Wednesday, 16 September 1987 Madam SPEAKER (Hon. Joan Child) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. Debate resumed from 15 September, on motion by Dr Blewett: That the Bill be now read a second time. Mr TUCKEY(O'Connor)(10.01) —Today, for the third time in this chamber, we are debating the Australia Card Bill. It is the greatest misnomer of all time to give the name of our nation to something that so intrudes on Australians' privacy and creates so much inconvenience. The Opposition again opposes this legislation. We will repeal this legislation and its provisions when we are returned to government. I am sure the anger of the Australian people has made this even more imminent. In fact, I give notice of an amendment that we will move during the committee stage of this Bill which makes this legislation unable to be proclaimed until such time as the Australian people have had the opportunity to vote at referendum and cast a deliberate vote on this threshold issue relative to the standards of living in Australia. There are some interesting aspects of this particular proposal. First of all, again we find ourselves on a non-broadcast day debating this issue in the House of Representatives. We have a government that keeps telling us that the issue has been properly debated. The Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) went to some lengths yesterday to tell us that. But the Government ensures that the legislation in the House of Representatives-I underline the word `Representatives'-is debated on a non-broadcast day, the day immediately after the Budget, which is a very significant factor in parliamentary life. The Government has done everything possible to ensure that the public again does not get the issue on this particular matter. The Minister should not laugh. We will deal with his second reading speech and we will ensure that the people of Australia know just how much that has misled them and, in fact, the extent to which it even contradicts itself. I think that is of great interest to Australians. We also hope that on this occasion the Australian media and the print media in particular will address themselves to the issues. The Government claims that it has a mandate for this legislation from the double dissolution election. It should have been looking at the constitutional debates to see what our forefathers laid down when they set the rules for a double dissolution. Honourable members might recall that there is a requirement that there be three months between the first and second introduction of this legislation. The reason that our fore-fathers set down that requirement was simply that there should be a community debate in that period. There was no community debate because the Australian media completely ignored the concerns of the Opposition properly expressed in this Parliament. In the typical fashion of today's journalism, members of the media completely ignored the issue and commented only on whether things were right or wrong. They failed to inform their readers-the people who keep them in a job by paying for their newspapers-on the issues. That attitude is best exampled by the fact that, during the second debate on the issue in Parliament, as shadow Minister for Science and Small Business, I wrote to the Australian Financial Review, the Bulletin, the Business Review Weekly, the Business Weekly and all those other business papers pointing out their responsibility to their readers, the people who pay money for information that they think they get from these publications. The papers should tell the people what is in the card for the business community, about the draconian fines for failing to be a proper enforcer of the Government's legislation, and about the huge compliance costs of which the Government still refuses to tell us. Its Business Regulation Review Unit has told it, but the Government refuses to tell us and quite clearly the figures that have been provided are an embarrassment. The media are much to blame. The Minister said in his second reading speech that the Government put an advertisement in the papers. The opening statement of that advertisement was that honest and decent Australians have nothing to fear. Not much! They have to fear total intrusion into their privacy, great inconvience and fines of $20,000 if they fail to act as the Government requires in reporting on clients, business associates and even family in some regard. Let us look quickly at the Minister's second reading speech. In it, he tells us-this is an excuse for some more-that we already have to fill in one form a month. Already we have intrusions on our privacy, and his solution is to give us more through the Australia Card. He goes on to give us considerable misinformation. He tells us that the Australia Card is going to catch up with pinstripe criminals. Mr Simmons —Hear, hear! Mr TUCKEY —I am glad to hear the honourable member say that. Which of the pinstripe criminals has ever bothered to use a false identity to avoid the tax system? They use expensive lawyers and accountants, not false names. Company directors are already subject to massive fines were they to divert some of their company funds to false bank accounts. That interjection is evidence of the honourable gentleman's naivety. He has no understanding of such activity. I have brought evidence to Parliament of how a member of the Australian Labor Party got around paying $1m probate. Was that done through lack of identity? Did he call himself Smith? No; he is a member of a wealthy family and he was able to employ the lawyers to defeat the tax man. The Labor Party puts out to poorer constituents this message about preventing pinstripe crime and tax avoidance, but such criminals do not cheat on their identity and the honourable gentleman should know that. We are told that the Australia Card will recover $1,000m, but the presumption is that having a plastic identity will make everyone honest. What a foolish idea. The Minister presumes that if there are a large number of bank accounts in false names, those people sufficiently sophisticated to do that will leave the money there so that they can get caught. Where are the Minister's brains? On page 5 of his speech, we are told that a select committee looked into all this, but of course it did not. It did not look at the legislation, which was not available. It is the legislation that we are debating now, and the draconian penalties on honest and decent Australians for failing to honour the call to be conscripted as the enforcers of this legislation. Page 6 tells us of the community debate, to which I have already referred. Ordinary Australians were not told of the issues or the effect on them. They were not told of the inconvenience of lining up to alter 64 million bank accounts, of 16 million people lining up to have their photographs taken and to be properly numbered. The Government says it will be all so easy. Of course it will not. There is a contradiction on page 9 of the Minister's second reading speech. He tells us that the card will be necessary to secure employment. People see that as some protection against dole cheating. Then on page 13 the Minister says that those horrible immigrants who come here and get jobs when Australians apparently are not sufficiently energetic to get them will be stopped by the card because they will not be able to get a job without a card. But then on page 25-and I add that this is also recorded in the explanations put out by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) on page 25 under clause 49-the Minister goes on to say: The Bill does not place any legal obligation on a person to produce a card in relation to employment. The poor old employer has to pay a $20,000 fine if he fails to ask for the card but, of course, the Government, with its conscience pricking it a little bit, is not prepared to commit itself to saying, `You cannot get a job without a card', so it says, `You can have a job if you do not produce a card'. The myth has been created that this card will stop social security fraud, but by the Minister's own statements and his massive contradictions on three separate pages of his second reading speech, when we get to the nitty-gritty we find the following circumstance. In the seasonal industries such as fruit picking, prawning, and a bit of shed-handing-which are generally well paid for the short term-the individual turns up and says to the prospective employer, `Here I am. I am looking for work'. The prospective employer says, `Where is your ID card?'. That is his statutory obligation. The employee, whether he is an illegal immigrant or someone on a government benefit, says, `I do not have one and my name is Bill Smith'. The employer is desperate for labour, because such employers are not flooded with prospective employees, irrespective of the levels of unemployment in Australia, so he says, `Right, you have a job'. The employee then works in that job. The Minister tells us, although the legislation certainly does not-but apparently through other legislation to be amended it can occur-that if that employee makes that statement he is obliged to pay tax at 49c in the dollar. What is so bad about that? In seasonal industries where many hundreds of dollars can be earned in a week, employees would be pushing the 49c level anyway. But let us look at the wonderful compensation of being able to keep an unemployment or other social security benefit during the period that person is working and, of course, during the immediate period afterwards when the person otherwise would have to wait to get back that benefit. How does the person keep those benefits? He does so with a plastic card and his real name. That is what the Government has told us will happen and it is what will happen. The Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan)-I am not sure whether she is a maxi-Minister or mini-Minister-said on television that this problem will be easily solved. She said that the tax man will know this has happened when documentation comes in without a number. That again shows the naivety of those in the Government. The tax man does not get any documentation in terms of short term employment until the employee has left or in terms of longer employment until some time after 30 June. If a person is in the business of cheating, he will know that. He will have moved on. There is total contradiction in the message from the Minister who said to us that privacy is a bourgeois right, one that is closely associated with the right to private property. We can only assume that this man who makes all these promises and gives all these assurances does not really care very much for our privacy and does not agree that we have a right to private property. On page 12 of the second reading speech the Minister says that the card need be produced only once, that a person can go to a stockbroker and so open an account. I know that not everybody does that but ever increasing numbers of Australians do so. If the trend overseas is followed here with privatisation and a few other things, that number could get as high as 20 per cent of Australians. Let me tell honourable members about that. Mr Gear —Imputation. Mr TUCKEY —Yes, imputation-a great encouragement for more people to do it. The Minister told us that a person can open an account with a stockbroker with one visit. If he wishes to deal with 20 stockbrokers he will require 20 visits. The Minister has never bothered to tell us about clause 173 of the legislation which reflects the fact that the Government's conscience is pricking it again. Clause 173 (2) states: A person who retains a record of information under sub-section (1) shall destroy that record when it is no longer reasonably necessary for the record to be retained. What will `reasonable' mean to a stockbroker? Some people may buy shares for investment purposes and not go back for six or 12 months. If he retains the information for too long he will be liable for up to two years in gaol. He will be pretty careful about it. When will the details be cancelled? I would say that most of the accounts of casual traders-ordinary, little Australians, not the big share dealers-will be closed before they choose to use them again, as they will in many other transactions that require validation by the card. When that happens they will be obliged to go back again. The Minister told us on page 16 of the second reading speech that there will be no amalgamation of information into a central computer. However, on page 12 of his speech he said: . . . by linking all sources of a person's income to that number- he means the ID number- . . . the correct amount of tax is paid. In other words, all sources of income will be linked. There will not be a central computer; everyone will have a single number which he or she can use. The Minister has contradicted himself again. Page 15 of the second reading speech tells us that we have a problem with a multiplicity of numbers: we have a Medicare number, a tax file number, credit card numbers and a drivers licence number. The Minister overlooks the fact that that is the protection we have today. If a criminal or some person who wants information about someone gets one of those numbers he can possibly discover information in that way. Mr Gear —You can buy it. Mr TUCKEY —The honourable member for Canning is quite right. I am glad that he said that: people can buy it. The honourable member suggests that everybody will become honest when he or she gets a plastic identity from the Government. Of course people will buy it. However, the Government is giving people the opportunity of having to discover only one number to access information held by the Australian Tax Office, the Department of Social Security, the Depart- ment of Community Services and Health, a person's employer, his stock and station agent, his stockbroker, his bank and his lawyer. What is more, the Government is obliging all those people to have the number on record. The number will be written on scraps of paper around the place and the office girl will know it. Access to the number will be so simple. Yet the Government tells us that we will be better off with one number than all the numbers we have at present. On page 16 the Minister also bothered to inform us: . . . a vast amount of personal information is already held by government. I presume that this is some excuse for getting it all under one number. The Minister went to great pains, on a number of pages, to assure Australian citizens that they do not have to worry about hackers. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in America which, I would imagine, is an admitted expert in the area of technology, particularly communications technology, has been reported by the Guardian in London-this appears in today's Press-as having had its computer networks accessed by West German hackers. This Government will not be able to reach the level of technology that NASA would have. The Minister assured us that the card will show only a person's name, photograph, signature, expiry date and number. He failed to remind us that the less information on the card the easier it will be to forge. The private sector is to have no access to the Register. Under the Government's legislation it is forbidden to check on the photo or the signature on the card. What do I have to discover about a person to forge a card in that person's name? I have to find the name of that person, and I have to find the expiry date and the number of that card. I do not need that person's photograph because I will put my photograph on the card. I do not need that person's signature because I will put a rendition of my signature on it. If I am a criminal with that intent I have now got a piece of plastic which establishes my identity as that of somebody else. Determined cheats will do just that. They will not be so silly as to manufacture Australia Card numbers; they will get proper numbers. Honourable members opposite in their speeches to follow might tell me what happens when such a card is forged and it is used to cash dud cheques and to get goods on credit-goods for which the criminal has no intention of paying. They might tell me who will be the first person to be interviewed by the State police-police outside the control of honourable members opposite-when they start their inquiries. The police will go to the proper card holder. The police will have little difficulty in finding such a person because that person will be on the government record. Of course, that person might just happen to be like that poor girl who was the subject of a leak from the Health Insurance Commission-which is to become the authority under this legislation-and be interviewed in the work place. That person might be taken away from his work place to be interviewed at the police station. That person could come back and say to his colleagues, `It wasn't me', if lucky enough to be able to prove it. What happens when a determined criminal opens a bank account in another person's name? The bank cannot go to the internal Australia Card Register to check on the validity of that person's signature or photograph. How does a person explain that to the Commissioner of Taxation when that determined criminal has withdrawn the money and gone off with it and there is an inquiry six months later into why he did not declare the interest and where he got the original sum of money from? The less information put on the card the simpler it is to forge. Of course, with a person's conscience pricking him in regard to this the easier it will be for criminals to forge the card. Mr Gear —You did not mention the digitised photograph. Mr TUCKEY —I did mention it, you foolish man. A person can get that if he is part of the social security system, the Health Insurance Commission or, in fact, the Tax Office. It would be a great help if honourable members opposite would acquaint themselves with the provisions of this legislation. For example, a bank, an employer, anyone in the private sector, can take the card only on its face value because they have no access to the card Register. The Government has put that in the legislation. Even if information can be got from the magnetic strip on the card, are honourable members opposite suggesting that 650,000 small businesses will have to buy the necessary equipment to go down that track and be able to read the information on the magnetic strip? Great help that will be when in Western Australia the other day forgers were able to access such information, rewrite it on the back of a forged card and withdraw other people's money from automatic tellers. The Government has already told us on page 20 of the Minister's second reading speech that it already has the information and that there will be no unauthorised use of it. However, when a government department leaked information on doctors' salaries a Federal Police inquiry established that more people knew the information than had access to it and the police could not catch the people who leaked the information. Of course, we now have the assurances of the Minister for Community Services and Health, the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Minister Assisting the Minister for Community Services and Health, the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan) that it will all be okay because we will link all the computers by means of dedicated landlines. There are dedicated landlines in the television studios here in Parliament House, similar to those which apparently the Government proposes to use. Yet the television studios keep getting each other's programs. The studios do not have to ask for them; they get them voluntarily. That is what the Government is going to use to link the system. If honourable members opposite want some evidence of how poorly that issue has been researched, let me tell them. Yesterday in this place I asked the mini-Minister for Communications, that is, the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support (Mr Duncan), a question about it, and in the other place the maxi-Minister for Communications, the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans), was asked about these wonderful new-style landlines that are supposed to be totally secure. Both Ministers declined to answer the question. One would have thought that a government that wanted to go out and assure people on this issue would go to the experts in its own Cabinet to find out whether they were telling the truth. Quite clearly the experts in the Government's own Cabinet are not too keen to answer questions on this issue and, when they do come up with answers, they will be misleading the Parliament if they assure us of the system's security. Even if the Government were to start digging the trenches now all around Australia and laying wire in them and even if it were to put thousands of guards on those wires, it still could not guarantee the security of the information carried. It is absolute stupidity for the Government to suggest that it could, and it is wrong to mislead Australians in this fashion. The Government says we will have a powerful watchdog, the Data Protection Agency. It has no powers; it can only recommend. What is more, it is modelled on the Swedish system. Jan Freese, the long-standing director of the Swedish organisation, has just resigned in disgust, complaining that the postal authorities in that country now sell information. When a system has been operating since 1947 one starts to realise the value of one's assets. A Treasurer like the one we have might say, `This is worth money; we have a wonderful data base here and we should be privatising it'. The Swedes have done that. They now sell direct mailing organisations lists of names and addresses including changes of address. Furthermore, Swedish organisations now go to data banks to conduct their surveys. The bureaucracy has found it is easier to get the answers from there. As an official said the other day, if the bureaucracy asked the people all these questions they would refuse to answer. Yet the Government suggests to us that it has it all together, that it can guarantee Australians' security. Of course, the Government says that one will not be required to produce the card for all sorts of things. Yesterday my office got a form from an operating video rental firm in Western Australia, and the form has a space clearly marked for a national ID number. Already the private sector is getting ready. Mr Simmons —That will be fine. Mr TUCKEY —I bet they will be fine, because the shop will not demand it; it just will not give people a video until they write their number down. And other people will not cash a cheque until one puts one's number on it. People should remember that when they do that they are giving another individual the opportunity to forge their card. I have here the form; I have just taken the name of the firm off it. The original is in my office in Perth. It has a space for date of birth, national ID card number and occupation. `ID' is written again; I do not know what that means. There is a space for business and home phone numbers, et cetera. It is an application for membership. The private sector is into it already. So much for the Minister's assurances. The Opposition opposes this card on six basic grounds. It threatens a massive intrusion into personal privacy, and no guarantees have been given that people cannot get into the system. We are creating a key, by way of a common number, for all those who want the personal and financial information of Australians. A person is obliged to give an employer the same number that accesses his medical records, and employers today are very interested in that as a result of workers compensation problems. The card will create massive personal inconvenience. People will be queuing all over the place, running back and forth. Sporting clubs will have to have a personal card representative. The Australia Card will be hugely costly. The Minister for Community Services and Health once told us we could have free medicine and free medical treatment for $1,000m; it now costs us over $4,000m. Of course we must multiply that by three in the private sector to get the final figure. No one has yet told us of the cost of the extra police, the extra courts and the extra gaols we will need when the Government applies all these penalties and starts throwing people in gaol, as it says it will if people break the requirements; and we must remember that a lot of the requirements are purely to enforce the Government's legislation. One can be fined massively, and not necessarily because one has done anything wrong. The system will conscript ordinary citizens and business entities, under threat of huge penalties, to report on their employees, clients and even neighbours. There are grave questions as to the ability of criminals to use the system, and in some cases lay the blame upon innocent Australians through the process of assuming their card identity. It simply will not work in its stated aim of stopping, or for that matter substantially reducing, tax and welfare cheating. It is ridiculous that last night the Treasurer was boasting of how effective have been the measures the Government has taken to date, and clearly they are in a much broader sense. He is now going to put permanent audit groups into very large companies. Numerous measures will address the problem of where the revenue is being defrauded. There are simple mechanisms such as requiring people on the dole to work for it. They cannot forge themselves and they come from a community in which they will not get too many volunteers to stand in for them. It is a simple answer to the problem. There are answers to deal with those who cheat in our community without numbering 16 million Australians, putting them to huge inconvenience and putting the last vestiges of their privacy at risk to catch a few. The Government will not make the system work. It may succeed in bludgeoning the legislation through this Parliament; it will be its job to answer to the community at the next election as people are queueing up for the cards and with all the other problems associated with it. We promise the people that we will give them back their privacy and we will in the appropriate way catch cheats, to the extent that they exist in our society. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr HOWE(Batman-Minister for Social Security)(10.31) —It is time to put the record straight regarding Opposition allegations repeated ad nauseam about the involvement of the Department of Social Security with the Australia Card. Opposition members continue to repeat their misinformed allegations. I say categorically there is absolutely no foundation for comments such as that Social Security will not use the card, that Social Security will not rely on it, that the Department is sceptical about the proposal or that officers have publicly rejected it. The Australia Card will first and foremost enhance the integrity of the social security system so that welfare assistance goes only to those who are genuinely entitled to it. The introduction of the card will enable the Department to re-establish the identity of all current Social Security clients. When introduced, the card will provide for each person receiving welfare assistance to advise the Department of his or her card number. All Social Security clients will thus validate their identity with the Department. This will represent a major clamp down on false identities within the welfare system. The Australia Card will provide continuing evidence that the people we deal with are who they claim to be. How will the Department use it? It will be used as an ongoing proof of identity in the following circumstances: at the time persons claim pension or benefit; when clients attend the counter with queries about payments; when clients are personally lodging unemployment benefit or sole parent forms; when dealing with requests to replace lost concession cards-for example, transport or medical cards-for all Social Security field officer interviews at the client's home; and for all Department of Social Security office interviews. Identity information is quite fundamental to the drive against fraud that we have been conducting within the Department of Social Security. It is a vital element in detecting schemes and organised attempts to defraud the Commonwealth. There is no doubt, in my view, that the Australia Card will help to eliminate the very big social security frauds. The Department has used analysis of client profiles surrounding identities to uncover large scale frauds. For example, in the Jansenberger case the amount involved was $379,000 and the full extent of the scheme was detected through detailed computer analysis of identity information held by the Department. The offender was gaoled for eight years. In the McKenzie case the amount involved was $343,000 and the scheme came to light through the risk based approach used by the Department of Social Security in selecting cases for review. The offender was gaoled for 6 1/2 years. In the Stutz case the amount involved was $168,000, and again the scheme came to light through selecting clients for review. The offender was gaoled for 5 1/2 years. The Australia Card will mesh with current systems to detect false identities and fraud. New systems to enhance proof of identity include proof of identity procedures and employment separation certificates, which were introduced from 1 September. The detection of false identities has increased. Since July 1985 the Department of Social Security has detected 50 fraudulent schemes involving $2.7m in which false identity was the key element. In the two years to 30 June 1987 there was a 76 per cent increase in the number of prosecutions-under the Crimes Act-and a five-fold increase in the amounts of money involved. The Australia Card will be the Department's principal means of identifying clients. The universal numbering system will help to support present detection systems, and future detection systems such as external agencies which use the Australia Card number. The Australia Card will significantly help the fight against fraud by facilitating the matching of Social Security records with other agencies, as determined by the Act. The first advantage is clearly the faster identification of persons registered under different agencies. The card will help to detect fraudulent payments much more quickly than at present. Secondly, increased undisclosed income will be detected through the matching of Social Security records with taxation records held by employers and finance institutions. The Australia Card will form part of payroll records for taxation purposes. Thirdly, there will be greater protection against forgeries. Currently, in order to establish proof of identity the Department of Social Security requires at least three documents, including a `sound' document, such as a passport, a refugee document, an original Australian birth certificate or an extract issued at least five years previously, a marriage certificate where the identity of the marriage partner has been established, an official legal document, citizenship papers or apprenticeship papers. It is a very tough system, but not immune to abuse by hardened criminals. For example, charges were laid in Sydney on 30 July 1987 against a person with an elaborate scheme to defraud Social Security and the Health Insurance Commission. In regard to the forgeries, there were a number of examples of forged birth certificates of very high quality, printed on paper with watermarks similar to that of the New South Wales Registrar-General. Forgeries were produced by photocopying a real certificate on to a plastic sleeve. The details on the original are then erased and the remaining details on the plastic sleeve are photocopied on to blank paper. The false details are then typed in. Fifty false certificates were found. In terms of leakage of information, claims that the Australia Card will provide risks of security of information are misguided. Leakage of information is more likely to occur from paper records or, in terms of the Department of Social Security, from microfiche records, than from records held within the Stratplan system. Any unauthorised access would incur a fine of $5,000 or imprisonment for up to two years, in terms of current rules in the Department of Social Security. This Government is serious about attacking tax fraud and social security fraud. The Opposition has no policy or record on how to deal with fraud. It is embarrassed; it has been caught out by the debate on the Australia Card. The honourable member for Richmond (Mr Blunt), for example, was a very strong advocate of bipartisan support for the introduction of the Australia Card. On 8 June 1985 he said: The introduction of a national ID system, using ID cards, offered benefits to Australian people. Another majority benefit would be a reduction of fraud affecting Government outlays, especially social welfare payments. The Opposition is currently trading on misrepresentation to avoid the main issue. The main issue is that the Government is serious about the fight against fraud and the Opposition is opposing us on every front. It is just trying to score cheap political points. To date, the Government, through the Department of Social Security, has installed Stratplan. It has introduced direct deposits, which deals significantly with problems associated with cheques and misrepresentation in terms of cheques. It has developed an overpayments strategy, including the initial amnesty. It has introduced compulsory lodgment of 19b forms-that is, forms requiring regular income statements for unemployment benefit clients. It has introduced much stricter arrangements for clients of the Department of Social Security. We aim to make sure that the resources that are there are not eroded by fraud. To understand the great value of these Government initiatives they need to be compared with the system which was left to us by the previous Government. The White Paper on tax made this very clear. The effects of avoidance and evasion had virtually destroyed the taxation system in this country. People earning between $50,000 and $100,000 managed to hide about 10 per cent of their income through evasion and avoidance. Those earning $100,000 and above were allowed to keep 22 per cent of their income from being brought into account. This was done by receiving fringe benefits instead of cash, disguising income as a capital gain, and tax exploitation measures. On average, someone on $100,000 was able to rip off the tax system to the tune of $12,900. This is equivalent to almost three age pensions at the married rate. I think it is extremely important in this debate for us to understand what the real issue is all about. Fundamentally, it is a question of whether we want a fair and equitable society; whether we want to see a society in which social security payments are paid to those who are entitled to those payments and to those who are in real need and whether we want to ensure that people, often with considerable wealth and high incomes, pay their fair share of taxation. It is about integrity in relation to the taxation system and it is about fairness in terms of overall government operations. We inherited from the previous Government a system which was extraordinarily unfair. Indeed, we inherited a situation where, in a real sense, public morality in society had reached its lowest ebb probably in the post-war period. During the Fraser years the state was fair game. If one could get into the state and avoid one's taxation obligations, thereby foisting those obligations on to someone else, that was encouraged. In my view that created a situation in which the legitimacy of government was effectively being called into question. More and more of the share of taxation was being paid by those in the pay as you earn tax system who could not avoid tax. People on low and middle incomes paid more and more taxation because the tax cheats and the tax avoidance industry had become the fastest growing industry in Australian society. Similarly, in terms of the income security system, it is not untrue to suggest that most, if not all, of the principal controls relating to the social security system were erased in the last desperate years of the Fraser-Howard Government. The explosion that occurred in relation to beneficiary numbers made it almost impossible for the Department of Social Security to guarantee getting cheques out, let alone make appropriate checks in terms of who was paid, what they were paid and their proper entitlements. The legitimacy of government was being ravaged by people with no interest at all in achieving a fair and equitable society. One ought not be misled for a moment by what the Opposition is about in this debate. While members of the Opposition cloak their concerns in mealy-mouthed mutterings about issues of privacy and civil liberties, the civil liberties of hundreds of thousands of Australians, in terms of their right to a proper share in the nation's income, were being attacked by the previous Government. No government in the history of this Commonwealth has a record of less attention to fairness, equity and integrity in terms of government systems than the previous Government. As was revealed in a number of reports in relation to the taxation system, it was clear that the Government was simply failing to give the attention that was necessary to ensuring that that system was based on fundamental integrity. So let us not put up too much with the kind of nonsense that we are receiving in this debate from members of the Opposition. We know that the current Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) and the previous spokesman on social security had some sympathy for the concept of the Australia Card and had some commitment to it but now, for opportunistic political reasons, the name of the game has shifted. Any concern that might be picked up, no matter how unfounded, is being seized upon by the Opposition as an attempt to somehow destroy the Government's attempts to achieve greater fairness and integrity with major revenue and expenditure systems, and that is what we have been about in a number of measures. We have been able to achieve what I think people would regard as the most successful Budget in recent years in meeting objectives shared by the Australian people and delivering very substantial support to the lowest income families because we have taken a number of steps. At times these steps have been heavily criticised by the Opposition. I refer to fringe benefits taxes, entertainment taxes and capital gains taxes. Some people have not been paying their fair share of taxation, they have been avoiding it on a massive scale. The net result on the other side of the equation is that we have been able to deliver a package which is historically one of the most significant reforms in assisting low income families that we have ever seen in this country. Fairness in relation to taxation delivered in terms of social security is being paid to people in genuine and real need. Similarly, efforts have been made by this Government, not by the previous Government, where all the systems and all the controls disappeared, to pursue systematically those who are fraudulently manipulating the social security system to ensure that those people who have been receiving money to which they are not entitled pay it back or that preventative measures are put in place so that that cannot occur. The Australia Card is a very significant preventative measure both on the revenue side and the expenditure side. I find it very hard to understand how people on the other side of the House could come back at this point, having failed to raise their head in the course of an election which was called on the basis of the Australia Card. The Leader of the Opposition is so gutless in terms of his public stance that he is not able to raise the issue for public debate. He did not raise the issue throughout the election campaign. No one else in his shadow Ministry has been able to raise it either. The reason members of the Opposition did not raise that issue is unknown to me, but I suspect it is because fundamentally, when it gets down to the arguments, they would have had to deal ultimately with their own record on the growth of taxation avoidance and their own inability to establish systems that had integrity in relation to the social security system. In terms of the debate that is taking place within the Parliament, there is no question of where the logic lies and no question of where the fairness lies. I come back again and again to the term `fairness' because that is not within the lexicon of members of the Opposition. Whatever they say, it is never about fairness, social justice or achieving a society in which people on lower incomes receive a better deal and people on the very highest incomes and with the greatest wealth pay their fair share of taxation. Where are the Opposition's proposals to ensure that there is greater fairness in relation to the taxation system? All we have had from the Opposition spokesman on the Australia Card, the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey), was this furphy about work for the dole. That is the Opposition's contribution to public policy and debate on social security. Members of the Opposition could not get their schemes right because they had never thought them through. They have never shown the capacity-- Mr Carlton —Ask the Prime Minister about that. Mr HOWE —The former shadow Treasurer is interjecting. What right has he to say very much to this House about the integrity of the taxation system when he could not count his own numbers. He turned out to be hundreds of millions of dollars out with the package that he dreamed up. That suggests what the Opposition is about. It is about faking something for the most opportunistic reasons and not thinking it through in terms of any objective of fairness and equity. This is an important issue. The Australian people are right to be concerned about it because ultimately if the Government loses this debate the people who will suffer to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars will be the people paying taxes, the pay as you earn taxpayers on the one hand and people in the social security system on the other. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The Minister's time has expired. Mr JULL(Fadden)(10.51) —In 1868 the last people to come to Australia bearing a compulsory number arrived in Western Australia in wooden ships. In 1988 the gift of the Bicentenary from this Government will be a system whereby all Australians are numbered, but there is a difference between those people who came to Australia in 1868 and those in Australia in 1988. In 1868 those people were guilty; in 1988 we have a government that is putting in a system which says that all Australians are guilty until they are proved innocent. I feel that that is one of the most objectionable parts of this legislation. It is interesting that we have a mere four-hour debate on the Australia Card after it has been stopped on earlier occasions when the Australia Card Bill came into the House. We have a situation now where the majority of Australians are against this proposal and the Government will not take any notice. It is true that when the idea of an identification card was first mooted we did have a support rate in the community of about 78 per cent; it is true that earlier this year when the market research was taken there was a support rate of 55 per cent; and it is true that that support by the general public of Australia has now dropped to 39 per cent. As people find out more about the way this ID card will intrude into the lives of ordinary Australians, so that great tide of objection is rolling towards Canberra, and we have this Government forcing through this legislation. We have a lot of questions to ask the Government. I have a list of them here. I hope the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) will respond to them because there is very deep concern not only about what information will be collected but also about the security that is to be provided under the system that we have. I think one of the most incredible things that I have seen in this House in recent years was at Question Time yesterday when the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support (Mr Duncan), who represents the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans), was asked a question about the dedicated landlines and could not answer it. What was even more amazing was in the other place when the Minister himself could not answer the question about landlines. The one thing that the Government did when the whole question of the database security came to the fore was panic. It said it was going to have dedicated landlines. Dedicated landlines, by their nature, are territorial. Does the Government expect us to believe that it is physically going to lay these dedicated landlines to every computer terminal used by the Government throughout Australia? If so, is there any provision in this Bill for the additional cost that would be required? The additional cost would be $8 billion to $10 billion. The Government will have a construction program to put in those dedicated landlines that will be a bigger construction program than the building of the pyramids in Egypt. This is the kind of tripe that we are getting from the Government in terms of the security of this legislation. Are we going to believe that we will have absolute security of the information that will be stored by the Government? Are we really going to believe that the Australian system will be more secure than that of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which we have learnt has already been tampered with by hackers in West Germany? Are we going to believe that it will be more secure than that of the Pentagon, which says that it cannot guarantee the security of its information? Can we have a guarantee from the Government that the security of this information will be as good as the security of the personal identification number system used by banks for their money machines? If the answer is that it will be as secure, then we have seen what happened in Western Australia when people got into those machines and took out money at will. The whole question of security is a most important one and I believe that the people of Australia have every right to be concerned about the information that will be held on those computer services. Why does Australia need an ID card? One of the biggest reasons why we do not need a card has been put forward by the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe), who has told us what a tremendous job his Department is doing in catching the welfare cheats, the dole fraud people and the rest. Last night, we heard a tremendous story on how much extra taxation revenue had been acquired by the new system which is operating in the Australian Taxation Office. I congratulate the Treasurer (Mr Keating) and the Minister for Social Security on the work that they have done, and on showing the lie of the ID exercise, because they already have the facilities to go after the extra revenue and the social security defrauders. We do not need the Australia Card. We are told that the Australia Card system will be based on the one in Sweden. I will deal with Sweden in a minute, but let us look at some of the systems operated by other major nations-for example, West Germany, which has experienced continued security problems. In recent years it has gone through periods of assaults by terrorist groups, but even given those problems, great controversy surrounds privacy there. In recent weeks a new automated identity card has been produced, and West Germans will have to carry that card at all times. Authorities will store data on people's movements, and law and order agencies will have access to this. According to Press reports in the Australian newspaper of 4 March data protection officers in Bonn and in regional governments have already warned that the cards of West Germany will usher in a police state. Hong Kong has an immense problem of illegal immigration, and the Government submission concedes that this is so. Wide powers exist in relation to immigration control, which allow the police randomly to request the production of an ID card. France has a system of identification, but it is voluntary and people have a separate social insurance number. The schemes are not universal, and cannot be compared with what is to be installed in Australia. Israel, for obvious security reasons, has an ID card as well. In Canada, people have a social insurance number, which has become a de facto identity number. It was originally introduced for unemployment insurance purposes. Solemn undertakings were given that its use would be strictly confined to this purpose. However, the 1981 Report on the Use of Social Insurance Number presented to the Canadian Parliament says: There was widespread concern expressed about the fact that, while the Social Insurance Number, and its associated card, had been introduced solely for social security purposes, and assurances had been given that the card would not be used for any other purposes; the card is, in fact, now used for many other purposes. These include credit applications, employment applications, employee identification, health surveys, insurance, banking, library registration, car and accommodation rental, and even for the registration of children as junior sports participants. We have been told that we do not have to worry about the identity card in Australia because they have one in the United States of America. However, that is a social security number only, and the United States of America admits that it has failed to control illegal migration and in its reports there have been a great number of objections to the infringement of civil liberties that that social security number has brought about. My colleague the shadow Minister, the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey), mentioned earlier that the head of the data protection agency in Sweden had recently resigned because he could not control the system. Last Friday night I spent about three-quarters of an hour on the telephone with Jan Freese talking about the difficulties that are faced in Sweden. The plain facts are that Sweden introduced an identity card 20 years ago, but that system has become an absolute nightmare. Despite that, the Government tells us that our card will be based on that Swedish system. Jan Freese, the former head of the Swedish data protection agency, claimed that Swedish citizens had been stripped of their souls. This might seem emotive, but let me read a quotation from the Expressen, one of the Stockholm newspapers, which states: The Data Inspection Board, acting unanimously, found in its demand for grants last year and in its annual report this year that privacy protection had continued to become still more limited. The Swedish people were no longer standing naked in front of the authorities and exposed to curious foreign observers. The Swedes had been more or less stripped to their souls. Swedish companies and organisations as well as authorities also have been pressured to become a form of extraordinary nudists-exposing both body and soul . . . It may be looked upon as timidity for me to leave after a dozen years as head of the Data Inspection Board. I knew what I was doing when I reached my decision. To jump off the merry-go-round when you can no longer control the speed may also be looked upon as responsibility not to take the further responsibility. That is a most significant statement. While we might say now that we shall have only limited information on the Australian system, the plain facts are that as the system is accepted, more and more organisations and people will require further information and data. We see in the legislation itself clauses that will, virtually at the stroke of a pen, allow perhaps not this Government but a future government to set up any sort of information to do any sort of social engineering that it may require through the identity card system. Look at what has happened in Sweden. Twenty years ago, the Swedes were convinced that this was the way to proceed. Now, the ID number is required for any reason, from joining a union to borrowing a library book. The interesting thing is that it has not retarded the underground economy, which is flourishing in Sweden. According to recent figures, the Swedish Government loses 20 per cent of current revenue through tax evasion. The Swedes choose to evade tax and the ID card by desisting from extra work. They go into the cash economy and have even got to the stage where one of the major industries in Sweden is the barter economy, which beats the system. One can go to the dentist and get one's fillings done and in return, if one is a plumber, fix his drain pipes or if one deals in that commodity, give him a load of bricks. The barter system is rife. I am not saying that that will necessarily come into Australia, but that is the prospect if people are going to avoid taxation. It is just not on. Criminals in our society will find ways and means around this system as they have done around overseas systems. Let us get back to some of the questions that I would like to ask about the security of the ID card proposal. Can the Minister tell us whether the births, death and marriages register that will be established under the ID card will share the same computer as the central register operated by the Health Insurance Commission? Is it a fact that the births, deaths and marriages register will not be covered by the jurisdiction of the proposed Data Protection Agency, and if so what guarantees can the Government give that confidential information stored in that register will be protected from unauthorised access? What notice has the Minister taken of some of the Government's reports? I suggest that he look at that excellent report Towards a Cashless Society, which goes into the whole system of credit cards. One of its recommendations was that the Government tread carefully in getting together data banks because of the tremendous threats that they pose to the civil liberties of all Australians. Is it a fact that the Australian Bankers Association has already said that the Australia Card legislation will be unworkable? What will really be the cost to banks, building societies and other financial institutions? We know what will happen about that. Those extra charges that banks incur will be passed on to the general population. We are now debating, for technical reasons, the original legislation. We ask the Government: what changes will be made further down the track? What really are we letting ourselves in for if we pass this legislation now? We ask the Minister: will he at last tell us what standard of communications protocol will be used for the transmission of ID card data among various government departments? What method of data scrambling will be used? We do not know that. Is it true that the Government originally envisaged using Aussat or the existing Telecom Australia network to transmit ID information? What were the real reasons that that decision was put aside? What guarantee do we have that the standard of security of information stored in the ID card databases will be at least equal to that of banking machines at the moment? Can the Minister tell us whether it will be equal to that or what ways it will be better? We ask him to really spell it out. Getting into the more human aspects, we ask the Minister: is it true that in the event of the death of an elderly person who has neglected to register savings with the ID card authority, all savings, deposits and valuables will be passed on to the Government, not to relatives? If that is true, can he tell us how much the Government expects to get in additional revenue from that proceeding? Will we now see another $2m wasted on a Government promotion campaign to try to get all Australians to accept this legislation? Those questions have never been asked. Can the Government also tell us just how stiff the penalties will be? Does it intend to take them all the way? If a person fails to report within 21 days the loss of an ID card, does that automatically mean that the person will be fined $500? According to the legislation, it certainly looks that way. If an employer fails to see an employee's ID card number, record it and report it to the Government, will the employer be fined up to $20,000? We heard the example given yesterday of the baby-sitter. When the 17-year-old lass or 12-year-old boy does a bit of baby-sitting, will we have to say, `Give us your ID card number.'? Will we have to fill in all details and send them to Canberra? Is it a fact that if an employer hires a cardless person, he or she will be fined $20,000? Is it true that if bankers, stockbrokers, accountants, lawyers and real estate agents fail to see and record someone's ID number when the person enters into a financial transaction, they will be fined $20,000? If a person's ID card is destroyed or defaced and he cannot prove that it was done accidentally, will he be imprisoned for two years, or fined $5,000, or both? If a person fails to attend a compulsory conference ordered by the ID card agency, will he be fined $1,000 and/or imprisoned for six months? So the list goes on. The penalty provisions in this legislation are really horrendous. I get back to the original point that we really have to ask the Government: why do we need the card now when the Treasurer told us last night just how well he is doing in getting that extra revenue? Why do we need it when just minutes ago the Minister for Social Security told this House how well he is doing in catching up with fraudulent activities in the social security area? Why is it that every Australian from the moment he or she is born will be issued with a number and that number will be kept until the day that person dies? Is the real reason for having this ID card the fact that it will be able to provide perhaps not this Government but future governments of Australia with the capacity to undertake the greatest social engineering activity that has ever been seen in this country? We should all be concerned at the extent of the interference into the affairs and activities of everyday Australians. We should be concerned about the facility and capacity of this Government to be able to protect any information that might go into that central databank. I for one am not convinced that we need the card. I am not convinced-and I do not think any member of the Government is-that the Government can provide the total security that would be necessary with the system. I am not convinced that there has been a full cost-benefit analysis on this proposal or that we will get any further taxation revenue out of this system. I am not convinced that we will fix up the criminals in our society through an ID card or that this card will do anything in terms of cracking down even harder on social security cheats. All Australians should ask this question: why do we need this scurrilous legislation? Mr SIMMONS(Calare)(11.11) —The last few weeks have seen a very successful campaign to scare the living daylights out of the Australian population. To some extent this campaign has been both masterful and, in my view, sickening. Some of the contributions by the honourable member for Fadden (Mr Jull), the previous speaker, certainly fit into that criterion of trying to scare the daylights out of the population. This campaign has as its central theme the objective of turning a legitimate, harmless and well-intentioned government policy into what is potentially the most divisive issue in contemporary Australian politics. I will indicate some of the nonsense that has been coming into my electorate office in recent days. I use the term `nonsense' advisedly because obviously many of the people writing to me, although well-intentioned, certainly have been somewhat misled by the half-truths, deceptions and downright lies that have been told in this debate. There have been numerous references or appeals in this letter-writing campaign to biblical emotions. I was told by one person last week, `We have to get back to the Bible and not bring in this abominable card'. Another person said, `God is in control of our country, not man. He just allows us enough rope to hang ourselves if we choose to do so'. Someone else was kind enough to say, `I will be praying to God-maybe you have heard of him-to stop it getting through Parliament'. There have also been some incredible sexist appeals based on the fact that the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan) has carriage of this legislation. As we would expect in a campaign like this, and with some of the rednecks in the community, there has been an appeal to racist attitudes: `Why won't Aboriginals be required to carry an ID card-aren't they Australians too?- discrimination in reverse'. This is a repetition of, and continual reference to, the lie put forward in this debate-despite the fact that there is a specific provision in the legislation that people will not be required to carry the card-that people will have to carry the card with them at all times. I have been talking about the Australia Card, I guess, for 2 1/2 years. I raised the issue in a debate within the parliamentary section of the Australian Labor Party in April 1985 in an attempt to have the parliamentary Party look at the feasibility of having a national identification system. The debate has rolled on from that point. I have even debated such people as the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey). I debated him in Bathurst in February this year in front of a couple of hundred people. I have issued countless dozens of Press releases and answered hundreds of letters, as I am sure many of my colleagues have done. In my view, the Government's intentions have not been the sort of well kept secret that is now alleged. Until six weeks ago all the polls indicated that between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of people support the card. What has happened since that time to drastically change those figures? I happen to believe, as I am sure most people here believe, that the statistically reliable and valid opinion polls that have been conducted are fairly accurate. In my view, the popular support has changed simply because of the emergence of a very odd coalition of opposition to the Australia Card with cult-like figures, such as Peter Garrett, whipping up hysteria about the card with a disgusting collection of distortions and half-truths about the card. I am pleased to see that the honourable member for Parkes (Mr Cobb) has entered the chamber. He has had some rather interesting attitudes. I noticed that the Orange Central Western Daily newspaper of 26 August this year stated: Two Molong Central School students will lobby against Federal Government plans to introduce the Australia Card. The article pointed out: The girls prepared the petition from information supplied by Member for Parkes Mr Michael Cobb on bureaucratic procedures and legislation attached to the card. According to the newspaper, the girls said, no doubt in good faith: Most people have no idea of what the card is all about. It is our aim to educate them. We got all the information we could from Michael Cobb so when the petition was presented we wouldn't be shot down in flames by politicians. That is the same Michael Cobb, the same honourable member for Parkes, who was quoted in an article in the Dubbo Daily Liberal of 7 May 1985 under the headline `Cobb backs plan for identity cards' as saying: While some groups may reject the proposal, it must be recognised that it has merit. People should remember we already carry a driver's licence and a variety of cards for Medicare, Credit Companies, and the like. Photo identification would be just another card to carry. The honourable member for Parkes has joined his colleagues in running around the place scaring the living daylights out of people. The honourable member for Dawson (Mr Braithwaite) has said many times in this House that what we need in Australia to fight effectively all forms of abuse is a proper identification of each Australian with a number, photograph and even a fingerprint. That is what he said on 16 May when he was the shadow spokesman for social security. I put it to the House that something has happened to make those people change their minds. Also, something has happened to make people change their views in terms of the popular support for the legislation. The reason there has been a change in public attitude as measured by public opinion polls in recent days is that we are seeing a polarisation within the community based on the fact that many people in the Liberal and National parties who were once public advocates of the Australia Card are now saying that they are opposed to it and people who normally support the conservative parties are saying that, if they are opposed to it, perhaps there is something wrong with the legislation and they should fall in line with the people for whom they normally vote. It is significant that many of the Government's traditional supporters, who are incensed by what they see as the obscenity of tax and welfare abuse within the community, are very supportive of what the Government is doing in this regard. Let us consider some of the comments that have been coming in about what the legislation purports to contain and the steps that have been taken by opponents of the card to whip up paranoia and hysteria. We have been told that the card will be necessary for a whole host of purposes which are absolutely untrue. For example, I have heard stories that the card will be required to be produced when a person applies for a job, when he goes to the beach and every time he uses his bank account. Some people came to my office and said that they had heard about the Government's secret plan. When I questioned them further they said that a person will have to produce his Australia Card every time he deposits funds in or withdraws funds from a bank account. I said, `If that is the case, how will people use automatic teller machines?' and they replied, `Aha, that is the secret plan; the Government is going to outlaw automatic teller machines in the Australian community and use the Australia Card as an excuse to do so'. That is the sort of nonsense talked about in the community at present. We all know that such a campaign of disinformation is often very difficult to turn around. At this stage I congratulate the Opposition on its relative success, but I can assure it that the Government has not changed its resolve on the Australia Card in any way. I believe that, once people have been given an opportunity to hear the real facts and to understand what the Government seeks to do, public opinion will change in time. One of the more unsavoury elements of the Opposition's scare campaigns has been its campaign to scare the most vulnerable people in the community-the sick and the elderly. People have told me that a person will not be allowed into a hospital if he does not have the card with him. The legislation talks about the card number being produced as soon as practicable after the admission of a person to a hospital as an out-patient. The same thing applies essentially with admission to public hospitals under the current system, without an Australia Card. If someone turns up at a hospital for a normal admission he is usually required to produce his Medicare card number or show evidence of private insurance. Surely no one suggests that at present, if a person has a horrendous car accident, he must undergo a body search to find out whether or not he has a Medicare card on him before anything is done to remedy the situation. Yet when we have the Australia Card, the Opposition suggests that there will be some sort of body search for the Australia Card before any surgical procedures are performed. The public has been told by our opponents that central dossiers will be kept on them so that the Government will be able to keep watch over them. But only the basic identifying information such as a person's name, address, date of birth, signature, photograph and identifying documents will be recorded on the Australia Card Register. People will have ready access, on an annual basis, or at any other time, to make any alterations or to see who has accessed the Register and why. The data bases of the Department of Social Security, the Australian Taxation Office and the Health Insurance Commission will not be linked. They are barred by Government legislation from such a linkage. The honourable member for O'Connor and others have told us that hackers will move around the system and will destroy its integrity. The opponents of the card have told the people of Australia that they will no longer have any privacy. Yet, if people examined the privacy principles enshrined in the establishment of the Data Protection Agency and the accompanying privacy Bills, I am sure that most of them would dismiss that claim for what it is-one of cheap politics and an appeal to emotional rhetoric. Another interesting document that came across my desk the other day was a document circulated in the name of the New South Wales State member for Orange, Mr Garry West. It was a memorandum addressed to all members of the National Party of Australia in the Orange and Blayney sub-divisions dated 18 August 1987 and the subject was the Hawke Government's ID card. In that document, which comprised eight pages, Mr West pointed out some of the arguments that the National Party is using among its supporters to try to scare the living daylights out of the Australian population. I find it somewhat intriguing, when I read through some of the National Party's views on the Australia Card, to consider how they square with its views on privacy considerations. For example, under the heading `Under National Policy', I read: We will set up a centralised register of births, deaths and marriages to greatly assist in reducing the opportunity to create false identities. If the National Party's policy is to set up a centralised register of births, deaths and marriages, I suggest that, for a start, it talk to the Queensland Premier because I understand that he has some reservations about that. Obviously Joh is doing his own thing in that regard. More importantly, if the National Party has made the effort to suggest, as its policy, that we should set up a register of births, deaths and marriages, it must be for a specific purpose. However, we are not told in the document what the specific purpose is. The same people who are concerned about privacy considerations also indicate in the document that they: . . . will streamline administrative arrangements, in co-operation with the States, to ensure maximum co-operation between relevant authorities and the Department of Immigration, to identify illegal immigrants in Australia. We will improve co-operative arrangements between Federal and State Police forces to ensure more efficient action in the detection and apprehension of people involved in organised crime, illegal immigration and tax evasion, especially in the black economy. When I read through this document it seems that a lot of it really does not square with the opposition that the National Party of Australia has been mounting to what the Government is proposing for the Australia Card. As I said a few moments ago, I find it a case of cheap politics with rhetorical appeal. The Australia Card legislation has been debated in this Parliament on two occasions. It has been before the Senate on two occasions. It was the technical reason for the Governor-General granting this Government a double dissolution for the 11 July election. I remember reading full page newspaper advertisements on the Australia Card on the first Saturday of the election campaign. Yet the Opposition and the people around Australia who are now raising a lot of noise in opposition to the ID card were very silent during the election campaign. I do not think that it is incumbent on this Government, having raised the issue in the first instance, to continue talking about it when the Opposition did not want to talk about it during the election campaign. I find the Opposition's claim that we somehow do not have a mandate for the Australia Card pure nonsense. We certainly have a mandate. If the Opposition chose to ignore the matter in the course of the election campaign, so be it. I ask honourable members opposite not to claim that since the 11 July election somehow or other we have not got a mandate. Every honourable member knew that if this Government were returned on 11 July it would have an opportunity to have a joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Representatives to ensure that the legislation was passed. Honourable members opposite, irrespective of their comments today, cannot run away from that fact. The Senate's first rejection of the Bill delayed the implementation of the Australia Card program by at least six months. That delay has meant the loss of about $440m in revenue. Every additional six months delay will cost honest Australians $440m. The mathematics-just like the Australia Card-are very simple. I am sure that most people in the Australian community if given a chance to hear the facts during the debate will be convinced of that, as is the Government. I commend the Bill to the House. Mr COBB(Parkes)(11.28) —Once upon a time the Australian Labor Party was a fierce critic of any whiff of a suggestion of an identity card system. This was so even in wartime. When the then Minister for Defence and honourable member for Corangamite, Mr Street, introduced the National Registration Bill in May 1939 the Labor Party attacked it bitterly. That Bill was mild compared with what is proposed today. It merely proposed to use the Bureau of Census and Statistics to record on a register some basic information on the males in the population aged between 18 and 64 years. This would be done so that the Government would know what manpower resources Australia had for the war effort. It is instructive to read in Hansard this statement by the then Leader of the Opposition and later to be Prime Minister, John Curtin, about that proposal: . . . this is a land in which personal liberty is still a cherished possession, and that there are limits to the coercive authority which the State may exert upon the individual lives and liberties of the people. There is no hypocrisy about the determination of the Australian people to defend democracy. It appears to be a little absurd for us to be asking the people of this country to defend democracy in remote parts of the world, while, at the same time, we seek to sacrifice some of the fundamental principles of democracy here at home in the process. Another Australian Labor Party member, Frank Forde, who also went on to become Prime Minister, used even stronger language when he said: In those countries which Hitler and Mussolini rule with ruthlessness, such a register is likely enough, but why should it be necessary to compile one in this country? He continued: I have no doubt that the Government is tending towards fascism. Another Australian Labor Party member, Ben Chifley, who became Prime Minister in 1945, took action to abolish the identity card system when he came to power. Goodness knows what these men would say if they could see this monster of a Moscow card that the Government is trying to foist on us today. Mr Nehl —They would turn in their graves. Mr COBB —They would. They would see that in 1987 it is against the will of the people. I guess the deterioration in attitude of the Australian Labor Party to individual liberty since the time of Chifley, Curtin and Forde-a concern for liberty and privacy so eloquently expressed by Curtin back in 1939-can be shown by the regard the present Ministers have for privacy in 1987. As an example of that let me quote from a report of a speech of the Minister who originally introduced the Australia Card legislation into the House last year. Let us compare the view of the then Minister for Health, Dr Blewett, with that of John Curtin. The Minister said: Let me say, as a socialist, that it is the interests of the community that should come before the individual right . . . We shouldn't get too hung up as socialists on privacy because privacy, in many ways, is a bourgeois right that is very much associated with the right to private property. Lenin would have been proud to have written that. Mr Tim Fischer —Even Duncan is embarrassed by it. Mr COBB —I have no doubt that the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support is embarrassed by it. Many people, even some members on this side of the House, were attracted to the idea of an identity card when they first heard that the Government was to introduce it. As was the previous speaker, the honourable member for Calare (Mr Simmons), I was attracted to the idea because I thought that it might have merits. People were told that an identity card would stop welfare fraud-an appealing proposition; stop illegal immigrants taking jobs; stop tax cheating; replace the Medicare card; and cut a swathe through organised crime. I think we all approached the matter with an open mind. At that time the opinion polls were running 85 per cent in favour of the card. However, when we looked at the legislation, saw that it was not going to work and saw the draconian proposals contained in it, we soon changed our minds. We opposed the legislation from day one. I compliment the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) and the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) for taking that courageous stance at that time. The next poll showed that only 75 per cent of people were in favour. I think that the figure was down to 67 per cent at the start of the election and had dropped to 55 per cent in favour at the end of the election. It is now running between 14 and 40 per cent, according to what poll one takes. As people become aware of what is contained in the legislation they are turning against the card in droves. At present I have in my room 500 petitions to present to the Parliament. I guess that with any new legislation such as the Australia Card Bill, which contains hundreds of pages, or the Bill of Rights Bill it takes some time-perhaps six or 12 months-to sink in with the media and the general population. But when they become aware of what is involved, just as they did with the Bill of Rights Bill, they turn against it. It is to be hoped that the Government drops this Bill just as it dropped the Bill of Rights Bill. I am sure that the Minister in charge of the legislation, the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan), does not have her heart in it. One of the main reasons why we of course oppose the Bill is that it simply will not work. As far as stopping welfare fraud is concerned-a matter which attracted many of us in the first instance-we are told by the experts in the Department of Social Security that only 0.6 per cent of such fraud is due to false identity. Even if that percentage is pitched a bit lower than the actual figure, it is a very low figure. The Bill will have little impact in this area. Some 61 per cent of social welfare fraud is due to changed economic circumstances. For the Australia Card to work it would need weekly updating. The card will have some impact in the tax area. Basically the card is a tax gathering card to catch up the small operators; the large operators will go untouched. Of course, the cash economy will go untouched too. The Government freely admits that. It is the Government's intention to pick up the smaller operator in tax fraud, but there are cheaper alternatives which the Liberal and National Party Opposition would support. There have been four or five reports now on the Australian Taxation Office and the inefficiencies that exist there. Those reports have pointed out how these inefficiencies could be rectified so that tax fraud could be picked up. Of course central to that would be upgrading the integrity of the tax file number. This would have virtually the same effect and could be carried out much more cheaply, and people in Australia today who wish to remain anonymous, for whatever reason, could continue to do so. Their tax details could go straight to the Tax Office and not be swapped with any other department. Of course no photograph would be used. As far as illegal immigration goes, the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs itself could not substantiate any of the Minister's original claims, and anyhow illegal immigrants often work for cash at lower rates. The Government's other claim is that it would cut a swathe through organised crime. The one person who has fought organised crime diligently in this country, namely Frank Costigan, before the Government cut him off at the knees, opposes the card. He believes that it will be useless and perhaps even counterproductive. So much for organised crime. The card is clearly not cost effective. It will cost upwards of $1,000m of taxpayers' money to implement; it will cost business perhaps something in the vicinity of $2,000m to implement; and it will mean the employment of an extra 2,150 public servants. There are better and cheaper ways of doing it. We in the Opposition are also concerned about the dangers associated with this card, first and foremost being the computer linking of departments that contain information. One has only to look at the information that will be contained on the Australia Card Register. Already we have seen problems of information leaks in this country, examples of which have been given here. The classic example of information leaked for political purposes is that involving doctors' incomes during the dispute in New South Wales a year or so ago. I refer to the information to be listed on the Register, as referred to in just one of the eight categories in schedule 1 of the Bill: a person's Australia Card number and the documents used to establish identity; a person's name and his recognised name; date of birth, signature and sex; current residential address and postal address; any title of the person; the person's status as an Australian citizen; his eligibility or otherwise for Medicare benefits; his record of right to obtain employment; and his previous names and previous addresses. The list goes on and on. All 16 million Australians will have to turn up for an interview and have their photograph taken. Mr McVeigh —You must be talking about Russia. Mr COBB —One would think so. The logistics of that sort of thing are mind boggling. The mere fact that sick or elderly pensioners will have to turn up physically will lead to difficulties. Apart from that, this legislation turns around the attitudes we have had in this free country-and there are not too many around the world-that we are born with rights. As soon as we have landed on the doctor's table we have inherited rights, but now the Government wants to grant us the right to exist. If it does that, it does not take much logic to extend that to the Government taking rights away. If it takes one's card away there will be many things one will not be able to do. The Government says people will not have to carry the card with them. Whilst that is true, there will be many things people cannot do unless they have the card on them, including normal day to day activities such as: opening a bank account or an account with a building society or credit union; continuing to operate existing accounts after the legislation is enacted; investing with any government body, any solicitor trust account or any interest bearing deposit; and investing with any cash management or property trust. Without the card a primary producer cannot open an account with an agent or be paid by a marketing authority. One must have the card if one wants to have anything to do with rent or wants to get a job, and if any government payment comes to a person such as happens with doctors and chemists. One must have the card if one wants to buy or sell land, operate a safety deposit box, buy shares, buy or sell futures, and if one enters a hospital, collects Medicare benefits or is a pension receiver, whether it be a Department of Social Security pension or an old age pension. One must also have the card if one wants to get an Australian passport. The list goes on and on. The card has to be presented for all these things. The practical examples of how this may not work have already been listed. The honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) suggested that if someone bought some shares he may open an account with a stockbroker who would record his identity card number. The legislation says clearly that the stockbroker cannot keep it for any great length of time-that is vague enough as it is-and I suppose the number might be destroyed after 2, 3, 5 or 10 years. However, we all know that a person who buys, say, BHP shares might put them in his drawer and forget about them. Then someone rings him up many years later and says, `Look, Holmes a Court has pulled the plug. Sell your shares because they are going to collapse'. So the person rings up his broker, who says, `I am sorry, we have to sight your Australia Card number'. It will take two days to get the card number to the stockbroker or for him to get a section 36 certificate, and by that time it is too late-the price has collapsed and the person has been disadvantaged. The card is totally impractical and it is inconvenient in many ways. So we have seen how the card will not work and we have seen how the Australian population is swinging against it, but we also have many other concerns. One is the offences in the legislation. I think someone told me he counted up 55 instances in which one may be fined or gaoled, the penalties ranging from $500, if one loses the card and does not report it within 21 days, up to $100,000 for particular offences committed by business. Penalties of several years gaol may go with these fines. For example, if one defaces or alters the card there is a penalty of $5,000 or two years gaol, or both; for forging the card the penalty is $10,000 or five years gaol, or both; and if one is in possession of someone else's card without reasonable excuse-my mind boggles as to what a reasonable excuse might be-the penalty is $10,000 or five years gaol, or both. Mr Peter Fisher —It is even worse than if you forget your tax return. Mr COBB —It is. There are some individuals in this country who are let off scot-free if they forget their tax returns. Mr Nehl —In this Parliament! Mr COBB —Indeed. The maximum fine for social security cheats is $2,000, so where is the Government's heart in cleaning up fraud in this country? Even a single employer can be fined $20,000 unless he sights an employee's card. The legislation says that he is required to sight the card. To me that means that he must sight it, but the Government says that that is not necessarily so. All these sorts of legalities will be determined in the courts. The whole thing is a legal minefield. The bureaucracies being set up or expanded also trouble us. The Health Insurance Commission is to be expanded into an administrative authority. The Data Protection Agency, which is supposed to look after the privacy safeguards when the legislation is in place, has to be set up. An Australia Card Register will be set up, containing all the central information. The Data Protection Agency Advisory Committee will be appointed and the National Births, Deaths and Marriages Register will be set up, et cetera. All the people involved with these things will have titles and salaries to match. It will all cost the taxpayers a great deal of money. We can perhaps summarise this whole debate by saying that the Australia Card is at best a tax gathering card to hit the small operator. It will hardly touch welfare fraud and organised crime at all. It is definitely cost inefficient. There are better ways of going about curing the anomalies in our society that this legislation is supposed to be directed at. Above all else, it will change the very nature of our society. People will not be able to remain anonymous, as they have been. It is a part-this is what disturbs me-of the socialist agenda under which Big Brother can trace one's movement around the country. We have only to go back to the quote I read out from the Minister for Community Services and Health if we have any doubts. I appeal to honourable members in this chamber to reject this plastic policeman, to stop this gross intrusion by government into the lives of ordinary Australian citizens. If by some miracle this legislation is passed we on this side of the House pledge to repeal it immediately upon return to government. The Government should at least have the decency to call a referendum on this issue to determine the true will of the people. Mr CLEELAND(McEwen)(11.45) —I rise with great pleasure to support the Government on the Australia Card Bill 1986, having on the two previous occasions when this legislation was debated in the House supported the proposal. After listening to the speeches from the honourable members of the National Party of Australia on my right today I can see why the National Party did so poorly in the last Federal election. It took five members of the National Party collectively to put together one speech, and then the speech was purely negative and did not relate much to the Bill. It was a most useless contribution to the debate. Opposition members interjecting-- Mr CLEELAND —Mr Deputy Speaker, you see what I mean. It takes five of them even to interject. I know that National Party members are a very difficult act to follow, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I will do my best to bring some reality back into the debate. If we accepted what was just said by the Opposition we would probably burn 50 per cent of the legislation passed by this House since 1901. In reality, the legislation Opposition members object to is less draconian than the legislation which encompasses the Income Tax Assessment Act. I find it very strange that Opposition members on this side of the chamber, which I now find myself on because of the sheer numbers of Government members, really do not understand the realities of rights, liberties and freedoms. They have the weird and wonderful notion that the Australian Bill of Rights Bill, for example, would remove the freedoms of people. They opposed the Bill of Rights. They argued in this House that somehow the common law creates rights for individuals. They ignored the reality that the common law as established in medieval England was established to protect the rights of property, not the rights of individuals or human beings. Nevertheless, their view is that common law rights are the rights they wish to protect. The speeches by Opposition members today are designed not to protect the rights of individuals but to protect the rights of property, the rights of the people they represent. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will recall that Opposition members opposed the Cash Transaction Reports Bill in this House, which was designed to tackle the problem of cash moneys flowing from fraud, drugs and criminal offences back into the legitimate banking transaction system and thereby becoming legitimate. The Government put the Bill up, a very prominent and proper proposal. Who opposed it? It was the Opposition. Anything which the Government does which is designed to prevent fraud and to tackle serious social inequalities in cash and wealth movements in this country this miserable Opposition will oppose. Opposition members, in opposing such measures, mask the real reason for their concern by using words such as `freedoms', `privacy' and `liberty'. That does not hide what they are really concerned about. Who led in the debate on behalf of the Opposition? It was the great paragon of virtue, the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey), the member who is so concerned about human beings, so concerned about the rights of individuals. The mere fact that the honourable member for O'Connor leads the debate for the Opposition indicates the paucity of the Opposition's views in opposing the legislation. That speaks for itself about the lack of real concern the Opposition has. It indicates the paucity of depth of talent it has. That concerns me. The honourable member for O'Connor has his angry face on now. When the honourable member for O'Connor stands in this House to debate real concerns for individuals and for privacy-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I would ask the honourable member to resume the debate before the Chair. Mr CLEELAND —Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker. This indicates the paucity of depth and the lack of ability to debate the concerns of this Bill. This Bill does not impose on the Australian people measures of concern worse than those which exist in current legislation. The honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer) last night interjected that if he employed a baby-sitter the baby-sitter would have to produce an identity card. Mr Tuckey —Mr Deputy Speaker, the honourable member was in the chamber yesterday. It is his obligation to speak the truth if he is able even in the slightest sense. The fact is that the Minister agreed that in those circumstances the card would be presented. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for O'Connor will resume his seat. Mr CLEELAND —That indicates the paucity and lack of endeavour of the Opposition. That was a stupid point of order. The honourable member for Mayo and other members of the Opposition do not realise that if the honourable member employed a baby-sitter he would have an employee under the terms of the Income Tax Assessment Act. Under the terms of that Act the honourable member for Mayo should then register as a group employer with the Australian Taxation Office, fill in the forms, provide information about that employee or alternatively purchase a tax stamp sheet. Then he would have to require details of birth, age, address and all the other details required under the Income Tax Assessment Act to employ that baby-sitter. The failure to do that imposes the liability for draconian penalties. It means that the Australian Taxation Office, through its inspectors and its auditors, could without warrant, without a court order, enter the house of the honourable member for Mayo, search the house and seek documentation and information concerning the proper taxation which should be deducted because of the employment of the baby-sitter. That is existing Australian law under the Income Tax Assessment Act. I notice the Opposition does not object to that law. It does not object to the fact that in any employment situation all of this information, by law, is required and the failure to obtain that information imposes the liability for draconian penalties. In fact, Opposition members supported that legislation; it was during their term of government that those draconian laws were enacted. Why were they enacted? Such laws were passed by this Parliament, quite properly, to ensure the fairness and equity of the treatment of the rights of all Australians in taxation law, to ensure that those who do not wish to comply with the majority view on taxation and wish to escape the obligations imposed by the taxation Act cannot do so. I do not suppose I will find any objection from the Opposition on such a very basic principle. Why then do Opposition members complain about the Australia Card? What makes the Australia Card legislation so different from the penalty provisions of the Social Security Act and the penalty provisions of Australian taxation legislation? They reflect the same principle and are based on the same foundation and impose similar, and I would suggest lesser, penalties as existing legislation now provides. One can go to gaol under the penalty provisions of taxation law if one does not comply with the legislation. There is no gaol provision in the legislation we are currently debating. Mr Tuckey —Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. There is provision to gaol people in the legislation. Will the honourable member either evidence that he knows what he is talking about or stop telling fibs? Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I call the honourable member for McEwen. Mr CLEELAND —I will ignore the honourable member for O'Connor, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I usually do. He is regarded as a joke by most people who watch the proceedings in this chamber and I regard him as a bit of a joke. The Opposition cannot cope with the intellectual part of this debate. Opposition members cannot say to this House why they support measures such as I have mentioned in the Income Tax Assessment Act and in the social security legislation and why they object to such measures in the Australia Card legislation. As I stressed earlier, these are the very people who opposed the Cash Transaction Reports Bill. These are the very people who opposed the Australian Bill of Rights. Heavens to betsy, what sort of rhetoric did we hear from them on that subject? What sort of rhetoric indeed! We are talking about deception; we are talking about distortion; we are talking about the use of rhetoric to inflame Australian citizens who lack a depth of understanding and knowledge of the English common law system, as do many of us. We saw what members of the Opposition did in regard to that Bill, yet they sit here today and accuse the Government of deception. They have a lot to answer for in that regard. I have no objection to the concept of a plastic card containing my name, number and photograph. I have three ID cards in my wallet right now. As a member of the Law Society of Victoria who once dealt in part with criminal law matters, I require an identity card, issued by the Law Society, to enter Pentridge Prison in order to interview clients. The Law Society's computer contains my name, address, age, date of birth and other pertinent details about me. I need that card every year in order to get a current practising certificate. I have no objection to providing the information to the Law Society of Victoria under the Legal Profession Practice Act of that State. I have no objection to being required to carry an identity card which has my photograph on it in order to enter Pentridge Prison, or any other penal institution in Victoria, to interview clients; no objection whatsoever. I suppose that members of the Opposition would not object to that, or do they suggest that any person, on stating that he or she is a lawyer, could walk into a penal institution and have access to people in it? That is the option that they must discuss regarding that matter. I have a Victorian drivers licence for which I volunteered and which I wanted. In the application form I provided quite personal details which are contained in a computer file held by the Victorian Government. I was issued with a plastic card which has a number and a photograph. That is another ID card. I have no objection to that ID card. Indeed, why should I? Do members of the Opposition suggest that ID cards which are issued for the purpose of allowing people to drive motor cars are somehow wrong? Do they suggest that the information stored in the databank of the Victorian registration and licensing authority is being leaked or sold to private enterprise? The fact is that those cards have been in existence for a long time. Neither the Victorian Government nor any other State government which stores this information on individual citizens in databanks has sold it, and they will not sell it. Let us look at the information held by the Federal Government. What sort of information do honourable members opposite think the Australian Taxation Office holds on every Australian? The information it holds is far more detailed than what is held by any other Commonwealth department. Yet since 1901 what evidence has there been that the Australian Taxation Office, its officers and staff have ever breached the obligations of secrecy imposed on them? No one in this House-not least a member of the Opposition-has given detailed evidence of leaks of sensitive information from any Commonwealth department which has been to the detriment of any individual. I defy any member of the Opposition to produce in this House evidence that the Australian Taxation Office, its officers and staff have breached those secrecy requirements and have in any way, shape or form acted to the detriment of any Australian citizen because of information stored in databanks. The Department of Social Security requires a recipient of a social benefit, such as the unemployment benefit or age pension, to produce a cardboard identity card issued by that Department. No person in receipt of the unemployment benefit in this country can walk into a Social Security office and collect the unemployment benefit without the production of that ID card. Mind you, being a cardboard card, it is torn or destroyed very easily. It is quite a problem to issue them all the time. Pensioners require an ID card issued by Social Security to get their pension. They require a concession card, which is an identification card, to obtain the concessional benefits provided by the Commonwealth and State governments, such as free transportation on public transport systems. Without that card, they would not get the benefit. Do members of the Opposition object to that? No, they do not. They support such ID cards and such systems. Why, then, in all logic, do they object to a single card incorporating all of those facilities through a centralised system? The answer is very simple: Their real concern, as expressed in the debate, is the cost to their mates-the cost to business. It always comes down to the fact that the people they represent do not want to pay for it. When we debated the cash transactions legislation they did not object to the tracing of illegal cash through the financial system; their objection was based on the cost to the banking system. Their objection was based not on a proper notion of the legislation or any desire to catch crooks, but on the cost to the banks. If one listens to every member of the Opposition who will speak in this debate, their arguments will always come down to the fact that business does not want the card because it imposes an obligation on it. They are happy that people are able to use false names in the banking system. They are happy for people to cheat the system. They are always happy to allow systems which enable fraud to occur, to maintain themselves and to continue in the future. That was their history in government; it is their history in opposition, and they will stand condemned for it. The Bill, if properly read and construed, does not take away the rights of freedom or liberty of any Australian. Those rights exist for individuals and can be expressed by individuals. There is no such collective notion of rights. The rights exist only within the state. It is only through a social system such as we have experienced in the last several centuries that those rights can flourish. The rights ultimately must flow from the system. They are not individual rights; they never have been. Any such notion is a misnomer. The individuals of a society such as ours owe that right to the state. Without that there will be no society; there will be no state. I believe very firmly that that notion is the only notion with which societies can operate. Mr Downer —The principle of socialism. Mr CLEELAND —Have a look at Locke, Hume, Bentham, Smith and a few others who talked about rights and freedoms. The honour- able member should come back to the philosophical base of what this is all about. He should not talk nonsense. That is why I support this card. There is more for it than against it. On balance, it will provide a fairer, more equitable society. Those who would cheat and defraud the system will be made to pay their fair share. By doing that, it imposes an obligation. It is a two-way deal. Nothing comes cheaply in broad societies such as ours. All citizens, having regard to any new change, must bear some burden. I am prepared to bear that burden. I firmly believe that in the long term it will be beneficial for all Australians and will present a better and fairer society. I support the Bill. Mr CADMAN(Mitchell)(12.03) —The speech by the honourable member for McEwen (Mr Cleeland) was a perfect example of the attitudes of the Australian Labor Party. Last night we saw presented in this House a Budget which claims to be one of fairness and equity. In fact, the people who will pay for the Australian Government's mismanagement of the economy and pick up the deficit will be the families and small businesses of Australia. The Government is getting into their pockets to balance its Budget. In this case it is also attacking those who are honest and fair-minded in the community by asking them to tackle a job that it is not prepared to tackle in proper ways with proper and acceptable techniques of government administration. I believe that the special ID card which will be issued to visitors who stay in Australia for more than six weeks is both unworkable and dangerous. That is the Government's proposal. Visitors who come to Australia and stay for more than six weeks will be issued with an ID card. Sure, it will be different from the ones that the rest of us carry. But let us examine the number of those cards that will be issued over 10 years. Approximately four million cards will be issued to visitors over a period of 10 years. Those four million cards will be used, I imagine, in the Australian community as some sort of internal passport. But when those visitors leave Australia nobody will collect the cards. So over that period of 10 years Australian ID cards in every country will be exposed to every forger and every person who wants to abuse our system and who can lay his hands on the Australian ID card from a friend who was a visitor to Australia. The Government claims that part of the purpose for introducing the ID card is to reduce the number of jobs that are taken from Australians by illegal immigrants. Let us examine that claim for a moment. There is no need for any applicant for any job to produce a card. A person can say that he has lost the card, that he has left it at home, that he cannot find it for the moment, or that he had overlooked the requirement to get one. The employer is then required to establish that he has asked for the card and he has to inform the central authority of the fact that he asked for the card and it was not available. The employer may face a fine for not gaining access to a card but not the potential employee or the illegal immigrant. There is no penalty against them when they go for a job. I bring to the attention of the House two instances over the last 18 months of apprehended illegal immigrants, one in the Dubbo district and one in the Shepparton district. Farmers were facing seasonal pressure to complete their harvests-in one case asparagus and in the other apples. There are many instances of seasonal pressures for work. They occur in industries that are basically affected by the weather, they can occur in the building industry, in the transport industry and in primary industries. In Dubbo and Shepparton seasonal pressures occurred with the crops that the farmers were harvesting. In one instance the employer had a permanent application for that part of the year with his local Commonwealth Employment Service for any staff that he could gather. A group of individuals turned up at his front gate. Those people presented themselves as having been referred by the local CES office. He employed them. It turned out that those people, who were referred by a government department to an employer, were illegal immigrants. How will the ID card do anything about that? There is no obligation for those seeking employment to produce the card. The employer takes as bona fide the telephone call from the manager of the local CES office and he takes as bona fide the fact that those people have a right to work in Australia. How much responsibility will this Government place on individuals that it is not prepared to accept itself and which its employees are not prepared to accept? That is part of the problem. Whether we are dealing with people in the Department of Social Security, the Department of Community Services and Health, the Commonwealth Employment Service, or the Department of Immigration, they are not prepared to accept the responsibility to implement the procedures of their Acts as they are required to do. Because of their failure and the Government's failure to direct them to devise laws and regulations to solve those problems the Government has come forward with an ID card-a brilliant Sir Humphrey solution; a great big plastic card that will necessitate the employment of thousands of public servants who could be better employed implementing the Acts as they currently stand in Australia. In the Shepparton case where illegal immigrants were employed, I do not believe they were directed by the local CES office but there was a raid some time later and they were apparently picked up by the Victorian police under the direction of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. That problem could not have been solved by an ID card. There are two elements to which the Government has not given attention: firstly, the desperation of somebody seeking labour; and, secondly, that there is no need for a person supplying labour to present a card to show that he can legitimately work in Australia. There are two basic failures in this system that the Government will not overcome. Let me make a prediction. If the Government should proceed and not withdraw this legislation those cases will continue. The Government will drive the whole process underground. The Australian economy will become a black economy. Commentators, legal advisers, privacy committees and employers have all told the Government that it will create a black economy and that it will not be able to tag the people it is seeking to tag, certainly in the area of illegal immigration. The whole process will be driven underground. For the benefit of honourable members and those in the gallery I will quote what was said by the New South Wales Privacy Committee in regard to illegal immigrants. It stated: The Australia Card system can have little direct impact on this area of illegal immigration, and indeed, the black economy generally. Its most significant effect may be to force the illegal immigrant who participates to some extent in normal community life, into an existence entirely in the `black economy'. Surely this would be an unintended, and undesirable, consequence of the Australia Card. This was said by members of the New South Wales Privacy Committee-the Government's own guys in the New South Wales Parliament who were looking at the ID card. They have examined it. No wonder Barrie Unsworth is opposed to it. The New South Wales Government has done its homework; this Government has not. This Government got on a high kick of going after the pinstripe criminal but it has not thought the thing through. It has not thought about the normal battlers and the normal person seeking to harvest a crop. It has not thought about the way in which illegal immigrants will look at the situation on arrival in Australia and how they will seek to use the system to suit themselves. But the New South Wales Government has. With a forthcoming election it is no wonder that the Premier of that State is so absolutely opposed to what this Government is doing. I made some remarks about the desirability of the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) checking to see whether a person is an illegal immigrant. That provision is not in this legislation. I would have thought that it would be a simple matter to ask people to produce their passports. That would clearly show whether a person was here legally. If anybody opposite says that a passport is not good enough evidence let me tell him that a passport will be used to create the ID card that visitors will have. Passport information will be the information on that card. The Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) can shake his head but photographs will not be taken as people come through the front gate; the photographs will be taken away from the airport some time after they have entered Australia. If the Minister does not think there are risks in that even he is more simplistic in his ideological commitment to this issue than I would have dreamed. The mind boggles when we realise that the ID card that visitors to Australia will have will not be based on the information in their passports. What other documentation will the Government use? Will it use an arabic birth certificate? They are not produced too frequently in Lebanon and people do not travel with them in their pockets either. What will the Government use as evidence to establish that a person coming through the front gate is who he says he is? Dr Blewett —Nor with a passport. Mr CADMAN —Nor with a passport, I admit that. So why the ID card? The Minister has proved the falsity of his own argument by that interjection. He has proved that there is no advantage in the control of illegal immigration by government departments by the use of temporary ID cards for visitors to Australia. Of course, the Government has said that if people get through the network of social security, the CES and all the rest, the Australian Taxation Office will pick up these illegal immigrants when their employers submit their tax returns, or some time later when they are required to submit tax returns. Of course, we depend on them maintaining the same name and acting consistently as law-abiding citizens once they have arrived here illegally. We can make that assumption because that is the assumption on which the Government has based the ID card. I have already outlined the fact that cash will be paid. No records will be kept by employee or employer in these circumstances. They do not want that. One wants the money and the other wants the job done and that is the way they will work. People will get together to solve that problem and they will forget the ID card. It will be the least of their worries. Cash will be paid and there will be no returns to the Tax Office. Suppose there is a return to the Tax Office. Let us look at the Tax Office and the way in which it handles things. I bring to the attention of the House the prescribed payments tax which is a similar situation whereby employers, their subcontractors or employees are required to submit separate returns to the Tax Office just to check that there is no cheating in the subcontracting system around Australia. This applies mainly to the building and transport industries. It is a similar system of reconciliation of records. That is the point I am making. That is what we are hoping for with the ID system. We are hoping that there will be a reconciliation of facts that have been kept on the central computer and the facts coming in. The prescribed payments tax is only a small proportion of the whole tax gathering exercise of this Government, but it is a valid comparison. I refer to the Auditor-General's report of September last year. He looked at the processes used by the Tax Office to match up all the records coming in from contractors and subcontractors so that the Tax Office will know who is cheating and whether the boss, employer or subcontractor is telling the truth. There are pages of criticism but this, in part, is what the Auditor-General, an officer appointed and reporting to this Parliament, said: The large number of reductions of and exemption from the standard deduction rate is significant because there is no comprehensive system to check that the payees who are granted these entitlements disclose as income the payments they received. If the PPS is to continue to be limited to deduction of tax at source, the ATP should seek to limit the reductions in the standard deduction rate and exemptions from deduction. He goes on to argue the processes of slackness within the system of the Tax Office where these reports have not been matched up. The Australian Tax Office does not know what deductions have been claimed; it does not know the right levels being claimed by subcontractors; it is really lost in this whole area. The administrative cost of the prescribed payments tax system is much greater than the tax collected. Honourable members would not believe it. The little bit saved is much less than what it costs to collect that money. The Australian Tax Office, in a small part of its administration, is flawed in the reconciliation process. Can anybody honestly tell me that this massive system employing thousands of people will be any better once the information starts to flow? Will the Tax Office be able to reconcile it? Of course it will not. It will be stacked away in warehouses and it will rot and mould. This Government will have its system in place, but then it will not be satisfied and will want to improve that process. Nothing is more certain. I just want to raise briefly the exit and entry process for illegal immigrants because it has nothing to do with the ID card. It needs to be said that the control of entry and exit into and out of Australia by people visiting this country is a matter for the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. It is up to the Department to keep its record straight so that we know who is in Australia. Currently there is about a two-month delay in getting the computers punched up in order to find out whether people have actually left Australia. So we do not know who is here. We have about 50,000 illegal immigrants, as governments have said for a long time, and that is increasing by about 16,000 each year. But nobody really knows because nobody has kept these records about who has come in and who has left. Those are the circumstances we find ourselves in today. If we want to know who is here or whether they should be here, we just need to fix up the records at the point of entry and exit. It has nothing to do with the ID card. The real fear about illegal immigration into Australia goes back to our front gate where people come in and leave. The matching of those records is the critical factor in the illegal immigration process. I want to refer briefly to some of the other major problems that I believe make the card unworkable in the control of illegal immigrants. What about the time delays for these cards that will be issued to temporary residents or visitors? Will they get them promptly in the six-week period, or will there be a delay? What happens if a person wants to extend his three-month visitors visa? I guess he will go along and get another card. That will be really easy. There will be a fair queue for that. Maybe that can be handled. What if a person wanted to stay in Australia and decided to go through the change of status process which is an interminable process under this Government taking up to 18 months? It can be consistently extended by the appeal processes that are available in the system. Does a person have to get a fresh card every time there is an extension? What about the court cases? Does the Government make a judgment on when the court cases that these people undertake will conclude? What is the expiry date on these cards? That is what we are talking about. There should be an expiry date and there is an expiry date, but nobody will be able to tell when it will be under this system. This is where I believe there is a real danger because there is no compulsory requirement to hand in the card. It can be forged. A person going out through the front gate after staying nine weeks in Australia can pass it on to his mate who has a similar appearance. He will come into Australia with a card and will not have to produce his passport anywhere, he just produces his mate's card. He can do what he likes. He becomes legitimate in the system. He can wander around and present himself as a visitor and do whatever he likes, but he is not who he says he is. I believe the exposure for nefarious activity is very great indeed. If I wanted to work the system this is the way I would work it: I would set up a group of people doing exactly that, not the first one through the gate, but the second or third one through the gate using the same card. That is what can be done. This card could be used for the six months less six weeks period that it is open for usage. As I have said, hundreds of thousands of cards will be spread around the world. I come to the final point in illegal immigration, because this does concern me. The Government says that illegal immigrants will be controlled by this card. The fact is that the inspectorate process and the actual apprehension of illegal immigrants is 12 months behind notification. The Government is running 12 months behind in catching the people it knows of. How will the card help? What will it do to assist in gathering illegal immigrants? Nothing! We will have heaps of mouldering information, but it will not produce the results. Apart from that-here is the classic of the lot-the officers of the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs can ask somebody to produce his card but because they are prescribed persons they will face a fine of $5,000. The Government is crazy in what it is doing in Australia today. Why does it not scrap the card? There are enough members of the Government with conscience and understanding of what they are doing to persuade the Government to gently fade away from this card. There is no need to take it to the barricades. This is the pride of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). That is all honourable members are supporting in this House today. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Rocher) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr BEDDALL(Rankin)(12.23) —It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in this debate. I have been a firm advocate of the Australia Card ever since it was first mentioned at the National Taxation Summit. I feel the Australia Card is important in bringing about fairness and equity in our taxation system. It is an issue that I feel should be explained in very simple terms. A large amount of misinformation is now being spread about the Australia Card. I think it is time we went back to basics. What is really contained on the Australia Card? What is contained on the central data base? We are led to believe by the opponents of the card that large amounts of information are contained there that can be accessed by all sorts of different people. In reality, on the central data base will be the name of the person, his date of birth, his sex, his address-residential and postal-and a digitised photograph. That is all that is contained on the central data base of the Australia Card. There is nothing else. There are no secret agendas, as was pointed out yesterday. What the opponents of the Australia Card would like us to believe is that there is a secret, hidden agenda to this card. There is not. This card is about fairness, equity and in bringing about a taxation system and a social security system that the Australian people can have faith in. As we pay tax there is a compulsion on those people to help support the less needy. There is a willingness to pay the tax if they are conscious that the less needy are receiving the benefits and that people are not ripping off the system. We have seen, through the measures taken by the Government over the past two years, a great deal of social security fraud caught and eliminated, but there is much more with which the Australia Card will deal. I have no fear about the Australia Card and I have supported it since its inception. I am sure that when the Bill is presented-we may have to do it through a joint sitting-it will receive overwhelming support. The Australia Card brings emotional responses from different people. Those opposing it are, as the Prime Minister said, a strange collection of people. It is important in this debate to make people understand that fears are being raised for political motives. The Opposition, and the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, have been calling for a referendum. As was also said yesterday, we had an election on 11 July, and in that election the Government was returned with an increased majority. In my seat of Rankin, my majority went from 0.7 per cent to nearly 5 per cent. I campaigned heavily on the Australia Card, which was the central theme of my re-election campaign. I fail to see how people can now say that the Australia Card was not an integral part of the election. Mr Martin —What happened to your majority? Mr BEDDALL —It went up by 400 per cent. The Australia Card was the basis of the double dissolution. The Government went to the Governor-General because the Senate had rejected the card twice. We won that election with an historic third Labor victory and with an increased majority, so much so that we have had to push over to the Opposition side of the chamber and take some of the places vacated by former Opposition members who opposed the Australia Card. In particular, I am thinking of the former member for Fisher who was opposed to the card. The other thing that people say about the Australia Card is that there will be a lot of access to the information on it, and privacy will be invaded. The privacy provisions in the accompanying legislation provide for a secure data base with heavy penalties for those who may access illegally. Only three institutions have access to the central data base: the Australian Taxation Office, the Health Insurance Commission and the Department of Social Security. No other government instrumentality or agency has access to the very limited information on the central data base. There is no cross-linking of information between the departments. There is no composite file. All these suggestions of a huge data base on every Australian are just so much baloney. Opposition members should try to bring some integrity to this debate. They should try not to confuse the Australian public which is easy to scare. So far the debate on this issue has not been informed. I have listened to Opposition speeches and I am sad to say that the standard of debate is probably deteriorating. The previous speaker, the honourable member for Mitchell (Mr Cadman), talked about illegal immigrants, and at one stage called them normal battlers. I do not see illegal immigrants as normal battlers. What they are doing is taking jobs off normal battlers. Mr Cadman —On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: the honourable member has taken me completely out of context. I did not call illegal immigrants battlers. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Rocher) — Order! There is no point of order. Mr BEDDALL —Perhaps because the honourable member for Mitchell had to pad out 20 minutes, he did not realise what he said; but he did and I picked it up. Mr Cadman —We shall see. Hansard will prove the point. Mr BEDDALL —That is after you change it. Mr Cadman —I object to that. You withdraw that remark. Mr Deputy Speaker, I require the honourable member to withdraw that remark. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I ask the honourable member for Rankin to withdraw that remark. Mr BEDDALL —I withdraw. As the debate continues, it becomes worse and worse. The Opposition does not realise the significance to the revenue base of the introduction of the Australia Card. Perhaps it does. I am not one of those who have said that the Opposition is protecting the tax cheats and the dole bludgers. I think that the calibre of the Opposition is so poor that it could not protect anybody, even those reprehensible people whom the card will pick up. However, other and fundamental issues are involved. Over time, the Australia Card will bring to the Government over $4 billion revenue. That money can be spent on providing a more equitable and fair Australia and providing the services and infrastructure that are needed by Australian society. Why should such an innocuous piece of plastic, as this will be, raise so much ire, anger and frustration in various sectors of the Australian community? Many of those who are opposing the Australia Card have opposed every reform and innovation by Government. They are the people who chase causes, if not on one issue then on another. Later this month, I shall be addressing in my electorate a rally opposed to the Australia Card. At that rally will be the same 600 people whom I addressed when they opposed the fringe benefits tax-the names change, but the committees do not. We have to try to get this debate on an even keel. As I have said, the debate has shown that we are prey to all the phobias and fears that can be manifested in the Australian community. The Queensland Premier referred to the Australia Card as a plastic tattoo, but he and his Government were the first to introduce identity cards-one for 18-year-olds so that they could go into hotels. They were not as generous as the Australian Government-young Queenslanders had to pay $5 for the card and they queued up for it. Now, the Queensland Government is opposed to the Australia Card. In Queensland, as in other States such as Victoria, the drivers licence contains more information than the Australia Card will, and it is all recorded on computer. Recently, I took my wife to get her new driver's licence and they accessed the computer to do so. I do not think that is anywhere near as secure as the Australia Card computer system will be. There is no privacy provision in the Queensland legislation of which I am aware. So why the phobia? It is because the Opposition has realised, particularly after last night's Budget, that it has nowhere to go. It is looking desperately for a cause and it figures that, because public opinion has been confused on the Australia Card, it can perhaps boost its public support, albeit on a temporary basis. Fundamentally, the only reason why the Opposition does not support the Australia Card is it needs to oppose. That is a sad reflection, because many Opposition members, including the honourable member for Dawson (Mr Braithwaite), had previously supported an Australia Card, and a more detailed and comprehensive one than we are introducing. I am sure that this sudden change of heart is only a reflection of the need to oppose. One of the other provisions about which I would like to talk is the preconception in the community that the Australia Card can be some sort of internal passport. It will be no such thing. It will be used on a limited and selected number of occasions. It cannot be demanded by unauthorised persons. I stress that it is not an internal passport. There is no requirement to carry it, and it must be produced only on a limited number of occasions. For the record, I shall inform the House of those occasions. They are: when opening a new bank account; buying or selling real estate; sending funds overseas; investing in shares and futures; receiving rental income; commencing new employment; receiving payments from marketing authorities or produce agents; and applying for Commonwealth benefits including Medicare and social security. What is more, it has to be produced only on first contact. If people are buying shares, they produce the Australia Card for the broker when they first make contact. If people are opening a bank account, they produce the Australia Card when they first open the account. I worked for a bank for 12 years. I wish that in those 12 years we had had a secure form of identification because, like anybody who worked in the banking system, I saw the large cash accounts that were opened in false names. I saw the money coming in and flowing out, but the people involved could not be identified sufficiently. Many such accounts were opened, no doubt, by people involved in illegal operations such as drug pushers or, in particular, SP bookmakers. One bookmaker was a client at a branch where I worked. He was prosecuted, but only after many years of illegal operations. The Australia Card will be a great boon to the banking system because it will enable the bank to legitimately identify its client base. In this society it is necessary for that to take place. The Australia Card is a high integrity identification card, which means that we will have probably one of the most secure and reasonably fair identification systems anywhere in the world. It has a limited amount of information on it. I have no personal objection to it. When I talk to people about the Australia Card I find that very few of them have a legitimate objection to it. Many people have concerns that have been raised by the misinformation put out by the Opposition and groups opposed to the Australia Card. When this is explained to people, particularly what is contained on the database, their fears are alleviated. I stress again: the information contained on the database is very limited. It contains very insignificant information compared with what is compiled on every Australian by a whole range of institutions. Everyone who has worked in the financial system knows that before approving financial transactions a mercantile agency is approached to find out a person's credit history. Mercantile agencies, which provide that data only on a fee for service basis, certainly provide a lot more information than would ever be contained on the Australia Card. Those mercantile agencies, as I said, are available to anybody who is a subscriber. With this legislation, the individual is protected by the privacy provisions in the accompanying legislation. Those provisions contain severe penalties for anybody who transgresses or abuses his position within the Australian Public Service. I am sure it is a comfort to many people that this Government has pushed very hard to have those privacy provisions enshrined in the legislation accompanying the Australia Card Bill. I hope in vain that after this legislation passes this House it will pass through the Senate. For only the second time in Australia's history, later this year or early next year, we will have an historic joint sitting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. I am confident that at that stage the Australia Card Bill will be enacted. Once that has taken place, the overwhelming number of Australians will become supportive of the Australia Card. I commend the legislation to the House. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! It being approximately 12.45 p.m., the debate is interrupted in accordance with sessional order 101a. The resumption of the debate may be made an order of the day for a later hour this day. Sitting suspended from 12.39 to 2 p.m. Mr HAWKE(Wills-Prime Minister) —I inform the House that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr Hayden, left today on overseas duty in the United States and Europe. He will return on 17 October. In his absence, the Minister for Transport and Communications, Senator Gareth Evans, will be Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade until Mr Duffy's return on 29 September. The Deputy Prime Minister and Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) will represent Senator Evans as Acting Minister in the House. Mr PEACOCK —I refer the Treasurer to the annual report of the Reserve Bank of Australia which states that the average price at which the bank's portfolio of foreign reserves was acquired is close to the current average market price and that any transaction at current exchange rates would therefore accrue little or no profits. I ask: Does this mean that the record $2.7 billion revenue from the Reserve Bank's profits expected in this year's Budget is not sustainable and will fall significantly in 1988-89? Mr KEATING —The facts behind the question are broadly correct, but let me say this about that which has been said about the Reserve Bank's profits: a lot of bunkum has been spoken about the Reserve Bank's contribution to the Budget. We have always taken the profits from the Reserve Bank to the recurrent Budget. Every other central bank in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development relates to its own national Budget. Unlike the days of the coalition Government, we pay the full market rate of interest on the Commonwealth Government securities which the bank holds on the Commonwealth's account. So there is an outlays transaction for that public debt interest, which we pay at the full going rate-not the 2 or 3 per cent which was the concessional rate paid in the days of the former Government-and that lifts the profitability of the bank. That reflects in the dividend which the bank then pays the Budget. It is an entirely sensible transaction. The second point I make is that if the Reserve Bank sells American dollars, Japanese yen or pounds sterling and realises a greater stock of Australian dollars due to parity of our currency with those currencies, it produces a profit which is akin to selling any other Commonwealth asset. Mr Blunt —It is below the line profit. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member will cease interjecting. Mr KEATING —If we sell an asset which is part of the Reserve Bank's gold reserve or currencies, the profit accrues to the Budget. The honourable member for Kooyong asked whether that will diminish if we do not support the rate in the way we did over the previous financial year. The answer to that is yes, of course it will. However, what will be sitting in its place in the starting point deficit is the improved outlays position of the recurrent Budget. That is why, if one looks at the outlays to gross domestic product ratio for next year and the discretionary savings from the recurrent changes this year, one sees that they will be greater next year than they are this year; in other words, they are ongoing. If the implication of the question is that we will have some sort of a hole which we will not be able to fill, I merely say that we have heard all this before. It has always been wrong and it is wrong again. Madam SPEAKER —I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon a parliamentary delegation from Zimbabwe led by the Hon. Didymus Mutasa, MP, Speaker of the House of Assembly. On behalf of the House I extend a very warm welcome to the members of the delegation. Honourable members-Hear, hear! Ms McHUGH —I ask the Minister for Social Security whether he has seen a report in today's Melbourne Herald claiming that the family package `appears to fall short of the boast that more than one million children will benefit'? Exactly who will benefit from the family package and how will the package contribute to the Government's overall strategy to help families? Mr HOWE —I thank the honourable member for her question. The Melbourne Herald has claimed today that the Government may be tilting at the truth by including potential beneficiaries of the child support scheme in terms of its estimates of the number of children who will benefit from the package. That is wrong. The additional assistance which sole parent families will undoubtedly receive as a result of the introduction of the child support scheme has not been included in the estimates in terms of the family package. In December, the family package will immediately benefit around 440,000 children in low income working families. In addition, 740,000 children-children of pensioners and beneficiaries currently in the social security system; the children of the unemployed, the sick and sole parents-will benefit. Around one million children will benefit by Christmas this year. Families on less than $300 a week will receive $22 a week for children under the age of 13 years-$17 for the children of pensioners and beneficiaries-and $28 a week for young people aged between 13 and 15 years. To clarify the point, that is an addition of $11 a week for pensioner and beneficiary families. Unlike the Opposition's policy, the payments are based on payments per child, so we are talking about $22 a week tax-free per child for low income families. Apart from the family allowance supplement, we should note that disabled children are also major beneficiaries of the family package. From November, the new child disability allowance of $112 a month will replace the handicapped child allowance of $92 a month and it will be paid without income test. It will increase payments in November to 32,000 children and up to another 10,000 children who missed out in the past, because of a distinction between severely and substantially disabled, may benefit from the family package now that that distinction has been dropped. I think that honourable members would agree, in terms of the pleas that have been made equally by honourable members on both sides of the House that income support ought to be directed towards the most needy members of the community, that there can be no criticism of this package. Indeed, it was suggested to me yesterday by a member of my Department that up to 60 per cent of all family income support paid by this Government will be directed towards the lowest quartile, the lowest 25 per cent, of the Australian population. It is undoubtedly the case that the family package is the start of a new deal for the neediest families in our community. I think that all honourable members would recognise that over the last decade this country has gone through a time of considerable stress and economic difficulty. Even in those times of stress and economic difficulty it behoves a society which believes in citizenship and fundamental principles of fairness to make resources available for the most needy families in that community. At the centre of the Budget the promise has been launched of a decisive economic recovery to benefit Australian families across the board. No one on this side of the House, least of all the Treasurer, has ever suggested to Parliament that recovery from our economic difficulties will be easy. I think it would be agreed that in terms of that Budget we are moving along the way. Within an hour of the Budget statement the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd had dropped its interest rates to 14.5 per cent. Other banks should follow. Mr Tuckey —Madam Speaker, on a point of relevance: the Minister started off by giving the House some helpful information but he is now giving us a repeat of the Budget Speech. It is intruding on Question Time. I ask that he be asked to bring his answer to a close. Madam SPEAKER —Order! I call the Minister. Mr HOWE —I was going on to explain how the family allowance package related to broader elements of the Government's strategy. Indeed, if the honourable member had noted the comments of Simon Crean last night he might have seen the significance of this package in terms of the Government's policy of achieving wage restraint which so often has been drawn attention to by honourable members opposite. What the Government is about is economic recovery. However, it is about economic recovery in a way which treats people, particularly people on lower incomes, very fairly. I believe that the package, particularly in terms of the very significant increases in incomes which it provides, not only will attack child poverty-it provides a very strong base in that direction-but also is very significant in terms of the Government's overall approach to the management of this economy in light of its commitment to social justice. Mr PEACOCK —My question is addressed to the Treasurer. I refer him to the Government's Budget forecast of real gross domestic product (GDP) growth and employment growth and the indication that productivity is hardly expected to increase in 1987-88. Of course, that follows a fall in 1986-87. How does the Treasurer reconcile this poor productivity performance with wage increases awarded on the basis of productivity improvements under the second tier wage system? Mr KEATING —It is not a novel deduction to realise that relatively strong growth in employment implies a utilisation of labour in the system which, on a purely mechanical analysis, tends to diminish productivity. However, I would take some convincing that because we have had stronger employment growth in this country in the last year we have actually had people doing less than they were doing the year before in terms of individual effort. Of course, what we are seeing are compositional difficulties in regard to the apportionment of productivity in the economy between the services and public sectors of the economy. These are difficult to measure. The honourable member's question implies that what we want is higher GDP growth without higher employment growth so that we can have notionally better and periodic increases in productivity. I am sure that these are all novel notions for honourable members on the Opposition front bench, probably few of whom could spell productivity. The fact of the matter is that one has to take a long run view of both the employment of capital-the relative attractiveness of the employment of labour versus capital; the substitution effect of capital-and those adjustments in respect of productivity. What we are seeing over time is the development of a much more productive culture. As with the second tier arrangement, we are now starting to unwind many of those restrictive work practices which will lead to an improved productivity performance. The economy can only benefit from such a performance. Mr GRIFFITHS —I ask the Treasurer: Can he inform the House of the policies of the Government since 1983 which have contributed to a balanced Budget for 1987? Mr Chynoweth —Nearly balanced. Mr GRIFFITHS —Well, there is only $27m in it and Peter McGauran could fix that up on his Bankcard. Mr KEATING —This Government inherited the largest fiscal imbalance in the nation's history and has had to apply itself rigorously since 1983 with reviews of outlays and discretionary decision making in order to reduce the size of the Commonwealth Budget deficit. This was so particularly in 1983 and 1984, and more intensively in 1986 and for the May statement and Budget of 1987. The result is that the fall in outlays in this Budget of minus 2.4 per cent is the largest fall in the 35 years for which data has been kept. As I said last night, this Budget relies principally on cuts to outlays for the great fall in the burden of the deficit. Mr Beale —What about the 8.5 per cent increase in revenue? Mr KEATING —I observe only that that is down from 12.5 per cent last year and just running over the inflation rate. The reason that is so is the base-broadening measures which honourable members opposite opposed. I refer to fringe benefits, capital gains, substantiation and all of the other measures-the equitable measures-which they stand against. That 8.5 per cent, that jot over the inflation rate, is there simply because the system is more decent and more fair; not because we are pulling more tax from the average taxpayers. The Opposition fails to remember that the Government has given $4.5 billion of tax cuts in the last 12 months. Those $4.5 billion in tax cuts mean that pay as you earn tax receipts are moving at about 6 1/2 per cent less than the inflation rate. That is as a result of the tax reform of this Government. We have brought the deficit down from the $10,000m which we inherited from our predecessors to zero. Opposition members interjecting- Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for Mackellar will withdraw that comment. Mr Carlton —Which comment, Madam Speaker? Madam SPEAKER —Order! The comment you made before the second one. The honourable member knows the comment I mean. I ask him to withdraw. Mr Carlton —Madam Speaker, I said, `That is rubbish'. I said nothing else. Madam SPEAKER —Order! In that case I apologise to the honourable member for Mackellar. I cannot identify where the comment came from but I ask the honourable member concerned not to say it again. I will listen for it next time and I will identify the honourable member. I call the Treasurer. Mr KEATING —Madam Speaker, the word `liar' does not faze me. My Opposition colleagues always attack the Prime Minister and me, and anyone else who refers to the $10,000m inheritance. In the election campaign I referred to the document which was prepared by the Treasury in 1983 for both the Liberal and National parties and, in that case, what was intended to be an incoming coalition government. I would be quite happy to table that document. The document is headed `Secret: Current Fiscal Situation and Outlook (L-NP Version)'. It stated: When the estimated cost in 1983-84 of the new policy proposal announced in the policy speech is added, the prospect is for a Budget deficit of almost $10,000m. Such a deficit would be equivalent to 5 1/2 per cent of projected GDP-the highest in Australian post-war history. Mr Hawke —Who wrote it? Mr KEATING —The Treasury. The document continued: The magnitude of the fiscal imbalance is unprecedented in Australia during peacetime, as is the level of Government spending. It continues-I ask honourable members opposite to listen to this: When Government expenditure increases are of the `structural' variety, there is no automatic mechanism for such a winding back. Moreover, the experience of the past decade (both in Australia and many overseas countries) is that Governments have found the decisions necessary to significantly reduce aggregate public sector spending to be extremely difficult. Mr Sinclair —You had better produce the letter that they would have given us if we had won government this time. It would be more relevant. Mr KEATING —The one the Treasury would have had for honourable members opposite this time would have been a lalapalooza. It would have been a corker because it would have torn the Opposition tax policy to shreds. Such a letter was presented to the Prime Minister and me in 1983. An equivalent letter was written for the Australian Labor Party. This document refers to the massive runaway in fiscal policy over 1982-83 and the projected Budget deficit of almost $10 billion; it is signed off by the Treasury dated 28 February 1983. Of course that would have had a covering letter from the now shadow Finance Minister. So we know what the situation would have been had the coalition won that election. So do not hee haw about the $10,000m; that is what the previous Government left us and we had to get it down. I table the document. Mr LLOYD —The Minister for Primary Industries and Energy will be aware that Statement No. 2 in Budget Paper No. 1 forecast that farm output will fall by at least one per cent in real terms this financial year and by an even greater amount if the inflation rate is higher than the projected general inflation rate of 7 per cent. How can the Minister justify his glowing comments about the prospects for agriculture when the Government's own economic advisers are forecasting a contraction in rural production? Mr KERIN —Most of the explanation for the decline in farm output centres on the fact that we have sold off the wool stockpile and on the fact that the wheat crop will not be as big as it could be as plantings are down. Farmers are planting more oats, barley and lupins because the livestock industries are doing very well. The assumption made on production estimates with respect to the livestock industries is that basically we can maintain our sales while the cattle herd is rebuilding. There is also some evidence of that in the sheep flock. Basically the corner has been turned by Australia's primary industries in regard to income and terms of trade. Particularly after this Budget, with inflation levels and interest rates coming down, the farm sector faces a far better situation due to the Government's superior economic management. Mr CHARLES —Has the Minister for Defence seen a statement today from the Opposition spokesman on defence, the honourable member for McPherson, that the Defence White Paper has been derailed? Can the Minister assure the House that the White Paper is on target and that the essential re-equipment of the Defence Force, improvements to defence housing and other conditions of service have been properly allowed for in this year's Budget? Mr BEAZLEY —I thank the honourable member for his question. Yes, I have seen a statement from the Opposition's rotating non-Cabinet shadow Minister for Defence, and I suspect the first thing he needs to do to assist the defence function is get himself into the shadow Cabinet. It is quite unprecedented for any Opposition party to treat this important section of government responsibility in such a cavalier fashion. No doubt that is a situation that at some time will be corrected. Mr Carlton —Where was Scholes? Mr BEAZLEY —He happened to be in the Cabinet. The second point I make is that if we address the honourable member's Press release we might get some sort of clue as to why this should be the case. The Opposition has been operating in here since the election essentially on a 24-hour memory. The first thing to point out to Opposition members in this regard is that the cuts in defence expenditure are in this Budget as they were announced in the May economic statement. The Opposition endorsed what was said in the May statement, and when questioned specifically about the defence area it said it would not increase defence expenditure. The Opposition ran into the election campaign on that policy, and indeed half the National Party ran in the election campaign on the basis that a further $75m would be cut out of defence expenditure. Mr Sinclair —The National Party did not. Mr BEAZLEY —That was the Bjelke-Petersen end of the National Party, I will admit; it was not the Sinclair end. Nevertheless, the point was made. We will no doubt learn more about the Opposition's policy when it makes its reply to the Budget tomorrow. If it maintains the position that it took in relation to the May statement, clearly it will propose nothing else. The Opposition said a bit more than that in its defence policy statement during the course of the election campaign. Much in the Opposition spokesman's Press release concerns equipment. The fact of the matter is that, within the parameters that the Opposition laid down, it was suggested by its spokesman that more should come off equipment and go on to the personnel side of the defence budget. He complains in his statement: There is no commitment to three of the most important programs so necessary to Australia's defence-the upgrading of the F111s capability . . . the conversion of the 707 aircraft to an aerial refuelling role and the acquisition of airborne early warning radar. One wonders exactly how the Opposition spokesman would have intended to achieve these things. A couple of hundred million dollars coming off the equipment vote to go on to the other side of the ledger repeated over a five-year program comes to $1 billion off the equipment vote. One wonders how the honourable member intends to include that new capital equipment within the framework of a defence budget that this Opposition would bring down. Of course it would be completely impossible. The Defence White Paper happens to set out a 10-year program. All those elements are in the 10-year program of the Defence White Paper, and we are into year one. So if they do not appear for another month or two, I think the Opposition spokesman should be able to be patient. If we go further through this Opposition statement we come across some genuine little gems. For example, in the housing area, for which we have dramatically increased the allocation by over about 15 per cent in an overall reduced defence budget, he says it is a sleight of hand trick, and goes on: Of the $75m allocated to housing- this is very smart- $65m is for projects commenced in earlier years. What does he expect? Does he expect when we budget in the defence area that we complete all houses at the end of the year and then say, `Right, that program is finished; now we start running again, acquire the land and get another set of houses and go for another year, and then we will stop'? What does he expect us to be doing? What does he expect that extra $10m to be for? Of course that commits us in the next year. That $10m will produce another $75m in the subsequent year. He then complains further that some $28m of the housing budget is to be spent on housing at Tindal and the new housing program at Rockingham in Western Australia. This is a bit like the Leader of the National Party's question yesterday-we cannot include in the Budget the product of asset sales; now we cannot include in the defence housing program housing for defence personnel at new bases. Who does the honour- able member think will fill these houses-gremlins? Where does he think the sailors and the airmen will come from? Of course they will come from bases in the eastern States and elsewhere. The honourable member then comes to his piece de resistance when he discovers that the new tactical fighter program will come out at $585m in 1987-88-a reduction from the $1,000m budgeted in 1986-87. What are we supposed to do? We have paid the money for the FA18s. Are we supposed to keep spending $1 billion every year when we do not need to in order to keep the defence budget in perfect symmetry? This is a totally absurd Press release. I suspect it is, to get back to the point I made at the outset, the reason he is being kept out of the shadow Cabinet for better days. If this is the best he can produce in his response to the Budget, he clearly has a great deal to learn. The Chinese have designated this as the Year of the Rabbit, and I think we have a white one running around in the House. Mr PORTER —I refer the Prime Minister to the savings of $107m claimed by both himself and the Treasurer as a result of the restructuring of Commonwealth departments. Is it not true that whilst staff savings of 3,137 have been agreed, they have been offset by a massive increase of 3,077 in Public Service staffing levels provided in the Budget? How does the Prime Minister justify his claim of significant savings when there are none? Mr HAWKE —It is for the very simple reason that as a result of the changes I initiated in the organisation of the Public Service there will be the staff savings of 3,000 in the full year to which I referred. I said they would flow from that; they will. Mr SNOWDON —Will the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories advise the House of the current state of industrial relations on Christmas Island? What does the Government intend to do in relation to this situation? Mr JOHN BROWN —Of course, Christmas Island is part of the vast electorate of the honourable member for the Northern Territory. The industrial situation on Christmas Island is not good. The Government last year decided that it would expend something like $4.2m subsidising the activities of phosphate mining on Christmas Island in order that there would be an orderly wind down at the end of 1989. That included an agreement from the trade union, the Union of Christmas Island Workers, that it would continue to perform its task and continue to resile from industrial problems. I must inform the House that over the last 12 months industrial problems have increased quite incredibly there. In the past the Government has made several threats about closing the mine and these have appeared to be just threats. I can inform the honourable member for the Northern Territory-he may like to pass the message on to the trade union on Christmas Island-that the Government is firmly of the resolve that if all industrial bans and limitations are not lifted the mine will be closed forthwith. I must say that the Union of Christmas Island Workers is entitled to a great deal of respect. After a generation of workers on the Christmas Island phosphate mines-mainly Malays and Chinese-being subject to slave wages and slave conditions, in 1975 there was a move towards Australian pay and conditions and the Union of Christmas Island Workers is entitled to great credit for the work it has done in the meantime. There have been two redundancy schemes in the last year, one voluntary and one compulsory. The present situation is that there are 300 miners in work. There is work for them until the end of 1989; that is, 2 1/2 years of work, 750 man years of work. There are 300 ex-miners presently on the Island who are out of work, who have received redundancy payments ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 and generous resettlement packages of the order of $9,000 each. These payments were particularly to encourage them to go to Western Australia where jobs are available in the mines. Most of these unemployed miners have not taken up Australian citizenship although they are permanent residents. Unfortunately, most of these people have refused to take that offer. We have the sorry spectacle of 300 miners who have achieved quite large redundancy payments now organising against 300 miners who are in work to close the mine down. I would like the honourable member for the Northern Territory to remind the Union of Christmas Island Workers that if the mine closes because of industrial problems those 300 workers will lose not only 2 1/2 years of work, but also their redundancy payments. So it seems to me to be not very good union principle for 300 workers now unemployed who received full redundancy payments to be working against the interests of members of their own union who would face the spectre of losing their redundancy payments if the mine were to close. I assure the House that the Government is very firm in its resolve that if the Union of Christmas Island Workers does not work and continue to operate the mine as we hope `profitably' until the end of 1989 the Government is prepared to close it forthwith. This is not a threat; it is not a promise; it is a fact. Mr RUDDOCK —My question is also addressed to the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories. As the Minister responsible for the Australian Capital Territory, will he confirm the report which appeared in the Canberra Times of 11 September that he is considering recommending the approval of a casino for Canberra? As his position to make a recommendation on this important question would be compromised if he were known to have been at or to have participated in the activities of an illegal casino in New South Wales, will he confirm to this House his evidence to a New South Wales coronial inquiry that he has at no time been at an illegal casino? Mr JOHN BROWN —Of course I am prepared to confirm to the House and to the honourable member for Dundas, who should know better than to ask the question, that I have never in my entire life been on the premises of an illegal casino. With regard to the bulk of the question, the more honourable part of the question, yes, I did float the idea of a casino in Canberra at a seminar held by the Canberra Times here, probably on the date to which the honourable member referred. I consider this proposal to be part of the sophistication of Canberra, a broadening of its economic base, to achieve sophistication as the national capital. I cannot see any reason not to have a casino here. I think it is fairly well known that at 6 o'clock in the evening the footpaths in Canberra are rolled up and everybody goes to bed! It is time the national capital did have some sort of sophisticated night life. When this idea was floated some years ago there was terrible revulsion in Canberra about this naughty concept of a casino and theories were abounding about the Mafia taking the place over and Canberra becoming a cesspool of vice and corruption. I think the advent of casinos in Perth, in Adelaide and in that marvellously sacrosanct State of Queensland-on the Gold Coast and in Townsville-has not brought about those undesirable results. It is time that the people of Canberra had a look at the future of this city. It is the most attractive and one of the most important national capitals in the world. I am concerned, as the Government is concerned, that this national capital stand on its own feet. The Budget last night has certainly given it an opportunity to achieve some sort of relativity with the States inasmuch as Canberra now has a balanced Budget. We are concerned that there is a wider economic base for this city and I think one way of achieving that, with all the spinoff benefits, would be to have a casino. The idea has not yet been floated with the Government but I can assure the honourable member for Dundas that at the end of a suitable period of public debate I may go to the Government with such a proposition. I reiterate my answer to the first part of his question. I hope he will get this into his head and keep it there. I gave evidence to a coronial inquiry in Sydney-it seems to me quite odd that he has asked me to repeat that evidence here-that I have never, ever been associated with or entered into the premises of an illegal casino anywhere, with or without Reeboks. Dr THEOPHANOUS —I note that the Minister for Employment, Education and Training participated in the launching of the important Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) document Australia Reconstructed. What examination will the Government undertake of the proposals in that document and the possible implementation of them? Mr DAWKINS —I thank the honourable member for his question. I did participate, along with Senator Button and representatives of the ACTU, in the launching of the report to the Trade Development Council and the ACTU. The report grew out of the mission to western Europe which the ACTU undertook last year. I think the report has been a very valuable contribution to the kinds of issues that Australia has to confront as we try to repair the damage that was done to our manufacturing sector under the policies of our predecessors. I think the Government has not yet given detailed consideration to the recommendations that are contained within the report. Many of the issues raised in the report address the policy concerns of Senator Button and other Ministers. I think the recommendations in relation to industry training are broadly in line with what the Government would wish to see; that is, a stronger commitment on the part of employers and employees to the needs of training within industry. I think the paper that was presented last night entitled Skills Formation in Australia provides an appropriate framework in which we can address those concerns with the ACTU and with employer bodies around Australia. Mr NEHL —Will the Minister representing the Minister for Transport and Communications confirm advice given to the House yesterday by the Prime Minister that the transfer of confidential ID card database information via landlines will be totally secure because all ID data transmissions will flow through encryption devices? For the information of the House, will the Minister explain what is an encryption device? Can he also assure the House that such devices are totally secure from interference and decoding? Mr DUNCAN —I thank the honourable member for his question. If the Prime Minister said yesterday that that was the case, that would be the case. As to the part of the question relating to encryption, my understanding of encryption is that it involves a machine that is used to encode material to be sent on the line. That is exactly what it means, in my understanding. I imagine that anybody else who has a passing knowledge of these things would understand that that is the case. I imagine that that was what was being referred to. Mr KERR —My question is directed to the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support. Has the Minister seen Press coverage suggesting that Telecom Australia intends scrapping public phone boxes due to vandalism? Would he care to comment on it? Mr Howard —Has the Prime Minister answered this for you? Mr DUNCAN —I must say that the vindictiveness of the vanquished must be seen to be believed. I did see yesterday's Press reports. As the day wore on, the stories grew more extra- ordinary and got further from the truth. Telecom has no intention of withdrawing the public telephone service. Telecom has been rationalising the service over a number of years, because where phone boxes are so subjected to vandalism that Telecom finds that these boxes are more often out of service than in service, the situation dictates that there is only one choice available to Telecom. But there have been recent improvements in public telephone boxes, which some people may have noticed, which have made many of the services more vandalproof than has been the case in the past. As a result of various changes that have taken place, such as vandalproof or vandal-resistant handsets, receivers and the like, Telecom has been able to ensure a much better percentage performance of the public telephone system throughout the nation. There is another aspect that I think is important-that is, Telecom has entered negotiations on a national basis and in the various States with the Neighbourhood Watch program to try to ensure that Telecom public telephone services are included in the Neighbourhood Watch program. That is an important initiative which should lead to less vandalism of Telecom's public telephone facilities in the future. Dr HARRY EDWARDS —My question is also addressed to the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support. I refer the Minister to the Budget announcement that the Government will introduce an auctioning system for the issue of new commercial broadcasting licences, including those licences for which applications have already closed and for which the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT) is currently conducting hearings. Given the likelihood that a number of the existing applicants for FM licences in the Gold Coast, Gosford-the case that is of interest to me-and other areas, especially those with modest funds, will withdraw their applications because they cannot afford to engage in the auction process, will not the substantial amounts of money initially outlaid by such applicants be lost? Is there not a case for providing compensation to those applicants who incurred such outlays on the basis that there would be no auctioning system, but who will now be forced to withdraw their applications? Mr DUNCAN —I do not believe that there is. In any event, the way in which the Government is proposing to introduce this scheme will ensure that those persons who meet the ABT's criteria-in other words, those who present themselves as appropriate people to hold a licence-will still be able to involve themselves in the auction system. If they are prepared to put up the money, they will get the licence. I do not think anybody in Australia was very happy with what happened in relation to the granting of the third television licence in Perth. Everybody here will know that before that licensee was able to commence broadcasting, the licence was sold at a very large profit. In these circumstances many people throughout the nation believe that that was an inappropriate thing to do and that something should be done to ensure that such huge windfall profits should not be made in the future. The Government has taken steps to ensure that that will not occur in the future. Mr TUCKEY(O'Connor) —Madam Speaker, on a point of parliamentary procedure: yesterday the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support (Mr Duncan), in his capacity as Minister representing the Minister for Transport and Communications, promised me that he would go away and do his homework so that a question of great interest to all Australians could be answered. I am wondering when he is going to do that. Mr Young —When he has time and when he feels like it. Mr TUCKEY —Oh, I see! That is the message for Australia, is it? When he has time and when he feels like it! Madam SPEAKER —Order! I suggest to the honourable member for O'Connor that that is a matter between him and the Minister. It is not a matter for the Chair, and it is not a matter of parliamentary procedure. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General) —Pursuant to section 37 of the Law Reform Commission Act 1973, I present report No. 38 of the Law Reform Commission relating to evidence. The report was tabled in the Senate on 5 June 1987 and made available to all honourable members. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Sinclair) adjourned. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General) —Pursuant to section 37 of the Law Reform Commission Act 1973, I present report No. 39 of the Law Reform Commission relating to matrimonial property. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General) —Pursuant to sub-section 3 (3) of the Director of Public Prosecutions Amendment Act 1985, I present the Director of Public Prosecutions report on civil remedies for the two-year period ending 30 June 1987. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General) —For the information of honourable members, I present the following reports of advisory committees to the Constitutional Commission: distribution of powers; individual and democratic rights; executive government; Australian judicial system; trade and national economic management. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the papers. Debate (on motion by Mr Reith) adjourned. Mr KEATING(Blaxland-Treasurer) —Pursuant to section 18 of the National Debt Sinking Fund Act 1966, I present the annual report and financial statements of the National Debt Commission for 1986-87, together with the Auditor-General's report. Mr KEATING(Blaxland-Treasurer) —For the information of honourable members, I present the Industries Assistance Commission's second interim report on the rice industry. The report was circulated during the parliamentary recess. Mr KEATING(Blaxland-Treasurer) —For the information of honourable members, I present the Industries Assistance Commission's report on glass and glassware. The report was circulated during the parliamentary recess. Mr WILLIS(Gellibrand-Minister for Industrial Relations) —Pursuant to sub-section 6 (5) of the Remuneration Tribunals Act 1973, I present the Remuneration Tribunal reports and determination dated 13 April 1987. The report was tabled in the Senate on 4 June 1987 and made available to all honourable members. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr KERIN(Werriwa-Minister for Primary Industries and Energy) —Pursuant to section 26 of the Tobacco Marketing Act 1965, I present the 1986 annual report and financial statements of the Australian Tobacco Board, together with the Auditor-General's report. Mr HOLDING(Melbourne Ports-Minister for Employment Services and Youth Affairs and Minister Assisting the Treasurer) —Pursuant to section 11 of the Life Insurance Act 1945, I present the annual report of the Life Insurance Commissioner for 1986, together with a half-yearly financial and statistical bulletin for the period 1 July 1985 to 30 June 1986. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science and Small Business) —For the information of honourable members I present a paper on the textiles, clothing and footwear industries. This paper was tabled in the Senate by the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce (Senator Button) on 5 June 1987 and made available to all honourable members. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr HAND(Melbourne-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) —For the information of honourable members, I present a report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner relating to the Murranji land claim. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr HAND(Melbourne-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) —For the information of honourable members, I present a report by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner relating to the Ti-Tree Station land claim. Motion (by Mr Young) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr HAND(Melbourne-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) —For the information of honourable members, I present the annual report of the Central Land Council for 1985-86. Mr HAND(Melbourne-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) —For the information of honourable members, I present the annual reports of the Northern Land Council for 1983-84, 1984-85 and 1985-86. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate Ministers: To the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, your humble petitioners showeth: 1. The proposed Australia Card will have a dramatic impact on the lives of all Australians. 2. Therefore your petitioners request a national referendum on the Australia Card bill before the proposal is resubmitted to parliament. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. by Mr Beale,Mr Donald Cameron,Mr Carlton,Mr Halverson,Mr Ruddock and Mr Shipton. To the Honourable The Speaker and the Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth. We most strongly oppose the process of Food Irradiation by radioactive Cobalt 60 or any other radioactive substance. We oppose the introduction of regulations that will facilitate the food irradiation process by State Governments. We express our deep concern at this attempt to extend the use of radioactive substances and exposure of workers to radiation. We call on the Government to immediately ban the importation of radioactive Cobalt 60 or other radioactive substances and to immediately disallow the regulations that permit the irradiation of food here in Australia. by Mr Beale,Dr Hewson,Mr Kent and Mr Milton. To the Honourable The Speaker and the Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. This petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth. that we strongly oppose the introduction of the `Australia Card' or any other form of National Identification Numbering System. We believe the introduction of a National Identification Numbering System is not only totally unnecessary but is a severe threat to our civil liberties and privacy. We condemn the Government's actions on this matter, particularly as no reasonable nor responsible justifications for the proposal have been forthcoming from the Government. We humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, should reject any proposal for a National Identification Numbering System. by Mr Andrew,Mr Downer and Mr Steele Hall. To the Honourable the Speaker, and the Members of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia assembled. We, the undersigned, being appalled that the Government has set no penalty for the possession of child pornography, and has set no penalty for importing unclassified child pornography, do ask that Parliament urgently legislate to: make the importation of child pornography, and the possession of child pornography, and all tapes and goods banned by Customs, to be a criminal offence, with deterrent penalties, and close the Customs barriers to pornography in the A.C.T., in respect of X-rated videos, (and ER) and end the shameful Canberra trade, and the Mafia Connections. Because 98% of Australians in other States have banned X rated videos. Because the trade is still flourishing, and it's availability escalates sexual crime. Because importers of child pornography face only a fine for lying. Because child pornography pedlars are safe if they cross a border, and cannot be extradited for a summary offence. Because anyone can have these tapes in their possession for private use. Because the Government does not intervene in that. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will give this matter earnest consideration, and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Blanchard,Mr Gear and Mr Shack. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens, respectfully showeth: That we are totally opposed to the introduction of the Government's Identity Card; That this form of national and compulsory identification will be intrusive, costly for taxpayers and business and will not be effective in combating the growing problems of tax evasion, illegal immigrants or social security; That we call upon the Government to improve management systems within the Australian Tax Office and other Departments to crack down on tax evasion and fraudulent practices. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Carlton and Mr Dobie. 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 1986 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. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Dobie and Mr MacKellar. To the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in 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. by Dr Harry Edwards and Mr Millar. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Richmond electorate respectfully showeth that: The Hawke Labor Government has no mandate to introduce its flawed and costly ID card proposal and that the card won't stop tax and welfare fraud and will invade the private lives of Australians. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Reject Labor's ID card proposal as the Australian public haven't given the Government a mandate to introduce it. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Blunt. To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We the undersigned citizens of Australia present you with this petition to consider. In reference to sole parents on the Supporting Parents Benefit or the Widows Pension, whose youngest child has turned 16 years old and who will lose their pension or benefit from September 3, 1987, regardless of whether that the child is still at school or not. These women especially the ones that have been out of the workforce for years are finding the loss of this pension very traumatic as it is a loss of security and choice for them. Quite often through no fault of their own they have been left to fend on their own. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, should give more consideration to these people. They are not all career-minded and will not easily fit back into the workforce due to lack of education and work experience. These people should not be singled out by the Government. And as your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Blanchard. To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we oppose plans by Telecom Australia to close many of the Telecom Business Offices (TBO's) and replace them with a reduced service to be co-located with the District Customer Services Office. We believe the public should be able to make telephone bill payments, applications for new services, selection of telephones and complaints, in person at a convenient and easily accessible location. Telecom Business Offices provide this service, and therefore it is wrong that their contribution and performance will only be assessed on their sales revenue. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: instruct the management of Telecom Australia to immediately cease all action to close any Telecom Business Offices. And as your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Donald Cameron. To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That, as a consequence of the Hawke Government's decision to introduce a two dollar coin in 1988, Whereas the introduction of a one dollar coin was only a twofold increase in the maximum value of coinage, the elimination of the two dollar note represents a five-fold increase before a note can be used It will have taken eighteen years from decimalisation to go from the fifty cent piece as the highest value coin to a one dollar coin, but only a further four years to replace the two dollar note with a coin The lowest value paper note will be five dollars, forcing a dramatic increase in the weight of coinage carried and dislocation of the retail industry Many people, particularly the elderly, will mistake the value of the coin for that of another lower value coin just as many now confuse a one dollar coin with the ten cent piece That the addition of two new coins in four years creates the biggest number of coins in circulation at any time in Australia's history and will lead to the removal of the one cent and two cent coins; this will accelerate the cost of living, particularly the cost of foods where numerous items are involved and future price rises would need to be five cent increases on every item on every occasion. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the proposed two dollar coin not be proceeded with by the Hawke Government, and no future Government proceed with this proposal for several years. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Donald Cameron. To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully sayeth: Your petitioners humbly pray that your honourable House direct that the existing 4 (C4) zoning on the Kurnell Peninsula, in New South Wales, be removed and that this be replaced by a zoning more appropriate to the unique ecology of the area and to the historical significance of the Kurnell Peninsula, being the birthplace of the nation. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Dobie. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of certain citizens of Australia respectively showeth: We the undersigned residents of Australia deplore the decision of the Minister for Social Security not to exempt the town of Mount Barker, South Australia, and its surrounding district from the new requirement to lodge unemployment benefit forms and sole parent benefit forms at a Social Security Regional Office. The new requirement has effectively reduced the benefits of the people concerned because of the high cost in travelling to the nearest Social Security Regional Office, some 37 kilometres distant. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the exemption boundaries be redefined with a view to exempting Mount Barker and its surrounding district from the regular reporting requirement. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Downer. 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 Dr Harry Edwards. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. This humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that they are totally opposed to any change in the present Australian National Flag as declared in the Flags Act (1953). Your petitioners humbly pray that Parliament in its wisdom will take no action to change in any way the Australian National Flag. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr McVeigh. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens, respectfully showeth: That we are totally opposed to the Labor Government's introduction of a National Identity System involving the issue of a card to be known as the Australia Card. We consider that this form of national and compulsory identification will be intrusive, costly for taxpayers and business and will not be effective in combatting the growing problems of tax evasion, illegal immigrants or social security. We therefore ask the House to take action to prevent the implementation of this legislation. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr McVeigh. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. This petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that- (1) A cessation of the testing of nuclear weapons would break the cycle of research, development and deployment of nuclear weapons and prevent the acquisition of new and ever more lethal weapons of mass destruction. It would thus be a major and significant step towards ending the arms race and beginning the disarmament process; and (2) The Soviet Union has extended its unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing until August 6 this year and has again invited the United States to cease its nuclear testing program. Your petitioners therefore urge the Australian Government to put the strongest pressure on the United States Government to join the Soviet Union's nuclear test ban. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Milton. 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-servicewomen 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 you petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Ruddock. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of certain Citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: The Government by persisting with the Australia Card Bill has wilfully rejected the advice and recommendations of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia's ``Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card'' which unequivocally rejected the Government's proposal in these words: ``The majority believes the creation of a new bureaucracy of 2000 public servants within the HIC [Health Insurance Commission], with the sole task of identifying every man, woman and child in Australia, is a wasteful exercise which will not address the problems of tax evasion and social security fraud but will provide the mechanism by which the very fabric of our society will be irreversibly altered, opening the way for the greatest attack on the privacy of individuals as the `Identity Bureau' identifies, monitors, and updates information on every person in Australia.'' (Report, 4.55, page 148) Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government now withdraw the Bill as being contrary to the Common Law and traditional freedoms we have hitherto enjoyed in Australia, and should the Bill be nevertheless re-introduced, that the Members of the House without regard for party should unanimously reject the Australia Card Bill as being contrary to our personal liberties and the national interest. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Tuckey. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Richmond electorate respectfully showeth that: The Hawke Labor Government's Industrial Relations Bill will increase industrial disputation, bankrupt companies, and give the union movement total and absolute power over the Australian community. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the government to: Reject Labor's Industrial Relations Bill to save Australia from the actions of militant unions and give our economy a chance of recovering. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Blunt. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Richmond electorate respectfully showeth that: 1. We the undersigned are totally opposed to the introduction of a $2.00 fee on prescription drugs for pensioners; 2. The impact of such a fee will be particularly felt by the chronically ill elderly who will be faced with a $2.00 burden with the purchase of each Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme drug. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Ensure that prescription drugs continue to be provided to the pensioner population without the $2.00 fee on each prescription. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Blunt. To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of Representatives in Parliament assembled- The petition of the undersigned citizens of Toowoomba district, respectfully showeth: That we are concerned about the considered metering of local phone calls by Telecom. We feel that metering local calls will put the phone out of the reach of the family man. Also the increased charges proposed for information calls will greatly inconvenience the visually handicapped people. We therefore ask the House to take action to prevent the metering of local phone calls by Telecom, and also to prevent increased charges for information calls. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr McVeigh. Petitions received. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Madam Speaker has received a letter from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Peacock) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The wasted opportunity resulting from the failure of the Hawke Government to bring down a budget that will address the fundamental problems facing Australia. 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 PEACOCK(Kooyong)(2.59) —Where is the Treasurer (Mr Keating)? He produced a Budget figure last night that was illusory and we cannot even get him in the House at present. I dare say that he will be coming. At the outset of my remarks may I say briefly, in summary point, a number of things about last night's Budget which both the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) and I have described as illusory. Firstly, the Budget is nowhere near balanced. Secondly, the underlying Budget deficit is about $2.5 billion, comprising $1 billion of assets sales plus, say, $1.5 billion of extraordinary profits from the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Royal Australian Mint. Thirdly, the Budget is a squandered opportunity to address the fundamental imbalance in the Government's accounts and thereby put the economy on a firmer footing. Fourthly, economic growth is still sluggish; the outlook for investment in plant and equipment is poor, reflecting high interest rates, recent increases in corporate tax rates, and uncertainty about the wages outcome. Fifthly, the pace of adjustment to the external situation is stalling. Net foreign debt is expected to increase in 1987-88 as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). Sixthly, wage and price inflation is still above that of our major competitors in the international market-place. Seventhly, the outlook for productivity-honourable members heard about the compositional difficulties in regard to productivity at Question Time today-is poor and appears to be at odds with the second tier wage awards. Finally, current outlays rose by 6.9 per cent while capital outlays fell by 12 per cent. There is a simple proposition wrapped up in all that. Let us face it, many in the media are commending the Treasurer on his Budget. It has been described by one person from Melbourne as a dream Budget. What has changed? Has our foreign debt been reduced? Are the difficulties on our current account going to evaporate? Are we in fact going to get significant increases in investment? Are we going to get tax relief? What has changed? There is an illusion about that $27m and last night the Budget was a missed opportunity to get Australia's house in order. The $27m deficit is an interesting figure. It is the product of what is euphemistically called these days creative accounting. I think the Leader of the National Party, the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair), has a different phrase. I think he refers to cooking the books. But creative accounting appears to be it. If we delete the $1 billion, being the proceeds of asset sales, the transfer of the extraordinary profits from the Reserve Bank of Australia, which today in the House the Treasurer has confirmed will not be there in the next financial year, and the profits from the Australian Mint, the figure is closer to $2.5 billion. Quite clearly the Treasurer rolled Senator Walsh. Honourable members will recall that some six weeks ago Senator Walsh produced a very engaging, very interesting and very tough statement in which he indicated that there were 13 areas that required significant cuts-they would be quality cuts-denying the Government the difficulty of having to face the need to raise more taxes to pay for these expenditure areas in the future. I thought Senator Walsh's statement was a commendable statement. One significant area with which I did not concur in discussing taxation was where he said we could cap it at the present level but then we ought to proceed to cut in these 13 areas. Senator Walsh was clearly rolled because what we have in this Budget is a continuation of what the Leader of the Opposition consistently described during the election campaign as the biggest spending, highest taxing Government in Australia's history. Expenditure has not been tackled and this Government at the moment is awash with revenue. Who is producing it? Do honourable members recognise in the figures the addition of $5.5 billion in tax revenue which is flowing to the Government-$2 billion from individual pay as you earn taxpayers and $1 billion from non-PAYE taxpayers? Throughout this nation there are taxpayers who know their situation has not changed other than that many of them will have to pay even more tax to continue to fund the big spending programs of this Government. There is no endeavour to give them genuine tax relief; there is tax reform, but no genuine tax relief. Last year this Treasurer described our nation as heading toward a banana republic. Following that Australia's international credit rating was downgraded for the first time in our nation's history. The Treasurer said that we will have to quicken the pace of adjustment to the external situation. It was a significant matter that had to be addressed. That adjustment from the Budget last night will stall. The investment in plant and equipment is shown to rise by only 3 per cent in this Budget and that is from a very low base. The Government says, `Ah, have no worry because we are turning this around'. Why? `The papers we have produced will show that by 1989-90 our current account deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product will be only 3 per cent and that will allow us to stabilise foreign debt at 40 per cent'. This is deemed by the Government to be quite satisfactory, but when we look at the composition of that foreign debt, it would require, as the Treasurer had said prior to the Budget last night, a significant improvement in the pace of adjustment to the external situation. All we will find is that the overwhelming amount of that foreign debt goes toward funding consumption expenditure and not growth in capital stock. The real test of such foreign debt is the extent to which it may be contributing to growth in capital stock and productivity. It has not yet been addressed in the Budget itself. The fact is that behind all the rhetoric in that short, sharp speech last night this economy is going nowhere. Foreign debt is rising and we have the worst business investment climate in decades. Why is there no significant investment? There are three fundamental reasons. First, high rates of tax; secondly, uncertainty over wages and likely wage restraint; and, thirdly, high interest rates. The fact that there will be some diminution in interest rates announced last night does not mean we are heading for low interest rates. We are moving downward from near record heights. Unless we are addressing those fundamentals of high rates of taxation, uncertainty as to wage increases and high interest rates we will not get the injection of growth in business investment. Incidentally, I mentioned foreign debt. What I have noted is that the Treasurer has some difficulty when one mentions the additional debt burden, namely, that of public debt itself. An examination of the figures indicates that interest on public debt is 10 per cent of outlays. We are, therefore, quite apart from having to retire that debt, having to pay in interest amounts greater than this Government is spending on defence and education. I raised the question of productivity at Question Time. Productivity, of course, is extremely low. The Treasurer admitted today that the second tier system is certainly at variance with what is placed in the Budget Papers. It was equivocal; there were compositional difficulties, but the reality that flowed through that was the inability to address the particular element in the question put to him. As for unemployment, this caring, compassionate Government has, once again, produced figures that indicate in the Budget Statements that it will remain constant despite the rhetoric of the number of jobs created. What of the much vaunted arena the third term of the Hawke Government was going to address? Honourable members will recall the phoney figures that were used to show that the task of the first Hawke Government was to fix what we had left it; in the second term of government it was to address the great macro-economic issues; and the third term of the Hawke Government was to deal with micro-economic issues. The Government made a significant start with privatisation. It has not yet been able to spell out why it is embarking on a course of privatisation. The chaos in the Australian Labor Party, split between whether it is motivated for ideological reasons or simply to fund expenditure, has not been placed before it. We do know that the Government is using it though this Budget to fund additional expenditure programs, but it has even hauled off a statement it made three months ago that, in fact, it would be selling international airport terminals. The Government has forecast that there will be a small deficit on the balance of goods and services in 1987-88. While this item remains in deficit we are actually borrowing to pay the interest on our foreign debt. The build-up of our foreign debt to the current high levels has been largely due to our borrowing to finance consumption expenditure. In 1987-88 consumption spending is expected to increase by 1.5 per cent in real terms. Investment in plant and equipment is forecast to rise by 3 per cent. We will again borrow to finance consumption, both public and private, this year. The projected increase in domestic demand and the continued erosion of our competitiveness make the Government's projection of no increase in imports sanguine to say the least. The social costs of the Government's failure to achieve a faster pace of adjustment are large indeed. The continued large current account deficits add to our net foreign debt which has to be serviced in the future. With a net foreign debt of $83 billion that is equivalent to $5,155 per Australian. As I said earlier, if the borrowing from abroad were being used to build up our capital stock the situation may well be sustainable. However, we are borrowing from abroad to service our net foreign debt. Business investment in plant and equipment-the engine of economic growth-is declining and in the current high tax, high interest rate environment it is unlikely to recover significantly, notwithstanding the Government's projections. What is the solution? An underlying reality flows from what the Leader of the Opposition said during the election campaign, and I remind the Government that, in response to his urgings, he and the Leader of the National Party achieved a greater proportion of the votes than the Labor Party. The solution is to reduce the tax burden and cut Government expenditure, so that Australian families can retain control over their incomes and get on with the job. With smaller Government, both capital and labour will be released from the non-tradable goods sector to move into productive employment in the tradable goods sector. In short, it is possible, through a combination of economic reforms and smaller Government to lift productive capacity in the economy, to service our huge foreign debt and to raise our standard of living. Australian people are fed up with tightening their belts while the public sector demand continues to grow. In the meantime, we have made little headway in dealing with the foreign debt problem to which I have referred. If, for some ideological reason, or simply to maintain control over people's lives, the Hawke-Keating Government refuses to decrease the size of the public sector tax burden, the least that it can do is make a responsible effort to pull the Government's accounts into order. It is here that it has failed, by bringing down a Budget with an underlying deficit of almost $2.5 billion. Assets sales and Reserve Bank profits should be used to reduce the Government's outstanding debt, not to finance Government expenditure. The Government is continuing to mortgage our children's future. We raise this matter of public importance to remind the Australian community that what I said last night remains the reality today. There is no significant change in Australia's economy. We are heading nowhere. The increase in foreign debt and taxation and the increasing burdens remain on the Australian economy. The figure that was used last night was illusory. The Budget deficit is not really $27m as announced by the Treasurer. He underestimates the call of the Government on national savings-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr KEATING(Blaxland-Treasurer)(3.14) —I recall being in opposition in 1976 when the Australian Labor Party had lost the election, and following a period of great fiscal deterioration. I recall its spokesperson standing in the Parliament, arguing a case about fiscal and monetary economic policy and having not a shred of credibility. That is the position of the Opposition and of the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock). If he wants to draw to himself some recognition that his views have justice or validity, he should do so by wiping the slate clean on the manic policy that he and his Leader were associated with in the election campaign. That policy, a crude attempt to buy votes, was fashioned by the honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard) who said, `This is my chance to be Prime Minister. I am going to run for the wire and hang the consequences'. The fact that the resultant blow-out in fiscal policy would have destroyed the country's recovery and put us up for grabs was the price that he was prepared to pay to make himself Prime Minister. Fortunately for this country, the people saw through that and rejected it. Last week, the honourable member for Kooyong tried to distance himself from that policy. He said: I recognise if you cut taxes, immediately you will lift the propensity to save but you will also increase the potential for imports to rise substantially. Now I won't mind so much if those imports are going into investment and you are increasing your capital stock but you don't have altogether much control over that. Dead right! He went on to say: We were intending to begin the tax cuts in February if we won the election and then found them over a lengthy period of time. I would be re-examining the funding element of the tax cuts and their introduction. It's not just a matter of credibility, it's a matter of sensible economics. Well, too right it is. He was correct to imply that the Opposition's policy in the election campaign was an economic disgrace and a piece of economic vandalism from which he began to repair, but he was pulled into line by his Leader, and he made a statement about a day or two later saying that that was not really what he meant. The fact of the matter is that he is now standing up and talking about funding consumption expenditure in this Budget. Minus 2.5 per cent real growth in outlays, a zero deficit and he is talking about financing consumption expenditure in this Budget. He ran with his Leader in an election campaign on tax cuts unfunded, which would have produced for this year a Budget deficit of $6 billion; that is $2.5 billion on top of the forecast $3.5 billion from last year. It is some $6,000m compared to zero and he says that he is worried about consumption expenditure. If the honourable gentleman is worried, he should get his little mate there and tell him the facts of life about economic policy. He has lost that knowledge since he left the Treasury in 1982. The honourable gentleman should tell his friend what a shocking, irresponsible, squalid policy this was and is, and how if we had had it in this country, the country would have had it, with a massive surge in imports and a massive deterioration in our current account deficit. If the honourable gentleman is worried about these things he should start at home and remedy the problem there rather than trying to give the Government a lecture. The honourable gentleman's argument is inconsistent. A few minutes ago he was talking about funding consumption expenditure and what a terrible thing that was, but at the same time he criticised the high interest rates that were employed to dampen that demand all through the last financial year. High interest rates are bad, but the honourable member cavils at them while at the same time complaining about consumption expenditure. Yet the high interest rates were tailored to diminish consumption expenditure. The honourable gentleman seems to want to have it both ways. The one thing that comes through in this matter of public importance is my friend, the honourable member for Kooyong, after all these years both in government and in opposition, talking about the trading goods sector of the economy. Should not the penny have dropped before, when the honourable gentleman spent all those years in that useless Cabinet with the former Government, when the oil prices set by the Arab states rocketed and their wealth rose? The penny should have dropped when our oil and coal prices went with that, but we never saw the commensurate lift in wealth here. Why was that? It was because the Government had the exchange rate overvalued. It was a managed exchange rate. It was not worried about the traded goods sector. In fact, in those days the former Secretary to the Treasury said that we needed more imports because otherwise we would be embarrassed by an appreciating exchange rate. The Government was not worried about the traded goods sector or the factories. It decimated manufacturing in Australia. It wiped it out. The Government said that commodities would do us. Resources boomed, there was the water resources project and the infrastructure program. That was the great El Dorado of which the honourable member was a part. He was a senior Minister. He was there. Now, he has discovered the traded goods sector. The honourable gentleman is also into the capital stock. I will tell honourable members about the capital stock. The decline in that sector is one of the most sorry stories of any country. In this country the decline started in 1955 or 1956 and went on until 1985-86-all down hill. Should not the penny have dropped among any of the members opposite? Should they not have worried about the decline of the capital stock and wondered how they could lift the productive base when the equipment base was falling to bits? Should they not have done something about it? Should they not have got the balance right and lifted the profitability of the traded goods sector? What are we doing being run by the damn National Party all the time with its foolish preoccupations about what it saw to be the interests of the farm sector, although it butchered farmers with the overvalued exchange rate all those years? I can remember the late Phil Lynch's list, coming out with a big project starting up around the country. That was Liberal Party policy. Now, the honourable member for Kooyong is concerned about capital cost and consumption expenditure. He says the economy is going nowhere. I can tell him where the economy is going. It is reducing dependence on overseas debt. It is reducing the current account deficit. Those opposite left us horribly exposed. I remind them that the current account deficit in 1980-81 was 6.1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), when there were much better terms of trade than we enjoy today. What caused that deficit? It was due to the failure of structural policy under coalition governance-in the Liberal Party of Australia in particular. It seemed to repair temporarily in 1982-83 and 1983-84 under the weight of the massive recession. But as soon as demand popped out, out it popped again. When the terms of trade collapsed, it jumped right out. In table 10 of the Budget Papers honourable members will see that three years of net exports, as a result of this Government's policy to float the exchange rate, make the wage system competitive and change fiscal policy, has improved in a structural way the current account deficit by $6.6 billion. That sum is not all reflected in the balance of payments because the terms of trade have eroded it. But the underlying change in volumes is worth $6.6 billion. That is what this Government has done about Australia's capacity to repair from this position. It has done it by taking speedy and swift action on fiscal, wage and monetary settings. We really do not need the honourable member for Kooyong to come in and say certain things. I do not cavil or remark about his enthusiasm for his new portfolio, but it all rings pretty hollow because the Leader of the Opposition says, `My policies were right'. The honourable member for Bennelong was a one-shot chance for the prime ministership for the Liberals. He missed. The fact is that he is prepared to punt up the lot, wreck the place to get there, and then try to repair afterwards. If he had been in the position to present a Liberal Budget, he would be now trying to say how he would repair with tax cuts and everything else from the position he had created. He ran with the old 1950s and 1960s philosophy of Ash Street-that is, to regard all the people out there as suckers and mugs, run to the line dropping dollars all the way, and the suckers will take the bait. Well the `suckers' did not; they took the quality instead. They left him. It will not take Opposition members long, if they survey the empty green leather seats on the other side, to work out that they lost and that they will keep losing until they realise that they must get some structure and discipline into their thoughts. They have never had it. Those opposite won government easily in 1949. They picked up all the easy days of post-war growth and bludged their way through until the end of the 1970s until they ruined the country. They are sitting back on the other side of the House like the born-to-rule brigade-except, as I have said before, we think we are born to rule them, and we are right. They think they are born to rule-`No need for any policy. A few flash words; drop a couple of Press releases'-skating down to the wire-`Journos? Don't worry about them, tell them nothing'-- Mr N.A. Brown —There are a few antique clocks around. Mr KEATING —Yes, I have a Paris obsession too. We know that it was the express policy of the honourable member for Bennelong not to unveil his fiscal policy-his tax changes. All through the last Parliament he said to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke): `We will see about tax. We will see who runs to the wire on tax'. Well, we did see, did we not? And we will see more. It was all very clever-dick stuff-`Tell them nothing. Fob the journos off. Treat them like mugs at the Press conferences. Dodge the questions'. It shows the Ash Street view; that he could slip and slide around, and dart between people right up to election day-and not have to declare a policy. Well, the only problem is that there was a pick-axe right between the shoulders from the public, who said: `No, thank you very much: this Government is taking us out of all this and we do not want to go back'. Before the honourable member for Kooyong tries to take a rise out of this Government he has to change the basic philosophy. He must understand that when this Government floated the exchange rate it took a lot of the power in this economy that was abused by coalition Cabinets and gave it to the markets. The Government gave this power to the markets basically because the leadership of this Government does not trust the long-run deterioration in the political process, particularly in the hands of coalition governments. We have put much of that power to the market and it will put a stick across the back of anybody, Liberal or Labor, who is not prepared in the future to face the disciplines. In the past, over the Monday morning cup of tea, the gang of three set the exchange rate. Can honourable members imagine anything more ridiculous than three people having a cup of tea and a scone at 9 a.m. on Monday and deciding at what price we will buy American dollars or the rate at which we will exchange dollars for pounds. Is it any wonder that we had an uncompetitive economy? This was macroeconomics Liberal Party style. We are now supposed to say, `Well, Andrew is here. He has some views. What are we to do about that?'. I will tell honourable members what we will do about that. Essentially we will ignore it until those opposite do something. The honourable member for Kooyong, in his briefing from my former Treasury advisers, has been told about productivity. He says, `Today I cornered you on this question of productivity. You have a 4 per cent productivity case in the economy but not 4 per cent in the forecast'. I made the point about the implications of productivity and employment. I should have thought the point was understood but apparently it was not. I make the point again. The 4 per cent award has not been paid. At this stage probably about 6 per cent or 7 per cent of the work force has gained the 4 per cent rise. This is coming through very slowly and will appear in the measurement of productivity somewhat slowly. But we never assumed that there would be a full offset for productivity in year one. It will accrue as we move on and as the pace of the 4 per cent wage movement comes through. That is why the numbers in the Budget square with what is happening out there. But there are compositional difficulties in measuring productivity in the service sector of the economy, in the Australian Public Service and elsewhere. Consumption spending-the 1.5 per cent real increase-involves 1 3/4 per cent for gross national expenditure (GNE), of which the fastest growing component is investment. If we abstract the investment and dwellings, private consumption expenditure is running at about 1 per cent. Growth is at 2 3/4 per cent. Growth of 2 3/4 per cent is sustainable in this environment because one percentage point is coming from net exports, from the very thing we need to turn the current account around. The demand components are 1 3/4 per cent for GNE. If we abstract investment out of that we are back to about 1 per cent, which is a very modest figure compared with the long run of 2.6 per cent and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of about the same. We could never have kept household disposable incomes at the levels they were at last year. They had to rise. They are rising now in an environment which can accommodate them. I say in conclusion that when the Liberal Party gets its conceptual act together and realises what it has to do to be a government and gets a decent policy, then we will take notice of what the honourable member for Kooyong has to say. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr COBB(Parkes)(3.29) —The previous speaker, the Treasurer (Mr Keating), probably wonders at times why he is not liked in the community. We have just heard a tirade of abuse and trivia, telling us that everything is on course. I do not know whether everything is on course in Blaxland but I know that in my electorate of Parkes, and every other electorate around the country, the economy is not on course. Businesses are going broke. People who are doing the right thing and working are being crushed. This is the result of the policies of the fellow who is disappearing from the chamber, who does not even have the courtesy to stay to listen to the debate and perhaps learn something. Last Friday, 11 September, was a significant day. It was the first anniversary of the downgrading of Australia's economy by Moody's Investor Services Inc. Who caused that? Overseas independent judges said that we were managing the economy badly. I ask: who is responsible for managing the economy? It is the man who has just disappeared out of the chamber. For the first time in Australia's history we have gone from an AAA credit rating to a AA credit rating-and we are still sliding down. It is interesting to reflect why that has happened. It has happened because of the overall mismanagement of the economy and in particular the burgeoning of our overseas debt. Nothing that was presented in the Budget last night will get that AAA rating back. All the media presentation, media hype, et cetera, has concentrated on that so-called magical figure of $27m for the domestic deficit as though that were the be all and end all of the economic salvation for the gigantic economic mess in which Australia finds itself today. Mr Nehl —It is a disaster. Mr COBB —It is a disaster. Not one question has been asked as to how the Government arrived at that figure. Honourable members have concentrated on just the figure. It is a bit like a farmer who, having lost $30,000 for the year, sells his back paddock or tractor to balance the books and says, `I have had a reasonable year; I did not lose money'. That is just having oneself on. It is like a businessman who sells his assets to balance his losses. The honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock) pointed out in his good speech that there are some unique circumstances, such as the sale of assets. The Government will receive $1 billion for selling off the family silver. The profits of the Reserve Bank of Australia are at a one-off high. Normally the figure would have been about $1 billion, but it was $2.6 billion. When one adds those things together one finds that the true domestic deficit is about $3 1/2 billion. So the Treasurer's presentation last night was not so magical after all. Many other disturbing aspects, which the honourable member for Kooyong highlighted, go with the Budget. Receipts, mainly from taxes, were up $8 billion last year. The Treasury's coffers reaped in those receipts from the wealth creators of Australia. The figure went up from $64.2 billion to $72.2 billion and it is predicted to go up next year by a further $6 billion to $78.1 billion. That has come about because this Government has put just about every tax imaginable in place and it is now sitting back and doing nothing but raking in all the new taxes. We have had the fringe benefits tax, the capital gains tax, superannuation taxes, assets test taxes, new sales taxes, increased sales taxes, negative gearing-I will return to that in a moment-and the indexation of excise taxes. Farmers in the honourable members' electorates would know all about that with fuel. So the list goes on. As the honourable member for Kooyong said, the Government is awash with tax money. What has it done about it? In addition, Australia's inflation rate is massively higher than that of our overseas trading partners. To use the Treasurer's words, the penny still has not dropped. The higher rate of inflation is pushing everyone into higher tax brackets. Even though we have had those so-called Clayton's tax cuts, everybody is paying more taxes than he did before. Whatever way one looks at it, this Treasurer of four years is the highest taxing Treasurer in Australia's history. Taxes now form a higher proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) in this country than has been the case over the past couple of years. The Treasurer is fond of referring to things as a percentage of GDP. He might refer to that figure. If we had combined spending cuts, which we did not see in the Budget, with the tax money coming in, we could have cut massively our borrowings on the domestic market and overseas and, therefore, stopped crowding out the private sector which also has had to borrow. The combination of both has forced interest rates up to record levels in the last three to four years. This Budget was largely wasted. It was an opportunity which slipped through the Treasurer's hands. Australia is being left behind. While inflation and interest rates have gone down in overseas countries in the last three to four years, because those countries have got their act together, Australia has gone the other way. One has only to compare the Australia of today with what it was when the Government took office in 1983. Goodness knows, we had problems then but let us compare those problems with the ones that exist now. I ask: are we better or worse off now than we were in 1983? It is undeniable that the wealth creators of this country are worse off. Inflation, interest rates, and taxes are up. The standard of living is down. The current account deficit is at a record level and today a monthly figure of $850m has just been added to the statistics. Unemployment is stagnant despite all the jobs that the Government is supposed to be creating. The length of time for which the unemployed are out of work has doubled. Home starts and business investments are down. Whichever criterion one takes, we in this country are worse off today. The Government has been the biggest instigator in creating such problems because of the economic policies which it has pursued. Now, when we get a marginal dipping of a record interest rate or a current account deficit that tips a little under the $1,000m mark, Government members throw up their hands and say that the economy is on course and that they are the economic saviours of Australia. They say, `Send us another medal for the world's greatest Treasurer' and so on. Have we ever heard such nonsense? The Treasurer is far from being the economic maharishi that he paints himself to be. It seems that no matter what he does the media will portray him as being correct. If he does something one day which we criticise, he is right and if he accepts our advice and does the other thing, he is right. One has only to look at the inconsistencies in his speech on negative gearing. It is worth quoting what he said to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) on negative gearing in 1985: I cannot believe that any leader of a major party would come into this Parliament and seek to have restored one of the most blatantly abused tax shelters in the system where people can minimise their income by running interest cost deductions against property. To try to defend this behaviour, this outrageous rort, on the basis that it helps some renters is extraordinary. The great majority of rental properties are not affected by negative gearing and negative gearing has not succeeded in providing an adequate number of rental properties. What an inconsistent flip-flop that is. That epitomises the way in which the Treasurer has run the Australian economy. The Grim Reaper has scythed the Australian economy in a totally irresponsible fashion over the last four years. When he has had a chance to do something about it, when the increased revenue has been coming in because of all the new taxes which are in place, he has let the opportunity slip through his fingers-to use his words once again. If ever there was an issue on which the Treasurer stands condemned it is the way he has lost total control of the overseas debt. The gross overseas debt was about $30 billion when he took over. Today the figure has almost quadrupled to $110 billion. It took 196 years to get to $30 billion and it has quadrupled under the present Treasurer to $110 billion. Mr Hunt —A great record! Mr COBB —What a record. It is the composition of it which particularly alarms me. The Government proportion of that overseas debt has leapt markedly vis-a-vis the private portion of it. The length of time for which we are writing overseas loans has dropped from years to months. If they are ever called in, if our rating drops again, we will be in trouble, because all the debt will fall due at once. I am alarmed at how the money is being spent. It is not being spent on wealth creation areas as was previously the case; it is being spent on handouts and welfare. In addition, the interest bill has burgeoned out to $7.9 billion. We are spending more in interest payments than we are on health, education and defence individually. Mr McVeigh —That is our biggest export. Mr COBB —It is equivalent to almost 20 per cent of our exports. The debt continues to grow. None of that was mentioned in last night's Budget. It is only the fortuitous increase in the price of wool and cotton, et cetera, that is holding the economy together. The J-curve has been almost turned upside down to become a walking stick for the Treasurer. That would be the case if it were not for wool and cotton. Despite the Government's expected euphoria about the low domestic deficit, the major underlying problems remain untouched. No cuts of substance are evident in the Budget. The Government and the Treasurer stand condemned for wasting the opportunity that they had last night. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr BILNEY(Kingston)(3.39) —In politics we are sometimes accustomed to using hyperbole to describe things as a disaster and so forth when they are not. For the first time since I have been in politics, I believe that it would have been an absolute disaster if the Budget which we are now considering had been a Budget brought down by the Opposition. A Budget of the kind which the Opposition would have brought down would have destroyed this country's chance of a future. It would have meant that our children would have been emigrating to some relatively prosperous country such as Argentina. It would not have continued the excellent and sustained attack on Australia's major problems as this Budget does. I believe that this Budget is a `thing of beauty and a joy forever'. It is excellent for what it tells us about the Government's past economic management; it is excellent for what it tells us about the Government's present priorities; it is excellent for what it indicates about the future of this country under the stewardship of the third Hawke Government, including the Treasurer, the honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating). I will look at the past economic management aspect first. The salient point is that essentially the Budget is a balanced Budget. We were urged by the Opposition and the business community to bring about a balanced Budget. I do not think they really believed it was possible. But that is the outcome of the Budget. It has been brought about partly by a growth in revenues. Where has the growth in revenues come from? It has come from a widening of the tax base which has been undertaken progressively over the past 18 months to two years since the National Taxation Summit Conference. The fringe benefits tax has contributed significantly to the balanced Budget. I believe that the result of the last election gives the lie to honourable members who now stand in this place and say that they regard the fringe benefits tax as unfair. Some people tried to make an issue of it but it could not in fact get off the ground. The balanced Budget has been brought about by an increase in revenue from the capital gains tax. I think that Australians were sick and tired of entrepreneurs being able to buy an asset one day and sell it a week later for a $100m profit that was totally non-taxable. In fact the capital gains tax has contributed substantially to the Budget result we see today. The stock market boom brought about by some policies of this Government also has contributed markedly to that Budget result. As well the balanced Budget has been brought about by a more efficient administration of the tax system. Too often it has been the case that people have been able to conceal income from the Commissioner of Taxation but I believe such concealment will be prevented by the Australia Card-the introduction of which I entirely and fully support. We have brought about a fairer tax system. Contrary to the suggestion that this Budget has meant a rise in personal taxation, the Budget in fact incorporates the $4 1/2 billion in decreased personal taxation brought about in the course of the last financial year. Of course, this has involved decreasing personal taxation rates from the top marginal rate of 60 per cent to 49 per cent. The balanced Budget also has been brought about by reductions in outlays. The major part of the reduction in outlays was accomplished in the May economic statement, which this Government had the courage to bring forward before an election rather than after. The overall effect has been that in this Budget there have been real declines in outlays and cuts in spending of 2.4 per cent. That is on the basis of a 7 per cent price deflator for non-farm gross domestic product. That follows a nearly one per cent real reduction in outlays in the previous financial year-the only case of two consecutive real declines in outlays in the last 30 years. There has been great discipline shown in this Budget, although that is not the only excellent aspect of it. The second thing I would like to look at and something which the Treasurer touched on in his remarks is the composition of growth. The major point is that the Government's strategy has been to confine growth to the export and import replacement sector. All the growth in the last financial year has come from that sector and much of the growth in the year in prospect will come from that sector. In other words, the Government's strategy of making Australia a more competitive exporter, particularly in the area of manufactured goods-manufactured goods have contributed a large part of that growth-is working. I might mention that all this has been accomplished against a background of a fall in the terms of trade and that it is only in the year in prospect that we see some slight possibility of a rise in our terms of trade-perhaps by as much as 2 per cent. So much for past economic management. I now turn to the present priorities exemplified in the Budget. One of those priorities concerns the major new spending commitment in the Budget, namely, the family assistance package. This Government is to be congratulated on not shrinking from its promise to bring forward a major family assistance package. The details of that package have been widely published but I will just mention them here. Some $250m is to be spent on poor children to begin to give effect to the Government's promise that no child will be living in poverty by 1990. As has been widely publicised, more than one million children will benefit from the new family assistance package. Subject to a very generous income test, the new scheme will provide a family allowance supplement of $22 a week per child. For older children of 13, 14 or 15 years that supplement will be $28 a week. For low income families who are renting there will be extra assistance of $15 a week. That means, for example, families with incomes of up to $324 a week who rent privately and have three children will receive a supplement of almost $90 a week free of tax. Compassion for the needy is a large part of the priorities in the present Budget. Another large part of those priorities involves the creation of jobs. The Budget estimates that there will be something like 2 3/4 per cent growth over the forthcoming year and that that will result in the creation of another 100,000 jobs in the year in prospect. I remind the House that that will bring the number of jobs created by this Government and the Treasurer to over a million by the middle of the Bicentennial year. Mr Gear —It is a great achievement. Mr BILNEY —It is a wonderful achievement. I refer now to some of the remarks about productivity. It was alleged that we will be looking at a decrease in productivity over the year. Productivity is notoriously difficult to measure particularly when employment growth is taking place, as it is taking place, in the services sector. I refer to the boom in tourism and the job growth which is taking place in the hospitality industry. I remind honourable members that there has been a considerable real reduction in labour costs in the course of the last two years. That naturally leads to the substitution of labour for capital; in other words, the creation of jobs. That is not something for which the Government apologises. The Government set out to create jobs. It said it would create jobs, it has created jobs and will continue, as a result of this Budget, to create jobs. The second tier wage arrangements will tie the creation of those jobs to increased productivity-something of which I think all honourable members and all Australians will approve. In the time that remains to me I want to deal with the future strategy of the Government to attack the major problems facing us. I refer to foreign and domestic debt. These are serious problems which the Budget recognises by making an attack on them for the first time in 50 years. This Budget will repay $1,000m of domestic debt and $1,000m of foreign debt. The projected improvement in our current account performance over time will reduce that problem to manageable levels. But we ought not underestimate the seriousness of that problem. To claim, as is claimed in the matter of public importance, that we have not addressed that problem in the Budget is a travesty. We have indeed. I commend the Budget. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. The debate is concluded. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science and Small Business)(3.50) —I move: Excise Tariff Proposals Nos 7 to 10 (1987) and Customs Tariff Proposal Nos 14 to 17 (1987). The tariff proposals I have just tabled relate to proposed alterations to the Excise Tariff Act 1921 and the Customs Tariff Act 1982. Excise Tariff Proposals Nos 7 to 10 (1987) and Customs Tariff Proposals Nos 14 to 17 (1987) formally place before Parliament, as required by law, tariff alterations made by notices published in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette following the dissolution of Parliament. Excise Tariff Proposals No. 7, operative on and from 1 July 1987, introduce a package of major excise concessions for stabilised crude petroleum oil, naturally occurring liquefied petroleum gas and condensate obtained from existing on-shore and off-shore production and new projects where excise and royalty apply. The new concessions, as announced by the then Minister for Resources and Energy on 4 June 1987, are designed to achieve the Government's objective of attaining the maximum level of self-sufficiency in petroleum production consistent with an efficient allocation of resources. In addition Excise Tariff Proposals No. 7 impose a surcharge of 3.9c per litre on aviation gasoline as part of new charging arrangements for general aviation. This change was announced by the then Minister for Aviation on 10 June 1987. Customs Tariff Proposals No. 14 (1987), operative on and from the same date, provide for corresponding alterations to rates of customs duty. Customs Tariff Proposals No. 14 (1987) also provide for phased reduction of duty on certain plastics and textile fabrics of New Zealand origin. Part 1 of annex C to the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement requires that tariff phasing for certain plastics and textile fabrics commence on 1 July 1987. However, because of the scheduled introduction of the harmonised tariff on 1 January 1988, these proposals implement only the first tariff phasings which will have validity to 31 December 1987. Negotiations are currently being undertaken between Australia and New Zealand to determine the further phasings which will apply with the introduction of the harmonised tariff. Customs Tariff Proposals No. 15 (1987), operative on and from 23 March 1987, provide for the duty free importation of certain lambskin or sheepskin leather, known as taipan leather, garments of New Zealand origin. Imports of taipan leather garments had been ruled ineligible for the concession which provides duty free importation for certain leather products of tariff sub-item 42.03.4. That decision became effective on and from 23 March 1987. After an approach from the New Zealand Minister for Trade and Industry agreement was reached between the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce (Senator Button) and the then Minister for Trade to reinstate the concession. This action was necessary to ensure Australia meets the requirements of the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement. The amendment was made effective on and from 23 March 1987, the date of the decision to discontinue the concession. Excise Tariff Proposals Nos 8 and 9 (1987), operative on and from 18 July 1987 and 15 August 1987 respectively, provide for altered rates of excise duty on certain refined petroleum products resulting from the Government's decisions on the pricing of indigenous crude oil and related issues. Customs Tariff Proposals Nos. 16 and 17 (1987), also operative on and from the same dates, provide for corresponding alterations to rates of customs duty. Rates of diesel fuel rebates for eligible uses have also been altered in conjunction with these changes. The changes on 15 August 1987 also incorporate increases in duties imposed upon certain refined petroleum products as a result of an increase in the consumer price index in the six months ending on 30 June 1987. These increases also came into operation on 15 August 1987. Excise Tariff Proposals No. 10 (1987), operative on and from 22 August 1987, amend the schedule to the Excise Tariff Act 1921 to provide for an excise by-law to allow duty free treatment of certain petroleum fuels. This is a technical legislative amendment to clarify the existing policy that such fuels are duty free when blended with non-excisable goods to produce solvents, mould release oils et cetera used as intermediate inputs to industry. Summaries of alterations contained in these proposals have been prepared and are being circulated for the information of honourable members. I commend the proposals to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Blunt) adjourned. Debate resumed. Mr CONNOLLY(Bradfield)(3.55) —As members of the House are aware, this is the second time that we have debated the Australia Card Bill. The important thing is that we are doing so in a very changed environment. Before the last election the majority of people, according to opinion polls, favoured the proposal. After the election the majority of people quite clearly do not. Despite that inexorable fact, Government speakers in this debate, particularly the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe), have complained loud and long that they are the people who have suffered at our hands, that we are running a campaign of deception and that we are misrepresenting facts and confounding reason, about which they believe they have a monopoly. They cannot understand why it is that a few short months ago their proposal had support when today it has so little, if any. I go further: if it were not for the tight discipline of the Labor Party Caucus, many members of the Government would cross the floor. That is what they would do if they had the opportunity. People such as the former Mr Justice McClelland, an ex-Minister of the Whitlam Government, have warned against the ID card proposal. Mr Martin —A top man! Mr CONNOLLY —As the honourable member says, a top Labor man; what he has told the Australian public is abundantly clear: he will have none of it. Mr Martin —He is a Labor rat. Mr CONNOLLY —We hear that he is a Labor rat. Perhaps to have a conscience, Mr Deputy Speaker, is to be a Labor rat. If that is to be the standard of morality to be wrought upon this nation over the next three years by the Hawke Government, God help us all. To have a conscience is to be a Labor rat! The former Justice Jim McClelland said in the Sydney Morning Herald on 11 November 1986: . . . even if the ID card would ensure that every cent of dodged tax would be caught in its net, I still don't think that it is worth the price of making every citizen wear a dog collar. It is interesting to recall the history of this nation and note that next year we will be celebrating our Bicentennial. In 1788 the majority of the first European settlers of this land were convicts, the flotsam and jetsam of British society. They were men and women who for whatever reason had transgressed in what was undoubtedly a difficult community in the eighteenth century. They came here with a number and individuals were known by a number. In our Bicentennial year, when we are supposed to be looking to Australia's future for our children, the Hawke Labor Government wants to give us an ID number once again. It is absolutely contemptible that in an effort to clothe this concept with the cloak of nationalism the Government has called it the Australia Card. It is not an Australia Card; it is an identification card. Mr Blunt —We are all card subjects. Mr CONNOLLY —As my colleague has just pointed out, we have been called `card subjects'. Whatever terminology the Government uses it is simply introducing an identification symbol for every single one of the 16 million-odd men, women and children in this land. Yet the Government regards that as a great achievement. Only last night during the Budget Speech we were told by the Treasurer (Mr Keating), gloating at his achievement, of the great rises in taxation revenue which in 1987-88 will rise by $5.6 billion, or 8.5 per cent, to $71.2 billion. That represents the highest taxing government in Australia's history. The important point is that that additional revenue was gained not through the imposition of an Australia Card or any other form of card; it was achieved by laws passed through this Parliament, right or wrong, and it was achieved by an improvement in the administrative arrangements within the Australian Taxation Office and departments such as the Department of Social Security which are responsible for reducing fraud, as is their duty. Yet we are told that the reasons we need this card are to stop taxation fraud, to stop social security fraud and to stop illegal immigration. All these subjects were brought before a committee of this Parliament and a majority of its members, including Government members, said quite conclusively that the introduction of a card would not be the answer. I quote from section 4.53 on page 147 of the report of the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card. It reads: Having considered the Government's proposal for a national identification system, as well as alternatives such as the use of photographic cards and the extension of the use of the current tax file system, the majority of the Committee rejects all proposals for the issuing of identity cards, with or without a photograph. I find it extraordinary that the Government at that time was prepared to establish a parliamentary committee but was not prepared to accept its recommendations even though Labor Government members were prepared to support those recommendations. We are facing a very serious issue in relation to the introduction of this legislation. It appals me to see that so many Government members apparently take the view that civil liberties can be trifled with. If Government members have studied the modern history of Western Europe one thing should stand out. It is this: the Australian people, ever since the inception of this nation, have had a very healthy disrespect, if not distrust, for giving any government too much power. Many men, going back to the days of ancient Greece and its great philosophers, have said that whatever the regulations may be, if they are in the hands of ordinary men ultimately they will be misused. I have not heard a single person on the other side say that he is prepared to guarantee that some future government, of any complexion, may not be able to build on the edifice which the Government is putting in place. Whatever controls the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and members of this Government may put forward, the simple fact of the matter is that the Government's writ runs only as long as the people of Australia allow. Government's change, and maybe in 50 years time the then government may wish to misuse the powers that the present Government is putting through this Parliament. The names of every one of the present Government members will go down in the history of this nation as the men and women responsible. These are not issues which any of us can regard with anything but the greatest concern. In the previous Parliament the Minister who was mainly responsible for this legislation was the Minister for Health, now Labor's Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett). On 10 June 1986 he said: We shouldn't get too hung up as socialists on privacy, because privacy, in many ways, is a bourgeois right that is very much associated with the right to private property. Having Ministers making remarks such as that, is it any wonder that a growing number of Australians from all walks of life, of all political persuasions, are now standing up and saying: `Hey, wait a minute. Let's have another look at this idea. What exactly is this Government all about? Why is it doing this to us? What is it going to get out of it? Why can we not, through a referendum, have a say in this attempt at social engineering which this socialist Labor Government is making?'. Yesterday, when the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) attempted to introduce legislation for a referendum, it was rejected out of hand because the great democrats on the Government side work on the simple premise that power gives them absolute right. They are going to learn the hard way that in a democracy there is no such thing as absolute power. They are also going to learn that the Australian people will not forget what the Government is doing to them. It will take the Government all of two or three years to get the system in place. The Government will have to fight every inch of the way and many times it will rue the day that it ever suggested that it take this particular route. Very recently, Sweden's former head of its identification system, Mr Freese, resigned. He said that Australia should think very carefully about introducing its own version of the system which Sweden has. We are well aware that large segments of the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the trade union movement have some passionate love affair with the Swedish system. I grant that Sweden has made some quite outstanding achievements in social policy, but it is perfectly clear that Mr Freese believes that the idea of a tightly controlled identification system, as applied in Sweden and as the Australian Government wishes to apply to Australians, simply does not work. Why did it not work? The Government's Data Protection Agency, which is to be modelled on Mr Freese's Data Inspection Board-same function, slightly different title-would not protect the rights of the Australian citizens any more than Mr Freese was able to protect the rights of the Swedish citizens. Mr Freese said: It may be looked upon as timidity for me to leave after a dozen years as head of the Data Inspection Board. I knew what I was doing when I reached my decision. To jump off the merry-go-round when you can no longer control the speed can also be looked upon as responsibility-responsibility not to take further responsibility. In other words, he knew that computerisation and data collection had reached the point where it was effectively beyond the powers of ordinary, individual public servants, no matter how well intentioned to control the flow of private information in and out of the system. The fundamental question which many people are asking today is this: in a system founded on the principle that a citizen is innocent until proven guilty, why should people have to live in an environment where, in accordance with this legislation, there is going to be a built-in presumption of guilt? The individual, the subject of the card-the `card subject', as we were told in this House-is going to be in a position where his rights as a citizen will undoubtedly be managed and controlled by whether he has access to a card. The point I made earlier was that any future government could equally amend that legislation to say, `You are a non-citizen unless you have the card and we, the Government, will determine what are the criteria which will determine whether or not you may have a card'. We hear rubbish from the Prime Minister and other Ministers to the effect that the card will not be compulsory. They say that one does not have to have the card. How ridiculous could the Government possibly be? Mr Webster —How could you survive without it? Mr CONNOLLY —As my colleague said, how could you possibly exist in a society without it? The Department of Social Security states that most fraud involves overpayment, not false identity, yet we have been told by the Government that one of the three principles or reasons why one must have the card is to stop social security fraud. False identity, according to the Department, is responsible for approximately 0.6 per cent of fraud. Most fraud is caused by mispayments and simple administrative incompetence. The Minister said, during Question Time today and yesterday-the Treasurer made the point in his Budget Speech last night-that over $100m was saved in the last financial year from unemployment benefits which otherwise would have been paid illegally. That was not because there was a card; there was no card. It was because systems were improved. Better systems of identification were demanded. Review groups travelled around the countryside checking people's availability and right to unemployment benefits. In some cases they made substantial savings-and that is good; that is precisely what ought to happen. But surely the Opposition has the right at this time to say to the Government, `Exhaust all alternative means'. It would then have the right to ask for extraordinary solutions to what it and the Auditor-General have admitted-and members of its own parliamentary party have admitted in this Committee report-are not extraordinary problems; they are normal problems created by incompetence and inefficiency, whether it be in the Department of Social Security, the Taxation Office, or anywhere else. For the Government seriously to say to the Australian people, `We need an elephant to crack a relatively small nut', is not only absurd; it shows a gross lack of judgment and is fundamentally dangerous. That is why people in Australia are worried today. We have been told that the card will catch illegal operators of the cash economy because cash transactions will be identified by the card. Of course cash transactions will not be identified by the card. What the Government will put in place is a huge black economy-for all intents and purposes, an illegal banking system which will run parallel to the official banking system. How many government members, for example, are aware that people can wash their money today by taking out purchasing accounts with major companies? These purchasing accounts are used to purchase ordinary clothing and daily requirements. People can put thousands of dollars into those accounts and not even buy anything in those shops. They are entitled to do it, and some people do, as a means of avoiding tax. Such schemes will not be caught by the Australia Card, unless the Government is now prepared to admit-this makes the situation even worse-that people cannot go into a shop and buy anything without producing their Australia Card. Mr Deputy Speaker, indeed we are going from the sublime to the ridiculous. I trust that the Minister is only being jocular, because if people really thought that we would see that sort of absurdity, there would be absolutely no hope for this Government on this subject. As I have made clear-and I reiterate it-the ID card represents a massive attack on the civil liberties of every Australian and is an unnecessary extension of the powers of a gross, centralised government bureaucracy. Anybody who has dealt with the bureaucracy for as long as I have must admit that it does not work on the basis of conscience; at times it does not even work on the basis of need. It works on the principle that information is valuable; information means power. What the Government is saying in this context is that some people will have access to information of enormous consequence to hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australian citizens, who have broken no law, who have not transgressed any regulation and who simply ask to be left alone to conduct their lives as normal Australian citizens. There is no doubt that once the ID card is introduced it can be used for any purpose, legitimate or illegitimate, depending on the government of the day and, as I said, on those who instruct and are meant to support the government of the day. It has been said, for example, that it will not cause inconvenience. How can people carry on financial relationships with financial institutions and banks, initiate investments and have transactions with trusts or cash management funds and how can primary producers carry out their transactions, when they will be expected to show the card on every occasion? How can people arrange foreign remittances? How can they arrange land transactions? How can they use a safe deposit box? How can they have investments in shares in public companies for transactions relating to future contracts, even for employment? The card is required for all those purposes. Yet we have been told: `You don't need the card.' One thing is perfectly clear: if a person does not have the card, ultimately he will not even get a job. I made that point earlier: Why should any government have the right to hold such a sword of Damocles over the heads of ordinary Australian citizens who have not broken any law? Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Blanchard) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr GEAR(Canning)(4.15) —It seems that not much has changed since we went to the election. The Opposition, as usual, is very negative. One thing that stands out in all the speeches of honourable members opposite is that they will never put up an alternative. There is nothing constructive in what they say; it is all destructive. Not only that; as we have just heard, it is hypothetical in the extreme and also not very accurate. In fact, the honourable member for Bradfield (Mr Connolly), who has just spoken, talked about the amount of times one would need the Australia Card to transact business. He told us, in other words, that every time people went to the bank they would have to show their card. He should know, if he has read the legislation, that that is not so. We on this side of the House are dealing with facts. Mr Deputy Speaker, as you would know, the Government has a responsibility to ensure the integrity of the taxation system and has a responsibility to make sure that those who claim social security benefits from the public purse are entitled to them. This Government, from day one, has always taken those responsibilities very seriously. I remind the House of our record in terms of social security. One of the first things we did when we came to government was to end double dipping with regard to superannuation schemes. We brought in the assets test to stop millionaires getting the pension, because they did not need it. Also, the Maintenance Collection Agency, which will come into operation next year, is another initiative of this Government to make sure that those people who claim social security benefits are entitled to them. On every one of those occasions we were opposed by members of the Liberal Party and their National Party colleagues. On every occasion their predictions of doom and gloom have been proved wrong. In regard to taxation, we moved early in our term of government with respect to prescribed payments. The predictions of those opposite were that the building industry would collapse. Yet five years later the building industry has never been in better shape. We brought in a capital gains tax-the first time we have had a decent capital gains tax in this country. What did those opposite say? They predicted that the industry would collapse and prices would go through the roof. Again, they were proved wrong. In regard to the fringe benefits tax, the prediction of those opposite was that business in Australia was about to close down. They were wrong again. They said that prices would rise; wrong again. When we ended the deductibility of business lunches they predicted that up to 80,000 jobs would be lost in the catering industry. There are more people working in the catering industry now than there were when we took away that deduction; wrong again. In regard to substantiation, there were predictions about receipts and all the hardships that were supposed to ensue from that reform; wrong again. We are continuing that reform by bringing in the Australia Card to ensure that the taxation and social security systems in this country are intact. We are opposed again. We have heard the outlandish projections of those opposite. I can make one prediction with certainty: in four to five years time when we are debating some other measure in this House members on this side of the House will jump up and say that the Opposition was wrong again on the Australia Card. It has never been right yet and it will be proved wrong again. Let us look at some of the assertions that have been made against the Australia Card. We heard the honourable member for Bradfield talk about information-the power of information and all the information that the Government will get because it has this card. The amount of extra information the Government will get from this card will be nil. We will not get any more information for the different government departments than we already get. We will not-with one minor exception, to which I will refer-get any more information. So how can those opposite talk about the card as being the terrible thing that it is? How can they say that people will have to give all this information to the Government? We will not get any more information, with one exception. The one exception is that there are people in the community who do not tell the Australian Taxation Office about all their earnings and all their undeclared interest. One thing we can say about the Australia Card is that when it is brought in the Treasury will get that extra information. But that is the information we are after because, after all, by not providing that information to the Treasury, those people are bludging on all other taxpayers. In the last financial year there were over 250,000 unattached group certificates. That means that 250,000 people took phantom jobs in Australia. They never showed up at taxation time. Do honourable members think those people were honest taxpayers? Do honourable members think for one minute that, if we do not bring in the Australia Card, we will end that? Nobody has mentioned what people get up to in the wider community-the people who really cheat the system and the people who hide behind the honest people. But last year there were 250,000 unattached group certificates and that is a conservative estimate. The Australia Card will end that abuse. What about the information that people will have to supply to get the Australia Card? Let us look at it. As citizens in Australia people will have to tell the Government their names, their dates of birth, where they live, and whether they are male or female. They will have to prove that by bringing in their birth certificates and then they will have to have photographs taken. Is that not terrible! We could go down to the post office and find out about most of those things, yet we are led to believe by those opposite that providing this information will change the whole fabric of Australia. I repeat that people will have to supply their names, their dates of birth, their addresses and whether they are male or female. They will have to prove this, usually by producing a birth certificate, and they will have to have photographs taken. Is it not terrible that people will have to give that information to the Government? I really do not know where members of the Opposition get off. They really cannot find an issue. They did not initiate this public debate on the Australia Card; they came in at the tail end of it. But the opportunists opposite-that is all they are-say: `There is a bit of dissension in the community. Let us take advantage of it and see whether we can stir it up a bit. Let us go and get a few petitions, pose in front of the television cameras and voice our concern'. Let us look at the cost of not having an Australia Card. Mr White —We didn't start it because we didn't want it. Mr GEAR —The honourable member says that people did not want it. How would he know? How many people has he asked? We heard the honourable member for Bradfield talk about opinion polls. He talked about how everyone was in favour of the card and how they are now against it. The honourable member goes only by opinion polls as he has nothing between his ears. No one has talked about what the Government could do with the estimated $1,000m that the Australia Card will bring in and I remind honourable member that every estimate we have made has been conservative. Let us look at some of the things we could do if we brought in the Australia Card and our projections were right. Mr White —Are you sure you're right? Mr GEAR —I am sure I am right because I check the facts, unlike the honourable member. If we chose to, we could reduce the top marginal tax rate from 49c to 40c. We could wipe out the top tax rate and still have $200m left over. The Opposition went to the people in the last election campaign with its sham tax policy of 38c. With the Australia Card we could get the tax rate down to 40c and have $200m left over. If we chose to, we could give pensioners an increase of $8.50 a week. If we had the Australia Card we could increase the age pension, invalid pension, sheltered employment allowance, rehabilitation allowance, widows pension, supporting parent's benefit, unemployment benefit, sickness benefits and special benefits, by $8.50 a week. Honourable members opposite never mentioned that in the community when they were collecting signatures on their petitions and when they paraded before the television cameras as the born again civil libertarians. Honourable members opposite do not tell people that we could fund another 100,000 places in higher education. I will tell them. We could have a combination of those things; I will not be prescriptive about it. This Government takes its responsibilities seriously. We do not go to water when the going gets tough. When there is a bit of heat in the community what do members of the Opposition do? They buckle. They race around getting signatures on petitions because they think that will do them some good. They did that with the fringe benefits tax (FBT) and the assets test. What happened? The people do not want to know the Opposition. With all those things in and working, the people of Australia re-elected this Government with an increased majority. It just shows us what mugs members of the Opposition are. They have not learned. As the Treasurer (Mr Keating) has said, what honourable members opposite ought to do-we know that they will not because they are too lazy-is get down to the hard work of coming up with policies. This debate shows what a sham the Opposition is. Members opposite have never come up with a constructive proposal. I see that the Leader of the National Party, the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair), is in the chamber. He will jump up next and he will speak again of doom and gloom. But one thing we will not hear from him is an alternative. Honourable members opposite are too lazy actually to sit down and work out a policy. Their path is the old sleazy one. The honourable member for Bradfield who spoke earlier put his finger on it. He said-this is the hope of the Liberal Party of Australia-that the card will take two to three years to introduce. Honourable members opposite hope that during the next election campaign the card will still be being implemented. The honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) is nodding his head in agreement. Does the honourable member know why this is the hope of his Party? It is because honourable members opposite are too lazy to get into government the proper way. They want the old, sleazy way in. They are trying to mount the fear campaign that they mounted with the assets test. Mr Tuckey —Please yourself. You won't be back. Mr GEAR —Honourable members opposite said that I was going to be a oncer. I have been a twoser and I am now a threeser. I will be a fourser. Before the interjections from honourable members opposite I was saying that they want a sleazy way into government. They want to run a fear campaign at the next election because they think the Australian people are mugs. Honourable members opposite have always thought of the Australian people as mugs. In 2 1/2 years time the opinion of the people of Australia, whose instincts I trust, will be reflected in the sort of public opinion polls about which the honourable member for Bradfield spoke because their first instincts were right. Once we start telling the people of Australia the truth about the Australia Card they will start accepting it and honourable members will not get their sleazy way back into power; they will have to work hard for it and we know that they cannot. Let us look at the fears in the community about the abuses of power that this card will somehow engender. As I have said before, the simple fact is that we will not collect any more information. The Treasury will still get the information that it has always received. One thing the Australia Card will do is to make sure that the information we are getting is accurate. That is where we will get tax cheats because only the tax cheats either do not give information or give incorrect information. The Australia Card will make sure that that information is correct but we will not collect any more information. The Treasury and the Department of Social Security will still collect the same amount of information. To listen to those opposite one would think that Australia was suddenly going to change overnight. I have already said that the Australia Card will not provide the Government with any more information than it already collects. Honourable members opposite would do well to dwell on that and not go out in the community repeating the sort of stuff they have been repeating. The honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) is a born again civil libertarian and there are born again civil libertarians in the Liberal Party. The Queensland Premier is a born again civil libertarian. Can honourable members imagine the Queensland Premier as a born again civil libertarian? He is the bloke who knocks down hotels in the middle of the night because someone might be concerned about them. He is the bloke who says that people cannot march in the streets if they want to protest. In Western Australia we have Bill Hassell, the born again civil libertarian, jumping up and opposing the Australia Card, yet when he was the Minister for Police he brought in the anti-assembly laws that stopped more than six people congregating in the streets of Perth. The civil libertarians are great! Anybody who believes that the Liberal Party is mounting a campaign against the Australia Card to benefit the Australian population really does not know what he is talking about. As I have detailed before, every decent thing we have tried to put back into the taxation system the Opposition has opposed all the way down the line. I have read out the benefits that could accrue to people in the Australian community if we were to bring in the Australia Card. I know that there are some genuine concerns in the community. I know that all the people who oppose the card now do not do it for the same reasons that the Liberal Party does it. The Liberal Party's reason is pure political opportunism-nothing more. There are people in the community with genuine concerns about the card, about civil liberties and about privacy. This Government has gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that those concerns are addressed. I think the Government's task now is to make sure that the misinformation campaign that is being put about the card is put right to make sure that the genuine concerns out in the Australian electorate are addressed and people are told the truth. The born-again civil libertarians who sneak out from behind a rock when they can sniff some political advantage to themselves do not prosper from the genuine concerns in the community. I would just like to finish by reiterating that all the easy decisions of government have been made. If this country is to get back on its feet tough decisions have to be made. This Government has not gone against making tough decisions. We have seen the Opposition go to water in opposition. It would never do the tough things when in government. Many of the decisions it did not take have led Australia into the position it is in today. We are not concerned about the campaigns against the fringe benefits tax, the capital gains tax and the ending of business lunches and we are not put off by the campaign against the ID card. We know we are right and in the end the people of Australia will benefit because we have fought the good fight and won it. Mr SINCLAIR(New England-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(4.42) —The honourable member for Canning (Mr Gear) has just recited for us a litany of why there should be no identity card. He referred to a number of proposals. Essentially he is suggesting that we ought to have an alternative. Although I really do not suggest that anybody should listen to the matter that he brought forward, he did say that no more information was going to be available for the production of the identity card than is already collected by the Government. I ask everybody who is interested in this subject to think about that. If the Government is already collecting the information that is now to be made available and if it is already available to the Australian Taxation Office and to every other arm of the bureaucracy, I ask: Why should the identity card be introduced? Of course, there is no answer. The proposal from the honourable member for Canning is that there really should be an alternative. Why does the Government need an alternative if the material has already been collected? He knows that there is far more to this identity card than meets the eye; he knows that it is a part of the ideological commitment of elements of the Labor Party. We know the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) who is nominally in charge of it-although under the new arrangements I do not think any of us are too sure of who is in charge of what-and first introduced the proposal well and truly set down for people to understand the circumstances of what he sees as the total irrelevancy of privacy. He set down the circumstances where he claims that social welfare fraud and tax evasion required the introduction of an identity card. What I intended to do by speaking in this debate this afternoon were several things: First, I want everybody in the community and certainly in this Parliament to understand that as far as the National Party is concerned we are, have been and will be totally opposed to the concept that lies behind this particular piece of legislation. We have been opposed to it from the beginning. It is because of our opposition both here and in the other place that a premature double dissolution of the Parliament was called and because the Liberal and National parties voted in that way there has been now brought back, for the third time, in identical form, a piece of legislation which the Government is afraid to submit to the electorate by way of a referendum. The legislation runs quite contrary to the principles on which the National Party is based; it runs contrary to our concerns about the privacy of an individual; and, above all, after a Budget that fails abysmally in addressing the fundamental problems for ordinary Australians, it provides yet another intrusion into the circumstances of ordinary business operation and domestic operation. We have heard about baby-sitters; we have heard about the problems there are in employing somebody to come in and help mow the lawns, do the garden and do all those chores. We have also heard in this place and in the public debate of the consequence and the penalties that are imposed. They are not minimal penalties; they are extraordinary penalties. Everyone needs to know that not only are the penalties monetary penalties; behind those monetary penalties is an order for them to be extracted from the poor, innocent citizen. There is an obligation of gaol if the person does not comply. The circumstances we need to consider in this House are manifold: First, without any doubt, the Australian Labor Party is not united on the introduction and passage of the legislation. Mr Hollis —Don't you believe it. Mr SINCLAIR —I would not take the honourable member as speaking for the Labor Party. Secondly, I think we need to understand that within the community there has been already, both by the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card and by a significant public scrutiny, a recognition that the Australia Card Bill and the identity card proposition do not achieve what the Government pretends they will. All this rubbish about trying to overcome tax evasion and social welfare fraud was initially laid to rest by the Joint Select Committee which, on its number, had Labor members who agreed with its conclusions which said that this particular package would not achieve what the Minister pretends. In other words, it is not a matter of identification of the individual which is the prime concern in trying to overcome tax evasion and social welfare fraud; it is ordinary administrative practices. Until the Government comprehends that there is, as indeed a few minutes ago the honourable member for Canning admitted, already available to the Government the information that the identity card will present, it will not get anywhere. It is no use collecting more information if the Government does not know what to do with what it has got now. That is what the whole thing is about. The Government should not go out and collect more and more bits of paper. That seems to be what it is all about. The Government wants to get that information in a different form. The form it will get it in is downright dangerous. The circumstances in which it wants to collect the information not only will be intrusive but also will very significantly disrupt the opportunity for ordinary individuals carrying on their ordinary way of life. I am afraid that until such time that this Government understands that unless it get its bureaucracy in order it will not be able to govern with the confidence of the people the worse off we will all be. Mr Hollis —That is why they voted for us. Mr SINCLAIR —That is why the honourable member did not get a majority overall in numbers in the last election. I want to address a number of aspects of the legislation. Let me again assert that nobody on this side of the House and nobody in the National Party has supported, does support or will support the concept of an identity card proposal of the ilk of the one that has been submitted today. There is no doubt that it is only now after the election that many people are coming to understand just how serious an intrusion these will be into civil liberties and privacy. We have heard some incredible responses. We have had Senator Susan Ryan come out and say, `Oh yes, but it is not going to go through the normal communication facilities; it will only go to some sort of especially allocated landline'. We heard a very interesting answer from the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support (Mr Duncan) in the Parliament today on encryption devices. What the honourable gentleman obviously has failed to understand is that even this morning in the Australian we read of a number of West German hackers who were able to infiltrate probably what one would suspect to be the most secure information system that could be developed anywhere in the world. They, in fact, infiltrated the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research system of the United States of America. They implanted their own programs which automatically gave them access to all of the work that the branches in the United States, Japan, France, West Germany, Britain and Switzerland have. I ask: If NASA is unable to secure its computer program on its transmission lines, what arrant nonsense it is for these people over here to say that somehow or other we will be able to keep sacrosanct Telecom lines. All of us on this side of the House know that one of the Government's former State colleagues is now incarcerated in the New South Wales prison system. One of the reasons he is there is because of the bugging of telephone lines. We all know about the Age tapes and the fact that a former Premier and a few others in the Labor Party system should jolly well be before the courts for one reason or another as a result of other intervention in our telecommunications system. But in case the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support does not understand, could I suggest to him that international yachtsmen and multimillionaire, Ted Turner from Canada, made his original fortune in decoding encryption devices and selling copies to persons wishing to access pay television stations in the United States. What about all the absolute rubbish that Senator Susan Ryan comes out with when she says, `Oh, we are going to have a dedicated landline. Don't worry. Nobody will know about it.'? I have never heard such absolute rubbish in my life! We all know as she does if she is honest with herself that any information that is available through the computer interconnecting system can be both interceded and collected, and it can be automatically connected as we have seen with NASA in a way that must threaten the civil liberties and personal privacy of individuals. I find it fascinating to look at the basic principles of the Australian Labor Party as they were enunciated at the thirty-seventh Federal Conference of the Labor Party in Hobart in 1986. Members of the Labor Party talk about the commitment by the Australian people to the creation of an independent, free and enlightened Australia. How does one get that if one introduces a table of every individual set down in a documented record and if there is a card to make people either a card carrying citizen or a non-citizen? The Labor Party is creating a circumstance whereby the Government will be able to determine whether a person is a citizen or not. The Government will have the right to issue or withdraw the card and if one does not have a card, one will be a non-citizen. The Labor Party talks about an independent, free and enlightened Australia. What poppycock! Well might the members of the Labor Left express their concern. Let us look at when the card will have to be produced. A great deal has been said about this, but people should remember that financial institutions will not be able to open accounts, accept deposits or give withdrawals without the production of the card. State and Federal governments and companies will not be able to pay interest or repay loans without the card. Legal practitioners will not be able to accept money for making investments or loans on behalf of any person. Cash management trusts, property trusts and unit trusts cannot issue or buy back units, or pay income from them without the production of the card. Marketing authorities and produce agents cannot make payments for the proceeds of the sale of primary produce without production of the card. People will not be able to buy livestock over the phone in the manner that thousands of farmers and graziers have for generations without the production of the card. No one can buy or sell land without producing the card. Financial institutions will not be able to make safety deposit boxes available; share dealers will not be able to buy or sell shares on behalf of any person; futures brokers cannot deal in futures contracts without production of the card. Employers will not be able to pay a salary and payments will not be made under the prescribed payments system without production of the card. Medicare payments, payments to doctors and hospitals, treatments in hospitals and in nursing homes will not be possible without the production of the card. We already know that the card will not prevent tax evasion and social welfare fraud. Identity is not the problem. We know that it will have to be produced in a range of areas, and it will be deliberately intrusive on the rights of ordinary individuals. My friend the honourable member for Fadden (Mr Jull) quite properly yesterday-- Mr Howard —A very well known name, too. Mr SINCLAIR —Yes, a well known and redoubtable man with an electorate that takes the name of a distinguished colleague of mine. The honourable member is a good member at that. At Question Time yesterday, the honourable gentleman commented about child care treatment. How many people, in the conduct of their ordinary affairs, employ a baby-sitter so that they can go out for the night? That baby-sitter cannot be employed without the production of the card. If one employs a baby-sitter, a gardener or a guy to clean the windows, or if one carries out any ordinary transaction without requesting the production of a card, one will be liable to a penalty of up to $20,000. The honourable member for Canning suggested that this was all a fear campaign. It is about time that a few people in the Australian community realised that it is the Government which has introduced the fear and the coalition which is trying to introduce realism. The sooner we understand that and these penalties are removed and the identity card concept is totally scrapped the better off we shall be. The card will not achieve its aims. It will not help in removing tax avoidance or combating organised crime. It will not prevent illegal immigration or contain social security fraud, so why is it being introduced? It is all part of the great design to which the Labor Party seems to be committed of regimenting the Australian community more and more. It will intrude on civil liberties and privacy. A significant cross-section of Australians are opposed to the card. For example, Ben Lexcen says: The Australia Card is an obscenity. It will destroy this country. If the government is allowed to get away with introducing it, I will turn in my citizenship and leave Australia. A moment ago a member of the Labor Party interjected. He seems to think that if a person objects to the Australia Card that is a good reason for making that person a non-citizen. We have already heard the Minister for Community Services and Health talk about Australians as card subjects. It is about time that the Labor Party members tried treating individuals as individuals and recognising that even though a person's politics are not the same as theirs, he is just as good a person. If the honourable gentleman does not like Ben Lexcen, perhaps I can try him on Peter Garrett, who said: The I.D. card is the greatest threat that Australia has ever faced. It will split the community and imperil democracy. It must be deposed. Sir Noel Foley, former Chairman of the Westpac Banking Corporation, said: The Australia Card, based on the most tolerant interpretation, is a clumsy, heavy-handed and expensive measure to ease the tasks of public servants in taxation and welfare departments . . . a serious threat to the privacy, liberty and safety of every citizen. Dr Bruce Shepherd said: I am appalled at the prospect of my country being under such awful control. The Hon. Mr Justice Michael Kirby, President of the Court of Appeal, said: What is at stake is nothing less than the nature of our society and the power and authority of the state in relation to the individual. Greg Chappell said: The I.D. Card will infringe the rights of individuals and should be rejected for the sake of democracy. I find this fascinating. It does not matter that distinguished Australians oppose the card. It does not matter to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the members of the Government that card subjects and calling people by numbers instead of by their names and instead of looking on them as citizens is an intrusion into their privacy. This arrogant, high-handed Government is taking an action which the Opposition and the National Party believe must be rejected. The Government cannot give ironclad guarantees about the security of the system. Senator Susan Ryan's talk about somehow trying to encrypt the information and put in a dedicated landline we all know to be rubbish. We have not even considered the question of fraud. I am told that already it has been admitted that about 20,000 unofficially prepared duplicate Medicare cards are in circulation. We all know that forgery of currency has been rampant as long as currency has existed. The card will require an enormous bureaucracy and will be a large financial cost to the community with some 2,000 more public servants. Throughout this exercise, the Prime Minister and the Government have ignored the fact that the costs of introduction to the individual will far outweigh the revenue gains. No one should be mistaken. The cost of approximately $700m or $1 billion-whichever we use-to the Government is not the only cost. There is the cost to the individual. We all know, interested as we are on this side of the House in small business, that the intrusion of bureaucracy makes life difficult. We know that the card will cost the private sector not only lost working time but administrative time and one could well expect that cost to be about twice that of the cost to the Government. That is $2 billion to the private sector and $1 billion to the Government. It will create inconvenience to the community and it will be particularly difficult for isolated people. Those of us who represent the far flung areas of Australia, like the honourable member for Maranoa (Mr Ian Cameron), the honourable member for Kennedy (Mr Katter) and others in the National Party, know that their constituents will find this extraordinarily difficult. They have to rely on the telephone. They have to ring up to get business. What do they do if they want to ring up to order a few things from the store or get things sent out from the wool broker in town? How will they produce their cards? The whole thing is ridiculous. As for the aged, the disadvantaged and the handicapped, they will find it almost impossible to carry on their normal lives. People will have to carry the card all the time and they will not be able to go about their ordinary business. The punitive provisions are ridiculous. If one loses one's card and fails to report it, one can be fined $500. I have not worked out who will be responsible if somebody undertakes negotiations on one's behalf before one is able to find it. Failure to produce the card at the Tax Office on demand can result in a fine of up to $20,000 for an individual or $100,000 for a company. The Government has estimated the cost as $700m. I think that is an underestimation to a considerable degree. Another furphy in the deal was pointed out by Mr Roger Clark, Reader in Information Systems at the Australian National University, who has said that the legislation will cost private enterprise $636m over 10 years, and we all know that lost work time and costs to the banking industry will add significantly to total costs. Behind all that are other questions. Will there be some special list? I know the Government has said there will not be one and has denied reports at the weekend that some special category will be developed. What I find quite fascinating is that nobody has denied that a report has been prepared by an officer of one of the government departments, which reveals that other changes are involved. Mr K. J. Hazell of the Health Insurance Commission has talked about procedures without the need for any notification to the card subject. We on this side of the House believe that the card should be scrapped. If it is not scrapped, at least there should be a referendum. I commend to everybody the announcement that was initially made on 10 August by my colleague Senator Ron Boswell, when the first proposal for a referendum on the identity card was advanced. If the Government will not go to a referendum, the best thing it could do is look at the consequences for individual liberties, look at its own platform and recognise that in every respect the identity card goes against what all of us in Australia believe should be the free rights of every citizen. Debate (on motion by Mr Hollis) adjourned. Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time. Ordered that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time. Ordered that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Debate resumed. Mr HOLLIS(Throsby)(4.53) —It is a great honour to follow in this debate the great civil libertarian in this chamber, the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair). His strong stand on the affirmative action legislation and the human rights legislation-- Mr Martin —Long remembered. Mr HOLLIS —As my colleague the honourable member for Macarthur says, it will be long remembered throughout Australia. So it is a great honour to follow that great civil libertarian. We heard the usual story about all the innocent people who will be caught up-these cardless people. Who are these cardless people? They will include the 56,000 illegal immigrants. They will be the people who will be caught. The ordinary, honest Australian citizen will have a card. We also heard about the terrible infringement of civil liberties when people are involved in financial transactions. The right honourable member for New England did not say that the card will also mean that such people, for the first time in their lives, will be paying their fair share of tax, which for too long they have avoided paying. Let us shed no tears for them. We also heard a great litany of names of people who are opposed to the Australia Card. That litany will be repeated time and again whenever anyone from the Opposition speaks on this matter. My colleagues and I on this side of the House, if we wanted, could spend hours and hours trotting out the names of those eminent Australians who wholeheartedly support the Australia Card Bill. Leading those eminent Australians would be all honourable members on this side of the chamber. Mr Tuckey —Give us a few names. Mr HOLLIS —My name is one and that of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) is another. Who could be more eminent than that? My parents who are in the gallery also support it. What more eminent people could there be? This is the third time we have debated this legislation. No issue has been canvassed more than the Australia Card legislation. Indeed, so often has it been canvassed that I was going to repeat the speech I made on the preceding two occasions, but my good friend the honourable member for Macarthur (Mr Martin) has heard my two speeches. As a special treat for him, I thought I would make a new speech this time. Having listened to the debate that has already gone on, I must say that nothing has changed my mind from the strong support I have had for this legislation since it was first suggested and introduced. It has been through this chamber twice. All the arguments have been canvassed. This was the issue on which we called an election-which we won, I remind honourable members on the other side, with an increased majority. The real problem with the Opposition in this chamber is that it just cannot accept that we won the election. Immediately the election was over, what did that dispirited, divided rabble do? Those opposite looked for an issue. Mr Tuckey —They sure found one. Mr HOLLIS —They thought they had found an issue. They got such a drubbing that they had to do something to try to gen up their spirits. So they started this campaign about the Australia Card. As have all other members, I have received a lot of letters in my electorate. Most of mine have come from one part of my electorate, where I receive 30 per cent of the vote. Mr Martin —Name it. Mr HOLLIS —I might lose that 30 per cent if I named that section. Nevertheless, the same scare story has started. I have been a member of this chamber for almost five years. I have lived through the affirmative action legislation and many other things. There are the same scare stories. Honourable members will remember that when we were talking about the assets test, members of the Opposition day after day would ask crazy questions. Yesterday the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer) was asking about baby-sitters. We will have all the crazy questions again. People out in the community run these stories. The stories are all the same. I have been looking through the files in my office at letters from people concerning the human rights legislation, affirmative action and all the things that were going to mean the end of civilisation as we know it. The same people write to me all the time. It is also interesting that the person who is running the campaign against the Australia Card in the southern highlands happens to be a guy called Forrester, who happens to be the strongly defeated Liberal candidate for Macarthur. People say this is a non-political issue, yet this man is a defeated Liberal candidate. Also active in my area is Senator Michael Baume, who at that time was the Opposition spokesman with responsibility for the Australia Card. He has suddenly discovered it. The Small Business Association of Australia has also been very active. Its members spent the week leading up to the last election leafletting my electorate against me. Mr Tuckey —They are not allowed to do those things, are they? Mr HOLLIS —They are allowed to do it. But it did not do them much good. I still gained a 10,000 majority, so all their leafletting did not do them much good. If members of the Small Business Association were concerned with small business and its problems instead of other campaigns, small business might do quite a lot better. They are involved in everything but small business. The election was fought on this issue, yet the Opposition says that the Government does not have a mandate. Let me assure the Opposition that it does. In my electorate of Throsby this was a major issue. I put out more statements on the Australia Card than on any other issue. I put out numerous Press releases. I attended numerous meetings and I debated the issue all the time. The Liberal candidate in my area avoided the issue, as did the honourable member for Gilmore (Mr Sharp). I am sorry that he is not in the chamber. Now the honourable member is sending out petitions from his office. I remember that some two years ago the honourable member for Gilmore ran around challenging me to state where I stood on the Australia Card. When the right honourable member for New England said that National Party members had opposed the Australia Card from the word go, he was incorrect. The honourable member for Gilmore came out very strongly in support of it, as did the honourable member for Dawson (Mr Braithwaite). A whole litany of honourable members opposite supported it. The honourable member for Gilmore was very vocal in supporting it and in challenging me to state where I stood. I stated where I stood. I supported the proposal because I was sick and tired of the honest taxpayers of this country being ripped off. I said that I felt the measure would do something to bring fairness and equity into the tax system. I have always supported it. As I have said, the honourable member for Gilmore has had a change of heart and has been putting out petitions. We have heard a lot in this chamber today about civil liberties. The National Party has learnt a few new words today-encryption, hackers and so on. I think that it has also learnt the words `civil liberties'. When the Australia Card was first suggested I had some concerns for civil liberties so I took the trouble to inform myself. I had a look overseas and at what was actually involved. Countries that have protection for civil liberties that we in this country can only envy have some form of identification system. I thought it was the end when a meeting, a march, took place in Brisbane last Sunday. So much for not being able to march in Brisbane! It depends what the issue is as to whether one can march or not. In Queensland there was a meeting at which people spoke about civil liberties. What a place to talk about civil liberties! They have been protected in Queensland for a long time, have they not? The cheek and audacity of people standing there talking about the Government's measure, which will cut out fraud and rorts in the system, as being a threat to civil liberties really makes one wonder. It is almost as ludicrous as what is happening in Queensland now. Some members of the Queensland police force are being investigated for corruption and sexual activities and yet at the same time the other half of the force is ripping out condom vending machines from universities so as to protect the morality of the young. We have a strange system. Mr Humphreys —The honourable member for Ryan would support you on your views and on relations with the Queensland Government. Mr HOLLIS —Far be it from me to cast aspersions on any member of this chamber. I have no doubt that honourable members opposite will run a great campaign against the Australia Card. I remember that the same stories were used about the affirmative action legislation. I received letters from women saying that they did not want to work in a road gang. It was said in this chamber that suckling children would be taken from their mother's breasts and put into creches. I received many crazy letters. A group came to see me one day saying, `Mr Hollis, please protect the little babies'. We have had affirmative action legislation now for two years and civilisation has not stopped. The sun still rises each morning. Life as we know and love it goes on and it will continue to do so. The same applies with this legislation. When it becomes law, life will go on much the same. From the way the Opposition talks one would think that people open a bank account every day. One does not open a bank account every day unless one has something to hide. One does not get a new job every day. The Opposition asks what will happen if a person loses the card. I was interviewed on Bowral radio the other day and the interviewer asked me, `What would happen if a dog ate my card and I wanted to get a job?' I said, `Are you in the habit of feeding your dogs your plastic cards?' If a person is crazy enough to give his dog a card and the dog is crazy enough to eat it, I think that he should be examined. Nevertheless, if a person is stupid enough to feed his card to a dog and the dog eats it, the person does exactly the same as if he had given his dog a credit card and the dog had eaten his credit card; he applies for a new one. It is no great deal if one loses a credit card. I have carried credit cards and a drivers licence around for many years. I have never lost a drivers licence or a credit card. One would think that people in this country lose their cards all the time. Most people are responsible enough to look after their credit cards and their Medicare card. It will be the same with the Australia Card. People will not feed it to their dogs. I am sure that the honourable member for Grey (Mr O'Neil) does not feed his credit cards to his dogs and he will not feed his Australia Card to them. If he does, or if he loses his card, he will be able to apply for a new one and get it. Mr Tuckey —If you fail to report it within three weeks-- Mr HOLLIS —Has the honourable member for O'Connor ever lost his Medicare card or a credit card? I bet he has more credit cards than I have. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Blanchard) —Order! The honourable member will address the Chair. Mr Tuckey —I don't get fined if I don't report it for three weeks. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for O'Connor will cease interjecting. Mr HOLLIS —He will not get fined. We have heard a lot about holding a referendum on the issue. We held a referendum just two months ago and we got an overwhelming majority. The referendum was called a general election. I invite honourable members opposite to look at our policy speech which was delivered at the Sydney Opera House so magnificently. We said in our policy speech that when we were returned to government we would re-introduce the Australia Card legislation. I invite honourable members to look at the leaflets which the honourable member for Macarthur, the honourable member for Grey and the honourable member for Perth (Dr Charlesworth) put out in their electorates. The leaflets all said that we would re-introduce the Australia Card legislation. We have a mandate from the people of Australia to introduce the legislation. We have introduced it and it will be passed quickly. If honourable members opposite want to continue blocking it in the other place that is their concern. If they want to continue protecting those who have rorted the system for far too long I suggest that they explain to the Australian people why they would do so. There are far too many honest people in this country who have no way of avoiding the tax that they pay. We all agree that taxation is too high and we would like to reduce it. This is one measure in that direction. I pay over half of my salary in tax. If we have to pay a high amount of tax we would much rather see it going to the more disadvantaged in the community or being spent on roads, hospitals and so on. Finally, I heard many scare stories around this chamber when we brought in the fringe benefits tax. There were predictions of what would happen, how many businesses would be thrown out of business, how many jobs would be lost and so on. We learnt from the Budget Speech by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) last night what he and this Government could do for the more disadvantaged in our community. We can do that only because for the first time since we took over in 1983-we inherited a dreadful fiscal mess from the Fraser-Howard years-we have been able to restore equity to the taxation system. We have restored equity by ensuring that all pay their correct share of taxation. Last night we saw one of the benefits of that. We saw how we could give money to the more disadvantaged, the more deserving in this community. That is the reason, if no other, why I support the legislation so strongly. Obviously, we will reject the Opposition's foreshadowed amendment. I strongly support the legislation. Mr MOORE(Ryan)(5.10) —I am constantly amazed at the Government's arguments to defend the intrusion of the Australia Card on the individuals of Australia. None of the speakers in this debate have addressed themselves to the plight of the ordinary citizen who runs his own business-who has to fund and run his own accounts-who is already heavily bogged down with a vast array of government paper to fill in for what is euphemistically called in the bureaucracy `compliance costs'. What a wonderful term! There are so many forms today that people who are involved in business have to fill in. In particular I refer to small businesses which do not have in-house accountants; the boss has to fill in the forms at night. The average small business employing less than ten people is involved in very heavy additional cost. All of a sudden we are to have the identity card. We must ask the basic question: why is it so important to have an ID card? Why has the Government introduced this objectionable legislation? The reason is that the Government has been sold this idea by the Public Service. I well recall on many occasions when in government in the past that the Public Service would come to me with the proposition, `Look Minister, we are in a difficult position. Give us the discretion and we will not worry you about it'. Honourable members know that that is the way it is, and that proposition was put to us by the Commissioner of Taxation. He said, `Give us the discretion and you will have no need to worry about it'. What a way to opt out! The ID card approach is no more and no less than an extension of that. Mr Millar —A Sir Humphrey special. Mr MOORE —Indeed. It is the Public Service that has called on the ID card. Not only does it want a little discretion; in addition, because of the sheer mismanagement within the Taxation Office-and other areas-it wants more figures in order to carry through the job which it ought to have been doing in the first place. Because of that we have to brand a number on every Australian citizen. That is not the way that members of the Australian Labor Party necessarily want. I venture to say that it is not the way that the majority of members of the Australian Labor Party want. However, members of the Government have been sold this job by the Public Service in order for it to extend its power and its ability to control the collection of funds in this nation and, ultimately, the spending of that money within the nation. The politicians of the day have walked away and said: `Yes, we will go down that track'. They bought the soft option put to them by the Public Service in relation to how this matter should be handled. It makes me cringe to think of how the Government of the day could have been sold that one. However, I am convinced that that is what happened because not one speaker so far has been able adequately to answer to my satisfaction the question why the Australia Card is necessary, except to use that catchcry of its being necessary to stop the cheats and the rorts. In my estimation those cheats and rorts ought to have been caught up with by any reasonably managed department. I am not saying something now which I did not say to my department head many years ago. The proposed numbering system which has resulted from the neglect of basic management skills is to be forced on to the individuals of Australia at the behest of the Public Service. What do the people out in the community think of all this? I am not talking about the people who live in Canberra or the people who live at the end of a dedicated telephone line-which is the greatest lot of nonsense I have heard in my life. The other day a journalist who works for a television channel told me of these dedicated telephone lines. Secure? He said that quite frequently they get another channel on their dedicated line. These are dedicated lines which are supposed to have great security. What a lot of nonsense. On top of that intrusion on the individual what else is the individual to get? The individual does not want an identity card. Identity cards were rejected immediately after the war. Not one citizen in my electorate has said to me: `Look John, we really all ought to have a number. I have enough numbers now but give us another one'. I have no demand in my electorate for that and there is no demand in the electorates of Wide Bay or O'Connor for that. There is, however, a demand in the electorates of Australia for less government, fewer forms, lower business costs and fewer regulations to comply with so that the individual can get on with his or her life and make of it what he or she would want. I do not believe for a moment that the Australian Labor Party which was established to defend the individual and to represent people in the work force would want to see the people who form part of its genuine base numbered, directed and intruded on in this manner. I am quite sure that the majority of the Government members and members of the Labor Party's rank and file would be as utterly opposed to this as I am. Because of that the Opposition is supporting a proposal for a referendum to give the citizens of Australia a fair go. It is not, as a previous speaker said, a principle that was enunciated in a great policy speech in Sydney. What a great day that was for ordinary citizens! The modern day pharoah boats across Sydney Harbour to pronounce to the masses. I did not hear too much about an ID card that day as we watched the admiralty barge. Dr Charlesworth —You were not listening. Mr MOORE —I ask the honourable member whether he was asked to cross on the admiralty barge as a representative of the workers. I bet that the people in the honourable member's electorate were very pleased that the modern pharoah was on the admiralty barge sailing across to the great Opera House. That has a lot to do with the ordinary members of the Australian Labor Party today. It is because the Government is so out of touch with them-- Mr Beazley —We got re-elected. Mr MOORE —We scored more votes. Even in Queensland we know that more votes do not necessarily get one government. However, as I said, honourable members opposite became the government. To suggest that the matter was well aired as an issue in the last Federal election is a nonsense. Ordinary citizens ought to be given a say in relation to this matter through a referendum. I turn now to the cost of the Australia Card to the ordinary citizen and to business. The proposals in relation to this are quite significant and, I think, will create an enormous cost to business. I quote from an article which states: Given the rather ad hoc manner in which the idea rose during the second quarter of 1985 it is only to be expected that the significant cost elements would have been overlooked by the early estimates. From an initial seven year estimate of $380m by July 1985 the Government's estimate in December stood at $820m-comprising $127m establishment cost; operational cost of $100m per annum- That is quite a figure. As we sit here and wonder at the cost of the new Parliament House, let us remember that the cost to government of setting up the Australia Card is in the same order. The article continued: An ID card for everybody-- Mr Martin —Who said that? Mr MOORE —Those figures are right. They come from a Government source. The figures that I have cited here are identical to the figures provided by the Government's business review committee. That is a committee set up by the Government not so long ago to look at government regulation. I will come to that matter later. In view of those figures it can be seen that the ID card and the new Parliament House are costed at the same figure. As the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) knows better than I, those sorts of expenditures certainly are not acceptable to the ordinary citizen. The article continued: Some very significant cost elements have been entirely omitted from the official estimates. It is proposed that the integrity of identity would depend heavily on State registrars of births and deaths. Few of these are computerised and even fewer have captured retrospectively the birth details of the whole of the present population. To fulfil the Federal Government's needs the States would need funding support. In addition, a companion system to identify entitlees has been announced, but not costed. This would involve yet more bureaucratic registration, requirements to companies, trusts, partnerships, co-operatives, associations, business names and other legal persons. We can see that that cost, which is not in the official Government costing, would run into many millions of dollars. We all know that that would only be with the compliance and co-operation of the State governments. We already have a clear indication from Queensland that it will not co-operate. So the cost of these State registers, which are absolutely integral to the ID card, will run into many more millions than have already been specified. I turn now to costs to the private sector, because that is the area in which a lot of the proposal falls down. The Government's own Business Regulation Review Unit-the honourable member for Macarthur (Mr Martin) will be interested in this-a body set up by this Government to look at regulation, reported to the Government. I challenge the Government to table the report in Parliament so we can all see its contents. The truck drivers association has informed me that one item in the report says that the cost to the Government will be $1 billion, which I have previously stated and which is agreed to by the Government's own unit, but that whatever it costs the Government it will cost private enterprise ten times more in compliance costs. Dr Charlesworth —What? Mr MOORE —Compliance costs will be ten times more. That is the Government's body that has said that, a unit set up by the Labor Party Government. Mr Tuckey —It should produce the report. Mr MOORE —Yes, it should produce the report because that is what is in it. So the business sector of Australia will be called upon to contribute $10 billion towards the establishment of this ID card system. This will have to be paid for by our business sectors, and I turn first to big business. We have already seen what the Australian Bankers Association has said about it. The impost on bankers will be $100m. Honourable members opposite can take that matter up if they do not believe me. Honourable members should not think for a moment that those institutions will not pass that on to the users of their accounts. Of course they will, all around the country. This will also affect other major companies. I have cited the banks because these days they play an integral part in our whole financial operation. I am surprised when I walk down the street these days at the number of people who use banks compared to 10 years ago. Because of that the cost to big business in this area will be substantial. But big business can look after itself; after all, I have noticed around here that the Government and big business have a very close and mutually beneficial association. The parties involved and so forth are well identified. Let me identify now with small business, and the people who really do have to carry their own concerns. These are the people who run the smaller businesses that are required under this legislation to meet these costs. I do not refer to the ordinary citizens of Australia or the Australia Card subjects, as the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) called them yesterday in Parliament. The individual has gone out the window; we are now down to these more computerised names which I am sure Australians will enjoy. Let us assume one is dealing with a stock and station agent, most of which are in the country. Such agents do not run a big organisation. A farmer may wish to sell Daisy and three or four other cows, or the honourable member for O'Connor, for example, may have to catch his horse. Because they cannot ring the agent they must take their ID cards to town to sell their stock. The organisation involved does not run to accountants but this legislation will require it to establish more of the compliance procedures or face substantial fines. Ultimately the cost of that is not borne by the Government; it is borne by the taxpayer. It is part of the multiple of 10 indicated by the Government's own Business Regulation Review Unit. In these days of rising stock markets the number of people involved with brokers is quite significant. To think that a stockbroking business can be run without the substantial use of telephones is to deny the obvious. As an old broker I can tell honourable members that something like 95 per cent of a stockbroker's business is done on the phone. In the quickly moving and dynamic stockmarket one cannot check people's identity when handling every transaction, except at considerable cost to one's own company. I can speak from experience in this area. To comply with this one would need to have, depending on the size of the firm, at least another accountant per 100 clients to keep tabs, and this is an industry which is already completely sucked down by the scrip overhang or overload within the market. I go on to the ordinary store, with which the Minister said yesterday he had no problems at all. When he answered a question he accepted the assumption that there would be forged identity cards. His answer implied that. If he accepts that there will be forged identity cards, what are we doing with the system? The guy in the corner shop who runs a very small staff will be required to go through this whole identification process, at quite enormous cost to him. It is people such as this who will bear the grudge, the hurt and the cost of this identification process. While on the very real concerns of the small operators of Australia I turn to some of our far flung operations, to people who are employed in the bush, on cattle stations and the like. How on earth does the Government think the identity card system will operate in those areas? The communications are not good. They may have a slow mail service and bush telephone services are not great at the best of times, so as a consequence the burden on the individual is enormous. I have referred to the commercial operators, but the ordinary individual who has enough trouble dealing with his own personal financial matters now has to line himself up with this procedure. He will have to have a card and take it with him when he carries out commercial transactions, for example at a stock and station agent's or at the bank. He will have to queue up and get his name in the book and go on with all that sort of nonsense. The people of Australia will not thank the Government for that. The ordinary citizens of Australia are honest people. The ID card will not impinge on the dishonest. They will find their own way around it. That was admitted by the Minister yesterday when he accepted that there would be forgeries. As a consequence, I find the Government's whole approach to the ID card to be irrelevant. It will be introduced at a huge cost to business, be it big or small, and will be a massive intrusion into the privacy of the individual citizens of Australia. I am convinced that members of the Australian Labor Party, given a go, would say exactly the same thing. Dr CHARLESWORTH(Perth)(5.29) —When we come to vote on the Australia Card Bill I will be crossing the floor to vote with the Government. That will occur because on 11 July, for the first time, the Government's numbers swelled so much that it is necessary in this place for Government members to sit where traditionally Opposition members have sat. It is the case that so overwhelming was the mandate given by the Australian people on 11 July for this legislation that our numbers increased to such a level. We will find, of course, that many on the Opposition side will say that it was not their fault that they lost the election. When the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) opened the batting for the Opposition on this legislation he said that it was not the Liberal Party's fault but in fact the fault of the media that this issue did not surface during the election campaign. He seized upon the old loser's lament: if at first one cannot succeed then fix the blame. He suggested that this legislation would be terribly inconvenient. I question to whom it might be inconvenient: to those who are at present cheating on the welfare or taxation system in this country. I refer to the comments of Mr Greiner, the Leader of the Opposition in New South Wales, when the legislation was first proposed in 1985. He said: `The identity card is in the interests of the community. Only people who are acting dishonestly have anything to fear'. The honourable member for O'Connor also suggested that those who wanted to would very simply forge alternative identity cards and therefore wreak havoc in the system. It is much easier to forge currency than an identity card. That being so, I cannot understand why those people who are so clever and so able to do so are not in the business of forging currency at the moment. The honourable member for Ryan (Mr Moore) suggested that the massive impost of compliance costs would be so great that businesses would be falling all around our feet if the card were implemented. In the previous debate on this legislation the compliance figure was suggested as being twice the Government estimate. Now the Opposition has added a factor of five and it is suggested that the cost will be ten times the Government's estimate. Every time we debate such issues in the House and the Opposition is struggling for an issue it suggests that the penalties are draconian. If I fail to fill in a Medicare form correctly I can be fined $50,000. Not many doctors are worried about that penalty because doctors know that they will be liable to such a penalty only if they try dishonestly to defraud the system. If I am caught driving my car too fast, with a high blood alcohol level or without a licence I can be put in prison. But nobody objects to having a drivers licence number or a registration number on his car to drive on the road. It is the old story of the Opposition trying to inject fear into the debate and trying to draw a red herring across the path. The highlight of the speech of the honourable member for O'Connor, as we have heard so many times before, is that the solution to the social security problem is making people work for the dole. He said, `Australians are not energetic enough to turn up for jobs'. He suggested that we make people work for the dole and allow illegal immigrants to work as much as they like and do their best. If that is the honourable member's answer to the problem I have great difficulty in agreeing with his point of view. I have been a member of parliament for a few years now-not as long as some others-but I have never before heard such gross misrepresentation, such hyperbole and hysteria. I have never before heard such deception and such fear and ignorance. I understand that the Opposition seldom likes to hear clear logic or reason in debates. It has never allowed public interest to come before political opportunism in a debate in this place. I remember early in my time here having some respect for the position of the present Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) with respect to the assets test. I believe his view on the assets test was motivated by economic rationale. We never heard him speak against it. It was only when he became Leader of the Opposition that he did a back flip and suddenly changed his economically rational stance. We have heard the hard luck stories. Unfortunately I am getting them every day in my office. I spoke to a pensioner who called me the other day. He said, `Bill Hassell told me and I heard on the radio that I would not be able to go down the road unless I had my identity card with me'. It is not necessary for one to take the identity card everywhere. It is suggested that one cannot live without it. I asked the pensioner, `When was the last time that you applied for a job?'. He said, `Well, 40 years ago was the last time I applied for a job'. I asked, `When was the last time you opened a bank account?'. He said, `I have not opened a bank account for 20 years'. I asked, `When was the last time you bought shares or transferred money overseas?. He said to me, `I have never done that'. I then asked the pensioner, `How are you going to be required to use your card every day for everyday purposes?'. He had heard the misunderstanding and misrepresentations and unfortunately had believed them. Why do we require an identity card? We need to recognise that over the last 50 or 100 years there have been significant changes in the world. There has been a transportation explosion. Up to 50 years ago people did not get into aeroplanes to fly across the world or across the country. They did not drive the great distances they do now. They did not travel the great distances they now travel by train. They did not have the opportunity to be mobile that they have now. There was much more stability. Indeed, people lived in smaller environments, smaller towns and suburbs. Even in the growing cities there were more cohesive local suburbs. Most business was transacted by people with others that they knew. It is only over the last 50 years that the majority of our commercial and other transactions have become anonymous. So increasingly there has come a need to identify people accurately. American Express, Bankcard, Visa, et cetera, are in the business of providing reliable identification for commercial purposes. Increasingly we accept the need to use those methods of identification. More than nine million Australians have already provided substantial information to those private organisations for identification for commercial purposes. No longer are we transacting business every day with people we know; that is the exception rather than the rule. It is therefore reasonable that a government-and this Government-when it collects money from its taxpayers and citizens and when it pays out benefits and entitlements to its citizens should make sure that people are accurately identified. The identification system in the United States of America developed in the 1930s following the Great Depression. It developed because for the first time the Government became responsible for paying public relief and public insurance-social security insurance, dependent children's aid, assistance for the unemployed, the disabled, the aged and veterans. Suddenly the Government was in the business of supporting people in need and it was necessary for it accurately to define those people and therefore identify them. That is the origin of the social security number in the United States. It became necessary to increase the accuracy of identification of people to make sure that payments were made to those who deserved them. It is perfectly reasonable that this Government-any government in this country or in any Western country-should want to make sure that it collects its due amount of money and pays out to those who deserve it what they are entitled to. All the legislation we discuss in this place balances the community interest against that of the individual. If I suggested that we intended to set up an organisation to search people every time they get on public transport people would reel in shock and horror. But that is what happens. If one goes to board a plane at Tullamarine Airport one has to be searched beforehand. This is because the public interest is served by people being shown to be not carrying a weapon. We realise that there is a fear of hijacking in Australia and therefore legislation enabling such procedures is acceptable. We legislate in this country about speed limits, how much alcohol a car driver may have in his blood, whether one wears a seat belt and all those things which are intrusions on individuals' rights. We accept those intrusions because we believe the community interest is served by them. Likewise, when one comes to this country one cannot barge through and refuse to identify oneself. One has to establish that one has a right to be in Australia; one has a valid visa or passport. In the same way, one can be searched by the Customs officer because one might be carrying drugs, wildlife, animal products or something that could be detrimental to the community interest. We accept all of those things. I find it very difficult to say, `Okay, you have to do all of that, but when it comes to paying your fair share of tax or receiving your entitlement, you can be anonymous'. I have great difficulty accepting that argument. Members of the Opposition are carrying on about privacy. They are all concerned about privacy. We have not heard about it before, but suddenly they are concerned about privacy. The Data Protection Agency that will be set up-and the privacy legislation that complements this legislation-for the first time extends the security and protection from abuses to the private sector. We have been concerned about it. What about all of the legislation and all of the things that happened regarding social security and maybe taxation? Nobody on the other side has said, `What about privacy?'. But for the first time we have legislation that starts to set out principles of privacy and we are starting to provide some principles of privacy within the private sector. I believe it should be supported. I do not accept that there is a right to remain anonymous if people want to enjoy the benefits of our collective community. If they want to drive on our roads, send their kids to schools and use our hospitals-all of the facilities that are provided by taxpaying Australians-I do not believe there is some sacred right to refuse to identify themselves when they are engaging in transactions which can affect their income tax liability, social security entitlement, residential entitlement or Medicare entitlement. All of those things require identification. I do not believe that we should be entitled to be anonymous on those occasions. Just as a person who is speeding or driving dangerously and does not have a licence can be fined and put in gaol, perhaps it is reasonable that he or she can be fined in other circumstances. The drug smuggler has no right to carry his heroin past the Customs officer and sell it in the community; nor should there be a right for those who want to defraud the tax system, those illegal immigrants who want to work and not pay tax, and those who want to receive entitlements to which they are not entitled. I will have no difficulty, when we vote on this legislation, in supporting the Government. I wholeheartedly support this legislation and I hope very earnestly that members of the Opposition can put aside their political opportunism and see that in this legislation we have a further opportunity to increase the fairness of our system and to provide a more equitable and efficient system of governing Australia. Mr HOWARD(Bennelong-Leader of the Opposition)(5.43) —I was interested that the honourable member for Perth (Dr Charlesworth) concluded his contribution to this debate by exhorting the Opposition to put aside political opportunism and asking the Opposition to support the Government in a bipartisan fashion on this measure. One of the reasons that I have entered this debate as it draws to a close is that the Government, in the course of pushing its own argument on the ID card, has once again, as it so often does on any matter of controversy, resorted to what we all understand to be the Goebbels technique-that is, if one says something that is untrue frequently enough, sooner or later the public will start to believe it. That is what the Government has been doing on every single public issue of any controversy. The ID card issue has been no exception. One of the elements of the Goebbels technique in the ID card debate is for the Government to allege that I support the proposal privately and that some of my colleagues support it privately. I want to spend a few moments dealing with that canard because it deserves to be rebutted. It is part of a systematic attempt by the Government to deceive the public. The basis is a comment I made in an interview on the Sunday program on 15 September 1985. In many ways I like and respect my colleague the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett), but I am sorry to say that he has fallen into the error of doing what his colleagues the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) do by second nature. I am sorry that he has learnt the bad habit. What he does is to give half the quotation. I was asked: We've heard a lot about your views on economic policy. Can we just get your opinions on some current social issues, Mr Howard . . . where do you stand on the proposed ID card? This was my answer: I personally see some merit in having an I.D. card, providing the civil liberties concerns that people have voiced can be looked after and provided the Government can satisfy the community that there is some cost benefit in it. That was the basis of my approach. Mr Andrew —Fair enough. Mr HOWARD —My colleague the honourable member for Wakefield says that that was fair enough. That was the foundation of our approach to the Parliament. When the honourable member for Barker (Mr Porter) moved a motion to send the matter to a committee, he said that we may be persuaded to support the proposal if we can be satisfied on two or three elements. Two of those elements were the elements that were laid down in that interview. That was the whole basis of our approach, and I have never deviated from it. I say to the House that any suggestion that I harbour some kind of covert support for this proposal, and that some of my colleagues in the Liberal and National parties harbour it, is absolute nonsense. We have been consistent. We, almost alone with the Australian Democrats-I do not normally heap any kind of accolade on them-in 1986 came out against this proposal. If we had wanted to be politically opportunistic, the smart money in late 1986 was on this measure being passed. If ever the media of Australia have conspired with the Government to induce a sense of complacency about something in the Australian community, it has been in relation to the ID card. Dr Charlesworth —The media again! Mr HOWARD —Yes, I will have a go at members of the media on this issue, because not only were they negligent in getting into bed with the Government on this issue late in 1986, but now some of them, in their unctuous manner, have turned around and said, `If only the Opposition had said more about the ID card, we would have been spared all the attendant horrors'. Let us look at the record. Let us go back to June 1986-15 months ago. The Australian, in an editorial, labelled coalition opposition to the Australia Card as `ill advised as there seem to be few defensible grounds for such opposition'. The Courier-Mail of 4 June 1986 stated: The Australia Card is a fair and sensible method of saving social security benefits and preventing tax fraud. That was the good old Courier-Mail. On 5 June 1986 the Australian claimed: . . . a national identity card will go a long way towards ensuring that the cheats are stopped. The Opposition and the Democrats should support the legislation. The Sydney Morning Herald, in criticising the coalition's opposition, stated: . . . the Government deserves the benefit of the doubt. The Senate should pass the legislation and let the voters deal with the Government . . . And so it goes on. Mention was made of it on 12 November in the Australian, after we had announced our opposition to the final form of the legislation and our intention to vote against it. That decision was almost universally condemned by every major media outlet and media commentator in Australia. Yet they are now falling over themselves to line up against the card. In the process they are trying to blame the Liberal and National parties for not having argued more strongly against it. The reality is that they were part of a conspiracy of silence about the ill effects of this card. They did the Government's bidding as far as the dubious benefits of this card are concerned. They carry a very heavy share of the responsibility for a very latent arousal within the Australian community of the concerns that now abound about this legislation. They do not have those concerns. The only people who have been consistent on this ID card issue are those who have said from the word go, `We will only accept an ID card if you can discharge the responsibilities on privacy, on protection of the individual, on cost benefit and the other criteria that were laid down when we sent it off to a parliamentary committee'. We, on this side of the House, have been utterly consistent on that. The Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card and one of the Government's own colleagues from Victoria came out against the proposal. Honourable members opposite know the depth of feeling in their own ranks. They know what the honourable member for Hotham (Mr Kent) thinks about this. The Prime Minister, in his post-election mode of getting swept off his feet, was running around saying that anybody who was against the ID card was a friend of the tax cheat-the Goebbels technique working overtime. We have all done a bit of research about attitudes on ID cards. It may surprise the Prime Minister to know that two of his great Labor Party heroes, Ben Chifley and John Curtin, railed in the late 1930s, even under the exigencies of war time, against the concept of an ID card. Yet this Leader of the Labor Party now runs around and says, `Anybody who is opposed to the ID card is a friend of the tax cheats'. That is what the Prime Minister said. In 1939 Curtin said: It appears to be a little absurd for us to be asking the people of this country to defend democracy in remote parts of the world while at the same time we seek to sacrifice some of the fundamental principles of democracy here at home in the process. Those are the words of a man whose memory the present Prime Minister is pleased to invoke. Was he speaking as a friend of the tax avoidance industry? If honourable members opposite really want to find out how much impact this ID card will have on fraud and white collar crime they should listen to what members of the Australian Federal Police say about it. The Australian Federal Police, who have the heavy burden of trying to do something about white collar crime in this country, are very sceptical about the benefits. They say that if they were provided with more resources they could do something about the $4 billion, $6 billion, $8 billion or $9 billion of undetected fraud that goes on every year under the present Government. Honourable members should listen to what Frank Costigan had to say about it and they should listen to the great gaggle of arch conservatives they are talking about; people such as Garrett and Michael Kirby-I should say Justice Kirby but one should not talk about the political inclination of somebody on the bench. I do not think we could describe him-I know him very well and I quite like him-as an arch conservative and a running dog of the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia. The list is almost endless. Honourable members opposite have to understand that this is one of those issues where public anger and concern have been slow in being roused. I repeat that part of it was a glib acceptance by large elements of the media of this country at an editorial and a commentator level-I make no bones about saying that at all-and, as a consequence, there was a false sense of security within the community. The proposal has now been understood for what it is. It is a major invasion of individual privacy. It will involve the recruitment of an additional 2,000 public servants. It will impose unacceptably large additional costs on business operations. It will concern and worry a large number of elderly citizens in Australia. But, more importantly, it proceeds upon two fundamentally flawed assumptions. The first of those assumptions is that if a bureaucratic process is not working properly, instead of finding out why it is not working properly we should go along to the government of the day and if it is gullible enough we get another bureaucracy out of it in order to cure that part of the bureaucracy that is not already working. That is a technique that public services all over the world have employed. Some governments are gullible enough to be fooled by that. When we were in government in the late 1970s this proposal was looked at-- Mr Price —You looked at it. Mr HOWARD —Yes, of course it was looked at and I was open-minded enough to support its being examined. We sent a working party to the United States of America to look at the operation of systems in North America. That working party came back here and said: `Forget about it. It will be in the hands of the Mafia within a few months'. That is what has happened in the United States and in North America. Given the failure of this Government's brother governments, particularly in New South Wales, to deal with organised crime we can be certain that-- Government members interjecting- Mr HOWARD —I have struck a very tender nerve on the Government side. The failure of the Wran and Unsworth governments to deal with organised crime will guarantee that it will occur in this country. Well may Government members react. We were told in the late 1970s-and it stands true today-that there was a capacity for fraud and abuse of the systems in the hands of criminal elements. It is not just the view of that party; it is the view that has been expressed by the Australian Federal Police and many other organisations associated with law enforcement in Australia. I am not speaking from a position of conservative, blind opposition to some kind of proper surveillance system. On each and every occasion it is a question of balancing the public interest against the private right. But, unlike the Australian Labor Party, I start from the assumption that the private right is superior to the right of the state. That must always be the starting assumption. Anybody who seeks to erode the private right must carry the onus of proving that there is an overwhelming public benefit in that private right being eroded. It is just not good enough, as this proposal assumes, to say to a government, `We have a problem. We cannot collect enough tax', or `We cannot stop enough welfare cheating'. In other words, to use what will become a memorable phrase of the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans), we have a systems failure under the present system so we have to turn everybody into a card subject to deal with that systems failure. Basically, that is what the Government is doing with this proposal. It has not really discharged the onus of proving that there is a superior public claim to justify the erosion of the private right. It has not discharged that obligation and until it discharges it by satisfying the Australian public on privacy grounds and on cost benefit grounds-it is a long way short on both of those-it will not put a glove on the cash economy. No serious student of the taxation system of this country could fairly argue that this proposal will even touch the sides of the cash economy. If Government members are talking about eliminating taxation fraud they have to do something about the cash economy. This does not even get into the same playing field as the cash economy because it has nothing to do with cash transactions. Until this Government can show this House, me, and the Australian public that the public interest to be served by this proposal justifies the reduction of the private right, it will continue to lose the argument. It will lose the argument not only with us but also with increasing numbers within its own ranks. The disquiet on this proposal is not limited to the Liberal and National parties. Do those opposite seriously exclude bodies such as large segments of the Anglican and Catholic churches, the Law Council of Australia, Frank Costigan, and all the famous Australians-- Mr Nehl —Labor lawyers. Mr HOWARD —The Labor lawyers. Far be it for me to have to invoke the Labor lawyers. I also refer to the Federated Clerks Union of Australia which is hardly the running dog of the Liberal and National parties. Some members of the left wing might think it is but I do not think any fair minded observer could seriously suggest it. So the Government really has not got harangued against it on this proposal an identifiable collection on just one side of politics; it goes right across the board. That has to tell those opposite something with ever increasing noise and the decibel rating will go up and up each week. What it has to tell them is that they have got it wrong and if they really want to get it even more wrong what they will do is draw an analogy between this and the fringe benefits tax. They will make a very big mistake because the issues that this raises and the principles that this idea assaults-- Mr Gear —You were wrong. Mr HOWARD —No, I was not wrong about the fringe benefits tax. I remain unrepentant that the fringe benefits tax was a tax of envy and quite unjustifiably imposed. I remain absolutely unrepentant, but the principles involved in this go far deeper than any partisan argument over tax. This is a fundamental argument about the kind of society we want in this country. It is a fundamental argument as to whether the government believes it can use the club of the state in order to reduce the rights of an individual citizen simply because it has had a systems failure or whether we still observe that rather ancient and I think desirable principle in this country that we start with an assertion of a private right and we can lose that private right or have it reduced if it is demonstrably in the public good. I say to the Government and I say to those who have supported the Government on this issue: `You have failed to discharge that obligation and until you do you will continue to receive the unremitting opposition of the Liberal and National parties on this issue'. Mr MARTIN(Macarthur)(6.03) —It is a pleasure to follow the Leader of the Opposition, the honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard), in the debate on this particular issue today. Unlike him, I have spoken in every debate on this issue that has come before the House and have spoken extremely well, if I do say so myself. I cannot recall the Leader of the Opposition speaking in the debates on the Australia Card Bill on the last two occasions, nor in fact can I recall his raising the issue once during the election campaign. Quite clearly, the Australian people and indeed everyone in this place, other than the Leader of the Opposition, recalls that in fact the double dissolution election was triggered by the rejection of the Australia Card legislation. Believe it or not, I do find myself in some agreement with a few issues that have been raised by honourable members on the other side in this debate. Mr Price —It is hard to believe. Mr MARTIN —It is hard to believe, I know. My friend the honourable member for Chifley suggests that that is a little strange, but it is not because members of the Opposition have raised the question about rational debate and about placing facts before the electorate of Australia so that people may judge for themselves. Those opposite have called for a referendum on this particular issue and have asked for people to be given all the facts so that they can make up their minds. I do not think anybody in this place would reject that as a supposition. I think everybody in this place would arrive at a decision having rationally assessed facts on any particular issue, not just the Australia Card legislation. Unfortunately what we have seen in this place today and on the last two occasions when this issue was introduced and what we are unfortunately seeing out there in our electorates is far from a rational debate. Facts are not being put before the people and consideration is not being given to the merits and, indeed, what our opponents see as being the demerits of this proposal. I would like to refer very briefly to some of those issues because they have, in fact, been raised today. I refer honourable members to a publication which somehow was floating around in the House the other day. It is headed: `ID Card-Labor's Australia Card'. On the back it says that it is prepared by Senator David MacGibbon, Liberal, Queensland, 307 Queen Street, Brisbane. This publication says that the ID card will not work, it will cost a fortune, it will not protect privacy and it will carry heavy penalties. It then lists what they might be. There is another heading: `What will Australians need to use the card for'. I found this most interesting because it mentioned that if a person goes to hospital he has to have an Australia Card. Thirteen items were listed. The last item deals with the Social Security Department. Mr Tuckey —Yes. Mr MARTIN —The honourable member agrees with that because it is in the legislation; and some members opposite can read. I think that is good. The twelfth item deals with claims for Medicare benefits. What has not been said in this document is that the Australia Card will replace the Medicare card. A person has to produce his Medicare card to go to hospital and, at the same time, a person has to produce his card for Medicare benefits. So the Australia Card eliminates the need for the production of the Medicare card. The document then lists items which are already encapsulated in the legislation. It mentions baby sitting. This ridiculous notion about a baby sitter was mentioned yesterday. I do not propose to raise that again because it was covered yesterday in Question Time, but what concerns me-I am sure the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) would agree with me on this-is that it is important that the people of Australia are at least acquainted with the facts both for and against the argument so that a decision can be made. I am sure honourable members would agree that this puny little publication, which spells it out in the manner that I have gone through, does not put the facts to the people on this issue. I am pleased to say that at least in my electorate and I know in the electorate of my very good friend, the honourable member for Throsby (Mr Hollis), we are endeavouring to correct that misinformation and the nonsense that has been peddled by various groups in the community by at least trying to provide them with the other side of the argument. We are prepared to put out information and are prepared to go and talk at public meetings to individuals. Since this whole hoo-ha started about five people have walked into my office off the street or have made an appointment to come and talk to me about this issue. I have had letters and Auschwitz-grams with the barbed wire down the side. Surprisingly, as my colleague the honourable member for Throsby pointed out earlier today, they do come from areas, that do not necessarily give me such a really good vote. I get 12 per cent or 24 per cent of the vote in those areas. So I dismiss a lot of those letters. I also happen to know the names of some of the people who have signed these letters. They are probably card-carrying members of the Liberal Party of Australia. I saw many of them on polling day handing out the `how to vote' cards to the Liberals against me. So, I understand that they have an interest in this particular issue. What really annoys me is to see people such as Senator Michael Baume touting himself as a senator for southern New South Wales or Wollongong-suggesting that the Australian Labor Party (ALP) members who represent the Illawarra area are running away from their responsibilities or are not prepared to make copies of legislation available or indeed to sit down and explain to constituents what the Australia Card legislation is all about. That is patent nonsense. It adds to the scare-mongering and the rumour-mongering that those opposite are prepared to peddle. But the honourable senator is not alone. The absolute pits is contained in advertisements which are presently being run in the Illawarra Mercury and being put out in pamphlets by the Illawarra branch of the Australian Small Business Association. A number of honourable members have referred to that august body in the debate today and have suggested that they have a little bit of an interest in this particular matter. The honourable member for Ryan (Mr Moore) talked about the horrendous effect on small businesses and the dreadful imposition of costs that the Australia Card legislation would have on small business. I have spoken about rational debate and providing the facts. I only hope that that is the case. Nonsense such as this gets into newspapers, with a quarter page advertisement in the Illawarra Mercury. First there is `The Auschtralia Card' with the German spelling, which is an affront to the German people. It has barbed wire running across it, and a blindfolded bearded man in the photograph. It says: We can stop Labor's ID-database but only with your help! If the ID-database legislation goes through with its intrusive dossier building sophisticated assets tracking, future Australians can look forward to: 1. Loss of privacy as your computer dossier can be leaked for political purposes or personal vendettas by any of the thousands of junior public servants with access to the computer. Is that fair and rational? Does that provide facts? Even the honourable member for O'Connor would have to agree that that is not a fair and rational argument. The advertisement goes on: 2. Massive penalties and loss of access to jobs and bank accounts for those whose cards are lost, stolen or cancelled by the authority. After the debate today, I suggest that we should have that amended to include `or eaten by the dog from Bowral'. The advertisement continues: 3. The end to the traditional healthy Australian attitude towards authority as petty bureaucrats gain greater control over our day-to-day lives. Wake up Australians-don't give up your traditional Aussie freedom-say no to the intrusive ``licence to live''. Only honest decent Australian have anything to fear. What does it then go on to do? Mr Hollis —Ask for a quid. Mr MARTIN —Yes, it asks for money. It is like evangelists in the United States who say, `Send me $1,000 and I will be able to save the world'. This is the nonsense that is being peddled. It does not provide the information, it is far from factual and it is contributing to the hysteria being generated by certain groups. During the debate today, a number of specific issues have been raised on which it is important to touch. The centrepiece of what I am endeavouring to get across to honourable members is quite simply that I do not believe that any member of parliament who represents his constituency fairly is in any way shirking or backing away from his responsibilities by providing information to his constituents so that a rational debate on any issue can be entered into. That is a laudable aim, but what concerns me greatly is that hysteria is being generated by a select few out there. It seems at the moment that there is no other issue. The Leader of the Opposition has said that the media are now backtracking and prepared to pick up on the issue. We can all peddle stories about the media and what they have done and are supposed to have done in the past. Recently, one of my colleagues told me that he was discussing the Australia Card with some journalist friends and asked why they were starting to run the line about the negative aspects of the Australia Card and running a paranoia campaign in all forms of the media. They said that they thought that they would see what they could get the Government to do as it was fairly quiet because the Budget had not yet arrived. There may be some people like that, but I do not subscribe to the view of the Leader of the Opposition. He has tried to totally discredit the media by suggesting that they treated the Opposition badly. He has blamed the media and some of the words he used were: `They were part of the conspiracy of silence about the problems of the Australia Card'. I do not subscribe to that view at all. I believe that, as part of the information provision that is necessary for rational debate, every side of the argument must be put. However, I also believe that the Government's argument is the correct one. I have not yet heard any issue which will in any way change my mind or make me change my support, and the support of the overwhelming majority of the members of my local constituency, for this legislation. If one has nothing to hide, one has nothing to fear. It is as simple as that. No talk about Goebbels techniques or misinformation will make any difference to that. The Leader of the Opposition in his contribution raised another issue. He said that Labor members had expressed their reservations about the Australia Card and spoken against it. That is true. They have done that in the past, as it is the right of any individual in society. The honourable member for O'Connor has taken up the cause of the Liberal-National Party coalition and it is his political right to do so, just as it is the right of Labor members to put their views. However, unlike the Opposition and those in the community who are not prepared to concede on certain issues, we have mechanisms within the ALP to resolve issues, and that is what has happened. On Tuesday this legislation came to the ALP Caucus before the Bill was introduced into Parliament. Senator Susan Ryan, the Minister responsible, discussed the legislation yet again. A number of questions were asked on it and it was then put to the vote as is the wont in the Labor Party Caucus. It was passed without a dissenting voice. That is part and parcel of the process of the Labor Government in action. We are confronted with legislation and an issue which, as we know from the contributions made by honourable members on both sides of the House, will lead to a more fair and equitable system in terms of taxation revenue, social security benefits and illegal immigration. It seems to me that many of those issues have been swept under the carpet. We have a list of when the Australia Card is to be put into place and how often one has to use it. We have heard the scare tactics saying that one has to carry the Australia Card and if one does not, one is in big trouble. That is nonsense. Clause 8 says that one is not required to carry it. However, nonsense is still peddled. I saw a great story in, I think, the Bulletin last week, with three scenarios of people caught without their Australia Card. The first one was appalling. It said that an Aboriginal was walking down the street and was accosted by a policeman who said, `Show me your Australian Card'. The Aboriginal said, `I don't have to'. He was lumbered into gaol and I cannot remember whether it went on to say that the next day he was found hanged in his cell, but the implication was there. That is patent scaremongering nonsense, put about by people in the community. The journalist was just repeating the sorts of stories peddled by different groups in the community. To have a fair assessment of the Australia Card legislation, what it says and what it will do, is the responsibility of every member in this place. All the uses to which the Australia Card is to be put-opening bank accounts, welfare payments, Medicare replacements, taxation, employment and so on-are the issues that affect most people in the community, but they will be affected only the once. About the other issues of investments, shares, trusts, primary production, land transaction, safety deposit boxes, futures contracts and so on, there are not a hell of a lot of constituents in Macarthur who are worried about those sorts of issues. Therefore, I believe that the issues being generated by consideration of the Australia Card legislation, which has suddenly become all things to all people and is the great bogey legislation which will take away individual rights, privacy considerations and so on, are all nonsense. I believe, as does every member who sits on this side of the House, as well as a few who sit slightly on the other side, that this legislation will do the things that it is intended to do. Some speakers have had reservations about one or two issues associated with computer hackers and privacy. Having seen information on this and listened to the debate, I feel that such worries no longer exist. I hope that when the legislation is passed through the House, as it will be, those in the Senate who will determine its fate will be swayed by the arguments put here and not by the sorts of nonsensical, paranoid, schizophrenic arguments going on out there with people suddenly changing their minds, with conversions along the road-- Mr Hollis —To Damascus. Mr MARTIN —To Damascus or anywhere else, or to Bowral to see card-chewing dogs, or wherever it may be. I hope that the legislation receives the assent of both Houses of Parliament, is put in place as quickly as possible and goes on to solve the problems of taxation and welfare fraud and illegal immigration. Mr BLUNT(Richmond)(6.20) —This evening in the House we are considering the most far-reaching and invasive social or economic legislation that this Parliament has ever considered or any government in Australia's history has ever contemplated thrusting upon the Australian population. No other legislation and no other concept ever considered by government would have had the far-reaching, disruptive and social engineering impact of the identity card legislation. This Government is very aware of the consequences of this legislation. Hence it refers to it as the Australia Card, colours the card green and gold and uses attractive models on the card to make sure that it looks attractive to the average member of the community. That is the mentality of this Government. It deals in public relations and large and expensive advertising campaigns. There is a $2m campaign running for the ID card at the present time. It will be very interesting to see which agency gets it and what style of campaign it will be running. What this does not cover up is the fundamental reason why this Government is moving to have an ID card. It is part of its socialist plan. Nothing will aid the implementation of the democratic socialist policies of the Australian Labor Party more than to make every Australian man, woman and child the subject of a card. The Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett), who is at present sitting on the front bench, the other day talked about not Australians, not Australian men, women and children, not voters or constituents, but card subjects. We are no longer people; we are card subjects. I guess the next step will be card numbers. That is exactly what this Government has in mind for us. Mr Young —You used to like it. Mr BLUNT —Those opposite were talking about how this card will not invade the privacy of the average Australian. The Minister for Resources (Mr Peter Morris), who cannot even guard our coast, is trying to interject and the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (Mr Young) is talking about how I used to like the idea of a card. I did, but I changed my mind. I spent four months on a committee and I learnt about it. No one on the other side of the House is able to change his or her mind. When will Caucus get a free go on this matter? When will its members have a conscience vote on the ID card to see how well it would go then? I tell honourable members opposite that more than 50 per cent of them do not support it. They are running scared of the consequences of it because they know what will happen when 16 million Australians get a letter saying, `Come in and have your photograph taken, and by the way, bring your birth certificate and your marriage certificate with you, and then come back to sign the card and pick it up'. That is exactly what will happen and those opposite know the consequences of it. But the reason I do not support this card is that it just will not work. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) said the other day on the AM program that the card will do something about the black economy. The black economy is the cash economy. The Minister for Community Services and Health has said that the use of the card really will not touch the cash economy. He said that in this chamber during the last Parliament. The Minister should correct the Prime Minister because he is acting under a misconception. In recent days those opposite have been at great pains to address the civil liberties and privacy aspects of this matter. We have heard the argument that there will be dedicated lines of communication. But they will be part of the Telecom Australia network. I am waiting for someone to tell us in this House exactly what a dedicated line is. It is not something special. Telecom is not about to go out and dig trenches to put a special line in to transmit the ID card data. The line will be part of the Telecom network but it will be used for implementation of ID card legislation. It will not take very long for people to realise which line that is. We were talking today about encryption devices. We heard a definition from the Minister responsible in this place. Let me tell the Minister, the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs and the Minister for Resources, who are sitting on the front bench, that one Ted Turner-I wonder whether they have heard of him; he likes racing yachts-made millions of dollars selling encryption decoding devices. They are cheap and easy to get, and they can crack the encryption code on all data transmissions. I make a prediction. When we get this ID card, the second edition of the hacker's handbook that comes out after it will contain: `How to crack the ID card data network'. The other story that the Government has been peddling in recent days is that only a few public servants will have access to the data and the data will include a digitised photograph, which will be an interesting thing to have. I wonder whether the average Australian has considered the consequences of having one's photograph digitised on some sort of electronic data device? But only certain public servants will have access to it. That is fine; but once they push the button and get a hard copy, what will stop them putting it on a photocopier? I would like to hear the Minister's answer to that. Also, these certain public servants will have it recorded that they had access to the file. What will stop them accessing the file of the Minister's data, for example, but at the same time pushing the button and getting the file for the whole of New South Wales? I remind the House that not so long ago all social security records for Victoria were for sale and that selected records held by the Health Insurance Commission of income for certain doctors had been made available. Certain things have dropped off the back of a truck. I do not believe that this Government, or any government, can guarantee the security or integrity of the entire Australian Public Service, nor can it give a guarantee that some of these computer geniuses that we have developed in this country in recent years cannot crack the dedicated communications network which will be used to transmit all this ID information around the country. We have been talking about how these cards will be useful for cracking down on social security fraud, notwithstanding the fact that less than one per cent of social security fraud is identity based, and we have talked about how it will be good for cracking down on the black economy-and the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible seem to have a difference of opinion about this. But now we are talking about illegal immigrants. I will tell the Minister about illegal immigrants. There are quite a few in my electorate. They are up in the hills. Whether or not they have a card, the immigration Minister will not be able to find them unless he hires a whole stack of police to do that. That could be the next phase. After we get the cards, the numbers and the photographs, this Government will hire a whole stack more police. Notionally they will start chasing illegal immigrants. There are an awful lot of them around the hills of the far north coast of New South Wales. If the Minister wants to look there, I will be more than happy to show him where the people are. But I suggest that he get a few more members of the Australian Federal Police to help him, because that is the only way he will stop illegal immigration. Whether or not these people have a card will not make much difference to them. The Government will not really come clean as to why it wants this card. It wants it to collect tax from people who supposedly are not paying it at the present time and to compensate for the inefficiencies of the Australian Taxation Office. Those opposite also want it in terms of their future tax plans because the numbers will become part of our commercial and social activities. This Government has a study under way on a wealth tax. The other day the Australian Council of Trade Unions said that in principle it is in favour of a wealth tax, and that what we really need to make a wealth tax work is some way of drawing together all the fiscal assets and income sources of every member of the community-and the best way to do it is with an ID card. It is the one ingredient the Government needs to bring in a wealth tax; that is, a percentage of net assets every year in cash which will be sent off to the Treasurer (Mr Keating) to supplement the Government's income tax gathering. No measure would facilitate the implementation of socialist policies more than the numbering, photographing and recording of every man, woman and child, plus their assets, income sources and everything to do with the people's families, employment histories and relationship with the rest of the community. Mr Fife —Socialism by stealth. Mr BLUNT —It is not socialism by stealth; it is blatant socialism. It is the ingredient that takes Australia one step further towards the totalitarian state. This Government-particularly the left wing of it-could be described as a government which seems to be in relentless pursuit of totalitarianism, and not only in terms of its foreign policy. The Minister should not laugh. He should look at the Government's foreign policy. It is lined up with most of the totalitarian states. The Government will not acknowledge that publicly, but it is so. In terms of where we are going and the economic framework of this country, we are heading down the track of totalitarianism. Unfortunately, there are not enough men of principle on the other side of the House who are prepared to say, `Enough is enough. Let us knock this thing on the head'. Motion (by Mr Cunningham) put: That the question be now put. The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker-Mr A. C. Rocher) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 50 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 23 —— Baldwin, P. J. Jones, BarryBeazley, K. C. Kelly, R. J.Beddall, D. P. Kent, L.Bilney, G. N. Kerr, D. J. C.Blanchard, C. A. Klugman, R. E.Blewett, N. Lamb, A. H. (Teller)Brown, John Langmore, J. V.Brumby, J. M. Lavarch, M. H.Charles, D. E. Lee, M. J.Charlesworth, R. I. Lindsay, E. J.Chynoweth, R. L. McHugh, J.Cleeland, P. R. McLeay, LeoCourtice, B. W. Martin, S. P.Crawford, M. C. Mildren, J. B.Cross, M. D. Milton, P.Cunningham, B. T. (Teller) Morris, PeterDawkins, J. S. Mountford, J. G.Dubois, S. C. O'Keefe, N. P.Edwards, Ronald O'Neil, L. R. T.Fatin, W. F. Price, L. R. S.Fitzgibbon, E. J. Punch, G. F.Free, R. V. Saunderson, J.Gayler, J. Scholes, G. G. D.Gear, G. Sciacca, C.Gorman, R. N. J. Scott, J. L.Grace, E. L. Simmons, D. W.Griffiths, A. G. Snow, J. H.Hand, G. L. Snowdon, W. E.Harvey, E. R. Staples, P. R.Holding, A. C. Theophanous, A. C.Hollis, C. Tickner, R. E.Howe, B. L. Uren, T.Humphreys, B. C. West, S. J.Hurford, C. J. Willis, R.Jakobsen, C. A. Wright, K. W.Jenkins, H. A. Young, M. J.Johns, G. T. Aldred, K. J. Jull, D. F.Andrew, J. N. (Teller) Katter, R. C.Beale, J. H. Lloyd, B.Blunt, C. W. McArthur, F. S.Braithwaite, R. A. McGauran, P. J.Brown, N. A. MacKellar, M. J. R.Burr, M. A. McVeigh, D. T.Cameron, Donald Miles, C. G.Cameron, Ian Millar, P. C.Carlton, J. J. Moore, J. C.Cobb, M. R. Nehl, G. B.Connolly, D. M. Peacock, A. S.Cowan, D. B. Porter, J. R.Dobie, J. D. M. Prosser, G. D.Downer, A. J. G. Reith, P. K.Edwards, Harry Robinson, IanFife, W. C. Ruddock, P. M.Fischer, Tim Shack, P. D.Fisher, Peter Shipton, R. F.Hall, Steele Spender, J. M.Halverson, R. G. Tuckey, C. W.Hawker, D. P. M. Webster, A. P.Hewson, J. R. White, P. N. D.Hicks, N. J. (Teller) Wilson, I. B. C.Hunt, R. J. D. Wooldridge, M. R. L. Brown, Robert Macphee, I. M.Morris, Allan Sullivan, K. J.Duffy, M. J. Cameron, OwenHayden, W. G. Smith, W. L. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Original question put: That the Bill be now read a second time. The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker-Mr A. C. Rocher) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 51 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 22 —— Baldwin, P. J. Jones, BarryBeazley, K. C. Kelly, R. J.Beddall, D. P. Kent, L.Bilney, G. N. Kerr, D. J. C.Blanchard, C. A. Klugman, R. E.Blewett, N. Lamb, A. H. (Teller)Brown, John Langmore, J. V.Brumby, J. M. Lavarch, M. H.Charles, D. E. Lee, M. J.Charlesworth, R. I. Lindsay, E. J.Chynoweth, R. L. McHugh, J.Cleeland, P. R. McLeay, LeoCourtice, B. W. Martin, S. P.Crawford, M. C. Mildren, J. B.Cross, M. D. Milton, P.Cunningham, B. T. (Teller) Morris, PeterDawkins, J. S. Mountford, J. G.Dubois, S. C. O'Keefe, N. P.Edwards, Ronald O'Neil, L. R. T.Fatin, W. F. Price, L. R. S.Fitzgibbon, E. J. Punch, G. F.Free, R. V. Saunderson, J.Gayler, J. Scholes, G. G. D.Gear, G. Sciacca, C.Gorman, R. N. J. Scott, J. L.Grace, E. L. Simmons, D. W.Griffiths, A. G. Snow, J. H.Hand, G. L. Snowdon, W. E.Harvey, E. R. Staples, P. R.Holding, A. C. Theophanous, A. C.Hollis, C. Tickner, R. E.Howe, B. L. Uren, T.Humphreys, B. C. West, S. J.Hurford, C. J. Willis, R.Jakobsen, C. A. Wright, K. W.Jenkins, H. A. Young, M. J.Johns, G. T. Aldred, K. J. Jull, D. F.Andrew, J. N. (Teller) Katter, R. C.Beale, J. H. Lloyd, B.Blunt, C. W. McArthur, F. S.Braithwaite, R. A. McGauran, P. J.Brown, N. A. MacKellar, M. J. R.Burr, M. A. McVeigh, D. T.Cameron, Donald Miles, C. G.Cameron, Ian Millar, P. C.Carlton, J. J. Moore, J. C.Cobb, M. R. Nehl, G. B.Connolly, D. M. Peacock, A. S.Cowan, D. B. Porter, J. R.Dobie, J. D. M. Prosser, G. D.Downer, A. J. G. Reith, P. K.Edwards, Harry Robinson, IanFife, W. C. Ruddock, P. M.Fischer, Tim Shack, P. D.Fisher, Peter Shipton, R. F.Hall, Steele Spender, J. M.Halverson, R. G. Tuckey, C. W.Hawker, D. P. M. Webster, A. P.Hewson, J. R. White, P. N. D.Hicks, N. J. (Teller) Wilson, I. B. C.Howard, J. W. Wooldridge, M. R. L.Hunt, R. J. D. Brown, Robert Macphee, I. M.Morris, Allan Sullivan, K. J.Duffy, M. J. Cameron, EwenHayden, W.G. Smith, W. I. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. The Bill. Mr TUCKEY(O'Connor)(6.45) —I move: Clause 2, page 1, add at the end the following sub-clause: ``(3) A day shall not be fixed, by Proclamation under subsection (2), for a provision of this Act to come into operation unless and until: (a) the Governor-General has submitted to the electors in each State and Territory qualified to vote for the election of the House of Representatives the question `Do you approve the introduction of the proposed Australia Card?'; and (b) a majority of all electors voting has answered that question `Yes'.''. The issue of whether we should have a referendum on the Australia Card seems a very simple one. A referendum could be held with no cost to the community because the Governor-General has already told us that the Government proposes to have a referendum during this session of parliament on a matter relating to the term of this Parliament. There are other reasons why a referendum is needed. It has been said throughout the debate, but I repeat, that the Government does not have a mandate on this issue. On the basis of the election figures it is patently false to argue that, in terms of a simple majority referendum basis, the Government got the approval of the Australian people. Mr Cleeland —You don't know what it means. Mr TUCKEY —For the benefit of the interjector, in his State of Victoria the Australian Labor Party got 47 per cent of the vote; the Liberal-National Party-Australian Democrats got 51 per cent of primary votes for the House of Representatives. I add that the national figures were Australian Labor Party, 45.8 per cent; the Liberal-National Party-Australian Democrats, 52 per cent. Mr Simmons —Who won? Mr TUCKEY —The Australian Labor Party won seats but did not win on this issue on the basis of the total votes of the people of Australia. All that honourable members opposite need to do is to vote for this amendment to have the proof without any problems at all. Furthermore, there was no proper debate on the Australia Card. The constitutional requirement that there be a public, community debate between the first and second introductions of the Bill was not met. As has been said, that was not achieved primarily because of the failure of journalists reporting this place to tell people about the issues. In typical fashion they wanted to talk about whether somebody was right or wrong. That situation was repeated on the Sunday show when two very senior journalists interviewing the Prime Mininster (Mr Hawke)-might I add, like two school kids interviewing their principal-asked him whether he would or whether he would not. They did not ask him why in this legislation it is necessary to fine an employer for simply failing to ask an employee for an identification card. They did not ask why that employer would be fined $20,000. That would have been a good question to put to the Prime Minister on that Sunday morning television show. Those journalists might have asked why real estate agents, banks, stockbrokers, stock and station agents, lawyers and others could be fined up to $100,000 simply for failing to act as enforcers of this legislation by failing to report to the Commissioner of Taxation the card number and business transactions of their clients. Perhaps, considering those journalists' technical experience and knowledge of landlines as used in the television industry, they should have questioned the Prime Minister on his Minister's claims that landlines are secure and free from interruption and interference. Those journalists might also have taken the time to get a bit of international advice, as I have done today. In fact, I have had a call from a person who has just spent a year in Sweden. That person told me that he had to have his ID card to buy a train ticket; the ID number was printed on the train ticket; and if he lost that ticket people had access to information on him. The 10-digit identification number is so constructed that it shows the year, month and day of a person's birth. The numbers are put in that order. It shows the district in which a person lives-Sweden has 99 districts. It gives numbers-odds and evens-to identify whether a person is male or female and it uses a final number if it is necessary to distinguish two people from the same district who were born on the same day and who are of the same sex. The Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) can deny that if he likes. It is quite authentic as far as I am concerned: we had the phone call into my office today. That is where it gets to forty years down the track. This Government cannot commit any future government to a particular course of action, and this is the method by which governments can gradually get one generation after another more used to such a system, and of course they can then intrude further into people's privacy. The other reason this amendment should succeed and a subsequent referendum be held is that the recent massive drop in the popularity of the ID card is evidence that the community did not understand the issues of the ID card during the election. The people are entitled to a deliberate, simple majority vote under the proper procedures of a referendum. To answer some of the complaints of honourable members today, our subsequent referendum Bill will require the sending to all eligible voters of the arguments for and against the proposal. Would that not be an improvement? We have had complaint after complaint here today that the debate has been irrational. Under the legislation we propose we would send to all eligible voters in Australia the story as the Government sees it as well as that put by our side, giving them the opportunity to decide for themselves. Of course during a referendum their minds will be concentrated on the issues. It is the Australian people who must decide. This matter has been dealt with in all sorts of cavalier fashion today. It was remarkable that at Question Time when I sought to find out whether the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans) had eventually done his homework and discovered whether or not he could guarantee to this Parliament the security of the landlines that his department will provide for this system, the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (Mr Young) said to me, `You will get it when we are good and ready'. I think he thought he was talking to me but he was not-he was talking to the only side of politics that is prepared to protect the 16 million Australians who are deeply concerned about this issue, who are deeply concerned about whether the information that the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) told us today would be tripping back and forth between the Department of Social Security and the Australian Taxation Office, and is already doing so, will be secure. The Government has told us unequivocally that the information on these wonderful new landlines will be secure. No other organisation in the world, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Pentagon and others, has been able to protect such information. The Australian people must decide whether they wish to pay the price of loss of privacy, the price of huge inconvenience and draconian fines for basically innocent activities in return for a doubtful increase in revenue-there is no real evidence that revenue will be improved-and an even more doubtful opportunity to get tax cuts. Everyone who has spoken on this issue today has made the point that the Government wants the money to spend the money, not to refund to the people by way of tax cuts. They are the questions that the Australian community is entitled to consider. Do Australians want this wonderful proposal, or would they be prepared to forgo the final solution that the Government offers them? I suggest that is something the Government has an obligation to ask them because this is a threshold matter; this is a question of changing the way of life of Australians as we know it. I thought the honourable member for Richmond (Mr Blunt) was spot on when he said the Government needs the numbering process to introduce a wealth tax, because I am aware that one of the requirements of such legislation is that every piece of property in the Registrar of Titles offices around Australia be progressively numbered. That will be achieved through the progressive sale or transfer of property. We ask every member of this chamber to support the amendment. It is an amendment that is fair to the people of Australia. It will not be costly and it is not a proposal that it can be argued has something to do with just the ordinary business of government. It is very much a threshold matter involving a massive change in the way Australians will live. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Rocher) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr PORTER(Barker)(6.55) —I support the amendment moved by the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey). In so doing I want to say first that I regret that the Government has again gagged this debate and intends to guillotine this legislation through without providing an opportunity for members to discuss it. Indeed, that is what it is attempting to do in regard to the Australian public; it wants to ram this legislation through a joint sitting without providing the opportunity for the Australian public to express its views. That is what the amendment is all about. It will give the Australian people an opportunity to express a view on what must be one of the most serious changes ever contemplated to the relationship between the people and their Government in this country or indeed in the majority of Western democracies. What we are talking about here is a change in the relationship between the Government and its people. If this proposal succeeds no longer will the Government be responsible to the people-the people will be responsible to the Government. If the proposal succeeds and is implemented and if, as the Government suggests, it will not be possible without a card to get a job, to access one's bank account, to rent or buy a house and so on, clearly our ability to operate as citizens of this community will depend on the Government giving us that licence. For the first time our ability to operate in the community will be reliant on a licence from the Government. Our ability to get a job, to transact business with our bank and to rent a home will be reliant on the Government giving us our number. I put it to the Committee that that for the first time will mean a reversal of the onus in Australia. No longer will the Federal Government be responsible to the people, but suddenly the people will be responsible to the Government. The Australian people ought to have the opportunity to decide on other issues. The first question, of course, is whether the proposal will work. Is the majority of tax evasion and social security fraud a result of people using false identities? Certainly there is no proof that that is the case. The Department of Social Security says that the problem is not false identity; it is the misstatement of income or change in income. All the reports, including the Auditor-General's report, the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure and the report of the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card, found that the problems of tax evasion were not identity problems; they were problems in the operation of the Australian Taxation Office. So the first point is: will the card work? Is the problem identity fraud? The answer is no, it is not. Even if that were the major problem, would the Australia Card provide an answer? Again the answer is no because clearly people will be able to get false cards. They will manufacture cards or use stolen cards so, as many speakers from this side, including the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard), have said, it will not touch the real area of tax evasion in the cash economy. This card will not touch the cash economy. Do honourable members opposite think that the card will stop an agreement between an employer and an employee to base a contract of employment on cash where there is compliance by both parties to the deal because the employer perhaps has to pay a lower rate and the employee gets tax free money? It will not. It will not touch the cash economy. So the answer to the first question of whether it will work is no, firstly because the majority of tax evasion and social security fraud is not identity fraud. Secondly, it would not stop identity fraud even if that were the major problem. The second question to be answered and to be considered by the Australian public-and which should be considered by the Australian public in a referendum-is whether the proposal is cost-effective. We have to consider first the cost to the Government. What is the cost to the Government? The Government says that over the first 10 years it will cost us something like $750m to implement. That is an extraordinarily conservative estimate. Like the cost of the new Parliament House, it is likely to be doubled or trebled. Regrettably, because of the Government's gag I do not have time tonight to go into the estimate of the cost to the Government of implementing the card. If the Government really thinks it can employ an extra 2,150 public servants, open over 40 new offices, get every Australian into those offices and have them photographed and issued with an ID card for the sort of money the Government is talking about it really believes in fairies. The second point is the cost to business. The Government just will not come clean on providing to the Australian public its estimate of the cost to business. It will not even provide its estimate, not even a conservative estimate. We know that elements of the Government have opposed the card because of their view of the cost to business. The Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett), who is at the table, said on 17 November last year at an earlier stage of the discussion on the Australia Card that doubts were expressed by the Business Regulation Review Unit in relation to the Australia Card. What were those doubts based on? The cost of the card. When we asked what were the details of those doubts, why was the Unit questioning the cost-effectiveness of the card and what were the concerns it was raising in relation to the cost to business of the card what answer did the Government give us? It said, `We will not provide you with that information'. So on 14 November under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act I applied for that information. I have had a running battle under the FOI Act in relation to information from the Minister. Has he provided it? Tomorrow morning the battle goes on. The matter will go before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a preliminary conference and hopefully it will set a hearing date so that the Tribunal can drag the Department before it to provide the information. Why is the Government hiding the information? Why will it not tell us its estimate of the cost to business of the card? Why will it not tell the Australian public? It is a fairly simple question. The Business Regulation Review Unit has made an estimate. The Government will not give it to the public. Why? Because the cost to business is astronomical. The Government is terrified of providing that information and it is doing everything it can to stall my FOI case because it does not want to reveal that information before the Joint Sitting. Finally, is the revenue suggested by the Government likely to be raised? It suggests that the card will raise $1,000m a year. That is the same revenue that the Treasurer (Mr Keating) is claiming is being raised now because he is starting to take action to overcome the inefficiencies in the Australian Taxation Office. He said last night that the Government has this extra revenue because the Tax Office is starting to improve its administrative performance. Under the Budget he wants another 640 officers in the Treasury Department to start cracking down on tax fraud and tax evasion. That increase was for the Tax Office alone. That is to get the revenue that the ID card is supposed to raise. In the same way, the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) is running around the country saying that the Government is saving all this money in social security because it is cracking down on fraud. That is the same fraud the Government is claiming the ID card will stop. The Government cannot claim the benefit of all that revenue and say that the same revenue-- The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Rocher) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Dr BLEWETT(Bonython-Minister for Community Services and Health)(7.05) —The Government rejects the amendment moved by the Opposition and it does so because the amendment clearly repudiates the way in which this country has been governed for the past 86 years. I point out to the Opposition-it appears not to know-that within this country we have a system of representative government whereby parties go to an election, offer a program at that election and ask for the people's support for that program which would be carried out in the following three years. Some of the program may be unpopular. Some of it may not at the time be supported by the people but at the end of those three years a judgment is made upon the government in terms of what it has done. That is the way in which this country has been governed for the past 86 years. It is a system of representative democracy which, at its heart, says that when one elects a government that government has three years to do the job and will be judged at the end of those three years on its total job. We are required to have a referendum only in relation to changes to the Constitution. Throughout the history of this country the system that has operated is a system of representative government. This Government is certainly not going to accept the overthrow of that principle in this amendment for short term populist reasons. If we introduced the sort of system that has been recommended by the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) it would be a system of government by public opinion poll; every time the government had an issue which was somehow unpopular that issue would be put to the people. In the last few years, this government has made a number of tough decisions. Some of those decisions include issues on the assets test and the fringe benefits tax which would not have been supported by the people at the time. We are now beginning to see the long term benefits of those tough decisions. Last night's Budget is a reflection of the fact that because we refuse to govern by public opinion poll but take the tough long term decisions, the benefits are now flowing through to the Australian people. The same is very much true of the Australia Card. Whatever its present popularity, this Government believes that it is essential to complete the tax reforms that we have introduced and we will pass this legislation. We are fully prepared to be judged by the Australian people at the end of our term on the total achievements of this Government. The card will be an important part in ensuring a fairer, more equitable tax system and in ensuring that those who should pay their taxes do so. It will ensure that social security benefits are paid to those in need. I make a general point to conclude. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) spoke on the card this afternoon. While he lacked most of the facts, like many of the Opposition speakers on this issue, I grant him that he made a coherent argument which needed to be responded to. He raised, I think, two major challenges. He said, `If a bureaucratic system is not working you must find out what is wrong'. Of course, this is the very thing that this Government did. I refer to the major reports that have been presented to this House. For instance, in Mr Costigan's report of the Royal Commission on the Activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union he identified that one of the great sources of our problems was the lack of effective identification. Whatever his logical position now, in his report, critical was the lack of identification in our system. The report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure entitled A Taxing Problem gives identification as one of the major problems in the system. The present Commissioner of Taxation identifies the identification problem. The challenge put out by the Leader of the Opposition was to find out what is wrong with the system first of all. On all the evidence, a fundamental flaw in our system is a lack of adequate identification. Honourable members should have also listened very carefully to the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) this morning. The Minister, who has battled with this problem in the period that he has been the Minister for Social Security-a very great Minister for Social Security-pointed out the identification problems and, of course, the matching problems in that area. We believe, therefore, that we have responded very clearly to the challenge put out by the Leader of the Opposition to identify what is the problem within the system. Secondly, he said, `There are two criteria by which we will judge the Australia Card'. One was its cost-efficiency. As I said during the second reading debate, the fact that the card will bring in $4.7 billion over the next 10 years is something that has been before the public for 18 months and is something which has scarcely been seriously challenged. Indeed, most of the people who have looked at it objectively, even some of our major critics, have said that we have probably underestimated the amounts that will be brought in by the Australia Card. There is no doubt that this single weapon, affecting, as it does, taxation and social security, and inhibiting illegal immigration, provides the single most powerful weapon to deal with this set of problems. Finally, let me say in regard to privacy, which was the other challenge that the Leader of the Opposition issued, that not a single new fact is added to any of the databases of the Commonwealth by this proposal. What the proposal does, in addition, is to provide in this country a finer system of privacy protection than any that exist in any other state. I am therefore perfectly convinced that, having regard to the fact that the argument will go on, we have responded clearly to the major points made by the Leader of the Opposition. I am confident that that will be supported increasingly by the Australian people. We will not accept the repudiation of the fact that this country has been governed by a system of representative government, whereby a government is elected. In this case the majority is not even recognised by some members of the Opposition; they should look around the Chamber. That support which we acquired in the July election entitles us to govern for the next three years and we are confident about the judgment that will be made at the end of that three years. Mr PORTER(Barker)(7.10) —Mr Deputy Chairman-- Question (by Mr Holding) put: That the question be now put. The Committee divided. (The Deputy Chairman-Mr A. C. Rocher) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 50 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 24 —— Baldwin, P. J. Johns, G. T.Beazley, K. C. Jones, BarryBeddall, D. P. Kelly, R. J.Bilney, G. N. Kent, L.Blanchard, C. A. Kerr, D. J. C.Blewett, N. Klugman, R. E.Brown, John Lamb, A. H. (Teller)Brumby, J. M. Langmore, J. V.Campbell, G. Lavarch, M. H.Charles, D. E. Lee, M. J.Charlesworth, R. L. Lindsay, E. J.Chynoweth, R. I. McHugh, J.Cleeland, P. R. McLeay, LeoCourtice, B. W. Martin, S. P.Crawford, M. C. Mildren, J. B.Cross, M. D. Milton, P.Cunningham, B. T. (Teller) Morris, PeterDawkins, J. S. Mountford, J. G.Dubois, S. C. O'Keefe, N. P.Edwards, Ronald O'Neil, L. R. T.Fatin, W. F. Price, L. R. SFitzgibbon, E. J. Punch, G. F.Free, R. V. Saunderson, J.Gayler, J. Scholes, G. G. DGear, G. Sciacca, C.Gorman, R. N. J. Scott, J. L.Grace, E. L. Simmons, D. W.Griffiths, A. G. Snow, J. H.Hand, G. L. Snowdon, W. E.Harvey, E. R. Staples, P. R.Holding, A. C. Theophanous, A. C.Hollis, C. Tickner, R. E.Howe, B. L. Uren, T.Humphreys, B. C. West, S. J.Hurford, C. J. Willis, R.Jakobsen, C. A. Wright, K. W.Jenkins, H. A. Young, M. J. Aldred, K. J. Jull, D. F.Andrew, J. N. (Teller) Katter, R. C.Beale, J. H. Lloyd, B.Blunt, C. W. McArthur, F. S.Braithwaite, R. A. McGauran, P. J.Brown, N. A. MacKellar, M. J. R.Burr, M. A. McVeigh, D. T.Cameron, Donald Miles, C. G.Cameron, Ian Millar, P. C.Carlton, J. J. Moore, J. C.Cobb, M. R. Nehl, G. B.Connolly, D. M. Peacock, A. S.Cowan, D. B. Porter, J. R.Dobie, J. D. M. Prosser, G. D.Downer, A. J. G. Reith, P. K.Edwards, Harry Robinson, IanFife, W. C. Ruddock, P. M.Fischer, Tim Shack, P. D.Fisher, Peter Shipton, R. FHall, Steele Spender, J. M.Halverson, R. G. Tuckey, C. W.Hawker, D. P. M. Webster, A. P.Hewson, J. R. White, P. N. D.Hicks, N. J. (Teller) Wilson, I. B. C.Hunt, R. J. D. Wooldridge, M. R. L. Brown, Robert Macphee, I. M.Morris, Allan Sullivan, K. J.Duffy, M. J. Cameron, EwenHayden, W. G. Smith, W. L. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Consideration interrupted. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Rocher) —Order! It being past 7.15 p.m., I shall report progress. Progress reported. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! I now propose the question: That the House do now adjourn. Dr Blewett-I require that the question be put forthwith without debate. Question resolved in the negative. Consideration resumed. Question put: That the amendment (Mr Tuckey's) be agreed to. The Committee divided. (The Deputy Chairman-Mr A. C. Rocher) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 73 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 23 —— Aldred, K. J. Jull, D. F.Andrew, J. N. (Teller) Katter, R. C.Beale, J. H. Lloyd, B.Blunt, C. W. McArthur, F. S.Braithwaite, R. A. McGauran, P. J.Brown, N. A. MacKellar, M. J. R.Burr, M. A. McVeigh, D. T.Cameron, Donald Miles, C. G.Cameron, Ian Millar, P. C.Carlton, J. J. Moore, J. C.Cobb, M. R. Nehl, G. B.Connolly, D. M. Peacock, A. S.Cowan, D. B. Porter, J. R.Dobie, J. D. M. Prosser, G. D.Downer, A. J. G. Reith, P. K.Edwards, Harry Robinson, IanFife, W. C. Ruddock, P. M.Fischer, Tim Shack, P. D.Fisher, Peter Shipton, R. F.Hall, Steele Spender, J. M.Halverson, R. G. Tuckey, C. W.Hawker, D. P. M. Webster, A. P.Hewson, J. R. White, P. N. D.Hicks, N. J. (Teller) Wilson, I. B. C.Hunt, R. J. D. Wooldridge, M. R. L. Baldwin, P. J. Jones, BarryBeazley, K. C. Kelly, R. J.Beddall, D. P. Kent, L.Bilney, G. N. Kerr, D. J. C.Blanchard, C. A. Klugman, R. E.Blewett, N. Lamb, A. H. (Teller)Brown, John Langmore, J. V.Brumby, J. M. Lavarch, M. H.Campbell, G. Lee, M. J.Charles, D. E. Lindsay, E. J.Charlesworth, R. I. McHugh, J.Chynoweth, R. L. McLeay, LeoCleeland, P. R. Martin, S. P.Courtice, B. W. Mildren, J. B.Crawford, M. C. Milton, P.Cross, M. D. Morris, PeterCunningham, B. T. (Teller) Mountford, J. G.Dawkins, J. S. O'Keefe, N. P.Dubois, S. C. O'Neil, L. R. T.Edwards, Ronald Price, L. R. S.Fatin, W. F. Punch, G. F.Fitzgibbon, E. J. Saunderson, J.Free, R. V. Scholes, G. G. D.Gear, G. Sciacca, C.Gorman, R. N. J. Scott, J. L.Grace, E. L. Simmons, D. W.Griffiths, A. G. Snow, J. H.Hand, G. L. Snowdon, W. E.Harvey, E. R. Staples, P. R.Holding, A. C. Theophanous, A. C.Hollis, C. Tickner, R. E.Howe, B. L. Uren, T.Humphreys, B. C. West, S. J.Hurford, C. J. Willis, R.Jakobsen, C. A. Wright, K. W.Jenkins, H. A. Young, M. J.Johns, G. T. Macphee, I. M. Brown, RobertSullivan, K. J. Morris, AllanCameron, Owen Duffy, M. J.Smith, W. L. Hayden, W. G. Question so resolved in the negative. Question put: That the Bill be agreed to. The Committee divided. (The Deputy Chairman-Mr A. C. Rocher) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 51 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 22 —— Baldwin, P. J. Jones, BarryBeazley, K. C. Kelly, R. J.Beddall, D. P. Kent, L.Bilney, G. N. Kerr, D. J. C.Blanchard, C. A. Klugman, R. E.Blewett, N. Lamb, A. H. (Teller)Brown, John Langmore, J. V.Brumby, J. M. Lavarch, M. H.Campbell, G. Lee, M. J.Charles, D. E. Lindsay, E. J.Charlesworth, R. I. McHugh, J.Chynoweth, R. L. McLeay, LeoCleeland, P. R. Martin, S. P.Courtice, B. W. Mildren, J. B.Crawford, M. C. Milton, P.Cross, M. D. Morris, PeterCunningham, B. T. (Teller) Mountford, J. G.Dawkins, J. S. O'Keefe, N. P.Dubois, S. C. O'Neil, L. R. T.Edwards, Ronald Price, L. R. S.Fatin, W. F. Punch, G. F.Fitzgibbon, E. J. Saunderson, J.Free, R. V. Scholes, G. G. D.Gear, G. Sciacca, C.Gorman, R. N. J. Scott, J. L.Grace, E. L. Simmons, D. W.Griffiths, A. G. Snow, J. H.Hand, G. L. Snowdon, W. E.Harvey, E. R. Staples, P. R.Holding, A. C. Theophanous, A. C.Hollis, C. Tickner, R. E.Howe, B. L. Uren, T.Humphreys, B. C. West, S. J.Hurford, C. J. Willis, R.Jakobsen, C. A. Wright, K. W.Jenkins, H. A. Young, M. J.Johns, G. T. Aldred, K. J. Jull, D. F.Andrew, J. N. (Teller) Katter, R. C.Beale, J. H. Lloyd, B.Blunt, C. W. McArthur, F. S.Braithwaite, R. A. McGauran, P. J.Brown, N. A. MacKellar, M. J.Burr, M. A. McVeigh, D. T.Cameron, Donald Miles, C. G.Cameron, Ian Millar, P. C.Carlton, J. J. Moore, J. C.Cobb, M. R. Nehl, G. B.Connolly, D. M. Peacock, A. S.Cowan, D. B. Porter, J. R.Dobie, J. D. M. Prosser, G. D.Downer, A. J. G. Reith, P. K.Edwards, Harry Robinson, IanFife, W. C. Ruddock, P. M.Fischer, Tim Shack, P. D.Fisher, Peter Shipton, R. F.Hall, Steele Spender, J. M.Halverson, R. G. Tuckey, C. W.Hawker, D. P. M. Webster, A. P.Hewson, J. R. White, P. N. D.Hicks, N. J. (Teller) Wilson, I. B. C.Howard, J. W. Wooldridge, M. R. L.Hunt, R. J. D. Brown, Robert Macphee, I. M.Morris, Allan Sullivan, K. J.Duffy, M. J. Cameron, EwenHayden, W. G. Smith, W. L. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Bill reported without an amendment; report adopted. Question (by Dr Blewett)-by leave-put: That the Bill be now read a third time. The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker-Mr Leo McLeay) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 52 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 21 —— Baldwin, P. J. Johns, G. T.Beazley, K. C. Jones, BarryBeddall, D. P. Kelly, R. J.Bilney, G. N. Kent, L.Blanchard, C. A. Kerr, D. J. C.Blewett, N. Klugman, R. E.Brown, John Lamb, A. H. (Teller)Brumby, J. M. Langmore, J. V.Campbell, G. Lavarch, M. H.Charles, D. E. Lee, M. J.Charlesworth, R. I. Lindsay, E. J.Chynoweth, R. L. McHugh, J.Cleeland, P. R. Martin, S. P.Courtice, B. W. Mildren, J. B.Crawford, M. C. Milton, P.Cross, M. D. Morris, PeterCunningham, B. T. (Teller) Mountford, J. G.Dawkins, J. S. O'Keefe, N. P.Dubois, S. C. O'Neil, L. R. T.Edwards, Ronald Price, L. R. S.Fatin, W. F. Punch, G. F.Fitzgibbon, E. J. Saunderson, J.Free, R. V. Scholes, G. G. D.Gayler, J. Sciacca, C.Gear, G. Scott, J. L.Gorman, R. N. J. Simmons, D. W.Grace, E. L. Snow, J. H.Griffiths, A. G. Snowdon, W. E.Hand, G. L. Staples, P. R.Harvey, E. R. Theophanous, A. C.Holding, A. C. Tickner, R. E.Hollis, C. Uren, T.Howe, B. L. West, S. J.Humphreys, B. C. Willis, R.Hurford, C. J. Wright, K. W.Jakobsen, C. A. Young, M. J.Jenkins, H. A. Aldred, K. J. Jull, D. F.Andrew, J. N. (Teller) Katter, R. C.Beale, J. H. Lloyd, B.Blunt, C. W. McArthur, F. S.Braithwaite, R. A. McGauran, P. J.Brown, N. A. MacKellar, M. J.Burr, M. A. McVeigh, D. T.Cameron, Donald Miles, C. G.Cameron, Ian Millar, P. C.Carlton, J. J. Moore, J. C.Cobb, M. R. Nehl, G. B.Connolly, D. M. Peacock, A. S.Cowan, D. B. Porter, J. R.Dobie, J. D. M. Prosser, G. D.Downer, A. J. G. Reith, P. K.Edwards, Harry Robinson, IanFife, W. C. Rocher, A. C.Fischer, Tim Ruddock, P. M.Fisher, Peter Shack, P. D.Hall, Steele Shipton, R. F.Halverson, R. G. Spender, J. M.Hawker, D. P. M. Tuckey, C. W.Hewson, J. R. Webster, A. P.Hicks, N. J. (Teller) White, P. N. D.Howard, J. W. Wilson, I. B. C.Hunt, R. J. D. Wooldridge, M. R. L. Brown, Robert Macphee, I. M.Morris, Allan Sullivan, K. J.Duffy, M. J. Cameron, EwenHayden, W. G. Smith, W. L. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a third time. House adjourned at 7.41 p.m. The following notices were given: Mr Burr to move- That this House urges- (1) the political party that wins the next and subsequent elections to appoint all Ministers of the Government from the members of the House of Representatives, and (2) the Senate to further expand its committee system and to adopt greater powers of investigation and inquiry. Mr Burr to move- That this House calls on the Government to hold a referendum in conjunction with the next General Election to- (1) extend the term of the House of Representatives to 4 years and the term of the Senate to 8 years, and (2) provide that the date of elections be held on a fixed day at 4 yearly intervals. Mr Blunt to move- That this House- (1) rejects the costly and flawed identification card proposal opposed by the majority of Australians, and (2) urges the Government to clean-up Australian Tax Office administration and tighten the social security system which are cheaper and better methods to reduce fraud than the identification card. Mr Blunt to move- That this House- (1) expresses serious concern at the Government's gradual move towards a wealth tax, which would make it the Hawke Labor Government's 17th new tax; (2) urges the Government to reject ACTU calls for this new tax, and (3) condemns the left-wing of the Government for proposing a wealth tax and a wealth inquiry which will deflate further local and overseas business confidence in Australia's economy. Mr Blunt to move- That this House- (1) welcomes the valuable and worthwhile suggestions to solve Australia's meat residue situation made by the Northern Co-op Meat Company from Casino on the New South Wales north coast; (2) calls on the Government to introduce uniform laws throughout Australia on the sale and use of chemicals affecting foodstuffs; (3) urges the Government to conduct more research into the consequences of agricultural chemicals, especially when these chemicals are banned overseas; and (4) urges the Australian Agricultural Council to address the sale of chemicals at clearing sales on farms where often the chemicals are sold in containers without labels and in rusted and leaking containers. Mr Blunt to move- That this House notes the identification card is a cover-up for sloppy and inefficient Hawke Labor Government administration since it came to power in March 1983. Mr Blunt to move- That this House notes- (1) the State Labor Premiers of Victoria and New South Wales have expressed concern over the identification card; (2) the Victorian ALP has opposed the identification card for three consecutive years; (3) federal Labor parliamentarians, including Senator Bolkus, Senator Cooney and the honourable Member for Hotham oppose the identification card, and (4) senior Hawke Ministers are not solidly behind the identification card proposal. Mr Young to move- (1) that a joint standing committee be appointed to act for and represent the Parliament, as the client for the new Parliament House, in all matters concerned with the planning, design and construction of the new Parliament House and all matters incidental thereto. (2) that the committee consider and approve the developed design for the building which, in conjunction with the revised brief for Parliament House, dated August 1980, shall be used as the basis for the design and construction of the new Parliament House, unless both Houses resolve to vary any section of the brief or have any section reconsidered by the committee. (3) that the committee determine user requirements for approved non-building items and consider other issues relevant to ensuring that the requirements of Parliament are fully met when transferring to the new building. (4) that the committee also consider and report on matters coming within the terms of section 5 of the Parliament Act 1974 as may be referred to it by- (a) resolution of either House of the Parliament, or (b) the Minister responsible for administering the National Capital Development Commission Act 1957. (5) That the committee consist of- (a) the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; (b) the Minister responsible for administering the Parliament House Construction Authority Act 1979; (c) 3 members of the House of Representatives to be nominated by the Government Whip or Whips and 3 members of the House of Representatives to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or Whips, and (d) 3 Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate and 3 Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate or by any minority group or groups or independent Senators. (6) That every nomination of a member of the committee be forthwith notified in writing to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. (7) That the members of the committee hold office as a joint standing committee until the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires by effluxion of time. (8) That the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives be joint chairmen of the committee. (9) That in matters of procedure, each of the chairmen whether or not occupying the chair, have a deliberative vote and, in the event of an equality of voting, the chairman occupying the chair have a casting vote. (10) That in matters other than those of procedure, each of the chairmen, whether or not occupying the chair, have a deliberative vote only. (11) That 5 members of the committee, one of whom is the President or the Speaker, constitute a quorum of the committee. (12) That the committee have power to appoint sub-committees consisting of 3 or more of its members and to refer to any sub-committee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine. (13) That the committee appoint the chairman of each sub-committee who shall have a casting vote only, and at any time when the chairman of a sub-committee is not present at a meeting of the sub-committee the members of the sub-committee present shall elect another member of that sub-committee to act as chairman at that meeting. (14) That the quorum of a sub-committee be a majority of the members of that sub-committee. (15) That members of the committee who are not members of a sub-committee may participate in the proceedings of that sub-committee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum. (16) That the committee or any sub-committee have power to send for persons, papers and records. (17) That the committee or any sub-committee have power to move from place to place. (18) That a sub-committee have power to adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the Senate and the House of Representatives. (19) That a sub-committee have power to authorise publication of any evidence given before it and any document presented to it. (20) That the committee have leave to report from time to time. (21) That the committee or any sub-committee have power to consider and make use of the evidence and records of the Joint Standing Committee on the new Parliament House appointed during previous Parliaments. (22) That the committee be authorised to provide, on behalf of the Parliament, all necessary information concerning the functional requirements for the new Parliament House and matters incidental thereto direct to the Parliament House Construction Authority as the authority responsible to Parliament to undertake or arrange for the planning, design and construction of the new Parliament House. (23) That the foregoing provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders. (24) That a message be sent to the Senate acquainting it of this resolution and requesting that it concur and take action accordingly. The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 16 September 1987: Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1987, No. 181. Barley Research Levy Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987, No. 183. Census and Statistics Act-Australian Bureau of Statistics Statement of disclosure of information-1987-No. 5-List of names and addresses of Victorian State public sector agencies for Department of Management and Budget, Victoria. Public Service Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1987, No. 180. Seat of Government (Administration) Act-Credit Ordinance Credit Notices- No. 35-Farming Property Transactions. No. 36-Business Finance. States Grants (Petroleum Products) Act-Amendments of the schedules to the subsidy schemes in relation to the States, dated 15 September 1987. Wheat Tax Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1987, No. 182.