Tuesday, 10 May 1983 Mr SPEAKER (Hon. Harry Jenkins) took the chair at 2.15 p.m., and read prayers. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate Ministers: To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That whereas the Government of Australia has signed the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which in Article 23 (1) states that ''The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to the protection by society and the State''. And whereas the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women would violate the above Article 23 (1) We humbly pray the Government to refrain from ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Believing that its implementation would result in: 1. Undue cost to the nation at this time. 2. ''The elimination of any stereotyped concept of roles of men and women at all levels'' as described in Part 3 Article 10 (c), being a disruption of traditional parental roles, is likely to result in emotional disturbances of childhood. 3. The strong encouragements to mothers to join the workforce, with the provision of networks of creches and child care centres as outlined in Article 11 of the convention is likely to result in maternal deprivation and psychological disturbances among children with an increase in childhood psychiatric illnesses. 4. The sexual role changing as recommended in Part 3 Article 10 (c) is likely to contribute to further marriage insecurity and breakdown. And we pray you may be conscious of God's sovereign purpose for our nation. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Adermann,Mr Braithwaite,Mr Cadman,Mr Ian Cameron,Dr Charlesworth,Mr Dobie,Mr Drummond,Mr Fisher,Mr Free,Mr Gayler,Mr Lloyd,Mr McVeigh,Mr Millar,Mr Porter,Mr Rocher,Mr Ruddock and Mr Tuckey. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: 1. Noting that the 1982 National Budget includes increased taxes on beer and spirits, we draw attention to the fact that wines have a higher alcoholic content than beer and that wine consumption must be a significant factor in the mounting problems arising from the use of alcoholic beverages; we request that all alcoholic wines be taxed to a degree comparable to the taxes on other alcoholic beverages. 2. Whereas non-alcoholic wines do not cause social problems we request that no tax on these drinks be imposed. 3. That government imposts on all alcoholic beverages be adjusted annually so that the real price of the beverages remain constant. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Braithwaite,Mr Brumby and Mr Ewen Cameron. To the Honourable the President and Members of the House of Representatives the Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That the requirement that pensioners and health care cardholders fill in a complex declaration when presenting prescriptions is causing distress to beneficiaries and inefficiencies in the distribution of medicines by pharmacists . Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Federal Government will immediately abolish the requirement that a declaration be completed by the pensioner and health care cardholder. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Dr Blewett. To the Right Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: 1. Tony and Jennie Rice are honest and hardworking citizens. 2. They have integrated themselves very well into the community, are very well respected and liked by eveybody. 3. They have two young children, one of them is due to start school on 18 April 1983. 4. Jennie has been a family day care mother. The mothers whose children were under her care have high praise for her. One of them was a toddler with a heart problem-she has progressed very well physically and intellectually due to Jennie 's loving care and help. 5. The Dee Why Family Day Care Centre highly recommends Jennie as a Day Care Mother. Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that the Parliament of Australia will: (a) give consideration to the above; and (b) duly grant Tony and Jennie Rice, being excellent citizens, permanent residency in Australia. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Connolly. To the Right Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: 1. That US, Australian and allied forces used huge amounts of toxic chemicals for military purposes, such as Agents Orange, Blue and White, in Vietnam during the war there; 2. Many of these chemicals were, and are, known to be highly dangerous to human health; 3. Australia's Vietnam veterans and their families are suffering many severe problems which may be due to their exposure to these chemicals; and 4. The Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia has been seeking a Royal Commission for well over two years to ensure an independent investigation of these matters. Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that the Parliament of Australia will: (a) express its support for the Royal Commission; and (b) urge the Federal Government to establish the Royal Commission immediately. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Kent. To the Right Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned showeth: 1. That the Macedonian language be used by Government Departments in multi- lingual publications. 2. That the petitioners urge the introduction of the Macedonian language as a Higher School Certificate (HSC) subject in Secondary schools. 3. That the petitioners urge the introduction of the Macedonian language in tertiary institutions and that a course be introduced at Monash University in the Department of Slavic Languages. Your petitioners, therefore, humbly request that Parliament take immediate action to implement the above measures. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Kent. To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: 1. That an airport in the north-western region (commonly called Scheyville) imposes disastrous economic, environmental and social costs on our community. 2. An airport would destroy 2,000 households and impose upheaval, noise and pollution on one million people presently unaffected. 3. The cost of an airport in the north-western region is greater than the alternatives, whilst fog and close proximity to R.A.A.F. Base Richmond would make operations impractical. 4. It would destroy the historic village of Pitt Town, environmentally important wetlands, and their unique adherent wildlife. 5. Your petitioners reject these proposals and call for endorsement of the MANS Committee findings. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Cadman. To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: 1. Since the Australian Whale Protection Act 1980 provides for the banning of importation into Australia of all Whale byproducts, and 2. the Prime Minister has stated that he and his Government support the international banning of whaling, 3. then consistent with (1) and (2), this Government should immediately legislate to ban the importation of all marine mammal byproducts, including the Harp Seal of Canada, and 4. through the Australian delegate in the United Nations General Assembly the Prime Minister should state his Government's support for an international ban on the slaughter of any marine mammal for commercial reasons. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that consistent with legislation on whaling, this Government should ban the importation of marine mammal byproducts and support an international ban on slaughter of any marine mammal. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Moore. To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That your Petitioners are gravely concerned by proposed reduction in funds to Theatre in Australia. This will result in the reduction of the Theatre's contribution to the quality of civilised life, refinement and projection of national identity, and its contribution to tourism; and the reduction of employment opportunities in the Arts. Your Petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, should: Support Theatre in Australia by increasing grants to a realistic level. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Baldwin. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of New South Wales respectfully showeth that your petitioners are gravely concerned at the lack of podiatry service for lower fixed income members of the community. Podiatry is an essential health service especially in preventing greater dependency of older people. It would be much more cost effective to maintain the mobility of older people through adequate and effective services than to force them into premature institutional care. The fees for repeated podiatry consultations to provide essential ongoing care are well beyond the means of pensioners. Considering that Department of Veterans Affairs' pensioners are entitled to podiatry care, and this scheme is already operating successfully, we strongly urge that this service be extended to cover all pensioners. We believe this could be best achieved through including podiatry along with the existing concessions on the Health Care cards. This would enable a flexible system of care through private practice, community health or rehabilitation services. It would also be essential in negotiations with the Podiatry Association to ensure assistance would be available to the house-bound and those in institutions. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Dr Blewett,Mr Lionel Bowen and Mr Hollis. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble Petition of undersigned citizens of Australia repectfully showeth: That (a) the export of live animals for slaughter overseas and (b) the shipment of live horses to Japan sentences such animals to cruel and inhumane treatment in the export process and at the hands of foreign importers. Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House will request the Government to ban the export of live animals for food and allow only carcass trade. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Humphreys. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the citizens of New South Wales respectfully show: Last year, over 3,300 people died on Australian roads; Alcohol is a factor in 50 per cent of road deaths; Alcohol advertisements do not show the perils of driving after drinking alcohol ; Alcohol advertisements are glamorous and increase their effect on teenagers, indicating drinking as the social pastime; Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Parliament will legislate to ban the advertising of alcohol from commercial television and radio. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Morrison. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: We the Citizens of the City of Woodville and supported by the citizens of South Australia, being deeply concerned over the threat of closure of the Woodville Plant of General Motors-Holdens, respectfully show: 1. That the management of General Motors-Holdens has failed over a period of more than two (2) years to give any assurances that the Woodville Plant would continue in operation. 2. That a recent statement attributed to the GMH Managing Director, quote: ''The overall objective of our South Australian rationalisation plan has been to eliminate all productive activities on the Woodville site'' end of quote. This statement has not been refuted. 3. That the elimination of the Woodville Plant will cause enormous social dislocation, hardship and misery to the citizens of Woodville and South Australia. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Parliament of Australia will condemn this callous disregard for the citizens of Woodville and South Australia, and do all in its power to force General Motors-Holdens to retain its operations at the Woodville Plant. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Scott. Petitions received. Mr SPEAKER —I inform the House that we have present in the Gallery this afternoon the Honourable Francis Hilly, M.P., President of the Western Provincial Assembly and Chief Government Whip of the Solomon Islands National Parliament. On behalf of the House I extend to him a warm welcome. Honourable members-Hear, hear! Mr SPEAKER —It has been necessary from time to time for the Chair to remind the House of the undesirability of incorporating into Hansard unspoken material other than items such as tables which need to be seen in visual form for comprehension. These statements have been based on the attitude that Hansard should be kept as a true record of what is said in the House. Significant factors against excessive incorporation include an honourable member's speech being lengthened beyond his entitlement under the Standing Orders and the incorporated material containing irrelevant or defamatory matter or unparliamentary language. Other honourable members will not be aware of the contents of the material until production of the daily Hansard next morning, when a speech may be discovered to have matter not answered in debate and so appear more authoritative. Similarly, a succeeding member's speech may appear to be less relevant and informed than it would have been if he or she had known of the unspoken material before making that speech. I should remind the House that the final responsibility for inclusion of unspoken material in Hansard rests with the Speaker. I wish to say that, in general terms, I intend to follow the rulings of my predecessors in this matter. It is not proposed to have a completely inflexible system. For example, the question of establishing as a general rule that Ministers, when responding to reports of parliamentary committees, should be permitted to have the detailed responses to individual recommendations incorporated into Hansard, has been recommended to me. In my view, this proposal has a great deal of merit and is in accord with my intention that we should not have a completely inflexible system. I have, therefore, approved the recommendation and instructed those who occupy the chair accordingly. However, I believe that the House has a continuing obligation to itself to keep the Hansard record, as near as possible, as a true record of what is said, and I am seeking the co-operation of all members to this end. Mr SCOTT(Hindmarsh) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That this House- (1) Condemns the- (a) management of General Motors-Holden's for its failure, over a period of years, to give any assurance that the Woodville plant would continue in operation; (b) recent statement attributed to the Managing Director of General Motors- Holden's saying that it was their objective to eliminate all productive activities at the Woodville plant, and (2) failure of the Company to confirm or deny this statement, and (3) calls on the Government to do all in its power to force General Motors- Holden's to retain its operations at the Woodville plant. Mr CADMAN(Mitchell) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That this House calls on the Government, as a matter of urgency, to- (1) announce publicly the names of those persons being considered for appointment as Commissioners of the Australian Broadcasting Commission; (2) give an undertaking that the Australian Labor Party Parliamentary Party will not again seek to influence the internal affairs of the Commission, either by threat or intimidation; (3) state its confidence in the ABC and its Chairman in unequivocal terms, and (4) resolve the division of responsibility between Ministers. Mr BILNEY(Kingston) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That this House- (1) deplores the cynicism and opportunism of the previous Liberal-National Party Government in depriving of their right to vote, at the elections held on 5 March 1983, an estimated 250,000 Australians, many of whom were young people most severely affected by the incompetence and callousness of the previous Government, and (2) calls on the Labor Government to legislate so that, at future elections, at least seven days' notice is given to enable all eligible persons to exercise their right to vote. Mr RONALD EDWARDS(Stirling) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That this House expresses its concern at the treatment of Father Brian Gore and two fellow Catholic priests by the Government of the Philippines. Mr PEACOCK —Will the Prime Minister endorse the call, which I now make, for the New South Wales Premier and Federal President of the Australian Labor Party to step down from both positions pending the determination of the royal commission announced today? Mr HAWKE —I have total confidence in the capacity of Mr Wran to make the decision which is appropriate in the interests of good government. Mr STEEDMAN —My question is directed to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. What action has the Government taken to restore the collection of statistics on the number of unemployed persons registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service? Mr WILLIS —I thank the honourable member for that question. Honourable members will be aware that it was for many years Government practice to publish monthly figures for the number of registered unemployed persons-that is, registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service-at the end of each month. That practice ceased in March 1981 when the Government terminated the collection and publication of such figures. That cessation of collection and publication caused quite an outcry because it denied to the Australian people information in regard to regional unemployment in particular, but also other breakups, including occupational breakups. The Government, on taking office, saw fit immediately to reinstate the process of that collection. I ordered a collection of those figures to be taken within a few days of becoming Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. That collection was done on 17 March and the figures were published soon after. They showed a total number of unemployed of 822,000. Those figures were widely welcomed within the community and I have now reinstated the regular collection and publication of this data, to be broken up by sex, age, duration of registration, occupation and special groups. In addition, there will be what was the normal regional breakup of unemployment so that honourable members can see what is happening to the unemployment situation, not simply on a national and State basis, as we can see from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' figures on unemployment, but also on a much more local basis. These figures will be collected quarterly. The ABS figures will remain, in our view, the official figures and will continue to be collected monthly. They are on a basis which is internationally accepted and therefore, I think, are rightly viewed as the official unemployment figures. We believe that collecting the CES figures on a quarterly basis will be sufficient for labour market purposes and for the purposes of those who are simply interested in knowing what is happening to the employment situation on a regional and local basis. The next count of the figures will be for the month of June. Mr LLOYD —My question is directed to the Minister for Communications. Before writing to the Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission did the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that is, Senator Button, seek the agreement of or have discussions with the Minister? If not, will the Minister advise the House who is the Minister responsible for the ABC? Mr DUFFY —Senator Button did consult with me before the letter was sent, but I was not aware of the contents of the letter. Mr STAPLES —Has the Prime Minister's attention been drawn to a report in today's Sydney Morning Herald in which the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is reported to have attacked what he described as 'the growing confusion' over the Government's wages policy? If so, is there 'growing confusion' in the Government 's wages policy or does this so-called 'confusion' lie squarely in other quarters? Mr HAWKE —Let me say that there is absolutely no confusion about the Government's wages policy but, as I will clearly point out, we will identify where the confusion is. Let me state in terms of the Government's wages policy what that policy is. It is that in the circumstances confronting Australia, these requirements are quite obviously necessary: Firstly, that there be a return to a system of centralised wage fixation; secondly, that with the return to that system of centralised wage fixation, which obviously has to be undertaken appropriately by the parties, the trade unions and the employers, with the governments playing their parts, it is the position of the Government that there be the exercise of very considerable restraint by all parties. This is a restraint which should not be confined in the area of wages. If we talk about wages policy, we also have to talk about incomes policies generally. Because my Government believes that this restraint must be exercised generally, it has taken steps to try to ensure that that restraint is exercised in other quarters. In terms of the request put to this Government out of the National Economic Summit Conference, I have written directly to the 200 major companies and asked that the chief executives of those companies take steps to exercise restraint in respect of dividend payments and in respect of emoluments and perquisites of executives of the companies. May I say-I pay respect to the companies concerned-that I believe we will receive a positive response from them . I thank them for that and congratulate them on it. We believe that in this context there is room for only minimal wage increases before the end of 1983, and that is the position that we will be very clearly putting to the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission if the national wage case gets going in the second half of this year, which we imagine will happen. I say further in that respect that on that basis there would be room for a return to indexation in 1984. That is a coherent policy, an equitable policy and, most importantly, a workable policy. That policy of a return to a centralised wage fixation system received the endorsement of the Summit. The Summit communique states: This Summit therefore proposes that the parties should as a matter of priority develop the option of a return to a centralised system under the auspices of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. That is the position of this Government, clear and unequivocal-an equitable and workable policy. Against that the honourable member has asked whether confusion may lie elsewhere. We have a case of schizophrenia in regard to this matter among those on the opposite side of the House. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is a clear advocate of an abandonment of any system of centralised wage fixation and of a return to the forces of the market-exactly the position which produced the wages explosion after the middle of 1981. That is the position of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. But that is in direct contrast to the position of the shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, the honourable member for Balaclava, who says that the position of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is a nonsense position, that it has the seeds of chaos for Australia. The wages policy of the shadow Minister is the same as that of the Government-that there should be a return to centralised wage fixation. So there is chaos on the Opposition side in the area of wages policy. Before I make my final point, I repeat: The advisers to the previous Government , expected that, if there were to be a continuation of the policies of that Government, wages in 1983 and 1984 would be higher than the levels that will emerge under this Government's policies. In respect of the pathetic position of the Opposition and its policy I come finally to the Leader of the Opposition, who was asked what a government under him would do. On 27 April he was asked: ' What would you do if you were in government?' His sublime answer, always to be remembered, was: 'Well, I will tell you when I am in government'. We will have to wait a long time to find out his policies in those circumstances. Mr MacKELLAR —I ask the Prime Minister: Is it a fact, as reported in the Press today, that a senior Labor man who has been one of the most important and influential figures in the Australian Labor Pary over the past two decades has been closely associated with the recently expelled Soviet diplomat, Mr Ivanov? Mr HAWKE —I am not one who has a commitment to fetishes of long-standing practice and who says that things that have always happened are necessarily practices that should be followed in the future. But I must say in respect of the sorts of issues raised by the honourable member that I intend to adhere to what I understand has been the long-standing practice of governments of both sides of the political fence. In regard to issues concerning national security which are raised by the question of Mr Ivanov-- Mr MacKellar —I never raised national security; you did. Mr HAWKE —I am saying that in respect of the decision that was made to expel Mr Ivanov, I believe-I would have thought that even the honourable member understood this-questions of national security are involved. I do not think the Leader of the Opposition has any doubt that the expulsion of Mr Ivanov raised-- Mr McVeigh —You are very good on the hypothetical; not very good on the real question. Mr HAWKE —That is only because I cannot get it through the honourable member's thick head. Mr SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for Darling Downs will cease interjecting. The Prime Minister will continue without interruption. Mr Porter —You obviously have the wrong briefing notes, Bob. Mr HAWKE —I do not need briefing notes. Let me say in answer to the question from the honourable member that I understand-if my understanding is incorrect, he can put me right-that he raised a question in relation to the person who was expelled-the relationship between a suggested unnamed person and Mr Ivanov, who was expelled. The honourable member nods that my understanding is correct. Therefore, I repeat the answer, which seems to escape the honourable member but nevertheless is in terms of the practice which was followed by the previous Government-one of the few practices that it did follow which were correct-that neither I nor any member of my Government will publicly canvass issues in which questions of national security are so obviously involved, as they were in the expulsion of Mr Ivanov. Mr GRIFFITHS —Is the Special Minister of State aware of assertions that the possible introduction of a system of public funding for political parties in Australia will be solely to the benefit of the Government party or parties? Can the Minister inform the House of the experience of other countries with the operation of public funding for political parties? Mr YOUNG —I use these notes today because there is a lot of information which obviously the Leader of the National Party does not have. I will give some amounts, and I will give them in Australian dollars because it will save members of the National Party having to take off their shoes to work out the exchange rate. Unfortunately, in Australia there seems to be the view that the introduction of public funding of political parties is some enormously radical step that only Australia would dare to take. I will read to the House some of the countries that adopt this practice: Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, West Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden , United Kingdom and the United States of America. Mr Hodgman —The Soviet Union? Mr YOUNG —The honourable member for Denison says 'the Soviet Union'. I can tell him that no one was subsidised more than he was with 70,000 bucks for a car to run around in for eight months-$70,000 for Commonwealth cars. We will use the money properly. Honourable members interjecting- Mr SPEAKER —Order! The House will come to order. Mr Newman —Point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr SPEAKER —Order! It is impossible for Question Time to continue if there is continual interruption and interjection from both sides of the House. I ask honourable members to reflect on that. I will hear the honourable member for Bass on a point of order. Mr Newman —Mr Speaker, will the Special Minister of State now tell us what the then Leader of the Opposition used on his cars for the same period, which I believe was in the order of $100,000. Mr SPEAKER —There is no point of order. I call the Leader of the House. Mr YOUNG —The Leader of the Opposition was in a different situation. The allegations are that the introduction of such funding would assist this Government party more than it would assist any other political party in this country. The evidence of material from overseas and the experience overseas shows that that is just not so. Let me deal with the recent West German election . I take it that the Leader of the National Party is familiar with West Germany. He has been there quite often and he knows many of the political leaders. He knows that, as is the case in Australia, they have a variety of political views on a wide range of issues. Let me outline the subsidy that was given in the West German election held just recently and which was won by a rather conservative person, Helmut Kohl. He would not be described as one of the more radical people in European politics. The Social Democratic Party received a subsidy of $24,313, 000. The Christian Democratic Union Party received a subsidy of almost the same, that is, $24,300,000. The Christian Social Union Party received a subsidy of $6, 773,000. The Free Democratic Party received a subsidy of $4,427,000. The Greens, a party which had 27 members elected to the Bundestag, received a subsidy of $3, 545,000. A total of over $63m was paid in subsidies to the political parties in West Germany. Austria had a similar experience. We do not have the most recent figures-we rang the Austrian Embassy this morning to get them but they were not available-but in 1979 a total subsidy of almost $6m was paid to the various political parties. It is not a question of the money going to one side of politics. For instance, in the United States of America, Mr Reagan, a person who shares many of the views of the Leader of the National Party, received $29.4m by way of a subsidy from Government revenue to run his campaign when he was a candidate for the Republican Party. That was exactly the same as the money allocated to President Carter. It is obvious to all honourable members present and it should be obvious to everyone in Australia that we are not the first to take this step. We are becoming one of the last of the democracies to take the step to put politics above the allegation and innuendo of corruption which has done so much damage in all the other countries. This will in no way detract from the party's ability to raise funds privately, but in addition to public funding and running parallel with it will be the disclosure aspect. That might be the thing that upsets the Leader of the National Party because he will not be able to put his hand out for those gigantic donations which have come from some of his mates overseas. In Sweden, for instance, donations from overseas companies are prohibited by law. I think that ought to be the case in Australia. These are decisions which ought to be made in Australia. When there is debate and discussion about this extremely important matter in the future I hope the Leader of the National Party will visit my office so that I can supply him with a library of reading material on what happens throughout the rest of the world. Mr ANTHONY —Further to the previous answer I ask the Special Minister of State to include Iraq in the list of countries which provide public funding. Mr YOUNG —I cannot compete with the sense of humour of the Leader of the National Party. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —Will the Minister for Housing and Construction consider extending the charter of the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation to provide mortgage insurance for borrowers in addition to that currently provided for those who lend to the housing industry? Mr HURFORD —Before the House met I made an announcement regarding the cancellation of the sale of the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation, which is an excellent public enterprise body, to the private sector. I am very pleased to remind the House of that announcement in answering this question of the honourable member for Stirling. At the same time as making the announcement about the cancellation of the sale, I made it clear also that an interdepartmental committee was being formed which would look at the future operations of the HLIC. The threat of the sale of the HLIC was I believe ideologically motivated. The cancellation of the sale has met with universal approval from all of those who I know are involved with the housing industry, including those in the finance industry, other than the few competitors of the HLIC. I repeat that I announced that an interdepartmental committee would be formed to look at the future operations of the HLIC. I am now pleased to inform the honourable member for Stirling that the idea which he puts forward that insurance of mortgagers should be taken into consideration by the interdepartmental committee will be put before that committee. I repeat that I believe that the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation should be expanded. I believe that there are many roles that it could undertake in the interests of the housing industry and the one which the honourable member puts before the House in his question is one which is well worth putting before that committee. Mr HOWARD —I address my question to the Treasurer. Was the Minister for Foreign Affairs and former Treasurer speaking on behalf of the Government when he told the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that the only alternative to a prices and incomes policy in Australia was tougher monetary and fiscal policy? If so, and in view of the crumbling of the prices and incomes accord, could the honourable gentleman tell the House whether the tougher monetary and fiscal measures will be announced in the May statement or in the Budget? Mr KEATING —We have always made it clear that the prices and incomes accord was a supplement to the normal monetary and fiscal instruments available to governments in the management of the economy, that indeed it complements rather than replaces those instruments. That has always been made clear and the honourable gentleman well understands that. We on this side of the House have every confidence that the prices and incomes policy will meet the force of its objectives in curtailing inflation and restoring growth to the Australian economy. It surprises me that the former Treasurer has the gall to get up and put these sorts of questions about the management of the economy after his record of five years of failure, a record of failure unsurpassed by any post-war Treasurer. He is the Treasurer who presided over an economy which this financial year contracted for the first time in 30 years. We have seen miserable rates of economic growth despite a period of accelerated investment in mining and the general performance of the Australian economy. Yet, apparently we are going to be subjected to questions from the former Treasurer about those aspects of inflation. The stated objective of the former Government was to deal with inflation first. If we look at the former Government's record of dealing with inflation first, we find that, seven years after it came to power, the inflation rate was broadly the same as when it first took office. So, I do not think it is appropriate for the former Treasurer to put questions to this side of the House about the alternative strategy which was endorsed by the National Economic Summit Conference and the Australian people. Mr MAHER —Is the Minister for Aviation aware of the desire of thousands of householders living in close proximity to Australian airports to have their viewpoint considered by aviation policy makers, particularly with regard to noise? If so, what will the Minister do to ensure that the welfare of people on the ground is taken into account when future airport policy is formulated? Mr BEAZLEY —I thank the honourable gentleman for his question. I think I can say without any fear of contradition that, more than any other Minister for Aviation for some considerable time, I have reason to be aware of the problems confronting people who live near airports as I have one located in the centre of my constituency. The problem for people living near airports is a considerable one and the Department of Aviation does take this problem very seriously. At the same time, I stress that airports are good operations to have in one's area. This is a fact that seems to have struck home quite substantially to the country population but has not yet achieved the same degree of recognition in the city. Airports are extremely good employers. They provide, for the local communities, very considerable economic benefits. However, they also provide a considerable degree of environmental trouble. In the Department of Aviation we have started reviewing processes by which consultation can be undertaken with local communities on airport environmentally related questions. These will include an upgrading of the noise abatement committees associated with airports and the more systematic consideration of the structure of those committees and the basis on which they operate. We will ensure, of course, as did the previous Government, that when master planning is undertaken those master plans will be made available to neighbouring communities of airports for them to give consideration to those plans, to object to features if the communities are concerned about them and to suggest alternative courses of action. In association with the planning for construction down the line of an airports authority, we propose to find means whereby local communities, along with other people interested in the development of airports, can have an input to the authority, both nationally and locally, to ensure again that in regard to planning aspects of airport development the views of local communities are heeded very firmly. I believe that trust must be developed, particularly in the major capital cities, between the Department, the State authorities that have some input to local airport planning and the local communities themselves, in order that the very considerable benefits bestowed by the provision of airports in a particular area are fully understood and seem really to outweigh any of the environmental difficulties that may be associated with them. This is a process that we will be going through in connection with the selection of a second site for Sydney airport and in connection with every airport development which we have under way or which is being planned at the moment. Mr MACPHEE —My question is directed to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. In view of the Prime Minister's plea to the Transport Workers Union of Australia for a continuation of the wages pause, will the Minister make a similar plea to unions in the building industry and not wash his hands of that responsibility? In particular, will he condemn the tactics adopted by the Builders Labourers Federation to bludgeon increases in so-called allowances from employers who have stated publicly that there is little scope for increasing such allowances without being in breach of the wages pause? In the event that he does condemn these tactics and his words are ignored, what action would the Government take to ensure that the BLF behaves in the responsible way envisaged by the National Economic Summit Conference? Mr WILLIS —I thank the honourable member for Balaclava for that question. He would be aware that last Friday I met, at the request of the building unions and employers in the building industry, both parties to discuss the unions' claims in the award negotiations now going on following the ending of the two-year agreement last February. At that discussion last Friday I informed the parties that the Government's wages policy was as the Prime Minister described it earlier today in Question Time and did not allow for any wage rise occurring in the building industry from the middle of this year; that, so far as the Government was concerned, any increase in wages in the building industry would come from the centralised wages approach. I said that in the Government's view there was scope for some renegotiation of allowances, given the fact that they had been frozen since 1981 and would, after adjustment at this time, be frozen for another two years. But I also made it quite clear, in saying that, that I was not in any way giving a nudge or a wink to the unions to go off and organise a wage claim in the form of an allowance and in no way should I be taken by the employers or the unions as in any way suggesting that. That was the wages policy which I put to the building unions. I must say that I was very pleased that at that meeting they put forward to me and to the employers a list of proposals which I believe do provide the possibility of a settlement of the current extensive dispute in this industry. Those proposals do provide for a four-week moratorium on all bans and limitations while a working party is established to discuss the claims of the unions. This was, I believe, reasonably acceptable to the employers, although they wanted to consider their position further. I understand that, having considered their position since Friday, they agree that they can now enter a working party agreement with the unions; that in that working party they could discuss the award claims; that they see the possibility now of a satisfactory resolution of the current extensive dispute. With regard to the behaviour of the BLF, in particular, I have instituted a building industry conference before ex-commissioner Vosti to look at the behaviour of the BLF with a view to getting recommendations from it and the parties as to how they will behave in the future. The building unions, in particular the BLF, are taking a co-operative approach to that conference. I believe that it holds out the distinct possibility that we will be able to achieve agreement by the BLF to engage in infinitely better industrial behaviour than it has in the past. Some of the proposals that have been put forward by the BLF and other building unions in the award negotiations involve very marked improvements in settlement procedures in disputes, including demarcation and lost-time disputes. I believe that with what is happening on the award negotiations front and before ex-commissioner Vosti there is every reason to believe that in the very near future we will be able to achieve a much calmer atmosphere in this industry. On Friday, I also told the parties-with absolute conviction on behalf of the Government-that we regard the industrial relations situation in this industry as absolutely appalling, one which cannot be condoned and one which we will not tolerate in the future. I said that if that situation did not markedly improve we would have to reconsider our economic policy of looking to the building and construction industry to provide the vanguard of expansion in the economy. If there is no improvement in industrial relations in that industry, we will most certainly have to look at reshaping our economic policy and look to other sections of industry for stimulation. In those circumstances, we should have every expectation that in the very near future we will get a satisfactory resolution of the dispute in this industry. Mr HOLLIS —Mr Speaker, my question is directed to you as the Presiding Officer of the House. Recently, I ordered from the stationery section of the House a two -hole punch. The punch and the box it arrived in were made in Shanghai, China. I accept that the purchases were made before you became Speaker. I believe this House should set an example to the country. Can you give the House an assurance that the 'Buy Australian' policy will operate in this, the Parliament of Australia? Mr SPEAKER —I thank the honourable member for Macarthur for directing my attention to this matter. He will appreciate that because of the short time I have been Speaker it is a bit difficult to get down to the level of two-hole punches, but he has raised the general principle of buying Australian. I will undertake to examine the situation and see whether there are any special circumstances in this case and whether a 'Buy Australian' or other policy has obtained. Dr HARRY EDWARDS —My question is addressed to the Minister for Science and Technology. Is it a fact that the Minister was prevented by the Government from delivering a speech dealing with high technology and the Australian economy to the National Economic Summit Conference with the result that the Summit, to which the Government attaches great importance and to which it continually appeals to us to refer, did not systematically address the great challenges which high or new technology presents to the Australian economy? Will the Minister please table the speech in the Parliament? Mr SPEAKER —I trust that the Minister will not take the opportunity to make the speech. Mr BARRY JONES —I think the honourable member for Berowra is anticipating himself . Listed as No. 2 in the Notice Paper under the heading 'Notices given for general business Thursday No. 1' is the very issue that the honourable member is canvassing in the question. I suggest that if the Opposition wants to bring on that matter we can discuss it at great length. Mr PEACOCK —My question is directed to the Prime Minister. I refer him to his answer to the question from the honourable member for Warringah. The Prime Minister said he would not comment on the matter raised by the honourable member for Warringah. I understand from news reports I have to hand now that he has in fact discussed the matter in the Caucus today and told his Party 'that the former senior Australian Labor Party official' is not a member of the Government . Why did the Prime Minister mislead the House? Mr HAWKE —Of course I have not misled the House. Let me tell the House through you, Mr Speaker, exactly what happened. I can assure the House that this is not a promise of what will happen in the future. I will tell the House exaxtly what transpired in the Caucus this morning on this issue. Mr Porter —We have plenty of time. Mr HAWKE —We have not got that much time. One of the members of the Government raised the point that he had been approached in the light of the article in the Sydney Morning Herald and was asked whether he was the person involved. He indicated that to the best of his knowledge he was not. Of course, when that matter was raised what I told the member of the Government who had raised the question and told the Caucus was that neither he nor any member of the Government was the person involved. That is what I told the Caucus. That was the truth. I always, as distinct from some other members, tell the truth. Dr CHARLESWORTH —I direct my question to the Minister for Health. It relates to the disease reaching epidemic proportions in the United States of America called acquired immune deficiency syndrome. In the United States the disease has killed more than 500 people since it was first detected in 1979. Is the Minister aware of any cases being reported in Australia? If so, what precautions have been taken to localise such cases and to avoid further spread of the disease? Can he indicate what consultation is occurring with United States medical authorities about research developments? Dr BLEWETT —I thank the honourable member for the question. Yes, there has been one case of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in Australia. In response to the second part of his question, State health authorities have taken action which is their responsibility to isolate the problem in relation to that one case. My Department does receive information direct from the United states on this very difficult and complex disease for which, of course, there is at the moment no cure. All that can be treated is the secondary infection. Mr HODGMAN —Has the Minister for Defence had a chance to look at the Defence Act and regulations? If so, is he able to inform the House and, through the House, the people of Australia, under what statutory provision these spy flights over Tasmania on 7 April and 8 April involving a Mirage and an F111 were authorised, bearing in mind that the cost of the two flights is estimated in excess of $15, 000? Will that bill be paid by the Department of Defence, the Attorney-General's Department or by the taxpayers of Australia? Lastly, when can the people of Tasmania expect a full public apology from the Minister, the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister in relation to this disgraceful issue? Mr SCHOLES —I am not sure what are the sources of the honourable gentleman's information. They certainly do not reflect any information that has been provided either in documents tabled in this House or the Senate or any information which accurately reflects the costing. As far as the legal position is concerned that has been clearly set out by the Attorney-General who is the senior law officer of the Commonwealth. It is not my intention to second guess him. Mrs DARLING —Will the Prime Minister give an assurance to Australian women that neither the Government's proposed sex discrimination Bill nor ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women will in any way discriminate against women who choose life within the family, will not force them to go out to work, separate them from their children or break up their families, as some people have recently been suggesting? Mr HAWKE —I certainly can give the assurance that the honourable member seeks. I would just very briefly like to make the point that this Government is concerned to ensure that adequate legislation and appropriate practices are operating in this country so that the discrimination which has existed in this country against women shall be brought to an end. Very fundamentally we will be taking steps within the education and employment fields to see that from the very beginning of a young girl's education the education system will operate in a way which will not preclude the opportunities being available for them to enter a wide range of occupations which hitherto have tended to be closed to them because of the inbuilt prejudices of the education system. It is appropriate, and I believe we would have the support very largely of all of the members of the House, to proceed in that way. Having said that and having enunciated and affirmed our commitment in that direction, which I know has the total support of the honourable member, nevertheless I accept the point that we must not, in our enthusiasm to eliminate those forms of discrimination, ignore the fact that a very large number of women see the total fulfilment of their aspirations and their happiness in terms of the family-the role of wife and mother, of sustainer and supporter, and the upbringer of children. It is a noble and appropriate role for those who see their total fulfilment in it. There is absolutely nothing that this Government will do which will in any way prejudice women who quite appropriately make that choice. Indeed, the range of policies that will be adopted by my Government will ensure that families and women discharging that role will be given the greatest opportunity of achieving fulfilment and satisfaction for them and those dependent upon them. Mr SINCLAIR —Has the Prime Minister instructed the members of his Government to dissociate themselves from the former Secretary to the Federal Australian Labor Party, Mr David Combe? If so, why? Mr HAWKE —I have not instructed members of the Government to dissociate themselves from the person named. I have put to them-this decision has been accepted and will be the case-that in respect of any lobbying activity there is to be no association. That is not the same thing and, of course, I would not attempt to say that any members of this Government should not have any association with the gentleman named. Mr SPEAKER —I call the honourable member for Barker. Mr Hawke —Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be put on the Notice Paper. Opposition members interjecting- Mr SPEAKER —Order! The House should understand that when the Prime Minister asks that further questions be placed on notice there is no possibility of a Minister answering and therefore it is not worth continuing with questions. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Minister for Trade) —For the information of honourable members I present the Australia-China Council 1981-82 annual report. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport) —For the information of honourable members, I present the Department of Transport and Construction 1981- 82 annual report. Mr COHEN(Robertson-Minister for Home Affairs and Environment) —Pursuant to section 12 (1) of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975, I present the plan of management for Uluru (Ayers Rock-Mount Olga) National Park, together with copies of representations received in connection with the plan and the comments of the Director of National Parks and Wildlife on these representations. Mr HOLDING(Melbourne Ports-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) —Pursuant to section 30 of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Act 1964, I present the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1981-82 annual report. Mr HOLDING(Melbourne Ports-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) —Pursuant to section 107VZZA of the Repatriation Act 1920, I present the Repatriation Review Tribunal 1981-82 annual report. Mr DRUMMOND(Forrest) —I wish to make a personal explanation. Mr SPEAKER —Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr DRUMMOND —I do, Mr Speaker. Last Thursday, at Question Time, I asked a question of the Treasurer (Mr Keating) regarding certain matters. I believe that the Treasurer either misunderstood the question or certainly damaged my credibility by saying that I had wrongly claimed that the forecast inflation rate over the next three years-I stress 'three years'-in Scenario C, which was rejected by the Government at the National Economic Summit Conference, was only half that of Scenario A, which is accepted by the Government. The Treasurer's allegation against me is false. He obviously did not understand the question. His claim that the inflation rate under Scenario C was 5.3 per cent, compared with 6.2 per cent for Scenario A, relates to only the first year of the three years mentioned in my question. So, as I was perfectly correct in the facts of my question, I would appreciate an acknowledgement of that fact from the Treasurer. Dr KLUGMAN(Prospect) —I wish to make a personal explanation. Mr SPEAKER —Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Dr KLUGMAN —Grievously, Mr Speaker. I was listening to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Peacock) on 2GB in Sydney, but understand that it was also broadcast on 3AW in the Derryn Hinch show yesterday morning, and the Leader of the Opposition said, inter alia, that I had said, dealing with the question of the external affairs powers and their use and the question of the Tasmanian dams , that a Labor Government could have a treaty with South Africa on subversion and then outlaw a political party. I did not say that. Let me make quite plain what I said. Because of your ruling about incorporating letters, Mr Speaker, I shall have to read four paragraphs. What I said on 26 January was: Lawyers are arguing whether the current High Court would grant the Commonwealth Government power to intervene and prevent the construction of the Tasmania Dam under the external affairs power of the Constitution. May I, as one who tends to oppose increased Government powers of most kinds, caution those Labor supporters who may approve of the extension of such power in this particular case. What would prevent an Australian Government signing a treaty with South Africa dealing with 'subversion'. Could an Act endorsing such a treaty then give an Australian Government unlimited powers, denied to it by the High Court (in the referendum) in the early 1950's. Before endorsing the use of the external affairs power to circumvent the Constitution let us remember that an Australian Government could find a number of foreign governments prepared to sign all kinds of treaties conferring very unpleasant powers on our government. Let me emphasise again the whole point I was making: When we come to certain conclusions, we are not making them for one particular government but for all governments in future. Mr HODGMAN(Denison) —I wish to make a personal explanation. Mr SPEAKER —Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr HODGMAN —I do. Last Thursday, when Tasmanians were being referred to as maggots and vandals, the honourable member for Griffith (Mr Humphreys) saw fit to refer to me in his speech, at page 255 of Hansard, and said: The honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman) himself recognised two weeks ago that the introduction of this Bill meant effective negotiation and reconciliation had not yet been possible with the Tasmanian Government. Intentionally or otherwise, as has been the practice in recent times, the honourable member, as a Government member, stated the exact opposite of the truth. I read into Hansard precisely what I said, which makes the matter clear and answers the honourable member's incorrect quotation of my remarks. On page 46 of Hansard of 21 April-and you will note the difference, Mr Speaker-I said: The history of the matter is indeed a sad and sorry one. Within days of its election to office, the Hawke Government determined that it would institute legislative action which would effectively pre-empt any further attempt at negotiation and reconciliation with the sovereign State of Tasmania. Mr MacKELLAR(Warringah) —Mr Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented. Mr SPEAKER —The honourable member may make a personal explanation. Mr MacKELLAR —Earlier this afternoon, in answer to a question I asked of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), he implied that I had moved away from the commonly accepted procedure of a bipartisan approach towards matters of security. I point out to the House that I did not do that in the question and that in fact the matters were reported in the Press and therefore were common knowledge. I would also point out that the Prime Minister, in his reply to me, did not mention the fact that he had already discussed the matter with the Labor Caucus. I hope that he will treat the Parliament more properly in the future. Mr SPEAKER —I wish to inform the House of nominations of members to be members of the following committees of the House of Representatives: Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs Mr Blanchard, Mr Campbell, Mr Gorman, Mr Hand and Mr O'Neil have been nominated by the Government Whip; Mr Andrew and Mr Porter have been nominated by the Opposition Whip; and Mr Ian Cameron has been nominated by the National Party Whip. Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation Mr Chynoweth, Mr Ronald Edwards, Mr Milton, Mr Allan Morris and Mr Reeves have been nominated by the Government Whip; Mr Burr and Mr Connolly have been nominated by the Opposition Whip; and Mr Ian Robinson has been nominated by the National Party Whip. Standing Committee on Road Safety Mr Brumby, Dr Charlesworth, Mrs Darling, Mr Gorman and Mr Wells have been nominated by the Government Whip; Mr Dobie and Mr Goodluck have been nominated by the Opposition Whip; and Mr Katter has been nominated by the National Party Whip. Motion (by Mr Young)-by leave-agreed to: That, in addition to Mr Speaker, ex officio, Mr Andrew, Mr Blanchard, Mr Cross, Mr Maher and Mr O'Keefe be members of the Library Committee. Motion (by Mr Young)-by leave-agreed to: That Mr Andrew, Mr Brumby, Dr Harry Edwards, Mr Gear, Mr Lindsay, Mr McGauran and Dr Theophanous be members of the Publications Committee. Discussion of Matter of Public Importance Mr SPEAKER —I have received a letter from the honourable member for Mackellar ( Mr Carlton) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The grave threat to the jobs of 5,000 Australians in the health insurance industry posed by the Government's centralisation of health insurance. 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- Mr CARLTON(Mackellar)(3.19) —My purpose today is not to discuss the merits or otherwise of Medicare-I will be doing that on another occasion and perhaps on many occasions in the succeeding months-but to examine one aspect of the implementation of Medicare that threatens the jobs of over 5,000 people working in the private health insurance industry. Let me try to explain this in the simplest terms. Under Medicare, basic hospital and medical insurance currently provided by the health insurance funds will be replaced by the Medicare levy. Also, the funds will be prevented from offering supplementary medical insurance to cover the gap between the Government subsidy and the actual fee charged by the doctor. The funds will, however, be allowed to provide additional insurance for choice of doctor in public hospitals-something people will not get under the Government levy-treatment in a private hospital or other professional service such as dentistry or physiotherapy. What all this amounts to is that over 60 per cent of the business of the health insurance funds will be transferred to the Government levy scheme. Of course a lot of work will be involved in processing claims for medical and hospital services under the basic scheme. The private funds are already doing this work under the existing system of health insurance, and they have put up a perfectly sensible proposal to act as agents for the Government to carry out this processing and associated customer contact. If one accepts that the Government will proceed with Medicare, there are obvious advantages in having private funds, including Medibank Private, handle this business. Firstly, the funds are already handling this type of business. They are familiar with it, have a widespread network of offices and have all the customers on their books. It would be easy for them to do, in effect, the same work as agents for the Government. Any additional customers who came in under the scheme could easily be signed up at their wide network of offices. Secondly, it would maintain one-stop shopping for all those people who wished to take out supplementary insurance. Over half of those currently insured choose to have more than basic insurance. Under the Labor scheme they will continue to do so as many will not be satisfied with no choice of doctor in hospital or no option of a private bed or paramedical services, which is what they would have under the Medicare levy. If the private funds continue to handle the basic cover as well as these extras, their existing customers will be able to transact all their business at one place. If the basic cover is taken away from the private funds and placed elsewhere, people will have to do business with two separate organisations, and that I submit is a nonsense. Thirdly, a contract system to have the basic cover business handled by the private funds would prevent an expansion of the Public Service or of employment in statutory corporations. In my view, it is cheaper and more flexible to subcontract to privately run institutions, especially in this case when the private institutions are all non-profit institutions. With the exception of the relatively more expensive Medibank Private, their staffs are on ordinary, not Public Service, awards; their managements are not constrained by Public Service rules and regulations; and their employees do not have permanent tenure as the employees of Medibank Private do. If the funds do not perform as agents they can be sacked, and that is a guarantee of efficiency. It would therefore seem that the Government would not hesitate to accept the offer of the funds to act as agents. Why, then, should we have any cause for alarm as expressed in the terms of this matter of public importance? Unfortunately, there is abundant cause for alarm. In March the Health Insurance Commission, which runs Medibank Private, put a submission to the new Minister for Health (Dr Blewett) asking to be allowed to take over all the basic cover business from the private funds. Firstly, this would involve Medibank-the Health Insurance Commission-in additional staff-up costs before the commencement date of Medicare of $65m of taxpayers' money. Secondly, according to the submission, in the first year of operation there would be additional administrative costs of $75m, which of course is three times the estimate of $25m given by the present Minister before the election campaign. I queried that estimate at that time but I was assured by the now Minister that the $25m was perfectly adequate. We have it in the report to the Government from the Government's own Health Insurance Commission that the additional cost in the first year would be $75m and not $25m . Thirdly, there would be the recruitment of an additional 2,600 staff of Medibank to operate the new system. On this last point I quote from the Medibank submission to the Minister in March because it has very sinister connotations for those currently employed by the private funds. It states: It is unfortunate, but inevitable, that the program will cause staff surplus problems in the health insurance industry. Noting staff levels in the industry at present, and the requirements which are forecast for Medicare's future operations, it would be impossible for the Commission to absorb all of the labour which will be displaced. The Government's announced policy is to centralise basic health cover. I understand that the Government does not favour the proposal put forward by the private funds. In line with its announced policy it favours the centralist approach of Medibank. Whether the health proposals are run by Medibank or by the Federal Department of Health they will still be centralised and there will still be the same threat to the employment of people in the private funds. The only semblance of a reason that I can find for doing this-other than a doctrinaire socialist approach to health insurance-is that a centralised system will provide better information against fraud and overservicing by doctors and hospitals. Of course, that is no reason, as it can be made a condition of contract that the health funds provide the necessary information. Indeed, their information would be more valuable because, if they had one-stop shopping for all the customers, all the relevant information relating to each of the customers could come in a consolidated form from the private funds and not be taken, on the one hand, from the central body, for the ordinary cover and, on the other hand, from the funds for the supplementary or ancillary cover. What are the employment effects on the private funds? This is a matter that I raised during the election campaign. The Minister admitted during the election campaign that there would be some loss of employment in the private funds. There is a particular difficulty because, even though Medibank Private will recruit, as it says, over 2,000 new employees-taking them out of the private sector into the public sector, I might say-it will be doing that after the period when the existing funds will have to maintain their services-right up to the administration of the new program. That is, Medibank will be recruiting while the private health funds have to hold on to their staff. There will be great difficulties for people in the private funds knowing what to do. If the Government adheres to its announced policy for the operation of the Medicare program, it is estimated that approximately 60 per cent of the staff of voluntary health funds or around 5,150 employees would become redundant. The use of the existing registered health funds as agents for Medicare would of course avoid this severe unemployment problem. I have talked with representatives of the funds who tell me that the loss of 5,000-odd employees has been determined after a careful analysis of the impact of Medicare on the existing health insurance business of the funds. The single most important factor influencing redundancy is the intention to deny the funds all medical insurance-the area which involves particularly labour intensive processing procedures. Medibank Private, in seeking the sole operation of Medicare, indicates a need for 2,600 additional staff including 700 positions now in the Department of Health. If the Government were to accede to this suggestion, it is clear that the net effect would be to increase national unemployment by around 3,250 persons; that is the net figure nationally. The eventual total influence on unemployment would be greater than this because of the secondary effects in other areas-for example, the printing industry. The major impact of the net increase in unemployment of 3,250 persons would be amongst female employees under 30 years of age who are employed predominantly in the branches-that is the suburban and country offices-of the health funds. This is a very serious matter for all those currently employed in private insurance funds and all those dependent upon their earnings. At a time when the Government has declared that its primary emphasis in economic policy is to try to improve economic growth and the job climate-it has made various promises to stop the disemployment of people in various industries-it will by deliberate act of policy create unemployment in the private health insurance industry of at least 3,250 persons and will directly threaten the actual employment of over 5, 000 because not all of them will be able to move into the areas required by the new Medicare operation. The reasons for this are very simple. It strikes me that the same advisers are advising the present Minister as advised the earlier Minister, the current Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Hayden), when he was setting up the original scheme. They are quite determined to centralise. They are quite determined to move people out of private sector employment into public employment. They are quite determined to bring more of the employees as a proportion to Canberra. In the process of doing this they are prepared to carry out extraordinary physical changes and more or less double the number of Medibank outlets when the private funds already have the necessary facilities in place to carry out the work and have offered to do so at quite reasonable costs. Of course, if there were negotiations on cost I am sure the Government could agree with the funds on a fair return. It would have the guarantee that employment of this kind would not be threatened. It would have the whip hand in providing contracts for these private funds. The Government would be able to say what information it required from these funds for the prevention of fraud and overservicing, or for whatever other purposes it desired the information, and would have a stability of employment for those currently employed by the funds. It escapes me why any government with any compassion, which proclaims to have concern about jobs in the community, could proceed in this doctrinaire fashion on a predetermined course which flies against all reason. It is quite clear that the reasons given for wanting to leave the business with the private funds are substantial ones. I will repeat them. The funds already handle the business; they are already doing it. If additional people who are not currently insured come in, they can easily be soaked up by the very wide network of offices, but most of the customers are already on the books. The second reason is that the system would maintain one stop shopping. Not everybody realises that under the proposed Medicare plan one does not suddenly have to forget about insuring. If one wants a choice of doctor in a public hospital, if one wants to go to a private hospital or requires paramedical services, dentistry and the like, one has to insure in addition to the Government levy. It is not a simple system. There will be two stop shopping if the business is not left with the existing funds. The third reason is that obviously the Government will prevent an expansion of the public sector at a time when more costly public employment is something that this country needs like a hole in the head. Efficient private sector employment is the best job creating employment. In this case it also represents the best job holding employment. If the Government proceeds with this it will have on its hands the disemployment of over 3,000 people net and it will have on its hands a direct threat to the employment of over 5,000 people. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Hon. Les Johnson) —Order! In inviting the honourable member for Henty (Mrs Child) to preside over the proceedings of the House, I inform honourable members that, as I understand it, this is the first occasion on which a female has occupied the chair in this chamber. Dr BLEWETT(Bonython-Minister for Health)(3.33) —Madam Deputy Speaker, in opening may I congratulate you on the unique role which you fulfil in this House . The most striking aspect of the matter of public importance which was put forward by the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Carlton) is its sheer hypocrisy. It expresses the grave concern of the Liberal Opposition for the unemployment of its fellow Australians. I ask the House: Where was that concern over the last seven years? What did the Fraser Government do about the unemployment, not just of 5,000 Australians but 500,000 Australians? In December 1975 there were 278,400 people unemployed in this country. By March 1983, the figure was 731,600. There was an increase of nearly half a million in unemployment in the seven years of Fraser rule. On 6 March the former Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Fraser, said: Whatever our problems, Australia has been handed to Mr Hawke's new Government in a condition that is equal to or better than any other Western country. That has now become a joke in every other Western country. We were handed the worst unemployment since the Great Depression, the greatest deficit in Australia 's peacetime history, and a rising rate of inflation distinctly above the average of most Western countries. Yet 10 weeks after the Opposition's clear rejection by the Australian people it has the hide to come into this House and proclaim its concern for the unemployed. It is no wonder that every serious commentator in this country questions the intellectual competence of this Opposition. I must say that the honourable member for Mackellar is a classic exemplar of the new hpyocrisy. On the very first sitting day of this new Parliament, he got up in this House and said: 'I speak on behalf of the unemployed'. It is not becoming to the dignity of this House to describe how that piety was received by the unemployed in my own electorate of Bonython. Does the honourable member forget that in the brief period when he was a Minister unemployment rose by over a quarter of a million people? I would remind the House that the honourable member for Mackellar was one of the economic gurus of his party; he was a dedicated advocate of the policies pursued by the Fraser Government. He is a classic example of a stern and unbending fiscal Tory quite ready to sacrifice the unemployed on the altar of his party's monetarist anti-inflation policies. If the motion is hypocritical, it is also rumour-mongering. No decision has yet been made by the Government on the operational basis of the Medicare plan. But the great creators of unemployment in this country, the Liberal-National Parties , are willing to fuel unemployment with rumour or scare-mongering tactics. I repeat: At this stage no decisions have been made which would justify these figures and all of the submissions that have been made are being considered seriously by the Government. In this motion, the Liberals quite simply are being once more the lackey of that group of vested interests-the private health funds. If we examine the whole seven years of the former Government's health policy we can see that the Fraser Government simply responded again and again to the demands of the private health funds and finally, in the end, produced a scheme-a complex, subsidised, extremely confusing and increasingly inadequate scheme under which there are now something like two million people without insurance or Commonwealth protection and the numbers are growing-which was finally designed to suit that group of vested interests. All of the five Liberal health schemes were introduced by stealth and deception . Members of the Opposition talk about Labor and some of the rumours that are now around. However, we should look at the way in which the former Government introduced each of its schemes by stealth. Let us look at the 1980 election campaign-the election campaign before it introduced its latest major scheme. On that occasion, the then Minister for Health, Mr MacKellar, said: There was absolutely no truth in the statement that the Government was planning to restrict patients' free access to public hospitals by reimposing a means test for hospital care. That is what was said in the 1980 election campaign. Six months later, the Fraser Government had the legislation before this House to force the reintroduction of public hospital charges and means tests throughout this country. By contrast, we announced our Medicare program a year prior to the election. That program was open to public debate. This contrasts with the last Liberal health scheme which was introduced in 1981 and in respect of which a joint statement was issued by all State health Ministers, Liberal and Labor alike. This is what they said: We observe that we have never been consulted in the real sense and at no time prior to its recent decision has the Commonwealth indicated any clear intention to the States. Again, the most recent ex-Minister's role in respect of State outpatient levies is another example of the attitude of the Liberals simply serving as a lackey of the private funds. The Minister then simply acted as a front man for the health funds. Twice in 1982 this Parliament rejected the Fraser Government's attempt to outlaw the State outpatient levies. These levies were widely welcomed by independent observers as a more efficient way of collecting the operating costs of the public hospitals system. But when the honourable member for Mackellar was defeated in this Parliament, he attempted to achieve his ends through the use of his ministerial powers that in fact the High Court subsequently informed him he did not possess. I think it is about time that the private health funds realised that there is now a different government in power and sought to work constructively with the Hawke Government. They seem incapable of realising that their servants in the Liberal Party can no longer afford them their accustomed protection. Let me look at the Opposition's rather extravagant claims at the behest of the funds. First of all, the funds' track record on producing figures is not that impressive. In February 1983, just 12 weeks ago-of course, this was in the middle of the election campaign-the funds issued a report entitled 'The costs of Labor's health plan'. The report was prepared by Economic and Marketing Services Pty Ltd of 70 Pitt Street, Sydney. This report was widely circulated to the media and other interested groups concerned with health and patient care. At page 7 the authors, K. E. Walker and J. C. Kilminster, claim that total additional outlays under the Labor Government's health plan would total $2,809m in 1983. This figure was peddled by the health funds throughout the election campaign-no doubt the ex-Minister accepted the figure-in a savage attempt to prevent a Labor victory. It was not a typographical error or an oversight. The funds, and their stooges in the Liberal Party, repeated that figure at every opportunity. They claimed then, as they do this afternoon, that this figure was the result of the most exacting scrutiny and appraisal of Labor's policies. Yet after the people of Australia gave their overwhelming support to the Labor Party on 5 March what happened? The authors of this work of fiction produced a new report. The day before the election Labor's health scheme was costed by this group of people at $2,809m. The day after the election, as it were-it was I think seven days-the funds' so-called economic experts costed Labor's health plan at $1,636m. That is a decline almost overnight, of $1.2 billion in the health funds' calculations. If this is any indication of the kind of bookkeeping standards adopted by the funds, is it any wonder that the people of Australia want them totally removed from basic hospital and medical insurance? The people whom the funds pay to concoct these fictitious statistics are graduates of so- called schools of business management. How can this House and the people of Australia now place any faith in the funds' estimates of the likely impact of Medicare on unemployment? By their own actions they have been shown to be guilty of fraudulent deception. Therefore, it is very difficult indeed for us simply to accept the figures provided by the health funds. Let me contrast what has gone on in recent weeks with our general program in relation to Medicare. As I said earlier, our plans were issued to the public in February 1982. We entered into a dialogue with the Australian people and the interests concerned. As a result of this dialogue and significant changes in the health environment, we presented our plans for public debate in the recent election, in which Medicare was clearly endorsed by the Australian people. We have continued that dialogue since the election. I have met with the private health funds and will meet again with them this week. But we will not make health policy for this country at the behest of any vested interest, however powerful or however influential. I recognise that such openness as this Government has displayed, by contrast with our opponents, will allow interests antipathetic to our proposals to create rumours, fears and exaggerations, as typified by the Opposition's tactics today. We will not be deflected from this openness by such rumours, but I want to give the following clear assurances: First of all, in a program involving expenditure of nearly $3 billion there will obviously be some marginal changes in revenue and expenditure calculations. However, no advice that I have received since I have been a Minister suggests significant errors in the cost and revenue calculations that were presented to the Australian people at the March election. Mr Carlton —What about the $600m involved. Dr BLEWETT —I will deal with that now. Secondly, the Labor Party made it clear that there would be a number of initial one-off costs and certain non-repeatable transition costs in the first months of the scheme, but we remain confident that in the first full year of Medicare the proposed revenue aspects of the plan will meet the additional costs involved without significant new charges on general revenue. Let me make it quite clear, firstly, that given the turnover pattern of the health insurance work force-and if one examines some of the statistics provided by the health funds themselves one sees that the nature of their work force leads to a very high turnover pattern-it is one that can easily be run down over time without any need for retrenchments. Secondly, from my discussions with the funds it is clear that there will be an expansion of health insurance possibilities in the ancilliary area. Whatever decision the Government finally makes about which body will operate Medicare, it is clear that the funds expect expansions in the ancillary areas. Thirdly, as I have already said today and as we have stated publicly, we will make an examination of the agency arrangements in regional areas; that is, in areas where there might be a significant problem of unemployment particularly in areas dependent on a local fund. We will make a very careful assessment and look at the possibility of agency arrangements. Again, there will be preferential arrangements for health insurance employees should any new organisation be established; that is, whether the decision is to extablish a new organisation through the Health Department or to expand the present Medibank operation, preferential arrangements will be introduced for health insurance employees from the private health funds. Furthermore, we are discussing with sympathetic State governments arrangements further to supplement, if necessary, and to provide support in relation to employment difficulties. I make the pledge quite clearly here and now that in the development of the Medicare program a key consideration will be to prevent unemployment in any of the situations we have examined even though we recognise that there may have to be either some transfers of employment to a national organisation or, in some cases, changes in relation to regional arrangements. Given that commitment to work with the private funds, sympathetic State governments and any national organisation that is established in order to prevent retrenchments, I can only say that if any retrenchments take place without full consultation and without full recognition of the arrangements we will be making those retrenchments will not derive from economic necessity but simply from partisan political tactics by health insurance funds. Debate interrupted. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Child) —I inform the House that we have present in the Gallary this afternoon the Honourable Ratu David Toganivalu, member of parliament and Fijian Minister for Economic Planning and Development. On behalf of the House I extend to him a very warm welcome. Honourable members-Hear, hear! Discussion of Matter of Public Importance Debate resumed. Mr COLEMAN(Wentworth)(3.48) —We are not today discussing the introduction of Medicare in all of its aspects-the millions of dollars needed to set it up in a time of concern about the Budget blow-out, the disruption it will cause to a large part of the population who will have to lodge medical benefits claims with the Government fund while maintaining their ancillary and private hospital insurance with their existing fund, or the absurdity of trying to make the scheme work on a one per cent levy. This matter of public importance concentrates on one deeply disturbing-one could say, in all the circumstances, appalling-consequence of the introduction of Medicare. That is the unemployment it will create in the health insurance industry as the Minister for Health (Dr Blewett) agreed during the election campaign. And as the whole tenor of his speech today emphasised. Five thousand or more jobs will be lost in the health insurance industry as an immediate and direct result of the policies of this Government and this Minister. This will come at a time when the labour market has to cope with an influx of school leavers. As at 31 December 1982 there were 38 member funds of the Voluntary Health Insurance Association of Australia, that organisation for which the Minister feels such contempt. These 38 funds employed 8,542 people, the vast majority full time with some 777 part time, temporary or casual. In other words, 7,765 were employed full time. Of that 8,542 employees, 7,261 were women. More than half of them were under the age of 30 years, 855 under 20 and 3,573 between 21 and 30. When the Government proceeds to introduce Medicare about 60 per cent of this staff of the voluntary health funds-about 5,150 employees-will become redundant. In other words, the Labor Government, as its first step in reorganising health insurance, is promoting and causing the sacking of over 5,000 employees. It will strike immediately at the funds' labour intensive medical insurance processing procedures by denying the funds all medical insurance. Of course, it is understood that the Health Insurance Commission wants to have sole operation of Medicare and wants 2,600 more staff, including 700 positions in the Department of Health; that is, it wants 1,900 new positions. I do not know whether the Government has accepted this proposal, but even with 1,900 new positions there would still be a net increase in unemployment of 3,250 people. There would be a loss of 5,150 jobs less the 1,900 jobs created. I have not mentioned the secondary effects of Medicare in other areas such as printing. To be more precise, the biggest losers among the 3,250 would be women under 30 who at present work in the branch offices of the health funds. They are the main target of the Minister. Roughly half of the 8,500 or so employees of the funds are in branches, suburban and country. These are the particular targets and victims of this Government's centralising and socialist zeal. These Labor Government sponsored sackings would commence immediately after the introduction of Medicare , peak during the ninth to twelfth week and be laregly completed by the sixteenth week. Therefore, if the scheme were to start on 1 January 1984, the bulk of the sackings sponsored by this Minister would occur by the end of March 1984, at the very time when there are high seasonal increases in unemployment because of school leavers. There are many alarming aspects of the Government's plan to change once again our system of health insurance. It will cause inconvenience to the public, making insurance more complicated for those who insure for ancillary benefits, private hospital benefits or the choice of doctor in a public hospital. It will be far more costly than the Government admits or even realises. The Health Insurance Commission says that if it is to run Medicare it will need $65m to meet establishment costs, including the buying or hiring of new computer facilities, establishing new offices and training staff. As for running costs, it is undeniable-indeed, it has not even been denied-that a government fund operates with a higher cost management ratio than private funds. But the attack on the staffs of the voluntary health funds will be the most immediate effect of Medicare. The Minister will be responsible for throwing over 5,000 people into unemployment. These funds and their staffs, for which he has such great contempt, have a long history of providing health benefits dating back to the years before the Commonwealth introduced benefits some 30 years ago. They and their staffs have served Australians well and efficiently. Needless to say, they are all registered under the National Health Act and are subject to the closest Government scrutiny and control. The reward for their service is to be unemployment. The Voluntary Health Insurance Association of Australia made a submission to the Minister showing how this unemployment can be avoided by using the funds as agents for the Government. This would not only save jobs, but also reduce costs and inconvenience to the Government. The Government could implement its medical benefits program without the cost of establishing a single government organisation and without sacking a single member of the staffs of existing health funds. This agency proposal would also avoid the dangers of centralisation and certainly the lowered level of service and convenience which centralisation involves. It would be practical, cost-effective, flexible and convenient. Health funds, acting as agents, would comply with operational standards in such matters as claims turnaround, accuracy assessing, statistical procedures, internal-external audits and registration. But the Government has clearly rejected this sensible proposal. That is the only gloss that can be put on the evasive remarks made by the Minister in the speech he made a few minutes ago. The Government has clearly made up its mind. The Minister says that it has not, but everything else in his speech implied that the Government has made up its mind. The Minister was even advising funds how to phase out their workers, how to drag out the sackings which the Minister is determined to see happen. The message that comes from the Minister's speech today is that he has made up his mind and that the Government has made up its mind to reject this sensible proposal. The Government and the Minister remain committed to the policy of creating and increasing unemployment. It is an appalling policy, a dogmatic policy, an unnecessary policy and one that demands the condemnation of this House. Ms FATIN(Canning)(3.57) —As one who has worked in the medical field for the past 25 years I consider that I am eminently qualified to state that the present system of health insurance in this country is in a shambles. More than two million people are without private health insurance or without Commonwealth protected cover. This Government will not and cannot tolerate this scandalous situation. The debate today is based solely on rumour, rumour one suspects whipped up by the private health insurance funds and taken up by the Opposition for cynical political purposes. This debate is an exercise in scaremongering. The Opposition is attempting to scare the employees of health insurance funds and, in so doing, is trying to hide the fact that it showed scant concern for nearly one half million men and women who were thrown out of work during seven years of Fraser Government. As the previous speaker, the honourable member for Wentworth (Mr Coleman), said-I deny it-the Labor Government is not causing the sacking of 5,000 young women. This Government's first priority is to maintain work and to create work for Australians in every possible field. With regard to Medicare, all the issues relating to this program, of which employment consequences will be a major issue, will be considered by the full democratic processes of the parliamentary Labor Party before any decision is taken in the coming months. As I said earlier, this debate today brought on by the Opposition is based on rumour alone. This Opposition which presided over five contradictory health schemes in seven years now comes into this House to challenge the universal health scheme proposals of this Government which received a clear mandate at the March election. No Liberal health plan ever received such a mandate. In fact, the previous Liberal Government was elected on Mr Fraser's 1975 promise to maintain Medibank. Its health schemes have been characterised by the secrecy and stealth of their introduction. Our programs are being planned in public. Labor's Medicare program was released over a year prior to the March election and followed the principle of universal health cover for all Australians that has been Labor's policy since the late 1960s. The Liberal Party is following its constant pattern of acting as a servant to the private health funds, regardless of the welfare of the majority of Australians. The current health scheme inherited by this Government shows that over two million people are uninsured. The numbers increased daily as the recession deepened under the Liberals. Today, weekly basic contribution rates are more than $13 for most families. With health costs at this level it is no wonder families are faced with the unpalatable choice of asking whether they can continue to afford health cover. The major advantage of Labor's Medicare program is that all Australians will receive basic medical benefit cover, free public hospital accommodation and treatment by doctors employed by the hospital. This will be funded by all Australians according to their means with all Australians receiving health care according to their needs. The Liberals constantly drag out the old myths and distortions about the operations of the original Medibank program in 1975. First, they say that the costs were open-ended. An examination of the Budget Papers for 1975-76 and 1976- 77 shows that the estimated cost of Medibank was put at $1,437m. The actual costs turned out to be $1,362m. Thus, in the one full year in which Medibank operated it came out slightly under budget. Secondly, the Liberals blame Medibank for the escalation in health costs that occurred in the 1970s. In 1979 the Fraser Government appointed the Jamison Committee of Inquiry into the Efficiency and Administration of Hospitals, amongst other things, 'to make inquiry . . . into factors behind the costs and escalation of cost of hospitals and associated or related institutions and services'. In a massive two volume report of nearly 1,000 pages, the Jamison Committee discovered many reasons for cost escalation in the health sector including labour costs, improvements in working conditions, the equal pay decision, movement to greater specialisation of workers, introduction of new technology, the aging of the population, the increase in the number of doctors and increased intensity of care. Nowhere in the report does the Committee even suggest that Medibank, as such, was responsible for cost escalation in the health sector. In actual fact, the use of medical services increased in the Medibank year but there were similar increases in the year before Medibank and in the year after Medibank. Indeed, there has been an increase in the per person use of medical services in every year for the past decade irrespective of what type of health insurance system was in operation. The explanation for increased utilisation lies elsewhere. The health economist, Dr Jake Najman, has written: There is a striking similarity between the increase in the number of doctors in the population and the number of services received from these doctors. I emphasise that doctors, not Medibank, generated over-utilisation. Medicare provides the only hope for control of over-escalating health costs within the Australian economy. I should like to quote from the Canberra Times editorial of 21 February this year in which this reputable and independent journal summarised the key issues of the health insurance debate within Australia. It stated: The Government- It was referring to the previous Fraser Government- tried to control health costs by recourse to its user pays principle, encouraging private health insurers with the aid of tax rebates. But, as the medifraud scandal confirmed in greatly exaggerated form last year, the principle in practice did not do the job. Moreover, the result of the Government's activities has been to increase the anxiety of the disadvantaged and to deny them, in practice, the proper care which they should receive in a decent society . The editorial continued: Labor's new Medicare plan offers much more efficiency, certainly in human terms and probably in economic terms. Moreover, it preserves a reasonable balance between private and public health services, giving real choice once again, after the Government's too weighty concern for the private interests and neglect of community health programme. This direct quote from the Canberra Times editorial summarises the real issues in the health insurance debate much more eloquently than I could. The Opposition tries to project itself in this place as the voice of compassion and concern when in fact it reflects nothing but the hollow mouthpiece of private industry which is trying to continue its position of privilege regardless of the costs to the Australian people. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Child) —Order! The discussion is concluded. Debate resumed from 4 May, on motion by Mr Young: That the Bill be now read a second time. Mr STEELE HALL(Boothby)(4.4) —The Special Minister of State (Mr Young) who is piloting this measure through the Parliament has a peculiar way of handling his responsibilities publicly. He has introduced measures into this House in fairly simple terms and in a fairly conciliatory way. Yet, out among the public he has been making quite scurrilous references to electoral practices in which he hopes to implicate the Opposition in the most dishonest of fashions. I wish to refer the House to some of the techniques that the Minister is adopting. Recently he made a Press statement, which he has been good enough to send to all and sundry. If one reads it the only conclusion one can get from it is that he is trying to heap the term 'corruption' on to the Opposition parties who sit on your left, Madam Deputy Speaker. I say again: It is a scurrilous attempt under the cover of reform to smear parties whose record is far better than his own in this regard. I will remind the Minister of the base from which he uses these gutter tactics in his references to electoral reform to smear our side of politics. On which side of the fence does he sit in relation to a revelation of public funding of political parties while he holds himself out as someone who favours public scrutiny. What money does the Colac Hotel contribute to his funds in Port Adelaide? We would like to know. I remind the Minister that those people who contribute so freely to his Party and to its electoral success are deeply involved in politics in this country. I could refer the Minister to the Teachers Institute in South Australia which so widely advertised on his Party's behalf at the last State election. Did that Institute do so freely because it thought that was the the party that should win or because it was promised something from that success? We have seen what the Institute has got for its support since then. It now has compulsory unionism in the teaching movement in South Australia. This is not a preference for unionism; it is compulsory unionism in South Australia bought by direct support of the Australian Labor Party at the elections in my State. This is the sort of background the Minister comes from. We find a casting aside and a destruction of individual freedoms of people in South Australia who have supported him and his colleagues in their return to Parliament. He knows that the people who support his party are directly involved in political activities today. I refer, for instance, to the shearers' dispute throughout this country. The Prime Minister ( Mr Hawke) in the House today adopted a certain attitude towards an organisation that contributes to his party. Cement pours have been stopped in the midst of construction work to blackmail builders into giving certain benefits. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Child) —I ask the honourable member to confine himself to the subject of the Bill. Mr STEELE HALL —Madam Deputy Speaker, I was referring to the Bill proposing to amend the Referendum (Constitution Alteration) Act 1906 in which there is wide reference to electoral matters in the Commonwealth Electoral Act. The Minister has been good enough to make a number of wide statements in the community, some of which, as I have said, have been quite false. They unfairly cast aspersions on my side of politics. I thought it was a good point to raise matters that may be discussed when questions are put to the Australian community following the passage of this Bill. I was reminding the Minister that he starts from a very bad base indeed if he is going to indicate that he has some political ascendency in relation to contributions to his political party. I remind him that so much of industry has been stopped and so many political decisions are dependent-- Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I remind the honourable member that we have before us a Bill to amend the Referendum (Constitution Alteration) Act. Would he kindly keep to the Bill? Mr STEELE HALL —Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Bill contains a number of references to the operation of the Commonwealth Electoral Act. For instance, section 4 is headed: 'Application of Electoral Act'. It deals with electoral officers for Territories, forms of ballot papers, scrutineers and so on which of course deeply involve the operation of the Electoral Act. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —But not to the pouring of concrete. Mr STEELE HALL —I will not dwell at great length here but I remind the Minister that it was not the Liberal Party and the National Party which attended the Iraqi breakfast-- Mrs Kelly —What has the Iraqi breakfast to do with it? Mr STEELE HALL —It has a lot to do with political morality and the Minister's attitude publicly when he tries scurrilously to brand this side of the House with activities which his party has been deeply involved in and which have been well known over the years. He cannot point a finger at this side nor can he get down as low as his party has in obtaining funds and support for its political activities. For instance, we have not destroyed the individual freedoms of the South Australian community like his party has. We do not pay off for electoral support, as his party quite blatantly pays off in gaining its adherents. In leaving this subject I remind the Minister of a report of the ninth of this month headed: 'QC to study poker machine cash claims'. I will not bother to go into it. I am sure the Minister has read it. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —I suggest that the honourable member sticks to the Bill from now on. Mr STEELE HALL —Yes. It does not deal with our Party; it deals with the Labor Party. This Bill brings into effect the will of the Australian people, as expressed by a majority of over four million in the 1977 referendum. It gives an affirmaive vote on behalf of all the States and the huge majority of Australian people to a question put to them by the previous Government. It has the desirable effect of including the populations of the Territories in the Australia-wide question as to whether referendum items will be in force. It is a matter of simple justice that the people of the Territories should be so included. The Bill certainly has the approval of all honourable members on this side of the House in that respect. One cannot today look at the size of these populations nor the sophistication of their operation and say that in any way can they be excluded. I support the Bill. I am sure the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Reeves) will also speak in support of it. There would not be one person in this House who would want Australian citizens of the Territories deprived of expressing their opinion in this way. It must be said, however, that the majority of States which are required to pass a referendum question, are not disturbed in any way, and that is as it ought to be. Until the Territories designated in this Bill become States in their own rights of course that question will not arise. Because of the earlier points that I mentioned-which I hope the Minister will take to mind in trying to achieve some consensus in this matter-the Minister ought not to point a finger at other parties when, as I pointed out, his own base is not of sufficient stature to do so. This Bill has Opposition support. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Child) —Before I call the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Reeves) may I remind the House that this is a maiden speech. I ask the House to extend the usual courtesy to the honourable member. Mr REEVES(Northern Territory)(4.13) —Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It will not surprise you to learn that I propose to speak in support of the Referendum ( Constitution Alteration) Amendment Bill. It was said some time ago in this House that the only way to deprive oneself of a vote in this country was to be certified insane, to be convicted of treason or to move to the Northern Territory. I suppose the same applied to the Australian Capital Territory. Fortunately, the situation has improved since then. This Bill will remove one of the last constitutional disabilities suffered by Territory residents. The Territory's constitutional development owes much to Labor governments. The Northern Territory's partly elected Legislative Council was introduced by the Chifley Government in 1947. Before that it was run by administrators. Some, including the Territory's first member in this House, the late Harold Nelson, thought they were mere dictators. While the size and composition of the Legislative Council was altered from time to time, little further development took place in the next 27 years. Then, in 1974, the Whitlam Government established a fully elected Legislative Assembly. In the meantime, in 1973, the Whitlam Government had introduced legislation to give the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory Senate representation. The National Country Party and the Liberal Party in both Queensland and Western Australia opposed that legislation and challenged it unsuccessfully in the High Court of Australia, not once, but twice. We have just heard the honourable member for Boothby (Mr Steele Hall) talk about electoral reform. The history of the National Country Party and the Liberal Party in relation to constitutional reform for the Northern Territory is dismal, to say the least. They have been characteristically tardy with this legislation. The referendum which approved the constitutional change covered by this Bill was passed in 1977. The former Government had six years to introduce this legislation and did nothing. In less than three months, the present Government has acted. The next major step in the Northern Territory's constitutional development is statehood. Indeed, the former Prime Minister promised the Territory in 1975 that we would get statehood by 1980. That is one promise that we are pleased he did not keep. Statehood cannot be supported until the Territory's population increases somewhat. At present, it is about 128,000. When Tasmania became a part of the Federation with equal representation in the Senate, its population was about 170,000. A sub-committee of the Constitutional Convention has for some years been grappling with the question of new States representation in this Parliament and particularly in this Senate. The unresolved question is whether new States should get equal Senate representation-that is, 10 senators. If population is to be used as the criterion, the time for decision is not far off. On current projections, the Nothern Territory will have a population of about 170,000 by about the year 1990. As I have already mentioned, that was about the population that Tasmania had when it became a part of this Federation. However, the population growth which has occurred in the Northern Territory over the past decade is unlikely to continue unless the Federal Government maintains its current level of financial support for the Northern Territory. Unless the Federal Government makes a conscious decision to leave our northern coastline unattended and open for attack, or drug trafficking or entry by illegal immigrants, it has only one alternative, and that is to maintain its financial support for the development of the vast northern regions of this continent. The light at the end of the tunnel for the Federal Government, paradoxically, is that eventually, after it spends and continues to spend money in the Northern Territory, the so-called diseconomies of scale will be overcome as the North expands and its population increases. Then the Territory will become less dependent on Federal support. For the past 70 years or more, the north-south railway line has been identified as the linchpin in the development of the Northern Territory. In 1911, the Territory was officially excised from South Australia and placed under the control of the Commonwealth Government. The South Australian and Commonwealth legislation giving effect to that conveyancing transaction contained an agreement that the Commonwealth Government would build the north-south railway from South Australia to Darwin. To this day, the Commonwealth Government has not met that commitment. Parts of the railway line were built. Most of these have since been closed down and torn up. The exception is the Tarcoola to Alice Springs standard gauge link, which was commenced by the previous Labor Government and completed in 1980 by the former Government. Much has been said in recent times about the Alice Springs to Darwin rail link, and not all of it has been favourable. Some say that the cost cannot be justified. Those same critics would probably have said exactly the same things about the Snowy River scheme. That project is now held up as a symbol of our vision and ability as a nation to fight back when times are tough. Most public operations in this country would be closed down tonight if we were to apply the strict economic justification rule. Australian National Line, Trans Australia Airlines, Qantas Airways Ltd, every airport, just about every port and most public transport systems would be closed down. The north-south railway line can be justified as a national development project . It is this sort of project that Australia has pursued in the past when times were tough. This project offers employment. Some 280 workers will be directly involved in the construction and about the same number will be involved in the operation of the railway. Furthermore, thousands of workers at Whyalla will be indirectly employed. It is estimated that the steel rails alone will account for some 20 per cent of Whyalla's annual production over the next five years. Jobs will also be created in other manufacturing areas. Another justification for the railway is defence. Many old-timers in Darwin can still remember the bombing of Darwin in 1942. That was the first Australian town in our history to suffer war damage. That unfortunate incident should serve as a reminder that Australia's north must be kept secure. The railway will offer a reliable, rapid and cost-effective method of transporting heavy defence equipment, supplies and personnel to the north. It will link in with the development of the Tindall air force base and other defence facilities in the north. Those who claim that the railway is useless in this context completely ignore history. In 1944, after the bombing of Darwin and after Australia finally woke up to the fact that the north was effectively undefended, the railway line between Larrimah, which is just south of Katherine, and Darwin was part of a supply lifeline which carried 247 trains a week at its peak. That line was closed by the former Government in 1976. Darwin is now the only Australian capital city which is not serviced by a railway link. An inhibiting factor in the Territory's development and population growth is the higher cost of living experienced by Territory residents. The cost of living in the Territory is estimated to be between 15 per cent and 20 per cent above the Australian capital city average. Most of this difference is freight costs, and, on top of that, sales tax is applied to the landed cost of goods. Thus, Territory people have to meet the additional burden of sales tax on freight. The Labor Party has a policy to remove this iniquitous tax. The proposed national road freight inquiry should also assist in bringing the spotlight on some of the more extreme road freight pricing policies. In 1980 the Joint Study Group, studying the economics of the railway, noted that road freight charges for smaller items to the Territory ranged from $119 to $725 per tonne. The comparative rail freight rates at the time were $32.50 to $113.80. It is easy to see that a rail line, coupled with the removal of sales tax on freight, will reduce the territory's costs of living. If the north-south railway is developed as a national development project, it will pay for itself as a national development project. In other words, if the Federal Government makes a grant for the costs of development so that the debt servicing and other capital costs are not included in the operational costs, the freight and passenger revenue should cover the costs of operations. Last week, Mr Davidson of the Age newspaper described the people of the Northern Territory and Tasmania as parasites. I do not want to be identified with the honourable members who represent various electorates in Tasmania. But Mr Davidson made a comparison of the the per capita Federal expenditure in the two areas and noted that the Northern Territory and Tasmania received, respectively, one and a half times and five and a half times the New South Wales and Victorian expenditure per capita. He implied that the people of the Northern Territory and Tasmania were sucking the lifeblood out of the nation. He and many other people who live in the south-eastern corner of Australia ignore the fact that most of the money spent in the Northern Territory goes straight back into the pockets of manufacturers, mining companies, construction companies and banks in the south-east corner. The Territory has next to no manufacturing industry, and its business suffers from the branch office mentality that Queenslanders have screamed about for years. Taxation on profits made by most big companies in the Norther Territory is usually paid in the State of those companies' head offices. Raw figures can be grossly misleading. The overwhelming majority of the construction work undertaken in the uranium province in the Northern Territory went to interstate manufacturers and contractors. The same applies to the Yulara tourist village at Ayers Rock. The same will probably, unfortunately, apply to the railway line. There are many Territory contractors who are not too happy about that. They have other ideas about who the parasites are. A simple comparison of per capita expenditure also ignores the problems associated with supplying basic services to people in the sparsely populated areas of Australia's outback. About 24 per cent of the Territory's population is of Aboriginal descent and about 80 per cent of those Aboriginal people live in small, remote communities, in the main on their traditional lands. Many of these small communities still do not have a basic water supply. Various non-government and government agencies have been struggling to provide this country's original inhabitants in the Northern Territory with basic health, education, transport and communication facilities-the sorts of facilities that people in the south- east corner take for granted. But still unemployment among Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory is estimated to be as high as 75 per cent. The sad fact is that we have a long way to go. These human factors do not show up in the raw figures. The Territory has a young population, an average age of 24 years compared to Australia's 29 years. Public servants account for about one-third of the work force. In fact, it was Xavier Herbert who said that Darwin's only exports were empty bottles and full public servants. Over 15,000 Territorians are on fixed incomes. There is a large number of single parent families. Mining, tourism and primary industry are the three major industries. The towns of Alice Springs and Katherine have experienced substantial growth associated with the tourist industry and the Territory will applaud what the Federal Government has already done and proposes to do in establishing a department with emphasis on tourism. The mining centres of Tennant Creek, Gove and Groote Eylandt have suffered set- backs in recent years, but it is hoped that those set-backs will be short lived. Not many people realise that Darwin is closer in distance to the hundreds of millions of people of South East Asia than it is to Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra. The Territory is growing, both economically and in population. That growth will bring the Territory and Australia face to face with the need for further constitutional development in the Northern Territory in the not too distant future. When that occurs I hope it is a Labor government that will be dealing with it because history shows that Labor governments have shown the concern for and ability to achieve constructive constitutional development for the Northern Territory. Mr BRAITHWAITE(Dawson)(4.26) —Mr Deputy Speaker, may I congratulate you on what I believe is your first effort in the chair. I can assure you that I will not cause you any trouble in the course of my speech. The Referendum (Constitutional Alteration) Amendment Bill is one that the Opposition accepts. In fact it is one that was being promoted by the previous Government and has now come to fruition in the term of this Government. I believe that it is important that we accept it in the spirit of what the referendum indicated in 1977, that at last the people of the Territories, that is the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, be given rights that have been denied them until that time. From what I understand, it was not until about 1922 that the Territories had representation in this House at all. As the honourable member from the Northern Territory (Mr Reeves) said, they did not get their full voting rights-and this includes the Northern Territory-until about 1968 and the people of the Territories were not represented in the Senate until 1974. This Bill is a further step forward towards giving rights to people from the Territories, people whom we were always happy to call Australians but who somehow were denied the right of participation. The former member for the Northern Territory, Mr Sam Calder, said: 'We pay our taxes, we obey the laws; why are we treated as second or third class citizens?' I think that is a very important point to make. Mrs Kelly —That goes for the people of the Australian Capital Territory too. Mr BRAITHWAITE —I am referring to the people of the Australian Capital Territory too, and I am sure he was too. The Australian Capital Territory has a population of over 200,000; the Northern Territory has a population of 100,000. To be denied basic rights simply because some people have transferred from States where they have those rights to one of the Territories is an irony that has been forced on us by the Constitution. The Opposition sees no problem in accepting this Bill. The aspect of the Northern Territory is one that I should like to speak about, particularly in the light of the Constitution. Tasmania was mentioned by the previous speaker as having had protected by the Constitution its right to elect five members to this House, irrespective of the size of its population. Just going through the last election results for the seats in Tasmania, the effective number of voters in those five seats would have averaged about 54,000 or 55,000. I am not sure what the average number of voters in the Australian Capital Territory would be-certainly it would be a lot more-but I do note that the Northern Territory has a lesser figure. I feel that perhaps this constitutional reform should go a step further and recognise the place that the Territories play in the economy and the life of Australia and that more effective representation should be given in that area. I go back to the Tasmanian situation to give that point a little more emphasis. The previous speaker mentioned that it was only the Australian Labor Party in government which had ever had any concern for the Northern Territory. I would deny that because in 1977 the Northern Territory was given self-government. It is flourishing there and, I believe, is well accepted and is certainly bringing government closer to the people than it could ever be in Canberra. In that regard, it was the previous Government which gave the encouragement as far as the Alice Springs to Darwin rail link is concerned. It gave an indication that it would carry on with that rail link. I hope that the present Government does not renege on that offer by the Commonwealth. In the area of the build-up of the defence bases, both naval and air force, the previous Government made indications, as it did with regard to the power house for Darwin. While the Northern Territory does lack a firm industrial base, until it gets a power source such as the one to be promoted by the new power house, it cannot step into solid manufacturing and other industries. I do hope that that becomes a reality for the Territory. Other difficulties are forced on the Territory by this Parliament, through the manner in which laws are made. I refer to the matter of representation of the many departments of the Commonwealth. The local officers seem to be directed by people who live in Adelaide, at arm's length from the Territory that they are supposed to be administering. I feel it is essential that Canberra give effective recognition to the worth of the Northern Territory by having offices established in the Territory itself so that the officers can be closer to the action and can command the respect of the local people. I mention one department , the Department of Housing and Construction. As the honourable member for the Northern Territory indicated, so much of its work which goes out of the Territory could well be done within it. I mention groups such as consulting engineers and consulting architects, people in the construction game who know the basic requirements of the Territory. If only the various departments could give these people a freer rein, I believe there would be a lot more work done, probably at a cheaper rate and more effectively, because these people know local conditions. I believe it should be a desire of this Parliament and the people representing the rest of Australia that we go that step further and give the people of the Territories, in particular the Northern Territory, that extra right to look after their own affairs. In many other ways, the Northern Territory is discriminated against by laws that are passed here and are effective within the Territory itself. I have only to mention the aspects of land rights, mining and quite a few of the other areas that are being held back in the Territory because of the pre-directions that are issued from Canberra. Perhaps in the fullness of time we will rectify this situation too. I think it is important that we recognise, not only now but also in the future, that the people in the Territories, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, do make up a fair proportion of the Australian population. They certainly provide a fair proportion of the taxes and other requirements needed to make Australia work. They take their share of the strain. They make their contribution. The people of the Northern Territory would probably believe that they take a bigger strain in that they are closer to those teeming millions in the further north-in Asia and in the islands. The Territory people are the first line of defence, not only as far as defence is concerned but also as far as the illegal migrant, the drug running and all of the other things are concerned, and they do require some additional consideration. Certainly, I hope that the defence aspect of the Northern Territory could be built up to a greater degree than it is at the moment, where only token forces are represented by the three Services. So I have pleasure in supporting this Bill, as does the Opposition. I just bring those matters to the attention of the House to indicate that there is real discrimination not only in the Territories but in the north of Australia in prices, transport and so many other areas. Isolation often means neglect and forgetfulness by those people who should take a more real part in the management of those areas. The people of Canberra have up until now been denied the right to vote on referendum matters. I believe this legislation will give effect to the feeling that Canberra people have to be more closely associated with the rest of Australia in their industrial, commercial and social life. Only then might we get a more tolerant view of the situation in the rest of Australia. Mrs Kelly —Are you saying I am a social outcast? Mr BRAITHWAITE —I did not say that at all; I just said it would give them a better feeling. I did not say what the feeling was outside. I do not regard these people as social outcasts at all but I believe it would be better to treat the people of Australia as one and give them all the same rights. After all they all claim to be Australians. We should work towards that common cause. Mrs KELLY(Canberra)(4.36) —Mr Deputy Speaker, I begin by congratulating you on assuming the chair for the first time. I ask you to pass on to the Speaker my congratulations on his assuming his high office. Before I conclude my congratulations it would be most appropriate to point out to the House that when the honourable member for Henty (Mrs Child) took the chair earlier today it was an historical occasion because it was the first time that this House had been presided over by a woman. I congratulate also my colleague the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Reeves) on a very fine maiden speech. I think we can see from that maiden speech that he will make a great contribution to this Parliament and be an effective lobbyist and member for the Northern Territory. I support the Referendum (Constitution Alteration) Amendment Bill 1983 because it will give residents of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory the right to vote in Federal referenda. The Bill is long overdue and it is an absolute disgrace that until now approximately a quarter of a million Australian citizens have been disfrachised merely because they happen to live in a Territory, either the Australian Capital Territory or the Northern Territory. The right to vote is a fundamental principle of all democracies and yet the right of Australian Capital Territory residents to vote in national referenda has been ignored until now. It has taken a Labor Government to recognise and respond quickly to this glaring deficiency in our electoral system. I know that all territorial residents will appreciate the speed with which the Labor Government has acted to ensure territorial voting rights in referenda. The Labor Government took action to correct this electoral deficiency within its first weeks in Parliament. This speedy attention to the rights of Australian Capital Territory residents contrasts sharply to the previous Government's lack of attention to those rights. The previous Government let the matter slide for almost six years, and even after all that time showed no signs of rectifying the situation. That is how much consideration was given to the rights of the people of the Territories. It will be recalled that the 1977 referendum gave Territory electors the right to vote in referenda but from 1977 to the time of the March election this year the previous Government took no action to give legislative effect to this right. What a shameful record. Yet it is typical of the way the previous Government treated the people of Canberra. As all honourable members know, there is no form of local or State government in the Australian Capital Territory. We have only an advisory House of Assembly. So Canberra residents depend entirely on the actions of the national Parliament for their well-being and future development. When the national Parliament ignores the rights and needs of Australian Capital Territory citizens there is no other avenue of appeal. Too often in recent years the needs of Australian Capital Territory citizens have been ignored, overlooked or given the lowest priority. In many vital matters affecting the day to day lives of local residents the previous Government adopted a most cavalier attitude, making ad hoc decisions overnight which often caused havoc in the local economy. I am reminded of the many decisions taken by the previous Government which had little support from the community but which were pushed ahead simply because they were Government policies and had a very serious and damaging effect on the community- for example, the razor gang decisions. In Canberra the previous Government was able to impose its will and indulge in its simplistic free enterprise rhetoric without interference. Those days are over and the people of the Australian Capital Territory demonstrated quite clearly in the most recent Federal election what they thought about that Government's policies. We have now been rewarded for the way we voted by getting what is our right. The people of Canberra will welcome this Government's initiative in ensuring their voting rights in referenda. It will be a refreshing change to have a national government concerned and interested in the rights and needs of Canberra, and I congratulate the Government on taking such quick action on this matter. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Special Minister of State)(4.39) —in reply-I thank the honourable members from both sides of the chamber who took part in the debate for their support. I am amazed at the way they have been able to stretch the Referendum (Constitution Alteration) Amendment Bill to cover the matters that have been raised. I congratulate the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Reeves) and the honourable member for Canberra (Mrs Kelly). The areas which will benefit from this Bill are represented completely by Labor members, and that augurs well for the people of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. I must say to the honourable member for the Northern Territory that in spite of all the predictions made by the so-called experts at the time of the 1983 election, including myself, we were very nobly surprised when his name went up with the majority of votes, and we will take more notice of what he says next time about the Northern Territory than of what we down here think. May I make a quick response to the honourable member for Boothby (Mr Steele Hall). I welcome him back into the fray of politics after 12 months on the back benches, or in the back blocks. He has been longing to get back on to the front bench and say a few words about the Australian Labor Party. I hope he picks better issues upon which to have his fights in future. My interpretation of what he said is that he has now come round to supporting public funding of political parties. He probably thinks that that is a good idea. Obviously if he looks back over the years in which I have served in the Parliament-this week I start my tenth year in the House of Representatives-he will see that I have been saying the same thing about public funding over that period more often than anyone else in the House. My view is based not only on my experience since I became a member but also on my experience when I was campaign director in both State and Federal arenas for the Australian Labor Party. He should take into account, when he makes accusations about political parties and what may or may not have happened, the fact that it was John Valder who said just before the Federal election that the Liberal Party was broke. It spent $10m, so either it was not all that broke or someone must have made some very substantial donations. The honourable member had better look at the evidence that goes before the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, which we have now set up, and the way in which we will deal with the legislation later in the year. Honourable members will get plenty of opportunity to debate these matters. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. The Bill. Mr STEELE HALL(Boothby)(4.45) —I take it that honourable members on the Government side know how many referenda there have been since the 1977 referendum, which is the parent of this Bill. It must be somewhat confusing for the Committee to be told that the previous Government had a shameful record in this matter. I would like to put the record straight in case the honourable member for Canberra (Mrs Kelly) is not aware of the facts. Perhaps the Special Minister of State (Mr Young) can help her. As I said, the referendum in 1977 was the parent of this Bill. Without that question's having been put and successfully passed by a majority of over four million Australians, this Bill would not be practicable today. It was the Liberal-National Party Government that put that question to the people of Australia. I ask the Minister: Has there been a referendum since 1977 that would in any way validate the previous speaker's claim that the previous Government had a shameful record on this? That statement does not tally with the facts as I understand them. Perhaps the Minister can help the Committee by telling us whether there has been a referendum since 1977 and perhaps he can clear up the matter of whether any questions have been put in that way to the Australian public. Perhaps he will acknowledge that it was the previous Government that put the question to the Australian people to answer that brought about this Bill. Otherwise, I feel there will be some confusion. If anyone from the Australian Capital Territory were to read the previous speaker's speech, he would not be aware that in fact it was the Liberal-National Party coalition that brought about this measure; he would think that it was in fact a Labor party initiative. That would be in error. Perhaps the Minister can help the Committee by clearing up that point. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Special Minister of State, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the House)(4.51) —I am not too sure of the point that the honourable member for Boothby (Mr Steele Hall) is making. If he is making the point that there was no opportunity for the people of the Territories to vote in a referendum since 1977, that seems to me to be a very poor excuse for the previous Government's inactivity over the past six years. Bill agreed to. Bill reported without amendment; report adopted. Bill (on motion by Mr Young)-by leave-read a third time. Debate resumed from 4 May, on motion by Mr John Brown: That the Bill be now read a second time. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Special Minister of State, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the House)(4.53) —Mr Deputy Speaker, may I have your indulgence to suggest that the House has a general debate covering this Bill, the Customs Tariff (Coal Export Duty) Amendment Bill 1983 and the Excise Tariff Amendment Bill 1983 as they are associated measures. Separate questions will, of course, be put on each of the Bills at the conclusion of the debate. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Rocher) —Is it the wish of the House to have general debate covering these measures? There being no objection, I will allow that course to be followed. Mr MOORE(Ryan)(4.54) —The Customs Tariff Amendment Bill 1983, the Customs Tariff (Coal Export Duty) Amendment Bill 1983 and the Excise Tariff Amendment Bill 1983, which were introduced last week, will not be opposed by the Opposition but I will move an amendment at the second reading stage to the Excise Tariff Amendment Bill 1983. The first of the three Bills gives effect to decisions of the Industries Assistance Commission and the Temporary Assistance Authority, along with a number of other decisions of the previous Government, and is supported by the Opposition. The Customs Tariff (Coal Export Duty) Amendment Bill gives effect to certain charges that are levied on coal exports throughout Australia. It is worth while recording at this stage the enormous amount of money that is collected from these charges. I have figures from one operator that show that, of a gross income of $487m, State government charges amounted to $120m or 24.6 per cent, Federal Government charges which included corporate income tax amounted to $218m or 44.9 per cent. A total of 69.5 per cent of all income derived by this particular organisation of coal mines went in government charges. The figure of 30.5 per cent of income remained with the corporation. That shows the enormous amount of government impost that has been put on the mining companies. It is something which will have a bad effect in the long run on the development of some of the projects because quite clearly cash flow is important in the development of mines, particularly in the first five years. With those sorts of charges being levied, where 69 per cent plus of income goes to governments, that must have an inhibiting effect on those developments. The Excise Tariff Amendment Bill 1983 relates to charges and excise on petroleum, natural gas, beer, tobacco products and some other petroleum products . These changes are consequent upon the 1982 Budget, with the exception of the duty on crude petroleum which reflects the new Government's election policy and the devaluation. It will be in this area that I will move an amendment. In doing so I wish to draw attention to the facts. During the election campaign we heard a lot about petrol prices. Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) said in his policy speech: As part of Labor's anti-inflation package and in recognition of the burden of extra taxation levied by the Government on people affected by the wage freeze, Labor will reduce the price of petrol by cancelling the January 1 oil price increase of $3.23 per barrel. This will have the effect of reducing the price of petrol by the order of 3 cents a litre. There was the promise. What was the action? The action was that the Government decided that, rather than meet that obligation, it would in fact reduce the price of petrol by 1.5c a litre; it would go half way. Mrs Kelly —That was because of devaluation. Mr MOORE —I am interested in that comment. I am pleased the honourable member made it. The Prime Minister said in his policy speech that we should not take any notice of devaluations or currency movements. He said that we ought to accept that if the price of Saudi crude oil goes down on the world market from $ 35 or $34 a barrel to $29 a barrel, which it did, that that should be reflected in cheaper prices in Australia. That was the Prime Minister's position. He said that we should disregard movements in currency. But when the Labor Party came to Government the first thing that happened was that it immediately took into account the devaluation and discounted the promised cut of 3c a litre. That is the sheer, stark reality of a Labor promise. The Government promised a reduction of 3c a litre and promised to take no notice of currency movements. Its action was to reduce the price of petrol by a half of what it had said it would-by 1.5c a litre-and attribute that to the devaluation of currency. The second point that is interesting is that the Prime Minister not only alluded to the fact that not only should one not take into consideration currency movements but also that the people of Australia should get the full benefit of the price drop in Saudi oil. He said that the Saudi price of $34 a barrel really did not matter much; that we ought to buy on the spot market-that is, at the convenient price at the time. At that time the spot price of oil on the world market was around $25-in other words about $8 a barrel less than what we were contracting to pay from Saudi Arabia. As a consequence, that price flowed on as a benchmark price for Australian crude oil. Of course, that was a convenient election ploy. Today the spot price is over the going bench price for Saudi crude. It is over $29 a barrel. If that policy had been pursued, once again we would have been in for a rise in petrol prices. The Government went about explaining the movement of prices in a quaint way. It led the people of Australia to believe that there would be substantial cuts in petrol prices and that there would be a review, presumably, of the bench-mark mechanism. The fact that we would have a situation in which only the price set by the Saudis would count and it would not be affected by a revaluation or devaluation was agreed to in April with the joy of yet another broken promise. As a consequence of that the Australian public has now received a reduction of 1 .5c a litre rather than a promised 3c. I will not pursue the three Bills any further except to indicate that I will move an amendment at a later point to the third Bill, the Excise Tariff Amendment Bill. Mrs KELLY(Canberra)(4.56) —As I listened to the honourable member for Ryan (Mr Moore) I was amazed at the hypocrisy of the gentleman as he discussed the Australian Labor Party's policy on the pricing of petrol when under his government the Australian electorate saw the biggest increase ever recorded in the retail price of petrol. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Rocher) —Order! The honourable member is not permitted to use the word 'hypocrisy'. I almost missed it. I ask her to withdraw. Mrs KELLY —I withdraw the term 'hypocrisy'. However, I repeat that I was amazed at the insincerity of the statement of the honourable member for Ryan about the Labor Government's policy on petrol pricing when it was his government which presided over the largest increases in the price of petrol ever recorded in this country. He complained that, in fact, the discount on petrol at the bowser under Labor is only 1.5c a litre instead of 3c a litre. At least it is a decrease in the price of petrol rather than a consistent increase which we witnessed under the previous administration. I wish to comment on the effect of the Excise Tariff Amendment Bill on petrol prices. This Bill will reduce the excise duty to be paid on stabilised crude petroleum oil to take effect from 1 April 1983. This measure reflects the earlier Cabinet decision of 16 March this year to reduce the price of Australian crude oil by $2 a barrel. If this is fully passed on to the motorist it should result, as the honourable member for Ryan explained to us , in a fall in price at the petrol pump of 1 1/2c a litre. As predicted by the Labor Party last year, the official price of the market crude oil-that is, Saudi Arabian light-fell from $34 a barrel to $29 a barrel earlier this year. The previous Government took no account of prevailing market conditions, the international glut of crude oil or the resulting price cutting carried out by most international oil exporters. By changing the price only twice each year, that is, on 1 July and 1 January, the previous Government took no account of changing exchange rates or changing market conditions in between these periods. The result was that all Australian motorists paid dearly for their petrol and any market forces which could have resulted in lower prices for consumers were totally ignored. While the domestic crude price was set at only six-monthly intervals, discrepancies between the domestic price and what might be termed true import parity occurred. However, the Labor Government recognises that rapid changes of conditions in the international oil market can and do occur frequently and is determined that, as far as possible, the benefits will be passed on to motorists. At its Cabinet meeting on 16 March this year, a little over a week after it was elected, the Hawke Government took action to ensure that the drop in international crude oil prices was passed on to the Australian motorist. That shows how the Hawke Government is living up to a commitment that it made in the election campaign. Whereas the previous Government-- Mr Moore —Only half way. Mrs KELLY —The honourable member for Ryan said: 'Only half way'. It is a lot better than anything that his Government ever did. All his Government did was increase the price of petrol. Whereas the previous Government saw fit to increase the barrel price by $3.23, and I ask honourable members to remember that was only on 1 January this year, and ignored the international market situation-so much for the integrity of the honourable member's Government-the Labor Government took immediate action to lower the price by $2 a barrel. The $2 reduction took account of the lower price for Saudi Arabian light and the variation of the exchange rate. The new import parity price for Bass Strait crude oil is now $36.90 a barrel. This price should now flow on to motorists. If it had been up to the previous Government there would be no price variation. If there was it would not have occurred anyway until 1 July and consumers would have been ripped off once again. The Petroleum Products Pricing Authority, which sets wholesale prices for petrol throughout Australia, last week reduced the maximum wholesale price of petrol by 1 1/2c a litre. In the past the Petroleum Products Pricing Authority has generally accepted the arguments of the oil companies for increases in prices. This has caused concern to some organisations involved in the retailing of petrol which believe that the oil companies' submissions should be more closely investigated. For example, aside from the official reduction in the price of Saudi Arabian light crude, prices being charged by members of the Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries and other crude oil exporters vary considerably below the official price, and at least some of the oil refining and marketing companies in Australia are taking advantage of low spot market prices in obtaining their requirements of imported crude oil. Of course, the companies would also benefit from discounts on contract prices. All of these factors should be taken into account in setting the maximum wholesale price of petrol and could perhaps result in further price reductions. Of course, the Petroleum Products Pricing Authority can set only the maximum wholesale price throughout Australia; it does not set retail prices. At the retailing end of the oil industry the situation is nothing short of chaotic. In most States, a pricing authority determines the maximum retail price . However, within these arrangements the oil companies implement their own differential scale of prices to retail operators depending on whether they are commission agents, licensed dealers or independent site operators. Of course, the oil companies have preferential prices for their commission agents operating on oil company-owned sites and, in many cases, the prices are structured so as to drive competitors out of business. In some cases the oil companies' retail outlets are able to sell petrol at a price below the wholesale price of their competitors. The dealers become the meat in the sandwich. They are unable to trade under normal market conditions and, in many cases, are forced to operate at margins which send them broke. In the Australian Capital Territory the marketing of petrol is not controlled by any State-type authority and the conflict between oil companies and retail outlets is unmitigated by any official body or legislation. For years Australian Capital Territory residents have been paying dearly for their petrol as a result of the oil companies' discriminatory pricing policies. Petrol for Canberra and surrounding areas is freighted by train to the Fyshwick depots and is then sold in service stations in Canberra and the surrounding areas of New South Wales. This same petrol is sold at a higher price in Canberra than it is in Queanbeyan which is across the border. New South Wales has a State pricing authority; Canberra does not. The result has been that Canberra motorists have consistently paid higher prices-up to 7c or 8c a litre higher-than those paid in New South Wales. Currently Sydney prices are as low as 37.9c a litre, which includes a 3c a litre State tax. In comparison, prices in Canberra average between 46c and 48c a litre. The previous Minister for the Capital Territory, the honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman), was quite unconcerned about this rip-off and refused to implement the Price Control Ordinance and to take any action at all to control petrol prices in this Territory. In fact, he was so unconcerned about this issue that he even abolished the Price Control Ordinance altogether. However, the Hawke Government and the new Minister for Territories and Local Government (Mr Uren) are very much more concerned about the interests of motorists in Canberra and throughout Australia and will be taking steps to ensure that consumers get a fair deal on petrol prices. Transportation and petrol prices constitute a significant proportion of cost of living indexes, namely 16 1/2 per cent. The Government is committed to policies which will ensure that consumers are protected from any unnecessary increases in costs of living and is prepared to take immediate action on such issues as the 16 March reduction in the barrel price of oil indicates. However, the whole structure of petroleum products pricing in Australia needs to be reviewed. Under the current arrangements the Petroleum Products Pricing Authority sets wholesale prices. Variable State pricing policies and differential oil company pricing structure have resulted in a complex and confusing situation. What is needed is a thorough national inquiry into the oil industry as a whole, including importing, wholesale and retail prices and the issue of divorcement of oil companies from ownership of retail sites. Such an inquiry would be able to investigate all these matters on a national basis and make appropriate recommendations for reform. Consideration needs to be given to establishing realistic dealer margins and ensuring fair competition and trading conditions in the market-place. For example, in relation to the Trade Practices Commission recommendation that lessee dealers be allowed to buy 50 per cent of their petrol from other oil companies, Victoria and Western Australia have included this in State legislation, while other areas such as the Australian Capital Territory have no legislative controls at all. Well-intentioned Trade Practices Commission recommendations are, of course, no use on their own without adequate legislative teeth, and a national inquiry would go a long way towards regularising the market conditions throughout Australia. Reform of the petrol industry is long overdue. Petroleum products are a vital part of modern life and an important part of the national economy. The oil industry cannot be allowed to operate without the public interest being adequately protected by legislative means. It is not good enough to rely on the goodwill of individual States or, in the case of the Australian Capital Territory, on the public spiritness of the responsible Minister, for the regulation of this industry. A national inquiry into all aspects of the oil industry is long overdue and I hope that every consideration will be given to establishing such an inquiry and, hopefully, a set of national guidelines for the industry as soon as possible. The Labor Government has already proved its commitment to the interests of all Australians by its actions in reducing the wholesale price of crude oil, and will closely monitor future price fluctuations in order to ensure that all Australians gain the maximum possible benefit. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith. Bill (on motion by Mr John Brown) read a third time. Consideration resumed from 4 May, on motion by Mr John Brown: That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith. Bill (on motion by Mr John Brown) read a third time. Debate resumed from 4 May, on motion by Mr John Brown: That the Bill be now read a second time. Motion (by Mr Moore) proposed: That all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: 'whilst not declining to give the Bill a second reading, the House notes that the Government has failed to honour its election commitment to reduce the price of petrol by 3c per litre and its pre-election undertaking to disregard currency fluctuations in setting the price of Australian produced crude oil'. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Rocher) —Is the amendment seconded? Mr Ruddock-As you are aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, with a great deal of pleasure I second the amendment. Mr JOHN BROWN(Parramatta-Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, Minister for Administrative Services and Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry and Commerce)(5.12) —Of course, the Government will not accept this amendment. In fact, we oppose it for quite a number of reasons. It strikes me as quite odd that the honourable member for Ryan (Mr Moore), for whom I have the utmost respect as an individual, would have the gall and the arrogance to come into this House in the second week of this sitting and suggest that this Government is about to break an election promise. That such words could emerge from the group on the other side of the House simply amazes me. I have sat here for seven years and seen the previous Government build up a record unparalleled since Federation not only of breaking promises but also of having an absolute disregard for any form of decency or honesty in its conduct of government in this country. A Prime Minister now removed had the peculiar 'honour' of having a rather responsible newspaper one day devote the front page of its publication to three simple words, namely, 'lies, lies, lies'. The basis for this honourable member to come in here now and suggest that this new Government is breaking a promise is simply beyond imagination. Let us have a look at the text of the honourable member's amendment. It is true that the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in his election speech said that we would reduce the price of petrol and also that we would disregard movements in currency in order to implement that promise. But let us examine the context in which that promise was made. Mr Fisher —You are wriggling. Mr JOHN BROWN —I am not wriggling at all. The honourable member will be wriggling when I am finished with him. At that time, of course, the truth had not been revealed about Australia's financial position. It took the election of the Labor Government to establish just what our situation was. The Labor Government was advised by the Secretary of the Treasury that we were in fact facing a deficit of $9.6 billion. That was the prospect that was facing an incoming government. The position was bad enough when we thought we were facing a deficit of $6,000m. But the deceit of the previous Government, the deceit of the then Treasurer in not revealing to the Australian public what our financial position was, certainly has great relevance to whatever commitments the Prime Minister may have made in his election speeches. Let me turn to the reason why this Government needed to devalue. Perhaps it might embarrass the honourable members opposite a little more when they realise why we had to devalue. I will tell them why. The now Leader of the Opposition ( Mr Peacock), once we had got into government, started speaking as often as he could about how this new Government would have to devalue. The effect of that was, of course, that money flowed out of Australia by the bucketfull. Thousands of millions of dollars of overseas investment in Australia was taken away. The now Leader of the Opposition had broken every decent convention of this Parliament. It is never ever the estate of an Opposition to suggest there is about to be a devaluation of the currency. In Opposition, we certainly desisted that temptation because of the deleterious effect it can have on the nation's economy. The now Leader of the Opposition was immoral enough constantly to parade himself around and to tell people that now there was a Labor government in power there would be a need to devalue. Of course his suggestion became the fact. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the only way in which the incoming Government could stem the flow of capital from Australia was to devalue and, of course, it took the responsible action of doing just that shortly after assuming the Treasury bench. No one in Australia, least of all the economic writers, suggested that that was anything but the correct action to take. The result was the the proposed reduction in petrol price was discounted to the extent of the devaluation. That is why it became 1 1/2c a litre, not 3c a litre. So it ill becomes honourable members now in opposition to criticise the incoming Government for having taken that very responsible action-action forced upon it by two circumstances that were the result of actions of the former Government. Firstly, that Government misled the Australian public as to the extent of the economic disaster which faced Australia when it left the Treasury. Secondly, we had the ill-founded and ill-advised statements of the present Leader of the Opposition, who suggested that there would be a devaluation. As I have explained , that forced investors to take their money out of Australia and eventually forced this Government to devalue. The result of all that was a diminution in the promised reduction in the price of petrol. Thus, the Government feels no sorrow and no guilt whatever in that regard. If any guilt is to be apportioned it can be fairly sheeted home to the former Government. Therefore, we discount the amendment and refuse to accept it. Amendment negatived. Original question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith. Bill (on motion by Mr John Brown) read a third time. Address-in-Reply Debate resumed from 5 May, on motion by Ms Fatin: That the following Address-in-Reply to the Speech of His Excellency the Governor-General be agreed to: MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY: We, the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign, and to thank Your Excellency for the Speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament. MR DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Mountford) —Before I call the honourable member for Phillip, I remind the House that it is the honourable member's maiden speech and she should be heard in silence. Ms McHUGH(Phillip)(5.18) —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It gives me pleasure to begin by congratulating you on attaining your office and in asking you to pass on my congratulations to the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees. Also, I congratulate those new members who have so successfully preceded me in the Address-in-Reply debate. I will try to make my comments as relevant as were theirs. The Australian Labor Party won the seat of Phillip as part of the strong swing against the policies of the former Government, which had allowed Australia to develop chronically high unemployment, unacceptable inflation and interest rates , growing inequality of wealth and incomes and a deep and widespread feeling amongst the people of division and lack of direction. That feeling has now been replaced by one of cautious hope, generated I think by the change of government itself that the electorate had the courage to bring about. There is amongst people now a good will towards the new Government that is almost tangible, certainly as I go around our electorate. The swing against the former Government occurred in Phillip because it represents a microcosm of the Australian electorate. Most people know something of Phillip-either the beautiful beaches from Bondi to Coogee, Randwick Racecourse, or the University of New South Wales, the largest in Australia. The electorate is superbly positioned. It is 20 minutes from the airport and, with the advent of the Eastern Suburbs railway, it is now less than 20 minutes from the city. It is not a bad place to live if you are a professional person, well- heeled, with concern for your time, health and petrol savings; in fact, it is a great place to live. But should it be available only to the wealthy, only to those who can afford to live there? Property values are naturally as high as they are anywhere in Australia. The rise in property values has resulted in demographic changes of significance to the character of the area and, of course, to voting patterns. In this tiny area, the smallest Federal electorate in Australia, all the diversity, contrasts and inequalities that exist in Australian society can be found. Australia is an unequal society. In Phillip those inequalities are very evident. One can see affluence and poverty in the same suburb and in the same street, side by side and across the road, looking at each other. As well as the luxury units and the $300,000 bungalows, Phillip consistently has above average unemployment figures and a far above average number of single parent families. Despite the strong conservative element in the electorate Phillip has, almost more than has any other electorate of Australia, a high number of non- traditional families. We have also a great many age pensioners. This mix of people decided that the former Government had to go. As a matter of fact, we still do not know just how many of the residents of our area actually wanted a change of government. So many did not have the time to get on the rolls. We will not know until we get a better system than one which allows a Prime Minister to call an election at whim, giving insufficient time for new electors to enrol. The new electors include the young and those who move in and out of an electorate such as Phillip, which has such a high turnover of residents. Also, there are in our area a lot of people who, for reasons of their own, understandable to them, hesitate to register with any sort of authority. They are the people who need a Labor government and who very bitterly resented the fact that, for once in their lives, they wanted to vote and did not have time to get on the rolls. Thank heaven they got a change of government anyway and fortunately that situation will not occur again. From all sections of this multilevel society in Phillip people came to help us, the rank and file branch members of the Labor Party, to win Phillip from the previous Government. I want to mention two groups in particular, not just to acknowledge their role in our campaign, but to declare my commitment to a common cause with them. One group is the Tasmanian Wilderness Society. Young people in their thousands turned to Labor on the issue of South West Tasmania. Labor, for them, offered the promise of stopping that bit of carnage of a part of their environment, their land, their heritage. They are not single issue people. They represent the aspirations of the young and the sensitive in our society to protect the beauty in our natural environment from the ravages of short term commercial interest, generally exercised for the profit of a few. I share their aspirations and so does my party. In government we need even more the support of these people to carry through our policies. It was and always will be a matter of great pride to us in the Australian Labor Party branches in Phillip that we were joined in our campaign by so many men and women from the trade unions. As unionists they came to give generously of their work and comradeship, as part of the broad labour movements' effort to achieve a Labor government in Canberra. The trade unions and the Labor Party were originally formed because there was a need for them. That need still exists and always will for the majority of Australians, that is, those who have to work. The strength of a Labor party and a Labor government lies in its links with the union movement because they are the links with the Australian working people. I want also to thank the women of New South Wales for their support and for their joy in the result in Phillip, a joy which crossed all party lines. Not once since Federation had a woman from New South Wales been elected to the national Parliament. We have waited so long and so many should have been here before. I am very proud to have on my desk a pair of scissors and a paper knife that belonged to the magnificent Jessie Street. They were given to me because among the many paths that the great Jessie Street first trod bravely for us was the path that could have led to this place. She stood for the seat of Phillip when it was created in 1949. The fact that at this time this particular woman enter Parliament is part of an evolutionary process. I am a link between the older women of the Labor Leagues and today's younger feminists. The older women fought the first battles for women's rights in the work place and for equal pay. I love and honour those women. Today's younger women have taken on, as well as the old continuing struggles, the demands to meet new circumstances and new expectations in areas such as child care and women's refuges. All these women fought against the forces of oppression and intolerance which would not allow a woman to make her own decision, no matter how painful or distressing, in relation to child bearing . I am glad that, thanks to the courage and common sense of generations of responsible women, the single issue campaigns of the intolerant have become irrelevant and ineffective. By chance, I have become that inevitable link between the all male representation from New South Wales of the last 80-odd years and the many women from that State who will from now on take their places in this Parliament, both here and in the other place, with their male colleagues. But by far the most important thing for me is that I will be, I hope, a link between those generations of full time housewives and mothers whose 'duties' kept them isolated at home, politically either unaware or uninvolved, and those full time housewives and mothers who from now on, I hope, will become active participants in the decision-making process. I have never thought that the entry of individual women into the Parliament would, of itself, necessarily better the condition of women in Australia. I must admit, though, that it is not a bad job for the individual women who come into parliament. After my 23 years outside the paid work force, I think it is perhaps one of the few jobs available for which I am still qualified. However, as individuals in Parliament I think we can be swallowed up by the system. There are other women whom we must think of. Society depends to a very large extent on the unpaid work of women at home. I want those women to start asking back from society a fair return for the contribution that they make to it-a fair return by way of better education, better housing, better health care, better transport, et cetera. Women must use their political potential to gain these better conditions. The issue that is politicising women at present more than any other is that of disarmament and the nuclear arms race. It reminds me of how we were politicised nearly 20 years ago by the Vietnam war. Now, as then, women particularly have joined so many others and decided to show their concerns-and yet they are called dupes, just as we were then, by those who refuse to acknowledge that we care about human suffering caused by war. I am reminded that in the last election the Vietnam veterans, when asking both parties for an independent inquiry into the problems that had occurred as a result of their serving in Vietnam, were quite clear in their recognition of where we stood. One burly soldier said to me: 'I couldn't understand you, love, when you marched down the street in the moratorium years, but I certainly understand you now. The Government that sent us to Vietnam has dumped us. You care.' I am reminded of the misunderstanding and misinterpretations implicit in the advice given to us not to talk about things like disarmament, because we might get into trouble, and certainly not to mention a word like 'peace', which has become a bit of a dirty word. In this Parliament I would like to rehabilitate three words that mean a lot to me: 'Peace', 'unions' and 'socialism'. I resent good concepts being besmirched through misrepresentation. I am tired of being called naive because I join those who want to prevent war. I think it is more likely that those who do not realise they are being manipulated by the arms merchants are the naive ones. More and more Australians are becoming aware of the dangers to world peace because of the increase in nuclear weapons. On March 27 last, 200,000 Australians took to the streets to show their concern. A Labor Government, as our policy sets out, must reject the escalation of nuclear weapons and work to bring about positive disarmament negotiations. Our Government has the responsibility to call on all nuclear powers to reduce their nuclear weapons arsenals and to declare that we will not be part of a nuclear war machine. It is wrong, in my view, to allow Australia's uranium to circulate in such a way that it will inevitably enter the world nuclear weapons chains. I have long opposed the use of nuclear energy in any form and I have long been convinced that Australia should not mine or export its uranium. The other disgraceful situation that comes about by the world's preoccupation with war is the huge expense involved. Perhaps there would be no starvation in the world, no want, no uneducated kids, no homeless people and probably fewer international tensions if we could find a way to stop spending the $1.5 billion each day that the world spends on armament. What a sad reflection on our civilisation that so much money is wasted! What country can be so rich that it can squander its richness in such a dangerous manner? It is an indictment of our society that billions of dollars go into the arms race yet people still hold raffles to get money for cancer research and women still work in voluntary canteens in schools to get pens and paper for their children's education. It is a further indictment of our civilisation in this age of science that more scientists are living today than in the combined history of the past 1,000 years and the majority of them are today employed to invent more and more weapons of war. We can put our scientists to so much better use. Our technological base has not changed much since the 1950s. New skills are required for the 1980s. Viable alternative employment opportunities are being encouraged and promoted. The Labor Government can invest dollars and faith in research to establish new high technology 'sunrise' industries. These include biotechnology, software for personal computers and communications technology-a great deal of work in this area is being done in our electorate of Phillip at the University of New South Wales. Either we will have to develop our own technology in consultation with the workers or, as with most things to date, we will have to buy from overseas. To meet the demands of Australian society, the economy must generate more wealth . There is no guarantee of success of course, but there is the guarantee of further economic regression if industry and government fail to take up the challenge of the new, high technology industries. Mr Barry Jones —Hear, hear! Ms McHUGH —The people at the University of New South Wales are delighted by the enthusiasm of the new Minister for Science and Technology (Mr Barry Jones). Finally I wish to talk about the reason for which this Government was elected and the task ahead of us. The problem of unemployment in Australia was one of the key factors in the election campaign. The unemployment rate rose from 5 per cent to 10 per cent under the previous Government. For the young it rose to 28 per cent. Of course, it was worse for women and girls. The Fraser Government promised more of the same policies- that is, it promised more unemployment-and it lost office. Labor is committed to addressing the unemployment problem. We carry no illusion that it will be easy. Governments in other industrialised countries with socialist objectives such as our own have been elected with similar mandates and clearly have been unable to make any but very slow progress . But socialist parties have advantages over conservative parties in addressing the problem of unemployment. We are prepared to acknowledge one of the key aspects of the long term unemployment problem throughout the industrialised world, that is, that the economic system as it has evolved, motivated by profit, increasingly dominated by monopolies and integrated on a world wide basis, is no longer able to provide full employment and a reasonable standard of living for all. We cannot accept the philosophy that says to working people: 'You can have a job, if you are prepared to work at the internationally going rate of pay'. We are not prepared to underwrite such a massive drop in the standard of living of Australians. In this approach we are joined by many of the small business, merchant and professional groups. We are prepared to look honestly at the causes of unemployment. We are prepared to take the far-reaching steps necessary to provide jobs and decent living standards for all. We are prepared to intervene in the economic system and to stimulate employment through both the public and private sectors-a slow but sure process. We are prepared to consult and to plan for the longer term. I take this opportunity to tell the electors of Phillip that I too am prepared to consult and to listen. I certainly hope they will be listening to me and consulting with me and that the dialogue will continue for a long time. Mr BURR(Wilmot)(5.37) —I would like to congratulate the honourable member for Phillip (Ms McHugh) for her first contribution in this House. I know what a harrowing experience it is. I think that she handled her first speech with confidence and that she will go from strength to strength. I would have liked her to congratulate the former member for Phillip, Mr Jack Birney, for the contribution that he made during his years in this place. I know that he was a hard working member. He represented the people of Phillip very well in this Parliament. I would also like you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to pass on my congratulations to Mr Speaker for his election to that most responsible position . Having worked with him over a number of years, you can assure him, Mr Deputy Speaker, that he has my full confidence and support for the years that he will occupy the chair. Australia, along with all other industrialised countries, needs urgently to plan a range of policies for the year 2000 and beyond. I am delighted to see that the Minister for Science and Technology (Mr Barry Jones) is in the House to listen to the comments I want to make. Advancing technology is causing the most dramatic changes to our social and economic environment since the industrial revolution. That technological revolution cannot be coped with by hanging on to the thinking, the ambitions and the standards and power structures of the past. Australia desperately needs statesman-like leadership, leadership that can take this country through the technological revolution in an orderly, humane and dignified manner. We need statesmen in government, business, unions and community leadership. The first important requirement is for all Australians to have an understanding of the social and economic upheaval we are facing as a result of the technological revolution. The second requirement is for leaders at all levels to plan for bold new directions rather than to try to hang on to the power structures of the past. The explosion of new technology is forcing dramatic changes to our traditional social and economic patterns. We can expect that that process will continue and accelerate in the future. Past social and economic structures have been based on the production of goods and services by human effort with the help of machines-the work process being a major economic, social and psychological activity for our people. However, new technology is providing large increases in productive capacity by using dramatically fewer people. The economic output and the economic efficiency of a country or an industry can certainly be increased by using advanced technology. The problem is that the needs of displaced people are being ignored and we have not even begun to plan for the problems of future generations. That planning must be undertaken urgently if we are to avoid the social chaos that accompanied the industrial revolution. In the past governments as well as industry and union leaders have allowed their planning to be dominated by economic factors with an underlying ambition to hang on to their power structures. However, in the future as much or more attention must be given to social planning as is given to economic planning. Power structures will change. It is to be hoped that statesman-like leadership will allow those changes in power to occur by orderly means rather than by chaotic social upheaval. There is still an overriding and widespread desire to hang on to what has been socially and economically comfortable in the past. But our thinking must change quickly. Technology is forcing changes to our economy. The urgent need is for our thinking to change so as to look to the future rather than to try to hang on to the past, to keep our social planning in harmony with the technological revolution. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has made an important start by calling the National Economic Summit Conference. I trust that the change in thinking by our leaders will begin to accelerate from that point. Economic and social changes will occur as technology increasingly takes over the production process. That will continue to force dramatic changes in work patterns. In turn, it will force changes in income, educational and leisure patterns. They will need to be planned. But changes in the political structures are also required if those plans are to be implemented properly. The process started after the Second World War. Agriculture changed from being labour intensive to become capital intensive. As bigger and more efficient machines allowed a higher level of production with less manpower, dramatic social and economic changes were forced upon people in rural areas. Many people moved to industrial centres to get jobs while governments and rural authorities tried to diversify factory locations in order to provide jobs in rural areas and , therefore, minimise the social upheaval. The most recent example is in the mining industry. During the past 25 years, enormous mining developments have occurred and now provide about 30 per cent of our export income. But because of the high level of mechanisation, those projects employ a very small percentage of our total work force. The technological revolution is now causing dramatic changes to the work patterns and opportunities in the traditionally labour intensive manufacturing industries and also in some service industries. That process will continue and accelerate. As it does, the jobs available in industry will become more technical in nature. That, in turn, will require higher levels of education and training. At the lower level of the work environment there will be a growth in jobs in the service industries, particularly in the travel and hospitality industries. But over and above all of that, it is likely that there will not be anywhere near enough jobs for the numbers of people who want full time work. I think that that reality has to be faced by honourable members on both sides of this chamber and by people who are planning our economy outside this place in industry and in unions. In a recent paper entitled 'Challenge to Australia', Sir Barton Pope suggested that a great deal could be done with the unoccupied work force to develop the sparsely populated areas of the north. However, as developments in the Pilbara and the Bowen Basin have shown, enormous economic and developmental activity can be undertaken by using relatively few people. Regardless of such worthwhile projects, as Sir Barton suggests, we will still have a rapidly increasing number of unoccupied and under-occupied people in the densely populated industrial centres of Australia. Such conditions are rapidly tearing Australia apart. The resultant social unrest could easily lead to widespread violence if the causes of the social cancer are not corrected quickly with the hope of longer term social and psychological stability. People need to feel part of and be accepted by the community in which they live . They also need the psychological satisfaction of knowing that they are making a useful contribution to the maintenance and improvement of their community. As well as that, they need to have the economic security of knowing that they can provide for the physical needs of themselves and their families. All these conditions are met simply by having a job. But if there are not enough jobs for all who want them, other methods have to be found to satisfy the human, physical and psychological needs of our people. Failure to do so will lead to increasing levels of crime, drug taking and other anti-social activities with a real fear of widespread internal armed hostility. I am sure that all of us would agree that such a prospect in this country is frightening. Leadership must be given from the top. Good morale or bad morale never starts from the bottom and works its way up, it always starts from the top and filters down. Our political structures need to change to allow people who are elected to represent others the scope and opportunity to make an input into the decision- making process. The process of parliaments and governments cannot continue with the bitter divisions that we have known in the past. Such partisan divisions may be of some satisfaction to the very small percentage of the population which is involved in party politics. But to the vast majority of the population the political machinations of so-called leaders simply undermines their confidence in the process of government and in the people who are supposed to be their leaders. The parliamentary process must be broadened so as to allow a breakdown in partisan differences and to allow all members of parliament to have an input into the decision-making and administrative structures but also to provide longer term planning that will be followed through regardless of which party is in power. I have advocated for some years that the Opposition of the day must be given a responsible and functional role in the administrative process. Failure to do so simply disenfranchises at least 45 per cent of the people-those who have voted for the opposition party. I have not changed my views simply because I am now in opposition. I have held those views for some time and have said so often in the past in this place. I am encouraged by the announcement by the Special Minister of State (Mr Young) to establish a more responsible parliamentary committee system. I trust that his final proposals will reflect the statesmanlike approach that I mentioned earlier, but at this stage we are still to hear the details of the committee system that has been suggested by him. The relationship between the Commonwealth and State governments needs to be brought into line with the demands of the twenty-first century. The constitutional divisions of power was designed to bring the States together as one nation and was based on the knowledge of the 1890s. Over the years that has led to a costly duplication of administration and services. Financial dominance by the Commonwealth has led to the endless bickering, parochialism and division of the nation. We now need a constitution that will unite Australia and allow for more efficient administration. While a constitutional convention exists, there does not appear to be any dedication to bring about constitutional reform. The Constitutional Convention met in 1977 and again in 1983 but the need for reform is far more urgent than only those two meetings indicate. I suggest that in seeking reform we must also seek a reform that can be accepted by all Australians and by all institutional authorities in Australia. We cannot have constitutional reform that is in fact a dictate of the Commonwealth Government. I fear that some of the suggestions being put forward by Senator Gareth Evans are not to effect a genuine reform of the Constitution but rather to centralise power in this place-in Canberra-at the expense of other power bodies and other forms of government at State and local level throughout Australia. That is not reform, that is dictatorship. What we need is a genuine consensus reform of our Constitution. Governments need to plan for much longer periods than a single term of parliament, hence the need to have bipartisan agreement for long term plans. That would give a direction to the country rather than have the wild swings in policy whenever there is a change of government. In turn it would allow businesses and other leaders in the community to plan with more certainty, to provide stability in the community and to eliminate much of the division in Australia. Our industrial relations must improve. We cannot continue with the divisiveness that is presently an inherent part of our industrial relations structure. The objectives of all Australians, whether in government, unions or management, are the same-that is, steadily to improve our economic and social standards of living. But while we share those common objectives-I do not think anyone on either side of the House would dispute that-the constant division between capital and labour has caused untold damage to this country. I am not excusing one side or the other because faults have occurred on both sides. Legal requirements, as we have known, are not the answer. We have tried the legalities of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and other legal processes and they have led us further and further into this industrial division that is tearing our country down, holding back our potential for development. What is needed is an attitude of tolerance and understanding from all sides that will allow common objectives to be realised. If the social upheaval of the technological revolution is to be coped with our industrial leaders must adopt more intellectual vision than they have displayed in the past. It is impossible in one brief resume to span the scope of economic and social problems that will be faced in the lead up to the twenty-first century. It is equally impossible for one individual to propose all the solutions. What is urgently needed is a realisation and an acceptance by leaders in Australia that the technological revolution is forcing wholesale economic and social changes. When that inescapable fact is accepted Australia will be in a position to start planning with the necessary degree of dedication and urgency. I urge leaders in government, business and unions to give more attention to the future of our country than they do to their personal ambitions. If our leaders are prepared to become statesmen, instead of simply people who hold positions of responsibility, Australia can look forward to the twenty-first century with great optimism. If they do not, they will deserve all the condemnation that will be heaped on them by generations as yet unborn. Debate (on motion by Mr Ronald Edwards) adjourned. Shearers Dispute-Handicapped Child's Allowance-Taxation-Lebanese Immigrant- National Economic Summit Conference-Australian Economy-Oil Industry-Public Television Motion (by Mr Hurford) proposed: That the House do now adjourn. Mr McVEIGH(Darling Downs)(5.53) —I take this opportunity again to focus attention on the grave situation in the shearers dispute and this Government's apparent total inability to get its comrades in the trade union movement to abide by the laws of this country. It is now a fact that this Government is nothing more than a puppet of the trade unions. It is simply not prepared to take any action whatsoever to upset trade union manipulation and dictatorship of our industrial affairs. Consensus, to the Labor Government, means avoiding issues which might upset union mates. One has to look only at the deal that has been worked out with the building industry unions to see the proof. The Government has said: 'You cannot have a pay rise, but you can have increased allowances'. What a charade, what an absolute cop out by the Government simply to save itself from getting into a fight with the building industry unions. The Government cop out is even worse in the shearers dispute. Here is a situation that is rapidly getting worse by the day. People are being beaten up, intimidated, subjected to abuse and hostility and having their property damaged. The case that occurred near Coonamble yesterday is the latest incident. I am at a loss to understand how any decent minded Australian can condone such activity, especially when the grazier has been force into the situation where, unless he shears his sheep, they will die. There is a very important animal welfare consideration involved in this as well. Furthermore, unless the grower can shear his sheep and sell the wool, he will go broke. Do not some of these people, the Ecobs and others of this world, realise that many sheep farmers are literally on the breadline following years of drought? Do they not have concern for the women and children who have real fears for their future? The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has a mind that is musclebound by bias towards trade unionists. I am at an even greater loss to understand how any Australian can involve himself in such despicable behaviour. This dispute has been steadily worsening for six weeks. All that the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) has had to say about the violence and intimidation is that they are matters of concern to the Government. There is no concern or interest for those who are getting bashed up. The Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Kerin), who seems to be permanently overseas, seems to have decided that the issue has nothing at all to do with him , even though we are talking about a major industry that accounts for 10 per cent of our total export earnings. The Government claims to have a special relationship with the unions. It claims to be able to bring about consensus and co-operation. If that is truly so, why has the Government, over the past six weeks, not been able to get these violent elements in the Australian Workers Union to toe the line? The fundamental failure of the Government is that it has totally failed to stand by the decisions of its own instrument of justice, namely, the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The Commission itself has now ruled twice on the issue. Yet, after some 2,500 pages of transcript from Commission hearings, the Government supports a union application for yet a further hearing. I understand that today's hearing in Sydney has been adjourned and that a recommendation will be put to striking shearers tomorrow to the effect that they return to work under current award provisions, and that they recognise the authority of the Commission's decisions. I sincerely hope that that recommendation is agreed to, so that there can be an immediate end of this senseless violence. But again I stress that none of this should have started in the first place. The Government should have been more forceful long ago. It should have insisted that decisions of the Arbitration Commission are final and must therefore be upheld by all parties concerned. The Government should have stood by its Arbitration Commission and not backed the AWU's application for a further hearing. By doing so, the Government and the Prime Minister stand totally condemned. Mr KENT(Hotham)(5.57) —On 29 February I attended a meeting of parents of handicapped children associated with Lowrie Lodge, The Catch and Raelene. At the meeting the parents bitterly complained against the practice of the Department of Social Security to withhold payment to parents of handicapped children when they are placed into a home for short periods to enable the rest of the family to go on holidays or just simply to have a short rest from their heavy responsibility and burden that most other families, fortunately, do not have to endure. Time will not permit me to explain here in detail what a heavy task is undertaken by parents of handicapped children who decide to care for them within the family instead of placing them into an institution. It is not only that the children require special care in these cases, but the parents themselves need counselling and community support to enable them to dedicate themselves to the enormously difficult task of providing the necessary care that a handicapped person requires. The self-sacrifice of such parents requires and fully deserves the support of the more fortunate part of our community, if for nothing else because of financial savings to the community by their decision to care for the handicapped children themselves instead of placing them into homes. The Whitlam Labor Government acknowledged the difficulties faced by such families and introduced the handicapped child's allowance, to compensate at least partly for the extra expenses faced by the families concerned. As the Fraser Government did not dare to withdraw the handicapped child's allowance, as it would have required legislation which would certainly have caused a public outcry, it decided to erode the value of the allowance by deducting the allowance from those who, for the purpose of relief as I have mentioned previously, placed their children in homes for short periods, such as, for instance, during school holidays. What is worse, the Department has been directed by the former Government to withhold not only the handicapped child's allowance but also the family allowance. To illustrate this, I quote from a letter written by the Department of Social Security on 15 February to Mrs Elizabeth Martin, which in part reads: Family allowance and handicapped child's allowance is paid to you in respect of your child Ian who was in residential care at E.W. Tipping Home between 26 November 1982 and 5 December, 1982. That is ten days, Mr Speaker. The letter continues: Your family allowance and handicapped child's allowance in respect of Ian should not have been paid to you while he was attending E.W. Tipping Home. Family allowance and handicapped child's allowance continued during this period, however, resulting in an overpayment of $36.49. This amount must be recovered, and it will now be withheld from your family allowance and handicapped child's allowance payments from 15.1.83 to 22.1.83. How inhuman, how morally bankrupt can a government be when a Minister orders the Department to harass and pinprick those less fortunate in our community, those who deserve our admiration for their fortitude, those who deserve our sympathy and those who need help from the rest of the community in caring for handicapped children, while at the same time allowing a Minister to spend $5,000 a week on chartered aircraft and hired limousines. Government members-Shame! Disgusting! Mr KENT —It is a shame. The letter to Mrs Martin is not a single instance. Only last Friday, one of my constituents rang me complaining that the Department deducted $20.83 from her handicapped child's allowance and family allowance. I have made representations to the new Minister for Social Security (Senator Grimes) and further to my written communication to him on this matter I ask him here and now to direct his Department to discontinue the petty deductions from the handicapped child's allowance and the family allowance, so that employees of the Department can use their time and energy to assist their clients instead of harassing them. Mr ROCHER(Curtin)(6.2) —I start by congratulating you, Mr Speaker, on your election to the position of Speaker. I wish you well in that task. In the mid-1960s the Commissioner of Taxation adopted a policy of issuing public information bulletins, or PIBs, intended, in his own words, to provide information: for the convenience of the taxpaying public and their taxation advisers. After PIB No. 8 was issued in July 1966, the practice was discontinued. Since then, the Commissioner has issued pamphlets, other bulletins and circulars, from time to time, although they have not gone as far towards explaining how discretionary powers vested in the Commissioner were to be exercised. Since PIB No. 8, only one set of major guidelines has been issued, despite a substantial increase in the number of discretions vested in the Commissioner and despite the increased complexity of the Act. Interestingly, that one exception arose out of freedom of information legislation. Because of what may be said to be an abundance of discretionary power exercisable by the Commissioner, it is both difficult and necessary to obtain advance rulings. I use the word 'rulings' for want of a better word. Even when it is given or promised, the time taken in getting advice from the Commissioner is often a constraint on commercial decision making, and the whole process warrants attention. In chapter 22 of the Asprey report, this was said on the subject: The publication by the Commissioner of rulings, guidelines and information . . . is desirable and creates a better understanding of taxation laws and practices . Published information . . . also helps to dispel the frequently voiced criticism . . . that the Taxation Office is endeavouring to assume the role of ' rule maker'. I have already indicated that advance information is no longer published. Consequently, in many cases it is not known how the Commissioner may exercise his discretion on a tax matter, or matters, of critical importance before a decision can be taken as to whether to proceed with a particular commercial venture. Because tax is frequently an important consideration in business decisions, an absence of, or delay in, obtaining advice from the Commissioner effectively prevents calculation of a subsequent tax liability. The current practice of making requests for advice by the Commissioner need not be, and indeed frequently requests are not, answered in time to be of any use to the taxpayer, or should I say the potential taxpayer. The likely effect of some new legislation on business planning cannot be overstated because, amongst other reasons, tax is more and more being treated as a cost of doing business rather than something that is paid out of pre-tax profits. Of course, that has always been the case with sales and other so-called indirect taxes. Nor is it only new legislation which presents problems to commercial interests. I instance uncertainties surrounding which superannuation schemes are acceptable, Part IVA and sales tax changes which, given the discretionary powers of the Commissioner, pose more than real problems. It is one thing to say that ignorance of the law is no excuse but Australian tax law, where it confers discretion on the Commissioner, makes knowledge of the law and its application impossible. Short of encouraging business to adopt an attitude that it should do nothing if it cannot be certain of its tax obligations, some procedures must be devised whereby it can obtain answers quickly. I thoroughly recommend to the Treasurer (Mr Keating) and the Government that they look for remedies. One answer could be that the Commissioner be required to give binding rulings, perhaps on payment of a fee of $500, and that such rulings be given within 30 days of receipt of the potential taxpayer's submission. Favourable consideration should also be given to the Commissioner of Taxation again issuing public information bulletins stipulating how he will exercise discretionary powers, as well as advising modifications to earlier decisions as may be necessary in the light of experience. The pleas and recommendations I have made deserve serious consideration, not just in the interests of the business community but because they will facilitate economic endeavour vital to Australia's economy and with positive benefits for employment. Mr MAHER(Lowe)(6.7) —Mr Speaker, tonight I wish to raise a very sad migration case that I have been trying to assist with. It involves a gentleman from Lebanon who entered Australia on a visitor's visa in December 1980. The gentleman in question is blind. His name is Samir Sukkar. His brother lives in my electorate, in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield. The blind visitor is a single man, born in 1930, who has two brothers and two sisters living in Australia. We all know that the tragic civil war, or a war anyway, broke out in Lebanon. At that time the former Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs granted an extension of visa to this blind gentleman. Unfortunately, the brother he lived with in Lebanon, who was also a bachelor, has disappeared and cannot be found. The family in Sydney is very reluctant to send this blind brother back to Lebanon. I and many other members of parliament, both State and Federal, have been making representations so that this visitor may be allowed to remain in Australia on compassionate grounds and become a permanent resident, mainly because his family is here. He can speak English. It would be very distressing for him to go back to a situation in which he may have no home and in which his next of kin cannot be traced. I made representations to the former Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. I was sent a copy of representations made by an honourable senator who was then a member of the Government. All the circumstances were explained in the Minister's letter, but unfortunately the representations were declined. I have since made further representations and the matter was being negotiated between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. Many questions and many inquiries were raised as to whether this blind gentleman's brother was still alive and it was suggested that my constituent contact the International Red Cross. There was no progress on this matter at all . More recently, since the change of government, I have kept pursuing the matter . In the interregnum the departmental head said that the chap has to go. I have since contacted the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (Mr West). Unfortunately this Minister has granted an extension of stay only until 30 June. The family is quite distressed and, like all Australians of Lebanese extraction, wants only to see the foreign troops out of their homeland. The family is very worried about the whereabouts of their brother in Lebanon who cares for this blind person, who is living in Sydney now on a temporary entry permit. I am raising this matter tonight to appeal to the Minister in these most unusual circumstances involving a person without sight who has come to this country under great difficulty from Lebanon. In view of the fact that the Lebanese nation has been so strife torn, so destroyed and so violated, I do ask that the Minister reconsider this matter, that he review all decisions made in this case, and there have been many, that he review all the representations made , and there have been many, and that he sympathetically allow this visitor from Lebanon to remain in Australia with his two brothers and two sisters. Mr DRUMMOND(Forrest)(6.11) —Mr Speaker, may I take this opportunity of congratulating you on your election to your very high office. I wish you well and I know that you will do an outstanding job in that position. No doubt the Treasurer (Mr Keating) is finding it difficult to cope with the burdens of office, particularly, I guess, as he has had so little experience in the area of finance. This may be the reason why he apparently failed to understand a direct question I asked him last Thursday at Question Time about inflation. I hope it was simply a failure to understand; otherwise he gave an answer that involved misleading this House. There may be a good reason for his seeking to do so. After all, the Treasurer's speech to the National Economic Summit is totally at odds with the Government's present policy, to the extent that no one understands what that policy really is. The question I asked last Thursday was: I ask the Treasurer whether it is a fact that, in his speech to the National Economic Summit Conference, he said: The fundamental risk to the recovery we are seeking lies with inflation. I stressed the word 'fundamental' at the time. The question continued: How does he reconcile this statement with the Government's preference for scenario A, which forecast an inflation rate over the next three years almost double that of the more responsible and restrained scenario C- Scenario C involves the creation of 130,000 more jobs than scenario A. I was surprised and disappointed at the Treasurer's attempt to deny the accuracy of what I had to say. His comment that I was wrong and that, in fact, inflation under projection C was only 5.3 per cent compared to 6.4 per cent in projection A, or nowhere near half, is simply misleading, either intentionally or unintentionally. The facts are that the figures he quoted relate only to the first year of the three-year period I specifically asked him about in my question. The facts are that in the second year, 1984-85, inflation, under projection A, is forecast at 4.9 per cent as against 2 per cent under projection C-far more than double-and in the following year is forecast at 6.5 per cent against only 3.7 per cent. As I said in my question, over the three years the inflation rate in projection C is about half that of projection A. Yet the Government has deliberately decided to prefer scenario A even though it involves a far worse unemployment rate than under scenario C. We should be grateful to the Summit for providing us with the information that shows how the Government has decided to reject the economic course that would do the most good for the most Australians. Scenario C, which the Government has rejected, and which has the lowest increase in wages of the three scenarios presented to the Summit, gives the best result for all the major economic indicators-for the cost of living, for real household disposable incomes, for real private consumption, for private capital expenditure on both dwellings and business, for real domestic demand, gross non-farm product, gross domestic product, employment, unemployment and the money supply. To prove this point, I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a summary of the three scenarios proposed for the Summit as in the National Economic Summit Conference document. Leave granted. The document read as follows- SUMMIT SCENARIOS Scenario 'A' Scenario 'B' Scenario 'C' 83-84 84-85 85-86 83-84 84-85 85-86 83-84 84-85 85-86 CPI 6.2 4.9 6.5 13.0 13.8 13.4 5.3 2.0 3.7 AWE 5.5 5.3 8.8 18.1 15.6 15.8 2.8 3.0 4.5 Wages, salaries, supplements 5.8 7.6 11.9 17.2 15.6 16.6 3.4 6.0 8.2 real after tax, per employee -0.3 -1.2 1.6 0.9 -0.1 1.9 -1.5 -0.4 0.5 excluding Medicare (a) 0.3 0.2 1.6 3.1 1.2 1.8 -0.9 1.0 0.6 Real household disposable income 2.2 1.9 4.9 1.2 1.0 2.0 2.3 2.8 5.0 Saving ratio (%) 12.7 12.3 12.6 12. 3 12.3 12.7 12.6 12.5 12.5 non-farm (%) 12.7 12.5 12.5 12.6 12.4 12.5 12.6 12. 8 12.5 Private consumption (real) 1.1 2.3 4.6 0.5 1.0 1.4 1.3 2.8 4.9 Private Gross Fixed Capital Expenditure Dwellings -0.1 9.5 11.0 -1.1 4.0 6.0 1.0 12.0 12.0 Business (b) -10.3 4.1 7. 4 -12.2 -2.7 1.7 -8.5 5.3 8.9 Non-farm wage share (%) 64.0 63.4 63.5 67.0 67.1 67.2 63.0 62.9 62.4 Non-farm profit share (c) (%) 36.0 36.6 36.5 33.0 32.9 32.8 37.0 37.1 37.6 Gross fixed capital expenditure (d) to non-farm GDP (%) 18.9 18. 8 18.9 18.8 18.5 18.5 19.0 19.0 19.1 Public Sector Demand (real) 4.5 4.1 3.0 4.5 4.1 3.0 4.5 4.1 3.0 Final domestic demand (real) 0.7 3.1 4.6 0.1 1.5 2.0 1.0 3. 7 5.0 Gross non-farm product (real) 2.1 3.9 4.9 1.1 1.5 2.3 2.4 4.5 5.4 Deflator 7.0 5.2 6.6 14.4 14.2 13.8 5.9 2.2 3.6 Gross domestic product (real) 2.7 3.9 4.8 1.7 1.6 2.4 3.0 4.5 5.3 Employment 0.4 2.0 2.7 -0.4 0.2 0.8 0.7 2.6 3.3 Unemployment rate (%) 10.0 10.1 9.7 10.6 11.7 12.2 9.7 9.5 8.7 Exchange rate (TWI) -6.6 1.0 0.5 -6.6 -6.9 -5.6 -6.6 3.9 3.2 Current a/c deficit ($m) 7 100 7 050 6 900 7 650 8 300 7 500 7 250 7 200 7 000 % of GDP 4.0 3.6 3.2 4.1 3 .8 3.0 4.1 3.8 3.4 Net exports (e) 0.3 0.0 -0.1 0.0 -0.2 0.3 0.2 -0.1 -0.1 Budget deficit ($m) 8 550 7 350 7 050 5 900 7 900 10 550 9 200 7 150 7 250 % of GDP 4.8 3.8 3.3 3.2 3.6 4.2 5.2 3.8 3.5 Money supply M3 8.5 8.25 10.0 14.5 15.0 15.0 8.0 5.75 7.5 (a) real after-tax wage income per employee, excluding financing of Medicare, which reduces both consumption and disposable income approximately equally. Similar adjustments could be made to the household disposable income and consumption figures (b) adjusted for the sale of Eraring to the private sector (c) non-farm gross operating surplus, percentage of non-farm GDP at factor cost (d) excluding dwellings (e) percent contribution to growth of GDP Mr DRUMMOND —It is also important to recognise that in the Summit documents an outstanding case is made for the total rejection of the Australian Council of Trade Unions' cry for a catch-up but the Government has not had the courage to reject that cry. The document makes the following points: All cases involving payment of catch-up, whether paid in 1983 or 1984, involve continuing high rates of inflation throughout the next three years; the lowest inflation rates are obtained from those scenarios in which a wage pause is maintained throughout 1983 with no subsequent catch-up; and a return to strong employment growth requires a substantial and sustained increase in the rate of growth of output, perhaps to a rate of 5 per cent per annum. Only one projection, projection C, envisages a growth rate of more than 5 per cent. One of the great lessons from the material provided by the Government for the Summit is that inflation, excessive wages and unemployment are completely linked . It is evident from the Treasurer's misleading reply to my question today that he is trying to back away from the very clear statements made to the Summit which are now clearly-- Mr SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr WELLS(Petrie)(6.16) —Mr Speaker, it is astonishing to hear the honourable member for Forrest (Mr Drummond) tell us which of the three scenarios presented to the National Economic Summit Conference should have been chosen since it was the Opposition that said not very long ago that we should not have a Summit at all. When it argues that we should have adopted scenario C, we can see its credentials as an economic manager. The credentials the Opposition has provided as an economic manager is the state of the nation. I would like to say more about the state of the nation and the economy which the Government has inherited . The world knows that we are in the midst of a depression, but it is a matter of comparison. It is not good enough to say, as some people tended to say during the election campaign, that we are in the middle of a depression and therefore the Fraser Government cannot be blamed for Australia's economic ills. One of my constituents said to me during the campaign that if she had been cooking the same recipe for seven years and it had been giving people food poisoning for seven years she would think it was about time to change. I want to demonstrate that it is not just the world recession which has afflicted Australia during the last seven years of Liberal Government. Figures from all comparable nations show that the depression has been comparatively worse in Australia. The statistics of which I will inform the House come from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library Statistics Group. The most recent figures available show that in the November quarter Australia's consumer prices were increasing at the rate of 10.9 per cent. That was the highest figure of all the comparable countries. Compare that 10.9 per cent in Australia with the figue for Japan of 2.3 per cent; Canada, 9.8 per cent; the United States of America, 4.6 per cent; France, 9.4 per cent; Germany, 4.7 per cent; and the United Kingdom, 6 .3 per cent. That is inflation. What about unemployment? The most recent figures available for those countries are for December. In Australia the figure was 8.6 per cent. In Japan, it was 2.4 per cent; Canada, 12.7 per cent; the United States of America, 10.6 per cent; France, 8.1 per cent; Germany, 7.1 per cent; and the United Kingdom, 13.1 per cent. In that respect Australia is a middle-range country. I refer now to interest rates as indicated by the yields on long term government bonds. Of course these influence all other interest rates as well. The December figures were: Australia, 14 per cent; Japan, 7.5 per cent; Canada, 11.69 per cent; the United States of America, 10.55 per cent; France, 15.71 per cent; Germany, 7.9 per cent; and the United Kingdom, 10.2 per cent. It can be seen from those figures that Australian interest rates were the second highest in that group. This demonstrates that the depression which hit Australia and the rest of the world hit Australia particularly badly. The reason that it hit Australia particularly badly was the policies of the previous Government. It is not an end of the argument to say: 'But there was a world-wide depression'. Of course there was a world-wide depression but if a person has a cold he can do one of two things-either he can go home, take some antibiotics and hope he gets better by staying in bed or he can go out in the rain and paddle around until he ends up with pleurisy or double pneumonia. When this Government took over from the previous Government it was taking over from economic practitioners who were leading this country to a state of pleurisy and double pneumonia. Mr GOODLUCK(Franklin)(6.21) —During the National Economic Summit Conference I, like many other Australians, listened intently to many of the speakers. I listened very intently of course to the manager of Ampol Ltd, who said that the petroleum industry was overregulated. I could not help thinking about that industry, which has been described as chaotic and discriminatory. It has been suggested that the market-place has been prostituted on many occasions. The honourable member for Hotham (Mr Kent)-a good, sincere member-talked about the disabled and their problems. I agree with him. He brought a little politics into it and said that there was a waste of money in a certain area. I cannot help thinking of all the families in my electorate. Most of them are paying 10c a litre more for their petrol than similar families in Victoria. Mr Hollis —Free enterprise government! Mr GOODLUCK —I will explain that in a moment. I am trying to be conciliatory tonight. I do not really want to get into an argument; I want to try to bring us together. Last week I tried to divide us, purposely, but tonight I want to try to bring us together. Sometimes we come here and twiddle our thumbs on committees; for example, I love to think that we could, as a bipartisan approach , set up a select committee to look into the problems of the oil industry. Incidentally, I would be the chairman. The taxpayers of Australia have paid millions of dollars for inquiries into the oil industry which have examined the price of petrol, how it is marketed and so forth. Still we are no further advanced. There is even a discount war commencing in Sydney this week which will cause the price of petrol to drop by 10c a litre. There are various prices all over Australia-country people are paying a lot more than city people, et cetera. I do not really criticise what most of the States have done, although I must admit they have Labor governments. They have put a freeze on the wholesale price and on the retail price of petrol. In Tasmania and Queensland market forces determine the price. The oil companies have got themselves into such a bind that they are really starting to feel the pressure. Where there is a freeze on the wholesale price and on the retail price they cannot pass on any increase. They are starting to battle. Their shareholders are starting to say: 'Look, you are not making enough profit'. As a consequence, States such as Tasmania and Queensland are feeling the pressure-particularly Tasmania. Every time there is an increase in Tasmania we accept it. Mr Cunningham —Why don't you put a freeze on it? Mr GOODLUCK —If we all did that we might as well say that the oil industry has had it. It might start to withdraw a few of its investments from New South Wales . It is all right for supporters of the Government always to criticise the multinationals but we need them to provide employment and to find and develop alternative sources of energy. Unfortunately honourable members opposite have such a narrow approach to this matter that sometimes it makes me sick. What they suggest would not sort out the oil industry. Mr Hodgman —They hate Tasmania. Mr GOODLUCK —As the honourable member for Denison says, they really hate Tasmania. When we start talking about paying 10c a litre more they start to complain. Would it not be a good idea to form a select committee? The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) is not here; the honourable member for Lalor (Mr Barry Jones ) is at the table. I will not talk about him. However, I suggest to him that it would be a good idea to form a select committee of interested people. We could go to every State and start talking about the petroleum industry. It would not cost $1.5m like the Collins Royal Commission on Petroleum. It was pigeonholed for the term of its natural life. I made one speech about the petroleum industry back in 1976. The Australian Labor Party forgot about it. Mr Hawke was involved in the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Solo project. They started to prostitute the market. It is all forgotten. I should forget it. But it would be a good idea to form a select committee to look into the problems of the oil industry and then we might get a bit of sanity. Mr MILTON(La Trobe)(6.26) —Having seen one of the recent television broadcasts by the public broadcasting company, Open Channel Co-operative Ltd, I take this opportunity to congratulate it on the quality and creativity of its work. Unfortunately my electoral engagements meant that I was able to view only one film of the series so far. The film was called Jacob-Everbody's Allowed To Cry and it was introduced by the film maker, Lyn Bugden. The film was a most moving documentary of the life of one small boy, Jacob, and his family as he went through a series of operations and a prolonged period of hospitalisation. Although almost all of the sequences were shot in the hospital, there was a clear and thoughtful attempt by the film maker not to interrupt the hospital routine and yet to capture the great courage of Jacob and the compassion and the patience of his mother in intimate episodes of pre-operative and post-operative conditions. The film was an excellent example of what can be done by public television and a team of dedicated volunteer workers with high professional standards. Open Channel has not just sat back and waited for the Government to provide assistance but has organised members and volunteers to produce the series of films which are presently being shown by courtesy of the Special Broadcasting Service, Channel 0-28. The aim of Open Channel is to provide an alternative television service to the existing Australian Broadcasting Commission and commercial channels. Of course, it is true that the potential audience will be small because the program will not be aimed at a mass consumption audience. As in the film about Jacob, there will be a conscious effort to bring the reality of life, with all its starkness and its poignancy, into the homes of the viewers . Such films cannot be watched with complacency and voyeurism. In its 1980 election campaign, the Liberal Government promised to establish public television early in 1981. This was another of those porkbarrelling exercises of the previous Government, which likewise broke its promise with regard to television translaters to improve the television reception in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria. No policy on public television was ever announced by the previous Federal Government and no licences were ever issued. The response to previous broadcasts has indicated that there is a sufficiently widespread interest in public television to warrant the continued development of a public television service. In the areas of health and community welfare there is a great need to make people aware of the services available to them. Mr Goodluck —What are you doing about it? You are in government now. Mr MILTON —I am sorry about these interruptions from the honourable member for Franklin. He is obviously not interested in public television any more than the previous Government was. Government members interjecting- Mr SPEAKER —Order! I think the honourable member for La Trobe could also do without assistance from some of his colleagues. They are not helping. I call the honourable member for La Trobe. Mr MILTON —Public television could provide a means of reaching a group in need which includes many people who are not print orientated. In the areas of community education, conservation of natural resources, energy conservation, road safety and infant welfare-just to name a few-public television could provide programs of great value to audiences which would normally not have an opportunity to view such programs. All three levels of government have an interest in supporting public television. Local government has a regional responsibility for local community groups which can obtain a voice through public television. State governments can use a public television service for the dissemination of important information in education, the arts and welfare. Finally, the Federal Government should support public television as a necessary part and as an important strand of the total broadcasting system in Australia. I am proud that I am a member of Open Channel. Once again, I congratulate it on the high quality of its recent television programs shown on Channel 0-28. I commend the programs to honourable members and I hope that those honourable members who live in Melbourne and Sydney will all watch the second series of television programs commencing on Saturday, 14 May. Mr SPEAKER —Order! It being 6.30 p.m., the debate is interrupted. Mr Keating —I require that the debate continue. Mr SPEAKER —The debate may continue until 6.40 p.m. Mr KEATING(Blaxland-Treasurer)(6.30) —The honourable member for Forrest (Mr Drummond) made a personal explanation after Question Time to which I was not able to respond owing to appointments. I believe he has since raised the matter in the adjournment debate. It relates to a question which he asked of me last week and to the assumption in his question relating to the inflation component of scenarios A and C put to the National Economic Summit Conference. In the answer I gave him the other day I said that his assumption on inflation was wrong. It was not wrong but I misunderstood that his question referred to the three year projection rather than the 12 month projection to which I referred in the answer. Nevertheless, I make the point that, in accepting the basis of the honourable member's question, it does not detract from the sense of the reply which I gave to him which was that the members of the technical committee expressed strong reservations about the assumptions in scenario C and said that in some respects they were unrealistic. In the answer I made the point that non- farm wage share under senario C would be lower than those levels which prevailed historically in the 1950s and 1960s. I instanced those figures. Not only do I stand by that answer but for those interested, I will read into the Hansard record part of the editorial in today's Sydney Morning Herald which mentions scenario C and the arguments in favour of it put by the Australian Industry Development Association. The editorial notes that the Australian Industry Development Association, while arguing the case that was implied in the question of the honourable member for Forrest also said in its exposition on the subject: ''Leaving the industrial relations credibility of these scenarios aside . . .'' However, The Sydney Morning Herald states: The industrial relations credibility of the competing scenarios could not, of course, be left aside. And the sad fact is that Scenario C lacks credibility. . . . . Scenario C purports to produce a profits share of national income greater than Australia has previously experienced. Does anyone seriously imagine that wage- earners could be induced to accept protracted partial indexation while profits rose to unknown heights? To embark on Scenario C would be to guarantee a wage explosion. The interests of the unemployed will best be served by a wages policy based on realism, not idealism. Employers will best contribute to the restoration of economic stability not by hankering after the impossible, but by uniting with the Government and union moderates to ensure that an achievable degree of wage restraint is actually achieved. This is a sufficiently daunting task. That is the view of the leader writer of the Sydney Morning Herald. In the respect that the editorial talks about the wage share being different from those which have prevailed historically, that view accords with the view I put in answer to the honourable gentleman although I do him the courtesy of indicating that the basis of his question on the three year projection was correct. Mr SPEAKER —The debate having concluded, the House stands adjourned until 10 a.m . tomorrow. House adjourned at 6.34 p.m. The following notices were given: Mr John Brown to present a Bill for an Act to amend section 23 of the Industries Assistance Commission Act 1973. Mr Willis to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904. Mr Keating to present a Bill for an Act to amend the States (Tax Sharing and Health Grants) Act 1981. Dr Blewett to present a Bill for an Act to amend the National Health Amendment Act 1953, and for related purposes. Mr Duffy to present a Bill for an Act to amend section 116 of the Broadcasting and Television Act 1942. Mr Uren to present a Bill for an Act relating to the Christmas Island Agreement . The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 10 May 1983: Air Navigation Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 39. Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 50. Defence Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 40. Defence Act, Naval Defence Act and Air Force Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 41. Defence Amendment Act-Interim Determinations-Statutory Rules 1983, Nos. 52, 53, 54. Export Control Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 44. Health Insurance Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 47. Lands Acquisition Act-Statement of lands acquired by agreement authorised under sub-section 7 (1). National Health Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 45. Naval Defence Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 42. Nursing Homes Assistance Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, Nos. 43, 46. Patents Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 48. Public Service Arbitration Act-Public Service Arbitrator- Determinations accompanied by statements regarding possible inconsistency with the law-1983- No . 102-Australian Journalists' Association. No. 103-Commonwealth Medical Officers Association.* No. 104-Hospital Employees Federation of Australia. No. 105-Printing and Kindred Industries Union. No. 106-Australian Public Service Association (Fourth Division Officers). No. 107-Australian Public Service Artisans' Association. No. 108-Commonwealth Medical Officers Association.* No. 109-Professional Officers Association, Australian Public Service. Nos 110 to 112-Meat Inspectors' Association, Commonwealth Public Service and others. No. 113-Australian Workers Union. No. 114-Association of Draughting, Supervisory and Technical Employees. No. 115-Merchant Service Guild of Australia. No. 116-Civil Air Operations Officers' Association of Australia. Nos 117 and 118-Transport Workers Union of Australia.* No. 119-Australian Broadcasting Commission Staff Association.* No. 120-Australian Public Service Artisans' Association and another. No. 121-Amalgamated Metal Workers' and Shipwrights Union and others.* No. 122-Association of Draughting, Supervisory and Technical Employees.* No. 123-Australian Public Service Association (Fourth Division Officers). (* Not accompanied by statement) Seamen's Compensation Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 51. Seat of Government (Administration) Act- Regulations-1983- No. 1 (Motor Traffic Ordinance) No. 2 (Health Commission Ordinance) Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 1) 1982 Act and Patents Act- Regulations-Statutory Rules 1983, No. 49.