Wednesday, 6 May 1987 Madam SPEAKER (Hon. Joan Child) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. Bill returned from the Senate without amendment. Motion (by Mr Lionel Bowen)-by leave-agreed to: That so much of the Standing and Sessional Orders be suspended as would prevent order of the day No. 17, General Business, being called on forthwith. Debate resumed from 5 May, on motion by Madam Speaker: That the Bill be now read a second time. Mr CLEELAND(McEwen)(10.01) —Stephen distinguished between those who held a feudal view of society and those who took a democratic view of the role of officers of the State. I must say that I strongly take the democratic view. Clause 4 of the Parliamentary Privilege Bill 1987, which is now before the House, fundamentally changes the historical view of contempt. Australian parliaments have held that the mere publication of a committee's proceedings, of evidence taken by a committee, of documents presented to a committee, of a committee's report, and of draft reports before these materials have been presented or reported, as the case may be, to the relevant House, constitute a contempt. Clause 4 is important as it introduces the notion that to constitute contempt it is necessary to show that, in the circumstances outlined, publication amounts to or is intended or likely to amount to an improper interference with the free exercise by a House, or of a committee, or of its authorities or functions. Clause 4 of the Bill is also in line with decisions of the High Court of Australia, where in Gallagher's case and Victoria's case it was held that to constitute contempt of court the acts charged must have a real and definite tendency, as a matter of practical reality, to interfere with the functions of the court. One concern that I have about clause 4 is the failure to establish the criteria of the burden of proof. It would be my submission that the House should not find that a contempt has been committed unless it is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the acts complained of caused, or were likely to cause, a substantial interference with the functions of the Parliament. This approach is consistent with the well-established proposition that the Parliament should use its contempt powers only when it is essential to provide necessary protection for the House or one of its committees. The scheme of the Bill ensures that the offence sections, such as clause 13, dealing with unauthorised disclosure of evidence, must be read in conjunction with clause 4. I have previously expressed the view that, in my opinion, this Bill does not go far enough. Having studied the private members' Bills introduced by Senator Button and by the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender) I would express a strong preference for the approach adopted by Senator Button. I do not believe that a body such as the Parliament can, in a matter having sanctions as serious as in the area of contempt, be all things. It cannot possibly or fairly be prosecutor, judge and defence counsel at the one time. The concept is, without question, a breach of natural justice and would not be acceptable to any tribunal established by this Parliament. In fact, one could imagine that, if this Parliament established a tribunal consisting of a body which acted in all three areas, there would be a public outcry and it would not be accepted. Whilst the Bill represents an undoubted improvement on the existing state of affairs we should not forget that this House is unfettered in its power to punish. That power, which can include the power to inflict capital punishment, should, by any reasonable standard, be subject to review by the High Court of Australia. The process by which the Parliament determines the question of guilt or innocence is not subject to the normal rules of evidence. There is no independent chairman to rule on procedural or evidentiary questions in dispute, and no right of counsel to appear for the accused person. If this Parliament is to maintain the right to enforce its own rules on contempt or a breach of privilege it must of necessity establish proceedings recognised in any civilised country as according natural justice to those whom the Parliament wishes to accuse of breaching its rules. In conclusion, I refer the House to the conclusion drawn by Sally Walker in a research paper prepared for the Adelaide Law Review Association in 1984. She said: The powers which may be exercised by Australian Houses of Parliament are not insignificant and contempt of parliament is a source of potentially arbitrary power which is subject to little supervision by the courts. There is uncertainty not only about what powers a House may exercise in any particular case, but also about the concept of contempt of parliament. The many unsolved problems of principle and the fact that it is not possible to draw binding conclusions from previous examples are symptomatic of this uncertainty. Hence, despite the fact that Houses of Parliament rarely exercise their powers, journalists are justified in perceiving contempt of parliament as a source of restraint upon their freedom to inform the public. There is an incongruity between the nature of contempt of parliament as a measure to protect the functions of Houses of Parliament, Members of Parliament and officers of Parliament and the notion that the House concerned may punish conduct that constitutes contempt. This incongruity may explain the fact that although the Houses of Parliament often resolve that conduct constitutes contempt of parliament, comparatively few of the persons responsible are punished. The incongruity also leads this writer to suggest that the powers of the various House of Parliament be limited to self-preserving powers. If the powers of the various Houses of Parliament to deal with contempt of parliament were limited to self-preserving powers this would reflect the nature of contempt of parliament. Nothing in the analysis of the exercise of the contempt powers by Australian Houses of Parliament suggests that, in order to deal with contempt of parliament, powers more extensive than self-preserving powers are necessary. Another advantage of such a reform would be that the courts would be able to review the exercise of the power to some extent. Such an alteration in the powers of Australian Houses of Parliament should be accompanied by legislation removing the power of those Houses to deal with certain conduct which can be dealt with more properly under the general law and enabling the courts to review a House's finding that particular conduct or a particular omission impedes either a House of Parliament, a Member of Parliament or an officer of Parliament in the performance of their respective functions. This would diminish fears that Houses of Parliament may be influenced by political considerations in contempt cases. It would also ensure that the concept of contempt of parliament could gradually evolve and the problems of principle referred to could be solved. It would also limit the undesirable effects of Houses of Parliament acting as judges in their own cause. These reforms would place contempt of parliament on a more rational basis, balancing the respective requirements of Houses of Parliament and the media. The public should not consider this problem to be obscure or irrelevant: we rely on the media for accurate information about and legitimate criticism of Parliament and, in so far as the powers of the Houses of Parliament and the uncertainties associated with contempt of parliament circumscribe the freedom of the media to provide this information and criticism, we are all affected. Mr SMITH(Bass)(10.10) —The Parliamentary Privileges Bill is a piece of legislation which does not capture the interest of the public much, but it should capture the keen interest of all honourable members in this House. Last night and this morning I listened to the comments of my fellow member of the Standing Committee on Privileges, the honourable member for McEwen (Mr Cleeland), and while I do not know whether I agree with everything he said, I will certainly read his contribution because he put a lot of thought into it. It is important that you, Madam Speaker, should be in the chamber to listen to this debate because this is your legislation. It is an unprecedented step for a Presiding Officer to initiate legislation. As you said when you introduced the draft Parliamentary Privileges Bill on 4 June 1986, the reason for your action was that you and the former President of the Senate, Senator Douglas McClelland, thought that the issues were of fundamental importance to both Houses. The advice given to you and the former President was that the judgments given by the Supreme Court in New South Wales in particular, which I will discuss later, represented a serious threat to freedom of speech in parliament and the capacity of members to `speak for their constituents' and an equally serious threat to the protection of witnesses who give evidence to parliamentary committees. Therefore, the debate on this legislation represents a reasonably historic occasion. The Bill will go through with bipartisan support. The essence of this Bill revolves around the meaning of article 9 of the Bill of Rights of 1688, which, by virtue of section 49 of the Australian Constitution, applies to this Parliament. Article 9 is worth quoting in full. It says: That the freedom of Speech and Debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament. This has long meant that both here and in Britain parliamentary proceedings are not called into question before the proceedings of a court or tribunal. Indeed, based on authorities reaching back as far as 1688, this has been the case. Recent authorities, such as the Church of Scientology of California v. Johnson-Smith case, a United Kingdom case of 1972, and, in Australia, the Comalco Ltd v. the Australian Broadcasting Commission case in 1973, are obvious examples. A similar provision can also be found in the United States Constitution. It says that for any speech or debate in either House, members shall not be questioned in any other place. The Supreme Court of the United States summarised the position in 1966 in the case of Johnson. I wish to quote that because it encapsulates the overall position. It said: This formulation of 1688 was the culmination of a long struggle for parliamentary supremacy. Behind these simple phrases lies a history of conflict between the Commons and the Tudor and Stuart monarchs during which successive monarchs utilised the criminal and civil law to suppress and intimidate critical legislators. Since the Glorious Revolution in Britain and throughout US history, the privilege has been recognised as an important protection of the independence and integrity of the legislature. Let us not then underestimate the fundamental nature of this Bill, nor the very great significance that article 9 of the Bill of Rights bears in the Westminster tradition. Indeed, the very significance is encapsulated in the judgment of Mr Justice Brown in the Scientology case of 1972, which was a Queen's Bench decision. He said then: A member must have a complete right of free speech in the House without fear that his motives or intentions or reasoning will be questioned or held against him thereafter. That is the fundamental premise on which this Bill is based and which is specified in clause 16. The general import of Article 9 may appear clear enough, but it does lend itself to wide interpretation and that is the major reason why this Bill is now before the Parliament, as you said, Madam Speaker, in your statement in June 1986. Indeed, the judgment of Mr Justice Carruthers of the New South Wales Supreme Court in the celebrated case of Mr Rex Jackson illustrates the point. The prosecution in the Jackson case sought to prove that the sole motive for telling alleged lies in the House was a realisation of guilt by Jackson and a fear of the truth. Mr Justice Carruthers responded by saying: If I were to have allowed the tender of Hansard for these purposes against Jackson, this would necessarily have involved an inquiry into his motives and intentions in that which he said in the House. Such an inquiry, would, in my view, contravene article 9. It would necessarily have involved an impeaching or questioning in this court, debates or proceedings in the Parliament. That example ought to make clear to all honourable members the significance of the privilege afforded to us as members of this place, something which this Bill now seeks firmly to establish and clarify. The doubt about the meaning of Article 9 has arisen out of the whole saga of the Murphy affair-no doubt a matter that historians, constitutional lawyers and political scientists will pore over for many years. However, we in this place must respond to part of the fall-out of those decisions, as it were, on the whole matter to establish beyond doubt exactly what the privileges of the members of this House are, as near as we can be exact about the legislative definition of `privilege' in this instance. The doubt arose from the trials in New South Wales in the Murphy matter. In those cases the President of the Senate submitted to the court via counsel that Article 9 of the Bill of Rights prevented the cross-examination of witnesses or the accused on evidence which they gave before parliamentary committees, and prevented it for the purpose of impeaching the evidence of witnesses or the accused. Mr Justice Cantor, in the first trial-there were two trials-gave judgments that Article 9 did not prevent such cross-examination. He found that the protection of parliamentary proceedings must be balanced-and I emphasise the word `balanced'-against the requirements of the court proceedings. Following his decision there ensued vigorous cross-examination on evidence given before the Senate Committee. In the second decision, by Mr Justice Hunt in the second Murphy trial, Mr Justice Hunt gave judgment that Article 9 was to be interpreted in a very restrictive manner. He decided on the restricted use of parliamentary proceedings as evidence of an offence to impeach the evidence of witnesses or the accused or to support a cause of action. As I mentioned earlier, Article 9 has application throughout those countries operating under the Westminster system and also of course in the United States, as well as in the parliaments of the Australian States. Obviously, those other places would be desirous of Australia being in step, as it were, and that is what this Bill seeks to do, by ensuring that the very restrictive interpretation given by Justices Hunt and Cantor will not be followed to the detriment of the privileges of members of this Parliament. Clause 16 of the Parliamentary Privileges Bill 1987 is the very key to what this is all about. Clause 16 (2) describes the `proceedings of Parliament' as meaning: . . . all the words spoken and acts done in the cause of or for the purposes of or incidental to the transacting of the business of a House or of a Committee. I support the clause. There are reservations about the practical application of clause 16 (2) (a), and the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender), who has had a keen interest in these matters for some period of time, pointed that out. The inclusion of the provisions in clause 16 (2) (a) could mean that witnesses in courts could never be questioned on anything said by them when giving evidence before a House or a Committee. The honourable member for North Sydney cited the example that a prosecution witness in a criminal trial who gives evidence totally contrary to evidence given by him before a parliamentary committee could not be cross-examined on his parliamentary committee evidence for the purposes of proving that he was giving perjured evidence. The result, of course, could be that an innocent person could be convicted of a serious criminal charge and sentenced to a heavy term of imprisonment on the basis of such perjured evidence. The honourable member for North Sydney articulated those concerns well, and he mentioned that that is perhaps an area at which we ought to look closely. As we see the further practical applications of this Bill in the years to come, that is a matter that we might perhaps like to look at again. But it is worth signalling the danger that might lie in that provision. Other provisions in the Bill were covered by the honourable member for North Sydney. Of those of significance that I want to mention briefly in my remarks is the matter of penalties, covered under clause 7. Clause 7 provides for a fixed term of imprisonment not exceeding six months and it also allows the Parliament to impose fines ranging from $5,000 for individuals to $25,000 for companies. Mr Comans, QC, in his opinions, tabled in the Senate on the draft Bill, about the relationship between clause 5 and clause 7 of this Bill, pointed out that the Bill must be read as a whole and, as such, the six-month period of imprisonment is a fixed limit not to be varied by the prorogation of Parliament, as existed under the previous privilege. The suggestion of the opinion is picked up in this Bill. It is a sensible one, and it removes a further uncertainty of interpretation of the extent and application of the penal power. Clause 7 (4) also follows the suggestion of Mr Comans, QC, to permit the Speaker or President to order a discharge of a prisoner when the Parliament is not in session, provided, of course, that a resolution of the chamber so provides. The certainty that clause 7 brings to the penalties area of privilege is one that I certainly welcome. If we are to charge a privileges committee with the task of determining whether a breach of privilege, so referred to it, does prima facie exist, it would be most useful for the expedition of the determination of such questions if such a committee were to be certain of what penalty is available and thus be able to recommend such to the House for consideration in any particular case. It must be stressed, however, that the matter of penalty is ultimately one for the relevant chamber to determine. This is an important Bill. This is one of the few occasions in the life of the Parliament when the privileges of members come before us in the form of a Bill. The intrinsic importance of the issues being legislated for ought to be apparent to all members, as they go to the very heart of our rights as members of this place. At a time when Parliament appears to be under attack the residual power of the freedom of expression that privilege gives to members ought, in my view, to be used sparingly and judiciously, but it ought to be used in a way to buttress the institution of Parliament, to enhance its standing in the community and to provide a real opportunity for the community's views to be heard through its representatives. In the short time that I have been here the Parliament has sadly been viewed as somewhat of a tarnished coin. I do not think a new building will change things, but it falls within our preserve as members to reverse that situation as it does the other players within the activity of parliamentary life, such as the Press. I hope that when members look at this legislation they realise the significance of it and the residual power that resides in us as members to be able to put views across without challenge. The Bill certainly establishes clearly the rights of members and the activities of committees which I think are particularly important because we are seeing more and more the work of Parliament being done through committees. The work that was done by the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, which led to the private member's Bill of the honourable member for North Sydney from which this Bill follows on, was a step in the right direction. Hopefully we will see that tarnished coin with which some equate Parliament start to shine again because of all the systems in the world this is far and away the best. It is not perfect, but it is a heck of a lot better than many of the others that are around. I commend the Bill, and I commend the Speaker for bringing it to the House. Mr GRIFFITHS(Maribyrnong)(10.23) —In my first parliament I had the very great honour to serve on the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege under the chairmanship of the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender). I notice in the galleries the presence of Mr Wright who served as Secretary to that Committee, and I might say that he did so in a most distinguished way. By definition I have a very strong interest in this whole area. Today's contribution will not be the end of the debate so far as I am concerned. As honourable members are aware, the proposed resolutions tabled concurrently with the Parliamentary Privileges Bill 1987 go very much to the heart of the powers of this Parliament. I commend a very detailed reading and consideration of them by all members of the House, and I hope that in the deliberations that surround those proposed resolutions we have a long and very detailed contribution from as many members as possible. In my view, my role on the Committee, whilst not a major one, was one of the more significant contributions that I will be called upon to make in this chamber. Another important point worth making, particularly for observers of this Parliament, is that this is one of the few occasions when each individual member of parliament is completely free of all party political pressures to judge components of this category of legislation, or the proposed resolutions before the House, on their own objective and independent assessments of the merits or otherwise. Because these issues go to the heart of the role of parliamentarians, the tradition, with which I strongly concur, is that each member should feel absolutely free to give independent consideration to each of these issues and to judge them accordingly. I have no doubt that that is precisely what will transpire. There will be adequate opportunity on another day to deal with the proposed resolutions in detail. For the purposes of today's proceedings we are addressing our minds to the Parliamentary Privileges Bill of 1987. Consistent with what I have already said, right across the chamber there is not a lot of dispute so far about the provisions of the Privileges Bill. To the extent that there is, I will address that matter in a moment. But, for example, I do not have any substantive disagreement with the honourable member for Bass (Mr Smith), who preceded me, on the merits of the major component of that Bill which, of course, relates to the Parliament's reaction to the judgment in R. v. Murphy. The legislation had its genesis in the report to which I have referred and the Committee on which I had the pleasure of serving. As I have indicated, that Committee was chaired by the honourable member for North Sydney, both when the current Opposition was in government and later when, by leave of the Government, the honourable member continued his chairmanship after having gone into opposition with the colleagues, from where I imagine he will not emerge for some considerable time. Particularly because I have praised him considerably for his role in that Committee, I might just be politically partisan for a moment by noting that, according to this morning's Press, the honourable member's colleague Senator Puplick happened to be paying closer attention to some of the legislation going through this House. The honourable member for North Sydney may have to reimburse to his Party his $2,000 advisory fee for not having picked up a couple of issues in that legislation. But that is enough of partisan politics. The genesis of the Bill was, of course, in that Committee, but the momentum for the Bill came about as a result of what I consider to be a dangerous-from this Parliament's perspective-and narrow interpretation of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights in the judgment to which I have referred in R. v. Murphy. Section 49 of the Constitution provides that the freedom of speech in debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of the Parliament. On the surface that is a quite clear enunciation of the role of the Parliament. But, as is often the case, it is perhaps not so clear once we get into the judicial process. In any event, honourable members are aware that the judgment of Mr Justice Cantor purported to establish the injunction that the hitherto unanimously wide interpretation of Article 9 would necessarily be maintained provided only that there were no adverse effect on parliamentary proceedings in a particular case. Central to Justice Cantor's case was that Article 9 must be balanced-I emphasise the word `balanced' as did my colleague the honourable member for Bass-against the requirements of court proceedings. But the effect of the judgment was to purport to establish that it is not a breach of Article 9 to use parliamentary proceedings as evidence of an offence or of a civil liability to establish the motive or intention of a person for the purpose of proving an offence or a civil liability or to attack the credibility of a person. It was in that latter category, of course, that Justice Cantor's decision was used. As I have indicated, a central theme to the judgment was that a condition precedent was that there be no adverse effect on parliamentary proceedings by such an interpretation in any particular case. But of course, the judgment itself-subsequently ignored, happily, by other Australian judgments-strikes at the very heart of the role of this Parliament, and accordingly it provided the very adverse effects which the judgment explicitly stated it sought to avoid. It really left no alternative other than for this Parliament seriously and immediately to address the issues that it raised and to respond to them. Happily, that response appears to have a fair degree of unanimity not only across this House but also in another place. The detailed reasons in support of re-establishing the primacy of section 49 have been provided by other speakers and, accordingly, I will not recanvass them, but I indicate for the record my strong concurrence with those reasons. The honourable member for North Sydney, however, has sought to amend the Bill to allow a person to be cross-examined on his evidence before this Parliament. The honourable member has sought to partially embrace the judgment of Justice Cantor, and whilst seeking to minimise the narrow reading that Justice Cantor gave to article 9, the end result of the proposed amendment would be to seriously undermine the very powers that we are now seeking to re-establish. Superficially this approach may have some attraction, but in the result it would mean a lesser, but nevertheless substantial, erosion of the powers of the Parliament that the judgment in R. v. Murphy implied. The reason for that is that one simply cannot minimise the impact of that amendment, as the honourable member for North Sydney, I am sure, would seek to do. To that extent it is inconsistent with the strong theme embodied in the deliberations of the Joint Select Committee that the honourable member chaired. That is, where on the balance of public interest a judgment had to be made between competing principles-and of course, the whole theme of this area is the fine balance between competing and important principles-where we had to err on one side or the other, we would err on the side of the continuation and enhancement, and against a narrowing, of the powers of this Parliament. So, to that extent the amendment proposed by the honourable member for North Sydney is contradictory to the theme he embraced with his colleagues, including me, during our deliberations on that Committee. A number of things can be said about the amendment. I will confine my comments to the following points. Were the amendment to be adopted and one party in a civil or criminal action allowed to seek to undermine the evidence of a witness by using the witness's parliamentary evidence, as a matter of fairness the other party in the proceedings would have to be allowed to try to rebut the undermining of that witness's evidence by further use of the parliamentary proceedings. This would open up a pandora's box. It is probably the reason-I have just received a note-amongst others, why the honourable member for North Sydney, I now understand, is not proceeding with his amendment. So my research on that component of the legislation will not be proceeded with. I am pleased that the honourable member for North Sydney reconsidered his proposed amendment. I believe it would have substantially flawed the Bill that is before the House. It may explain a little more the degree of unanimity that appeared on the other side of the House regarding the legislation. There are a number of other changes-in fact, there is a whole raft of changes-embodied within the legislation. I am pleased to have the opportunity now to have a little time in which to comment on some of them. When the Committee sat, one of the ongoing themes was the very real difficulty, both in intellectual terms and in policy terms, of trying to weigh up the very difficult competing interests that were involved. One example is the abolition of defamatory contempts. Defamatory contempt, having been around for many hundreds of years, and having not been brought into substantive question for most of that period, is one of the major powers by which many individual members and senators saw themselves protected. Of course, there have been a number of very famous defamatory contempts, sometimes to the embarrassment of an individual or groups of members or senators, regarding their sobriety, personal behaviour or corporate reputations. Politicians are a pretty sensitive sort of bunch, by some measure. In any event, I think it was a sensible outcome in terms of the Committee's deliberations to decide that parliamentarians, be they members or senators, should not be so sensitive as to seek to use the defamatory contempt powers simply because someone in the community purported to describe them corporately or individually as indolent, drunks or whatever. The reality is, of course, that anyone watching any of the satirical programs on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or elsewhere, and anyone who has a cursory interest in satirical cartooning in this country, obviously would be aware that parliamentarians are the subject of ongoing ridicule. Perhaps that is the price we pay in a democracy such as ours. I think it is appropriate to draw, for example, a comparison between the way that parliamentarians are treated in this country and the relative immunity enjoyed by those who treat them in this way, and the reaction of a certain country in the recent past to the same sort of satire being applied to some of its political leaders. Of course, it is a significant and, I think, very important distinction between two different types of political systems. Perhaps one of the measures of a democracy is that it is possible for anyone in the community to take the mickey, if you like, out of his elected representatives-the Prime Minister or whoever. Whilst that may be a bit embarrassing or hurtful on occasions, I believe very strongly that once one is in the kitchen, one must learn to put up with a bit of the heat. Accordingly, I was strongly of the view that the defamatory contempts component ought to be abolished. Of course, if any of those defamatory contempts are of sufficient brutality, if you like, to step over the boundaries of what would constitute defamation in the wider community, senators or members have the protection of the laws of defamation, the laws of libel, to ensure that they are not brought into contempt, just as any other member of the community has that protection. I was very pleased that this Bill embraces that particular reform. I believe it is long overdue and it is a sign of the increasing maturity of the Parliament and, hopefully, of a preparedness to concentrate on those issues that are of importance to the people of Australia in the longer term. There is, as I have indicated, a whole range of other components in the Bill. Clause 9, which is of particular importance, relates to the resolutions and warrants for committal. This clause requires a House to state the reason for a person being imprisoned by the House. Again, I do not think I need to go into any great detail. It is almost self-evident that a fundamental right in our community is to have charges put to one, to give one an opportunity to answer them. Unless that is the case, any citizen is at a severe disadvantage. I think it is worth making the point that it was largely in my experience unknown, even in the House, just to what extent the Parliament had powers to bring people before the House, to bring charges before them without articulating those charges, to enforce the giving of evidence. The system did not necessarily provide that people could have legal representation. It came as a very great surprise to many of my colleagues to learn that the Parliament could in fact incarcerate individuals for indeterminate periods under existing powers that it has. Of course, in years gone by that was a normal and accepted part of the largely patrician parliamentary system. I believe that the abrogation of basic and fundamental civil rights that that implies belongs to that long distant past. Accordingly, I am very pleased that this Bill and the associated proposed resolutions go a considerable way towards addressing those problems. I would like to raise another aspect. The Committee recommended a non-enforceable declaration by the High Court of Australia in relation to these matters. But that was not adopted because of the possibility that it may constitute an advisory opinion from the High Court and, hence, be unconstitutional. I wish to place on record that where the provisions of the Bill relate to enforceable review by the High Court of the imprisonment of any person, I am strongly of the view that if and when the Constitution is changed to provide for advisory opinions by the High Court, that should revert, consistent with the Joint Committee's recommendations, to a non-enforceable declaration by the High Court. In my submission, that would go some way towards continuing the very fine balance between the Parliament and the judiciary. I would like to comment on many other aspects but I notice that my time has almost expired. In commending the Bill to the House, I thank the honourable member for North Sydney for not proceeding with his proposed amendment which I thought was misplaced. I also take this opportunity to thank him for his chairmanship of the Committee and also to thank the many other distinguished members of that Committee. Mr ADERMANN(Fairfax)(10.43) —In concert with the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender), who led for the Opposition in the debate, the honourable member for Gippsland (Mr McGauran), who led for my own Party, the National Party, and speakers on both sides of the House, I indicate my full support for the Parliamentary Privileges Bill. In my 14-odd years in parliament I have had the privilege of serving on a number of committees. I regard the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege as among the most important committees on which I have had the privilege to serve and to take part in deliberations. It was fitting that the honourable member for North Sydney led for the Opposition because he was a most distinguished and most capable chairman of that Committee. The Committee personnel were extremely qualified in very many ways. It included not only some very eminent men in the law from both sides of the House but also members with considerable parliamentary experience and others had much to add. I recall that the request for this Committee came way back in the Fraser days, during a period in this Parliament when, apart from the normal repartee and the cut and thrust, names were being named in the Parliament of people outside. The Parliament was concerned about this. I recall that it was the Rt Hon. Doug Anthony who suggested that the Committee ought to be formed to look at the whole question of parliamentary privilege and to consider what sort of redress there was for the `abuse' of that privilege. I believe, therefore, that whatever the circumstances this was a most necessary inquiry. It was important, it was overdue, and it was very valuable. It has always been assumed that the Parliament is master of its own proceedings and that there is an immunity or privilege preventing what is said in the Parliament or its committees being used against a member or a witness in the courts. I will say something more about that shortly. I commend the Government, Madam Speaker and Mr President on the extent to which the recommendations of that Committee have been picked up and on the speed with which it has been done. The catalyst may have been the judgment to which I will make reference, but I think it was an important and wise step for the Government to pick up those recommendations. It would be good if we could pick up so quickly the recommendations of another committee that is looking into the Standing Orders and procedures of the House. I believe that everyone would have some feeling that they ought also to be looked at and brought into this Parliament. A number of very important changes are brought about by this legislation. One is the provision for both Houses to impose fines. There was some doubt about the capacity of the Parliament to impose fines for breaches of parliamentary privilege. There was no doubt about the capacity of the Government to send to gaol, if it so wished, people who allegedly abused that privilege. Going back some years in history, two journalists, Browne and Fitzpatrick, incurred the ire of the Parliament and were incarcerated. That was something that nobody in the Committee was very pleased about. It was something which concerned us. Is that the only redress that the Parliament has if a breach of privilege is alleged? The indefiniteness of the period for which people can be incarcerated also caused a great amount of concern. I believe that this Bill puts that in its proper perspective. It brings a rationality, a set term, and conditions under which such action could be taken by the Parliament. But it also very clearly indicates that the Parliament can impose fines. This Bill also removes the power to expel members. Of course, that power has been used only once in this Parliament and, once again, under circumstances that leave one with some misgivings. I think it is a tribute to the Parliament that, over many years, a place which is certainly party political did not abuse what could be a very potent and dangerous political weapon. I think it is a tribute to the Parliament that it has handled privilege in this way over many years. But I am pleased that that power has been removed because, in concert with what other speakers have said, it is the electors, the people of Australia, who put people in this Parliament and it is their prerogative and their right to remove them at will. There are also a number of provisions in the Bill concerning resolutions and warrants for committal. Those warrants have to specify the reasons for that committal. A number of statutory provisions for the protection of witnesses are also included in this Bill. As I said when I commenced my speech, I think that is a very important matter. It clarifies and crystallises many of the issues associated with privilege in this place. The Bill, therefore, starts with a general declaration of the immunity of parliamentary proceedings to question or examination. It talks about prohibiting the unauthorised use of evidence taken in camera not released by the parliamentary committee concerned. The question of privilege is something about which there can be very much debate. I do not intend to canvass at any length the reasons for the existence of parliamentary privilege; I wish merely to make a brief observation. It has always been understood that a member may be able to expose corruption, crime or victimisation by raising publicly in the Parliament evidence which he has. If he is not protected by privilege, the laws of libel, slander and so on could inhibit this. Also, the strict standards of proof naturally and properly required in the courts would mean that such evidence may not otherwise be given a forum for expression. So the Committee supported the maintenance without dilution of that privilege but very clearly pointed out our responsibility to ensure that it is responsibly exercised and not abused. That is something of which parliamentarians ought to be conscious. This legislation, then, is necessary to very definitely establish those principles. The judgment in Regina v. Murphy quoted in this debate seemed to inject some qualification, or at least some uncertainty in these matters. We have heard-and I will not repeat it ad nauseam-the perception of the basis on which we understood that parliamentary privilege relied. We have heard of the Bill of Rights and Article 9 of the Bill of Rights. Mr Braithwaite —What about the Bill of responsibility? Mr ADERMANN —That is something that I have already referred to. We have heard of section 49 of the Australian Constitution. We thought that we knew fully what that meant. But these things were called into question under that judgment because the judgment was that Article 9 would be breached only if an adverse effect on parliamentary proceedings resulted. Furthermore, the protection provided by article 9 must be balanced against the requirement of court proceedings. During that trial witnesses, as well as the accused, were cross-examined on the evidence which they gave to Senate committees, including in camera evidence. Submissions were made as to the credibility of witnesses and the accused, based on those questions. So it is little wonder that that caused concern to our Presiding Officers. They felt that it could pose a serious threat to the freedom of speech of members of parliament, to whom it applies, as well as to witnesses before parliamentary committees. While a member of parliament may not be sued or prosecuted for something he or she has said or done during parliamentary proceedings, the member's participation in those proceedings could, under that interpretation, be used to establish the member's motive or intention in relation to words said or acts done outside the Parliament, and thereby support a civil or criminal action in relation to such words or acts. In summary, a member's participation in parliamentary proceedings could be used in court proceedings against the member in a way not previously thought possible. Similarly, use could be made of evidence given by witnesses before parliamentary committees. Of course, that was a matter of some concern and that matter had to be crystallised, established and decided. I believe that it is important that the requirement of parliamentary committees for co-operation and veracity of witnesses be ensured. The capacity of the committee to attain those aims is a measure of its value. A committee would be useless and would have no purpose or direction if it could not get that type of co-operation and could not examine the types of evidence presently presented. If a committee is to establish the truth, it must be able to protect a witness. It must encourage complete revelation. It has done this by providing that a witness's testimony cannot be used against him in another forum. In other words, there has been a protection-or we thought there had been-protecting him against incriminating himself. That provision has gone a long way towards eliciting information and truth over the years. If we are able and wish to compel witnesses to appear before a committee and if we are to encourage revelation and truth, there must be no doubt of that absolute protection against self-incrimination. If an accused appears in a court of law, he is protected in that he cannot be forced to give evidence incriminating himself. Nor, I believe, can his spouse be required or forced to give evidence against him. Therefore, it seems to be totally incongruous that evidence given before a select committee could then be translated into a court and the evidence used in some manner to incriminate the person who testified before the committee. I believe, and it seems that the House believes, that this would be an unwarranted circumvention of that principle, if evidence or testimony given under privilege to a parliamentary committee could then be used to incriminate the person in a court. Such a position would either destroy the capacity and integrity of the parliamentary select committee system in its deliberation or examination or increase the risk of perjury before that committee. Perjury before a select committee is serious and must be severely dealt with, just as perjury before a court is considered to be a matter of very great gravity. Nor would it be proper for a committee, after considering a matter, to allow evidence to be given to the committee in camera-and that is always done after great consideration and deliberation-and then find that in a court and thus in the media that evidence had been given public exposure. That would make a complete farce of giving evidence in camera, and we may as well close down our serious select committees for they would be ineffective if we were to follow that course. If we are of the opinion that inquiries by joint select committees of the Parliament are of value, that they must have the capacity to investigate and establish truth and bring recommendations, that witnesses should take the inquiry seriously and give truthful evidence-and I believe we are-then we must support this legislation. This legislation puts in place the very mechanism on which those beliefs rest. The privilege and protection which have applied to joint committees cannot be diluted or removed without destroying the system. This legislation clearly establishes and enunciates those essential rules. The legislation is necessary. I commend the Government for its introduction and I give it every support. I am pleased that the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender) has not pursued the amendment that he first contemplated, because it would be a dilution. It would be a resiling from the position established by this legislation and to which I adhere. For that reason, had the amendment been brought forward I would not have been able to support it. Once again, I commend the Committee for its work in this field. It was a very long and tedious procedure. Much evidence was called. In one respect it was the most bipartisan committee on which I have served, because there was a genuine desire to establish the ambit of parliamentary privilege. Also in the report, which I again commend to honourable members, there was wise counsel that that privilege which ought not be diluted-because if it is diluted, it is removed-also ought not be abused. The report pointed out fully the responsibility of members and senators in the matter of privilege. It is my pleasure to support the legislation. Mr TICKNER(Hughes)(10.58) —I support the Parliamentary Privileges Bill, but I confess at the outset that I have a very different view about the adequacy of the Bill to reflect community and public standards on the role of parliamentary privilege in the 1980s. Parliamentary privilege is all about power. There are very few occasions on which this Parliament sees fit to give up any power that it might have. Rather, the exact opposite has been shown to be the case over a very long period. After some 86 years we are still stuck with the rather moribund and totally inadequate powers and procedures that we had conferred on us as a new nation by section 49 of the Australian Constitution. Soon after I came into the Parliament I became a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Privileges. Had honourable members known of my very liberal view of the role of privilege, perhaps they would not have appointed me to the Committee. Without divulging any of the confidential deliberations of the Committee, I must say that I am reinforced in my liberal view of the role of privilege as a result of being a member of that Committee. My view is that members of parliament should not confer on themselves, other than in extremely narrow and defined circumstances, powers and authorities that are not conferred on members of the outside community. Unless it is for a very good reason, I do not believe that we can have one law for the people who are privileged to sit on these green leather benches and other laws for people in the wider community. It is a matter of some concern that there is not more media interest in the debate about the reform of parliamentary privilege because it is often the case that members of the Press Gallery have their necks on the Privileges Committee chopping block. It is clearly the case that there exist, and will continue to exist after the passage of this Bill, draconian powers in the hands of the Parliament and indeed of the Privileges Committee itself, which vitally affect the role of the Press. Of course, it is public knowledge that there is currently an inquiry by the Privileges Committee into a matter involving the media. I commend this debate to representatives of the media and encourage public awareness of this whole issue of parliamentary privilege because I believe that the more public debate there is, the more likely it is that this House will adopt standards and values that are more in keeping with those broader community values. I do not want my views to be interpreted for a moment as a condemnation of the report of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege and its work because I truly believe it is miraculous that such a diverse group of people could reach agreement on such important matters of reform. My views are intended to be constructive and encourage the House to go further than the mere terms of this Bill to give effect to the Spender Committee recommendations. I am aware that both the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) and Senator Gareth Evans in the Senate have indicated that this Bill should not be seen in isolation. I am aware that certain resolutions have been tabled and will form a subject of debate. My point is essentially this: The Bill on its own is not an adequate reform of the law and it still leaves in place the draconian powers to which I referred earlier in my remarks. For example, it does not guarantee the rights of representation for people who are affected by the Privileges Committee and it is still possible for journalists to be brought before the Privileges Committee without representation. It is still possible for people to be sent to gaol because they have arguably breached parliamentary privilege without their having been adequately informed of the charges against them, without having a right to cross-examine witnesses and without an adequate right of appeal, as I see it. However, that matter has been addressed to a very minor degree by an aspect of the Bill to which I will refer in a moment. It is a very important and historic step that this Parliament should take an initiative to do something about the long outstanding matters referred to in section 49 of the Constitution, but on its own this Bill is a woefully inadequate first step. I urge members of the public, the media and my colleagues in the House to go further and at the earliest possible opportunity to give effect to those resolutions which at the moment have only been tabled and are light years away from implementation because of the many matters to be resolved. Mr Hodgman —The Constitution is not a bad first step, you know. Mr TICKNER —The honourable member for Denison interjects. If I were able to respond to him within the confines of the Privileges Committee, I would be so bold as to put him in his place and remind him of his own on-the-record views of the role of privilege. The fact is that the Bill on its own does nothing to give effect to principles of natural justice. I would have thought the honourable member, as a member of the legal profession, would have been at one with me in supporting those principles. The Bill does not do this and we should do something about it by adopting those resolutions at the earliest opportunity. Having said that, I wish to refer briefly to some important elements contained in the Parliamentary Privileges Bill. These include the requirement that it is an essential element of an offence that it causes or is likely to cause improper interference with the free exercise by a House, a committee or a member of it or his functions. There is a partial-and I emphasise partial-abolition of contempt by defamation. There is provision for imprisonment for a fixed period, not exceeding six months, and a power to impose fines. Presently there is no effective penalty against a corporation. At this juncture I make the point that one of the effects of this Bill is to give the Parliament greater powers to punish than it had before-that is, before we put in place the human rights and natural justice safeguards that are so important to the exercise of that power. I emphasise that we now have a greater power to fine and imprison, but no safeguards to the right of the individual until we do something about these resolutions. There is a requirement for resolutions and warrants to state the grounds for incarceration so that the High Court will have some ability to review the adequacy of the grounds-not nearly enough opportunity, but an important first step. The Bill contains important statutory protection for witnesses against intimidation and there are more detailed definitions of `proceedings in Parliament'-the words used in the Bill of Rights. There is the statutory requirement that witnesses before committees may not be examined or cross-examined in other tribunals on their parliamentary evidence. That matter has been referred to in greater detail in the course of this debate. Honourable members should have regard to the debate which took place in the Senate. The last reform to which I referred-that is, the restriction of examination or cross-examination in other tribunals-formed the substance of the debate by senators and, I believe to a large extent, by honourable members of this House. But there has been very little debate about the broader questions of privilege to which I have alluded and which I believe are so important to the future of the legislation. The springboard to change and to give effect to our powers under section 49 of the Constitution was not even the Spender report itself, but rather the ancillary matter and the judgments of Mr Justice Hunt and others which have been referred to in the course of the debate. Nevertheless, I welcome the initiative which has been taken. I referred before to the partial abolition of contempt by defamation which is mentioned in clause 6 of the Bill. This is only a partial abolition and there is still power in the House to punish for contempt by defamation in relation to words spoken or acts done in the presence of the House or of a committee. That was not a recommendation of the Joint Select Committee and while I believe that the reform should be supported because it at least goes part of the way, I believe that the original recommendation of the Joint Select Committee was a proper one. It was well argued and I remind honourable members of what was said on page 84 of the Joint Committee report: The power to punish for defamatory contempts is not only unnecessary but is fundamentally inimical to freedom of speech, especially when the subject of attack is an institution, or Members of an institution, entitled to absolute immunity in the exercise of freedom of speech and thus able to defend itself and themselves in the most robust manner. I believe that those are valid principles and that defamatory contempt should be abolished in its entirety. I do not propose to move an amendment to the Bill because obviously I do not believe that that would be a fruitful exercise. This Bill should be supported as is because the whole history of attempts to reform the law of contempt is a legacy of broken bodies and failed exercises dating back to 1908 when each House of Parliament appointed a select committee. The committee was critical of procedures that had been inherited from the Commons. It made a number of important recommendations, which were far reaching, but nothing was done to implement them until, in the words of the joint committee report, they were disinterred from the archives in 1938. In that year a Bill was drafted to give effect to the recommendations of the joint committee of 1908, but it was never introduced. So here we are at this historic point in Australian federation and it would be very foolish for any honourable member to attempt to grandstand by moving some amendment. What we ought to have is the full support of the House for this very important first step, and I give that support. However, as I have indicated, I believe that we ought to go further in a number of respects. I have reiterated my view that everything depends on the subsequent resolutions, and I stand by that. But I shall demonstrate that point in a very clear way by referring to one practical case, namely, the case of Fitzpatrick and Browne, and I shall demonstrate what happened in that case. I indicate that I believe that very little, if anything, is changed by the passage of this Bill, and thus there is the need to go much further. In the case of Fitzpatrick and Browne, which as we are all aware of course is part of Australian legal and political folklore, an attempt was made by Mr Fitzpatrick before the Committee to seek legal representation. One of the great ironies is that the Committee, in its wisdom, saw fit to permit him the right to address the Committee on that question, and having heard from him it then refused him any right to legal representation. It is a matter of concern to me, and I think it ought to be to all historians, that despite the enormous lapse of time since that case we still do not know what happened before the Committee of Privileges. The evidence cited by the Committee in its report is only a small portion of the transcript and to this date the full transcript has still never been made public. The hearing was heard in Canberra, in camera, and, of course, there were no Press accounts of it. I am pleased to say that one of the pioneering initiatives of the current Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege is the permission for the first time of a form of legal representation, albeit a limited one, and also for the first time in Australian political history the holding of public hearings in relation to the reference that it has before it. To return to the case of Fitzpatrick and Browne: When the gentlemen came before the Bar of the House there was a denial of the right to legal representation and subsequently the Prime Minister moved that each respondent be committed to the custody of the Chief Commissioner of Police in Canberra and they were to be kept in custody until a specified date or until an earlier dissolution of the Parliament. Despite an attempt to secure their discharge, the majority did not support that view and as a result they languished in gaol. In fact, there were only 10 members of the House of Representatives, of whom Dr Evatt was one, who diligently stood in support of a more liberal view, a restricted view of parliamentary privilege, but he, of course, together with nine others, was very much in the minority. Having regard to the debates of the House in the Fitzpatrick and Browne case, it really does reek of star chamber treatment on the part of those who were there. When Mr Browne came before the House-and I carry no brief for Mr Browne, but I believe that every person in this country when faced with the threat of imprisonment ought to have right of access to a lawyer and to other principles of natural justice-he said: I have been convicted of an offence which, according to Australian justice, has not been fully proved. I base that on this: it is considered the right -- With that, he was interrupted by the Speaker, who said: You will take your hands off the bar. Mr Browne obviously did that and he continued: It is considered the right of every Australian citizen charged with an offence that he, first, must be charged; and secondly, he must have legal representation. That is denied to me even here. He must have the case against him proved, and he need not answer incriminating questions. Then there is the fact that he must have the right to cross-examine his accuser. And lastly, he must have the right to appeal. There is also another inherent right which is always observed in every court in this Commonwealth, and every court where there is any reasonable conception of justice-that he shall present his case in an atmosphere which shall not have had the effect of prejudging him before he comes in. That is always, I believe, an inherent weakness of the whole law and practice of parliamentary privilege. Having referred to that case, I ask the House: What will be changed as a result of this Bill? The House will have a greater power to be able to imprison. The only other matter that will be changed is that the House will be required to state the reasons for incarceration. I have alluded to the fact that there will be some scope for limited-and I emphasise `limited'-judicial review as a result of that provision in clause 9 of the Bill. However, other than that, all the injustice and the indecency of the Fitzpatrick and Browne case is still part and parcel of the powers and privileges of members of Federal Parliament, and something must be done about that. While I commend the resolutions that have been tabled, unless we pass them this whole exercise will be viewed by historians as a totally inadequate response. We must go further; the whole thrust of my contribution to this debate is to urge the House to do that at the earliest opportunity. I allude to one other practical situation which commonly arises and which I believe ought to be addressed, and I refer to the hypothetical case where journalists print and publish material that has been leaked from a committee of the Parliament. That of course is a breach of privilege. Under the existing law it is possible for journalists to be called before the Privileges Committee without legal representation, without the application of any of the principles of natural justice to which I have referred and in fact to be sent to gaol as a result of publishing material which amounts to a breach of privilege. In relation to those past practices, what is changed by the current Bill? The answer is that the only thing that is changed by this Bill, as I understand it, is the requirement for a warrant to state the reasons for committal-which is a limited reform. The other aspect is that there is no continuation of the concept of defamation of parliament and, importantly, the Bill gives the power to the Parliament to impose a fine on corporations. So, in fact, the present Bill gives further power to the House at least in one respect. I commend the Joint Committee. I commend the House for introducing this reform. It is an important first step, but until we go the whole way towards implementing the report we are failing in our duty to the people of Australia. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Keogh) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr RUDDOCK(Dundas)(11.18) —First, I want to commend my colleague the honourable member for Hughes (Mr Tickner) on his very thoughtful address. In listening to the debate last night and today what has surprised me is the extent to which the passion that privilege matters have in the past generated has been largely absent from this debate. Mr Hodgman —So far. Mr RUDDOCK —Well, I do not know; I did not see the name of the honourable member for Denison on the list. However, the fact is that this Bill has two purposes. To this point of time the debate has largely concentrated on the second purpose, as stated in the explanatory memorandum. The two purposes are: (a) to provide for the principal changes in the law recommended by the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege; and (b) to avoid the consequences of the interpretation of- freedom of speech in parliament- . . . by the judgments of Mr Justice Cantor and Mr Justice Hunt in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. That was essentially to deal with matters arising out of the case of the late Mr Justice Murphy. As I said, the debate last evening concentrated largely on that latter matter. I am delighted that the honourable member for Hughes, in absenting himself from the Joint Committee of Public Accounts, as I am at this point, has seen fit to deal with this broader question of the recommendations of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege. A number of changes to the way in which parliamentary privilege is to be dealt with are proposed by this legislation. I would like to detail those for the sake of adequately enabling me to give expression to some views on some particular matters at a later time. The first is the abolition of the category of contempt involving defamation of the Houses and their members. The second is the statutory codification of the penalties which may be imposed by the Houses for contempt. The third is the abolition of the power of expulsion of members. The fourth is the specification of cause of any penalty of imprisonment imposed by a House and consequent review by the courts. The fifth is uniform, qualified privilege in relation to parliamentary proceedings. The sixth is the protection of witnesses. The seventh is limitation of duration of immunities from civil arrest and compulsory attendance at court. These matters are important in themselves but, as the honourable member for Hughes mentioned, they are to be followed by the proposed resolutions of which the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) gave notice last night, which lay down procedures for more adequately protecting witnesses appearing before parliamentary committees and to give the Parliament power to deal with that matter. That will be the question upon which I will conclude my discussion. Like the honourable member for Hughes, I am surprised that on this matter, which involves a free vote of members of Parliament, the list of speakers is so short; I am surprised that the passion has largely left the debate; and I am surprised that, except perhaps for Australian Associated Press, there are no journalists of note in the Press gallery concerned about this matter. I was involved in a matter of defamatory contempt at one time. Some might say that it brought me some notoriety and some might say that it has had a longer impact upon me in this Parliament than might ordinarily be thought the case. The matter that I referred in 1980-81 to the House of Representatives Committee of Privileges was contentious at the time. It involved a good deal of consideration by the Privileges Committee. The members at that time were the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Donald Cameron); Mr Birney, who has left the Parliament; the Minister for Communications (Mr Duffy), who is still with us; the honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman), who is still with us; the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Holding), who is still with us; the honourable member for Hawker (Mr Jacobi), who is still with us; Mr Jarman, who has left us; the Minister for Science (Mr Barry Jones), who is still with us; the honourable member for Wide Bay (Mr Millar), who is still with us; the honourable member for Barker (Mr Porter), who is still with us; and the Minister for Territories (Mr Scholes), who is still with us. What interested me was that the matter led to dissenting reports by the Minister for Communications and the Minister for Science, a second series of dissenting reports by Mr Birney, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and the honourable member for Hawker, and a third dissenting report by the Minister for Territories. Those dissenting reports dealt with a number of aspects of parliamentary privilege and in particular the extent to which the courts ought to be involved in looking at and reviewing some decisions that the Parliament might want to take, such as whether the Parliament ought to be a prosecutor in relation to privilege offences or whether it should maintain its role as a court to deal with matters in which the Parliament is involved. These are important questions. They give rise to some of the questions that will follow in the examination of the proposed resolutions yet, notwithstanding the intense interest at that time in dealing with one particular journalist and the large number of dissenting reports, here we have a Bill which will abolish once and for all the right of the Parliament to deal with the question of contempt involving defamation of Houses and their members. I am not here to oppose that proposed resolution. I raised the matter of privilege in 1980 because I believed at that time that it was an important issue which ought to be pursued and that I was the best person to raise it. I did so because my colleagues were categorised in the broadest terms in a way which was, in my judgment, harsh and unjust and because it was appropriate that the matter should be reviewed. It was referred to the Privileges Committee. I had no quarrel with the judgment that my colleagues formed on the way in which that matter ought to have been dealt with, nor with the view that they formed at that time that the Parliament, when considering my proposed resolution, might have considered whether it could have been dealt with in a much easier and simpler way than by reference to the Privileges Committee for a full examination. If one believes that the abolition of the question of defamatory contempt of the Parliament is a good result one would have to say that the reference was important because it gave rise to the inquiry in which the Joint Committee recommendations were able to emerge. Thus, for those with an interest in the question of the abolition of the contempt power, one would have to say that that reference achieved its abolition. I want to make the point in this context that the removal of the power of the Parliament to deal with the question of contempt will ensure that the Parliament is the subject of a good deal more robust discussion and consideration not only in the media but also in the community. That will be the consequence of this proposed resolution. The extent to which individual members might be able to claim that they have been defamed may well be able to be redressed in the courts-that was the case in the past-if they have been identified particularly, but there will be no redress for the parliamentary institution, that right for the Parliament to be able to redress it having been removed. We may be able to bring it back if the need arises, but it will be removed. My colleague the honourable member for Hughes regards the abolition as good. He said in his discussion that the Parliament has a capacity to defend itself. I must say that I have found that those who seek to defend themselves are the worst advocates. The Parliament in trying to defend itself against a determined attack by the media on the institution would be, in my judgment, in a very poor position to defend itself. As I said, I do not quarrel with the abolition of the defamatory contempt provision. I believe it puts on us as members of Parliament-this is the point I wanted to make in this debate-a far greater responsibility to be cognisant of the fact that the way in which we conduct ourselves, the way in which we participate in debates and the way in which we refer to each other and deal with each other reflects upon the Parliament, the institution, ourselves and our colleagues. I would certainly hope that, as we accept the greater responsibility that the carriage of this Bill will impose upon us, we will recognise that we are responsible for the reputation of the Parliament. I hope that we do not bring upon ourselves, by the way in which we conduct ourselves, contempt and ridicule. First and foremost, I hope that as we discuss issues we will discuss them for what they are-issues, questions of principle and questions of fact-and that we will leave personalities, to the greatest extent possible, out of the debates in which we participate. In other words, we will play the issues, the ball, and not the man. To the extent that we are involved in the criticism of individuals and the destruction of personalities in the Parliament, as part of the gladiatorial contest, we have one of the reasons that this Parliament finds that its reputation is sullied. It is one of the reasons that the institution itself is often under attack in the community. It is one of the reasons that we find, as we move around, that people say to us: `Why can't you raise behaviour in the Parliament to a higher standard? Why can't you set an example?' It does not matter how I attempt to explain that we are very much a creature of the community of which we are a part, people do not readily accept that argument. There is an expectation that we will observe higher personal standards and set an example to the rest of the community. So I make that point again: I think the passing of this Bill will ensure that we, as members of parliament, carry a greater responsibility. In relation to the Oakes matter I say, as one who was involved, that I know it has not had a great deal of discussion in this particular debate. But personally, I have put the matter very much behind me. I hope that Mr Oakes, who, I know, took the matter very personally, has put it behind him and recognises the advances that have arisen from it and that there has been very considerable progress in terms of the first Committee examination, the Joint Committee report and the legislation that we are now dealing with. I would like to commend my colleagues, particularly the honourable member for North Sydney, (Mr Spender) who put a great deal of time and effort into not only the development of the report but also a private member's Bill. I am pleased that some of its recommendations have been picked up in this Bill that we are dealing with today. As I said, the second matter that I want to deal with is the resolutions that have been moved by the Attorney. There have, over time, been numerous reports that have dealt with this question. In 1972 a parliamentary paper of very considerable quality was prepared by the then Attorney-General, the late Senator Ivor Greenwood and the then Solicitor-General a former member of this House, Mr R. J. Ellicott, QC. That paper was very useful because it dealt with the important constitutional provisions such as the sources of power to the House to appoint committees of inquiry. It dealt with the way in which the House of Commons and the United States deal with this matter, as well as ourselves. It recognised that a change was occurring in the way in which this Parliament exercised scrutiny of the Executive. It first highlighted the importance of taking evidence before committees under the existing law-oral evidence, documentary evidence, Crown privilege and so on. It detailed, in a very comprehensive way, some of the steps that might be taken by the Parliament to deal with this question of protection of witnesses. It seems to me that we are here now in 1987 dealing essentially with matters which were first raised back in 1972, and perhaps before that. So when we do come to deal with these resolutions that the Attorney has proposed, it will be a very momentous occasion, a very important occasion and one which has had a very long gestation. But, in my view, it is more important now that these matters be codified and dealt with. I had the privilege of hearing Mr R. J. Ellicott, QC, address a meeting on Friday a fortnight ago. He was talking about the new Parliament House. Rather than taking his comments as if they are my own, I make it very clear that they are his comments. He was at one point in time the Minister for Territories. He had some responsibility in relation to the building of the new Parliament House. He made the point that it will be a monumental building, which could be a great monument to the institution of parliament, or a monumental flop. This could occur if in the new building housing members of parliament with its very large new committee rooms, the committee procedures are not developed to a point where we are able to review more effectively not only the Executive but also a large amount of the legislation that this Parliament has to process. It seems to me that one of the important steps in enhancing the committee structure and ensuring that it is able more effectively to deal with the review of legislation and of the Executive is to have in place adequate provisions for the protection of witnesses and adequate provisions to ensure that the parliamentary privilege is able properly to ensure that those obligations of the Parliament are undertaken. So later we will come to discuss those draft resolutions, the carriage of which will be a very important part in ensuring that this Parliament is better able to perform its role through the parliamentary committee system. Dr KLUGMAN(Prospect)(11.36) —I shall be brief in this debate. I feel very strongly about clause 16 of the Parliamentary Privileges Bill. I feel it is completely wrong for us to include it in its present form, and I am sorry to hear that the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender) has withdrawn his objection to it. I agree completely that people should not be able to be prosecuted on the basis of evidence given before parliamentary committees. But I feel very strongly that, where evidence is given before parliamentary committees which contradicts evidence given by prosecution witnesses in a court case, the witnesses should be able to be cross-examined on that evidence, or at least that it be possible that the evidence ought to be put to the jury on the question of credit. For the benefit of those people who will follow this debate in Hansard, I will quote from the explanatory memorandum attached to the Parliamentary Privileges Bill, which explains the legislation. On page 12, in respect of sub-clause (3), it is stated: This sub-clause prevents the use of parliamentary proceedings in court or tribunal proceedings . . . It then gives part (a), which is not relevant, followed by: (b) to attack or support the evidence or credibility of persons giving evidence in court or tribunal proceedings; and (c) to draw inferences or conclusions for the purposes of the court or tribunal proceedings. On page 13, referring to part (b), it states: This would prevent, for example . . . a parliamentary witness's evidence being used to establish their motives or intention for the purpose of supporting a criminal or civil action against them, or against another person. I state that I very strongly support the proposition that it should not be possible to use that evidence in a criminal or civil action against the witness. But I think it ought to be able to be used to protect another person. Finally, again on page 13 of the explanatory memorandum, referring to part (c), it is stated: This would prevent, for example, a jury being invited to infer matters from . . . evidence of parliamentary witnesses in the course of a criminal or civil action against them, or another person. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that there may be a possibility of somebody being framed. Let me give a simple example-the only one I can think of off the top of my head. A witness appears before a parliamentary committee and says that some public servant or politician-it does not matter who-was bribed. The witness says he saw the person receive $5,000 in $100 notes. Either at the time of the committee hearings or at some later stage somebody realises that when the alleged offence took place $100 notes did not exist. A person is later prosecuted in a criminal case and the witness now changes his story and says that he saw that person receive $5,000 in $20 notes. Obviously, under ordinary conditions the defence lawyer would want to cross-examine the witness on the basis that he originally said that he definitely saw that person pay $100 notes. Of course these were not in existence at the time the alleged offence occurred. Under the legislation we are now debating that sort of evidence cannot be referred to in the defence of a person who is on trial. In a letter dated 30 April from the honourable member for North Sydney-I think he sent it to all of us-he, in effect, said what I have said. He stated: For example, a prosecution witness in a criminal trial who gives evidence totally contrary to evidence given by him before a Parliamentary Committee could not be cross-examined on his Parliamentary Committee evidence for the purposes of proving he was giving perjured evidence. The result could be that an innocent person could be convicted of a serious criminal charge and sentenced to a heavy term of imprisonment on the basis of such perjured evidence. In my view this is contrary to basic notions of justice. It is not needed for the protection of the privileges of Parliament. It could do great injustice. Therefore it should be removed and I will be proposing an amendment to that effect. Before he wrote that letter and in the middle of last year when the original Bill was proposed, I completely agreed with him. When this matter was put before the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party's meeting and a meeting of the Caucus Administrative and Legal Committee I opposed it on both occasions because I could see this difficulty. It is a pity that the then President of the Senate and probably the present President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House have ignored the points that I have made. I am sure that nobody in this House would like to see this farce because this sort of evidence could even have been given in a public hearing, not an in camera hearing. People would have read that the witness gave in court evidence different from that which he originally gave before a parliamentary committee. Yet nobody can ask him any relevant questions. I find it extremely depressing that we are proceeding with this piece of legislation. In passing-in some ways this is relevant to what I have been saying-I refer to clause 4 of the Bill on the essential element of offences which states: Conduct (including the use of words) does not constitute an offence against a House unless it amounts, or is intended or likely to amount, to an improper interference with the free exercise by a House or committee of its authority or functions, or with the free performance by a member of the member's duties as a member. Last night the honourable member for North Sydney explained his reason for withdrawing his amendment and I accept it. It was put to him that if his amendment were successful probably no time would be made available for the legislation to be debated in the Senate and there would be great difficulty in having any legislation passed. Having been associated with the drafting of the Bill and, in some ways, in the sense of having been the Chairman of the original Committee-the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege-he was keen to get the Bill through the House. If the Leader of the House (Mr Young) or anyone else made the statement that if the legislation were not passed in its present form it would never be passed at all, I would consider that to be improper conduct. Mr Spender —That was not said to me. Dr KLUGMAN —I mean that if that had happened, but I accept the honourable member's explanation. The words can be put in many forms but I am driving at the definition of the word `improper'. It is not a precise term at all. What I consider improper another person may not consider improper at all. The Leader of the House-he is not in the House at present; he is a good personal friend of mine-would consider pressure of all kinds in order to get Government Business through the House to be perfectly proper. I may disagree with him; depending on the issue other members may well disagree with him at any time. We are being quite hypocritical and silly when we refer to improper pressure. The honourable member for Kennedy (Mr Katter) is the only member of the Queensland National Party in the House. The question of improper pressure arose in his Party. I will not get involved in the argument but it is obviously true that all of us, according to some members of the public at least, are subject to what they would consider to be improper pressure on the odd occasion. The threat of the withdrawal of pre-selection or endorsement could be considered to be improper pressure in some ways. I accepted the fact when I was elected as a Labor Party member that I had to sign a statement that I would vote according to the majority decisions that are made in the Federal parliamentary Labor Party. I accepted that proposition and therefore I do not consider it to be improper pressure. I was aware of the situation at the time I decided to become a Labor member of parliament. Obviously there would be significant disagreement in the community at large on what is proper or improper pressure. It applies to all political parties. It was highlighted recently in the case of the Queensland National Party. Members of that Party were clearly told that unless they voted a certain way at their Party meetings they would lose their endorsement. I query the wording of the clause. I do not want to speak any longer but I feel very strongly that the House is doing a disservice to a rational approach of parliamentary privilege by not pursuing the question that arises from clause 16. Somebody could be convicted of an offence by a jury and not be able-I think all of us would accept this-to point out that a witness had changed his or her evidence in a relatively short period. I thank the House for listening to me. I am sorry that the amendment is not being proceeded with. Mr HODGMAN(Denison)(11.49) —I count it an honour to take part in this historic debate. I have listened with great care to the comments of the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) and would like to make some brief responses to them. I think the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender), the shadow Attorney-General, did the right thing by withdrawing the amendment for the reason that, without its being the wish of this House that such would happen, any amendment which tends to qualify the operation of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights would have added to the very confusion and uncertainty which this legislation is endeavouring to put to an end. I put to the honourable member that there are three possibilities which would reduce substantially the chance of the sort of injustice to which he adverted, namely, that an accused person could not utilise the prior inconsistent statement made by the witness if that statement had been made to a committee of the Parliament. I put it to honourable members that counsel for the accused would be quite within his rights to ask this straight question: `Have you on any previous occasion said that the money was paid in $100 notes?'. That question would not relate specifically to the proceedings before the committee. If the witness said `Yes, I have-- Dr Klugman —What if he said no? Mr HODGMAN —Just a moment; if a witness said `Yes I have', one would have him. I will come to what would happen if he said no. Secondly, it is, in all modesty, my professional experience after 25 years in the law that witnesses do not just make one prior inconsistent statement. It is quite probable that the hypothetical witness, having said what he said to the committee, might also have said it to other persons. In other words, if he says no, one cannot say `Well, didn't you say to the committee x, y and z', because the amendment we would pass would prevent that. But if one puts it to him in such a way that he does not know whether one knows that, in addition to saying it to the committee, he said it to somebody else, one may well find him saying: `As a matter of fact I did say words to that effect to a journalist on the way out of Parliament House in Canberra'. In other words, he has repeated it outside to another person. The third point, of course, which the honourable member for Prospect has not mentioned-and which has only just come to me; I have quickly checked with the honourable member for North Sydney and I am sure I am right-is this: It would be open to the committee, if it were still sitting, or to the Privileges Committee of this Parliament-- Mr Spender —Or the House itself. Mr HODGMAN —Or the House itself to bring that person back before us to be dealt with for having given false evidence to the committee, in that he referred to $100 notes to the committee and $20 notes to the court. I do not want to take it further except to say I am sympathetic to both the motives of the honourable member for North Sydney in the original amendment that he proposed, and the views which the honourable member for Prospect has expressed, because I can see that there can be a situation in which an injustice could occur. The final crunch point is this: If that witness referred to $20 notes in the court, ipso facto his evidence before the committee was false. It was evidence given on oath, and it would constitute a very serious contempt and a very serious breach of privilege for a witness deliberately to give false evidence to a committee of the Parliament. It would be at least on the same basis as perjury in a court of law. I believe that in those circumstances the House would bring that person back. He is then caught, is he not, on the horns of a dilemma because his evidence in the court has directly contradicted his evidence before the committee. Mr Deputy Speaker, this is an historic debate. The debates of the founding fathers in constitutional conventions are interesting in that there was no real disagreement between delegates from all States and from all sides of the political spectrum on this point. Section 49 of the Constitution states: The powers, privileges, and immunities of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and of the members and the committees of each House, shall be such as are declared by the Parliament, and until declared shall be those of the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom, and of its members and committees, at the establishment of the Commonwealth. That is what is stated in section 49. The date of the establishment of the Commonwealth, of course, was 1 January 1901. Here we are, in 1987, for the first time approaching the situation of declaring, as the founding fathers invited us so to do, at the constitutional conventions in the 1980s. Mr Barry Jones —We did not want to rush into it. Mr HODGMAN —That would be the understatement of the century. This legislation is half-way there, largely, I believe, as a result of the work of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege. I pay tribute particularly to the shadow Attorney-General, the honourable member for North Sydney, on the work of that Committee, and the initiative of the Government in bringing forward this Bill, brought as it was uniquely before Parliament by the then Mr President and our Madam Speaker. I believe that that is a significant and important fact, because the Speaker and the President are, in their own right, the protectors of the members of this House and of the Senate and are therefore duty bound to uphold the rights and privileges of all the members of the Parliament. This gets us half-way there. But the next and fundamental step is the passage of the resolution. I am in a curious position in that I have been a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Privileges since 1975. I chose quite deliberately not to sit on the Joint Select Committee which was chaired by the honourable member for North Sydney, because I had formed certain views. One of the matters which caused me to form views was the Oakes case to which the honourable member for Dundas (Mr Ruddock) has adverted. I formed certain views in relation to whether we as a parliament should continue to uphold the privileges or whether we should go along with the proposal that the question of privilege be handed over to the courts. In other words, I had a number of preconceived views. I had views about the right of legal representation. I had a view about public hearings. In the Oakes case, it is a matter of public record-unintentional, but I can speak of it quite freely without being involved myself in any breach of privilege-that when Mr Oakes sought the right to be legally represented and appeared at the hearing, the Committee decided to hear his counsel, the Hon. T. E. F. Hughes QC, on the question of his right to be heard on Mr Oakes's behalf. After hearing Mr Hughes, and Mr Hughes and Mr Oakes withdrew-members of the Press were well aware of that, as they were waiting outside-in one of those horrible accidents that can happen they were let back into the room whilst I, as Deputy Chairman of the Committee, was writing out the decision of the Committee in longhand. The Chairman of the Committee, the present member for Fadden (Mr Donald Cameron), said to me sotto voce: `Could you hurry up, please'. I turned and, to my horror, saw that Mr Hughes, his junior, about half a dozen instructing solicitors and Mr Oakes were back in the committee room. We had to rule on that occasion that, as at 1 January 1901, counsel were not permitted to appear before the House of Commons Privileges Committee. Mr Connolly —House of Commons? Mr HODGMAN —The House of Commons Privileges Committee, because section 49 translated and transferred the rights, privileges and procedures of the House of Commons to this House. It did not matter what we thought about it. I will be quick because I gave a commitment to take only 10 minutes. I hope the Parliament and the people have noted that in the current matter before the House of Representatives Privileges Committee-I cannot speak as to the matters which are in camera because that would be the grossest breach of privilege-as a matter of public record, because the public transcript is available, two significant things have occurred. The first is that the hearings have been in public. That has occurred for the first time. The House might say: `You were wrong to do that because public hearings were not available in the House of Commons in 1901'. But we made that decision and we have chanced our arm. The second is that counsel have been heard in public as to their right to be heard. That has produced a ruling from the Committee, as enunciated by the Chairman, the honourable member for Canning (Mr Gear). That is a matter of public record. The time commitment I gave has expired. It is better to be quick in a matter such as this. We have gone so fast in 87 years that I would hate to spoil the momentum. I commend the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) and I commend the Government. I commend with pride the Opposition view, as so properly put by the honourable member for North Sydney. I conclude by making just one fundamental comment. The day this House ever contemplates handing over the question of privilege to anybody outside of this House, judicial or otherwise, will be the day that this Parliament abdicates its responsibilities to itself, to every individual member thereof and to the concept of constitutional parliamentary democracy in this country. I think it is a matter for me to enunciate as strongly as that. I thank the Government and the Opposition for the manner in which this Bill is a step down the line to ensuring that privilege stays within the bounds of this Parliament and is exercised properly by those who are charged with upholding it. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(12.01) —I thank all honourable members for their contribution to this debate, which has been at a very high level and has gone on for a considerable time. We have a unanimous understanding that this House supports parliamentary privilege legislation. It is interesting that we have had to wait so long for privileges to be brought into our own legislative area. I am mindful that section 49 of the Constitution suggests that, until such time as we might provide privileges, we adopt the privileges applying in the House of Commons. As the honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman) has just said, it has taken us some 87 years to do so. Yesterday I sought and was granted leave to table and have incorporated in Hansard proposed resolutions and explanatory notes. Through some misadventure, the resolutions but not the explanatory notes have been incorporated in Hansard. I have been advised by the Clerk that to put the matter in order I should, with the concurrence of the Opposition, again seek leave to table and incorporate in Hansard the proposed resolutions and explanatory notes. I now do so. Leave granted. The documents read as follows- HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE Proposed Resolutions 1. Procedures to be observed by committees for the protection of witnesses That, in their dealings with witnesses, all committees of the House shall observe the following procedures: (1) A witness shall be invited to attend a committee meeting to give evidence. A witness shall be summoned to appear only where the committee has made a decision that the circumstances warrant the issue of a summons. (2) Where a committee desires that a witness produce documents relevant to the committee's inquiry, the witness shall be invited to do so, and an order that documents be produced shall be made only where the committee has made a decision that the circumstances warrant such an order. (3) A witness shall be given reasonable notice of a meeting at which the witness is to appear, and shall be supplied with a copy of the committee's order of reference, a statement of the matters expected to be dealt with during the witness's appearance, and a copy of these procedures. Where appropriate a witness shall be supplied with a transcript of relevant evidence already taken. (4) A witness shall be given opportunity to make a submission in writing before appearing to give oral evidence. (5) Where appropriate, reasonable opportunity shall be given for a witness to raise any matters of concern to the witness relating to the witness's submission or the evidence the witness is to give before the witness appears at a meeting. (6) A witness shall be given reasonable access to any documents that the witness has produced to a committee. (7) A witness shall be offered, before giving evidence, the opportunity to make application, before or during the hearing of the witness's evidence, for any or all of the witness's evidence to be heard in private session, and shall be invited to give reasons for any such application. If the application is not granted, the witness shall be notified of reasons for that decision. (8) Before giving any evidence in private session a witness shall be informed whether it is the intention of the committee to publish or present to the House all or part of that evidence, that it is within the power of the committee to do so, and that the House has the authority to order the production and publication of undisclosed evidence. (9) A chairman of a committee shall take care to ensure that all questions put to witnesses are relevant to the committee's inquiry and that the information sought by those questions is necessary for the purpose of that inquiry. Where a member of a committee requests discussion of a ruling of the chairman on this matter, the committee shall deliberate in private session and determine whether any question which is the subject of the ruling is to be permitted. (10) Where a witness objects to answering any question put to the witness on any ground, including the ground that the question is not relevant or that the answer may incriminate the witness, the witness shall be invited to state the ground upon which objection to answering the question is taken. Unless the committee determines immediately that the question should not be pressed, the committee shall then consider in private session whether it will insist upon an answer to the question, having regard to the relevance of the question to the committee's inquiry and the importance to the inquiry of the information sought by the question. If the committee determines that it requires an answer to the question, the witness shall be informed of that determination and the reasons for the determination, and shall be required to answer the question only in private session unless the committee determines that it is essential to the committee's inquiry that the question be answered in public session. Where a witness declines to answer a question to which a committee has required an answer, the committee shall report the facts to the House. (11) Where a committee has reason to believe that evidence about to be given may reflect adversely on a person, the committee shall give consideration to hearing that evidence in private session. (12) Where a witness gives evidence reflecting adversely on a person and the committee is not satisfied that that evidence is relevant to the committee's inquiry, the committee shall give consideration to expunging that evidence from the transcript of evidence, and to forbidding the publication of that evidence. (13) Where evidence is given which reflects adversely on a person and action of the kind referred to in paragraph (12) is not taken in respect of the evidence, the committee shall provide reasonable opportunity for that person to have access to that evidence and to respond to that evidence by written submission and appearance before the committee. (14) A witness may make application to be accompanied by counsel and to consult counsel in the course of a meeting at which the witness appears. In considering such an application, a committee shall have regard to the need for the witness to be accompanied by counsel to ensure the proper protection of the witness. If an application is not granted, the witness shall be notified of reasons for that decision. (15) A witness accompanied by counsel shall be given reasonable opportunity to consult counsel during a meeting at which the witness appears, and may make application for the reimbursement of legal costs. A committee shall give consideration to reasonable reimbursement of such costs. (16) Where a person incurs expenses in direct consequence of making a submission to a committee or appearing before a committee, the person may make application for reimbursement of the expenses. A committee shall give consideration to reasonable reimbursement of the expenses. (17) An officer of a department of the Commonwealth or of a State shall not be asked to give opinions of matters of policy, and shall be given reasonable opportunity to refer questions asked of the officer to superior officers or to a Minister. (18) Reasonable opportunity shall be afforded to witnesses to make corrections of errors of transcription in the transcipt of their evidence and to put before a committee additional material supplementary to their evidence. (19) Where a committee has any reason to believe that any person has been improperly influenced in respect of evidence which may be given before the committee, or has been subjected to or threatened with any penalty or injury in respect of any evidence given, the committee shall take all reasonable steps to ascertain the facts of the matter. Where the committee considers that the facts disclose that a person may have been improperly influenced or subjected to or threatened with penalty or injury in respect of evidence which may be or has been given before the committee, the committee shall report the facts and its conclusions to the House. 2. Procedures for the protection of witnesses before the Privileges Committee That, in considering any matter referred to it which may involve, or give rise to any allegation of, a contempt, the Committee of Privileges shall observe the procedures set out in this resolution, in addition to the procedures required by the House for the protection of witnesses before committees. Where this resolution is inconsistent with the procedures required by the House for the protection of witnesses, this resolution shall prevail to the extent of the inconsistency. (1) A person shall, as soon as practicable, be informed, in writing, of the nature of any allegations, known to the Committee and relevant to the Committee's inquiry, against the person, and of the particulars of any evidence which has been given in respect of the person. (2) The Committee shall extend to that person all reasonable opportunity to respond to such allegations and evidence by: (a) making written submission to the Committee: (b) giving evidence before the Committee; (c) having other evidence placed before the Committee; and (d) having witnesses examined before the Committee. (3) Where oral evidence is given containing any allegation against, or reflecting adversely on, a person, the Committee shall ensure as far as possible that that person is present during the hearing of that evidence, and shall afford all reasonable opportunity for that person, by counsel or personally, to cross-examine witnesses in relation to that evidence. (4) A person appearing before the Committee may be accompanied by counsel, and shall be given all reasonable opportunity to consult counsel during that appearance. (5) A witness shall not be required to answer in public session any question where the Committee has reason to believe that the answer may incriminate the witness. (6) Witnesses shall be heard by the Committee on oath or affirmation. (7) Hearing of evidence by the Committee shall be conducted in public session, except where: (a) the Committee accedes to a request by a witness that the evidence of that witness be heard in private session; (b) the Committee determines that the interests of a witness would best be protected by hearing evidence in private session; or (c) the Committee considers that circumstances are otherwise such as to warrant the hearing of evidence in private session. (8) The Committee may appoint, on terms and conditions approved by the Speaker, counsel to assist it. (9) The Committee may authorise, subject to rules determined by the Committee, the examination by counsel of witnesses before the Committee. (10) As soon as practicable after the Committee has determined findings to be included in the Committee's report to the House, and prior to the presentation of the report, a person affected by those findings shall be acquainted with the findings and afforded all reasonable opportunity to make submissions to the Committee, in writing and orally, on those findings. The Committee shall take such submissions into account before making its report to the House. (11) The Committee may recommend to the Speaker the reimbursement of costs of representation of witnesses before the Committee, and the Speaker is authorised to make reasonable reimbursement of such costs. (12) Before appearing before the Committee a witness shall be given a copy of this resolution. 3. Criteria to be taken into account when determining matters relating to contempt The House declares that it will take into account the following criteria when determining whether matters possibly involving contempt should be referred to the Committee of Privileges and whether a contempt has been committed, and requires the Committee of Privileges to take these criteria into account when inquiring into any matter referred to it: (a) the principle that the power of the House to adjudge and deal with contempts should be used only where it is necessary to provide reasonable protection for the House and its committees and for members against improper acts tending substantially to obstruct them in the performance of their functions, and should not be used in respect of matters which appear to be of a trivial nature or unworthy of the attention of the House; (b) the existence of any remedy other than that power for any act which may be held to be a contempt; and (c) whether a person who committed any act which may be held to be a contempt: (i) knowingly committed that act, or (ii) had any reasonable excuse for the commission of that act. 4. Criteria to be taken into account by the Speaker in determining whether a motion arising from a matter of privilege should be given precedence of other business Notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders, in determining whether a motion arising from a matter of privilege should have precedence of other business, the Speaker shall have regard only to the following criteria: (a) the principle that the power of the House to adjudge and deal with contempts should be used only where it is necessary to provide reasonable protection for the House and its committees and for members against improper acts tending substantially to obstruct them in the performance of their functions, and should not be used in respect of matters which appear to be of a trivial nature or unworthy of the attention of the House; and (b) the existence of any remedy other than that power for any act which may be held to be a contempt. 5. Protection of persons referred to in the House (1) Where a person who has been referred to by name, or in such a way as to be readily identified, in the House, makes a submission in writing to the Speaker: (a) claiming that the person has been adversely affected in reputation or in respect of dealings or associations with others, or injured in occupation, trade, office or financial credit, or that the person's privacy has been unreasonably invaded, by reason of that reference to the person; and (b) requesting that the person be able to incorporate an appropriate response in the parliamentary record; if the Speaker is satisfied: (c) that the subject of the submission is not so obviously trivial or the submission so frivolous or vexatious as to make it inappropriate that it be considered by the Committee of Privileges; and (d) that it is practicable for the Committee of Privileges to consider the submission under this resolution; the Speaker shall refer the submission to that Committee. (2) Where a submission is referred to the Committee of Privileges under paragraph (1), the Committee may determine not to consider the submission if the Committee considers that the subject of the submission is not sufficiently serious or the submission is frivolous or vexatious. (3) If the Committee pursuant to paragraph (2) decides not to consider a submission referred to it, the Committee shall report that decision to the House. (4) If the Committee decides to consider a submission referred to it under this resolution, the Committee shall: (a) invite the person who made the submission to give written or oral evidence to the committee in relation to the submission; (b) make the submission available to a member who referred in the House to that person and invite that member to give written or oral evidence to the Committee in relation to the submission; and (c) invite any other person, including any other member, to give written or oral evidence to the Committee in relation to the submission, if the Committee is satisfied that that person may give evidence relevant to the submission. (5) In considering a submission and receiving evidence under this resolution, the Committee shall meet in private session. (6) The Committee shall not publish a submission referred to it under this resolution, its proceedings or any evidence received by it in relation to such a submission, but may present minutes of its proceedings and all or part of such submissions or evidence to the House. (7) In its report to the House on a submission referred to it under this resolution, the Committee shall report whether persons invited to give evidence in relation to the submission have accepted such invitation, and may make either of the following recommendations: (a) that no further action be taken by the House or by the Committee in relation to the submission; or (b) that a response by the person who made the submission, in terms specified in the report and agreed to by the person and the Committee, be published by the House or incorporated in Hansard. (8) In considering a submission and reporting to the House the Committee shall not consider or judge the truth of any statements made in the House, of the submission or of any evidence received by the Committee. (9) In its report to the House on a submission referred to it under this resolution, the Committee shall not make any recommendations other than those specified in paragraph (7). (10) The Committee shall not present to the House its minutes of proceedings or all or part of any submission or any evidence received by it if the disclosure of that material would have the effect of: (a) unreasonably adversely affecting or injuring a person or unreasonably invading a person's privacy, in the manner referred to in paragraph (1); or (b) unreasonably adding to or aggravating any such adverse effect, injury or invasion of privacy suffered by a person. 6. Matters constituting contempts That, without derogating from its power to determine that particular acts constitute contempts, the House declares, as a matter of general guidance, that breaches of the following prohibitions, and attempts or conspiracies to do the prohibited acts, may be treated by the House as contempts. Interference with the House (1) A person shall not improperly interfere with the free exercise by the House or a committee of its authority, or with the free performance by a member of the member's duties as a member. Improper influence of members (2) A person shall not, by fraud, intimidation, force or threat of any kind, by the offer or promise of any inducement or benefit of any kind, or by other improper means, influence a member in the member's conduct as a member or induce a member to be absent from the House or a committee. Members seeking benefits, etc. (3) A member shall not ask for, receive or obtain, any property or benefit for the member, or another, on any understanding that the member will be influenced in the discharge of the member's duties, or enter into any contract, understanding or arrangement having the effect, or which may have the effect, of controlling or limiting the member's independence or freedom of action as a member, or pursuant to which the member is in any way to act as the representative of any outside body in the discharge of the member's duties. Molestation of members (4) A person shall not inflict any punishment, penalty or injury upon or deprive of any benefit a member on account of the member's conduct as a member. Disturbance of the House (5) A person shall not wilfully disturb the House or a committee while it is meeting, or wilfully engage in any disorderly conduct in the precincts of the House or a committee tending to disturb its proceedings. Service of writs etc (6) A person shall not serve or execute any criminal or civil process in the precincts of the House on a day on which the House meets except with the consent of the House or of a person authorised by the House to give such consent. False reports of proceedings (7) A person shall not wilfully publish any false or misleading report of the proceedings of the House or of a committee. Disobedience of orders (8) A person shall not, without reasonable excuse, disobey a lawful order of the House or of a committee. Obstruction of orders (9) A person shall not interfere with or obstruct another person who is carrying out a lawful order of the House or of a committee. Interference with witnesses (10) A person shall not, by fraud, intimidation, force or threat of any kind, by the offer or promise of any inducement or benefit of any kind, or by other improper means, influence another person in respect of any evidence given or to be given before the House or a committee, or induce another person to refrain from giving such evidence. Molestation of witnesses (11) A person shall not inflict any penalty or injury upon or deprive of any benefit another person on account of any evidence given or to be given before the House or a committee. Offences by witnesses etc (12) A witness before the House or a committee shall not: (a) without reasonable excuse, refuse to make an oath or affirmation or give some similar undertaking to tell the truth when required to do so; (b) without reasonable excuse, refuse to answer any relevant question put to the witness when required to do so; or (c) give any evidence which the witness knows to be false or misleading in a material particular, or which the witness does not believe on reasonable grounds to be true or substantially true in every material particular. (13) A person shall not, without reasonable excuse: (a) refuse or fail to attend before the House or a committee when ordered to do so; or (b) refuse or fail to produce documents, or to allow the inspection of documents, in accordance with an order of the House or of a committee. (14) A person shall not wilfully avoid service of an order of the House or of a committee. (15) A person shall not destroy, damage, forge or falsify any document required to be produced by the House or by a committee. Unauthorised disclosure of evidence etc (16) A person shall not, without the authority of the House or a committee, publish or disclose: (a) a document that has been prepared for the purpose of submission, and submitted, to the House or a committee and has been directed by the House or a committee to be treated as evidence taken in private session or as a document confidential to the House or the committee; (b) any oral evidence taken by the House or a committee in private session, or a report of any such oral evidence; or (c) any proceedings in private session of the House or a committee or any report of such proceedings, unless the House or a committee has published, or authorised the publication of, that document, that oral evidence or a report of those proceedings. 7. Raising of matters of privilege That, notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders, a matter of privilege shall not be brought before the House except in accordance with the following procedures. (1) A member intending to raise a matter of privilege shall notify the Speaker, in writing, of the matter. (2) The Speaker shall consider the matter and determine, as soon as practicable, whether a motion relating to the matter should have precedence of other business, having regard to the criteria set out in any relevant resolution of the House. The Speaker's decision shall be communicated to the member, and, if the Speaker thinks it appropriate, or determines that a motion relating to the matter should have precedence, to the House. (3) A member shall not take any action in relation to, or, refer to, in the House, a matter which is under consideration by the Speaker in accordance with this resolution. (4) Where the Speaker determines that a motion relating to a matter should be given precedence of other business, the member may, at any time when there is no other business before the House, give notice of a motion to refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges. Such notice shall take precedence of all other business on the day for which the notice is given. (5) A determination by the Speaker that a motion relating to a matter should not have precedence of other business does not prevent a member in accordance with other procedures taking action in relation to, or referring to, that matter in the House, subject to the rules of the House. (6) Where notice of a motion is given under paragraph (4) and the House is not expected to meet within the period of one week occurring immediately after the day on which the notice is given, the motion may be moved on that day. 8. Motions relating to contempts That, notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders, a motion to: (a) determine that a person has committed a contempt; or (b) impose a penalty upon a person for a contempt, shall not be moved unless notice of the motion has been given not less than 7 days before the day for moving the motion. 9. Exercise of Freedom of Speech (1) That the House considers that, in speaking in the House or in a committee, members should take the following matters into account: (a) the need to exercise their valuable right of freedom of speech in a responsible manner; (b) the damage that may be done by allegations made in Parliament to those who are the subject of such allegations and to the standing of Parliament; (c) the limited opportunities for persons other than members of Parliament to respond to allegations made in Parliament; (d) the need for members, while fearlessly performing their duties, to have regard to the rights of others; and (e) the desirability of ensuring that statements reflecting adversely on persons are soundly based. (2) That the Speaker, whenever the Speaker considers that it is desirable to do so, may draw the attention of the House to the spirit and the letter of this resolution. 10. Reference in court proceedings to proceedings in the House (1) That, without derogating from the law relating to the use which may be made of proceedings in Parliament under section 49 of the Constitution, and subject to any law and any order of the House relating to the disclosure of proceedings of the House or a committee, the House declares that leave of the House is not required for the admission into evidence, or reference to, records or reports of proceedings in the House or in a committee of the House, or the admission of evidence relating to such proceedings, in proceedings before any court or tribunal. (2) That the practice whereby leave of the House is sought in relation to matters referred to in paragraph (1) be discontinued. (3) That the House should be notified of any admission of evidence or reference to proceedings of the kind referred to in paragraph (1), and the Attorneys-General of the Commonwealth and the States be requested to develop procedures whereby such notification may be given. 11. Consultation between Privileges Committees That, in considering any matter referred to it, the Committee of Privileges may confer with the Committee of Privileges of the Senate. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE PROPOSED RESOLUTIONS Explanatory Notes These notes list the recommendations of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege on which the proposed resolutions are based, and indicate the nature of and the reasons for any proposed modifications of the terms of the Committee's recommendations. Some of the Committee's recommendations were for amendments to the Standing Orders, but the following all take the form of resolutions, in accordance with the practice of trying new procedures by resolution before they are written into the Standing Orders. It may also be desirable to keep all the matters together rather than have them scattered through the Standing Orders. The proposed resolutions have been drafted so as to be consistent with the Parliamentary Privileges Bill 1986 introduced by Mr President McClelland, passed by the Senate on 17 March 1987 and now before the House. Minor changes to the wording of resolutions recommended by the Committee and changes to take account of parliamentary practice and phraseology are not noted. Proposed resolution 1: Procedures to be observed by committees of the House for the protection of witnesses Recommendation 35 of the Committee. The Committee substantially adopted a suggested resolution put to it by the Senate Department, which reflected practices already adopted by Senate committees. The following modifications have been suggested to the resolution recommended by the Committee. (1) The resolution recommended by the Committee was limited to ``investigatory'' committees. There would seem to be no reason for not extending it to all committees. (2) Paragraph (5), referring to opportunity for witnesses to raise matters of concern to them before they give evidence, was not included in the Committee's recommendation, but it is suggested that it be included in the resolution. (3) Paragraph (6) of the Committee's recommended resolution would require reasons for refusing a witness's application to be heard in camera to be given in public. It may well be that a witness would prefer not to have the reasons published, and this is reflected in the proposed resolution (paragraph (7)). (4) Words have been added to paragraph (7) to make it clear that a witness may ask to give part of the witness's evidence in private session during the hearing of the witness's evidence. The witness may wish to answer a particular question in camera. (5) Paragraph (9) has been altered to make it clear that it is the responsibility of the chairman to rule on the relevance and necessity of a particular question, but that it is open to the committee to deliberate in private session and to determine whether any particular question, the relevance or necessity of which has been questioned, should be asked. (6) Paragraph (10) has been altered to make it clear that it is open to the committee to determine at once, without going into private session to deliberate, that a question objected to by a witness should not be pressed. It may happen that a member immediately withdraws a question to which objection has been taken, and the committee accepts the withdrawal of the question. (7) Paragraph (12) of the Committee's recommended resolution would provide that a committee may give reasonable opportunity for a person to respond to evidence adverse to the person. There would seem to be no reason for not making the reasonable opportunity mandatory, given that a committee may decide what is a reasonable opportunity in the circumstances (paragraph (13) of the proposed resolution). (8) Paragraph (14) has been changed to provide a criterion for a committee to use when determining whether a request for a witness to be accompanied by counsel will be granted, namely, the need for the witness to be accompanied by counsel to ensure the proper protection of the witness. (9) Words have been added to paragraph (15) to make provision for application by a witness for the reimbursement of legal costs where the witness has been granted the right to be accompanied by counsel, and for the committee to consider such application. (10) Paragraph (16) is a new paragraph providing for a witness to make application for the reimbursement of expenses incurred in direct consequence of making a submission to a committee or giving evidence, and for the committee to consider such application. Proposed resolution 2: Procedures for the protection of witnesses before the Privileges Committee Recommendation 21 of the Committee. The Committee did not recommend the terms of a resolution. The procedures recommended by the Committee are cast in the form of conferring protection upon persons ``against whom a complaint has been made''. The difficulty with this formulation is that a reference to the Privileges Committee often does not contain a complaint against any person, but merely refers to a matter which may involve or may give rise to an allegation of contempt against a person. The Privileges Committee has the task of investigating the matter to determine whether any contempt has been committed, and if so, by whom, and of hearing evidence and making a determination in the inquiry. In other words, it combines the functions of an investigative agency and a court of first hearing in a criminal matter. A person who is called merely as a witness may turn out to be the person against whom an allegation is made, and different allegations may be made against different people. It would seem, therefore, to be preferable to confer protection on all persons involved in the Privileges Committee's inquiry against whom any allegation is made or any adverse evidence given, regardless of whether those persons are in the position of an ``accused''. This would have a considerable advantage over criminal proceedings in a court. In such proceedings very damaging accusations may be made against witnesses, by cross-examination and submissions, without those witnesses having any opportunity to respond or defend themselves; only the accused is protected, and only in relation to conviction for the specific charges before the court. The proposed resolution had been drafted accordingly, and because of this it is substantially different from the rules suggested by the Committee. The proposed resolution having been drafted in this way, it subsumes recommendation 24 of the Committee, relating to the reputations of ``third persons'' in Privileges Committee inquiries. Other modifications of the Committee's recommendation are as follows. (1) Paragraph (a) of the Committee's recommended rules would give the Privileges Committee discretion to hear evidence in camera. Paragraph (7) of the proposed resolution would allow the Privileges Committee to hear evidence in camera only for the purpose of protecting witnesses or where the Committee considers it otherwise appropriate. It may be that the protection of witnesses should be the sole ground. (2) Paragraph (h) of the Committee's recommended resolution would allow the person ``against whom the complaint is made'' to make submissions ``at the conclusion of the evidence''. This provision is based on the analogy with criminal proceedings. Paragraph (10) of the proposed resolution would allow any person affected by proposed findings of the Committee to make submissions on those findings before the findings are finally formulated and presented to the House. Proposed resolution 3: Criteria to be taken into account when determining matters relating to contempt Recommendation 14 of the Committee. The proposed resolution is cast in the form of a declaration by the House that it will take criteria into account in determining whether matters should be referred to the Privileges Committee and whether a contempt has been committed, rather than a resolution expressing an opinion as to how the penal jurisdiction should be exercised as recommended by the Committee. The proposed resolution would also require the Privileges Committee to take the stated matters into account. Paragraph (a) of the proposed resolution contains the principle recommended by the Committee. Other matters not recommended by the Committee are suggested, as follows: paragraph (b): the existence of another remedy, i.e., a civil or criminal action; and paragraph (c): mens rea and reasonable excuse. Proposed resolution 4: Matters to be taken into account by the Speaker in determining whether a motion arising from a matter of privilege should be given precedence of other business The Committee did not recommend any specification of the matters to be taken into account in determining whether a motion should have precedence, but it would seem to be desirable to give the Speaker some guidance in exercising this discretion, and to use the same criteria as the House itself would adopt to determine whether a contempt has been committed, except those which would involve any judgment of the content of an alleged contempt. The proposed resolution has been drafted accordingly. Proposed resolution 5: Protection of persons referred to in the House Recommendation 3 of the Committee. The Committee did not formulate a specific resolution, but suggested a series of ground rules for incorporation on a trial basis in the Standing Orders. Modifications have been made to the procedures recommended by the Committee, as follows. (1) The Committee suggested that a complaint of misuse of privilege should not contain ``any matter amounting either directly or indirectly to an attack or a reflection on any Member of Parliament''. It is suggested that this criterion not be adopted. It may be extremely difficult for a person to claim that the person has been unfairly attacked in Parliament without at least indirectly reflecting on a member. Such a person may well need to state that a member did not tell the truth, which would be grave reflection. (2) The Committee suggested procedures that leave the Committee of Privileges at liberty to deal with the matter in any way it thinks fit. The proposed resolution would restrict the Committee to specific procedures and remedies. It is suggested that it would be desirable to do this to prevent undue interference with a member's freedom of speech. Proposed resolution 6: Matters constituting contempts Recommendations 27 to 33 of the Committee. The proposed resolution has been cast in the form of a declaration by the House, for the information of the public, as to matters it may treat as contempts. The guidelines recommended by the Committee were taken from the Offences Against the Parliament Bill 1981 introduced by Senator Button. The Committee departed from the provisions of Senator Button's Bill in a few places, and these departures are the subject of suggested modifications. The following comments are offered and modifications suggested in relation to the Committee's suggested guidelines. (1) The Committee suggested, as part of its description of ``molestation'', that it would be a contempt to ``engage in any course of conduct intended to influence a Member in the discharge of his duties as a Member''. It is suggested that this formulation could be regarded as preventing normal, acceptable and democratic methods of influencing members, e.g., telling a member that a vigorous campaign will be conducted against the member in the next election unless the member votes for a particular measure. (2) The Committee suggested a contempt involving a member receiving any benefit on the understanding that the member would be influenced in the discharge of the member's duties, or entering into any arrangement controlling or limiting a member's independence or freedom of action or involving the member acting as the representative of an outside body. Paragraph (2) of the proposed resolution contains the Committee's formulation. In so far as this is intended to relate to bribery and corruption of members, it may be regarded as already covered, to the extent necessary in a declaration for the guidance of the public, by paragraph (2) of the suggested resolution. It may be thought that the wording suggested by the Committee is too wide and could make contempts out of normal, acceptable and democratic activities, e.g., a member agreeing to be bound by the decision of the member's party, or accepting the political support of an interest group, or agreeing to make representations on behalf of an interest group. (3) The contempt of impairing the respect due to the authority of a House or a committee has been omitted from paragraph (5), relating to disturbance of meetings. It is suggested that this phrase is too vague. (4) The provisions referring to the publication of in camera evidence and premature publication of reports have been combined in paragraph (16), and drafted so as to be consistent with Mr President McClelland's Bill. Proposed resolution 7: Raising of matters of privilege Recommendation 20 of the Committee. No substantive changes are suggested to the procedures recommended by the Committee. Proposed resolution 8: Motions relating to contempts Recommendation 22 of the Committee. The Committee recommended that 7 days' notice be given of any motion for the imposition of a penalty for a contempt. It is not clear in the Committee's report or the recommendation whether it was intended that this apply to a motion declaring a person to be guilty of a contempt as well as a motion for imposing a penalty. It has been assumed that this was the intention, and the proposed resolution is drafted accordingly. Proposed resolution 9: Exercise of freedom of speech Recommendation 4 of the Committee. The following modifications of the Committee's recommended resolution are suggested. (1) The Committee's resolution would enjoin members to take account of the listed matters when reflecting adversely on any person. It is suggested that members should be asked to take the listed matters into account before they make a decision to reflect adversely on any person. The suggested resolution is therefore drafted to request members to consider the matters whenever they speak. (2) The Committee's recommended resolution would ask members to take into account the damage that may be done by unsubstantiated allegations. It is suggested that members be asked to consider the damage that may be done by any allegations, whether substantiated or not. Proposed resolution 10: Reference in court proceedings to proceedings in the House Recommendation 8 of the Committee. The following modifications of the Committee's recommended resolution are suggested. (1) It would not seem to be appropriate for a resolution to reaffirm a law which is not made by resolution in the first place. The terminology of non-derogation has been substituted. (2) Reference is made to any relevant law under section 49 of the Constitution, rather than only article 9 of the Bill of Rights, to take account of any possible interpretation of the effect of Mr President McClelland's Bill. (3) In order to take full account of the possibility of unauthorised publication of proceedings, it is necessary to refer to any relevant law (such as is proposed by the Bill) and any relevant order. (4) It would not seem to be appropriate for the House to be giving leave for evidence to be admitted when the courts have determined that leave is not as a matter of law necessary. The proposed resolution therefore declares that leave is not required. (5) The resolution recommended by the Committee refers only to records and reports of proceedings and documents. It is necessary to refer to any form of evidence relating to proceedings. Proposed resolution 11: Consultation between Privileges Committees Recommendation 26 of the Committee. No modifications of the recommendation are suggested. Mr LIONEL BOWEN —I thank the House. I thank members of both my Party and the Opposition for the contributions that have been made. However, I might quickly advert to a few issues. When looking at the history of matters of privilege, in which I used to take an interest in other days, we are always mindful of the fact that the Bill of Rights, as it then existed, said that the freedom of speech in debates or proceedings in parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament. We all took comfort in the fact that that meant that whatever we said here, whether it was in Parliament or in Committee, could not be the subject of any questioning. It is interesting to look at the way in which the media have influenced the development of parliamentary procedures. Obviously, when the question of privilege was first thought of back in the seventeenth century, account was not taken of radio, television or an up to date Press. I am sure that the Parliament at that time was quite happy to deal rather directly with anybody who said anything about that institution. In other words, the Parliament regarded itself as being the superior court of the land, which it was and is. We now have to consider what is happening these days in terms of how we conduct committee meetings and demand that people appear and give evidence. The Press has become very virile, contentious and perhaps, to some extent in some cases, objectionable in what it thinks of us. I fully agree with what the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender) said. We are pretty robust these days. We have this forum in which to reply and attack. We know that what is said in this place will not be limited to the Parliament. It will go out on the radio, the television or whatever and the people will be informed. It is rather interesting to look at developments in this area. A question was raised in the scientology case in England about whether evidence could be admitted in that case as to what was said in the Parliament. The British, who are always pretty versatile on such issues, developed a concept that they would like to hear from the Attorney-General about what he thought. That is what happened. The Attorney-General said that it might be reasonable to admit the statement-and, in fact, a statement was made-but that there would not be any cross-examination on that matter. It was decided that perhaps the best way to deal with the admission of statements would be by petitions made to the House of Commons, which the House would then deal with. It would either accept or reject a petition as evidence that a statement was made-in other words, admit Hansard to the extent it was made. I was intrigued by that scientology case, which we used to debate when I was in opposition. A few things have developed since then. The Uren case related to a present member of parliament who took action in respect of a certain matter. A petition was lodged in this place requesting that statements that he made be produced in the court. I objected at the time on the basis that this would mean that the privileges of that member would be determined by this Parliament, perhaps on a majority vote. I took the view that every member has his or her own privilege, which cannot be done away with by a resolution of the House. However, if we were to comply with such a petition, we would have been doing away with the privilege of a member by resolution of the House. It is interesting that interrogatories were given in the Uren case. The member concerned was asked to admit or deny in the interrogatories whether in fact he had made the statements in the House. In fact, I think he answered those interrogatories, although he had not got to the witness box. The delivery of the interrogatories highlighted the original intention that there was to be no question of asking him about whether he had said anything in the House or not. Honourable members might recall that documents were tabled in the House in respect of the Sankey case. Again, a petition was presented. The House argued and decided that it would supply the documents. The High Court of Australia, in order to get to a position of what I would say is common sense, decided that it would determine which documents were privileged, so we lost that issue. So, within a rather short period through the 1960s and 1970s, we shifted from the position that nothing said in a parliament should ever be questioned, and certainly not in a court, to the development of a pro- cedure under which a petition could be presented and a court could determine the issue. I think that created the problem with which we now have to grapple. Basically, what was wrong with the Murphy case-I am not saying this in any critical sense-was that committees of the Senate, having proceeded to take evidence on a matter which could have been very serious, then took some statements in camera without having the judge concerned before them. In the process of all that examination and appearance, we had the extraordinary situation that the Director of Public Prosecutions, having looked at what was done in the committee of a parliament, decided that there were grounds to prosecute for a criminal offence. It was extraordinary-it was something that should never have happened and I hope it never happens again-that a criminal prosecution was sought on the basis of what happened in a parliamentary committee. At one stage the Director of Public Prosecutions was not even considering normal committal proceedings. He took the view that what had been said before a Senate committee was enough and was going to proceed with an ex officio indictment, relying on what had been said by people in front of that committee. I think that was the wrong way to go, and I hope it never happens again. Luckily, the Murphy case went back to the committal proceedings in the normal course. In the process of that case, which has caused this position, cross-examination was carried out as to whether statements had been made in camera to the Senate committee. In my view, what the Senate had done to protect itself was insufficient. All it did was send counsel to the court to say that it felt it had privilege of the document but that that was a matter for the court to determine. Once one says that, one is really opening up the question of whether or not this Parliament is going to make a decision about its rights. We are indebted to the honourable member for North Sydney and his committee for making this point very clear. It is about time we got some legislation to say what our rights are, because everybody was getting into the position of interpreting our rights. The Senate itself was unwise enough to suggest that it should go along and make a submission. If the Parliament is the top court in the land-as we will put that expression-we make the decisions as to what will be given. Looking at the matter from the point of view of what has happened in the past, it is important that people have the freedom to say whatever they like in the Parliament and, when they are before a committee, they should have the opportunity certainly to answer questions but they should not be subject to further questioning on those answers-except in one instance, which I think the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) may not have understood. If we look at the relevant clause in this Bill, we see that it does not avoid the fact that the fact that a person made the statement can still be given to the court-if it is published in Hansard. So we cannot get away from the fact that a court will know that a person has made a statement. We can perhaps get away from the fact that a person cannot be cross-examined on it. But, as the honourable member for Denison said, it is not too difficult, if counsel has some imagination, to ask a witness, particularly on the basis of credibility, whether he has ever made a statement one way or another. The court itself would not allow counsel to ask a witness whether he said that to a committee, but the court would know because the transcript would be before it. I do not see any difficulty there. Dr Klugman —But the jury wouldn't know. Mr LIONEL BOWEN —The jury would know because the transcript would have been given to the court. We are talking about what we deal with in a committee. I draw honourable members' attention to the fact that parliamentary committees are one thing. They are really proceedings in the Parliament itself. Those committees do not necessarily have experienced questioners on them. I do not want to denigrate any members of parliament but a witness can be thoroughly confused if three or four people are trying to ask him questions at the same time. In other words, the proceedings of a committee and its efforts to get to the truth are not the same as court proceedings, and we would not want to put them on that basis. We are anxious to get to the truth but we need to be very careful, if people are going to be attacked on the basis of what happened in what we would call the cut and thrust of a committee, to ensure that a witness appearing in court is not asked `Did you not say this before the committee?', when the witness did not have the benefit of any advice and three or four well-meaning parliamentarians were trying to establish an issue at the same time. We can see that there could be some problems, so we should never put it on that basis because parliamentary committees are not bound by the rules of evidence. I am told that a parliamentary witness, perhaps under compulsion, may be asked to express opinions, feelings, suspicions and personal doubts, and to give self-incriminating evidence. Normally, none of that would ever be allowed in a court, but it can happen in the cut and thrust of committees here. It would be grossly unfair to allow a witness to be attacked subsequently on the basis of evidence which otherwise would never have been admissible in any court proceedings. I only say that in response to the interjection of the honourable member for Prospect, because the fact of the statement would have been given. If a $100 note was referred to in evidence to the Committee and no $100 note was in existence at the time, the committee ought to be able to advert to that issue, and that certainly would not prevent it subsequently being mentioned in court proceedings. Other matters in the debate attracted my attention. I am pleased to see that the honourable member for Denison is in the House because he and I were members of the House of Representatives Committee of Privileges which dealt with a gentleman called Mr Berthelsen. We made recommendations which really follow the recommendation we have in this legislation. Clause 12 in this legislation provides that there will be a protection of witnesses and it states that people who intimidate witnesses or do certain other things can be fined or imprisoned. But in Berthelsen's case he suffered damage, and the British still have legislation for the protection of witnesses which we do not yet have. But I thought I would look up old records and I found that back in 1980 the honourable member for Denison and I were members of a committee which made this recommendation: The Committee believes that the Parliament should consider the enactment of a Parliamentary Witnesses Protection Act which would provide both for the prosecution of persons who tamper with, intimidate or discriminate against witnesses . . . and also provide a statutory cause of action in which witnesses who have suffered intimidation or discrimination- I would say also victimisation in this case- would have the right to sue for damages . . . I took the view in those days that Berthelsen had suffered damage. Whilst we have come a little way towards providing the protection and the penalties for people breaching this provision, we ought to follow it up with some legislation. I am mindful of the fact that we have been slow in getting to this position. I want to congratulate the Speaker and the former President of the Senate on having the initiative, obviously encouraged by the Murphy case, to do something about it because the Senate's committee failed to get privilege. That was the triggering mechanism. I congratulate the Committee, which is chaired by the honourable member for North Sydney, on having the initiative to come forward with ideas. When I look back, I realise how slow we have been. I am looking at the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act 1962 of Singapore, which states that witnesses certainly cannot be cross-examined: Except in proceedings which are referred to in subsection (3) of this section, no statement made by any person in evidence before Parliament . . . shall be admissible in evidence against that person . . . in any court. Of course, the exception really relates to the fact that there could be perjury, and that is another interesting aspect. I suppose that I will be pardoned for mentioning that even the South African Parliament, in 1963, held the view that where a committee had been given evidence a certificate would be issued stating that such evidence had been given. Once that certificate was produced to the court, that prevented any reference to that evidence, except in a charge of perjury. I turn now to the question that was raised concerning the laws of Fiji. Fiji made this point 15 years ago: Every person summoned to give evidence . . . shall be entitled . . . It then makes the point: An answer by a person to a question put by . . . a committee shall not be admissible in evidence . . . except in the case of . . . perjury. I just make the point I have discussed with the honourable member for North Sydney. I think there is still a bit of a gap. We will be able to punish people for committing offences against the House. In clause 7, which is entitled `Penalties imposed by Houses', we will be able to fine these people, but we do not seem to have dealt with the fact that, in some cases, we might have to talk about the courts dealing with perjury. That gap exists at present. Whilst we might want to deal with people on the basis of contempt, the offence of perjury is more serious and has not been covered. The honourable member for North Sydney was concerned about the courts having evidence of what was said before the House or a committee that goes to the merits of evidence given. I think we have gone as far as we can. We will produce the evidence given but there will be no questioning or cross-examination of that evidence. The courts would be mindful when they are aware that a statement has been made that they should use their own judgment as to the credibility or otherwise of a witness. So, after a long period we have reached the position where at last we will have our own legislation dealing with privilege. It is still not complete, for the reasons I have mentioned. There is another matter, which I have been given a signal about, in clause 6 of the Bill which is entitled `Contempts by defamation abolished'. That clause states: Words or acts shall not be taken to be an offence against a House by reason only that those words or acts are defamatory or critical of the Parliament, a House, a committee or a member. That is fine. There is no objection to that. But I have to make the point that that should not, and will not, prevent the Speaker dealing with members of parliament who walk outside this House and say: `What a wretched Speaker this member is'. I do not think someone can then say: `I will take refuge in clause 6'. We need to make it clear that it would be ridiculous if we had procedures in this House which added to the prestige, the normal decorum and the understanding of what is expected of members of a House when as far as the Speaker is concerned it would be completely negated if members went outside the House and said: `Do not believe a word of what I said in there. I think the Speaker is completely partial and unfair and should not be in the job'. Honourable members can imagine the difficulty we would have in the Parliament if we said: `We cannot deal with that person as he is back in the Parliament now and protected by clause 6'. That clause states: Words or acts shall not be taken to be an offence against a House by reason only that those words or acts are defamatory or critical . . . We have a higher duty to our Speaker, the prestige of the Parliament and the privileges that we have that at least we obey the rules and do not use derogatory expressions outside. If we do we are likely to be subject to the dealings of the House, for is that not an infringement of the Speaker's rights and the privileges of the House? I thank the honourable member for that significant contribution. In conclusion, the legislation will now come into operation. The further matters that have to be discussed are the appropriate resolutions. I hope-and I know that this is the Senate's view-that we can come to some quick agreement about those matters and bring them into place. I leave the matter at that. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith. Bill (on motion by Mr Lionel Bowen) read a third time. Debate resumed from 29 April, on motion by Mr Dawkins: That the Bill be now read a second time. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) —I understand that it is the wish of the House to debate the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill concurrently with the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill and the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill. There being no objection, the Chair will allow this course to be followed. Mr SHACK(Tangney)(12.22) —Now and until lunch and then for much of the afternoon this House will turn its attention to one of the main concerns of families and children, and young Australians generally; that is, education today and preparation for the work force tomorrow. We are debating three Bills and as usual we will debate them cognately. These three States grants Bills extend across the full educational process in Australia from the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill, dealing with primary and secondary education; to the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill dealing with our universities, colleges of advanced education, institutes of technology and colleges of technical and further education; and the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill, dealing with the participation and equity program which covers both schools and TAFE colleges. Education is high on the agenda for all in our community today. Parents, young people, teachers, tertiary administrators, academics, business leaders and policy makers have all turned their attention strongly to the education system. They have been looking critically at schools, teachers, curricula and subjects and the policies and overall philosophies responsible for preparing young people for their future lives-their lives as independent adults in the community, working and earning, setting up their own families and homes in time and playing their own role in shaping Australia's future. All this effort-and much of it has been worth while and positive-has arisen because of a growing understanding that education in Australia is in a state of unprecedented crisis. From primary to post-graduate education levels the problems are real and of great concern to all. People justifiably are asking where the education system has gone wrong. They perceive a lack of direction in education. They see too many young people leaving school unable to read, write or solve even the most basic maths problem. They see a lack of morale in the teaching profession but they also on occasions see school children sent home because some militant teachers have called a strike. They see limitations set on the expansion of non-government schools with growing government intrusion and interference. They see total confusion in the administration and design of the various year 12 examinations in the States. They then see thousands of young people disappointed when they gain good marks in their Higher School Certificate examinations, or the equivalent, but are turned away from universities, CAEs and TAFE colleges because there are too few places for them. For those who manage to gain a place in higher education, they then see some lack of relevance to the realities of the modern work place. People see crumbling buildings, over-crowded lecture theatres, machines and equipment that are outdated and beyond repair, libraries which can no longer afford the up-to-date texts and journals, and growing morale problems in the academic community. They also see students living in conditions of poverty because of the Government's mishand- ling of the Austudy scheme, with payments in some cases up to four months late. I am sure everyone in this Parliament is familiar with these problems because of experiences in their own electorate and State. As shadow Minister for Education I travel around the country, and in all cities and towns I find growing alarm at the state of our schools and tertiary institutions. No matter whether one speaks to principals and teachers, parents and students, business groups and employers, the message is clear: Education has some major problems. The Labor Government is presiding over an education system in turmoil. The response of this Government to the problems of education has in general been blinkered, limited and haphazard. The only constant theme in this Government's education decisions is its increasing interference and control-which not only fails to address the central concerns in education but restricts the ability of schools and institutions to grow and expand to meet different needs. These three States grants Bills before us today mainly provide additional grants to the States and the Northern Territory to effectively index existing grants to take into account movements in prices and costs. These education packages come through this Parliament twice each year-the main grants come after the Budget and are legislated for in October or November, then around April or May in the following year we consider the cost supplementation packages, such as this set of Bills today. The Liberal Party does not oppose these Bills although I foreshadow that we will be moving two amendments to the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill-one in-principle amendment at the second reading stage and one more detailed amendment to a clause of the Bill during the Committee consideration. I will deal with the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill first. This Bill includes a major change in the administration of the capital grants program for non-government schools. The Commonwealth Government has provided grants for capital facilities in various forms since 1964. This year the Commonwealth will provide some $210m in capital grants, $56m of this to non-government schools. This year, as in previous years, capital grant allocations are made on the recommendations of planning and finance committees established in each State. The committees combine nominees of Catholic systems, non-systemic schools, State and Federal education departments and the Commonwealth Minister for Education. Within the guidelines the committees sift the applications and determine funding priorities which are, almost without exception, accepted by the Minister. The actual administration of the capital grants to schools and systems is the responsibility of the Department of Education following the 1985 transfer of this function from the Commonwealth Schools Commission. The Auditor-General's efficiency audit report strongly criticised many aspects of the Commonwealth Schools Commission's administration of the capital program. There were serious deficiencies in the processing, assessment and approval of grant applications. The Commission, according to the Auditor-General's report, failed to provide adequate information to grant applicants, failed to issue clear and comprehensive guidelines for the program and its administration, and failed to protect the Commonwealth's financial interest. The Department of Education is now responsible for the capital grants program and the Government is dragging its heels in addressing the implications in the Auditor-General's report. The First Assistant Auditor-General, Mr Jim O'Neil, told the Joint Committee of Public Accounts last week that the Department had so far dealt with only five of the 70 problems identified in the audit, including such basic issues as whether the annual program guidelines might be issued earlier. There has been total confusion and inconsistency in the capital grants program under this Government. There have been numerous major changes in the grants policy since 1983, and even this year it has been necessary to continue the process of policy by Press release to address growing problems. Since 1983, the program has been administered first by the Commonwealth Schools Commission, as I have said, and now by the Department of Education. If this legislation is passed, it will be administered by block grant authorities of the non-government school sector. That will be the third major change in five years. Under this legislation it is proposed that from 1988 capital grants for non-government schools will be allocated as a block grant for internal distribution by authorities set up for that purpose. In announcing this change on 4 February this year, the Minister for Education said that it was expected that in most States Catholic schools would form one block authority and most other non-government schools a second authority. The Minister stated that schools not electing to join an authority would still be able to apply directly to the Commonwealth. As a first principle I am always attracted to a decentralising of power, to restoring local decision making, which is more sensitive to the variety of needs in different parts of Australia. It seems sensible and reasonable wherever possible to pay block payments of capital grants to school systems in the same way that recurrent grants are distributed. However, I am concerned that details of this new scheme are not yet available. Indeed, the most that non-government school authorities have seen to date is a vague preliminary interim draft, to use the current jargon. There are several potential dangers in this proposal. First, there may be an attempt to switch the responsibility for the Commonwealth's equity in school capital projects from the Department of Education to the block grant authorities. By way of background, when the Commonwealth provides funds for a non-government school capital project, there is a continuing financial interest over 20 years, with the value of that equity reduced by 5 per cent a year. Non-government schools can be required to repay this equity to the Commonwealth in certain circumstances; for example, if the school closes down. As the Auditor-General noted in his report, the Commonwealth's equity in school projects has been poorly protected by present arrangements. He referred to a Schools Commission estimate that in 1984 there were some 200 to 300 schools that had received major capital grants but then subsequently closed, changed location or were operating under a different authority, most of which had not met the legislative requirements applying to the disposal of assets acquired with grant moneys. The audit revealed staggering mismanagement and inefficiency within the Schools Commission in regard to the capital grants process. The administration now rests with the Department of Education but there are no figures available to say whether the situation has improved at all. I think that there is a real danger in this proposal that the Government is going to try to get off the hook and make the block grant authorities directly responsible for the Commonwealth's equity interest. In other words, my concern is that the Government could seek to shirk its duty to maintain its own equity, and transfer the legal responsibility to the corporate bodies which will receive the block grant and distribute it to schools within their associations. The block grant authority would then become directly liable to repay the Commonwealth's equity if a member school breached the legislation and agreements covering the grant. This is especially a threat in the case of independent schools, which are not in any sense owned, controlled or directed by the voluntary associations which have been formed to provide a common forum and voice. Organisations such as the National Council of Independent Schools have no direct powers over their member schools yet, as one of the likely non-systemic authorities which will form to allocate capital grants, such an authority could be made liable for future actions of its member schools. This would be an outrage and would threaten the fundamental nature of these voluntary associations. Let me make this point clear: The equity interest belongs to the Commonwealth. If the Commonwealth wants its equity protected, and it must, on behalf of Australian taxpayers, then it should accept the responsibility and get its own house in order. Independent school bodies have enough to do without riding shotgun and playing debt collector for a government which cannot do its own job properly. The Liberal Party will be looking closely at the guidelines which will implement and accompany this arrangement. We are also disturbed that the legislation is completely silent on the costs to non-government agencies of administering the capital grants. I understand that the Government plans to permit administration to absorb 2 per cent of the block grant, up to a limit of $35,000. This will be completely inadequate to cover the cost of this process. Organisations such as the NCIS will probably have to charge their members an additional levy to meet the cost of this capital grant process. The great irony here is that many of the member schools which will be paying higher levies to finance this new responsibility are themselves ineligible for capital grants under the present restrictive guidelines. In other words, block grant authorities could end up significantly out of pocket-yet another move to cut back the resources they can devote to the real tasks of education. The Government has not established a case for the introduction of this block grant process. There are no significant complaints about the present arrangements through State planning and finance committees, at least not from systemic and independent school authorities. The measures proposed will substantially increase the administrative burden on non-government school authorities, increasing their costs and diverting staff resources away from other priorities. A senior official from the Department of Education told the Public Accounts Committee last week that she thought the new system would be equally accountable as the present arrangements-not more accountable, mind you, but simply equally accountable. So there is no genuine case to support this change. I turn now to a specific clause in the legislation which I shall seek to have deleted in the Committee stage. Clause 8 of the Bill seeks to extend the Minister's powers in the proposed section 25b, sub-section (4). This would give the Minister power to refuse a grant recommended by block authorities in certain circumstances: First, if a co-educational school has applied for a capital grant and the Minister thinks the benefits may not be equally beneficial to both male and female students; and secondly, if the project is mainly or partially designed to provide staff accommodation or facilities used in relation to religious worship. This sub-section permits the Minister to intrude still further into the legitimate decision-making responsibilities of schools and systems, and is yet another window of opportunity for the bureaucracy to exert control over independent schools. I also note that government schools are allowed to spend capital funds on the provision of teachers housing in areas outside capital cities. There appears to be a discriminatory distinction concerning non-government schools in this regard. If the Government is determined to limit the non-government sector's use of capital grants, in my view it should set these matters down in the guidelines to block authorities rather than enshrine them in legislation-legislation without guidelines and which may be subject to the whim of the Minister. I now turn to the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill which supplements, due to cost increases, existing grants for universities, colleges of advanced education, institutes of technology and technical and further education colleges. This is a straightforward measure, which we will not oppose. I do, however, wish to refer briefly to the anomalous $250 administration charge which the Government introduced this year. When debating the legislation for the administration charge last October, I predicted that the charge would deter many part time and external students and probably lead to a reduction in the total number of students. I also stated the Opposition's concern that institutions would incur administrative costs which would not be covered by the windfall $25 they were to retain from each student and that the charge would undermine the Government's $200,000 campaign to increase rural participation in higher education. The report to the Minister from the Higher Education Monitoring Committee-better known as the HEAC Monitoring Committee-makes it clear that these predictions have been proven true. There has been an overall decline in student numbers of one per cent. A marginal rise in full time enrolments has been offset by a fall of 9.6 per cent in part time enrolments and a fall of 8.1 per cent in external enrolments. So much for a commitment to participation. In 1987 there are 3,700 fewer students in higher education than last year. I welcome the Committee's recommendation that the charge be set in future on a pro rata basis so that, over the duration of a course, part time students pay the same total amount as a full time student making comparable academic progress. This was the most glaring flaw in the original design of the charge and it is astounding that the Government was blind to the problems it would cause. The Liberal Party sincerely hopes that Senator Ryan will now take action to remedy this situation. The Monitoring Committee's report also put paid to the lie that institutions would benefit financially from the charge. The report states: The additional costs incurred in collecting the charge included costs associated with the employment of additional staff for both collection and financial counselling . . . other administrative costs mentioned included extra computing time, postage and security for the large amounts of money collected. So much for the Government's promise of a pot of gold at the end of the administration charge rainbow! Institutions have lost out again. I also note that external rural students as a group have been adversely affected by the charge which, as predicted, makes a mockery of the Government's famous rural strategy promise to extend educational access for rural communities. The Monitoring Committee has recommended that the list of exempt students be widened next year to include a broader basket of disadvantaged students. The Opposition awaits with interest the Government's response. Of course, the Government is committed to a rise in the charge to some $270 at least in 1988 and has yet to deal with the reported moves to increase the charge next year to $500 a student. The May economic statement, or perhaps the Budget, we presume, will reveal all. The final Bill in this package being considered today, the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill, is also straightforward and will not be opposed. This Bill is, of course, the participation and equity program's swan-song. The program is planned to end this year, and the Schools Commission is developing a new specific purpose program in the wake of its report on secondary education. We on this side of the House have consistently voiced concern about the administration of the PEP scheme. I imagine that I will have time after lunch when we resume this debate to say a little more about that. At this point I conclude by saying that it has misplaced priorities and it has dubious educational value. It is interesting to find that the Schools Commission's assessment of PEP echoes our complaints. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) — Order! It being almost 12.45 p.m., the debate is interrupted in accordance with sessional order 101a. The honourable member for Tangney will have leave to continue his speech when the debate is resumed at a later hour. Sitting suspended from 12.45 to 2 p.m. Mr HAWKE(Wills-Prime Minister) —I inform the House that the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Kerin) is absent from Question Time today on official business, and any questions normally directed to him should be directed to the Minister for Trade (Mr Dawkins). Mr PORTER —I ask the Prime Minister: Despite his undertaking at Question Time last Friday, why is the Government accepting the Administrative Appeals Tribunal decision to pay married rate welfare benefits to young girls under the age of consent who establish de facto relationships? How does the Prime Minister justify this policy which provides a financial inducement to young girls to leave home and establish an illegal de facto relationship and so become eligible for a welfare benefit? Mr HAWKE —I thank the honourable gentleman for his question. He ought to agree-I hope he will-that this is both a sensitive and a technical area. What has happened, if I may inform the honourable member, is that the Government has arranged for legal officers of the Department of Social Security to discuss the amendment in question with leaders of the parties in the Senate-- Mr Porter —I have agreed to go to a briefing as well, but that does not answer the problem. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for Barker is not entitled to ask a supplementary question. Mr HAWKE —The honourable member for Barker can wag his head and, if that gives him satisfaction, let him keep on doing it. I am simply saying to him that what we have done is arranged for legal officers of the Department to discuss the amendment in question with the leaders of the parties in the Senate to see whether we can find a resolution to this problem, the nature and dimension of which I recognise. We are going about this in a sensible manner. It is not a matter for hysteria and I hope that, as a result of the discussions that are being held with the leaders of the parties in the Senate, such a resolution can be reached. Mr SAUNDERSON —I refer the Minister for Territories to reports on the front page of yesterday's Canberra Times about the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Is it true that Mr Clunies-Ross is being denied electricity? Is it also true that special provisions are being made for the Administrator's spouse to be present on Cocos at Commonwealth expense? Will Dr Williams be employed by the Commonwealth during that period? Is this contrary to normal practice in the employment of spouses? Mr SCHOLES —I have seen the articles in the Canberra Times, naturally, and I have also had reports of a program on 60 Minutes which presented the Clunies-Ross side of the argument. Both seem to be predicated on the basis that there is some campaign against Mr Clunies-Ross Junior to disadvantage him; that just is not true. The Opposition is quite obviously offended that a woman has been appointed to the position of Administrator of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and is pursuing a policy of discrimination against and vilification of that person. The facts are that, with respect to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and all other areas under my administration, we do not pursue any policy of preventing the spouses of Commonwealth employees from seeking employment in those areas provided that suitable employment for which they are qualified is available. In fact, some 70 per cent of spouses of administration employees on Cocos are currently employed by the Commonwealth, and I think that is something which should be accepted as being in the best interests of the families concerned. The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are some 3,500 kilometres west of Darwin. They represent an area of 14 square kilometres. By any measure, they constitute an isolated area in which Australians serve for fairly long periods. It is a fact that Commonwealth employees, be they male or female, posted to such areas have an entitlement to be accompanied by their families at Commonwealth expense. Mr Downer —Yes, but not to give them jobs. Mr SCHOLES —Seventy per cent of them have jobs. The honourable gentleman has a fixation about having the Clunies-Ross empire reinstated on Cocos, and I do not know why. Mr Downer —That is absurd. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for Mayo will cease interjecting. The honourable member for Mayo will not argue with the Chair. Mr Downer —That is absurd. What a thoroughly absurd and dishonest thing to say. Madam SPEAKER —The honourable member for Mayo will not argue with the Chair. He will heed the Chair. I call the Minister. Mr SCHOLES —With respect to the specific job which was offered to Dr Williams, which is a short term appointment to carry out work on the cataloguing and assessment of the environment, vegetation and fauna of the Cocos (Keeling) area, the job was advertised in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. No suitable person was available. It is also the Government's intention to appoint a conservator in order to protect the fragile infrastructure of the islands. Dr Williams, who is qualified to occupy the position and who has previously undertaken research work on those islands, has been engaged for six months. I might point out to honourable gentlemen opposite that Dr Williams has a perfect entitlement to be on the island at Commonwealth expense as the spouse of a Commonwealth employee. I think what is being suggested by the honourable member opposite is that it is improper that Dr Williams be engaged to undertake work on the islands but that it would be proper if he accompanied his wife to the island and then we appointed someone else, who may also wish to take his or her spouse, to do the work. With respect to electricity generation, when most of Home Island was acquired by the Commonwealth in 1978 the Minister at the time, Mr Ellicott, and the Fraser Government decided to establish a council to administer local government matters on Home Island, where the majority of the former serfs of the Clunies-Ross family lived. With the establishment of the council, the Clunies-Ross family, by agreement of both sides, was not subject to the authority of the council. The situation has not changed. Late last year Mr Clunies-Ross-- Mr Downer —I can see your point, Bob. You should have got rid of him. Madam SPEAKER —Order! I warn the honourable member for Mayo. If he keeps interjecting at the rate he is going, the Chair will deal with him. No member in this House has the right to continue to interject at will. I refer the honourable member to standing order 55. I call the Minister. Mr SCHOLES —Late last year Mr Clunies-Ross demanded that over 10 per cent of the total power supplies of the island be diverted to himself and his family. That power was not available from the generating capacity of the council. The Administrator loaned the Clunies-Ross family a generator to cover their power needs. I think it is fair to say to the House that what is in fact happening on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is that the frictions which occurred before the separation of the Clunies-Rosses from the administration of the island have been building up for some time and I would suggest that Mr Clunies-Ross Junior has a lot of blame to bear for that. Mr SMITH —Is the Minister for Transport aware that a member of the infamous Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union has been charged in Melbourne for offensive behaviour for stripping naked publicly when approached by a Federal Customs officer for a routine search? Mr Robert Brown —What would you do? Mr SMITH —His name was not John Brown, that is for sure. Is the Minister also aware that the refusal by the Australian National Line to reinstate this union member has led to a picket line being set up by the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union, which members of the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia refuse to cross? As this industrial action has led to over 300 lay-offs at Webb dock in Melbourne and a total paralysis in shipping to and from Tasmania, costing Tasmanian farmers and businesses millions of dollars, I ask the Minister: Will the Government condemn this irresponsible abuse of union power? What action, if any, has the Minister taken to ensure that shipping to and from Tasmania resumes immediately without further interruption? Mr PETER MORRIS —One could gather from the thrust of the way the question was asked that-- Honourable members-Oh! Mr PETER MORRIS —The nature of the honourable member's question suggested that in some way he condoned the action taken by the employee concerned. Certainly we on this side of the House do not. The incident involved an employee behaving in a manner that was totally unacceptable. The management exercised its prerogative and, I understand, suspended the person concerned. He has since been charged. There have been discussions and negotiations. The matter has been before the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. It was heard on 30 April and it was recommended that arbitration take place between the two parties concerned. The ANL, as the employer, has indicated that it will accept any decision that comes from the arbitration in respect of the matter and, at this stage, little progress is being made. The matter is of great concern to the Government. Mr Hodgman —It is to Tasmania. Mr PETER MORRIS —Just let me get to Tasmania. I have spoken with Mr Ferdie Foster of the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association yesterday morning. He has outlined to me-and I have passed this information on to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations-the gravity of the situation. Certainly the Government deplores what has happened. It should not have happened. We have enough difficulty in trying to improve the reliability and competitiveness of our waterfront services and our trading performance generally without being saddled with an occurrence of this nature. The Government is of the view that there can be no explanation for the behaviour concerned. Still, arbitration procedures are under way, and I and my colleague the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations will be doing our level best to find a solution to the situation as quickly as possible. Mr LINDSAY —My question is directed to the Minister for Trade. At a time when our export markets are under siege as a result of the agricultural trade war between the United States and the European Economic Community, and in view of the recent escalation of tensions between the United States and Japan, what are Australian companies doing to expand our exports? Mr DAWKINS —The first thing to note about the problems confronting Australian companies, particularly in the manufacturing industry, is, of course, the devastation which they experienced under the policies of our predecessors. The wages policies, the exchange rate policies and, indeed, nearly 30 years of mad industry policies led to the decimation of many of our industries. Of course, this was at a time when the current Leader of the Opposition was Treasurer. He was happy to pursue these policies. He was, of course, under the spell of the National Party of Australia. But, together they were prepared to see Australia exposed to the vulnerability of having our exports spread over far too few areas, commodities and products. But, under the enlightened policies of this Government, I might say that there are now a number of Australian companies that are leading the fight back into export markets as far as Australia is concerned. I would like to give a couple of examples of some of these success stories. Hypercom, which is a company that manufactures data communications systems, has increased its exports by 400 per cent over the last two years. Those exports now represent 91 per cent of its turnover. Varian Techtron, a producer of high quality scientific instruments, now exports 85 per cent of its sales. Moving to another area, that of pet food, Uncle Ben's of Australia increased its exports to the Japanese market by 80 per cent, and this increase was achieved during the last 12 months. Recently the Prime Minister and I were able to acknowledge the winning of a consultancy contract by MacDonald Wagner Pty Ltd for a $300m development in Argentina. Decor, which concentrates on product design, has secured increases in exports as high as 300 per cent over a three-month period. ADPRO, a manufacturer of video fire detection and security equipment, has got into the United States market-the first Australian company to do so-and it has seen a 300 per cent increase in its exports last year. It is important that Australian manufacturing companies recognise the new opportunities which exist for them overseas. If we look at what has happened in the eight months to February, we see that manufactured exports have increased by 23 per cent compared with the same period last year. There has been an 87 per cent increase for motor vehicles, a 97 per cent increase for office equipment and automatic data processing equipment, 49 per cent for pumps and compressors, 28 per cent for electrical machinery and 36 per cent for cutlery and other household equipment. The important thing about this is that, during that eight-month period that I referred to, manufactured exports totalled $5 billion, or 22 per cent of our merchandise exports. We now have to see the continuation of the consistently successful policies of this Government so that we can see a greater contribution to our exports being made by manufacturing companies and other companies, for instance, those in the services sector. What we do not want to see is the policies of this country handed back to the economic vandals opposite. Mr SINCLAIR —I ask a question of the Prime Minister which, in its way, is supplementary to the question just asked of the Minister for Trade by the honourable member for Herbert. It relates to the Government's responsibilities in the area. Is the Prime Minister aware that, in the first four months of the current shipping year, 23 per cent of available work time at the Glebe Island and Newcastle grain terminals was lost due to industrial stoppages? Is he aware that the average throughput of grain per employee at the Sydney terminal is just 17,000 tonnes a year compared with between 80,000 to 120,000 tonnes a man in comparable American ports? In view of the Prime Minister's statement last year admitting the damaging economic effects of restrictive work practices, and recent reports of a new Government survey of foreign trade barriers to Australian industry, can the Prime Minister tell the House what action the Government has taken against restrictive work practices and, in particular, against frivolous industrial stoppages that are obviously doing so much damage to Australia's international credibility and, of course, destroying our international competitiveness? Mr HAWKE —I thank the right honourable gentleman for his question. Let me say at the outset that the Government does not condone the practices that have applied at the points to which he referred and, through the relevant Ministers, we are doing all that we can in regard to particular circumstances as well as trying to improve the general environment. Let me make the point to the right honourable gentleman-and I hope he will accept the validity of what I am saying-that since we have been in office we have tried to bring in a new approach to industrial relations in this country, and I think he would have to accept that the aggregate statistics show that that approach has been outstandingly successful. There has been, in fact, during the period of this Government, more than a halving of industrial disputes in this country. That has not occurred by accident. I think honourable members would have noticed in one of this morning's newspapers-I forget which one-a report of a more detailed study which has been undertaken by two academics at the Australian National University which, in a more detailed form, confirmed the veracity of that picture shown by the aggregate statistics. Having said that-and, on behalf of the Government, taking considerable pride in that more than halving of industrial disputation under this Government as against the confrontationist tactics of honourable members opposite-I accept that obviously there are still areas which are considerably less than satisfactory. Of course, I do take the point of the right honourable gentleman that when those disputes occur at points which can disrupt and disadvantage this country's exports in general-particularly, as I understand the situation, our primary exports-we ought to be concerned and we are. The Government has a general structure of committees which are concerned with examining barriers to our export competitiveness. One of those committees is particularly concerned with examining and discussing with those involved how we can improve the situation on the waterfront. That is the way in which we need to go about this matter. We will not solve this problem by draconian legislation. I believe that we will gradually get to a situation at those points in which we can get a significant improvement in throughput. I am not at odds in any way with the right honourable gentleman in saying that the requirements of this country are that there should be an absolute minimum of disruption at our ports so that neither the country as a whole nor our primary producers in particular are disadvantaged by what are so often quite unnecessary and unjustifiable disputes. Mr O'KEEFE —My question is directed to the Prime Minister and concerns the `Buy Australian' campaign. Can the Prime Minister advise the House as to the response so far to the `Australian Made' campaign? Is the Prime Minister concerned about reports that imported products are being falsely labelled as made in Australia? Will the Prime Minister outline the reasons why consumers should be looking for, and suppliers should be using, the official `Australian Made' logo? Mr HAWKE —I thank the honourable member for Burke for his question. It is a further indication of the considerable interest which he has shown and which I have witnessed with him in his electorate. I am pleased to be able to say that since the campaign began in late August of last year more than 800 manufacturers have signed up for the right to display the official green and gold `Australian Made' logo. I am equally pleased to say that there is overwhelming evidence that Australian consumers are responding very positively to the campaign. The latest research available to us indicates that two-thirds of Australians are now buying Australian-made products `most of the time'. That represents a 50 per cent increase on the number indicated by the previous survey, conducted at the beginning of the campaign. I think the honourable member would agree that that is a very significant improvement attributable to the campaign. I turn to the next part of the honourable gentleman's question. I am concerned about reports of instances where imported products are being falsely labelled as made in Australia. There is simply no doubt that the best way to guarantee that a product is a genuine Australian-made product is by means of the official green and gold kangaroo logo. This logo is a registered certification mark which can be used only under licence issued by the Advance Australia Foundation. Approved licensees in those circumstances have satisfied the Advance Australia Foundation that their product is made in Australia with a minimum local content of 75 per cent. In response to the final part of the honourable gentleman's question, the great advantage of shoppers choosing products bearing the official logo is that they are helping their country by reducing our dependence on imports and-in the same way and obviously connected with it-by boosting Australian production and Australian jobs. In conclusion, I again say that this has been a highly successful campaign and I thank the honourable member for his continuing support of it. Madam SPEAKER —I inform the House that present in the gallery this afternoon is the Hon. Clyde Cameron, a former member of this House and a former Minister in the Whitlam Government. On behalf of the House, I bid him welcome. Honourable members-Hear, hear! Mr GOODLUCK —I direct my question to the Prime Minister. I refer again to the Prime Minister's professed concern for the low income families of Australia, in particular the staggering 2.6 million Australians who now live below the poverty line. Can the Prime Minister explain to the House the principles of social justice involved in the position of single income families on half average weekly earnings who paid $9.35 tax per week under the Fraser Government, who now pay $15.50 tax per week under the Hawke Government and who, after the Keating tax reforms are implemented on 1 July, will be paying $16.46 tax per week? Mr HAWKE —Let me say at the outset that I do not accept, without verification, any figures that come from the honourable member. Mr Howard —Withdraw that. That is offensive. Mr HAWKE —Why should I withdraw it? Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Prime Minister may not cast aspersions on another member of the House. Mr HAWKE —Madam Speaker, I ask for your indulgence. Would you hear me on your observation? I do not have to go to the honesty or integrity of the honourable member to say that I will not accept figures that he puts forward. I am not going to his integrity. Madam SPEAKER —I accept the explanation. Mr HAWKE —Thank you, Madam Speaker. This Government will stand on any platform, now or at any time between now and the election, if the honourable member wants a comparison of the record of this Government with the record of the Fraser-Howard Government. As far as the position of low income people in this country is concerned, we share what I accept is a very legitimate concern of the honourable member who asked the question. I am not in any sense saying that the honourable gentleman does not have a concern for low income people in this country. I accept that completely; I am not questioning it in any way whatsoever. What I am saying is that since we came to office two periods can be characterised in economic terms. The first was when we had to save this country from economic disaster that our predecessors had inflicted on us. The best thing that we could do-we said it would be the best thing we could do-was to get people back to work. I remind the honourable gentleman that the last 12 months of the Government of which he was a part saw an additional quarter of a million Australians thrown on to the unemployment scrap-heap. The best thing this Government could do for the people of Australia was to restore employment growth. I said that we would create half a million new jobs in our first three years of office, and a whole gaggle of honourable members opposite poured scorn upon us. In the restoration of employment growth-again I would think that the honourable member would share our pride in this matter-over three-quarters of a million Australians have now been put back into employment. That is the best thing we can do to start to restore the fortunes of the people in this country. However, we did not leave the matter at that macroeconomic level. In those circumstances we had to bring down the very substantial Budget deficit which represented 5 per cent of gross domestic product. There would be very high interest rates if we did not bring it down, and the very people about whom the honourable gentleman is talking would be the ones who suffered most. As we went about the tough task of reducing the Budget deficit, we could not simply give widespread overall hand outs. What we have done-this has been particularly true in the last two years-is target assistance to those most in need. By way of example for the honourable member in the area of welfare payments, I remind him of this fact: Under this Government the family income supplement and additional pension benefit have been increased by 70 per cent, and that action alone has assisted 447,000 low income families. I am trying to say to the honourable gentleman that in the context of having first of all to rescue this economy from the devastation inflicted upon it by our predecessors and in the situation in which we lost $9 billion in national economic capacity, we have sought to target special measures to those most in need. I can assure the honourable gentleman that those concerns will be uppermost, both in the May statement and in the Budget that we bring down later this year. Mr Goodluck —Nobody can understand why the increase-- Madam SPEAKER —The honourable member is not entitled to ask a supplementary question. Mr MILDREN —Being mindful of this Government's proven record on taxation reform, I ask the Treasurer whether he will inform the House of any alternative comprehensive tax reform proposals which have been proposed to the Government by any section of the community. Mr KEATING —When this Government won office again after the last election the policy which the Prime Minister had put to the electorate was that we would have a national summit meeting on taxation reform. Many organisations were invited to attend that summit meeting and to put scenarios for the tax system, which, of course, were costed by both the Treasury and by the Economic Planning Advisory Council. Quite a number of very comprehensive tax reform proposals were put at that summit by many organisations in this country. After that summit, the Government brought down its tax reform package in September 1985. There were 20 very large changes to the tax system, all of which are now legislated, bar the Australia Card which, of course, was shamefully defeated at the hands of the Opposition parties in the Senate. September 1985 was the time when the present Leader of the Opposition was elected to the office of Leader of the Opposition. At the time, because he was fresh in the office, he announced a few guiding principles on taxation and promised more hard detail some time later. But in saying that, he said he would reject all of our fairness measures-that is, the taxing of non-cash fringe benefits, the capital gains tax, the stopping of entertainment deductions and negative gearing. However, 18 months after the Government's package was released, we know less today about John Howard's tax policy than we knew then. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Treasurer will use the correct title. Mr KEATING —We know less today about the tax policy of the honourable member for Bennelong than we knew then. Of course, we witnessed last year the fumbling and stumbling around the entertainment and FBT issue. The Leader of the Opposition pretended he would tax these areas. There was a phoney debate about section 26 (e), which we all know could never have been applied. We finished 1986 no better off in terms of knowing where he stood on taxation. On 12 February, on the AM program, he stated: The details of that policy are going to be released a lot sooner than many people imagine. It is now May; that was said in February. Mr Elliott, the Federal Treasurer of the Liberal Party, said: The point is that the Liberal Party ought to get out and enunciate its tax policy. It is a damn good policy. Now if you have a damn good policy, my own view is that you ought to have it out up front and defend it. Mr Spender —Madam Speaker, on a point of order: In 1973 a question was asked about statements of high-ranking members of the Liberal Party. That was ruled out of order on the basis that the Minister was not responsible for what a high-ranking member of the Liberal Party said. What the Treasurer seeks to do is to get a general dorothy dix question put to him, and by having that dorothy dix question put to him-- Government members interjecting- Mr Spender —There would be no dispute about that proposition. After having that dorothy dix question put to him, he then starts to examine matters that, on any view of relevance, have nothing to do with his portfolio. I would ask you to warn-- Madam SPEAKER —The Chair is listening carefully to the Treasurer. Mr Spender —Thank you. I would ask you to keep that in mind, Madam Speaker. Mr KEATING —Madam Speaker-- Mr Cunningham —Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. I ask that the honourable member for North Sydney withdraw that aspersion on the honourable member on this side who asked that question. Madam SPEAKER —I did not hear anything wrong with what the honourable member for North Sydney had to say. Mr KEATING —Mr Elliott has told us that there is a policy which he calls a good policy. On the Schildberger program last week the Leader of the Opposition said: We have a policy on tax. The only thing that is missing is the numbers. He was implying that the policy has been put together. Elliott has obviously seen it. The Leader of the Opposition said he has it, but he does not have the numbers. What we want to know in the public interest is: Where is it? Where is this secret tax policy? What is the Leader of the Opposition afraid of? What is contained in this tax policy that has made him so afraid that he keeps it hidden and under wraps? What is contained in his tax policy? He wants to try to wait until the next election and, about two weeks from the poll, unwrap this grab bag for the rich and try to sneak under the line. Let me tell him this: We will squash him on the way. If he thinks he can have a secret tax policy which he keeps to himself, which contains handouts for the rich, and then try to sneak his way to a poll, we will squash him like a bug before he gets to the line. We have heard lots of incantations from the other side of the House about policy, honesty and integrity. What about some leadership from the honourable member for Bennelong? What about a tax policy? What about letting the public and the Parliament know what the policies are on that side of the House? He has had the job for 18 months. The Government has had a public tax debate. The Government arranged for all of the interest groups to meet in this chamber and put their views. It published a White Paper and a tax statement. It has legislated on all of the information. It has had public debates. What is the Leader of the Opposition, with his secret tax policy, afraid of? John Elliott says that it is good. The Leader of the Opposition says that he has one, but the numbers are missing. What about putting some of the numbers together with some integrity and bringing the integrity and the numbers to the table? I said yesterday, and I will say now, that the Government sits again for the economic test on 13 May, but on 14 May the Leader of the Opposition sits for the economic test. On the night of 14 May, the day after the Government's test, we will want to know about the fiscal numbers of the tax policies of the honourable member for Bennelong. We will want to know how he will fund the $16 billion of commitments he has made. We will want to know how those many people who rely on outlays would survive in a nation under the leadership of the honourable member for Bennelong, who says he has the policies but who is afraid at this stage to bring them publicly to the fore. Mr HOWARD —Is the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations aware that the Federal Secretary of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union, Mr O'Toole, has directed that every member of the union must pay $40 to cover damages and costs to the union incurred in the Mudginberri dispute? I ask the Minister what protection can be offered to union members who refuse to pay money out of their pockets to cover their union leaders' blatant breach of the law? What protection will the Minister offer abattoir owners who refuse any request to deduct the money from employees' pay packets and send it to those same union bosses? Mr WILLIS —I am not aware of the direction allegedly made by Mr O'Toole, but I accept the veracity of the Leader of the Opposition in this matter and that this is probably something that has happened. The Leader of the Opposition is a fervent supporter of the Trade Practices Act in relation to its application to trade unions. In the case of Mudginberri, of course, the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union was hit with fines of, I think, a little over $100,000 but also compensatory damages of $1.7m. A union hit with damages of that kind, which obviously involve extremely large amounts of money, probably would not have the capacity to pay that money from its own resources. The Leader of the Opposition would seem to want to have it both ways. He wants to be able to penalise unions with extremely heavy damages-$1.7m is obviously a very large amount of money, let alone the $100,000 for penalties-and then say to the union that it cannot raise the money from its members. Where does he expect it to get the money to pay the damages? Where does he expect it to get the money from? Does he expect the money to materialise out of thin air? Obviously, if a union is the subject of very heavy penalties, it has to find the money from somewhere. I seemed to detect in the Leader of the Opposition's question the belief that the unions should not-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! I just point out that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition-who is not listening to me although he should be-has been interjecting all through Question Time. Mr N.A. Brown —It has all been helpful. Madam SPEAKER —I ask him to cease. Helpful or unhelpful, the Chair is asking for it to stop. Mr WILLIS —The thrust of the question from the Leader of the Opposition apparently is that the unions should not pay. Is that what he really means-that they should not seek to raise money from their members and that they should refuse to pay the fine? If that is his position, at least I understand what he is putting; but I must say that it sits oddly with his fervent support of the Trade Practices Act and the pursuit of penalties against trade unions under that Act. The honourable member cannot have it both ways. He wants to have the Act applied to unions; all right. If this happens and they are hit with penalties, they will have to raise the money from somewhere. They will have to levy their members. If they cannot do that, they will not be able to pay the fine. Obviously, the position of the Leader of the Opposition is quite hopeless in this matter. Of course, if a company were fined in some way under the Trade Practices Act, the shareholders would be expected to pay through the profits of the company. The Leader of the Opposition would not be saying that the shareholders collectively should not pay. In the case of a trade union he is saying that the members should not pay. The position of the Leader of the Opposition in this matter is absolutely absurd. He cannot have it both ways, he is in a hopeless position, and this an absolute demonstration of his total incompetence. Ms JAKOBSEN —My question is directed to the Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce. What measures has the Government taken to deliver information and advisory services to businesses in the manufacturing and service industries? Is any special attention paid to small businesses which need assistance to grow and export, or Commonwealth Government assistance to industry mainly targeted to the larger firm? Mr BARRY JONES —I thank the honourable member for Cowan for her question. The Commonwealth Government has implemented, under the regime of Senator Button, a number of measures to assist the development of world competitive manufacturing and service firms. I think that history will indicate that the greatest single area of economic failure on the part of this spavined mob opposite is their total failure to redirect the nature of our economic base. They were always looking at firms which were inward looking, which were totally concerned with servicing the Australian market, and nothing else. They never came to grips at any time with the fact that the world market out there was changing, and changing against our advantage. One of the most recent of the new developments has been the setting up, in conjunction with the State governments, of a nationwide program to provide information and advice to industry. The program was called NIES-the National Industry Extension Services. NIES has been launched in all States as a one stop shop for advice to businesses on product innovation and development, management systems, process technology, design and quality. By phoning or calling in to an NIES State office, firms can be either assisted immediately or directed to the most appropriate expert adviser in the private or the public sector. The clientele for NIES will come mainly from the small business sector and from medium sized firms. Certainly, the Government's entire range of support and incentive programs is available to small business. The Government recognises that often the smaller enterprise has the capacity to be innovative and to be able to secure a niche in specialist markets overseas. The Government attaches high priority to assisting small businesses to become world class operations capable of competing effectively in Australia and overseas. In addition to NIES, which incorporates all of the Government's initiatives, assistance and advisory programs, the States themselves operate specialist small business corporation bureaux which can then co-ordinate with NIES business offices, and take on referrals for small businesses which are in need of start-up and other advice particular for small enterprise needs. Then, at the last stage, NIES business offices also link into Austrade services, because products have to be taken out into the world economy, and export assistance measures. The new exporter scheme came into effect last year to help introduce smaller firms to exporting, and it is working. Mr IAN CAMERON —In view of the Prime Minister's reply to the right honourable member for New England and his indicated concern for the essential wheat exports of Australia, why are he and his Labor Government intending to introduce legislation in this House in an attempt to legislate to oppose the Queensland National Party Government's essential services and exports industrial legislation, which has become law in Queensland in an endeavour to maintain or even increase Australia's exports? Mr HAWKE —The honourable gentleman who asked the question may believe what he is saying, but he would be the only member of the House who does. The legislation to which he refers was not introduced for any industrial relations purpose whatsoever. It is a political gimmick. It is part of the destabilising armoury that the Premier of Queensland is directing, I might say, not so much at the Labor Party in this country but at the poor wretches opposite. Nothing that he is doing at this time has anything to do with the intrinsic welfare of the State of Queensland. It is part of the attack by the Premier of Queensland upon the whole political system in this country. We fortunately have the possibility of testing the approach of the Queensland Premier in the industrial relations area in the period since we have been in office. We have the opportunity of looking at the level of industrial disputation for the years 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986. Comparing the Queensland position with that of Australia as a whole, the level of days lost per thousand employees in the State of Queensland is 13 per cent higher than the Australian average. So we can test over a period of four years the confrontationist approach of the Queensland Premier against the rest of Australia. Queenslanders are 13 per cent worse off because when the Queensland Premier approaches an industrial relations situation, it is not with a view to seeing what is best done to deal with the industrial relations problem-it is sheer confrontationist politics. If we want to look more broadly, let me say to honourable members that the advice that we have from the Attorney-General is that the legislation to which the honourable member for Maranoa refers is in contravention of at least six international conventions to which this country is party. Opposition members interjecting- Mr HAWKE —It is all very well for honourable members opposite to pour scorn on international conventions of the International Labour Organisation. In the military or communist dictatorships of this world where we see some signs, as we did in Poland at the end of the 1970s, of the emergence of the right of free men and women to withdraw their labour, honourable members opposite immediately applaud those signs of the right of free men and women in those sorts of dictatorships to withdraw their labour and, in those circumstances, they are the first to invoke the international principles of freedom of association and of the right of working people to withdraw their labour. Honourable members opposite have a singular clarity of vision when they look to those dictatorships and they say: `Yes, it is good to see that there will be something like Solidarity emerging, where there will be that single thing which most distinguishes democracies from dictatorships of the Left or the Right'. The thing which distinguishes democracies from communist or military dictatorships is the right of free men and women to withdraw their labour. Honourable members opposite were right to welcome the emergence of that right when we saw some flowering of it in Poland. Where they see it as a proper thing, where they see international conventions perhaps being applied and emerging in the dictatorships, they say: `Yes, that is a good thing'. But in this country where this fascist fellow in Queensland-- Mr Ian Cameron —Madam Speaker, I wish to have that remark withdrawn. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member is out of order. Does the honourable member have a point of order? Mr Ian Cameron —Madam Speaker, has the Prime Minister withdrawn that remark? Madam SPEAKER —No, the Prime Minister did not withdraw. Mr Ian Cameron —Madam Speaker, under the Standing Orders dealing with unparliamentary language I ask that the Prime Minister withdraw that remark. Madam SPEAKER —I point out to the honourable member for Maranoa that the Prime Minister was not referring to him. Mr HAWKE —The language that I have used was brought most recently to my mind by the honourable member for Bruce who, on the 12.30 Report yesterday, was asked about certain developments which may affect him rather directly. He described these-- Mr Spender —Madam Speaker, I take a point of order. It is always good to see the Prime Minister get diverted. Now he is going to talk about the honourable member for Bruce. He has been asked a question by the honourable member for Maranoa-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! I point out to the honourable member for North Sydney that the Prime Minister was responding to a point of order raised by the honourable member for Maranoa. Mr Spender —Madam Speaker, in that event it is not open to him, your having ruled upon the matter and having-- Government members interjecting- Mr Spender —Calm down, fellows. Madam Speaker, your having ruled on the matter and the Prime Minister then having proceeded, it is not for him to go to something else which has nothing to do with the question at all. If relevance is to mean anything you must make a judgment upon it and direct the Prime Minister to abide by that judgment. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for North Sydney will resume his seat. Mr HAWKE —As I have said, my memory of this language was jolted by the observations of the honourable member for Bruce yesterday when he was talking about what is happening in conservative politics. He had some particular concern in his own area. His words were quite simple. He said: . . . their aim, I think, is undoubtedly to break the Liberal Party as it exists, as a mainstream conservative force, and replace it with something much further to the right of an extreme right neo-fascist nature. I do not often find myself in agreement with the honourable member for Bruce but I must say that on this occasion I cannot find myself in disagreement in any shape or form. What I am saying in regard-- Mr Ian Cameron —Madam Speaker, I take a point of order. Government members interjecting- Madam SPEAKER —I point out to honourable members on my right that they are bringing the House into disorder with their antics. I ask them to assist the Chair and the House. Mr Ian Cameron —Madam Speaker, I am interested to know whether you will demand that the Prime Minister get back to the point of my question. Madam SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. Mr HAWKE —Madam Speaker, you can see that the language that I have used is well justified. I have been informed-I find it extremely strange-that, in a matter of a few weeks, the Queensland Minister, Mr Lester, is going to the International Labour Organisation for the month of June. In other words, honourable members opposite want to have it both ways. They want to recognise the authority of the International Labour Organisation-an organisation which is respected around the world because of its tripartite composition which sets standards which we hope will enable other countries to encourage practices which will mark them as countries developing a situation which will be capable of respect. They do this by having these conventions which set down the sorts of standards which should characterise decent behaviour in industry in countries around the world. This legislation, which honourable members seek, of the Queensland Premier whom I have properly described is, as we are advised by the Attorney-General, in contravention of about half a dozen of those international conventions. If honourable members opposite in that corner of the House want to have in Queensland the same standards as communist and military dictatorships, so be it. But I will tell them what will happen. The people of Australia will give honourable members the judgment which they should rightly give to this fascist type approach. Fortunately, the people of this country believe that, as far as Australia is concerned, we should be distinguished from communist and military dictatorships by giving the right to free men and women to withdraw their labour. Mr JOHN BROWN(Parramatta-Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism) —Madam Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation. Madam SPEAKER —Does the Minister claim to have been misrepresented? Mr JOHN BROWN —I do. Madam SPEAKER —Please proceed. Mr JOHN BROWN —The Sydney Morning Herald newspapers of yesterday's date and again of today's date carry reports of evidence given at a trial in Sydney relating to the well known Chris Jones-Eddie Azzopardi case. The newspapers report my name and that of my wife as being numbered amongst several others, including my State counterpart and the New South Wales Premier, as frequenting illegal casinos in Parramatta and other illegal acts. Like the New South Wales Premier, who yesterday denied any knowledge of the accusations, I now advise the House of my complete innocence in all these matters. I have never visited an illegal casino in Parramatta or in any other place. I deplore the accusations that have been levelled against me. I am confident that police investigations already launched into these lying accusations will clear not only my name by also the names of my wife and of other people named in these malicious statements. Furthermore, I assert that Robert Cummings, expelled member of the Australian Labor Party, should be charged with making malicious and misleading statements. I deplore the efforts of this person of ill repute to slur innocent people. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate Ministers: To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we consider the 2% discounting of Commonwealth Occupational Superannuation Scheme pension adjustments on 10 October 1986 to be a serious breach of trust by the Government. The Commonwealth has reneged on an established commitment as incorporated in Commonwealth legislation and benefit promise pensions are not being paid in full. In particular we resent the long-term effect of the discounting. The pension loss is compounded throughout the life of a pensioner and surviving dependants-into the 21st century for many. We consider this Government-induced penalty to be out of all proportion to the short-term ``extraordinary circumstances of the economy'' given as the reason for the discounting. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government: 1. limit the pension discounting effect of the Superannuation and Other Benefits Legislation Amendment Act 1986 to the period 10 October 1986 to 1 July 1987 so that pensions are restored to the 9 October 86 level as a base for the 1987 pension adjustment; and 2. consult with organisations representing pensioners before changing the terms and conditions of Commonwealth Occupational Superannuation Schemes. Any your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Free,Mr Hollis,Mr Hunt,Mr Lloyd and Ms Mayer. 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 mixtures 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 Hawker,Mr Hodges 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,Mr McArthur,Ms McHugh and Mr Milton. To the Honourable the Speaker and the 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 show restraint with equity. In particular, the decision to defer the November pension adjustments has resulted in a loss of $25.62 for a single pensioner and $21.36 for each married pensioner. The prospect of a further deferral of the May adjustment will result in the loss of another $35.10 for a single pensioner and $29.10 for each married pensioner. When you are scrimping to make ends meet, as is the case with many pensioners, you can't afford such a cut in living standards. Pensioners are looking for a new deal from politicians-more of the same is not good enough! Your petitioners request an immediate return to payment of May and November C.P.I. increases, and as is duty bound will ever pray the Government grant this request now. by Mr Adermann,Mr Griffiths and Mr Hollis. 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 whereas: 1. They are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian National Flag. 2. They are aware it properly reflects the immutable characteristics of Australia, namely: (a) The Union Jack, itself the creation of three Christian Crosses, represents the Nation's historical origin and the source of its language and law; (b) The Southern Cross on an azure blue background signifying its geographical location on this planet Earth; (c) the large star depicting the advent of Federation in 1901. 3. They know the Flag has been a source of inspiration to generations of Australians in peace and war. 4. They recall that millions of native-born Australians and newcomers to these shores from other parts of the world have become united under its proud symbolism. 5. They are certain that any change to the Flag will produce division in the Australian community. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will: Propose and pass a motion that ``the existing Australian National Flag be changed only with the approval of the Nation as expressed in a Referendum''. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Beale and Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth that whereas: 1. They are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian National Flag. 2. They are aware it properly reflects the immutable characteristics of Australia, namely: (a) The Union Jack, itself the creation of three Christian Crosses, represents the Nation's historical origin and the source of its language and law; (b) The Southern Cross on an azure blue background signifying its geographical location on this planet Earth; (c) the large star depicting the advent of Federation in 1901. 3. They know the Flag has been a source of inspiration to generations of Australians in peace and war. 4. They recall that millions of native-born Australians and newcomers to these shores from other parts of the world have become united under its proud symbolism. 5. They are certain that any change to the Flag will produce division in the Australian community. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will: Propose and pass a motion that ``the existing Australian National Flag be changed only with the approval of the Nation as expressed in a Referendum''. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Halverson. 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 Cadman and Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: Any proposals to abolish the Department of Veterans' Affairs gravely concern ex-servicemen, ex-ser- vicewomen and their families because they renege on clear and unequivocal commitments from various Commonwealth Governments to properly care for Australia's veterans. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, urge the Parliament to: Ensure that the Department of Veterans' Affairs continues to exist as a separate and distinct Department of State servicing the needs of veterans and their families. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Nehl and Mr Ruddock. 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 Benefit Tax and Labor's tax on lump sum superannuation. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Cadman. To the Speaker and the Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled. The petition of certain citizens respectfully showeth that: The Hawke Labor Government's ID Card proposal is the most far reaching and intrusive piece of Australian legislation yet introduced, and that on all the evidence available, it 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 taxpayer's money and a significant infringement of civil liberties. 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. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that the Fringe Benefits Tax is an iniquitous and unjust impost which will further damage the Australian economy and further increase costs to employers. The Tax will: (1) further increase the level of unemployment; (2) increase the administrative costs and overheads for business and Government; (3) particularly disadvantage small businesses and farmers; and (4) act as a disincentive to those who are the most productive and skilled; And we the undersigned call upon the Government to immediately repeal the Fringe Benefits Tax. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Cadman. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: that the Bill of Rights is a dangerous piece of legislation which gives us no new legally enforceable rights that the Bill of Rights leaves out vital rights such as the right not to belong to a trade union, the right to own private property, the right to a private education that the Bill of Rights gives dangerous new powers to a Federal Government Commission to investigate in private, without legal representation and with criminal penalties for refusing to co-operate that the Bill of Rights deals with our rights; therefore we, the people, should say whether we want it by a referendum. Your petitioners therefore pray that you will oppose the Bill of Rights, support Liberal amendments to improve it in case it is passed, and pledge to repeal it should it become law. by Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows: 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 every pray. by Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That in the light of the Labor Government's failure to act to correct the many anomalies in the Assets Test on pensions brought to its notice, the Labor Government's legislation should be repealed before it has an unduly unfair impact on pensioners. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled should immediately seek the repeal of the Labor Government's iniquitous and unfair Assets Test. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Hawker. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: (1) That Moreton Island has been listed on the Register of the National Estate because of its exceptional scientific, ecological, heritage and recreational values; and (2) That any sand mining of Moreton Island will result in the destruction of the exceptional scientific, ecological, heritage and recreational values of the Island; and (3) That Moreton Island has been the subject of detailed investigation resulting in the adoption of a Management Plan by the Brisbane City Council the main aims of which are to conserve in its natural state the quality of its scenery and natural environment and to enhance public enjoyment of it for recreational purposes; and (4) That Moreton Island represents the last significant area of wilderness close to Brisbane; and (5) That there is an acute deficiency of National Parks within a 150 kilometre radius of Brisbane; and (6) That Moreton Island contains Aboriginal relics of immense scientific and cultural importance; and (7) That Moreton Island represents a major potential tourist resource specifically because of its unspoiled natural scenic attractions; and (8) That public opinion actively demonstrated over a number of years clearly indicates that most citizens of Brisbane are strongly opposed to any sand mining on the Island, and desire that the whole of Moreton Island with the exception only of existing townships, tourist resort, airstrips and lighthouse reserve should be declared a national park. Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that the Parliament of Australia will: (a) accept the wishes of the petitioners and the citizens of Brisbane generally and take whatever action is necessary and available to it to prevent sand mining of any description taking place on Moreton Island; and (b) request the Government of the State of Queensland to take immediate action to declare the whole of Moreton Island to be a national park with the exception only of existing townships, tourist resort, airstrips and lighthouse reserve. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Keogh. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens, teachers, pupils and parents, working in the interest of the pupils in the Government school system and in particular the pupils, both present and future, of Watson High School, respectfully showeth that: (i) Watson High School is an educationally viable school now and will continue to be educationally viable if placed on the same resources formula as other High Schools; (ii) Watson High School is achieving educational outcomes as recommended in the Steinle Review of A.C.T. Secondary Schools, ``The Challenge of Change''; (iii) A guarantee of the operation of Watson High School in the future would ensure that the percentage of in-area students would rise and that the school would also attract out-of-area students because of (ii) above; (iv) Watson High School was built as a high school, has been completely renovated (at great public expense) and should be used as a high school; (v) Watson High School has very strong school community and public support. And we therefore humbly pray that Watson High School be kept open. by Mr Langmore. 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 North Coast section of the Pacific Highway, from a point just south of Port Macquarie and just north of Woolgoolga, is in urgent need of major road improvement works in order to bring it up to road safety standards. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that: The Federal Government immediately divert national highway funds or make available other funds towards the improvement of this section of the Pacific Highway. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will humbly pray. by Mr Nehl. 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 respectively showeth that: Labor's Capital Gains Tax is standing in the way of economic developments 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 respectively showeth that: The Benefits of War Widows have been altered, and they no longer receive Pharmaceutical Benefits from the Department of Veterans' Affairs. This is causing great concern and hardship, as quite a lot of their medications are no longer available and nothing to replace them on National Health. They are now required to pay large amounts to obtain their medications, just to stay alive. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Honour its commitment to these War Widows by: Returning their Veterans' Affairs Pharmaceutical Benefits to them immediately, and to refrain from worrying these ageing widows any further by tampering with our Veteran Affairs Act and breaking all promises made to our husbands. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Blunt. Petitions received. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Madam Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The devastating effect on the living standards of Australian families resulting from the Government's housing and high interest rate policies. 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 TUCKEY(O'Connor)(3.02) —Yesterday I asked a question of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) seeking his recognition of a statement of fact by the Chairman of the Australian Financial Conference, at one time known as the Hire Purchase Conference, which I think is significant. His statement was that consumers and small businesses are going broke in ever increasing numbers. The Prime Minister gave me a short but rhetorical answer. Today the Treasurer (Mr Keating) gave us mark 1,555 of his attitude and answer on taxation matters. It is getting to the stage where he has said it more times than there were episodes of Blue Hills-and we are getting pretty bored with that. We know the reason for this situation. The Government no longer has any good news for the electorate. The Government totally regiments its back bench to ask questions here which are totally unrelated to the welfare of their constituents, questions that invite Ministers to attack an Opposition yet to reach government-although the time gets closer every day. There is no good news. The great pity about that is that there are ways to fix these problems which the Government with its rhetoric refuses even to consider. The matter of public importance debate is a daily institution in this Parliament. Contrary to the views of the Treasurer and the Prime Minister it is not an excuse for some confrontationist contest of rhetoric. To the contrary, it is an opportunity to bring to this Parliament matters of concern to the Australian people. The words `matter of public importance' should be interpreted literally. Today I stand here to put a case for Australian families and their basic need for shelter. When my mother spoke to me as a child she was at pains to stress the fundamentals of family security. I have never forgotten her advice that she and my father and their young family were insulated against the worst effects of the Great Depression because they owned their own home. I have never forgotten her other homily, which said that when poverty comes through the door love flies out the window. Nobody enters marriage without a belief that it will be a lasting arrangement. The present horrendous statistics of marriage breakdown represent substantially more than some change in moral attitude. Marriages are failing through the financial pressures of falling living standards caused by the increasing financial pressures of the Hawke Government's tax and interest rate policies. I am not here to convince the voting public of their financial plight; they know it already. I am here today to mount a case to a callous and insensitive government, to convince it of the failure of its policies and to beg the back bench at least to ignore the razmataz of the Prime Minister's and the Treasurer's rhetoric. While the Prime Minister lectures us about his popularity at black tie dinners, I ask the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr West) when a working constituent last went to him voluntarily to thank him for the benefit of his policies. I want him to think about that in the interest of those people, because it is only the Prime Minister who is getting those sorts of compliments at black tie dinners. It is time that the Minister, considering his position in his party, started fighting for these people. This is the purpose of my presentation today. Statistically, let us consider the situation that confronts Australian home owners. They must first discount their income for taxation. For every dollar they pay in personal income tax, they must pay 35c in Federal indirect taxes. Fuel alone takes $7,000m in tax out of Australian pockets this year. Home owners must pay a further 13c in the dollar in State and local government taxes. The Hawke Government has increased government revenue from $44,000m in the last Fraser Budget to $71,000m today-an increase of 66 per cent in just four years. For an ordinary family on average earnings of $446.30 a week, this represents a jump in weekly personal taxation from $65 a week to $102 a week. Total taxation, including all those indirect taxes, is therefore approximately $150 a week. Then we have to deduct another $150 a week for a typical home loan and $100 a week for the family car. That leaves $146 out of average weekly earnings to feed and educate the family. One wonders why many wives have been driven back into the work force. It is not necessarily by choice or through ambition, but by absolute necessity. As the Minister would know from his own constituency, very few single income families earn average weekly earnings. A shop assistant probably earns about $13,000 per annum. Let us look at the Hawke Government's much publicised tax cuts this year. For high income earners, they represent a drop from 60c in the dollar to 49c in the dollar. But the tax cut for that shop assistant is from 30c in the dollar to 29c in the dollar. His circumstances are now such that wage increases have little beneficial effect. The recent $10 national wage increase represents a total of $18 to the employer with his on-costs, with a consequent effect on the price that the family must pay. The sum of $18 is being fed into the cost structure but the employee is lucky to take home $5 or $6 after tax to meet his additional living costs. We hear those opposite boast about the fringe benefits tax being so fair to low income earners. It is the factory foreman who is denied the right to drive home the work utility-it is now locked up. It is the low level bank officer who has had adjustments made to his interest charges. The chief executive now gets his Mercedes at a rate of 25c in the dollar. That is how fair that procedure is. It is all about black tie dinners and ignoring the constituency. The housing and tax policies that the Government has pursued are imposing the highest burden of all. Every family will attempt to gain a home. Family members will probably try to purchase one; if not, they will rent one. I just ask this Minister to recognise how his Government's policies have greatly increased the cost, as a percentage of disposable income, of providing that home. I do not want the Minister to give me excuses. I do not want him to blame past governments. Excuses will not put food on family tables. I just want some action and a change in the government borrowing policies which produce the funds that the Government takes from the market. It should instead make them available at affordable rates to home owners and small business. I just want Government members to remember that this Government has borrowed $24,000m in just four years to make up the difference between the sorts of spending programs it likes to give and the sorts of taxes that it wants to raise. The Government is using our kids as security for that money. Their standards of living will suffer for that extravagance. The reality of the international economic situation is that interest rates are at an all time low. Japanese borrowers enjoy interest rates below 5 per cent; borrowers in Europe and the United States enjoy rates below 10 per cent. Only Australia has interest rates of 15 to 22 per cent, and it is the first time in our history that domestic interest rates have not reflected international trends, whether high or low. It is not just a terms of trade problem. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer daily try to blame foreigners. The United States has similar massive trade problems-its terms of trade are pretty lousy also-and so do numerous countries in Europe. Yet their interest rates are below 10 per cent and their inflation rates are low or next to nothing. In fact, their inflation rates average 1.7 per cent compared with Australia's 9.5 per cent. It is not a problem that one can blame on trade problems and inflation rates. Trade problems are as old as settlement in this country. Trade problems have always been around but good governments make provision for them. It is only this lousy Government which cannot even get its Budget balanced after it has set it and allowed itself $3,000m, $4,000m and $5,000m worth of borrowing. It is only this Government that overran last year's Budget by $800m and will apparently overrun this one by $500m. The last Fraser Government paid $3,300m in interest. This year's Budget predicts $7,500m but now we are told that it will probably be $8,000m and that is just too bad. There are many ways we can measure the costs in the community. In recent times we have had a growth in construction costs and in interest charges. The Government supported a $52 a week pay increase to workers in the building industry and that will not contribute positively to any cuts in building costs. These costs are all government induced and the people are paying. The Real Estate Institute produces a home affordability survey which simply divides the average home loan into median family income. Between September 1985 and September 1986, when Labor governments prevailed around Australia, the percentage of gross income required to service a home loan jumped from 23.2 per cent to 26.7 per cent. An extra 3.5 per cent of increased earnings must be used to maintain a home loan. That is after wage increases and does not take account of tax increases which further reduce disposable income, as I have already explained. In more dramatic terms, the cost of servicing a mortgage has increased from 18 per cent of after-tax earnings in 1972 to 36 per cent today. The massive jumps in those figures have occurred under the Whitlam and Hawke governments. In the four years of the Hawke Government the price of a manual Holden Commodore has risen from $10,500 to $16,500, and combined with high interest it has become beyond the resources of a typical family. Families have stopped buying. Car sales are at their lowest point in real terms than they have been since 1967 and consequently other working families have lost their employment. Another interesting comparison is the number of working days at full wages required to purchase an item. Since the Hawke Government assumed office an Australian worker must work an additional eight weeks-from 38 to 46-to buy a car. When we left office 38 weeks' wages would buy a car; now it is 46 week's work. A worker must work an additional 0.3 of a day per week-an increase from 1.5 days per week to 1.8 days-to meet his family housing commitment. This has required a further shift of disposable income. The savings in family expenditure are made by fewer purchases at the clothing store and less money being spent on kids' toys. The family gets its priorities right. Then of course we have business failures. If the current rate of bankruptcy is any indication, business failures are running at an all time record high. For the first nine months of this financial year 7,304 bankruptcies were recorded. The honourable member for Charlton (Mr Robert Brown) has gone very silent on bankruptcy; he used to make a lot of speeches about it. That figure compares with the maximum number of 6,034 bankruptcies in the great drought and depression under the Fraser Government. Today I hope to convince the Government that its policies have failed in the hope that it will change them. I am not here to criticise the Government; I am here to beg it to make some changes in the interests of the people who support it. The Government must first stop misleading Australians and itself. A recent example of the Treasurer misleading Australia was the damage he did when he and the Prime Minister told people they could expect falling interest rates. The people who believed him in those days-it would be difficult to find them today-went and contracted debt with the surety of the Treasurer that it would not be more expensive and that it would, in fact, get cheaper and now they of course are joining the statistics of the bankrupt. The latest example was the claim by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister-the Prime Minister made it only yesterday-that the reduction of the savings banks reserve asset ratio from 15 per cent to 13 per cent would provide $900m in additional funds for home lending. A study of saving bank statistics at the time of the announcement showed that all the banks exceeded the maximum statutory limit of 15 per cent anyway. The Commonwealth Banking Corporation was at 15.9 per cent and the National Australia Bank at 17.6 per cent. The reason for that is simple: There is more profit in lending money to this big borrowing Government than to most home owners at 15.5 per cent. There is no reason to believe that the banks will change their attitude to profit. The only time they will stop lending to the Government is when the net return on government paper falls below the return on home lending. Interest rates will fall when the Government stops borrowing. We await with interest the May economic statement to discover whether the rhetoric of the Treasurer will be matched by reality or whether we are to be treated to a shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr WEST(Cunningham-Minister for Housing and Construction)(3.17) —The speech we have just heard from the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) was not in line with the motion before the House today, which purports to deal with the standards for Australian families resulting from the Government's housing and high interest rate policies. I do not think that anyone who listened to the new shadow Minister's speech could say that he dealt adequately with the issue that he put up. During his contribution he challenged me to put forward some examples of support that the Government may have received on its housing and interest rate policies over the past several years. I do not need to go back several years in order to give examples of support. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) put these before the House yesterday and I will do so again briefly. Since the March housing package was announced by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) and me, we have received support from industry organisations, trade unions, individual members of the public and also various State Ministers. Let me quote the Master Builders Federation of Australia Inc., which wrote personally to me: Your measures are in line with various submissions we have put to you. We therefore believe that Cabinet's decision to revamp the first home owner's scheme represents a vindication of our discussions with you. The letter goes on: The Government's decision not to renew the subsidy to banks is also supported and we believe that the gradual freeing up of $900m in deposit funds, currently frozen under the financial regulations, provides the basis for the availability of further funds for housing. The Federation then says: We also support the Government's commitments to public housing, especially in times of public expenditure restraint. That is a wholehearted favourable response from the Master Builders Federation which it reiterated in a Press release on 3 May. The other major industry organisation, the Housing Industry Association, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister giving effusive backing for the Government's housing policy. It said: On behalf of the National Board of Directors of the Housing Industry Association, we should like to convey our appreciation to your Government once again affirming its very high priority for housing. And so it went on. It then said: Not only will the new housing assistance package help to revitalise housing prospects, but it is of no less importance that it will enable the States to alleviate housing poverty within our country. That was a reference to our ongoing commitment to public housing funding. Of course it is history how that package ended the subsidy to the banks, but it reiterated our commitment to hold the 13.5 per cent ceiling on what are known as the old savings banks loans. Mr Tuckey —The silvertails! Mr WEST —As I have mentioned, it gave the savings banks the flexibility to reduce the funds invested, to the extent of $900m under the reserve asset ratio arrangements with the Reserve Bank from 15 per cent to 13 per cent of their deposits. It also lifted the income limits for the first home owners scheme. I advise the new shadow Minister for Housing and Construction to have a good look at the benefits available under that scheme. It is recognised as being the best home ownership assistance scheme ever seen in this country. The new income limit arrangements were welcomed widely within the industry, as was the matter of funding for public housing, which allows the States to be offered $700m per year as a base level for each of the next three years. Of course one can add to this the nominating fund arrangements, whereby the States can nominate up to 60 per cent of the total State government borrowing program, at 4 1/2 per cent, repayable over 53 years. That is worth nearly $600m to the States this year. All up, they received almost $1,400m from the Federal Government to construct public housing. I will return to this issue in a moment. What I am saying quite clearly is that individuals and the industry organisations have welcomed the Government's latest initiatives to assist the housing industry, as indeed they have welcomed our policies for the past four years. What we did for the first home owners scheme was very laudable indeed. For instance, applicants with two or more dependent children will be eligible to receive a $6,000 grant if their taxable family income is less than $26,000, with reduced benefits phasing out for taxable family incomes up to $34,000. That is really a reasonable income and yet they are able, as with much lower income earners, to receive this benefit to assist them in coping with current interest rates and the deposit gap. So, I point out to the House that the Government has offered very substantial assistance measures to alleviate housing problems. We have held the 13 1/2 per cent for the old savings banks loans. That was very important, as there are 900,000 of those loans, and this probably affects 1.5 million or two million Australians. The honourable member for O'Connor said today that they are silvertails, but those people went into those loans in good faith, as the Treasurer and I had said that we would put a cap on the 13 1/2 per cent rate-and we did. Those people involved are thanking us for it, and I make no apologies for the measure. However, I recognised, and the Government recognised of course, that having done that there was a need to assist those people who are currently paying 15 1/2 per cent. That was the reason why, in very tough and stringent economic times, we made the changes to the first home owners scheme by raising the income limits. Some 13,500 additional families will be helped as a result of that change; they will become eligible, whereas they were not eligible before. Another 13,500-odd households will receive improved benefits. They were eligible before, but they will now get more because of the increased income limits. To be precise, the Government has spent $1.065 billion on the first home owners scheme. That scheme has already helped 235,000 households in Australia. Many people are involved in that bearing in mind that although there are some single households the majority of households comprise families, the number of people helped under that scheme would be at least double and probably three times that figure. So, the Government has provided assistance by capping the 13 1/2 per cent limit applying to people who were paying savings banks loans prior to April last year and we have provided assistance through FHOS to people who have to pay the 15 1/2 per cent new rate. The part of the shadow Minister's speech that was most relevant to the matter of public importance before the House concerned interest rates and lending for housing. I shall now address those matters. The savings banks are currently effecting record lending, as are all significant lenders in total. In the month of February-these are the latest official figures available-the major lenders were lending at an annualised rate for all significant lenders some $13 billion, and the savings banks were lending at a monthly rate of about $830m, which is about $9.8 billion at an annualised rate. Therefore, currently there is very strong lending for housing from the lending institutions. In comparing loans which are being made today and which have been made over the last three years with the record of the Opposition in that regard, one notes that during the last three years that the Opposition was in government under its policies there were 735,000 home loans from major lenders, as compared with the 914,000 loans effected under the Labor Government for the three years since June 1983. The average number of home loans per year of 305,000 under the present Government compares very favourably with the average over the last three years of the former Government of 245,000. In value terms, under our Government $21 billion has been lent, while under the former Government only $11.7 billion was lent over the comparative three-year period. As far as interest rates are concerned, of course the Government realises that they are a key factor affecting the housing industry. The trend for general rates at present is, of course, down. We are putting in place the economic policies to get a sustainable fall, and we are achieving that. Bank bill rates are currently running at a rate of 14.6 per cent. Another factor involved is the current account deficit. That is falling. This has enabled the Australian dollar to become more stable. The economic statement to be made next week is another factor that will favourably affect interest rates over the months ahead. The Government is committed to tight fiscal policies and there has been a general acceptance of the tight wages policies which the Government is committed to follow through. This all represents a moderately encouraging picture for interest rates, and in due course that will be reflected in housing interest rates. They will come down. The Opposition referred today to high interest rates affecting business and the housing industry. In June 1982 the commercial bill rate for 90 days was 18.7 per cent; today that same rate for 90 days is 14.6 per cent. There is a relationship between the cash management trust rate, the housing industry rates and bank bill rates. In July 1985 housing interest rates were 12 1/2 per cent and the commercial bill rate was 15.2 per cent, while the cash management trust rates was 14 per cent. Today, the figures are 4.6 per cent for bills and 14.7 per cent for cash management trust rates. I believe that those figures are encouraging and that in due course-if that trend continues; that is, the downward trend in bank bill rates and cash management rates-without putting a time frame on it, one could be moderately optimistic that housing interest rates will fall in line with general interest rates. I want to make several points regarding public housing policy. The Government has been very committed to ensuring that the States get adequate funds from the Federal Government for public housing. In this financial year, as I have said earlier, we made $1.95 billion available through Federal and State expenditure and almost $1.4 billion of that came from the Federal Government through grants and concessional loans to the States, at 4 1/2 per cent. That has enabled about 18,000 additions to public housing stock. It has enabled another 14,000 low interest loans to be made to low income earners. As I said, in the housing package we announced an ongoing commitment to public housing for the next three years of $700m by way of grants and reiterated our commitment to allow the States to nominate 60 per cent of their Loan Council funds for public housing at 4 1/2 per cent, as they were able to do in this financial year. They will be able to do that again next year. As a result of that agreement, as I just said, over 14,000 loans have been approved for home purchase assistance at concessional rates, compared to 8,500 in 1981-82. This year we would expect something like 44,000 new placements in the public housing system, and that compares with 34,000 in the last year of the former Government. In all respects with regard to public housing we are doing better than the former Government, the current Opposition. We are doing better with regard to funding; we are doing better with regard to placements; and we are doing better with regard to new construction and additions to the rental stock. If we look at what the Opposition says it will do, it is very hard to get any hard policies out of it, as happened again at Question Time today. It does not know where it is on tax policy and it does not know where it is on housing policy, except to say that it intends to abolish the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. If it does, it will abolish 20,000 new starts, and 18,000 additions to the rental stock. The Opposition is in hopeless confusion. At worst it is in absolutely total confusion and at best it simply does not know where it is going and does not understand what to say about specific housing policy. It is complaining about the public housing waiting lists being too long, and that there are not enough starts in housing in Australia, but then it says that it will abolish the public housing agreement, abolish grants to the States and abolish the nominating funds arrangements, terminate 20,000 to 21,000 starts and wipe out 40,000 jobs. It has no credibility. The coalition is finished. The National Party has a caretaker leader. The Liberals have a leader who leads only one faction of his Party, and neither of those parties or leaders is in a position to produce either tax or housing policies that will stick because the Premier of Queensland will not allow them to be in a position to do so. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The Minister's time has expired. Mr ANDREW(Wakefield)(3.32) —I rise to respond to the comments made by the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr West), and I am just a little disappointed. We in this place have become accustomed to the Minister coming in here and enthusiastically defending his Government's record in the housing area. What have we seen this afternoon? We have seen a Minister who, one would be kind to say, was subdued in his delivery. We have seen a Minister who clearly knows that he will not find what is in next week's economic statement very easy to sell and whose whole perspective in the debate this afternoon has reflected that truth. In introducing the matter of public importance the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) referred to the devastating effect on living standards that the Government's housing and high interest rate policies are having. His sentiments were foreshadowed by the honour- able member for Tangney (Mr Shack) who came in here to address the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill and cognate Bills and who said that the Opposition would be spending the rest of the day focusing on the two key issues most affecting Australian families-in the case of the honourable member for Tangney, the issue of education and, in the case of the matter of public importance, the issue of housing and the related issue of interest rates. As recently as midday today on the news we heard the simple fact that close to Canberra in the Snowy Mountains area, a number of people will be forced out of accommodation and will have nowhere to go because the policies of this Government, particularly in the area of interest rates, have made it no longer attractive for people to construct homes. The housing market has been destroyed by the capital gains tax and the withdrawal of negative gearing. Most disappointing of all was the audacity and the capacity that the Minister showed so willingly to mislead the House, which was out of character for him, when he referred to the performance of his Government and tried to compare it with the performance of the Fraser Government. The Minister conveniently used only three years of the seven years of Fraser Government management. If we compare the numbers of new housing starts for the entire period of the Fraser Government and the entire period of this Government as a percentage per head of population-I would have thought that was a realistic and fair way to look at them-we discover that the Fraser Government's record was to have 8.8 new houses for every 1,000 head of population a year while this Government has managed only 8.6 new houses for every 1,000 head of population a year and every indication is that that figure is falling. If we look at a graph showing housing constructions since 1965 we discover that only under Liberal Administration-with the exception of one year under the Labor Administration-have housing constructions exceeded one house for every 100 head of population. I am afraid that the Minister has chosen to use less than accurate figures. He has not been prepared, frankly, to compare apples with apples. It has been popular for the honourable member for Melbourne (Mr Hand) to come into this place and talk about how, under the present Hawke Administration, the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer. The honourable member is not quite right. A few have got richer-a select few, a few paper shufflers-but the vast majority of the population have got poorer under the tax burden foisted on us by this Government. Let us look at the lot of a university professor, the highest academic achiever, earning around $65,000, or three times the average weekly earnings. His housing costs have gone through the sky, just as they have for everyone, but look at how he has been crippled by tax. In 1978-79 he took home $40,867; now he is taking home only $36,748. Take a classic middle class family in which the husband is on twice the average weekly earnings, with his wife in a part time job. He is not getting ahead. In 1978-79 they brought home an after-tax combined income of $48,360 and they spent $7,350 on housing. They are now bringing home $46,375 but they are spending $9,500 on housing each year. Whereas in the late 1960s middle class home owners retained 60 per cent of their income after tax, now they retain only 40 to 45 per cent. This is the record for which the Minister has to answer to the Australian electorate. By any measure, a most fundamental middle class freedom, the freedom to spend, has been drastically reduced. We simply cannot escape the truth that housing costs as a proportion of after-tax income have gone from 13 per cent in 1968-69 to 28 per cent in 1985-86 under the administration of this Hawke socialist Government. Mr Donald Cameron —It is crippling people. Mr ANDREW —It is crippling people, as the honourable member for Moreton has said. I have addressed only the way in which this Government has affected middle class Australians. What happens if we take those not as fortunate as those of us gathered in this House? I want to use an illustration from the Advertiser news- paper last year of a couple who lived in my electorate, in the city of Gawler adjacent to Adelaide. This couple, the Keoghs, as reported in the Advertiser of 2 June, found that they were caught in the impossible mortgage squeeze. Mr Keogh said that their mortgage repayments had risen from $520 a month to $630 a month. Although they consider themselves an average couple, they say that they have been impossibly caught by this increase. If this was the case in June last year, what will it be like in June this year and what is it likely to be like in June next year? The entire record of this Government has been one of increasing tax takes, increasing interest rates and disadvantaging middle income and poor Australians. I turn now to something that directly affects my electorate-that is, interest rates-and tell honourable members of my experience when I was visiting briefly the electorate that is represented by the honourable member for Grey (Mr O'Neil). I was near a spot in the electorate of Grey called, incidentally and coincidentally, Port Neill. The gentleman who was with me in the car said as we drove past one house `Look at that house'-and I did. There it was, a neat little red-brick house on a farming property. He said nothing else until we had driven two or three kilometres. Then he said `Look at that gate', and I did so. It was a tidy little gate leading to another house. This went on until we had passed five houses and five properties. Finally, he said `Look at that house', which, once again, I did. Then he said: `Every one of the five houses we have passed in the last five or 10 minutes is unoccupied'. The majority of them were owned by the Freemans. Those same unoccupied houses and properties in the electorate of Grey were advertised in last week's South Australian stock journal for auction. They are unoccupied because the people who ought to be living in those houses have left them. They have walked off because of the interest rate policies of this Government. They have bought land or plant, having been advised by their bank to do so, and now they find themselves totally embarrassed by the interest rate policies of this Government. With nothing more than the car and the trailer, and the furniture they can load on it, these people-to mention one case-have made their way into the city of Gawler in my electorate, where I met them. These people have their properties advertised for sale and they know that they will get nothing from that sale. They have walked off knowing that to stay is to be declared bankrupt, not because they are bad managers but because this Government has foisted on them an interest rate policy they cannot tolerate. That same interest rate policy is destroying the housing industry. One can ask anyone in Australia about it and be told the same story. If we are destroying the housing industry, if we are destroying the opportunity of all Australians to have a roof over their heads, and if, frankly, Australians are no longer able to have their own homes, how do we hope to create stable families? Mr MARTIN(Macarthur)(3.42) —My colleague the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr West) indicated in his introductory remarks in this debate that he could see no relevance in the matter of public importance proposed to the Speaker or in the contribution of the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey). I would certainly agree with those sentiments. This is not so, however, in the case of the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Andrew), who obviously has a deep concern and commitment for the people in his electorate, and in Australia generally, in relation to interest rates and the question of housing. I believe that honourable members on both sides of this House share genuine concerns with regard to the question of interest rates and the fact that there are people who, through various circumstances, have been forced to sell houses and to get out of home ownership and perhaps into the rental market. Of course, what the honourable member for Wakefield did not say was that the circumstances that have led people to do that vary quite substantially from area to area. We have to get away from some of the hysterical approaches that the media often take when they point to people in the western suburbs of Sydney or, indeed, in some of the farming communities of Australia, saying that crippling interest rate burdens have suddenly attacked people and forced them to move out. What these sorts of reports do not say, of course, is that many people over-commit themselves before they start and are not able to keep up many of their repayments, not because interest rates are varying but simply because they have over-committed themselves at the outset. I would like to take up one issue with the Minister arising from his opening remarks. He said that the Liberal Party did not have a policy in the housing area. It probably has slipped his mind, because it is not all that significant. It was, after all, put out by the honourable member for Deakin (Mr Beale) when he was the shadow spokesman on housing and construction. That document purports to suggest what the Liberal Party stands for. I guess it applies only to the Liberal Party, although it has the National Party logo on the front. I am not sure whether it still stands for both parties, but let us just say that it is the Liberal Party's policy at the present time. It says that the Liberal Party recognises and supports `the aspirations of all Australians to own their own home'. Mr Reith —Do you disagree with that? Mr MARTIN —No one would disagree with that at all. The methodology of doing that, of course, is quite interesting. One of the things that has been highlighted here-the Minister touched on this in his address-is the suggestion that the whole question of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement should be looked at. It says that honourable members opposite would: Return to the States the responsibility for the provision of public housing by terminating the Commonwealth-State Housing agreement and absorbing the funds into the financial assistance grants to the States. Mr Reith —What's wrong with that? Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! Mr MARTIN —So on the one hand the Opposition is suggesting that the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement should be terminated and, on the other hand, it is suggesting that it will still give the States plenty of funds. Mr Reith —What's wrong with that? Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I warn the honourable member for Flinders. Mr MARTIN —As to what is wrong with that, I would have suspected that this leading light of the Liberal dries who has put together this policy, the honourable member for Deakin, was speaking on behalf of all those people who want to see a reduction in government expenditure. I would have suspected that the sorts of people whom he purports to represent would be saying: `Okay, let's give the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement the flick, but let's not make it up anywhere else'. But the Opposition tucks in this little something else. I am concerned about this. I would like to ask the honourable member for O'Connor, who is now the Opposition spokesman in the area whether, now that the New Right is well and truly in the ascendancy in the Liberal Party-and outside the Liberal Party, too, I might say, in respect of people trying to get in-that sort of policy is going to hold. If one looks at the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement over the last few years and compares some of the allocations of funds from the Commonwealth to the States, some very interesting statistics are thrown up. In 1982-83, for example-taking a couple of the major States, New South Wales and Victoria-under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement $129.9m was allocated to New South Wales and $92.3m was allocated to Victoria. The 1986-87 figures for those same two States show that the allocations have been increased to $226.3m and $165.3m respectively, representing a percentage increase of 151 per cent for New South Wales and 69 per cent for Victoria. Australia-wide, between those two years the States have received a 131 per cent increase in funding under this program. This is the sort of money we are talking about. Those are the sorts of statistics that have been used to suggest that the Agreement should be abolished and replaced with something else, but we are not certain whether the same level of funding would be made available. The honourable member for O'Connor certainly dealt with the question of people's views of the Government's position on housing. He talked about interest rates. I think this is a very real question that has to be touched on. I recall that not so long ago-only in the last few weeks the Minister and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) made the announcement on the latest housing package for Australia-considerable outside pressure was being brought to bear on this Government to try to get it to eliminate the 13.5 per cent ceiling on housing loans. That would have affected 900,000 loans in Australia. That pressure was brought to bear with scare tactics. All sorts of terrorist tactics were employed to suggest that unless that was done the 15.5 per cent rate that currently applied for new home loans would go through the roof. The National Australia Bank was at the forefront of this sort of terrorist tactic. What did we see when it was all over? We saw an acceptance within the housing community and the banking sector that those rates would not go up. The Minister has already indicated that the trend in interest rates generally is downwards. This Government maintains, and I see no reason to suspect that the opposite will happen, that in the not too distant future-hopefully the end of the year; if not, certainly early next year-that will translate into a downward trend for housing rates as well. I see that as a very real achievement that this Government will be able to claim. Some concern has also been expressed from time to time about the level of rental accommodation that has been made available. On a few occasions members of the Opposition have directed questions to the Minister about rental housing, particularly in Sydney, Melbourne and some of the other capital cities of Australia. I find it most edifying and very appropriate that it was announced yesterday-article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald today-that the State Minister for Planning and Environment in New South Wales, Mr Bob Carr, has lifted restrictions on the construction of what are know in the trade as granny flats but which are dual occupancy dwellings. The New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment brought in a dual occupancy policy some years ago. If an additional dwelling or flat were attached to a house, the owner had to live in the main building of that flat. According to this Press release, the requirement that an owner has to live in one of the flats or in the main house before additional rooms can be let has been abolished. Obviously, this measure will have a major effect in a city such as Sydney where there are many large houses and many houses occupied by only one or two people where a spouse has died or families have grown up and moved away. Those sorts of places can now be converted into dual occupancy dwellings, but which are described as granny flats, and that should go a great deal of the way towards alleviating the problem of finding rental accommodation. That is very appropriate because many cities in Australia have these sorts of dwellings available and they could readily be transferred to the rental market. It would mean no added burden for governments-either State or Federal-in terms of providing infrastructure, so new housing estates could be developed. This measure utilises the existing infrastructure that is already in the ground and therefore it must be a saving for both the State and Commonwealth governments. After all, is not that what we are on about in this place? It has been said that the Government has to introduce major cuts in government expenditure in its 13 May economic statement. We will be freeing up more housing and combating the rental crisis and at the same time we will still be able to save Commonwealth and State governments money. The Minister also said that the judgment in the market-place on what the Government is doing could be no better summed up than by the letter that was received by the Prime Minister from the Housing Industry Association and which was quoted yesterday. I concur with that letter and sum up by saying that its last paragraph is certainly a demonstration of the Government's commitment. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The honourable member's time has expired. The debate is concluded. Mr CONQUEST(Hinkler) —by leave-On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts, I present the 265th report of the Committee, the response to report 232-report of the Auditor-General, May 1983. Ordered that the report be printed. Mr CONQUEST —On 28 May 1985 the Committee presented its 232nd report on the report of the Auditor-General-May 1983. This report, the 265th from the Committee, sets out the response to its findings in report 232. For the most part the items discussed in the Committee's earlier report have elicited a satisfactory response, including the issue of pension overpayments by the Department of Social Security. This matter is currently being systematically addressed by progressive implementation of the national overpayments action plan. The only remaining issue concerned the role of the Auditor-General and the bounds of his responsibilities, particularly in relation to commercially trading public enterprises. The Committee felt that this was an issue which needed clarification. When the House of Representatives completes its inquiry into the general issue of efficiency reviews in the public sector, the Committee will decide whether to pursue the matter further. I commend the report to honourable members. Bill presented by Mr Hurford, and read a first time. Mr HURFORD(Adelaide-Minister for Community Services and Minister Assisting the Treasurer)(3.55) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The Bill will amend the taxation laws in several ways. It will implement a number of the major changes announced by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) on 10 December 1986 as part of the Government's overhaul of the company tax system as reflected in Bills introduced into the House on 2 April 1987. In particular, it will abolish, subject to transitional rules, the additional tax payable by private companies under division 7 and will ensure that the intercorporate dividend rebate is allowed on a gross, rather than a net, basis. It will also remove the present exemption from tax for certain dividends satisfied by the issue of shares. Other provisions in the Bill will modify the imputation arrangements in relation to certain companies, extend those arrangements to unit trusts that are taxed as companies and ensure that imputation rebates are able to be taken into account for provisional tax purposes. The Bill will also amend the income tax substantiation rules as they apply to deductions for car expenses. Other amendments of the Income Tax Assessment Act proposed by the Bill will overcome a perceived deficiency in certification procedures for the special concessions for investments in the production of Australian films. The Bill will also make a number of amendments of Australian Capital Territory tax laws to facilitate the transfer of responsibility for their administration to a new statutory officer who will be generally responsible for the administration of Australian Capital Territory revenue laws; to provide an exemption from tax for premiums for certain international trade insurance; and to exempt from payroll tax wages paid to apprentices and trainees employed under the Australian traineeship system. Another amendment will extend the bank accounts debits tax law to new payment order accounts with non-bank financial institutions. Yet another will simplify the procedures for approving acting appointments for the offices of Commissioner, and Second commissioners, of taxation. Finally, the access and information gathering powers of the tax laws are being extended in two respects. The information gathering power will now cover the pay as you earn provisions of the income tax law, and the access power in that and other taxation laws will now require persons to provide reasonable assistance to the Commissioner of Taxation when exercising statutory powers of access under those laws. I now turn to discuss in more detail the measures contained in this Bill. Measures Associated with the Imputation System Private Companies In accordance with the Treasurer's announcement of 10 December 1986, this Bill will abolish the undistributed profits tax payable by private companies, subject to phasing-out provisions that are designed to prevent a loss to the revenue while allowing private companies and their shareholders a tax neutral transition from the classical to the full imputation system. The combined effect of the full imputation system and the alignment of the company tax rate with the maximum marginal rate of personal income tax will remove the long-standing disincentive for private companies to distribute their after-tax profits. This change will encourage the efficient allocation of the investable funds of private company shareholders and thereby assist in stimulating economic growth. The existing division 7 arrangements will last apply to income derived in the 1985-86 income year of private companies. For the 1986-87 and subsequent income years private companies will be liable to pay undistributed profits tax under division 7 only if they fail to distribute, within the usual time limits, an amount at least equal to the phasing-out dividends included in their after-tax income. The concept of phasing-out dividends is a transitional one. Such dividends will be those paid to one private company by another private company to the extent that they have been taken into account in determining whether that other company has made a sufficient distribution for the purpose of calculating any division 7 tax liability it may have. Reflecting the intention of these measures, dividends will be taken into account for division 7 phasing-out purposes only to the extent that they are not franked in accordance with the new imputation arrangements. The Bill will therefore modify the imputation legislation as introduced to enable private companies to satisfy their sufficient distribution requirements under the division 7 phasing-out provisions without being subject to any disadvantage under the dividend franking rules. As a related measure, the restriction on the allowance of the intercorporate dividend rebate currently applicable to private company dividends received by another private company will, by this Bill, be limited in 1986-87 and subsequent income years to phasing-out dividends. Intercorporate Dividend Rebate The purpose of the rebate allowable under section 46 of the Income Tax Assessment Act is to prevent the imposition of successive layers of tax at the corporate level as dividends pass from company to company before leaving the corporate sector. Under the present law, this rebate is calculated on the basis of dividends received by a resident company reduced by deductions allowable to it in respect of the dividends. This Bill will amend section 46 to change the calculation of the rebate to one based on the gross amount of dividends received by one resident company from another. Section 116aa of the Income Tax Assessment Act further reduces the amount on which the intercorporate dividend rebate is calculated for life assurance companies to take account of special deductions allowed to such companies in relation to their expenses of general management and their calculated liabilities. To ensure that the treatment of life assurance companies in this area remains consistent with that of other companies, the Bill will also repeal section 116aa. These measures will apply to the 1987-88 and subsequent income years. Bonus Shares The Bill will give effect to the proposal also announced on 10 December 1986 to remove the present exemption from income tax of certain dividends that are satisfied by the issue of bonus shares. These measures will subject dividends that are satisfied by the issue of shares after 30 June 1987 to income tax, to withholding tax, and to the provisions of the imputation system in the same way as any other dividends. As a related matter, the exclusion from paid-up capital on liquidation of a company of the paid-up value of such bonus shares is to be removed. Bonus shares of that kind issued after 30 June 1987 will be included in the paid-up capital of the issuing company and will thus be treated as a return of capital in the event of liquidation. As foreshadowed by the Treasurer in introducing the Taxation Laws Amendment (Company Distributions) Bill 1987 in this House, this Bill also contains a series of technical amendments to extend to corporate unit trusts and public trading trusts that are taxed as companies the imputation measures contained in that Bill. The Bill also contains provisions to enable taxpayers to estimate the new franking rebates to which they may be entitled and to have those estimates reflected in provisional tax variations for the 1987-88 and later income years. The imputation provisions contained in the Bill to which I previously referred are to be modified by this Bill so that a franking credit will not arise if a franked dividend is wholly or partly exempt income of the receiving company. Other measures will deny franking credits in relation to dividends received by registered organisations that are subject to tax on income from their life assurance business, and by life assurance companies where the dividends are derived on assets included in their insurance funds. The measures will ensure that entities which would otherwise accumulate large quantities of unusable franking credits will not be placed in a position where they could become targets of persons seeking to gain the benefit of those credits. I wish to sound a note of warning to those who might seek to abuse the imputation system in any way. While further measures, including those dealing with dividend stripping arrangements and forestalling of dividends by private company groups, will be included in a later Bill, the Government will if necessary respond promptly to combat tax avoidance arrangements which may emerge as the imputation system gets under way. The revenue effects of these imputation-related amendments is reflected in the estimated net cost of the imputation system of $50m in 1987-88 and $300m per annum thereafter. Substantiation Honourable members will recall that the Treasurer announced on 29 October 1986 new arrangements that would greatly reduce the record keeping obligations of taxpayers who use motor cars in their employment or business. Under the present law, there are a number of alternative methods of claiming deductions for car expenses, depending upon whether or not the car travels more than 5,000 business kilometres in a year. If it does, the taxpayer can claim the business percentage, as established by log book records kept continuously throughout the year, of actual receipted expenses. Alternatively, the taxpayer may elect not to keep a log book and claim either one-third of receipted expenses or 12 per cent of the cost price of the car. If the car travels less than 5,000 business kilometres in a year, the taxpayers may claim a percentage of expenses based on continuous log book milage records, or at a set rate of cents per business kilometre. The amendments contained in the Bill will enable car fuel and oil expenses to be verified by a record of total kilometres travelled during the year rather than by actual receipts. For that purpose, taxpayers will need to keep records of opening and closing odometer readings for the period of the year when the car is held for business purposes. The present prohibition on switching from one method of deduction to another is also being removed, so that a taxpayer may move from one basis to another year by year provided he or she qualifies for deduction under the particular method chosen. The principal change relating to car expense deductions is the relaxation of the present log book requirement under the actual business expenses method of deduction. The new rules will mean that it will no longer be necessary to record details of business trips throughout the whole year of income. Instead, taxpayers will be entitled to establish the percentage of business use of a car by making log book entries in a continuous 12-week log book period. Provided the actual percentage of business use does not fall by more than 10 percentage points from the percentage established by the log book records, the established percentage may continue to be the basis for deductions for the particular car or a car that replaces it. If a taxpayer wishes to increase the established percentage of business travel in any year, he or she will need to establish a new percentage by maintaining log books for a minimum 12-week period. Log books will also be required in a year in which there is an increase in the number of cars for which deductions are being sought on the log book basis. In these cases log books for each car must be maintained during the same 12-week period. To prevent exploitation of rules that are designed primarily for high business use cars, the 10 percentage points margin will apply differently for cars which travel 5,000 or fewer business kilometres per annum. For those cars, if there is a reduction in the percentage of business use from the business percentage established by previous log book records, deductions are to be based on a reasonable estimate of the actual percentage of business use in the year rather than the previously established log book percentage. In such a case, it would not be necessary for log books to be kept in the subsequent year unless the difference between the established log book percentage and the actual business use is more than 10 percentage points. Further amendments will give effect to the Treasurer's 29 October 1986 announcement to exclude from the substantiation requirements unregistered cars used wholly or principally for income producing purposes. Tax Concessions for Australian Films Division 10ba of the Income Tax Assessment Act authorises concessions for investments in qualifying Australian films. Division 10ba requires the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment, in deciding whether to certify that a film is a qualifying Australian film, to determine whether the film has a significant Australian content. However, the Division does not expressly authorise the Minister to refuse the certification of a film which has a significant Australian content, if it also has a significant non-Australian content. The Government does not believe that the tax concessions for investments in Australian films should be available where creative control is in non-Australian hands, even though the shooting of the film and other activities may take place in Australia. The amendments proposed by the Bill will ensure that the Minister may take into account any significant non-Australian content in deciding whether to certify a film. The amendments will apply in respect of all applications for certificates received after today. These amendments will not have any significant direct effect on revenue. Information Gathering and Access Powers The Bill will also extend the application of the information gathering power of the Commissioner of Taxation to matters relevant to the administration of the pay as you earn provisions of the income tax law. Amendments are also to be made to the access provisions of those taxation laws that do not already impose a requirement that persons provide reasonable facilities and assistance to the Commissioner when exercising powers of access under those laws. The amendments will impose such a requirement and, in so doing, will achieve consistency with the access provisions of the sales tax and fringe benefits tax laws. These measures will have no direct effect on revenue. Bank Account Debits Tax The bank account debits tax is a tax on debits to cheque accounts with banks. Part VIII of the Cheques and Payment Orders Act 1986, which is proposed to come into operation on 1 July 1987, will create a new payment instrument known as a payment order. A payment order is similar to a cheque but is drawn on accounts with non-bank financial institutions. This Bill will extend the bank account debits tax law to debits made to payment order accounts with non-bank financial institutions in the same way as the law presently applies to debits made to cheque accounts with banks. Reflecting that extension, the bank account debits tax will in future be referred to simply as debits tax. These amendments are proposed to come into operation on 1 July 1987. The Bill will also remove possible avenues for avoidance of debits tax. For banks that carry on only limited banking activities, the Bill will restrict the present exemption for inter-bank transactions in connection with those activities. That principle will extend to non-bank financial institutions. Another measure will ensure that debits tax is not avoided by the aggregation of a number of transactions to form one debit. Finally, the Bill will give legislative support to the present administrative practice of calculating debits tax on the Australian currency equivalent of debits expressed in a foreign currency. The extension of the debits tax to payment order accounts will prevent the unquantifiable, but possibly substantial, cost to the revenue that would result if those debits were not included in the tax base. The revenue gain from the other amendments mentioned is likely to be minimal, as they will operate to protect the debits tax base. Australian Capital Territory Tax on Insurance Business Other amendments being made by this Bill will give effect to the decision, announced on 24 December 1986, to exempt from Australian Capital Territory tax premiums received for the insurance of goods carried in international trade and of ships and aircraft engaged in international trade. The amendments reflect the Government's concern that the imposition of this tax has caused much of this insurance to be written overseas to the detriment of the Australian insurance industry. The exemption will apply to insurance effected on or after 1 January 1987. The revenue cost of this measure is expected to be negligible. Australian Capital Territory Payroll Tax Under the Australian Capital Territory pay-roll tax law, tax is payable by employers whose annual taxable wages exceeded the prescribed exemption level which is currently $200,000. However, the law exempts certain types of wages from any liability to payroll tax. The Bill will extend these exemptions to include wages paid or payable to first year apprentices and to trainees employed under a training agreement as part of the Australian traineeship system. This measure is another of the Government's initiatives to give effect to its policy of encouraging youth employment. The amendment will apply in relation to relevant wages paid or payable on or after 1 July 1986. It is estimated that this measure will result in a cost to revenue of $220,000 in 1987-88. Transfer of Australian Capital Territory Stamp Duty and Payroll Tax The administration of stamp duty and similar taxes and payroll tax in the Australian Capital Territory is presently the responsibility of the Commonwealth Commissioner of Taxation. In contrast, the State and the Northern Territory have their own statutory officers responsible for administration of comparable State taxes. The Government has a commitment to consolidating the administration of the Australian Capital Territory within the Department of Territories. The Bill will facilitate the transfer of responsibility for administration of Australian Capital Territory stamp duties and taxes, including pay-roll tax, to a new statutory officer, the Commissioner for Australian Capital Territory Revenue Collections, who will also be responsible for various other Australian Capital Territory revenue laws. Complementary Australian Capital Territory ordinances to establish the Office of the Commissioner for Australian Capital Territory Revenue Collections and to complete the transfer of the various Australian Capital Territory laws will be made shortly. It is the Government's intention that these amendments will have come into operation, and the transfer of administrative responsibility for Australian Capital Territory revenue laws will have been completed, by 1 July 1987. These new arrangements will have no effect on Commonwealth revenue. Acting Arrangements Finally, the Bill will amend the Taxation Administration Act to simplify the procedures for approving acting appointments for the offices of commissioner, and second commissioners, of taxation. The amendments will have no effect on revenue. I commend the Bill to honourable members. In so doing, I present the explanatory memorandum on this Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Hurford, and read a first time. Mr HURFORD(Adelaide-Minister for Community Services and Minister Assisting the Treasurer)(4.15) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill will amend the Bank Account Debits Tax Act in two respects. It will give effect to the 1986-87 Budget proposal to abolish the higher rates of bank account debits tax that presently apply in the Australian Capital Territory in lieu of the State-type financial institutions duty. The abolition of the higher Australian Capital Territory rates is a consequence of the proposed introduction, from 1 July 1987, of a financial institutions duty in the Australian Capital Territory-also announced in the 1986-87 Budget. The abolition of those rates will mean that bank account debits tax rates are uniform throughout Australia. The revenue loss from this measure, and from the proposed abolition of certain Australian Capital Territory stamp duties on financial transactions, will be broadly offset by the introduction of the financial institutions duty. The Bill will also ensure that anti-avoidance provisions in the Bank Account Debits Tax Act apply to payment order accounts kept with non-bank financial institutions. Debits to such accounts are being brought within the debits tax base by the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1987 about which I have just spoken. The explanatory memorandum on that earlier Bill also contains an explanation of the provisions of this Bill. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned. Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for proposed expenditure announced. Bill presented by Mr Hurford, and read a first time. Mr HURFORD(Adelaide-Minister for Community Services)(4.17) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill, together with its companion Bills, Supply Bill (No. 2) 1987-88 and Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill 1987-88, seeks interim appropriations for the services of the Government for the period 1 July 1987 to 30 November 1987, by which date it is expected that the equivalent appropriation Bills, which will form part of the Budget for 1987-88, will have been enacted. Supply Bill (No. 1) seeks appropriations totalling some $8,652.1m for the ordinary annual services of the Government. This is $655.4m, or about 8.2 per cent, greater than the equivalent amounts provided in the Supply Act (No. 1) 1986-87. A significant part of the increase reflects the full year effects of new policies introduced in this year's Budget, price and cost increases and exchange rate variations. Major increases are: $221.3m reflecting major contractual defence payments which fall due before the end of November 1987 in respect of the purchase of new, and the replacement, repair and overhaul of, defence equipment and stores; $63.2m to meet increased demand for veterans and their dependants for treatment by local medical officers and ancillary health care providers, and increases in nursing home benefit and public and private hospital bed day charges. We have also provided for six monthly payments to the Health Insurance Commission which are made on the first working day of each month. Last year only five were provided for and this proved inadequate; $28.8m for property services, to cover the full year impact of new leases entered into in 1986-87, the renewal of existing leases at higher rates and increased property management costs; $26.5m primarily reflecting 1986-87 Budget decisions in taxation reform administration and the inclusion of client driven demand in the supply period; $26.0m for the Australian Bicentennial Authority as it is anticipated that 70 per cent of the national program provision for 1987-88 will be expended during Supply; and $25.4m for the Australian Trade Commission reflecting a higher provision for export market development grants to pay out, in Supply, the backlog of claims carried over into 1987-88, a change to quarterly payments for property rent, and price increases. I wish to emphasise that this Bill seeks interim provision only in respect of approved ongoing policies of the Government. It does not anticipate decisions to be taken in the 1987-88 Budget context for which provision will be sought in the Appropriation Bills. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned. Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for proposed expenditure announced. Bill presented by Mr Hurford, and read a first time. Mr HURFORD(Adelaide-Minister for Community Services)(4.21) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill seeks interim appropriations, totalling $2,404.3m, for expenditure on capital works and services, payments to or for the States and the Northern Territory and certain other services for the period 1 July 1987 to 30 November 1987. The amount sought is $287.8m, or about 13.6 per cent, greater than that provided in the Supply Act (No. 2) 1986-87. The main increases relate to: $290m for payments to the States and the Northern Territory under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. The Government announced on 30 March 1987 that $700m is to be provided under this program in 1987-88, and the legislation to enable this is to be introduced in the Budget sittings; $35.0m for general revenue assistance to the States and the Northern Territory; the increase primarily reflecting the change in the level of assistance to be paid to the Northern Territory in the form of its financial assistance grant. This grant is adjusted each year for price increases and the Northern Territory's population growth relative to the rest of Australia; and $27.1m to meet additional quarterly payments to the States resulting from real injections of funding agreed to under the home and community care program. Certain new provisions in respect of which government decisions have been taken have been separately itemised in the Bill in accordance with convention. The most significant of these are those items establishing the proposed revised funding arrangements for public housing activities in the Australian Capital Territory. In the 1986-87 Budget context, the Government announced that action would be taken progressively to place Australian Capital Territory finances on a basis consistent with Commonwealth arrangements with the States. The items are necessary to assist in implementing alignment of the Australian Capital Territory public housing function with the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement which is but one aspect of that decision. As indicated with respect to the Supply Bill No. 1, the provisions in this Bill do not anticipate decisions to be taken in the 1987-88 Budget context. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned. Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for proposed expenditure announced. Bill presented by Mr Hurford, and read a first time. Mr HURFORD(Adelaide-Minister for Community Services)(4.26) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill seeks interim appropriations to meet expenditures by the parliamentary departments during the period 1 July 1987 to 30 November 1987. They total some $23.7m, which is $2.4m or about 11.2 per cent greater than the amount provided for in the Supply period 1986-87. An increase is necessary to maintain the ongoing operations of the Parliament, to cover unavoidable price increases and to meet expected costs for the provision of information systems for the New Parliament House, namely systems for catering services and building operations and maintenance management. I commend this Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Barry Jones, and read a first time. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce)(4.28) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill is an omnibus measure proposing amendments to various bounty and subsidy Acts. The major proposals contained in the Bill are: (i) Amendments to the Bounty (Textile Yarns) Act 1981, arising from the Government's textile, clothing and footwear decision late last year. These amendments propose to remove the present disincentive on local yarn producers who wish to engage in export production by extending the eligible production costs upon which bounty is paid to include a producer's overheads associated with export production as and from 1 July 1987; (ii) Amendments to the Fertilisers Subsidy Act 1986 to give effect to the Government's intention that locally produced fertiliser should be subject to the new assistance regime set out in the Act from 20 August 1986-The date of commencement of the Act; (iii) Amendments to the Bounty (Books) Act 1986 to acquit undertakings given to the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills and the Parliament during the debate on this Act last sittings that certain determinations of the Comptroller-General of Customs under the Act would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny via the tabling and disallowance provisions applicable to regulations; and (iv) Amendments to the Subsidy (Cultivation, Machines and Equipment) Act 1986, to remove the present impediment on manufacturers of equipment prior to the commencement of the Act from receiving subsidy on that equipment, where the equipment was held in the manufacturer's stock at the commencement of the Act. In addition, the Bill makes a number of technical amendments and effects a series of drafting changes to update the administrative provisions in various other bounty and subsidy Acts. These amendments are set out in detail in the explanatory memorandum which has been circulated. I shall now outline the major proposals in the Bill. Part IV contains the proposed amendments to the Bounty (Textile Yarns) Act 1981 relating to the extension of eligibility for bounty to a proportion of overheads associated with production for export. From 1 July 1987 companies eligible for the yarn bounty whose production is mainly-at least 50 per cent-sold in Australia will be able to claim bounty on 30 per cent of bountiable costs associated with production for export. This amendment has been introduced not as a subsidy to export production but to address an anomaly in the present Act which has penalised yarn producers who were exporting. Under the current bounty fixed overheads associated with export production are not included as part of a producer's eligible costs. The amendment to the Act will address this anomaly while maintaining the basic objective of the yarn bounty scheme. That objective is to support local production of yarns for use in Australia and, at the same time, provide downstream users access to yarns at minimum rates of duty. This is borne out by the requirement that a company's production must be domestically oriented to qualify for the bounty and by the fact that only a proportion of overheads will be eligible for bounty. The proposed amendments to the Fertilisers Subsidy Act 1986 are contained in Part V of the Bill. That Act introduced new assistance arrangements for fertilisers, giving effect to the Government's decision last year to remove the subsidies payable on imported fertilisers, and reallocate those savings by increased subsidy payments-via increased rates of subsidy-on locally produced phosphatic fertilisers. It was the Government's intention that the new higher rates for locally produced phosphatic fertilisers apply immediately-that is, from 20 August 1986. In fairness, however, to people already committed to consignments of imported fertilisers, the Act contained a provision to continue the previous arrangements on fertilisers exported to Australia before 20 August 1986. Although the transitional provisions of the Act gave effect to the Government's intention relating to imported fertilisers, there is some doubt as to whether the new subsidy regime would apply to locally produced fertilisers as and from 20 August 1986. The proposed amendments make it clear that this is the case. Part III of the Bill contains the proposed amendments to the Bounty (Books) Act 1986, the principal of which are the amendments in clause 10 which treat the Comptroller-General's declarations for the purposes of section 4 of the Act as if they were regulations, so that the Parliament's ability to scrutinise the declarations is preserved via the tabling and disallowance provisions applicable to regulations. The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills drew the Government's attention to this matter when the Act was before this Parliament last sittings. The last measure which I propose to deal with here relates to the proposed amendments to the Subsidy (Cultivation Machines and Equipment) Act 1986 in Part VI of the Bill. That Act introduced new assistance arrangements for certain farm machinery as part of the Government's rural economic policy of 15 April 1986. In essence, those arrangements replaced tariffs on certain farm machinery with direct assistance to local producers and importers from that date until 31 December 1990. An important element of the new regime was that the assistance for manufacturing extend to all classes of `eligible' stock on hand at the commencement of the Act, so that this machinery would not be overpriced as against new machinery produced during the subsidy period. It has become apparent that the existing legislation does not have this effect. The proposed amendment in clause 21 of the Bill will correct the position by removing the present technical impediment on manufacturers of equipment prior to 15 April 1986 from receiving subsidy on that equipment where the equipment is held in stock on that date. Financial Impact Statement With one exception, the amendments in this Bill have no direct financial implications. The exception is the amendment to the Bounty (Textile Yarns) Act 1981 relating to the extension of eligibility for bounty to a proportion of a producer's overheads associated with production for export. Given the current low level of yarn exports, it is expected that an additional $300,000 in bounty payments under the Act will be made in 1987-1988, the financial year when the extension commences. I commend the Bill to the House and present the explanatory memorandum to the Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned. Debate resumed. Mr SHACK(Tangney)(4.35) —Prior to the luncheon suspension I was beginning to conclude my contribution to the second reading debate on the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill, the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill and the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill by finishing with the latter Bill. The recent Commonwealth Schools Commission report on secondary education entitled `In the National Interest' documents the mismanagement and poor design by the Government of the participation and equity program. The Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) has long claimed that PEP has been responsible for the significant increase over the last few years in the number of students completing year 12-the measure commonly known as the secondary retention rate. The Schools Commission concluded: It is difficult to establish a direct causal relationship between the activities which PEP has fostered and the rising levels of retention in secondary schools. This is especially true when we recall that the most dramatic rise in retention rates-from 36.3 per cent in 1982 to 45 per cent in 1984-preceded the real commencement of PEP. The program notionally commenced in January 1984 but, as documented by the Schools Commission, the vague design of PEP led to `initial uncertainty in schools about how to translate the program into activity'. Project funds did not start to flow in most cases until the second half of 1984, and the Commission said: . . . it was not until 1985 that most schools felt that they could move with confidence from their planning to action. Of course, in May 1985 the Government decided to spread the 1986 funds over two years, into 1987, which effectively cut the annual programs in half. The Commission noted: Many schools perceived the reduction . . . as a loss of commitment by the Commonwealth to the goals of the program just at the time when the program was beginning to gain momentum. What, therefore, have been the tangible benefits of PEP? There have been some beneficial developments in increasing parental and community involvement in schools, in fostering co-operative links between schools and colleges of technical and further education, and in limited curriculum areas where there has been some worthwhile innovation. These developments, of course, have been prompted by wider factors than PEP and probably would have happened even without the planning time provided by PEP funds. They would also seem to be very marginal benefits for a scheme which has cost some $250m overall. Some may remember the Government's moralising rhetoric back in 1983 about participation and equity being `twin objectives' and about ensuring more `equitable outcomes' of education. Well, what did the Commission say about PEP's achievements in the equity area after three years? It gave PEP a fail in equity-a flat, uncompromising `F' for fail. It said most schools found difficulty in translating the specific equity objectives of PEP into projects, and concluded: PEP has not provided a clear strategy for action in this area. In other words, PEP failed in equity, and cannot be passed in participation either. I do not wish to be uncharitable at the conclusion of my remarks but if we look at results such as that we would not have to be Einstein to conclude that it was Senator Ryan who was the responsible Minister. Senator Ryan bungled the PEP scheme-that is what the Schools Commission said. She bungled it. If one looks at other programs in her portfolio, one will find that students are going hungry and hiding from the landlord while Senator Ryan fiddles around with the Austudy computer. There has been up to a four-month delay for that first Austudy cheque. Then there is the administration charge which has reduced, for the first time since the early 1970s, participation in higher education. This charge is driving potential students away in their thousands. It is important to note that Senator Ryan has given us the lowest transition rates for year 12 students since the mid-1960s. This Government has turned the clock back 20 years, which exposes the rhetoric of Priority One's goal of widening educational opportunities for young people. Responsible estimates suggest that 30,000 qualified students have had the doors of higher education shut in their faces. We could go on endlessly. We could look at the bungled administration of the assistance for isolated students scheme this year-the information booklets were about three months late and Senator Ryan had to extend the application period until the end of June. The confusion and inconsistency in this Minister's approach to non-government schools and other areas could itself be the subject for a PhD thesis. It is hard to find one area of the Education portfolio which has been handled well by the responsible Minister. Senator Ryan should be moved by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). Perhaps she should be moved into the portfolio of the Minister for Health (Dr Blewett), who is at the table. The Prime Minister should reshuffle her into a portfolio where her mistakes would do less damage to Australia's long term future and to the educational needs of our young people. I have repeatedly stressed that the future into the twenty-first century in Australia will belong to the highly educated, highly skilled, highly trained and highly motivated societies. These nations will reap the benefits of advanced technology and leave others for dead. Australia cannot afford to be a loser. We cannot afford to be complacent about the future, and we must ensure that our education system does its job effectively in terms of numbers and, most importantly, in terms of quality. A new vision and blueprint is urgently needed, for the sake of the entire nation. If we short-change education today, if the Government continues to be a negative and restrictive force in schools and tertiary education, we will simply step closer to full and permanent membership of the banana republic club. Mr FREE(Lindsay)(4.44) —We have just heard a very critical and captious contribution from the honourable member for Tangney (Mr Shack), a person who last month was reduced by his Leader to the position of shadow Minister for nothing. The honourable member for Tangney is destined never to be the Minister for Education in a Liberal Party government. That is not because he is a wet; I really do not know whether the honourable member is a wet or a dry, whether he is damp or desiccated. Whatever the state of his relative political humidity and even if his Party wins the next election, he is destined never to emerge from the shadows. That is because his leader plans to abolish the education portfolio. We read in the Australian Financial Review of 23 March from a leaked Liberal Party document of plans to abolish the Commonwealth Department of Education, the Commonwealth Schools Commission and the participation and equity program, should the Liberals be successful at the next election. I understand that that is also Joh's policy. Whether it is the policy of the parliamentary National Party as well is a bit unclear at this stage. In fact, whether the parliamentary National Party has the power to make policies at all is a bit unclear at this stage. No doubt one of the National Party spokesmen on education will clear that up for us in the near future. Mr Millar —Don't you worry about that. Mr FREE —I am worrying about that. The National Party has three spokesmen on education. There is a spokesman for human resources, Senator Collard, and then there are two others: Senator Lady Bjelke-Petersen and the honourable member for Groom (Mr McVeigh). I congratulate the honourable member for Groom on getting a guernsey in the National Party team. Whatever we hear on this subject from the National Party Tower of Babel, we can be assured that the Premier of Queensland will have the last word. (Quorum formed) I would regard the abolition of the Commonwealth role in education as proposed by the Liberal Party as an absolute tragedy for this country. It would mean abandoning the leadership role of the Commonwealth and turning our backs on the achievements of recent years. Contrary to the assertions of the honourable member for Tangney, education in this country is not in crisis, but it certainly would be if his Party ever won office. The States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment and cognate Bills, which provide retrospective cost supplementation for programs in schools and tertiary institutions, will continue this process and build on the success that has already been achieved by the Hawke Government in education. In the schools area, since the election of Labor to government, we have seen a remarkable improvement in retention. Contrary to the assertions of the honourable member for Tangney, more young Australians than ever before are enjoying a full education and our schools are turning out better educated young people, better fitted to join the work force, than ever before. Recurrent funding is being provided at generous levels based on need and set out in an eight-year program so that schools, particularly those in the non-government sector, can plan with certainty and confidence. Our specific purpose programs are achieving their objectives. These are being planned co-operatively with States and with the systems, which now have a much better understanding of the features of specific purpose programs. Those programs now have clear and agreed objectives, clear plans of action, a finite lifetime and a mechanism for evaluation. We are all aware that in recent times there have been some criticisms by the States of what they regard as Commonwealth caprice in those areas. I recall the difficulties that we had last year with the English as a second language program and with the extension of participation and equity at half funding for four years instead of three. I point out that specific purpose programs are not intended to run forever. Having met its objective, a particular program should correctly be terminated and if necessary new objectives defined and a new program started. We now appear to have a better understanding with the States than has existed in the past. The participation and equity program is certainly achieving its objectives. I have received from people in my electorate a number of unsolicited testimonials at school speech nights from principals who have been quite generous in their praise of this program and the good that it has achieved in their school environments. Clearly, throughout the education systems there is a desire for an extension or a replacement program for participation and equity. I am pleased that this desire has been recognised by the Commonwealth Schools Commission. It was met by the publication in April of the Commission's report `In the National Interest: Secondary Education and Youth Policy in Australia'. I congratulate the Commission on a fine and comprehensive report. In making some comments on it, I refer to four tables which it contains and which I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The tables read as follows- Table 8.1 APPARENT RETENTION RATES, AUSTRALIA, 1975-1986 Year Apparent retention rates to final year, all schools (per cent) Males Females Persons 1975... 34.6 33.6 34.1 1976... 34.6 35.3 34.9 1977... 34.0 36.6 35.3 1978... 33.1 37.3 35.1 1979... 32.4 37.2 34.7 1980... 31.9 37.3 34.5 1981... 32.0 37.8 34.8 1982... 32.9 39.9 36.3 1983... 37.5 43.9 40.6 1984... 42.1 48.0 45.0 1985... 43.5 49.5 46.4 1986... 45.6 52.1 48.7 Source: Commonwealth Department of Education. Table 8.3 APPARENT RETENTION RATES OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS TO YEARS 10, 11 and 12, BY CATEGORY OF SCHOOL (AND NON-GOVERNMENT AFFILIATION), AUSTRALIA, 1986 (PER CENT). Year of Education Government Schools Non-Government Schools Anglican Catholic Other Total All Schools Year 10... 92.0 109.4 96.3 106.7 99.9 94.1 Year 11... 63.2 104.9 73.3 101.0 82.4 68.3 Year 12... 42.3 94.3 57.4 89.2 67.4 48.7 Source: Commonwealth Department of Education. Table 8.4 APPARENT RETENTION RATES, STATES AND TERRITORIES, 1986 Apparent retention rates to final year, State/Territory all schools (per cent) New South Wales... 44.4 Victoria... 46.8 Queensland... 57.5 South Australia... 54.8 Western Australia... 50.3 Tasmania... 30.3 Northern Territory... 34.1 Australian Capital Territory... 77.7 Australia... 48.7 Source: Commonwealth Department of Education. Table 8.5 ACER SURVEY RESULTS ON YEAR 12 COMPLETION Attribute Percentage ever completed Year 12 (by age 19 in 1984) General finding Father's occupation Professional... 66 Year 12 Managerial... 50 completion White Collar... 42 rates differ Skilled... 27 with social Semi-skilled... 26 status Unskilled... 24 Family wealth Highest wealth quartile... 52 Year 12 Middle 50%... 37 completion Lowest wealth quartile... 25 rates differ with family wealth Rurality First quartile (least rural)... 42 Year 12 completion Second quartile... 35 rates differ Third quartile... 37 somewhat Fourth quartile (most rural)... 34 somewhat with rurality Achievement (based on word knowledge, literacy and numeracy tests taken at age 10) First quartile (highest achievement)... Second quartile... Third quartile... Fourth quartile (lowest achievement)... 63 38 30 14 Year 12 completion rates differ with earlier achievement Ethnicity Father born in Australia... Father born in another English speaking nation... Father born in a non-English speaking nation... 34 33 49 No evident disadvantage regarding year 12 completion rates for persons from non-English speaking nation backgrounds included in the sample (mainly persons of Greek and Italian origin.) Source: ACER, Participation in Education (Williams) 1986. Mr FREE —I thank the House. In a review of past performance, the report notes a remarkable improvement in school retention of students in recent years-from 34 per cent of young people completing a full secondary education in 1975 to 48.7 per cent in 1986. Most of that improvement has taken place since 1982. That is all the more remarkable, because this dramatic improvement in the number of students staying on at school has been accompanied by an improvement in the number of 15-to 19-year-olds joining the work force. The report notes that under normal circumstances the Commission would expect a progression in the retention rate to 55 per cent by 1992. Instead the Commission proposes a target of 65 per cent by 1992. The significance of that 65 per cent figure is that a 65 per cent retention rate, together with expanded training opportunities in the colleges of technical and further education, would virtually eliminate unemployment for those in the 15-to 19-year-old group. If this new program achieves its objective, by 1992 young people will have the option of a full time education, training or employment. Unemployment will simply not be an option for them. In a sense this new program will take over where PEP leaves off, but with some important differences. Participation and equity programs will target schools with low retention rates with the objective of bringing those schools up to the average retention rate. Because of the rising average retention rate generally across the country, PEP has, in a limited sense, failed, as it has been very difficult to hit that moving target as average retention has risen. The new program has the ambitious objective of raising that entire average rate across Australia by 15 percentage points by 1992. This has implications for all schools and systems, not just the target schools as in PEP. The overview for the report states at page 33: A full comprehensive and demanding general secondary education should be not only an entitlement of every young Australian but an actual achievement. While the report does have implications for all schools, it proposes priority for those with low retention rates. If one examines the table in the report which compares retention in schools by category, it is clear that government schools and Catholic systemic schools with retention rates of 42.3 per cent and 57.4 per cent respectively will require priority attention. If one looks at the table which compares retention by State and Territory, it is clear that the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Victoria, all with retention rates below the national average, will require priority under this program. The new program proposed by the Commission has four important objectives: That 65 per cent retention rate by 1992, to which I have referred; a more equitable distribution of benefits of secondary education across society; improvements in quality and relevance of education; and more flexible and accessible schools. It proposes five fields of action: Curriculum development; work in accreditation and assessment, as mentioned by the honourable member for Tangney, and I agree that there is difficulty from State to State; work to improve school organisation and climate; teacher development; and, finally, stronger links between schools and the wider community. The report recognises that this new program will need to proceed at three levels, namely, at the school level, the system level and the national level. I congratulate the Commonwealth Schools Commission on the production of an excellent report, and I trust that it will receive speedy and favourable consideration by the Government. Mr McVEIGH(Groom)(4.56) —As I have said on previous occasions, it is always a pleasure to follow in debate such a disciplined and thoughtful speaker as the honourable member for Lindsay (Mr Free). This afternoon we had a repetition of his usual solid contribution. It is always very refreshing to hear a member of this place speak with sincerity and to know that he has gone to the trouble of researching his speech. I may disagree with the honourable member on certain matters, but I know that, having regard to the spirit of opposition that permeates the Federal Parliament, he accepts that that in no way detracts from the congratulations that I extend to him for an excellent contribution. I hope that further speakers from the Government side of the House will try to emulate the very high standard that he has set. As a spokesman for the National Party of Australia, I merely want to say that these are what we might term machinery Bills and we do not intend to oppose them. This is certainly a reasonable position for us to adopt. However, we regret very much indeed that circumstances such as wage increases and consumer price index increases have necessitated the introduction of legislation of this sort. We can only hope that economic policies in future will endeavour to overcome the need for the allocation of extra resources to this vital area of education, merely to satisfy increased costs due to inflation and associated problems. It would be far more desirable if we could use the extra funds-roughly $106m-which are being allocated under these three Bills to improve and increase the programs. The honourable member for Lindsay referred to the participation and equity program. From discussions that I have had with concerned people from all areas of Australia, I understand that, unfortunately, sufficient funds are not available to allow handicapped people to take part in participation and equity programs. Various programs are available for women, disadvantaged people, Aboriginal persons and so on, but because insufficient money is available under PEP handicapped people still have no programs anywhere in Australia designed to help them. I know that the spastic welfare leagues and the Endeavour Foundation in Queensland, for example, do have various programs. Mr Millar —Very good, too. Mr McVEIGH —They are very good, as the honourable member for Wide Bay says. I know that there is an excellent program in his area run by the Endeavour Foundation, whereby people who would not normally have the opportunity of participating in an educational type program are able to participate in activities on a farming property. They have a Brahman stud, which is a very high quality stud, with its livestock winning at exhibitions and at the Royal National Exhibition. The participants there have the opportunity of engaging in small cropping. On one occasion when I was there some years ago they were preparing an avocado plantation, and I understand those avocado trees are now bearing fruit. I just say as an aside how unfortunate it is that money, under these Bills, has been allocated merely for cost increases and not for the provision of more and improved programs. I offer that comment not in the spirit of opposition for opposition's sake but simply to indicate what would be a preferable situation. I realise that this situation has arisen due to an arrangement that the Government previously entered into. Let us be honest, it was an arrangement entered into before the last election, following which the Government went to the people. So it can claim quite honestly that its policies were endorsed by the people at the election. We understand that these Bills are machinery in nature, by and large granting additional funding for adjustments and cost escalations due to salary increases because of the recent national wage case decision. It was interesting to note in the second reading speech of the Minister for Trade (Mr Dawkins), representing the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan), on the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill that he mentioned that a supplementation for wage increases applies to all teachers except university academics. University academics are not included because they are currently seeking a 100 per cent increase in salaries before the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. If they are successful the top-ranking academic salary will be around $120,000 a year. I appreciate that this is an ambit claim designed to create a technical dispute so that Commission supervised negotiations can begin with the Australian universities industrial association. Mr Deputy Speaker, I know the type of electorate that you represent, and I think it is unfortunate that we have before the Arbitration Commission an application seeking a doubling of salaries from people who already receive, in ordinary language, quite substantial salaries. I can readily understand the concern of unemployed people at, say, Stradbroke Island which you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have the honour of representing in this Parliament, who cannot get a job, about applications for what they term rather high salaries. They might think of those applications as being rather greedy. It is unfortunate that the academics are not setting a good example for the rest of the community and trying to bring down what people might think is an insatiable thirst for more and more money. This claim comes at a time when everyone from the Treasurer (Mr Keating) down is calling for wage restraint. The National Party supports wage restraint. We do that for many reasons. Our economy is in a perilous state and cannot afford these types of claims, whether they are ambit or otherwise. University academics, like everyone else, must learn to live within their means. It is interesting to note that to the present the Academic Salaries Tribunal has been the mechanism which decides salaries for university academics-that is, until they applied for registration as an industrial union before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. Academics from colleges of advanced education have similarly applied for registration as an industrial union. This brings me to my point. I would like the Minister representing the Minister for Education, when he replies in this debate, to let us know what will happen to the Academic Salaries Tribunal when, as I understand is to be the case, both of these bodies are represented as industrial unions before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. Perhaps then the only people who will be subjected to decision-making by the Academic Salaries Tribunal will be the likes of vice-chancellors. Possibly the arrangement be that they, like us, will have their salaries referred to the Remuneration Tribunal. I cannot see the need for the existence of an academic salaries tribunal when the significant parts of its responsibilities have been removed from its jurisdiction and, at the request of the academics, put into the jurisdiction of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill, which is included in this package of Bills, has as its objective the streamlining of the system of distribution of grants for non-government schools. Catholic schools will form one block authority and most other non-government schools will form a second authority. It is my understanding that the catholic school authorities have welcomed the change as they feel that it will enable the grant money to be closer to the actual user. Mrs Darling —That's right, too. Mr McVEIGH —However, as with any piece of legislation, they are having some difficulty with certain aspects of the Bill. I appreciate the interjection by the honourable member for Lilley. I do not have any objection to the type of arrangement that the Government has entered into with the catholic and non-government school sectors. On balance, I support that type of approach. The concept of streamlining government is one that the National Party has long advocated because we believe it is in the best interests of the country as a whole to have smaller bureaucracy and consequently less interference in the lives of all Australians. In the interim, provision must be made for the increases in costs incurred by the body accepting the increased work load. The elimination of government involvement with block grants to complying authorities will reduce the work load of the Department of Education, I suspect and hope, and therefore the administrative costs involved. However, these administrative costs will then have to be borne by the authorities, with an upper limit of 2 per cent of the grant allowed by the Department of Finance. In effect, as I see it, we are transferring the costs of administering the program to the distributing bodies in the States, which should mean less administration by the Education Department in the Australian Capital Territory. I have been advised that preliminary costing from Queensland shows that it will cost the catholic education system $120,000 to take over this new responsibility, and that the cost in New South Wales will be $150,000. So $120,000 will come off education achievements in the market-place, in the schools, in Queensland, and $150,000 will come off those achievements in New South Wales. I just hope that those costs will be savings to the central administrative body in Canberra. If they are not, this measure is what we might term an optical illusion, and we will be pulling the wool over people's eyes. The National Party and, I hope, the Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party are surely more interested in getting the maximum number of dollars out to assist those seeking education rather than having large sums gobbled up, as it were, in administration. I hope that when the sums are done the Minister representing the Minister for Education in this place will make very strong representations to the Minister for Education to ensure that there is good housekeeping, because it seems to me to be of vital importance that the taxpayers' dollar is spent not on administration but on giving more educational opportunities to the sons and daughters of Australian families. I will instance a couple of situations which would save money for the authorities and therefore reserve more grant funding for needy schools. Information conveyed to me indicates that the block grants will be given in 11 equal instalments over a 12-month period, with quarterly reports being submitted by the authorities to the Department of Finance. The catholic education commissions to which I have spoken have advocated-I think it is quite a natural corollary in the business sense-quarterly instalments to coincide with the period of reporting, thereby reducing their administrative work load. This would give the authorities the opportunity to invest the funds not needed immediately, which in turn would create additional funding for the authorities to use. From my understanding of the arrangements there is a need for the Department to adopt a flexible approach in interpreting the Government's guidelines for needy schools. This would allow the block authorities to determine priorities and have some discretion in deciding which schools should be given priority for help. I turn my attention to the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill, the third and last of these Bills to be addressed. That in no way implies that it is the least important. The PEP scheme will be replaced next year by an access education program because the existing scheme is not adequate or in accord with the Government's Priority One objective. This new access education program will have as its main theme a major increase in the vocational education and skills of our young people. The long term unemployed will be its target group, and it will co-ordinate the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, State and Territory TAFE authorities and the Commonwealth Employment Service, which is part of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations. I support the objective of the Government in targeting the long term unemployed. Surely, there could be few more demoralising instances in life than for a young person who has used every endeavour to improve his or her skills to find that he or she cannot get a job. I can readily understand the feelings of such people. Quite frankly, I believe they have every right to have a chip on their shoulder when they have made the effort but do not get the opportunity, because of insufficient skills. It is about time that all of us, in a bipartisan approach, got away from trying to score political points at every opportunity in every debate. I do not care who knows this, because I want everyone to know it: I do not belong to the school of thought that says that Australia has far too many bludgers. It has far too many people who want to work but are not. There are very few people in Australia who want to defraud the system. Most people, if given the opportunity, would much prefer to work than to be the recipient of a social security payment. I think it is jolly well time all parliamentarians tried to acknowledge this and tried to uphold and uplift rather than trying to drag down and to criticise. It is both desirable and urgent that the youth of our nation are equipped with the necessary skills to enable them to contribute to the well-being of our nation, both for their own individual success as well as for the forward progress of Australia as a modern industrial force. It is my firm belief that everyone has something to contribute, and it is our responsibility, as a governing body, to provide these opportunities. The guidelines, as set out in the Act which established the participation and equity program, refer to the groups which should be represented in the program, such as women, our indigenous people, ethnic groups et cetera. Physically disabled people, as I mentioned earlier, are also included under the umbrella. But unfortunately they are not able to participate because of the shortfall of funds. If we are to embrace the value-added concept, which has been advocated out in commercial parts of Australia, of more processing and profit taking in Australia by Australians, we need to develop Australia's intellectual capital. More than 60 per cent of the annual export earnings of Japan, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Italy depend on brain-based industries, while Australia's figure is less than 5 per cent. Of the 24 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, Australia rates twenty-second on the value per capita of technology intensive exports. Only Portugal and Greece are lower. In 1950, 3.5 per cent of the Australian labour force entrants had degrees or diplomas; yet by 1980 this figure had only doubled to become 7 per cent. Japan, on the other hand, has increased its educated labour force from less than one per cent in 1950 to 39 per cent in 1980. In order to survive the economic upheaval in which we presently find our world, we must think more seriously about encouraging our young people to prepare themselves for a career by developing skills necessary for them to survive in a technologically changing world. This can occur both on the manual and mental levels, because we need a diversity of people with a diversity of skills. In the same vein, we also need our artists, dancers, opera singers and craftspeople. They, too, have their part to play in developing our civilisation into a well rounded, multi-dimensional culture, reflecting our recognition of the importance of the arts in enriching our lives. Let us not dismiss their area of interest as frivolous or uneconomic in terms of the overall well-being of our nation. The world we live in today is increasingly sophisticated, requiring trained and resourceful minds capable of adjusting to the change. We must recognise this need and go with it, for it is in our best interests in the long run to do so. I want to conclude with two matters. Firstly, let us all always ensure that we have in place in Australia an education system which is designed for all Australians. I am totally opposed to the concept in educational thinking that only the rich should have the opportunity of further education. That is disastrous and under no circumstances must we pursue that. I applaud a long list of Federal Ministers for Education going back to John Grey Gorton, a man who has never had adequate recognition for the part that he played in trying to bring education to the poor people of Australia. Let us continue with that, to ensure that the poor have the opportunity of developing their skills, because they, above all, are the ones who richly deserve that opportunity. Secondly, let us also have a system of education which does not seek to allow the Government to usurp the rights of the individual, because, in the final analysis, it is my firm and very personal contention that I as a parent, surely have the right to decide what type of education my children shall or shall not receive. For me to abrogate that responsibility to a government is equally as bad as a government trying to take over my responsibility. So let us hope, in the interests of justice and honesty, that we can have a system designed to be fair to all. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Keogh) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mrs DARLING(Lilley)(5.16) —I am pleased to be able to speak to these amendment Bills concerning States grants education assistance-that is, the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill 1987, the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987 and the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987-because of the tremendous contribution made to education by the Hawke Government. Before continuing, I would like to acknowledge the thoughtful contribution of the honourable member for Groom (Mr McVeigh) who preceded me. The honourable member for Tangney (Mr Shack), however, criticised the Government. I comment on this because it reflects certain organised criticism in some sectors of our community at the moment aimed at the education policies and input of the Federal Government. It seems to me rather ironic that the very Government that has provided, I believe, more for education in its very broadest and most important sense than any previous Federal Government-although I must pay tribute to the Whitlam Government, under which tertiary education became available to people on merit, as it still is, basically-should be criticised as if in fact it was doing less. The legislation for the participating and equity program is a case in point. The States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill will provide an additional $1.097m in 1987, making a total of $45.819m for this year. The cost supplementation proposed by this Bill is in accordance with the Government's undertaking to provide retrospective cost supplementation for this program. (Quorum formed) I thank the Opposition for interrupting this important debate on education and for taking minutes out of the time allowed for the debate. I am sure that the general public will be intrigued to know that, as a matter of form, one Opposition member deliberately sits mute in the House while members of the Opposition take the full 20 minutes allocated to them and then, despite the fact that Government members have agreed to limit their speeches to a lesser time to hasten the business which must go through, he calls quorums not to get honourable members into the House but to interrupt the contribution of government members. I was discussing the cost supplementation proposed by the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill which is in accord with the Government's undertaking to provide retrospective cost supplementation for this program. The adjustments are consistent with those being made to the State Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill and the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill which are also before the House today. The important aspect of PEP is that it has done at least as much as any other single program in breaking down the discrimination that has existed in the education system in the past. The PEP aims to increase participation in education particularly by the most educationally disadvantaged groups-the groups which the honourable member for Groom mentioned-and to achieve greater equity in providing education. It is really based on the contention that money alone will not make education effective if it is not wisely spent. It must be targeted to fulfil needs. For instance, there is not any point, as has happened in the past, of providing academic subject or subjects which would well fit a student for a job in a city office if the student is living, and intends to work, in a rural area based on agriculture or in a fishing community. This is where the Federal Government feels it can assist with programs such as PEP. PEP targets not just geographical or work-based needs but a variety of special needs such as those of women, Aborigines, special age groups and special cultural groups. An example of what PEP can do which may be of interest is the provision of a mobile information centre which is funded from PEP in Queensland. The centre reaches out to those who are isolated and who are in the vast expanses of north-west Queensland. These people are not getting the same quality of education because of the distances and a PEP grant enabled a Toyota Coaster mini-bus to be outfitted with an annex, tables and screens. It is able to take relevant educational programs and resources to people in that area. Another important aspect of PEP and the way it works is the student representatives who are on the non-government PEP committees in Queensland. Fellow committee members are parents, teachers, senior bureaucrats and administrators. In the past student representatives on the committee were Tania Morris and Lisa Cranitch who are students at Corpus Christi College, a very well known Catholic girls school in Brisbane. That was one of the many schools that was advantaged by the use of a PEP scheme to broaden the type of education that students were receiving. I also hope that Bracken Ridge community youth support scheme within my electorate will get PEP assistance to enable it to reach out and take education beyond the formalised situation to young people, who have already dropped out of school and, in some cases, to parents and mothers who have been looking after young children. They want retraining and they want to come back into a work situation but when they were at school there were no such things as computers, at least they were not used to the extent they are used now. I am hoping that a computer program system will be set up at Bracken Ridge through the PEP scheme. Equality for girls is one area in which PEP has been highly successful. Under the Hawke Government the problems of education inequalities between the sexes have been virtually redressed although more has to be done in certain areas. This Government has fostered an educational environment that encourages girls to continue with their education. The Government has improved the educational opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, rural students and, importantly, Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds who have particular problems getting into the educational system and making the best use of the resources which are available. The results of PEP are seen in the fact that retention rates for females have risen from 39.9 per cent in 1982 to 52.1 per cent last year. The retention rate for males is now also on the increase, rising from 32.9 per cent in 1982 to 45.6 per cent in 1986. These figures speak for themselves but it is important to note that retention rates are not the only measure of success as far as the policies of this Government are concerned. What we in the Hawke Government wish to see is not merely a classroom full of students but a classroom full of students who are having their special educational and cultural needs met to the extent that they may be enabled to fulfil their personal potential thus contributing to society while also achieving personal satisfaction. Since the Labor Government has come to power there have been vast improvements in participation and equity in Australia. Primary responsibility for funding government schools-this matter is not always addressed-lies with State governments which provide about 93 per cent of general running costs. The Commonwealth contribution is about 7 per cent. While we can certainly target this funding to ensure that education is coming in its broadest context to students, it is not reasonable to blame all of the deficiencies of the system on a government which contributes the minority of the funding and has the minority of responsibility for the policies-State responsibility is 93 per cent. The Commonwealth provides about 65 per cent of non-government school funding against the States' 35 per cent. Recurrent funding for all schools in 1987 amounted to over $758m. In 1984 the Government recurrent school funding plan brought unprecedented stability to school funding and the funding for schools was guaranteed for eight years. We were very pleased to oversee this plan. Funding for the first four years-1985-88-was set in Commonwealth legislation. This meant that even in the last Budget, when the Commonwealth faced tough decisions in all areas of public expenditure, recurrent school funding was protected. The eight-year funding plan envisages a real increase of 50 per cent in general recurrent funds for government schools and 17 per cent for non-government schools. The 1986-87 Budget allowed for an increase in non-government schools funding by $31.5m to a yearly commitment of $849m. Given the known needs for restraint that is not a bad effort at all. Non-government schools make up 7 per cent of the total Budget outlays of the Federal Government and 35 per cent of total education spending. In this context, I allude to clause 8 of the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987. As noted by the honourable member for Groom, clause 8 which deals with approval of block grant authorities should be very well received by non-government schools that wish for greater management of their funding. They will be able to determine their own priorities instead of having them determined by State committees. The clause inserts new sections 25a and 25b to provide for the approval of a body corporate as a block grant authority for the distribution of capital grants for non-government schools and to provide the framework for the capital grants program for non-government schools from 1988. At the moment there is a Catholic system funding-that is, recurrent funding-but from 1988 there will be a block grant authority to distribute capital funding. There are two categories-Catholic schools and independent schools. It must be remembered that if a school is unhappy with the block authority it can apply directly to the Commonwealth Department for its capital grants. Before concluding my comments on these important Bills I would like to make a brief comment on the points, arguments and criticisms that have followed the implementation of Austudy. Austudy is an excellent program. It introduces greater equity and more Commonwealth funding. All students aged over 16 years will get similar funding. It resolves past problems of some people not being able to stay at school because the unemployment benefit was so much more than the tertiary education assistance scheme allowance. I often came across cases in which this inequity meant that someone with academic merit was being pushed out of the education system because his or her parents-often a single parent, a low income parent-could not afford to keep his or her children at school. Austudy is meeting that enormous problem. It sets a new system which will benefit everyone for years to come. There have been administrative teething problems. Mr Tuckey —That is an understatement. Mrs DARLING —An understatement. There has been very late payment of Austudy to certain people. We acknowledge that, and we were very pleased when the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) provided the `fast lane' so that in crisis cases people would be able to get immediate payment of Austudy. There was a serious problem also when social security payments were stopped before Austudy became available. But I point out that the Government deserves commendation for introducing Austudy and for what it will do to bring education even more within the gamut of people, regardless of the amount of money they have. I do not have time to comment on the $250 administration fee. I know there are problems for some people regarding this administration fee. But I think it is fair to say, and it should be said time and again, that Austudy eligibility means that no administration fee has to be paid. So it is not really accurate to say that the people in receipt of the very lowest incomes are being hurt by the introduction of the administration fee. The primary goal of the Hawke Government's education policy is to increase participation and equity in all levels of education. It has never let go of that ideal. It is not an unidealistic government. Government members want to follow the opening up of free tertiary education, which was introduced by a Labor government, with the broadening of the value of that education. I think that a comparison of the Hawke Government's achievements with those of the previous Liberal Administration aptly demonstrates that it has stuck to its principles and is achieving its goals. In 1986 year 12 school retention rates rose to a high of 48.7 per cent compared to the 1982 figure of 36.3 per cent when the Opposition was in power. We must remember the policy document that was leaked and mentioned in this Parliament which showed that a Liberal government, in its own words, within its first 100 days in government would actually stop education funding through the Federal Government. The Hawke Government expressed its desire for an increasing quality of education for all Australians through its education initiatives in 1983. Those initiatives proved highly successful over the triennium 1984 to 1986. Certainly the Party's policies, promoting opportunities for quality of life at many levels, including schooling should never be criticised for party political purposes as breaking down systems of equity. It is hypocritical to say so when one looks at the other parties which form the alternative. It is inaccurate and unjust. This Government's role has been to build up opportunities and increase access to education for all. That is precisely what we have been doing since we came to office. In saying that I seriously acknowledge the problems which have surrounded the introduction of Austudy, but with a sincere belief that people will benefit tremendously through that program. I also acknowledge and thank the Minister for considering the 15-year-olds in Queensland and in some other States who are moving into grade 11. Students from the age of 16 are getting the new payment, which is extra money in the hand. But because of the requirement that the student must be 16 years or older, those who are under 16-the 15-year-olds in grade 11-may see their school mates, or the parents of their school mates, getting the Austudy payment. I believe that in the long term it will be proven that this program shows our credibility in supporting low income people. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mrs SULLIVAN(Moncrieff)(5.36) —I can only hope that in private the advocacy of the honourable member for Lilley (Mrs Darling) is a bit more effective than in public. Whilst I do not for one minute suggest that she is not sincere in what she said, she was not entirely factual and she also omitted some rather important points. For example, I would have expected a little more of an exposition on the subject of Austudy. I will come to that point in a moment. In relation to my own experience as a member of parliament of the sort of problems my constituents are having, I am sure they are problems that would be experienced by all members, including the honourable member for Lilley. I am surprised that such easy words were spoken about Austudy by the honourable member when there are such difficulties with the program particularly for secondary school students. I was also more than a little surprised when she said that the inequalities between the sexes have been addressed by the Hawke Government, and have been redressed. Reference to some very basic documents on the subject of retention rates shows that what she said is not supported in fact. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a table from a Commonwealth Schools Commission document entitled `In the National Interest-Secondary Education and Youth Policy in Australia'. Leave granted. The table read as follows- Table 8.1 APPARENT RETENTION RATES, AUSTRALIA, 1975-1986 Year Apparent retention rates to final year, all schools (per cent) Males Females Persons 1975... 34.6 33.6 34.1 1976... 34.6 35.3 34.9 1977... 34.0 36.6 35.3 1978... 33.1 37.3 35.1 1979... 32.4 37.2 34.7 1980... 31.9 37.3 34.5 1981... 32.0 37.8 34.8 1982... 32.9 39.9 36.3 1983... 37.5 43.9 40.6 1984... 42.1 48.0 45.0 1985... 43.5 49.5 46.4 1986... 45.6 52.1 48.7 Source: Commonwealth Department of Education Mrs SULLIVAN —That table shows that the participation rate for females in school education passed the rate for males in 1976 and that since then it has stayed well ahead. In fact, the gap grew from 1976 to 1983. There was a very substantial improvement in female retention rates throughout the Fraser years. The male retention rates, of course, have fluctuated to some extent. They declined, and then started to rise again in 1983, which is to be welcomed. I think there are probably a number of reasons for that. It could not be suggested that all credit is due to the Hawke Government for the improved retention rates between males and females, because in 1983, the year in which this Government came to office, the difference was 6.4 per cent. That difference has been substantially maintained. So increases in retention rates have not been greater for females than for males under the Hawke Government. Nevertheless, I would be one of the first to welcome any increases in retention rates in our education system and that increase has been steady. I also wonder how many more wearying words will have to be said in this place about fictitious policies. The honourable member for Lilley referred to a Liberal policy document that was leaked and which contained some reference to expenditure in education. Time and time again the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) has indicated that that document had absolutely no status as a policy document; in fact, it cannot be called Liberal Party policy. It should also be pointed out that since the Hawke Government came to power, items of expenditure in the annual Budget, education has fallen from third to fifth highest ranking. So in comparative expenditure terms the education budget has not done as well as it was doing under the Fraser Government. I would also like to say a few words about the participation and equity program. I say to the honourable member for Lilley that if the Hawke Government believes that PEP is so good, why did it decide two years ago to reduce funding and to spread the funding for 1986 over 1986 and 1987? That was a matter that came in for quite some criticism at the time. I would agree with the honourable member that PEP funding is good. Of course, a number of programs of the Fraser Government came under the umbrella of PEP. The program is good, as far as we can observe from its operation in our own electorates. PEP is operating in some very needy areas in my own electorate. I welcome the fact that it is being directed towards students in the Beenleigh area in particular, who are very disadvantaged young people not only in terms of income but also in terms of family background and life experience. PEP gives those young people a chance of some achievement in the education system. Also, in the case to which I have just referred, it takes young people who are right off the track educationally and makes a worthwhile effort to put them back on the track, giving them some chance of living a far better life than they appeared to be heading for. A thorough-going review of PEP is under way at the moment and we all look forward to the assessments that will come out of that. I cannot stress strongly enough how important I believe education to be in Australia. My life prior to coming into parliament, apart from my pre-school years, was essentially spent in education in one form or another. One of the things that I have welcomed in recent years has been a more informed and pointed debate on education in this Parliament. As a person interested in education in Australia, I have lamented the low retention rates in our education system and the apparent unawareness of Australians at large not only of how important education is to the individual but also of how critical it will be to the successful social and economic survival of individuals in the future. There has been a belated recognition by Australians of the importance of education. In some ways that recognition has been not only belated but also quite painful. For many it has been thrust on them by the realities of modern life and the effects of the technological revolution. Those effects are manifested in many ways. People who understood the implications in terms of employment prospects spent years trying to persuade parents that it was worth the effort to encourage their children to gain more education. They tried for years to persuade people in the education system that it was worth their while to persist and to strive for better qualifications and to persuade everyone to recognise that current qualifications were not necessarily the meal ticket that they may have been in the past. All of us have to realise that education is something that we may have to be involved in more than once in a lifetime. The technological revolution has lifted the levels of education and training required for entry and re-entry to the work force. Comparatively higher youth wages in the last 15 years have also meant that employers have been looking for better educated and better skilled prospective young employees. The employer is not so prepared to pay comparatively higher wages now for the lesser skilled young person. Without a doubt, some of the problems with the youth employment situation arise because our young people are not leaving the education system with a level of education or skills that make them attractive to employers. In the past, young people could fairly easily get jobs of a low skilled or unskilled nature. Those jobs are now shrinking. They are being taken over by machines. Semi-skilled and higher skilled jobs demand a higher and higher level of education and skills. There is also a change in the employment patterns of married women, compounded very much by the rising rate of divorce in this country. Not only are more married women wanting to enter or re-enter the work force after marriage; more need to enter the work force as they find themselves unexpectedly the breadwinners responsible for rearing children. All too often those women find that the skills which made them employable when they left school are no longer relevant and will no longer enable them to earn a satisfactory income, and have to resort to social security. These women get into a vicious circle. The re-entry to the work force of those women and the re-entry to the work force of people whose skills have become redundant are urgent social issues. The extension of access to education is, therefore, greatly to be desired. Unfortunately, there is a limit to what the public purse can pay. Those of us who would like to sit down and write a manifesto of the ideal educational situation in terms of availability of education, and the support that is given to it, know only too well that this country cannot support that ideal from the public purse. Of course, this is a lesson that the Government learnt long ago. Coinciding with the need to put a ceiling on education funding is the belated recognition by Australians of the need for higher levels of education. Also coinciding with that need is a bulge in the number of people involved in education. It is absolutely tragic that education is not available to young people who want to gain education as well as older people who need to better their education. This country will not survive unless it can move with the technological revolution and create structures which give access to education. There are limited prospects for real expansions in public funding of tertiary education. It is therefore incomprehensible to many why the Labor Party is so manic in its opposition to the Liberal Party's tertiary education policy. It is doubly incomprehensible when we look at the policies that the Government has pursued in relation to new enrolments by overseas students. The Government quite properly has given overseas students the opportunity to come here to purchase education. Only today in the newspaper I read a statement by the Minister for Trade (Mr Dawkins), who represents the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) in this place, about how much money this arrangement has earned for the country. Of course, some of that money is in the form of what students spend while supporting themselves in this country. However, he included a substantial component for fees. Growth in the tertiary education structure is undoubtedly partly due to the additional numbers of students who are coming from overseas. It is incomprehensible why the Government, whilst recognising that students from overseas can be accommodated as fee paying students in our tertiary institutions, will not recognise that there is at least an equal demand for education from Australian students who would be prepared to pay for their education. The institutions can certainly cope. In fact, I believe that the institutions would welcome the addition of fee paying students to the numbers of publicly funded students that they already have. It is sheer political and dogmatic bloody-mindedness which stops this move and which leads the Labor Party to criticise this part of the tertiary education policy which the Liberal Party has announced for universities and colleges. During the debate there has also been some comment on the effect of the administration charge on students and there has been some reference to a report entitled `Higher Education Administration Charge Monitoring Committee Report' dated April 1987 from which I, too, wish to quote. Time is limited for me so I shall quote but briefly, but some of my comments will link into what I have just said about overseas students, because, to my knowledge, the effect on overseas students has not been referred to in this debate and I think it ought to be. It has been pointed out that this report shows that there has been an increase in the number of full time students in higher education institutions in Australia this year but a decline in the number of part time and external students. The quick conclusion to be drawn is that the administration charge has made full time education available to more students. It has created additional places but it has reduced the real access of part time and external students because of the cost burden, and that thesis is borne out by the report. The increase in full time students, though, surely is due in some part to the fact that there are now a number of full fee paying students in our tertiary institutions-that is, of course, overseas students. However, the rise in the number of Australian students indicates that the demand is there and there are those who will take the opportunity if they can. One study quoted in this report relating to the effect of the administration fee on part time students found: . . . that about 7% of these students did not continue in 1987, citing the administration charge as the reason. Another study relating to Western Australia found: . . . of those individuals who had rejected a first round offer, those whose preferred mode of study was part-time or external viewed the charge as a much more significant factor in their decision than did those whose preferred mode of study was full-time. I say again that I have made numerous representations on behalf of the sorts of people that this report points to, who consider themselves to be disadvantaged by the fee and who have not been able to continue with their studies. In particular, I highlight the position of a married woman who is a fully dependent spouse, dependent on her husband to pay the fee. The imposition of this fee has been a major disincentive. The report lists other categories of students who have been discouraged from continuing their studies and those have been referred to particularly by the honourable member for Tangney (Mr Shack). In the couple of minutes that are left to me I must make a reference to the subject of Austudy, because the difficulties, the problems, and its administration for high school students in my electorate, have been cruel to witness. Of course, in previous debates there has been reference to the fact that because the Government chose, for no reason that is comprehensible, to set a minimum age of 16, Queensland students have been particularly disadvantaged. A significant number of Queensland students in year 11 are 15-year-olds and difficulties have been created for them. However, the delays and confusion that have followed in Australia's administration for those who could have been eligible have been unbelievable. There have been substantial delays. There has been a reference in this House to recordings on telephone inquiry numbers and visitors' inquiry numbers for Austudy which have stated: `You will be all right in a couple of month's time. Families just have not been able to maintain their youngsters at school so easily. This is a real shame when we consider that this Government is one that talks so much about the need to keep the financially disadvantaged student in education. That desire to support them is one that the Opposition endorses. Those very students who would be tempted to, and encouraged by their parents to leave school and to enter the work force have been treated the worst by the sheer incompetence of the administration of this new Austudy for secondary school students. The incompetence that has been encountered by advice being given to students-which turned out to be incorrect-that they would be eligible for a payment if they continued in education and who, finally, have been told that they were not, by which time they missed opportunities for apprenticeships and so on, has been just dreadful, and that is a reflection on the Minister. These things have been pointed out as matters of urgency time and again to the Department of Education and, in particular, to the Minister, and they have not been addressed. Unfortunately, judging from some of the contributions to this debate, it appears that they have been ignored. The Opposition is supporting these Bills but it believes that the Government is not addressing a number of very substantial and real issues in education in Australia today. Mr BRUMBY(Bendigo)(5.56) —It is my pleasure to support strongly the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill, the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill and the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill, and I am pleased that the Opposition is also endorsing these Bills. I am pleased to support the Bills because more Australians are now involved in full time education than at any other time in our history. There has been quite a dramatic growth in the numbers of Australians in full time education during the period of this Hawke Government. Indeed, between 1983 and 1986 the number of 15-year-olds to 19-year-olds undertaking full time education has increased from 605,000 to 712,000. As has been said time and again in this House, particularly by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), new higher education places in the tertiary sector have been increased by almost 37,000 since this Government came to office. When we compare that record with the record of the previous Government, we see that it is a very good one indeed. I just want to make the point-it is self-evident-that the expansion that has occurred in our education system at the secondary and tertiary levels is essential for this nation. It is essential for the development of individuals and it is also essential for our future economic growth. The expansion that is occurring is backed by stable and secure funding from this Government. In the school sector we are responsible for having introduced an eight-year funding program and we have annually negotiated resource agreements for schools which exist in both the government and the non-government sector. I am particularly pleased about that eight-year agreement because it puts funding on a stable, secure long term basis. We have also provided funding for special purpose programs and disadvantaged students. We have promoted fairer access to education and, we believe, better educational outcomes and, of course, we have also actively promoted a higher quality of education following the report of the Quality of Education Review Committee. (Quorum formed) Before I was so rudely interrupted I was saying that under this Government more young people are involved in higher education than at any other time in Australia's history. That is an achievement of some note. I want to compare that with what occurred during the period of the Fraser Government because I heard the honourable member for Moncrieff (Mrs Sullivan) make some claims about the period of the Fraser Government. When we look at what it achieved in higher education we see that when those opposite came to office in 1976, 10.2 per cent of 17 to 19-year-olds were participating in higher education. By the time those opposite left government at the end of 1982 that figure had dropped to 8.6 per cent. In other words, they screwed down the higher education system over eight years when they were in government. It is nonsense for Opposition speakers to say that they have a genuine and unending commitment to tertiary education. During that period the real value of the tertiary education assistance scheme was allowed to fall substantially. We have now subsumed that scheme under the Austudy program. I will say a little more about Austudy in a moment. But it was not just TEAS that those opposite wound down in real terms. The number of students eligible to receive TEAS fell from more than a half to around one-third so not only did they wind TEAS down in terms of its real value but the number of students eligible also became smaller and smaller. We saw one of the most pronounced impacts of the Fraser Government's education spending in higher education in the capital sector-the building sector-where in real terms again they wound down funding from a level of around $250m in 1976 to, in equivalent terms, $118m when they left government in 1982. In those cuts those opposite more than halved the amount of real funding. Of course, the same occurred in recurrent expenditure. My good friend and colleague the honourable member for Jagajaga (Mr Staples) has come into the House. He knows well the performance of this Government in higher education compared with that of the previous Government. This Government has created 36,000 new tertiary places compared with only around 8,000 under the previous Government. In other words, we have created almost five times as many new tertiary places in four years under this Government as those opposite did in the last triennium of their government. Mr Martin —How many are there in Wollongong? Mr BRUMBY —I do not know how many there are in Wollongong but I refer the House to what these figures mean. The higher education institution in my electorate of Bendigo shows that the runs are really on the board. When we came to government in 1983 there were the equivalent of 1,400 effective full time students at the Bendigo College of Advanced Education. Most honourable members in this House would not put money on the sort of increase we have had because it has been absolutely dramatic. We now have more than 2,200 effective full time students at the Bendigo College of Advanced Education and we had 1,400 four years ago when we came to government. That is an increase in student numbers in a mere four years of more than 50 per cent. It means that there are 800 people throughout the central Victorian region who have opportunities for higher education under this Government that they would never have got under the previous Fraser Government and which they will certainly never get from this shambles of an Opposition if it ever gets to government in the future. But that is just the enrolment side. We have built a new teaching centre there at a cost of $2 1/2m. We have built new student residences at Bendigo valued at nearly $1m. This is the first to be built-I say quite proudly as the local member-anywhere in Australia since the demise of the Whitlam Government in 1975. But that is not the only aspect of higher education. In the TAFE sector we are providing new facilities. There is construction going on of a new $9m building in Bendigo which will increase dramatically the capacity for enrolments. Some of the grants we have made this year are to assist needy Catholic schools provide a better education to their students-and I strongly support that. All those things have happened in my electorate under this Government. They simply would not have occurred had the Fraser Government remained in office after 1983 because its policy was to wind down education. This Government can be proud that we have more young people in education today than at any other time in our history. We have lifted the retention rate from around 36 per cent to just under 50 per cent and we have no doubts that by 1990 this Government, which will then be the third Hawke Government, will have increased that participation rate to around 60 per cent. I have, unfortunately, been asked to speak for only ten minutes but I just want to say a few words about Austudy and the tertiary administration charge. I will start with the tertiary administration charge. In relation to full time students, only those students who, on the basis of their income or their parents' income, have better than average incomes are required to pay any administration charge. For instance, if we look at the cut-off point for Austudy for tertiary higher education students we see that for parents with one child living at home the cut-off figure is a little over $27,000 per year. For a student living away from home the cut-off figure is a little over $32,000 a year. I just point out for the benefit of the House that average weekly earnings in Australia are considerably below both those figures. So it is not true to say, as do some people in student organisations and on the opposite side of the House, that needy full time students have been required to pay the $250 administration charge. In general those people paying it are better off in income terms than the average Australian. A family with three children, for instance, in tertiary education and living away from home would have to have an income of above $65,000 before the children were not eligible for Austudy. No one can say that that is not a generous income limit, even with three children. I want to refer to part time students because there is a genuine case for modifying the regulations-the guidelines for the administration charge-for part time students. There is no doubt that in my electorate of Bendigo part time students have been affected in some way by the administration charge. I would like to see modifications made, if they can be in that area, particularly in relation to the level of charge which should be paid by a part time student and also in relation to the income of some part time students because, unquestionably, some have found it extremely difficult to pay the charge. As part of a government which is always prepared to review and modify policies I hope that we can put those things in place for the 1988 academic year. The last point I want to make concerns the payment and administration of Austudy. There have been difficulties with that program but I hope that they do not detract from the enormous changes we have made to Austudy. We have widened eligibility, increased in real terms the income levels and provided for the first time ever realistic levels of income support to needy secondary students so that the temptations of old-the old disincentives-for young people not to stay on but to leave school early and basically pick up a junior rate unemployment benefit have been removed. So we have done a great deal in that area. We have done an enormous amount in improving the eligibility for and rates of payment under Austudy. However, this year there has been an administration problem. There have been delays and, as a Government member, I do not deny that some of those delays have been quite excessive. One of the reasons for those delays is the fact that the new arrangements for Austudy are so much more generous than those that applied previously. Therefore there are so many more applicants and more students must be dealt with by the Austudy section of the Education Department. I suggest to the House and to the Government that we give serious consideration to changing the whole nature of the way in which Austudy payments are administered. There are very good grounds for looking seriously at paying future Austudy benefits through regional offices of the Department of Social Security. At the moment Austudy is operated very much as a mail order type of business. Applicants fill in forms and send them to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane or wherever. The forms are processed there on a central computer and sent back to the students. There are more than 200 regional offices of the Department of Social Security around Australia and I believe that it would be in the interests of taxpayers and students if Austudy could be administered through regional offices of the Department. Last year I served as a member of the Joint Committee on an Australia Card. During our deliberations on the Australia Card we brought before the Committee representatives of the Department of Education to question them about the administration of Austudy. As a result of those investigations our Committee last year unanimously recommended that the responsibility for processing applications and payments under Austudy should be transferred from the Department of Education to the Department of Social Security. We also felt-again unanimously-that the Department of Education should control policy matters, but that the regional offices of the Department of Social Security should administer the scheme. I see enormous benefits in that, particularly in regional and provincial seats. Applicants for Austudy could turn up in person at the local DSS offices. They could fill in forms at those offices where there would be greater ability to check for audit procedures to reduce fraud, which exists to a small degree in the payment of Austudy benefits. I see overall benefits in an improvement in efficiency for both students and taxpayers. I sincerely hope that the Government will look at that suggestion seriously because there are probably savings to be made in that area. At a time when we are trying to cut spending by the order of $2 billion in the May financial statement, such a proposition should be investigated fully. If it could be achieved and implemented in time for the 1988 student year there would be enormous benefits to students and taxpayers alike. I conclude by saying that all members on this side of the House are proud of what this Government has achieved in education at all levels at a time of great fiscal difficulty. We came to Government with a budget deficit of $9.6 billion in prospect. We have wound that down to around $3.5 billion and, at the same time, we have provided programs in the education area which have assisted young people to participate, to stay in education for a longer period in order to improve their education and skills level. That is good for the individuals concerned and it is good for Australia. I have pleasure in supporting these Bills. Dr WATSON(Forde)(6.14) —There are three Bills in this package of schools assistance measures, but I wish to concentrate on the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill. I begin by referring to the remarks of the honourable member for Moncrieff (Mrs Sullivan) about Austudy, to which the honourable member for Lilley (Mrs Darling) also referred. Queensland is systematically disadvantaged in the Austudy program because we have a vast number of students in grade 11 who are 15 years of age and under. In fact, if I recall the figures, something like 43 per cent of students in Queensland are 15 years of age at the beginning of grade 11, whereas in other States, such as the one from which the honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Brumby) comes, the figure is less than 10 per cent. I make that point because the honourable member for Lilley seems to forget that she comes from Queensland and she is part of the Government which is systematically disadvantaging Queensland students. I turn to the aspects of these Bills in which I am more interested. The Minister for Trade (Mr Dawkins), in his second reading speech on the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill, said: The Bill . . . reflects the Government's decision to streamline the distribution of capital grants for non-government schools from 1988 through allocation as a block grant for distribution by approved block grant authorities. I want to concentrate on that aspect. Unfortunately the Minister's second reading speech did not give any background information on this block grant program, but on 27 April we were fortunate enough to have a public meeting of the Joint Committee on Public Accounts at which we were able to go into this matter. This is on the public record and has already been reported in the Canberra Times. The Public Accounts Committee is responding to an efficiency audit report of the Auditor-General. Although the block grants program is not a response to the Auditor-General's report, it is constructive to read a couple of comments in that report about the deficiencies of the current capital grants program. I will refer to these later. The audit found a number of deficiencies, one of which was the lack of clear and comprehensive guidelines for the program and its administration. Another was that particular operations of the planning and finance committees of the Commonwealth Schools Commission could have been more efficient and effective and subject to improved monitoring. A third was that the guidelines for schools applying for grants were not issued on time and did not contain sufficient relevant information. A fourth was that the process of assessing educational and financial need was inadequate. Another was that the program's information base was inadequate. There were a number of others as well and I will refer to them later in my speech. The capital grants program has been changed, presumably to increase its effectiveness and to increase the effectiveness of educational outcomes in the long run. It has been introduced to ensure that the decision making in respect of the allocation of capital grants between schools comes closer to the coal face, the working reality. I wish to review the process by which the capital grants will be allocated. My understanding of the way in which this will occur is that Federal funds will first of all be allocated to the States on a per capita basis, reflecting the numbers of students in non-government schools in each State. Then, within the States, funds will be allocated to blocks. The Government expects that there will be three major blocks-first, the catholic systemic schools, secondly the non-catholic systemic schools or association of schools and, thirdly, the remaining non-block schools. About 75 per cent of non-government school students will be in systemic schools and the remainder, presumably, will be potentially in non-block schools. A minimum of 15 per cent of non-government schools will be needed to form a block. This naturally brings to mind two questions: First, how will decisions be made in allocating funds between the blocks or, if you like, between the block and the non-block schools? The second question that comes to mind is: How will the money be allocated within the blocks, once it has been allocated to each block? At the meeting held on 27 April we found out that there will be perhaps three criteria. The first is the number of children studying English as a second language; the second is the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children; and the third, I believe, concerns the educational resource index-ERI-rating category of the individual non-government school, the rating which puts schools into classes of one to 12. I understand that all three criteria will be used in the allocation of funds within the blocks. In other words, a block system has to allocate funds reflecting the ERI categories within the block-the schools within the block, the number of children studying English as a second language and the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, for example. Somehow the allocations have to reflect those, if you like, input measures. In relation to the allocations to be made between blocks, we are told, however, that the only criterion that will be used will be the educational resource index. So, we have a three-tier process. It starts with grants coming from the Commonwealth to the States on a per capita basis. Within the States the grants are allocated to schools on an educational resource index basis. Finally, grants are made within blocks. We are not really told, but presumably grants for non-block schools will be based on the three relevant criteria. It is quite obvious that these approaches are not necessarily consistent. A schedule has to go to the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) for final approval of allocation of funds, and the Minister is supposed to ensure that the funds are allocated by the blocks in a manner consistent with the three criteria that I have outlined. It is at least a theoretical, and I would suggest a very practical, problem that inconsistency will occur in the application of the criteria. I do not want to defend or attack the relevant criteria, but I think it is instructive to note the comment made by the Auditor-General that there was a lack of clear and comprehensive guidelines for the existing program and its administration and that the process for assessing educational and financial need was inadequate. It would seem, from the limited information that we have, that even before we get started with the Government's new program of block funding it is going to run into the same kinds of problems that the Auditor-General raised in relation to the existing program. It will be interesting to see the format used in the allocation of funds by the Department of Education and the Minister when they finally get down to allocating funds. I refer again to what I said previously-that the Minister should have some responsibility in ensuring that grants are allocated according to the relevant criteria. Clause 8 of the Bill gives the Minister some fairly wide residual powers. The Bill does not make clear how the Minister is going to arrive at a decision, pertaining, for example to the provision contained in clause 8, namely: The Minister may, in writing, approve a body corporate as a block grant authority in relation to the schools specified in the approval. It is not clear what kind of condition the Minister might specify. It is obvious that one of the conditions involved, perhaps amongst other criteria, is that the Government wishes the blocks to decide on the allocation of the grants between the schools within their blocks. However, there is nothing to say how the Minister will decide whether the decisions on the allocations made by the block authorities are consistent with the stipulated guidelines. I also raise this matter because there is some presumption in the Bill that the Minister will have access to some information that will enable her to make a decision that certain conditions or criteria are reasonable in relation to one block or another. I draw the attention of the House once again to a comment made by the Auditor-General about the current capital grants program-that the program's information basis was inadequate. There is nothing in the Minister's second reading speech, the explanatory memorandum to the Bill or in any other information presented to this Parliament to indicate that that deficiency, identified by the Auditor-General, will be rectified, or that there will even be sufficient information available to the Minister to allow her to make some kind of intelligent decision. So, while one might applaud the concept of decentralised decision-making-in other words, having decisions on the allocation of grants made at the grass roots level, presumably where more information is available than would ever be available in a centralised department or schools commission-the potential inconsistencies and lack of information available to the Minister in enabling the Minister to evaluate the outcome of such decentralised decision-making must lead one to seriously question whether the process will achieve any of its desired ends. I am aware of the time constraints being imposed on honourable members so I will leave that aspect there. I shall conclude this speech by referring to another aspect of the education received by students in non-government schools. I shall relate that partly to the participation and equity program but more particularly to the disadvantaged schools program. The `Commonwealth Program of School Administrative Guidelines for 1986' refers to the disadvantaged schools program as follows: Only declared disadvantaged schools are eligible to participate in the program. A school is declared on the basis of the social and financial circumstances of the community from which it draws its students, not in terms of the standard of facilities and resources provided by the schools. It is my understanding that the Schools Commission-and perhaps the Department of Education-proposes adopting a new or revised index of disadvantage. From communicating with the Director of the Catholic Education Office (Queensland), Mr O'Rourke, I understand that there are some substantial problems with the new development. I will elucidate these and bring them to the attention of the Minister, the Department and the Schools Commission. Firstly, I understand that the revised index has interpreted educational deprivation in purely socio-economic terms, which is perhaps consistent with what is stated there but they are quite restricted. In particular, no attempt has been made to arrive at a definition of disadvantage per se. In other words, the concept of disadvantage was not elaborated in any particular way. Rather, the Commission has adopted a set of elements and has then put weightings on those elements, with no evidence that the elements were valid or reliable predictors of educational deprivation. Another problem, I understand, is that in arriving at its index it has used 1981 census data and has ignored any changes that have occurred from 1981 to 1986. Of course, one can sometimes get measures of this. In addition, the census was taken in June and apparently in calculating the index no adjustment has been made for, for example, seasonal variations. In a State such as Queensland there are some significant seasonal variations, such as the sugar cane industry downturn at that time of the year, which affects where students may come from to attend schools outside the metropolitan area of Brisbane. The third problem, as I understand it, is that the database is based on census districts. When one understands the census collection process it is fairly obvious that census districts are quite small. While government schools might draw from a limited number of census districts, in general non-government schools draw from a much wider group of census districts. No account has been taken of the wide geographical dispersion of students going to non-government schools. Therefore the index can potentially disadvantage schools in particular census districts. For example, the school might be in one census district which is above the mean for the area but draw many of its students from other areas well beyond that census district. That is just one possible problem. I bring that to the attention of the Minister and the Department. Queensland, as I understand it, and Western Australia are particularly disadvantaged by the new index. Incorrect indices always lead to misallocation of resources. Presumably in this whole process we are trying to get in the education area a proper allocation of resources so that we maximise educational opportunities. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Keogh) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr MILDREN(Ballarat)(6.34) —I want to make a few comments on various parts of the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill, the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill, and the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill. As I live in a city that has a unique record of educational provision and attainment, these Bills have a particular relevance to me. Ballarat is a centre with two colleges of advanced education, which in itself is unique-namely, the Ballarat College of Advanced Education, where I once had the privilege of teaching, when I was a real person, before entering this place, and the Aquinas College, the Institute of Catholic Education, which is currently led by a very good friend of mine and noted educationist and horse trainer, Dr Barry Fitzgerald. Both of these institutions have very long and proud histories of achievement. Ballarat also boasts one of the nation's oldest and most respected technical training institutions, which is now a very vital college of technical and further education-namely the School of Mines and Industries Ballarat Ltd. There are also 13 secondary schools-six State and seven private. (Quorum formed) I thank the honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith) for his ministrations and providing me with what looks like a receding audience. Nevertheless, it was particularly good of him to consider me in the way in which he did. Mr Chynoweth —The quality is still here. Mr MILDREN —The quality is still here; that is quite true. Mr Reith —The best audience you have had for years. Mr MILDREN —Right. It is the only audience I have had for years. I repeat that Ballarat is a city with a very high degree of provision of education. I have indicated that it has two colleges of advanced education, a very celebrated TAFE college, 13 secondary schools and very many primary schools. Mr Chynoweth —It has some wonderful lecturers. Mr MILDREN —Wonderful people. It has state, Catholic systemic, and a number of independent primary schools as well. The regional offices for both the State and the Catholic systems are also located in Ballarat. The reason I have mentioned this is to give the House an indication of the breadth and the depth of educational provision that exists beyond the boundaries of the metropolitan areas and hence the interest in Bills such as these that we are discussing today. I want it made quite clear that beyond the boundaries of the metropolitan areas of this country very many centres such as Ballarat are centres of education and of educational excellence. But of course, I want to make it quite clear that there are also certain problems associated with those communities that are not associated with those of the metropolitan areas. I will just make specific reference to this matter. If one happens to want one's child to go to a college of advanced education, such as the one at Ballarat, and one lives in the country, of course, one will find oneself caught in the bind of having to pay extra rent. It costs one far more to have a child go to a college of advanced education if one happens to live out in the country than it does for a person who happens to live in the urban area of Ballarat. Likewise, if someone in Ballarat wants his child to go to Melbourne to a university or a college for a special purpose, once again it will cost far more money to do that. I happen to be one of those people who believe that it is important to stress time and time again that the difference in cost is not adequately recognised in the living away from home allowance. I believe it is time that governments of any complexion ought to take that matter on board to recognise that as a realistic need and make a far more realistic allocation of funds in that direction. I would like to say a few words on these three Bills as they stand. Firstly, the State Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987 is basically a routine piece of legislation. As a result of cost movements resulting from the national wage decision it makes adjustments to the sums previously allocated. It does not, however, include any rises for university academics because of their current claim for an amendment to their award through the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about this Bill and further such amendments can be expected as the consumer price index adjustments are made. The legislation affects not only recurrent grants but also capital and equipment grants. The second piece of legislation under discussion is the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987. This Bill signals a particularly significant change in the funding arrangements for capital grants for non-government schools. This Government, and the Australian Labor Party in general, can be particularly proud of the contributions that have been made both by the Whitlam Government and the current Labor Administration to defusing the long-simmering debate over funding for non-government schools. When the report of the Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commission, the Karmel Report, was adopted by the Whitlam Government in mid 1973, the shifting emphasis laid stress upon the education of the Australian child. That was particularly significant, because for over a century there has been conflict about the schools-and the children, in many respects, had been the ones who suffered. That Committee tried to put to rest the bitterness that had been so characteristic of the educational history of this country over that previous century. I like to think that the issue of state aid will never again be raised as a serious topic for debate in this country. While I recognise that there are some who might harbour some residual disquiet, and even resentment, at the decision of the Whitlam Government, the social and the educational benefits of that change should be more than obvious for all to see. So it is particularly significant that the responsibility for the distribution of capital grants for non-government schools has now become the responsibility of the approved block grant authorities. As the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) has said, it is expected that in most States Catholic schools will form one block authority and most other non-government schools will form a second block authority. There is no compulsion, of course, for non-government schools to join an authority. The current system will still apply; that is, non-government schools that so wish can apply to the Commonwealth for capital grants. I am particularly proud of the initiative of the Whitlam Labor Government, which has been continued and improved by this Government. When I recall the situation that existed prior to 1973, I can still feel the anger and the frustration that permeated the schools and the school communities. This applied particularly to those parish schools in less affluent areas. I will never forget the heroic efforts of the teachers in those schools as they attempted to cater for the needs of classes of 60 and 70 children. In fact, in some years before that as a young teacher in North Richmond in Victoria, I visited St James school where the smallest class was one of 85 children. The nun who taught that class felt quite guilty that some of the other classes had up to 125 children. Thank God and the Labor Party that those appallingly bad days are well and truly behind us. The facilities that now exist in the parish schools are on a par with the State owned school. Another wonderful outcome of the implementation of the Karmel Report was the improved co-operation between the school systems. In other words, the suspicions and the animosities that were so often present in the relationships between the schools have now been happily laid to rest. That is largely what I mean by the social benefits of the Whitlam Government's educational initiatives. I do not think many of the young people who are now assuming responsibility for both the government and the non-government schools can recall the bad old days. Might I say, may those bad old days never return. I am particularly pleased to support this particularly progressive step. I would like to make a few comments on the third piece of legislation, namely, the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill 1987. Quite simply, this Bill, like the first two in this package, is directed towards the supplementation of previously announced grants for cost increases due primarily to CPI movements. I want to make a couple of comments about the participation and equity program. I quote from the annual report of the Commonwealth Schools Commission for 1985. The participation and equity program was aimed at providing support for: . . . projects and activities aimed at qualitative change in the following areas of secondary education: curriculum, assessment, accreditation and credentialling, teacher/student/parent interaction . . . That is a particularly important area if we are to be able to get more community involvement in the education of our children. The list went on: . . . teacher renewal and support, school structure and organisation, post-school links, education and the arts, and public support for education. I might say that in all of those areas this nation has been deficient. That is why they have been chosen as important focal points for the direction of so much of our educational effort. Activities were undertaken for groups of students with special needs such as Aboriginal students and those disadvantaged by economic circumstances, ethnicity, gender and disability. Throughout the length and breadth of this country participation and equity programs have been put in place. I am very proud of what has been done in my area of Ballarat. But I want to say that the person responsible for implementing this program in Ballarat is a friend of mine, Bill Horrocks, and I am very happy to say that his daughter, Lucinda, is with us today. She participated in the wonderful band recital which we had outside the building at lunch time. It is very good to see Lucinda here with her friends. The program that has been put in place in the Ballarat area has identified five target schools. I will just mention those schools. Firstly, there is the Ballarat Special School, which is a school for those people who are intellectually disabled. It is a very fine institution indeed. As an old special teacher, I would like to pay tribute to those people who teach in those schools for whom I have a very warm spot. The school appointed a parent liaison officer in order to increase the level of parent participation in the education of their children. The involvement of parents had been particularly difficult before the PEP because of the wide geographical dispersion of the families. They do not have simply a local community orientation; they come to the school from quite a large area-20, 30 or 40 kilometres. The parent liaison officer has been able to visit families, organise meetings of parents in their own localities and encourage parents to meet at the school to discuss issues relevant to the curriculum and the general welfare of their children. The other important issue has been support for the establishment of an independent living skills program for students aged 15 to 18, that is, those in the transition from the school community to the work situation-sometimes via the Ballarat Regional Industries Centre-and those going directly into the community to look after themselves and, hopefully, to gain worthwhile employment. That has been actively assisted by the Principal, John Pitman, and his staff. Another school in the area is the Ballarat East High School. The major focus there in 1987 is to work on a program of equal opportunity for girls. The appointment of an equal opportunity officer will enable the school to provide and implement more readily strategies to improve the education of girls. That means firstly that it will provide girls with broader access to curriculum than they have currently. It will enable girls to take part in areas that were traditionally focused on by boys, such as science, mathematics and the like. Mr Wright —Is the scheme working? Mr MILDREN —It is working. Of course one does not expect it to happen over just one year. There is a long term necessity to focus continually upon it. The program also provides an opportunity to remain at school for girls who might otherwise be thinking, in traditional terms, of leaving school early. That is also extremely important at a time when we are looking not only at the necessity for girls to see themselves as being equal but also, so far as the country is concerned, at ensuring that the talent throughout the community is adequately tapped and adequately developed. Another of the schools, the Wendouree High Technical School, a fairly new school, has a wonderful future. In 1987 it is concerned with the place of the school in its local community. That has been a highlight of the Wendouree High Technical School since its foundation. It aims to make contact with local employers, encouraging information flow, inviting employers to speak at curriculum days and encouraging teachers to visit local work places. Again, the school aims to ensure that the Australian community takes adequate part in the education of young people. I believe that it is terribly important that that aspect of this program be adequately recognised. The same applies to the Mount Clear Technical High School. A particularly interesting school is the Lake Bolac High School, which places emphasis on country children and the country community-a tremendously important area. It is one of the few schools in country Victoria to have a participation and equity program. I am proud of what is being done in that program. I hope it is continued and that its funding continues even though we live in these tough times. I support all three pieces of legislation. Mr SLIPPER(Fisher)(6.54) —This evening I am pleased to rise to represent the National Party of Australia in speaking on the States Grants (Tertiary Eduction Assistance) Amendment Bill, the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill and the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill. As was mentioned by my colleague the honourable member for Groom (Mr McVeigh), the National Party does not oppose the three Bills. However, we welcome the chance to discuss various matters related to them. As has been outlined earlier, these are essentially machinery Bills generally seeking to make necessary adjustment and increase in payments due to salary rises following the national wage case decision. As my colleague the honourable member for Groom outlined, tertiary teachers are excluded because of their current outrageous ambit claim which, if successful, would see some of them paid in the vicinity of $120,000 per year. Australia is in time of economic trouble; it is a country in dire straits and we certainly cannot afford the monumental claim which the academics are seeking to impose on the people of this nation. I wish to refer to the States Grants (School Assistance) Amendment Bill and the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill relatively briefly and then spend a little more time on the third Bill-the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill. The States Grants (School Assistance) Amendment Bill has as its objective the streamlining of the system of distribution of grants for non-government schools. It is anticipated that in most areas Catholic schools will form one block authority and other independent schools will form a second authority. As was mentioned a moment ago by the honourable member for Ballarat (Mr Mildren), there is no compulsion on independent schools necessarily to join the second block. The Catholic school authorities certainly do not oppose the change. We on this side of the House support any move to streamline or improve the efficiency of payments made because funding in these tight economic times is very much a finite resource, and we must ensure that the people of Australia get the best value for their education dollar. The Catholic Education Office is, however, somewhat concerned about the bureaucracy which will remain even under the new arrangements. The new arrangements make provision for funding to be forwarded through block authorities. These two block grants will be issued in 11 instalments over the next 11 months with the receiving bodies compiling quarterly reports. The Catholic Education Office would like to see the funds paid in quarterly instalments with quarterly reporting. This would, of course, reduce the red tape and the additional costs which will be imposed on the education authorities. Unfortunately, unless this proposal is adopted the proposed arrangements will amount to a further administrative burden. I certainly cannot see any logical justification for that. The cost of servicing the administration burden determined by this Bill will fall directly on the Catholic Education Office and the other authority, and this will amount to an effective erosion of funding. I sincerely ask the Government to look into this perhaps unintended consequence of the legislation. The Catholic Education Office also advised that it would like to see more flexibility regarding government guidelines for needy schools. While the guidelines are respected, the Catholic Education Office would like the opportunity to interpret them more sensibly. It must be stressed that the Catholic education authority supports the block authority concept. However, it would seem that the guidelines might not achieve what the Government sets out to achieve with these changes. The next Bill to which I wish to refer is the one dealing with the participation and equity program. Most Australians would agree that it is a sound program in principle but, again, it has been burdened by demanding administrative guidelines. These guidelines have been determined by the Commonwealth Schools Commission and are promulgated as the Commission's interpretation of the States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Act. In addition, guidelines for each funding allocation have inevitably been received long after State advisory committees have formulated that year's budget. There is a general concern in the community that while the PEP initially had a lot of promise it failed to achieve the expectations that the community and presumably, the Government had for it. I have been advised by concerned people that the program suffered from underfunding and perhaps over expectations. The new program will perhaps be funded to a greater degree. People have said to me that the PEP program was a good idea, but it simply has not achieved all of its aims. The next Bill to which I wish to refer is the one dealing with tertiary assistance-the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987. In particular, I would like to emphasise the desperate need for additional tertiary places in my home State of Queensland. Mr Braithwaite —A good State, too. Mr SLIPPER —It is a good State, as the honourable member for Dawson points out to the House. While there are some unresolved difficulties in calculating unmet demand, the following paragraph from the report of the Joint Commonwealth-State Working Party on Higher Education Provision in Queensland Regional Centres presents an accepted, yet conservative, statement on this issue. Paragraph 8 reads: The higher education participation rate for Queensland is relatively low-34 per 1,000 persons in 1985 compared with the national average of 36; an additional 2,800 higher education enrolments would be needed to bring the level of participation in Queensland up to the national average. The situation in Queensland at the moment is quite critical. Almost 37,000 applications were received for 15,000 available tertiary places in Queensland. This means that almost 22,000 people were denied educational opportunities. This reflects very badly on the Government's so-called interest in the education field. The figures would be significant even if Queensland's population were predicted to remain stable relative to that of the other States. However, everyone knows that, with the good National Party Government in Queensland, there has been a demographic change. People are moving to Queensland. As the Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen often says, people vote with their feet. There is an increasing population in Queensland and the Government has failed to take into account the increased needs of the increased population. Unlike most other States, Queensland's share of the nation's population continues to grow. For example, in 1971 just over 14 per cent of the six-State population resided in Queensland. The figure is now over 16.5 per cent and by the turn of the century it is estimated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to rise to 17.7 per cent. One can see that, even having regard to our current percentage of population, we are underfunded. Unfortunately, the Bill before the House makes no move to redress this obvious imbalance. It is particularly significant that the growth in Queensland's proportion of the six-State population will be greater amongst the younger age groups than for the total population. While Queensland is expected to have 17.7 per cent of the total six-State population by the year 2001, it will have 18.4 per cent of the 15- to 29-year-olds, the age band which provides 60 to 70 per cent of tertiary education enrolments. In 1986 Queensland had 16.8 per cent of the six-State population of 15- to 29-year-olds. In the short period to the end of the forthcoming 1988-90 triennium this figure will rise to 17.1 per cent. So while Queensland's proportion of Australia's population has been increasing, its share of Commonwealth funding for each sector of tertiary education has remained well below its proportion of population. It is essential that there be a substantially more equitable allocation of Commonwealth funding for tertiary education amongst the Australian states. I hope that the Australian Labor Party Government in the Commonwealth sphere has not been using political considerations as a reason for denying the young people of Queensland their proper proportion of Australia's tertiary places. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table setting out Commonwealth recurrent grants for three sectors of tertiary education in Queensland as a percentage of total recurrent grants to the six States from 1982-83 to 1986-87. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Keogh) —Leave is not granted at this stage. It will be examined to ascertain whether it complies with the requirements laid down by Madam Speaker. The Minister at the table has not yet seen the document. It is usual to show it to someone from the other side to seek his endorsement. Provided it meets with normal requirements and the Minister has no objection, it will be incorporated. Leave granted. The table read as follows- Commonwealth Recurrent Grants for Three Sectors of Tertiary Education in Queensland as Percentage of Total Recurrent Grants to Six States of Australia, 1982-83 to 1986-87 Year Percentage of Population in Queensland University Education Advanced Education Technical and Further Education 1982-83... 15.9 14.0 15.4 10.8 1983-84... 16.1 14.3 15.1 10.4 1984-85... 16.1 14.3 15.1 11.2 1985-86... 16.2 14.4 15.6 12.4 1986-87... 16.3 14.4 15.7 13.5 * (Source: Payments to or for the States, the Northern Territory and Local Government Authorities 1986-87; 1985-87 Budget Paper No. 7, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra 1986.) Mr SLIPPER —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise for that oversight. It does seem to be a fairly non-controversial table. I certainly did not intend to move away from the usual arrangements. While the proportion of technical and further education recurrent funding for Queensland has increased from 10.8 per cent to 13.5 per cent of the total for the six States between 1982-83 and 1986-87, it remains far short of Queensland's 16.8 per cent of the 15- to 29-year-old population. For the university sector, the increase from 14 per cent to 14.4 per cent has similarly failed to match the proportion of population resident in Queensland. The increase for advanced education from 15.4 per cent to 15.7 per cent similarly falls short of Queensland's 16.8 per cent of the six-State population. The present inequitable allocation of Commonwealth funding to Queensland, repeated in respect of each sector of tertiary education, is depicted in the second table that I would like to incorporate in Hansard. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The same conditions that I indicated to the honourable member previously will apply. Subject to those conditions, leave will be granted. Mr SLIPPER —I understand that, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for your consideration. Queensland is the only State which consistently, over the three sectors, having regard to its share of the six-State population, receives a smaller share of Commonwealth funds. The whole issue of inadequate and inequitable provision for Queensland youth is further exacerbated when the fact that Queensland has the highest retention rate of secondary students to year 12 of all the States is taken into account. In 1985 55 per cent of entering students in secondary schools in Queensland continued until year 12, compared with the Australian average of 46 per cent. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but this type of table is unable to be incorporated. The type of tables that can be incorporated are numerical style tables, not drawings. Mr SLIPPER —That is the second table, Mr Deputy Speaker. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Yes. The honourable member can table it. Mr SLIPPER —Mr Deputy Speaker, before I presented the table to the House I did ask someone from Hansard about it. I was aware that the matter had to be referred to a senior officer of Hansard. It is unfortunate that the table cannot be incorporated, because it does show that Queensland is disadvantaged when one compares the population of Queensland with the number of university, advanced education and TAFE places. In summing up, however, the question of Commonwealth underfunding of Queensland tertiary education is of critical importance to young Queenslanders. We have found that since the Commonwealth took over tertiary funding the proportion of Queenslanders in tertiary institutions has continued to decrease. It is time that the Government looked at the situation. I am very sad to see that the legislation before the House does not seek to give those young Queenslanders who are presently denied educational opportunities some possibility of advancement. Honourable members who have spoken on various Bills in the House over the last couple of years have emphasised that Australia is a country in deep trouble. We are a country which has a national debt in excess of $101 billion, or $6,000 for every man, woman and child in the nation. The national debt is a matter of grave concern. We have a trade deficit in excess of $10 billion a year. We are a country which essentially is going down the economic drain. Therefore, in matters of education, as indeed in matters of other sorts of government expenditure, we must always endeavour to obtain the best value for the government dollar-the best value, in this case, for the government education dollar. While the honourable member for Groom mentioned that the National Party of Australia does not oppose these Bills, we take the opportunity to emphasise that we are not happy with the way that the Government is under-financing Queensland tertiary students. We are not happy with the bureaucracy which continues and which remains pursuant to the other two Bills that are before the House. I sincerely ask the Minister in a spirit of bipartisanship to look at the matters emphasised and stated in this debate by members of the Opposition. We, like Government members, seek to obtain for our young people the very best education that this country can afford. It is therefore sad that bureaucracy continues to reign supreme. It is sad that the Government, when it has the numbers in this place and, indeed, in the other chamber, fails to take the opportunity to reduce the burden of government and the burden of wasteful expenditure in this area. As I said, we do not oppose the Bills. However, we would like the matters that we have raised to be seriously considered. Mr WRIGHT(Capricornia)(7.12) —The honourable member for Fisher (Mr Slipper), who has just resumed his seat, presented to this chamber his approach to the statistical argument that is being waged, I suppose, in many areas of Queensland. We constantly hear the claim that the Hawke Government has not been making the same moneys available to Queensland as it makes available to other States. I challenge those figures. We have seen massive increases in my State of Queensland. In fact, this very day I received notification from the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) advising of special funding that is going to be made available to our tertiary institutions, four of which were named. The amount in question is $168,000. The total expenditure for Australia to enable those with disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue tertiary studies is $1m. Queensland requires or demands about 16 per cent of funds that are made available. If honourable members work it out, they will find that $168,000 out of $1m is 16.8 per cent. So, in this instance, Queensland has received 16.8 per cent of the total allocation, which is in line with the commitment of this Government to be fair on a State to State basis. It is not a matter of trying to assist or disadvantage one State against the other. When one sits down and works out the figures in respect of this typical example of which I was advised only today, one finds that Queensland will receive 16.8 per cent, or $168,000, out of a total budget of $1m. I want to develop some points before the debate is interrupted. I want to refer to a speech which the Minister for Education made recently when she was opening some new school extensions. She said that when we in the Labor Party, particularly in the Hawke Government, talk of education in Australia-this is from our point of view-we talk about a partnership. That is a partnership between the Commonwealth Government and State governments, non-government and state school authorities, parents and teachers, and schools and the communities they serve. Senator Ryan went on to say that partnership is the way that the Hawke Government does business, and that the Hawke Government is a very active partner in education activity in this nation. I intend to develop that statement because it is true and it has been proven by our performance in dollar terms. That is what it comes back to. It is all very well to have policies and philosophies and to make great statements when it comes to putting forward party documents. But the real test is when one has the opportunity to spend the money. Debate interrupted. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! It being 7.15 p.m., I propose the question: That the House do now adjourn. (Quorum formed) Mr CUNNINGHAM(McMillan)(7.18) —I rise on the adjournment tonight to raise an issue in relation to an editorial in the Australian newspaper headed `Ensuring exports flow'. This editorial relates to a submission which allegedly is going to be presented in the very near future to the Royal Commission into Grain Storage, Handling and Transport. The editorial refers to an article, written yesterday by Julian Cribb, a journalist with the Australian newspaper, which detailed the problems, particularly alleged union problems, that had been occurring in the export handling of wheat at Sydney and Newcastle. The terminology used in today's editorial is interesting. The first part of the editorial states: If any further evidence were needed of the way some of this country's export industries have been and still are being crippled by strikes and restrictive work practices, it was given in the feature article on grain exports in this newspaper yesterday. Drawing on a submission which is to be presented to the Royal Commission into Grain Storage, Handling and Transport when it sits in Canberra next week, our rural writer, Julian Cribb, listed a number of very unpleasant facts that damn unions, managements and the public alike. Whilst not denying that there have been serious problems in relation to industrial relations at Sydney and Newcastle, I draw to the attention of the House, and perhaps to any wheat growers who may see attacks on unions through the National Farmers Federation as a panacea to their problems, some simple facts on the costs of labor in relation to the handling of wheat and what will occur if the problems are all eliminated. The first thing to turn to is the 1985-86 annual report of the Grain Handling Authority of New South Wales and an article on industrial relations within it. It states: The Authority's policy on industrial relations is to minimise disputes and lost production by consultation and negotiation with staff and relevant unions on all matters related to conditions of employment, technological change and staff welfare. It continues: A stable industrial climate existed throughout the year in the country and in Head Office, there being no stoppages in either area other than a one day strike by some Head Office employees as a result of a call . . . Regrettably, industrial action at both Newcastle and Sydney terminals was at an unacceptable level. I do not deny that; the evidence is quite obvious. But the question I want to raise is: How much will the wheat industry save if all this is put into its proper perspective? We need to go to page 20 of the report to see just what the cost structure is in handling wheat at the Authority's plants in New South Wales. The report has a quite clear graph which shows labour costs of $7.90 a tonne or 47 per cent of total handling charges. But when we break it down and look at a country where there were no disputes we find that the costs for employing labour were $4.65 per tonne of the $7.90. At the terminals, the costs for labour are $2.10 per tonne. So if we eliminated the whole of the work force and made some magical capital investment that would cover the whole thing it would mean $2.10 per tonne to the wheat growers. Allowing for the fact that that is not feasible but that the work practices have been eliminated and that 50 per cent of the costs can be saved we bring that figure down to, say, $1.05 which would be a massive achievement. I do not think that $1.05 per tonne is the panacea for overcoming the problems of the wheat industry. Articles are already appearing in the newspapers pushing forward the submission from what I believe is the National Farmers' Federation to the royal commission making the case that if we eliminate all these things and bring in draconian legislation such as was brought in during the Mudginberri and Dollar Sweets disputes, that will save a crippled industry-$1.05 per tonne. That is an absolute absurdity. It will not help industry negotiations and it will not help industrial relations. Such emphasis should not be placed on an issue involving $1.05 per tonne. We should talk about the real issues involved; that is, the outdated and outmoded structures at Sydney and Newcastle and we should look at the real issues as far as the wheat industry is concerned. I am concerned to think that this is happening once again. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr HODGMAN(Denison)(7.23) —Today is a black day for Tasmania and for the Federation. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will no doubt recall that just one week ago I rose in my place in this chamber and expressed concern about the magnitude of cuts likely to be inflicted on Tasmania by the Hawke socialist Government at the forthcoming Premiers Conference on 25 May. In my wildest dreams I would not have been prepared to believe what this vicious Hawke socialist Government has in store for us. But today the secret is out. The Hawke-Keating axis is planning to cut funding to Tasmania by a massive $102m at the Premiers Conference on 25 May. That will involve a cut of at least $60m in capital works funding. Is there no limit to the financial cruelty and victimisation which the Hawke socialist Government is prepared to inflict on Australia's smallest State? Mr Shack —There is no limit. Mr HODGMAN —My colleague the honourable member for Tangney, who is shadow Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, says that there is no limit. Honourable members are shocked to note that this $102m cut follows a massive cut of $912m at last year's Premiers Conference and total cuts of $202.5m inflicted on Tasmania over the past 18 months by this wicked, cruel and vicious Hawke socialist Government. I have access to a State Treasury paper which has been prepared and which, as I have said, confirms that cuts will be in the order of $102m. I would like to give some of the details so that they are on the record in this Parliament and so that honourable members will know what I have said today and will see what happens at the Premiers Conference on 25 May. The fact is that about $14m is to be slashed from financial assistance grants, more than $60m from the capital works budget including Loan Council programs and the States' global borrowing authority which pays for the Hydro-Electric Commission, the Tasmanian Development Authority and Tascorps borrowings. Mr Miles —Disgraceful. Mr HODGMAN —I note the concern of my colleague. As the honourable member for Braddon says, it is disgraceful. The honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck), the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr) and the honourable member for Bass (Mr Smith) would feel likewise. About $10m-and possibly more-are to be cut from specific purposes payments. A figure of $19m in general revenue assistance was flagged and forewarned by the Commonwealth last year. The plain fact is that, once again, the Hawke socialist Government is taking a stockwhip to Tasmania. Why? We all know the reason. It is politics. We know that last year it was openly stated at the Premiers Conference: `Forget about Tasmania as we do not hold any seats. The Australian Labor Party holds no seats in Tasmania'. This comment was made: `We won government in 1983 and held it in 1984 without Tasmania'. This Government, led by a man who promised to be a Prime Minister for all Australians, has cast Tasmania aside. It does not matter any more. But what about the workers of Tasmania? That $102m cut will put between 3,000 and 3,500 Tasmanians out of jobs and we will have the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in this House shedding crocodile tears and saying he did not mean to do it. Is there any limit to the vindictiveness, the cruelty and the downright discrimination against Tasmania imposed by this Hawke socialist Government? Let me conclude by quoting from today's Hobart Mercury newspaper. The editorial in that newspaper sums it up superbly. It states: Tasmanians have every reason to be horrified at the news of what seems to be in store for the State at the Premiers Conference . . . it seems that as the State with the smallest economic base it will be penalised more harshly than its richer counterparts. If this is so, the Federal Government will have shown not only economic naivete, but political madness. Mad this Government is, but dangerous it is also. I protest against the continued persecution of Tasmania by a wicked and vicious government which hates our State because we have had the sense to vote Liberal. We have done it at the last five Federal elections and the way we are going we will continue to do it for many years to come. Mr RONALD EDWARDS(Stirling)(7.28) —I hope that the honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman) has cleared that with John Elliott. I do not think he would agree with the honourable member's economics. I want to raise a matter that is of concern to people at the moment that relates to sporting matters. Many people in this chamber and in the community would be aware that, in recent times, in both the codes of rugby league and Australian rules football, incidents have been reported where people have been seriously injured. Sadly, in relation to a young man in New South Wales, substantial compensation was awarded in the area of Wollongong, which is represented by some of my colleagues in the chamber. The concern that I have is that what is happening now in relation both to rugby league and Australian Rules football tackles is that there is a preponderance of what are called brain scans occurring after players have been injured in head-high tackles. The circumstance are as follows: If a player is on the field and, through his actions, he injures another player and it is demonstrated that that action caused long-term brain injury-it is much easier to demonstrate that now because we have the capacity to determine that with brain scans-clearly, it is the responsibility of the football clubs involved to provide a much more comprehensive insurance coverage for their players. When I made inquiries about it I found that football clubs do not have any coverage at all for that sort of action. When one asks the football clubs they say `We are covered for injuries to our players'; that is, they have some kind of insurance arrangement. Incidentally, they are not covered by workers' compensation because they have been specifically excluded from the State workers' compensation Acts. Mr Martin —What about civil action? Mr RONALD EDWARDS —Exactly right, as my colleague has mentioned, they are not covered in relation to a civil action in a court. Right at the moment, there is the case of the Fitzroy Football Club and the Hawthorn Football Club. Claims are being made that a player from the Hawthorn Club has tackled high around the head a player called Kappler from the Fitzroy Club and he has experienced some concussion and long term headaches. There is also concern about players who come from my home State of Western Australia-Michael O'Connell and Mark Zanotti who play with the West Coast Eagles. It is alleged that a Hawthorn player, Dermott Brereton, has inflicted head high tackles on Zanotti and O'Connell. It is alleged also that Brereton has inflicted a head high tackle upon a Fitzroy player called Kappler. I ask my colleagues from New South Wales to excuse my indulgence in that discussion of Australian rules, but I believe that the same issues apply in Rugby League. If a player tackles a player of an opposing club and it is demonstrated by a brain scan that injury occurred as a result, it is very possible that an action could be taken for damages against the club player who has offended and against the club itself. The point I want to make is that if damages action is taken and it is found that substantial injury has been caused to that player, particularly brain injury, there may well be an award of $1m against the player and the club. People would know right away that if that occurs, very clearly neither the club nor the player could easily meet that million dollar award. We have only to look at the motor vehicle area to get an estimate of the degree of compensation likely. So I am saying to the chamber and the wider community that it is a matter of great urgency for football clubs to investigate the need for themselves and their players to be covered for damages actions in the courts. They should forget that they may have gentleman's agreements that they will not blame one another. Now with the increasing incidence of video replays and the introduction of brain scans to check for injury to players, it is very much on the cards that shortly there will be an award against a club and a player that may well result in the club becoming bankrupt and will certainly result in the player being bankrupted. I believe it to be a matter of priority and urgency that the management of clubs investigate appropriate insurance for likely damages actions. If they do not, they may well be faced with very severe penalties if there is an action taken along the lines I have indicated. Mr SHARP(Gilmore)(7.32) —I wish to draw to the attention of the House tonight the fact that just recently at the Bomaderry Returned Services League club the Shoalhaven life education centre was officially launched. The Shoalhaven life education centre is a mobile van which will be servicing the schools of the Shoalhaven area to help to educate the children of those schools about the dangers of drugs, how they can best avoid them and, in the process, teach the children what drugs do to their bodies and minds so that they have a very good reason to say no if they are ever confronted in their future life with the heinous problem of drugs. Honourable members would be familiar with life education centres. I know, for example, that the honourable member for Throsby (Mr Hollis) and the honourable member for Eden-Monaro (Mr Snow) are familiar with the Shoalhaven life education centre, principally because that life education centre will be operating in their own electorates. I know that I can count on their support when I say that congratulations are due to all those people who have been instrumental in raising funds and giving their support to ensure that the Shoalhaven life education centre is now active and operating in our region. Many people have contributed in many ways towards the establishment of this life education centre. I can recall when the Reverend Ted Noffs first came to the city of Shoalhaven in July 1985 to address a public meeting called by the then Mayor of Shoalhaven City Council, the late Alderman Harry Sawkins. From July 1985, with Ted Noff's efforts, a committee has been established, chaired by Mr David Halliday from Nowra. That committee has been active in attempts to raise what is a very large amount of money to put this life education centre mobile unit into practice. All the service clubs in the region have contributed very generously towards this centre. I know from a number of functions I have attended that a great deal of effort was put into raising the necessary funds. I also know that people such as the former Mayor, the late Harry Sawkins of the Shoalhaven City Council, supported this effort tremendously. All the people in the district miss Harry Sawkins. I know that I share that sentiment with the honourable member for Throsby, who also knew him. We congratulate the late Harry Sawkins on his efforts. We also congratulate the Reverend Ted Noffs on his efforts. He really is the founder and driving force behind, the life education centres. I am so pleased to see today in the media that the Reverend Ted Noffs has regained consciousness and is expected to be home within the month or so after a very serious illness which he suffered as a result of a stroke some seven or eight weeks ago. I am sure that every Australian is pleased to hear that the Reverend Ted Noffs is now making a speedy recovery. We wish him well and know that the thoughts and best wishes of every young Australian who has been through a life education centre go with him. All those people believe, as I do, that the Reverend Ted Noffs is truly one of today's great Australians. I will complete my speech by saying that much is owed to those people who have contributed to the Shoalhaven life education centre. The contribution that they have made in whatever form will help to ensure that the children of the Shoalhaven district are the best educated and informed children in Australia about the dangers of drugs. I am proud to say that the completion of that centre sees the finalisation of the complete coverage of the electorate of Gilmore by life education centres. There are now three mobile life education centres operating in the electorate of Gilmore. I might add that it is the only Federal electorate that has complete coverage by mobile life education centres. I urge all honourable members to lend their support to life education centres because if they do they will make a great contribution not only to themselves but to every young Australian in their electorates. Mr HOLLIS(Throsby)(7.37) —I listened with interest to a speech made by the honourable member for Deakin (Mr Beale) in the adjournment debate last Friday. As the honourable member worded his speech in a non-partisan manner I will do likewise. I know he will forgive me if I answer a few questions he asked about members of parliament. He asked: Where are the electronic engineers? We have two on our side; the honourable member for Sydney (Mr Baldwin) and the honourable member for Dunkley (Mr Chynoweth). He asked: Where are the urban planners? My colleague the honourable member for Macarthur (Mr Martin) is an urban planner. He asked about nursing sisters. The honourable member for Brand (Ms Fatin) is a nursing sister. But I take issue with the honourable member using the now fashionable argument that we should bring in some of the so-called experts or high fliers to this Parliament. No one would argue that there is a place here for the business person, the teacher, the lawyer, the union official, the farmer and the adult educator. What interests me is that that many of the these high fliers are too busy to go through the normal preselection process. They are too busy and too intelligent to spend time on the back bench. They want to go straight to the front bench and, indeed, in some cases to the front job. It is interesting to pose the question: What is the role of a member of parliament? It would indeed be difficult to give a job description. Basically, I suppose, we deal with people. We help them with a range of problems. We explain government decisions. We are here basically to assist people and to be part of the legislative process. Would these high fliers have time to deal with the problems of the ordinary people? Would the John Elliotts, the Ian McLachlans and the Bob Ansetts have time to listen to the various problems? Would people get a sympathetic hearing? Indeed, would they get a hearing at all or would the high fliers be too busy or too intelligent to deal with their problems? Perhaps there is a case for greater diversity in the former occupations of members of parliament, but we do not have an appointed Executive. Perhaps our system is not perfect. I believe that, when a Minister is appointed, someone should be appointed to carry out the electoral duties of that member. Knowing the demands on a back bench member, I do not know how Ministers cope. We will never agree on the ideal member of parliament. One top quality of any member, of course, must be compassion. Members must carry out the duties of an elected representative and help people with their many problems. I also feel that there is nothing wrong with being a back bencher. Perhaps some of those newspaper pundits, who question those in the electorates, might like to offer themselves for election. The vast majority of the population is represented by back bench members on both sides of the House. Personally, I would rather have the reputation of being a good local member who is always accessible to his constituents and who cares about them than be regarded as one of the high fliers. My local area was recently visited by Mr Bob Ansett, who offered to serve in the Government of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) for a term in order to get the economy on the right track. He went on to say that there were other business people who also might serve a term but most of them would not be caught dead in parliament because they were achievers. By this I suppose he means that they are good at money making. I wonder what sort of Parliament it would be if it were run by these so-called achievers. What help could the needy, the disadvantaged and the sick get? Of course, the businessmen's mates would be helped; the rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer. This would be a nation of have and have nots. If the high fliers are so keen to give Australia the benefit of their skills, let them do as each of us here has done. They should give up their careers-many of us have given up our careers-take their chances in their party's pre-selection, face the people in a general election, and then come into this place. We might not all be high fliers, but I have never met a more caring group of people than members of parliament from both sides of this House. While the people of Australia continue to send caring people here-people who are prepared to put in the long hours and always be available-I, for one, do not fear for democracy in this country. I would not be so sure if this Parliament were full of the so-called high fliers. Mr McGAURAN(Gippsland)(7.42) —One of the failures of this Parliament has been not to address the issue of video pornography. That is an issue of tremendous concern to a great many people, not the least parents who worry that such videos are too freely available to their children and that they do not have the same supervision of their children in relation to videos as they would wish. Therefore, there is a responsibility on Parliament to address issues such as that. Sadly, that responsibility has escaped us. How much longer will this Government allow X-rated videos to be distributed from the Australian Capital Territory to the various States, thereby circumventing those States' more restricted categories? It is an absolute disgrace that mail order of the most foul-almost indescribable-X-rated videos is freely available throughout different parts of Australia in complete defiance of State laws. It makes the law an absolute ass and I worry that it puts Parliament in a somewhat similar category. We cannot escape our responsibilities. The Government's stock reply to criticisms or inquiries of such a nature is that for more than two years there has been a joint select committee examining video pornography and advising the Government. How much longer must we wait for action? This Government can no longer hide behind the veil of a never-ending parliamentary committee. In the meantime the frustrations and concerns of a great many Australians in different sectors of society increase, and I, for one, find it very difficult to explain this inaction to groups of concerned parents or Christians who invite me along to speak on this issue of video pornography and how legislators will seek to control it. How much more evidence does this Government need before it acts to re-categorise videos that are available within the Australian Capital Territory? Moreover, how much longer will this Government tolerate State laws being held up to ridicule because of the freely available X-rated videos emanating from the Australian Capital Territory? How much longer will this Government ignore the allegations made by persons such as journalist Bob Bottom that the American Mafia has links with X-rated video pornography in the Australian Capital Territory. It would be delving into the realms of the ridiculous not to think that organised crime has an interest in video pornography in the same way that it has an interest in vice, illegal gambling and drugs, to mention just a few of its specialist activities, for want of a better phrase. There are enormous responsibilities upon the Government. It disappoints me enormously, first, that this Government fails to act, and secondly, that the Senate Select Committee on Video Material has also failed to act. For instance, why has the Committee not at least issued an interim report as is the normal practice? I am anxious not to stray into the realms of criticism of a parliamentary committee so I will take that matter no further. The Australian Family Association has made representations to me and I would hope that the Government would act more forcefully and in a far more determined manner to rein in the blatant abuse of State laws by the purveyors of pornography centred on the Australian Capital Territory. Question resolved in the affirmative. House adjourned at 7.46 p.m. The following notices were given: Mr Young to move- That, unless otherwise ordered, the House shall meet for the despatch of business on the following days and at the times specified: Monday, 11 May, at 2 p.m. Tuesday, 12 May, at 2 p.m. Wednesday, 13 May, at 10 a.m. Thursday, 14 May, at 10 a.m. Mr Hurford to present a Bill for an Act to amend certain legislation relating to nursing homes and hostels, and for related purposes. The following paper was deemed to have been presented on 6 May 1987: Defence Act-Determination-1987-No. 35-Temporary Rental Allowance. The following answers to questions were circulated: (Question No. 5053) Mr Duncan asked the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 18 February 1987: (1) Has his attention been drawn to a recent article in the Medical Journal of Australia on cigarette smoking by Australian school children. (2) Is it a fact that Australian school children spend $30m per year on cigarettes. (3) Is it also a fact that 1 in 3 children become regular smokers by the age of 15. (4) Is it a fact that 1 in 4 smokers eventually dies from smoking related diseases. (5) Is it a fact that over 16,000 Australians die each year from smoking related diseases. (6) How many Australians die each year as a result of heroin and opiate use. (7) What percentage of the resources of the national campaign against drug abuse are allocated to the reduction of smoking by children. (8) Will he recommend (a) a significant increase in the tobacco excise and (b) further restrictions on tobacco advertising to reduce cigarette consumption. Dr Blewett —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows. (1) Yes. (2) This is the estimate made in the article, but I am not able to confirm the figure. (3) I am not aware of any work that corrob- orates this statistic. However, the results of the survey show that at the age of 15, about one-third of students report having smoked in the last week. The survey also shows that, in response to a question on their smoking intention, while girls from the age of 13 years onwards had significantly stronger intentions to smoke in a year's time than boys, on the whole the students believed they were unlikely to be smoking in a year's time. (4) The survey does not address this point. However, I am aware that this is an estimate used by the W.A. Alcohol and Drug Authority. Perhaps as important as the risk of death from smoking is the increased morbidity which is associated with tobacco use. (5) My Department estimates that in 1984 16,300 deaths were due to tobacco use. (6) My Department estimates that the number of opiate deaths in 1984 was 229. (7) The National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NCADA) is focusing its efforts on the reduction of drug abuse by young people. Although elements of the Campaign focus on particular drugs-including tobacco-the main thrust of the Campaign is the provision of a comprehensive education program on all drugs. To this end, considerable resources have been provided by the Commonwealth, States and Territories under the cost-shared program for the expansion and improvement of both school based and out of school drug education activities. The impact of the NCADA has also been greatly complemented by the co-operative agreements reached between all States and Territories and the Commonwealth to utilize the Drug Offensive Logo on State funded anti-drug abuse campaigns such as `Quit for Life' and `Bag the Fag'. (8) (a) Consideration of levels of excise on tobacco and other products is a matter for consideration in the Budget context. (b) Controls in this area rest primarily with the States and Territories. The issue of alcohol and tobacco advertising was considered at the 1987 Australian Health Ministers' Conference held in Fremantle. The Conference resolved to meet with the Media Council of Australia with a view to improving the operation of the advertising codes, including public health representation on the relevant bodies. Ministers indicated that if these approaches were not successful, regulatory approaches would need to be considered. (Question No. 5016) Mr Hodges asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 17 February 1987: (1) What word processing or computing equipment has been introduced into the Minister's Department and statutory authorities responsible to the Minister since 1982. (2) Why was the equipment purchased and were any specific targets set in terms of time or cost savings and improved efficiencies. (3) What has been the cost purchasing the equipment. (4) Has the introduction of the equipment necessitated the purchase of new office equipment; if so, what have been the costs of the additional purchases. (5) Has the introduction of the equipment led to changes in work practices; if so, what has been the nature of the changes. (6) What has been the incidence of repetition strain injury (RSI) in the Minister's Department since 1982. (7) How many lost working days have been caused by RSI related illnesses since 1982. (8) How many persons have been forced to retire from the Minister's Department or statutory authorities responsible to the Minister as a result of RSI and what have been the compensation costs of this early retirement. (9) Has introduction of the equipment (a) saved money and (b) improved efficiency in the Minister's Department or the statutory authorities responsible to the Minister. Mr Beazley —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Word processing and computer equipment has been introduced into the Department of Defence and the Australian Defence Force for a wide range of administrative, operational and training purposes, and for several hundred different projects. I am not prepared to authorise the use of the considerable resources that would be involved in providing the detailed information sought. (2) The equipment was purchased to satisfy specific administrative, operational training and project requirements. Although specific goals were set in respect of timing, the availability of financial and manpower resources was the final determinant on project implementation. Cost savings and improved efficiency were major factors, but achievement is difficult to quantify due to such factors as redeployment of staff and increased functions or workloads. (3) I am not prepared to authorise the use of the considerable resources that would be involved in providing the detailed information sought. (4) The introduction of word processing and computer equipment has not necessitated the purchase of much extra office equipment as the Department was already in the process of purchasing ergonomic furniture for all keyboard staff. I am not prepared to authorise the use of the resources that would be involved in providing the detailed information sought on costs. (5) The introduction of word processing and computer equipment has led to a reduction in routine and repetitive clerical work, and provided greater flexibility and improved efficiency. The Department is sensitive to the effects of technological change on work practices and has recently issued an instruction on consultation with unions on technological change and established a small unit dedicated to the prevention and control of RSI. (6) Details of the incidence of RSI have only been recorded in the Department since December 1984. 1036 people have been recorded as having RSI since that date. (7) Between December 1984 and December 1986, 56849 days and 12656 short days have been lost due to RSI related illnesses. Short days are the number of days on which RSI affected staff worked reduced hours due to RSI. (8) The number of employees retired as a result of RSI is 64. Any estimate of cost would be very broad and would take a considerable amount of time to compile. I am not prepared to authorise the use of resources that would be involved in providing this information. (9) (a) and (b) See answer to (2). (Question No. 5139) Mr Sinclair asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 24 February 1987: (1) Is the Expectation of Life factor, used for determining the post-commutation retirement pension and Class C invalidity pension, listed in Schedule 3 of the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Act. (2) Is the same factor based on or calculated with reference to the Australian Government Actuary Life Tables of 1960-62, amended in 1977 to include the 60 to 65 years age group. (3) Have those tables been updated since 1960-62; if so, what period is covered by the latest edition. (4) Has the Expectation of Life factor been updated in line with the latest tables; if not, has (a) the failure to do so reduced post-commutation Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits and Defence Force Retirement Benefits pensions and (b) the effect of that failure resulted in a net annual loss of pension of $274, with a cumulative loss, over anticipated life, of more than $6,800 for a male aged 50 years at retirement, commuting 4 years of pension and with a gross pension of $20,000. Mr Beazley —The answer to the right honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Yes. (2) Yes. (3) Yes; the period covered by the latest edition of the Australian Life Tables is 1980-82. (4) I do not accept that there has been any failure to update the factors prescribed in Schedule 3 of the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Act. The situation is that the factors have not been updated since the recommendations of the all Party Jess Committee in 1972. In that time new Australian Life Tables were issued in January 1973 covering the 1965-66 period, October 1976 covering the 1970-72 period and October 1981 covering the 1975-77 period, but the Governments of the day took no action to vary the Schedule 3 factors. The figures presented are not in dispute. Equally, however, had the 1965-67 Tables been applied automatically to Schedule 3, as would seem to be the honourable member's intentions in respect of the 1980-82 Tables, a reduction in residual retirement pay of $56 per annum accumulating to some $1,275 over the then life expectancy, would have arisen on the figures presented. There is no onus on members to commute their retirement pay on leaving the Defence Force. Those who choose to commute do so in accordance with the provisions of the Act as it applies at the time that they exercise that choice. Notwithstanding, the subject is a complex one and I have requested my Department to investigate whether any change to the factors for calculating residual retirement pay after commutation would be appropriate, having regard to standard superannuation actuarial principles. (Question No. 5167) Mr Jacobi asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 17 March 1987: (1) Will he bring up to date the information he gave in answers to questions Nos 1926 (Hansard, 19 November 1985, page 3184) and 3161 (Hansard, 10 April 1986, page 2100) concerning Soviet naval activity in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Mr Beazley —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Monthly class/ship days figures of Soviet naval and naval associated ships in the Indian Ocean during the period 1 February 1986 and 28 February 1987 are shown in the following table. For the reasons I noted previously in my answer to question 3161 (Hansard, 10 April 1986, page 2102), I am unable to provide similar comprehensive data on Soviet naval activity in the Pacific Ocean. Feb 1986 Mar 1986 Apr 1986 May 1986 June 1986 July 1986 Aug 1986 Sept 1986 Oct 1986 Nov 1986 Dec 1986 Jan 1987 Feb 1987 CRUISERS- Kara... 28 31 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DESTROYERS- Kashin... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 FRIGATES- Krivak... . . . . 17 31 38 31 31 30 56 36 31 31 41 SUBMARINES- Foxtrot... 28 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mod Echo II... . . . . . . . . 23 31 31 30 31 29 . . . . . . MINESWEEPERS- Natya... 28 31 . . . . . . . . 9 30 31 30 31 31 28 LANDING SHIPS- Ropucha... 28 31 30 31 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alligator... . . . . 2 31 30 31 31 30 31 30 6 . . . . Ivan Rogov... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 31 28 AUXILIARIES- Oilers... 56 32 36 31 38 31 40 60 48 38 31 31 32 Repair Ships... 28 31 30 31 30 31 61 53 31 30 31 31 28 Sub Tender... 28 31 30 25 30 54 36 30 31 30 31 31 28 Merchant Tankers... 28 57 30 42 30 31 31 30 31 30 41 62 36 Store Ships... 28 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tugs... 28 31 54 32 30 31 31 30 31 30 41 62 32 Miscellaneous... 56 62 18 31 30 43 79 61 62 30 44 39 74 Hospital... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 31 7 . . OTHER- Oceanographic... 40 42 30 31 30 31 108 120 93 90 104 32 46 Hydrographic... 28 31 26 . . . . . . 27 30 31 30 21 . . . . (Question No. 5192) Mr Sinclair asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 19 March 1987: (1) For each year since 1976, how many exercises have been conducted involving (a) more than 100 Army personnel, (b) more than 2 RAAF combat, transport or surveillance aircraft or (c) more than one RAN major surface combatant or more than 200 RAN personnel. (2) For each exercise identified in part (1), what was its (a) name, (b) general location, (c) purpose and (d) total cost. (3) In which exercises did the forces of another nation participate and which (a) nation or nations and (b) units participated in the exercise. (4) For the remainder of 1987 and 1988, what exercises are planned (a) for the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) alone and (b) in conjunction with the forces of other nations. (5) What are the (a) dates, (b) locations, (c) estimated costs, (d) participating foreign nations, if any and (e) principal ADF components planned to be involved in future planned exercises. Mr Beazley —The answer to the right honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Since July 1979 the ADF has conducted 304 joint and combined exercises which fulfil the criteria outlined in the honourable member's question. In the time available to research the information required it has not been possible to examine records for earlier years, and there are some gaps in information readily available in more recent years. The number of exercises conducted in each year examined is as follows: 1979 (latter half only)... 9 1980... 28 1981... 29 1982... 46 1983... 39 1984... 42 1985... 49 1986... 50 1987 (to April only)... 12 Total... 304 (2) The following table provides the information on name, location, purpose and cost of past exercises. It should be noted that the costs listed are not brought to a common base, either in dollar terms or in costing methods which have evolved over the years. (3) The table also indicates which exercises were combined with another nation's forces, which nations were involved and which of their units took part. (4) For the remainder of 1987 there are 7 joint (ADF alone) exercises and 58 combined exercises with forces of other nations planned. For 1988 there are 9 joint and 61 combined exercises planned. (5) Details of future exercises are classified and therefore are not available to be released. Table 1 PAST JOINT AND COMBINED EXERCISES Exercise Location Purpose Cost ($m) Com- bined Which nations Which units 1986-87 Initial Landing Moreton Bay Amphibious Training 0.280 No . . . . Bell Buoy Indian/Pacific Oceans Exercise NCAPS Procedures 0.022 Yes US/CA/UK NCAPS Staffs Haringaroo 15 Malaysia Training in a different climate and develop an understanding of Malaysian Army Yes Malaysia Royal Malay Regiment Willoh 87-2 NZ Fighter exchange-interoperability 1.586 Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Tasman Sea 87-1 Tasman Sea Exercise combined maritime operations in multi-threat environment 9.442 Yes NZ/Singapore RNZN(FF) RSAF (A4) Tasman Reserve 87 AS/NZ Familiarise Reserve personnel with another Army, exercise interoperability 0.383 Yes NZ 2 Canterbury Regiment Pacific Reserve 87-1 AS New training environment for Reserve personnel 0.013 Yes US USWESTCOM IX Corps IADS ADEX 87-2 Malaysia FPDA units in a minor air defence exercise 0.022 Yes Malaysia/Singapore RMAF/HQAIDS/RSAF El Alamein (Minor) AS Provide a firepower demonstration . . No . . NZ observes Tasman Exchange AS/NZ Practise interoperability at battalion level 2.228 Yes NZ Queen Alexandria's Regiment IADS ADEX 87-1 Singapore FPDA units in a minor air defence exercise 0.199 Yes Malaysia/Singapore RMAF/RSAF/HQAIDS Tamex 87-1 EAXA Anti-submarine warfare training 0.991 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Fincastle Trophy 86 S Aust Anti-submarine warfare competition for aircrew 0.705 Yes UK/CA/NZ RAF/CF/RNZAF IADS ADEX 86-6 Malaysia FPDA units in a major air defence exercise 1.105 Yes Mal/Sing/NZ RMAF/RSAF/RNZAF/HQIADS Silent Pearl 86-4 Hawaii Practise anti-submarine warfare against a SSN 1.739 Yes US USN (P3 and SSN) Kiwi Connection NZ FPDA partners to further develop interoperability 0.131 Yes NZ/UK/Mal/Sing . . RAM 86 US Tactical reconnaissance competition 2.374 Yes US/UK/CA . . Pemburu Rusa Malaysia Practise Counter-Insurgency Operations 0.245 Yes NZ 1 RNZIR Croweater 86 Tasman Sea/Bass Strait/Southern Ocean Train Ship and Aircraft Crews in Maritime Operations 10.957 Yes US/UK/CA USN (DD, DDG) RN (CV, FF, RFA) CF (FF) Kangaroo 86 Central Qld/SWBTA Operational Deployment Force Exercise No . . . . Haringaroo 14 Malaysia Train in different climate and terrain and understand Malaysian Army 0.209 Yes Malaysia Royal Malay Regiment Hunua Pass 86 NZ War Gaming and Command Post Exercise Yes NZ . . Valiant Usher 86-5 WA Amphibious Exercise to Exercise Commanders and Staffs in Planning and Execution 0.888 Yes US USN (ARG) USMC (MAU) Full Pack 86-2 Central Qld Exercise Logistic Support Group Deployment No . . . . Far Canopy SWBTA Parachute Training Seminar 0.862 No . . . . Tasman Rules Williamtown Exercise Maritime Strike and Air Defence 1.982 Yes NZ RNZN (FF) RNZAF (P3) Willoh 86-3 Williamtown Fighter Exchange-Interoperability 0.357 Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Southern Tiger 86 SWBTA Develop Interoperability and Enhance Defence Relations 0.131 Yes Malaysia 15th BN Royal Malaysian Regiment Marcot 2/86 Gulf of Alaska Practise Coastal Defence, Air Defence and Maritime Operations 1.975 Yes US/CA . . Western Wing Cocos Is Exercise deployment over long distances in difficult circumstances 0.311 No . . . . Tamex 86-4 Tasman Sea Anti-submarine Warfare Training 0.962 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Starfish 86 South China Sea FPDA Units in a Maritime Exercise 1.652 Yes NZ/UK/Mal/Sing RNZN (FF) RNZAF (P3) RN (FF, AO) RMN (various) RSN (various) El Alamein 86-2 East Coast Fire Power Demonstration No . . NZ Observes IADS ADEX 86-5 Singapore FPDA Units in a minor Air Defence Exercise 0.197 Yes Mal/Sing RSAF RMAF HQIADS Diamond Dollar 86 SWBTA . . . . No . . . . Initial Landing Moreton Bay Amphibious Training Exercise . . No . . . . Iads Adex 86-4 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise 0.195 Yes Mal/Sing RMAF RSAF HQIADS Night Falcon 86 PNG Practise Special Forces Operations in Overseas Setting 0.993 Yes PNG PNGDF Reindeer 86 AS/HK Practise Interoperability 0.432 Yes UK 2 Gurkha Regiment (HK) Western Reward 86 WA No . . . . Jupiter 86 Jervis Bay Practise Harassing Operations Against a Conventional Enemy 0.329 Yes NZ 2 Patrol NZSAS 1985-86 Iads Adex 86-3 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Major Air Defence Exercise 3.729 Yes Mal/Sing RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Tamex 86-3 East Coast Anti Submarine Warfare Training 1.048 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Tropic Lightning 86-2 Hawaii Broaden Military Experience and Enhance Interoperability 0.636 Yes US 25 (US) DIV Silent Pearl 86-1 Hawaii Exercise Anti Submarine Warfare Against a SSN 1.016 Yes US USN (P3 and SSN) Wantok Warrior 86 PNG/AS Exercise in different climate and terrain 0.489 Yes PNG PNGDF Rimpac 86 Eastpac Major Maritime Exercise 14.680 Yes US/UK/CA/Japan Pitch Black 86-1 Williamtown Improve Air Defence Expense in Australian Air Defence System 4.404 Yes US USA (5 Redeye Sect) USAF (F4E, KC10) Pelicans Progress NSW . . No . . . . Pacific Bond 86 AS/Hawaii Broaden Interoperability and Enhance Military Experience 0.325 Yes US 25 (US) Div Sub-Unit Tasman Link 86 Townshend Is Practise Offensive Fire Support for Land Operations 1.650 Yes NZ FO Party Expanded Sea 86 Worldwide Exercise Procedures for Control and Protection of Shipping in War 0.144 Yes NATO . . Tamex 86-2 East Coast Anti Submarine Warfare Training 0.937 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Haringaroo 13 Malaysia Training in a different climate and develop an understanding of Malaysian Army 0.024 Yes Malaysia Tasman Exchange 86 AS/NZ Practise Interoperability at Battalion Level 0.197 Yes NZ Coy 2/1 RNZIR Iads Adex 86-2 Malaysia FDPA Units in a minor Air Defence Exercise 0.190 Yes Mal/Sing RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Tasman Sea 86-1 Tasman Sea Combined Maritime Exercise 5.135 Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Tasman Reserve 86 AS/NZ Familiarise Reserve Personnel with another Army 0.101 Yes NZ El Alamein 86-1 AS Firepower Demonstration No NZ Observes Willoh 86-2 NZ Fighter Exchange-Interoperability 1.465 Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Iads Adex 86-1 Singapore FPDA Units in a minor Air Defence Exercise 0.193 Yes Mal/Sing RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Haringaroo 12 Malaysia Training in a Different Climate and develop an understanding of Malaysian Army 0.012 Yes Malaysia Silent Pearl 85-4 Hawaii Anti Submarine Warfare against a SSN 0.904 Yes US USN (P3 and SSN) Tamex 85-5 EAXA Anti Submarine Warfare Training 0.901 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Red Flag 85 US Exercise F111 in strike operations in a realistic environment 5.911 Yes NATO Iads Adex 85-6 Malaysia FPDA Units in a major Air Defence Exercise 0.589 Yes UK/NZ/MAL/SING RAF/RNZAF/RMAF/RSAF/HQAIDS Iads Adex 85-5 Singapore FPDA Units in a minor Air Defence Exercise 0.195 Yes Singapore RSAF/HQIADS Tasman Warrior SWBTA Practice conventional warfare Skills and Tactics 6.510 Yes NZ RNZAF (A4, URW, SRT) NZ ARMY (INF COY) Coral Sea East Coast Practise conventional tactics and General Military Skills 12.490 Yes US USN (FFG) USA (AD Sec, EW Elements) USAF (F15/F4/E3A/KC135) Photo Finish US Tactical Reconnaissance Competition 1.612 Yes US/UK/CA Marcot 85-2 NE Pacific Practice Maritime Operations in a multi threat environment 1.378 Yes US/UK/CA RN (FF) USN (SSN, FF, P3) USAF (B5 2, KC135) CF (AOR, DD, AGOR, CP140) Fincastle Trophy 85 UK An Anti Submarine Warfare Competition for Aircrew 1.365 Yes UK/NZ/CA RN (SS) RAF (NIMROD) RNZAF (P3) CF (CP140) Cope Thunder 85-7 Philippines To exercise aircrews in several facets of air warfare in a realistic environment. 3.800 Yes US/PHIL . . Strategic Vision SWBTA Practice Joint Strategic Airborne Operations . . No . . . . Swift Eagle 85 HRTA Operational Deployment Force Deployment Exercise . . No . . . . Silent Pearl 85-3 Hawaii Anti Submarine Warfare against a SSN 0.925 Yes US USN (P3 and SSN) El Alamein 85-2 AS Firepower Demonstration . . No. . . NZ Observe Diamond Dollar 85 SWBTA Brigade Exercise including Amphibious Operations . . No . . . . Night Falcon PNG Exercise Special Action Forces in an Overseas Setting 0.883 Yes PNG PNGDF (DC3, PTF) IADS ADEX 85-4 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise 0.198 Yes Malaysia RMAF Reindeer 85 AS/HK Broaden Military Experience 0.367 Yes UK 1/7 Gurkha Rifles (HK) Mulloka Isoptera Eden Logistics over the Shore Exercise 0.277 Yes NZ NZ Army North Star 86 AS/UK Broaden Military Experience 0.200 Yes UK 5 Inniskilling Dragoon Guards 1984-85 Starfish 85 South China Sea FPDA Units in a Maritime Exercise 1.053 Yes UK/NZ/MAL/SING RMN (AE, PC, PTF) RMAF (F5, PC130) RNZN (DE) RNZAF (P3) RSN (LST PTP) RSAF (A4 P5) Tamex 85-3 NZ Anti Submarine Warfare Training 1.013 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Tropic Lightning 85-2 Hawaii Broaden Military Experience 0.342 Yes US HQ 25 (US) DIV Silent Pearl 85-2 Hawaii Anti Submarine Warfare Training Against a SSN 0.859 Yes US USN (P3, SSN) Arnhem Phoenix Katherine No . . . . Willoh 85-3 Townsville Fighter Exchange-Interoperability 1.752 Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Haringaroo 11 Malaysia Training in a different climate and develop an understanding of Malaysian Army 0.009 Yes MAL . . Pelicans Progress Stanthorpe . . No . . . . Tamex 85-2 EAXA Anti Submarine Warfare Training 1.200 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Silent Pearl 85-7 Hawaii Anti Submarine Warfare Training Against a SSN 0.716 Yes US USN (P3, SSN) Herekino Safari NZ To improve interoperability and assist NZ training 0.179 Yes NZ . . Iads Adex 85-3 Malaysia FPDA Units in a major Air Defence Exercise 2.873 Yes MAL/SING RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Roll Call Indian/Pacific Oceans Practice control and protection of merchant shipping in war 0.136 Yes US/UK/CA NCAPS Staffs Pacific Bond 85 AS/Hawaii Improve Interoperability 0.214 Yes US 25 (US) DIV Tasman Link Jervis Bay Practice offensive fire support for land operations . . Yes NZ RNZN (FF) RNZAF (A4) NZ ARMY FO PARTIES Flying Fish Tasman Sea A major maritime exercise 5.200 Yes US/CA USN (DDG, DD, P3) CF (CP140) Torres Trek NQLD . . No . . . . El Alamein 85-1 AS Firepower Demonstration . . No . . NZ Observes Tasman Reserve 85 AS/NZ Familiarize Reserve Personnel with another Army-Interoperability 0.093 Yes NZ NZ Army 2 RNZIR RNZAF (LRT) TAMEX 85-1 EAXA Anti Submarine Warfare Training 1.120 Yes NZ RNZAP (P3) Haringaroo 10 Malaysia Training in a different climate and Develop and Understanding of Malaysian Army 0.009 Yes Malaysia Royal Malay Regiment Tasman Exchange 85 AS/NZ Broaden Military Experience and Improve Interoperability 0.112 Yes NZ . . Initial Landing Moreton Bay Amphibious Training Exercise . . No . . Wantok Warrior 85 PNG/Townsville Help maintain Military Skills of PNGDF 0.522 Yes Papua New Guinea COY 1 RPIR Willoh 85-2 New Zealand Fighter Exchange-Interoperability 1.257 Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Iads Adex 85-2 Malaysia FPDA Units in a minor Air Defence Exercise 0.114 Yes Malaysia RMAF/HQIADS Iads Adex 85-1 Singapore FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise 0.185 Yes Singapore RSAF/HQIADS Iads Adex 84-6 Singapore FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise 0.178 Yes Singapore RSAF/HQIADS Tasmanex 84 Tasman Sea Exercise Combined Maritime Operations in a Multi Threat Environment 2.650 Yes NZ/CA RNZN (FF, PC) RNZAF (A4, P3, BA167) CF (CP140) New Horizon 84 Darwin Combined Maritime Exercise 0.789 Yes Indonesia TNI-AL (DE, PSK, PC, AO) Triad 84 New Zealand Improve Interoperability and Demonstrate Support for ANZUS 2.606 Yes NZ/US RNZN (FF) RNZAF (A4, P3) NZ Army (Div HQ, BDE HQ) US Army (BDE HQ) USAF (F15, F16, E3, KC135) USN TAC RECON Competition US Tactical Reconnaissance Competition 1.060 Yes UK/US BOMB COMP 84 US Bombing and Air Navigation Training and Competition 4.411 Yes US/NATO Night Falcon 84 N. Qld Exercise Special Action Forces in an Overseas Setting 0.883 No . . Sandgroper 84 Indian Ocean Major Maritime Exercise 8.105 Yes US/UK/NZ USN (DD, P3) USAF (F16, KC135) RNZN (FF) RNZAF (P3) RAF (NIMROD) IADS ADEX 84-5 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise 0.159 Yes Malaysia RMAF/HQIADS Diamond Dollar 84 SWBTA . . . . No . . . . Trident Love 84 Jervis Bay . . . . No . . . . Jupiter 84 Learmonth . . . . No . . . . Western Reward 84 Learmonth . . . . Yes US USAF (F16) Lionheart UK/FRG Broaden Military Experience 0.209 Yes UK/NZ I CORPS/NZ ARMY Fincastle Trophy 84 Great Australian Bight Anti Submarine Warfare Competition 0.200 Yes UK/NZ/CA RAF (NIMROD) RNZAF (P3) CF (CP140) El Alamein 84-2 AS Firepower Demonstration . . No . . NZ Observes Tamex 84-4 EAXA Anti Submarine Warfare Training 1.050 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Swift Eagle HRTA Operational Deployment Force Deployment Exercise . . No . . . . Northern Warrior HRTA Operational Deployment Force Exercise . . No . . . . Haringaroo 9 Malaysia Training in a different climate and develop an understanding of Malaysian Army 0.006 Yes Malaysia . . IADS ADEX 84-4 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Major Air Defence Exercise 1.020 Yes NZ/Malaysia/Singapore RNZAF (A4)/RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Starfish 84 South China Sea FPDA Units in a combined Maritime Exercise . . Yes UK/NZ/Malaysia/Singapore RMN (FF, LST PGM, PTG, DT) RMAF (F5, PC130) RNZN (FF) RNZAF (P3) RN (FF, PC) RSN (LST, PGM, PTG) RSAF (A4, Hunter) North Star 85 AS/UK Broaden Military Experience 0.089 Yes UK . . 1983-84 Iads Adex 84-3 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Major Air Defence Exercise 2.122 Yes NZ/Malaysia/Singapore RNZAF/RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Tamex 84-3 EAXA Anti Submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Tropic Lightening 84 HAWAII Broaden Military Experience . . Yes US/NZ US Army (Div HQ) NZ Army (BDE HQ) Reindeer 84 SWBTA Practise Interoperability . . Yes UK LFHK North Star 84 AS/FRG Broaden Military Experience . . Yes UK Mech INF Coy RIMPAC 84 Hawaii Exercise Combined Maritime Operations in a Multi Threat Environment . . Yes US/NZ/CA/JAPAN USN (CVBG, SNN, SS, MCMV) USMC (MAB) USAF (TACAIR, SAC, MAC) US ARMY (25 DIV ELMS) RNZN (FF) RNZAF (P3) CF, JMSDF Pacific Bond 84 AS/Hawaii Broaden Interoperability and Enhance Military Experience . . Yes US USWESTCOM Expanded Sea 84 Worldwide Practise Control and Protection of Merchant Shipping in War . . Yes NATO/NZ NCAPS Staffs Tamex 84-2 Tasman Sea Anti Submarine Warfare Training . . No . . . . Tasman Exchange 84 AS/NZ Practise Interoperability at Battalion Level . . Yes NZ . . Sea Eagle 84-1 Tasman Sea Combined Maritime Exercise 5.469 Yes US/CA UNS (FF, FFG, P3) CF (CP140) Iads Adex 84-2 Singapore FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise 0.183 Yes SING RSAF/HQIADS Tamex 84-1 Tasman Sea Anti Submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Southern Tiger 84 AS Develop interoperability and enhance Defence relations. . . Yes MAL . . Tasman Reserve 84 AS/NZ Provide Reserve Personnel with Experience of Another Army . . Yes NZ NZ Army INF Coy El Alamein 84-1 AS Fire Power Demonstration . . No . . NZ Observes Willoh 84-2 NZ Fighter Exchange-Interoperability . . Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Sea Strike 84 SWBTA . . No . . . . Pitch Black 84-1 Darwin Improve Operational Capability of Australian Air Defence System 5.453 Yes US/NZ USN (FFG) USAF (F4E, E3, B52, KC135) RNZAF (A4) Wantok Warrior Townsville/PNG Help Maintain Military Skills of PNGDF 0.394 Yes PNG D Coy 2 PIR IADS Adex 83-5 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes MAL RMAF/HQIADS IADS ADEX 83-6 Singapore FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes SING RSAF/HQIADS Kangaroo 83 NW Aust Major National Exercise with ANZUS forces. . . Yes US/NZ USN (FF, P3, Seal Team) USA USAF (MAC B52) RNZN (DE) NZ Army RNZAF (P3, A4, B727, and over) IADS ADEX 83-4 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Major Air Defence Exercise . . Yes NZ/MAL/SING RNZAF/RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Transitex 84-1 S Aust Train Participants in Maritime Warfare in a Multi Threat Environment 2.264 Yes UK RN CVSTG Fincastle Trophy 83 CA Anti Submarine Warfare Competition for Aircrews . . Yes UK/NZ/CA RAF (NIMROD) RNZAF (P3) CF (CP140) El Alamein 83-2 AS Firepower, Demonstration . . No. . . . . Silent Pearl 83-3 Hawaii Anti Submarine Warfare Exercise Against a SSN 0.764 Yes US USN (SSN, P3) Night Falcon Tasmania . . . . No . . . . Diamond Dollar Sweta . . . . No . . . . Roper Ranger . . No . . . . Haringaroo 8 Malaysia Training in a Different Climate and Develop an Understanding of Malaysian Army . . Yes MAL Haringaroo 7 Malaysia Training in a Different Climate and Develop an Understanding of Malaysian Army 0.006 Yes MAL . . IADS ADEX 83-3 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes MAL RMAF/HQIADS Tamex 83-4 EAXA Anti Submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Northern Run N. Qld . . . . No . . . . 1982-83 Beacon South 83-2 WA Maritime Warfare Exercise in Multithreat Environment . . Yes US USN CVBG New Horizons 4 Java Sea Maritime Exercise with Indonesia . . Yes Indonesia TNI-AL (DE, MSO, PTF, HELO) Roper Run SWBTA . . . . No . . . . Tamex 83-3 EAXA Anti Submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Tropic Lightening 83 Hawaii Broaden Military Experience . . Yes US HQ 25 (US) DIV North Star 83 AS/UK Broaden Military Experience . . Yes UK . . Readex 83 Sea of Japan Major Maritime Exercise . . Yes US/CA USN (CVBG, SSN, SS, VP) USAF (TACAIR, AWAC, SAF) USMC (TACAIR) CF (DD, AO) Tamex 83-2 Tasman Sea Anti Submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Cobra King SWBTA Provide Training Assistance to Royal Thai Army 0.326 Yes Thailand INF COY 9 DIV Cope Thunder 83-5 Philippines Provide Air Defence and Strike training in a realistic environment . . Yes US/PHIL USAF (TACAIR) AFP (TACAIR) Roll Call 83 Indian/Pacific Oceans Practice Control and Protection of Merchant Shipping in War . . Yes US/UK/CA/NZ NCAPS STAFFS Platypus 83 AS FPDA visits in a land exercise . . Yes UK/NZ/MAL/SING . . Pacific Bond 83 AS/Hawaii Exchange-Broaden Military Experience . . Yes US 25 (US) Div Coy Gp. Sea Eagle 83-1 EAXA Combined Maritime Exercise 4.200 Yes US/NZ USN (DDG, P3) RNZN (FF) Northern Search NW Australia . . . . No . . . . IADS ADEX 83-1 Malaysia FDPA Units in a Major Air Defence Exercise . . Yes NZ/MAL/SING RNZAF/RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS El Alamein 83-1 AS Firepower Demonstration . . No . . . . Tasman Reserve 83 AS/NZ Provide Reserve Personnel with Experience of another Army . . Yes NZ . . Tamex 83-1 EAXA Anti-submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Starfish 83 South China Sea FDPA Units in a combined Maritime Exercise 0.570 Yes UK/NZ/MAL/SING RMN (FF, PTF, AIS) RMAF (F5 PC130) RNZN (FF) RNZAF (P) RN (PC, FFG, AO) RSN (PTF, LST) RSAF (A4, HUNTER) Pitch Black 83-1 Darwin Air Defence Exercise . . Yes US USAF (B52, KC135) Willoh 83-2 NZ Fighter Exchange-Interoperability . . Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Willoh 83-1 Townsville Fighter Exchange-Interoperability . . Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) IADS ADEX 82-6 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes MAL/SING RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS IADS ADEX 82-5 Singapore FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes MAL/SING RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Truppenamt NZ Exercise Command and Signal Procedures 0.082 Yes NZ/US . . Red Flag US Exercise E111 in strike operations in a realistic environment . . Yes NATO . . IADS ADEX 82-4 Malaysia FDPA Units in a Major Air Defence Exercise . . Yes NZ/MAL/SING RNZAF/RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Western Reward 82 Learmonth . . . . No . . . . Fincastle Trophy 82 NZ Anti-submarine Warfare Competition for Aircrews . . Yes UK/NZ/CA RAF (NIMROD) RNZAF (P3) Tamex 82-5 Great Australian Bight Anti-submarine Warfare Training 0.510 Yes US USN (P3) Sandgroper 82 Indian Ocean Practise combined Maritime Operations in a Multi Threat Environment 2.229 Yes US/NZ USN (FF, P3, A4) USAF (F16, KC135) RNZN (FF) RNZAF (P3) Silent Pearl 82-3 Hawaii Practise Anti-submarine Warfare against ASSN 0.520 Yes US USN (SSN, P3) Tamex 82-4 Tasman Sea Anti-submarine Warfare Training 0.514 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) El Alamein AS Firepower Demonstration . . No . . . . Tasmanex 82 NZ Combined Maritime Exercise 2.009 Yes UK/NZ/CA RNZN (FF, PTF) RNZAF (A4, P3) CF (DD) RAF (NIMROD) Haringaroo 4 Malaysia Training in a different climate and understand the Malaysian Army . . Yes MAL . . Haringaroo 5 Malaysia Training in a different climate and understand the Malaysian Army . . Yes MAL . . Jardine Jade HRTA . . . . No . . . . Diamond Dollar 82 SWBTA A major joint field exercise . . No . . . . Sandcrab 82 Beecroft . . . . No . . . . Marlin Move Jervis Bay . . . . No . . . . Sea Strike 82 . . . . . . No . . . . Willoh 82-3 Williamtown Fighter Exchange-Interoperability . . Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Pitch Black 82 Williamtown Air Defence Exercise . . Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Freedom Pennant 82 WA A US Amphibious Exercise with AS Providing Defending Troops . . Yes US USN (ARG, NTPS) USAF (MAC, MRT) USMC (A6, MAB, MAU) Intrepid Gunner 82 Beecroft . . No . . . . Wantok Warrior Townsville Help Maintain Military Skills of PNGDF 0.126 Yes PNG 1 PIR 1981-82 Iads Adex 82-3 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes MAL/SING RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Iads Adex 82-2 Singapore FPDA Units in a Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes MAL/SING RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Pitch Black 82 Williamtown . . No . . . . Tropic Lightning 82 Hawaii Command Post Exercise-Broaden Military Experience 0.426 Yes US/NZ USA Div HQ, Bde HQ NZ Army Bde HQ Tamex 82-3 Eaxa Anti-Submarine Warfare Training 0.486 No . . . . Starfish 82 South China Sea FPDA Units in a Combined Maritime Exercise 0.567 Yes UK/NZ/MAL/SING RMN (FF, PTF, PTFG) RMAF (PS, PC130) RNZN (DE) RNZAF (P3) RSN (LST, PTF, PTFG) RSAF (F5, A4, HUNTER) RN (FFG, DE, AOS, AEPS) Reindeer 82 AS Exchange-Broaden Military Experience . . Yes UK HKLF Tasman Reserve 82 NZ Provide Reserve Personnel with Experience of Another Army 0.075 Yes NZ 11 Field Force Group North Star AS/UK Exchange-Broaden Military Experience . . Yes UK . . Swift Eagle HRTA . . No . . . . Tamex 82-2 Eaxa Anti-Submarine Warfare Training 0.476 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Marlin Move 82 Qld . . No . . . . Rimpac 82 Hawaii Major Combined Maritime Exercise in Multi Threat Environment . . Yes NZ/US/CA . . Pacific Bond 82 AS/Hawaii Exchange to Broaden Military Experience 0.186 Yes US 25 (US) Div Expanded Sea 82 Worldwide Exercise Control and Protection of Merchant Shipping 0.104 Yes NZ/NATO NCAPS STAFFS Tasman Exchange 82 AS/NZ Exchange to Broaden Military Experience Yes NZ . . Southern Safari 82 NZ FPDA Units involved in a Battalion Group Exercise 0.097 Yes UK/NZ/MAL/SING . . Bounty Hunter Amberley . . . . No . . . . Tamex 82-1 Coral Sea Anti-Submarine Warfare Training 0.392 No . . . . Willoh 82-1 Williamtown Fighter Exchange-Interoperability . . Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Iads Adex 82-1 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Major Air Defence Exercise . . Yes NZ/MAL/SING RNZAF/RMAF/RSAF/HQIADS Beacon South 81-3 WA Combined Maritime Exercise 0.134 Yes US . . PNGDF Coy Trg in AS N. Qld Assist PNGDF Training Yes PNG PNGDF Inf Coy 1980-81 Tamex 81-5 Great Aust. Bight Anti-Submarine Warfare Training 0.186 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Fincastle Trophy 81 AS Anti-Submarine Warfare Competition 0.106 Yes UK/NZ/CA . . Haringaroo 81 S. Aust Training in a different climate and develop an understanding of the Malaysian Army . . Yes MAL . . Pitch Black Darwin No . . . . North Star AS/UK Exchange-Broaden Military Experience . . Yes UK Dark Spectre Townsville . . No . . . . Tamex 81-4 Tasman Sea Anti-Submarine Warfare Training Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Beacon Compass 81 Indian Ocean Exercise Maritime Operations in Multi Threat Environment 0.003 Yes US/UK RN (DDG, DE, AO) USN (CVBG) Bell Buoy 81 Indian/Pacific Oceans Exercise Control and Protection of Merchant Shipping in War 0.046 Yes US/UK/NZ/CA NCAPS STAFFS Tropic Lighting 81-2 Hawaii Command Post Exercise-Broaden Military Experience 0.496 Yes US Bn HQ Reindeer 81 AS Exchange-Broaden Military Experience . . Yes UK HKLF Iads Adex 81-1 Malaysia FPDA Units in a Major Air Defence Experience . . Yes . . . . Pacific Reserve 81-2 Hawaii Give Reserve Units an understanding of another Army 0.492 Yes US US WESTCOM Swift Eagle Townsville . . No . . . . Tamex 81-3 Tasman Sea Anti-Submarine Warfare Training 0.002 Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Normanby Ranger SWBTA . . No . . . . Pacific Bond 81 AS/Hawaii Exchange to Broaden Military Experience 0.143 Yes US 25 (US) Div Longex 81 Sth Pacific Combined Maritime Exercise 0.064 Yes US/NZ . . Tasman Reserve 81 AS/NZ Exchange to enable Reserve Personnel to Broaden Military Experience 0.047 Yes NZ/US . . Willoh 81-4 NZ Fighter Exchange-Interoperability 0.930 Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Tamex 61-2 Tasman Sea Anti-Submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Triad 81 NZ Command Post Exercise to Practise Combined/Joint Command and Control 0.139 Yes US/NZ . . Sea Eagle 81-1 Eaxa Maritime Exercise . . Yes US/NZ . . El Alamein AS Firepower Demonstration . . No . . . . Tamex 81-1 Eaxa Anti-Submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) Tasman Exchange 81 AS/NZ Exchange-Broaden Military Experience . . Yes NZ Iads Adex 80-6 Malaysia FPDA Units in Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes MAL RMAF/HQIADS Iads Adex 80-5 Singapore FPDA Units In Minor Air Defence Exercise . . Yes SING RMAF/HQIADS Willoh 80-5 Williamtown Fighter Exchange-Interoperability . . Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Willoh 80-6 NZ Fighter Exchange-Interoperability . . Yes NZ RNZAF (A4) Tame Shearwater Eaxa Anti-Submarine Warfare Training . . Yes NZ RNZAF (P3) New Horizon 80 Java Sea Maritime Exercise with Indonesia . . Yes Indonesia TNI-AL Beacon South 81-2 Indian Ocean Major Maritime Exercise 0.077 Yes US . . (Question No. 5221) Mr Maher asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment, upon notice, on 20 March 1987: (1) Is he able to say what areas of the Electoral Division of Lowe are contaminated by dioxin. (2) What enquiries have been made concerning the dumping of dioxin in tips and in mangrove reclamation areas on Majors Bay, Hen and Chicken Bay, Homebush Bay and elsewhere. (3) What action is being taken to ensure public safety with respect to buried quantities of dioxin. Mr Cohen —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) to (3) I am aware of recent media attention upon several sites in Sydney at which dioxin contaminated wastes were disposed a number of years ago. Regulation of hazardous wastes and disposal sites is primarily the responsibility of State Governments. Enquiries for specific information concerning dioxin wastes in Sydney should be directed to the New South Wales Minister for Planning and Environment or the State Pollution Control Commission (SPCC). The SPCC published in February 1986 a report ``Assessment of dioxin-contaminated waste materials'' which identifies landfill disposal sites at Homebush Bay, Concord and Menai where disposal of these wastes took place and provides information on such matters as the origin and quantities of the dioxin wastes and appropriate safeguards for the disposal sites. I understand that the New South Wales authorities are also investigating claims that the site of the Union Carbide plant at Rhodes is contaminated by dioxin wastes. I also understand that further investigations of the Rhodes site are to be made by experts from the USA and the United Kingdom. The SPCC issued in 1986 a Chemical Control Order in relation to dioxin-contaminated waste materials. (Question No. 5226) Mr Lloyd asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 23 March 1987: Are container charges in the Port of Melbourne significantly higher than in other ports around Australia; if so, why. Mr Peter Morris —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: There are normally two main categories of charges applying to containers moving through Australian ports (a) container handling charges applied by stevedores (b) cargo-based charges applied by port authorities. Stevedoring container handling charges are the subject of commercial negotiation between the stevedore and shipping company. The rates vary according to the particular commercial arrangements applying and are not generally publicly available. Cargo-based charges applied by port authorities comprise wharfage and storage charges and harbour dues in the case of Brisbane. Details of the current charges applying at selected major ports for a standard 6.1m container of goods are set out below: Export Wharfage Import Wharfage Storage (a) $ $ $ Melbourne... 80.24 87.04 61.85 Sydney- Container Terminal Berths... 59.00 93.30 172.30 Other Berths... 62.30 96.60 Brisbane (b)... 68.00 68.00 13.50 Fremantle... 39.22 99.00 26.59 Port Adelaide... 69.00 86.00 52.02 Notes (a) Assuming 5 days uncovered storage; Notes (b) Comprises harbour dues and wharfage payable at Fisherman Islands Container Terminal Source Current Published Port Authority tariff schedules. Comparisons between the cargo-based charges applied by port authorities need to be treated with caution. A range of ship-based charges are also imposed by port authorities and the relative contribution to port authority revenue from ship and cargo-based charges can vary significantly depending on the pricing policy of the individual port authority.