Tuesday, 14 October 1986 Madam SPEAKER (Hon. Joan Child) took the chair at 2 p.m., and read prayers. Mr HAWKE(Wills-Prime Minister) —Madam Speaker, I wish to advise the House of the following ministerial arrangements: The Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown), will be absent from Australia until 20 October on Government business. During his absence the Minister for Transport (Mr Peter Morris) will act as Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism. Mr HOWARD —I refer the Prime Minister to the meeting between President Reagan and Mr Gorbachev at Reykjavik. I ask: Will the Prime Minister convey to both leaders the wish of the entire Australian community that, notwithstanding the lack of success at their recent meeting, the two super-powers renew their efforts to achieve an effective arms limitation agreement? Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that the outcome of the talks demonstrated the great sensitivity of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics towards the strategic defence initiative and, as a consequence, the critical importance of that initiative to the Western world? Will the Prime Minister therefore undertake to bring the policy of his Government into line with that of most other Western governments as being one of support for the strategic defence initiative, once described by his own Minister for Foreign Affairs as having a highly moral purpose? Will his Government henceforth allow Australians to participate in the wide-ranging research associated with the strategic defence initiative? Mr HAWKE —The Australian Government is naturally very disappointed that the meeting to which the Leader of the Opposition refers between President Reagan and Secretary-General Gorbachev ended without agreement, which at some points looked so likely, on key arms control and disarmament issues. As the Leader of the Opposition is aware, Australian Ministers will be briefed tomorrow by Mr Kenneth Adelman, the Director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Following that meeting I and my Ministers will be in a better position to make a detailed assessment not only of what has happened, but I suggest most importantly, on what are also the prospects for a resumption of the processes of dialogue which promised so much at one point but which at least temporarily have been frustrated. Our preliminary understanding is that the fundamental disagreement between the United States of America and the Soviet Union was over the relationship between the United States strategic defence initiative and reductions in offensive systems, the issue which was left unresolved at the Geneva summit. That has emerged quite clearly as the continuing main obstacle to progress. I make the point that, given the undisputed fact that very significant progress was made between the two leaders on a number of important issues, it is imperative that both the United States and the Soviet Union do not walk away now from the process of dialogue. We do indeed welcome the fact that, in statements from both sides, there are indications of continuing efforts to narrow the differences between them. If I may pick up the first part of the question of the Leader of the Opposition, I can assure him that we will continue to put to both the Soviet Union and the United States the very strong view of the Australian Government, and I believe of the absolutely overwhelming majority of the Australian people-I am glad to see that the Leader of the Opposition identifies himself with us on this point-that they must continue with this process. In relation to the second part of the honourable gentleman's question, however, let me take this opportunity of endorsing the view that I have put directly to the President and that my colleague the Foreign Minister has put in his discussions in the Soviet Union, that the Australian Government does not endorse the strategic defence initiative. I have put directly to the President in quite clear language-this goes back for some time now-that we respect the integrity of the view of the United States; we simply do not identify ourselves with the initiative. We will not participate in it and we will not facilitate our participation in it. Opposition members interjecting- Mr HAWKE —Madam Speaker, honourable members opposite can make all the noise they like, based on their apparent assumption that the Western alliance almost universally embraces SDI. If they knew anything about the facts they would know that this is simply not true. The position that we have put is understood by the President and the Administration of the United States. It has not prevented both the President and the United States Secretary of State in recent times saying that the relationship between the United States and Australia has never been in better shape. Mr Howard —Ha, ha, ha! Mr HAWKE —I notice that the Leader of the Opposition laughs. In other words, he is indicating that the President and Secretary of State Shultz are lying when they say that. They have said quite clearly and for very sound reasons that the relationship between the United States and Australia is in better shape than it has been. One of the reasons for the strength of the relationship between this Government and the United States is precisely that the United States respects the fact that while we have this close relationship it will not prevent us, when we have differences with the United States, from expressing them forcefully and clearly. They respect the fact that we have done this. The fact that the Government of Australia takes that view does not put us in some splendid isolation. That is a view shared by many countries within the Western alliance and it is a view shared by a substantial body of opinion within the United States itself. Most authoritative scientific and technical sources have launched criticism of SDI or equivalent research, and I make the point in relation to equivalent research that this Government has made it quite clear to the Government of the Soviet Union that we recognise that the Soviet Union has also been engaged in an equivalent sort of research. We have expressed to the Soviet Union the same view as we have expressed to the United States Government on this issue. I conclude as I began: It seems to me that the critically important point is that all men and women of good will should recognise that substantial progress was made in the early stages, and indeed in most stages, of the recent talks. There is a substantial reason for believing that, if good will is exercised within both the United States and the Soviet Union, enough groundwork has been done upon which to erect a realistic and substantial edifice, the like of which has not been witnessed in the post-war period, of substantial reductions in nuclear armaments, and thereby substantial diminution in the threat of nuclear catastrophe which hangs over this planet. Mr LANGMORE —My question, which is directed to the Treasurer, relates to the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank from which he has just returned. I ask the Treasurer: Can he inform the House about the views of the international financial community of the Australian economy? Mr KEATING —I am pleased to be able to report that there is very wide support abroad for Australia and particularly for the policies of this Government. This was apparent from not only members of the international financial community but also a range of business people interested in this country; that is, people who have invested in this country or intend to invest in this country. Of course, they are acting on the confidence that exists in Australia. I might just point out that the tone in the Australian financial markets has improved markedly in recent weeks. Today 90-day bills are trading at 16.8 per cent; they were trading at about 18 1/2 per cent in August. The rate for 10-year bonds is now 13 1/2 per cent, about one percentage point lower than in August. At noon today the trade weighted index was 52.6, which is 5 per cent higher than in August. Today's balance of payments figures show that exports are strengthening and that import volumes are falling further in the September quarter. Today's retail sales figures are good and point to significant real growth in the past three months. Employment grew in September and the labour market appeared to be stable. All of this is happening because the Budget strategy is working and people know that it is working. It is working because this Government has had the courage to make the big changes necessary to adjust Australia to its diminished trading circumstances and to ensure that Australia is in a position to facilitate and accommodate structural change. At the meetings of the IMF and the World Bank and in the United States, France and Britain people expressed amazement at the level and quality of the changes which have been introduced by this Government. The fact that the Budget deficit is now forecast to be 1.4 per cent of the gross domestic product-down from 3.3 per cent, and down from the 5 per cent bequeathed to us by the former Treasurer-is a matter of great comment abroad as is the fact that our wages policy has accommodated a greater change in relative wage outcomes in this country than has been the case in any country we trade with, bar New Zealand. The quality and level of the changes is a matter of great note and comment. The question is often put to me rhetorically, with some irony: `How come the so-called conservative parties in your country never did these things? How come the so-called people of business ran those massive Budget deficits, never freed up the exchange rate, never deregulated the financial system, never tried to change the taxation system to make it more effective, had no incomes policy and had no control over inflation?. The answer is that they do not have any policies for the future. Not only did they not have such policies in the past, but they do not have any for the future. They do not have a wages policy, a fiscal policy or any policies on taxation other than to build the tax shelters back into the system with the $5.9 billion worth of tax changes forecast by the Leader of the Opposition. We are seeing a very clear message from people around the world that they realise that Australia has problems in its terms of trade but that it has faced the problems and put the necessary changes in place. They contrast Australia with the United States, which still has a Budget deficit of nearly 5 per cent of GDP three years after this Government came to office. They contrast the imbalance of policy in the United States, with its massive dependency on monetary policy and adjustment on the exchange rate, with the changes that have been made by Australia. They recognise the supercompetitiveness which Australia now has by way of both its exchange rate and its wages outcomes. They can see Australia trading out of its problems in the face of extreme terms of trade difficulties around the world. The message is a very buoyant one from the international markets and the international business community about the speed of the policy shifts in Australia in the face of the very difficult problems faced by the Australian economy, particularly in its terms of trade. The contrast is made with many other countries which are supposed to be flexible in policy shifts but which in fact have not shown the flexibility or the quality of the Australian changes. Mr CARLTON —My question is addressed to the Treasurer. The Treasurer will recall saying on 22 September, just before he went overseas: There are no anomalies or defects in the design of the new fringe benefits tax and there will be no substantive changes. I remind the Treasurer that two days later he said: Let me make it clear about fringe benefits taxation; the Government is not going to alter the fringe benefits tax. Given the Prime Minister's inquiry into the so-called unintended consequences of the fringe benefits tax, does the Treasurer concede that there are anomalies and defects in its design and that a substantive and wide-ranging review of the application of the fringe benefits tax is required? Mr KEATING —Precisely as the honourable gentleman says, we are looking at the unintended consequences of the change which this legislation brings to the Australian taxation system, and it will not involve changes to the principles of the fringe benefits tax-the very principles which the lot opposite squabble over daily. Let me just indicate the clarity of the Opposition's thinking on the matter of fringe benefits! On 9 October, last Thursday, the Leader of the Opposition, when appearing on the Mike Willesee program, was asked by Willesee: You're not throwing it out completely, then? He answered: I'm throwing their tax out completely. I emphasise the words `their tax'. The Leader of the Opposition went on to say: I will apply a similar approach in government- that is, to anti-tax avoidance legislation- and I will not tolerate arrangements that involve tax avoidance. Mr Nehl —So what? Mr KEATING —The `so what' is because honourable members opposite do not know what they want to do. The Opposition is opposed to tax rorts and changes but does not know what it wants to do. On the Carleton-Walsh Report, on the same day, the Leader of the Opposition said that he would not provide examples, but when pressed he made a reference to Part IVa, saying: It gives you a drift. Mr Carleton said: A drift of your feeling? The Leader of the Opposition answered: A drift, yes. The drift is that he would use Part IVa, but all that Part IVa does is give the Commissioner discretion to apply the law. Of course, the law would be applied under section 26 (e), which cannot work as it is presently drafted. So, of course, what the Leader of the Opposition is saying is, yes, he would tax avoidance procedures, making reference to Part IVa, but he does not say how he would do it. The Leader of the Opposition later said that he would legislate against such procedures. Then the Deputy Leader of the National Party said: Mr Howard has made it clear that he is not going to allow the fringe benefit issue as such to be a great tax avoidance device. In other words, he is not going to allow company executives to have half their salary paid by kind without tax, such as providing a house, interest free loans, a Mercedes-Benz car and free education for their children. That is obviously a tax avoidance scheme. If that is tax avoidance, where is the Opposition's basis in principle on fringe benefits and tax avoidance? Then, of course, the Leader of the National Party said: There is already an application of some fringe benefits tax by the Tax Commissioner under 26 (e). That is the system that has continued and we have not recommended any change to that. Further, the honourable member for O'Connor said: We have always said we will return to the previous arrangements which existed, the arrangements whereby non-cash benefits paid in replacement of income, not giving you a car to do work in, but letting you drive it home on the weekend, a car that had no relationship to your work, or a house, your children's education-we would oblige the employee to pay tax on that. So you are basically going to be taxing it that way. The shadow Treasurer, who asked me this question, on 2GB said that he would tackle the biggest abuses in a sensible way. He said: I've said . . . that under the original law there was a capacity administratively . . . So it goes on. The point is that members of the Opposition are running around like headless chooks on this issue. They say that they are opposed to rorts; that they are opposed to abuses of the tax system; but no, they will not have a fringe benefits tax and they will throw ours out. Honourable members opposite get up and ask these puny questions about whether a principle, an unintended consequence or a design feature ought to be looked at or not. I made it clear, as I said in the House in the last week I was here, that if there are administrative improvements that can be made no tax administration would be sensible if it did not make them. I stand by that. On 26 August we made an announcement in respect of employment expenses and people working overseas. The review announced by the Prime Minister last week looking at the unintended consequences of tax does not go to the principle, but the Government has a clear basis in principle in the application of its tax. Opposition members are not prepared and do not have the courage to face the difficulty and meet it with a principle. They are running around trying to hide the fact that they are opposed to fringe benefits, saying that they will junk our tax while having on their own agenda one for themselves called something else. So what about a bit of honesty and decency in the debate? Mr CHARLES —Will the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations inform the House what steps the Government is taking to improve the involvement of employers, unions and the community in the formulation of national employment and training policies? Mr WILLIS —I am pleased to inform the honourable member that the Government is taking substantial steps in that direction. When we came into office there was a quite confusing array of poorly targeted, inadequately funded and unco-ordinated labour market programs, and reflecting that there was a hotchpotch of advisory and consultative bodies in the employment and training area. Over the last three and a half years we have greatly improved labour market programs. We have properly identified needs, targeted programs to meet those needs, rationalised programs and increased funding by 100 per cent. We have also been concerned to improve the consultative advisory arrangements in this area. There was a major recommendation of the Kirby Committee of Inquiry into Labour Market Programs that we provide a single, broad based mechanism for developing co-ordinated advice to government on employment and training issues. Detailed consideration was given to this issue by the Government, unions and employers last year, following which I announced earlier this year that the Government would establish an Australian Council on Employment and Training as a major new advisory and promotional body in the employment and training area to advise the Government on the overall direction and development of employment and training policies; to promote public debate and discussion on these issues; to initiate research and evaluation activities; and to promote effective training throughout industry. It was also to have a broad- based membership, including both sides of industry, State and Federal governments and the wider community, and to replace and rationalise a number of existing advisory and consultative bodies. An interim council has now provided me with a detailed strategy for implementation which has been accepted by the Government, and I can advise the House of some details regarding the formal establishment of this new Australian Council on Employment and Training. It will be established by legislation which will be introduced in the autumn sittings of next year. In the interim, it will operate on an administrative basis from 1 November. I can inform the House that an eminently well-qualified person has been selected as Chairman of the Council. He is the former Deputy Premier of South Australia and Minister for Labour, the Honourable Jack Wright, who obviously has extensive ministerial experience in the area and a particular and long-standing interest in labour market and training matters. In addition to Mr Wright, the Council will comprise three trade union representatives, three employer representatives, four State government representatives, two Federal Government representatives, up to four representatives of the wider community with interests in employment and training and a representative of the tripartite industry training committee network. These appointments will all be made in the near future and I am confident that this body will make an effective contribution to the development of employment and national training policies. In particular I look forward to ACET playing a major role in promoting improved training activities throughout the community, especially with industry, as part of the Government's drive for improved productivity and competitiveness. Mr CARLTON —I refer the Treasurer to his statement on 22 August when he said: There are no anomalies or defects in the design of the fringe benefits tax. I also refer the Treasurer to the attack by the Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, on the Australian Taxation Office on Sunday when he said that the Tax Office was applying the fringe benefits tax to areas not intended by the Government. If, in fact, there are no anomalies or defects in the design of the legislation, how is it possible for the Tax Office to apply the fringe benefits tax in areas that were not intended? Does the Treasurer still believe that there are no anomalies or defects in the fringe benefits tax, or has the Tax Office been acting contrary to the legislation? Mr KEATING —I have nothing more to add to what I said in answer to the last question. The legislation is designed to deal with the whole area of non-cash remuneration, which has been let go for years. In fact, the Commissioner of Taxation wrote to the former Treasurer about this in 1977, yet the honourable member did nothing about the matter during his tenure of office as Treasurer. It has been left to this Government to introduce legislation which will make possible the collection of taxation on non-cash benefits. As we have said in the House continually, section 26 (e) of the Income Tax Assessment Act is not able to do the job-a point disputed by the Opposition but made clear today in a speech by the Tax Commissioner himself. He said that section 26 (e) cannot and will not work and that the issue must be addressed through a fringe benefits tax. It is very interesting to note that the Opposition always attacks the Government when it tries to deal with tax minimisation or avoidance. This has happened continually. The former Treasurer is now running around talking about Part IVa, saying that this is the most effective anti-avoidance legislation that has been introduced. For the benefit of the House, I spent some time yesterday going over the former Treasurer's tax record, particularly in relation to Part IVa. I remind the House of some of the details and why there could be no confidence by the Australian public in the belief that the present Opposition as a government would do any more about tax avoidance than it ever did or was driven to do. In January 1978, a month or so after the honourable member for Bennelong took office as Treasurer, he wrote to the then Leader of the House, the right honourable member for New England, foreshadowing a legislative proposal to counter pre-tax profit stripping by companies. It took the Tax Commissioner 28 memorandums covering three years finally to drive the honourable member to introduce legislation. Let me quote some of those memorandums. On 24 May 1978 the Commissioner said that there were 30 cases of straw company evasion reported from Adelaide to which the then Treasurer had been alerted on that date. The Commissioner pointed out that there was an even more serious situation in Melbourne. The same memorandum outlined the quite significant losses to revenue resulting from such schemes. A further memorandum from the Commissioner on 20 July 1978 indicated that taxation avoidance involving straw companies was `very widespread indeed' and pointed to the pressing need for submission 2290 to be dealt with by Ministers and for the examination recommended to be carried out. Finally, on 23 August 1978 Ministers agreed that officers from the Taxation Office and the Attorney-General's Department would examine as a matter of urgency the problem of tax evasion through straw companies and trusts and prepare, if appropriate, a submission on the question of introducing into the law an appropriate criminal offence. On 17 November 1978 Commissioner O'Reilly sent a further memorandum to the former Treasurer saying that he had word that the Treasurer had expressed misgivings over some of the reverse onus of proof provisions. He went on to say: Without that kind of onus on the defendant, it would be open to serious doubt whether a prosecution could ever succeed. Clearly the potential revenue losses that these schemes make possible require an effective deterrent and the provision must be made capable of that. Then for months he wrote asking the former Treasurer to write to the Attorney-General in order to get opinions, and finally on 25 July 1979-1 1/2 years after he began the correspondence-the Commissioner sent another memo- randum saying: It is my considered advice that the situation needs to be remedied urgently and with stern measures. He also referred to the serious and growing problems of straw companies and straw trust evasion. Then, on 7 November 1979, the Commissioner was forced to write to the then Treasurer, again saying: I am gravely concerned that there may be some question about going ahead with the planned legislation on this matter. He got the message back from the apparatus that they did not want to press on, that they did not want to do anything about it. Then, on 8 November, the honourable member for Bennelong wrote to the Commissioner and attempted to persuade the Commissioner of Taxation that it was desired to defer the legislation. The former Treasurer wrote to the Commissioner trying to talk him out of it. The Commissioner wrote back saying: I think there is a lot to be said in favour of introducing the legislation at this time. He received further advice from the Commissioner on 15 November, again referring to his `grave concern with the straw company situation' and saying `it is a feasible course for the legislation to be introduced' at that time and it should be allowed to lie on the table `until the autumn sittings'. Then, on 15 February 1980, the Commissioner again wrote to the former Treasurer noting: . . . trust stripping activities have been and are being conducted on a wide scale. On 10 June 1980 the Commissioner wrote and said that the alternative-the alternative of the committee which the former Treasurer had pushed him to; some tax advisory committee-`does not offer a solution to the problem'. He said further: . . . it is becoming increasingly important that something be done to halt straw company and straw trust evasion. He then wrote on 22 October 1980 and referred to the situation as `critical', referring to the critical need for legislation in the area of straw companies and trusts. Then he wrote on 31 October 1980 and said this: I must draw your attention to the gravity of the situation. This is the language of a bureaucrat. He added: . . . company tax evasion following sales of shares in companies is being practised on an alarming scale, and quite openly. That is the language of the Commissioner to the former Treasurer on 31 October 1980, two years after the former Treasurer became Treasurer. Then the former Treasurer introduced the Bill on 5 November 1980. This is what Mr Waterford, who followed the issue in the Canberra Times, had to say: Far from the picture presented at the Tax Office which did not tell him enough of what was going on in 1978 and 1979, the record shows a continual flow of information from Mr O'Reilly to Mr Howard. He went on further to say: . . . it shows Mr O'Reilly waging a lonely war throughout a bureaucratic, political and business thicket to keep the item high on the agenda, fighting off cold feet from almost everyone involved and occasionally using very heavy artillery indeed. He went on to say, referring to the former Treasurer: . . . he needed considerable prodding from Mr O'Reilly to keep the matter high on the agenda, that drastic criminal legislation was necessary. That was the form of the honourable member for Bennelong. In this debate he is on record on the Carleton-Walsh Report and Willesee as saying: `My Part IV legislation was the toughest anti-avoidance legislation ever'. He said: `Therefore, my credentials on fringe benefits will be okay, as they were okay on straw companies and strips'. There is his record on straw companies and strips: Three years and 28 pleading memos from the Commissioner of Taxation, not to do something about the rutted in fringe benefits, but to do something about the abusive, criminal, open, overt paper avoidance schemes-the most obvious things that any government with any shred of tax decency or morality would have moved straight into and closed. I say to the former Treasurer that there are no such memos in my administration or in the administration of this Government. The working class boy was quite prepared to represent the slick end of the Liberal Party's interests, the slick money out there, the people working the paper avoidance schemes, the real ramps and rorts. Not only was the former Government not prepared to touch fringe benefits, which is a massive area of evasion of the income tax scheme; it would not touch even the criminal paper avoidance schemes. When the McCabe-Lafranchi report came in the Leader of the Opposition labelled it a political stunt by Premier Cain. When the Costigan report came in his defence was that, because of the secrecy provisions of section 16, he did not know the names of the taxpayers so he could not do anything about it. But he had 28 memos-some of them ran to 10 and 12 pages-pleading with him to do something about the paper schemes. Part IVa came from the outraged public debate; it never came from John Howard, any more than any other decent tax legislation came or ever would come from the coalition parties. So honourable members opposite should not get up and attack us about dealing with the tax system and the avoidance of the income tax system by attempting to deal with non-cash benefits under the fringe benefits tax. If there are unintended consequences the Government will deal with them, but it will stand by the principle of fairness and decency in the tax system, something which is alien to those opposite. They should not get up and talk to us about their record on Part IVa because they were driven and dragged screaming to do something about tax avoidance on a scale unparalleled in the Western world, in the United States of America, in Europe and in Britain-in fact, a blot upon Australian society at a time when criminal activities were let go despite pleadings by a Commissioner of Taxation. That is the record of the coalition and the record that coalition statements ought to be judged against. Mr Sinclair —Wind up. Mr KEATING —I know the right honourable gentleman wants me to wind up. He would have been sitting there protecting the tax avoiders, too. That is the record of members of the coalition. They are the standards by which they should be judged, and that is why we reject absolutely any moral standard on their part when assessing the legislation of the Government. DR THEOPHANOUS —Has the attention of the Minister for Foreign Affairs been drawn to an editorial in the Canberra Times of 9 October last calling on the Australian Government urgently to pursue allegations by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre about the presence in Australia of nazi war criminals? Can the Minister inform honourable members what action has been taken to follow up these allegations since they were handed to the Government? Can he assure the House that the Government will ensure that anybody living in Australia who is guilty of war crimes shall not be able to escape the consequences? Mr HAYDEN —I would like to commence by acknowledging the positive contribution which the honourable member made in the setting up of the Menzies inquiry into allegations concerning alleged war criminals in Australia. It was a substantial and important one widely acknowledged by those many people who are concerned to see this matter properly pursued. On 1 October this year in New York at the Australian permanent mission to the United Nations I met Rabbis Hier and Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre based in Los Angeles. They provided me with a list of 40 names of alleged war criminals from the Baltic States area who it was alleged had migrated to Australia in the fairly near post-war period. I was further advised that there would be another 140 to 160 names provided when additional information was compiled concerning those people. I can assure the honourable member that the Government is doing everything it can to pursue these matters. However, we must bear in mind that there are requirements on us to proceed according to the principles of our legal system and to ensure that the substance of evidence is established to uphold any allegations and that due processes are respected and properly pursued. All this will be done. I say that because, first, I want to register that there are obligations on us, having accepted the submission from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, to ensure that the evidence is there, and because secondly, I want to stress that I have concluded that this exercise will take perhaps some considerable time. If I illustrate at this point with some quotes, without divulging the names of the people involved, from the documents that were supplied to me, I think honourable members will readily recognise that there is a substantial task ahead for the Menzies inquiry to establish the nature of evidence behind these allegations. I will give three cases, but not the names. They show the nature of the information given to us: The name, date of birth and the allegation. One at which I am looking states that the person participated in murders of Jews in a particular place. The source was Yad Vashem archives. Then there is some very brief information of no more than about 20 words about immigration data. Another case shows the name supplied and date and place of birth of a police officer in a particular place who was involved in the murder of Jews and the robbery of valuables. It gives some details of his police rank and place and some brief immigration data. The third case again gives the date of birth and states that the person was the leader of a local special murder squad in a particular place and carried out annihilation of the Jewish community, and it gives some details of a very high ranking position. The sources-numerous lists of Latvian war criminals, Yad Vashem and so on-and brief immigration data are given. Only a little over 20 addresses in Australia in respect of these 40 names have been provided, and this caveat has been supplied: Here is a list of names, some of which contain first names as well as last names of the suspected criminals. Others on the list contain a similar first name initial and same last name. While we cannot-- it is stressed-- absolutely vouch for the accuracy of these addresses or telephone numbers, or that these are actually the same individuals listed on our suspected war criminals list, it can, however, be used as a preliminary basis for your further investigation. I quote that evidence to indicate that a substantial amount of work is still to be done. Basic information has been provided and allegations have been put forward but, for a case to be established in each case, if it is recommended by the Menzies inquiry which is under the administration of the Special Minister of State, there will have to be substantial further investigation. The Government will do all that it properly should do, and it will do it resolutely; it will do it properly according to the principles of justice which apply in this country. Mr CONQUEST —I refer the Treasurer to his statement of 8 August, when asked about possible changes to the fringe benefits tax, in which he said: It's a total furphy, a total furphy. The Government is not going to change this tax. I also refer the Treasurer to his statement of 12 August when he said: There's not going to be any administrative changes-that's it. Why was it that the Prime Minister discovered the unintended consequences of the fringe benefits tax only while the Treasurer was overseas? Does the Treasurer still hold the view that he expressed last Friday in London that the review of the fringe benefits tax is a sideshow? If so, will the Treasurer and the Prime Minister be taking this sideshow on the road to Queensland during the State election? Mr KEATING —What I said in London was that a review of the unintended consequences of the fringe benefits tax was a sideshow to the main event, the health of the Australian economy-and it is. Whoever drafted this question for the honourable member for Hinkler will soon learn that what I said about the main event is right, and the main event is the Australian economy. Here we have a government that is totally restructuring the Australian economy and bringing it back to health, trying to rebuild quickly our import competing structure-our fight-back machinery which was decimated by the former Government and so is not there to be used now in the face of a terms of trade collapse. We have made the major structural changes to permit the Australian economy to grow again. As the indicators that I read out earlier change, honourable members opposite will eat their political hearts out. They will eat their political hearts out as we move towards the next election and we see these changes falling into place for the Government like apples in a slot machine. They will be up there asking questions after the next election. Some of them will, but some of them will not because they will not be here. It is a commentary on Australian politics that an opposition which in government had such a shameful, disgraceful, squalid record on taxation should be feeling it has some position of virtue, questioning the Government and me about attempts by the Government to make the tax system decent. I say to Opposition members that I reject out of hand their puny, weak questions for what they are-irrelevant to the main business at hand, which is to make sure that the tax changes are good, sensible and useful and do their job but at the same time seeing the true economic security of Australians built week by week as the changes the Government has brought into place wreak their effect upon the real Australian economy. As that happens and as domestic and international confidence grows the political position of members of the Opposition will weaken. They will need more than a question drafted by the staff of the Leader of the Opposition to save their position at the next poll. I have nothing to add to what I said in answer to earlier questions. It will take more than the man for his times who is sitting opposite-the times when the terms of trade were collapsing on us, the price of all our commodities was down, the balance of payments was eroding and the Government was beavering away to get the Budget changes into place-to save the mob opposite. Mr FREE —Has the attention of the Minister for Foreign Affairs been drawn to reports that Jose Maria Sison collected money during his recent lecture tour in Australia to buy arms with which communist forces could fight the Aquino Government? Has the Government had the opportunity yet to investigate these reports? If so, is there any substance to them? Mr HAYDEN —These allegations have been made in the Philippines and they have been made against Sison with the clear intent of causing him serious disadvantage in that community. My Department has made inquiries on this matter and I have the following note: Sison appears to have been very careful in his public comments in Australia not to admit to any past or present official links with the CPP. He has not to our knowledge made any public pleas for money to buy arms. We have seen no Australian media reports quoting Sison as having made the statements reported in Manila's Reftel-the reference telex. Sison participated in a seminar at La Trobe University, organised by the Chaplains of La Trobe, on 2 October and, in the 1986 National Philippines Conference at Melbourne College of Advanced Education from 3 to 5 October. On neither of these occasions is he recorded as commenting along the lines alleged. It is suggested that the comments attributed to Sison in Manila were in fact made by a Jun Alcover. Mr Alcover, a former NPA regional leader, is touring Australia from 28 September to 13 October at the invitation of the National Committee for Peace, Freedom and Justice. I am advised that the Reverend Fred Nile is Chairman of that Committee. This is a very important matter. There is absolutely no doubt that there has been a serious effort to cause harm to Mr Sison as a result of his visit to this country. Allegations have been made about things he is supposed to have said of which there is no record. Those allegations have been made by a person not present here but rather in the Philippines at the relevant time. Regardless of what Mr Sison's political interests or involvements may be, I think it is a matter of moral responsibility to put on the record as correctly as we can what the facts are in this case. I have accordingly done that. Mr SINCLAIR(New England-Leader of the National Party of Australia) —Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of procedure. Under standing order 145, power is given to you to require that an answer should be relevant to the question. During Question Time today there have been eight questions. That is approximately half the number there have been in the preceding period of sittings of this Parliament. Rulings have been made by your predecessors over a long period requiring Ministers to remain relevant. I draw your attention particularly to rulings by Speaker Snedden, who consistently called on Ministers to terminate their answers. I ask you: In what circumstances and in what way do you believe that standing order 145 should be applied; do you reject those interpretations by your predecessors and, if not, do you believe that it is necessary, in order that the whole procedure of questions without notice not be brought into total disrepute, that there should be some change to our Standing Orders so that questions without notice can be, as they reasonably should be, an opportunity for members of either side to ask questions which may reasonably be answered in a precise time? Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Leader of the House)(2.51) —It is nice to hear the Manager of Opposition Business (Mr Sinclair) scream, after he had eight years over here abusing every convention of this Parliament. I include in that blocking Supply in order to bring about the election of 1975 and abusing Question Time. In those days he found rulings by previous Speakers to be very favourable but now he raises this matter on one occasion when there might have been fewer questions on a parliamentary sitting day than there otherwise might have been. That does not mean it will happen every day. Opposition members ask stupid questions and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) tries to give them a broad, comprehensive and excellent view of what is happening in this country. They ought to be grateful that we give them such good explanations of what is happening. The right honourable member has asked the Speaker whether she agrees with all the rulings of previous Speakers. I would hope not, having sat here with some of those previous Speakers and having witnessed some of their rulings. I am sure that the right honourable member is in the same boat. He would not put up his hand for every ruling that has been given by every Speaker in this Parliament. All Speakers have made their own marks. I must say, Madam Speaker, that you are one of the outstanding Speakers of the Parliament and I do not think you should be at all intimidated by the views put forward by the Manager of Opposition Business. Madam SPEAKER —I say to the Leader of the National Party of Australia that if the procedures of Question Time are causing problems I advise and encourage members to put their submissions before the Standing Committee on Procedure. I have commented a number of times that there are a number of rather ambiguous standing orders on the books, and this is the time when we should be looking at them. Mr BEAZLEY(Swan-Minister for Defence) —by leave-The defence policy of this Government is to pursue a disciplined relationship between strategy and force structure within the constraints of what is financially feasible in a period of economic stringency. Within this framework virtually every aspect of the defence of this country is being analysed and modernised to meet Australia's real defence needs in the 1980s. The annual statement of the Defence Minister necessarily focuses on outlays. It is more appropriate to argue elsewhere aspects of broad strategy. Nevertheless, because we have closely linked the three essential elements of defence policy, it is necessary briefly to state strategy and what has been achieved in matching it to budgetary possibilities. It is sometimes argued that what is needed is a statement of the desirable in the structure of the Australian defence forces and damn the dollar. This makes great copy but disastrous policy. Such an unstructured approach left us with armed forces undercapitalised when this Government took office-an undercapitalisation which was in no small measure due to an inability to take decisions to cut unnecessary capabilities and to reduce inefficiency elsewhere in the program. This left us with some serious gaps in our force structure, as amply described by Paul Dibb. Our strategy is for defence self-reliance. It is self-reliance against a background that recognises that we have regional responsibilities that must be addressed after we have assigned first priority to our own needs. It is self-reliance also within the framework of a wider alliance with the United States. Our alliance and agreements with the United States, in particular, but also with New Zealand and other South Pacific and South East Asian states, impacts on strategy, force structure and Budget outlays largely in positive ways. We receive at reasonable cost essential capabilities in the intelligence, scientific and equipment areas which reduce the number of expensive tasks we would otherwise have to perform. The relationships also help to create a strategic environment which is relatively benign. Unlike many countries, we can say with confidence that it would take years for a potential enemy to develop the military capability to mount an attack on us of sufficient magnitude to destroy our society. We also realise, however-this is an important point-that capabilities for lower level threats both to our national interests and those of our friends and neighbours do exist within the region. In this case the emergence of such threats is a product not of capability but of politics. A political situation can change rapidly and this Government accepts that there is a requirement for it to be able to counter such challenges should they emerge. Of course, the warning time of such challenges can be short. It is a pity that the disciplined approach of this Government has been the object of Opposition sniping based on a combination of deliberate misunderstanding of key elements of Government strategy including warning time doctrine and the intellectual sloppiness of unrealistic forward defence strategies that the Opposition itself abandoned in government in the 1970s. These ill-informed and unco-ordinated criticisms have been accompanied by an absolute determination that no more will be spent on defence than we are spending. As the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) said only last month: `We have got to reduce taxes and frankly I think that has a higher priority for me as far as the Budget is concerned before you decide what you are going to spend on defence'. Therefore, in the unlikely event of a resumption of office by the Opposition, we can expect the gaps in defence which we are closing to be replaced by other areas of deficiency. This Government is tackling all of the problems that the Opposition generated or ignored. Our equipment is being updated, our command arrangements streamlined and strengthened and our factories rationalised. Most importantly, we have addressed key aspects of the conditions of service of service personnel. We have done so on the basis that, whilst all in the community must share some of the burdens imposed by our economic circumstances, unusual burdens should not be borne by the forces. Like all Australians, they are entitled to an independent review of their conditions and they have that now under our independent tribunal. The Services are entitled to decent housing. They will get that, after years of Opposition meandering, through our increased financial commitment of some $66m in this Budget, as the start of a major program, and through an independent statutory authority. The problems of service personnel are complex, as Sue Hamilton established in her report. Moneys are being made available in this Budget to implement her suggestions for improving the conditions of service spouses and families. Project management and the defence factories are being reformed so that they can contribute to the exciting industrial opportunities offered by the major re-equipment of the Defence Force now under way. The roles and functions of the joint facilities are being explained to Australians with a new honesty and a new respect for the interest taken by Australians in global strategic issues. The resources to realise all these commitments are coming from real growth in the defence budget, and from major reforms in administration. This Government's undertaking to increase defence spending in real terms has been met over four consecutive Labor Budgets with an average annual real growth of 2.7 per cent. The Government's commitment to real growth in defence spending has been amply demonstrated this year. Under the toughest budgetary discipline faced by any government for many years, defence spending has been budgeted to grow by one per cent in real terms. In a year when Government outlays overall have not been allowed to grow at all, this is a remarkable outcome. It is even more remarkable in the light of the severe effect on the defence budget of the dollar's depreciation. The defence budget has been insulated from the effect of the low dollar, which has been taken into account before calculating real growth in the defence budget. Under this Government, defence spending has reached record peacetime levels. This year's defence budget is $7,415m, an increase of $743m or 11.1 per cent in actual terms over last year's outlays. Defence spending this year constitutes 9.9 per cent of Commonwealth Budget outlays and 2.9 per cent of gross domestic product-sustaining the highest GDP share of defence spending since the days of the Vietnam war in the early 1970s. Within the defence budget, reforms are being made which will save over $30m in a full year. Rationalisation of the defence factories has resulted in significant staff reductions. Management is being improved and new work practices are being negotiated. More than 80 per cent of this budget is allocated directly to the Defence Force for new equipment and facilities, personnel and operations. Three per cent is allocated directly in support of defence industry and production activities, 2 per cent for defence research and development, one per cent for defence co-operation and one per cent for expenditure by other departments. Service pensions account for another 5 per cent and 5 per cent is for the Department of Defence policy elements and central, regional and overseas administration in support of defence programs. The key focus in this year's defence budget is long term investment in equipment and facilities, to continue the re-equipping of the ADF with up to date capabilities tailored to our strategic needs. One-third-33.2 per cent- of this year's defence budget will be spent on new equipment and facilities, easily the highest for more than 15 years and double the rate of 17 per cent achieved by the coalition in 1981-82. In all, over 130 major equipment projects are under way this year, and decisions will be made this year on many more. The most important of these will be the new submarine project. Within a few weeks we will be receiving tenders from the two submarine consortiums, and a decision will be made in the middle of next year on which company will design and construct our new submarines. Among the major equipment purchases being made this year are Seahawk and Blackhawk helicopters, PC9 trainers for the Royal Australian Air Force, Steyr rifles for the Army, a wide range of trucks for the Army, Harpoon and standard missiles for the Royal Australian Navy and short and medium range missiles for the Air Force and air defence weapons for the Army. The total of nearly $2.2 billion being spent on re-equipping the ADF this year is directed to reshaping the Defence Force to meet the specific strategic needs and challenges of our environment. Priority is being given to high technology solutions to the problems posed by the unique terrain over which the ADF could be called upon to operate. Among the most challenging tasks for the ADF is surveillance of the vast areas to our north. I am therefore delighted to announce the Government's decision to proceed with a major project to develop a comprehensive over the horizon radar system to cover the whole of our northern approaches. Based on the technology developed by Australian defence scientists and engineers of the Electronics Research Laboratory in South Australia through the Jindalee project, this system will provide comprehensive coverage of air and shipping movements throughout the air-sea gap to our north far more cheaply than any other system. It is planned that at least two, and probably three, new OTHR sites will be established, one or two in north-eastern Australia and one in the west or south-west. At the same time further development is being carried out at the existing OTHR site near Alice Springs to refine the equipment and operating procedures. Total cost of this project, including a network of three stations, will amount to approximately $500m. Jindalee is just one example of the Government's intention to develop a force structure for the ADF which directly guards the weaknesses and exploits the strengths of Australia's strategic environment. Another important project under way this year is the conversion of the RAAF's existing fleet of four 707 aircraft for air to air refuelling of the FA18s. We must look continually for useful force multipliers for air operations. Increasing familiarity with problems of interception in and from the north is demonstrating the need for range in our primary air assets and the need for more time on task. So this will greatly enhance the ADF's capabilities to project power throughout Australia's area of military interest. We have commenced preliminary work on the Navy's next generation of warships, the new surface combatant. Under this project I intend to seek Government approval to build, in Australia, up to eight ships to meet the requirements identified by the Navy and by Dibb for a large number of light, capable vessels to operate throughout Australia's surrounding maritime areas. The importance of this project should not be underestimated. It is comparable in size-indeed greater-to the submarine project. It will have higher Australian content. It will have greater export potential. It will proceed alongside the submarine project, having a shorter start-up period. We regard it as providing the Navy with more decks to perform essential wartime tasks in focal points and in support of the heavier warships. In peacetime it will give us additional useful capabilities to demonstrate Australian concern for the surveillance needs of our neighbours. It is hoped that requests for proposals for this project will be issued later this year, and that construction of the vessels will commence in the early 1990s. The project is currently estimated at $3.5 billion. Expenditure this year on major facilities projects includes $70m on the development of the air base at Tindal in the Northern Territory and $23m on the construction of an air base at Derby in Western Australia, and we have decided to provide facilities for the new Blackhawk helicopters at Townsville at an estimated cost of $19m. These and other projects reflect the Government's commitment to defending the north of Australia by providing appropriate facilities for ADF deployments there. In excess of $500m will be spent this year on developing and maintaining defence facilities and housing around the country. The Government is seeking to achieve substantial economies in the management of defence assets and operations through management reorganisation, the rationalisation of defence production establishments and initiatives aimed at accelerating the disposal of surplus defence equipment, land holdings, plant and machinery. The thrust of these improvements has been to delegate responsibility and authority, reduce complexity and duplication and simplify lines of control. Creation of the Office of Capital Procurement was the first major step in this regard. It brings together the functional areas responsible for the procurement of approved major capital equipment, including financial programming and budgeting, with the areas responsible for procurement policy and procedures, defence industry policy and participation by Australian industry in the supply of equipment. Clear lines of authority are now provided for major equipment acquisition through every stage of a project. The Office of Defence Production within my Department now administers fifteen defence factories employing over 13,000 people. The management improvement programs initiated by this Government have had to be complemented by rationalisation of the operations of Williamstown and Garden Island dockyards and the Government Aircraft Factories. Staff reductions have been made not only at the factory level but also in the central office in Canberra, where a reduction of over 12 per cent has already been achieved. The Government has also decided to close the Albion Explosives Factory in Melbourne and dispose of the aircraft engineering workshop at Pooraka, near Adelaide. The capabilities of the Albion factory will be transferred to the Mulwala Explosives Factory. The Albion site will be cleared and will eventually be returned to general community use. I have also announced the Government's decision to establish the Government Aircraft Factories as a government owned company. This decision recognises that the Government Aircraft Factories is an important competitor in the Australian aerospace industry and one that is destined to become a more important commercial force. In these circumstances it makes sense to ensure that the Government Aircraft Factories is placed on the same commercial footing as its private sector competitors. As part of the process of rationalising our defence industry, the sale and release to Australian industry of Commonwealth owned machinery was begun with a major review in April this year. Nearly 20,000 items are issued on loan or lease to hundreds of Australian companies and those immediately available for disposal are expected to realise at least $14m this financial year with further returns in coming years. Australian industry will directly reap the benefits of nearly $1,800m in the defence budget. The sum of $380m will be spent on major capital equipment projects, including $82m for the basic trainer, $76m for the Australian-built frigates and $64m on a range of communications and electronics equipment, particularly radios-projects Parakeet and Raven-and fixed communications-DISCON. In addition, industry will be substantially involved in projects such as assembly of the Seahawk and Blackhawk helicopters and continued work on the FA18 aircraft, with the advantages that these activities bring to industry through the transfer of advanced technology, skills and capabilities. A further $900m will be spent here in the manufacturing and service industries for other equipment, stores and repair. I have today released details of measures the Government has approved to assist Australian industry to bid for defence work and to develop and export military and related products. The list of measures is based on preliminary recommendations from my ministerial consultant, Bob Cooksey, from industry itself and from within the Department. Austrade is to become directly involved in selling defence products, the flow of information to industry will be improved, defence expertise, equipment and manpower will be made more readily available and export controls will be reviewed. In future defence projects, it is our intention to keep Commonwealth ownership of assets to an absolute minimum. This will mean simpler dealings with industry and less bureaucracy. The Government regards the improvement of service conditions, particularly for members of the ADF, as among the most pressing defence priorities. The Hamilton report on supporting service families has provided a valuable basis for alleviating some of the harsher aspects of service life. A team has now been established to implement measures to deal with these problems. Defence housing has been overhauled, with an independent authority being established to administer the 22,000 homes for which Defence is responsible. Spending on housing will rise by 20 per cent to $66m. As part of the major overhaul of conditions of service in the ADF, the Government has established a Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal. For the first time the pay of service men and women is now set by an independent tribunal, in line with normal Australian practice, instead of by the government of the day. The Tribunal has already made a general determination on Services pay, which produced a rise of 5.9 per cent, and is now to consider certain allowances. The approved strength of the regular Defence Force will remain unchanged at 70,529, although actual numbers were below this level at 30 June 1986. The planned terminal strengths for 1986-87 are 15,732 for the Navy, 32,000 for the Army and 22,797 for the Air Force. The Army Reserve numbers are planned to increase during 1986-87 to 24,500, up from 23,145 at the end of 1985-86. Resignation rates among officers have been unusually high in recent months. This is partly due to structural factors, such as the passage through the ADF's career structure of a hump originating in the high recruitment levels during the Vietnam War. High resignation rates also reflect strong job prospects outside the ADF, especially for some classes of highly trained officers such as pilots. The requirement to match salary to rank makes it impossible for the ADF to match the offers that highly trained young officers can attract from private employers in some categories. But neither the Government nor the ADF is content to assume that such factors tell the whole story on high resignation rates, and the CDF is undertaking a study to ascertain any other factors which may be taken into account in trying to address this problem. In line with the Government decision on rationalisation of the work force at defence factories and dockyards, civilian personnel numbers overall will decline in 1986-87, in staff years, by some 850. The reduction also includes the rundown in locally engaged civilians at Butterworth, Malaysia. Average civilian staffing numbers planned for 1986-87 are 39,713. The command structure of the ADF is being modernised and strengthened to meet the demands of a self-reliant defence posture. Increasingly the three Services of the ADF are being designed to fight together as one independent force, and this requires that planning and administration of the services is increasingly centralised in HQADF. A major step was taken in this direction in June with the creation of the position of Vice Chief of the Defence Force to co-ordinate the force development planning activities of the three Services. The role of the Reserves is also being re- assessed as part of the Government's program to optimise the ADF to meet the requirements of our strategic circumstances. The Government regards the Reserves as an integral part of the ADF, and plans to enhance the functions and responsibilities of reserve units to reflect this. Options are being examined to allocate the Reserves more weapons and roles. For the Army Reserve, consideration is being given to equipping it with heavier weapons, including tanks and medium artillery, and to allocating particular wartime functions to specific reserve units. Consideration is being given to increasing the use of the Navy Reserve in the mine counter-measures area, and maintenance and airfield defence roles to the Air Force Reserve. Each of these functions would be vital in even low level hostilities, and the Government is legislating to allow limited call-out of the Reserves in situations short of a declared defence emergency. Incentives will be introduced to improve recruitment and retention for the Reserve Forces in recognition of their enhanced role. The Government will restore full taxation exemption of the pay of Defence Force reservists from 1 January 1987. At the same time the special Reserve allowance will be discontinued as an offset. In addition, the Government will increase Army Reserve training days from the Budget level of 900,000 last year to 942,000 this year. All these initiatives will enhance the development of a defence force with capabilities relevant to self-reliant defence of Australia. But we do not do this in isolation. This Government recognises the importance to our security of effective relations with our regional neighbours and with our traditional friends. It is to these relationships that I now turn. The Government is devoting increased resources to co-operative defence activities within the Pacific Island countries and Papua New Guinea. An amount of $34.8m has been allocated to such activities in this year's Budget, compared with expenditure of $27.1m in 1985-86. Much of the increase reflects the gathering pace of the Pacific patrol boat project, which has been developed to assist the South Pacific Forum countries to upgrade their maritime surveillance capabilities to maintain sovereignty over their extensive exclusive economic zones. Countries now participating in the project include Papua New Guinea and Fiji, each of which is to receive four boats; and the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Western Samoa and the Cook Islands, which will each receive one boat. Construction of the vessels is now well advanced at Australian Shipbuilding Industries (WA) Pty Ltd yard in Western Australia. Crews are being trained in Australia and the participating countries are developing, with advice from RAN experts in-country, the necessary infra- structure and management systems to receive the boats in service. The first boat will be completed in February 1987. This project demonstrates the Government's firm commitment to co-operate in practical ways with the South Pacific Forum countries to enhance the security of our common region. We would hope that they will continue to view Australia as a primary partner in defence matters. The Government has also made provision for continuing defence co-operation with our neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations, where funds allocated in 1986-87 total some $19.5m. With the increasing sophistication of these countries in defence matters, co-operative activities are now focused on sharing training experience and the transfer of Australian defence expertise through professional exchanges and consultancies. The changes which have occurred in the United States of America-New Zealand relationship as a result of the dispute over ship visits have not affected the fundamental United States-Australia relationship under the ANZUS alliance. When the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Hayden) and I met with Secretary Shultz and Secretary Weinberger in San Francisco earlier this year, we reaffirmed that the ANZUS Treaty remained in place and that the relationship between Australia and the United States under the Treaty, and the rights and obligations assumed by Australia and the United States towards each other under ANZUS, would remain constant and undiminished. The same, of course, applies to our wider co-operative defence relationship with the United States, which is facilitated by the ANZUS alliance and which includes such mutually beneficial activities as combined exercises, co-operation in research and development, and personnel and intelligence exchanges. These activities assist Australia to develop and maintain its self-reliant defence capability. This Government views our alliance with the United States as a dynamic relationship, which is being developed and strengthened to meet the evolving needs of both parties. One exciting new development is the agreement between ourselves and the United States Navy jointly to develop an Australian invention-Project Nulka. This will involve our co-operation in the development of a defensive system for surface ships. The United States has withdrawn its security commitment to New Zealand until the port access issue is resolved. New Zealand is well aware of Australia's own views and policies on port access. The issue has not, however, affected Australia's bilateral defence relationship and activities with New Zealand, which derive from long-standing, overlapping national defence and strategic interests. In this statement I have highlighted the main features of the defence budget and indicated this Government's resolve to build a defence force relevant to Australia's self-reliant defence. The Government will shortly bring down a White Paper on defence which will provide a clear and practical blueprint for the continuing development of the defence of this nation. This Government has brought to the defence of Australia a new rationale, a new honesty with the Australian people and new hardware for the armed forces. The Opposition offers old fears, outworn slogans and old equipment. This Government has an absolute commitment to renew Australia's defences from top to bottom and an absolute commitment to provide the defence spending to do it. The Opposition is tied to the past by its 1950s strategic cliches and its absolute commitment to cut defence spending. I conclude on a note with regard to the Secretary to my Department. I would like to take this opportunity to record my appreciation and that of the Government for the services of the Secretary to my Department, Sir William Cole, who will retire tomorrow. Sir William has an outstanding record of achievement in his Public Service career; a career which spans some 40 years, the last three of which have been as Secretary to the Department of Defence. He has made a very significant contribution to the development of these new directions in Australian defence policy and I thank him for that. As a further aid to responsible and reasoned debate on defence, I table the 1985-86 Defence Report. I also present the following paper: Defence Budget-Ministerial Statement, 14 October 1986. Motion (by Mr Dawkins) proposed: That the House take note of the papers. Motion (by Mr Beazley)-by leave-agreed to: That so much of Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) speaking for a period not exceeding 35 minutes. Mr SINCLAIR(New England-Leader of the National Party of Australia) —I begin by rebutting the conclusion in the penultimate paragraph of the statement of the Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley), that is, the Opposition's absolute commitment to cut defence spending, for the reverse is the truth. We believe it absolutely essential not only that there be a maintenance of a reasonable percentage of the Budget for defence but also that there be an equally absolute requirement that at this time funds for defence within the Budget be not only maintained but increased to meet this nation's requirements for defence. From our point of view it is essential that an adequate percentage of this country's overall Budget be provided for defence. While we are most concerned at the deficit and at the way in which the Government is increasing taxes and abusing its economic responsibilities, we believe that defence must have a priority and are very concerned at the direction this country is taking. There is much to be commended in the Minister's statement, but equally there is much to be condemned. In my analysis of the Minister's statement, I wish, first of all, to look at the strategic situation and then to pick up some of the details of the spending. However, as far as the Minister's concluding remarks about Sir William Cole are concerned, I would like to share in wishing Sir William Cole a long, happy and healthy retirement. I express surprise that only once since he has been administering the Department of Defence have I had an opportunity to talk to him. It seems to be one of the extraordinary parts of this administration that it is so difficult to get information from people within the Department. It is also somewhat of a disappointment that, on the eve of his retirement, there has still been no announcement by the Government as to who is to be his successor. There is much that needs to be said on the strategic basis on which Mr Dibb has enunciated his program for the Government and on which the Government has produced a White Paper, but it can wait until the White Paper itself is produced. It is of interest that today the Minister, in his statement, has picked up some of our concerns on this side of the House as to the interpretation of self-reliance and as to the role of the Australian defence forces. We see the responsibility of the Australian Defence Force as, of course, defending Australia, but we then look at Australia having a wider responsibility than just its territorial limits. The fortress Australian extension of doctrine that we read into the Dibb analysis is something we believe inadequate for the strategic situation that Australia faces in the South Pacific, South East Asia and indeed the wider world in 1986. We are concerned that Australia's national interests, Australia's Territories and those areas where Australia's foreign policy can be assisted by a strong defence policy can be helped by an Australian Defence Force able to play a positive role. It is our concern that in the new force structure which the Minister envisages there seems to be a lesser ability than we believe desirable for our defence forces to play the sort of role that we see necessary, particularly in our region. While I am delighted that the Minister has picked up the fact that self-reliance must be seen against a background which recognises that we have regional responsibilities, we say to the Minister that any definition of denial that does not include complete co-ordination of our defence stratagem with countries in our region, we would believe inadequate. It is in that regard in particular that we are concerned about the overall strategic base from which he looks at Australia's defence policy. I think this is all particularly pertinent because it comes immediately following the Reykjavik discussions between the leaders of the two super-powers of the world. There is no doubt that President Reagan and Secretary Gorbachev in their discussions were looking at matters that have a very profound influence on Australia. I refer to that wider strategic base because on this side of the House we are concerned that in the International Year of Peace too many people seem to fail to comprehend the fact that the Australian Defence Force is in the front line of the peace corps of this nation. If one has a strong defence, if one is able to deter aggression, it is unlikely that one would have to use the forces of this country actually to fight. On this side of the House our objective is to make sure that we have a deterrent, non-nuclear capability within our Defence Force so that, if there were to be any developing threat against Australia, those who would see Australia as being a prospective target would know that in turn they could expect to be hit and hurt if they should ever think of launching an attack upon us. It is because of that concern that we worry about the general defence relationship in our defence alliances. While the Minister in his statement has referred in passing to the relationship in ANZUS and the relationship with New Zealand, we do not believe that the Government has been anywhere near strong enough in taking up with the New Zealanders the concern that we have that it is not possible for Australia to maintain a constant level of support for New Zealand in the way that we did when it was a member of the ANZUS relationship. We believe that New Zealand must be persuaded to take a course in which it accepts once again its responsibilities in this region so that collectively we can again mount that common barrier against aggression which existed since World War II or shortly thereafter. Indeed, I think it is particularly important, when we think of deterrence and our relationship with the United States and within ANZUS and the Minister's comments that he believes they are as strong, that we consider the almost apologetic response given by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in his answer to a question today in talking about the relations between this Government and the United States. As far as we are concerned, I think it is important that we make sure that there is a constant and continuing comprehension by the United States that we do not see the written terms of ANZUS as the only basis of our defence relationship but that we see it also as something that extends beyond that; that as much of what is unwritten as is written is important in ensuring that Australia can play its part in the wider world scene to preserve peace. We are concerned that the Government seems to have taken such an intransigent attitude towards the strategic defence initiative. Once again, the Prime Minister today has declared his opposition to this doctrine. He seems to ignore almost the degree to which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is already involved in that field, although I was interested that for the first time we have had a report from the Prime Minister suggesting that he has actually taken up with the Soviet Union his concern about its progress in that field. The reality is that the strategic defence initiative is just that; it is a defence initiative that is designed to ensure that if there should be a missile attack on a country there is a capability of defending the people of that country against that missile attack. I believe that it is very foolish indeed that Australia does not play some part in trying to involve itself in SDI research at least. I am disappointed that the Government, in its analysis, has not seen fit to participate in research, as countries such as Japan and the United Kingdom have done and are doing. It is important that we play our role in the wider world scene, and I believe that it is important that we all understand that SDI is a research initiative at least in which Australia can play a role. Were we to do so, it would certainly enable us to feel that on the wider scene we were doing more to participate in the ANZUS relationship than we would in the somewhat limited area that Mr Dibb outlines in his report on force structure. As far as the Budget analysis of the Minister is concerned, I want to address a range of matters. I think it is important that the people listening to this broadcast of the proceedings of the House today understand that the Government itself pays fringe benefits tax. Much of our debate in this Parliament last week and again today has been around the consequences of the fringe benefits tax. There is no doubt that the unintended consequences-to use the phrase of the Prime Minister-apply as much in defence as they do in any other area. Indeed, I understand that the Department of Defence, having budgeted originally for an FBT liability of $116m, has revised that down to about $70m; but there is still an FBT liability. The uncertainty of the Government's measures is no better illustrated by the fact that even a department of state of the Commonwealth does not know what its liability is. The more important thing from the defence perspective in terms of spending money is that it is going to be cut from the available funds within the defence budget. When we look at the estimates we know that somewhere between $170m and $190m was cut from the Forward Estimates. We know that at the moment about $50m has been cut from operating costs. There is no indication in the Budget Papers where funding for the FBT liability is to come from, but there is a clear indication that operating costs have been cut in order to meet the costs of the FBT. The point of FBT-as with defence, so with everybody else in the community-is that it destroys the ability of the Department of Defence, as it does for individuals in this nation, to perform at their maximum level of efficiency. It withdraws funds from the Department of Defence for its operating level. If one has not got flying time, sailing time and training time, one's ability to perform one's defence task is reduced. The one area which is certainly suffering at the moment in the defence forces is their overall ability to exercise and to maintain personnel at the high level of efficiency that is necessary for them to undertake their jobs. There is little doubt that FBT will affect this further in the future. Perhaps the most significant area of all those affecting the defence forces lies in the problems with personnel. The Minister has referred to it in his statement. He has not addressed the fact that we still have about 40,000 civilians for about 70,000 uniformed personnel. That ratio is much higher that it was during wartime. While it is true that factories and defence establishments are being reviewed both in terms of their performance and their capability, we have heard very little today about the relevance of that. For example, the Minister talked about spending $76m on the two follow-on destroyers building at Williamstown Dockyard in Victoria, but he has not said whether the agreements that were to be entered into at that place, I understand by last Monday, have in fact been signed. The reality is that both management and unions at Williamstown have needed to be brought into line. There is no doubt that they certainly have a very poor record for performance and unless they are able to meet the obligations that are part of the FFG contracts, the future of shipbuilding at their dockyard is very grave indeed. It is true that the teeth to tail ratio in defence is a worrying aspect of the whole of this assessment made by the Minister of his defence budget. Indeed, one of the difficulties that I think the Minister does not seem to realise is that it is a matter not just of how much money is spent in defence but of the value we get for that dollar. I am concerned at the personnel end that while there has been the Hamilton report `Supporting Service Families' there has been too little done to address the very real problems of trying to maintain the morale of senior non-commissioned officers, particularly and middle level officers in the Defence Force. The Minister has explained the high rate of resignations on, in part, the hump from the Vietnam period. In reality, a lot of factors have contributed to resignations. I believe one of them is the degree to which within the Services there is an opportunity for those who are now serving in responsible positions to be able to do the job for which they were trained and recruited. There are far too many disincentives affecting their families and themselves. The Hamilton report goes part of the way, but it has not yet been implemented. Too many personnel are being posted from one destination to another and finding their families are suffering because their children cannot move easily from one school to another. They do not get the travelling allowance that the Treasurer (Mr Keating) enjoys in order to be able to live in Canberra while saying his home is in Sydney. The reality is that many of those in the Services are totally disadvantaged regarding the education of their children and the employment of their wives. The circumstances of service men and women in 1986 cannot be seen in terms of the 1940s and 1950s. I believe it is time that the Minister sent a full reference to the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal suggesting that there should be an examination into the comparability of pay and allowances in the Services and those that exist not only in civil employment but also in the Public Service itself. Certainly there are some areas where salaries might be comparable, but there is a lot more to it than just salaries. I think there is a real requirement for a greater comparison to be drawn and for a genuine attempt to be made to correct those disparities so that we can retain those whom it costs so much to train. There is no doubt that the defence brain drain is really at a crisis level. At all levels and in all services highly trained personnel are leaving the ADF faster than they can be recruited, let alone trained. At the end of August over 620 male officers had resigned from the Defence Force during 1986, more than the total figure for the whole of 1985. In July and August alone the Royal Australian Air Force lost 22 pilots trained at a cost of more than $1m each-one-third of the number lost in the previous 12 months. Losses from the ADF, now running at almost 10 per cent per year, are now unsustainable if the quality of the Defence Force is to be preserved. If we had to retrain at any stage for a defence contingency there would be insufficient trained people to provide that training. The ADF is reaching the point where it has only one choice-cutting back on functions. I am afraid that the Army is already preparing to do just that. The Chief of the General Staff said recently that the only way out for the Army was to divert manpower from lower priority areas. He stated: Last year we took a major cut out of the support areas-supply, transport, repair. The only way we can do this is to stop doing some things altogether and by starting to contract out to civil industry wherever we can. I commend contracting out, but contracting out must be done on a basis where it is not going to weaken the structure or the capability of the defence forces. A senior RAAF officer warned in a detailed study this year that unless current RAAF losses were stemmed, the RAAF would have to curtail its functions. The former Flag Officer Commanding the Australian Fleet said in an interview published by Australian Associated Press on 25 September that in the four years since Labor's decision not to replace HMAS Melbourne, Navy strength had been cut from 17,500 to 15,500. He continued: . . . and in the last 15 months, five ships, including the destroyers Yarra and Vampire, had been paid off earlier than planned. The Government's response in the face of this crisis has been far too little, far too late. In his statement the Minister acknowledged the un- usually high resignation rates of officers. He has talked about the Hamilton report and the 5.9 per cent ADF pay rise. If we look at the 5.9 per cent pay rise, part of the problem will be realised. A cable classified `Staff in confidence' to the Royal Australian Navy headquarters in Canberra after the rise was announced in 1985, and which happened to fall off the back of a truck, stated: Personnel reacted in a sober and polite manner but are deeply hurt. They expressed bitter disappointment and general discontent at the DFRT decision on both 5.9 per cent pay rise and retrospectivity. The overwhelming consensus of opinion has been that the announced pay increase does not raise the pay level of members to that which they see earned by civilian contemporaries outside the service who receive penalty rates which we are only partially compensated for by service allowance. There has been equal concern in the ADF at the Government's action in twice breaking a specific promise not to cut Defence Force retirement benefits and Defence Force retirement and death benefits: First, with the lump sum tax on superannuation; and then in this Budget-there is no mention of this in the Minister's statement-by the discounting of DFRB and DFDB increases. Unfortunately that 2 per cent discounting will be permanent and for ever after those who are potential or present recipients of those two benefits-DFRB or DFRDB-will be affected by that 2 per cent discount. There is concern at a whole range of petty attacks on the conditions of service that range from health care to Reserve pay. While the Minister very commendably talks about the restoration of the tax deduction on reserve personnel pay, it is not to take place until 1 January next year. Why on earth has the Government not implemented it immediately? Why defer it until then? The Government's limited response in the Hamilton report is just not enough. The Minister cannot get up in this House and try to take the credit for a range of defence procurement projects that were set in place by us and then claim that he cannot afford to pay service men and women enough to persuade them to stay. There is no doubt that defence has been seriously affected by Labor's lopsided priorities. While I know the Minister has a genuine concern, many cuts have been introduced to salve the limousine Left and its flexible conscience. I am afraid the result is that there are for many personnel enormous difficulties which in 1986 are no longer sustainable. I identify just some of them: Education for children, the problems of transferring from one State to another and the problems that exist for service men and women in transferring from one house to another. While funds are being provided for housing, I do not believe the defence housing authority gives anywhere near the value for the defence dollar that we would get if we gave land and the opportunity to build to private contractors, and certainly if, instead of trying to refurbish old houses, there were a decision to allow for funds from the sale of existing sub-standard homes to be kept within the Defence Force- Mr Beazley —There is. Mr SINCLAIR —At the moment in most instances those houses are refurbished at an inordinate cost-anything up to $30,000 or $40,000. If we let contracts for 100 or more houses we would get a lot better standard of house and so service men and women would be housed in a much more satisfactory way. It is most important to understand that in 1986 generally throughout the work force far more two-income families exist than was the case a few years ago. Unfortunately in the Services, the ability of women to transfer from one billet to another and pick up a job such as the one they have just left is very much reduced. There are genuine management problems in trying to ensure that the families of service men and women are not disadvantaged because of the problems wives, or husbands, have in trying to find employment when moved to another billet. There is no doubt that the men and women of the Australian Defence Force are Australia's greatest asset and I am disappointed that the Minister has not given a higher priority to ensuring that their general terms and conditions of employment are brought up to those that exist in the general work force. Another initiative in the Minister's statement relates to buying Australian. One of the real concerns I have about the Minister's whole administration is his failure to understand that buying Australian should also mean designing within Australia. There is a succession of projects in which the Minister, his Department or his defence advisers have seen fit to bypass altogether the capabilities of Australian engineers, Australian draftsmen and Australian designers. I give three recent illustrations, the first of which is the cancellation of project Waler. There is no doubt that the armoured personnel carrier, the M116, designed for northern European and northern American conditions, does not operate well in the dust and the heat of Australia. I believe it would have been far better had we tried to develop, with some flexibility in the terms and conditions of the project, a vehicle more suited to Australian conditions. Instead of that, project Waler has been scrapped, after significant funds had been spent on it. While the present APC vehicle might be suitable for training purposes, frankly I believe it to be no longer suitable for war. It is necessary to reinstate an APC program designed to produce a light mobile armoured vehicle for Australian conditions. There is no doubt that, while some of the criteria laid down may have needed amendment, to have scrapped the project altogether was no answer. I refer secondly to the overseas sourcing of new small arms for the ADF. Any number of manufacturers have come to me to say that they have the ability to develop a new light weapon for the Australian Defence Force. I have fired one of these weapons. I know that the Owen gun worked very effectively during World War II, and I find it incredible that in 1986 we were not even prepared to accept the design of an Australian manufacturer for a new generation of light weapon for the Services. The third matter is the cancellation of the A10B Wamira trainer for the Royal Australian Air Force. This project-the terms and conditions of the project were determined by the RAAF-began in 1980 following a report by an industry study group. The same study group gained a contract for project definition. In July 1985 the Government opened the project to overseas competition. In December 1985 it abandoned the project. As much as $75m of taxpayers' funds were spent on that project, as well as $64m by the Australian Aircraft Consortium. The Government has announced instead that it will buy the Swiss PC9 at a cost of $231m. Only 45 per cent of that money will be spent in Australia. At least 55 per cent of the money spent on the Wamira project would have been spent in Australia. The project would have been designed here. It would have enabled Australian aeronautical engineers to preserve their talents and to maintain the skills that have enabled them, over the years, to design some quite outstanding aircraft. No longer does it seem that the Government is concerned about Australian aircraft design in this country. The Wamira project would have generated about two million man hours of work in Australia; the PC9 will generate 1 1/2 million. Some 120 engineers were involved in Wamira, and 25 per cent have now left the industry. So much for that aspect of the Government's supporting buy Australian and export drives. Another project has been brought to my attention. I read very briefly to the House a letter I have received from a designer and builder of small craft, dated 29 September this year: For the past two years our company has been working on the design and development of a special forces assault boat for the Australian S.A.S. and Commando regiments. The design of this craft has been based on information we have received from special forces personnel, and therefore we can assume that in the main, our craft, which is known as the ``Seacat'', complies with the users requirements (S.A.S.). We have appended a copy of our design for your information. We have recently been advised by the Australian Army that a number of craft for the S.A.S.'s role in Bass Strait are to be purchased from the United Kingdom at a price estimated to be twice that of our craft, which is 100% Australian designed and manufactured. So the Minister produces this statement and produces high words, he talks about buying Australian and export drives, but he is doing nothing himself within the Australian Defence Force. There is every reason for us to design, build and manufacture, and the more so at a time when we have enormous difficulties in maintaining employment in our manufacturing sector. It is absolutely critical that we try to the maximum not only to manufacture and assemble here, not just to look at our offsets programs, but also to design and develop within Australia. We should use some part of our research and development budget to ensure, as is the case with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, that to the maximum we integrate the benefits of the Government dollar and the private sector. The Australian defence manufacturers have done a great job over the years and there is no reason why they should not continue to do so. Another part of this statement which concerns me is that part relating to the whole field of defence co-operation. The Minister talks about the amount of money that will be spent in the Pacific islands, Papua New Guinea and South East Asia. In relation to the money allocated to the Pacific island countries and Papua New Guinea, while some time ago I was concerned about the quality of the Pacific patrol boat, I have since had an opportunity to see it and I believe it to be an excellent craft and well suited to its purpose. However, I am worried that so much of the money allocated under the defence co-operation program to the Pacific island countries and Papua New Guinea is dedicated to that single project. We need to look at our wider role in the DCP and certainly within the Association of South East Asian Nations. I believe that, with common procurement of a range of defence equipment, it is possible for us to set up, in co-operation with those countries, a defence manufacturing capability that can meet their needs and ours, that it might be possible to extend into exports and that certainly would give us a far greater mutual defence interdependence at a time when we must work together rather than compete with each other and buy our designs and manufactured goods from abroad. There is another aspect of this regional defence co-operation program which concerns me but which is not mentioned in the statement. I refer to defence attaches. Defence attaches are representatives of the uniformed Services who are posted to a range of Australian missions overseas. They do not come strictly within the field of the DCP but they are important in preserving some understanding and knowledge of defence outside this country. It is not only in the field of defence attaches that we, when in office, saw fit to provide defence postings abroad. On a number of occasions in this House I have referred to the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai and our belief that in our commitment to that group and in our staffing commitment that went with it Australia was doing a great deal to assist the nations of Israel and Egypt preserve peace on that Sinai frontier. That commitment was very well regarded by other elements of the MFO. It was a positive contribution on behalf of world peace. I regret the fact that this Government has withdrawn that element. So too is the Government now withdrawing defence attaches. By the end of the year, defence attache staff serving at Australian missions overseas are to be cut by about 30 per cent, if a report in the Pacific Defence Reporter of October 1986 is to be believed. I am told that defence attaches are to be withdrawn from Islamabad, which office has been reporting on the war between Iran and Iraq and on the Soviet activities in Afghanistan. I would have thought it tremendously important to Australia to know what is going on in that part of the world, but the Government is to withdraw that defence attache. It is very pertinent on the day that the Prime Minister of India is visiting Australia that the defence attache is to be withdrawn from New Delhi. He reports on what is happening in Nepal. Of course, that whole northern boundary between India and China is of tremendous importance for the whole of central Asia. The defence attaches are also to be withdrawn from Bonn and Paris. While Bonn and Paris may not be immediately relevant for Australia's defence, we should remember that there are many aspects of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commitment and that France's Force de Frappe outside NATO has a tremendous relationship to the future stratagem of Australian defence force planning. Other posts affected are Tokyo and Manila, which will each lose an assistant attache; Seoul in Korea, which will lose a warrant officer; Jakarta and Port Moresby, which will each lose two defence operation program staff; London, which will lose two positions; and Washington, which will lose seven positions. The reality is that there is a minimal number of people absolutely necessary in every overseas post. Equally, I commend to the Minister the thought that in those posts there seems to be a particular need for Australia still to maintain a defence presence. It is not a matter of our always being able to make a major contribution in such countries, but there is a great deal that we can learn; and there is certainly an opportunity for Australia to play a wider role with our allies in understanding how they approach defence issues and how their defence forces are structured. We can learn from them to the advantage of this nation. There are many individual procurement matters in the statement that are worthy of comment. I do not intend to go through them all. It is worth noting that the Minister is still talking about yet another design for the surface ships. He refers to the project for the eight surface ships that were first mentioned in the Dibb report. I commend to him the thought that, the FFG having been brought into service and HMAS Darwin having proved such an effective and capable vessel, she being the fourth in line, having stabilisers and a stretched helicopter platform which makes her somewhat different from the earlier ships, although they are to be upgraded to that capability, there would seem to be an advantage in our looking at modifications to the FFG hull in order to meet whatever additional service ships might be called into play in the wider commitment of the RAN. To set up yet another design seems to me to be foolish in the extreme. Part of the problem in the Australian Defence Force-not peculiarly in the Navy but certainly also in the Navy-has been the multiplicity of individually designed ships, all of which seem to have different engine systems and many of which have different sets of armaments. Some were originally oriented to the United Kingdom; now they are so much more oriented to the United States. There would be a great advantage both to shipbuilders and to those serving on board those ships if there were some greater standardisation of design and capability. I think it very necessary that we look at the FFG rather than just accept that we will go ahead and build yet another design. Instead of looking at another design for the eight surface ships, I suggest we should look at least at the FFG hull, with a different superstructure and perhaps different armaments, if that should be required. Secondly, I notice that there is reference to the Seahawk and the Blackhawk and programs for their future expansion. The Seahawk and the Blackhawk were certainly the right choices by the Government for replacement helicopters. However, it is necessary that, as far as possible, we try to develop within the Seahawk an anti-submarine warfare capability that will allow it to play a role on our frigates so that our ships are not left with the notable lack of ASW performance that followed the fact that the Sea Kings are really no longer able to go to sea. In the report there is reference to northern defence facilities, in respect of which the Opposition agrees with the Government on the areas where funds are being spent. However, in respect of his reference to the basing of the Blackhawks at Townsville, I say to the Minister that we on this side of the House believe it appropriate that the crews of the ground defence helicopters of the Services should wear an Air Force uniform but be under the command of the Army. We see no reason why they should be transferred to the Army, as I understand from some of the reports emanating from Defence may be the case. It seems to me that, while it is necessary that the command be retained with the Army, perhaps with the operational deployment force commander, the uniform worn should not be a matter that leads to the cost, as I understand it, of $60m or $70m in terms of replacing existing facilities. The statement by the Minister opens doors in some areas. Unfortunately, it does not open sufficient doors and overall it has certainly neglected what we see as our prime concern for the well-being of the personnel of the Australian defence forces and their wives and families. A higher priority should have been given to that and we suggest to the Minister that, while a little has been done, much more needs to be done. I commend to him the suggestion of a further reference to the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal to look at the comparability of service pay and conditions with those within the Public Service and the civil work force. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The right honourable member's time has expired. Debate (on motion by Mr Lindsay) adjourned. 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 humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth: 1. That over 67,000 men, women and students enjoy the pursuit of their sport and recreation every year at the Anzac Rifle Range at Malabar and have done so since 1967. 2. The people of Sydney through their membership of 41 club headquarters at the Anzac Rifle Range together with a number of other community, school and commercial groups, the police and armed forces will lose this community facility if the Federal Government proceeds to sell the Range to private developers. 3. The Australian Bicentenary Fullbore Rifle Championships are to be conducted at the Anzac Rifle Range in April 1988 as part of the celebration of Australia's Bicentenary. Your petitioners therefore urge the House of Representatives and the Government of the Commonwealth to retain the Anzac Rifle Range for the continued use and enjoyment of the people of Australia. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Blunt,Mr Cadman,Mr Cobb,Mr Coleman,Mr Dobie,Dr Harry Edwards,Mr Fife,Ms McHugh,Mr Allan Morris,Mr Peacock,Mr Ian Robinson,Mr Ruddock,Mr Sharp and Mr Uren. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we strenuously object to the proposal that many post office agencies are to be closed. They provide a network of offices with postal and agency services to residential areas and small communities. They serve a community need and we would be seriously inconvenienced if forced to travel further to purchase postal items or collect parcels. It would be an unnecessary expense particularly for pensioners without their own transport. We maintain that the purpose of post offices should be to serve the public for the variety of services they offer. They are a community centre particularly in country areas and if necessary they should be subsidised to retain them. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House should take all possible steps to prevent the closure of post office agencies and that the network should be extended, with the Agency services they offer expanded. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Beale,Mr Braithwaite,Mr Cadman,Mr Ian Cameron,Mr Cobb,Mr Drummond,Dr Harry Edwards,Mr Tim Fischer,Mr Hawker,Mr Rocher,Mr Ruddock and Mr Shipton. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that whereas: 1. They are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian National Flag. 2. They are aware it properly reflects the immutable characteristics of Australia, namely: (a) The Union Jack, itself the creation of three Christian Crosses, represents the Nation's historical origin and the source of its language and law; (b) The Southern Cross on an azure blue background signifying its geographical location on this planet Earth; (c) The large star depicting the advent of Federation in 1901. 3. They know the Flag has been a source of inspiration to generations of Australians in peace and war. 4. They recall that millions of native-born Australians and newcomers to these shores from other parts of the world have become united under its proud symbolism. 5. They are certain that any change to the Flag will produce division in the Australian community. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will: Propose and pass a motion that ``the existing Australian National Flag be changed only with the approval of the Nation as expressed in a Referendum''. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Beale,Dr Harry Edwards,Mr Hawker and Mr Shipton. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That the Australian flag symbolises the continuity between Australia's past, its present and the future; That the presence of the Union Jack on the flag represents not a subservience to Britain, but a reminder of our inheritance of the fruits of hundreds of years of struggle for individual liberty against the forces of tyranny and oppression; Nonetheless recognises the rights of Australians should they wish as a people to change the design of their flag. Your petitioners humbly pray that no change be made to the Australian flag except with the consent of the people in a referendum. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Ruddock. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned at the impact of the new Fringe Benefits Tax on the following grounds: 1. Its severe and damaging effect on business confidence, investment and incentive, especially in the rural, mining and small business sectors. 2. Its capacity to seriously worsen unemployment through the additional costs its imposes. 3. Its extremely negative impact on the competitiveness of export industries at a time when the nation desperately needs to improve its trading performance. 4. In that it may compel many honest and decent citizens to defy the Tax in order to preserve their livelihoods, their businesses and the jobs of their employees, thus causing hardship, the breakdown of respect for the law and discord within the community. We therefore most earnestly petition you to repeal the Fringe Benefits Tax legislation forthwith. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Braithwaite. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: We, the undersigned, are seriously concerned about the impact of the Fringe Benefits Tax on the following grounds: 1. It is unjust for any person to be liable for tax on benefits received by another person. 2. Compliance with FBT will increase administrative costs for all employers including Local, State and Federal government departments. 3. FBT is an inefficient tax, which will require the Tax Office to employ an army of bureaucrats. 4. FBT is inequitable because liability arises regardless of capacity to pay. 5. The FBT laws are extremely complex. We therefore most earnestly petition you to repeal the Fringe Benefits Tax legislation forthwith. Your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Connolly and Mr Snow. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned at the impact of the new Fringe Benefits Tax on the following grounds: 1. Its severe and damaging effect on business confidence, investment and incentive, especially in the rural, mining and small business sectors. 2. Its capacity to seriously worsen unemployment through the additional costs its imposes. 3. Its extremely negative impact on the competitiveness of export industries at a time when the nation desperately needs to improve its trading performance. 4. In that it may compel many honest and decent citizens to defy the Tax in order to preserve their livelihoods, their businesses and the jobs of their employees, thus causing hardship, the breakdown of respect for the law and discord within the community. We therefore most earnestly petition you to repeal the Fringe Benefits Tax Legislation forthwith. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Hicks. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that the Fringe Benefits Tax is an iniquitous and unjust impost which will further damage the Australian economy and further increase costs to employers. The Tax will: (1) further increase the level of unemployment; (2) increase the administrative costs and overheads for business and Government; (3) particularly disadvantage small businesses and farmers; and (4) act as a disincentive to those who are the most productive and skilled; and we the undersigned call upon the Government to immediately repeal the Fringe Benefits Tax. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Cadman. 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: The fringe benefits tax will cause hardship to business throughout Australia, especially in the already severely depressed rural sector and in the motor vehicle industry. The fringe benefits tax will be a disincentive to employment and worse, will result in additional unemployment. The economy of this country would best be served by policies that lightened the tax burden, not increased it, that encouraged enterprise, not stifled it and stimulated growth, development and jobs, not prevented it. Your petitioners therefore pray that the House will repeal this Legislation and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Rocher. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows: Graduated family allowances are of important assistance to families with more than one child. All family allowances, whether for one, two, three, or more children, have not kept pace with inflation. There are suggestions that all family allowances should be paid at the one flat rate. This would severely disadvantage families with more than one child. There are also suggestions that the dependent spouse rebate be reduced or removed. This would represent another blow to the family unit. Your petitioners therefore pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, should: Ask the Federal Government to increase the value of existing family allowance payments, and Reject any moves to change the payments to a flat rate or to tamper with the spouse rebate; And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Downer,Mr Duncan,Mr Hawker and Mr Kent. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned plead that the Parliament implement pro-family policies. In particular we appeal for: 1. the retention of the present graduated assessment system for payment of the Family Allowance; 2. indexation of the Family Allowance in order to keep pace with inflation; 3. an increase of 3.7% in the Family Allowance benefit to return it to 11.5% of the Average Award Wage (making it similar in value to the 11.5% of the Basic Wage when Child Endowment was first introduced by the Chifley Government in 1941). 4. retention of the Dependent Spouse Rebate and the amount of the Dependent Spouse Rebate adjusted so that it is equal in value to the tax-free threshold allowed when calculating taxable income. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will give this matter earnest consideration and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Drummond. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled. The petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That taxpayers with dependent children have been gravely disadvantaged by a serious decline in the level of recognition provided in the taxation system for the costs of maintaining a family, in particular. The failure to index family allowances which has resulted in an erosion of more than 50% in their real value since May 1976; The abolition of family allowances for dependants who have turned 18, even those still at school; The abolition of concessional tax rebates for education and other expenses. That this erosion in horizontal tax equity has placed an intolerable financial burden on many larger families, particularly those on middle incomes who fail to qualify for means-tested benefits such as TEAS but whose living standards are now well below average due to heavy expenses on necessities such as education, housing, food and clothing. Your Petitioners humbly pray that: family allowances be restored to the 1976 value (in real terms), and indexed according to the CPI; the dependent spouse rebate be retained; the Federal Government take urgent measures to restore equitable provisions in the taxation system through the introduction of family income splitting. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr McGauran. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned plead that the Parliament implement pro-family policies. In particular we appeal for: 1. the retention of the present graduated assessment system for payment of the Family Allowance; 2. indexation of the Family Allowance in order to keep pace with inflation; 3. an increase of 3.7% in the Family Allowance benefit to return it to 11.5% of the Average Award Wage (making it similar in value to the 11.5% of the Basic Wage when Child Endowment was first introduced by the Chifley Government in 1941). 4. retention of the Dependent Spouse Rebate and the amount of the Dependent Spouse Rebate adjusted so that it is equal in value to the tax-free threshold allowed when calculating taxable income. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will give this matter earnest consideration and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Rocher. The Honourable the Speaker, and Members of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia assembled. We, the undersigned, plead that Parliament will legislate, or act in accordance with the present legislation to replace the current members of the Film Censorship Board who have admitted to Senator Harradine on 12th December, 1984 as reported in the Senate Select Committee on Video Material, (see attached extracts), that they are not applying either the blasphemy or obscenity tests as required under the provisions of the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations, and that these persons be replaced by persons who will apply these and the other related test in accordance with the said Regulations. Your petitioners humbly pray that you will give this matter your earnest consideration, and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Campbell and Mr Dawkins. The Honourable the Speaker, and Members of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia assembled. We the undersigned, plead that Parliament will revoke and replace with family-oriented persons, all appointments to the Film Censorship Board prior to 1985, and thus improve the nurturing home environment of Australia's children, because we have read pages 149 to 152 of the Official Hansard Transcript of Evidence to the Select Committee on Video Material, and we ask you to read it. Your petitioners humbly pray that you will give this matter your earnest consideration, and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Gear. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth. We most strongly oppose the process of Food Irradiation by radioactive Cobalt 60 or any other radioactive substance. We oppose the introduction of regulations that will facilitate the food irradiation process by State Governments. We express our deep concern at this attempt to extend the use of radioactive substances and exposure of workers to radiation. We call on the Government to immediately ban the importation of radioactive Cobalt 60 or other radioactive substances and to immediately disallow the regulations that permit the irradiation of food here in Australia. by Mr Kent,Mr Milton and Mr Scott. To the Honourable the Speaker and the Honourable Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth that whereas they are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian National Flag. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will give a speedy passage to the Flags Act Amendment Bill which provides that the Australian National Flag can only be changed by a Referendum. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Cunningham and Ms Mayer. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We the undersigned citizens of Australia, hereby petition the Prime Minister as Leader of the Australian Labor Party in Government in Australia and humbly showeth that: The voting public of Australia did in March 1983 and again in December 1984 vote as a majority for the election of a Labor Government who did claim to stand for social justice, equity and redistribution. That the said voters sincerely believe that a contract was entered into in voting for a Labor Government with democratic socialist principles. That there is an erosion of support for the pensioners, the unemployed, the aged, the sick and the working class of Australia, while the lot of the privileged class, the banks, the oil companies, and the money-changers continues to improve. Your Petitioners call on the Australian Labor Government to implement those policies and follow those principles of social justice, equity and redistribution which the majority of Australians voted for in 1983 and in 1984, and to adopt an immediate programme that will transfer the current economic burden to those better able to carry it. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Kent and Mr Scott. 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 persistent rumour suggest that the Hawke Government intends to reduce Government expenditure by contracting or eliminating programs for war veterans and war widows. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Hawke Government honour its commitment and that of previous Governments to ex-servicemen and women by: Ensuring no additional cut-backs will be made to the portfolio of Veterans' Affairs. Review the previous cut-backs in such areas as the travel allowances, dental scheme and repatriation pharmaceutical benefits scheme. Proceed with abolishing more stringent conditions applying to the granting of the TPI pension. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Beale. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that the Bill of Rights is not supported by the people of Australia, and calls on the Government to delay proclamation of the Bill until all matters of contention are settled by national referenda, and that: (1) Matters of States rights, property rights, rights of the newborn, the right not to belong to unions, among other issues, have not been submitted to the people of Australia to decide, and that: (2) No Australian Bill of Rights should depend on any foreign convention for its basis in Australian law. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Cadman. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows: That we the citizens of the Illawarra Region condemn the decision to close the Wollongong office of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, and that we respectfully request that this decision be reversed immediately. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Cadman. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth that the 1986 Census deprived housewives of the right to record their occupation and instead forced them to give the negative response: ``No, did not have a job''. That the 1986 Census could have been used, at no extra cost to taxpayers, to give a GENUINE ``Fair Go'' to ALL women to record their views on the government's National Agenda for Women. That coinciding with the 1986 Census, the Office of the Status of Women is conducting a costly, selective survey titled: ``A FAIR GO FOR WOMEN''. This survey requires no identification of respondents, making the results of the survey highly suspect since it is known that various groups and individuals have obtained bulk supplies of the brochure, while the majority of women are not aware that their views are being sought by the Government. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, will restore to the Census a category for Housewives, and that the ``FAIR GO FOR WOMEN'' survey will be recognised as a costly exercise of dubious value in determining the real views of Australian women, as this should be done through the Census, or a Referendum held in conjunction with the next Federal Election to minimise costs, and to give ALL women a genuine ``Fair Go''. And your petitioners as in duty bound will every pray. by Mr Charles. To the Speaker and Honourable Members of the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned residents of Australia respectfully showeth: By cutting ESL funding and eliminating funding for community languages and multicultural education you have attacked tens of thousands of Australian children. You have condemned these children with limited English to gross educational inequality and very dim prospects for their future. On behalf of these children we call on you to remove this new discrimination which your budget has guaranteed by immediately restoring ESL and Multicultural education funding. by Mr Coleman. To the Honourable the Speaker and the Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned residents of Australia respectfully showeth: That the humble petitioners are gravely concerned about recent changes in the Extradition (Foreign States) Act of 1966 which deny basic rights which have been a cornerstone of the English and Australian law for over seven hundred years. We are speaking of the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and the right of an individual to defend himself against his accusers. This concern has come to light during recent extradition proceedings against Messrs Hempel and Etheredge in Western Australia. We are concerned that because judicial protection of these basic rights has been excluded from the Act refugees migrants Australian overseas travellers and visitors are at risk when they have been to (or come from) countries where the norms and practices of human rights and civil liberties are below traditionally accepted Australian standards. We the undersigned petitioners, therefore urge the government to re-examine the Extradition (Foreign States) Act as amended in 1985 and amend the current Act so that the rights of the accused are once again judicially protected in Australia. In addition, we urge the government to refrain from entering into any further extradition treaties or proceedings under the current Act until the process of re-examination and amendment of the Act has occurred. And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Drummond. To the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned electors of Australia respectfully showeth; That the Government should cancel the Fringe Benefits Tax they intend to impose on businesses throughout Australia because; 1. The tax discriminates against charitable organisations, sports clubs, private schools and religious organisations; 2. The tax will mean employees around Australia will suffer reductions in their remuneration packages; 3. The Bill places another impossible burden of paperwork on small business; 4. The Bill is absurd in its application to Government employees, who now constitute 32% of the workforce. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Drummond. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament House. The petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That the Bill of Rights is a dangerous piece of legislation which gives us no new legally enforceable rights; That the Bill of Rights leaves out vital rights such as the right not to belong to a trade union, the right to own private property, the right to a private education; That the Bill of Rights gives dangerous new powers to a Federal Government Commission to investigate in private, without legal representation and with criminal penalties for refusing to co-operate; That the Bill of Rights deals with our rights; therefore we, the people, should say whether we want it by a referendum. Your petitioners humbly pray that you repeal the Bill of Rights legislation and not restrict the individual freedoms of Australians and its present justice system, nor in any underhand way centralise power in our three tier system of Government. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Dr Harry Edwards. To the Honourable, the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Maranoa electorate respectfully showeth that: The current Government's Bill of Rights seeks to make changes in the constitutional balance in Australia by intruding into the affairs of individuals and of State and local Governments. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to repeal the Bill of Rights legislation and not restrict the individual freedoms of Australians and its present justice system, nor in any underhand way centralise power in our three tier system of Government. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Ian Cameron. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That the Bill of Rights is a dangerous piece of legislation which gives us no new legally enforceable rights That the Bill of Rights leaves out vital rights such as the right not to belong to a trade union, the right to own private property, the right to a private education That the Bill of Rights gives dangerous new powers to a Federal Government Commission to investigate in private, without legal representation and with criminal penalties for refusing to co-operate That the Bill of Rights deals with our rights; therefore we, the people, should say whether we want it by a referendum. Your petitioners therefore pray that you will oppose the Bill of Rights, support Liberal amendments to improve it in case it is passed, and pledge to repeal it should it become law. by Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows that the Hawke Government should: 1. Pass on the full benefit of low international oil prices; 2. Not increase or extend fuel taxes; and 3. Maintain its tax cut commitments. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Hawke Government honour its commitment to the Import Parity Pricing policy. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That in the light of the Labor Government's failure to act to correct the many anomalies in the Assets Test on pensions brought to its notice, the Labor Government's legislation should be repealed before it has an unduly unfair impact on pensioners. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled should immediately seek the repeal of the Labor Government's iniquitous and unfair Assets Test. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia of Albanian back-ground respectfully showeth: We most strongly oppose the use of the `Special Broadcasting Service' and the taxpayers funds for nationalist political purposes. We are deeply concerned that the existing Albanian program on Radio 3EA Melbourne is not meeting the needs of the community. It is being used against its interests, as well as the interests of the broader Australian society. We respectfully believe that such use of public facilities undermines Australian principles of multi-culturalism and has a damaging effect on community relations. Your petitioners therefore, strongly urge the Government to take immediate action to ensure that the present announcers of the Albanian program are removed and replaced with community representatives. by Mr Kent. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: This Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that- (1) A cessation of the testing of nuclear weapons would break the cycle of research, development and deployment of nuclear weapons and prevent the acquisition of new and ever more lethal weapons of mass destruction. It would thus be a major and significant step towards ending the arms race and beginning the disarmament process; and (2) The Soviet Union has extended its unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing until 6 August this year and has again invited the United States to cease its nuclear testing program. Your petitioners therefore urge the Australian Government to put the strongest pressure on the United States Government to join the Soviet Union's nuclear test ban. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Kent. To the Honourable the Speaker and the Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of citizens of Australia shows- That the people of New Zealand and the New Zealand Government have given an example to the world in their efforts to achieve a nuclear free South Pacific, and such decision being endorsed by the people at a general election. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Australian Government support the principled stand taken by the New Zealand Government and urges it to condemn any efforts by the U.S. Government to impose economic or other sanctions on New Zealand in retaliation for their stand on nuclear vessels. We further urge the Australian Government to urgently implement its policy to promote the development of zones of peace and nuclear free zones in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. by Mr Kent. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth that your petitioners wish that all medicines prescribed by a registered Medical Practitioner be made available free of charge by the Government to all pensioners for the following reasons: 1. The enormous cost of some drugs, including pain relieving ones, not at present on the `free list'. 2. That certain drugs essential for permanently disabled, such as epileptics are at present being charged for and therefore present a great financial burden to the pensioner. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will consider our wishes. And your petitioners as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Kent. To the Right Honourable Speaker and the Honourable Members of the House of Representatives in the assembled Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. We the humble petitioners at Bendigo College of Advanced Education and from within the community served by the College, respectfully showeth: That the introduction of an administration charge of $250 for higher education students in Appropriation Bill 1986-87 (Volume 1, p. 98) is a regressive step for the education system; That the introduction of an administration charge will force students to withdraw from studies and thereby destroy the opportunity for them to complete their education; That the administration charge is a form of tuition fees and as such destroys the principle of free education for all; That it is contrary to ALP policy which states that the party `will maintain the provision of free tertiary education'. We, the humble petitioners hereby request you to amend the Appropriation Bill 1986-87, so that the system of free education for all students will continue. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Langmore. To the Right Honourable Speaker and the Honourable Members of the House of Representatives in the assembled Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. We the humble petitioners at Ballarat College of Advanced Education Student Union, in the Federal Electorate of Ballarat, respectfully showeth: That the introduction of an administration charge of $250 for higher education students in Appropriation Bill 1986-87 (Volume 1, p. 98) is a regressive step for the education system; That the introduction of an administration charge will force students to withdraw from studies and thereby destroy the opportunity for them to complete their education; That the administration charge is a form of tuition fees and as such destroys the principle of free education for all; We, the humble petitioners hereby request you to amend the Appropriation Bill 1986-87, so that the system of free education for all students will continue. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Langmore. To the Right Honourable Speaker and the Honourable Members of the House of Representatives in the assembled Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. We the humble petitioners at Deakin University, in the Federal Electorate of Corangamite, respectfully showeth: That the introduction of an administration charge of $250 for higher education students in Appropriation Bill 1986-87 (Volume 1, p. 98) is a regressive step for the education system; That the introduction of an administration charge will force students to withdraw from studies and thereby destroy the opportunity for them to complete their education; That the administration charge is a form of tuition fees and as such destroys the principle of free education for all; We, the humble petitioners hereby request you to amend the Appropriation Bill 1986-87, so that the system of free education will continue. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Langmore. To the Right Honourable Speaker and the Honourable Members of the House of Representatives in the assembled Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. We the humble petitioners at Phillip Institute of Technology Student Union, in the Federal Electorate of Wills, respectfully showeth: That the introduction of an administration charge of $250 for higher education students in Appropriation Bill 1986-87 (Volume 1, p. 98) is a regressive step for the education system; That the introduction of an administration charge will force students to withdraw from studies and thereby destroy the opportunity for them to complete their education; That the administration charge is a form of tuition fees and as such destroys the principle of free education for all; We, the humble petitioners hereby request you to amend the Appropriation Bill 1986-87, so that the system of free education for all students will continue. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Langmore. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled. This Petition of the Undersigned Citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: 1. The introduction of an administrative charge for annual enrolment will restrict access to higher education for a range of disadvantaged groups, particularly women, rural dwellers and some low income earners. 2. Students will be deterred from study because of the probable escalation in the charge in future Budgets, prohibiting students' ability to plan the long term costs of their education. 3. The introduction of an administrative charge is contrary to the education provisions of the ALP/ACTU Accord and ALP policy which states that the party ``will maintain the provision of free tertiary education.'' Your petitioners therefore pray that the annual administrative charge for higher education students not be introduced and that subsequent funding shortfalls be met from Government tax revenue. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Ms McHugh. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned residents of Australia respectfully showeth: We the undersigned residents of Australia totally reject any move to cut funding to Australia-wide English as a Second Language program in schools. We request that the Australian government restore funding to the 1985 level in the 1986-87 budget. by Mr Ruddock. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens of Western Australia call on the Commonwealth Government to reverse recent decisions which deny Secondary Allowances to Year 11 students under the age of 16 years and making such allowances directly payable to students on attaining the age of 16. This request is made on the basis that: (i) Education Benefits as part of income support benefits generally are a Commonwealth responsibility under the constitution. (ii) It is the right of parents with children in Year 11 in Western Australia to receive the same benefits as parents with children at the equivalent stage of their education in other parts of Australia irrespective of their age. (iii) This decision by the Commonwealth Government will impact most unfairly on the capacity of low income families in Western Australia to keep their children at school in Years 11 and 12. (iv) Direct payment of the allowance to 16 year olds will make it easier for young people to leave home and bring more pressure on State Authorities to find alternative accommodation for them at the community and taxpayers' expense. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will give this matter earnest consideration, and your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Blanchard. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Richmond electorate respectfully showeth that: Labor's Capital Gains Tax is standing in the way of economic development on the Far North Coast, a region with great potential for further growth and renowned for the enterprise and initiative of its local community. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Repeal its anti-business anti-farming and anti-individual Capital Gains Tax. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Blunt. To the Right Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of New South Wales respectfully showeth: That they strongly support the establishment of the Western Sydney State University as recommended in the Parry report and call upon the House to establish the Western Sydney State University in conjunction with the New South Wales Government. And your petitioners, as is duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Cadman. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament. The petition of certain residents of the State of New South Wales draws to the attention of the House the Report of the Ministerial Committee to Review the Structure of Higher Education in Western Sydney which recommends the establishment in 1987 of a Western Sydney State University along lines detailed in that report. Your petitioners therefore request that the Commonwealth Government acts promptly to rectify the serious deficiencies in Higher Education in the Western Sydney Region by taking all actions necessary to enable the New South Wales Government to establish the University. by Mr Free. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament. The petition of certain residents of the Northern Territory of Australia draws to the attention of the House that the Fringe Benefits Tax Legislation recently passed by Parliament is unfair and will prejudice the current working conditions of all Territorians. 1. It will increase both personal and company taxation. 2. It will undermine employment levels through reducing profitability and international competiveness of industry. 3. It will result in price increases. 4. It will force employers to withdraw voluntary incentives to employees paid over and above existing payments. 5. It endangers stable industrial relations because of the potential for forced withdrawal of Fringe Benefits. Your petitioners therefore pray that the House take such action as is necessary to rescind the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986, the Fringe Benefits Tax Act 1986, the Fringe Benefits Tax (Application to the Commonwealth) Act 1986 and the Fringe Benefits Tax (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1986. by Mr Everingham. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of certain citizens of Victoria respectfully showeth: That all legitimate business expenses incurred in earning or producing assessable income should be allowable deductions. That the proposed Capital Gains Tax is an unwarranted burden on the rural sector, which will severely affect its long-term viability. That the delay by the Government in introducing the legislation into Parliament is causing confusion and hindering farmers in the organisation of their affairs. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Government introduces the Capital Gains Tax legislation without delay and that the Australian Democrats join with the Opposition to defeat the proposed legislation. by Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned, respectfully showeth that we, the people of Victoria would like to remind you of your moral duty in regard to your decision to sell Uranium to France, against ALP Policy. The French are still nuclear testing in the South Pacific, despite world wide protests. We therefore call on you to reverse the decision to sell Uranium to France. by Mr Milton. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned George Joseph Nutman, Solicitor of the Supreme Court of the State of New South Wales, of 2 O'Connell Street, Sydney in the said State respectfully showeth: 1. Your petitioner is a solicitor acting on behalf of Marlew Mining Pty Limited in proceedings brought against it by various persons of Australian Aboriginal ancestry in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the District Court of New South Wales claiming damages. 2. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, at the request of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the Honourable A. C. Holding, M.H.R., enquired into the effects of asbestos mining on the Baryulgil community. 3. In October 1984 the Chairman of the Committee the Honourable G. L. Hand, M.H.R., tabled the Report of the Committee in the House of Representatives. 4. During the hearings of the Committee certain photographs, letters, plans and a number of documents were received in evidence from one Gerald Francis Burke. 5. I am instructed that most or all of the material received in evidence from the said Gerald Francis Burke comprised records kept by Marlew Mining Pty Limited and was the property of that Company. 6. It has been brought to the attention of my client that the Aboriginal Legal Service Limited which acts on behalf of most of the plaintiffs in the proceedings brought against the Company has petitioned for the release of the said documents to it for the purpose of conducting the proceedings. 7. Marlew Mining Pty Limited has commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court of New South Wales against Gerald Francis Burke and the Aboriginal Legal Service being matter No. 16057 of 1986 seeking an order that the said documents, plans and photographs be delivered up to it. 8. It is necessary for the documents to be before the Supreme Court when the matter proceeds so that the Court can consider the right of Marlew Mining Pty Limited to possession. 9. The proceedings were before Master Sharpe of the Supreme court of New South Wales on the 25th day of July, 1986 when Master Sharpe gave leave to Marlew Mining Pty Limited to appoint a return date for a subpoena addressed to the Clerk of the House of Representatives requiring the production of the documents at the Supreme Court, King Street, Sydney. 10. Your Petitioner therefore humbly prays that this Honourable House will grant leave: (a) To serve a subpoena on the Clerk of the House of Representatives requiring the production of the various photographs letters plans and documents received in evidence from Mr Gerald Francis Burke at the Supreme Court, Queen's Square, Sydney. (b) That the said photographs, letters, plans and documents be released into the custody of the Supreme Court of New South Wales for the purpose of determining the issues raised in matter No. 16057 of 1986 concerning the rights to possession and ownership thereof. And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Connolly. Petitions received. Assent to the following Bills reported: Superannuation and Other Benefits Legislation Amendment Bill 1986. Health Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1986. Loan Bill 1986. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Madam Speaker has 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 confusion, frustration and high cost burden on the community arising from the Government's muddled decision making and appalling administration of the Fringe Benefits Tax. 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)(4.04) —The Treasurer (Mr Keating) has come back from another one of his overseas visits during which he tried to convince people that the Australian economy is better than it is. He has come back to the most appalling mess in taxation that this country has ever seen. This month, from 1 October, hundreds of thousands of business taxpayers, large and small, and tens of thousands of farmers are all required to submit a fringe benefits tax return with a cheque. They have to have that in, initially it was said, by 28 October. That date has been extended by a miserable two weeks. These taxpayers have to pay the tax; but they do not know what tax because, despite the fact that we had 139 pages of legislation, 176 pages of explanatory memorandum, 69 pages of explanatory notes sent out to business, another pamphlet on the fringe benefits tax and farmers, and a very expensive video which is now out of date-- Mr Howard —With Richard Carleton. Mr CARLTON —Yes, with Richard Carleton doing the interviews. Despite all that, the people who are required to submit a very complicated tax return-originally by 28 October but now with a miserable two weeks extension-do not know what tax they have to pay. This became crystal clear when the Treasurer was away, despite the denials that he had made over a series of months. What exactly has been going on here? The Treasurer, obviously, is desperate to collect the money. He has spent the money already with excessive spending over three years. In his Budget he has already put up the tax in total by $1 1/2 billion. He already has a system of phoney tax cuts coming into operation in December which will leave small to middle income earners worse off. So he is obviously desperate to get more money. But he cannot tell the Australian Taxation Office and the taxpayers themselves exactly on what basis this tax is supposed to be paid. All I can tell honourable members is that out there there is confusion, frustration, waste and cost. Time is being spent, and time means money. There is rage and fury out there, and the honourable members on the other side of the House know it. It is a mess of this Treasurer's own creation. He has only himself to blame. He did not get into this tax because he lost out on option C at the Taxation Summit. He cannot blame the unions for this. This tax was in his original recommendations. It was in option A, which was part of option C. The Treasurer said at the Taxation Summit: `I want the fringe benefits tax and, in addition, I want a broadly based consumption tax'. He did not get the second, but he got what he wanted in the first-if, indeed, it is what he really wanted. I do not think that he understood the first thing of what he was asking for. Anyone with business experience would know that this tax was unworkable. The Treasurer might be at home spending most of his time being duchessed in the board rooms of the big finance houses, or being flown around in helicopters that are owned by his millionaire friends, and he might be at home with his First Empire clocks-I do not know in which residence-but he has not a clue about what every ordinary sales representative does every day in his car. He does not understand all the paper work that he has put upon the sales representative. He has no idea of what it is like to struggle for survival on a farm at the moment; he has not a clue. He has no idea of what it is like for a small business family that has committed all its assets-the home, business premises and any other assets the family has-to borrow in order to build a business. These are people who have committed their own effort and that of their families to make a business succeed, people for whom every dollar is important-- Dr Theophanous —You were born with a silver spoon. What are you talking about? Mr CARLTON —The honourable member says that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. The honourable member had better just go and look at the facts. There are more people with silver spoons on the other side of the House than there are on this side of the House. All I can say is that the representatives of the party that claims to stand for working people draw farther and farther away from its grass roots, and it is quite clear in this debate that they have not a clue about what ordinary Australia is doing. The person who is farthest away from ordinary Australia is the Treasurer, who has just come back from his overseas trip. The people who are working in their small businesses, the farmers who are trying to make their farms survive and the representatives who are going around in their cars trying to sell goods and services are all rorters and cheats as far as this Treasurer is concerned. Meanwhile, he has double standards on his travelling allowance claims. He is quite prepared to attack all these small people and at the very same time indulge in very dubious claims indeed with regard to travelling allowance. All I can say is that there are double standards from this Treasurer all the way. He cannot see that a log book in the representative's car is the last straw. He cannot see that $50 a week fringe benefits tax on a farm is a desperate thing if sales for farm products are running out and if costs are driven higher and higher by trade union action. A sum of $50 a week is petty cash for this Treasurer, but it is make or break for a farm that is making no income. Yet he has put an additional burden of $50 a week or more-in most cases more-on farmers through the fringe benefits tax. When these things have been drawn to his attention, what has been his reaction? It has been to dismiss them with contempt, in a pigheaded fashion, with arrogance; he has been hectoring, abusive and hypocritical. It is not as if the Treasurer has had no warning. He has had warnings from everybody. The National Farmers Federation sent him a list of 106 questions and still has not had adequate replies. The Confederation of Australian Industry has written to the Treasurer and made representations. The Business Council of Australia, the Australian Federation of Employers, the miners, small business-all the representative groups-have made it absolutely clear that he has an unworkable and unfair tax on his hands, and he dismisses them with contempt. The Prime Minister, we are told, has had 4,500 letters complaining about the tax and, presumably, these have all been passed on to the poor hapless Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs and Minister Assisting the Treasurer (Mr Hurford), the Minister whose job it is to write farewell Bob tax replies to people. The Australian Labor Party is against this tax. For God's sake, the Treasurer says that he does not know where the problems are. The Labor Party early on, including Premier Bannon last year, complained about the fringe benefits tax on motor cars, but the most important breaking of the ranks occurred in June, about a month after the tax had been introduced in this House. Labor Premier Burke of Western Australia, who is not even coming up to an election, said: The package goals of fairness, freedom from distortion of economic activity, and stimulation of economic growth are not met in remote areas, and Commonwealth estimates of the costs and benefits of the package are in error . . . The tax package effectively discriminates against remote-area located families. The next cri de coeur-in Queensland there is an election coming up and on 25 June it was expected-came from Mr Neville Warburton, the Queensland Opposition Leader, who hit out at the fringe benefits tax, calling it `an administrative nightmare'. He termed some aspects of it as `ridiculous' and said it read `as if some bureaucrat down there had gone mad'. It was not any bureaucrat that had gone mad; it was Napoleon over here. He was the one who brought it in, and he was the one who was determined, regardless of how cold it was in Moscow, to continue and impose it on everybody. Then there was a bit of quiet, but on 24 July 1986 Mr Burke said that things had gone awry since the fringe benefits tax was introduced. He said: There is no question about that and certainly there have been problems involved in complying with the tax, the completion of the administration and the impact of the tax. `Mutiny' said the Treasurer on 8 August. He said: We didn't fight for this thing to see it squandered by some pressure group getting in touch with a Labor leader's office. I mean we are not going to change this thing. We're not changing the fringe benefits tax, it's here to stay. It's a total furphy, a total furphy. The Government is not going to change this tax. However, the Prime Minister, ever the one to waver a bit in the breeze, showed signs of doubt. On 10 August he said: If in the administration of the fringe benefits tax we find there are some aspects of the administration that are less than perfect, of course we will be prepared to change those things. That ever helpful Premier of New South Wales, Mr Barrie Unsworth, always ready to lend a helping hand to his Federal colleagues, said-- Mr Howard —Who chose him? Mr CARLTON —We know who chose him, the gentleman opposite, and he is now having to live with it. Barrie Unsworth said: Quite clearly what's come out of the fringe benefits proposal is an administrative nightmare. That is quite correct. He called on the Government to make the tax administratively easier and said he believed that, instead of the fringe benefits tax, the Government should have introduced a broadly based consumption tax, which Unsworth's mates had skewered at the time. But one must bear in mind that the fringe benefits tax was already in the package that the Treasurer was asking for at the Summit. The Prime Minister was stiffening up a little that day after Barrie's statement, and said: No, we will not change it. However, more Labor Premiers have come on to the scene. Premier Bannon of South Australia, on 12 August, said that it had `gone a bit further than the legislation or the intention'. That is interesting, is it not? Mr John Cain, Premier of Victoria, finally flushed out of his hole, said that it was `cumbersome and heavy-handed'. He said: If there are better ways of handling it, then I would certainly support that. Against this rebellion we have Napoleon back on the deck-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! If the honourable member is referring to the Treasurer, he should use his correct title. Mr CARLTON —I certainly cannot refer to him by the name of his electorate because he never goes there. On 12 August the Treasurer said: There's not going to be any administrative changes-that's it. The Prime Minister was stiffening up a bit then, or perhaps he was starting to weaken when he said `We are going to keep the substance of the tax', but that he would see whether there were better ways of doing it. The Treasurer again said: There are no anomalies or defects in the . . . tax. The cat was let out of the bag by the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce (Senator Button), who said what everybody thought throughout the country: He said: I don't want to debate the technicalities of the fringe benefits tax, but I've seen my own form from the Department of the Senate that I have to fill in, and I think it's horrifying. It's too difficult for me, and I appreciate, for that reason, why it's difficult for others. At this stage the Treasurer went overseas-and who was in charge? It was Old Silver and Moo, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. When it was pointed out that everybody, including Senator Button, knew that this tax was a total and absolute mess and failure, the Prime Minister said that he would inquire into the unintended consequences of the tax. He did that while the Treasurer was abroad, but the Treasurer in London dismissed it by saying that this was a sideshow. The Treasurer has come back to a sideshow which will run on and on until this Government is out of office, and until these 139 pages have gone lock, stock and barrel, together with the 176 pages of explanatory memorandum, the video, all the explanatory booklets and the 115 pages of statements in which the Taxation Commissioner tried to explain the damn thing. It is a mess, it is hopeless, it has got to go and eventually the man who introduced it will also go. Mr KEATING(Blaxland-Treasurer)(4.19) —What a pedestrian performance we have just witnessed. It is more out of decency than from a sense of responsibility that I rise to reply. Where do honourable members opposite stand? On the one hand, the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Carlton) criticises the publications put together by the Australian Taxation Office, the video and the 176 pages of explanatory memorandum, and on the other he says that he wants things explained and understood. The Opposition has no clear view at all about this whole area. Let us not talk about confusion the confusion about taxation is on the other side of the House. At Question Time I went through the appalling record of the coalition in respect of tax policy. For years in government the former Treasurer allowed the tax system to resemble a piece of Gruyere cheese with holes in it through which all manner of tax avoidance was driven. We had the former Treasurer representing the slick end of the Liberal Party constituency, where the paper schemes were being put together to rip off the tax system. We had a studied, contrived avoidance by him of the issues for three years solid, until the McCabe-Lafranchi and Costigan reports dragged him screaming to Part IVa. That is the record of the coalition on tax policy. The total confusion in taxation is not in what may be termed the unintended consequences of the Government's legislation but in wrestling with the principles of the Opposition as to how this area would be dealt with at all. Let me go through the quotations so that everyone understands where the coalition stands. On the Willesee program last week the Leader of the Opposition was asked by Mr Willesee: You're not throwing it out completely then? The Leader of the Opposition replied: I'm throwing their tax out completely . . . In other words, he will have a tax himself, but he will not have the Labor Party's tax. He then went on to say: I will apply a similar approach in government and I will not tolerate arrangements that involve tax avoidance. In other words, he will attack the problem of non-cash fringe benefits, but he will not attack it in the way the Labor Party has. He said that he would throw our tax out, but he would not tolerate any arrangements that involved tax avoidance. On 24 September on the Carleton-Walsh Report he said: They will be effectively legislated against. Richard Carleton asked him how this would be done. He replied: Well, there are a variety of ways. Then we have the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) saying: There is already an application of some fringe benefits tax by the Tax Commissioner under 26 (e). That is the system that has continued and we have not recommended any change to that. Then the Deputy Leader of the National Party, the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt), said: Mr Howard has made it clear that he is not going to allow the fringe benefit issue as such to be a great tax avoidance device. In other words, he is not going to allow company executives to have half their salary paid by kind without tax such as providing a house, interest free loans, a Mercedes Benz car and free education for their children. The honourable member for Gwydir said that this was obviously a tax avoidance scheme. Then we had the proponent of this proposition, the honourable member for Mackellar saying on the Mike Carlton Show on 2GB: We just believe that by tackling the biggest abuses in a sensible way, and maybe that's five percent, ten percent of the total . . . He indicated that they could do something about that. He went on: What I've said is, that under the original law, there was a capacity, administratively, if people had wanted to work it out properly in a properly controlled management situation to crack down on the rorts and you had to do that. He continued: . . . I think that's a fairly simple management problem to solve. In other words, as far as he is concerned, all this can be tackled in a sensible management way under the existing provisions. In the House of Representatives on 8 May 1986, the honourable member for Mackellar said: We in the Opposition have a very clear view that rorts should not be allowed in this area; that, if rorts are there, they should be cleaned up; that the principle of taxation must be maintained; that benefits are taxable in the hands of the person getting the benefit; and that if they are not fair they should be cleaned up. That is where the Opposition stands, if one can find where it stands. Opposition members are all over the place. They know that they cannot defend these non-cash benefits, but they do not have any consensus about how these problems should be tackled. The Taxation Commissioner made a speech today about section 26 (e) in which he said: I do however have a power of recall and observe that anyone who would say that all that is needed is a return to application of the old law is either ignoring history- and here is a nice little barb against his former Treasurer- or has a poor memory, not to speak of a lack of appreciation of the technical inadequacies in that law. No one seems to question that cash remuneration of an employee is properly subject to income tax. It is very hard to think of a circumstance where the central principle is not followed through. That does seem to me to be an appropriate general point of reference, a benchmark, when one is considering fringe benefits, i.e., effective supplements to the cash remuneration of employees. And it is appropriate for me as an administrator to observe that, at the level of administrative calls on an employer, a fringe benefits tax formally levied on the employer stands in fair company with pay-as-you-earn concepts. He went on: It is well accepted that, each pay-day, the employer should calculate and make tax deductions that, in the aggregate, will closely approximate to the tax on each employee's remuneration of that year . . . I do not need a long memory to recall that we were being criticised a while ago for being too quick off the mark in publishing our initial, but quite extensive, booklet on the tax. The most damning thing in that speech-I might mention that the Commissioner gave me a copy as a courtesy-is that he is saying that section 26(e) is not capable of being used to deal with non-cash fringe benefits. He made that quite clear to the former Treasurer. In 1977 Malcolm Fraser wrote to Sir Phillip Lynch and said: My dear Treasurer, I would like to draw to your attention a paper which Dale Budd passed to Andrew Hay a couple of days ago. The paper, which was prepared by a person outside the government, sets out a number of tax avoidance schemes which are said to be in current use. I believe that the documents should be examined most urgently and that if the schemes are correctly described we should be looking to appropriate legislation at the earliest possible date. The paper is also being examined by my own Department. Yours sincerely, Malcolm Fraser. That letter was signed on 15 July 1977. Most of those tax avoidance schemes were straw companies, which were not touched until 1980, when the former Treasurer did his skilful dance around the land mines of this area so as not to touch them. Interestingly, Sir Phillip Lynch said in his reply: I am also enclosing a copy of a general paper on the question of avoidance of tax which I had earlier asked the Commissioner to prepare for me. What was one of the areas involved? Fringe benefits. Sir Phillip went on: This is an area of the law which concerns large numbers of employees who receive part of their remuneration by way of fringe benefits. The present provisions of the income tax law, section 26(e), exposed these benefits to tax. They are not, however, satisfactory- that is, the present provisions are not satisfactory- because the benefits are neither quantified nor identified. Proposals to deal specifically with some at least of these benefits are to be developed for consideration during the autumn sittings . . . That is the autumn sittings of Parliament in 1978. That was when the Opposition was told about fringe benefits. In 1977 it was told that section 26 (e) could not be used because it neither quantified nor identified the benefits. In other words, the Opposition turned its back on the whole issue of payment of non-cash benefits as far back as 1977. The Tax Commissioner, who was the Second Commissioner in those days, is now saying today that section 26 (e) cannot be used because the law is deficient. That is why the Government has introduced a positive tax called the fringe benefits tax. At least Malcolm Fraser had the decency to write to his Treasurer and tell him to do something about these things. Of course, that letter was written in July 1977, and in December 1978 he had the honourable member for Bennelong as Treasurer, who was not going to upset the Liberal Party by knocking out any of these rorts. Oh, no! He intended to leave them there. He did not intend to touch the straw company schemes, the bottom of the harbour schemes, because he had his career in the Liberal Party to protect. As a result, fringe benefits went the way of the paper schemes, the criminal schemes. This Government has come along and pointed out that it cannot tell the ordinary wage earners on $15,000 or $16,000 a year to pay their way with PAYE taxation and at the same time support a couple of kids, while other people are getting massive benefits outside the taxation system-non-cash benefits which are not taxable. This Government has come along and taxed those benefits. Our Bill reflects all the complexities of the arrangements built up during the years of neglect. The Bill must reflect the complexity of the arrangements put there in the years of the previous Administration. Of course the Bill is complex because arrangements with which it must deal and which it mirrors are also complex. Opposition members think there is some virtue in their position. They say that because the arrangements are complex they should not be there. They claim they will throw out our tax lock, stock and barrel. In other words, they will return to the situation which prevailed in 1977 when Malcolm Fraser wrote that letter to Sir Phillip Lynch. Where is the virtue or morality in that position? If there is an unintended consequence of what is very much a widespread application of the law in this area, why does the Opposition think that any repair of those positions reflects virtue on its position? It reflects none. The Opposition has no moral basis on taxation. It proved that when it was in government and it let criminal schemes proliferate. At Question Time I went through letter after letter. A letter from the Commissioner of Taxation in June 1978 mentioned 30 cases of straw company evasions reported from Adelaide. The Commissioner of Taxation went on to say: It appears that at least 326 Victorian companies were acquired by a company controlled by a particular promoter, which then stripped them of their assets with the result that the companies have been left without resources to pay large amounts of tax legally due. That is the sort of stuff which the Opposition tolerated. This Government has come along and said: `Let's try to make the system more decent, let's change it, let's get some basis of fairness in the system. Don't leave the poor old slave who is working his guts out for low levels of remuneration to pay all his tax on a PAYE basis to fund some other people who are not and to let them off'. The Opposition sees some short term advantage in attacking this. We reject the Opposition's views absolutely. I would not mind if the Opposition said that it will come clean and will tax this in a particular way, but it will not even say where it will do it, although it says that it will do it and keeps making references to section 26 (e). The Opposition knows damn well that a succession of Commissioners of Taxation have said that section 26 (e) is incapable of being used. If the Opposition wants to tax non-cash fringe benefits, there is no resort but to a fringe benefits tax. If the Opposition does not like this one, it will have to have another one, but it will be much the same. Even if the Opposition were to put the tax on the employee, it would have to assess, compute and withhold it. The Opposition does not understand these things, because basically it wants to see the system rorted again. I know where the Opposition stands-it basically supports the people out there. If members of the Opposition had their time in government over again and the criminal paper schemes were on the go again, they would let them go because that is the sort of people they are. The Opposition has supported the spivs in the system and always will. It has always supported the cheap money out there and always will. Let me tell the Opposition this: In the face of this pedestrian performance by Old Rosy a couple of minutes ago, there is not a chance of the Government being in the slightest way impressed by any case the Opposition may wish to make. The fact of the matter is that this Government will reduce marginal rates of tax as no other government has. It will introduce a full imputation system for business. Under the Liberal Party Government the effective tax rate on small business was 80 per cent, with the double taxation of dividends. Under this Labor Party Government it will be reduced to 41 per cent and, along with that tax change, there will be a sensible tax on non-cash fringe benefits. No mealy-mouthed charge by the Opposition will divert us from that course. We will have this review of the unintended consequences of the dragnet administration reflecting the complexities of all these arrangements and when we do that the taxation system will continue to be repaired as in any sensible, modern democracy it should be. We will be rejecting the opportunist claptrap coming from the Opposition. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The Treasurer's time has expired. Mr REITH(Flinders)(4.34) —I welcome the Treasurer (Mr Keating) back to Australia and I am happy to have the opportunity to do so. There is no doubt-let us give credit where credit is due-the Treasurer had a better trip than he did last time. Do honourable members remember that? Wherever he went the people gave him nought out of 10 for economic management and every time he left a capital city the Australian dollar took a dive. He has done a bit better this time. We on this side of the House have been thinking of him as he has darted in and out of the antique shops of London and New York. I have no doubt that he has been absolutely spitting chips as he has heard the news coming from Australia in the past week or so. The point which the Treasurer fails to understand is that Australians are sick and tired of having a government which keeps upping the tax hike. People have had enough of tax, which is why the Opposition will get rid of this fringe benefits tax lock, stock and barrel. There is no question about it at all. When it comes to ripping into ordinary Australian taxpayers, there is no doubt that the Treasurer enjoys his work. This is the man who prides himself on being a tax reformer. Remember that wonderful quote in June 1985 when he said: We're not shrinking violets and we're not about to disappear when the first whiff of grapeshot passes the trenches. Well, Government members have been disappearing pretty quickly since that statement was made. Senator Grimes is about to go and all the minders in the office of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) had a feeling for what was happening and most of them have departed. More recently, when the Treasurer was under attack from his own side, from various Labor Premiers, he displayed considerable arrogance-I might say that we are used to it-when, on 8 August 1986, he said: We didn't fight for this thing to see it squandered by some pressure group getting in touch with a Labor Leader's office. I mean we are not going to change this thing . . . Famous last words. Then, on 12 August, he went one better. He must choke on this as he hears it again. He was quoted in the Melbourne Sun as saying: There's not going to be any administrative changes-that's it. That is it, all right! After last week's debacle, I read some Press reports on the weekend to the effect that once the Treasurer was back everything would be all right in Australia, the economy would be all right; that the Treasurer would be back in full control and he would walk into Question Time and throw his weight around as usual-call the Opposition sleazebags and whatever-and she'll be jake. Right on cue, he was there today at Question Time and again in his speech just a moment ago talking about headless chooks, puny questions and criminal schemes with which certain people are supposed to be associated. If ever there were a case of the fox being placed in charge of the chicken yard or the fowl yard, this is it. How ridiculous is it? This Treasurer is the biggest taxing Treasurer Australia has ever had. While the confusion is everywhere, we should not forget the underlying figures. I released today some figures prepared by the statistics group of the Parliamentary Library. We should not forget that the fringe benefits tax has been brought in on the basis that it will bring equity and fairness back into the system and will do something for the pay as you earn taxpayer. So, in a sense it is part of a package to fund some tax cuts. Let us get the figures straight on this. The effective net tax of an ordinary Australian family, where the husband works for average weekly earnings and the wife manages the home and two children, when the Liberals left office in March 1983 was $52.12 per week. After the so-called tax cuts in July 1987 the tax will be $94.50; a massive increase of $42.38 per week. Today's debate is on the confusion, frustration and high cost burden on the community arising from the Government's muddled decision making and appalling administration of the fringe benefits tax-a very apt title for the debate. The Treasurer has been away, so perhaps that explains why he has not been reading the news- papers. In regard to this debate, who better to turn to see whether or not it is a fair statement than the Labor Party Government's back bench. On the front page of the Melbourne Herald last Friday was the headline `Labor MP's list 20 fringe tax blunders'. They were being generous; they have hardly scratched the surface. The honourable member for McMillan (Mr Cunningham) has a third option of how to deal with the fringe benefits tax. Quite frankly, Government members do not know whether they are Arthur or Martha. Let us look at some of these examples-parking spaces provided by employers and taxi fares given to employees who leave work after hours. Why should it be a rort for an employer to pay a taxi fare for a staff member to get home in safety? Why is that a rort and why will the Treasurer not come in here and explain to the Australian people the reality of this tax increase? In my electorate are the towns of Newhaven and San Remo, which have good fishing fleets. There is a fringe benefits tax on the provision of accommodation for fishermen catching shark and whatever in Bass Strait. How ridiculous! Yet the Treasurer has the cheek to come into the House and say that the whole thing is just a sideshow. Let me say something about the log book. If anybody listening to the debate today finds the log book confusing, I offer only one consolation-the Treasurer himself does not have a clue how it works. I must say that it is a very frustrating thing to have to fill out. I have a log book for substantiation reasons. One thing I find is that every time I jump into the car and drive off I forget to fill the thing in. Today I rang someone who is a sales representative and asked him for a description of the log book. His description was: `It is a pain'. I must say that it is a pain for the Government as well, because it really is all over the place. This Government has adopted this old diversionary technique: `If you do not like the message, shoot the messenger', which is exactly what the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) did on Sunday when he said that most of these problems were caused by the Australian Taxation Office. What is the Taxation Office doing? It is simply attempting to implement this entangled thing which the Government calls the fringe benefits tax-a tax which is supposed to be brought in on the basis of being simpler. I am 6 feet 3 inches tall. The honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman), who is sitting in front of me, has piled up all the pieces of paper that we have to read in order to understand this fringe benefits tax and, Mr Deputy Speaker, I can hardly see you over that pile of paper as it is so high. If the Treasurer does not know what is going on and if small business people are confused, we should take some consolation from the fact that government departments do not know either. The Taxation Office is having to pay itself $400,000 in fringe benefits tax. That might be pretty straightforward, but think of the poor old Department of Defence. A member of the Department of Defence said that the figures are rubbery, but it is paying somewhere between $70m and $150m in fringe benefits tax. It is paying more on fringe benefits tax than it is paying for ammunition to defend this country. Things are really strange when we have a situation like that. That Department has to work out things such as the cost of the removal of pets-of all things. It has to work out the fringe benefits tax for the provision of library services and the supply of water at Woomera-of all things. If the departments cannot work it out, how can members of this Government have the arrogance to walk into this House and tell us that small business people and the average man in the street can work it out? The situation gets worse. After months of tax summits, talkfests and the whole shooting match, just before the tax returns are in the Government takes fright and now we are to have some review. No one can tell us what the terms of reference of the review will be. No one can tell us what it will look at. If people think that the Government will have this all fixed up in a couple of weeks, all I can say is that they have another think coming. For the Treasurer this whole mess is just a sideshow. I can say without fear of contradiction that it is no sideshow for the farmers who have to pay fringe benefits tax for shearers accommodation. It is no sideshow for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which has to pay a fringe benefits tax on homes for lost animals. It is no sideshow for the clergy, who will find themselves facing a fringe benefits tax. And it is no sideshow for small businesses in this country, which are already being crippled by Labor's high taxation policies. The Treasurer well knows that this review will open a Pandora's box and he will never keep the lid on it. He wants a simpler tax system. The answer is simple: He ought to go back to the drawing board and throw this tax out lock, stock and barrel. If he does not, we will when we are returned to government. Mr BALDWIN(Sydney)(4.45) —If honourable members listened to the contributions of the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Carlton) and the honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith) in this debate, they would know that there is a missing dimension. That missing dimension is any coherent account of what those opposite intend to do about fringe benefits. There are a number of possibilities. Of course, we have had a range of contradictory statements over the last few years and indeed over the last few weeks from a number of Opposition spokesmen, so we do not really know what they will do about fringe benefits other than to repeal the existing proposed legislation. What are the options of the Opposition? One possibility is that it will abandon the idea of an effective tax on fringe benefits. That is one possibility that seems to have been supported by the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) in his most recent statement. If the Opposition is to do that, the first question is: How will it prevent a continuation of the massive erosion of the income tax base by the use of fringe benefits in lieu of cash income and all the inequity that flows from that, which is well documented? There is no doubt that, in the period leading up to the introduction of this tax, we have seen an increasing proportion of executive salaries, particularly at the high end, comprising non-cash fringe benefits. So we would see a continuation and, I suggest, an exacerbation of that basic inequity. The other thing that the Opposition will need to address is what it will do about the revenue forgone as a result; and we are talking about substantial amounts of revenue. According to the explanatory notes to the original legislation we are looking at $330m for 1986-87, $540m for 1987-88 and $625m for 1988-89. Those are significant sums of money which will be forgone if the Opposition abandons the aim of effectively taxing fringe benefits. Earlier this afternoon we again heard the Leader of the National Party talking in the debate on the statement made by the Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley). He set out a long agenda of things that the Opposition would seek in the defence area, if it got back into government, all of which involved the expenditure of significant sums of money. Yet there seems to be no concern within the Opposition about reconciling that goal of increasing expenditures in certain areas and rejecting a number of other government tax revenue measures, on the one hand, with its stated goal of reducing the magnitude of public sector borrowings and the Budget deficit, on the other. There seems to be absolutely no concern whatsoever with getting a position which is consistent over time, in terms of the statements made by different Opposition spokesmen at different times, or internally consistent or coherent at any given time, coming up with a position which is a mathematical absurdity in terms of what it says it will do about the revenue side and the expenditure side, on the one hand, and what it will do about the Budget deficit and the public sector borrowing requirement, on the other. It is an absolute absurdity. Basically, if the Opposition forgoes the revenue from the fringe benefits tax there are three possibilities. The first is to have marginal tax rates higher than they might otherwise be-an additional burden on honest taxpayers. The second is to have a Budget deficit larger than it might otherwise have been. Of course, if we are to take seriously this statement about the need to wind back the public sector borrowing requirement, we see that there is obviously an inconsistency there. The other possibility is to go for further expenditure cuts. Of course, the Opposition consistently calls for further expenditure cuts, but it consistently fails to describe where those cuts will be made. The fact of the matter is that it cannot identify areas where cuts could be made in a reasonable and equitable way, so it simply opts out of that argument by saying that it will announce that at some appropriate time. So the first option that the Opposition might pursue, if it chooses to go down the path of not taxing fringe benefits in any effective or substantive way, shows its utter bankruptcy and its lack of any integrity whatsoever. The second possibility is for the Opposition to try to tax fringe benefits in some way other than what the Government is proposing to do. The method that it has described is to seek to enforce the existing section 26(e) of the Income Tax Assessment Act. As the Treasurer (Mr Keating) has pointed out, a number of Commissioners of Taxation, including Commissioners of Taxation under the former coalition Government, have made it clear that section 26(e) is inappropriate. In fact, the tax White Paper sets out a number of reasons why section 26(e) is inappropriate. I do not think any reputable tax authority would argue that it is an administratively feasible or practicable method of collecting tax on fringe benefits. The Opposition keeps referring to it in a totally intellectually dishonest manner because it knows full well that it simply will not work. If we did seek to go down that path of collecting fringe benefits tax through the existing section 26 (e), what would be the consequences? As well as the administrative burden imposed on employers by the existing tax, there would be a comparable, if not larger, burden on employers because they would have to apportion individually the value of fringe benefits going to individual employees. Furthermore, individual taxpayers would have to include in their returns the benefit and a valuation. Therefore it would be an additional burden on the individual taxpayer as well as the employers. It is an utterly laughable and untenable position and one that honourable members opposite really cannot defend. No other suggestion has come from the Opposition, except some gunk from the Opposition spokesperson on Treasury matters about administrative measures, whatever that is supposed to mean, with no elaboration or clarification whatsoever of what he has in mind. It is absolutely clear that the Opposition's position on fringe benefits is a joke. I do not think it ought to be taken seriously at all. There is no doubt that with a set of tax measures of the magnitude and significance of the fringe benefits tax, which aims to address a plethora, a multiplicity, of different methods of providing benefits in the form of non-cash fringe benefits, we will have a necessarily complex piece of legislation. Necessarily there will be teething problems and necessarily in the early stages there will be unintended consequences. A proper attempt is required to be carried out in good faith to remove those anomalies, to minimise the administrative burden associated with the tax to the bare minimum that is possible and, at the same time, to avoid throwing out the baby with the bath water and bringing in exemptions, rules or simplifications such as to defy the overall purpose of the tax measure and to reduce dramatically the revenue collected. That is not an easy task. The Government has set about doing it in good faith. I am hopeful that in due course these problems will be minimised and that we will see, as with the prescribed payments system, for example, after some initial teething problems, that the tax will come to be an accepted and reasonable effective revenue raising measure. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The discussion is concluded. Mr MILTON(La Trobe) —On behalf of the Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation, I present the report of the Committee on Namadgi National Park, together with the transcripts of evidence and extracts of the minutes of proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Mr MILTON —by leave-The interest of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation in the administrative arrangements for Namadgi National Park in the Australian Capital Territory goes back some time, to at least 1981 when the Committee in the Thirty-second Parliament referred to the park in a report that dealt with the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act. Our recent inquiry, on which we are reporting today, was prompted by concerns that self-government for the Australian Capital Territory could result in a reduction of the resources available for the management of the park or might lead to parts of the park being transferred to other land uses. Our inquiries revealed a number of matters that required attention regardless of whether the Australian Capital Territory becomes self-governing, and these have been dealt with in our report. I understand that there is considerable interest within bureaucratic circles in this report and there has been some speculation about whether we will recommend that responsibility for the administration and management of Namadgi be transferred from one authority to another. It appears that the two authorities which could conceivably manage Namadgi-that is, the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service or the Parks and Conservation Service of the Department of Territories-have not enjoyed the best of relationships over the years. I am not surprised therefore that there is some consternation that we might recommend a change in the administrative arrangements. We found that one of the most disturbing things about Namadgi was this lack of co-operation between the two organisations. Both have separately developed good working relationships with State national parks and wildlife services but seem unable to get along with one another to the full extent that would be desirable. We found that if the poor relationship between the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Department of Territories could be improved the management of Namadgi might benefit. We have made a number of recommendations aimed at improving this relationship and creating better co-operation and liaison between the two agencies. The main issue considered by the inquiry was the security of tenure of the park. The tenure question is linked to the question of who should manage the park because security of tenure could be provided under the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act and if the Act were used for this purpose it could have the effect of transferring authority for managing the park from the Department of Territories to the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. National parks and equivalent reserves in most of the States have a much more secure tenure than is the case with Namadgi. An Act of parliament or a similar measure is required to degazette parks once they are declared in the States. The Commonwealth National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act also provides that once a park is declared it can be revoked only by a proclamation by the Governor-General acting in accordance with a resolution passed by both Houses of this Parliament. By comparison, we were advised that parts of Namadgi or even the whole park could be degazetted and made available for some other purpose simply by the Minister placing a notice in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. We found that Namadgi had significant values at the local, regional and national levels and therefore consider that the existing tenure arrangements are totally inadequate. Perhaps for the benefit of honourable members I should explain that Namadgi includes the magnificent mountain range which forms such an impressive backdrop to Canberra. Indeed, Namadgi includes most of the southern and western parts of the Australian Capital Territory and the most important Cotter Valley which provides most of Canberra's water supply. The park has been described by the Department of Territories as being of outstanding value for nature conservation and as a scientific reference area. Clearly, a national park that can be described in these terms deserves a stronger security of tenure than presently provided. We considered various options to provide this tenure and concluded that the protection which would be offered if the area were declared under the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act was the best that could possibly be afforded. Consequently, we have recommended that Nam- adgi National Park be declared a national park under the Act but-I stress this qualification-that this declaration should not proceed until the Department of Territories and the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service agree to the Director of the Service delegating all his responsibilities and powers under the Act as they apply to Namadgi to the Department of Territories. Let me make it quite clear that, although we consider that it is necessary for the park to be declared under the Act, we do not propose that any aspect of the planning, administration and development of Namadgi should be transferred from the Department of Territories to the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. This is why we consider that declaration under the Act should occur only when there is agreement about the delegation of powers between the two organisations involved. We define a role for the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service which would allow the Service to provide assistance in a way which would not interfere with the Department's day to day management of the park. This could be similar to the Service's involvement with State park services through assistance and co-ordination programs. Other matters which concern the Committee and on which we have reported included the separation of planning and management functions between the National Capital Development Commission and the Department of Territories, the apparent lack of departmental awareness of Aboriginal interest in the park and the need to amend the Australian Capital Territory Nature Conservation Ordinance. To this end we have made recommendations aimed at providing the Department of Territories with full responsibility for planning and development, ensuring that the Department examines the extent of Aboriginal interest and possible involvement and that high priority is given to amending the Ordinance. Before concluding, I would like to place on record the Committee's appreciation of the assistance and information provided by officers of the Department of Territories and also my thanks, once again, for the efforts of the Committee's secretariat, particularly Mr Ian Dundas, who was secretary to the inquiry. Mr PETER FISHER(Mallee) —by leave-This report adequately expresses the views of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation on the natural and cultural value of Namadgi, which encompasses 40 per cent of the Australian Capital Territory. As a committee we do not overstate its significance as a national park, but as part of the alpine region it does have a diversity of plants, animals, scenic beauty, and some elements of cultural significance that should be preserved. It is, indeed, a beautiful part of Australia. However, the role of this region in land management and planning for Canberra's water catchment and as open space should be emphasised. The report, therefore, deals with these aspects in detail. Despite this, Namadgi is not just of local importance. The deliberations of our Committee recommend declaration as a national park under the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975, but with the Department of Territories retaining all responsibilities, powers of management and control as delegated from the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. We believe this recommendation will overcome the inadequate legislation arrangements that presently exist, ensure that revocation cannot occur, and that there will be a requirement for preparation and adoption of management plans. Many of these aspects have already been fully discussed by the Chairman and will be further broadened by the Deputy Chairman when he speaks in this debate. I seek to expand on a number of further points. Firstly, it has been obvious that the Australian Capital Territory Parks and Conservation Service is a professional, dedicated organisation and is restrained only by its budget. Our recommendations will enhance its competence through greater integration and the opportunity for participation, such as voluntary exchanges between the various conservation services, and consulting with the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. The second point I raise is the apparent variance of views expressed by both the Department of Territories and the National Capital Development Commission over a period. This can be interpreted only as self-interest in retaining respective power bases and has resulted in a lack of co-operation between authorities as well as delays. This situation simply cannot be condoned. The conduct of this inquiry brought forward responses and actions that should have been forthcoming many years earlier if the Namadgi had been treated with the respect it deserves and assistance had been sought from the appropriate sources. The Government should accept and implement these recommendations so that Namadgi will have security of tenure and so that revocation of its status will require an Act of parliament and not be at the whim of a Minister or any future municipal or territory government. Finally, I must comment on some of the double standards that have surfaced during this inquiry. It is absolutely legitimate and important for concerned people, whether they be landholders, political parties or park users, to indicate their views in a robust manner. But I find it of great concern that individuals in the political life of the Australian Capital Territory, at both the parliamentary and political party level and within departments, who were noticeably silent when this Committee was involved in the important issues of national significance such as the development and creation of the Great Barrier Reef National Park, Uluru National Park, Kakadu National Park or the South West Tasmanian issue, should suddenly be both vocal and of conflicting opinion on the Namadgi question. This report is not just a management document. It provides an approach for the protection and development of an important region of Australia, but takes into account its local and regional significance to the national capital and to its people. I commend this report to the House and also join with the Chairman in thanking Mr Ian Dundas and the secretariat of the Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation for their support and competence. Mr WEBSTER(Macquarie) —by leave-The management and development of the Namadgi National Park is a significant case study in the alignment of national and local conservation, recreation and development priorities, involving as it does the overlapping interests of the nation, the States and a local community, and overlapping responsibilities and plans held by different Commonwealth departments and authorities. This report recommends, I believe, a very satisfactory resolution of the overlapping and potentially conflicting interests and responsibilities. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation has approached the question of the park by considering ways in which it can be protected and developed as a permanent reserve and how it can be managed to best take account of its local, regional and national values. It has sought to maximise local involvement and control while ensuring that in future lower priority is not given to the national importance and conservation values. The Committee acknowledges a number of key factors involved in determining the weight to be given to the park's national significance against its importance to local development needs. The park represents 40 per cent of the total area of the Australian Capital Territory and provides not just the scenic background to the city but the city's main water catchment and the greatest threat to the Territory's citizens in terms of bush- fires. The Cotter catchment is identified as being of such high value for nature conservation research and reference that the Department of Territories proposes to manage the area as a special scientific area. The Australian Heritage Commission considers that the Namadgi region contains a rare collection of prehistoric and historic sites which have remained comparatively intact so that the extent, variety and integrity of the area's cultural record are probably unique in Australia. Finally, the park is an important gateway to the entire Australian Alps, which it can be argued are of international significance. In the face of these factors, the Committee was obviously obliged to recommend what it considers the most efficient and effective arrangements for future park planning and management. Let me just outline what the Committee concluded in this regard. Firstly, the Department of Territories management of the park is generally very good and its Parks and Conservation Service is a competent and professional organisation. Secondly, there is no aspect of the Department's day to day administration of the park which suggests that there is need to transfer responsibility to the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. Thirdly, it would be inefficient to create a separate organisation to deal with Namadgi while the rest of the Territory was managed by the existing organisations within the Department. Fourthly, there has been and is a poor level of co-operation between the Department and the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the failure to co-operate has certainly contributed to unnecessary delays in planning and developing Namadgi and has possibly resulted in avoidable extra cost. Fifthly, the Service should be able to assist the Department in the same way as it assists the States. Sixthly, the Department's record on spending on Namadgi compares favourably with those of other authorities on other parks; that staffing in this area has been adequate; and that the transfer of the park to the Service would not see an increase in general provision of resources. Finally, the Service could provide program, research, and training assistance in a way which would not interfere with the Department's day to day management role. The Committee also dealt with the question of the adequacy of legislation covering the park. We believe that the park should receive the highest level of protection against casual degazettal similar to that afforded to other national parks. The Committee concluded that an Act was preferable to an ordinance and accepted that as adequate provisions exist within the existing National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, no new legislation was needed. The Committee believes that security of tenure would be provided for the park if it was a national park under that Act. We have sought to ensure that there are no difficulties or interference for local administration and that priorities in areas such as water supply and bushfire management occur. Let me emphasise that, as a member representing the Blue Mountains area of New South Wales, I share the concerns of local Territorians about control of these matters. It would be intolerable if local control were lost over the water supply and bushfire prevention activities in particular. Our recommendation in this regard is for a formal agreement for the Director of the National Parks and Wildlife Service to delegate his powers and the Service's functions to the Department of Territories under the provisions of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act. Such a delegation could be guaranteed by specifying the Department's role in the management plan which comes before the Parliament and by formal memoranda of understanding and agreements between the relevant Ministers and departments. I want to refer to only one other area of recommendations by the Committee. The Committee considered that it is timely to review the need for a broadly based consultative and advisory group to provide public input on general conservation matters in the Territory. This matter of consultation and local government involvement in decision making is particularly urgent in regard to aboriginal groups. The Committee considers THAT the Department has not consulted Aboriginal groups or considered sufficiently their interests in Namadgi. This management plan does not make any provision for such consultation. There is an urgent need to involve Aboriginals in consultation on the park's future management and to determine the extent of interest and claims by various Aboriginal groups. I wish to conclude by expressing, as others have done, my appreciation for the various submissions the Committee received and noting the quality of the submissions and the intensity of local concern for this beautiful park. I must also note the excellent work of the Department's Parks and Conservation Service in its past stewardship of this natural resource. I have every confidence that this report provides a workable formula for the joint oversight of what is without doubt a major national and local resource. I commend the report to my colleagues and look forward to reviewing its successful implementation a year or so from now. I echo the compliments paid to Mr Ian Dundas and other members of the secretariat who assisted us in the preparation of this report. Mr UREN(Reid-Minister for Local Government and Administrative Services) —by leave-I was Minister for Territories at the time Namadgi National Park was brought into being. I commend completely the report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation and place on record the fact that a former member of my staff was basically the driving force behind bringing about and naming the park. I refer to Frank Muller, who is now with the New South Wales department. It was his commitment to conservation and the environment that brought this park to fruition. He foresaw the linking of three great national parks-Namadgi in the Australian Capital Territory, Kosciusko National Park and Victoria's Alpine National Park. I know of the love and commitment officers who have worked in the Australian Capital Territory have had for this park, and I have found a great deal of inspiration from those workers contributing to this area. I am sure that this sensitive report is a great record of the views put forward and the Committee's opinions, and I am pleased that members of the Committee from both sides have been able to bring this report together. This great national park land will be a great monument to what the Hawke Government has been able to do since coming to office in 1983. Consideration resumed from 10 October. Consideration of Senate's amendments. Senate's amendments- No. 1-Page 1, clause 2, line 8, leave out ``1 July 1986'', insert ``a day to be fixed by Proclamation''. No. 2-Page 2, paragraph 6 (1) (a), line 36, before ``development'', insert ``recognition and''. No. 3-Page 2, sub-paragraph 6 (1) (a) (ii), line 40, after ``coaches'', insert ``, umpires, referees or officials essential to the conduct of sport''. No. 4-Page 4, after sub-clause 11 (2), add the following new sub-clause: ``(3) A direction given under sub-section (1) shall be laid before each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the giving of the direction.''. No. 5-Page 5, after sub-clause 12 (3), add the following new sub-clause: ``(4) Each strategic plan prepared in accordance with this section shall be laid before each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after approval by the Minister of the plan.''. No. 6-Page 14, after sub-clause 38 (1), insert the following new sub-clause: ``(1a) Division 2 of Part XI of the Audit Act 1901 (as that Division applies by virtue of sub-section (1) of this section) has effect in relation to the year ending on 30 June 1987 in accordance with section 17 of the Australian Institute of Sport (Consequential Provisions) Act 1986.''. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Minister for Aviation and Acting Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism)(5.15) —I do not wish to delay the proceedings of the Committee. On behalf of the Government, I move: That the amendments be agreed to. Mr WHITE(McPherson)(5.16) —The Opposition does not want to delay the Committee unduly on the Australian Institute of Sport Bill and the Australian Institute of Sport (Consequential Provisions) Bill. When they first went through this chamber there was a good amount of debate. These Bills have been amended in the Senate and, generally speaking, we accept the amendments with some reservations. We will not be opposing them. There are a few matters that I wish to cover. Two of the amendments to the Australian Institute of Sport Bill seem to be quite sensible, while two of them are absolutely meaningless and are a result of a deal between the Government and the Australian Democrats, who at one stage were going to oppose the whole Bill. This would have suited us fine; however, in the usual way the Democrats went to water and changed their minds, having made a deal. I think it is appropriate to remind the Committee that the Opposition opposed the whole Bill when it went through because it did not believe that we needed yet another statutory corporation in this country, especially in the sporting world. We want some rationalisation of the statutory corporations and authorities that exist and, above all, some rationalisation and definition of responsibilities between the Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism and the various bodies that have been set up to administer sport in Australia. The amendments about which the Acting Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr Peter Morris) has moved his motion refer basically to the functions and the strategic objectives and plans of the Institute of Sport. I just want to put it on record that, when there is a change of government at the next election, the Institute will most certainly be retained-I do not want there to be any misapprehension about that-but its role and functions will be closely looked at because in the last few years it has not operated satisfactorily. The Australian people, and in particular sports people, have not been getting full value for money from this Institute. A degree of confusion still exists as to exactly what the hell is going on in the Institute, who is giving the directions and whether it is being run in the proper way. I wish to forewarn people who are involved in the sports of cycling and cricket-two sports which the Institute and the Government are considering taking on board as official Institute sports at some time in the future. Cycling is probably under more serious consideration at this moment than cricket. I do not know what reasons are being put forward by the Australian Amateur Cycling Federation, the South Australian Government, the South Australian Institute of Sport or various other organisations as to why cycling should go to South Australia. Mr Smith —It should go to Launceston. Mr WHITE —The honourable member for Bass says it should go to Launceston. I am sure he will give us all the reasons why it should go to Launceston. I must say that, on the face of it, it does seem that Launceston has a very strong case, principally because it has one of the finest covered velodromes in the world. Mr Smith —In the world, definitely. Mr WHITE —That is confirmed by the honourable member for Bass, and was also confirmed in a Senate Estimates committee hearing not so long ago. It seems to me that at a time when we should be looking at saving money it is very hard to go past the argument that cycling should be established as an Institute sport in Launceston, given that Launceston has a fine covered velodrome and Adelaide has none and given, in addition, the fact that the Tasmanian Government has offered to support this sport in Launceston. I would find it very hard to go past those sorts of arguments. A decision has not been made on this matter but I would be most interested to hear in due course from the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown) the reasons for the decision made. If it is to be put in South Australia, we cannot escape the conclusion that is being put there for political reasons, for his mate John, and that it will not be put in Tasmania because there happens to be a Liberal government in that State. We have come to no conclusion about the inclusion of cricket in the Institute of Sport. I will be having talks within the next few weeks with the people involved. However, I must put on record that I find it strange on the face of it that a sport which has enormous capacity to generate a cash flow should be accepted into the Institute as an official sport and expect to be funded, to some degree, by the taxpayers of Australia. I return to the amendments, which relate to the statutory corporation being set up. One of the reasons for the confusion in the world of sport and at the Institute is that there are simply too many boards. They have proliferated to some degree since 1983 and too many people are on them. The Australian Sports Commission has a total of 22 members. I add that one of those members is Mr John Newman, the State member for Cabramatta. I find it difficult to understand why that man does not resign forthwith from that Commission-a non-political organisation for which there is bipartisan support from this Chamber. Mr Newman has other duties now and, in my view, should not be on that Commission. If he stays there, it would be hard to avoid the accusation that the Commission is a political organisation. The Australian Sports Aid Foundation, set up this year, has seven members on its board. The Australian Institute of Sport has 10 members on its board. From that very small area of sport there are 39 members on boards, which is too many. There are too many of the Minister's mates and the Government's mates on those boards. Some of them are very fine sportsmen and women but do not take much active interest in their Commission duties. Above all, those 39 members make it a very expensive proposition. Money is used which should more properly be used for sportsmen and women rather than for the administration of the commissions and boards on which they sit. Amendment No. 1 is purely machinery. Amendment No. 2 is meaningless; it really is part of a deal between the Government and the Australian Democrats. Amendment No. 3 is basically meaningless, but we have no real objection to it. Amendment No. 4 states: A direction given under sub-section (1) shall be laid before each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the giving of the direction. We think that is a sensible amendment. It means that the Minister's directions to the Institute of Sport will be plain for everyone to see as they will be tabled in the House. Given some of the Minister's directions-for example, to the Sports Commission on where funds should and should not go-this is probably overdue. It will bring the Minister's involvement with the Institute of Sport into the open. That is fair enough. In the same way as Ministers' directions to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and to the National Crime Authority are required to be tabled, the Minister's directions to the Institute of Sport will be tabled. Amendment No. 5, which the Government has accepted and which has been through the Senate, is a similar tabling amendment. The strategic plan drawn up by the Institute to cover a three-year period will also be tabled in this House and in the Senate. That seems to us a very sensible provision. As I have stressed before in debates on this matter, one of the real problems is that the Institute has been allowed to wander along with a will of its own without coming under any direct control and, more importantly, without having any strategic plan as to where it should or should not be going. With those few comments, we accept the amendments proposed by the Government in that two of the principal amendments are sensible and will bring the Institute of Sport under the closest scrutiny of the Parliament, where it should very properly be. Mr SMITH(Bass)(5.26) —As the shadow Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, the honourable member for McPherson (Mr White), has said, we do not oppose the amendments. I draw the attention of the Committee to amendment No. 5 just mentioned by the honourable member in relation to sub-clause 12 (3), which refers to strategic plans. As he said, it is a sensible proposal that any strategic plans prepared by the Minister be laid before the Parliament so that the Parliament can have an opportunity to look at it. One of the things that the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown) has expressed is his desire to see a cycling annex set up as soon as possible. The story of the cycling annex is an interesting one. I will just relate it to honourable members because the shadow Minister, who is at the table, mentioned it. It was first proposed back in March 1985 that Launceston be considered as it has the only world class and covered velodrome in Australia. At that time I telexed the Minister, asking him to make a decision as soon as possible and to consider Launceston for the setting up of that annex. Subsequently I wrote to him in April 1985 to ask him again what was happening. I wrote to him again in May 1985 to ask him to tell me what was happening. We had had the national coach, Mr Charlie Oliver, in Launceston looking at the velodrome and talking with the State Government and the State Institute of Technology, which was prepared to assist the Australian Institute of Sport in setting up its cycling annex. Finally, the Minister did respond. It is interesting to quote from his letter because he said: . . . cycling remains my highest priority for inclusion in the residential program. It was part of his plan then. He continued: I will be doing all I can to have it included at the earliest possible time, but this will not now be possible before 1986/87. He finally said: The proposal to locate a cycling unit in Launceston will be given thorough consideration in the meantime. Of course, he said that 1986-87 was the soonest that he could possibly have the funds to look at it. We are now in that position. In Senate Estimates Committee D in September, the Managing Director of the AIS, Mr Brettell, revealed all when he was examined by the honourable senators, in particular Senator Newman from Tasmania. It was finally revealed there that all of the criteria that need to be satisfied in fulfilling the plan of the AIS to set up a cycling annex could be met in Launceston because it has the covered velodrome and has the support of the State Institute of Sport in Tasmania, headed by Olympic medallist Rick Mitchell, and the support in the sports medicine field of the Institute of Technology. So, according to the Managing Director of the AIS, all of the criteria are fulfilled and the AIS Board wants to move as quickly as possible, as does the Minister, to set up the cycling facility. If Adelaide were the chosen location, a new velodrome would have to be built. Mr Brettell outlined in his evidence that that would cost, at a bare minimum, $1m. It was revealed at the Estimates Committee hearing that the Minister supports Adelaide but no reasons have been given. At a time when we are aware of the financial stringencies imposed upon all of us, it seems very strange that the Government would consider building a new velodrome and ignoring what is deemed by all the experts to be a world class velodrome in one part of Australia. One can draw only one conclusion-that perhaps the Minister wants to favour his party political colleagues at the expense of taking the most sensible financial option. It is interesting to look quite closely at what was said by Mr Brettell at the hearings of Estimates Committee D. He said: The decision on the location of any sport is very much a decision which our Board makes recommendations on to the appropriate Minister and the discussions from a governmental point of view are then handled from one government to another. I guess that encapsulates the whole issue here. It really is a decision between one government and another. The Tasmanian Government has been making strenuous efforts for some considerable time-well over 12 months-to compel the AIS to look more closely at the financial advantages for sport in this country of having the cycling annex set up as quickly as possible. The Minister has said that he wants it up and going, as has the AIS, by February next year, if it can be done in Launceston. Mr White —Has the Tasmanian Government offered to support it? Mr SMITH —It has offered strong support, and I understand that it has offered it again over the last couple of days. We are absolutely and totally mystified as to why, in light of the ongoing support that has been offered from Tasmania and when the AIS has itself said that Launceston fits the bill, we are being ignored and there seems to be a move to shift that proposed cycling annex to Adelaide. In terms of the amendments-which suggest having strategic plans come before Parliament and allowing parliamentarians the opportunity to look at those plans-I wonder what is the attitude of parliamentarians, whether on this side of the Chamber or the other side of the Chamber, to what appear to be blatantly political decisions made to prefer one particular area of the country to another when all the criteria and financial logic demand that the annex be set up in a State where the facilities already exist. It is our view that the Minister ought to come clean. He has been caught by the revelations from the Estimates Committee and he now has the opportunity to respond. I do not know whether the Minister at the table, the Acting Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr Peter Morris), is the appropriate Minister to respond, but certainly the Minister responsible ought to respond and make it clear why this decision is being made. The people of Tasmania feel that the words of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), when he says that he will govern for all of Australia, mean absolutely nothing when they see decisions like this being made which directly prejudice the opportunities for Tasmania and also the opportunities to get that sport dollar to go as far as possible across this nation and let people such as our young cyclists have the best facilities available-those that are already in Tasmania. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Minister for Aviation and Acting Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism)(5.33) —I think that little that is new has been raised in the contributions that have been made, particularly in respect of the Opposition's attempts to absorb the Australian Institute of Sport into the Australian Sports Commission. From the Government's point of view the replacement of the unsatisfactory, expedient company status of the Australian Institute of Sport with that of a specifically constituted statutory authority created by the Parliament, rather than Executive prerogative, is the correct course to ensure the accountability to government of the Institute. Having the AIS report to the Australian Sports Commission would not streamline the operations of either body. The Australian Sports Commission could not meet the technical requirements of the Institute's management without appointing a surrogate board, whether it be a separate board or a committee of the Australian Sports Commission. I do not want to delay the chamber by going over all those arguments. They have all been argued before. Nothing new has really been brought forward in that respect-nothing that has not been dealt with by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown), who unfortunately cannot be here today. As far as the cycling annex is concerned, I think it was unfortunate that the honourable member for Bass (Mr Smith) had to descend to the type of debate that he did. He was seeking to-- Mr Downer —Pork barrel. Mr PETER MORRIS —Pork barrelling is what the conservative parties are all about. I sat in opposition and saw that for many years. It is an art form with the conservative parties, but this Government is about fairness and equity-and decisions that are based on the best use of taxpayers' money. I am advised that an announcement in respect of whether that cycling annex will be in Tasmania or in South Australia will be made soon. I am advised also that South Australia and, more specifically, Adelaide is being considered following a recommendation from the Australian Cycling Federation. The Federation considers the geography and the hills around Adelaide better for training. But I stress that no decision has been made as yet. It is a pity that individuals on the Australian Sports Commission have been singled out for criticism by previous speakers. The Chairman, Mr Ted Harris, and all the other members are prominent sports people and sports administrators. They were chosen for their skills and their contribution to sport and not for their party political allegiances. I understand the view being put by members of the Opposition because it is their way of life. If ever one wants to look back to blatantly political decisions that ignore all common sense and the wise use of public money, one should look back to the decisions of the Fraser Government, the colleagues of those who now sit opposite. The honourable member for McPherson (Mr White) specifically mentioned Mr Newman, who is now the member for Cabramatta. It should be pointed out that Mr Newman is one of the most prominent karate experts in Australia. It just so happens that he is a member of the Australian Labor Party. I have listened to what the Opposition had to say. As I said, generally it does not raise anything new that has not been answered by the Minister in earlier debates, and I regret the nature of some of the comments that have been made about the prominent people in sport who are, after all, giving their services to the benefit of the Australian sporting community. Question resolved in the affirmative. Resolution reported; report adopted. Consideration resumed from 10 October. Consideration of Senate's amendment. Senate's amendment- Pages 6 to 8, clauses 17 and 18, line 14 (page 6) to line 5 (page 8), leave out the clauses, insert the following clause: Application of Division 2 of Part XI of Audit Act in relation to year ending on 30 June 1987 ``17. Division 2 of Part XI of the Audit Act 1901 (as that Division applies by virtue of sub-section 38 (1) of the Australian Institute of Sport Act 1986) has effect in relation to the year ending on 30 June 1987 as if- (a) sub-sections 63g (3) and (4) were omitted and the following sub-sections were substituted: `(2a) The Auditor-General may inspect and audit such of the accounts and records of financial transactions (including transactions relating to money received or held on trust) of the company named `Australian Institute of Sport' that was incorporated on 24 September 1980 under the Companies Ordinance 1962 of the Australian Capital Territory and records relating to the assets (including assets held on trust) of, or in the custody of, the company, being accounts and records in so far as they- (a) relate to the period commencing on 1 July 1986 and ending immediately before the Australian Institute of Sport Act 1986 came into operation; and (b) have become assets of the authority under section 12 of that Act, and shall forthwith draw the attention of the appropriate Minister in relation to the authority to any irregularity disclosed by the inspection and audit that is, in the opinion of the Auditor-General, of sufficient importance to justify the Auditor-General in so doing. `(3) The Auditor-General shall- (a) at least once in the year ending on 30 June 1988, report to the appropriate Minister the results of the inspection and audit carried out under sub-section (1) of the accounts and records of the authority in so far as they relate to the period commencing on the day on which the Australian Institute of Sport Act 1986 came into operation and ending on the expiration of 30 June 1987; and (b) at the time at which the Auditor-General makes the first such report to that Minister, also report to that Minister the results of any inspection and audit, carried out by the Auditor-General under this Act or any other Act, of the accounts and records of the company referred to in sub-section (2a) in so far as they relate to the period commencing on 1 July 1986 and ending immediately before the Australian Institute of Sport Act 1986 came into operation. `(4) The Auditor-General or a person authorised by the Auditor-General is entitled at all reasonable times to full and free access to- (a) all accounts and records of the authority relating directly or indirectly to the receipt or payment of money by the authority or to the acquisition, receipt, custody or disposal of assets by the authority; and (b) all accounts and records of the company referred to in sub-section (2A) that have become assets of the authority under section 12 of the Australian Institute of Sport Act 1986, being accounts and records relating directly or indirectly to the receipt or payment of money (including money received or held by the company on trust) by the company or to the acquisition, receipt, custody or disposal of assets (including assets received or held by the company on trust) by the company.'; and (b) section 63H were omitted and the following section were substituted: Annual report and financial statements `63H. (1) The authority shall, as soon as practicable after 30 June 1987, prepare and submit to the appropriate Minister in relation to the authority a report of- (a) the operations of the company referred to in sub-section 63G (2A) during the period (in this section referred to as the ``first period'') commencing on 1 July 1986 and ending immediately before the Australian Institute of Sport Act 1986 came into operation; and (b) the operations of the authority during the period (in this section referred to as the ``second period'') commencing on the day on which that Act came into operation and ending on the expiration of 30 June 1987, together with financial statements in respect of the year ending on 30 June 1987, in such form as the Minister administering this Act approves, that- (c) in so far as they are statements in respect of the first period, relate to the company during that period; and (d) in so far as they are statements in respect of the second period, relate to the authority during that period. `(1A) The report referred to in sub-section (1) shall, in so far as it relates to the company referred to in sub-section 63G (2A), be prepared by the authority having regard to- (a) such of the accounts and records of the company as have become assets of the authority under section 12 of the Australian Institute of Sport Act 1986; and (b) any information concerning the operation of the company that is given to the authority by persons who were members of the Board of Management or staff of the company. `(1B) The financial statements referred to in sub-section (1) shall, in so far as they relate to the company referred to in sub-section 63G (2A), be based on the accounts and records referred to in paragraph (1A) (a) of this section. `(2) Before submitting financial statements to the appropriate Minister under sub-section (1), the authority shall submit them to the Auditor-General, who shall report to the appropriate Minister- (a) whether, in the opinion of the Auditor-General, the statements are based on proper accounts and records; (b) whether the statements are in agreement with the accounts and records and, in the opinion of the Auditor-General, show fairly- (i) the financial transactions of the company referred to in sub-section 63G (2A) during the first period; and (ii) the financial transactions and the state of affairs of the authority during the second period; (c) whether, in the opinion of the Auditor-General, the receipt, expenditure and investment of monies and the acquisition and disposal of assets, by the company during the first period have been in accordance with the law; (d) whether, in the opinion of the Auditor-General, the receipt, expenditure and investment of monies and the acquisition and disposal of assets, by the authority during the second period have been in accordance with the enactment establishing the authority; and (e) as to such matters arising out of the statements as the Auditor-General considers should be reported to the appropriate Minister. `(3) The appropriate Minister shall cause copies of the report and financial statements together with a copy of the report of the Auditor-General to be laid before each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after their receipt by the appropriate Minister.'.''. Motion (by Mr Peter Morris) proposed: That the amendment be agreed to. Mr WHITE(McPherson)(5.38) —This amendment to the Australian Institute of Sport (Consequential Provisions) Bill deals mainly with auditing and financial provisions and controls of the Australian Institute of Sport. The Opposition does not oppose the amendment. It flows from the amendments to the Australian Institute of Sport Bill and we did not oppose them. The fact is that what is desperately required by the Institute is a tighter system of finance and administration controls, because the morale of people who work in the Institute has been suffering now for some time. One only has to speak to any of the athletes, the members of the athletic staff or members of the administration to come away shaking one's head, as those people are, about what is going on. This has been going on for some time. I really fail to understand why the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown) has not taken, and will not take, a more active interest in what is happening at this great Institute. He keeps asking for a bipartisan approach to the Institute. We would be happy to give him such an approach. It was the former conservative Government that established the Institute; we want to see it the best in the world. It has the potential to become that, but it cannot achieve that sort of standing while its administration is poorly supervised and the results are poor. Unfortunately, there has been in the past 12 months a whole series of allegations of maladministration at the Institute. In November 1985 a series of allegations against the administration of the Institute was raised in one of the Sydney newspapers. The Minister made great statements in this place over a number of weeks that all was well. We all remember that. The Minister said that all was well at the Institute and that we would not find anything wrong there. He commissioned the auditors, Price Waterhouse, to do a report. Price Waterhouse produced a report which was damning, to say the least. That is all history now. The Minister was the subject of a censure motion in this place. What we have not seen since that Price Waterhouse report is any follow-up, despite promises by the Minister that he would bring matters which had not been resolved back to this place and make a report. That has not been done. More recently, there was the resignation of and a very bald statement from the Director of the Institute, Dr John Cheffers. He has gone, leaving a vacuum that has not yet been filled. There is no permanent Director of the Institute. Then we had the saga of Mr Rodney Groux. The honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey), who is not present, well remembers the allegations that were brought into this House. Briefly, what happened was that Mr Groux had been retained by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism as a personal consultant. His work was supposed to be out there advising the Minister on the Institute, but most of his time, it would appear, was spent in Sydney on other activities. No one knew for a whole month where Mr Groux was, yet I presume-and I have never had an answer to this-that his pay was not docked. He used to make appearances to get his money and there were no questions as to what he was doing during that period. So there we had Mr Rodney Groux and the Institute of Sport. Since that time the Department of Finance, almost on a daily basis, has been crawling all over the Institute trying to get some order into the administration and, as I understand it, Senator Walsh has taken a submission to Cabinet to try to tighten up the administration of the Institute. The last matter of which I have knowledge is that in recent weeks officers of the Australian Federal Police have raided the Institute of Sport looking for documents relating to some of the earlier allegations, concerning the provision of rowing boats, and has raided the home of Dr Cheffers and one set of premises in Melbourne. I ask the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, through the Acting Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr Peter Morris): When will these matters be finalised? While they are hanging over people's heads, everyone at the Institute or associated with it will be very much disturbed. There is no doubt that the consequential amendment, which I hope will give tighter auditing and financial control over the Institute, is very much required. The Opposition supports the amendment. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Minister for Aviation and Acting Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism)(5.42) —In regard to the remarks by the honourable member for McPherson (Mr White) on accountability, the legislation will ensure appropriate accountability of the Australian Institute of Sport to the government of the day, and through it to the Parliament. In the Australian Institute of Sport Bill clauses 10 and 25 clearly spell out the responsibility of the Institute's Board of Management and the Director to ensure the proper and efficient performance of the functions of the Institute. Additionally, clauses 12, 13 and 14 relating to strategic plans and clause 34 covering the estimates will require the Minister to approve the future directions of the Institute and mechanisms for evaluating its performance objectives and to approve the estimates of receipts and expenditure of the Institute for each financial year. So the framework is there within the legislation to ensure accurate and adequate accountability. The honourable member referred to the investigations by the Australian Federal Police. The Minister is aware that members of the Australian Federal Police recently visited the Australian Institute of Sport. He is also aware of the general nature of the inquiry. He understands that full co-operation was provided to the police officers by Institute staff and will consider whether action is required on the conclusion of the police inquiries and receipt of any report arising therefrom. I suggest to the honourable member that, if he has relevant information, the proper course would be to pass it to the Australian Federal Police as quickly as possible. Mr White —I have no-- Mr PETER MORRIS —The honourable member says that he has not. I understand that the report from the Federal Police will be available in the near future and I do not expect that it will provide any joy to the honourable member. The last matter he raised related to the resignation of Dr Cheffers. Dr Cheffers's resignation from the Board of Management was accepted by the Minister on 16 June. Dr Cheffers gave as his reasons for resignation the difficulty in working with the Board of Management and the fact that he was not happy to continue as Executive Director when the Institute became a statutory body. Dr Cheffers stated that he considered his personality and entrepreneurial nature to be not suited to life as a public servant; and that he and the current Board have differing views on the direction in which the Australian Institute of Sport should head. The last matter raised by the honourable member for McPherson concerned Mr Groux. That is an old matter which has been dealt with ad nauseam. The matters he raised about Mr Groux have been adequately answered by the Minister and rebutted on occasion after occasion. I commend the amendment. Question resolved in the affirmative. Resolution reported; report adopted. Consideration resumed from 10 October. Consideration of Senate's alternative amendment. Senate's alternative amendment- Page 4, after clause 4, add the following clause: Entitlements of members of the Parliament ``4a. (1) Determination No. 11 of 1986 of the Remuneration Tribunal dated 6 June 1986 is modified- (a) by omitting paragraph 7.1; (b) by omitting from sub-sub-paragraph 7.2 (d) (ii) ``, or nominee as defined,''; (c) by omitting from sub-sub-paragraph 7.2 (d) (iii) ``, spouse, or nominee as defined,'' and substituting ``or spouse''; (d) by omitting from sub-paragraph 7.3 (c) ``or nominee''; and (e) by omitting from paragraph 7.4 ``or nominee''. ``(2) The determination of the Remuneration Tribunal referred to in this section as modified by this section has effect as if it were a determination of the Remuneration Tribunal.''. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Special Minister of State)(5.47) —I move: That the Senate's amendment, as an alternative to the amendment to which the House of Representatives has disagreed, be agreed to. I shall explain this motion briefly. The measure relating to the report of the Remuneration Tribunal went through this Chamber some time ago and has now come back to this place twice. As members will be aware, the Government decided-I think with the full support of the Opposition-that the major recommendation on wage increases for parliamentarians should be rejected. There is no dispute between the parties about this. The Senate had a couple of major debates about whether members could nominate other than legal spouses for the purposes of overseas travel, some thinking that perhaps the nominees for domestic travel should be extended for the purposes of international travel. An amendment on those lines came back to this place some time ago. It was rejected by the Government because it was not recommended by the Tribunal. The Bill then went back to the Senate and again has come back here amended, on this occasion to remove the right of a member to nominate a de facto for the purposes of overseas travel. As members are being overpaid every month because the Tribunal's report is in effect until it is disallowed by this Parliament, I must point out that all the moneys paid to all parliamentarians since 1 July over and above their normal remuneration will have to be repaid. It is not a situation the Government has sought and it is not one that we think we can live with any longer for the purposes of looking after the average member of this place. Were we to reject this amendment, the matter would go back to the Senate, and God only knows when we would get it back and deal with it finally. Most of us on the Government benches think that the amendment should have been rejected. We cannot understand how, in this day and age, the Senate could have adopted an amendment along these lines. One would have thought that we were mature enough in this society now to recognise the position. We had this debate some years ago in the Parliament. We are not greatly attracted to the amendment but, because of the problems associated with rejecting it and sending it back to the Senate, we have to take those things into consideration. For those purposes the Government has agreed to the amendment. Mr SPENDER(North Sydney)(5.49) —This amendment was supported by the Opposition in the Senate, and finally by the Government itself in that place. On the last occasion we debated this matter the Special Minister of State (Mr Young) complained about overriding a determination of the independent Remuneration Tribunal. I remind him that both sides have agreed to override a determination of that independent Tribunal, a determination that deals with members' salaries. The Minister said that currently members were being overpaid and that he wanted to look after the average member. Apparently this is why the Government is acceding to the amendment. The amendment makes it perfectly plain that de facto spouses-whatever that somewhat elastic term covers-will not be included for the purposes of riding at the taxpayer's expense when it comes to overseas trips. We believe that that is the right approach and that most Australians think that that is the right approach. The Government can either stand by its principles or jettison them. We have seen the Government jettison quite a few principles in 1986-this may be a record year for jettisoning principles. It is so much hypocrisy for the Special Minister of State to say that all he wants to do is look after the average member because we have been overpaid by so much a month. We all know that that can be dealt with administratively by later arrangements when the matter of pay is recalculated. As I said, the Government can either stand by its view or it cannot. The truth of the matter is that the Government is trying to slide out of what it understands to be somewhat of a hot issue. For the Government to say, on the one hand, that it is really maintaining its original position but, on the other, that it will not maintain that position because it is a little difficult, and because it wants to get the matter dealt with and it does not know how long the Senate will take to deal with it, is simply a smokescreen to enable it to slide out. Having said that, we welcome the Government's acceding, through the Special Minister of State, to the amendment and we commend it for its change of mind, if not for the reasons it has put forward for that change. Mr DONALD CAMERON(Moreton)(5.52) —I do not intend to speak for very long, but I observe that the Special Minister of State (Mr Young), who is at the table, always makes his speeches very quietly when he feels a sense of embarrassment. I can well understand why he has gone very quiet on this subject. I believe that politically the people of Australia would have expected us to recognise that the sundry list of people who were being included in the entitlement to travel overseas with an honour- able member should have been curtailed to a spouse. I do not disagree with the Minister's comment that in this day and age a de facto type of relationship is more accepted in the Australian community than it was in years gone by. But if we cast our minds back, we will remember that when overseas travel was first extended to members of parliament in the early 1970s it was done to enable us to improve our education by seeing what was on the other side of the world. The travel was for educational purposes only and it has retained that status. Since then, the right to take a spouse has been allowed and, personally, I have no objection to that, even though a lot of Australians would not understand how the involvement of a spouse could be of educational value. However, the Remuneration Tribunal has suggested that because of the long periods members of parliament spend away from their families this is a fair enough offsetting provision. On the other hand, where does one draw the line? I respectfully suggest that, while the Australian population may have a more gentle view about de facto relationships than it had in years gone by, it is still a million years away from accepting the right of members of parliament to take sundry persons overseas. That is just not on. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that his speech should have been even quieter than it was; the provision is even more embarrassing than that which was proposed originally. I commend the Government for at last agreeing to the alteration. Most Australians probably do not believe that members of parliament have allowed their salary increase of some $5,000 to be taken from them. As the Minister said, there is no argument in this place, and this is yet another occasion on which members of parliament have endeavoured to set an example to the community. I do not believe that we will get recognition or thanks for it from the community, but I mention the fact because it was referred to by the Minister and the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender). I hope that this will reinforce in the minds of the listening population at least that members of parliament are prepared to put their money where their mouths are. The Australian Government is telling people to tighten their belts and hold steady, and members of parliament are happily going along with that for the good of the country. I hope that others who say that members of parliament get this privilege and that benefit will have some understanding of the fact that this is an 80- or 90-hour a week job for back benchers and perhaps a 100-hour a week job for Ministers and senior members of the Opposition. Politicians are not really overpaid and a lot of dedication goes with this occupation. Dr KLUGMAN(Prospect)(5.55) —I cannot resist coming in on this debate although I had no intention of doing so. As my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Members' Interests have spoken, I must say that I am shocked by their utter hypocrisy on this issue. I have no strong views as to who should or should not be entitled to overseas trips, but the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Donald Cameron) talks about not extending the privilege and having some doubts about whether even spouses should have been included in the original declaration by the Remuneration Tribunal. I remind the Chamber that the honourable member's Liberal and National Party colleagues, as I understand it, sent an amendment from the Senate originally which in fact extended the proposition on overseas travel to include not only de factos but also anyone else whom a member might wish to nominate. This could be any other member of the family or anyone who satisfied the definition that applies to internal travel arrangements. At least there is some consistency in that approach. For the honourable member for Moreton now to claim that the Opposition supports the current amendment, which moves in the opposite direction and imposes restrictions, is utter hypocrisy. The Opposition supported an amendment in the Senate which extended the provisions for overseas travel. I disagree with the Special Minister of State (Mr Young) over the rejection of this; I think it should have been accepted, but that is my personal view. For the Opposition now to come forward and say it is terribly concerned about this expenditure and that it wants to restrict it when less than a month ago it was in favour of extending the privilege to a large number of other people is quite unbelievable. I do not know how Opposition members can get up and make that sort of speech. Mr DONALD CAMERON(Moreton)(5.57) —I did not suggest that spouses should not be allowed to travel. The honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) misunderstood me. I also point out that I have been entirely consistent in my view on this matter. Dr Klugman —Your Party has not. In the Senate it supported a different amendment extending it. Mr DONALD CAMERON —In this chamber honourable members have legislation before them which results from the Opposition's stand. We said no. I see no gain in continuing what was really intended to be only an explanation of my position. I did not seek to stir up the honourable member for Prospect. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Special Minister of State)(5.58) —I wish to wind up this debate and thank those who have participated. A couple of points should be made clear. It did not matter which amendment we accepted because there was no additional expenditure involved for the Government. The expenditure is fixed in terms of the air fares that are available to members of parliament. Whether a member has a nominee or whether he or she travels alone, the level of expenditure is fixed. One cannot get additional finance for travel, irrespective of the rules regarding nominees. It is true, and I wish to reiterate what the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) said, that a few weeks ago the Senate sent back an amendment which was put forward by the Liberal Party in the Senate and which extended the nominee provisions to those which applied for domestic travel. That meant that a member could have taken any member of his or her family-- Mr Spender —It does not mean that; you have to read it. Mr YOUNG —It does mean that. I am handling this matter and I know. If the same criterion is used for overseas travel as for domestic purposes, a member can nominate a person other than a spouse or a de facto spouse. People in this Parliament have them. I do not know whether Opposition members have discussed this matter in the Party room, but I find this rather remarkable. When the amendment came back here, the Remuneration Tribunal had not recommended any changes-the Tribunal had set the standards for both domestic and international travel-and the Government said: `We will adhere to what the Tribunal said on these questions'. Now the Opposition has withdrawn its amendment. It did not send back that amendment when we rejected it, but it has picked up Senator Harradine's amendment and supported that. Instead of opening it all up, as the Opposition wanted to do because it could not get its own amendment to send anybody, the Opposition now does not want to send anybody at all. We find now that the Opposition, as it always does on political questions as soon as a bit of heat is put on parliamentarians, is buckling. The Opposition does itself a grave injustice. This is a very stupid way in which to operate. The Tribunal obviously will have proposals before it next year to look at this question again. Mr SPENDER(North Sydney)(6.01) —I just want to clear up one matter. The Special Minister of State (Mr Young) said that he knows what is in the determination because he administers it. He does not know it, because if he looks at what was said-that was the position we supported, but on reconsideration we supported Senator Harradine's amendment, which confines it more-he will see that the internal travel entitlement is directed to members of the family. Let me read it into the record: For the purposes of this entitlement, ``nominee''- that is a person who may be nominated for travel purposes-- Mr Young —De factos. Mr SPENDER —No, it is not. It states: means: a parent; a son or daughter other than a dependent child as defined in paragraph 1.19; or a brother or sister of the senator or member, and may in special circumstances include- that is, as an additional person- one other person (except a member of the staff . . .) approved at the discretion of the Special Minister of State. So we are talking about two people travelling with a member, we are certainly not talking about de factos. We are talking about `and may in special circumstances include one other person'. The interjection from the Special Minister of State was `de factos'. He expected that the word `de facto' will be found there. Well, it is not, so he had better read it next time. Question resolved in the affirmative. Resolution reported; report adopted. Mr HOWARD(Bennelong-Leader of the Opposition) —I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Blanchard) —Is leave granted? Mr Young —I don't have to give leave; it is up to you. Mr HOWARD —I claim to have been misrepresented. Mr Hand —Impossible. Mr HOWARD —No, it is not. Not only is it not impossible-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for Melbourne is interjecting and he is out of his seat. Mr HOWARD —Since the conclusion of Question Time I have had an opportunity of perusing an answer given by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) in response to a question on the issue of tax avoidance. It contains what I can only describe as the most deliberately dishonest comments that I have heard from the Treasurer on the subject of tax avoidance, even in the heat of parliamentary debate, for a long time. In the course of that answer-- Mr McGauran —He has lied. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I ask the honourable member to withdraw that comment. Mr McGauran —I withdraw. Mr HOWARD —In the course of the answer the Treasurer quoted from a number of memoranda which had passed from the then Commissioner of Taxation, Mr O'Reilly, to me between 1978 and 1980. It was not surprising that the Treasurer was able to quote from those memoranda because all of them were tabled by me in 1982. The Treasurer then went on, and deliberately so to, make the completely dishonest, distorting comment that those memoranda related to the provisions of Part IVa of the Income Tax Assessment Act, when he full well knew that to be wrong. He knew full well that those memoranda related to the preparation of the Crimes (Taxation Offences) Act which finally passed into law in December 1980 and had the effect of declaring bottom of the harbour tax transactions a criminal offence. It was a deliberately dishonest misrepresentation for the Treasurer to say in his answer: Part IVa came from the outraged public debate; it never came from John Howard, any more than any other decent tax legislation came or ever would come from the coalition parties. The truth is that I instituted the preparation of what became Part IVa, when I became Treasurer in late 1977-early 1978, as a result of being advised by the Commissioner of Taxation that section 260 of the Income Tax Assessment Act was no longer effective. The record will show that, so far from my being harried by the Commissioner of Taxation to prepare Part IVa, the preparation of Part IVa assumed major priority as far as tax avoidance legislation was concerned during the time that I was Treasurer. So much so that the Commissioner of Taxation was able to say to me on 3 March 1983, two days before the defeat of the Fraser Government: In considering how I should respond to your request I should say at the outset that the evidence available to this office suggests that the introduction on 27 May 1981 of Part IVa, with effect from that day, effectively put a stop to the promotion of new tax avoidance schemes of a blatant, artificial or contrived nature. That is what the Commissioner of Taxation said to me two days before the defeat of the Fraser Government. So much for the integrity-- Mr Keating —Three years. Mr HOWARD —He puts up three fingers and says `three years'. He knows this dishonest misleader of this Parliament-that those memoranda had nothing whatever to do with Part IVa; they related to the law that came into force-- Mr Keating —You were dragged screaming. Mr HOWARD —He should not try to distort the situation. He has been nailed on this for misleading this Parliament. He has been dishonest to this Parliament; he has been deliberately and comprehensively dishonest to this Parliament and he has been exposed for the deceiver that he is on this issue. Mr Young —Mr Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order before the Leader of the Opposition has a stroke; he gets so upset about things. A personal explanation is one thing; a major debate is another. The Leader of the Opposition knows what the practices of the House are. If personal explanations are to become major debates, no other business will be done in the House. I suggest that this is not a personal explanation at all. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I accept the point. I would like the Leader of the Opposition to keep to his personal explanation. Mr HOWARD —Mr Deputy Speaker, I am aware of that. I will simply make the point again, because I was interrupted by the Special Minister of State. Everything that the Treasurer said in answer to the question asked in the House today was represented by him as relating to the preparation of Part IVa, which is the general anti-avoidance section of the Income Tax Assessment Act, which the former Commissioner of Taxation said had been effective and which the present Minister for Trade (Mr Dawkins) acknowledged had been effective when he said that tax avoidance was dead a few months after the Hawke Government came to power. Where the Treasurer has misrepresented-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! Mr HOWARD —I am just saying where he misrepresented me. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I have been very tolerant with the Leader of the Opposition. Mr HOWARD —Mr Deputy Speaker, you have been very tolerant. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The Leader of the Opposition has explained where he felt he was misrepresented. This is not a debate. Mr HOWARD —Mr Deputy Speaker, I will repeat what the Treasurer said as I now have a copy of his answer. He said: Part IVa came from the outraged public debate; it never came from John Howard, any more than any other decent tax legislation . . . That is dishonest. It is comprehensively wrong. It is a deliberate deception of this Parliament by the Treasurer. He knows that it is a lie and he knows that it is a deliberate deception of this Parliament. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I would like the honourable member to withdraw that remark. Mr HOWARD —Mr Deputy Speaker, I will withdraw in deference to your infinitely courteous self. I will withdraw that claim under pain. I accept the rules relating to it. I withdraw it. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member has been in this House long enough to know that he must withdraw it. Mr HOWARD —I withdraw that particular comment, but I do not withdraw the claim that the Treasurer deliberately misled this House when he claimed that the memoranda that he quoted from in the Parliament this afternoon related to Part IVa. They did not relate to Part IVa; they related to the Crimes (Taxation Offences) Act that was passed into law in 1980. Part IVa was initiated by me several years earlier and became law in 1981 as a result of my having given it complete legislative priority in the fight against tax avoidance. In the words of the former Commissioner of Taxation, it had been totally effective in stopping artificial tax avoidance schemes prior to the defeat of the Fraser Government in March 1983. Mr KEATING(Blaxland-Treasurer) —I rise because I have been similarly misrepresented. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I call the Treasurer. Do you seek leave to make a personal statement? Mr KEATING —Mr Deputy Speaker, the point is that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) has been stung by the things I said at Question Time and had to scurry into the House to defend himself. Mr Tuckey —Mr Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order. The first thing I ask is that the Treasurer go through the proper procedures for making a personal explanation. He has been here long enough to know the forms. Mr KEATING —Tell him. He does not know the forms. Mr Tuckey —The Treasurer should start off by asking whether he can make a personal explanation. Make him do it. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member will resume his seat. If I understood rightly, the Treasurer had sought leave of the Chair and I granted him permission to make a personal explanation. Mr KEATING —Mr Deputy Speaker, I did seek leave and you have given me the authority to make a personal explanation. The point I was making at Question Time is that the whole basis of the former Treasurer's tax credibility is in tatters because of the O'Reilly letters. What they make clear is that the whole thrust-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I ask the Treasurer to keep to the point. Mr KEATING —The whole thrust of the anti-avoidance legislation, of the Crimes (Taxation Offences) amendments and Part IVa, was driven on the former Treasurer by the Commissioner of Taxation and the public debate. There would have been no tax changes whatsoever if it were left to him-none. That was made clear. These letters are the most damning indictment of any Treasurer in the Western world. Mr Howard —Mr Deputy Speaker, I take the point of order that at no stage in his personal explanation has the Treasurer drawn attention to where I misrepresented him. He has been caught out on this. He has been caught out misleading the Parliament on this. Mr KEATING —You have been stung. You have been up criticising the Government's tax changes and you have a rotten, filthy record on tax, and you are ashamed of it. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The Treasurer will resume his seat. Mr KEATING —You are ashamed of it and that is why you are back in the House, as you are every day. Mr Tuckey —Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: If the Treasurer wants to move for the suspension of Standing Orders, he can carry on with this matter and we will accommodate him. Let us have it now. Mr Howard —If you can deliver the Prime Minister in a debate I will then have a debate with you. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for O'Connor will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. Before I call the Treasurer, I ask him to keep to his point of explanation and not engage in debate. Mr KEATING —Mr Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition was given great latitude by you in this exercise. I want to make it clear that never a Question Time goes by that he does not make a personal explanation. The point is that the O'Reilly letters exposed his tax credibility. It is clear-- Mr Sinclair —Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: As you would know, the basis for making a personal explanation in this chamber is that an honourable member has to show where he has been misrepresented. The Treasurer has not shown where he has been misrepresented and there is no basis on which he can engage in a debate. If he wishes to suspend Standing Orders, he can do so. He cannot engage in a debate on this basis. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I ask the right honourable gentleman to resume his seat. Again, I ask the Treasurer to stick carefully to his personal explanation. Mr KEATING —I make it quite clear that all the references to which I referred in Question Time dragged down the credibility of the former Treasurer on tax reform and that the whole thrust- Mr Tuckey —Mr Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order. Mr KEATING —Are you afraid of a bit of argument? Mr Tuckey —No, we want to argue. You suspend Standing Orders and we will argue with you. Mr Deputy Speaker, on the point of order: The Treasurer is still not responding to a personal explanation. If he wants to suspend Standing Orders, he is entitled to do that and we will talk about Warren Anderson, your mate, and his $11m that you got cut down to a $4m tax burden. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! That is no point of order. Mr Uren —Mr Deputy Speaker, further to the point of order- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Before the Minister raises a point of order, I ask honourable members on my left to restrain themselves. It is very difficult for the Chair to listen to these points of order if a lot of noise is coming from the other side of the chamber. Mr Uren —Mr Deputy Speaker, further to the point of order: When the Leader of the Opposition was making a personal explanation you gave him a great deal of latitude and you recognised that aspect. We on this side of the House listened in silence to the Leader of the Opposition. Because of the heckling that has been going on in regard to the Treasurer's personal explanation, I am asking whether the Chair will give the same latitude as you gave to the Leader of the Opposition, because the Leader of the Opposition broadened the question a great deal. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I do not accept that as a point of order. I call the Treasurer. Mr KEATING —Let me state where I have been misrepresented by the former Treasurer. The evidence which I submitted to this Parliament again today, which is very interesting reading in retrospect from an Opposition critical of this Government's tax changes, is that the whole impetus to tax change in respect of tax avoidance by way of the Crimes (Taxation Offences) amendment legislation, where Commissioner O'Reilly is crying for criminal sanctions and Part IVa, is nothing more than the reflection of the sham and neglect of three years of administration for which the Leader of the Opposition is now stung and guilty. Mr Howard —Mr Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order. I understand that in these things one actually has to nominate a remark that has been made by somebody in order to justify a personal explanation. In my personal explanation I nominated the deliberately dishonest claim by the Treasurer that Part IVa came from an outraged public. At no stage has the Treasurer endeavoured to pay the Parliament an equivalent courtesy. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. Mr KEATING —Mr Deputy Speaker, I have stung him and I know it. I am glad that he is back. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Leader of the House) —Mr Deputy Speaker-- Mr Tuckey —Don't make a joke, Mick, this is serious. Mr YOUNG —He will be back at Question Time tomorrow, Wilson. You can then ask him a few questions. I think it is time that the children all went to dinner. I move: That the House do now adjourn. Question resolved in the affirmative. House adjourned at 6.19 p.m. The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 14 October 1986: Australian Federal Police Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1986, No. 289. Defence Act-Determinations-1986- No. 58-District Allowance. No. 59-Travelling Allowance and other allowances. No. 60-Child Allowance, Education Assistance Overseas and Child Education Allowance. No. 61-Temporary Rental Allowance. No. 62-Overseas Rental and Utilities Allowances and other allowances. No. 63-Overseas Rental and Utilities Allowance and Complementary Allowances Payable to Member Serving on Duty Overseas. Interstate Road Transport Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1986, No. 291. Interstate Road Transport Charge Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1986, No. 292. Live-stock Export Charge Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1986, No. 288. Live-stock Slaughter Levy Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1986, No. 287. Seat of Government (Administration) Act- National Memorials Ordinance-Determination pursuant to sub-section 7 (2), dated 10 October 1986. Ordinance-1986- No. 57-Crimes (Amendment) (No. 4). No. 58-Motor Traffic (Amendment) (No. 4). No. 59-Standard Time and Summer Time (Amendment) (No. 2). No. 60-Canberra Retail Markets (Amend- ment). No. 61-Milk Authority (Amendment) (No. 2). No. 62-Advisory Council. Regulations-1986- No. 22-(Long Service Leave (Building and Construction Industry) Ordinance). No. 23-(Motor Traffic Ordinance). Social Security Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1986, No. 293-. The following answers to questions were circulated: (Question No. 3350) Mr Donald Cameron asked the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice, on 13 March 1986: Further to the answer to questions Nos 3216 and 3243 what: (a) was the stated purpose of each overseas trip made by employees of the Minister's Department and of all statutory authorities that report to the Minister in 1984-85 (b) was the classification or job description of each officer making each trip (c) was the duration of each trip (d) were the countries visited during each trip and (e) was the cost of each trip, with the air fare component identified separately. Mr Hurford —The answer to the honourable member's question is as appears in the following schedule: DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION & ETHNIC AFFAIRS, OVERSEAS VISITS 1984-85 FINANCIAL YEAR Designation and classification Purpose of visit Duration of visit Countries visited Fares Travelling allowance Other* Total $ $ $ $ Deputy Secretary Attend Council Meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration in Geneva 5 days Switzerland 4,472.00 1,281.68 290.99 6,044.67 Assistant Secretary To attend second International Conference on Assistance to Refugees in Africa (ICARA II) in Geneva. To visit Africa prior to conference to assess refugee situations, review the application of refugee and SHP selection and policy in this field, review progress with the African program, liaise with appropriate local authorities 15 days Zimbabwe, Kenya, The Sudan, Switzerland, Singapore 6,368.00 1,701.39 30.00 8,099.39 First Assistant Secretary Attend the Fourth United Nations International Conference on Population (ICP) and discuss review procedure issues with DIEA overseas posts 32 days Canada, Mexico, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong 5,834.00 (with contribution of 3,826.00 from Department of Foreign Affairs) 3,134.69 (with contribution of 1,173.99 from Department of Foreign Affairs) 30.00 8,998.69 Cl Admin 11 To visit research and Government agencies dealing with population matters. Visits related to policy, research and promotion of awareness on population issues 25 days Mexico, USA 4,572.40 (with contribution of 3,826.00 from Department of Foreign Affairs) 2,552.76 (with contribution of 1,125.96 from Department of Foreign Affairs) 30.00 7,155.16 Assistant Secretary To attend 20th biennial conference of the International Bar Association at Vienna and to take part in committee on Administrative Law and Immigration and Nationality laws 14 days Austria, Singapore 5,557.00 1,586.52 30.00 7,173.52 Designation and classification Purpose of visit Duration of visit Countries visited Fares Travelling allowance Other* Total $ $ $ $ First Assistant Secretary To investigate immigration, and refugee, policy issues with Australian missions and where appropriate host country officials and representatives of other governments and international organisations, to examine immigration program operation and assess developments in refugee and humanitarian situations 30 days Singapore, Thailand, Switzerland, Italy France, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Vietnam $8,442.00 (with contribution of $7,104.00 from Department of Foreign Affairs) $4,541.24 (with contribution of $2,566,16 from Department of Foreign Affairs) 30.00 13,013.24 Cl Admin 9 To visit key refugee posts for purposes of refugee policy discussions, program examination and assessment of current refugee and humanitarian situations 33 days Thailand, Laos, Syria, Iraq, Singapore, Indonesia, Switzerland, France, Jordan *$4,326.00 (with contribution of $3,326 from Department of Foreign Affairs) $3,784.32 (with contribution of $1,679,57 from Department of Foreign Affairs) 30.00 8,140.32 Cl Admin 11 DIEA/Public Service Board Inspection 54 days Austria, West Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, U.K., Singapore 4,709.00 8,434.01 150.00 13,293.01 First Assistant Secretary (accompanied by spouse) Post liaison visit 30 days U.K. Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta 11,916.00 5,222.31 48.00 17,186.31 Cl Admin 11 Post liaison visit 30 days U.K. Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta 5,671.00 4,686.00 278.00 10,635.00 Cl Admin 11 Investigation of allegations of suspected staff malpractice and discuss matters of mutual interest to Immigration and law enforcement authorities 27 days Thailand, Malaysia, India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Indonesia 3,172.00 4,000.00 48.00 7,220.00 Cl Admin 9 Joint DIEA/Public Service Board inspections 40 days Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma 3,557.00 3,190.81 290.00 7,037.81 Cl Admin 11 Attend refugee law courses in Italy conducted by UNHCR. Discussion with officers at DIEA posts on refugee policy management 28 days Thailand, Italy, Yugoslavia, Austria, Singapore 4,614.00 3,128,11 140.00 7,882.11 Cl Admin 11 Conduct investigations into the issue of fraudulent visas in Manila/Hong Kong 14 days Philippines, Hong Kong 2,923.00 1,818.44 30.00 4,771.44 First Assistant Secretary Attend international meeting on immigration entry control, in Canada and subsequent examination of entry control technology used by authorities in U.S.A., U.K. and Hong Kong 22 days Canada, U.S.A., U.K., Hong Kong 6,111.00 2,807.13 260.00 9,178.13 Cl Admin 10 Internal audit reviews of DIEA activities 33 days South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Greece, Singapore, Malaysia 4,861.00 4,135.34 30.00 9,026.34 Deputy Secretary To chair regional conference in Washington, Paris and Hong Kong. The conferences were attended by DIEA officers in the region. Visit various offices for consultation on portfolio matters 25 days U.S.A., Canada, France, Poland, India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong 6,823.00 4,942.94 150.00 11,915.94 Assistant Secretary To assist Deputy Secretary at Regional Conferences and consultations in Washington, Paris and Hong Kong 25 days U.S.A., Canada, France, Poland, India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong 6,823.00 4,280.27 260.00 11,363.27 Designation and classification Purpose of visit Duration of visit Countries visited Fares Travelling allowance Other* Total $ $ $ $ Secretary (accompanied by spouse) Accompany Minister 25 days USA UK Italy Greece Thailand Malaysia Vietnam 14522.00 11585.15 60.00 26167.15 C1 Admin 9 Accompany Minister 22 days Thailand Malaysia Vietnam 4020.00 3636.00 260.00 7916.00 C1 Admin 9 Joint DIEA/Public Service Board post inspection. 55 days Greece Malta Italy Algeria Spain Portugal Singapore 4591.00 7321.21 30.00 11942.21 Assistant Secretary To conduct a review and evaluation of Programs overseas with similarities to Australia's Adult Migrant Education Program 31 days USA, Canada UK, Sweden Switzerland West Germany Thailand 7422.00 5080.00 278.00 12780.00 C1 Admin 9 Training of Immigration staff in the detection of forged and counterfeit travel documents presented at overseas posts. Study and collection of specimen passports and security devices used in the issuing of passports within the host countries. Liaison with counterparts in host country's immigration forgery sections 28 days Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand Malaysia, Singapore Indonesia 2753.00 3788.09 30.00 6571.09 Deputy Director Level 3 Evaluate policies and research findings from studies recently completed in UK and USA on ethnic aged. 18 days UK, USA 3,999.00 3,463.82 814.54 8,277.36 Senior Research Fellow Gather ideas, and information on research activities of interest. Publicise research findings from recent AIMA studies Establish contacts with relevant institutions for future exchange of research information. 45 days USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands 4,435.00 6,683.82 2021.00 13,139.82 * Includes costs for insurance cover, equipment allowance, and official expenditure not covered by travel allowance. (Question No. 2299) Mr Blunt asked the Attorney-General, upon notice, on 12 November 1985: 1. What was the expenditure by the Minister's Department and authorities under the Minister's control on public relations in (a) 1983-84 and (b) 1984-85. 2. What was the nature or subject of the public relations expenditure. 3. Was outside assistance obtained for public relations, if so, (a) who provided the assistance, (b) what payments were made and (c) why was the assistance sought. Mr Lionel Bowen —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: 1. Expenditure in this area embraces both public information and public relations activities. It is not possible to make a clear distinction between the two. Total expenditure and information on public relations was: (a) 1983/84...$ Attorney-General's Department...162,274 Family Court of Australia...37,800 Human Rights Commission...299,511 (b) 1984/85...$ Attorney-General's Department...175,514 Family Court of Australia...39,600 Human Rights Commission...1,000,489 2. The following information is provided in relation to public information/public relations activities. Attorney-General's Department The Information and Public Relations Section of the Department deals with all press and public inquiries directed to the Department, maintains liaison with the media, provides press secretary services to the Attorney-General, prepares the Department's Annual Report and performs other public relations activities when necessary. The Section supports two journalists and two clerical positions. Family Court of Australia The expenditure relates to the employment of an Information/Media Liaison Officer from 4.10.83 to 21.3.85 and includes associated administrative costs. Human Rights Commission The Human Rights Commission is required, under its Act, to engage in promotional activities to bring about public awareness of human rights and to promote public discussion of human rights issues. In 1983/84, the Commission's information budget of $239,688 covered items such as publications, the production of an educational film, display materials and implementation of the first stage of its education program. The balance of $59,823 represents expenditure on salary and administration expenses. In 1984/85 the information budget increased to $936,788, $460,000 of which was spent on the information program associated with the proclamation of the Sex Discrimination Act. Other items in the vote included the first full trial of the Commission's Teaching for Human Rights education program, an increased number of publications, extended community education work and the upgrading of the Commission's library. The balance of $63,711 represents expenditure on salary and administrative expenses. 3. Outside assistance was obtained for the following public information/public relations exercise. Human Rights Commission (a) Monahan Dayman Adams (b) $175,000 (c) The firm Monahan Dayman Adams was engaged to undertake promotional work in respect of the Sex Discrimination Act. The firm was selected by the Information Sub-committee of Cabinet on the recommendation of the Interdepartmental Committee which examined proposals submitted by six leading advertising companies. The company was paid $175,000 for the creative work, the printing and distribution of booklets and display placement costs. The cost of advertisements in metropolitan, provincial, country and ethnic newspapers was $283,000 and was paid through Doyle Dane and Bernback by arrangement with the Australian Government Advertising Service. The assistance was sought outside agencies because the expertise and capacity required to mount an advertising program of this kind were not available within the Public Service. (Question No. 3133) Mr Scott asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 11 February 1986: (1) Does article XII of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Statute, as amended to June 1973, require the IAEA to carry out inspections on specialised equipment and facilities, including nuclear reactors to ensure that they (a) will not further any military purpose, (b) comply with applicable health and safety standards and (c) will provide effective safeguards as laid down in the statute. (2) Is he able to say how many inspectors have been employed by the IAEA in each year since June 1973. (3) Is he also able to say (a) what the qualifications are of the inspectors, (b) what general qualifications are required by the IAEA for inspectors, (c) from what countries the inspectors are recruited by the IAEA, (d) how many inspections have been carried out by the IAEA since its formation, (e) in what countries the inspections were carried out, (f) at what locations the inspections were carried out, (g) what type of equipment was inspected, (h) whether any of the inspections were carried out at military installations and (j) whether any of the equipment was (i) of a military nature or (ii) fulfilling a military purpose. (4) Are the findings and subsequent reports of these inspections available to the signatory member countries of the IAEA. (5) If the findings are available will he supply the details of all the inspections and subsequent findings and report to the Parliament; if not, why not. (6) What amounts have been paid by Australian Governments to the IAEA in each year since the Statute Approval Conference on 23 October 1956. (7) What percentage of its annual budget does the IAEA spend on inspection staff by way of salaries, wages, travel and other related expenses and all other expenses incurred by inspectors during the course of employment with the IAEA. (8) Is he able to say whether inspections have been or will be carried out at the Kerr McGee nuclear fuel plant in Oklahoma, USA, where, according to reports in The Australian and The Advertiser of 6 January 1986, an accident occurred in which a worker was killed and a number of other workers were injured. (9) Will he secure the fullest possible information on all aspects of this accident and furnish the Parliament with the details of any Australian uranium involved. Mr Hayden —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Article XII of the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency is a constitutional provision, entitled ``Agency Safeguards'', which records in paragraph A the agreement of Parties to the Statute that if there should be an ``Agency project'' or ``other arrangement where the Agency is requested by the party concerned to apply safeguards'' then the Agency shall be entitled to exercise certain rights and responsibilities to the extent relevant to the ``project or arrangement''. Paragraph A of the Article is in effect a charter of possibilities rather than a binding directive to the Agency; in practice, the extent to which rights and responsibilities are exercised depends on agreements negotiated between the Agency and the State or States concerned and concluded between them after approval by the Board of Governors of the Agency. Among the rights and responsibilities which the Agency may thus agree to exercise is, according to sub-paragraph A.1 of the Article: ``To examine the design of specialized equipment and facilities, including nuclear reactors, and to approve it only from the view-point of assuring that it will not further any military purpose, that it complies with applicable health and safety standards, and that it will permit effective application of the safeguards provided for in this article;'' Agency projects for the purposes of Article XII, are those for which individual bilateral agreements between the Agency and the Member State are approved by the Board of Governors. The agreements might cover supply by or through the Agency of materials, services, equipment and facilities to the Member State. Not all Agency projects involve significant non-proliferation or health and safety risks; they might not involve, for example, source or special fissionable material, in which case safeguards inspections would not be required to be provided for in the relevant agreement. In short, Article XII in its application to Agency projects does not require the Agency to carry out inspections, whether of specialised equipment, facilities including nuclear reactors, nuclear material or other material, but is the Agency's constitutional authority for agreeing to do so in appropriate cases. There is only a small number of ``Agency projects'' within the meaning of that term in Article XII. The great bulk of safeguards activities carried out by the Agency are done in relation to ``other arrangement(s) whereby the Agency is requested by the party concerned to apply safeguards'', as envisaged by Article XII.A of the Statute. There is such an arrangement between the Agency and the States which are parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT); for this Treaty the Board of Governors approved a safeguards approach, the provisions of which are spelled out in detail in Agency document INFCIRC/153, which the Agency applies for the purposes of the NPT under individual safeguards agreements which the non-nuclear-weapon States are required under the Treaty to conclude with the IAEA. The rights and responsibilities of the Agency in applying such safeguards flow directly from the individual agreements and not from Article XII as such. Similarly the Agency's rights and responsibilities for safeguards activities in nuclear-weapon States, and in States which are not party to the NPT, flow from individual safeguards agreements between the Agency and the respective States rather than directly from Article XII of the Statute. For nuclear-weapon States, the safeguards approach in the agreements is similar to that used in agreements required in connection with the NPT for non-nuclear-weapon States. For other States the approach is that in the Agency's safeguards system based on the Agency document, approved by the Board of Governors, known as INFCIRC/66/Rev.2. (2) The numbers of inspectors employed by the IAEA on an annual basis are as follows: Inspectors Inspections Assistants 1985 169 88 1984 166 86 1983 149 69 1982 138 47 1981 132 43 1980 118 36 1979 92 - 1978 79 - 1977 52 - 1976 54 - 1975 46 - 1974 40 - 1973 36 - (3) (a) The qualifications of the current staff of the Inspectorate are in accordance with the requirements outlined in the response to (3) (b). (3) (b) The qualifications required by the IAEA for inspectors as stated in recent vacancy notices for inspectors recruited at the base grade are as follows: Essential: University degree or equivalent with emphasis in a nuclear discipline. At least 6 years of relevant experience in the nuclear field, preferably in plant operations. Desirable: National or international safeguards experience. Knowledge of EDP. Languages: Fluency in English, French, Russian or Spanish essential; Arabic or Japanese desirable. A higher level of qualifications, including a greater length of experience in the nuclear field and an ``essential'' (as opposed to ``desirable'') record of experience with national or international safeguards, is required for appointment above the base grade. Agency inspectors are chosen for their competence and personal integrity; appointments also take into account the principle of equitable geographical representation. Appointments are approved by the Agency's Board of Governors. (3) (c) As at 3 March 1986, the nationalities of staff of the Inspectorate were: Australia 2, Austria 2, South Africa 1, Bangladesh 4, Bulgaria 1, Belgium 3, Bolivia 2, Brazil 2, Chile 2, Zaire 1, Canada 3, Czechoslovakia 3, German Democratic Republic 2, Federal Republic of Germany 6, Ethiopia 1, Spain 7, Egypt 5, France 8, Ghana 1, Greece 3, Guatemala 1, Hungary 2, India 1, Iraq 1, Iran 3, Italy 8, Yugoslavia 3, Japan 10, Democratic People's Republic of Korea 1, Republic of Korea 2, Mali 1, Mexico 2, Nigeria 1, Netherlands 2, Venezuela 1, Philippines 2, Pakistan 1, Poland 3, Portugal 3, United Kingdom 5, Lebanon 2, Romania 1, Zambia 1, Finland 4, Sweden 3, Thailand 4, Tunisia 1, Turkey 4, USA 23, Ukrainian SSR 2, USSR 6. (3) (d) Although the IAEA commenced operations in 1957, its Safeguards Department records have been computerised only in recent years and its records data-base extends back only for approximately six years. Information provided below relates to this period. At some plants, such as bulk handling facilities, inspection is carried out on an almost continuous basis, with reports generally issued monthly. The most precisely definable response to this part of the Honourable Member's question is, therefore, the number of inspection reports processed by the IAEA in a given year. For the period 1980-85 this information is as follows: 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 (to Nov.) 1100 1400 1642 1315 1560 1957 Man-days devoted to inspection activities (with a ``man-day'' defined as a day during which a single inspector has access to a facility at any time for a total of not more than eight hours), have amounted to: 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 4170 4230 6242 6673 6609 7682 (3) (e) and (f) This information may be found in the IAEA's Annual Reports which list, according to facility type, country and location, all facilities under Agency safeguards or containing safeguarded material. Copies of the IAEA's Annual Reports would be available through the Parliamentary Library. (3) (g) Safeguards activities of the Agency under safeguards agreements in connection with the NPT (that is those based on INFCIRC/153) are directed at accounting for nuclear material, given that non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the NPT have accepted an international legally-binding commitment to place under safeguards all source and special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within their territory, under their jurisdiction or carried out under their control anywhere. There is no need for inspections under these agreements to be concerned with equipment except: (i) by way of verifying that such material is not directed to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive purposes; (ii) for verifying design information concerning facilities relevant to establishing the safeguardability of the facilities and safeguards measures to be applied at them. The position regarding equipment is the same under agreements between the Agency and nuclear-weapon States. Under agreements based on INFCIRC/66/Rev. 2 (see 1, above), equipment as such may be made subject to safeguards. Whether equipment is safeguarded, and the type of equipment, can vary from agreement to agreement. Equipment made subject to safeguards in a number of agreements is equipment specially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of nuclear material. Equipment associated with processing, use or production of other material, such as heavy water, has been made subject to safeguards in some agreements. (3) (h) Inspections carried out by the Agency are concerned with nuclear material, and/or facilities, equipment and material in peaceful nuclear activities. In some nuclear-weapon States, inspections relating to nuclear material at times take place at ``dual-use'' facilities which use or process nuclear material both for civil and for military uses, but only when or where such facilities are in use in the peaceful nuclear fuel cycle. (3) (j) See (3) (g) above. (4) and (5) No, except to the State which has agreed to the safeguards being applied. If there were a report by an inspector that a State had not complied with its safeguards undertakings, the IAEA Director-General would be required to transmit it to the Board of Governors of the Agency. The Agency reports annually to its Board of Governors on its safeguards implementation activities and the conclusions drawn therefrom. Its findings in this regard are published in the Annual Report of the IAEA. As noted earlier, these reports would be available through the Parliamentary Library. (6) Information on Australian Government contributions to the IAEA is most appropriately provided under five separate headings: (a) Contributions to the Regular Budget which operates on a calendar year basis, (shown in $A from 1966) 1986 2,041,500 1970 164,225 1985 2,586,453 1969 155,942 1984 1,092,099 1968 217,092 1983 1,450,500 1967 49,107 1982 1,369,398 1966 117,209 1981 1,208,900 1965 Pnds 58,114 1980 1,034,925 1964 Pnds 59,101 1979 823,600 1963 Pnds 48,139 1978 606,347 1962 Pnds 51,338 1977 466,800 1961 Pnds 53,791 1976 362,499 1960 Pnds 50,000 1975 258,678 1959 Pnds 44,973 1974 212,561 1958 Pnds 38,967 1973 170,536 1972 189,558 1971 177,143 (b) Contributions to the Technical Assistance and Cooperation Fund (TACF) (shown in $US which for most years in the period has been the currency in which pledging has been conducted).) 1986...465,000 1985...402,977 1984...351,887 1983...351,500 1982...296,000 1981...240,532 1980...173,250 1979...140,250 1978...122,250 1977...84,967 1976...75,136 1975...67,050 1974...46,300 1973...46,300 1972...30,000 1971...30,000 1970...28,400 1969...28,400 1968...23,352 1967...20,000 1966...20,000 1965...20,000 1964...20,000 1963...20,000 1962...20,000 1961...20,000 1960...12,500 1959...10,000 (c) In addition Australia funded from 1980/81 to 1985/86 a bilateral programme of support for IAEA safeguards, in accordance with the following table. Most of these funds have been expended within Australia, but a portion has been paid directly to the IAEA. Bilaterial Australian Assistance Program to IAEA Safeguards (shown in $A) 1985/86...212982 1984/85...260000 1983/84...259971 1982/83...201710 1981/82...143513 1980/81...162000 (d) Contributions to some projects under the Regional Cooperative Agreement for Research, Development and Training Related to Nuclear Science and Technology for Asian and Pacific Region (RCA) have been paid directly to the IAEA, as follows. (shown in $A) 1986...121,764 1985...74,450 1984...- 1983...60,000 1982...60,000 1981...100,000 1980...100,000 1979...80,000 1978...100,000 (e) Contributions in 1986 for a Regional Training Course on Implementation of State Systems of Accounting for and Control of Nuclear Materials, conducted in Darwin and Sydney in June 1986, amounted to $129,250. (7) Within the IAEA the Department of Safeguards has primary responsibility for the administration and operation of inspection activities. The Agency expects in 1986 to spend 34% of its Regular Budget on the Department of Safeguards. Salaries for Established Posts (including salaries and wages for inspectors) account for 43.5% of the Department of Safeguards allocation and 14.*% of the Regular Budget. Expenditure on travel for the Safeguards Department (including travel expenses for inspectors) comprises 11.3% of the Departmental budget and 3.8% of the Agency's Regular Budget. Additional and related expenses associated with the Agency's safeguards and inspection activities include provision for support staff, Laboratory analysis of samples collected by inspectors, communications and data handling, equipment, research and development, supplies, training, conferences and symposia. Further details on the Agency's expenditure in these areas can be found in the annual IAEA Budget Reports which would be available through the Parliamentary Library. (8) Under the safeguards arrangements which the United States has with the IAEA, Sequoyah Fuels Corporation (formerly Ker-McGee) is one of the plants on the list of eligible facilities to which the IAEA may choose to apply safeguards. This is in line with the provisions of voluntary offer safeguards agreements which some nuclear weapon States have with the IAEA, whereby safeguards are applied only to certain facilities at any one time. The Sequoyah plant has not to date been included in any of the tables contained in IAEA Annual Reports listing facilities under Agency safeguards, or containing safeguarded material. Information about the schedule of future inspections is confidential to a limited number of staff in the IAEA and is not publicly available. (9) Comprehensive reports concerning the details of the accident can be found in two documents published by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission: (a) NUREG-1179: Rupture of Model 484 UF6 cylinder and Release of Uranium Hexafluoride. (b) NUREG-1189: Assessment of Public Health Impact from the Accidental Release of UF6 at the Sequoyah Fuels Corporation Facility at Gore, Oklahoma (2 volumes). No Australian uranium was involved in the accident. (Question No. 3544) Mr Peacock asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 20 March 1986: (1) Is he able to say whether since 1979, Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang have become fully fledged USSR operations centres for the Soviet Pacific Fleet. (2) Is he also able to say whether the acquisition of these bases has expanded the Soviet Union's operational naval reach by 2,000 nautical miles. (3) What (a) number and (b) type of Soviet vessels visited Cam Ranh Bay in (i) 1982, (ii) 1983, (iii) 1984 and (iv) 1985. Mr Hayden —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Cam Ranh Bay is now an important support base for Soviet naval forces in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Da Nang is not used by the Soviet Pacific Fleet. (2) Cam Ranh Bay has reduced the response time needed for Soviet forces to deploy to South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean. Formerly the nearest Soviet base was in Vladivostok. The distance saving is about 2,400 nautical miles. (3) Much information on the exact nature of Soviet naval deployments to Cam Ranh Bay is classified. However, the average number of ships in the Soviet North China Sea force was as follows: (i) 1982-10 ships (ii) 1983-10 ships (iii) 1984-22-28 ships (reflecting a drawback of forces from the Indian Ocean) (iv) 1985-25-30 ships (Question No. 4271) Mr Coleman asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 4 June 1986: (1) Is he able to say whether the Philippine trade union organisation known as Kilusang Mayo Uno (May the First Movement) is an integral part of the National Democratic Front. (2) Is he able to say whether the National Democratic Front is the main united front arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines/New Peoples Army and is controlled through its Commission for Mass Organisations. (3) Is the Minister able to say whether Australian support for Kilusang Mayo Uno has been channelled through the Melbourned based Australia-Asia Worker Links organisation which has affiliation with the Administrative and Clerical Officers' Association, the Amalgamated Metals, Foundry and Shipwrights' Union, the Association of Draughting, Supervisory and Technical Employees, the Australian Bank Employees' Union, the Australian Meat Industry Employees' Union, the Australian Railways Union, the Australian Social Welfare Union, the Australian Telecommunications Employees' Association, the Australian Tramways and Omnibus Employees' Association, the Builders Labourers' Federation, the Cold Storage and Meat Preserving Union of Australia, the Clothing and Allied Trades Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the Food Preservers' Union, the Liquor Trades and Allied Employees Union, the Miscellaneous Workers Union, the Operative Painters and Decorators' Union, the Pastrycooks Bakers Biscuit Makers and Allied Trades Union, the Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees' Union, the Printing and Kindred Industries Union, the Vehicle Builders Employees' Federation and the Waterside Workers Federation. (4) Is he able to say whether the Australia-Asia Worker Links organisation receives any funding from (a) the Asia Partnership for Human Development, (b) the Australian Council of Churches and (c) Community Aid Abroad; if so, how much in each case. (5) Is he able to say what is the relationship between Asia Partnership for Human Development and the Australian Catholic Relief. (6) Is he able to say whether the Australian Catholic Relief provides any funding for the Asia Partnership for Human Development; if so, how much. (7) Is he able to say what level of Australian Government financial assistance is provided to (a) Australian Catholic Relief (b) the Australian Council of Churches and (c) Community Aid Abroad and whether the Government has any control over the manner in which these funds are expended. Mr Hayden —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) The Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) is a legal trade union grouping. The National Democratic Front (NDF), on the other hand, is an illegal organisation. There have been allegations that the KMU is linked to the NDF. These allegations have been denied by the KMU. (2) A Philippine Government publication of 11 May 1985 identified the National Democratic Front (NDF) as the ``operating arm'' of the United Front Commission (UFC) of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). (3) No. (4) No government aid funds have been provided to the Australia-Asia Worker Links organisation by: (a) the Asia Partnership for Human Development, (b) the Australian Council of Churches, or (c) Community Aid Abroad. I am unable to say whether these three organisations have contributed other non-government sourced funds to the Australia-Asia Worker Links organisation. Where funding does not involve the expenditure of government funds, the Government does not normally become involved in financial or other dealings between non-government organisations (NGOs). (5) The Asia Partnership for Human Development (APHD) is the major channel for Australian Catholic Relief's (ACR's) assistance in Asia. APHD is a consortium of 21 official Catholic Development Agencies, 14 from Asia and 7 from elsewhere-which pool their resources. A committee of representatives from all the agencies, including ACR, decides on the use of these funds. The funds are allocated on a needs basis, irrespecitve of religion or culture. Until 1985, the APHD Secretariat was attached to ACR but is now located in Hong Kong. (6) ACR provides funds to APHD. It is understood that in 1985 some $1 million was allocated from ACR to APHD. Government aid funds comprised $86,000 of this amount. These funds were provided by the Australian Government in the form of subsidies for seven projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and India, as well as a project in Taiwan to provide vocational training to young workers from poor socio-economic and tribal backgrounds. These APHD projects are rigorously assessed by the ADAB/NGO Committee for Development Co-operation. (7) In 1985-86, the Australian Government provided the following total amounts for world wide activities under the Australian Development Assistance Bureau's (ADAB) Project Subsidy Scheme and Bilateral/NGO Program: (a) Australian Catholic Relief: $448,000 (b) Australian Council of Churches: $450,000 (c) Community Aid Abroad: $733,550 Proposals for Government funding of NGO programs are carefully considered by the ADAB-NGO Committee for Development Co-operation to ensure that the programs comply with guidelines which emphasise developmental criteria to assist the neediest sections of recipient communities. NGOs are required to provide financial and progress reports in respect of all projects which receive subsidies from the Government. (Question No. 4410) Mr Coleman asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 20 August 1986: Has he received any requests from representatives of the Afghan Mujahideen for assistance in the provision of education or medical care for Afghan refugees. If so, has any assistance been provided. Mr Hayden —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: I am advised that the Government has received a number of requests for aid from representatives of the Afghan Mujahideen, including food, medical and education assistance. Australia has been providing continuing assistance to Afghan refugees in Pakistan (who currently number around three million). This assistance has been mainly in the form of bilateral aid, valued at approximately $4.9 million in 1985-86. A further food aid contribution valued at $0.548 million was made in 1985-86 through the World Food Program for distribution in Pakistan. Australia has also provided $50,000 to the Australian Red Cross to send a surgical team to Peshawar, as part of the International Red Cross Committee's relief program in Pakistan. Education facilities for refugees at the primary, middle and secondary levels are provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Australian Government makes an annual contribution to the UNHCR core budget from which programs of this nature are funded. Australia's contribution in 1985-86 was $4.7 million. The Government is closely monitoring the situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and will continue to be as generous as possible in responding to relief appeals, but in the present budgetary situation any new programs are unlikely to be initiated. (Question No. 4449) Dr Klugman asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 21 August 1986: (1) Has his attention been drawn to allegations by Senator D. P. Moynihan on pages 9 and 10 of the ``New Leader'' of 5-19 May 1986. (2) Is it a fact that the USSR violates article 100 of the UN Charter. (3) Is he able to say whether a lieutenant colonel in the KGB is head of UN personnel in Geneva and controls recruitment. (4) Was Hermann Klenner from the German Democratic Republic appointed to head the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. (5) Is he able to say whether Herr Klenner is a former member of the Nazi Party. Mr Hayden —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Yes. (2) Article 100 (1) of the Charter of the UN provides that in the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the organisation. They shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the organisation. Article 100 (2) requires that each member of the United Nations respect the exclusively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary-General and the staff and not to seek to influence them in the discharge of their responsibilities. There are grounds for believing that nationals of the Soviet Union in the Secretariat of the United Nations are subject to direction from their government. For example, it is generally understood that all Soviet members of the Secretariat are required to pay a proportion of their salary to their government. This is of concern to the Australian Government because such a practice reflects on the position of Soviet employees as international officials. (3) The current head of UN Personnel in Geneva is Mr Villanueva, a Spanish national. His predecessor was Mr Dneprovsky, a Soviet national. Reports concerning Mr Dneprovsky, such as those in the article referred to, date back to 1978 and were the subject of a question without notice in the Senate on 23 May 1979. The situation remains that the Government is not in a position to confirm the accuracy of the reports, in accordance with the Government's long-established policy of not commenting on intelligence and security matters. (4) & (5) I understand the German Democratic Republic has withdrawn the candidature of Dr Klenner for the position of Chairman of the Forty-third Session of the Human Rights Commission in 1987. This action followed allegations in the media in the Federal Republic of Germany that Dr Klenner was a former member of the Nazi Party. I am unaware of any information which would substantiate the charge. (Question No. 4573) Mr Simmons asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice, on 18 September 1986: (1) What has been the apprenticeship intake in his Department in (a) 1983/84, (b) 1984/85 and (c) 1985/86. (2) What categories of apprentices were engaged during this period. (3) What apprenticeship intake is planned in NSW for 1986/87. Mr West —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) My Department's apprenticeship intake was: 1983/84-181 apprentices 1984/85-150 apprentices 1985/86-163 apprentices (2) The categories of apprentices engaged during this period are as follows: 1983/84 1984/85 1985/86 Carpet Planner... 1 1 - Bridge/Wharf Carpenter... 2 1 1 Carpenter... 46 41 33 Painter... 14 18 21 Plasterer... 1 - 1 Plumber... 31 25 22 Signwriter... 1 1 1 Electrical Fitter/Mechanic... 34 30 39 Electrician... - 1 - Diesel Fitter/Mechanic... 2 3 2 Fitter and Turner... 27 17 28 Motor Mechanic... 4 - 1 Refrigeration Mechanic... 15 11 13 Welder... 3 1 1 TOTAL... 181 150 163 (3) The apprenticeship intake planned for NSW for 1986/87 is 20. (Question No. 4605) Mr Coleman asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 19 September 1986: (1) Is the Palestine Information Office in Melbourne recognised by the Palestine Liberation Organisation as being its official bureau in Australia. (2) Is he able to say how the Palestine Information Office is financed. Mr Hayden —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: Since December 1982 an Australian citizen, Mr Ali Kazak, has operated an office in Melbourne styled the ``Palestine Information Office''. Mr Kazak claims to represent the PLO in Australia. The Australian Government does not recognise Mr Kazak as a PLO representative nor do we recognise the ``Palestine Information Office'' as a PLO office. Representations have been made by both Mr Kazak and by PLO representatives overseas to accord the office official recognition and diplomatic status. Australia does not however accord the PLO international status and will not change this attitude while that Organisation denies the right of Israel to exist. While Australia does not recognise the PLO as `the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people' it is acknowledged that the PLO represents a significant portion of the Palestinian people. Private organisations operated by Australian citizens such as the ``Palestine Information Office'' are not required by law to reveal the source of their operating costs. I am not therefore able to comment further on the question. (Question No. 4401) Mr Scott asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, upon notice, on 20 August 1986: (1) Has the Minister's attention been drawn to an article in the Age of 31 July 1986 indicating that the price received for Australian industrial diamonds is set by the South African group, De Beers. (2) What was the (a) quantity and (b) value of Australian industrial diamonds (i) sold overseas, (ii) sold in Australia and (iii) stockpiled in Australia. (3) What is being done to introduce the necessary technology into Australia to enable Australia's industrial diamonds to be fully processed in this country to the most highly refined state. (4) Should Australia have the full capacity to exploit its industrial diamonds both for economic and strategic reasons? (5) Would this technology (a) create new jobs, (b) develop a new export market and (c) save import costs. Mr Barry Jones —The Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1) Yes, your question has drawn the article to my notice. The price received for Australian industrial diamonds is not set by the South African group, De Beers. However some three quarters of CRA's and Ashton's share of the Argyle mine's diamond production is marketed through the De Beers Group's Central Selling Organisation in London. (2) Figures supplied by Argyle Diamond Sales Ltd indicate that Australia produced some 7.1 million carats of diamonds in 1985. Of this total, some 3.9 million carats (or 55%) were of industrial quality. The company has indicated that virtually, all of its industrial diamond output is exported, there being no domestic market at present for unprocessed industrial diamonds. It is understood that the industry holds normal working stock. The value of industrial diamond exports in 1985 was estimated by the Bureau of Mineral Resources to be $3.6 million. (3) One of the requirements of the Western Australian Government is that the Argyle joint venturers establish processing facilities (sorting, cutting and polishing) in Western Australia within 5 years from commencement of production from the AK-1 pipe. In 1984 the joint venturers established a small scale pilot cutting and polishing operation in Perth to test the economic viability of these activities in Australia. The first domestic sales from the pilot plant were made in August 1985. I am informed that the above processing initiatives mainly involve gem diamonds. The local processing of industrial diamonds is understood to be not as yet economically viable in view of their lower value, and the scale economies which can be gained by the major processing centres in the Netherlands, the US and Ireland. (4) The Government is looking to Australian industry to take every opportunity to exploit the further processing of industrial diamonds. The Government will continue to pursue this objective in its discussions with the industry. (5) The development of a local technological capability to further process industrial diamonds would be expected to create new jobs, develop exports and replace imports. This, of course, assumes that overall economics of such operations are viable. (Question No. 4535) Mr Blunt asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 16 September 1986: (1) Does his Department run a staff suggestion scheme; if so, are payments made for suggestions which are implemented and save money. (2) How many suggestions were made in (a) 1983, (b) 1984 and (c) 1985. (3) How many suggestions were implemented. (4) For each suggestion implemented, with or without a cash payment being made, what was the (a) nature of the suggestion, (b) date of implementation, (c) savings attributable and (d) amount of any payment made. Mr Howe —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Yes. The scheme includes provision for a payment to be made where specific savings would result if the suggestion were implemented. (2) (a) 1983-261; (b) 1984-234; (c) 1985-290. (3) The number of suggestions accepted for implementation were: 1983-35; 1984-29; 1985-22. (4) The information sought is detailed and is not readily available. I am not prepared to authorise the use of the considerable resources that would be involved in assembling the information requested. (Question No. 4615) Mr Blunt asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 19 September 1986: (1) What is the estimated cost to his Department of the fringe benefits tax. (2) What fringe benefits are provided by his Department and which officers of his Department are in receipt of them. (3) How is the value of each of these fringe benefits calculated for tax purposes. Mr Howe —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) $751,000 in 1986-87 and $1,066,600 in a full year. (2) The items on which the Department is required to pay fringe benefits tax and the officers involved are as follows: Motor vehicles-those officers who garage Commonwealth vehicles at private residences. Housing-those officers residing in Commonwealth owned dwellings. Entertainment-those officers in receipt of Commonwealth funded hospitality. Semi-official telephones-those officers whose telephone service at a private residence has been authorised as official in accordance with Finance Direction 13/12. Spouse-accompanied travel-those officers whose spouses accompany them on official travel, at Commonwealth expense, in accordance with guidelines issued by the Public Service Board on 20 November 1984. Reunion Visits-those officers in receipt of remote locality leave fares in accordance with Part 5 of Division 2 of Public Service Board Determination 10 of 1983. Living-away-from-home allowance-those non-SES officers paid an allowance in accordance with Part 4 of Division 1 of Public Service Board Determination 10 of 1983; and those SES officers paid an allowance in accordance with Division 3 of Public Service Board Determination 46 of 1984 or the former authority. Debt Waivers-those officers who have had debts to the Commonwealth waived in accordance with section 70c of the Audit Act. (3) Estimates of fringe benefits tax liability have been prepared using guidelines issued by the Australian Taxation Office in its publication ``Fringe Benefits Tax a guide for employers''. (Question No. 4618) Mr Blunt asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 19 September 1986: (1) What was the cost of the social workers' fund in 1985-86. (2) What is the proposed expenditure for 1986-87. (3) What payments are made from this fund. (4) What was the basis of the projection for expenditure for 1986-87. (5) Is expenditure projected to increase; if so, on what assumptions is this based. Mr Howe —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) $55,626 (2) $70,000 (3) Payments to a maximum of $20.00 are made from the fund at the discretion of a social worker, to provide fares for clients of the Department who are required to attend a DSS office for interview and who otherwise would be unable to do so. (4) and (5) The expected increase in expenditure is based on the assumption that there will be an increase in demand on the fund as a result of recent changes which require clients to report more frequently to DSS offices. (Question No. 4669) Mr Blunt asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 23 September 1986: (1) Further to his answer to question No. 2750 (Hansard, 11 February 1986, page 162), when did his Department finalise its national security package. (2) What are the details of this package. (3) What changes and improvements were recommended by the departmental security committee. (4) When was each change and improvement implemented. (5) Are any changes and improvements yet to be implemented; if so (a) what are they, (b) why have they not been implemented and (c) when does he intend to implement them. (6) What was the cost of each component of the national security package. Mr Howe —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) The Department developed a specification for the Department of Housing and Construction in August 1983 to provide security in every Regional Office as Stratplan was implemented. This was endorsed by the Protective Security Committee in 1984. (2) See answer to Question No. 4332 (Hansard, 10 October 1986, pages 1916 and 1917). (3) to (5) To this point the Departmental Security Committee has not recommended any changes to the package. The package is under continual review as implementation proceeds. At present there are no specific changes on hand. (6) The cost of each system varies from State to State depending on the type of alarm panel used by the Department of Housing and Construction. The estimated average cost to date is $13,000 per system.