Tuesday, 25 November 1986 Madam SPEAKER (Hon. Joan Child) took the chair at 2 p.m., and read prayers. Mr N.A. Brown —I direct my question to the Prime Minister, one of the two whom we have with us today. I ask: Will the Prime Minister give an unequivocal assurance that his Government will not legislate or take any other action that will deny the fundamental right of employers or anyone else to seek redress through the courts for damage they have suffered at the hands of trade unions? In particular, will the Prime Minister give an assurance that his Government will not legislate, as the New South Wales Government is presently legislating, to give immunity to trade unions from conspiracy, intimidation, interference with contractual relations and economic loss resulting from industrial action? Mr HAWKE —The Opposition in general, and its shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations in particular, come to the subject of industrial relations with no credibility whatsoever. That is a judgment that is made not only by this side of the House but almost universally in this country. The position of the Government in the whole area of industrial relations will be before the House when the Government's legislative reactions to the report of the Hancock Committee of Review into Australian Industrial Relations Law and Systems is before the House. The Government is in the process of considering its position on the wide range of recommendations that have been made, including the question of penal provisions within the conciliation and arbitration system. It is premature for me to give a detailed outline of the Government's position until such time as that legislation is before the House. But I can say now that, when the Government's legislative position is before the House, it will receive widespread support within the community. Madam SPEAKER —I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for reminding me that we have another Prime Minister in the House. On behalf of the House, we bid Paul Eddington and Jim Hacker welcome. Honourable members-Hear, hear! Mr MAHER —My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. In view of the recent statements in favour of increasing Australia's immigration intake, what action will the Government take to review current and future immigration estimates? Mr HURFORD —I thank the honourable member for Lowe for his question. I can tell him that the Government is constantly reviewing its program. I am receiving information monthly about the number of visas issued in the various categories. At present I am preparing a submission for the Cabinet on the likely outcome of the program for the current financial year. When information is available about the program for a sufficient number of months in the current financial year, relating the actual figures for visas issued for people arriving to the planning levels, I will make a public statement about that. Mr HOWARD —I refer the Prime Minister to his speech to the Metal Trades Industry Association last month, in which he said: . . . what particularly strikes me after some 30 years close involvement is how flexible and how adaptable the system-that is, Australia's industrial relations system-has proved to be. I also refer him to the decision of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to reject the submission of the National Farmers Federation concerning the across the board 2.3 per cent flow-on from the national wage case, and in particular the Commission's finding that the diverse nature of the industries covered by the pastoral industry award meant it had no realistic alternative but to pass on the increase to all those covered by this award. I ask the Prime Minister: What is flexible or adaptable about an industrial relations system which leads to a situation where identical across the board percentage wage increases are paid by industries and enterprises making profits as well as by Australian farmers whose net income is about $3,500 a year, who are subject to subsidised competition, falling world prices and ever-mounting debt, and about 12,000 of whom are facing imminent bankruptcy? Mr HAWKE —I believe everyone on this side of the House, and the majority on the other side, can understand the hysteria which is entering into the demeanour of the Leader of the Opposition. If he would calm down and try to undertake what for him is the increasingly impossible task of just looking quietly and rationally at issues, he would come to the inevitable conclusion that the industrial relations policies pursued by this Government have been instrumental in producing the turnaround in this economy from the disaster which we inherited from the previous Government. Let us see our way through his hysterical cacklings and burblings, and look at the facts. What are the facts? Under the previous Government's profoundly efficient industrial relations policy it produced the highest level of industrial disputes that the country had seen in memory! Under our industrial relations policy we have more than halved the level of industrial disputes. To be precise, they have decreased to 47 per cent - - Mr Braithwaite —You have doctored the books. Mr HAWKE —Listen to that. The honourable member says that we have doctored the books. We have now reached the bottom of the pit. The independent Australian Statistician has produced figures for industrial disputes which show that under this Government the level of disputes has been reduced to 47 per cent of the level which existed under the Opposition when in government. What is the answer of those opposite? They say we have cooked the books. The gallery in this place and the public in the community, as well as an increasing number of Opposition members have been wondering just how much lower this poor, pathetic mob can get. Now we have seen it today. Not content with abusing the Commissioner of Taxation in another sphere, they are now saying that the Australian Statistician is a crook. They should face up to themselves and take a hold of themselves. How poor and pathetic can they get when, having seen that our policies have more than halved the level of industrial disputes, their response is to say that the Australian Statistician is a crook? I will tell them who is crook, who is poor and who is pathetic: They are. Mr CHYNOWETH —Can the Prime Minister, in view of the recent developments in relation to the Government's move to seek listing of the existing Kakadu National Park on the World Heritage List, inform the House of the Government's intention in relation to mining in the park? Mr HAWKE —I want to take this opportunity to repeat the categorical undertaking I gave in the Parliament on 10 October that the Government will not countenance any mining in Kakadu National Park stages 1 and 2. The action taken in the courts by Peko-Wallsend to delay the processing of the World Heritage listing application for Kakadu stage 2 cannot and will not succeed in its basic objectives. The Government will legislate to make it clear beyond dispute that no such activity can or will take place anywhere in the existing Kakadu National Park. It will do this regardless of the course taken by the company in its present legal action, based on its alleged-- Mr Sinclair —I rise on a point of order. Madam Speaker, I am not sure of the degree to which the sub judice rule is normally applied in this House, but you will be aware that there is at present an appeal, before the High Court of Australia, as I understand it, on the matter that is the subject of the present question. I suggest to you that any comments pertaining to that matter, therefore, are within the sub judice rule and should be ruled out of order. Madam SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. Mr HAWKE —Madam Speaker, I can assure you and the Leader of the National Party of Australia that, if he will contain himself, he will see that I direct myself precisely to this question. Mr Sinclair —Madam Speaker, it is for you to make the ruling. Madam SPEAKER —I gave the ruling that there was no point of order on the topic. Mr Tuckey —On the point of order: Is this case to be heard in the courts and in this Parliament? I would rather have another advocate, if I were the Government. Madam SPEAKER —I call the Prime Minister. Mr HAWKE —As I said, we will do this regardless of the course of action taken by the company in its present legal action, based on its alleged right to engage in mining activity under the present terms of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act. It is the Government's intention to introduce such legislation at the first available opportunity. In the meantime, even if the World Heritage listing process is not completed this week, I want to make it quite clear that the park will not be in jeopardy in any way. The mere seeking of World Heritage listing for the park, which occurred on 17 September, provides the foundation under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act upon which the Governor-General can issue a proclamation that has the effect of prohibiting any action that he has reasonable grounds to consider threatens the values of the park. Moreover, Peko-Wallsend has already given a formal undertaking to the Northern Territory Supreme Court not to enter the park for exploration or mining purposes pending the determination of its court action under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act, which will take some time to finalise. Going directly to the point that has been raised in this intervention, I want to say that the Government is giving consideration to introducing its proposed overriding legislation later this week as the clearest possible demonstration of our intention to prevent mining in the existing park. It would be inappropriate, however, to introduce such legislation before the High Court has indicated its attitude to the application now before it for special leave to appeal. As a further practical matter, it would not be possible to pass the necessary Bill through both Houses before the World Heritage Committee has completed its present meeting. If such legislation is introduced this week it would be the Government's intention that it lie on the table until the new year and be debated in the first week of the autumn parliamentary session. Even if the final listing of stage 2 is delayed until the 1987 meeting of the Committee, the protection of the park will not be jeopardised in any way. The Commonwealth Government has ample legislative power fully to protect the park in every respect and we are determined so to act. The Government will continue to meet any challenge that may be made to its decisions in relation to Kakadu by the Northern Territory Government, Peko-Wallsend or anyone else. We will not be diverted from our clear and unequivocal commitment to preserve for future generations of Australians the unique natural and cultural heritage of Kakadu, and we are fully confident of our capacity to honour that commitment. Mr SINCLAIR —The Prime Minister will recall that during the Treasurer's absence in Tokyo last week he, the Prime Minister, in answer to a question from the Leader of the Opposition, advised this House-I quote from last Wednesday's Hansard: . . . as we go through into 1987 there will be a gradual lowering in the interest rate regime in this country. Meanwhile, no doubt he is also aware that his colleague the Treasurer is reported to have commented in a speech to Japanese investors in Tokyo that they-that is, the Japanese investors-could continue to rely on a high interest rate regime in Australia for the foreseeable future. In light of the Treasurer's comments, when, to what degree and on what basis will the forecast gradual lowering of interest rates occur, particularly having in mind the increasingly critical situation of farmers, small businessmen and new-home borrowers? Mr HAWKE —At the end of last week the Leader of the Opposition attempted to get running some purported conflict between my statements and those of my colleague the Treasurer. It is some evidence of the intrinsic weakness and pathetic nature of the attempt that the story got no legs at all. He could not get it running in the media because there was no substance in it. The story that he could not get running last week will not take off as a result of the intervention of the economic genius of the Leader of the National Party of Australia. As I made clear in the House last Thursday, this Government has put in place the fundamental policy adjustments required to allow interest rates to fall. I said, and I repeat, that the timing of the fall will depend upon a whole host of factors, some of which I enunciated in this place last Thursday. Importantly, as both the Treasurer and I have been making quite explicit, those factors which will determine the timing of these events include the pace at which the current account deficit actually improves. This Government has demonstrated its capacity to take tough decisions and to see them through. We took the tough decisions throughout this year in regard to the Budget, some of which decisions the Opposition thought were too tough and it wanted to wank its way around them. That will not be on because we will adhere to those decisions. We took those tough decisions, which are necessary, because we are concerned with the long haul in this country. We will not make some sudden decisions now in terms of wanting to achieve some immediate result which may appear to have some superficial attraction about it, because it is necessary to have the fundamental budgetary decisions, the fundamental wages policy decisions and the fundamental industry restructuring decisions in place so that the long term economic welfare of this country will be protected. That attitude and approach of this Government is well recognised and accepted in the financial markets. The analysis which both the Treasurer and I have been putting about the factors which will determine the timing of any further reductions in interest rates is, as I say, well accepted by financial analysts. I suggest that if, for instance, the Leader of the National Party wants to see that confirmation and understanding of the Government approach he might look at the comments made by Janet Cleary, the Citibank Ltd economist, on the AM program last Friday. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —Has the attention of the Prime Minister been drawn to the latest industrial review of the Confederation of Australian Industry? If so, can he inform the House whether the Government's industrial relations policy is consistent with the views expressed in the article entitled `Industrial Fantasies'? Mr HAWKE —I have indeed seen the review by the Confederation of Australian Industry, a major Australian employers' organisation. It should be recommended reading for everyone in this place because it constitutes the most devastating attack ever seen upon the policies of not just the New Right but also the Opposition. Of course, we do not share every particular view which is contained in that article, but I must say that the broad thrust of the article referred to by the honourable member for Stirling is consistent with the Government's industrial relations policy. In particular, as is well known, this Government has a policy of resolving disputes through conciliation and arbitration. Like the CAI, the Government rejects the confrontationist approach to industrial relations. The article is the most damning indictment that I have seen of the policies not only of the New Right but of this Opposition. The shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations put the Opposition firmly in the camp of the New Right on 2 October this year when he defended the New Right's industrial relations policies against criticism of the Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Manufactures, Mr Powell. This is what the shadow Minister said of the New Right, this was his language: `They deserve the highest praise.' He said that the New Right had led the movement for reform and it deserved a medal. This is what the Confederation of Australian Industry, a major employer organisation, has to say about these so-called reforms: The likelihood is that to attempt the changes our would-be reformers demand would plunge employers into an industrial morass of unknown depth. That is what the employers themselves are saying about the Opposition's so-called reforms. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Opposition, as is well known, supported Peko's contempt for the law in the Pilbara and yet they now preach their self-righteous doctrine that unions must be sued for not observing the law. We have got it here: Sue the unions, make the unions obey the law, but when the employers in the Pilbara break the law, praise them, give them a medal. It is a double standard hypocritical approach. What does the CIA have to say about this? Mr Howard —The CAI, Bob! Mr HAWKE —That is right, the CAI. In this case we rely without any equivocation on what the CAI, the Confederation of Australian Industry, had to say. This is what it said when it put the boot up your bracket. This is the language-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! There is far too much audible conversation in the House and I request that it be stopped. Mr HAWKE —This is what it said: If the only solution that such critics can come up with to resolve a dispute is to sue the union, then they have no solution at all. How they can reconcile their professed desire to see more harmony in the workplace with an extended use of legalistic remedies is in defiance of logic. That is the employers of this country. Let them have the final word on this subject. This is the CAI: Escapist fantasies- that is its description of the employers' policies- are one way to deal with a world in which everything is not as one would like. It is psychologically comforting and can produce some relief from the burdens of the moment. But it is a positive danger to go around conjuring up imaginary industrial relations systems that have little resemblance to reality, then go about promoting these to employers as solutions to their problems. When one goes right through that CAI article, it is saying that the Opposition is sabotaging industrial relations, sabotaging the interests of employers with its fantasy proposals which have no relation to the realities of the industrial world. It is a great tragedy that those on the other side of the House could not have more dedication, more competence and more sense of reality and become relevant to the needs of this country. Mr HOWARD —Does the Prime Minister believe that `agriculture in Australia is at a crisis point', as stated by the Minister for Primary Industry, a Minister in his own Government, in Bangkok less than three weeks ago? Does he support yesterday's decision by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to pass on in full the last 2.3 per cent national wage increase to all rural employees, regardless of their employer's capacity to pay? What advice has he received on the employment consequences of this decision for the various sectors of the rural industry? Does the Prime Minister agree that this decision highlights the inherent inflexibility of the current centralised wage fixation system? What assurance can he give to Australia's rural community that the outcome of the current national wage case will be a wage fixing system that is capable of accommodating the diversity of economic performance within and across industries in Australia? Mr HAWKE —That statement to which the Leader of the Opposition refers was not only made by the Minister for Primary Industry; had the Leader of the Opposition had his wits about him he would have known that on many occasions over the last 12 months or more I have also commented on the extraordinary difficulties confronting Australia's rural producers. But, as distinct from the Leader of the Opposition, who by his policies in government deliberately compounded the difficulties of rural producers, this Government has set itself deliberately, positively and constructively about trying to assist Australia's rural producers. I do not have the time or the inclination to list all the devastating damage inflicted upon Australia's rural producers by the Leader of the Opposition when he was Treasurer, but let me remind him and the House of one or two elements of his decisions which inflicted enormous damage on Australia's farmers. First of all, I refer to the fact that the previous Government-and the Leader of the Opposition as Treasurer must accept the major responsibility-deliberately kept the Australian exchange rate at artificially high levels, and the worst sufferers from that Government's refusal properly to manage the Australian exchange rate were who? They were the farmers of Australia. That fact has been acknowledged by the farmers of this country. Because the previous Government did not have the guts, the wit or the wisdom to have a proper exchange rate policy, this cost the farmers of Australia hundreds of millions of dollars. That was responsible for a large part of their suffering. The previous Government had neither the courage nor the wisdom to bring in the proper economic policies. Let us look at the previous Government's record on wages policy. Because it did not have either the courage or the wisdom to introduce a proper wages policy, there was a wages explosion in this country which brought double digit inflation. We have addressed these basic issues which determine the welfare of farmers. We have made sure that our exchange rate policy is relevant and major beneficiaries of this, of course, have been the farmers of this country. On wages, instead of having an explosion which had our wage rate at 154 per cent in terms of growth against our major trading partners, we have brought that level down very significantly. That is known and acknowledged by all economic commentators in this country. If one wants to measure the impact of that on the growth in farm costs, one must realise that this Government inherited a rate of farm cost increase of more than 11 per cent. That is what the previous Government brought about as a result of its policies-the rate of growth of farm costs was more than 11 per cent. We have more than halved that. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to talk about the impact of government policies on the welfare of farmers, he should just have a look in the mirror and ask himself why he did not have the proper exchange rate policy or the right wages policy. As well as addressing these issues by way of internally appropriate economic policies, this Government has also, in an unprecedented way, addressed itself to the question of trying to get some sanity into the international trading regime for agricultural products. I must say that the National Farmers Federation, which increasingly is speaking more for rural electorates than is anyone on the Opposition benches, has had the decency to come out and publicly congratulate the Government, and in particular the Minister for Trade and the Minister for Primary Industry, for doing what the Opposition never effectively did before-that is, going into the relevant multilateral negotiations, going to the United States and going to Brussels. As a result, very largely, of the activities of our Ministers we now see for the first time the possibility of having agriculture sensibly addressed in the MTN rounds. Again, those opposite had no competence, no wisdom and no courage in terms of internal economic policy, neither did they have either the courage or the wisdom properly to pursue the interest of farmers in the international trading forums of the world. Ms JAKOBSEN —Is the Minister for Social Security aware of a report in the National Times on Sunday claiming that up to 120,000 Australians are receiving unemployment benefits to which they are not entitled? Are these reports accurate? Mr HOWE —The headline in the National Times on Sunday was a highly misleading headline which does nothing for the integrity of that newspaper. It certainly damages the overwhelming majority of people who are unfortunate enough to be going through a period of unemployment but are in no sense out to cheat the system or do anything other than fulfil the rules as they apply in relation to unemployment benefit. I believe this Government is pursuing the question of fraud in relation to social security in a very thoughtful, systematic and scientific manner. If we are going to pursue the question of social security fraud, as far as possible we ought to be selective. That is what the Government determined. A great deal of work went into the approach that would be taken before the announcement was made within the Budget context and the selective review undertaken. The basis of the story is that a small number of areas were selected because they were regarded as high risk areas. Clients who were regarded as high risk clients have been interviewed. We are talking about a review not of hundreds of thousands but of 2,719 people on unemployment benefits, of whom 677 had their benefits terminated. That proportion was predicted in the planning of the exercise. It is not the basis on which to extrapolate about the unemployed population as a whole. Anyone who does that is simply seeking to misrepresent the facts and to delude the Australian public about the extent of the problem and, on the other side, the extent of the savings that might be achieved. No one in this Parliament is more responsible for spreading such misrepresentations than the honourable member for Richmond. Apart from the misrepresentation of that fact-the honourable member clearly has neither the wit, the intelligence nor the resources to establish facts and to come up with a figure that has any credibility-in terms of his media release of 23 November we see a number of other errors of fact to which I would like to refer very briefly. He said in the course of this article-I warn people in the Press Gallery about believing anything that goes out in the form of a Press release representing itself as fact-- Mr Spender —Madam Speaker-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Minister will not cast aspersions on the honourable member for Richmond. Mr Spender —That was the point I was going to raise, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much. Madam SPEAKER —The Minister will withdraw the comment he made. Under the Standing Orders, he will not cast aspersions upon any member of this House. Mr HOWE —I withdraw. Let me go to the facts. I think I have clearly explained that one cannot talk on the basis of 120,000, a figure that was mentioned in the National Times article and referred to by the honourable member for Richmond. He also said that Labor had cut the number of Social Security field officers by 64. Labor has in fact increased the number by 130. In fact, an extra 600 staff have been assigned to service the Social Security Budget initiatives, over and above the staff existing within the Department. It is also wrong to suggest that field officers do not have the power to investigate welfare fraud. Under the Act clients must answer questions put to them in writing by our officers. It is wrong to say, as has been frequently asserted by the honourable member for Richmond, that Labor has abolished the work test. That is simply not true. The work test has been enforced under this Government in a way in which it was certainly never enforced under the previous Government. It is wrong to say that Labor let personal lodgment lapse. The previous Government withdrew from the pursuit of personal lodgment. It is wrong to say that we have not enforced Commonwealth Employment Service registration. Under this Government-indeed, under the legislation-people not registered with the CES will not get their benefit. I believe that any objective analysis of what this Government has been about will indicate that it has done more than any other government, in terms of social security fraud and in terms of taxation fraud, to ensure that people do not receive payments to which they are not entitled or do not avoid taxation which they have a responsibility to pay. The climate that has developed within the Opposition, whereby so frequently one refers to misrepresentation rather than the development of policies, is a very serious problem for this Parliament and for this country. I do not think the hypocrisy of the Opposition in any area with respect to fraud is more clearly represented than when we come to the Australia Card. Here is a policy issue or approach which has been developed by this Government and which seeks to go to the heart of the identity problem which arises in social security and in the taxation system. A number of honourable members on the opposite side of the House-spokesmen; men in the leadership-suggested, on the one hand, that they were committed to the Australia Card and saw it as fundamental to the pursuit of fraud but, when it suited them, for opportunistic reasons turned away from that course. Let me say that, with respect to the dignity of people who are unfortunate enough to be on social security benefit in this country, it does nothing to have this continual misrepresentation of the facts by the Opposition. Mr COBB —The Prime Minister has announced on radio that he has instructed his Ministers to impose greater supervision over what he now admits to be the `indefensible silliness' of government grants revealed by the Opposition's Waste Watch Committee. As so many of these grants emerge from the Prime Minister's own Department-particularly, the $11,000 to design a woman's surfboard because women's centre of gravity is lower, the $5,000 given to the National Network of Young Lesbians and Homosexual Men to hold a conference, and the $670,000 in his Department's official hospitality for the America's Cup on top of the $30m government grant for the America's Cup defence-will the Prime Minister take action to ensure that he will respond to his own instructions to stop his own indefensible silliness? Mr HAWKE —Before I go to the particularities of the question put by the honourable member, let me again make this point about the massive hypocrisy of those opposite: If we want to have an analysis of waste inflicted upon this country, there has been no greater waste inflicted upon the Australian community than that imposed upon it by them in their period of office, particularly in their last 12 months in office. The most tragic waste ever experienced in this country was the throwing on to the unemployment scrapheap of an additional one-quarter of a million Australians. That was the greatest waste. Another 250,000 people were thrown on to the scrapheap because of the previous Government's policies. We had the task, when we came to office, of trying to restore this economy in a way which would remove that fundamental waste. A part of our approach to dealing with the legacy left to us by the previous Government was to undertake a number of programs which would give employment and experience opportunities to people in this country. It is inevitable that, when we undertake that sort of program, some decisions will be made which will not be regarded as appropriate. This is not something which is peculiar to this Government. I remind the honourable member for Parkes, for instance, that it is the sort of thing that is likely to happen when we have arm's length funding-for example, the funding of the Gay Publications Co-operative by the Thompson Liberal Government in Victoria. That is what happened there. I do not condemn the Thompson Government for trying to undertake programs on a broad range and say that, because one of the things that was funded under that arm's length approach was something of which I do not particularly approve, the approach of that Government was wrong. I am quite happy, as we go through 1987 and up to the next election, to put the record of this Government in terms of its approach to looking after the welfare of Australians against the record of the previous Government. I will tell honourable members opposite what will happen. When the people of Australia have the opportunity of judging us against honourable members opposite they will say, as they are increasingly saying to them now: `We do not want your hypocrisy. We do not want your nitpicking. We would much rather have a government approach which is trying to give some confidence to an increasing range of young Australians to give them experience in work that you denied to them. If, in that process, some mistakes are made, we would much rather have that sort of constructive approach'. I say in regard to the particular point in the honourable member's question that of course I will apply to the Prime Minister's Department the same injunction that I have applied to my Ministers. I want a very searching examination done of all grants that have been undertaken. I want a tightening up of the process under which government funds are made available. But in the end this Government will stand proudly on its record for the way in which it has gone about the business of trying to rectify the economic and social morass into which the honourable member opposite and his colleagues plunged this country. Mr MILDREN —Can the Minister for Foreign Affairs inform the House of current developments taking place in the Philippines? How does he evaluate future prospects for that country? Mr HAYDEN —It is well known that President Aquino moved decisively to impose her authority over the Government of the Philippines in the course of the past week and I think it is generally recognised that she did so with considerable effect. One cannot be sure of what the consequences of this will be over the medium to longer term but immediately they are quite propitious. First, I should state that I think there had been a growing impression about the international community and in this part of the region that perhaps Mrs Aquino's lack of decisive action against the Defence Minister Enrile was an indication of weakness. Weighing up all the factors which were involved in the circumstances of the accession to office of Mrs Aquino and her dealings with Ministers in office thereafter, her treatment of Mr Enrile, in spite of the extreme provocation, should more properly be seen as a courtesy and a respect for the role that Enrile played in her accession to office at the time that the Government of President Marcos was ejected from office. Indisputably, firm and decisive action had to be taken very quickly, because the Government of the Philippines was becoming increasingly destabilised by the behaviour of Enrile. The consequence that immediately flows from this is that Mrs Aquino is now firmly in control of the Government. She has the opportunity of rearranging ministerial portfolios and making new appointments where she finds it necessary and desirable in both of those cases to shore up perhaps weak performances. General Ramos has declared his faithful support for Mrs Aquino and for the civilian Government of the Philippines in the light of the decisive action that she has taken. More than that, he too has asserted quite effective authority over the military apparatus of the Philippines, detailing security guards to critical points about the Philippines, and most particularly in Manila. Of course, this would be necessary to head off any resurgence of the Reform of the Armed Services Movement activity designed to cause more political and social turbulence in that country. The impression that I have from the cable traffic that has flowed to Australia from Manila, from the various sources available to us, is that at this point-one can only stress that; at this point-the strength of the Reform of the Armed Services Movement, a dissident group within the military, has been greatly weakened and its resolve greatly dissipated. That is all to the good because it is necessary that President Aquino and General Ramos be able in their respective spheres to reinforce sound government in their country. In the course of Question Time I was flicking through cable traffic which has come in in the last 24 hours, and I noted another very important development. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has declared its support for ratification of the draft constitution. A committee has been formed to draft a pastoral letter on the subject. Cardinal Vidal, an extremely important pastoral figure in the Philippines, has said that the bishops would support ratification of the draft constitution. Cardinal Sin, an equally significant pastoral figure in the Philippines, has added his public support. I think there are one or two other things that should be said in conclusion. First, one should not expect more from the Philippines than the Filipino people themselves expect can be achieved. That is not said in any patronising way. The Philippines is an underdeveloped country with many weak spots in its social and economic structure. The quality of the administration of the country is very uneven, depleted by the previous Administration; but in fact it is an inheritance of the colonial administration, going back some couple of hundred years, left by the Spanish influence over that extended period. Similarly, the corruption that one sees in the Philippines is not something that has suddenly become endemic. It is part of the heritage that comes from the colonial period of the Spanish. It arises from the nature of the Spanish colonial administration which was imposed in that country. It was a colonial form of administration designed to extract as much profit as possible from the country while contributing as little as possible towards the general improvement and welfare of the people of that nation. In those circumstances, corruption became endemic, with a lack of effective accountability. Mrs Aquino and a number of her senior Ministers have worked strenuously to try to reduce the level of corruption. It is not something that will go away suddenly; it is something that will require determination and, most of all, honest and decent government. Mrs Aquino now has the opportunity of contributing exactly that. In making those comments, I believe I do so with the goodwill of all people in this House and of Australians generally for her future success. Mr Tuckey —Madam Speaker, I take a point of order. I wish to place a question to you. Madam SPEAKER —Go ahead. Mr Tuckey —As page 459 of Pettifer's House of Representatives Practice states that the Chair is the final arbiter as to what are offensive and disorderly words, will you advise the House for future reference whether the words `wank' or `sticking a boot up your bracket' used by the Prime Minister today are in your opinion parliamentary? If not, why were they not caused to be withdrawn by your direct intervention? Madam SPEAKER —I am under the impression that the expression used by the Prime Minister was `back' not `bracket'. Mr Tuckey —It sounded like `bracket' to me. Madam SPEAKER —It sounded like `back' to me. I point out to the honourable member for O'Connor that there has been an increasing downgrading of language used in Parliament lately. I also point out that it is not confined to one side of the House. Some of the interjections that I have preferred not to hear have been a bit under the belt. I suggest that, as we are in the last week of our session, all members take the opportunity over the break to put a curb on both their interjections and the language they use within the House. Madam SPEAKER —For the information of honourable members, I present a schedule showing Government responses to the House of Representatives and joint committee reports for the period 21 May to 17 November 1986. Copies of the schedule are being made available to honourable members and the schedule will be incorporated in Hansard. The schedule read as follows- HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND JOINT COMMITTEE REPORTS Government Responses for the period 21 May 1986 to 17 November 1986 and Outstanding Responses to reports presented from 1980 Title of report Date presented Date of response Response within time specified (a) Aboriginal Affairs (House, Standing) Asbestos mining-effects on the Baryulgil Community... 9.10.84 nrtd (b) No Aboriginal Education (House, Select)... 26.11.85 nrtd (b) No Aircraft Noise (House, Select)... 28.11.85 nrtd (b) No Australian Capital Territory (Joint, Standing) Parliamentary Zone Draft Development Plan... 1. 3.84 5. 6.86 No Australia Card (Joint, Select)... 8. 5.86 5. 6.86 (g) Yes Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings (Joint, Standing) Televising and radio broadcasting of both Houses of Parliament and their committees... 4. 6.86 nrtd No Environment and Conservation (House, Standing) Environment Protection-Adequacy of Legislative and Administrative Arrangements-Second Report... 27.10.81 nrtd (b) No (d) Hazardous chemicals First Report... 29. 4.82 nrtd (b) No (d) Second Report... 9.12.82 nrtd (b) No (d) Protection of the Greater Daintree... 24. 8.84 nrtd (b) No Protection of Bungle Bungle... 28. 3.85 nrtd (b) No Protection of the Great Barrier Reef... 12.11.85 nrtd (b) No New South Wales World Heritage properties Commonwealth/State administrative arrangements... 26.11.85 nrtd (b) No Relocation of Naval Facilities to Jervis Bay... 7.10.86 (c) (c) Namadgi National Park... 14.10.86 (c) (c) Ranger Uranium-Water Management System... 16.10.86 (c) (c) Electoral Reform (Joint, Select) Report No. 1-Determining the entitlement of federal territories and new States to representation in the Commonwealth Parliament... 17.2.86 25.9.86 No Expenditure (House, Standing) Control of prohibited immigration by the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs... 13.11.85 nrtd (b) No The Darling Harbour fiasco... 27.11.85 nrtd (b) No Civil Coastal surveillance Co-ordination... 3.6.86 nrtd No Meteorological Services... 3.6.86 nrtd No Commonwealth Assistance to the Arts... 18.9.86 (c) (c) Review of 5 Auditor-General's Efficiency Audit reports into the Australian Taxation Office... 11.11.86 (c) (c) National Crime Authority (Joint, Standing) First Report... 29.11.85 nrtd (b) No New Parliament House (Joint, Standing) Precincts of the new Parliament House and the Parliamentary zone... 28.11.85 nrtd (b) No Parliamentary Privilege (Joint, Standing)... 3.10.84 nrtd (b) No Procedure (House, Standing) Alternative opportunities for members to concisely address the House... 23.5.85 (e) - Days and hours of sitting and the effective use of the time of the House... 29.5.86 nrtd No Transport Safety (House, Standing) (f) Education, Training and Licensing of Drivers... 6.5.82 11.11.86 No (d) Bicycle Helmet Safety-Final Report on motorcycle and bicycle helmet safety... 25.11.85 5.6.86 No Passenger Coach Safety... 4.6.86 nrtd No Notes: nrtd-no response to date (a) the time specified by Government is now 3 months from the presentation of the report-S. Deb. (24.8.83) 141. (b) the Government reported progress in the preparation of responses on 5.6.86. (c) the 3 month period for response has not expired. (d) the Government said its commitment to more prompt responses does not apply to reports presented in previous Parliaments-S. Deb. (15.12.83) 3 853. (e) on 29.11.85 the Government said the report had to be considered in the context of the effective use of the time of the House which the committee was currently inquiring into. (f) includes reports of the former Road Safety Committee. (g) legislation introduced on 21.10.86. Sources: Unless otherwise indicated, Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General) —For the information of honourable members, I present a report by the Administrative Review Council on review of Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977-stage 1. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr N.A. Brown) adjourned. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General) —Pursuant to section 30 of the Human Rights Commission Act 1981, I present a report by the Human Rights Commission on superannuation and insurance and the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, part 1-superannuation. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr N.A. Brown) adjourned. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Special Minister of State) —Pursuant to section 22 of the Public Service Act 1922, I present the annual report of the Public Service Board for 1985-86. Mr DAWKINS(Fremantle-Minister for Trade) —Pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922, I present the annual report of the Department of Trade for 1985-86. Mr DAWKINS(Fremantle-Minister for Trade) —Pursuant to section 55 of the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Act 1984, I present a report detailing determinations made under the Act in 1985 in respect of the 1985-87 triennium. Mr KERIN(Werriwa-Minister for Primary Industry) —Pursuant to section 8 of the Poultry Industry Assistance Act 1965, I present the annual report on the operation of the Act for 1985-86. Mr BEAZLEY(Swan-Minister for Defence) —On behalf of the Prime Minister and pursuant to sub-section 6 (2) of the Australian Science and Technology Council Act 1978, I present a report by ASTEC on the Defence Science and Technology Organisation and national objectives. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr N.A. Brown) adjourned. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce) —For the information of honourable members, I present the annual report of the Australian Manufacturing Council for 1985-86. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science) —Pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922, I present the annual report of the Department of Resources and Energy for 1985-86. Mr HOWE(Batman-Minister for Social Security) —Pursuant to sub-section 148 (1) of the Social Security Act 1947, I present the annual report of the Department of Social Security for 1985-86. Mr DUFFY(Holt-Minister for Communications) —Pursuant to section 79zh of the Broadcasting Act 1942, I present the annual report of the Special Broadcasting Service for 1985-86. Mr DUFFY(Holt-Minister for Communications) —Pursuant to section 28 of the Broadcasting and Television Act 1942, I present the annual report of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal for 1985-86. Mr COHEN(Robertson-Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment) —Pursuant to sub-section 63m (1) of the Audit Act 1901, I present the annual report of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School for 1985-86. Mr HOLDING(Melbourne Ports-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) —For the information of honourable members I present the Government's response to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs report, `The Effects of Asbestos Mining on the Baryulgil Community'. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the papers. Debate (on motion by N.A. Brown) adjourned. Assent reported. 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 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 Cadman,Mr Donald Cameron,Mr Ian Cameron,Mr Carlton,Mr Cleeland,Dr Harry Edwards,Mr McGauran,Mr Nehl,Mr Porter,Mr Rocher,Mr Willis and Mr Young. 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 clubs headquartered 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 Carlton,Mr Cowan,Mr Mountford,Mr Nehl,Mr Ian Robinson and Mr Tickner. 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 it 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 Blunt. 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. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Carlton and Mr Simmons. 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 humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth: That the anomalous Fringe Benefits tax is iniquitous, inequitable and unfair on the grounds that- it adversely affects business throughout Australia, including farms, by creating a further tax burden it destroys incentive, it has caused unemployment, it is costly to administer and its complexities have caused confusion and widespread anger. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled should immediately seek the repeal of Labor's Fringe Benefits tax legislation. 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 humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: The Hawke Government's Fringe Benefits Tax is a vicious, punitive tax that unjustly affects employers, will have a major impact on small business and farm profitability, and will result in increased unemployment. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Parliament to: Repeal the legislation establishing the Fringe Benefits tax. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Nehl. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the 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 assembled, we the undersigned citizens call upon all Members to pay due respect to pensioners and concessional card holders and cease the constant erosion of our entitlements by the Hawke Government. The humble petition of the undersigned showeth: That we strenuously object to the Government's decision to delete 45 commonly prescribed drugs (including analgesics, anti-histamines, cough medicines and expectorants) from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; That we strenuously object to the Health Minister's assertion that the health problems for which these medications are prescribed (e.g. arthritis and allergic rhinitis) are ``relatively minor, self-limiting illnesses''. That we beg the House to reconsider these deletions from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Dr Harry Edwards,Mr Shack and Mr Wilson. 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 Ms Jakobsen and Mr Kent. 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 Scott. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth: That there is widespread community concern about the proposal to Irradiate Food in Australia. Your petitioners, most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, should- (1) Block the introduction of food irradiation into Australia; and (2) Ban the import of Cobalt-60 and Caesium 137 and Caesium 134 to be used to irradiate food products. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Milton. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth: That many Australian wage and salary earners and self-employed persons do not enjoy secure retirement incomes provided by superannuation; and That the Government issued in December 1985 Guidelines for the implementation of the proposed productivity decision by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and draft Operation Standards for Superannuation schemes. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government: 1. Guarantees to every employee the right and freedom to select the superannuation scheme of his/her choice. 2. Protects the individual exercising that freedom of choice from any coercion, influence or other pressure which may be applied by any employer, association or trade union. 3. Will recognise only those schemes which provide genuine superannuation and reject those schemes which do not provide for- preservation of benefits to retirement vesting of employer contributions equal employer and employee control with adequate security of investments. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Cadman and Mr Rocher. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament. The petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That the intention of the Hawke Government to unionise independent contractors, sub-contractors, the self-employed, partnerships, sole traders and family businesses will: Remove the freedom of independent small business to: (a) set their own prices (b) work their own hours (c) control their own businesses (d) negotiate their own contracts; and will create unacceptable and unjustifiable working conditions which will include- (a) The payment of union superannuation, compensation, payroll tax, annual leave loadings, public holiday loadings, PAYE tax deductions (b) limited incomes (c) inflexible awards and conditions (d) fixed hours of work. We the undersigned call upon the Government to restore incentive and opportunity to the Australian economy and to abandon these coercive measures. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Halverson and Mr Lloyd. To the Honourable the Speaker and 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 and Mr Staples. 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: (1) that the phasing down and eventual closure of the services of the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Centre at Glen Waverley will be detrimental to the rehabilitation of disabled Australian citizens; (2) that the Glen Waverley Rehabilitation Centre is ``purpose'' built and its loss would deprive disabled Australian citizens of a unique multi-million dollar facility; (3) that the essential accommodation for disabled Australian citizens will no longer be available. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray: (1) that the phasing down of the services of the Glen Waverley Rehabilitation Centre be reversed immediately; (2) that the one-hundred-and-four-bed residential facility be fully utilised immediately; (3) that sufficient funding is provided by the Commonwealth Department of Community Services to operate the Centre at full capacity. And we pray you may be conscious of God's sovereign purpose for our Nation and your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Aldred. To the Honourable Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: whereby Pony Clubs come within the definition of non profit company for income tax purposes, and would be liable to tax on that amount of taxable income (excluding member income) which exceeds $416. . . . Income Tax (Companies, Prescribed Unit Trusts and Superannuation Funds) Act 1985. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to abolish this tax as it is an unwarranted burden on small community based activities which contribute to the well-being of general society. by Mr Cleeland. To the Honourable the Speaker, and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned electors of Australia respectfully showeth- (a) that the escalation of terrorism in Sri Lanka has brought the spectre of international terrorism closer to Australian shores; (b) that this terrorism is exercised by political separatists seeking to establish a racist state in Sri Lanka based on the detested doctrine of racial separation and apartheid; (c) that the victims of these terrorists are for the most part peaceful citizens of Sri Lanka, but have also included many foreigners including Australian citizens; (d) that these terrorists are provided with sanctuary and assistance (including the provision of military bases and logistic support) by India; and (e) that the agents of the separatists have for a long time engaged in a campaign of misinformation in Australia seeking to justify their terrorism as a legitimate response to alleged discrimination of an ethnic minority in Sri Lanka, which is a claim completely without foundation. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Parliament of Australia: (1) condemn the terrorist campaign now waged in Sri Lanka for the purpose of the establishment of a separate racist state in that country; (2) call upon the Indian government, as a fellow member of the Commonwealth, to desist from giving support to international terrorists operating in Sri Lanka; and (3) call upon the agents of Sri Lankan separatism in Australia to cease transporting an internal Sri Lankan problem into Australia and creating dissension amongst Australian citizens of Sri Lankan origin. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mrs Darling. 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 Duncan. 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 per cent in the Family Allowance benefit to return it to 11.5 per cent of the Average Award Wage (making it similar in value to the 11.5 per cent 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. 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 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 Dr Harry Edwards. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament. The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House of Representatives their concern at any change to the Australian Flag without first holding a Referendum to assess the opinion of the citizens of Australia. Your petitioners therefore pray that no changes be made to the Australian Flag without reference to the citizens of Australia in the form of a Referendum. 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 respectfully showeth that your petitioners are gravely concerned at the failure of the Government to honour its election promises to pensioners. In particular those promises relate to the following commitments: 1. That within three years of its election to office, a Hawke Labor Government would raise the level of the standard pension to 25 per cent of Average Weekly Earnings; 2. That the lag time between the announcement of the Consumer Price Index figures and the subsequent adjustment of pensions would be reduced to one month, and 3. That the disproportionate tax burden borne by low income earners would be lifted. None of these promises has been honoured to date. Your petitioners are extremely angry at the failure of the Government to live up to its commitments and as in duty bound will ever pray that these serious omissions will be given the attention they deserve. by Mr Free. 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 proposed introduction of compulsory identification cards should be reconsidered and rejected because the proposal: (a) is not a cost-effective method of reducing tax evasion and social security fraud, and to the contrary, in the form proposed will facilitate such evasion and fraud; (b) will constitute an unwarranted infringement of individual privacy by the aggregation of a wide variety of personal information of a private matter; (c) will cause a further larger and costly growth in the bureaucracy and burden on the tax payer; and (d) cannot be guaranteed against misuse for purposes other than for which their introduction is stated to be intended. And your petitioners humbly pray that the problems which identification cards are intended to reduce should be attacked by other, more effective methods. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Hunt. To the Honourable the Leader and Members of the House of Representatives of Australia. The petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully shows that there has been clear demonstration of public dissatisfaction with mismanagement of the Otway forests in Victoria, and we pray that: The constitution of Australia be reformed to recognise significant public expressions of concern, eg petitions by some action, eg referendums or committees of inquiry. by Mr Mildren. 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: The Hawke Labor government's productivity- superannuation accord with the ACTU and its support of the superannuation claims of the trade union movement will create an imbalance in industrial power and distort the future development of the Australian economy. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Reject the superannuation claim of the trade union movement, and allow superannuation to develop without trade union domination. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Nehl. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of certain electors of Australia respectfully showeth: That the Bill of Rights Bill, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Bill, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Amendment Bill and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill, if passed by the Parliament, will undermine the human and civil rights in Australia; will attack the institution of the family in our country, and will destroy States Rights and the federal nature of our Commonwealth. Your petitioners humbly pray that: The Parliament rejects these Bills; abolishes the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and moves to withdraw ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Nehl. To the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia shows that: in this International Year of Peace, 1986, the world needs a Nuclear Test Moratorium by the United States, the Soviet Union, France and other nuclear-testing powers that such a moratorium would create a favourable climate and basis for the negotiation of a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that such a Moratorium and Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would be the first vital step to nuclear disarmament impede the development of new nuclear weapons decrease the reliance upon an unstable nuclear strategy inhibit the spread of nuclear weapons. Your petitioners therefore ask that the Australian Government be urged to 1. Use its influence with the United States Government to encourage it to join the moratorium on nuclear testing begun by the Soviet Union on 6 August 1985. 2. Use its influence in all forums to encourage other nuclear nations to join the Nuclear Test Moratorium. 3. Use its influence in all forums to encourage non-nuclear nations to demand the establishment of a nuclear Test Moratorium and Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. by Mr Staples. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. This petition of concerned Australian citizens respectfully points out: That, for our survival, an effective Worldpeace Initiative needs to be established to work towards mutual understanding, world disarmament, economic well-being for all and full employment. This Initiative will help to ensure a sustainable society conserving natural resources, and revitalising soils essential for growing a plentiful and healthy food supply and tree cover for the needs of present and future generations. By working for these objectives, Australia can set an example for the rest of the world. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Honourable House will: 1. Propose to the United Nations General Assembly that 1989 be declared International Year for Repairing the Earth. 2. Implement action programs leading up to 1989 which will include: (a) Actively supporting the International Year of Peace in 1986 by reallocating at least 10 per cent of our military expenditure to fund environmental repair programs. (b) Implementing National Recycling Programs to reuse water, and to compost into hygienic humus all presently wasted organic garbage and sewage-sludge mixed with fine ground powder from mineral-rich gravels and rocks, to use as a natural fertiliser in revitalising impoverished soils; (c) Developing National Employment Programs giving priority to the planting and growing of healthy forests, food-producing trees and other crops and vegetation including environmentally sound use and reuse of water to assist the greening of Australia. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Staples. 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 August 6 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 Staples. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned express our deepest concern over the government's discriminatory policies on overseas students which were contained in the 1986/87 Federal Budget. We register our strongest outrage and opposition to: 1. The introduction and subsequent increase of overseas students charge imposed on overseas students. 2. The proposed imposition of fees to secondary and TAFE overseas students. 3. The restrictive quota system on the tertiary institutions entry. 4. The heavy-handed deportation of overseas students who fail to pay their fees in time. The overseas students program is an important education program to promote international goodwill and peace, especially among nations of Asia and Pacific region. The above mentioned policies have adverse effects on the objectives of overseas students program. Your petitioners therefore urge that the overseas students policies in the 1986-87 Budget be immediately reviewed. by Mr Tickner. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth, do humbly pray that the Commonwealth Government: Take the action necessary to create an Australian republic on or before 1st January 1988. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Tickner. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, Parliament House, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600. We your petitioners, humbly showeth: That the wildlife species, in this case-the kangaroo, have a right to exist and flourish independently of human needs. For this reason alone we should not regard the kangaroo as a human resource nor contemplate commercial exploitation simply because more offspring are born each generation than can hope to survive. Permissible cropping rates are unknown and the means of enforcing controls or protective legislation is completely ineffective and inadequate due to the widespread nature of the industry. All Australians have a responsibility to our already declining wildlife. We your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will: 1. Ban the exports of products made from kangaroos. 2. Take action to see that State Governments prohibit the commercial killing of kangaroos. by Mr Tickner. 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 Labor's capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, tax on lump sum superannuation and assets test are an unwarranted burden on the people of Australia, have contributed to the national economic crisis and the anomalies in the legislation are causing confusion and anger amongst all sections of the Australian community. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled should immediately seek the repeal of Labor's Assets Test, Labor's Capital Gains Tax, Labor's Fringe Benefits Tax and Labor's tax on lump sum superannuation. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Dr Watson. 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: 1. that serving members of the Australian Defence Forces are frustrated and disillusioned at the continuing erosion of their conditions of employment, benefits and entitlements traditionally provided in recognition of the burdens placed on themselves and their families by service in the Defence Forces; 2. that the Government's decision to discount by 2 per cent the retirement benefits of members of the Australian Defence Forces has broken a trust that should exist between servicemen and the Government concerning the financial security of themselves and their families in retirement; 3. that the Government's decision to discount the retirement benefits of members of the Australian Defence Forces has seriously lowered the morale and commitment of servicemen and will further increase the number of experienced servicemen leaving the Defence Forces. Your petitioners humbly pray that you establish or expedite reviews of conditions, salary, allowances, entitlements and benefits for servicemen and reverse the decision to discount by 2 per cent retirement benefits for servicemen. by Mr Webster. 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: They are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian National Flag. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will: Give 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 Willis. 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. 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. Your petitioners as in duty bound shall ever humbly pray. by Mr Wilson. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned residents of the State of South Australia respectfully showeth. We most strongly oppose the moves by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service to sell or close Payneham Rehabilitation Centre, situated at 411 Payneham Road, Felixstow in South Australia. We oppose and express our concern that vocational workshops and education services which were available at Payneham Rehabilitation Centre have already been discontinued while staff are still employed at the Centre. We ask that immediate steps be taken by the Government to fully utilise the Centre for what it was designed for i.e. the rehabilitation of sick and injured people to their maximum potential. We ask that the workshop and educational services be re-established immediately and that redeployment action of staff from Payneham Rehabilitation Centre be ceased. by Mr Hurford and Mr Jacobi. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in 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 Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Richmond electorate respectfully showeth that: 1. We the undersigned are totally opposed to the introduction of a $2.00 fee on prescription drugs for pensioners; 2. The impact of such a fee will be particularly felt by the chronically ill elderly who will be faced with a $2.00 burden with the purchase of each Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme drug; Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Ensure that prescription drugs continue to be provided to the pensioner population without the $2.00 fee on each prescription. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Blunt. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Richmond electorate respectfully showeth that: The Hawke Labor Government's ID card proposal is the most far reaching and intrusive piece of Australian legislation ever, and that on all the evidence available will not tackle in the most cost-efficient and effective manner tax and social security fraud. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Reject Labor's ID card proposal to prevent a gross waste of taxpayers' money and a significant infringement of civil liberties. 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 in 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 in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of the Federal Division of Maranoa respectfully showeth that: The ABC proposes to abolish certain country programmes from regional stations. Such action will disadvantage those country listeners who only have the benefit of one radio station. Regional stations broadcast entertainment and topics of local interest and any reduction in these programmes will undoubtedly inconvenience those listeners in the more remote and isolated areas of the state. Talk back shows and the Hospital Hour are only two such programmes which it is thought are to be abolished. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Approach the ABC requesting that they reconsider their proposal to adopt the above and that commonsense prevail in ensuring that those listeners who reside in country areas are not disregarded. 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 humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Parkes electorate respectfully showeth that: Whereas the present Government of the Commonwealth of Australia has announced its intention to present the title deeds to Ayers Rock in Central Australia, currently the joint property of the people of the Commonwealth to an Aboriginal Land Council on 26 October 1985. Whereas opinion polls and statements of representative groups, Members of Parliament and respected individuals show clearly that the Commonwealth Government has no mandate from the citizens of the Commonwealth to act in this manner. Whereas the present Government claims to be totally opposed to apartheid (separate development) in South Africa but is handing over Ayers Rock to an Aboriginal Council in support of a policy of apartheid (separate development) which has been shown to be detrimental to the Aboriginal people of Australia. Whereas it is pursuing this policy making it a crime for most white and many Aboriginals to enter, without permit, large areas of the Commonwealth designated apartheid (i.e., set aside for separate development), contrary to our democratic traditions and experience of freedom of movement for citizens of all racial origins within Australia. Whereas Australian citizens have no present means available to them to prevent this violation of their natural rights to unfettered common ownership of, and access to, a treasured natural asset. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Seek means available for the protection of the people's interests to prevent this outrage and preserve the democratic traditions of Australia. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Cobb. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The petition of certain electors of the division of Lilley shows that there is an area of Commonwealth land surplus to the re-development of the Brisbane Airport site. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Federal Government give favourable consideration to entering into negotiations with the Brisbane City Council in order to provide parkland for the people of Nudgee and surrounding areas. We believe that the nearby residential area is deficient in parkland due to its development prior to the time when provision of parkland by the City Council became a condition of approval for the sub-division of land. Further development of adjoining areas following the opening of the new airport and Gateway Bridge can only make the situation worse. The land to which we refer is situated at the end of Buchanan Road, Nudgee, Queensland, and we believe that part of it would be ideal for use as parkland. by Mrs Darling. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the 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 taxation deductions; that the Hawke Government's Fringe Benefits Tax is an unwarranted burden on the small business and rural sectors, which will severely affect their long term viability. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Government withdraws the Fringe Benefits Tax legislation without delay. by Mr Halverson. 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 Staples. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled; And, to the Australian Government. This petition of concerned residents of the Bega Valley Shire respectfully points out that child care services are essential to all communities, especially rural areas to- enable women to undertake work help overcome isolation assist social development of children provide relief in situations of stress. Your petitioners humbly pray that; 1. That the Australian Government- (a) make funds available for the establishment of a child care centre, situated in Bega and serving the surrounding townships (b) make resources available to research and monitor the needs of rural communities for child care and related services. 2. All Federal members of Parliament and Senators make strong representations to the Australian Government to act towards these goals. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Snow. 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 oppose the construction of any additional nuclear reactor at the Australian atomic energy establishment at Lucas Heights in N.S.W. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Government of Australia will not construct an additional nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Tickner. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The petition of the undersigned who are staff of the ABC and the SBS respectfully showeth that: The proposed legislation to amalgamate the ABC and the SBS, together with certain existing provisions of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 (as amended), would have the effect of removing the present Staff Elected Director of the ABC from office before the end of his elected term, and of barring him from standing for re-election. This offends basic democratic principle. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that: The Government will remedy this situation by either, continuing the current Staff Elected Director in office until the normal expiration of his term on 15 December 1987 or, making such amendments as are necessary to the Broadcasting and Television Legislation Amendment Act 1986, to enable the current Staff Elected Director to contest an early election after amalgamation, whilst preventing him from seeking a further term immediately following the one for which the early election is held. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Tickner. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of certain citizens of Queensland, Australia, respectfully showeth that we are totally opposed to any change in the Australian National Flag as declared in the Flags Act (1953). Your petitioners humbly pray that Parliament in its wisdom will take no action to change the Australian National Flag. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Dr Watson. Petitions received. Madam SPEAKER —I have received a letter from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr N.A. Brown) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The failure of Australia's present inflexible wage fixing and industrial relations system and the urgent need for its reform. I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of members required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Mr N.A. Brown(Menzies)(3.03) —If ever some specific case were needed to show that our present industrial relations system is in urgent need of reform, it must surely be in the case in which a decision was handed down by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission yesterday. Yesterday the Arbitration Commission rejected a claim made by the National Farmers Federation and others that farmers should be exempted from the last national wage increase of 2.3 per cent. Here was a chance for the Arbitration Commission to show that the present system of wage fixing in this country has within it the flexibility that we are always being told that it has and the flexibility that is needed to give some relief to industries and to employers who simply cannot afford to pay wage increases handed down by the Commission. Here also was a chance for the system to show that it was not just some blind monolith that piles wage increases on to industries and employers, regardless of whether they can afford to pay or whether it destroys industries and employment in those industries. In addition to all of that, here also was a chance for the system to show that all the rhetoric of the Government in the last six months was true-all of that rhetoric that there is enough flexibility in our wage fixing system for it to be able to distinguish between industries and employers that can afford to pay and industries and employers that cannot afford to pay. That was the rhetoric that we have heard from this Government, particularly from the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) and the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in the last six months. They have continually told us that this is a flexible wage fixing system which can accommodate the particular needs of individual industries and individual employers. If there were a chance to have that statement tested, it must surely have been in the case brought before the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission by the National Farmers Federation. What we have seen as a result of that decision is not that the system has enough flexibility within it, but that all that rhetoric was utterly false. Farmers, as a result of that decision, will now be forced to pay a wage increase which they clearly cannot afford to pay because farmers who are on average incomes of $3,800 a year simply cannot afford to pay a 2.3 per cent increase, or indeed anything else. If farmers cannot prove before the Arbitration Commissioner their incapacity to pay, we say that nobody can prove incapacity to pay under the present system. If they cannot prove incapacity to pay, as they clearly cannot under the present rules of the game, the system has failed them just as the system has failed this country. The decision of the Arbitration Commission yesterday must surely be the final nail in the coffin of this rigid, inflexible industrial relations and wage fixing system. One has only to look at the decision that was handed down yesterday to see exactly how true that is. The Arbitration Commission, in publishing its decision-it went at some length into the evidence on the economic standing of the primary industries-came to two conclusions: The first conclusion was that of course the primary industries of this country are in great financial and economic difficulties, but the second conclusion it came to was that the position varied from commodity to commodity and indeed from one sector of the industry to another sector. In the light of those two conclusions reached by the Commission, what was the outcome of the case? It was simply that there was no realistic alternative available other than to make everyone pay. That is the way the present system is operating, because the result in that case yesterday is the result that we get so often from this system; namely, even if there are parts of the industry that cannot afford to pay, even if there are parts of the industry that are on their economic knees, nevertheless the blind monolith has to carry the day and the same wage increase must apply across the entire industry. We say that is a formula for economic disaster and for continuing increases in unemployment. Having said that, we have to conclude that if ever any evidence were needed of the urgent need for change in our system it must surely now be completely beyond argument that that evidence is there. The system, we say, stands condemned for not being able to accommodate an industry such as the primary industries that are on their knees and need some relief. The Government as a result stands condemned for peddling the cant and hypocrisy that it has peddled now for over six months since the Opposition put out its industrial relations policy and called for urgent change. The Government stands condemned in this case for another reason, and it is the worst reason of all. The National Farmers Federation, presenting its case for incapacity to pay and to show why primary industries could not afford another layer of wage costs imposed upon them, sent its submission to the Government and said, `This is our hour of need. We need the Government's help to intervene in these proceedings and speak on our side'. What did the Federation get from the Federal Government, from the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations and from the Department of Primary Industry? It got complete silence. This Government refused to stand up for farmers in this case, it refused to intervene in the Arbitration Commission and it refused to go along to the Commission and say: `Let us try to get some flexible decision out of this system'. There must be no doubt about it: In this case, as in so many others, the Government has failed primary producers and has failed to do those things which are so essential if our industrial relations system, as it presently is, is to have any hope of surviving and producing the economic outcome that is needed so much. When one looks at the Government's behaviour in this case one finds that it is typical-it is so typical that it should act in the same way as it has time and time again in the wages and industrial relations area. Since it came to office, the Government has adopted a wages policy over the whole of its term of office that has given us an appalling outcome in wages and has contributed to our disastrous inflation rate and our economic decay. As a result of decisions it has made over the past two weeks about the current national wage case, the Government has given in to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, so we will now have more of the same. Let us look in a little more detail at the Government's performance since it came to office. Since that time the Government has committed itself to two basic principles in industrial relations. First, it has committed itself to pursue and to allow the unions to pursue full wage indexation. Secondly, while it has done that it has set its face against any sensible and rational reform of our industrial relations system. By following those two principles, as it has in industrial relations, the Government has given us nominal wage increases which are in fact in excess of those of our trading partners, thus making it even more difficult for us to trade profitably overseas and making it more difficult for us as a country to prevent the slide into further unemployment. Earlier this month we saw the results of the stewardship of the Government in this area because we found that in the year to August average weekly earnings in Australia rose by 7.6 per cent, well in excess of the rise experienced by our trading partners. Japan produced an outcome of 0.9 per cent, the United States 2 per cent, Canada 3 per cent, West Germany 4 per cent and Australia 7.6 per cent. We say this to the Government about its operation of the present system: `Let us hear no more of this nonsense that the present system, and the way the Government has used it, have produced wage restraint'. The opposite is the truth. We say that it is time for change and we say that the Opposition's industrial relations policy sets out that fabric and framework for reform and change in industrial relations which is so necessary in Australia. We say that the Opposition parties are clearly, on the evidence, the only parties to commit themselves to a flexible system and that that is fundamental to our whole approach. We say a number of things about reforms in industrial relations, and I wish to mention four or five of them this afternoon. First of all, we say that there must be flexibility in the system such that will allow for variations from firm to firm and that there must be some scope built into the system to reward the productive in our community. That is what is missing from Australia's present wage fixing system and that is what we will put into it. Secondly, we say that, having got that flexibility, we must carry it through into the work place and allow employers and employees to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment, including at least part of the wage. If the system stands in the way of employees making sensible agreements on their hours of work and conditions of employment, and if the system stands in the way of employees being paid payments because they are more productive than others, then change the system. Let us not have any more of this universal nonsense that we saw yesterday from the Arbitration Commission, when we were told that the same wage increases must apply across the board to everyone, whether they need it, whether they deserve it and whether they want it. Let me illustrate this by a recent case that came to our notice of a small printing business where the employer and his employees negotiated a 40-hour week, believe it or not. However, the employees were able to have Friday afternoon off. The firm became productive and profitable and had some hope of competing against the printers of Hong Kong and other Asian countries where so much of Australia's printing is done today. What happened when that sensible agreement was made between employer and employees? The Arbitration Commissioners and their inspectors descended on that establishment and they put a stop to that sensible agreement. We say that working men and women, for the first time in their lives, should have a direct say in what their pay and conditions of employment should be. That is the second thing that we can do. Thirdly, we should give working men and women a direct stake in the success of their firm, a direct stake in the rewards of their labour and their productivity. We have said in our policy that we will change the taxation laws to make it easier for employers to set up share ownership schemes for their employees and profit sharing schemes also. If we do this and if we encourage that reform, we will be doing more than we could do by any other single measure to give the workers in this country an incentive to produce, an incentive to produce more and an incentive to succeed. The Government wipes this off as the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations did when we announced the proposal by simply saying: `Ah, it is another scheme for executives to line their pockets at the taxpayers' expense'. How ironic that the Australian Labor Party and the unions, who claim to represent working men and women, stand in the way of their getting a stake in success, a share of the action and the results of their own hard work. Fourthly, we will introduce voluntary unionism. It is time that this country stood up to the industrial juggernauts who push people around and force free people to join their unions whether they want to or not. Members of the Labor Party give the time honoured Labor Party reply. They say: `Oh, there is no compulsory unionism in Australia at all'. We say: `Try to get a job on the wharves, in the metal industry or in transport without being a member of the compulsory trade union and see how far you get'. We have tried almost everything else in this country in this field and it has not worked very well. Why do we not give people a bit of freedom for a change and give them a chance to make their own decisions on whether they will join a trade union? We will see what the result is. What must be done in this field is very clear. We have a system which is not giving Australia of its best; it is not encouraging working men and women to give of their best; it is holding this country back and it is one of the major reasons for our present inflation and our present economic decay. That is clear beyond any doubt. We need a new system with flexibility-a system that will give encouragement to working men and women to give of their best. Finally, it should be beyond any doubt that the Labor Party is not going to introduce that sort of reform and only the coalition parties can. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Special Minister of State and Acting Minister for Environment and Industrial Relations)(3.18) —As the people who were subject of the matter of public importance raised by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr N.A. Brown) were not mentioned, I will start my contribution by saying that we on this side of the House acknowledge the enormously great contribution and hard work of people in the rural areas of Australia. They do not work under the most pleasant conditions. These people are concerned to maintain their families and to maintain a decent standard of living. We represent the people who work in the countryside just as much and just as effectively as we represent the working people in the cities. It is ironic that members of the Opposition make no mention at all of the hundreds and thousands of people who go to work in the rural electorates every day. They merely get up and say: `You have got to work harder. You have got to work for less'. They say that that will be a decent industrial relations system. A few of us have worked in the bush, unlike the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. We know what it is like to work in the bush. We know the traditional attitude of the employers in the bush to those people who work. So, somebody has to speak on their behalf if those opposite will not. Let me just take the House through the award for those in the pastoral industries to see whether there has not been some flexibility in the system which has affected their award more than it has affected the awards of most other people working in this country. In October 1983 there was a 4.3 per cent national wage increase. It applied to their wages only; it did not apply to any of their allowances. In July 1984 the $11 metal industry adjustment-an absolute disaster which was brought in under the Fraser Government in 1982 and which exploded wages, inflation and unemployment in this country-was passed on to the rural workers. There is a lesson in this for those opposite: They should take note that when they encouraged the negotiation in 1982 and got the wages explosion, which anybody could have anticipated and predicted, it did not stop in the cities. It might have taken two years, but eventually, in 1984, those massive wage increases flowed through to the country workers as well. So, those opposite were not protected by any shield from what they had encouraged in the metal industry awards. That is another thing that the Fraser Government had to live with. There is a series of decisions: In 1984 the national wage was increased by 4.1 per cent, and again the allowances under the pastoral award were not affected. There was a 2.6 per cent increase in April 1985 and there was a six months delay for pastoral workers in adjusting the allowances. In November 1985 there was a 3.8 per cent wage increase, but again there was no increase in allowances for pastoral workers. There was a 2.3 per cent national wage increase in November of this year which was backdated. Some allowances have been increased; other allowances are subject to review as per the decision of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission yesterday. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition says that what we have to do is introduce greater flexibility into our wage fixing system and then we will get better results. Well, I am quite happy to debate that matter with the Opposition today, because we had flexibility between 1976 and 1983. No one could have had greater flexibility. We had full indexation, we had partial indexation, we had direct negotiation and we had a wages freeze. One would have to be pretty uncharitable to say that that was not flexibility. We had these four measures in seven years applying to the wages and salary earners in this country. And what did we have? We had massive inflation; we had massive unemployment; and we had a rundown of all our industries. In the last year of office of those opposite, from April 1982 to April 1983, an additional 250,000 people were put out of work. That was a direct result of the policies that were initiated by the Fraser Government. What those opposite are trying to tell us in this Parliament in 1986 is that they will go to the next election as clean-skins. Somehow they have all been put through the laundry, have cleaned themselves up and want to tell the people of Australia: `Do not take into account what we did. Take into account what we say we are going to do'. The problem with that is that no one believes them. We all think they are the same tiger. They have the same spots. They had 7 1/2 years in which to enunciate these policies which they are going to enunciate again if they win the next election. Who has the best system? We have lower inflation, lower unemployment and one-third of the industrial disputation. Four million days were lost under the Fraser Government in a particular period and 1.3 million have been lost under this Government. By every measure one wants to apply to industrial relations and the economic performance of this country, we have done better under our system of wage fixing. So, why are those opposite saying now that they want to go back to the old system that they had between 1976 and 1983? These criticisms come not just from outside the House or from the dreadful trade union movement which those opposite seem to have nightmares about every night. Let me repeat the news release that was put out by the Confederation of Australian Industry last Friday. That Confederation has had ample opportunity to look at the Opposition's Thredbo statement in this nice little pamphlet, which is pretty cheap, I must say. The Opposition cannot be raising much money. Nevertheless, the Opposition is going to break all Australian workers out of bondage. Someone is going to break the chain. That is the policy of the Liberal Party. No one knows what it means. Inside, the pamphlet states that honourable members opposite will give everybody a guaranteed minimum hourly wage. I would like to know what the guaranteed minimum hourly wage is for the pastoral workers whom the honourable member for Menzies so denigrated in the 15 minutes in which he had to speak today by telling them that they were not entitled to any consideration at all. Let us have a look at what the Confederation of Australian Industry had to say. It has examined the Opposition's policy, it has examined the Opposition's pamphlets, it has seen the Opposition's Press releases and it has listened to the speeches of honourable members opposite. I should not have to explain to the Opposition that people in the Confederation of Australian Industry are not affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. What does the CAI say on behalf of employers? It says: These critics of our centralised industrial system, virtually none of whom have been involved in industrial relations, threaten employers with changes which would create conditions far worse than those that already exist. These critics of the industrial system seem to believe that the mere existence of industrial tribunals makes things worse rather than improves them. Their arguments however have nothing to support them but their own personal opinions and in fact represent a grave danger to employers . . . They advocate massive change with its commensurate risk of massive dislocation, without providing any clear idea as to how this change will be brought about nor any evidence that it will in the end be better for employers. So there is the view of the employers. Honourable members opposite might recall that the last time they put out an industrial relations policy-I forget who the shadow Minister was then; it might have been the honourable member for Tangney (Mr Shack)-they got the Liberal Party headquarters to help them disperse all the information that they had to put about. That fellow Trebeck, who honourable members opposite had working over there, decided to put out a memorandum in which he described all the employer representatives and who they had to get on side. It said: `Noakes is not too good, he's only lukewarm towards the Libs at this stage, but we can put a bit of pressure on Bill Dix at Ford and on Chuck Chapman at General Motors'. Their industrial policy was like a policy of the Sandinistas or the like. This is the way in which honourable members opposite were going to operate. They said: `There is one person on whom we can rely not only for 100 per cent support, but also to use his influence everywhere to get people on side for our industrial relations policy-Andrew Hay'. Andrew Hay came to the rescue of the Liberal Party. He is the person who said: `We'll assist you with your new, flexible system'. We had a full disclosure of the flexible system of the Liberal Party over 7 1/2 years. In the meantime, honourable members opposite have been incapable of sitting down and rationally talking about one of the most important issues in this country that impacts upon almost every other economic measure that this Government might have to deal with-that is, a wages system. They have changed their shadow Ministers, they have changed their leaders. They are incapable of sitting down and asking: `What is the best way for Australia to go? Where will we get the greatest unity? Where will we get least industrial disputation? Where can we assist to get inflation down? How can we help the kids get back to work?'. All these things seem to fade into oblivion. It is far more important to honourable members opposite to have personal disputes in their Party in the hope that they can drag on in the manner in which they are until the next election, in the hope that they can kid someone that the sort of garbage and gibberish that they are putting out in this Parliament about industrial relations will have some influence on the way in which people will vote. Let me say here and now-I would be embarrassed to say it if the person concerned were present-that one of the most outstanding politicians in this country is our Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) for the job that he has done in taking over from the mess honourable members opposite left in March 1983 and extracting both employers and employees from the wage freeze which honourable members opposite imposed because Henry Bolte had talked to Malcolm Fraser in hospital. This was the gist of the very deep consideration that members of the Liberal Party had given to their wages policy in 1982. By chance, Henry Bolte decided to go and see Malcolm Fraser in hospital and take him some flowers, and when Henry Bolte was walking out he asked: `Why don't you put on a wage freeze?'. Malcolm, in his usual style, after very deep consideration for a full 15 seconds, said: `That's a terrific idea'. Honourable members opposite have talked about all the benefits that would flow to Australians from freezing wages. They have seen the benefits. Their inflation rate was nearly 11 per cent. If the impact of devaluation had not hit Australia in the last 18 months, inflation would be down to between 4 per cent and 5 per cent now. Where would we be with the Opposition's policies? Members of the Opposition talk about trying to assist the farmers. I repeat what the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) said: When the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) was in office his Government kept the dollar up because it had no wages policy. Who carried the burden? It was the farmers, who have been assisted by the devaluation now to the order of $2 billion. Then Opposition members say that we are not assisting Australia's competitiveness. Let me tell them that, in comparison with six of our major trading partners, we are 30 per cent more competitive now than we were in 1983. One of the major reasons why we have been able to do this is our wages system, which has been found to be acceptable not by everybody, not by all employers, not by all unions, but by the vast majority of people. That is the reason why we have had so little industrial disputation in this country. The previous Government presided over a massive blowout in wages; but that did not satisfy people. The previous Government thought that, if it gave people what they wanted and let them negotiate a $17 a week increase, that would be a great thing for those who got it. Firstly, it could not be locked in. In 1984, two years later, it flowed on to everybody, including all the rural workers, at the worst possible time for employers in the rural sector. Nevertheless, it flowed on. That was followed by a wage freeze. The previous Government blew inflation through the ceiling and put out of work an additional quarter of a million people. As I have said, by whatever comparison, by whatever chart, by whatever barometer, we can compare the previous Government's performance and its policies with the way in which we have been able to handle problems, not only the problems we inherited but also the massive restructuring that Australia is undergoing at the moment as a result of the drop in prices for the commodities we export. That is something the previous Government did not have to live with. Throughout 1986 we have been subjected to scathing criticism from members of the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia, who say that we should have done better. Considering the decisions made overseas that have impacted upon Australia in the last year or 18 months, we are reaching the end of 1986 in a much healthier position than one could have predicted 12 or 18 months ago. We have had some very difficult decisions to make in reaching that position. We have made some very difficult decisions in the tax area. Again, one of the reasons why we have an agreement on wages is that we have talked to the wage and salary earners about a fairer tax system, about stopping all the rorts and giving tax cuts to the wage and salary earners, which they should have had years ago. The previous Government left the tax rates at 46c, 48c and 60c in the dollar. It crippled everybody in this country with the marginal rates of tax and at the same time it allowed all the rorts to continue. It did not mind what happened on the other side of the tax equation. It just let it go on. Well, we have said to the wage and salary earners in Australia that from 1 December and 1 July next year $4.5 billion will go back to them in tax cuts. We have built the environment to get a decent wages outcome so that we can plan ahead. Employers want to know what will happen. Our system will be far more acceptable than the system being offered by the other side. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The Minister's time has expired. The honourable member for Denison and the honourable member for Moreton will cease interjecting. Mr Donald Cameron —I have hardly moved my lips. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —You have moved your lips sufficiently to interject, and you will cease doing it. Mr HUNT(Gwydir)(3.34) —Let it be understood right from the outset that the Opposition is not against the welfare of the bush workers, those people out in the country who are really doing a great job for Australia. The policy of the Opposition is designed to ensure that there is some relativity between the welfare of the rural industries, the industries in which those people are employed, and their employment opportunities. In fact, this was the whole basis of the National Farmers Federation's case to the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The Special Minister of State (Mr Young), who has just resumed his seat, talked about wages explosions. Let us look at the wage explosion that occurred under the Whitlam Government, when the present Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) was President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. There was a 28 per cent wage blowout and it has taken this country years to recover from it. The ACTU, when the world economy was in deep recession and Australia was in the midst of a drought, sought to extract more from the economy than the economy could yield by bludgeoning initially out of the New South Wales Government, through the electricity workers, a 28 per cent increase in wages, which broke the guidelines, and a 35-hour week in return for a productivity gain that never occurred. I believe there was a conspiracy of some sort to break the wages policy of the Fraser Government. It was done at great expense to the workers of Australia. The Fraser Government inherited an economic disaster from the Whitlam Government; let us not forget that. Our Government was plagued by world recession and drought in the early 1980s. The wages system under the present Labor Government has allowed real wages to increase to four times those of our competitors. If people think that is a sensible wage outcome when we are struggling to overcome our balance of trade problems, they have another think coming. Let us put to rest the quotation we have heard about the Confederation of Australian Industry. On 11 May this year the CAI stated: CAI welcomes the general thrust of the Opposition's Industrial Relations Policy as being consistent with the aims and objectives of employers and with the achievement of sensible economic outcomes. All in all the policy represents the basis of a sound and constructive alternative approach to industrial relations. If implemented it will undoubtedly result in a fairer and more equitable industrial relations environment, and a more rational system of wage fixation. There it is on the record. That was stated in May of this year, just after our policy was released. The shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, the honourable member for Menzies (Mr N.A. Brown), in his address highlighted the Opposition's case against the inflexible, inadequate centralised wage fixation system. He highlighted the fact that the Bench, in refusing the NFF application to have principle 12, the incapacity to pay principle, adopted in the farmers case, demonstrated beyond doubt the Commission's inability to adopt the flexibility necessary to take account of special adverse circumstances of an industry. Clearly, under the existing arrangements of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission special consideration for such problems facing a specific industry will not be granted. There is no doubt that the Opposition's industrial and wages policy is needed to apply the flexibility necessary to prevent the further collapse of the farm recovery. The farmers' case was of paramount importance. It was a test case. It was a test of the suitability of the present wage fixing system in what are very adverse economic circumstances. We contend that that system has failed. The Government has failed. The Government has refused to intervene because it has done its deal with the unions. The Prime Minister now says that economic circumstances should be used to determine the capacity to pay. Yet, when it came to the farmers' case, the Government failed to intervene and it let the farmers down again. Let us look at the special circumstances of the farmers. The Government knows the facts. Agriculture is at crisis point. The Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Kerin) has admitted this. This year net farmer income will be less than the $3,800 earned in the last financial year, which was one-fifth of average weekly earnings. The Bureau of Agricultural Economics estimates that 12,000 farmers are already facing bankruptcy. While 38 per cent of the farmers are said to have no debt, 62 per cent have accumulated a total of $12 billion from all sources, excluding commercial bank bills. This represents on average a debt load of $115,000 per farm, which at the present 20 per cent interest rate amounts to an annual interest bill of $23,000, far exceeding net income. The Minister knows, and the Government knows, that the wheat, rice, barley, sugar and dairy industries are facing their worst cash crisis in post-war years. The Government knows that the farmers in these industries are facing their lowest real returns on record as a result of world commodity prices corrupted by the subsidy policies of the European Economic Community and the United States. The Government knows that the return from export wheat sales could be over 20 per cent lower next year. It knows that tens of thousands of cereal growers, who exported $3.8 billion worth of produce-wheat, barley, oats, sorghum and rice-last year will have their returns slashed to $2.5 billion this year. It knows that over the past five years the cost of fertilisers has gone up by 49 per cent, chemicals by 32 per cent, electricity by 66 per cent, machinery by 62 per cent, fencing and building materials by 49 per cent, rates and taxes, government charges, by 83 per cent, freight by 53 per cent and the cost of hired labour by 50 per cent. The Government knows that its rapacious taxing policies, with its fringe benefits and capital gains taxes, have added to the farmer's cost burden. It knows that, by intercepting the fall in world fuel prices and trebling fuel excise to increase Government revenue from $1.3 billion to $5.6 billion, it has increased transportation costs at a time when these costs should have fallen. The Government knows it has ripped about $500m off the farm sector in successive Budgets. The Government knows, and the Minister knows, it has exposed largely unassisted farmers, who receive assistance averaging about 10 per cent-for the wheat industry it is 2 per cent and for the barley industry it is minus one per cent-to the full blast of competition from EEC farmers, who are assisted to the extent of 160 per cent, and United States farmers, who are assisted to the extent of over 100 per cent. Undeterred, the Government knows that the farmer's terms of trade have declined by 8 per cent in the financial year just concluded. Let us not have this rubbish we heard from the Prime Minister today that this Government has done wonders for the Australian farm sector. It reminds me of what Gough Whitlam once said when things were going badly in the bush. He said: `You have never had it so good'. Those opposite should go out there and tell the farm people that sort of story.They would be laughed out of court, if not hustled out. The Government's monetary policy is clearly designed to quarantine the effects of the fall of the Australian dollar to sections other than the work force. The sector bearing the worst brunt of the Government's monetary, wages and fiscal policies is the farming sector. With 75 per cent of its product exported, the farming industry cannot pass on its costs of production. Farm production is crucial to a slow-down and recovery of the present disastrous accelerating slump in Australia's balance of trade. No sector is more crucial to this country and to the Australian people than the farm sector. The Government must act urgently to scrap its capital gains tax, its fringe benefits tax and its assets test. It must remove the cost of tariffs from the direct input needs of farm product, it must reduce interest rates to levels comparable with those of our competitors, it must reduce the level of taxation on fuel, it must encourage industries to implement a major market research and market promotion program and it must implement a truly flexible wages policy that will enable our export industries to compete on world markets. This latest bombshell will be greeted with total dismay in rural Australia and the Government's adherence to an outdated and irrelevant wage fixing system will be not only the Government's undoing but Australia's undoing, if this Government is in office long enough to destroy this country. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr RONALD EDWARDS(Stirling)(3.44) —I must confess that we on this side thought that today we would hear from the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr), or even from the honourable member for Goldstein (Mr Macphee), a sensible position on industrial relations, but we have heard from the honourable member for Menzies (Mr N.A. Brown) and the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt). Of course we heard from what one might call the dry side, but we were hoping we might hear from those who may well become members of a future front bench when the Liberal Party leadership is changed. I am sure that the honourable member for Goldstein and the honourable member for Lyons would give a more representative position in terms of industrial relations. The difficulty the Opposition has, and to which the Special Minister of State (Mr Young) referred, is that the people out there have not forgotten the record that they left us with. They have not forgotten that they made a mess of handling the economy, and they have also not forgotten the fact that they have proved themselves incapable of devising policies since they have been in opposition. So not only were they incapable in government but now, even when we have given them a bit more time, a chance to sit back, to sit around the dining room and talk to one another, when we have given them the leisure of opposition, they have not come up with anything any good. They just have not delivered yet. There are some questions we ought to ask. Where is the Opposition's taxation policy? Where is its industry policy, its trade policy, its exchange rate policy and its wages policy? Now, for the big question: Who will be the Leader of the Opposition to try to develop those policies? People in the electorate are interested. They want to know who will be leading that lot. I suppose Opposition members are interested in that, too, and certainly we on this side are interested because we believe that the Opposition has to develop some policies. It is probably relevant for Opposition members to consider going back to Thredbo and doing a bit more work, because clearly the work they have done so far has not developed anything in terms of an industrial relations policy. Maybe they could go back to Thredbo and prove there is a Santa Claus. He might give them an industrial relations policy, but so far they have not come up with anything at all. The awful truth for that lot opposite is that the people recognise that, and they are recognising it in increasing numbers. They recognised it in 1983, they recognised it again in 1984, and they do so at present. The Opposition has not developed any policies that will convince the people other than that it ought to stay in opposition. It seems to me that Opposition members have a lot of work to do, and until they have done that work they will not be in a position to present themselves as an alternative government. The difficulty they face is that the people who are supposed to be on their side in terms of decision making in this country are not on their side because they can see through them. The Special Minister of State has already referred to the Confederation of Australian Industry, and I want to refer to one particular view of the CAI. In a statement released last week it said: They are saying to employers: `Take a chance, trust us. We can give you something better than you now have'. I repeat: The CAI states that the Opposition is saying to employers that they should take a chance, that they should trust it as it can give them something better than they now have. The trouble is that employers do not trust them. They do not trust the Opposition because they have only to look back to the Opposition's record, which is a sorry sight indeed. At the same time, why would employers trust the Opposition even now, given its current position? They do not know which segment of the Liberal Party they are dealing with. Are they dealing with the group of the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock) or the group of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard)? Are they dealing with the newly resurgent National Party in Queensland, or are they dealing with the old pork-barrelling Country Party? What is it that we are dealing with? The community is not sure. It is little wonder that the CAI places no trust in the Opposition. What sort of record does the Opposition have to present to the Australian community? It is a record of a series of failures. The Special Minister of State spoke about the Opposition's failure in regard to wages policy, and that failure stands out. When Opposition members went away from full wage indexation and moved to partial indexation, they thought that might be the solution. It was not the solution because they were unable to obtain from employers or unions any proper trust that they knew what they were doing with industrial relations. There is no trust placed in them now, but there was no trust placed in them when they were in government, so the situation has not changed. I guess one thing they have to learn to live with is failure. They failed in government and they are failing in opposition. Full wage indexation did not work and partial wage indexation did not work, so they decided to go for award negotiations. What happened? There was a massive wage blow-out. They were incapable of getting the lid back on the Australian economy and, in a state of panic, they brought in a wage freeze. So that is the sort of record they have. What happened to ordinary people in the Australian community? Not only did they have to learn to live with industrial disputes but also we had the sorry experience of losing 250,000 jobs in the coalition's last year in office. Let us juxtapose that with the proposition put by Opposition members who are saying that what they want to do now is free up the wage system so an unemployed young person can go and bargain with an employer for a job. What sort of stupid and ridiculous position is that? Who seriously could imagine that a 16-year-old boy who has not had a job should be put in the position of having to front up to an employer and say: `I have come to work today; this is my first day of work and I am ready to bargain about my wages. I am ready to stand here, with all my power, having been unemployed, and demand to set a wage with you'? Who could imagine a 16-year-old girl being sent out to her first job and having to achieve a fair and reasonable wage from a freely negotiated bargain? What nonsense that is. Honourable members opposite obviously do not spend any time in the work place. The CAI said that they do not know what is going on in the work place. Honourable members opposite do not have to keep giving us further evidence of that; we are convinced that they do not know what they are talking about. What nonsense it is to come up with a proposition that says that people can go out and bargain freely about their wages. Irrespective of whether a person has ever had a job in his life or whether one is a young person who has his first opportunity for a job, honourable members opposite are saying: `Go into the work place and bargain about your wages'. What sort of a proposition is that to put to people in this country? They will not buy it, because they saw what a band of failures honourable members opposite were when in government. We are convinced of that. The honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Charles), my friend and colleague who will see himself in a stronger position after the next election, is one of those who were fortunate enough to come into this place because honourable members opposite failed when they were in government. I think many people on this side will recognise that honourable members opposite have had a history of failure and have failed as an Opposition. Let me go on and point to some other issues. The problem honourable members opposite have to confront is that, in the comments they have made so far about industrial relations and wages, they have not addressed themselves to the real situation that is confronting employers and unions. What is in it? The CAI has talked about the Opposition's propositions as a series of industrial fantasies. The Confederation of Australian Industry has said that what honourable members opposite are trying to do is to do away with the conciliation and arbitration system. The right honourable Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) recommends that; he says that we ought to be looking to doing away with it. What would that offer? What would it offer employers? What would it offer unions? In fact, it would offer them just a situation of industrial anarchy. What would it offer the general community? What it would give the community is the same old recipe of industrial disputes and disasters around the corner. They rejected that in 1983. The problem with honourable members opposite having all this leisure time in opposition-they have had 3 1/2 years-is that they still have not come up with anything any good. The other problem, I guess, is that the quality of people putting these propositions before us is not good either. That is the difficulty the Opposition has to face. That is the difficulty it is facing when it goes through this shuffling of the deck trying to work out who will be the Leader, who will be the Deputy Leader and so on. The great difficulty, I think, for the community is that it is looking for quality. There is a hope that honourable members opposite will come up with something substantial, but clearly on the industrial relations front they have not come up with any- thing substantial so far. The problem those opposite face when they are rejected by a body such as the Confederation of Australian Industry-it said last week that the sort of policies they were putting up were industrial fantasies-when they are also rejected by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and by the ordinary man and woman and their children, those families out there in Australian society, as they are, what options are there for them? I will tell honourable members opposite the sorts of options there are for them: They are the options of the extremists, and that is what honourable members opposite have gone for. They have gone for all of those, they have been conned by the Charles Copemans and have thought as the Leader of the Opposition thought when he said: `We want to have a thousand Mudginberris in this country; we want to have Mudginberris all around the country'. Is that not a wonderful recipe to be offering people in the Australian community! Honourable members opposite say: `What we want to give you is industrial disputes, left, right and centre'. The thing that we learned when we were in opposition and honourable members opposite were in government was that industrial disputes became a daily occurrence because honourable members opposite could not handle industrial relations. But honourable members opposite are now seriously suggesting in this place that they want to return to that level of industrial disputation. The ordinary person out there will not wear that, because the ordinary person is preoccupied with doing a decent day's work-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —Mr Deputy Speaker, the clock suggests that I still have two minutes to go. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I apologise. I thought the Clerk was drawing my attention to the clock. He was drawing my attention to something else. The honourable member may proceed. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —Perhaps the Clerk was drawing your attention to the Opposition's failures, Mr Deputy Speaker. Everyone in the Australian community is pretty well aware of those, but I will just talk for another minute and a half about them. What I wanted to say very clearly is this: The trouble the Opposition is faced with is that it is now seen as being associated with extremists, it is seen as discredited, it is seen as erratic and it is seen as irrelevant. That is the situation. These are the sorts of people that honourable members opposite have to mix with because, as I said earlier, the Confederation of Australian Industry rejects them, the ACTU rejects them for their record and the ordinary person in the Australian community will not trust them. The CAI says it will not trust them. Why would the ordinary Australian person out there trust them? Why would people out there who are trying to get their kids into jobs want to trust a group which is saying: `We want the young people of Australia to have to bargain about their wages'? What sort of a recipe or formula is that to offer people? As I said earlier, and as the Special Minister of State has said, we have only to look back to the record of honourable members opposite. People in Australia have not forgotten their record. The clear situation is that their record is one of failure. As I suggested earlier, what they had better do is go and try to prove that there is a Santa Claus in the hope that he gives them a wages policy and an industrial relations policy, because they sorely need one. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. The time for the debate is concluded. Mr CHARLES(Isaacs) —On behalf of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, I present the report of the Committee entitled `Disarmament and arms control in the nuclear age', incorporating three dissenting reports, together with extracts from the minutes of proceedings, transcripts of evidence and submissions authorised for publication. The report consists of two volumes; volume 1 being the report proper and volume 2 being recommended strategies and policies. I seek leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report. Leave granted. Mr CHARLES —I have great pleasure in presenting the report from the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence on `Disarmament and arms control in the nuclear age', together with its companion volume `Recommended strategies and policies'. This second volume incorporates the last two chapters, namely chapters 21 and 22, of the full report and provides a summary of the major conclusions and recommendations contained in the full report. The second volume has been published as a separate document in order to facilitate a more widespread dissemination of the Committee's analysis and findings. The report is the most extensive yet done by the Joint Committee. It represents the culmination of nearly three years work in which the Disarmament and Arms Control Sub-Committee of the Joint Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee considered a large number of submissions from interested groups and individuals, conducted public hearings across Australia, and held detailed discussions with Australian Government officials, delegations from both the United States of America and the Soviet Union, and numerous Australian and internationally known arms control specialists. From the beginning of the inquiry, the Sub-Committee was conscious of the considerable and growing interest being shown by Australians in nuclear matters, on the one hand, and the absence of detailed information or discussion in this country of many of the issues involved, on the other. As a result, this report was written: Firstly, to provide a compendium of factual information on our current nuclear circumstances and our continuing efforts to control and eliminate nuclear arms; secondly, to describe and analyse Australia's contributions to disarmament and arms control and the maintenance of international peace and security; and, thirdly, to help prepare an agenda for informed debate over our future direction and policies for reducing the risk of nuclear war. The report itself is divided into five parts. Parts 1 to 4 deal with the world as we know it today. Part 1 is largely descriptive and provides a summary of our global nuclear circumstances. It begins with the two super-powers, describing their current military arsenals, their strategic nuclear doctrines and policies, and their past and present attempts to regulate their arms competition through the disarmament and arms control process. It then examines the spread of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons beyond the super- powers, and the threat and consequences of both nuclear war and the very high and continuing world-wide expenditure on armaments. Part 2 describes Australia's current role in seeking disarmament and arms control at both the international and regional levels. It also analyses some of the major criticisms that were raised during the inquiry. A number of these issues are treated in detail in parts 3 and 4 of the report, which respectively cover `some global issues of importance to Australia' and `regional issues'. They include the strategic defence initiative-popularly known as Star Wars-nuclear testing and the comprehensive test ban treaty, the joint facilities, the South Pacific nuclear free zone, uranium mining and Australia's role in the nuclear fuel cycle. Part 5 of the report goes beyond our current circumstances to examine future options and policies. It begins with an overview of where we are at present and where we are heading. It then describes some of the possible options and approaches that have been suggested for avoiding or reducing the risk of nuclear war in the future. Part 5 ends with the Committee's own recommended strategies and policies as well as a summary of the principal findings of the earlier chapters of the report. Let me now turn to the Committee's findings. There is insufficient time for me to describe all the conclusions and recommendations that have been made. There are 58 final recommendations. I remind honourable members that these are summarised in the companion volume `Recommended strategies and policies'. I will instead confine myself to providing a brief synopsis of the major findings of the report and its principal recommendations. The problem of avoiding nuclear war is one of the most important and most difficult intellectual questions of all time. It is important because nuclear weapons pose an unprecedented threat to mankind. The detonation of a single thermonuclear device over a city would result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and at least an equal number of injuries. A full scale nuclear exchange would completely destroy the combatant nations and could probably end civilisation as we know it. We must do all we can to ensure that nuclear war, particularly war between the super-powers, does not take place. This basic objective is easily stated and non-controversial. The major and most difficult question is how to achieve it. Some argue that the sheer consequences of nuclear war are sufficient to prevent it from ever occurring. No sane political leader would either initiate a nuclear war or take steps which could increase its danger substantially. They claim that the fear of nuclear war has been instrumental in preventing direct military conflict between the super-powers for 40 years and that it will continue to do so in the future. A finding of this report, however, is that, while we may have managed to avoid nuclear war to date, there is little room for either congratulations or complacency. To begin with, the costs of existing policies and approaches are exceptionally high. The United States of America and the Soviet Union have continued to engage in an expensive arms race which has resulted in the deployment of increasing numbers and kinds of weapons of mass destruction. Wars have continued to be fought across the globe, not least as a result of the competing ideologies and interests of the super-powers. World-wide military expenditure is now approaching $900 billion per annum. More importantly, nuclear weapons, or the technologies for their production, have now spread well beyond the recognised nuclear powers. Basic trends in the development and deployment of the super-powers' nuclear arsenals are making the military component of their relationship less manageable and more difficult to control. The political relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union remains strained and is being complicated by developments in the Third World, and by the deployment by each side of more threatening weapons systems. The Committee has found that in the short term we have no alternative but to continue with the concept of nuclear deterrence, provided it is combined with substantial mutual force reductions. The principal advantage of deterrence is that, properly managed, it can provide us with the time to find a more lasting and less dangerous solution to our nuclear predicament. We must also recognise, however, that the continuation of nuclear deterrence, even at reduced levels of armaments, will not eliminate the risk of nuclear war and so does not provide an adequate basis for global peace and security in the longer term. To achieve this, we need to develop a universal commitment to total nuclear disarmament. Our long term goals should be to eliminate all remaining nuclear weapons and to replace deterrence with a doctrine of collective or common security. How are these objectives to be achieved? Let me take the short term goals first. As I have indicated, the report concludes that we have little alternative other than to continue with the concept of nuclear deterrence as the basic means of avoiding nuclear war in the immediate future. The principal question is: What form should deterrence take? The report describes in some detail the strategic nuclear doctrines of the two super-powers and the different schools of thought that have characterised both the development of, and the continuing debate over, deterrence in the United States. It further notes that there appears to be some disagreement within the Australian Government over how deterrence should be carried out. The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Hayden) and his Department seem to favour a system of deterrence based solely on the concept of assured destruction, which is sometimes described as basic deterrence. However, evidence presented to the Committee by the Department of Defence suggested that it supports an extended system of deterrence which is close to the present United States `countervailing' model. This latter form of deterrence emphasises `counterforce' capabilities and doctrines and countenances the idea of fighting a limited nuclear war. It is also very similar in practice to the current Soviet approach. The report acknowledges that there are problems associated with both basic and extended deterrence. In particular, it expresses reservations about the continued stability of the `countervailing' theory of deterrence, and its Soviet counterpart, and its suitability for facilitating progress towards nuclear disarmament. Under this approach, the United States and its allies seek to deter the Soviet Union from attempting to achieve a range of foreign policy and defence objectives by demonstrating an ability to deny the Soviets victory at whatever level of aggression they may choose. While the `countervailing' theory of deterrence may provide greater flexibility than assured destruction. It is far more complex to manage and encourages a continuation of the arms race since it seeks to provide a counter to a broad range of possible Soviet activities. In the view of the majority of the Committee members the continuing development and increase in nuclear capabilities is serving to decrease rather than enhance international security. The world would be far safer if the nuclear weapon states were to reduce and ultimately remove their reliance on nuclear weapons as instruments of national policy. The report does not advocate a return to basic deterrence per se, although it argues that mutual deterrence should be sought at much lower levels of armaments than currently exist; that both super-powers should reverse the trend towards the `conventionalisation' of nuclear weapons; and that they should agree to return to a situation where nuclear weapons are maintained only to deter nuclear attack by another nuclear power. Our immediate goals then should be to stabilise our current nuclear circumstances and begin moving towards a position of mutual deterrence at a reduced level of armaments. While nuclear weapons remain deployed, we must also pursue policies which minimise the chance of nuclear war breaking out. These objectives can be achieved by following four basic strategies. The first and most important strategy would seek to arrest the spread and continuing competition in nuclear arms. The report concludes that this could be achieved by, firstly, reaffirming existing arms control agreements, especially Strategic Arms Limitations Talks II and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; secondly, freezing the further production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons; thirdly, concluding a comprehensive test ban treaty. It should be noted here that the report concludes that a CTB could be adequately verified using existing technologies, and that it would not undermine deterrence or prevent some modernisation of the strategic forces of either side. It could be achieved, fourthly, by strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime; and, fifthly, by prohibiting certain destabilising technologies, in particular the further development and deployment of anti-satellite weapons, the continued deployment of the cruise missile and the unilateral deployment of space-based ballistic missile defences. On the question of the strategic defence initiative, the report has concluded: . . . the continued pursuit of SDI would not lead to a more stable system of deterrence nor would it result in the abolition of, or significant reductions in, nuclear weapons. Rather, SDI (or any similar Soviet program) is likely to set in motion a chain of events and reactions that would destabilise the current strategic balance, and undermine the limited progress that has been made in arms control to date. The report further argues that the United States `should be prepared to defer further progress in the SDI program in return for similar assurances by the Soviet Union and progress in negotiations in Geneva on mutual reductions in offensive forces', and it recommends that Australia should decline to participate in the SDI research program. In fact, the most frightening aspect of SDI and possibly the biggest threat to world peace could be if it actually works. Let us enter that fairyland for one moment. We have a perfect space-based defensive shield in place. Both sides have the technology-that is, the United States has shared its SDI technology with the Soviet Union, warts and all. This, of course, is a near impossible feat in the first place as the United States would have to relay all of the weak spots about SDI as well as its strengths and its working technology. What happens next? It is something that man has been doing since the start of time-trying to find a crack in his opponent's defences. Man has put up walls, castles, moats, indeed anything and everything to help defend himself. However, that proverbial crack has always been found-and so it will be in space. The second basic strategy would seek to minimise the risk of nuclear war occurring by accident or miscalculation. As long as nuclear weapons continue to exist, there is a chance that they may be used in combat. The greatest danger is that a future international crisis involving the two super-powers may get out of control and lead to direct military confrontation and conflict. The report encourages the two super-powers to institute a range of measures which would prevent any political crisis from escalating out of control. The third basic strategy involves establishing mutual deterrence at a significantly reduced level of armaments. The United States and the Soviet Union have far more nuclear weapons than they need for achieving nuclear deterrence. Accordingly, the Committee considers that both super-powers should seek to move to a position of mutual deterrence at much lower levels of armaments than currently exist. The report does not attempt to specify what this position should be, although it provides an analysis of the latest Soviet and American proposals and advances some thoughts on the preconditions for any successful reduction agreement. These include the view that any future proposal for a reduction in armaments should have the following results. First, it should be significant enough to represent a real change, but without threatening to upset the strategic balance or undermining the security of either super-power. Here an overall reduction of 50 per cent of existing forces was considered to be a reasonable initial target. Secondly, such a proposal needs to facilitate progress towards significant nuclear disarmament. This can be best achieved by aiming to simplify the roles, categories and characteristics of the residual nuclear forces. Thirdly, it should be feasible and achievable over the short and middle term. This is likely to require that the reductions be fair, verifiable and avoid as much as possible arguments over technical detail. It was also recognised that in practical terms a successful arms reduction proposal should allow for a degree of modernisation, enable each side to structure its own forces in accordance with its particular national security requirements and perceptions, and take into account all categories or types of forces which have a bearing on the strategic balance. An important consideration in seeking nuclear arms reductions is that they do not increase the risk of conventional war between the super-powers since any protracted armed conflict would probably see the introduction of nuclear weapons. One issue of particular concern to the Committee was the question of chemical and biological weapons. The report notes that there are increasing incidents of alleged chemical weapons usage throughout the world. Further, the present CBW arms control regime and efforts to extend it are being subjected to pressures which could undermine it and lead to the vertical and horizontal proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. The report concludes that, like nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons pose a serious and unnecessary threat to the civilian populations of countries in which this kind of warfare would take place. Unlike the case of nuclear weapons, however, there are no reasons why existing stocks of chemical weapons could not be rapidly disposed of and the current CBW arms control regime strengthened by an agreement banning all further development, possession and use of such weapons or related products. The fourth basic strategy for minimising the risk of nuclear war in the immediate future is to seek to improve United States-Soviet relations. Many of the policies and changes that are required even in the short term will not be possible without a significant improvement in the relations between the super-powers. Such a change will not be easy. The two societies are quite different and cannot be treated on equal grounds or in equal ways. Moreover, the respective national leaderships of the United States and the Soviet Union are subject to a range of domestic and international pressures which serve to limit their freedom of action in determining and announcing public policies. For many years now the official relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union has been characterised by a high degree of mutual suspicion and distrust. The two countries have also become locked into a confrontationist stance which is being reinforced by the continued development of powerful and threatening strategic arsenals, and by an uncompromising political dialogue which has tended to portray the super-power competition in terms of a new cold war. The report notes that relations between the United States and the Soviet Union have improved marginally over the last year or so. However, despite this progress, the relationship remains strained and is entirely susceptible to internal political pressures, or the international behaviour of either side, or even statements by the two leaders or their representatives. Any real progress towards arms reductions and eventual total disarmament will require political will. It is interesting to note that the former United States Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, has written along similar lines over the past few years. Eventually, the technocrats will have to be directed to find a solution by the political leadership. If this does not occur, we will languish in the maze of long and never ending arms control negotiations and related conferences. I turn now to the longer term. I stated at the beginning of this speech that the greatest danger facing mankind today is the threat of nuclear war. We will only be safe from this threat when nuclear weapons have been abolished. Our overall objective therefore should be to eliminate all existing nuclear weapons, set in place a means of preventing their reappearance at some time in the future, and replace deterrence with a less threatening and destructive means of avoiding nuclear war. Contrary to the opinion of some, total nuclear disarmament is not a simple matter to effect. Nuclear weapons now exist in large numbers and have been integrated into the conventional force structures of both sides. However, unless the correct policies are in place, any reliance on a system of non-nuclear deterrence could lead to a further expansion of the arms competition and the development of a new generation of conventional armaments which may be no less destructive than low yield tactical nuclear weapons. It therefore becomes imperative to select the correct strategies and policies to follow in the short term. It is particularly important that these policies lead toward the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, not away from it. Additional actions to facilitate progress towards total nuclear disarmament in the longer term should involve establishing a mechanism for facilitating total nuclear disarmament. Initially, this would mean seeking significant reductions in nuclear arsenals and reducing the different types of nuclear weapons and forces. Ultimately, we should aim first to replace the present system of deterrence by one based solely on the deployment of defensive weapons systems, including defences against ballistic missile attack. Unlike President Reagan's strategic defence initiative proposal, the ballistic missile defences would be restricted to ground-based systems which would be put in place only after the super-powers, and other nuclear weapon states, had abolished their nuclear stockpiles. Secondly, we should aim to develop in all countries and among all peoples a belief in the need for disarmament and a commitment by all nations to achieve it. A crucial element in developing such a consensus is really to understand the nature and scope of the threat posed by the existence of nuclear weapons and by modern war generally. Thirdly, we should aim to transform the focus of international relations from military confrontation to co-operation and non-military competition. This involves improving both the existing super-power relations and the social and economic condition of all nations. Equally important is the need to reduce the prospect of major conventional war. In the past, the presence of nuclear weapons has served as a restraint against conventional conflict between nuclear weapons states. The removal of, or a significant reduction in, nuclear weapons could possibly lead to an erosion of this restraint. Before turning to Australia's role, I would like to say a few words regarding one of my major concerns, horizontal proliferation. The Committee heard about the possibility of an `Islamic' bomb and the concerns of many people regarding the spread of nuclear weapons to a number of states not presently in the nuclear school. Horizontal proliferation could well cause major long term problems as the entry of more states into the nuclear field complicates our global circumstances. Both vertical and horizontal proliferation are important areas to tackle. However, if one concludes that the super-powers can manage their relationship, then the stopping of nuclear activity among other states, particularly those in sensitive areas, becomes of paramount importance. Further, the accidental start of a global conflict in a similar way to 1914 is more likely if nuclear weapons have a significant horizontal spread over the next few decades. I wish now to say a few words about Australia's contribution to ensuring peace in the nuclear age. It is a matter of public record that successive Australian governments have placed increasing emphasis on pursuing disarmament and arms control initiatives at both the international and regional levels. Our continuing efforts and activities in the disarmament and arms control arena are documented in the report and were the principal focus of the submissions that were made to the inquiry. I believe that it would be fair to say that the majority of submissions from the public were supportive of many of the policies of the Australian Government, particularly those relating to nuclear testing, chemical weapons control, and limiting the extension of the arms race into outer space. It was generally recognised that Australia could exert only a small amount of influence on the super-powers but that we are probably doing more than most equivalent nations in seeking to enhance global peace and security. This is reflected in Australia's standing within the international arms control community and the status we enjoy in the Conference on Disarmament. This is due in no small part to the continuing efforts of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his Department. The Foreign Minister should be congratulated on his work on disarmament and arms control, and in particular his elevation of the issue to a relatively high level within his Department and the Government since his election in 1983. Whilst I have already dealt with the question of deterrence, it is worth noting that while many submissions were critical of deterrence they were unable to suggest an alternative means of avoiding nuclear war in the short term. When questioned on this matter, most advocated an approach similar to that of this report. On the other matters, the report makes the following recommendations and observations: First, that greater publicity be given to Australia's present efforts to achieve global nuclear disarmament as opposed to arms control; second, that the Government identify appropriate unilateral initiatives that could be made by each super-power to help break the current impasse in arms control, and exert political pressure on them to undertake such moves; third, that the concept of a nuclear freeze is a valid means of curbing the development and potentially destabilising effects of new weapons systems and technologies-it should be kept in mind that a freeze needs to be considered in concert with other initiatives or proposals which seek to provide for stable deterrence at reduced levels of armaments; fourth, that it is in Australia's interests to continue its alliance relationship with the United States; fifth, that Australia should join with other like minded states to present a concerted view on issues of common concern and to develop means of improving the relationships between the super-powers; sixth, that the Government should do more to inform the Australian public at large of disarmament and arms control issues and the rationale for its present policies and approaches; and seventh, that the Government establish either a separate body similar to the Office of National Assessment or an office within the Department of Foreign Affairs, similar to the Australian Development Assistance Bureau, which would be responsible to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and which would be required to develop and oversee Australia's disarmament and arms control policies. This office would also provide specialist advice to the Government on issues relating to disarmament and arms control, and provide liaison with the Australian community. The report also examines a number of specific policy issues of concern to Australia. These include strategic defences and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; the strategic defence initiative; verification technologies and anti-satellite warfare; the joint United States-Australian defence facilities; the South Pacific nuclear free zone; uranium mining and Australia's role in the nuclear fuel cycle; and peace education and peace research in Australia. The report's findings and recommendations relating to some of these issues have been dealt with earlier. The first issue I would like to deal with is verification. Like deterrence, verification is a key consideration in Australia's approach since it provides the justification and rationale for much of what we do and say. It is true that arms control agreements are not possible unless the parties to that agreement can verify their adversaries' compliance with the terms of the agreement. This view underlies the Government's current policy on verification and is acknowledged by the report. It is also true, however, that no arms control agreement is perfectly veri- fiable. This may be due to the basic limitations of the measuring techniques or because the provisions to be monitored either have not or cannot be defined precisely enough. Thus there will always be risks involved in establishing arms control agreements. The principal issue is to decide how much risk is acceptable. This is largely a matter of judgment and is determined by how much we value arms control and what we think are the motives and intentions of our opponents. The majority of the Committee believes that monitoring standards should not be so exacting as to foreclose agreements, since such agreements can deliver substantial benefits in terms of limiting the arms competition or channelling it in certain directions. Moreover, these mutual benefits, together with the political costs of violating an internationally recognised agreement, reduce the incentives to cheat. In line with this view, the report concludes that the verification tail should not be allowed to wag the arms control dog. Verification standards should be sufficient, or adequate, to use official jargon, to prevent violations that would undermine the basic purposes of an agreement or threaten the strategic balance. This level of verification can be achieved in most areas using existing national technical means supplemented by various co-operative measures such as on-site inspections. I wish to make it quite clear that the Committee is not advocating arms control agreements at any price. Rather it sees agreements becoming increasingly difficult to reach as unnecessarily high obstacles are placed in their path. The report further notes that Australia's public statements on verification tend to advocate both effective and adequate means of verification without defining exactly what it means by these terms. The report recommends that the Government release a detailed statement on Australia's verification policy including the basic aim of verification, the minimum standards required, means of satisfying these standards, and Australia's own contribution to verification. Given the agreed importance of verification to arms control, the report further argues that Australia should continue to contribute to the development of independent means of monitoring compliance with bilateral and multilateral arms control treaties. The second issue I want to say a few words about is the South Pacific nuclear free zone. The agreement which was signed on 6 August 1985 has been criticised by some for undermining our current security arrangements by restricting future United States access to the region, and by others for not going far enough in preventing the stationing or transit of nuclear weapons or related facilities in or through the zone. I would argue that the first criticism is not sustainable. As noted in the report, the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty in no way constrains the rights of sovereign powers to operate in international waters and air space. It allows each nation to determine for itself whether it will allow visits by nuclear powered or nuclear armed vessels and aircraft. Further, it does not constrain military co-operation between Australia and the United States. The second criticism is theoretically true but misplaced. As the report makes clear, the nature of the zone itself-comprising predominantly international waterways-and the fact that any such treaty had to take account of the varying security concerns of the different states involved, made it impossible to establish a more radical proposal. The critics of the agreement tend also to underestimate the political importance of the Treaty. As noted in the report, the SPNFZ Treaty plays a useful role in extending the non-proliferation regime and in preventing the future stationing of nuclear weapons within the South Pacific. Subject to the concurrence of the nuclear weapon states, it also formalises United States and Soviet assurances that nuclear weapons would not be used or threatened to be used against zone states. The SPNFZ Treaty also re-focuses attention on the role of nuclear weapon free zones, places further pressure on the French to halt nuclear testing in the Pacific, and it could stimulate the development or progress of other zone proposals, especially those affecting the adjoining areas in the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia. I shall make a few comments regarding the Coalition's dissent on this matter a little later. From Australia's viewpoint, one of the major findings of the Committee is the recommend- ation to establish a separate office for disarmament and arms control within the Government, similar to the Office of National Assessments or the Australian Development Assistance Bureau. My preference is for the ADAB model-that is, a separate office within the Department of Foreign Affairs. The new office would report directly to the Foreign Minister in a similar fashion as ADAB does at present, and not through the various channels of the Department as all other areas of foreign affairs must do. I believe the separate office would be able to gather a growing number of highly qualified and professional people in the area of disarmament and arms control. As a united and independent unit, it would be more responsive and responsible to the Minister and thus the Government of the day. They would also provide specialist advice and provide liaison with the community. `Effective' and `efficient' are the key words and I believe a separate office for disarmament and arms control would be able to provide these key elements to Government. Unfortunately many people believe that simple notions such as port visits for ships, dismantling the joint facilities or the banning of uranium mining would solve Australia's and the world's nuclear problems. Such simplistic nonsense should be dismissed out of hand. I do not doubt the sincerity of the vast majority of these people whether they are involved in the peace movement or not. However, there is a small and influential element that deliberately pursues and promotes these topics purely in an attempt to destabilise the Western Alliance as a whole. When people have placed before me the so-called achievements of the New Zealand Government's ship visits policy, I have simply asked: `Has the New Zealand policy of the banning of port visits added one morsel to the cause of disarmament or arms control, particularly in our region?' The simple answer is, of course: `No, it has not.' Simplistic answers are not to be found for this great issue. The report makes that clear and basically supports the Government's views on the issues of port visits, the joint facilities and uranium. I will say a few words regarding the coalition's dissent. The coalition's opening paragraph states: The coalition categorically rejects one of the primary assumptions on which this report is based, namely the equation of the two super powers on the same moral level. The adoption of such a spurious `even-handedness' defies history, morality and our basic national security interests. During the three years of the inquiry, that question was never raised by any coalition member of the Committee. The Coalition therefore appears never to have had any intention of investigating the many issues involved in disarmament and arms control objectively. It has, quite obviously, viewed the whole subject from the viewpoint of the goodies and the baddies-I assume that we are the goodies. From the opening comments of their dissenting report and, indeed, a reading of their whole dissent, the Coalition seems to indicate that the West has never been wrong and the East has never been right. It reminds me a little of President Reagan's `evil empire' speech. The Committee states quite clearly its position on this subject. Paragraph 22.3 in part, says: The report attempts to take, as far as possible, an objective approach. Further, it says: It can be argued that it is not possible to discuss the threat of nuclear war and the methods of preventing it, without pointing out the vast difference between the member countries of the Warsaw Pact and Western societies. Finally, it says: . . . Australia is part of a community of nations that shares certain values and ideals and that we should be prepared to defend those values. I believe I have made my point. However, I must add that, notwithstanding Australia's natural starting position and its place in the Western Alliance, no report could be credible if it did not at least attempt to look objectively at all the issues involved in a subject that affects everyone throughout the world. The coalition's dissent on the South Pacific nuclear free zone has a number of incredible big holes which a reading of the report quickly puts to bed. My major concerns relate to statements on page 701, when the coalition states that the Treaty: (a) creates the conditions for eroding the capacity of the U.S. to match growing Soviet power in the Pacific; (b) rejects the maintenance support role for U.S. deployment of nuclear-armed ships and aircraft. Further, on page 702, it states: It undermines existing security arrangements-particularly ANZUS . . . All three statements are total eyewash and after a careful reading of the report I am sure the majority of primary school students could shoot holes in all of those statements. As the Chairman of the Disarmament and Arms Control Sub-Committee in both the Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Parliaments, I would like to thank the other members of the Sub-Committee for their perseverance and hard work over the course of the inquiry. I am particularly indebted to the Deputy Chairman, Senator Baden Teague from South Australia. I would like also to thank the members of the present Sub-Committee for their participation and frank expression of sometimes divergent views. These are Senator Crichton-Browne from Western Australia, Senator Jones from Queensland, Senator Hill from South Australia, the honourable member for Sydney (Mr Baldwin), the honourable member for Riverina-Darling (Mr Hicks), the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) and the honourable member for Calwell (Dr Theophanous). While the final report contains dissenting views on a number of specific issues, the extent of the bipartisan agreement is quite significant given the complexity and scope of the inquiry topic. It should also be noted that the dissents to the report are all from the so-called Left and Right of the political spectrum. I have therefore concluded that the report will be substantially supported by the vast majority of Australians. As an old political saying states: `If you are being attacked from both extremes of the political fence, you must have done something right'. Finally, I would like to place on record the Sub-Committee's gratitude to those who have assisted in the conduct of this very long and arduous, but very important, inquiry and who have contributed to the production of the report. The list, though not exhaustive, includes: Dr Graeme Cheeseman, the defence adviser to the Committee, who served as specialist adviser to the Disarmament and Arms Control Sub-Committee throughout the inquiry; Mr Peter Grundy from the Department of Foreign Affairs and formerly of the Office of National Assessments who assisted the Sub-Committee in its considerations between September 1985 and April 1986; the Secretary of the Joint Committee, Mr Phil Bergin, for his continual assistance and guidance, the members of the Disarmament and Arms Control Sub-Committee Secretariat, especially Dr Lee Kerr and Mr Ian Booth, who both served as Secretary to the Sub-Committee, and Ms June Andersen, for their dedication and hard work in editing and preparing the final report; and all those witnesses who appeared at public hearings and those who made submissions to the inquiry, in particular, Mr Richard Butler, Australia's Ambassador for Disarmament, and the officers from the departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence who briefed the Sub-Committee and provided evidence and submissions on Australia's role. Dr KLUGMAN(Prospect) —by leave-Even though I have some minor disagreements with the report from the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, I point out that I would certainly consider myself as a non-extremist, to use the term of the previous speaker, the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Charles), with whom I generally concur. The Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock), has asked me to apologise for his non-participation in the debate today. I understand that, because of time factors which have intruded today, he will participate tomorrow for the purpose of explaining the minority report signed by many of his colleagues. This is potentially the most valuable report I have seen in my 16 years in Parliament. Some of the recommendations are obviously controversial, but the main volume, the first volume, admittedly of some 700-plus pages, contains a lot of valuable and important information. Knowing the media as I do, I know that none of their employees will read the main report; they will concentrate on the recommendations and on the dissents. I believe that the factual information is essential but generally unknown to the vast majority of people, even those who take an active part in the so-called peace movements. For example, most of the so-called peace marchers believe that the strategic defence initiative-which they call Star Wars-is a form of nuclear aggression in outer space rather than what it is, an attempt to abolish the use of nuclear missiles. I hope that every secondary school library in Australia will obtain a copy of this report for the benefit of both students and teachers. I emphasise that I support nearly all the conclusions, though some of them are compromises. My reservations are mainly on two points. The first point is a general one; the other point is more specific. Rather than paraphrase those points, I shall read what I stated under the heading `General Approach' as part of my dissent. I stated: It is relevant to remember that there has not been a war between democracies since World War I, whilst there have been hundreds of major and minor wars, sometimes between democracies and authoritarian regimes, but most often between the latter. One important, long term objective at least, of all opponents of war must therefore be the spread of democracy with its associated civil rights and liberties. It is not possible to discuss the threat of nuclear war and the methods of preventing it, without pointing out the vast differences between the member countries of the Warsaw Pact and Western societies. The democracies are relatively open societies and especially in the U.S.A. the executive has to justify all military expenditure in some detail to Congress and the public. Everybody can therefore be aware of the proposals for new weapons and the arguments for and against them. Dr Theophanous —Like sales to Iran. Dr KLUGMAN —I note the interjection from the honourable member. That is exactly the point. The President of the United States of America has to justify and explain, and is exposed for doing the sorts of things he has done, such as sending arms to Iran. The first time that that sort of public discussion takes place in the Soviet People's Congress, I will join the honourable member in his defence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I continued: In the closed society of the Soviet Union no such public discussion takes place and in many cases the existence of new weapon systems or the extent of existing ones can only be obtained by traditional intelligence gathering or the use of highly sophisticated surveillance of the U.S.A. The question of verification therefore becomes more important. This is important from our point of view: Additionally Soviet propaganda and disinformation is much more effective in Western societies where public opinion can actually change government policies. That is an important point to remember. I point out again to the honourable member for Calwell (Dr Theophanous) that public opinion does not have very much influence in a society such as the closed societies of the Warsaw Pact. On the strategic defence initiative, my reservation is along these lines: Whilst far from convinced SDI will work and accepting that there is a significant risk of destabilisation of the current position, it is my view that agreement between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union to share the results of any successful research and its installation by all nuclear powers, would be the only path likely to lead to complete nuclear disarmament. I accept that this is not very likely, but the alternative of continuing to live permanently `protected' only by the use of `mutually assured destruction' is not one that can be faced with equanimity. There is a lot of debate on so-called peace issues in the Australian community. What depresses me most is the lack of factual information used-I suppose I am biased on this-by people criticising the policies of the Western countries, but there is also a lack of information on the part of people who are defending the Western position. That is why I strongly recommend the first part of the report especially. Let us take the current issues that are being pushed by the Soviet Union. I have already mentioned SDI. The general belief in the community is that SDI, which is called Star Wars, is really an offensive method of delivering nuclear missiles via space. We have got slogans about demilitarising space, about keeping nuclear war out of space and all that sort of thing. I hope the people who use those slogans will read the report. Another question currently being pushed by the Soviet Union, by its supporters and by many others who are sucked in by the attractiveness of slogans is that of nuclear tests. Everybody supports the banning of nuclear testing, but nobody on the side of the Soviet Union ever mentioned what happened during the three years preceding the Soviet Union moratorium on nuclear tests. I will cite some figures from an answer to me which is contained in Hansard of 13 November. I asked how many undergound nuclear tests were carried out by the United States and the Soviet Union in the three years 1982, 1983 and 1984. In 1982 the United States carried out 18 and the Soviet Union 31. In 1983, 15 were carried out by the United States and 27 by the Soviet Union. In 1984, 15 were carried out by the United States and 27 by the Soviet Union. During the three years, 48 nuclear tests were carried out by the United States and 85 nuclear tests were carried out by the Soviet Union. As soon as the Soviets had carried out their 85 tests they started a big propaganda campaign and announced that unilaterally they would end nuclear tests as of 6 August 1985. I think those are important points that have to be considered when we are talking about disarmament, about peace or about what kinds of policies should be pushed for the purposes of lowering tension between the super-powers. I said earlier that this was an exercise, which should be conducted much more often by parliamentary committees, in actually trying to obtain a large amount of information which is available if one tries hard enough to obtain it but which is generally not known to the community at large. I pay tribute to the staff of the Committee obviously, but especially-and it is important to remember that the Committee was set up on 8 December 1983 and has been going for a long time-to the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Charles), who acted as Chairman, to Senator Teague, to Senator Crichton-Browne, to the honourable member for Sydney (Mr Baldwin), and I think I can add myself, who attended most of the meetings and prepared the report. Obviously we did not agree on everything and on certain technical issues we had to accept, in any case, the advice from the so-called experts. We could well be wrong, but I hope that we are not. I hope that the report is distributed generally in the community. I come back to my original point: When we talk about war and peace and what ought to be done, it is my view that much of the so-called peace propaganda tries to emphasise and get across certain Soviet objectives. There is no doubt that the Soviet objectives include arms control, and I think there is a chance, following the Reykjavik meetings and other recent events, that there will be some progress as far as arms control is concerned. The Soviets want to stop SDI on the part of the United States, although I note that a mid-day news item today said that the British publishers of Jane's Defence claimed that the Soviet Union was far ahead as far as SDI is concerned, having been working on it for over 10 years. The Soviets want to encourage neutralism in the Western democracies, and that includes Australia. They want to split Europe from America. They want to make Mr Reagan appear hawkish, inflexible and foolish, and in many ways that is not all that difficult, I am sorry to say. They are all objectives from the Russian perspective, and I think they are reasonable objectives. To me it is remarkable that people in the West can seriously speculate about the viability of neutralism or unilateral surrender, ignorant of or indifferent to the most telling evidence about the character and motivation of the Soviet regime-the denial of human rights, the incarceration and in some cases even the torture of critics and opponents. The existence of a world in which people are free to think, to express ideas, to move about and to seek change and improvement will always be an embarrassment and a threat to the rulers of countries whose unfortunate inhabitants are denied these rights. I emphasise again that no two countries which were both democracies have been at war with one another since the First World War. I hope that people will read the report and will use it as a reference book when they participate in debates on the question of armament and disarmament. Debate interrupted. Mr WEST(Cunningham-Minister for Housing and Construction) —Mr Deputy Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented and I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Leave granted. Mr WEST —I thank the House and I thank the Opposition, because I have no wish to be discourteous to honourable members who are waiting to participate in the continuation of the debate; but there is something that I must deal with in regard to misrepresentation. On the Willesee show last night on Capital 7 television, during an interview between Ms Jennifer Byrne and two Turkish Australians-a Mr Gurpenar, President of the Council of Australian Turks, and a leader of the Sydney Armenian community, Mr Haj Ivakian-the following exchange took place. I should say to the House that this was in reference to certain violence committed against the Turkish community in Australia. I quote: Jennifer Byrne: You have said that certain politicians carry part of the blame, in fact you've named them, because you said they are wittingly or unwittingly supporting terrorist activity. Mr Gurpenar: We are saying that they are supporting anti-Turkish groups. Might be terrorist, might not. It's up to the police to find out where we are trying to assist them. Jennifer Byrne: Don't you think if you come out with allegations that former Immigration Minister, Stewart West and Left-Winger, Jerry Hand are in some way assisting terrorists, that's a fairly hefty allegation. Mr Gurpenar: When did I say that? Jennifer Byrne: You said that today. Mr Gurpenar: To whom? Jennifer Byrne: To our researcher. Mr Gurpenar: Did I? I don't remember. I have only said that they have attended some meetings with anti-Turkish groups. I want to make it clear to the House that in the two years for which I was Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs I attended almost countless meetings with migrant groups and many migrant functions. But I have never knowingly attended a meeting or a function where terrorists were present and I absolutely refute that allegation. Being concerned that this was mentioned by the interviewer on the CTC7 Willesee show and with the agreement of my colleague the current Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (Mr Hurford), this morning I examined the files of this period. I have reason to believe that Mr Gurpenar may have been referring to a seminar which took place on 28 May 1983 regarding democracy in Turkey and the so-called `come back home' letters. It is true that I spoke at that seminar. To the best of my knowledge, it was conducted by the Committee for Information on Turkey. Other people who were listed for the program were Caroline Hogg, a State member of parliament, Peter Spyker, then Minister of Ethnic Affairs for the State of Victoria, Gary Sheppard, Chairman of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of Victoria, and of course, the honourable member for Melbourne (Mr Hand). The background to that seminar was this-and I think it is quite important-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Blanchard) —Order! I suggest that the Minister has made his personal explanation. He has already said that he is in no way connected with any terrorist organisations. I think that is sufficient for the House. Debate resumed. Mr BALDWIN(Sydney) —by leave-This report, entitled `Disarmament and Arms Control in the Nuclear Age', which ended up being extremely voluminous, covers some of the most contentious material that any recent report of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence has had to deal with. It is not surprising, therefore, that consensus was not reached on a number of the key recommendations. In fact, we have three dissenting reports representing various parts of the political spectrum which were described by the first speaker in this debate, the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Charles), as extremist. I join with the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) in rejecting this characterisation, at least so far as my own dissent is concerned. The report was finalised in September. Since then, of course, we have had the Reykjavik summit. I suppose that the outcome of that summit has had a key bearing on some of the conclusions in the report, particularly in what we say about the strategic defence initiative. At various times the argument has been that SDI has been instrumental in forcing the Soviet Union back to the negotiating table. At least, that is one defence that has been advanced for SDI. It is impossible really to state with any degree of certainty whether that is true because we cannot re-run history and see what the Soviets, under the new leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, would have done in the absence of SDI. It is impossible either to confirm or deny that proposition. However, one key problem with that argument is that, for it to be a valid argument, SDI would have to be a genuine bargaining chip as perceived by the United States Administration. The difficulty is that Ronald Reagan does not see it as any sort of bargaining chip but has so far affirmed an absolute commitment to SDI proceeding. So whether or not it has been instrumental in getting the Soviets back to the negotiating table, the fact is that it is now an insuperable obstacle to the conclusion of an agreement to limit seriously or reduce the stocks of strategic nuclear arms. That is the basic reality we have to contend with. Therefore, I would say that the generally anti-SDI tenor of the section report dealing with this subject has been vindicated by subsequent events. As I have said, the report deals with the whole gamut of issues relating to arms control and disarmament. It does not deal simply with nuclear arms; it deals also with the conventional arms race and chemical and biological weapons, and it would be quite impossible to review all the conclusions in it. I might just speak to the dissenting report which was presented by me and which was also signed by the honourable member for Calwell (Dr Theophanous) and the honourable member for Hotham (Mr Kent). Part of the argument in the report relates to the weight or significance we attach to the differences in the social systems prevailing in the East and the West. Some of the members of the Sub-Committee were of the view that the fundamental differences in those social systems have certain key implications for the feasibility of meaningful arms control agreements. Reference is made in the report to the closed nature of Soviet society and that is contrasted with the relatively open society of the West. I have no quarrel with the proposition that the Soviet Union is a closed society in the sense that its citizens have minimal rights to scrutinise, debate, or influence government decisions. I have no argument with that at all; but what do we infer from that? One of the key inferences that is made from that in the report and also in both of the other dissenting reports is that that aspect of Soviet society tends to make arms control verification tremendously difficult, if not unfeasible, and that therefore there is a great obstacle in the way of concluding agreements with the Soviet Union. The point I make there is that, if we are talking about verification, the key thing is not whether general political freedoms exist in the Soviet Union; the key question is whether the United States and the Soviet Union have the technical capabilities to ascertain whether the other side is cheating on the agreement. The Soviet Union might be seen as a closed society as far as most of its citizens are concerned, but it is certainly not a closed society as far as the United States military intelligence establishment is concerned. It has access to highly sophisticated methods of signals intelligence, satellite reconnaissance and various other types of surveillance. It has the computerised techniques that are necessary to analyse minutely that sort of intelligence so it can eavesdrop on thousands of telecommunications transmissions. In that sense, the Soviet Union is far from being a closed society as far as the United States is concerned. A legitimate concern in the area of verification is whether we need on site verification. I suspect that, ultimately, we will need at least some degree of on-site verification but that again is an issue separate from the issue of whether general political freedoms exist in the Soviet Union. I think it is spurious to confuse the whole verification question by linking it to the existence or not of meaningfully democratic institutions. The effect of public scrutiny is not to be disregarded totally, but those other aspects, such as the technical feasibility of verification, are far more important. In that area we believe that the United States, according to the best evidence we receive, retains a significant advantage in terms of the sophistication of its computerised techniques, which are integral to analysing intelligence, and its surveillance and electronic capabilities continue to be ahead of the Soviet Union. I do not think that is seriously disputed. So in that sense the United States, arguably, has an advantage over the Soviet Union in terms of verification. I think that is a very important point. As I have said, the problem is not in saying that there are major differences between the social systems of the United States and the Soviet Union. That is not an issue. It is certainly not an issue that whatever needs to be done to improve the degree of democratic freedoms in the Soviet Union ought to be done. I am contesting the sorts of inferences that have been drawn from the fact that there are those differences in the social systems. I wish to deal with a number of other matters. I mentioned SDI in my opening reference to the Reykjavik summit. More generally, the Committee came to fairly negative conclusions on SDI. There is something of a contradiction in the report as it stands because paragraph 12.33 includes words which the honourable member for Prospect succeeded in having inserted to the effect that scientists make competing claims about its viability and we are not really qualified to say because we are not technical experts. Let me make just a couple of observations on that. If we take that viewpoint we might as well say that we are unqualified to have a position on just about every other major area of debate within the report because they are all highly technical. We might as well say that we need to be military strategists, nuclear engineers, or what ever, to be able to make judgments about the effect of nuclear weapons and various delivery systems. I do not accept that lack of expertise by people in the political realm is a reason for us not to form conclusions on these matters. Having incorporated that paragraph, the report goes on to make some fairly definite findings on the question of SDI. They were overwhelmingly negative. I will refer to a few of the points made. The Committee majority concluded that SDI is highly unlikely to provide perfect or near perfect defence against current arsenals. That is in paragraph 12.34. I just observe that, if that is true of current arsenals, there would be even less chance of developing effective defences against the sorts of upgraded, enlarged arsenals that the Soviet Union could be expected to deploy in response to SDI. The view expressed in paragraph 12.35 is that SDI, in combination with continuing US deployment of weapons with a counterforce capability, will engender Soviet fears of a United States first strike. It concludes that the most obvious Soviet response to this is to increase its ballistic missile forces. Paragraph 12.31 states that SDI may well be destabilising, even if it is temporarily technically successful. I observe there that the whole history of warfare suggests that neither defence nor offence has been successful in preserving a permanent advantage. The advocates of SDI really have to be able to say that the defensive shield will continue to work in perpetuity albeit with some upgrading. There is nothing in the history of warfare to suggest that that sort of thing will occur. One is more likely to see periods in which the advantage will shift periodically from the offensive to the defensive, thereby creating windows of opportunity at various times for the offence. I submit that that is precisely the sort of situation where the actual use of nuclear weapons is most likely to occur. We endorse those conclusions on SDI but we seek to toughen them somewhat by taking a harder line against participation from the non-official sector in SDI research while acknowledging that there are some difficulties in that with the question of dual use technology and so forth. Another general point I make about the report is that there are chapters that contain a large volume of material supporting a point of view and supporting various aspects of the debate on strategic systems. At the conclusions of those chapters we see inappropriate inferences being drawn from that material. One example of that is in the area of the joint United States-Australian defence facilities. In one of the chapters we see a very extensive disquisition on the adverse consequences flowing from the shift by the United States to a countervailing theory of deterrence and away from basic deterrence. The essence there is the claim that it is viable to contemplate fighting a protracted nuclear war with each of the sides undertaking gradual controlled escalation. The report comes to overwhelmingly negative conclusions about the feasibility of that. The conclusions are not stated very explicitly at the end of the chapter but throughout the main body of the chapter dealing with deterrence there is very little doubt that, so far as the Committee is concerned, the evidence is against countervailing deterrence; that it is a dangerous and potentially destabilising doctrine. In Chapter 15, the Committee majority, in its discussion of the joint United States-Australian defence facilities, effectively arrived at the conclusion that those facilities have a significant role to play in the whole matter of this new countervailing theory of deterrence. Paragraph 15.44 refers to the North West Cape. The point is made that, with the introduction of the Trident submarine launched ballistic missile system, the United States ballistic missile submarines will acquire a significant hard target kill capability; in other words, they will be able to participate in first strike and counterforce targeting which are integral to the new theory of deterrence which is prevailing. Paragraph 15.51 mentions the United States maritime strategy, which has been published recently and which envisages, in the case of a nuclear war and, while the war is still conventional, the making by the United States Navy of a systematic attempt to reduce the Soviet submarine launched ballistic missile force. That strikes me as an extraordinarily dangerous doctrine because the Soviets would be confronted with the dilemma of either using their submarine launched ballistic missiles or risking losing them. Paragraph 15.51 goes on to state: . . . the principal purpose of the facility has been extended from supporting basic deterrence to also encompassing extended deterrence. If this current form of deterrence is considered to be dangerous and destabilising, as its opponents claim, then so are the installations that support it. From the discussion on deterrence in another part of the report, the Sub-Committee majority will have to be seen as opposing that new form of deterrence. But, in the discussion of the joint facilities, there has been very little attempt to weigh that sort of consideration in the balance in deciding whether we regard their overall effect as benign or not. Likewise, with regard to Pine Gap and Nurrungar, the conclusions refer solely to their potential as assisting arms control verification and strengthening basic deterrence by providing early warning. The material in the main body of chapter 15 significantly qualifies those positive conclusions. But, if we are to make a realistic assessment of the facilities, we have to ask ourselves what role they play in the development of strategic doctrines involving nuclear war fighting. Again, there is ample material in paragraphs 15.56 and 15.62 referring to Pine Gap and 15.69 referring to Nurrungar to suggest that they have a role in the strategic doctrines of which we take an unfavourable view. If we are to evaluate joint facilities, we have to weigh that against the claimed beneficial effects. So I think the report is inadequate in its treatment of that general area of the joint facilities and their link to the evolving strategic doctrine of the United States. I will conclude by talking a little about the discussion on uranium, which is a matter on which there has been long standing debate within the Australian Labor Party. For example, on the issue of safeguards, paragraph 17.45 contains an extensive list of deficiencies in the multilateral safeguards regime when the need to assert the effectiveness of those safeguards is central to the position of those who advocate uranium mining. Paragraph 17.45 contains an extensive list of deficiencies which there is not time to go through. Likewise, in paragraph 17.53, a range of deficiencies in Australia's bilateral safeguards arrangements is discussed, but there is no real attempt to come to grips with those deficiencies. At the end the Committee simply endorses the finding of the Australian Science and Technology Council's inquiry that the safeguards that we have are the best available. There are two possible conclusions from saying that the existing safeguards are feasible or the best available. One obvious one is that the mining and export of uranium is inherently unsafe. There are also some inconsistencies on the question of proliferation. I refer to paragraph 17.60, which I suppose contains the Committee's main conclusion on uranium mining. It states: The Committee accepts that there is no shortage of uranium in the world to supply fuel to the civil nuclear industry and that the industry can proceed whether or not Australia is a supplier. It therefore supports the view that cutting off the supplies of uranium will not have any effect in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. I just make the observation that the second sentence in that conclusion does not follow logically from the first. I refer back to paragraph 5.71 in which the Committee, in the context of a discussion of the current oversupply of nuclear fuels, states: Governments may be under pressure to facilitate the export of nuclear materials-- I emphasise the following words-- including into regions where proliferation risks are high. In other words, in that paragraph the majority of the Committee is in effect saying that the oversupply of uranium is creating pressures to export it into regions where the proliferation risks are high. In an earlier paragraph in that same chapter the Committee also fairly explicitly accepted a link between the civil nuclear fuel cycle and the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. It is a little hard to reconcile the statement that by continuing to mine and export uranium we are exacerbating the over-supply situation with the statement that, to the extent that we are doing that, we are increasing the pressure for other countries to export nuclear materials to regions, `including into regions where proliferation risks are high'. There are a number conclusions in this report which I submit do not follow logically from the material in the main body of the report. I guess that is one of the central points I make. Dr THEOPHANOUS(Calwell) —by leave-This report entitled `Disarmament and Arms Control in the Nuclear Age' is one of the most important reports to have come before the Parliament. It is a report which is, however, uneven in its character because, although the introduction and many of the chapters contain very important material which I recommend to anyone who is interested in the subject, I believe that, as mentioned by the honourable member for Sydney (Mr Baldwin), many of the conclusions do not follow from the material presented. We can illustrate this by dealing first with the very important issue with which the report tries to come to grips, and that is the issue of the possibility of nuclear war. The introduction to the report ought to make us all reflect on how serious the matter is. A part of the introduction states: The number of nuclear weapons in existence now totals more than 50,000. Their combined explosive power is equivalent to around 13,000 million tons of of TNT. This is more than three tons of TNT for every man, woman and child on earth, or over one million Hiroshimas. Mr Blanchard —A recipe for disaster. Dr THEOPHANOUS —As the honourable member for Moore says, it is a recipe for disaster. The introduction to the report continues: The vast majority of the world's nuclear arsenals is controlled by the two superpowers. If one of these nations were to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the other the results would be without precedent and truly horrific. A 1983 study conducted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences concluded that an exchange involving less than a third of the total number of nuclear warheads would kill approximately 750 million people and seriously injure a further 340 million. A considerable proportion of those who survived the initial effects of the exchange would suffer from acute radiation sickness resulting from exposure to radioactive fallout. The study noted that the economies of the Northern Hemisphere would collapse, commodities and services currently taken for granted would no longer exist, and those in the war zone would be confronted by severe food shortages that could persist for months or even years . . . The results of the 1983 study were based on the then known effects of nuclear explosives. New calculations suggest, however, that several other effects could worsen these consequences considerably. By far the most important is the recently postulated `nuclear winter' effect. Scientists have calculated that the dust and smoke generated by even a relatively small-scale nuclear exchange would be sufficient to block out the sun from the earth's surface for extended periods of time. This would probably reduce temperatures in the war zones by several tens of degrees centigrade and produce lesser, but still significant cooling in the northern subtropics and the tropics. The resultant animal and crop losses could lead to mass starvation and higher death rates, both in the already devastated combatant countries in the Northern Hemisphere and in many parts of the Southern Hemisphere as well. These latter findings in particular place the issue of nuclear armaments in an entirely new perspective. Nuclear war not only threatens the destruction of the warring nations, it also endangers the lives and welfare of those who are neither directly involved in, nor responsible for, the hostilities. This is the basic premise from which we have to begin if we are to discuss this issue and decide how to come to grips with it. Indeed, the commitment contained in the report's introduction was a good one but, unfortunately, by the time one comes to the conclusions of the report the commitment to peace with which the report begins is lost sight of. The report loses sight of the importance of achieving a peace which will avoid a war of this horrendous nature. We have lost sight of that, and we have lost sight of that because, unfortunately, ideological and other aspects of the matter have interceded so that we end up with the kind of conclusion we have in the coalition dissenting report. I urge everyone to read this conclusion, after having read the introduction. The dissenting report says: The coalition categorically rejects one of the primary assumptions on which this Report is based, namely the equation of the two superpowers on the same level. The adoption of such a spurious `even-handedness' defies history, morality and our basic national security interests. Furthermore, meaningful arms control cannot be achieved without compliance, and compliance is impossible to determine in a closed society like the USSR without verification. Soviet violations of arms control commitments are numerous and cannot, indeed, must not, be minimized by the West. The fact is that disarmament proposals must be developed against the background of the USSR's massive and sustained build-up over many years. So the dissenting report goes on. Given that sort of approach, we might as well not have a disarmament report. We might as well call it an armament report, or a report about how we are going to destroy the evil empire and keep that attitude going along the lines of the statements made by Ronald Reagan and other such characters, because if we take that kind of approach we can never achieve peace and disarmament. If we have to take a serious approach to the issue of peace and disarmament, we have to look at the matter from the point of view of trying to foster good will and not simply say that we want to get superiority, not only moral superiority but also strategic and arms superiority. That is the approach which the whole dissenting report takes. It simply takes the view that, unless we can absolutely ensure that the United States has military superiority, everything else is not worth talking about. If that is to be our approach to disarmament, it is not really an approach to disarmament but to armament, to continuing to arm and to bringing about a situation of war rather than a situation of peace. There is no doubt, given what I have read in the introduction and the facts that I have put before the House which are contained throughout this report about the horrifying extent of the nuclear arms race and the potential consequences, that we had better start rethinking some of our views on these matters. In rethinking the matter, as the honourable member for Sydney has pointed out, we should not go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and say that we totally disagree with its system and that, unless it changes its system completely, there is nothing to talk about. To take that attitude is not to support the system in the USSR as has been claimed. Those taking our position are not saying that if we went over there we would therefore support that system. That is not the issue at all. The issue is to go there and to say: `The interests of humanity demand that something be done for us to reach an agreement, notwithstanding the differences in our social systems, notwithstanding the differences in our ideological perspectives'. That is the most important issue, and that issue has not been sufficiently addressed in this report. It has, indeed, been addressed to a certain degree, but it has not been addressed sufficiently in our view. This is why we have produced a dissenting report. We want to say that if we really are going to take that approach and are really fair dinkum, to use an Australian expression, about peace, we have to go there and put all our cards on the table. We have to be ready to negotiate and discuss every aspect of the matter. We had hoped that in Reykjavik that would occur. Honourable members will remember that there was a massive buildup throughout the world-East and West; North and South-about the potentiality of an agreement coming out of Reykjavik. What was one of the fundamental stumbling blocks in the way of agreement? Would honourable members believe that one of the stumbling blocks was the strategic defence initiative-the very thing this Government has been saying is an obstacle to peace? We find when we read the report that all the Liberal Party and National Party Committee members put in a dissenting report saying that they support the SDI and its continuation-the very factor which was responsible for the breakdown in the negotiations at Reykjavik. Let us be clear about that. Of course, this report examines the SDI in great detail. I congratulate the officers of the Committee and all those involved on the excellent section on the SDI. Anyone reading that section objectively could not possibly come away with any view other than that we are looking at a chimera, and that for the sake of that chimera or fantasy we are throwing away the best opportunity we have had for many years to achieve disarmament in the world. The concessions the Soviets were ready to make were amazing. Reading this report one would not believe that the Soviets would have been prepared to make those concessions. Yet they were prepared to make those very significant concessions. All that was needed was some movement on the issue of the SDI. As I said, one is either committed to peace or one is not, and if one is committed to peace in the present situation in the world one has to be ready to talk to one's opponents, or to those whom one considers one's enemies and opponents, to lay it all on the table and give and take. Otherwise one might as well simply forget the future of humanity, because that is the choice we are faced with. Either we talk peace seriously or we have the potential of a war between the super-powers which will engulf everyone and destroy this planet. Those are the choices. If one is going to talk seriously, one has to give and take and not merely get on one's moral high horse and say: `Everything about our society is wonderful; everything about your society is rubbish. Therefore you have to give everything and we have to take everything'. That kind of approach will not work and it will certainly not lead to peace. What about the contribution of Australia? As the report says, Australia is doing a considerable amount to try to get the super-powers together. It is playing a role. It is playing a role also in other initiatives such as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. The Government is playing a role, as I mentioned earlier, in its rejection of participation in the strategic defence initiative and its attempt to persuade the United States of the folly of that approach. However, there is a certain aspect which must be discussed and questioned, and that concerns the role of the so-called joint facilities in Australia. Following what the report says, we have to ask ourselves whether, if there is insufficient progress towards peace, this country might not be able to make a better contribution by starting to question again the role of these facilities. Against those who say that the joint facilities have no aggressive role, the report recognises and makes perfectly clear that the joint facilities can be used in a number of ways to participate in the warring system. We have to ask ourselves what role they would play in the event of a conflict of the kind I have mentioned. Do we as a nation want to play such a role? I know that our time for debating this report is limited, so I just urge people to read the whole report and to read our minority report. As the honourable member for Sydney has mentioned, we do not believe that the conclusions drawn, in particular on the joint United States-Australia facilities and also in relation to certain other aspects, are sufficiently strong, given the general thrust of the report and the way in which it began; that is, by pointing out the enormous problems we face in this world and the enormous dangers we would face if there were a nuclear war. So I urge people to read the report. I congratulate all the people involved in preparing it. I particularly urge people to try in their own actions and activities in the community to support the cause of peace. There is a section on peace studies in the report and what we ought to be doing about that matter. We recommend that peace studies and the cause of peace be promoted in the universities, in the colleges and in the schools. People ought to be aware of just what is at stake. We would say that if that were to happen this democracy could play a very significant role in the future in trying to bring about peace in the world. Mr CONNOLLY(Bradfield)(5.28) —by leave-The Opposition's spokesman in this debate, the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock), has unfortunately had to leave the chamber, and I thought it was only appropriate, because of the comments made by the honourable member for Calwell (Dr Theophanous), that some response to this report should be made. Firstly, I would like to note that this is an excellent report on a very complex and extremely vital area relating to the future of humanity on this planet. It is therefore a matter of some concern to me, and no doubt to other members of the Opposition, that it was not possible for all members of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence to agree on the terms of the recommendations put forward in the report. It concerns me particularly to notice that at least three members of this House, including the honourable member for Calwell, have in fact found it necessary to disagree on virtually every point in the report, as shown in the summary of dissents on the final page. It is worth noting that he has, for example, found objections to the introduction to the report; its comments in relation to the spread of nuclear weapons; Australia's role in disarmament and arms control; the strategic defence initiative; the United States-Australia joint defence facilities; the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone; uranium mining and Australia's role in the nuclear fuel cycle; peace education and peace research in Australia; and recommended strategies and policies. In fact, as I said, the honourable member and two of his colleagues seem to find difficulties with just about everything in this report. I would like to quote the point emphasised in chapter 22 of the report. There is a major difficulty in doing a report of this type when one is dealing with an open democracy on one side, namely the Unites States, and a closed, totalitarian state on the other. The Committee's report makes this clear when it states: As a result, there tends to be more detail on, and scrutiny of the United States and its policies than of the Soviet Union. The Committee would prefer otherwise but has been constrained by the closed nature of Soviet society and its penchant for secrecy. Democracies are relatively open societies and especially in the US the Executive has to justify to Congress and the public all military expenditure. In the closed society of the Soviet Union no such public scrutiny or discussion takes place. In my discussions at the Pentagon last July I noted a very real degree of frustration at the difficulty that the United States felt in trying to negotiate bilateral nuclear arms limitation-type agreements with the Soviet Union, which, time after time, tends to use the public fora of the negotiating process as a means of spreading its propaganda to appear to the world as the only party which is really interested in peace and disarmament when, in fact, it is obvious that, if agreement is ever to be achieved between the two great nuclear powers as a first step towards a systematic scaling down of both the quality and quantity of nuclear weapons around the world, clearly they have to be able to reach agreement on the basis of negotiation. The honourable member for Calwell made certain observations in relation to the Reykjavik negotiations. We all hoped-no doubt the entire world hoped-that agreement would be reached but, as has been so often the case in the past, that was not to be so. Fortunately, the door is not closed and efforts are still being made to reach the basis for an agreement. Let us not look at the last 40 years entirely from the point of view of failure and missed opportunities. While this report emphasises the fact that the continuing development and increase in nuclear weapons are serving to decrease rather than enhance international security, nevertheless the fact is that since 1945 there has been no incident of nuclear weapons being used by any nation as a means of furthering its international policy objectives. I would be the first to agree that it does not necessarily follow that the non-use of weapons in the past means that they will not be used in the future. The observation in this report, which mirrors the comments made by learned people throughout the world, is that there can be no winners and there can only be losers if our world is to be allowed to be constantly put in the position in which nuclear war may become a reality. I believe that members of this Government are naive if they think that one can talk about nuclear weapons completely independently of the totality of the strategic arms balance. I refer specifically to conventional arms as well as nuclear arms. The history of the last 40 years in relation to Western Europe in particular-the presence of the Warsaw Pact on the one side and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on the other-demonstrates quite clearly one thing: The Soviet Union and its Eastern satellites have maintained consistently since the 1940s a high degree of conventional arms superiority over Western Europe and the United States. It would be fair to say that if it were not for the presence of about a million United States soldiers, naval personnel and airmen in the confines of Western Europe and Great Britain the history of Western Europe today might well have been very different from what it is. The existence of those democracies undoubtedly has been based upon the fact that throughout those 40 years the United States has been prepared to risk its treasure and its blood to safeguard those nations and the freedom of their peoples. I get a little tired of members of the Socialist Left or anybody else who may think he means well on this subject-I will give them the benefit of the doubt on that-ignoring the realities of the past. One cannot draw a distinction between nuclear weapons on the one hand and conventional weaponry superiority on the other. There is no doubt that for most of that period the United States has maintained a degree of nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union, but there are those in the Pentagon today and others who are meant to know what they are talking about who now question that. They believe the technology of the Soviet Union, in the last decade in particular, has advanced by leaps and bounds. For those who complain about the strategic defence initiative, the SDI, which is consistently attacked and argued about in this House by members of the Government as being somehow or other a destabilising weapon system of the West, in particular of the United States, which is changing the balance, I point out that a balance was not there in the first place. If one takes account of nuclear weapons and conventional weapons as a total arsenal, the Soviet Union is ahead. The sooner this Government and members of its socialist Left faction realise that the better. Let me make some observations about the SDI. Members of the Government call it pie in the sky. The Soviet Union regards it as a threat. I ask honourable members opposite whether they have read any of the material put out by the Soviet Union in its scientific journals during the late 1970s. If they had they would have discovered that the concept of SDI was not unique to the United States; it was also being developed in the Soviet Union. What worries the Soviet Union is that the United States, because of the stronger economic base, is more likely than not to be able to achieve a breakthrough in this extremely complex area of space technology well ahead of the USSR. For the first time since 1945 there would be the prospect that nuclear war, as we understand it, using multi-targeted intercontinental ballistic missiles, would simply not be a viable strategy of a nation bent on nuclear war. If that is the objective that members of this Government find so horrendous, I would like them to explain to me and to other people who are genuinely concerned about the future of this world, and of this nation, how better they will be able to lower the threshold of risk, to which they are directly contributing by their inability and unwillingness to face the facts. While we cannot get the United States into an environment in which it can negotiate openly with the Soviet Union without wondering when the Soviet Union will change the balance, as it did with its SS20s, let there be no doubt that the SALT II treaties which were directed a few years ago-in the 1970s-at lowering the threshold of risk in Western Europe, particularly in relation to the SS20s and the removal of the United States weaponry of the same or a similar scale, failed for one fundamental reason: The Soviet Union moved its missiles over the Ural Mountains and thus brought all of Western Europe within range of potential disaster. They are the facts of history. They are the facts that members of this Government consistently want to ignore. On page 15 of this excellent report is a table which shows the bilateral arms control agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union and the growth in the total number of nuclear warheads. It is a regrettable fact that the growth of the number of nuclear warheads has been consistent, despite the fact that in the period from 1950 to the present no fewer than 10 international agreements have been signed by the Soviet Union with the United States. I think we must be more sanguine about this and take my observation for what it is worth. If those agreements had not been signed possibly the risks facing humanity would be even greater today than they have been in the past. As I said in my opening remarks, thank God this world has been spared nuclear war since 1945. I have not the slightest doubt that people of good will around the world are determined to achieve peace, but let it not be peace based on weakness, because that will achieve nothing for us. Australia is a member, and a proud member, of the Western alliance, something which members of the Socialist Left of this Government again find difficult to accept. While we go down that road, Opposition members believe that the joint United States facilities in Australia present us with two opportunities. First, we are directly involved in maintaining international peace; and, secondly, the presence of those bases enables Australia to have additional leverage, which apparently members of the Socialist Left would prefer us not to have. If they see the future of this nation as being just a cork bobbing around in the southern Pacific, so be it. That is not the Opposition's view, and is certainly not the view of the vast majority of the Australian people. We want a government with a responsible foreign policy, a government that is determined to do what is possible to achieve peace and to encourage the participants who have the nuclear fuel cycle and make nuclear weapons to do their best to reduce that threat over time, because it will take time. Most important of all, it is nations such as Australia, through our capacity to mine, mill and sell uranium oxide, which are able to control by no other means possible the utilisation of our resources. If some members opposite want us to lose our voice internationally, they should proceed as they are. If they prefer Australia to be respected internationally, as a nation that has something to say and to which people want to listen, a nation with the capacity to have some influence over the trend of events, they have no alternative but to live in the world as it is. They must work for a better world rather than try to exist in a mirage on the premises outlined by the honourable member for Calwell (Dr Theophanous). Let us concentrate, he said, on peace studies in the schools. If the honourable member had studied the history of the last 2,000 years, he would have found one salient fact which has been repeated time and time again. It is that nations which believed that they could maintain peace by refusing to have appropriate armaments for their own protection, whether they were the Athenians, Trojans or Romans or any of the civilisations of the old world, one thing was common to them all: They failed to defend their interests and were destroyed. No nation, and certainly not Australia, will ever be able to live in the environment of assuming that the world owes us a living or owes us our security. We were lucky in 1942 because the United States came to our aid when we desperately needed it. They spent their treasure and their blood to maintain our freedom. It is now up to us to be prepared to do the same thing for ourselves. We will gain no respect from the international community, and certainly not from the Soviet Union, a nation which has for so long demonstrated that strength is its ultimate weapon of foreign policy, if we do not follow such a course. Though the history of the Soviet Union, going back even earlier than the Napoleonic wars and certainly the Second World War, is based on its incredible fear of foreign attacks upon its national entity, the Soviet Union's policy response today is to be as expansionist as ever. Those who doubt that merely have to go to Pakistan and talk to the refugees from Afghanistan in the camps. Would they then have the audacity to come into this House and say that the Soviet Union is a nation that lives for peace and is composed of peace loving people? The people of the Soviet Union undoubtedly want peace in common with the people of the United States, Australia and most other countries, but while the USSR has a myopic government that believes it is under constant threat from the rest of the world, it is extremely difficult for the United States to continue successful negotiations and be able to introduce effective long term disarmament measures. This cannot be done unilaterally. Bilateral disarmament is the objective that we all seek. All I ask is that members of the Socialist Left in this Government, which has such power over the future of this nation, at least at the present time, should be more practical in their response to international realities rather than imagine that the Australian people expect from them anything less than the best that can be done for this nation. Motion (by Mr Peter Morris)-by leave-proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned. Madam SPEAKER —The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr West) has sought the indulgence of the Chair to add to a personal explanation. It is an unusual happening, but the Chair is giving indulgence. It requests the Minister to be short and succinct. Mr WEST(Cunningham-Minister for Housing and Construction) —I thank you, Madam Speaker, and the House. I wish to add to the personal explanation with regard to the meeting I was referring to that was held in May 1983, a meeting of the Turkish community I attended with a number of other prominent Australians. I wish to refute the allegation made on the Willesee show last night by Mr Gurpenar. Having said that I had examined my files and that we did attend a meeting in May 1983, I wish to conclude my personal explanation by stating the purpose of that meeting. I was in no way connected with terrorism of any sort. I was invited to speak at the meeting, and I went as Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs to advise members of the Turkish community of Melbourne of their rights as Australian citizens and permanent residents in the face of a number of letters sent to them telling them to return to Turkey or risk their Turkish citizenship being taken away and their property in Turkey being confiscated. I told them at that meeting that this Government believed, as indeed I think did former governments, that there was no need for them to return to Turkey, that their rights in Australia would be protected, and that there was no need whatsoever for them to comply with any directions from the consul of Turkey. That was a proper thing for a Minister to do-to tell Australian citizens what their rights were. I did that, and absolutely refute that there was any connection with terrorism in any shape or form in the attendance of me and my colleagues at that meeting. Madam SPEAKER —I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Polish Peoples' Republic, together with records of unofficial meetings. Mr DRUMMOND(Forrest) —by leave-I was privileged to serve on the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to Russia and Poland, under your outstanding leadership, Madam Speaker. I commend you and your staff not only for the excellence and professionalism of this report but also for the speed with which the report has been accomplished. I do not think such an important and significant report has ever been produced so quickly after a delegation has returned. I am sure that has a great deal to do with the efforts of Kieran Schneemann and the support staff that accompanied the delegation. They were our sheep dogs who had to round us up at all times to try to get us to the places where we were expected. I also commend the support staff in the form of Mrs Jo Allen and Jodie Gaffey. They went beyond the normal Public Service line of duty in burning the midnight oil to bring this report forward at this time. The delegation spent 10 days in Russia and 10 days in Poland. In Russia we were supported by Ted Pocock, our ambassador, and Meg Pocock. I also make particular reference to John Denton and Rakesh Ahuja, young staff members in Moscow, who assisted us throughout our journey through Russia. We could not have survived without their presence. They are magnificent people and gave us wonderful support. A report such as this-well done as it is-naturally only gives the very bare bones of what we actually experienced as participants in such a delegation. My memories are of the visual impressions of the beauties of cities such as Leningrad and the magnificent restorations of so many wonderful old cathedrals and palaces-particularly the Summer Palace which Catherine I built at Pushkin. This palace was destroyed during the Second World War, only the bare walls were left standing; there were no ceilings. The palace is almost the size of Versailles in France. Now it is being rebuilt exactly as it was before and one cannot help but wonder at the Russians' dedication to history, that they could achieve such wonders. One marvels when one sees the rebuilding of cities such as Warsaw in Poland, which was completely destroyed in the Second World War. One also marvels at the sense of history when visiting cities such as Gdansk in Poland, where some 55 hectares of the old city were destroyed during the war. This has been faithfully rebuilt. Other impressions were of the beauty of the ballet, the grandeur of Red Square, the memorial opening of the Friendship Games, which featured a display as superb as that for the opening of the Olympic Games in Moscow. One could go on and on, but I have mentioned just a few of the visual impressions that I had during that trip. I returned from this trip in absolute confusion. It was the first time that I had visited a communist country. I then began to think about the six parliamentarians who came here from Russia last year and I wondered what their impressions of Australia would have been. I suggest that they too would have been fairly confused. I have not had the opportunity to read their report, if they put one down, but I can imagine them arriving here in Australia. I do not know whether they received the same treatment here as we received in Moscow. When we arrived we were whisked from the plane to the VIP room and someone looked after our luggage. I suspect that the Russian delegation would not have had that service in Australia-perhaps it did. When the Russians got through Customs they probably found themselves in a terrific traffic jam travelling into Sydney. They would have been absolutely amazed to see all the cars on the road with only one person in them. They would have pondered on that. Probably they had endless meetings with very important people. They probably did not succeed in doing what they wanted to do. They probably got to a communist meeting at Cockatoo Dockyard or somewhere like that in order to get at the truth of the matter which they might not have thought they were getting from official versions. Probably they were told there that they had to be fairly careful because ASIO was probably tapping their phones! Probably these delegates never saw a sheep station or Crocodile Dundee. They must have been amazed at the economic situation of our nation, running our huge trade deficits and our internal deficits. I guess they never saw a koala bear. If they did, they probably found out that it scratched and did all those other things. I can just imagine someone coming from a nation such as Russia and being terribly confused after listening to and meeting all the officials. They were probably told that we had one of the most egalitarian societies in the world. I hope that it did not add to their confusion if, by any chance, they went out to the north-west of South Australia and saw some of our Aboriginal communities there. Unfortunately they are at the very lowest level of our echelon with tragic incidences of petrol sniffing and so on. There is a great difference between the official line and what is, perhaps, reality. When one arrives at a place such as Moscow one is adversely impressed by the starkness and drabness of the city. It is an eerie feeling to approach a city which has no farmlets or scattered houses and then suburbia, as with our cities, but which goes from flat farmland to high rise flats. That is not to say that there are no suburbs, but the ordinary tourist does not see the suburbs which are tucked away in thickly wooded areas and in which the top echelon of Russian society lives. We pretend that it is not there. One is depressed by the endless queues for any goods, particularly outside liquor stores. Also one is not impressed by the lack of animation in people and in children. We saw few children as, we were told, they were all at summer camp. One worries about the desperately low productivity of the Russian work force and the farming community which has something like one-quarter of the productivity of the US work force in the rural sectors. One is also depressed by the struggle to introduce technology and the realisation that the nation is basically a Third World country in which a lot of activities are decades behind the West. This was obvious at the October collective farm which we visited in Samarkand. New machinery looked old, horses and donkeys were still used and women were hoeing the vast cotton fields. The real fascination of our trip was coming to grips with an entirely different political system. At the outset I must say that we were all very well received. Mr Voss, the President of the Supreme Soviet, could not have extended greater hospitality to us. All those whom we met did exactly the same. Perhaps we were operating at too high a level. If I had some criticism I would say that we did not meet people other than officials very often. Before we went, I and other members of the delegation joked a little about the endless tractor factories that we would see. Unfortunately we did not see endless tractor factories, in fact we did not see endless work places at all in Russia. In Poland we saw two textile factories but in Russia, except at a dairy farm, we did not come face to face and have discussions with people out of the official area. I do not wish my remarks to seem critical, they are not meant to be; I am trying to describe my impressions of a communist society. The political system has all the trappings of Western democracy in that the party structure ranges from the Politburo to the local branches. The parliamentary structure from the Supreme Soviet down is a mighty bureaucratic organisation which I will not try to describe. Suffice to say that there are some 2.4 million deputies and the like and some 300,000 statutory authorities and the like throughout the system. The difference between our system and theirs is that, while there is an intermingling of personnel between the two organisations, all power resides with the Communist Party structure. Yet only about 18 per cent of the population belongs to the Communist Party. The most significant difference is that we select and elect our members of parliament. Our Prime Minister and our executives are elected from those elected by the people. In Russia the power comes from the top. The powerful Politburo elects the General Secretary and he and the hierarchy basically select the candidates for positions down the ladder. That is, of course, an over-simplification but at the Twenty-seventh CPSU Congress Gorbachev succeeded in having five new Politburo members elected, 30 of the 80 new Ministers, a raft of new regional party secretaries and 124 new central committee members. That means there was a 40.4 per cent change in the 307-member body. Power comes from the top and this has led to the centralisation of the decision making process which stifles the very act of decision making. I believe that the Chernobyl disaster was an example of that. It was a most unusual occurrence, no one knew what to do and no one wanted to make decisions. Therefore there was some delay in the reaction to that disaster. During our discussions much time was spent on peace and disarmament at every level, not only in Russia, but also in Poland. As detailed in the report, a great deal of time was spent at official meetings with the Russians and the Poles on the subject of peace and disarmament. I am sure that if honourable members could translate the wishes of the people they would be similar to those of the majority of the people of the world; that is, that we pray for peace and disarmament. Why is it that we in the West regard the Russians as hostile? We heard some debate about that previously. We fear that the Russians wish to conquer the world by one means or another, that the United States of America has to reach forward in technology to introduce the Star Wars program to combat the increasing imbalance of nuclear weaponry on the Russian side. This is all at odds with statements by Mr Gromyko, with whom we spent 2 1/2 hours. A lot of that discussion was on peace and disarmament. Every official Russian or Pole we met preached peace and disarmament. What drives the Russians on? Why do they spend vast amounts of their resources on weaponry and space technology when their standard of living suggests that they are closer to being a Third World nation than a super-power? Is it a genuine fear that they will be invaded and destroyed? For centuries their land, particularly the western sector and Poland, has been the buffer between Western Europe and the hordes of Tartars, Mongolians, Turks and others, such as Bonaparte, who ravaged their land and other lands. During World War I one million Russians lost their lives. During World War II, between 1941 and 1945, most of the western sector was occupied and eventually laid waste and 20 million Russians lost their lives. They have had a slow recovery from that. The fallen today are still revered throughout the land. The people are constantly reminded of that terrible time. It must never be allowed to happen again. When the Russians look around them, what do they see? They see a ring of nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe. They see unstable fundamentalist Moslem nations to the south. They see Turkey to the south, a member of the so-called West. They see China on the east, which does, on occasion, assist the United States of America with listening posts on its eastern borders. Do they feel surrounded and threatened? How would the United States react if it were confronted by these circumstances, remembering its history? We have never had our land fought over in Australia. It is hard to contemplate what the Russians must feel under these circumstances. On careful reading of the records of the other meetings, honourable members will see that there is complete contradiction between the official line and those records-something similar to what the Russians felt, I suggest, when they left Australia. The blatant differences between the official version of the Jewish, or refusenik, problems and other family reunion problems and the reality of the situation makes one wonder just what official line one can believe. Do constant appeals for peace and disarmament really mean that? What do they mean? Better men than I have tried to fathom that question. I have spent most of my time discussing issues relating to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We were equally well received in Poland by the President of the Parliament, Marshal Roman Malinowski. Max Hughes and his wife, Yanta, and their staff were of great assistance to us. I found that while Poland's political system was much the same, the Polish people had different problems. They were a lot freer and more anxious to talk about their political situation. I guess they could not avoid it because it is not long since Solidarity was a very powerful force within the country. Their economic situation is completely different. Unfortunately, they have borrowed great slabs of Western currency, which they are finding very difficult to pay back. Their economy is depressed. One could not help being impressed by the fact that they have to repay approximately $2 billion a year to finance their borrowings. They were very close to depriving themselves to achieve that. The ordinary citizen in Poland could buy very few commodities. In Australia we continue to borrow merrily whatever it might take-$10 billion or $12 billion a year-to stay afloat with not much thought about paying it back. The crunch might come one day and we might have to look to Poland and other nations to see how they achieved that. The experience of this trip has not left me with a great understanding of the two countries we visited-I would not pretend to be an instant expert after spending 10 days in each country-but I found it very rewarding. We would not have had the comfort or the good organisation without our faithful friend, Kieran Schneemann. Madam Speaker, your offsider, Koula Alexiadis, contributed a tremendous amount. She is a wonderful offsider, Madam Speaker, and was a great friend and helper to everyone on the delegation. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to support the report. I thank the House for the time. Mr TICKNER(Hughes) —by leave-If the Soviet and Polish authorities had a good understanding of the Australian Parliament and had been properly forewarned about what was to descend on them when the Australian parliamentary delegation set off from Australia, perhaps they would not have extended to us quite such an enthusiastic and warm welcome as we received. Madam Speaker, I think you will agree that we were a very diverse group of people, ranging from Senator Collard, the Leader of the National Party of Australia in the Senate, to Senator Sanders, who I do not think needs any introduction. Although he is not a member of this House, he has rather different views from those of Senator Collard. Despite the very diverse nature of the group, we did manage to stay together and were very united in the course of the parliamentary delegation. I believe that we were a credit to the Parliament and, through the Parliament, to the people of Australia. I would like to make a number of comments concerning the delegation. Given the limited time I have, they will necessarily be truncated. I would be remiss if I did not begin, as did the honourable member for Forrest (Mr Drummond) in his usual charming manner, by paying great credit to you, Madam Speaker, as the leader of that delegation. It was an important historic initiative. It was the first parliamentary delegation in the history of this country ever led by a woman. It was led not with mediocrity, but with excellence. If any of our hosts or anyone-whether in the Parliament or otherwise-thought that this was a junket, boy, were they in for a shock. I believe the delegation and your own conduct as the leader of that delegation, Madam Speaker, made it an extremely hard hitting, professional delegation. As I have indicated, it brought not only credit to Australia, but also positive results as a consequence of the initiatives we undertook. It would also be remiss of me not to pay some credit to the other members of the delegation. I will not name them all because they are listed in the report. Despite the fact that we come from very different backgrounds, I think all of us learned something about human nature and about our own individual character and beliefs. In some way I think we all benefited from what we learned about the others. I too join in paying tribute to Mr Kieran Schneemann. I am not sure whether the reference to his being like a sheep dog is the most appropriate one. He was described in other terms, as I recall, at various times in the course of the delegation's travels, but it is true that his behaviour was impeccable. He behaved in the best traditions of the civil service, providing independent and forthright advice and making sure that the delegation behaved at all times in a professional manner. All I can say is that if delegations from this Parliament always remain in such safe hands the Parliament will rise in international standing as a result of that professional service. I too join in commenting on the service rendered by Dr Frank Frost and other officers of the Legislative Research Service of the Parliamentary Library who did a great deal of providing us with briefing material. I pay tribute to Mr Ted Pocock, our Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and Mrs Pocock, and to Mr Max Hughes, who occupies a similar position in Poland, and Mrs Hughes. I would like now to refer briefly to a number of aspects of the report and the way in which the delegation conducted itself. I think it should be said that the common theme running through the report and through the efforts of the delegation was a united and forthright concern about human rights. They were not just concerns expressed in the abstract; they were specific concerns in both the Soviet Union and Poland, often involving the naming of specific people who were the concerns of the Parliament or who on other occasions had been drawn to our concern by Amnesty International. One of the enduring memories I will have is being in the Kremlin with you, Madam Speaker, and other members and having the opportunity to sit across the table from some of the highest officials in the Soviet Union. We were able to say to them in a forthright manner that we came not just to launch blind attacks on the abuse of human rights but with a good record in Australia, judged on international standards of human rights, and that we came in friendship but were not going to let issues of human rights fall off the conference table. Throughout our delegation we consistently raised these matters. As a result of the documents tabled today, we can read reports of not just the formal meetings we held but also some of the informal meetings-in the Soviet Union with members of the Jewish community and in Poland with members of Solidarity and of the Polish church. I refer also to the general approach taken by you, Madam Speaker, and by members of the delegation on peace and disarmament issues. In essence, as I recall your words, the issue of world peace was quite integral to and linked with issues of human rights. You spoke in a very forthright manner about Australia taking an independent role in world affairs in the context of our participation in the Western alliance and you spoke with great pride, as did I and others, of Australia's independent contribution to world peace and disarmament through our various initiatives, including the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. One matter which is not referred to in the report but to which I would like to allude briefly is a meeting which Senator McIntosh, the honourable member for Capricornia (Mr Wright), Senator Sanders and I held with the independent peace group in the Soviet Union. It is something about which I have spoken on another occasion, but it is important to make reference to it. In the meeting that we held we gained a very clear understanding of how difficult it was for an independent peace group to operate in the Soviet Union, and once again the question of human rights is raised by that discussion. I want to end on a very positive note. I am able to come here to participate briefly in commenting on this report unencumbered by any ideological baggage or any views that I might be locked into by reason of belonging to the Australian Labor Party or participating in any other organisation. I can speak quite frankly and give the Parliament the benefit of my views in relation to the delegation and matters arising from it. If there is one thing that I believe as a result of the delegation it is that no one country on this earth or group of people has all the answers to the world's problems. I commend the honourable member for Forrest on his comments to the House this afternoon because he clearly indicated that we ought not to approach questions of international peace and disarmament with preconceived ideas and from a fixed position. What we ought to be about is building bridges and moving towards the best attainable position in relation to peace and disarmament issues and other issues of international concern. On that note I again thank our hosts in the Soviet Union and Poland and in particular place great importance on the continuing moratorium in respect of nuclear testing in which the Soviet Union has shown some leadership. I commend the Soviets strongly for that and hope that in the remaining month of this International Year of Peace the United States of America will see fit to take up that leadership of the Soviet Union on this one question. Mr WRIGHT(Capricornia) —by leave-I join other members of the delegation to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Poland in speaking on the report before the Parliament. This was my first trip as a member of the House of Representatives and it certainly was a learning experience. I thank you personally, Madam Speaker, for the leadership you gave and for the forthright way in which you led our delegation, particularly in the discussions with the Supreme Soviet and the Polish leaders, because it opened my eyes to the value of being frank and open and of being willing to speak about the issues that affect not just governments but also people. It was, therefore, of some concern to me to find when I came back from that overseas trip that in my area, for political motives, a couple of people had written well-designed letters attacking this so-called junket to Russia and Poland. Those people did not know that it was an all-party delegation and that many of the costs were met by the members themselves, particularly as they moved away from the official visit. I learned a lot from the trip. I learned just what individual members of parliament can do when they are willing to speak out on issues. I learned how we have the privilege and opportunity to raise matters that affect our own country and other people. I hope that the discussions that a number of us had will be of benefit. I refer particularly to the discussion that the honourable member for Forrest (Mr Drummond) and I had with the Russians involved in the manufacture of tractors. It is a small thing, but the people of Australia, especially those in the farming areas, have had some problems with the Berlarus tractor. We had the chance to sit down with heads of government in the USSR to talk through the sales techniques, the after-sales techniques, general marketing aspects and all the ramifications of the tractor. We were very mindful, as we did this, that our Government and those involved with the rural sector had entered into an agreement to purchase $1m worth of tractors. This was important because we were faced with the dilemma that we were selling to the USSR something like $800m worth of wheat and buying very little from the Soviets, and here we were talking about and almost criticising one of their products. One can imagine the sensitivity that existed; but they recognised our right to raise the issues and respected the fact that we wanted to do it. Out of that we have found that dialogue has continued and that the things they promised to do in the area of that very important trade item have been upgraded. These are just some of the things that I do not think people realise and I did not appreciate. Whilst I had been on overseas trips as a member of the Queensland Parliament I had never really appreciated the importance of these types of trips. Again this is true of tourism as we talked about the important link that Australia could have with Poland. Since we have been back there have been further discussions about having an air link between Australia and Poland. One of my colleagues raised the issue of human rights. Again I saw the importance of being able to sit down and talk in honest terms about the problems of people. Madam Speaker, I commend you again for the way you led us in that because I think the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in particular, started to appreciate that a small nation such as Australia has a right to express a point of view and that it has a right to be concerned about families that are torn apart that have loved ones in far off countries. This respect came through and I welcomed that and learnt again from it. I was also most pleased that, regardless of political persuasions, members of the delegation were prepared to pursue the line of peace. I am very much aware now-as I have said, it was a learning experience-that the USSR, in particular, has learnt that Australia is committed to peace and that it has a record that it can be very proud of. The Soviet Union appreciates that we strongly supported the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It appreciates that we promoted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. Whilst we are a nation of only sixteen million people, we were a voice meeting with top leaders such as the Chairman, Mr Gromyko, and I was most pleased that they listened to us. The thing that came home to me was their desire also for peace. It was not until I visited those countries and talked to the ordinary people that I found out that they had been invaded time and again through the centuries and that they had lost relatives. I do not think we met a family in Poland that had not lost some relative in wartime, something which we Australians do not appreciate. I came away from these countries desiring peace and desiring greater contact for politicians of every persuasion and every nationality in the world to be able to come together, talk things through and realise that there is another way. I had the opportunity to discuss another way of talking up these issues. Madam Speaker, you will recall that, when I presented a boomerang to the Supreme Soviet, I commented: `Would it not be wonderful if every nuclear weapon were in the shape of a boomerang?' If honourable members think that through they will realise that it means that there would be no wars. I feel that that visit-- Mr Connolly —They don't all come back. Mr WRIGHT —The ones we make do but I take the honourable member's point. The Australian boomerang certainly comes back. I learnt from that visit that there are things we can fight for, that there is a need for members of parliament to travel widely, that there is a need for the all-party approach rather than the political government approach and that, if we do those things, we can achieve much. I believe that that delegation has achieved a lot. I just want to pay a tribute to those who assisted, in particular, Kieran, who was our minder, who watched over us and who I think saved us from making many mistakes. As he is in the chamber I pay a special tribute to him and also to those who prepared us for the journey. If it were not for the briefings and the information there could have been mistakes. I welcome the opportunity of speaking to the report that has been presented. It certainly was a worthwhile adventure and a learning experience and I thank the people of Australia for allowing me to go. Mr BLANCHARD(Moore) —On behalf of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, I present the report on certain documents tendered to the Committee during the Baryulgil community inquiry, together with the minutes of proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Mr BLANCHARD —by leave-On 5 June 1986 the House of Representatives referred to the Committee for consideration and advice the question of whether certain documents tendered to the Committee during its Baryulgil community inquiry should be presented to the House with a view to leave being granted to a petitioner to serve a subpoena for the production of the documents in a court. The Committee appointed a Sub-Committee consisting of three members who were members of the Committee at the time of the Baryulgil community inquiry to undertake the reference and report back to the Committee. The members of the Sub-Committee were the Chairman, the honourable member for Melbourne (Mr Hand), the honourable member for Maranoa (Mr Ian Cameron), and me. The Sub-Committee considered the matter and prepared a report which has been endorsed by the Committee. I thank the honourable member for Melbourne and the honourable member for Maranoa for their contributions to the Sub-Committee's consideration of this matter. I would also like to thank Mr David Elder and the other members of the Secretariat for their assistance in compiling the report. I do not propose to detail the issues which were considered by the Committee in relation to this matter other than to say that they were complex. The report provides background to the Baryulgil community inquiry and the documents which were the subject of the reference to the Committee. It also details the issues which the Committee considered in relation to the release of the documents to the courts. Because of the complexity of the issues which the Committee had to consider advice was sought from the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) about the issues involved. The Attorney-General's advice is appended to the report. On the basis of the issues before the Committee the Attorney-General's conclusion, in brief, was that he saw no reason why the documents should not be released to a court hearing the damages proceedings or any other proceedings in which they are to be tendered as evidence. The Committee endorses this conclusion. It sees significant public interest in the documents being released to the courts for consideration in proceedings to which they are relevant. The Committee sought responses from the witnesses who tendered the documents during the Baryulgil inquiry. These responses indicate that the witnesses consent to the release of the documents and the Committee considers that the protection of the witnesses in relation to their evidence does not affect a decision to release the documents. The Committee's view was that, in relation to the other issues which it considered, there were no impediments to the release of the documents. The Committee therefore recommends to the House that it grant leave to petitioners, or their legal representatives, to issue and serve subpoenas for the production to a court of documents tendered by the Aboriginal Legal Service Ltd and Mr Burke during the Committee's Baryulgil inquiry. I commend the report to the House. Mrs KELLY(Canberra) —On behalf of the Joint Committee on the Australian Capital Territory, I present the report of the Committee on hospitality in the Australian Capital Territory, incorporating a minority report, together with the transcripts of evidence and extracts from the minutes of proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Mrs KELLY —by leave-On 22 January 1986 the Minister for Territories (Mr Scholes) wrote to the Committee suggesting that the Committee inquire into and report on the state of the hospitality industry, its capacity to meet demand, prospects for its future and desirability and extent of government regulation. The Minister's request was made in the context of hospitality and tourism being vital industries in the Australian Capital Territory economy and furthering the Government's objective of diversifying the Territory's economic base. The Committee adopted the Minister's suggested terms of reference in February this year and conducted three public hearings as well as formal and informal inspections in Sydney and Melbourne. The Committee's inquiry is important in that it addresses major issues which have to be faced in the hospitality sector of the Australian Capital Territory economy. This must be done in a way which will maximise the tourist potential generated by events surrounding the opening of Parliament House and the bicentennial celebrations in 1988 and subsequent expansion of tourism in the Territory. Tourism is one of the main growth areas in the Australian Capital Territory, employing 4 per cent of the work force in Australian Capital Territory restaurants, hotels and clubs. However, the industry's capacity to generate employment is greater than figures would indicate. Existing shortages will be aggravated by the completion of a number of new projects by 1988, including the new Parliament House, the Hyatt Hotel, formerly the Hotel Canberra, the Pavilion Hotel on the site of the former Wellington Hotel and the White Industries Hotel-Convention Centre. These new facilities could require as many as 1,500 staff. The question of staff shortages throughout the hospitality industry and the adequacy of existing training practices and facilities in the context of staff shortages and anticipated increase in demand for staff is examined in great detail in the Committee's report. The Committee found that the state of the hospitality industry varies significantly from one area to another. Accommodation is undergoing a period of significant expansion. Other areas such as restaurants are said to be experiencing stress resulting partly from excess capacity. The Committee has examined the question of oversupply of restaurants and considers that this is a question best solved in the market-place. As well as commenting in turn on the various sectors included within the hospitality industry, the Committee also examined in detail a new administrative structure to co-ordinate tourism and economic development in an effective manner. A major recommendation of the Committee is to amalgamate the present Canberra Tourist Bureau and the Canberra Development Board. The new Board, to be known as the Australian Capital Territory Development Board, will be responsible for promoting, developing and providing economic assistance to tourism and hospitality in the Australian Capital Territory. In order to overcome past difficulties, this body should be established independently of the Department of Territories and have sufficient autonomy to react to changing needs and to provide immediate assistance to business when required. The new Board should be seen by private operators as a friendly and responsive organisation with sufficient flexibility to respond quickly to new developments and not be hampered by unnecessary bureaucratic procedures. It should also have direct access through its Chairman to the Minister for Territories. The need for this body has been reinforced by the abolition of the House of Assembly. To consolidate this new approach there is also a need to prepare a tourist development plan to indicate how planning and development policies affecting the hospitality industry may be co-ordinated in the interests of further development. The tourist development plan would concentrate on overcoming deficiencies of present small scale and dispersed investments in tourism and identify areas where co-ordinated investment might yield the best returns. The Committee would like to ensure that the opportunities and challenges posed by developments leading up to 1988 and the potential associated with the predicted growth in tourism in that year are not missed. Canberra, in its role as the national capital, is an obvious focus for a range of activities associated with the bicentennial celebrations and the opening of the new Parliament House. So that Canberra may derive maximum benefit from these developments, it is essential that the key areas examined in this report, namely training and promotion, be addressed so that Canberra's economy may benefit from the domestic, national and international market potential. Finally, on behalf of the Committee, I thank the staff for their able assistance. I recommend the report to the House. Sitting suspended from 6.33 to 8 p.m. Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time. (Quorum formed) Mr HOWE(Batman-Minister for Social Security)(8.03) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. As this Bill originated in the Senate and the second reading speech was made by the Minister for Community Services (Senator Grimes) in that House on 12 November, I do not propose to read the speech but seek leave to table it. Leave not granted. Debate (on motion by Mr Tim Fischer) adjourned. Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time. Mr HOWE(Batman-Minister for Social Security)(8.04) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. As this Bill originated in the Senate and the second reading speech was made by the Minister for Community Services (Senator Grimes) in that House on 12 November, I do not propose to read the speech but seek leave to table it. Leave not granted. Debate (on motion by Mr Tim Fischer) adjourned. Debate resumed from 29 May, on motion by Mr John Brown: That the House take note of the paper. Mr YOUNG(Port Adelaide-Leader of the House)(8.05) —It is not my intention to take up too much of the time of the House; I know that other members are very keen to express views about this report of the Standing Committee on Procedure. I committed this Government some weeks ago to making time available in the last week of the Parliament for the debate to take place and, hopefully, honourable members from both sides will be able to make their contributions to the debate, perhaps on subjects beyond those the Committee has already looked at. I say at the outset that the conduct of the Parliament and the manner in which the business is dealt with, the problems for Executive Government and the travelling to and from Canberra by members from all over Australia, present the meeting of the Australian Parliament with many problems. Sometimes it appears that not everyone completely understands those difficulties. In addition to the meeting of the Parliament, members of the Executive also serve on Cabinet committees and attend Cabinet meetings, their own Party meetings and their Party committee meetings. All of these meetings are pushed into the four-day sitting week we now have and create an enormous amount of work. It also has to be understood that, irrespective of who is in government, some months before each session starts Ministers are asked to put in their bids for legislation. I am sure the experience was the same in the days of the former Government as it is now. We always receive bids for legislation far beyond the ability of the Parliament to deal with those matters. The parliamentary business committee of Cabinet has to try to make decisions to give the House a work load that is compatible not only with the commitment of honourable members during sittings but also with the work loads to be carried by those in the Public Service, especially the draftsmen and the people involved in preparing legislation. So there are a number of difficulties involved whenever one comes to discuss matters of this nature. I was the prime mover in the establishment of this Committee because I saw many inadequacies in a number of the conventions of this Parliament. For instance, I think it is an inadequacy that quorums can be called at any time and that honourable members who might be sitting in very busy committee or Cabinet meetings, or who may have visitors with whom they are talking business, are called away without notice and that business is interrupted in order to make up the numbers in the House. Doing away with quorums appeals to everybody in government but it never appeals to those in opposition. It did not appeal to me when I was in opposition and the present Opposition, of course, takes exactly the same attitude. Anything that can be done in opposition to make life more difficult for those in government seems to be the modus operandi. So we always have the problem of trying to approach sensibly the way in which we can best use the hours of the Parliament. I am very committed to making some changes and putting up some recommendations to the Government to see those changes brought about in 1987. It will not be the easiest of years to do that because obviously it will be during an election period and honourable members on the other side of the House may be on the lookout for smart moves by the Government, as they may describe them, that will give us some lasting benefit and perhaps will spontaneously oppose them. So it will not be the easiest year in which to achieve those reforms. Nevertheless, as 1987 should be the last full year in which we use this Parliament House building, I think it would be common sense for us to approach those changes on the basis of facilitating better parliament, better government and the better use of time in the new Parliament House. None of us is really acquainted with the physical layout of the new Parliament House and it may not be as easy to meet the very stringent requirements of the bell ringing for quorums and votes in the new House as it has been in this House. So those things have to be looked at. Of course, the Committee has made some recommendations about such things as having a business committee whereby the Government would sit down with the Opposition to decide what business would come before the Parliament and for how long it would be debated. As I said, my views have not been expressed to the Government, but they would not be any secret. I am sure that the Manager of Opposition Business, the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair), would share my view that the Government must determine the business of the day, and it would be rather ironic if the Opposition were to be part of a committee which would determine the way in which the Government were to govern. The Parliament is all about legislation and there are some times when private members have time available to them through grievance debates, matters of public importance, general business and adjournment debates. But by and large the Parliament is here to deal with the legislation that is put forward by the Government. So it would be very difficult to envisage a mechanism being set in place, one which would last, whereby the Government would sit down with the Opposition and let the Opposition say: `Yes, we like this piece of legislation and we will talk about it for two days; but we do not like that and if you try to bring it in we will talk about it for three days in order to prolong the debate'. The Government obviously must be in charge of the Parliament. It is elected to be so and I could not envisage any way in which that could be interfered with. Question Time, of course, has been the subject of some debate in this Parliament for a long time. The violation of Question Time by the Fraser Government is now history. It violated Question Time in an unprecedented manner. Not only did it violate Question Time with its complete disregard for the Opposition between 1976 and 1983, but also almost every decent convention of this Parliament was broken by the Fraser Government, particularly by the Prime Minister. Under present procedures it is the norm that when any Minister is to make a statement in the House he gives two hours notice of the statement to the Opposition so that the Opposition has time to prepare a reply. That just went completely out the window under the previous conservative Government. If it felt like it it gave the Opposition two hours notice; if it did not it just arrogantly went on making the statement irrespective of there being no time at all given to the Opposition to look at the statement that the Minister was to make. I suspect that the person who violated that convention more than any other was indeed the Prime Minister himself, Mr Fraser, because he had the attitude that the Parliament belonged to him and whatever he felt like doing he did. It was obvious very early in his prime ministership that no one in that Government was prepared to stand up to him and so he just did what he liked. I think it is important to point out, as the Committee has done-indeed, I think the Committee's report can be summed up in the making of this point-that there is a general feeling that the role of the back bencher is being submerged by an ever increasing work load being carried by the Executive. So the Committee talks about sitting extra weeks in the year. Of course, the sitting weeks in various years change. We are sitting more weeks this year than we did last year-more days and more hours. We are having more grievance debates, more general business, more matters of public importance and more hours of adjournment debates. Nevertheless, if the Parliament decided to sit more weeks under our present system this would not alleviate the problem of the back benchers, because the Executive would propose more legislation. It would say: `Well, instead of doing 40 packages of Bills we will do 50'. So the same containment of the rights of the back bench would still be in place as a result of an ever increasing work load being placed on the Executive. It is true to say, for instance, that already we are in November 1986 and the parliamentary business committee is dealing with the business that must come before the Parliament in the autumn session of 1987. As I would think has occurred in every normal session under any government, more legislation is proposed by the Ministers of this Government for the autumn session of 1987 than we could possibly pass in this House. We could pass it if we wanted to guillotine every Bill. That has never been the desire of this Government. We have always tried to see that an opportunity is given to people to speak, especially on the more important pieces of legislation, so that they can put their views forward. In many cases there must be discussion and agreement between me, in this case, as the Leader of the House and the right honour- able member for New England as the Manager of Opposition Business to get some understanding of exactly the way in which matters will come before the House. So the Opposition does have, perhaps, the opportunity to set its priorities on time. I think that is a very sensible arrangement and I think it should continue. But in terms of some of the frustrations that are felt at Question Time, because we set 45 minutes aside and because the history of Question Time has been a little uneven, we have never attempted constructively to deal with the number of questions that ought to be dealt with or the opportunity of members of the Opposition to question Ministers. Quite frankly, my own view is that it has always been a mistake for every Minister to be here at Question Time. I think the Opposition would be much better served, as would the Government, if a number of Ministers were here at Question Time so the other Ministers could get on with their work and so that those Ministers who were here at Question Time would be put under greater scrutiny. That is a system that operates in other parts of the world and which, I think, gives a better opportunity for the Opposition. I do not suggest that we change the system so that notice of questions is always given, because I think there is value in the rather unique system we have whereby questions can be asked without notice. Although the Opposition has not been very good in 1986, the opportunity is there for it to be good in 1987. So we do not suggest that we should change the system. Some of the best work done in this Parliament is done by parliamentary committees. To be perfectly frank I would have to say that when parliamentarians are under the spotlight in this chamber they believe that they have to show that they are on different sides. Parliamentary committees work quite differently. They work very constructively on the basis that members are representing the Parliament and they want to produce the best result possible on the matters they are investigating. It is a bit difficult to talk about the expansion of the committees. Honourable members are getting so busy that more committees would just mean that they would spend less time on the ones they are already on. When committees bring their reports back the Parliament cannot give them the time to have a proper debate and the people who observe the Parliament are never quite sure of who are the experts in the various areas that it might be dealing with. I think there should be an opportunity in the Parliament for days of sitting without all the formalities, where there is no demand on all the Ministers to be here, that would allow back benchers to debate certain issues-whether foreign affairs, trade, the environment or whatever-so that those people in the Parliament who have spent a lot of time away from home, and commitment and energy looking at these various issues have an opportunity in the Parliament itself to talk about the work they have done and the reasons they have reached their conclusions in the committee reports. In that way there are many opportunities for us to look at what changes may be made in the Parliament. It was my view that before the Government made any decision members on both sides should have some hours to discuss the matter, which we are doing tonight. The Government will look at the contributions made by honourable members from both sides, and it is my hope that we will bring back some recommendations for the first sitting of next year, in February. Mr SINCLAIR(New England-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(8.21) —I welcome the debate on this report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure, but I found the remarks of the Leader of the House (Mr Young) fascinating. After all, he has just introduced into the Parliament two Bills without the presentation of second reading speeches. We have been treated with utter contempt. Because they were introduced into the Senate first, presumably it does not matter if they are just tabled in this place. I regard that practice as symptomatic of so much of the hypocrisy of the Government at this time. Its members talk about what they believe should be done but, unfortunately, follow a different practice. The Leader of the House, who is no longer present in the chamber for this debate in which he says that we can now participate, mentioned a number of matters. He referred to the violation of Question Time. In considering how we should respond to this report, I almost suggested to my colleagues in the coalition that we ought to move a motion which would allow consideration of a few particular areas of suggested change to our Standing Orders or at least suggest the introduction of new sessional orders. They pertained in part to Question Time. The Leader of the House has just said he believed the previous Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser, broke the conventions of Parliament and failed to control this place during Question Time. There is no doubt that this Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) could never make any claim to success in the latter because he knows so little about it. His lack of interest is apparent in his failure to appear in this place on other than rare occasions, normally during questions without notice. I think it is important that the Parliament become more relevant, and I think it is regrettable that the procedures and practices of the Labor Government have been not only to reduce the relevance of the Parliament but also to reduce the significance of the House of Representatives in contrast to the Senate. There is little doubt that we are sitting this week not because of any Government program, not because we are to deal with matters that the Government has to pursue; we are really waiting for the Senate in case it rejects pieces of legislation and it might be necessary for the House of Representatives to consider them again. Indeed, as I understand the program of the Senate, it is highly likely that we will return before Christmas, and I think that would be a very good idea. Indeed, one of the recommendations within this general report relates to a minimum number of sitting days for the House. Unless the Parliament sits more often, there is little doubt that it is unlikely to have much relevance to the major issues which are debated not here in Canberra, in this glorious isolation of the national capital that has little moment for most Australians, but rather in the big cities and the country towns where people are concerned about what happens to them. Those issues should be debated here. Other matters were mentioned by the Leader of the House, and I want to pick them up in a more positive way. The first concerns the new Parliament House. This is the dying stage of this Parliament; it is the dying stage of this Government. There is little doubt that it will not be sitting on the Government benches of the new Parliament House. It is interesting that a report that was presented in May 1986 finally sees the light of the Parliament at the end of November 1986, in the last sitting week of the House of Representatives, and honourable members are given the opportunity to debate it. If one looks at the Notice Paper one will see that members on this side of the House and, indeed, some on the other side would like to discuss many other matters. According to today's Notice Paper, 92 notices of motion are as yet undebated. I should tell those people who are listening that most of those notices of motion are unlikely ever to be debated in the Australian Parliament. They are matters of very real relevance to members' electorates and to the well-being of Australian citizens. The Notice Paper also lists notices of motion for General Business Thursday. They are numbered from 13 to 23, so there are 11 such notices. Altogether we have a large number of notices of motion-some 103 in all-which remain to be debated and which are not likely to be debated in this House. A new Parliament is on the way, the Government is in its dying stages, and this Parliament is about to close for Christmas. The Leader of the House failed to mention another vital factor, and that is the increase in the number of members of the House of Representatives. Everybody should understand that the result of that is fewer opportunities for individual members to contribute to debates and fewer opportunities to ask questions without notice. A practice has grown-in some ways, I think, regrettably-whereby structured questions are asked from both sides of the House, which also means that the private member has less and less opportunity to ask questions without notice. Other procedures have also changed. Thousands upon thousands of Australians sign petitions. In many instances they sign them because they very sincerely believe in the contents of those petitions. They seek to exercise an ancient right which gave to people an opportunity originally to petition the monarch and then, as a result of the Bill of Rights, to petition the Parliament. Sadly, those petitions are largely now a farce. The Government does not know about them. The Ministers walk out of this place as soon as Question Time is over. There are now two members of the Australian Labor Party in the chamber, apart from you, Madam Speaker, and I recognise that you sit there in a more dispassionate role. Two members of the Government Party are sitting in this House during this debate. I think it should be understood, therefore, that the relevance of petitions and the relevance of the procedures of this Parliament bear little relationship to the genuine and increasing concerns of the average Australian about what this disastrous Labor Government is doing for the average Australian. The economy is in a mess; interest rates are appalling for the home owner, the farmer and the small businessman. We know what the Government is doing with taxation. We know that it is making a mess of everything, but it is not interested in debating such matters in Parliament. Tonight we are considering how we might extend that opportunity, but it is not even interested in participating, or at least in sitting here and arguing in rational debate. That was in part the point that I wanted to make. If Parliament should exist as a forum, surely it should be here to try to persuade others, to give an opportunity for parliamentarians to listen to other points of view. After all, this is a place where Australians are represented. Every one of us has an electorate. Every one of us has between 60,000 and 80,000 electors, about 150,000 people-men, women and children-whom we represent. Some are Australian nationals, some are not. We represent them, even if they are not electors. This place should be a forum where we can properly consider issues that are before us. This Committee's report addresses some of those problems. While I accept that in the dying stage of this Parliament House there are particular problems, my worry is that it will really be quite necessary for us to review the whole of our procedures and practices in the new Parliament House. This debate tonight does not necessarily have any relevance at all to what will need to be done when we move to the new site on Capital Hill. However, it means that we should look at what we should do next year. I would like to put to the Government a few fairly elementary things that it should have done. The Leader of the House mentioned Question Time. I know that the current subject of inquiry of this Committee relates to Question Time. There should be a minimum requirement as to the number of questions to be asked. In our view, at least an hour should be allowed for Question Time and if, in that time, a minimum number of questions have not been asked an extension of time should be given. You, Madam Speaker, not the Prime Minister, should determine the time allocated to Question Time. Other aspects relating to the conduct of Question Time appal us. This Prime Minister constantly abuses it, as do his Ministers. We have had statements of policy that, without reflection on your determinations, Madam Speaker, should be properly made by way of ministerial statements. The Government cannot walk away from its responsibilities and think that, because there is no opportunity to debate them, we can just ignore the whole subject. I believe it is very important that if Ministers have policy statements to make they should not use Question Time to do it but they should adopt the practice of preceding governments of either persuasion, which would ensure that a significant statement is not made by way of a Press release outside the Parliament but is made in here where the issues can be properly debated and honourable members on both sides of the House can express their points of view about it. Question Time is abused, answers are irrelevant, answers frequently and normally are far too long. The Government makes policy statements; it makes explanations by way of responses to Government members, who rarely ask questions that have any real relevance to major issues. Rather, they try to sell policy as the Government's poll rating is falling away. Mr Rocher —Questions without answers. Mr SINCLAIR —They are questions without answers, as my colleague says. I believe that the nature of Question Time requires urgent review and part of the motion that I very nearly introduced tonight would require that to be done. I believe that the report of the Committee on this matter needs to be before this House early next session, and I give the Government notice that if it is not before us, we on this side of the House will probably move for the consideration of an amendment to Sessional Orders-- Mr Keogh —The House will be hearing something about that later in the week. Mr SINCLAIR —I am delighted to hear it because, if not, we intend to move amendments to Sessional Orders to introduce some changes to Question Time for the next parliamentary session. With respect to Question Time and other proceedings, Madam Speaker-I am sorry, I should have referred to `Mr Deputy Speaker', Madam Speaker also having left the House-I think it is worth commenting that it is essential that these amendments be introduced for the next-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! I hope that the right honourable gentleman is not suggesting that Madam Speaker deliberately left the House. Mr SINCLAIR —I am delighted to hear that, Mr Deputy Speaker. If she had left it undeliberately or without intention, I would be amazed. How did she do it? She certainly was not carried out. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I was drawing attention to the right honourable gentleman's ironical expressions. Mr SINCLAIR —It is necessary for changes to be introduced early next session. There are a number of matters to which I wish to refer specifically. It is essential that Question Time be extended and that amendments be made to Sessional Orders to update the opportunities for private members of this place, in a way that has not occurred since this Government came to power. Indeed, the Leader of the House has generally adopted a procedure which reduces rather than extends the time available for parliamentarians on both sides to debate matters of relevance. As an individual-I speak for myself, not for the coalition-I do not like the fortnight on, fortnight off sitting pattern. I accept that many of my colleagues do like it, but my concern is that there are three roles for the parliamentarian. One is to represent himself and his electorate in this place on matters pertaining to policy and the formulation of policy, and matters on which he can respond on behalf of his electorate. The second is to represent this place in his electorate. The third and equally important role is to represent his constituents against that great mass of people who now work for the Australian Public Service. I am concerned that the Parliament is increasingly reducing its ability to influence national policy because of the growth of that Public Service and the extent to which that Public Service, rather than members of this Parliament, influences and determines policy and prejudices the lives and opportunities of ordinary Australians. For that reason, while I welcome a minimum number of sitting weeks as suggested in the report, I would that they were more than the 20 weeks of sitting suggested. I personally would prefer to have a system which saw us sitting at the beginning of February, three weeks on, one week off, right until probably the middle of June, resuming about the middle to the end of July, and continuing until about the second week in December. Were we to sit that constantly, this Parliament-and not every other parliament around Australia-would be debating constantly matters of concern to the Australian people. That would be far more likely to enhance the influence of this place-that is, the House of Representatives in particular-and give us an opportunity to debate the matters we should. I note the recommendations in respect of Monday to Thursday sittings instead of Tuesday to Friday, Monday to Thursday, and I have given my views. I believe that it would be far better not only if we sat for three weeks but also if we sat for three days within those weeks. It would then be a lot easier for members to attend to those other essential responsibilities in their electorates. Frankly, as one individual, I would like the occasional opportunity to see my family. That is almost impossible under the present system. One of the other merits of the proposals about the sitting times is that at least we are to adjourn for dinner. While it is necessary that parliamentary committees meet-the Leader of the House has addressed this matter-unless there are adjournments for question times it is almost impossible to have reasonable debates within committees and to have an occasional meal. In addition, a Sunday off to see one's family is essential and it appears that too little consideration is given to that factor. On the subject of parliamentary procedure, there are a number of recommendations in the report that are at least worthy of consideration. I like the idea of 90-second statements. I do not like the renaming of matters of public importance. I do not think the time of the first speaker should be reduced below 15 minutes. I like the idea of an occasional three speakers a side debate. I do not think it is appropriate for that to happen on only three days a week if we are to sit on four days. I do not like the idea of having petitions notified only by the Clerk. I would prefer a system whereby we went back to having individual members reading their petitions. Above all, I do not accept that the quorums should be reduced from one-third to one-fifth of the House. The only way in which one will make this place work is to have as many members as possible sitting here for as long as possible. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The right honourable member's time has expired. Mr TIM FISCHER(Farrer)(8.37) —I support the comments of the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) in respect of this very important report by the Standing Committee on Procedure on the days and hours of sitting and the effective use of the time of the House or Representatives. In so doing, I want to build on one point made by my right honourable colleague in respect of outstanding orders of the day and notices of motion. I draw the attention of the House, and indeed of the nation, to the fact that the Flags Amendment Bill 1984 from the Senate first arrived on the Notice Paper of the House of Representatives on 28 February 1985. In other words, the Hawke Labor Government has not found time to debate that Bill in the 20 months-more than 1 1/2 years-that have elapsed since that time. Yet that Bill has received widespread support at the grass roots level across Australia, among veterans and in the community at large. The contents and thrust of the Bill are to the effect that the Australian national flag should not be changed without reference to the people and without a referendum. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! Will the honourable member for Farrer speak about the procedures of the House rather than a Bill that may come before the House at some stage in the future? Mr TIM FISCHER —Mr Deputy Speaker, I am making the point, in passing, that a number of motions, notices of motion and orders of the day have not been debated. The Bill I mentioned happens to be the best example, given the length of time it has been on the Notice Paper. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —We will not be debating that Bill tonight. Mr TIM FISCHER —If we had better hours of sitting, I believe that the House would have more chance to get to such matters as the Flags Amendment Bill, which the coalition strongly supports. By way of introduction, I would point out that we are considering this report-I appreciate that the Government has made time available for debate-when already the sitting pattern for the first half of next year has been circulated. What do we find when we examine the details of that sitting pattern-a pattern which to some extent gazumps the provisions and recommendations of the second report of the Procedure Committee? We find that we are to resume on Tuesday, 17 February, for a two-week sitting. We are then to be up for two weeks, to resume for a three-week sitting and then are to be up for three weeks. We are then to resume for a two-week sitting, we are to be up for two weeks and finally we are to return for a two-week sitting which will take us into June. In that last bracket the House is scheduled to sit for five days of one particular week from Monday to Friday. This sets a whole new pattern for which there is no precedent. I would emphasise that the autumn sitting pattern has already been circulated widely across the nation. Therefore, this will leave implementation of the second report of the Procedure Committee on the days and hours of sittings, presumably, to the second half of next year. If I may focus on the report, it is important that Parliament should pause to consider the most efficient way it can go about its business. Certainly members labour under great difficulty in this old parliamentary building. What registered with me most on my transfer from the New South Wales State Parliament to this Federal Parliament was the shocking air-conditioning system in this building. I believe it has affected the efficiency of governments of all political persuasions over the last 20 years. This building has pockets of negative and bad air-air which lacks sufficient oxygen. When air conditioning is put in an old building that is always a problem. Some of us have to work in rooms where one is not allowed to put one's boot through the window or otherwise raise the window to let in some fresh air. One must accept the air-conditioning system, and it is one of the most stultifying and debilitating air-conditioning systems I have ever worked with. I do not labour the complaint because we are moving to a new parliament building in May 1988, but I wish to register the matter because I think it is relevant. It is yet another reason why we must get the days and hours of sitting on the best possible basis in order to maximise efficiency. I praise the honourable members who served on the Procedure Committee, some of whom are in the House at present, for venturing across difficult waters. I mention particularly the honourable member for Wide Bay (Mr Millar), with whom I have had long discussions about the detail of this report. I also mention the honourable member for Bowman (Mr Keogh), the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Donald Cameron), the honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman), the honourable member for Throsby (Mr Hollis), the honourable member for Herbert (Mr Lindsay), the honourable member for Grayndler (Mr Leo McLeay) and the honourable member for Banks (Mr Mountford) because they all played their part in drawing up this very important report. I wish to focus particularly on the point raised on page 11 of the second report. Paragraph 35 states: The question arises as to which days the House should sit. In determining the most suitable days of the week for the House to meet, the committee was convinced that there are important advantages in regularly sitting on the same days of the week. The committee has concluded that the preferable option is for the House to sit on Monday to Thursday of each sitting week. The report then goes on to discuss the advantages of this stabilised pattern. I recall putting a submission to the Committee in which I proposed `a stabilised sitting schedule' and I am pleased to see that, while not all honourable members agree with that concept, it has been picked up by the Committee. The key point is that there are important advantages in regularly sitting on the same days of the week. Let us track through some of those advantages. As things stand it is impossible for members and senators to schedule any sort of activity which is booked well ahead-for example, officially opening a conference in one's electorate or picking up some other commitment as a Minister or shadow Minister-especially on Fridays, which are usually days of great activity around the nation. One cannot schedule ahead because one never knows whether the House will be sitting on Friday until the forecast sitting pattern is issued. Even that is then subject to change. If we adopt the concept of always sitting either on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays of each week, or on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays of each week, with a two weeks on, two weeks off pattern, or whatever the variation may be, we at least establish that there will be one day of each week when we know that Parliament will never sit. Then we can schedule functions accordingly, especially when these are booked many months ahead. There is often a requirement to accept commitments well ahead. These might involve plaques being ordered by organisations which have worked out their arrangements on the basis of the availability of the Minister, member or senator. I might add that the longer break provided by a two weeks on, two weeks off pattern, Monday to Thursday, has other advantages, some of which are referred to in the report. One which would appeal to me particlarly if I were a Western Australian member staying over in Canberra for the slightly longer weekend is the opportunity to be in Canberra on a working day, rather than at the weekend, in order to track around some of the departments and some of the source activities that are available to members and senators and to meet some of the national organisations that are represented here. If Western Australian members stay over weekends-the report reveals that a minority do this-they find themselves in Canberra on a Saturday and Sunday when the national head offices of many organisations, whether it be the Returned Services League, the Chamber of Commerce, the Metal Trades Industry Association Inc. or whatever, are closed. On top of that, departments are well and truly closed. A member who stays over becomes more isolated and does not have the opportunity to make the best use of such an arrangement. In addition, I testify to the fact that airline scheduling for members and senators would be enhanced if there were a regular, stabilised days of the week sitting pattern associated with the Federal Parliament. In fact, I have on file a letter from Australian Airlines-I have heard similar comments from other airline operators-saying that if it knew that the House and the Senate would rise on the same night of each sitting week or at the same time on the same day of the week, it would certainly be able to schedule more direct flights in the interests of efficiency. Many members representing many types of electorates have very difficult transport arrangements to and from Canberra. This question, more than many others, registers with members. There are three categories of members' electorates in terms of travel. Firstly, there are those members who are lucky enough to have direct flights from Canberra to their electorates. These include those members who represent Sydney, Melbourne, Wagga, Albury and Orange-Calare-electorates. They are in a very fortuitous position, irrespective of the arrangements adopted. However, that does not give them the right to ignore the plight of others. The second category includes those who come from capital cities which do not have direct flights to and from Canberra. At the moment Adelaide has a direct flight on some days of the week but those which do not include Perth, Brisbane, Hobart and Darwin. Finally, there is a third and very important category-those who are upstate and must fly to their capital city and then make another connecting flight to Canberra. They have very real problems and for them it is very important whether we decide to adjourn on Thursday night or on Friday afternoon. In making its recommendations to sit on the same days of each week, the Committee provides the way ahead for this Parliament to maximise its efficiency and for allowing members and senators to make their arrangements in a way most advantageous to representing their electorates, carrying out their committee work, carrying out their ministerial or shadow ministerial work, and fulfilling all the roles associated with being a member of parliament representing a part of Australia in this great chamber. I strongly support the recommendation that the House sit on the same days of the week. My personal preference-personal preferences have been alluded to by the Leader of the National Party-is that that should be on a two weeks on, two weeks off basis, Monday to Thursday, with some minor refinements. I will not delay the House in discussing that further, but I must point out that I believe one of the additional bonuses would be the extra hours each week that that would allow us to discuss some of the issues on the Notice Paper and others which are not. An example of the latter category is the saga of the Australian War Memorial and the need to indicate in this House as strongly and often as possible that the coalition will fight tooth and nail to retain the independence of the Australian War Memorial and will resist politicisation of it. It will also fight against any moves to make it a peace museum. These are matters we would wish to raise if the hours of sitting fully provided the opportunity to honourable members on both sides of the House to discuss the wide range of issues on the national agenda at present. I believe that the second report of the Committee provides a way for this Parliament to leap forward. I apologise to the House in the sense that I am a member in my first parliamentary term, so perhaps it is not my lot to push this matter too strongly. I recognise that there are many members and senators who have been here a lot longer and who are aware of all the complexities. However, in my defence I point out that I was in the New South Wales Parliament for some 13 years and for a long period I was a Whip in that Parliament. That gave me some experience on matters of scheduling and travel and the other very real difficulties encountered by members and senators in doing their job. I wish the Committee well. The second report has served the purpose of crystallising possible solutions to some of the problems we face, particularly with the status quo of sitting arrangements, which have been further corrupted by the sitting pattern for the autumn session of 1987. I hope that as a consequence of this report and of consideration from both sides of the House, we will have a breakthrough and that Parliament will sit on the same days of each week. Mr LEO McLEAY(Grayndler)(8.50) —Tonight the House is discussing a report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure. The Committee has brought in two reports to the House and later this week will bring in a third report. The two previous reports have canvassed a number of matters which are of interest to members, some of which have been raised this evening. The first report canvassed a suggestion for a number of other reforms to the House's Standing Orders. There will be a report later on this week about Question Time. There are not many debates in the House in which the Government does not decide what its members shall do and the Opposition does not decide what its members shall do. I hope when the House ultimately gets to determine its view on the Government's response to this report that the various parties will allow a free vote in the Parliament so that we can determine how the Parliament shall operate. Mr Steele Hall —You don't have free votes in the Labor Party. Mr LEO McLEAY —That is sarcasm from the Opposition side. The honourable member for Boothby, who has just interjected, has been in every party in the country except the National Party of Australia. He even got to the desperate stage at one time in history of deciding upon a party of his own just so that he could have a vehicle for his point of view. But to sit here and decide that one will be sarcastic on a matter that should be of some interest to the Parliament shows, I guess, the difficulty that the Opposition has in coming to grips with concepts that would affect the whole of the Parliament. This report deals with many things that will enhance the position of back benchers. I would have thought the honourable member for Boothby being in a faction of one in his own Party, and a very minor faction of maybe less than one in the Parliament, would be interested in seeing that the rights of back benchers were enhanced. If anyone's rights ought to be enhanced, it is probably the rights of the honourable member for Boothby. He cannot even get a seconder in his own Party room, let alone in the Parliament. If the Parliament looks sensibly at this report it will find some ways for those eccentric members of the House, such as the honourable member for Boothby, to have more of a say. I am not zeroing in on the honourable member for Boothby without due cause because he is one of the people that this Committee is trying to protect. I think all of us, in our saner moments, would recognise that the executives on both sides gang up on their own members. We have not actually heard a back bencher speaking in this debate tonight and I am the fourth speaker-we have had a government front bencher; we have had two Opposition front benchers; we have had an office holder, but we have not had any back benchers. I am interested in hearing what the honourable member for Boothby has to say shortly. I think that Opposition back benchers and the Government back benchers should look at the protections that the Committee is recommending in this report. It will allow people such as the honourable member for Boothby to finally get on the speakers list in a position where they can make a contribution. We could find out what he thinks about something rather than hearing the second-hand mutterings about what he said in the back of the Party room. The Committee's report suggests a number of areas of reform that will give more power back to the Parliament and less power to the Executive on both sides. It is not just the executive government that sometimes stultifies the activities of the Parliament, it is the opposition executive as well. It is interesting for members who have been here for a little while-I have been here for only a little while; I suppose seven years makes me a medium termer-to look around at what happens. I have seen that members of the opposition executive have as much interest in seeing that back benchers have no say as sometimes members of the government executive have an interest in seeing that back benchers have not as much say as they should. In this report we have suggested that there should be a business committee, a committee that would sanely look at the program before the House, look at the legislation and try to get some sanity into the arrangement of the affairs of this House so that we would not be in the position we have been in years gone by. I remember that under the Fraser Government we were sometimes here until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. In the days when he was a back bencher, the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) and I were here until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. because the Government had not got its legislative program fixed up. The Committee in its report suggests that a business committee should comprise not only the Leader of the House and the Manager of Opposition Business but also back benchers. Back benchers are the political cannon fodder of this place. They are the people whose opinion is not taken great notice of by the Executive on both sides and they are the people who have to stay here for the 11 o'clock votes when others have sometimes left. They are the people who do not get pairs when they want pairs and they are the people who end up having to pay the price for others who have not been able to arrange the business of the House. The Procedure Committee was firmly of the view that to have some back benchers involved in the decision-making process about the business arrangements of the House might ensure that those problems never occur. I assure the House-I am sure other members would agree-that at least we would be in a position of having people who had a vested interest in not absolutely late nights and not absolutely chaotic procedures putting some decent input into the proposed business arrangements. We have heard tonight the Leader of the National Party, the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair), say that he did not like the proposition from the Committee to change the name of a procedure in this place which is called the matter of public importance-it is a debate that we usually have after Question Time each day-to a matter of public interest. The Leader of the National Party said he felt that that somehow would detract from the importance of the matters that we discuss every day. If anyone wants to look back at what has happened here over the years, he will see that some time ago a matter of public importance was important. Nowadays-I do not refer only to the present Opposition; this has been occurring for a number of years-matters of public importance are often matters of not much public interest. They are propositions that are put up by members of the Opposition front bench as a mechanism to get themselves into the 7 o'clock news. Good luck to them. Oppositions like to try to get themselves into the 7 o'clock news. The present Opposition has some difficulty and has to have internal party fights to do it, but at least the matter of public importance is a mechanism to allow it to do that. I think we should be sensible and recognise that many of these matters are not all that important but they are of interest, at least to some of the people who are participating in the debate. The Committee was also of a mind to suggest that there should be a provision in the House for debate of committee reports. It is of interest to members today that the Special Minister of State tabled a document which was the Government's response to parliamentary committee reports. The present Government has a procedure whereby the Executive tries to respond to reports within three months of their tabling. The previous Government had a procedure whereby it tried to respond to reports within six months of their tabling. Unfortunately, both of them were singularly unable to comply with their own guidelines. The Procedure Committee felt that because back benchers put a lot of time into committee work in this House there should be a provision for those reports to be debated. Because of the generosity of the Special Minister of State and his interest in the parliamentary process in the last week or so there has been a considerable amount of discussion of committee reports. In the past-I remember the days when I was in opposition-we had the ridiculous situation where the government of the day tried to gag parliamentary committee members from saying something about the reports that they had spent a lot of time preparing. Indeed, I remember the former member for Hume, a member of the National Party, crossing the floor with two of his colleagues one night to support the right of Opposition members to speak on a parliamentary committee report. What we are saying in this report is that 45 minutes should be set aside each week for the presentation and debate of reports of committees and delegations. Only 45 minutes is not asking a lot, but at least it would give those such as yourself, Mr Deputy Speaker-as Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs you put in a lot of time on the affairs of your Committee-a chance to come into the Parliament and speak to the reports that they put time into preparing. The Committee has suggested that that should be done each week. We also suggested that we should resurrect legislation committees. The Fraser Government resurrected legislation committees at one stage and found that they got a bit hot for it in that the then Opposition actually went along to the meetings and decided that it was going to try to make the committees work. The great democrats in the Fraser Government decided that legislation committees had better quickly cease. I hope that the present Government has more faith in the parliamentary process and will bring back legislation committees. The Committee also was of the view that an unfortunate circumstance arises in this House in that sometimes when honourable members are making contributions one is not sure whether they are the members' contributions or the contributions of their current research officers. I have seen some members on both sides who all of a sudden become exceptionally eloquent on matters in which I did not really think they had any interest at all, but they seem to have employed people with a considerable interest in those matters. Of course, that does not apply to my colleague the honourable member for Throsby (Mr Hollis), who is one of the few people in this House who make unprepared and spectacular speeches. Mr McGauran —He has read every speech. Mr LEO McLEAY —People such as the honourable member for Gippsland, who has just tried to interject on me and who has difficulty in even reading the speeches that are written for him, should really take some note of this proposal because, if it is adopted by the Government-and I hope that it is-the honourable member for Gippsland will be exposed as someone who is unable to stand here and make a contribution and the honourable member for Throsby will shine, as he should, as a person who can make a speech without prompting notes or without someone having written it for him. The Committee is very much of the view that members should not read their speeches and we have suggested that this proposal would definitely improve the quality and quantity of debate. We have not said that a person should not be able to refer to notes, but we expect that people should not have such copious notes that they really have to check the dots on the i's and the crosses on the t's. It would be, I suppose, better for all of us and easier for Hansard if, when members made these written speeches, they at least looked at the commas and full stops. It would be easier for us to understand them. Also, Ministers in this place often make second reading speeches which have already been made in the Senate when the Bill was introduced there. The Minister for Trade (Mr Dawkins) and I made a bit of parliamentary history a few weeks ago when I allowed him to table a speech that was made in the Senate. The Minister quite rightly said: `This speech has been made in the Senate by the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) and it is really taking up the time of this House unnecessarily to have that speech read again'. The Committee is of the view that we should be doing something like that. In the few seconds remaining to me I want to address myself to quorums. It is a nonsense to suggest, as the Leader of the National Party suggested, that we should not reduce the number required for a quorum. What he did not say when saying that we members of the Committee want to the reduce the number required for a quorum to one-fifth was that we want members to be rostered to be in the House so that 20 per cent of the House would be in here all day every day. In some ways it is a disgrace that young school children who come into the galleries of the chamber should see two or three people here trying to make some sense of what the honourable member for Gippsland is saying or being enthralled by what the honourable member for Throsby or the honourable member for Herbert (Mr Lindsay) is saying. They should have a better audience and honourable members should take an interest in what their colleagues say. I commend the report of the Committee to the House. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Blanchard) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr ADERMANN(Fairfax)(9.05) —First of all, I would like very much to commend the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure, which has put a lot of time and work into what is an excellent report. It was good to have on the Committee members who have been members of this House for quite some time. For instance, the honourable member for Bowman (Mr Keogh), the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Donald Cameron), and the honourable member for Wide Bay (Mr Millar) in particular, have been members of this House for quite a long time and, therefore, without denigrating the other members of the Committee, were able to make a tremendous contribution to the report because of their years of experience. I commend the members of the Committee for the work they have done. Very definitely, if this report were taken up it would streamline the Parliament and it would give opportunities to back benchers. I would like this debate this evening not to be monopolised by Executive members. I would like to see members from the back bench having an opportunity to talk on these matters. A number of things have been said about the opportunities of back benchers, which are few, and I think this might be an opportunity for back benchers to make their voices heard. I was disappointed when the Special Minister of State (Mr Young) seemed to indicate-I hope I misheard him-that these things could not be taken up in this Parliament or in this House. I concede that the totality of the recommendations may not be able to be taken up in the one parliament, but certainly there are some that should be taken up, and taken up urgently. I believe that they are long overdue. I will not repeat what other members have said. I do not want to take all my time because I would like as many members as possible to speak. Therefore, I will pick up just a few matters. I ask the Special Minister of State and the Executive of the Opposition to work together to try to facilitate some of these recommendations because, if they are not taken up, not only will it be another parliament but it will be another committee before we get anything before us again. I believe that there ought to be a bipartisan spirit on many of these matters. I look, first of all, at recommendation No. 1. This recommendation is very important. I think that the House certainly should sit for a minimum of 20 weeks a year, but I am very much attracted to the recommendation of the Committee that we adopt a sitting pattern of two sitting weeks followed by two non-sitting weeks, sitting from Monday to Thursday each week, with a timetable set out. That makes a lot of sense. I suppose it is common knowledge that I disagree with some in the Executive on my side and probably on the other side, too, who try to tell us that three sitting weeks each of three days followed by one week up will enable us to see more of our families and more of our electorates. I cannot follow that at all. I believe that the pattern of two weeks on and two weeks off, particularly if the days and times are set down as in the recommendation, would provide us with better opportunities to serve our electorates, to live like Christians and to see our families. Therefore, I very much applaud that recommendation. I believe that the times of sittings are sensible and that, with a will, we ought to be able to adhere fairly closely to those times. I know that there are times when the business of the House has to be got through and Standing Orders have to be suspended. But I believe that those occasions occur a lot more frequently than they ought to in the opinion of honourable members on both sides of the House and with governments of all complexions. I think if we put our minds to it we can adhere fairly closely to these times. I will not say too much on the proposed business committee. I endorse the procedure but I wish the members of the Government as much luck as I think we would need on this side of the House in getting a government to pick up this matter and look at it in a bipartisan spirit. Unfortunately, governments in this place feel that they are in control of the business when the executive of the government, not the government, feels that it is in control of the business and it will not consult its own back bench, let alone the back bench of the opposition. Although it is a very commendable recommendation, I do not believe that there will be much prospect of either this Government or a government of another complexion setting it up, and I think honourable members who have been here a long time would probably endorse what I am saying. I mention specifically recommendation No. 7, which deals with opposition business, because there is a diversity of opinion, probably among members on both sides of the House. I like this proposition as it deals with matters of public importance or interest. I am not much concerned about whether they are called `matters of public interest' or `matters of public importance' but I like the idea of three 10-minute speeches from members on each side of the House. I believe that that would lead to the matter being more of public interest and I believe also that it would give an opportunity, which is mostly denied, to members other than members of the executive of a party to speak to matters which are of public interest and public importance. They are important to us in our electorates. They are important to us from wherever we come. They are important not only to the executive of the party but also to us. Surely we have some contribution that we can make I just want to place that on record because a contrary view has been stated; that is, that the first speaker should be allowed 15 minutes and that we should go along as we are now. I put the view of the Committee. I like the idea of an hour in which to debate matters of public interest and I like the idea of three 10-minute speeches. I like the possibilities that offers because I think it gives honourable members on the back bench more opportunity in which to participate. I turn now to recommendation No. 9, which deals with legislation committees. I was in the Parliament, as were other members of the Committee, when legislation committees were operative and we were able to assess legislation. Despite what has been said, I think they were extremely valuable. I liked the legislation committees. I had the privilege of being a Minister in the Government at the time they were operating. I found no discomfort in going to those committee hearings and talking with members of them. I did not find, as some honourable members have said, that they became partisan political, even to the extent that this House becomes party political. I believe that those committees gave members of the Parliament who were on them-we had an opportunity to get on those committees-more opportunities to ask sensible questions about the legislation and to have a sensible input. I liked the atmosphere of those meetings. Let me tell honourable members that legislation committees put the Minister responsible on his mettle, as he ought to have been. He had to know all about his legislation. He had to have the answers to the questions when he went to a legislation committee. He did not merely get up in the House and make a second reading speech and comment at the end of the debate if he wanted to. In the legislation committees he was constantly being addressed and was constantly expected to provide an answer. If the answer was not immediately available, it was sought, with the help of departmental officers and from statistics, and that answer was provided to the committee. Perhaps we cannot go into committees to the same extent as the Senate does-Senate committees have a very important role and I would not like to see that role in any way diminished-but I think this Parliament and this House would be enhanced if we had this type of scrutiny of legislation to a far greater degree than we have now. Therefore, I endorse also the Committee's recommendation No. 9. I agree with much of what has been said about honourable members reading speeches and the other matters but, in the interests of time, I will pick up just one more, that is, the matter of petitions. I think we deal with petitions in a very sensible way. I think petitions are rather non-entities. People say to me: `We will get a petition and present it to the Parliament'. They are enthusiastic and think the matter is so terribly important that they want to put their names on a petition and bring it to the Parliament. What happens to it? Nobody is in the Parliament to hear the petition. Everybody is talking when the Clerk reads out petitions and I defy anybody in the House to say that he or she hears what the Clerk is saying. I do not think that we immediately go to the Hansard the next morning and scrutinise very carefully what petitions have been presented to this House. I do not think that is fair. I do not think that is the way in which our constituencies and the people we represent ought to be treated. Therefore, I endorse the manner in which petitions are to be presented. I also like the paragraph in the recommendation which states: Ministers be given the option to respond to petitions and the response be forwarded to the Clerk, acknowledged at the end of the petitions announcement and printed in Hansard . . . Is that not the way in which any responsible parliament ought to deal with petitions? If the petitions that come in are bona fide, and most are-I know that some might be presented in another spirit-the people who put in those petitions ought to be extended the courtesy of some type of answer or response. If a matter has moved them to present a petition, I think common courtesy and the prestige of this Parliament demand that that is the way they ought to be treated. The other matter I wish to deal with is the provision for quorums. I think we take a different view on this when we are in government and when we are in opposition. The reality is that quorums are used as a device, by an opposition in the main, although an honourable member from the Government side once called for a quorum and one of my colleagues took some umbrage at that. The calling for a quorum is a device used by an opposition. For instance, if we feel that Question Time is being abused or answers are getting too long, our voice of protest can be perhaps to inconvenience the Government. I am not saying that this is a good or a bad thing. It seems to be effective at times. My colleague the honourable member for Bowman (Mr Keogh), who is sitting in the chamber, knows that when he was sitting on this side of the House it was used to achieve the very same purpose. I see what is being said in the Committee's recommendation. I believe that members do no spend enough time in this House, that all too often we are inclined to disappear after Question Time and come into the House at an appropriate time. That does not mean that we are not working. Certainly we are very busy people but I do not like to see honourable members going off too often to committees. I do not like committees to coincide very much with the sitting of this House. It makes it very difficult. I wish we could get away from the situation where we go off to our various committees at the time that the Parliament is sitting-we are elected to be here-and I suppose that that applies as much to me as it does to any other member. I do not want to say much about Question Time because the Committee will be reporting later this week, or very shortly, on Question Time. I think the appropriate time to talk about its suggestions and recommendations on Question Time is when we have its report before us. Mr Rocher —The Minister raised it. Mr ADERMANN —The Special Minister of State (Mr Young) raised it in this House. I do not say that it is irrelevant, but I would like to talk more constructively about it when I have a report and some suggestions before me. I might then have some comment to make about it. The only comment I make is that we have to do something about it. I am not silly enough not to admit that there is default on both sides of the House but it is inappropriate to allow Question Time to take the form that has developed over the years and I would like to say something about that when the report comes in. Once again I commend all honourable members who have put so much time and thought into this report. I appeal to the Special Minister of State not to say: `Look, it cannot be picked up in this Parliament. We will have to wait for another parliament'. There are certainly some things, and I have named them, that ought to be and could be implemented immediately in this Parliament. I would like to see that done. I would not like to see this report end up in a pigeon-hole and forgotten until we have a new parliament and a new committee. Mr RONALD EDWARDS(Stirling)(9.20) —I commend the work of the honourable member for Bowman (Mr Keogh), his colleagues on the Committee and the Committee Secretary, Mr McRae. It is good to be following speakers from the Opposition and from our side in this debate because it is a bipartisan debate. Mr McGauran —Not when I start. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —There is much we can contribute to sensible debate. The honourable member for Gippsland has just interjected. I make the observation shortly that one of the unfortunate aspects of this chamber is that it is possible always to lower the standard of it. I ask the honourable member for Gippsland to pursue some introspection in that respect. I am sure it would do him a lot of good. I make another observation at the outset that, if this institution were in the private sector, it would go broke in a week because it is one of the most inefficiently organised institutions I have ever been in. Whenever I raise issues about the role of the House of Representatives, I am told: `It has always been the same'. That is what I call the dinosaur syndrome. We know what happened to the dinosaurs. They did not change, they did not adapt, and they are now extinct. The problem this institution faces is that increasingly, in the world outside, it is seen as irrelevant, expensive and full of conflict and bad language. Frankly, I cannot defend it because it is inefficient, it is badly run much of the time, it is expensive, and it is filled with bad language. The taxpayers are asked to pay for it. I must say that I view with absolute alarm the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Procedure that we sit for a minimum of 20 weeks. I say in the very strongest terms that there are people in this chamber who have families, yet this institution functions as though we come from a monastery, as though we do not have families, as though we are breaking our necks to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year here in Canberra. Much as I like the look of Canberra, and much as I enjoy the company of my colleagues, frankly, I have to say that I really do prefer the company of my family and my electorate, if I have to make that choice. I am very resistant to the idea of the Committee and the House making choices for people such as the honourable member for Perth (Dr Charlesworth), the honourable member for Herbert (Mr Lindsay), the honourable member for Bowman, me and others in saying that we should be here more often. The distressing view I have of this place is that a lot of the time I am here I feel is a waste of time. Why is that so? It is because, unlike the private sector, we mix serious business with trivial issues. We mix very important major national issues with rubbish. If one looks at the business paper at any particular time, what have we been held back for? We have had the Pig Slaughter Levy Amendment Bill and the Olympic Insignia Protection Bill while there are people out in the community who ask: `What are you doing about the major issues of the community?' We are not addressing them. I use the analogy of CSR Ltd, with senior management getting out all the petty cash vouchers and dealing with them at the same time as it is dealing with the company's annual accounts. No one in private industry would do that. No one who is sane would do that. But we do that here. Why do we do it? It is because there are bureaucrats whose vested interest is in snowing all of us in this place with paper so that we are so bombarded with information and can never get ahead and clear of it. I see honourable members on my side and opposite who are very capable people, but they are struggling through a mass of information, most of which is rubbish. Every time we arrive in this House the in trays in our offices are full of junk. I have to say that a lot of what happens here is simply an exercise in which Sir Humphrey and others engage in Yes, Prime Minister, that is, bombarding members of parliament with rubbish so that they cannot get their heads clear to look at the real issues the community faces. We have to recognise that. We did not spend years getting experience to come to this place to be bombarded by bureaucratic rubbish, but that is the real experience. People outside have had enough of it. People outside see us as increasingly expensive and increasingly irrelevant. Come 18 months, we will move up on to the hill to an even more expensive and, I suggest, even more irrelevant institution unless we lift our game. That applies to all of us in this place, not just to the Government or to the Opposition. I want to talk about quorums, and I use the analogy of CSR again. Can honourable members imagine that, if there were problems with the sugar boilers at CSR's Pyrmont refinery in Sydney, the board of CSR would be called over from O'Connell Street to look at the problems with the sugar boiler? They would not do that because it is stupid. But what do we do in this place? Every time someone-I suggest anyone in the Opposition-gets it into his or her head to disrupt the proceedings of the Government and the Parliament as a whole, he or she can come in here and call a quorum. The analogy with CSR would be that, if it ran into trouble with a sugar boiler at its Pyrmont refinery, it would stop the company, call out all the management and say: `You will all have to wait here on the shop floor while we fix this'. That is not done in private industry, but we are stupid enough to do it in this place. It is an absolutely absurd way to behave. We have to have a serious look at ourselves. People outside say to us that we behave like children. You bet they are right. The honourable member for Perth and the honourable member for Curtin are at the moment arguing across the chamber. Unfortunately, they are making my point. The people outside say that we increasingly engage in childish behaviour. You bet we do. They also say: `You are very expensive to have in this place'. You bet we are. We are one of the most expensive institutions running. How do we perform? We engage in trivial exercises. We call quorums. We mix up the business by putting in trivia with the serious stuff. All the time people such as my colleagues and me, who have families and electors back in our electorates with whom we want to spend time, spend our time here cooling our heels and listening to rubbish. I say again that, if we were in the private sector, we would go broke in a week. I have watched and listened to this Parliament for a number of years and it has never changed. It is increasingly irrelevant, increasingly inefficient and increasingly expensive. We have to have a long hard look at ourselves because the people outside are saying to me: `When we listen to Parliament, we hear bad language, childish behaviour and a lot of time wasting with quorum calls'. I have to say: `Yes, you are right'. A sane person could not defend the way this place conducts its business. Unfortunately, this place has inherited-I address this to the Clerks of the House and to the bureaucrats who feed the information-a system that is not designed to achieve its given ends. What are its ends? Clearly, it is a debating chamber, and that is important because there are too few democracies left. That is very precious. It is also a chamber designed to deal with legislation. But let us not mix serious legislation with trivia. We do that and we pay the price of that because we are here too often, we are here for long hours, and we are not organised efficiently. If legislation is trivial, let us treat it as trivial. We do not need to come here; we could just vote on it electronically from our offices in our electorates. That is the way things are done in private industry. Companies do not call senior management together from across the country to deal with the petty cash. They simply get on the phone or use computer hookups. We behave as though the telephone and the computer have not been invented. The frustration for people like me is that I sit here, with this inefficient organisation creaking over, when I could be back in my electorate, looking after my electors and with my family. As the honourable member for Fairfax (Mr Adermann) said, very sensibly: `We would like to have a balanced life'. This is not a boarding school. This is not a university college. For goodness sake, this should be the most important parliament in the country, but it is run in a very inefficient way. I say that without any reflection on who is the Leader of the House, who is in government or whatever. It has been the case over a number of years that we have walked backwards into the future and we have a very inefficient organisation. I move on to the next point, which is the reading of speeches. This is not a debating chamber if people read speeches. What happens is that we get one speech here and another one dangling uselessly in space; they never interact. The Committee is absolutely right. We should stop that completely. People come in here with speeches they have prepared heaven knows when. Heaven knows what grudge or chip they are unloading from their shoulders. Honourable members never listen to what people say from the other side of the chamber. They just come in and reel off their speeches. I am sure that the Minister for Science (Mr Barry Jones) will agree with me that the time honoured way to put people to sleep is to read to them. Yet everyone in this chamber does that. They do it all the time. People wonder why we behave like we do. It is stupid. All honourable members should have a hard look at themselves. The Committee is absolutely right. It is time we looked seriously at the question of reading speeches, and scrubbed it. That is what we get out there; that is what we get in places like the Soviet Union where they have their big meetings, or in South Africa, but not in a democracy, for goodness sake, and we are hoping to operate like a democracy. I also wish to deal with questions concerning the business program. I have talked about that, and how difficult I think it is to organise it. Let us look seriously at adjournment debates. We ought to broadcast those debates, and I fully commend the Committee for its recommendation. We should broadcast them, first of all because they are one of the few opportunities that back benchers have to say something but, secondly, if adjournment debates were broadcast people would think twice about saying some of the things they do. It is interesting to note that since we have allowed the rebroadcast of adjournment debates people get some surprises when they find their voices on air the next morning, recording their misbehaviour in the House at 5 to 11 at night. My attitude is: Let the speaker beware; if members cannot get up and conduct themselves properly in this place, they should not get up. It is a big world out there and we ought to act as adults, but here all these people come together and for some reason they act as though they are children. I find that extraordinary. Whenever I talk to people in the community they say to me that this is an expensive institution, it is inefficient and it is badly conducted and I say that yes, they are right. It is a very ineffectively conducted institution. Again I use my phrase: We are victims of what I call the dinosaur syndrome. We have not changed, and we know what happened to the dinosaurs-they became extinct. The other worry I have is that we have to look at the two weeks on and two weeks off pattern of sittings. I fully commend my colleague the honourable member for Perth whose initiative that pattern was. Because of his expertise in sport he has some energy and enthusiasm for getting things done efficiently. That is why we have two weeks on and two weeks off. I am firmly of the view that we should keep the current sitting arrangements, with two weeks on and two weeks off and back to back sittings, but I certainly do not endorse the idea of increasing sitting times, because Parkinson's law will prevail. If we increase the amount of time, someone will always fill it up, usually with rubbish and junk. We already have enough rubbish and junk on the Notice Paper. People say to me: `You are in the national Parliament, what are you there for?' We should be here to debate taxes, science policy, the future of Australian industry and education. How often do we debate those matters? Almost never. Why? Because outside of the Parliament there are people urging our Ministers along, and urging us all along, saying it is very important that we pass some important pieces of legislation. The Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (Consequential Amendments) Bill 1986 is listed as No. 8 on the Notice Paper today. People in my electorate are on the edge of their chairs wondering when we will deal with that. They say that they want to know when we are going to deal with the mutual assistance in criminal matters legislation. What a joke! We have to have a long hard look at ourselves. That is a matter for some expert consideration by a committee outside this place. We are not here to keep bureaucrats happy, we are not here to keep the people who run the Parliament happy; we are here to try to ensure that we represent our electorates and to engage in major national debates. For goodness sake, let me make this plea again: While we are here we must try to retain some sanity by maintaining a family life. If people in Canberra had their way, we would have no family life left. What has been the experience of members of parliament? What is the casualty rate for family life in the Parliament? It is not a good record. I do not say that with any sense of smugness or propriety. If we are in the business of wasting time, let us keep going as we are, because we do waste time. If we are in the business of making people behave strangely, we should keep doing what we are doing because here people are extracted from their families day after day. They are in an artificial environment where they are not dealing with normal people and, guess what, they start to behave strangely. All of Skinner's behavioural psychology tests show that if we put people in rat-like mazes they begin to behave like rats. That is what we are achieving. We are leading what I call a battery hen existence. It is absolutely the case. We are trained to behave like battery hens. They ring bells and flash lights and we all jump. What a joke! People here have actually spent some of their lives managing companies, managing businesses, managing their families and enjoying their lives, and they come along here and are treated as though they are battery hens. As members of this place we have to take a serious look at what goes on. I think the Committee has done a good job. I think it has identified many serious problems but I repeat very strongly my view that if we keep up the current pattern of increasing our time here, of filling it up with rubbish, which is what we do; if we do not treat the trivial as trivial and give it no time at all, and if we do not adapt to the electronic age and actually behave as though we have telephones and computers, we are lost. We will be increasingly seen as expensive, irrelevant and inefficient. All the sane people in my electorate and all the people around me in my family ask: `What is it like?'. I say that, frankly, it is like a nineteenth century institution. Yet I go into a business house and find that people are using computers and up-to-date material and are behaving in a sensible way. I conclude by saying again that we face the dinosaur syndrome. If we do not change we will become extinct because the people out there are becoming increasingly impatient with the way this Parliament conducts itself. I say to all members that we ought to look seriously at the way our procedures are organised and certainly improve them. Mr ROCHER(Curtin)(9.35) —I would like to add my congratulations and compliments to the honourable member for Bowman (Mr Keogh) and his Standing Committee on Procedure, although I do not necessarily agree with everything it said or recommended. There is no doubt that the Committee has worked assiduously in arriving at a set of recommendations which have excited the interest of the Parliament, and that is something that is difficult to do at the end of a long session. Firstly, I would like to comment on one point the honourable member for Grayndler (Mr Leo McLeay) made when he referred to the Opposition being dominated by its Executive. He was speaking in the context of the times allocated for making contributions in this Parliament and I presume in our various committee and party room meetings. As to the first of those allusions let me say that the Executive does not dominate Opposition members in terms of their contributions and speaking times in this place. Our greatest problem in opposition, as I suppose it has been since time immemorial with all oppositions, is getting an opportunity to make a contribution. You, Mr Deputy Speaker, will be only too aware in carrying out your official duties of the speaking lists which contain the names of a number of my colleagues on this side of the House who have not been given the opportunity to debate a specific issue. In saying that I do not refer only to situations where the guillotine has been applied but perhaps I will come back to that a little later. The Committee referred to the total hours of sitting and arrived at a certain conclusion by way of recommendation. It arrived at a certain set of figures using the current provisions. The Committee pointed out that over the years 1981-1985 there has been an average of 56 sitting days in this Parliament, or 14 weeks if we convert that figure into a four-day sitting week. But what it failed to remember is that in 1983 there was a general election. The Parliament did not sit until May of that year, with the exception of one day for constitutional reasons. However, that has been lumped in. In 1984 there was another election-a premature one, I might add, but that is history-and that was called some time in September if I remember correctly. So the Parliament did not sit from the end of September until the following February. Yet the Committee is using those figures as a basis for saying, `Well, if we recommend and insist upon 20 sitting weeks for this chamber, that will be better than what we averaged over those four or five years'. That argument is nonsense for reasons that I have given. It really becomes a matter of whether, as the Special Minister of State (Mr Young) suggested, the Parliament sits longer and therefore encourages the Government to introduce more legislation-heaven forbid, that is probably impossible; it would be beyond the Government's resources-or we debated some of the matters which at present never come on for debate. The history of this Parliament and of previous parliaments shows that we do not get the opportunity to debate legislation fully. We sometimes get a full contribution in a second reading debate. As often as not we do not get an opportunity at the Committee stage. Some of this legislation has been very complex. I need not go over that, but we saw last week the identity card legislation guillotined through, denying honourable members with genuine opinions the opportunity to express them-chopped off, certainly with no chance to look at individual clauses. That will rank in infamy with exactly the same set of circumstances that happened at about this time in 1985 when the Government guillotined the Australian Bill of Rights Bill through this chamber. I was prescient enough, if I might blow my own bags, to say at the time that the Government would regret that, because the Senate dealt with it rather well and kept it on the boil until such time as the Hawke Government was embarrassed into letting that legislation lapse. That could very well happen with the identity card legislation. So we simply are not getting the opportunity in opposition to debate legislation. This applies also to honourable members on the Government's back bench, although they will be constrained in the extent to which they might confirm or deny my understanding of their discontent. We certainly rarely, if ever, get the opportunity to discuss or debate ministerial statements in this chamber. The Minister for Science (Mr Barry Jones), who is at the table, will understand what I am saying. It is a fact that in the area of his complex ministry some of my colleagues of a scientific bent would like the opportunity to discuss and debate matters of very great importance which fall within his ministerial responsibility to improve their knowledge and to improve the understanding of the people of Australia who are interested. Mr White —Such as the member for McPherson. Mr ROCHER —The honourable member for McPherson (Mr White) could make a great contribution in some aspects of science. Noting that, the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Ronald Edwards) has the gall to say: `We never address issues in this place'. We never get the chance to address issues in this place. We are denied the opportunity. We get a chance to express an opinion if we can get it within the Standing Orders in a second reading debate or perhaps at the Committee stage but, whereas we could address issues raised in ministerial statements, that procedure simply does not exist any longer. Those few statements that are listed on the Notice Paper for debate are scrubbed at the end of every sitting period. As honourable members know, they are gone through en bloc and a whole raft of items and reports is removed. Papers in respect of which motions to take note of them have been moved are removed en bloc. That will happen first thing on the first day we come back next year; if not then, at least in the first week. So we simply do not get the opportunity to debate them. Also, the process of ministerial statements has now been supplanted by the technique of Ministers, in answer to dorothy dix questions, virtually answering questions in the form of what would once have been a statement to this Parliament. I know that in the more candid moment of my colleagues opposite they would agree with what I am saying. I do not blame the Ministers because it seems that the Leader of the House simply will not afford Ministers the time to make those statements. Let me point out at this stage that the Government-no matter what we say in this place and no matter how we amend Standing Orders-has the right to suspend Standing Orders. We can come up with the greatest formula in the world, we can have a standing committee-which, incidentally, I argue with as a concept-deciding in a bipartisan way how the business of the chamber will be conducted, but that goes for nothing when the Government finds it has a program it wants to get through and moves for the suspension of Standing Orders. That is perfectly understandable, but it means that all our work and all our thinking has gone for nothing. Nowhere is that more apparent than in recent history. At the instigation of the honourable member for Perth (Dr Charlesworth), we have had, for better or worse, an approved sitting period of two weeks on and two weeks off for some time now. I am not quite sure of my figures on this, but on at least five occasions that arrangement has been abandoned. The Leader of the House has said: `Too bad, chaps. We are going back to the three-week pattern'. Honourable members should remember that the pattern is more onerous now than it was on the three weeks on, one week off basis. So we get three weeks, sometimes under very arduous conditions. I do not want to make too much of that because, like the honourable member for Stirling, we are all volunteers and if we do not like it we can get out of the place. That is not to say that we cannot make constructive comments as to how we might change things for the better. Mr Ronald Edwards —Oh, come on, Allan. Mr ROCHER —The honourable member for Stirling talked about the boiler breaking down in a sugar plant. He made, if I might say, the stupid analogy that we do not call in the management if the boiler breaks down. Of course we do not call in the management; we have the workers here. The point I was making, in an exchange with the honourable member for Perth, is that it is not the senior management that is called into this place to keep quorums; it is the donkeys such as the honourable member and I who sit on the back benches. We are the fellows who fill the quorums and we are the division fodder. We are not the senior management, I hasten to advise the honourable member for Stirling and the honourable member for Perth. So let us not kid ourselves in that regard and let us not make silly analogies as did the honourable member for Stirling. Business programming in this place is, should be and always will be responsibility of the government of the day. We might, if we apply ourselves, persuade the government of the day to do its work and organise the affairs of this House a little better. In respect of private members' opportunity I think the Committee has been innovative. I would certainly like to see time set aside for private members' business, for an experimental period-for 12 months perhaps, or six months if it is preferred-to see how it works out. We must remember-I am sure the honourable member for Bowman understands this better than most-that acceptance of that is dependent on a trade-off with some amended times for adjournment debates. One is dependent on the other. Allowing for that, I think it is worth a try. I think it is something that we could very well experiment with. I must say I worry a little bit about losing the adjournment debate because, although 1 1/2 minutes gives honourable members a chance to state a case, it must be a very brief case and certainly there is not long enough to make a case in the way one would given the opportunity in a grievance debate. On the matter of presentation of reports, of course, the Government decides what reports will be presented. The Opposition may react by moving that the House take note of the paper. At all times and even under these arrangements, that procedure will remain very much in the hands of the Government. On the matter of legislation committees, let me say that if we go to such a system I would favour a very close look at what happens in the Palace of Westminster. My limited experience with committees in the Senate would lead me to believe that that is probably not as simple as it sounds. Previous experience in this place suggests that it is not as easy to make work as might be suggested by the Committee. On the matter of the reading of speeches, let me say this: Having had experience in the other place, which has a standing order similar to that proposed for this place, I have seen the Chair-and I would cry for you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to be in this position-having to decide who is reading a speech and who is not. Mr Jull —Copious notes. Mr ROCHER —My friend knows the words only too well. How can a man in the Chair decide who is reading and who is not reading a speech in this place? I make no secret of the fact that I will read in this place if I feel the need to do it. If I have to talk about international monetary institutions and debate our contribution to them I have to. I have to read to refer to the relationships between the World Bank or International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund, the International Development Agency and the International Fiscal Association, and their interlinked arrangements and their interwoven shareholding. I have to use notes because I do not know which is doing what. If a Minister delivers his second reading speech off the cuff, I will debate off the cuff. When a Minister delivers a prepared second reading speech, backed up by all the resources at the disposal of government, by the advisory staff, and expects a reasonable, even-handed debate from members of this Opposition, he has to give them the same terms. We will prepare and do our work at great length. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) — Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science)(9.51) —It is not very often that Ministers get a chance to intervene in debates, but we are also members of parliament. I would like to make a couple of points. The report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure is very interesting, and I commend the honourable member for Bowman (Mr Keogh) and the members of his Committee for what they have done. I would have suggested one or two minor variations, but it may be that I have not read the report carefully enough. I think the Committee ought to have tackled the question of whether debates in the chamber ought to stop for meals. It has always seemed to me that the meal break, no matter how-- Mr Keogh —We did. We believe they should stop for meals, on medical submissions that we had. Mr BARRY JONES —It seems to me that there is a slight element of non-sequitur in it. Meals take up seven or eight hours of sitting time each week. If the normal pattern in the House was that 148 members were sitting here, as keen as mustard, never leaving the chamber except to answer the occasional call of nature, working like mad, I could understand that it might be highly desirable to impose a compulsory break. The reality is that normally only a small number of members are in the House at any given time-the enthusiasts who are dealing with the particular piece of legislation that is before the House at the time. For the life of me I cannot understand why debate in the chamber should stop automatically because I decide to leave my office at 12.45 p.m. and amble around for lunch. That seems to me to be a complete non-sequitur. We are all intelligent enough to be able to stagger the times at which we eat. I do not see why everything should freeze when the lunch bell sounds. It does not seem to me to make any sense at all. I am not sure in what year it was, but I am pretty sure that in the House of Commons the meal breaks were stopped in the 1970s. Certainly my experience is that the House of Commons goes right through. Honourable members could understand that a chamber of 640 members or thereabouts-- Mr Hollis —They don't have quorum calls, as we do. Can you imagine what the Opposition would do? Mr BARRY JONES —The House of Commons has now abolished the quorum. At one stage it reduced a quorum to three, but then simply changed the Standing Orders, which I think now read: `There shall be no call of the House'. However, there is a quorum procedure; if a division is called I think 40 members have to vote. The other matter that I think is worthy of consideration-I know that the honourable member for Herbert (Mr Lindsay) would take a view diametrically opposed-is that one attractive innovation in the House of Commons is the use of public Bill committees. They are dedicated committees, not exactly like the legislation committees that we had before, which were really part of the budgetary process as much as anything else. If Parliament really wants to get through legislation, instead of having one debate that lasts for two hours with a dozen people in the chamber, then another debate that goes on for another two hours with another set of 12 people in the chamber and then a third debate with a third set of 12 people, thus dealing with legislation sequentially, it can deal with it simultaneously in different places. There is nothing particularly mystical about using this chamber if we have alternative committee rooms in which the legislation can be dealt with. I take up the example that was given by the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Ronald Edwards). I thought there might have been a touch of irony-a quality for which Australians are not very renowned-when he said that he thought that his electorate was agog to find out what was happening with the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill 1986. I think that is a piece of important legislation, but I suspect that the people who are most competent to deal with it might make up less than a tenth of the membership of the Parliament. If they want to go into a separate chamber-into one of the committee rooms-to debate it for three hours, good luck to them. The British committees are organised pro rata along party lines. In the overwhelming majority of cases they come back with reports that are unanimous, which then go immediately through the plenum of the House. If there is a serious disagreement on a policy matter, they can come back to the chamber and the matter can be argued. That seems to me to be the absolute essence of the democratic system. The inflexible factor is that of time. We cannot extend the amount of time linearly unless we subdivide it laterally. It is the only way we can do it. As the size of the Parliament becomes bigger, with more and more members, each member has a smaller amount of time in the plenum of the House, unless we can subdivide it. James Madison, for whom I have a very great respect-I think he had some of the most profound insight into the workings of the democratic system-made an observation in `The Federalist Papers'. He was not talking about a parliament such as ours exactly, but about the legislatures of the United States of America. He said that, one could work on the basis that the bigger the legislature the smaller the number of people who actually exercised control. On that basis I suppose that ought to make Tasmania a deeply egalitarian State. Queensland has a pretty big legislature, and we know what has happened there. The problem is that in a forum such as ours, with an increasing number of members-one might imagine that long before the end of this century there will be 200 members of the House of Representatives-the scope of the individual member to be able to make his contribution will be increasingly restricted; the Executive of the day will totally dominate the procedure. I think very serious consideration ought to be given to the British model of the public Bill committees. The question of meal breaks has to be-- Mr Keogh —We agree, but can't do it until we go into the new House. Mr BARRY JONES —The question of meal breaks is something that has to be looked at because there we would have an automatic extension of about eight usable hours. To deny ourselves that time because somebody somewhere in the building happens to be hungry seems to me-- Mr Hollis —But you would have them calling for quorums. Mr BARRY JONES —We have to get rid of the quorum altogether. I think that is the logical way. Mr Lloyd —See whether you think the same when you are in opposition. Mr BARRY JONES —I always thought that in opposition. Mr Lloyd —You might have, but we have to talk about the majority. It is rather a different view over there now. Mr BARRY JONES —Of course it is seen as a weapon-perhaps as a defensive or sometimes an offensive weapon-by an Opposition. I understand that. The point is that against that the bottom line is the fact that we sometimes succeed in making the institution look ridiculous. That is one thing on which we ought to have a bipartisan approach. We do not want the institution to fall into disrepute; we do not want it to appear ridiculous. I am sorry to have intervened in this debate, but I could not help myself. Mr CONNOLLY(Bradfield)(9.59) —I enter this debate on the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure because of some of the remarks that I heard made by honourable members earlier, particularly the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Ronald Edwards). I took it upon myself to examine precisely what the Hawke Government's record was in relation to parliamentary reform and to make a judgment, therefore, in relation to the members of the Government who served on this Committee. I congratulate the members of the Committee, and particularly the Chairman, on the report. In 1983 the Government put out a document called `Labor and Quality of Government' which said: It has become equally evident in recent years that there is a strong case for a major systematic review of parliamentary procedures to ensure that available time is productively spent from the point of view of both Government and Opposition parties. The document continued: Labor in government will explore a new approach toward parliamentary reform. Instead of focusing, as all reform attempts in the past have tended to, on the mechanisms themselves-division times, voting procedures generally, gags and guillotines generally, the committee stages of Bills generally-we will approach the problem from the position that quite different procedures may well be appropriate for different kinds of legislation. Tonight we are debating a significant set of reforms and, on the basis of the Government's own stated policy, obviously it will find most of what has been said here tonight fundamentally lacking in terms of the objectives it has set. Nevertheless, the fact is that there is a need for parliamentary reform. If one looks at the history of the parliamentary institutions we currently have, I think it is probably fair to say that what we have today is more or less in linear descent from the parliaments of the seventeenth century in Great Britain. The Glorious Revolution of 1688, which spawned within it not only the reign of William and Mary but also the concept of the party system as we know it today, has had a fundamental impact on the manner in which the Westminster systems of parliament are prepared or able to conduct themselves. It has consistently amazed me that a government, namely the Hawke Labor Government, which has placed so much effort over the last four years on introducing administrative reforms in the public sector, many of which we have supported, has found it so difficult, if not impossible, to approach the question of parliamentary reform at least with an open point of view. It is clear that the direction being taken currently by the majority members on the Committee is diametrically opposed to the position adopted by Labor back in 1983 in the context of its earlier policy. I mention these opening observations only to emphasise the fact that I took the greatest exception to the comment made by the Leader of the House early in the debate that the purpose of Parliament was to pass legislation. That merely demonstrates the simple fact, if anybody in the Opposition needed any further evidence, that the man does not understand what a parliament is all about. It is certainly not just to pass legislation. It is here to be the mouthpiece of the nation, to enable the representatives of the people to bring to this Parliament the views of the electorate at large, and to debate, in a reasonably open if at times somewhat hostile atmosphere, what are seen from both sides of the House as the major issues of the time. The point has been made by many members, not least by the honourable member for Stirling, that one of the big problems we have faced in recent years is that from the point of view of the electorate at large we are not debating the major issues. I have detected a division of opinion on this point between the Minister for Science (Mr Barry Jones) and the honourable member for Stirling. One said that Parliament needs to meet longer to overcome this problem; the other said no, Parliament should meet for a shorter length of time. I come down on the side of longer sittings of Parliament, provided that the time we will spend here-it is proposed in the report that we should spend over 20 weeks-is properly utilised. One has to be sceptical whether that will be the case. It was this Government that increased the size of the Parliament. Therefore, on an exponential growth basis, we need to change the way Question Time is handled and there needs to be more debating time for the additional members, otherwise there will be less time available for the number of members in the chamber. That is one of the problems we have been facing and, frankly, I do not think we have handled it very well at all. It has been suggested in the report that the total hours of sitting should be changed and, generally speaking, most Opposition members would support that basic proposition. It is also suggested that the pattern of sittings should be changed, and here I find an interesting contradiction. On the one hand, it is suggested that we should have four-day weeks in two sitting weeks, followed by two non-sitting weeks-in other words, a continuation of the present system, which is the only reform introduced by the Leader of the House in the four years he has been responsible for administration under this Government. However, the report also goes on to say that the sitting times of the Parliament are bad for our health. That point comes out quite strongly and various government members and others have made that observation in this debate. Therefore, I find it extraordinary to understand how if we find full time sittings of the House-that is from morning right through to late evening-to be satisfactory, the argument is not then used for a continuation of the break after dinner on Wednesday. I honestly believe that one of the few surviving elements of civilisation in the parliamentary system is that it gives us the opportunity to break out of this place, which was precisely the point made by the honourable member for Stirling. He referred to us as a bunch of rats who acted in accordance with a number of electrical charges that are passed through us, and so forth. That might be overstating the case, but nevertheless the point has a degree of validity. There is a strong case on health grounds as well as psychological grounds to continue a break in the parliamentary week. The obvious time to do that is on Wednesday evening, to give people the opportunity to get out of this chamber, to get out of the building, to meet other people in Canberra, to have a reasonably civilised social existence on at least one night of the week. I am surprised that this did not apparently attract itself to the majority of members of the Committee, and I sincerely hope that they will give further consideration to the factor. I hope that the Government will do so in the next few weeks when no doubt it will have to come back with final decisions. Other matters worth noting relate to the question of private members' business. There is not the slightest doubt that all the members on the back benches on both sides of the House would take the view that currently the time set aside, namely, one hour and 15 minutes each alternate sitting Thursday, is grossly inadequate. If we are to increase the length of sittings of the House to 20-odd weeks, I would sincerely hope that that time will not be used for more legislation, which will be the weakness of the proposal, but that any additional time will be used by members in this House to express more adequately the views put to them by their constituents every day they are in their electorates. The point cannot be overlaboured that the electorate at large is cynical about the effectiveness of Parliament. I point out to the honourable member for Stirling that it costs $10m to run the House of Representatives, but that it also costs $10m to run the War Memorial, so honourable members can make their own judgment as to which gives the better value. If we are to get the true confidence of the Australian electorate and retain that confidence, irrespective of which side we are on, clearly we have to come up with a higher level of productivity than we have. Productivity in a parliamentary sense is not, as the Minister responsible for this House said earlier, simply on the basis of how many Bills are passed. I would argue precisely the contrary. I would argue that we would be a much better Parliament if we set about finding other ways of administering this country than necessarily having to pass new legislation. I made this point in a debate earlier this week when we were arguing the question of superannuation changes in the public sector. We had before us a piece of legislation that was not being adequately administered and the Government brought in a new raft of amendments, instead of going back to the kernel of the problem and trying to solve it at that point. If the Government believes that it has performed well by the Australian electorate simply by introducing rafts of administrative reforms for the public sector but has failed, as it certainly has to date, to make any significant reforms in the context of the interface between the Parliament and the administration of government, the Government will be seen at the next election as a government that had all those opportunities, that made grand statements in the document to which I referred earlier, `Labor and the Quality of Government', but once again failed to live up to the objectives and opportunities offered to it. A number of my Opposition colleagues have made the point, which I strongly support, that the proposal here is to reduce the adjournment debate. Government members have said that that is not the case. I do not know how they can arrive at that conclusion because clearly the time element has been reduced. It has been replaced by a 90-second exercise to take place just after Question Time. Most of us have been here long enough to know that there was a time when private members were able to read short statements into Hansard. The Government objected to that because it saw the statements as mini-speeches which had no place in the Parliament. Again, the Leader of the the House objected to this and of course it was done away with. Whatever additional time the Government offers-and I made this point earlier-this is now a larger parliament and therefore clearly there must be more time for private members, more than before. Therefore, to come up with a proposition to reduce the length or change the basis of Question Time and to change the time for the adjournment debate is an absurdity and something which I would certainly not recommend. The Leader of the House raised the matter of Question Time and I wish to say a few things about that. Regrettably, we have yet to see the matter of Question Time brought before us. I understand that the next report of the Procedure Committee will be available later this week, but as this is the last week of sitting this year, it is highly unlikely that we will have an opportunity to debate it. Fortunately, the Minister brought up the matter of Question Time so let us now see it for what it is. The record of this Government in Question Time is an absolute disgrace. There is no other word for it. Out in the electorate people judge parliamentary performance on what they tend to hear in Question Time. It should not be called Question Time because it is a time for not answering questions. I do not recall in recent months a single question that any Minister in this Government has seriously attempted to answer or give information about. Ministers have used every possible opportunity to try to score points off the Opposition and they seem to see the role of this Parliament as just a glorified bear pit in which one scores points for the benefit of the gallery. Ministers do not care about the electorate- Mr John Brown —Why don't you ask a question that seeks information instead of pouring scorn on us and accusing us of dishonesty and impropriety? Mr CONNOLLY —The Minister gets questions just as other Ministers do and he does not answer them any more than anyone else. Ministers should not come in here and put proposals to the Parliament suggesting that all of a sudden all honesty and integrity floweth forth from members of the Government. The Government has been in office for four years. It has not lived by the proposals in its own policy statement back in 1982. We are simply making the observation tonight that there is much in this report that has quality. However, one of the biggest problems we face and which must be taken seriously in any change of the Standing Orders is the fact that if a Minister is asked a question his answer must be relevant to that question. On numerous occasions we have tried to get the support of the Chair to face up to the need for that change. There were times of earlier Speakers when at least if Ministers intended to ramble on, they were brought to-- Mr John Brown —On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: I find those remarks most offensive in relation to the character and behaviour of the Chair. That the honourable member can stand up and make imputations about unfairness on the part of the Speaker of the House I find most offensive. I ask that those remarks be withdrawn. Mr CONNOLLY —If anything I said was offensive to the Speaker, naturally I withdraw it. The point I am making is that the Standing Orders, as they are currently interpreted, do not give the degree of certainty that the Speaker must have to determine whether a question is relevant. That is the essential problem that we face. It is one which this Government, if it is serious about reform, must be prepared to take on much more seriously than it has done to the present time. The fact is that the electorate and this Parliament are in a crisis of confidence. The electorate does not see us as being relevant. It is not just a question of fact or of cost, it is a question of perception. We all know that politics is so much a question of perception. People get an idea about a situation or an individual and it is very hard to shift their perception. What they see and what they hear in this Parliament adds to that perception. School children come through this chamber regularly and in many cases this is the first and only impact that those individuals have-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr LINDSAY(Herbert)(10.14) —Due to the constraint of time, I just wish to make a few remarks about the second report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure on days and hours of sitting and the effective use of the time of the House. The second report contains my dissenting report and I wish to deal with three recommendations of the Committee which I think are most important. They are major recommendations made by a majority of the Committee. The first issue which-- Debate interrupted. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! It being 10.15 p.m. I propose the question that the House do now adjourn. Mr John Brown-Mr Deputy Speaker, I require the question to be put forthwith without debate. Question resolved in the negative. Debate resumed. Mr LINDSAY(Herbert) —The first issue on which I dissent from the majority recommendation of the Committee is contained in paragraph 52 of the report which says: It is recommended that a Business Committee be established by the House to facilitate the orderly programming of business and that the membership of the committee be the Speaker- The paragraph then contains a number of suggestions as to the constitution of the committee and recommends that it include two so-called experienced back benchers. I take serious issue with this recommendation. I support the statements made by the Leader of the House (Mr Young) that the Government must have an unfettered discretion to program the business of the House, not only to carry out its legislative program, but also to enable it to respond to the exigencies of government. My dissenting report gains substance from remarks contained in paragraph 48 of the report which says: . . . the committee believes . . . that this role would best be carried out by a Business Committee. It then goes on to suggest in paragraph 49 that: The establishment of a Business Committee . . . should result in maximum time being allocated to substantive and debatable issues, a more predictable and definite program including the setting of agreed times for holding divisions, a reduction in the use of the closure and a reduced need for the Opposition to resort to disruptive tactics to ensure its voice is heard. I simply point out that the Leader of the House, the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young), has run this House efficiently and with impeccable administration. During the years that I have been a member of this House I have not heard one back bencher, either in General Business or in the adjournment debate, ever complain about the constitution of our daily program or the need for a business committee to carry out the suggestions made by the Procedure Committee. Indeed, the only time that I have ever heard a complaint from the Opposition or a suggestion that something might be awry with the daily program was when the right honour- able member for New England (Mr Sinclair) was Leader of the House under the previous Government. Therefore as I see it, the recommendation contained in paragraph 52 of the report simply does not have substance and I believe that the Committee has not adduced sufficient information to support that recommendation. I further dissent from the recommendation contained in paragraphs 62 and 63, which deal with private members' business. I maintain that there is ample opportunity here most nights for honourable members to speak in the adjournment debate and on the second readings of various Bills. Indeed on a number of occasions, if honourable members cared to check the speakers list from both the Opposition and Government sides, they would find that sometimes there are insufficient speakers on very important pieces of legislation with which this House must deal. In addition to that there are grievance debates and matters of general business which come before this House. On those occasions there is no evidence of a rush by speakers to involve themselves in taking the time of the House to address important issues. I also dissent from the recommendation to re-establish legislation committees. Legislation committees were used for some time during the time of the Fraser Government. The reasons for their collapse are unclear. I do not know whether it was anything to do with the failure of those committees to deal adequately with technical Bills or whether they became an arena for lawyers to get involved in the trafficking of legal opinion on the best way to deal with a Bill. However, the fact is that legislation committees were abandoned under the Fraser Government. I do not see where any evidence has been adduced by this Committee in its report which would support the reintroduction of legislation committees. Finally, I believe that the place for debate with respect to Bills introduced in this Parliament rests in this chamber. This is the premier place in Australia where debate should be had on any Bill affecting the future of our country. The House can resolve into a Committee of the Whole whenever that is necessary. This is the premier place of our land where legislation should be debated, not transferred to a back room, to a legislation committee where people can take it point by point, comma by comma and get away from the thrust and cut of debate, which is so necessary to expose the weaknesses or the strengths of a Bill, that I believe happens here in this Parliament under the leadership of a very competent and able Leader of the House, the honourable member for Port Adelaide. Having regard to the fact that there is only 10 minutes left in this debate, I simply place on record my dissent from these three major recommendations contained in the report. Otherwise, I support the report and commend its proposals to the House. Mr CONQUEST(Hinkler)(10.22) —Firstly, I support the recommendation of the retention of the sitting pattern of two weeks on and two weeks off and strongly support the sittings from Monday to Thursday each week. I think we have got to give some consideration to members who represent large electorates and members who are distant from Canberra, particularly those from Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The three-day break will allow members better to represent their electorates and will enable them to have time with their families if they so desire. It is perfectly okay for members whose electorates are close to Canberra. They find it easy to go to their respective homes. Most members have small electorates and find that they are able to justify their existence to the electorate by attending the various functions that are being held. When we consider the electorates of the honourable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Campbell), the honourable member for Maranoa (Mr Ian Cameron), the honourable member for Kennedy (Mr Katter), the honourable member for Riverina-Darling (Mr Hicks) and the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Everingham) we can understand that these members have an arduous task in serving their constituents. On page 67 the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure mentions the health problems of some members. Under the heading `Results' it is stated: In particular, the group as a whole had high adrenaline levels across the extended working day, suggesting a level of psychological stress and mental fatigue greater than occurred in comparison groups. It was noted that the marked increase in adrenalin levels coincided with the hours during which the House was in session. I also put to the House that having a three-day break will allow members to have some rest from the arduous tasks they perform in Canberra. Let me turn now to Question Time. I do not know whether enough deliberation has been devoted to Question Time. I know a separate report is coming in on that matter. I think there should be a discipline put on members and on Ministers; that is, a discipline should be placed on those asking the question and a similar discipline should be placed on Ministers who have to answer. At present, Question Time is just a charade, it is a sham. We sit in the arena and the Christians, who probably know better, are sitting up there in the gallery looking down and wondering what Parliament is all about. I believe it behoves everybody in this House to take note that Question Time has a stated purpose. That purpose should be for people to question and for the Ministers and the Prime Minister to inform the House rather than trying to take the opportunity of scoring political points. I agree with the honourable member for Grayndler (Mr Leo McLeay), who spoke about reading speeches. Honourable members who read speeches do not have the same spontaneity. They do not need to have the same knowledge in regard to the discussion that is taking place. How many times have we seen in this House honourable members grappling with a word they have never seen before? Because somebody back at the office had written the speech for them, they did not know what the subject was about and they did not know the words that they were trying to pass to this House. It is just an academic expose by some research officer that has been handed to them to speak to a Bill. I agree with the honourable member for Herbert (Mr Lindsay). I will not enlarge on what he has just said, particularly in regard to paragraph 62 in his dissenting report. I believe that private members should have the opportunity to bring forward Bills. They should have equal opportunity with everybody else to place before this House matters which are of concern to them and of concern to their electorate and matters which might concern some organisation to which they belong. It appears to me, if we are going to have some selection committee deciding what subject we are going to have, that those in the more remote areas will have less chance of bringing up the subjects of their choice because it may not be the subject that the majority would like to speak on. I turn now to the matter of second reading speeches being incorporated in Hansard. I agree that this should not be done. After all, at present we are using the electronic media as much as possible so that people in the wider electorate can hear what Bills are being brought forward. How on earth can they follow the debate on a particular subject if they have not heard the Minister's second reading speech? If they are going to understand what is going on, they should have the opportunity of hearing the introduction of Bills and then the debate which follows. I congratulate the Committee on the work it has done. Although there are some parts with which I cannot agree, in general I feel that the principles that it has espoused are fair. I have brought up the matters on which I have some concern. Once again, I hope all honourable members support the sitting pattern of two weeks on and two weeks off but, in particular, the three-day break so that we only sit from Monday to Thursday each week. Debate (on motion by Mr Keogh) adjourned. Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time. Ordered that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time. Ordered that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Motion (by Mr John Brown) proposed: That the House do now adjourn. Mr TIM FISCHER(Farrer)(10.28) —Tonight we learned that Federal Cabinet has made a decision in respect of the Australian War Memorial. That decision was to provide for a strictly limited judicial examination in relation to the continuing saga between the Director and the Australian War Memorial. One might call it a strictly limited additional inquiry. That decision represents a defeat of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs (Senator Gietzelt). Indeed, Federal Cabinet has dumped the Minister for Veterans' Affairs over the Australian War Memorial saga. Obviously Cabinet rejected special legislation and rejected an early trip to see the Governor-General. The Minister's vendetta has come unstuck, but we still do not have a full and open inquiry as requested in the Senate motion last week. The new strictly limited inquiry or judicial examination is unlikely to provide any real solution or accord, or to permit full natural justice to all involved. We in the Opposition will fight tooth and nail to protect the independence of the Australian War Memorial and to protect and retain its traditional role. The situation now existing has gone on for long enough. It is now a fortnight since the tabling of the Ken Jones report in relation to the Australian War Memorial. Summarising, there are four groups of issues relating to this saga: Firstly, the matters between the Minister and his role and the Australian War Memorial; secondly, the matters between the Director and the Australian War Memorial; thirdly, the matters which have been raised by my colleague the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Everingham) in relation to certain staff and the Australian War Memorial; and, finally, the modus operandi of the Council of the Australian War Memorial. Throughout this whole matter I have been very careful, because I recognise the very special place the Australian War Memorial has for Australia at large and the very special place it is for the memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. We do not want to see the War Memorial besmirched by undue politicisation and by undue interference from the Minister, and on both those counts we have had a former South Australian Labor Premier and former member of the Council of the Australian War Memorial tell us that the Minister has unduly interfered and has unduly politicised the Australian War Memorial. I think that is valid enough when one looks at the composition of the Council of the Australian War Memorial. The honourable member for Lilley (Mrs Darling) is overseas and therefore I will not dwell on this matter because it would be unfair to do so at this time, but I would like to say to the House that the peace museum proposal, which she advanced and which caused so much alarm for so many veterans and so many reasonable Australians who want to see the traditional role of the War Memorial maintained, should be totally and utterly rejected. Mr John Brown —It was, by the full board, unanimously. Mr TIM FISCHER —We believe that the honourable member for Lilley, having faced that rejection as pointed out by the Minister, should now step down from the Council of the Australian War Memorial. It is inappropriate that she be a member, especially in the circumstances now obtaining. Overall let me make it very clear to the House that the Cabinet decision today in respect of the Director of the Australian War Memorial is a very limited one. It is not the option the coalition would prefer. We want, we demand and we seek, even at this eleventh hour, a full and open inquiry into the Australian War Memorial so that the truth will out, so that a proper determination might be made and so that the traditional and independent role of the Australian War Memorial can continue free from undue and unnecessary political interference, particularly that emanating from the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. Mr SNOW(Eden-Monaro)(10.33) —Earlier this evening the honourable member for Canberra (Mrs Kelly) brought forward the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Australian Capital Territory on the hospitality inquiry. I was delighted that the report gave full credence to the fact that Canberra's hospitality industry had become a regional problem. I was delighted that the Committee was able to accept a regional input not only from me as a member of the inquiry but also from many organisations throughout the electorate, including local government and other planning organisations. There was a recognition of the need for a broader approach to tourism by the inquiry and it became quite clear as the inquiry went on that Canberra needed to link itself even further with tourism throughout the region. At the moment there are very strong links between Canberra and Snowy Mountains tourist organisations and the Goulburn tourist organisation to ensure that tourists who come to the area take maximum advantage of the beautiful south-eastern region of New South Wales. It was made very clear that there was a real need for the Canberra tourist authority to think not just of inviting people here for a day or even two days but also of establishing alternative packages of one, two or three days, or perhaps a week, in the area. To do that it will need to link not only with the Snowy Mountains but also with the south coast of New South Wales. It will need to link with some of the heritage areas of south-eastern New South Wales. Mr Tim Fischer —Tumbarumba. Mr SNOW —Queanbeyan, Bungendore, Tumbarumba, as the honourable member for Farrer said, Goulburn, Braidwood-all these areas have great heritage value. Combined with the tourist potential of the south coast and the Snowy Mountains, I believe that Canberra, with that sort of package, can be a great attraction to the increasing numbers of overseas tourists who are coming to Australia and taking full advantage not only of the present value of the dollar but also of the fact that Australia is a secure country to visit. The south coast of New South Wales is already being used by many people who go to the Snowy Mountains in the winter. If there is a bad day up there and they prefer to go somewhere else, it takes only an hour or two to visit the far south coast. Similarly, quite often people who visit the south coast in the summer and who would like to go somewhere else on a wet day find that it is not very far for them to go to the Snowy Mountains area, where in January there are beautiful wild flowers, some delightful walks and plenty of things to do. I am delighted that the inquiry has recommended further linkages of tourist organisations throughout the region. Not only has it done that; it has also made recommendations on the links to those tourist facilities. For instance, the link between Canberra and Tumut, the link between Canberra and Adaminaby and the link between Braidwood and Nowra are roads that we ought to think of developing so that we can give broader scope to people who are on tour. Only a year or so ago, before the start of this inquiry, the area manager of the Pioneer group of coaches said that he would much prefer to take people into the Snowy Mountains one way and bring them back another. At the moment that is difficult from Canberra. At the moment people have to be taken along the Monaro Highway and brought back that way. The report also mentioned the need for the development of technical and further education. Certainly, TAFE in Canberra is a very important link between Canberra and the region. There is agreement that Canberra and the region be linked in the training of young people. I congratulate the Committee on its report and am pleased to have shared in it. I particularly thank those regional organisations which contributed. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr RUDDOCK(Dundas)(10.38) —Last session I spoke about the plight of Soviet Jewry and mentioned in particular my concern that a large number of Jewish people living in the Soviet Union and anxious to leave had sought permission from Soviet authorities and were unable to leave the Soviet Union. Recently I had a letter from a lady who is living in Sydney and is concerned that I should bring to the attention of the House, of the Government and of the representatives of the Soviet Union the plight of a particular family. In doing that tonight I want to highlight information that has come to my attention recently, namely, that the Soviet Union may be considering a relaxation of its policy generally in relation to Soviet Jewry. I hope that after drawing attention to this particular case I might well hear in the not too distant future that the position of the Soviet Union has changed in relation to this particular family and it might be an example of the way in which the relaxed policy, if that is what it is, is going to operate. I mention in particular that the case I was asked to raise was that of a lass by the name of Nina Luskin, who was allowed to leave the Soviet Union at 18 years of age, who settled abroad, married and had children of her own, but whose parents and grandmother were not allowed to leave the Soviet Union. It is 10 years since she left. Of course, in that time she has not been able to see her family. As we all know, this is only one case of many thousands, but this lady is concerned because illness is involved and, over time, the separation becomes very much more painful as a consequence. I asked for further particulars of the family. Her parents are Mr and Mrs Lev Rozenberg. Her father was born in the Soviet Union on 8 August 1928. He is an engineer. He first applied for permission to leave the Soviet Union in September 1975 and was refused in November 1975. In the statement he was given at that time he was told that his job was considered to be a sensitive, secret position. Even though he has now applied eight times since the first refusal, the first four times he was turned down without any explanation and four other letters have never been answered, including letters to the previous President of the Soviet Union and Secretary of the Communist Party, as well as a number of other officials. He has not received any official response except for that first one, when he was told that his former job was considered to be a secret position. I am told that he left that position some five years ago. Even within the Soviet Union's law, as I understand it now, that may not be a reason any longer for refusing permission for him to leave. His cousin, Dr Grigory Svirsky, wrote of Lev Rozenberg: My cousin, after having applied for permission to leave the USSR, is now being detained there in violation of the Soviets' own laws. He worked at the Toupolev aviation firm, but the term within which secrecy must be maintained long ago expired. Nevertheless, he has received one refusal after another. Soviet officials cynically say that this would be a violation of their laws-but, just the same, continue to violate them themselves . . . the only thing that will be able to save him is publicity, and I am asking that you give wide publicity to his case. The point of the matter is blatant lawlessness-even from the point of view of ``Soviet law''. I mentioned that his daughter was allowed to leave. In 1978 the Rozenberg family received a statement that all members, including Nina, who had left two years earlier, were refused permission to leave. That is an indication of the rather bureaucratic way in which these matters are dealt with. The grandmother, Mrs Shifra Sharf, has now received permission to emigrate. She is 84 years of age and can hardly walk. Of course, given that she had been granted permission to leave, without her family to support her it is unlikely that she would be able to leave the Soviet Union now and settle abroad. This is a case like many and one in which I certainly hope the Parliament will take an interest. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr CUNNINGHAM(McMillan)(10.43) —Tonight I wish to make some comments in relation to an address given today in Canberra by the President of the National Farmers Federation, Ian McLachlan. Mr McLachlan was addressing the Council of the National Farmers Federation and he made a very interesting speech in relation to many issues involving the rural sector in Australia. One of the things I would like to bring to the attention of the House tonight is the movement by the farmers organisations away from support for what would be expected to be their normal base in the Liberal and National parties towards a more open approach to politics as the National Farmers Federation moves to a central line working towards its constituency. The President in his speech today commented very strongly, in a couple of points on page 6 and page 8, on the effort made by the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Kerin) to give new flexibility to the wool industry, and Mr McLachlan fully commended the Minister for this. On page 8 he said in relation to the world trading area: And to this end I must say much credit must go to John Dawkins and John Kerin in putting together the Cairns group and playing a big part in agriculture being considered in the GATT negotiations for the first time. What we are seeing here, of course, is an organisation representing rural Australia, which is taking a very independent line and which is commenting very strongly on the real issues that are facing agriculture Australia-wide and what has occurred because of the commodity downturn. I disagree with what Mr McLachlan said in his speech today in one area only. I believe that he spoiled what was basically a structurally well put together speech by raising matters such as the fringe benefits tax, which he got absolutely wrong, in an attempt to put some political flavour into his speech. I think that is a tragedy. On page 5 of his speech he raised the issue of the fringe benefits tax. He also tried to include a tax free living away from home allowance of the Treasurer (Mr Keating). I think it is a tragedy that an organisation as large as the National Farmers Federation, representing all people from all walks of life in the rural sector, some of whom vote Labor, some National and some Liberal, should have been associated with such remarks. I would like to bring to the attention of the House the mistake that Mr McLachlan is making in relation to these matters. The country task force of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), which I have the honour to chair, has been finding in its travels around Australia the problems of the misrepresentation of the tax measures that have been introduced. I would like to quote some of the words that Mr McLachlan used in his address to the Council of the National Farmers Federation and put them into their proper perspective. Mr McLachlan talked about the fringe benefits tax and said, in part: the fairness of taxing benefits is not an issue, but rather the absolute lack of fairness in the way it will be taxed; thousands of public servants and the politicians will it seems avoid the tax entirely; That is totally incorrect. Those who are receiving fringe benefits will be treated the same regardless of where they are. He continued: the credibility of the Government's case would be greatly enhanced if Cabinet moved to cash out the myriad of benefits enjoyed by those politicians and public servants. It will of course put up their total tax; He does not say where politicians and public servants are getting benefits that other people in the country are not. I think it is a tragedy that he has taken this line. But the real problem comes, of course, when he starts to move into the Treasurer. He said: until this occurs, there is one rule for the Government and another for the electorate; now, on the surface of it, farm managers and farm workers can't claim the $947 a week to equate in a private enterprise sense with the Federal Treasurer's tax free travel allowance of $17,900 per year; He has got that wrong because it is not a tax free travel allowance. It is a living away from home allowance which every person in business or in government is entitled to because it is tax deductible in their own hands and is not a fringe benefit. He gets it wrong by asking the question: What is the difference we may ask between a living away-from-home allowance, which is subject to fringe benefits tax, and the Treasurer's tax free travel allowance? It is not a fringe benefit, has never been a fringe benefit and never will be a fringe benefit. While the National Farmers Federation continues to peddle this misinformation, it is not going to get the respect that this speech should have deserved in terms of its contents. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr COBB(Parkes)(10.48) —I rise tonight to talk about the remarkable events on a property called Sunny Downs at Mandurama in the central west of New South Wales owned by Mr George Tait. The other day he was approached by three shearers who were working on his property. They asked him whether he would be prepared to offer his shed to them on a Saturday; they would round up some other shearers and work there all day shearing his sheep. Instead of paying the shearers, the money would go to the local school. In other words, it was an act of charity. Mr Tait has a 14-stand shed, and he readily agreed as it was a worthy cause. Fourteen shearers from throughout the district gathered to shear at his shed on that day. Prior to that the local technical and further education college at Orange, which teaches wool classing, was contacted. It agreed to send 20 students to Mr Tait's property for work experience, to skirt and class the wool on that day. Everyone was quite pleased with the situation. However, on the Thursday before that Saturday Mr Tait got a telegram saying that there was a work dispute and that he was to appear in Sydney the following morning before the arbitration court. He got a representative to appear in his place the next morning. The judge heard the case and recommended that the shearing not proceed on that Saturday. We had a judge who did not have any strength to make what would seem to be a commonsense decision. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member will have mind to the standing order under which he may not cast aspersions on members of the judiciary. Mr COBB —I thank you for your guidance, Madam Speaker. Anyhow, it was decided not to go along with that recommendation; it was only a recommendation. Fourteen shearers turned up on the Saturday, mostly locals. Some of them had children at the Mandurama school. They went ahead with the shearing. But the students from the TAFE college could not turn up because of a direction from Sydney that, if they did, the instructor from the local TAFE college would not have a job when he turned up for work on the following Monday. What happened? Virtually the whole district of parents, children, et cetera, turned up to get the job done. It was a great community effort. The Lions Club turned up and put on a free lunch for the workers. It was a great day for charity all round. However, who should turn up that afternoon but a fellow named Mick O'Shea, the local representative from the Australian Workers Union. He said: `This work will cease immediately'. It was pointed out that nobody was getting any money from it; all the money was going to charity. He said: `I could not give a damn whether it is for charity of not; the shearing will cease'. The people said to him: `You pack your traps and go. The work is going on'. The work continued and in the course of that day some 1,500 sheep were shorn and just under $2,000 was raised for the local school. It was a fine community effort by any standard. The following Monday Mr Tait received another telegram asking him to appear before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in Sydney the following morning because shearing had been carried out on his property on that Saturday. Again, he got a representative to appear for him. The case has been deferred because a ruling is pending over another hearing involving shearing on another property on a Saturday. But this was a clear case of community spirit. The people-the children, the parents, and the shearers of the district-wanted to work on the property in order to raise money for a school-- Mr Tim Fischer —A gala day. Mr COBB —Yes, a gala day. They wanted to do it so that they would not have to go through the charade of baking cakes and standing out in the hot sun all Saturday morning to raise $50. In one day, with a great effort and with everyone agreeing to it, they raised just under $2,000. But that is not allowed in this so-called free country of ours, even though it was done in the people's own time and done for charity. It was not allowed because the unions came down against it. The legal system of this country seems to go along with that. It is a disgrace and it is a sad day for Australia when something like this takes place. Mr GORMAN(Greenway)(10.53) —Tonight I would like to take the opportunity of thanking all the members of the Australian Labor Party within my electorate of Greenway for their support in the preselection ballot held last Sunday. The warmth of the support makes one feel very warm inside and confident of the efforts one puts into the many different facets of the work that befalls parliamentarians. Mr John Brown —Did Armitage vote for you? That is the question. Mr GORMAN —I would like to know that. I must thank particularly the branch presidents and secretaries, the returning officers and their assistants, the scrutineers, of course, who gave their time so willingly, and especially the members who voted for me. To them all I say: Please accept my sincere thanks for all of your efforts. I will continue to work as I have done in the past on behalf of all the constituents within my electorate. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the time allowed me tonight. Mr HALVERSON(Casey)(10.54) —Tonight I make a plea for the provision of proper teaching environments for disabled people. Over a year ago, it became apparent that the Federal Government was effecting regionalisation of the rehabilitation service of the Department of Community Services' disability program. This year, an acceleration of this program was announced. To this end, the Coonac Rehabilitation Centre in Melbourne has already been sold. The Payneham Rehabilitation Centre in Adelaide is closing. The Rehabilitation Centre, Taringa, in Brisbane is to be auctioned later this month. The Queen Elizabeth II Rehabilitation Centre in Sydney is to be auctioned in February-March 1987 and the Mount Wilga Rehabilitation Centre in Sydney is to be auctioned also in February-March 1987. In my electorate of Casey there is a facility called Yarra Me which is a training centre for quadriplegics. The Government's stated intention is to dismantle and sell such specialised centres and replace them with a variety of regional units. These are to be rooms, halls, sections of hospitals, parts of technical and further education colleges and anywhere deemed to be appropriate to the bureaucrats. The educational elements are to be provided mainly through TAFE colleges. This is totally impracticable and in fact unworkable. The TAFE colleges are not equipped to handle and teach the handicapped, who require special desks, chairs, various aids, et cetera. Many TAFE colleges do not have wheelchair access throughout, especially those with multi-level facilities. The people also require trained teachers who are psychologically suited. Honourable members must realise that here we are considering pupils who may be deaf or blind, or both, paraplegics, quadriplegics, who may have psychological problems or who may have one hand or no hands. I ask: How many TAFE colleges have people capable of teaching one-handed keyboarding? Not only does the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Sydney have two such experts, but one of them has published the only textbook available on the subject. Over 60 one-handed keyboarders have passed through QEII. These days high technology keyboarding provides an increasing opportunity for employment as well as being a communication mode for many disabled who can no longer handwrite without fatigue and legibility loss. Records show that a huge proportion of the QEII Centre successful graduates are former TAFE failures. This is not a reflection on the TAFEs, as the philosophies behind the two teaching concepts are by necessity so different. It merely points up the proposed scheme's inappropriateness and inadequacies. Centres such as the Queen Elizabeth II were equipped specifically to cater to these highly individualistic and demanding conditions. The QEII Centre has developed, over its 10 years, a pool of experts working in a variety of disciplines. It is vocationally oriented and endeavours to place its sometimes severely disabled clients in the work force. It has physiotherapists, occupational therapists and hydro-therapists-and the large hot pools that this attention demands-speech therapists, and psychological and rehabilitation counsellors. For example, a teacher finding a problem such as, say, the early tiring of a client, has immediate access to the appropriate therapist for seating adjustment. Such interaction between disciplines is essential for success in teaching under such difficult circumstances. One does not need to be a systems analyst to appreciate the efficiency of containing all of these facilities and skills in one central location. On examining the Government's proposal, it becomes obvious to anyone not only that it will not work as satisfactorily, but that it will not work at all. In fact, it is obvious that, despite the honeyed promises of the Minister for Community Services (Senator Grimes), it is not intended to work at all. Question resolved in the affirmative. House adjourned at 10.59 p.m. The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 25 November 1986: Copyright Act-Declaration pursuant to paragraph 10a (1) (a), dated 21 October 1986. Fisheries Act-Notice-No. 174. Lands Acquisition Act-Statement of lands acquired by agreement authorised under sub-section 7 (1). National Health Act-Determinations under sub-section 4 (1) for purposes of the following paragraphs of the definition of ``basic private table''- (db), dated 28 October 1986. (dc), dated 28 October 1986. (dd), dated 27 October 1986 (2). The following answers to questions were circulated: (Question No. 988) Mr Lee asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 8 May 1985: (1) Did the Auditor-General's Efficiency Audit Report on Collection of Sales Tax by the Australian Taxation Office substantially confirm the claim made in the NSW Legislative Assembly on 18 and 23 September 1982, by the former Member for Cronulla, Mr Egan, MP that no effective action had been taken by the Fraser Government against sales tax avoidance schemes which had been identified within the Australian Taxation Office as early as June 1979. (2) How did each of the 3 principal schemes referred to by the Auditor-General operate. (3) When were each of the schemes identified within the Australian Taxation Office. (4) Were repeated requests made by Branch Offices that action be taken against the schemes; if so, why was no effective action taken until Mr Egan's speeches to the NSW Legislative Assembly in September 1982. (5) What was the loss of revenue in respect of each scheme prior to September 1982. (6) Have assessments now been issued in respect of all identified incidents of attempted sales tax avoidance under each scheme. (7) When was each assessment issued and (a) what was the amount of each assessment and (b) which amounts are still to be recovered. (8) Will he table in the House the names of each company or individual to whom these assessments were issued; if not, why not. (9) Have any of the companies or individuals to whom the assessments were issued gone into receivership, liquidation or bankruptcy. (10) What is the assessed tax owing in respect of each such company or individual. (11) Is the Australian Taxation Office satisfied that assets of the companies or individuals have not been disposed of for the purpose, or with the effect, of avoiding payment of tax under the assessments. (12) If not, what action can the Australian Taxation Office take to recover the amounts owing from the beneficiaries of any such disposition and has any such action been taken. (13) In view of Statements by the former Commissioner of Taxation that the schemes referred to Mr Egan were ineffective evasion schemes what action is being taken to institute criminal prosecutions against persons associated with the schemes. Mr Keating —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) The Crimes (Taxation Offences) Act 1980 was enacted to counter tax avoidance arrangements, including sales tax avoidance schemes of the kinds to which the question relates, whereby companies and trustees were rendered unable to pay tax. Although sales tax schemes designed to avoid the operation of that Act continued after 1980, intensified administrative activity by the Australian Tax Office in 1981-82 brought them to an end. The Commissioner of Taxation and his predecessor referred to the matter in their Annual Reports for 1981-82, 1982-83, 1983-84 and 1984-85. (2) All three schemes were basically similar (and are described in the Commissioner's 1982-83 Annual Report). In a series of artificial and contrived sale transactions, goods or property were allegedly passed through entities controlled by the scheme promoter, with the claimed result that the taxable sale value of the goods was reduced to insignificance. Equitable charges, collapsible loans, options to purchase goods, and assignments of interest in goods were among the techniques used to allegedly bring about a reduction in sale value. In addition, the schemes were intended to have the safeguard that, if the reduction in sale value was challenged, sales tax liability would fall upon a promoter entity being a person or company of straw. (3) In June and September 1979 and July 1980. (4) Early assessment action on Branch Office recommendations was taken in December 1979 but was later found to be based on an incomplete examination of the operation and documentation of the schemes. When full details were obtained and examined a different assessment action was taken. This action was instigated in June 1982 and is supported by the subsequent advice of senior counsel. Assessment in each case was possible only after a detailed investigation was carried out. (5) The Commissioner is of the view that the schemes were not effective and did not circumvent the existing provisions of the law. Loss to the revenue will occur only to the extent that assessed tax finally proves to be irrecoverable. (6) Assessments amounting to $68m (approx.) in primary tax have been issued to 98 participant wholesalers in the three schemes. Assessments amounting to $12m (approx.) in primary tax were issued prior to 18 September 1982. Assessments of the 7 remaining identified participants amounting to some $3m in primary tax are in course. (7) and (8) The secrecy provisions preclude the Commissioner from divulging details of individual taxpayers' affairs. By way of general comment, the Commissioner advised that most of the assessments had been disputed by taxpayers under objection and appeal procedures. As at 30 June 1986 $6m in tax had been paid and $4m in primary tax was the subject of settlement negotiations and/or arrangements. Recovery action is being initiated once the objections are determined and the tax assessed remains unpaid. (9) Yes-11 companies and no individuals. (10) See (7) and (8). (11) and (12) Where there was any indication that assets of the participant taxpayers were being or had been transferred away from the taxpayer, appropriate action was taken under the sales tax law. In addition, the application of the relevant provisions of the Crimes (Taxation Offences) Act 1980 is being considered in appropriate cases. (13) As outlined in the Commissioner's 1983-84 and 1984-85 Annual Reports a number of joint task forces comprising members of the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Taxation Office and the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions have been established to investigate suspected breaches of the law by persons implicated in the schemes. Such investigations encompass the possible application of the Crimes (Taxation Offences) Act. Several persons have already been charged with and prosecuted for offences under Crimes Act 1914. (Question No. 3934) Mr Downer asked the Special Minister of State, upon notice, on 7 May 1986: What amount was spent by the Minister's Department and statutory authorities under the Minister's control on the use of Commonwealth vehicles in 1984-85. Mr Young —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: $ Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence .... 14 265 Australian Electoral Commission... 182 763 Australian Federal Police... 2 584 453 Australian Police College... 19 349 Commonwealth Grants Commission... 11 073 Department of the Special Minister of State... 51 941 Joint Task Force on Drugs... 127 Ministers, Senators, Members and staff... 4 738 014 National Crime Authority... 42 100 National Police Research Unit... 10 129 Remuneration Tribunal... 5 488 Royal Commissions and Inquiries... 123 033 TOTAL EXPENDITURE... 7 782 735 (Question No. 4012) Mr Connolly asked the Minister for Communications, upon notice, on 20 May 1986: (1) Is the ABC's responsibility, over and above that of private broadcasters, to present as great a diversity of views as possible. (2) Has his attention been drawn to the Prime Minister's statement in April 1984 that there was a pattern of bias apparent in parts of the ABC; if so can he say what was the basis for the statement. (3) Did the Dix Report find evidence of left wing bias in ABC news and current affairs and call for a wider range of viewpoints. (4) Will he take steps to ensure that the ABC is fair, honest and bipartisan in its public affairs programming; if so, when. Mr Duffy —The answer to the honourable member's question, based in part on information provided by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is: (1) It is ABC policy to provide its audiences with exposure to a variety of viewpoints, although not necessarily in the one program. (2) I am aware that in April 1984 the Prime Minister made a statement to the effect that there was a pattern of bias apparent in parts of the ABC. However I am unable to speculate as to what was the basis for the Prime Minister's statement. (3) The Dix Report distinguished between news and current affairs programs on the one hand and `Third Tier' information programs such as those produced by the Radio Talks and Documentaries Department on the other. The Committee did not find evidence of left wing bias in ABC news and current affairs programs. However it did observe that some `Third Tier' programs gave prominence to ``committee left-leadining views'. The Committee said it was unimpressed by arguments that such programs were balanced by those produced in other areas, `which are sometimes alleged to have a bias the other way'', and recommended that programs such as Doubletake be opened to a wider range of viewpoints. This recommendation was duly passed to the ABC Board and management for implementation. (4) As the honourable member would be aware the ABC has a statutory responsibility, and the ABC Board is required as part of its duties under the legislation, to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of journalism. As such it would not be appropriate for me to intervene in this matter or other programming policy matters. (Question No. 4127) Mr Reith asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 27 May 1986: (1) Are pony clubs, aero clubs and other clubs in the fields of aerobatics, autocycling, driving, equestrian, carting, motor sports, polocrosse, power boats and rodeos liable for income tax? (2) What income tax revenue (a) was received from each of these club categories in the years 1983-84 and 1984-85 and (b) is estimated to come from these sources in 1985-86 and 1986-87? (3) Is the Government considering exempting such clubs from the requirements to pay income tax? Mr Keating —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Yes. However, they are taxable only on their income from investments, rents and from trading with non-members and, as `non-profit' companies, they are subject to tax only if the taxable income exceeds $416. Receipts from members, whether by way of subscriptions or donations are not treated as assessable income. (2) (a) Income tax statistics of the amount of revenue received from each of these club categories in the years 1983-84 and 1984-85 are not available; (b) Based on income tax statistics of non-profit companies coded to sport and recreation the revenue from these clubs is estimated in the aggregate to be less than $0.5m in each of 1985-86 and 1986-87. (3) No. (Question No. 4170) Mr Langmore asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 3 June 1986: What has been the (a) level and (b) annual percentage growth of (i) gross operating surplus and (ii) real gross operating surplus of the private non-farm corporate sector in each year since 1979-80, including the latest estimate for 1985-86. Mr Keating —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: The following table sets out the information sought by the honourable member. GROSS OPERATING SURPLUS OF THE PRIVATE NON-FARM CORPORATE SECTOR Current prices Level Change on previous period Constant prices (a) Level Change on previous period $m per cent $m per cent Year- 1979-80... 15 291 16.2 15 291 5.9 1980-81... 17 414 13.9 15 745 3.0 1981-82... 17 845 2.5 14 461 -8.2 1982-83... 18 599 4.2 13 596 -6.0 1983-84... 22 239 19.6 15 098 11.0 1984-85... 24 634 10.8 15 700 4.0 1985-86... 26 504 7.6 15 776 0.5 (a) Gross operating surplus of the private non-farm corporate sector deflated by the implicit price deflator for gross non-farm product at average 1979-80 prices. (Question No. 4204) Mr Andrew asked the Minister for Primary Industry, upon notice, on 3 June 1986: (1) Further to his answer to a question without notice (Hansard, 29 May 1986, pages 4242-3) which rural policies of the previous Government has the Government changed and what were the consequential changes in outlays or receipts in the financial years 1982/83 to 1984/85. (2) What major rural policy changes have been introduced by the Government and what were the consequential changes of magnitude of $0.5m or more in outlays or receipts in the financial years 1982/83 to 1984/85. Mr Kerin —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) and (2) Details of significant changes to rural policy during the years 1982-83 to 1984-85, together with general policy changes which have has particular implications for the rural sector, are given below. Where practicable estimates have been provided of the change in: Government revenue; Government budgetary expenditure, or the sector's revenue or costs. I should emphasise, however, that though it has not been possible to provide estimates for some of the more far reaching reforms, some of these policies will have a much greater impact on the industry's competitiveness and long term prosperity than some of the measures for which estimates can be made. Further, the Government has since 1984/85 introduced a number of major new assistance measures, including the substitution of bounties for tariffs where possible, and new marketing initiatives. It has also embarked on several new trade initiatives. It should also be borne in mind that the overall impact of policy changes to the rural sector or the consequential changes over a number of years cannot be evaluated by adding up individual annual estimates. The figures would be meaningless as they would be based on the untenable assumption that everything else has remained unchanged. Tax averaging From 1983/84, the automatic ``in-out'' nature of the taxation arrangements for primary producer income averaging ceased Marginal tax rates are now based solely on average income. Under the previous provisions, tax was calculated by reference to the rate of average income only in years when current income exceeded average income. This not only ensured that variable primary producer income did not attract a higher tax than others who had an equivalent total income over the same number of years, but also had the incidental effect of ensuring a lower rate of taxation for primary producers. The estimated change in receipts for 1983/84 was $15m and for a full year $20m. This varies considerably with the levels of farm incomes in any particular year. Estimates are not available for other years. Income Equalisation Deposit Scheme From 1 September 1983, new arrangements were introduced under the Income Equalisation Deposit Scheme. Deposits no longer qualify for a tax deduction when made, nor are withdrawals included in assessable income. The previous arrangements were inequitable as the benefits to producers varied according to their level of taxable income. Under the new arrangements, interest is paid at a rate 2% higher than the two year bond rate. This is significantly higher than the rate which applied under the previous scheme and thus provides an incentive for participation in the Scheme while at the same time ensuring a fairer Scheme. Details of the net effects on Government revenue from these changes are not available. Depreciation of Farm Storage Facilities On 19 July 1982, the depreciation period for certain primary production plant, including structural improvements for the storage of hay, grain or fodder was reduced from 5 to 3 years. Subsequently, on 19 May 1983 the 5 year depreciation arrangement was reintroduced for plant items acquired under a contract entered into or commenced to be constructed by a taxpayer after that date. The decision to reduce the depreciation period from 5 to 3 years was directly related to the extra need for storage on farm during the drought and the special assistance required to counter perilously low drought-affected rural incomes. However, its use as a means of providing only short-term assistance recognised the distortions it could have induced in resource allocation had it been maintained over the longer term. The increase in taxation revenue from this decision was estimated to be $9m in 1983-84 and $50m in a full year. More detailed estimates for subsequent years are not available. Again they would vary according to the income levels of farmers. The benefits from improved resource allocation have not been estimated. Depreciation Rates for Fuel Storage Facilities Special depreciation provisions (immediate write-off) for certain facilities and ancillary plant used for the storage of petroleum-based liquid or gaseous fuel were terminated on 19 May 1983. Normal depreciation allowances therefore now apply to facilities acquired under a contract entered into after 19 May 1983 and to facilities whose construction commenced after that date. Details of the increase in taxation receipts after return to normal depreciation allowances are not available. Depreciation for Land Improvements Section 75a of the Income Tax Act-which allowed primary producers to deduct over 10 years expenditure not normally subject to depreciation-was abolished with effect from 23 August 1983, unless a contract was entered into before that date. Expenditure eligible for the deduction included land clearing, swamp drainage, ploughing and grassing of land for grazing purposes. The estimated increase in tax receipts in a full year was $3m. Values for Natural Increase of Livestock The Government announced new values to apply for natural increase from 1984/85. The prescribed minimum values for valuing natural increases in livestock at cost price rather than market selling price, had not changed since 1936. The increases raised the minimum values from 40 cents to $1 per head of sheep; from $2 to $5 for cattle and horses; and from 50 cents to $4 for pigs. The increase in Government receipts from the revised values was estimated at $4m in 1985/86 to rise to $9m in subsequent years. Depreciation for Disease Control Expenditures In the 1983/84 Budget, Section 75c of the Income Tax Assessment Act was extended for two years to 30 June 1986. This section now provides for the immediate deduction for expenditure incurred before 1 July 1986 on sub-divisional and stockyard fencing certified as necessary to control or eradicate bovine brucellosis and tuberculosis of livestock. This extension was expected to reduce tax receipts by $0.5m in each of 1985/86 and 1986/87. Australian Wheat Board Borrowings Since 1 July 1983, the Australian Wheat Board has been permitted to source at least 50 per cent of its borrowings from overseas. Previously, to compensate for the higher cost of domestic commercial borrowings, the Government had reimbursed the difference in interest costs between the Board's commercial borrowings and the cost of equivalent borrowings from the Rural Credits Department of the Reserve Bank. As this re-imbursement ceased with the new arrangements, there was a commensurate decline in Government expenditure. The interest subsidy paid to the Board in 1982/83 was $20.9 million. Petroleum Products Freight Subsidy When the Government came to office in 1983, the Petroleum Products Freight Subsidy had been operating unchanged in country areas since July 1978. The freight subsidy which was payable to all users in country areas, is intended to offset the additional cost of distributing motor spirit, power kerosene, aviation fuels and automotive distillate in country areas. The scheme was amended as of 1 June 1983 so that the subsidy applied to freight differential costs in excess of 1.1 cents per litre rather than the previous 1.0 cent per litre and was indexed in line with CPI increases. This ensures that the real value of the freight subsidy is maintained. Reflecting this change in the subsidy, the total subsidy paid to all country consumers, not just farmers, declined by $5.0m in 1983/84 over the previous year. Despite a further increase in the consumer contribution to 1.2c/litre from 1 July 1984, and the exclusion of power kerosene and all fuel in locations where there was no retail site, the subsidy paid by the Government increased from $116.2m in 1983/84 to $130.2m in 1984/85. In the 1985 May Statement the consumer contribution to the cost of fuel freight under the Petroleum Products Freight Subsidy Scheme was increased from 1.2/litre to 5.2c/litre to restrict coverage of the scheme to remote locations. Government assistance for this purpose in 1985/86 therefore fell to an estimated $21m compared to $130.2m in 1984/85. The current consumer contribution is 5.7 cents per litre. The subsidy payments from 1982/83 to 1986/87 are as follows: $m 1982/83 ... 123.8 1983/84 ... 116.2 1984/85 ... 130.2 1985/86 ... 21.0 1986/87 (est)... 24.0 Fuel Excise To maintain the real level of excises the excise on motor spirit and diesel fuel was increased by 1.5c/litre and that on aviation turbine fuel by 0.5c/litre in the 1983/84 budget. The rebate on diesel fuel in respect of off-road use, however, remained at 7.155c/litre. The cost to farmers of both petrol and diesel therefore increased. The cost to farmers of this increase is not known. The increase in Government excise receipts due to these new excise rates was estimated at $295m in 1983/84 and $354m in a full year. In the 1984/85 Budget, the rebate on off-farm use of diesel fuel was made subject to six-monthly indexation. The first indexation adjustment to the rebate occurred on 2 February 1985 when the rebate rose to 7.341c/litre from the previous 7.155c/litre. A further rise to 7.619c/litre occurred in August 1985. The estimated cost to the Government of indexing the rebate was $2m in 1984/85 and $11m in a full year. The Government announced, in the 1985/86 Budget, the full rebate of diesel fuel excise for diesel used off-road by the forestry, farming and fishing industries, effective from 1 November 1985. The estimated reduction in Government excise receipts was $23m in 1985/86 and $36m for a full year. Grape Spirit Excise and Wine Sales Tax The excise on grape spirit used in fortifying wine (item 2j in the Excise Act) was reintroduced in the 1983/84 Budget at a rate of $2.61 per litre of alcohol, thus reinstating an excise which had previously applied from 1901 to 1970. By September 1983 this renewed excise had been reduced to $1.50 per litre of alcohol and was abolished on 22 June 1984. In the 1984/85 Budget a sales tax of 10 per cent was introduced on Australian and imported wine and cider effective from 21 August 1984. At the same time, it was announced that the excise duty would be refunded. The estimated value of refunds to the industry was $5m. Increased receipts from the new tax on wine and cider sales and from the existing excise on expected increased beer sales due to consumer substitution, for a full year were estimated at $62 million. The sales tax was increased to 20 per cent in the 1986/87 Budget with the estimated increase in receipts in a full year being $60 million. The effect on the rural sector as a whole is not known but would depend on any reduction in consumer demand for wine and cider after the introduction of sales tax. Soil Conservation In 1983/84, the Government introduced a National Soil Conservation Program and provided $1m for the implementation of the Program, which directly funds soil conservation projects proposed by individuals, organisations and State government agencies. The funds allocated to this program increased substantially to $5.5m in 1986/87. Expenditure under the National Soil Conservation Program: $m 1983/84 ... 1.0 1984/85 ... 4.0 1985/86 ... 4.7 1986/87 (est)... 5.5 Exchange Rates In December 1983, the Government announced the free float of the Australian exchange rate, allowing the interaction of domestic economic performance with international conditions to determine our exchange rate. Since the floating of the dollar, the exchange rate has undergone a substantial correction-to June 1986 there has been a real devaluation of about 25% (as measured by the BAE's real effective exchange rate). For Australian rural exports this has meant that sharp declines in world prices for a wide range of commodities, have been moderated by the devaluation. Conversely, the cost of some inputs has risen. The net effects of the floating exchange rate are difficult to measure. Nevertheless, the BAE has estimated that the net value of rural production was about $1 billion higher in 1985-86 than it otherwise would have been if the exchange rate had not devalued and interest rates and inflation had also remained unchanged. Reform of the Statutory Marketing Authorities This has been a priority area for the Government. The first reforms were initiated in 1983 for the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation (AMLC). In June 1984, five Bills were passed by Parliament, allowing for: The restructuring of the AMLC The formal establishment of the related Selection Committee (to identify suitably qualified persons for appointment to the new Board of the AMLC) and the Meat and Live-stock Industry Policy Council as statutory bodies and The introduction of comprehensive new consultative and accountability arrangements. Most of these changes entailed breaking new ground in the field of commodity authority legislation. Although these reforms do not mean any substantial increase in Government expenditure, there are substantial long term though unquantifiable benefits to the industry. In January 1986, I released a white paper on the Reform of Commonwealth Primary Industry Statutory Marketing Authorities. In developing policies for these authorities the Government has given close attention to their distinctive characteristics and the environment in which they operate. As they are in essence performing industry functions and also financed by the industries concerned either through statutory levies or from the sale of produce, it is the Government's strong objective that they operate as efficiently as possible. The major reforms are: Statutory Marketing Authority Boards will be constituted on corporate lines and objective selection procedures used to seek out high calibre persons for appointment. The Government will be aiming to appoint the best available people to cover the range of professional skills required for directing the authorities' operations. Subject to strengthened accountability arrangements and strategic Ministerial controls, the Government has provided for greater commercial independence and efficiency of operation by the removal of a wide range of lower level administrative and operational controls on the authorities eg in staffing, finance, land, property and purchasing. These have previously involved Ministers with unnecessary detail, added to the administrative costs of both the authorities and the Government, and distracted the authorities from their business of marketing agricultural produce. Wool Promotion In March 1984, the Government announced that it would maintain its contribution to wool promotion over the next five years at a fixed level of 1.2% of the gross value of proceeds from shorn wool subject to the industry at least maintaining its contribution through the Wool Tax at 2.5% of the gross value of proceeds from shorn wool. The Government contribution under this formula for 1984-85 was $26m compared to $20m in each of 1982-83 and 1983-84 and was $31.5m in 1985-86. Water Resources When the previous National Water Resources Program expired on 30 June 1984 the Government introduced a new program-the Federal Water Resources Assistance Program (FWRAP). The new program, which drew upon the recommendations of the report ``Perspective on Australia's Water Resources to the Year 2000'', brought together all the previous Commonwealth water resources assistance programs but based them on more efficient funding arrangements. The most significant change in the way that State water projects are now funded is that all new revenue producing projects (eg irrigation projects) are funded by loans from the Commonwealth to the States rather than grants as before. States are therefore forced to carefully assess the economics of proposed projects before an application for a Commonwealth loan is made under the program. Additional funds have been allocated for rural projects under the FWRAP but even more significant benefits will flow from the efficient allocation of funds for the better management of Australia's scarce water resources. Large grants commitments entered into before the change in the water program have delayed the full realisation of the more widely spread benefits of the new policy. Grants for the construction of the Burdekin Dam ($25m allocation in 1985/86) and the Bundaberg Irrigation Project ($4m allocation in 1985-86), for instance, have accounted for the majority of Commonwealth payments to the States since the introduction of the FWRAP. Commonwealth budget outlays to the States for rural water resources programs from 1982-83 to 1985-86 are given in the table below. 1982-83 1983-84 1984-85 1985-86 1986-87 (est.) $m $m $m $m $m Irrigation... 11.5 20.7 26.6 Investigation and other water projects... 11.6 8.0 9.1 41.0 40.4 Flood mitigation... 0.3 0.6 0.5 Salinity mitigation and drainage... 7.3 6.2 6.7 6.2 7.7 Recoveries and payments... (-3.1) (-3.2) (-3.2) (-3.3) (-3.2) Total (net)... 27.7 32.1 39.7 43.9 44.9 Sugar Industry Adjustment Since 1981, the Australian sugar industry has experienced difficulties due to the impact of low world prices. Tight regulation has prevented it from adapting to these changed circumstances. In October 1984, the Federal Government approved $5 million for special assistance to Queensland cane growers in 1984-85 through Part A of the Rural Adjustment Scheme for debt reconstruction and build-up with a further $500,000 for New South Wales on a similar basis. The funds were provided to assist cane growers who could continue in the industry but for their high debt servicing commitments. The 1984-85 assistance package for the sugar industry supplemented the $11 million provided by the Federal Government during 1983-84 under Part B of the scheme. In September 1985, the Government announced its decision on the recommendations of the Sugar Industry Working Party (Savage Committee). The Working Party comprised Commonwealth, State and Industry representatives. The Government's decision was to provide a three year, $150 million package of assistance to the sugar industry, to be matched by the Queensland and New South Wales Governments with $1 for every $2 of Commonwealth funds. Agreement on a modified package with the Queensland government was finally reached in August 1986. The package includes price support, mill and farm adjustment and deregulation measures to provide much needed relief to Queensland canegrowers and to facilitate revitalisation of the sugar industry. The Commonwealth's outlay is a maximum of $100 million over three years. Funds allocated in the Budget have already been distributed to support the price of 1985 sugar to a level of $230 a tonne on a $2-for-$1 Commonwealth/State basis. The price will be supported on the same 2:1 basis to $225 and $220 per tonne for the 1986 and 1987 seasons respectively. The consultative machinery for mill adjustment assistance is now in place in both States. The Commonwealth and Queensland Governments have already endorsed recommendations for mill rationalisation in the Mackay region. As part of the package the Queensland Government agreed to proceed as quickly as possible with deregulation measures in the State's sugar industry. These measures-which are the legislative responsibility of the Queensland Government, not the Commonwealth-are crucial to the future efficiency and prosperity of the entire Queensland sugar industry. The necessary legislation was passed by the Queensland Parliament in September 1986. Wheat Marketing Arrangements New wheat marketing arrangements were introduced for five years from 25 October 1984. Some important changes in wheat marketing were new price underwriting arrangements, the basing of the home consumption price on export parity and the introduction of permit sales for stockfeed wheat. The benefits of these changes have not been quantified though due to the resulting increases in efficiency, they are expected to be substantial. The main advantage of the new underwriting arrangement is that underwritten prices are now also determined for categories other than Australian Standard White. Price relativities between different wheat categories are therefore clearly identifiable and cross-subsidisation between categories of wheat has been significantly reduced. Inspection Services A number of revised inspections procedures and practices have been progressively introduced from December 1984 as part of an entirely new legislative package covering the Commonwealth Export Inspection Service. To increase inspection efficiency and productivity there has been a major move to deregulation and/or industry self-regulation with the Commonwealth maintaining a broad oversight of inspection arrangements. The Government has actively pursued the development of a single national inspection service for meat. Progress towards this goal has continued since 1 July 1983 when the New South Wales Government transferred its domestic meat inspection service to the Commonwealth. All States and the Northern Territory have now agreed to revised inspection arrangements and dual meat inspection charging has been abolished in all States except Western Australia. Estimates of the savings under these new arrangements are difficult to assess, but by the end of 1985, the industry would have benefited directly by some $5m in lower inspection charges through the abolition of duplicate State inspection fees in export works. In total revised inspection arrangements implemented to date have reduced the cost of inspection and related activities in real terms by an estimated $17m a year. The previous Government's policy of a targeted 50% recovery for inspection services has been maintained. Fees previously introduced for meat, grains and wool inspection on 1 July 1979, were extended to fish and dried fruits inspection in 1980/81, and dairy products, eggs and edible oils from 1 January 1983. The first inspection charge to be approved by the new Government was the livestock inspection charge introduced from 1 July 1983. While the Government has continually re-affirmed its policy of 50% cost recovery, we have taken several initiatives to reduce the costs of inspection including giving priority to the introduction of fee for service based charges, and exempting industry from some costs. The costs to the industry therefore have to be considered against the background of the overall reforms in inspection services. Rural Adjustment During the period 1983-84 the Government maintained the previously existing Rural Adjustment Scheme (RAS) at a cost of $44 million in 1983-84 and $31 million in 1984-85. Following receipt of the IAC Report on the RAS the Government moved to restructure the Scheme. The Government introduced the new RAS from 1 July 1985. Under the new scheme Part A and B assistance is provided by way of a 50% interest rate subsidy on borrowed funds, rather than by direct lending to the States. Part C was not changed. Funding of $16.83 in 1985-86, allocated for the new RAS Parts A, C and carry-over grants under the old scheme, made available a total of $73 million in loans to farmers. Funding of $34.4 million provided in the 1986-87 Budget should facilitate loans of $240 million. In March 1985, the Commonwealth Government announced adjustment assistance additional to that available under RAS to assist dried vine fruit growers. The assistance, mainly in the form of vine-pull grants, was agreed to on a $2 Commonwealth: $1 State cost-sharing basis up to a maximum of $5m available until 30 June 1987 with $1.4m budgeted for 1985-86. Following consideration of the report of the Independent Inquiry into the Grape and Wine Industries, the Government decided to provide $1.6m in 1985-86 to extend similar assistance to the wine grape industry. Subsequently this was supplemented by the transfer of $1.9 million from the allocation for dried vine fruit assistance and a further $3 million was made available in 1986-87 on the same cost-sharing basis. Research In February 1985, the Government announced a substantial increase in the maximum levels of Commonwealth contributions for rural industry research through Rural Industry Research Trust Funds (RIRFS). The Government set as an objective over five years to increase its matching contribution to individual RIRFS to 0.5% of the annual gross value of production (GVP). This would constitute on average a doubling of the Commonwealth contribution. This new approach better enables the industry to predict the level of funding available. In addition, as Government funding is based on a three year moving average GVP (past year, current, and estimated next year) the impact of fluctuations in GVP on research funding are reduced. The new funding arrangements are closely linked to the Government's reforms of the RIRFS, announced earlier that month. These reforms constituted a major upgrading of the arrangements for rural research which had not been substantially altered for 30 years. The meat and livestock industry was the first to incorporate these organisational reforms with the establishment of the Australian Meat and Live-stock Research and Development Corporation on 1 July 1985. Each RIRF is now administered by a Research Council and the Commonwealth Special Research Grants Scheme has been replaced by a statutory based Australian Special Rural Research Fund. Overall, the new arrangements achieved the following objectives: To make each research body as autonomous as possible To ensure appointments to each research body are based on relevant skills and experience. To provide each research body with clearly identified goals. The prime objective of the Rural Industries Research Act 1985, however, is to increase the commercial returns to the industries concerned. The reforms became operational from 1 April 1986. New funding and administrative arrangements were recently announced for the Fishing Industry Research Trust Account. The Commonwealth will be providing funding to a ceiling of one per cent of the gross value of production of the fishing industry. Commonwealth contributions to RIRFs, the Special Research Fund and the Fishing Industry Research Trust Account $m 1982-83 ... 21.8 1983/84 ... 27.1 1984/85 ... 31.4 1985/86 ... 35.6 1986/87 (est)... 44 Fisheries Adjustment Grants of $3m per year over three years were announced in the first half of 1985, to apply from 1985-86 for the Northern Prawn Fisheries Adjustment Scheme. The first annual allocation has been applied to buy out fishing access rights. The major aim of this initiative was to reverse the problems of excessive exploitation of fish stocks. The scheme also addressed low returns to fisherman by offsetting the effects of reduced subsidies under the Petroleum Products Freight Subsidy scheme. The industry, however, subsequently benefited from the decision to provide, as from 1 November 1985, a full rebate of the excise on diesel fuel to eligible primary producers including fishermen. By early 1986 there were significant reductions in the price of diesel fuel and the Northern Prawn Fisheries were experiencing buoyant conditions. It was therefore announced in the Economic and Rural Policy Statement of 15 April 1986, that the remaining grants of $6m over two years would be extended to other fisheries which satisfied the same conditions for adjustment assistance as the Northern Prawn Fisheries-the existence of effective management plans and a willingness of fishermen to make a significant contribution to the cost. Fisheries Management The development of the Australian Fishing Zone and the conservation and optimum utilisation of its resources has received high priority from the Commonwealth. In the 1984-85 Budget $2.48m was allocated to protect fisheries from over-exploitation through the implementation of management plans in Australia's major fisheries. Plans have been negotiated with the States for each of the southern blue fin tuna, south eastern trawl, northern prawn, east coast trawl, scallops, southern shark and other major fisheries. Fisheries Administration The Commonwealth co-ordinated in early 1985 the first national fisheries conference for over ten years. The major initiative to arise from this conference was the decision to establish the independent National Fishery Industry Council, a consultative body to represent the commercial fishing industry at the national level. (Question No. 4307) Mr White asked the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, upon notice, on 5 June 1986: (1) What is the (a) number, (b) commencement date, (c) duration, (d) purpose, of overseas journeys undertaken by him since March 1983. (2) What is the name of the (a) countries, (b) cities and (c) towns visited by him on each of these journeys. (3) What Government funds were expended on (a) himself, his family and staff for (b) (i) accommodation (ii) meals (iii) travel and (iv) other expenses during these visits. Mr John Brown —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) (a) There have been five overseas visits from March 1983 to 1985. Visit 1: (b) Commenced 31 October 1983; (c) Duration: 5 weeks; (d) Purpose: Investigate the establishment of family leisure centres. Visit facilities and organisations relevant to sport and tourism. (2) (a) Countries visited: Singapore, Italy, Hong Kong, Greece, West Germany, United Kingdom, Unites States of America, Japan. (b) Cities visited: Singapore, Rome, Athens, Frankfurt, London, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Hong Kong. (c) Towns visited: Nil. (3) (a) Accommodation and meals-Minister* 10,590.40, staff 4,781.44. Travelling allowance-Minister 2,142.00, staff 629.42. Fares-Minister* 28,765.36, staff 14,391.95. Other expenses-Car hire 5,878.79, hospitality 1,715.84, excess baggage 100.00, miscellaneous 105.66, other costs 430.46. * includes spouse. Visit 2: (b) Commenced 13 March 1984; (c) Duration: 3 days; (d) Purpose: Invited by New Zealand Government to discuss tourism matters. (2) (a) Country visited: New Zealand; (b) Cities visited: Christchurch, Auckland; (c) Towns visited: Nil. (3) (a) Accommodation and meals-Minister Nil, staff nil. Travelling allowance-Minister 189.00, staff 32.26. Fares-Minister*1,832.00, staff 916.00. Other expenses-Hospitality 486.15, miscellaneous 69.68. * includes spouse. Visit 3: 1 (b) Commenced 17 July 1984; (c) Duration 4 weeks; (d) Purpose: Discussions on tourism and sport; represent Australian Government at the Olympic Games. 2 (a) Countries visited: Greece, Italy, United Kingdom, United States of America. (b) Cities visited: Athens, Rome, Milan, London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. (c) Towns Visited: Nil. 3 (a) Accommodation and Meals-Minister* 13 818.88, Staff 6 044.87. Travelling Allowance-Minister 1 827.00, Staff 544.34. Fares-Minister* 13 517.49, Staff 6 946.49. Other expenses-Car Hire 15 853.58, Excess Baggage 100.00, Miscellaneous 89.23, General 4 104.71. * includes spouse. Visit 4: (b) Commenced 15 June 1985; (c) 1 Month; (d) Purpose: Attend Australia Day at Expo 85. Discussions on tourism and sport. 2 (a) Countries visited: Japan, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Austria, Italy, France, United Kingdom, Singapore, Thailand. (b) Cities visited: Tokyo, Moscow, Budapest, Vienna, Rome, Paris, London, Singapore, Bangkok. (c) Towns visited: Nil. 3 (a) Accommodation and Meals-Minister* $10 266.60, Staff 4 326.11. Travelling Allowance-Minister 1 953.00, Staff 349.37. Fares-Minister* 13 901.00, Staff 7 158.00. Other expenses-Car Hire 4 851.12, Miscellaneous 1 626.39. Visit 5: 1 (b) Commenced 29 July 1985; (c) Duration 4 days; (d) Purpose: Guest of New Zealand Government. 2 (a) Country visited: New Zealand; (b) City visited: Auckland; (c) Towns visited: Nil. 3 (a) Accommodation and Meals-Minister 289.91, Staff 17.45. Travelling Allowance-Minister 252.00, Staff 41.65. Fares-Minister 971.00, Staff 971.00. Other expenses-Excess baggage 100.00, Hospitality 619.66, Miscellaneous 32.10. * includes spouse. (Question No. 4454) Mr Mildren asked the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, upon notice, on 21 August 1986: (1) How many Americans, Japanese, New Zealand and British tourists visited Australia in each year 1980-81 to 1985-86. (2) How many of these visitors entered Australia through ports of entry in (a) Sydney and (b) Melbourne. (3) What is the estimated expenditure in Australia per head by each of the national groups listed in each of the years 1980-81 to 1985-86. Mr John Brown —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Short-term visitor arrivals since 1980 from the specified countries are: New Zealand USA UK (a) Japan 1980... 307,100 111,400 128,400 48,800 1981... 284,400 114,000 142,200 53,700 1982... 233,300 126,000 173,100 60,400 1983... 225,000 140,000 147,700 71,800 1984... 234,400 160,000 145,500 87,900 1985... 245,300 196,500 153,400 107,600 1986 (b)... 255,000 280,000 167,000 150,000 (a) ATC estimates (b) Excluding Ireland (5,500 in 1985) (2) According to the International Visitors Survey (IVS) conducted by the Australian Tourist Commission (ATC), in 1984 57% of international visitors arrived at Sydney and 18% arrived at Melbourne. The figures were 60% and 19% respectively in 1981. (3) IVS data is available for the years 1981, 1983 and 1984. Visitor expenditure data ($A per head) for the specified nationalities is: 1981 1983 1984 New Zealand... 1,064 1,063 1,018 USA... 1,227 1,441 1,359 UK... 1,194 1,302 1,071 Japan... 651 858 1,276 (Question No. 4496) Mr Price asked the Minister for Communications, upon notice, on 16 September 1986: (1) Has his attention been drawn to an article in the Financial Review of 22 August 1986 entitled ``AT&T's staff selection system in Australia''. (2) Has Telecom used this system; if so, (a) when was it first used (b) how many staff were assessed under the system in each year and for which positions, (c) what payments were made for the use of the system to AT&T (International) for each year of operation, (d) has a contract been signed between Telecom and AT&T (International): If so, what is its duration and cost, and (e) has there been a need to adapt the system for Australian conditions; if so, has Telecom received any payment for this or any royalty for sales to other clients. Mr Duffy —The answer to the honourable member's question, based on advice from the Australian Telecommunications Commission, is as follows: The AT&T staff selection system as described by the article in the Financial Review of 22 August 1986 was first introduced into Telecom Australia in May 1984 when it was used to select Business Sales Representative staff. The system was then extended to include other designations, Business Sales Officers in February 1985, Account Managers in March 1985 and Communications Consultants in April 1985. The following table details the national number of assessments using this selection technique since introduction of the method. 1983/84 1984/85 1985/86 1986/87* Total Business Sales Representative... 174 563 383 187 1307 Business Sales Officer ... - 244 168 135 547 Account Manager... - 47 201 12 260 Communications Consultant... - 94 89 26 209 Total... 174 948 841 360 2323 * As at September 1986. Telecom Australia made a once only payment to AT&T of $72,000 for purchase of the selection package licence covering the above designations and $77,000 for initial training of Telecom staff in the administration of the system. There is no ongoing contractual arrangement between Telecom Australia and AT&T in respect of this system. The selection system used by Telecom was a joint development of AT&T and Telecom Australia, and was based on the AT&T system in use in America. The appropriate staff associations were fully briefed and gave agreement for the introduction and operation of the system. Joint development ensured that the system met and reflected the skills required in Telecom's sales force. These skills were identified through a detailed job analysis process. Telecom has received no payment for any joint work nor has there been any associated sales to other clients. The Telecom system was developed exclusively for internal use. (Question No. 4565) Mr Donald Cameron asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 18 September 1986: Further to question No. 3340 placed on the Notice Paper on 13 March 1986, (a) have more than 6 months passed since the question was first placed on the Notice Paper, (b) have 19 Ministers already replied to a similar question, (c) when can I expect an answer to the question and (d) what does this delay say about the efficiency of the internal reporting system in his department. Mr Keating —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (a) Yes. (b) Yes. (c) I refer the honourable member to my reply to question No. 3340 which appeared in Hansard on 16 September 1986 at pages 667-668. (d) It takes a good deal of time to co-ordinate replies from a number of agencies to such questions. (Question No. 4569) Mr Donald Cameron asked the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, upon notice, on 18 September 1986: Further to Question No. 3354, upon notice, on 13 March 1986, (a) have more than 6 months passed since the question was first placed on the Notice Paper; (b) have 19 Ministers already replied to a similar question; (c) when can I expect an answer to the question; and (d) what does this delay say about the efficiency of the internal reporting system in his department. Mr John Brown —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (a) to (d) I refer the honourable member to the answer to Question on Notice No. 3354 which appeared on p. 1378 of the House of Representatives daily Hansard on 24 September 1986. (Question No. 4576) Mr Burr asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment, upon notice, on 18 September 1986: (1) How many personnel are used for surveillance of the Western Tasmanian World Heritage Area (WTWHA). (2) Are they sufficient to police any illegal use of the area's resources on a commercial basis. (3) Has he considered using Landsat satellite imagery to monitor changes to surface conditions in the WTWHA; if not, would this be an effective way to police illegal use of the area's resources. Mr Cohen —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) At the end of September 1986 there were 19 rangers, 7 park assistants, 1 full-time gatekeeper and 2 part-time gatekeepers employed in the field in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area. (2) No practicable level of surveillance could guarantee that illegal activities would not take place in an area as large as the Tasmanian World Heritage Area. However, the lack of vehicle access to the greater part of the Area is an effective deterrent to illegal commercial exploitation. Staff employed in the Area monitor it carefully and would expect to detect signs of illegal commercial use. They are assisted by aerial surveillance undertaken during the fire danger period and by boat patrols conducted in the Lower Gordon area. (3) I am advised that although Landsat imagery is used by the Tasmanian Lands Department for mapping in the World Heritage Area, it is not used specifically for surveillance purposes. The Australian Centre for Remote Sensing has advised it would be feasible to use satellite imagery for surveillance purposes. Imagery is available on a 16 day cycle. The currently available resolution is approximately 80 metres. Landsat imagery could allow detection of illegal uses involving changes to the reflectance of the area, such as vegetation clearing. However it would not detect activities not significantly affecting reflectance at the scale of resolution, e.g. small scale effects on activities under the forest canopy. (Question No. 4587) Mr Andrew asked the Minister for Primary Industry, upon notice, on 18 September 1986: (1) Has he or his Department received specific guidelines on the application of the fringe benefits tax to (a) himself, (b) his ministerial staff and (c) departmental employees. (2) If so, (a) when were they received and from whom, (b) will he table those guidelines, (c) which fringe benefits relevant to his departmental employees are (i) subject to and (ii) exempt from fringe benefits tax, (d) what is the Departmental estimate of the taxable value of those fringe benefits and what tax is payable in 1986-87, (e) has his Department made any fringe benefit tax payments yet; if so, how much was paid and to whom, (f) on what dates is fringe benefits tax due to be paid by his Department in respect of benefits provided during 1986-87, and (g) what (i) full time and (ii) part-time Departmental staff is needed for the administration of fringe benefits tax. Mr Kerin —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) No. (2) (a) Not applicable; (b) Not applicable. (c) (i) Car Fringe Benefits, Loan Fringe Benefits, Housing Fringe Benefits, Living-Away-From Home Allowance Fringe Benefits, Entertainment Fringe Benefits, Spouse Travel Fringe Benefits, Semi Official Telephones; (ii) Work related compensation and medical treatment, and relocation and recruitment expenses. (d) Taxable value of Fringe Benefits for 1986/87 is estimated at $543,000. The tax payable by the Department of Primary Industry in 1986/87 is estimated at $250,000. (e) No. (f) 28 November 1986 and 28 January 1987. (g) (i) No Departmental staff are employed full time on the administration of the Fringe Benefits Tax. (ii) Approximately 2 staff months per annum Australia wide is needed for the administration of the Fringe Benefits Tax. (Question No. 4640) Mr Steele Hall asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 19 September 1986: On (a) how many occasions and (b) what dates has the Reserve Bank intervened in the foreign exchange market to support the Australian dollar through (i) the selling of Australia's international reserves, (ii) raising the rediscount rate or (iii) other means. Mr Keating —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: The Reserve Bank reports publicly each quarter on its operations in domestic money markets and the foreign exchange market. The most recent report, covering the June 1986 quarter, was published in the Bank's Bulletin for August 1986. I understand the September quarter report will be included in the November 1986 Bulletin. A good deal of relevant material was also included in the Bank's Annual Report which was tabled in the House during August. As to the purpose of the Reserve Bank's market operations, I would also refer the honourable member to material in the Reserve Bank Annual Report and its monthly Bulletins, including the reports of public speeches by the Governor of the Bank. (Question No. 4661) Mr Sinclair asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment, upon notice, on 22 September 1986: (1) Did the Director of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (ANPWS) terminate the Northern Territory Conservation Commission's involvement in the day to day management of Uluru National Park with effect from 30 May; if so, why. (2) Has Commonwealth funding advanced to the Commission for management of the park been withdrawn; if so, what amount was involved. (3) Are Commonwealth assets used in park management required to be returned to the ANPWS officer at Uluru, including the ranger and warden identity cards issued to Commission officers at Uluru. (4) Is the ANPWS now in default of an agreement with the Northern Territory Government on day-to-day management of the park; if so, what action is being taken to rectify this situation. (5) Was the Director of the ANPWS acting on his or her Department's instructions in taking the action referred to; if so, what was the nature of those instructions. (6) How many people were employed by the Commonwealth or its instrumentalities at Uluru National Park on (a) 30 June 1985 and (b) 30 June 1986. (7) What was the cost of employing these personnel in each instance. (8) What funds are owed to the Commission in respect of its management of the Park for 1985-86 and 1986-87 and what action is being taken to settle these outstanding debts. Mr Cohen —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) The involvement of the Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory (CCNT) in the day-to-day management of Uluru (Ayers Rock-Mount Olga) National Park was terminated with effect from 30 May 1986. This action followed the refusal of the Northern Territory Government to accept the new management arrangements for the Park. As a result of the CCNT instructing its officers not to take directions from the Park Superintendent at Uluru, the Director, ANPWS, was unable to implement the Government's policies regarding the new management arrangements. CCNT refusal to co-operate in the new management arrangements seriously hampered the efficient running of the Park. (2) The 1985-86 allocation to CCNT for day-to-day management of Uluru National Park was $700,000. Of that amount, three quarterly advances of $175,000 each were made and a final advance of $117,000 was provided to CCNT, representing a direct pro-rata payment for the fourth quarter allocation. (3) All Commonwealth assets in the Park were returned to the ANPWS Superintendent by Friday 30 May 1986. Ranger and warden identity cards were also returned. (4) ANPWS is not in default of any agreement with the NT Government regarding day-to-day management. (5) In taking the above actions, the Director, ANPWS, was acting with the approval of the Ministers for Arts, Heritage and Environment, Aboriginal Affairs and Finance. (6) At 30 June 1985, CCNT had allocated 23 positions for the day-to-day management of Uluru (Ayers Rock-Mount Olga) National Park. No people were employed by ANPWS at Uluru at 30 June 1985, whilst, at 30 June 1986, 8 were so employed. In addition, 8 Aboriginals were employed at 30 June 1986 on a work experience program funded by the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations. (7) Salary costs for the ANPWS staff employed at Uluru during 1985-86 totalled $57,607. The estimated annual salary cost for ANPWS staff is $323,000. As a result of the new arrangements, there will be a saving of $90,000 over the previous financial year in which CCNT had responsibility for day-to-day management. (8) No funds are owing to CCNT by the Commonwealth in respect of management for that part of 1985-86 during which CCNT carried out day-to-day management and none are owing for 1986-87. (Question No. 4712) Mr Tickner asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment, upon notice, on 7 October 1986: (1) Has he received representations expressing concern about the impact on the Royal National Park of proposed residential developments in the Helensburgh area. (2) What has been his response to those representations. (3) Is he able to say whether there are proposals to add 2000 hectares to the park. (4) Does the area contain fauna which are likely to become locally extinct if the park is not enlarged. Mr Cohen —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) and (2) No representations have been received expressing concern about the impact on the Royal National Park of proposed residential development in the Helensburgh area but it could be expected that representations would have been directed to the New South Wales Minister for Planning and Environment. (3) The Royal National Park and the surrounding area come under the jurisdiction of the New South Wales State Government. I am unable to comment on whether there are such proposals. (4) I understand that, in 1985, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service undertook a series of surveys of the national resources of the region. During these surveys, rainforest fauna was of particular interest because of the limited distribution of rainforest in the Sydney region. The well-developed areas of rainforest associated with the Illawarra escarpment extend into the Sydney region only in the Hacking River area. This is reflected by the assemblage of bird species which are restricted to rainforest habitat which, in the Sydney region, are confined to the Hacking River area. Isolation of these forests from those of the Illawarra escarpment could adversely affect specific fauna dependent on rainforest. If the honourable member requires more detailed information on the wildlife of the region, I would suggest he directs his enquiries to the NSW Minister for Planning and Environment who is responsible for the management of wildlife in New South Wales. (Question No. 4723) Mr Hodges asked the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 7 October 1986: What are the reasons for the difference between the Health Insurance Commission's administration costs for 1984-85 shown in 1986-87 Budget Paper No. 1 as $113.5m and the 11th annual report of the Commission which shows management expenses as $107.643m. Dr Blewett —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: The figure in Budget Paper No. 1 incorporates the appropriation for administration or management expenses of $110.5 million and capital acquisition of $3 million. Thus the comparison of the $107.643 million should be with the figures of $110.5 million. The figures shown in Table 3.1 of Budget Paper No. 1 reflect expenditure by the Commonwealth. In the case of items titled ``Medical benefits'' and ``Health Insurance Commission Administration'' the payments by the Commonwealth are made to the Health Insurance Commission which under the terms of its enabling legislation is required to pay Medicare benefits to those entitled to receive them and to meet management costs including the acquisition of capital items. Payments by the Commonwealth in these areas are shown as receipts or income in the Statement of Activity at page 34 of the Commission's Annual Report and, in detail, at note 2 on page 39 of the Report. The financial statements of Medicare (pages 34-42 of the Report) show how the funds received were utilised and the assets and liabilities at 30 June 1985. It may be said that the $2.857 million difference between the $110.5 million received by the Commission and the $107.643 million shown as management expenses is represented by cash at bank. However, this answer is simplistic as the accounts of the Commission are prepared on a fully accrued basis (as is required by the Guidelines issued by the Department of Finance and recommended in the 199th Report of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts) while the funding is on a cash basis. Direct comparisons are, therefore, not possible. The difference between Table 3.1 of Budget Paper No. 1 and Note 2 in the Annual Report is shown in the following table: ($'000) Budget Paper No. 1 Note 2 Differ- ence Medicare Benefits... 2240.1 2235.5 (4.6) Management Expenses... 110.5 Capital... 113.5 4.9 1.9 2353.6 2350.9 (2.7) The $4.6 million paid by the Commonwealth but not shown as a receipt by the Commission reflects the value of benefits paid by the Department of Health for services rendered before the introduction of Medicare and for subsidiaries under Section 129a of the Health Insurance Act for optometrists to visit isolated patients. The sum of $1.9 million shown as being received by the Commission but not paid by the Commonwealth reflects cash carried forward from 1983-84 and transferred, in 1984-85 to capital acquisition. (Question No. 4728) Mr Tickner asked the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 7 October 1986: (1) Have medical authorities expressed concern about the carcinogenic properties associated with smokeless tobacco products, including snuff and tobacco taken orally. (2) What are the (a) brand names and (b) countries of origin of smokeless tobacco products sold in Australia. (3) Is there evidence to show that the promoters of these products are using well known musical and sporting personalities to promote consumption of their products by young people in Australia or overseas. (4) What action is he taking in regard to this matter. (5) Will he ban the (a) importation of these products and (b) commercial manufacture of these products in Australia. Dr Blewett —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Yes. Health authorities worldwide-including the World Health Assembly, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council-have expressed concern about the carcinogenic properties of smokeless tobacco products. (2) Information provided by the Tobacco Institute of Australia is that there are two manufacturers of snuff whose products are available in Australia: Brand Manufacturer Top Mill No. 1 Finest Menthol Extra Strong Menthol J. H. Wilson, Medicated 99 United Kingdom Mentholyptus Snuffs Dr Rumney's Export Hedges Copenhagen U.S. Tobacco Company, Skoal United States of Skoal Bandits America The Tobacco Institute of Australia is unaware of any chewing tobacco being imported into Australia. (3) With the exception of the sucking snuff branded Skoal Bandits-which has advertising linked with a motor racing team-I am unaware of the specific styles of campaigns used to promote these products. I do know that the promotion of these products in Australia to date has been limited. (4) and (5) The question of controls on smokeless tobacco products has been considered by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council and the Standing Committee of Officials of the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy. All have made recommendations to the effect that these products should be banned. The matter will be considered by the Australian Health Ministers at their next Conference in April 1987. It is a matter of public record that I am committed to having these products banned, and I am taking action aimed at achieving that objective. (Question No. 4755) Mr Connolly asked the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice, on 10 October 1986: (1) Has he received representations from the Committee to Defend Black Rights. (2) Has he been requested to initiate a Royal Commission into the deaths of 19 Aborigines in police custody since 1981. (3) Has his Department carried out investigations into this matter; if so, what was the outcome. (4) Is he able to say whether the Attorney-General has carried out similar investigations; if so, what was that outcome. (5) Will the Government initiate the Royal Commission into this matter. Mr Holding —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Yes. (2) Yes. (3) The Department has investigated the deaths in custody that have been brought to its notice. (4) No. (5) I have agreed to consider evidence gathered by the Committee to Defend Black Rights with a view to determining whether a Federal inquiry is appropriate. (Question No. 4756) Mr Connolly asked the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice, on 10 October 1986: (1) Why was the preferred model on Aboriginal land rights not implemented. (2) On what basis did Aboriginal organisations request the Government not to implement this model. (3) Why is the Government unable to produce model legislation on Aboriginal land rights acceptable to Aboriginal organisations. Mr Holding —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) I refer the honourable member to my statement to the Parliament as recorded in Hansard of 18 March 1986 at pages 1473 to 1477. (2) Fifty Aboriginal corporations and organisations wrote to me expressing dissatisfaction with some or all of the provisions of the Preferred Model. Criticisms included the Model's perceived inappropriateness for Aboriginals in some circumstances or in particular States, the lack of a mining veto, a lack of adequate protection for sacred sites and the ten year limit on claims. (3) As the honourable member would surely recognise, a prime objective in developing model land rights proposals has been to find approaches which would advance the interests of Aboriginal Australians while at the same time gaining general acceptability within the overall Australian community. In order to reconcile these aims it has been necessary to adopt positions on a number of matters which have resulted in some disappointment to Aboriginal aspirations. As I indicated in my statement of 18 March 1986, the Government has decided not to proceed with national land rights legislation at this stage. This decision took into account the progress being made by the States toward the provision of secure land titles to Aboriginal communities and the Government's expressed preference for action broadly consistent with the Commonwealth's principles to be taken by State Governments, the lack of support for the Preferred Model from Aboriginal groups, and some concern about the general acceptability of national legislation. The Government's decision was based, therefore, on its assessment of the overall balance of interests, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, in the Australian community at this time. (Question No. 4759) Mr Connolly asked the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice, on 10 October 1986: (1) Has he established a 5 person committee to inquire into the structure of his Department; if so, what are its terms of reference. (2) Have the establishment and terms of reference of the committee been advertised in public media; if so, how and when. (3) If the establishment and terms of reference of the committee have not been advertised, why not. (4) Was the Aboriginal community formally consulted or notified in advance regarding the establishment and terms of reference of the committee, if so, how. (5) If the Aboriginal community was not consulted or notified in advance, why not. (6) What are the (a) names and (b) qualifications and expertise of each of the members of the committee. (7) Were any Aboriginal women considered for membership of the committee; if so, why was no Abor- iginal woman appointed. (8) Are there Aboriginal women with qualifications in management administration and program delivery; if so, will he provide a list of Aboriginal women with these qualifications. (9) If no Aboriginal women have these qualifications, is he able to provide reasons why this is so. (10) What are the details of the costs of the inquiry. (11) When will the committee complete its investigations. (12) When will a copy of the committee's report be made available to the House. (13) Does the Committee include a consultant from Coopers Lybrand. (14) Do the terms of reference of the committee include a mandate to look at matters affecting the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC). (15) Have Coopers Lybrand at any time acted as accountant or auditors for the ADC or any of its companies. (16) Is there a possibility that the consultant will face a situation during the inquiry of having a conflict of interest. Mr Holding —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) No. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs established a 5 person committee to review and report on the most appropriate organisational structure, staffing skills and systems support for the Department to meet its corporate goals and program objectives. A copy of the terms of reference are attached. (2) No. (3) I am informed that it is not normal practice for Departments to go to the expense of advertising what are primarily internal reviews. (4) No. (5) There was Aboriginal participation on the review committee and Aboriginal organisations were consulted during the course of the review. (6) Mr W. J. McHugh (Dip Mech and Elec Engineering), is a consultant and manager employed by Coopers and Lybrand WD Scott with particular consulting expertise in organisation and management. Mr Neville Bonner, AO, is a former Senator and a Director of the Board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Mr Bonner has an intimate knowledge of government processes and policy execution in Aboriginal Affairs. Mr J. Wauchope is the Departmental Regional Director in Queensland and is the longest serving Regional Director with the Department. Mr Wauchope has over 20 years experience in Aboriginal Affairs and has held senior positions in Central Office in addition to holding positions of Director in a number of regions. He has detailed knowledge and experience in operational needs. Mr P. Donnelly (BA [Econ]) Departmental Area Officer, Lismore, has worked in the Department for 9 years including eight years as Area Officer in a range of locations. Mr Donnelly has served in New South Wales, Northern Territory and Canberra. Mr W. Roberts (B Ec), is a Principal Consultant with the Public Service Board and has extensive experience both in the public and private sector, in carrying out detailed consultancies. (7) No. I am informed that the matter was considered at length but, given the potential unwieldy size of the review team, it was not possible to extend membership to all special interest groups. Also, I am advised that concern over the size of the review team resulted in the Departments' Central Office not being represented. (8) Yes. I am advised that the task of identifying and listing Aboriginal women with the specific qualifications would be time consuming. I do not propose to use the limited resources of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs to research and compile such a list. (9) Not applicable. (10)-...$ Consultancy costs...81,268 Travel of Department Officers...30,303 Mr N Bonner (travel)...12,584 Mr N Bonner (fees)...12,005 Department salaries...4,500 140,660 Other costs, which cannot be detailed, were involved in the provision of services to the team. (11) The committee was required, by its terms of reference, to complete its inquiry by 30 May 1986. I am informed the final report was presented to the Department on 11 July 1986. (12) It is not normal practice for internal Departmental review reports to be tabled in the Parliament of Australia. If the honourable member should like access to a copy, that can be arranged. (13) Yes. (14) No. (15) Yes. (16) No-see answer to question 14. Appendix A DEPARTMENT OF ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS REVIEW OF ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS Terms of Reference: Review and report on the most appropriate organisational structure, staffing skills and systems support for DAA (including Area, Regional and Central Offices) to meet its corporate goals and program objectives. The review should take into account: The need to strengthen the capacity of DAA to carry out co-ordination of Australian Government policies, programs and funding in Aboriginal affairs; co-ordination of portfolio activities; co-ordination of information and resources in support of Government policy development in Aboriginal affairs. The organisation's capacity to ensure efficient, effective and equitable delivery of departmental programs. The consultative mechanisms which the department needs to obtain input from Aboriginal organisations, portfolio agencies and Commonwealth, State and Local Government agencies with responsibilities in Aboriginal affairs. Assumptions: The review should be confined to the structure of DAA: The review should take the existing policy guidelines approved by the Minister in 1985 as given. Review Team: The team will comprise- Team Leader-consultant-Mr Bill McHugh Advice on Aboriginal Interests-Mr Neville Bonner Regional Representative-Mr Jim Wauchope Area Representative-Mr Phil Donnelly Public Service Board-Mr Bill Roberts Input will be sought from the relevant staff associations during the course of the review. The review team will have access to consultancy advice from the Public Service Board and Department of Finance during the course of the review as considered necessary. Steering Committee: The team will report to the Management Committee on a regular basis. The Management Committee may wish to invite the Public Service Board and Department of Finance to join with it as advisors in considering the progress and outcome of the review. Responsibility for the general management of the team will rest with Mr Humphry. Timetable: The review team should aim to commence its work in early March and complete its report by 30 May 1986. 7 March 1986 (Question No. 4819) Dr Watson asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, upon notice, on 20 October 1986: (1) What is the estimated percentage of tonnage which is likely to be transferred from each Australian port to Sydney and Melbourne as a result of the introduction of the integrated cargo control and clearance system for Australian ports. (2) Did the Government conduct an inquiry into the effect of the proposed system on ports other than Sydney and Melbourne; if so, can he give an assurance that the infrastructure in ports other than Sydney and Melbourne will be sufficient to maintain the ability of manufacturers in States other than New South Wales or Victoria to maximise their export potential. (3) Were the cost and benefits to importers in Brisbane and Adelaide compared prior to making the decision to introduce the new system; if so, what were the details of that comparison. (4) What is the average time taken under the present system for the unloading and forwarding of bonded stores between (a) Sydney and Brisbane and (b) Melbourne and Adelaide. (5) Have entire containers gone missing from Sydney wharves in 1986; if so, had these containers been inspected and cleared by Customs Officers. (6) How will the proposed system assist in overcoming the illegal importation of drugs and other contraband. (7) What is the estimated percentage of drugs smuggled into Australia (a) by passengers and crew arriving at international airports, (b) by aircraft arriving at remote air-strips, (c) by ships arriving at remote places on the coastline, (d) by inter-ship transfers in harbours controlled by Customs officers, and (e) which have been concealed within cargo arriving at airports and harbours controlled by Customs officers. Mr Barry Jones —The Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce has supplied the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1) The pattern of discharge of cargo at Australian ports is determined by shipping and airline operators on the basis of contractual arrangements between shippers and importers. The Australian Customs Service (ACS) does not believe that the current pattern of port utilisation will change as a result of the Integrated Cargo Control and Clearance System (ICCCS). (2) The ACS has not conducted any formal inquiries into the effects of ICCCS on Australian ports. The ICCCS consists of a series of proposals which have been the subject of extensive consultation with interested parties. The ACS has circulated a discussion paper to seek written comment by 30 January 1987 on the features and impact of the ICCCS. (3) A decision to introduce the new system has not been taken and will not be taken until comments received on the discussion paper have been evaluated and appropriate trials have been conducted and appraised. The ACS does not believe additional costs will be incurred because of the system but rather benefits will accrue to importers irrespective of their location. (4) Information available to the ACS shows container movement times during 1985 and 1986 as follows: (i) from discharge in Sydney to availability in Brisbane-8 to 10 days (ii) from discharge in Melbourne to availability in Adelaide 11 to 12 days. (5) Four (4) containers have gone missing from Sydney wharves/terminals during 1986. One of these containers was subject to specific Customs query and was yet to be cleared by Customs. (6) Much cargo is transferred from the port of arrival to ports of final destination under nominal control systems based on superficial information provided by carriers. The proposed system will (i) improve the data available and its quality (ii) assist in identifying consignments for special attention (7) The following Tables show the pattern of drug seizures (by means of entry) as a percentage of total drug seizures by the ACS in the period 1981-October 1986 (inclusive). The notes below provide explanatory comment on both these seizure records and the overall picture of importation of illicit drugs over the past six years. The pattern of drug importation is an ever-changing one, and, at least in part, it reflects the impact of developments in Customs interdiction methods. Single, large shipments of drugs (such as the seizure of nearly two tonnes of cannabis in Western Australia in March this year), have the capacity to dramatically distort the picture shown by statistical analysis alone. These drug seizure statistics represent only those seizures in which Customs was involved in the detection and apprehension. Table 1 DRUG SEIZURES, 1981-1986 (Oct): PERCENTAGES BY DRUG TYPE AND MEANS OF ENTRY Heroin Cocaine Cannabis % % % (a) Passengers and crew at international airports ... 51.7 80.1 3.2 (b) Aircraft at remote airstrips ... 0.0 0.0 0.0 (c) Ships at remote places on coastline ... 0.0 0.0 19.5 (d) Intership transfers ... 0.0 0.0 0.0 (e) Concealed in cargoes arriving at airports and harbours ... 26.5 0.0 75.5 Table 2 DRUG SEIZURES, 1981-1986 (Oct): PERCENTAGES AND WEIGHTS IN Kg Heroin Cocaine Cannabis (a) Passengers and crew at international airports ... 51.7 118.6 %...80.1 Kg...42.3 %...3.2 Kg...454.4 % Kg (b) Aircraft at remote airstrips ... 0.0 0.0 0.0 (c) Ships at remote places on coastline ... 0.0 0.0 19.5 2 804.0 %1 Kg (d) Intership transfers ... 0.0 0.0 0.0 (e) Concealed in cargoes arriving at airports and harbours ... 26.5 60.9 %...0.0 Kg 75.5 10 859.3 % Kg (f) Ship search ... 15.7 36.1 %...0.0 Kg 0.1 14.6 % Kg (g) Sea passengers ... 0.4 1.0 %...0.0 Kg 0.1 15.4 % Kg (h) Parcels post ... 5.2 12.0 %...13.3 Kg...7.0 %...1.6 Kg...175.8 % Kg (i) Other ... 0.5 0.9 %...6.6 Kg...3.5 %...0.0 Kg...64.5 % Kg Total Weights ... 229.5 Kg...52.8 Kg...14,388.0 Kg 1 This figure includes a single seizure of 1 919 kg in the Shark Bay area of W.A. in March 1986. (Question No. 4821) Mr Blunt asked the Prime Minister, upon notice, on 20 October 1986: Has the Government considered renegotiating the lease with the US Government for the facilities at Pine Gap on a year by year basis. Mr Hawke —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: The Joint Defence Space Research Facility at Pine Gap does not operate under a lease and such an idea is incompatible with the concept of jointness that is embodied in the Agreement governing the Facility's operations. The Agreement provides that when the present non-terminable period expires in October 1987, the Agreement continues in force unless either Party gives due notice of termination. The Government does not at present see any need to alter that arrangement. (Question No. 4842) Dr Watson asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 23 October 1986: Will a taxpayer who owned land prior to 19 September 1985 and who now grants a right to another person to taken timber from that land for a lump sum which is not a royalty under the Income Tax Assessment Act, be subject to capital gains under section 160m (7) of the Act; if so, how will the tax be calculated. Mr Keating —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: Timber standing on land is to be treated as part of the land for the purposes of the capital gains provisions. Where the owner of the land allows another person to take the timber and the payment received for the timber is not a royalty, the Commissioner of Taxation considers that the payment is made for a part disposal of the particular asset. This means that where the land was acquired before 20 September 1985, the receipt would not give rise to a capital gains tax liability. (Question No. 4855) Mr Smith asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice, on 11 November 1986: (1) Was a temporary electrical switchboard installed in the existing terminal building during construction of the new terminal at Hobart Airport; if so, (a) what was the cost of its installation and (b) who had the tender to carry out the work. (2) Was the demolition of the existing building and the equipment contained therein put out to tender; if so, (a) who was awarded the tender, (b) what was the agreed price and (c) was removal of the temporary electrical switchboard included in the tender. (3) Were tenders called for the installation of an electrical switchboard in the new terminal; if so, (a) who was awarded the tender and (b) what price was paid by his Department. (4) Is he satisfied that his Department did not pay twice for the same electrical switchboard. Mr West —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) No. (2) Yes. (a) J. E. & L. A. Watson (b) $38,512 (c) There was no temporary electrical switchboard. (3) (a), (b) Tenders were called for alterations and additions to the existing switchboard. The tender was awarded to Knapp Lewer Pty Ltd for $117,893. (4) Yes. Mr Keating —On 21 October 1986 (Hansard, page 2404), Mr Reith asked me, without notice, the following question: I refer the Treasurer to the many small business proprietors, farmers and journalists amongst others, who use a room in their homes at night and on weekends either to write up their books or otherwise attend to their business affairs. Is it the intention of the capital gains tax to apply to the family home in those circumstances? Will the Treasurer request the Commissioner of Taxation to issue a ruling providing guidelines on how he will exercise the discretion given to him in calculating the tax in these circumstances? I now provide the following answer to the honourable member's question: If part of a taxpayer's principal residence is used to conduct a business-for example, where a shop is attached to a dwelling, or where a doctor's surgery is part of a dwelling-the principal residence exemption does not extend to that part of the building for the time it was so used. However, in the many cases where a study in a principal residence is used for work merely because it is inconvenient for the work to be done at the taxpayer's normal place of work-and in these cases, the taxpayer is unable to claim income tax deductions for expenses such as interest or home insurance-the home is not regarded as being used for the purpose of gaining or producing assessable income. Accordingly, the home would remain fully eligible for the principal residence exemption. As well as publishing a booklet explaining various aspects of the capital gains provisions, including their application in relation to a taxpayer's principal residence, the Commissioner has issued, and will continue to issue, rulings clarifying issues raised by taxpayers in relation to the interpretation and operation of these provisions.