In a parliament under this government which has been rife with incompetence, mismanagement, dysfunction and scandal, the NDIS maybe the best thing to come out of the 43rd parliament. As we know, both sides of politics support the NDIS. The Labor Party desperately wanted to use it as a political football. Labor's rhetoric was always designed to wedge the coalition on the NDIS. Then came the classic move, after sending the budget further into the red, with Labor's proposal to have an increase to the Medicare levy of 0.5 per cent to partially fund the NDIS. However the coalition will be supporting this increase, even though this government has completely and irresponsibly managed the budget. The increase in the Medicare levy should not have been necessary, had the budget been balanced. As elected representatives, we are always reluctant to increase taxes imposed on those we represent. However, as a Liberal I believe one of the core roles of government is to help those who cannot help themselves. There is no one in this House who would argue that those who suffer from a disability and their families have the same opportunity and freedom in life as those without a disability. We obviously still have a lot of detail to work through regarding DisabilityCare and how it will work but on behalf of those in my electorate with a disability, their friends and their families, I welcome the commitment by state and federal governments to a national disability insurance scheme. As federal members, on a daily basis we hear the heartbreaking stories of those with disabilities. Hopefully, this will be one decision which we have made together as a parliament to provide them with some help and relief. When you look at the gross failures of this government to provide basic services, you have to ask yourself: Where has all the money gone? What did they spend it on? In consideration of these questions, a sobering and disturbing fact is that the cost to Australians of Labor's waste and budgetary mismanagement is a net interest bill of $7.8 billion a year. Add to that annual interest bill the cost of some items from the greatest hit list of Labor's waste such as the $10 billion blow-out in the immigration portfolio—thanks to Labor's failed border protection policies—and the $3.2 billion blow-out in the NBN rollout, and you get the picture. These policy failures alone add up to more than $13 billion and when you add that to the annual interest rate bill, you are looking at nearly $21 billion. This could have provided a lot of infrastructure. This is the cost of Labor's abysmal fiscal management—and an appalling waste on things that we did not need to have, like pink batts, and it has ensured that there is no money for things that we do need. We need 21st century infrastructure. Let us consider the amount of money that could have been spent on this wonderful infrastructure had this government not misspent. It could have been spent on projects that are sorely needed in the electorate of Brisbane and in the state of Queensland. It could have been spent on things like the Cross River Rail project and the upgrade of the Kingsford Smith Drive—all very worthwhile projects. 19:01 Mr HUSIC 91219 Chifley I rise to speak on the appropriation bills—bills that have been framed in an challenging economic environment. This budget seeks to chart the most appropriate course of action for the long-term prosperity of our nation. It is a budget aimed squarely at making Australia stronger, smarter and fairer through investment in infrastructure, schools and social reform. Having all but come through the biggest downturn our economy has confronted since the forties, this is the time for us to ease back on stimulus and to position the economy for the future. It is worth noting at the outset the impact that the current economic climate has had on revenue—$170 billion has been wiped off the revenue since the GFC. Global economic conditions now mean that companies cannot sustain their profits in the way that they once did, and this is having an impact on tax receipts. It is presenting a massive challenge for governments. It is why we had to find savings to the tune of $43 billion but to do so in a way that does not tear at the fabric of the community. As an MP heading into an election later this year, I know that all of us in this chamber would loved to be able to spruik for tax cuts or find other ways to inject government spending, but our balance sheet simply does not permit that and, frankly, it would represent the height of irresponsibility to do so. Instead, the government is showing fiscal restraint while keeping an eye on the things that will make Australia more productive and will grow our economy into the future. On both sides of this chamber, in a place where we focus on division, we should find areas that unite us. On both sides of the chamber, we can all be rightly proud that the budget has provided nearly $20 billion over the next seven years to fund DisabilityCare. In my electorate of Chifley, it could benefit as a many as 3,800 people. Delivering DisabilityCare is without doubt the most fundamental social policy reform this government has seen since we introduced Medicare. For far too long, it has been reflected elsewhere that this sort of reform was considered too difficult, too hard. Now we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet the lifelong needs of people with a disability, their families and their carers. People with a disability have much to contribute to society, and with the choice and support that DisabilityCare will provide we can remove from many of them the barriers to their productive involvement and engagement in our society and in our workforce. I have had many opportunities to visit disability enterprises operating in the Chifley electorate and have seen for myself the effect that gainful employment has on the people who can work. There are great organisations like the Endeavour Foundation, Mount Druitt and AFFORD in Minchinbury. In reflecting on the proposal to increase the Medicare levy, I think most people will see that increasing the Medicare levy to help fund DisabilityCare is something that they believe is worthy of support. In fact, it was something that I spoke on in February this year. I outlined the challenges for both sides of politics in finding revenue in this climate to fund disability care, and I recognised that it simply was not there. Medicare has always provided a healthcare safety net for Australians. We are now stretching it a little bit further to provide support for the disabled, their families and their carers. It is a worthy way in which to fund DisabilityCare. Another initiative that I am very happy to see funded in this budget is our support of nearly $10 billion to fund schools over the next six years, to deliver our National Plan for School Improvement. It is an important delivery of the work by David Gonski. It is very much a plan to better resource every school on the base of need, improving teacher quality and supporting students to achieve their best. Our plan not only makes the distribution of funding fairer but also targets those schools facing the greatest disadvantage, some of which are located in the Chifley electorate. Schools in the Chifley electorate have all welcomed the commitment. I was delighted last week to join Cathy Anderson, the principal of Chifley College at Mount Druitt, and her staff in celebrating our deal with the New South Wales government, where both federal Labor and state Liberals joined as one to advance education in the state of New South Wales. This month's budget will also make a tangible difference to the lives of residents in Chifley and in the neighbouring seats of my colleagues the members for Greenway, Lindsay, McMahon and Parramatta, particularly through the funding of the WestConnex motorway. The Australian government has made an offer of $1.8 billion to the New South Wales government to extend the M4 motorway to the Sydney CBD and Port Botany. Improving traffic flow will mean shorter travel times to and from work, more time at home with family and reduced running costs for the daily commute. One of the biggest challenges facing Western Sydney for all levels of government is finding ways to free-up the movement of people in an area of the country where congestion is causing massive problems. Smart investment in infrastructure is important if we are to keep our economy amongst the strongest in the world and, importantly, our government has sought to put forward certain conditions on the funding. The first is that there are to be no new tolls on sections of the motorway already paid for. It makes no sense, if we have paid for the road, that we pay again through a new toll. The second condition is that the extension has to go all the way to the CBD and Port Botany so that motorists are able to travel to their desired destinations without unnecessarily clogging up roads around the motorway. This is something the New South Wales state government did not indicate previously, which is a shortcoming of its plan. We are seeking to fix it and work with them on it. Other measures in the budget to provide for the infrastructural needs of our community include nearly a quarter-of-a-million dollars to fix two identified traffic black spots in the electorate. This is to install, for instance, a partial median-enclosure at the intersection of the Great Western Highway and Mount Druitt Road and to install a single-lane roundabout at the intersection of Wolseley and Derby streets in Rooty Hill. On building and investment in the National Broadband Network in Western Sydney, the budget provided extra funding for each of the six Broadband for Seniors kiosks in Chifley, so they can purchase touch-screen monitors for teaching seniors about the next generation of computer interfaces. I was particularly delighted to see an additional $39.4 million provided on a separate initiative through the end of 2014 to extend the Active After-school Communities program. It currently has just over 1,200 children from Chifley participating in it. I got to see first-hand some of the activities of the AASC in our area, in conjunction with the Western Sydney Wanderers. With the delivery of any budget, it is important to contrast it with plans being offered by the other side. I note today the opposition's joint party room is committed to supporting and keeping all of Labor's promised budget savings. That is one of the best endorsements a budget can get. What else does the opposition intend to do that requires scrutiny? For instance, the Leader of the Opposition has recommitted to scrapping the price on carbon but intends to keep in place all of the household compensation associated with this pricing mechanism, without indicating how it will be funded. At the same time, he will commit to paying polluters to the tune of $5 billion under his so-called Direct Action Plan. This does not identify how that will be funded. The Leader of the Opposition is digging an even bigger budget blackhole for himself, and Australians should rightly know what cuts he will make to fill it. He has also recommitted to his overly generous paid parental leave scheme, which will hit the nation's top 3,000 companies with a tax in order to pay—as one pensioner in the Chifley electorate identified to me, three times the rate of that person's pension—up to $75,000 to the wealthiest of families. People in our area cannot understand how you would fund a scheme in that way. Inside his own party room, rightly so, there is a degree of disquiet about the affordability of such payments. I notice tonight there has been some reference to GST reform. It is interesting to see that the GST reform is being touted as responsible national economic reform, but when we attempt to do likewise that is the most heinous of all initiatives that could be taken. They characterise something, for instance, as a great big new tax, but when it comes to the GST then that is moderate economic reform. The way it is being characterised is interesting. The way the GST could be broadened to cover, for instance, food and other essentials will impact particularly on communities in my area. We are being softened up for a change—an increase in the GST—and ostensibly it is being driven by the states, but with the imprimatur of the federal level. Members would also have seen at another level the spat between the member for Sturt and the New South Wales education minister over our national school improvement plan. The member for Sturt has made it quite clear that this government's record investment in schools will be cut if they win the upcoming election. What I find interesting is the strident defence of state rights provided by the coalition when it comes, for instance, to the ownership of resources, but when it comes to deals done to provide greater support for the education of our next generation the coalition will tear up deals with the states and ram states' rights into a pulp for their own political imperative. What I find concerning about the caveat that the opposition leader has placed on future cuts to spending is that he needs to wait until the pre-election fiscal outlook before making any predictions about what will come down the track. Come 14 September Australians will have a choice between two discrete pathways to the future. They should have the opportunity to weigh up the merits of each pathway before casting a vote and should look in close detail at not only what the opposition says it will do but the track record of incoming Liberal governments in recent times. For instance, in Queensland the LNP government set about a slash and burn process with 14,000 public sector job cuts—not just high-level bureaucrats but front-line health workers, police and ambulance officers. They are investigating selling off community parks and sports grounds and working out which schools they can close—depriving communities of important local infrastructure. In my home state of New South Wales, the O'Farrell government implemented budget savings they conveniently overlooked reference to prior to the election. Did Mr O'Farrell, for example, tell voters that he intended to cut almost $2 billion from education? No. When he toured suburbs of Western Sydney and assured voters he would look after them, did he tell them he would cut funding to install lifts at Doonside, Rooty Hill or Toongabbie, as the member for Greenway has pointed out? No. He did say he would tackle the cost-of-living pressures on families, but he did not tell pensioners in public housing that he intended to take away their household compensation by jacking up housing commission rents. Did he tell us that he would close the cardiac unit at Mount Druitt hospital? No. He argued that he needed to rein in spending because of the state of the budget, but the Auditor-General in New South Wales found there was an extra $1 billion that the New South Wales Liberal treasurer had not accounted for and then refused to recommit it to support education. I would hope electors in Chifley and Greenway pay close attention to the record of the Liberal-independent council that came to office last year in Blacktown. Again, there was no warning whatsoever of the political agenda of the Liberal council—after an extraordinary record in which successive Labor-controlled councils were debt free and delivered some of the best community and recreational facilities in the state. The Liberals have begun undoing this legacy. They have indicated that they will close essential community services and facilities or at least privatise in some cases—for example, child care—to cut spending. The Liberals on council appear to have an ideology demanding that community facilities be profitable rather than be paid for at ratepayer expense. They have flagged the closing of childcare centres, reserves and they even announced the closure of the Mount Druitt swimming pool. The president of the Rooty Hill RSL youth swimming club believes they would be in dire straits when this pool closes and that schools would be left with few options for swimming carnivals. There is a great deal of anger amongst residents about the pool's closure. For many years it has provided the community with a venue for recreation, training and competition. Residents, particularly in the part of Blacktown I represent, rely enormously on the services and facilities council provides and if Blacktown Council were to continue with this agenda I can only see people being further disadvantaged and marginalised. Probably the biggest threat to local residents is the draft local environment plan, which will see council acquire homes to make way for recreational space. This has caused great concern in our area. None of these things were mentioned prior to the election. They tear at the fabric of our local community and undermine the investment in infrastructure. The federal government can point to investments of $140 million in 67 schools in Chifley. Trade training centres are opening. The NBN is being rolled out. Primary care infrastructure grants are changing the way that local GP clinics are operating. The opening of a clinician's school at Blacktown Hospital will ensure that we can train more GPs and that they will stay in Western Sydney. Contrast all this with the cuts to education by the state government—either to the cardiac ward at Mt Druitt Hospital and overtime in the Western Sydney health district—as well as the failure to provide for infrastructure at railway stations and council closures of community facilities such as swimming pools. All this has been done without providing support to our area. The contrast between the actions of the two governments should be concentrated upon in the lead up to 14 September. I thank the House. 19:16 Dr STONE EM6 Murray It is no wonder that the previous speaker representing the Labor government focused on state government issues, because it is just too painful to look at what the federal budget speech from the Treasurer, Mr Swan, delivered to us. We, of course, are aware of the parlous state of the economy in Australia. No-one who is living in this country thinks of the era that we are now in as anything but a budget emergency. Let us look at some of the incredible statistics. Total gross debt will breach the $300 billion debt ceiling within the forward estimates. We are now living with Labor's fifth record deficit in five years and at least two more deficits to come. We have record net debt of $192 billion, and there is no credible path back to surplus—except, I suggest, having a change of government on 14 September. There have been so many broken promises, such as scrapped tax cuts and family payments. Most recently, we have been told that the baby bonus is gone. Very sadly, people who know how important it is to have private health insurance are finding it more and more unaffordable. There have been nonsense programs such as set-top boxes, pink batts, cash-for-clunkers and grocery watch—they go on and on. Some day someone is going to write a book about all of this and no one will believe it; they will think it is a comedy. But it is not a comedy. It is not funny when you look at what is happening on the ground and what is behind the statistics. I will give just one example of the impacts of the carbon tax, which this government imposed in a flight of fancy while imagining that somehow enough new tax can be put into the system to make the climate magically cease its evolution. For example, those doing the heavy lifting in the economy by employing people and trying to generate production for export and for the domestic market are faced with incredible increases in electricity and gas bills. I have in front of me a bill of 31 August 2012 for a two-month period from Mulcahy Pastoral, one of the biggest dairy producers in the northern Victorian region. This is just one of their electricity bills; they have a number of them depending on which part of their enterprise is being billed. Their electricity charge for two months was $7,069.97. On top of that came a carbon charge, which is itemised on their bill, of $1,142.48. So that is $7,000 plus another $1,000 for the carbon charge. Then, tragically, GST is levied on top of the combined charges. GST amounted to $821.24. Mulcahy Pastoral's bill therefore went from $7,000 to $9,000. There is no productivity advantage when the additional nearly $2,000, which went straight to the government as a carbon charge, is taken into account. Electricity bills such as this bring Mulcahy Pastoral ever closer to not being sustainable despite the incredible heavy lifting they do in employing scores of workers generating an excellent product benchmarked as world's best practice. Think if you were a contractor to SPC Ardmona and you had just been told that, due to the costs which are now imposed on food manufacture—in this case, preserved fruits and vegetables—the costs, combined with the high Australian dollar, renders them unable to compete with imported rubbish, often product which has not been properly scrutinised at the border because this government has slashed and burned quarantine checking. Biosecurity is now on its knees as an agency. We know that every day we are facing real threats with food safety, as Coles and Woolworths delightedly import some of the biggest volumes ever seen of imported preserved fruit and things like tomatoes. They fill their generic labels with these products. The labelling laws in Australia are such that the discerning shopper has great difficulty working out exactly the source of the product in cans or in plastic squeezy tubes, in glass jars or in plastic packs. Put all of that together and what did SPC Ardmona recently have to do? They had to tell the 114 orchardist suppliers that about half of them would have no contracts next year for supplying fruit and the other half would be able to supply only 50 per cent or less of the fruit they had previously been under contract to provide. This is stunning fruit—pears, apricots, peaches, all beautiful product. Some of the pear trees have been bearing for more than 70 years in the Goulburn Valley. In fact, the Goulburn Valley produces more than 85 per cent of Australia's pears. While SPC Ardmona in the Goulburn Valley said no to its fruit suppliers, there has also been a rebounding impact on the packers, pickers and pruners of that product, on the transport operators who once took all that product to market and on the workers in their factory. SPC Ardmona in the Goulburn Valley had 870 full-time equivalent staff. Their salaries and wages in one year alone were $63 million alone, which went into the local economy. They provided apprenticeships and training programs year after year, giving experience to young people, and they had graduate student programs. The multiplier effect is that more than 2,700 jobs in the Goulburn Valley region alone will be affected. More than 150,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables worth more than $32 million each year was taken from local contracted growers. All of that now is history because this government has basically turned its back on the manufacturing sector in Australia and in particular on food manufacturing. Imagine what the SPC Ardmona and fruit-growing sector thought as they saw the federal government scrambling to put millions of dollars into the very tragic announcement that the Ford Motor Company would basically be shutting up shop in a couple of years time. We have not yet heard a squeak of support for the Goulburn Valley or the Murray Valley for this magnificent food industry, which is now on its knees. On 30 April, an application was made to this federal government for emergency safeguard action, which is completely lawful under the World Trade Organisation rules. This measure would have put a temporary, 200-day set of duties on the imported product—on tomatoes from Italy, on peaches from China and South Africa—and would have given this company and its growers and the growers' workers a 200-day, emergency breathing space, so that Coles and Woolworths were made to wake up, to look again at the prospects of having to buy local produce instead of cheap, junk imports. We suspect many of those imports are dumped. What has happened to that application for emergency WTO safeguard action in the 28 days since it was launched with this federal government? You tell me. We do not know what has happened to that action. It was moved on fairly promptly from Senator Ludwig, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. We understand he gave it his support, his prima facie approval, saying that it looks like a reasonable application. It is now sitting with the Minister for Trade. It has been sitting for 28 days going on 29 days tomorrow. I have to ask: is it because they are not an automotive industry based in Geelong and Broadmeadows? Is that the problem? Is it because this government just does not understand agriculture and food processing in particular and the enormous multiplier impact that food processing has on other jobs generated and on other value generated in both the domestic and export market? SPC Ardmona used to export 30 per cent of its product. Unfortunately, that is down to zero next year. Those export dollars used to circulate around the Australian economy and leaven so many other associated industries like packaging, marketing and promotional industries. Now they are simply staring down the barrel of being wiped out by cheap imports, and this government is sitting on its hands. There is also a biosecurity problem looming with the lack of action from the federal government, and, I have to say, also from the state government of Victoria at this time. There are 700 hectares of beautiful orchards that have to either be pushed over in the next few months or they need to be actively sprayed to make sure that they do not develop fruit fly, codling moth, a whole range of pest species and diseases, which the vigilance of local orchardists keep at bay. But if these trees no longer have any commercial fruit and the fruit they produce will be left on the ground then these orchardists do not have the resources to keep the trees sprayed. The cost of pushing those trees over is not insignificant—some $3,000 to $5,000 per hectare depending on the age and size of the trees. So we are begging the state and federal governments to support these orchardists in keeping the disease-free state of these orchards intact so that pest species do not spread to the fresh fruit market orchards, which of course are in the same region. It seems a very reasonable and sensible thing to do but, again, we are waiting for some response. There is just deafening silence on this critical matter. As we speak, SPC Ardmona is in the process of preparing an anti-dumping action in the first instance against the Italian tomato imports and then against South African peaches and preserved fruit and then against the Chinese preserved fruit. New Zealand has recently very successfully yet again rolled over its anti-dumping action against Chinese preserved peaches. It is the same product that is destroying the Australian market. So we should expect, if given a fair hearing, that those anti-dumping actions would be successful. The trouble is they need to happen quickly. They need to be brought into place before too many of these orchards are already bulldozed. I was so saddened as I drove around the Murray Valley a weekend ago and saw the huge mounds of pushed over what were magnificent fruit trees mounded up ready for burning. Those trees could have fed the world. They could have been used for some of our food aid. Our Australian food aid now is purchased from the cheapest supplier anyone can find anywhere. Speaking to representatives of some of the ethnic groups from the Myanmar or Burma just last night, I was deeply concerned to hear that they continue to be malnourished and in great need of food aid themselves. Yet Australia very proudly bought broken rice from Myanmar for its food aid to be sent somewhere else in the very recent past. I have been given the rice sacks with the big Australian kangaroo and with 'Gift from Australian AusAID' printed on them and then in slightly smaller print, not much smaller, 'This is broken rice from Myanmar.' How disgraceful, how shocking. Meanwhile there were hundreds in fact thousands of tonnes of fruit lying in the on the ground in the Goulburn Valley going to waste. I beg this government to look harder at how it supports the manufacturing industries that have been destroyed by its policies. Let me talk about the Labor failures in relation to agriculture. There has been $32.8 million taken from agriculture in recent times. They are under extremely strained resource deficits. Labor have reduced the funding for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, from $3.8 billion to $1.7 billion, driven, of course, by the Greens, who do not see any value in Australian agriculture. They see farmers as the enemy of the people, it would seem. Then we have $33.4 million taken and cut from the cooperative research centres, which means fewer CRCs are funded each year. As most of them are agriculturally based, there is less funding for agricultural research just at the time we have to look at alternative crops and we have to look at how to grow agricultural crops in places where climates are changing. We have cuts in cargo-screening resources at ports and airports by $58.1 million, resulting in 4.7 million fewer air cargo consignments being inspected each year and 2,150 fewer vessels being boarded on arrival. That is the food security and food safety concerns that I was expressing before. We have cuts of $63 million from agriculture research within the CSIRO. They have closed CSIRO agricultural research sites in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia. Some of those sites had been in action for more than three or four decades. All that research is now lost. No other country in the world that pretends to be a food-producing nation would do this sort of thing. We just cannot wait until 14 September but let us hope that is not too late for some of our great agricultural industries. (Time expired) 19:31 Ms BRODTMANN 30540 Canberra I would like to begin tonight by congratulating the Treasurer on this, his sixth budget, because in this budget the Treasurer has successfully balanced the often competing priorities of fiscal responsibility at the same time as nation-building reform. We have put the focus on jobs, we have put the focus on growth and we have put the focus on fiscal responsibility at the same time as on education, disability reform and also major infrastructure reform to improve productivity. There are many aspects of the 2013 federal budget that are close to my heart and I am particularly proud of. Tonight I am pleased to be able to talk about some of these as well as some particular aspects of this budget that will benefit by electorate of Canberra. Members would be aware of my great passion for education. In my maiden speech I said that my life had been transformed by education, that education was the great transformer and that I was living proof of that because through education I escaped the cycle of disadvantage and there are millions more like me. So I am really proud of our Labor government's education reforms and the $9.8 billion commitment to increase school funding over six years under the National Plan for School Improvement. I do believe that these reforms will give more Australians, more Canberrans, the chance to have their lives transformed by education, like I had. At the same time I also want to dwell a bit on the investment that we as a government have made in education, because we are the government committed to education. I would say the majority of us in caucus are living proof of the transformative qualities of education and have greatly benefited from it. So, as a result of that, it is a driving issue for us. It is very front and centre for us. In my electorate alone we have invested in the past $54 million to deliver more maths and science teachers. We have also delivered $131 million for 136 BER projects in Canberra benefiting 67 schools. That resulted in 17 new libraries, 23 multipurpose halls and 29 covered outdoor learning areas. We have also invested in 8½ thousand computers in 23 schools, which means that our children are now linked into modern technology and they can learn through education. I see schools like Narrabundah College, where they are doing a lot of remote learning as a result of having these fantastic computer labs. I was at St Bede's Primary School on Friday. They were celebrating their 50th anniversary. I was reminded again by the chair of the P&C—who made a really powerful speech when I actually opened their BER building, this beautiful multipurpose hall—of the fact that this would not have been possible if it had been left to the P&C to do their sausage sizzles, to do their lamington drives, to do their chocolate runs and to do their working bees to raise money. It would have never been possible to be able to come up with that significant sum of money to build the multipurpose hall. It was the stuff of dreams. And I get this from other P&Cs and other parents and teachers I meet throughout the schools. I spend a lot of time in schools because I love schools. I love seeing what is going on in the Canberra education system, speaking to the children and how they are benefiting from the significant investment we have made in Canberra, as well as speaking to the teachers about the benefits of the significant investments we have made in their professionalisation, autonomy and empowerment. There is no doubt that one of the other cornerstones of this budget is our long-term commitment to DisabilityCare Australia, or the National Disability Insurance Scheme. For too long successive governments have shunned the opportunity to reform services for the profoundly disabled, neglecting the needs of people with significant and permanent disability, their carers and families. We have invested $14.3 billion over seven years to give people with disability, their families and carers the care and support they need over their lifetimes, and choice and control over the services they need. Most importantly, it focuses on the individual and defines the support that is needed for an individual over the course of their lifetime. Their needs can vary: during primary school they have specific needs, when they are teenagers they have different needs, when they are entering the workforce they have different needs and then as they age they have different needs. Mr Deputy Speaker you, like me and everyone in this House, have spoken to carers. I have this enduring image of being at Koomarri—I see this family every time I go out to Koomarri to do a different event. The parents are a hard-working migrants and they have one daughter who is quite profoundly intellectually disabled. The parents are quite a bit older and every time I saw them prior to this DisabilityCare being introduced they were in tears—both of them, mother and father—absolutely scared witless about what was going to happen to their daughter when they passed on. You, Mr Deputy Speaker, like so many in this chamber would have had similar experiences: petrified parents, living with fear night and day as a result of them having an intellectually or physically disabled child that they are absolutely worried about should they pass on. Tragically, I saw this family just recently at another event at Koomarri and they told me that the father has just been diagnosed with a brain tumour. So not only are they battling this issue of dealing with this profoundly intellectually disabled daughter but he also has his own health challenges. That is why DisabilityCare could not have come at a better time. It sends a very strong message to this family that their daughter will be looked after over the course of her lifetime. It will end the cruel lottery that currently exists where the care and support a person receives depends on where they live and how they acquired their disability. In the ACT around $175 million in funding will be provided for the full rollout of our DisabilityCare by 2019-20. This will provide life-changing support to more than 5,000 Canberrans, one of them being that family I have just mentioned. In the lead-up to this budget I spent a lot of time also talking to my constituents in Canberra and listening to their concerns—I am always talking to them and listening to their concerns. One area that was of particular concern was the issue of single parents. I am a child of a single mother: my father walked out on us when I was 11, and he walked out on us with $30 in the bank, so my early teen years were particularly hard. We were dining out every second night at family and friends because, basically, mum did not have any money. So I am acutely aware of the challenges that single mothers face. I grew up with one who did not have much money. We did not go on school camps, because mum did not have any money, so I am acutely aware of the disappointment that some single parents have in the fact that they cannot actually give their children what their peers are getting. And so I am acutely aware of the potential impact of some of the policies that we were looking at in terms of single parents was having on the single mothers in my electorate. I spent a lot of time talking to them, and I spent a lot of time actually sitting down with them and going through their budgets. These women are extraordinary budgeters. Everything is budgeted to within an inch of its life. They have Excel spreadsheets. You name it. They really do have tight budgets, so they really need to keep an eye on their finances. At the same time, these women were also working part time, training part time and trying to look after their child on their own as well. Some of those conversations brought back a lot of really sad memories of what I went through as an early teen, which is why I had a lot of discussions with some of my colleagues and a number of ministers on what we could do on the single parents front. That is why I was particularly pleased with the income support that we outlined in the budget, where we are increasing the amount of income that Australians receiving income support can earn before their payments are affected. This will affect Australians and Canberrans receiving the parenting payment, Newstart allowance and widow, sickness or partner allowance. The income-free area will increase from $62 to $100 per fortnight. In practical terms, this means that people can take home $494 extra per year. In addition to this, the budget also outlines that from 1 July 2015, for the first time in Australia's history, the income-free area for Australians on income support will be indexed by the CPI. These reforms demonstrate that this Labor government is committed to supporting single parents and committed to upholding the principles of income support. We also introduced a scheme where people who are on a pension supplement get the pensioner education supplement, which I think is a significant reform—$32 a fortnight, from memory. It allows those women who are in my electorate to get some assistance with the training they are undertaking. These reforms will immediately benefit 458 people on income support currently earning over $62 a fortnight in my electorate, and they have the potential to benefit more than 2,000 more people should they move into work. The initiative in this budget that I was least heartened by was the introduction of paid parking in the Parliamentary Triangle next year. Members will have noticed that this issue dominated much of the local media in the days after the announcement. I am very proud of the Parliamentary Triangle. I know that there are a number of issues that confront the Parliamentary Triangle, particularly the fact that there are workers. It is a business district. It is a commercial district. We now have private enterprise there. We have public sector agencies there. We also have national institutions. So we are balancing a number of things. The Parliamentary Triangle is balancing a number of objectives and a number of missions. The challenge that we are currently faced with is the fact that workers are parking there—it is all free—and, as a result of that, a number of tourists particularly are not able to get to the national institutions. They are having to drive around and around and around because there is no car-parking space, which is not thrilling our fabulous national institutions—namely, the Library, Questacon, the Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery and the gorgeous old wedding cake of Old Parliament House—much. So it was decided to introduce paid parking to manage the parking in the Parliamentary Triangle. The thing is—and I have been clear on this since my preselection—that I only support paid parking if there is an amenity. That is something I have been very clear on for many, many years, because I have worked in the Parliamentary Triangle and I know the challenges that people face. There is nothing there apart from those fantastic national institutions and a few wonderful cafes. There is no post office there. There used to be a post office; it has gone. There are a few banks there but not many. There are no shops. There is no mini-mart. There are no convenience stores. There is no amenity for people working there like there is in any business district throughout the rest of Canberra and any business district throughout the rest of Australia. If people are to pay for parking, I believe that they should be provided with the facility, the amenity—shops, convenience stores and mini-marts—similar to what has happened over at Brindabella Business Park, where there are a range of services. That is an industrial park, a business district, a commercial precinct. I have initiated an inquiry into the level of amenity that is available in the Parliamentary Triangle. That inquiry will be conducted over the coming months through the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories. I am particularly looking forward to getting in and seeing what amenity is required in that area, what amenity can be provided in that area and what we can do about improving the services to the people in the Parliamentary Triangle. Finally, my electorate also benefited from the budget's health and infrastructure investments, with $300,000 for the Cotter Road and Tuggeranong Parkway intersection and $5 million in funding for a dedicated emergency paediatric department at the Canberra Hospital. This is a fiscally responsible budget but it is also a budget that contains nation-building reforms and it is a budget that the people of Canberra can be assured will benefit them into the future. It is a budget that puts jobs first, growth first, education first, fairness first and productivity first. The budget provides a very clear choice for Canberrans. I commend the bills to the House. 19:45 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 and the other appropriation bills. I want to confirm that this budget—another budget in deficit and in crisis—is really another Labor budget of more debt, more chaos and more spin. Nothing has been more pertinent in that regard than witnessing the Labor Party's backbench on the delivery of the budget. I have seen budgets over the five years since I was first elected to this parliament, and I have watched budgets over many more years. The complete and utter lack of enthusiasm for the budget from the individual Labor members is quite telling about what you find with this budget, and that is: it does not have a sense of life. When the former Treasurer Peter Costello delivered a budget, you got a sense of what he was on about. You got a strong message. You got a set of policies. You got a coherent narrative. And you got enthusiasm that flowed from the delivery of that budget. Since Treasurer Swan has been in place, we really have no coherent narrative. We do not have a set of policies that people can believe in and we have a very confused mix of settings. That confusion and chaos are adding to uncertainty in the economy. I want to speak about some of the sectors that are experiencing that confusion and chaos and the consequences that it is having. It is evident that the Labor Party had to dragoon a whole series of backbenchers into speaking on the budget. That is quite telling about how the lack of belief in what the Treasurer is doing has really come to a head. Perhaps the best feature of this budget that I have found is the fact that the government is saving $4.5 million by not proceeding with plans to filter the internet of objectionable material. As a long-term opponent of the government's mandatory internet-filtering proposal, I was very happy to see that the government was forced into a humiliating backdown on this proposal. That saving is entirely appropriate, considering that that overblown government policy would not have delivered any benefit to the Australian society and would have burdened us with overregulation in the internet space, one of the least regulated spaces that we have left. That is probably the best thing that I will mention about this budget. It does not really get much better from there. The Leader of the Opposition, in his budget in-reply speech, stated very clearly that, if the coalition is fortunate enough to be elected in September, he will ensure that there are days of deregulation in our parliament and days where legislation will simply be repealed, consolidated or redressed. The reaction of the Labor Party and the Labor Party's backbench was again very telling. They looked at each other in stunned awe, saying, 'Is such a thing possible?' or 'That's outrageous!' 'What a fool!' 'What an idiot!' 'How could you do that?' But, when I speak to the business sector—the small business sector in particular but also medium and large enterprises—in my electorate and all around Australia, business and industry are crying out for less regulation, for less interference from government, for a removal of the tens of thousands of regulations that are burdening them and stopping them from making investment decisions, from adding additional employees and from doing their job on a day-to-day basis. For the Labor Party to react in such an incredulous way to such a simple proposal highlights everything that is wrong with government today. What we did not see from the government was a program of delegislation or deregulation, of consolidating bad laws, of fixing things, of removing unnecessary law—a deregulation program that could kick-start our economy. Nowhere is this felt more than in the small business sector. It is telling to note that, according to questions on notice returned recently, the number of small enterprises structured as companies has dropped by 23,100 since 2006-07, the number of small enterprises that paid company tax has dropped by 19,400 since 2006-07 and the number of small enterprises with a turnover of under $2 million has dropped by 2,400 since 2006-07. Those statistics are important because they represent a diminishment of the small and medium enterprise sector because of the increase in red tape we have seen under the Labor Party, the increase in regulation and the increase in taxes and charges. Indeed, over the last four years we have seen 29 new and increased taxes, 21,000 new regulations and record government borrowing and deficits, which I will turn to in a moment. These new regulations and taxes hit hardest on the small business sector, on those businesses which have to generate the wealth and work so hard to risk their own capital and enterprise, to employ a few people and to add capacity to their business. This is where regulation and government intervention hurt the most. The big corporations have armies of lawyers and accountants and the ability to deal with change from government. Uncertainty and constant regulation by government hit the small and medium business sector hardest. Those statistics I have just read out for the benefit of the House are indeed very telling and troubling, given that we have around two million small businesses and that there has been such a reduction, and that they do most of the employing in Australia today. A government that ignores the small business sector, that does not have a program to provide relief and lift the burden on hardworking family businesses and small and medium businesses in our nation, does not have a plan for the revival of our economy. So when we see a budget delivered that simply takes us further into debt and deficit and that does attempt to correct some of the errors of the past by cutting some expenditure but fails to do so adequately, that does not assist the small and medium business sector by deregulating or doing anything to relieve the burden they are facing—and that burden has become intolerable. In particular, I think all Australians will be most concerned about the issue of gross debt breaching the $300 billion ceiling for the first time. We have seen this Labor government increase the debt ceiling on two occasions now. When asked about this issue the Treasurer, instead of providing honesty and transparency for Australians in the House at question time, has failed to answer whether he will lift the debt cap above $300 billion, given that in all of the projections it is extremely likely that in the next few years that Australia will need to borrow more than $300 billion of gross debt. The dishonesty is amazing when you consider that it is there for everybody to see. We have also seen that the fifth record deficit in five years and two more deficits issued in this budget have led to a record net debt of about $192 billion. There is no credible path back to surplus in this budget. Indeed, we have seen the emergence of structural deficit, and structural deficits require structural solutions. Yet no structural solution has been found to the structural deficit crisis in the budget. If you do not address the structural deficit problem then you cannot hope to return to surplus. The claims that the government will bring the budget back to surplus in a reasonable time frame are completely unrealistic without the structural issues being addressed. It is simply not enough to cut some expenditure and say, 'Look, we're cutting expenditure.' You must address the structural settings when you have a structural deficit. The government has failed in that regard. At the same time they are raising more than $25 billion in higher taxes over the next five years and they are breaking their election commitments—although that is a regular, commonplace feature of this Labor government; it is hardly remarkable anymore when they break a promise—such as the scrapped family tax cuts and family payments and the other measures in the private health area. I think when you put all that into the blender you find a country that cannot get a sense of where this government is going. There is no doubt that economic confidence is the other missing feature in our economy at the moment. Not only are business conditions difficult; not only is the global financial crisis continuing to impact upon the operation of our economy and the confidence of businesses to invest; but the ongoing chaos and confusion from the federal government level is producing sovereign risk in relation to doing business in Australia and causing a crisis of confidence. There is no doubt that Australians are waiting for 14 September with bated breath so we can have a renewal of confidence in government in Australia, refresh the settings of confidence in our economy and renew people's willingness to spend, people's willingness to invest and people's willingness to employ. I do not think that should be underestimated when you consider the record of the government—and it does not matter what sector you go to. I cannot let an appropriation bill speech go by without mentioning that defence expenditure as a percentage of GDP is now at levels not seen since 1938. Not since 1938 have we seen defence expenditure so low. On the Labor Party's own website, it says that the first priority of government must be defence, protecting Australia. If that is the first priority of national government, and it is, why has $25 million been cut from the defence budget? The coalition believes that the purpose of a national government, the first priority of a national government, is defence of the nation. Under the Howard government, defence expenditure was cauterised from cuts. It was protected from savage cuts. Yet this government has sent our nation, with our proud Australian military tradition, to defence expenditure levels not seen since 1938. It raises serious sustainability questions for the operation of the Australian Defence Force, its ability to engage in overseas operations in the region and its ability to deploy when necessary to protect Australia's regional and national interests. Again, it does not matter what sector you go to; the low revenue and the problems that we have seen from the budgetary mismanagement over the last five years are having an impact on confidence. Certainly, it is the case that Labor has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. We have seen a lot made of the fact that revenues have fallen. From the overblown projections that we have seen, revenue has fallen. But revenue in 2013-14 from this budget is projected to be $80 billion higher than at the end of the Howard government. That sounds like a lot of money, but it is not as much money as the $120 billion more in expenditure than at the end of the Howard government, which highlights why we are in such deficit. It is not that we do not have more money than we did in 2007—we do have more revenue and more income—but that we have expenditure on a scale that has seen six budget deficits and debt continuing to balloon out. Budgetary mismanagement has consequences for all Australians. It has consequences not just for small businesses and medium-sized enterprises but also for individual families. For households, 29 increased or new taxes and charges mean increased cost-of-living pressures. There is no greater issue in any metropolitan city—I come from an outer-metropolitan electorate myself—than cost-of-living pressures. We have heard today that evidence has been produced that electricity prices will soon be double what they were when this federal Labor government was elected. They will have doubled for households and doubled for businesses. Ms Rishworth interjecting— Mr HAWKE HWO In Sydney, that has had a huge impact. Not only do electricity prices have an impact on households; they have an impact on businesses and on the cost of doing business in Australia. Access to cheap electricity is of course providing a resurgence in the American economy: cheap energy. Cheap energy is critical, which is why you would not introduce the world's biggest carbon tax at a time when electricity prices are already rising. Apart from the revenue implications, the other issue is that these are 'Treasury's figures'. The government have no responsibility for their own budget, according to the Treasurer—and according to the members opposite, including the member for Kingston. They have no responsibility for their own budget. But somebody is getting these figures wrong. And somebody is getting these figures wrong in terms of the carbon price, because I can tell the member for Kingston and other members present that the carbon price will not sit at $12 per tonne when the European carbon price is now collapsing— Ms Rishworth interjecting— Mr HAWKE HWO The member for Kingston does not understand the market, because the price would not be set by Treasury and it would not be set by the government. The market must flow, and the market in Europe says that the price per tonne is very low. The market price is at rock bottom. So having an Australian carbon price of $12, or having an Australian carbon price which could reach up to $30, is not a market mechanism; it is an arbitrary mechanism. It is a failure of government to be imposing the price well above what you can get in all the other markets in the world today. It will not be good for Australia because you can buy emissions at $4 or $5 a tonne in Europe, whereas here we are mandating $12 in the budget. Of course, that is not the government's figure—the member for Kingston did not come up with that—that is some Treasury bureaucrat! Surely, it is the role of government to question the bureaucracy and ask, 'Where did that figure come from and why is it not in line with world expectations on carbon pricing?' It is yet another example of the dishonesty and deceit that is in this budget. If the government bases its budget on projections that are wrong, on forecasts which are unreasonable and on figures which will never come to fruition it is setting our nation up for failure. Australians, and all members of this House, are looking for a new start in a new parliament with a government that has a consistent and firm approach to budgetary matters. The coalition has a real solutions plan to restore hope, reward and opportunity for Australians. 20:01 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston It was great to hear the member for Mitchell leave with the key lines that I am sure he gets sent home with every night to rehearse and practice. It is great that he has been able to get it delivered. I am pleased to speak on the Appropriations Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 and cognate bills, and in particular the budget that was delivered by the Treasurer a couple of weeks ago. This is an important budget. It is a budget that sets this nation up for the future. What you see in this budget is an important focus on jobs and on making sure that we have an investment in the long term that will promote jobs. Our investment in infrastructure— A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 20:02 to 20:16 Ms RISHWORTH HWA As I was saying before the division, this is an incredibly important budget because it sets Australia up for the future. It makes the strong investment in infrastructure that we need and also puts jobs at the heart of the economy. I am very proud to be part of a government which, over nearly six years, has created in excess of 900,000 jobs—a significant and important thing for the economy. In addition, this is making the smart investments. I will talk about how many schools are going to benefit in the investment we are making in education and on a whole range of investments which will ensure we take up the opportunities of the 21st century and of the Asian century. Also, this is about a fairer Australia, in particular with DisabilityCare. As Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers, I know there are many people with disabilities and their families and carers who are now celebrating the 2013-14 budget. Despite some mislaid comments in the media, this budget is about hope, especially the part that deals with DisabilityCare Australia. The budget has made the responsible decision to fully fund DisabilityCare Australia, the national disability insurance scheme, into the long term. This funding security will provide people with a significant and permanent disability, their families and carers, the certainty they deserve. As I have gone around previously in my electorate of Kingston but also in my role as parliamentary secretary, the one thing so many people are calling out for is certainty and long-term security. Indeed, in the Page electorate when I was talking with carers and their families, one of the questions which came up—and it has come up around the country—was: how are we to know that this funding is going to continue? Where is the security? This budget provides the long-term security which people have been waiting for. No longer will the carpet be pulled out from under people's feet when funding is cut or service organisations run out of places and can no longer accept people. This funding is a certainty. I am pleased that we are investing $14.3 billion over seven years to roll out DisabilityCare Australia across the country. It will give families, carers and people with a disability the support they need over a lifetime but also, importantly, the choice and control over the services they receive. We cannot underestimate the impact that this choice and control means to people. Importantly, it will also ensure that in the long term people's goals and aspirations are recognised and the care and support they need to achieve those goals will be met. This is critical. As I travel around, there is a lot of excitement about DisabilityCare Australia now that we have a secured agreement for the full rollout of the scheme with New South Wales, South Australia and the ACT—with agreements also being reached with Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory—with the full scheme in all these states and territories to be rolled out between July 2018 and July 2019. These agreements mean that 90 per cent of Australians will be covered by DisablityCare Australia, in the event that they are born with or acquire a disability. The government will continue to seek agreement with Western Australia for the full national rollout of DisabilityCare Australia. But it is important to recognise that through the modest increase in the Medicare levy—and through our savings measures—we provide that certainty in the long term, in the budget, for DisabilityCare Australia. It is the responsible thing to do. It is the fair thing to do. This does deliver and build on the government's $1 billion investment in the 2012-13 budget for the launch of DisabilityCare Australia, now in six locations across the country and in four of those locations launching from 1 July this year. This will see real action on the ground, with the beginning of the rollout. The 2013-14 federal budget also demonstrates the longstanding and ongoing commitment by the Gillard government to improve the capacity of people with a disability to participate fully in the economic and social life of our nation. It continues a number of critically important payments, concessions, and support and care services. I will touch on a few of these payments and services that will continue to be provided by the federal Labor government because we truly understand how critical it is that people with a disability—as well as their families and carers—are well supported. We will continue to provide income support for those with a disability who are unable to support themselves financially through employment. We will continue to make regular payments and allowances to financially assist eligible carers and people with a disability. We will continue to provide supported employment and improve access to information and advocacy services, so Australians with a disability are able to reach their potential. We will continue to provide critical peer support, respite and information services for carers to help them effectively manage their carer responsibilities. And we will continue to provide access to early-intervention services through the popular Helping Children with Autism and the Better Start for Children with Disability initiatives. I said earlier and I will say again, I am truly proud to be part of a government that recognises the importance of supporting Australians with a disability, their families and carers. The 2013-14 federal budget reflects the Labor government's strong belief that a historic reform like DisabilityCare Australia needs a solid funding base well into the future, and the security and certainty that this provides. I believe this is fundamentally important. Not only is this an important thing for the nation but also it is a very important thing for my local electorate of Kingston. It is estimated that in my electorate 2,978 local people could be eligible for support under disability care. I know, from talking with many of these people in my local electorate and around the country, that this is something that would be very welcome. I am also proud to be part of a government that is working to improve the quality of environment and reduce pollution. As the Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water, I am pleased to say that in this budget we have seen the introduction of significant new incentives for the destruction of synthetic greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances. In the 2013-14 budget, the government has allocated $12 million over the forward estimates to directly encourage greater destruction of waste SGGs. The government has also provided $42 million over the forward estimates for a number of other measures to increase emission abatements for SGGs. These incentives deliver on the Gillard government's commitment to introduce a destruction program for waste synthetic greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances as part of the clean energy future plan. It is important that when synthetic greenhouse gases reach the end of their life they are destroyed rather than emitted into the atmosphere, where they can cause harm to our environment. Any reduction of emissions achieved through the destruction incentives will contribute to Australia's emissions abatement commitment under the Kyoto protocol. To achieve this, the government will increase the amount paid to refrigeration contractors by 50 per cent for waste gas reclaimed and provided to Refrigerant Reclaim Australia for destruction. We will also be introducing a further destruction incentive which will increase the amount paid for the destruction of synthetic greenhouse gases to 70 per cent of the equivalent carbon price where the gas species and quantity can be independently verified. By increasing incentives for the industry, we will encourage additional recovery of synthetic greenhouse gases where the gas is subject to the equivalent carbon price but not suitable for recycling or reuse. In a further step in reducing emissions from synthetic greenhouse gases, the government will examine the potential for the introduction of a complementary product stewardship scheme for domestic refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment with small gas charges, usually less than two kilograms, to reclaim waste gas, metals, plastic and hazardous materials for reuse or appropriate disposal. As part of this program, additional funding has also been provided through the budget to the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities to increase compliance with and enforcement of domestic licensing requirements to prevent illegal emissions of gas. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 20:27 to 20:36 Ms RISHWORTH HWA As I was saying, as Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water and as a South Australian, I am proud that the Gillard government has locked in its commitment to the historic Murray-Darling Basin reform through this budget. I have spoken many times in this place on the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin reform process and the critical role that the basin plays in the lives of many Australians. Late last year, this Labor government ended a century-long argument about how best to manage our rivers and deliver a Murray-Darling Basin Plan that restores our rivers to health, supports strong regional communities and ensures sustainable food production. But we are determined to achieve greater environmental outcomes than could be achieved just through this plan. That is why we are providing $1.8 billion over 10 years from 2014-15 to relax key flow constraints and recover an additional 450 gigalitres of water for the environment. This budget maximises the environmental outcomes under the Basin Plan, and the plan will be achieved while avoiding adverse social and economic impacts on basin communities. As a South Australian, I am proud to support our government providing an enhanced Basin Plan with better environmental and social outcomes. This year, the Gillard government has made smart investments for Australia's future like improving the Murray-Darling. In the few minutes I have left, I would like to touch on my electorate of Kingston. For Kingston, this is a very important budget, especially in the area of education. In this budget, we have ensured that there is better resourcing for our schools, our classrooms and our teachers. The National Plan for School Improvement is critical to ensuring that every student—and the Prime Minister has said this many times before—gets a great education. On average, the plan will deliver an extra $14.5 billion for Australian schools over the next six years, which is an average of an additional $4,000 for every student and $1.5 million for every school. It is incredibly important for my electorate of Kingston, where schools have often told me they need better resources to use for specialist teachers, more SSOs, more support in the classroom and more professional development. So it is very important that this money is part of the budget. As I said at the beginning, infrastructure is very important in this budget and I am very pleased that there have been a number of infrastructure investments. I would like to highlight the black spot funding. The black spot funding will include improvements to the intersections of Dyson Road and O'Sullivan Beach Road; Dyson Road and Sherriffs Road; Bains Road and Piggott Range Road; South Road and Flaxmill Road; Old South Road and Reynell Road; and Grant Road at Old Reynella. Fixing these black spots it is really important. It is important infrastructure investment so that we can ensure safety on the roads in my electorate of Kingston. There have been other investments, but I will not be able to talk about all of them. I commend the appropriations and the budget to the House. (Time expired) 20:39 Mrs GRIGGS 220370 Solomon More debt, more chaos, more spin is the way to describe the Gillard Labor government's budget, a budget that delivers more debt, more deficits, more taxes, more broken promises and more uncertainty from an incompetent government that just cannot be trusted. After six years of chaos, debt and spin, Australians are desperately seeking stable and competent economic management, but the Labor budget has once again failed to deliver. I would like to use the appropriations bill to talk a little bit about some budget items but will start with the Palmerston hospital. As I said in this place many times, I have always been committed to the Palmerston hospital. Palmerston is where I live. It was the previous Northern Territory Labor government that failed Territorians. They were the ones that put a fence around a block of land with no building and called it a hospital. There are no plans to relocate or downgrade services being offered at RDH at this time. I would like to share a transcript from the Northern Territory Minister for Health, Robyn Lambley, who said on Territory Talk: We've always been committed to a Palmerston hospital. We've never suggested in any way shape or form that there wouldn't be a Palmerston hospital but I guess coming into government we've realised that what Labor was putting forward was would be inadequate over the coming decades. That was fairly short sighted so we've committed to spending $5 million or less hopefully on the scoping study just to make sure we get it right. We think that it's absolutely essential that we do get it right not just that the people of Palmerston and the rural area but the whole of the greater Darwin area. She also said: We've committed to a two-hospital system in the greater Darwin area. There will always be a Royal Darwin Hospital and there will always be a hospital placed within that Palmerston area to service the future growth of the greater Darwin area but yes, the scoping study will be available for public scrutiny and inspection. We think that really the plans that Labor put forward really don't take into account the demographic forecast for the area satisfactorily. Does that sound like a government that is not committed to the Palmerston hospital? I do not think so. But as we know, Labor never fully explored the range of options available to ensure that the health needs of Darwin, Palmerston and the rural area were properly serviced into the future. That is why it is really important that the Giles government undertakes this scoping study, which the health minister said they are going to do. There is a lot of scaremongering that is going on in Palmerston from the Labor candidate saying that we are not committed to the Palmerston hospital. Well I put on the record that the Territory government is committed to the hospital. I am a member of the coalition and I have always been committed to the hospital. What we have got to remember is that the $70 million that was promised by the Gillard Labor government for a hospital is actually not enough money. You cannot build a hospital for $70 million and that is why the scoping study is absolutely important. As I said, I have always been committed to the Palmerston hospital because I live in Palmerston. I was at the very first community meeting when the idea of the hospital was first conceived. So I want to assure people of Darwin and Palmerston that the hospital is not at risk despite the scaremongering that the Labor candidate is putting out into people's letterboxes. Please, do not be deceived by Labor's scaremongering. The Palmerston hospital is not at risk. I would like to move now to something that is at risk. My colleagues and the chief minister asked me to raise the road funding that the Northern Territory received from this Gillard Labor government's budget because the 2013 federal budget, particularly the Nation Building Program 2, was terrible for the Northern Territory in a number of ways. Firstly, the overall allocation was down by almost 50 per cent. This was evidenced by the NBP 2 being cut by almost 50 per cent from the Nation Building Program 1. Nation Building Program 1 totalled $474 million for the period 2008-09 to 2012-13. The NBP 2 totalled $244 million, which equates to a cut of $230 million. This, as anyone would expect, is a massive blow to the Northern Territory's road infrastructure budget for civil construction and for the transport industry. This could also potentially lead to job losses because the Northern Territory simply cannot afford to carry the burden. The Australian government should carry its share of commitments. The second point I would like to make is that the NBP2 spend is pushed out into the later years of the program. The government are making out that they are spending all this money now, but $183.6 million, which is about 75 per cent of the spend, is not available until the 2016-17 financial year. This makes some of the key projects difficult, and one of them is in my electorate—the duplication of the Tiger Brennan Drive from Woolner to Berrimah Road. The regional roads productivity program is potentially impacted. But, despite that, the minister for infrastructure flew into Darwin with the Labor candidates—and it was like: 'We're spending all this money', as if it was going to happen tomorrow. But Territorians are smarter than that. They know that this government is leading them up the garden path and that this money is not going to be available until 2016-17. Unfortunately, the Giles government have to stump up their part of this expenditure now. They are suffering because the former Territory Labor government left them with $5.5 billion worth of debt. So, financially, it is quite difficult for the Territory government to stump up the money straightaway. I am surprised that Minister Snowdon was not able to get Minister Albanese to fund some of these projects, because some of the projects that I want to talk about are in his electorate of Lingiari. There is no new capital expenditure for the Australian government road network, and this is despite the Northern Territory government submitting an infrastructure program worth around $522 million. These projects are largely in Minister Snowdon's electorate. There is $40 million for flood immunity for the Saddle, Mathieson and Sandy creeks on the Victoria Highway; $70 million for safety and fatigue management, including truck parking bays; intersections and safety treatment to the Katherine River bridge; upgrading of the Stuart Highway from Dixon to the MVR in Alice Springs, which is actually in Minister Snowdon's electorate; $125 million for strengthening and widening the National Highway for the Stuart, Barkly and Victoria highways; and $180 million for ongoing repairs and maintenance for the national network. So what did the Northern Territory get? Zip. Nothing. There was no money whatsoever for a capital expenditure upgrade. I am disappointed. I would have thought that Minister Snowdon would have been able to do something, but obviously he did not. But I can assure you that our candidate, Tina MacFarlane, will fight for Territorians. She knows what these roads are like. She is up and down and driving around on them. She is a pastoralist from Mataranka. She knows that these roads need work, and she will stand there and fight for Territorians. As I said, the NT did get some funding, but it will not be available until 2016-17. Also, as I said, we have had Minister Albanese and all the other ministers visit my electorate. You would be surprised, member for Durack, that they do not let us know that they are coming, yet they spruik all this money that they are going to spend. We have some other projects which the Northern Territory missed out on. They include: $40 million for the sealing of the Tanami Road; $80 million for local roads; $20 million for Gapuwiyak; $25 million for Ramingining; $10 million to seal the road from Ali Curung to the Stuart Highway; $25 million to seal the Kintore Road from Papunya to the Derwent river crossing; $20 million for upgrading the Galiwinku Highway from a Galiwinku to Gawa; $40 million to extend the seal on the Outback Way towards Harts Range and some other roads; and $10 million to commence sealing the Buntine Highway to Lajamanu. These are decent projects, and they are all in Minister Snowdon's electorate. I am not sure what has happened. It is also important to point out that there is no money to repair and maintain the Australian government highway network. The NT government asked for $128 million and received with $52.8 million. As I said, our candidate, Tina MacFarland, would put up a fight. I think Minister Snowdon has just let it go down. I know Senator Crossin would have been in there fighting. She is a good representative of the Territory, but unfortunately Labor are not listening to her and will let her go, which is very is disappointing. The Chief Minister also wanted me to point out that the $128 million is desperately needed to repair and maintain our road pavements due to growth, to adverse weather and to ageing. The concern is that less funding will lead to rapid deterioration in some sections of the national network and dollars will have to be diverted to high-priority areas to ensure accessibility and stability. That is the Northern Territory government's prerogative but it is disappointing that the Northern Territory government sought $128 million after good, well-costed funding, but basically they have been ignored. This is not the first time this issue has been raised. I know my colleague Senator Scullion had similar concerns last budget, and now we are doing this again. This reduction in funding comes despite sections of the Stuart Highway from Darwin to Katherine being labelled 'high risk' and some of the worst road conditions in Australia by the AANT. It is alarming that the need for upgrading is being ignored. As I said, they are all in Minister Snowdon's electorate. Maybe they are going to use some of the money already put away, member for Durack, the $430-odd million that was stashed away in the budget on announcements that have not been made. Mr Haase 84T Secret announcements. Mrs GRIGGS 220370 Yes, secret announcements. It is concerning that the most recent AusRAP risk mapping report indicates that the Darwin to Pine Creek section of the Sturt Highway is the highest risk section of the national highway on which to travel in Australia. That is nothing for the Gillard Labor government to be proud of. In addition, the AusRAP star ratings report also shows that over 50 per cent of the Northern Territory section of the Stuart Highway rates at only one and two stars. The Darwin to Pine Creek section of the Stuart Highway is a significant part of the substandard section. Urgent investment is needed to improve the Darwin to Pine Creek section of the Stuart Highway. This was submitted with submissions from the Northern Territory government, but the Gillard Labor government and Minister Snowdon have obviously ignored this information. As I said, I know that our candidate, Tina MacFarland, would fight for funding to ensure that roads in Lingiari are well serviced. Having substandard roads is not good, so I am appalled that the Gillard Labor government has chosen to ignore Territorians. They need to focus more attention on our roads. As I said, this is not the first time that expenditure for Northern Territory roads has been raised in this place. My colleague senator Scullion has raised many times in the other place, during his tenure as a senator, expenditure on road funding and how important it is to ensure that the national highway framework is maintained for safety. The Stuart Highway is the only way into the Northern Territory by road. If that highway is not maintained, it will be detrimental for Territorians. 20:54 Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B Throsby This has been a difficult budget to frame with uncertainty in the world economy, where Eurozone countries have significant debt and double digit unemployment in some countries, with unemployment in some countries well above 15 per cent, with youth unemployment close to a quarter of some youth populations and the unemployment and uncertain outlook in the United States. When we look to some of our major trading partners where we have traditionally looked for growth opportunities, certainly there is significant uncertainty there as well. So there is a difficult global environment and a difficult domestic environment in which to frame a budget, with a drop-off in projected revenues of over $16 billion over the budget period. Within this very difficult environment to frame a budget and to ensure that we keep the Australian economy moving forward, I think the Treasurer has to be commended for the job that he has done. Australia stands alone in the developed world, with record low unemployment with a five in front of it, interest rates at a historic low and low inflation. The economy still continues to grow, but we know that the growth is both fragile and uneven. There are many areas throughout the nation that are not enjoying the benefits of the boom in the resources sector, particularly in areas that have a higher than average exposure to trade and to the impacts of the record high Australian dollar. Within this context, the priority of this budget has been jobs, ensuring that Australians are kept in jobs and that businesses are keeping the doors open. If we had to make a choice between bringing the budget into surplus and ensuring that we had people in work and businesses open, we chose the latter, and we did that unashamedly. They are our priorities. They are Labor priorities. Our national outlook is positive and bright, but it does not mean that we can lose our focus on measures to ensure that economic participation is maximised and that those who need it are supported by a strong safety net of government services and social support. We are well situated to build on our record of resilience over the past five years. Over 950,000 jobs have been created under Labor. There are more people in work today than at any other time in our nation's history. We have a triple-A credit rating by all three major global agencies. We are one of only eight countries to achieve that with a stable outlook. Our economy is more than 13 per cent bigger than it was when we came into government. As I said, we have contained inflation. We have record low interest rates and strong public finances. With the 2013-14 budget, the government made a choice to keep our economy strong and to invest in the future. It is a budget that responds to the current economic circumstances and continues to support jobs and growth. For members like me, for Labor members, supporting the growth of employment is one of the principal reasons for being in this place and for advocating the policies of the government in my electorate. Jobs give our lives dignity and a way forward. A job gives us the ability to imagine a future with a family and a home of our own. Budgets are about choices. They involve choices about priorities and about what to spend and where to save, but they are much more than an aggregate of those decisions. At the core of this budget is a choice about our future. It brings together Labor values with the circumstances that we find ourselves in. So, while the economic circumstances before us are unlike any that any government before has faced, our approach to the budget remains embedded in those core principles. No government, as the Treasurer says, gets to choose the global economic circumstances in which the budget is framed, but we do get to choose our priorities as a nation. We have prioritised two Labor initiatives in this budget: firstly, the Gonski school education reforms, which are about ensuring that every child at every school has a quality education and every school has the resources to deliver that education; and, secondly, ensuring that the National Disability Insurance Scheme disability care is funded so that the lottery of life and how you acquire a disability do not determine whether you have the appropriate medical and other care to meet your needs throughout the course of your life. Those two priorities are very well supported in the community, prioritised in this budget and funded and accounted for in this budget. They are something that people will look upon in decades to come and say, 'Thank God that a government'—this Labor government—'had the courage and the foresight to instigate those reforms.' The challenge for government is to manage the process of economic transformation. These transitions are never seamless. Our economy does not exist in a vacuum. They are taking place against a backdrop of a global economy undergoing profound change. Nominal GDP growth has fallen below real GDP growth in through-the-year terms over the past three quarters. This is unprecedented in the 50-year history of our national accounts. It is largely due to the combination of the sustained high dollar in the face of lower terms of trade. This scenario makes it tougher for exporters, who receive less for what they sell and, in an attempt to keep their profits up, push back on suppliers, often paying less than they would in better times. Everyone is seeking to cut their costs. This has an impact on margins and on jobs. It is also hard on those domestic firms that compete with imports that have become cheaper, in some instances over 40 per cent cheaper, over the last two years. Nationally the task of Labor in government is to build a strong yet fair economy. Good economic management just does not grow the economy; it ensures the growth is enjoyed by the maximum number of people. In my electorate, in the Illawarra in the Southern Highlands, just like in other areas of Australia like Geelong and Broadmeadows, our economy is dealing with the impact of the high Australian dollar on manufacturing. In the Illawarra we feel the brunt of these economic circumstances. While our local economy is undergoing its own transformation from traditional manufacturing to a growth in service sector employment, manufacturing still strongly underpins our economy. One in 10 jobs remain within this sector. It is good news that the Australian government is strongly backing the Illawarra and highlands economy through this economic transformation. First and foremost, the Labor government is investigating $1 billion to support and grow jobs. This billion-dollar investment will significantly boost Australian manufacturing, including in the greater Illawarra and beyond. Our plan for Australian jobs has three core strategies: backing Australian firms to win more work at home, supporting Australian industry to increase exports and win business abroad, and helping Australian small and medium sized businesses to create and grow new jobs. In addition, the $30 million Illawarra Region Innovation and Investment Fund is helping to attract new industries to the region. This fund has leveraged $62 million in project investment, and there are some truly great success stories coming out of this investment. There is new investment in communication manufacturing equipment that is being used on the rollout of the National Broadband Network, and new investment in computer system and design. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Proceedings suspended from 21:02 to 21:17 Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B As I was saying, the Illawarra Region Innovation and Investment Fund has led to significant new investment and investment in the pipeline, including new food manufacturing, innovative printing facilities and a new mental health facility, just to name a few. These are important investments to help an economy transition. Of course, it is added to by the fact that the National Broadband Network is being rolled out quicker and in greater density in the Illawarra and Southern Highlands region than in any other area in the country. This will be the game changer for the Illawarra. The Illawarra and Southern Highlands is laying the foundations we need to build a stronger economy now and for the future. And it will be based on six key assets. First is our skilled and talented local workforce, with expertise gained from over 100 years of experience in engineering manufacturing and mining. Second is the rollout of the National Broadband Network, as I have mentioned, which will connect our region to the markets of the world and enhance the development of new industries, and transform the way we live, work and play. Third is the University of Wollongong, which serves the region and the country by producing world-class professionals in medicine, law, education, engineering and information technology. In fact, one quarter of all information and communication technology graduates in Australia come from the University of Wollongong. The government has put over $100 million investment into capital works at the university and there is more investment in the pipeline. Fourth, there is the Port Kembla harbour, which gives the potential to develop a freight transport and logistics hub for the region. The Australian government's $25.5 million investment in preconstruction work and engineering work on the Maldon-Dumbarton rail link is helping to make this potential a future reality. The Maldon-Dumbarton rail link would connect Port Kembla to the major mines and freight corridors of the Central-West and Western Sydney. It can also take pressure off the Sydney-Wollongong passenger line by removing some of the freight off that line. Fifth, we are blessed with a wonderful natural environment: our stunning beaches, rolling green hills and magnificent escarpments all provide an impressive backdrop to our daily lives in the Illawarra region. Not only that, but our cultural diversity and strong arts and sporting culture is a part of the foundation for future opportunities in tourism, sports and other economic development. Finally our services sector: the health and aged-care services are rapidly expanding. Indeed, the largest employer in the region is now community services and health. The Illawarra is an attractive and affordable destination for retirees and our potential to develop a seniors economy is significant. I have spoken before in this place about the need to ensure that our local manufacturers and local workers get a fair share of the enormous opportunities that are being generated by Australia's mining and resources boom. I welcome the fact that earlier today we had the opportunity to debate our plan for Australian jobs—and that passed through the House of Representatives. This is an important piece of legislation which will connect the manufacturers, the fabricators, the industries and workshops within my electorate and right around the country to the benefits of the mining boom, providing work and opportunities now and into the future. I would like to say something about the debate that is raging at the moment about the use of 457 visas. There has been some speculation about widespread rorts within the scheme. We do not need to do a forensic analysis of this to know that there is something wrong when I have got workers in my electorate who say they have applied for jobs in businesses and have been turned back only to know that overseas workers have been brought in on 457 visas to fill the jobs that they are ready, willing and able to do. I think it is wrong and I do this on the basis of an understanding that well over one quarter of the workforce of my electorate has come to the Illawarra and surrounding regions from another country. At another time they came to work in the steelworks, the mines and the services industry within the Illawarra so there is no objection to workers coming from overseas to work here. In fact, my electorate was founded on that. But you have something that is very wrong when you have workers who are ready, willing and able to stand up and take a job and they are being overlooked by employers, those very same employers who are coming to government and saying, 'We want the right to access to 457 visa workers to do these jobs.' Close to five or six years ago, the Leader of the Opposition referred to workers as job snobs if they would refuse employment with one business because they thought it was not good enough for them. Well, we run the risk of some employers being the new job snobs by the fact that they are overlooking local workers to hire workers from overseas—and that is simply not good enough. I have been pressing the immigration minister to introduce new measures to ensure a local work test is put in place for these workers. I am particularly concerned about workers who have been thrown out of lifelong employment and they are now in their 50s, seeking work and are willing to travel for work and they feel that they are being discriminated against in their search for work in this regard. I am hopeful that the minister of immigration will respond to this and ensure that a new test is put into place to ensure employers must test the local labour market and must offer available positions to local appropriately skilled workers before they turn to the government and ask the government to approve 457 visas in this regard. It is a good budget and it deserves our support in difficult times. (Time expired) 1:24 Mr O'DOWD 139441 Flynn I am pleased to talk about Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014. Australia is now at a significant crossroads. Without sounding too pessimistic, I think we must seriously be at a point where we sink or swim. I have previously described the looming federal election as one of the most definitive of our time. I say this in light of the delivery of the Treasurer's sixth deficit budget, one which was promised to be in surplus—and we had heard that more than 600 times. I highlight the importance of this year's election not to be alarmist but to highlight that Australia has choice to make. The first choice is a Labor government that is obsessed with retaining power at any cost. It has no clear direction or plan to fix its mistakes. It has decimated the northern cattle industry. It is driving industry and jobs offshore. It has been hijacked by the extreme Left and is leading this nation down the path of economic ruin. The other choice is a coalition government, which I would be proud to be a part of, that stands ready to let business and industry do what they do best and to get out of their way. It will provide a stable environment for investments to create jobs. It will ease the cost of living by getting rid of the confidence-crushing taxes such as the carbon tax. It will end the border protection failures, get better communications to our regions sooner and make Australia strong again. The Treasurer's presentation of the budget during the last sitting period said it all. His delivery was flat, dejected and unenthusiastic. To me this suggests one thing: the government is out of ideas. The signs are there, and the Gillard government has been repeatedly warned by the people, the businesses and industry. Those signs are evident. Budget deficits are normal since Labor came to power in 2007. In 2008-09 we had a $27 billion deficit; in 2009-10, a $54.5 billion deficit; in 2010-11, a $47.5 billion deficit; in 2011-12, a $43.4 billion deficit; and in 2012-13, a $19.4 billion deficit, which was supposed to be a surplus. And we have projections for 2013-14 of an $18.8 billion deficit and for 2014-15 of an $11 billion deficit. Our gross debt is to sail past $300 billion in the forward estimates. The Treasurer has lost control of his spending and forecasts and now wants to pass the blame on to the Treasury. Both large and small businesses continue swimming in red and green tape. There are plenty of local examples of small businesses in Flynn that are struggling to survive. There is a two-speed economy in Central Queensland towns. Smaller employers who are not directly involved in the mining or gas industries are losing their workers to the higher paid mining and gas jobs. Chinese growth continues to plateau, affecting our commodity prices, and we do not know what is around the corner there. However, we hope that commodity prices will bounce back and I hope that we are a part of supplying China and other parts of Asia with these commodities. There has been $100 billion worth of resource projects shelved or scrapped. I refer to the project in your electorate, Deputy Speaker Scott, for Wandoan coal which was proposed by Xstrata. That involved not only the mine at Wandoan but several other coal projects which would have use the railway link line to Banana and then on to the Wiggins Island project at Gladstone. These plans have all been shelved. We face fierce competition from countries in Africa, from Indonesia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, which is a rising commodity supplier, and also from Canada and countries in South America. The high Australian dollar has also affected most of our exports; however, in the last few days we have seen it starting to fall as the United States dollar picks up. The car industry, as we all know, is on the brink. The steel industry cannot compete with overseas prices; labour costs are too high for the productivity of the workforce. Trade tariffs are now working against us. For example, beef into Japan and Korea and dairy products into China have all been affected by the trade tariffs that are placed upon our products being exported into those Asian countries. This fact needs to be addressed ASAP. Our cement industry is fighting hard against imports. In fact, they cannot produce at the same price at which cement can be brought into Australia. The pig industry struggles to survive without subsidies while the countries from which we import our pig products subsidise their own products. So our pig farmers are behind the eight ball at the very start. The fishing industry is another industry of concern, since 70 per cent of the fish we eat is from overseas. This is a disgrace considering we are an island nation with water all around us. Coal, coal seam gas and iron ore companies are struggling to keep existing mines and plants open. The setting up of new greenfield sites in any of the industries I have just named is getting harder and less attractive by the day—and, of course, that is why $100 billion of projects have been scrapped or shelved. Deutsche Bank's analysts of BHP and Rio Tinto coal operations in Australia have highlighted that operating costs have gone up some 320 per cent since 2005. The mining tax and the dreaded carbon tax have stifled existing businesses and households in Australia and sent our cost of living through the roof. By world standards we are a high cost country to live in. The tourism industry is impacted by the inflated cost of living. Industrial relations legislation must become fairer and more flexible to help kick-start the economy. Those are some of the problems which, as I see it, we face as Australians. These are suggested solutions. No longer can this country afford a government which lacks direction and commitment to ensuring that we are well placed to deal with the challenges we face in a globalised economy. Everything is global these days. We are in the global export market. We must be competitive with other countries, but this is where we are falling behind. We need to refocus our attention on regional Australia and the valuable contribution which regional Australia makes and will continue to make in the future. We need a speedy resolution to trade agreements with South Korea and others in the Asia-Pacific basin to ensure that the cattle industry has every chance to become competitive in the global market. Our primary producers need their federal representatives to get off their backs and stop pandering to the extreme left. We need to unleash the potential of small, medium and big business by repealing thousands of regulations which have been imposed on them since 2007. This will give them the confidence to reinvest, encourage their children to carry on with the businesses and give them the confidence to employ. The current NBN, especially in rural areas throughout Flynn, is a rank failure by anyone's standard. At the current rate of the rollout, it will be 100 years before the job is done. If you look on the NBN website, you will see that Gladstone, which is a major industrial town in Queensland, and Emerald to the west are barely on the radar. How will they get NBN services? It is quite strange to think that an NBN fibre-optic cable goes past the doors of Emerald, Monto and Mundubbera. The NBN fibre-optic cable has been put in by a private company called Leighton yet sits there in the trenches unused. It is a strange one indeed, and I cannot get to the bottom of the intended future of this fibre-optic cable. By contrast, the coalition NBN will cost far less, provide a benchmark of 25 megabits per second and hit the regions first, which is good for my area. And all this will be done across Australia by 2016. The coalition can get rid of the carbon tax, which will ease the cost of living for families, take pressure off businesses and industry, and generate more confidence in the economy. We will also act responsibly and decisively to pay down the government debt. The $300 billion gross debt is costing us $20 million a day every day with interest. Seven days worth of interest would have paid for the Calliope Crossroads. For less than 20 days worth, the Yeppen flood plain upgrade would have been fully funded. One day's worth of interest could have paid for the high school at Calliope. We have to rein in debt to ensure that the essential overdue schemes like the NDIS are fully funded and achieve exactly what they need to achieve to fulfil our social obligations to people living with disability and their carers. This is just the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to a coalition government, we will further the cause of the Australian people, not just in the cities but in the regions, which are the backbone of the country. I hear it every day back home in Flynn: even those who do not support me believe that we need change and that something has to give. In Central Queensland, people simply want government to govern responsibly, to protect them and, for the most part, to stay out of their lives. Flynn is a diverse electorate, rich with a buffet of industries and environmental assets that are the envy of the rest of the country. The region has so much potential, but it has been overlooked and neglected time and time again. So many budget deficits in a row stand testament to a government that is not capable of handling the change that is taking place in Flynn right now. Most of all, we have a government, a Prime Minister and a Treasurer who will not listen to the people of Australia. They plough on regardless, unaware that our economy is not good and needs urgent, radical change. I will take the last minute or so to talk about the V457s, as were mentioned by the member for Throsby. It is a difficult situation, and I have this problem in my area, but I can tell the House that without V457s our meatworks in Rockhampton and Biloela would not be able to survive, nor would some of our citrus farms along the Burnett or in the Emerald region. We also make sure that those companies who bring in 457s make sure that Australians are always offered the jobs first. That is what we all stand by: jobs for Australians first. But, if we cannot get those people to come out of the cities, cities like Bundaberg, then we must import labour; otherwise, the fruit will go rotten on the ground, the cattle will not be processed, and the whole economy could grind to a halt. Sitting suspended from 21:39 to 21:44 21:44 Dr JENSEN DYN Tangney The Labor government is making it more difficult for Australian labour to work. Just because the government is not working, either together or at all, should not mean that more ordinary Australians find themselves out of work. The budget, as handed down by Treasurer Swan, is a fairy tale. It makes assumptions so sanguine as to be wilfully and recklessly optimistic. On every measure of revenue forecasting presented before the House, time and again the Treasurer has been not just wrong but hopelessly wrong. Our country needs to get back to the sensible position of a Costello discount. Let's take the Treasury forecast and reduce the expected revenue by a certain amount and increase the outlays by a certain percentage, therefore building a more realistic margin for safety. Treasury may be wrong once—but six years in a row? And for Labor to countenance that exuberance is shameful. Where good governments like those of Howard and Hawke found a way, the Gillard government finds an excuse. It is indicative of the government more generally that today one reads of how 25,000 refugees will be taken in—an overshoot five times that of the initial estimate. Why budget for the most optimistic in the pricing of carbon, as is the case when pricing carbon at $25 a tonne, and compensate people for that amount? This is when the price for that same carbon in Europe—the only market where carbon is freely traded—is less than a quarter of the price that is banked on by the government. Moreover, it is doubly important to observe the carbon price in this market, because it is this market to which our futures are tied. Today the carbon price in Europe is, as I said, approximately one quarter that of what the government has estimated and has budgeted for—approximately 75 per cent out. That is a long way out! Revenue inflows to the Labor government in the year to May 2013 have actually increased by 7.6 per cent—twice the rate of CPI, twice the rate that most people would fairly award themselves. Yet in spite of this generous increase Labor cannot balance the books. The notorious MRRT has to date raised $126 million gross—some 90 per cent below projected figures. That tax is somehow, and quite miraculously, going to realise an 800 per cent increase in inflow in two years time. Perhaps this is overly optimistic, or perhaps the Treasurer knows something the rest of us do not, because for the majority of voters in my electorate the opinion is that these actions remind them of the actions of a troubled gambler—hoping that their luck will turn, and betting all on black. One of the most significant problems I have with this budget is that it does not make any attempt to rectify the overwhelming time bomb that is rapidly increasing structural deficit. Think of a jug with a hole. Our economy has holes and we are leaking value. It is time—not to create new and bigger holes, but to start to repair those holes. That is what is needed. And the coalition is the only party with the vision and the intestinal fortitude to commission such a systemic structural performance evaluation and, critically, see those findings implemented. When I speak of structural deficits I mean layers of spending and policy commitments that cannot be rolled back. And if they can be rolled back then they cannot be undone quickly. It is starting with negative numbers before the country even opens for business. I am deeply concerned because I see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to seize on unprecedented and unrepeatable economic advantages to lock in prosperity for our unborn generations. Instead of locking in prosperity on a sensible and sustained basis, this Labor government is spending everything, selling everything and borrowing to do it. The mantra of the rich, as is decoded from books such as Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad, is to buy assets, not liabilities. Yet this Labor government is bent only on buying liabilities and is selling our national strategic assets to do such. That is the case in regard to ports and geographic strategic defence installations. But so too it extends to food production and the sustainability of access to fresh produce. Unfunded commitments are myopic and immoral. They are in essence Labor, pure Labor. That is what will pay for Gillard's gold: your labour. Our people need and deserve a government that is willing and capable of implementing policy that has been benchmarked against the best in the world. Aspiration and ambition need to return to the heart of government following on such salutary examples as the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund highlight pathways for secure and sustained development in the interests of all citizens. It is time. It is insulting and wrong that a government of the Australian people at this time in history tear up the rich tapestry of our national character, a fair go. Australia is by definition the place to have a go. This attack can be seen ever so clearly in the affairs of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship under Labor. How can one say it is fair or august or necessary that visa application fees increased by nearly 200 per cent in the space of 15 months? The obvious example being the much maligned 457 visa with the cost of applying having risen from $350 to $450 and now to $900 from 1 July—all in the space of 15 months. Labor is unwilling to do the heavy lifting for the good of the country. Labor in power is the very worst of politics—that is, serving personal interest over national interest. It is not in Labor's interest to discuss the need to broaden the taxation base vis-a-vis the GST and conduct a review including all aspects of taxation but it is in the national interest. It is not in Labor's interest to discuss the low unit productivity of employed labour in Australia but it is in the national interest. The difference between the coalition and Labor is that Labor seeks to rule and the coalition offers service. It is the difference between self-interest and the national interest. Labor prefers at all times to opt for good politics over good policy. Good policy and governance are about the right decision at the right time. But so is good governance marked by the ability to recognise better options and change as it is required. This is exactly the case when one thinks about the government's commitment to purchase up to 100 JSFs at a cost of $16 billion in this mega-spending environment where the cost and schedule of the JSF is out of control. All of this at a time when we are living in a budget emergency. Yes, it is an emergency. When the gross debt that Labor intends to reach means that the credit card for every man, woman and child in Australia is loaded up at over $15,000 each or more than $60,000 for a family of four then we have an emergency. This is when Labor started from a position left to them by the previous coalition government of money in the bank. When the Reserve Bank interest rate years after the GFC are down below levels that the Treasurer himself described as emergency levels then we have a budget emergency. When the Treasurer assured us that the deficit was temporary yet all that we have seen under Labor are deficits and if, God forbid, they won the next election all of their budgets in the next term would be budget deficits by their own reckoning then we have a budget emergency. When the bill for the interest on the national debt is over $8 billion per annum then it is an emergency. There is a bill on each Australian of $350 per year on interest alone. Putting it another way, it would be $1,400 per family of four just on interest. Think how much more productive that money would be to your family. To put this in perspective, $8 billion would pay for four Fiona Stanley hospitals. It would fully fund the entire cost of Gonski school improvements, with over $1.5 billion to spare. It would fund the blow-out in border protection for the last three years, with $2 billion to spare. In this budget, the Treasurer spoke a lot about jobs and growth, yet there was no real move to create jobs or maintain growth. The coalition is committed to lower taxes, less red tape and getting government out of your business. The world is a competitive place, and no-one owes us a living. Our place in the future is not secure. Labor wants to see Australia trundle along in the median line of the World Bank competitive index. Most shocking is our relative performance in terms of rates of rate of increase in spending, and the debt is astronomical. In fact, it is one of the highest in the world. The only way to describe this, apart from handicapping ourselves, is to describe it as antibusiness and antigrowth. Dumb policy and practice are hindering the efficacy of our public servants. Efficiency dividends are a good idea in principle, but it is difficult to see how compounding efficiency dividends can be achieved. Indeed, efficiency dividends only make sense if there are indeed improvements in efficiency—in other words, in productivity. Labor simply uses efficiency dividends without the efficiency improvement as a means to try to save some of the money that it has so flagrantly wasted. Having Labor's version of an efficiency dividend will affect the quality or delivery of services. Most importantly, its model is not sustainable or responsible. In conclusion, perhaps it is correct that the swan song budget from Labor is about jobs and growth. Getting rid of the Gillard government is good for growth and jobs: jobs in real business and the real growth of hope, reward and opportunity. Debate adjourned. Federation Chamber adjourned at 21:57 QUESTIONS IN WRITING 4211 QUESTIONS IN WRITING Royal Australian Air Force: Melbourne Grand Prix 2013 (Question No. 1365) 4211 1365 Mr Danby WF6 asked the Minister for Defence, in writing, on 12 March 2013: In respect of the involvement of the Royal Australian Air Force in the Melbourne Grand Prix 2013, (1) what will it entail; (2) what is the estimated total cost; (3) will part of the estimated total cost be covered by outside persons or organisations; if so, what proportion; and (4) what is the estimated cost of the F/A 18 flyover (a) in total, and (b) to the Government. Mr Stephen Smith 5V5 the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Air Force provided the following support to the Formula One Grand Prix 2013: (a) On 14 to 17 March 2013 RAAF Roulettes provided an aerial display for 15 minutes each day; (b) On 16 and 17 March 2013 an F/A-18A/B Hornet provided a ten minute aerial display each day. (c) On 15 and 17 March 2013, an Air Force Pilot signed autographs and conducted education seminars for approximately 30 minute period on both days. (2) The total estimated cost for Air Force support to the Formula One Grand Prix 2013 is $113,895.60. (3) There will be no part of the estimated total cost covered by outside persons or organisations. (4) In total, the estimated cost for the F/A-18A/B flyover in support of the Formula One Grand Prix is. (a) $95,190.60 in total, and (b) $95,190.60 to the Government. Royal Australian Air Force: Melbourne Grand Prix 2013 (Question No. 1366) 4211 1366 Mr Danby WF6 asked the Minister for Defence, in writing, on 12 March 2013: In the last ten years, what total sum has the Government spent on the involvement of the Royal Australian Air Force in the Melbourne Grand Prix. Mr Stephen Smith 5V5 the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: In the last 10 years, the total sum the Government has spent on the involvement of the Royal Australian Air Force in the Melbourne Grand Prix is $3,846,514.07. The Royal Australian Air Force did not participate in this event in 2004, 2009 and 2011. Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government: Leased Premises (Question No. 1487) 4211 1487 Mr Baldwin LL6 asked the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, in writing, on 21 March 2013: What number of premises is leased by his department, and (a) what is the (i) per square metre, and (ii) total rental, cost per financial year for each premises, and (iii) address of each premises, and (b) in instances where the premises joins another agency, what financial contribution is made by that agency. Mr Albanese R36 The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: The number of premises leased by my department is eight (8). Please refer to the table below for details.