Thursday, 24 March 1988 Madam SPEAKER (Hon. Joan Child) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate Ministers: To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. This humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully sheweth 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 Braithwaite (from 480 citizens), Mr Griffiths (from 124 citizens), Mr Macphee (from 44 citizens) and Mr Scholes (from 42 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned respectfully sheweth: The irradiation of food by any means degrades the nutritional value of food and is potentially harmful to the health of all consumers and to the environment. Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Honourable House 1. Withdraw from the Asian Regional Co-operative Project on Food Irradiation and from the International Consultative Group on Food Irradiation. 2. Take all possible steps to prevent and disallow the irradiation of food in Australia. 3. Ban the export and importation of irradiated foods and animal feeds. 4. Take steps to obtain a testing device to make possible the identification of irradiated foods, as soon as one becomes available. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Baldwin (from 17 citizens), Mr Nehl (from 37 citizens) and Mr Scott (from 18 citizens). The Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we strenuously object to the proposal that the Post Office agency at Lilyfield be closed. The Post Office serves a community need and we would be seriously inconvenienced by having to travel to another centre for our requirements, or even to collect registered letters and parcels. Many of us are pensioners and the cost of such travel would be an unnecessary imposition. The nearest Post Offices are about 2.5-3kms away with no convenient public transport. We maintain that the purpose of Post Offices should be to serve the public for the variety of services they offer, and that they should not be closed merely to save money or help Australia Post make a profit. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House should take all possible steps to prevent the closure of Lilyfield Post Office Agency and your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray by Mr Baldwin (from 800 citizens). To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled, the humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: that thousands of Australians are known to suffer from glaucoma that some 200,000 Australians are potential sufferers of glaucoma that glaucoma is the leading cause of preventable blindness that most such blindness can be prevented through early detection and treatment that initial detection of possible glaucoma is simple and inexpensive. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled initiate a national, voluntary campaign to screen for glaucoma particularly at workplaces and in institutions. And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Dr Blewett (from 2,266 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of certain electors of Australia shows:- that the introduction of time-charging for local telephone calls by Telecom Australia would seriously disadvantage the sick, elderly and disabled people as well as counselling and community services, particularly Lifeline. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Parliament will reject the present proposal by Telecom to time-charge local telephone calls as being an unfair cost burden on private individuals. by Mr Braithwaite (from 58 citizens). To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth that:- The introduction of time-charging for local telephone calls by Telecom Australia would seriously disadvantage thousands of elderly and disabled people and families, and would add a further burden to the already prohibitive cost of living borne by every Australian. Time-charging for the business sector is also unfair and unreasonable as any charge increase to business will be borne by consumers in the end. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to; Reject out of hand any plans by Telecom to time-charge local telephone calls and prevent both Australian people and Australian business from being seriously disadvantaged by yet another ludicrous charge. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Moore (from 344 citizens). To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth that: (1) That we oppose timed local calls by Telecom (2) Timed calls should not be introduced in the absence of widespread community support (3) Timed calls will seriously affect pensioners, the elderly, low income earners and other disadvantaged groups and would add a further burden to the already prohibitive cost of living borne by every Australian. Your petitioners therefore pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Reject plans by Telecom to time charge local telephone calls. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Shipton (from 49 citizens). To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of the electorate of Hume respectfully showeth that: The introduction of time-charging for local telephone calls by Telecom Australia would seriously disadvantage thousands of elderly and disabled people and families, and would add a further burden to the already prohibitive cost of living borne by every Australian. Your Petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Reject out of hand any plans by Telecom to time-charge local telephone calls and prevent the Australian people from being seriously affected by yet another ludicrous charge. And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Fife (from 175 citizens). To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of the electorate of Cowper respectfully showeth that: The introduction of time-charging for local telephone calls by Telecom Australia would seriously disadvantage thousands of elderly and disabled people and families, and would add a further burden to the already prohibitive cost of living borne by every Australian. Your Petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Reject out of hand any plans by Telecom to time-charge local telephone calls and prevent the Australian people from being seriously affected by yet another ludicrous charge. And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Nehl (from 311 citizens). 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 we strongly oppose the introduction of the ``Australian Card'' or any other form of National Identification Numbering System. We believe that 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 Cadman (from 43 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petitions of the Undersigned Citizens respectfully showeth that: Any proposals to time local telephone calls gravely concerns all people. Isolation and communication was the second biggest problems facing rural women according to the ``Survey of Rural Women'' questionnaire and any attempt at timing local calls will add to this problem, not decrease it. Your Petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, urge the Parliament to: Ensure that Telecom do not proceed with the timing of local telephone calls. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Ian Cameron (from 15 citizens). 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 by Telecom to charge local calls on a time basis would seriously disadvantage the elderly, the sick, the housebound and the underprivileged. Any such proposals would involve enormous expense to callers ringing Government Departments, Telegrams, Doctors etc where they are required to hold on for long periods of time. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, urge the Parliament to: Ensure that the proposal to introduce timed local calls does not proceed. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Ruddock (from 224 citizens). To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned shows that the petitioners are concerned that the Minister for Health proposes to delete from the Medical Benefits Schedule those item numbers covering the treatment of sun-damaged skin and warts by specialists. They fear that those patients suffering chronically from these problems cannot always be treated successfully by a general practitioner. They protest that they will be financially disadvantaged. They also realise that their problems require early detection and expert treatment, if the petitioners are not to be exposed to increased risk of skin and other cancers. Your Petitioners request that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, should recognise our concern and permit the abovementioned items in the medical schedule to be reinstated. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Connolly (from 15 citizens). To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned shows: We are gravely concerned by the threat to social morality and the welfare of children, posed by the unrestricted importation, distribution and sale of X-rated pornographic video material in and from the Australian Capital Territory. Your Petitioners request that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, should recognise our concern and reverse its amendments to ACT legislation and Customs regulations which have resulted in Australia wide distribution of material restricted under State censorship laws. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Cohen (from 22 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth that whereas: 1. They are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian National Flag. 2. They are aware it properly reflects the immutable characteristics of Australia, namely: (a) The Union Jack, itself the creation of three Christian Crosses, represents the Nation's historical origin and the source of its language and law; (b) The Southern Cross on an azure blue background signifying its geographical location on this planet Earth; (c) The large star depicting the advent of Federation in 1901. 3. They know the Flag has been a source of inspiration to generations of Australians in peace and war. 4. They recall that millions of native-born Australian and newcomers to these shores from other parts of the world have become united under its proud symbolism. 5. They are certain that any change to the Flag will produce division in the Australian community. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will: Propose and pass a motion that ``the existing Australian National Flag be changed only with the approval of the Nation as expressed in a Referendum''. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Halverson (from 11 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens, respectfully showeth: That we express grave concern about the public release of confidential medical information by the Government, sufficient to enable the public identification of Doctors and their patients and calls upon the Parliament to censure all those involved in this gross abuse of the privacy of all Australians. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Dr Hewson (from 20 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of Australia in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Tasmania respectfully showeth: That the Government's decision to terminate an existing agreement with St. Luke's Medical &Hospital Benefit Association Limited for the provision of facilities for the receipt and limited processing of Medicare claims will:- Deny ready access to cash reimbursements of Medicare claims. Deprive citizens of a personalized reliable claims payment service. Reduce job opportunities in the State. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Honourable House will reconsider their previous decision to discontinue Medicare agency arrangements. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Kerr (from 3,165 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned electors of the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully showeth that: We are opposed to the proposed restructuring of the A.B.C. We believe that the A.B.C. is one of the most important public services in Australia and a mainstay of democracy. Your petitioners therefore pray that your Honourable House of Representatives will take measures to ensure that the A.B.C. is permitted to continue to offer ``comprehensive'' broadcasting services under its present charter. by Mr Kerr (from 139 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: (1) That we are totally opposed to the proposal for the establishment of a gambling casino in Canberra or the Australian Capital Territory. (2) That a casino in Canberra would detract from the unique character and status of our National Capital. Your petitioners therefore most humbly request the House of Representatives and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia to reject any proposal for or legislation which would permit the establishment of a casino in the Australian Capital Territory. And your humble petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Langmore (from 59 citizens). 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: The sale of violent videos, books glorifying violence, and toys of violence encourages violence in the community, and has a deleterious affect on the more vulnerable members of the community who are easily influenced. Your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Ban the sale of violent videos, books and toys of violence, in an effort to put an end to the increasing number of violent crimes committed in this country. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr McArthur (from 62 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we strenuously object to the proposal that the Fairlight Post Office Agency is to be closed. It serves a Community Need and we would be seriously inconvenienced if forced to travel further to purchase postal items or collect parcels, and would be an unnecessary expense particularly for pensioners without their own transport. We maintain that the purpose of Post Offices should be to Serve the Public for the variety of services they offer. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House should take all possible steps to prevent the closure of this Post Office Agency. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr MacKellar (from 383 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth that: 1. Mt Etna, Central Queensland, listed by both the Queensland National Trust and the Commonwealth Heritage Commission as essential to the National Trust, is currently being mined for limestone by the Central Queensland Cement Company and is to be totally destroyed. 2. Mt Etna has many unique faunal and cavernous attributes, in particular the cave Bat Cleft, is the largest by far of only five known breeding sites for the Little bent-winged bat, with 86% of the population breeding there. 3. Limestone surveys have shown that there are many non-cavernous lime-stone deposits in the Rockhampton area. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the members of the House of Representatives will call on the elected government of the State of Queensland to: a. Halt the mining of Mt Etna, Central Queensland by the Central Queensland Cement Company. b. Shift the Central Queensland Cement Company limestone mine from Mt Etna to another local area of non-cavernous limestone so as to maintain a local cement industry and the employment so generated. c. Declare the hence vacated Mt Etna a national park so as to conserve for future generations its unique cavernous attributes in particular the Little bent-winged bat maternity site Bat Cleft. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Punch (from 1,098 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we strenuously object to the proposed nomination of Wet Tropical Rainforests of North Queensland to the World Heritage List. The listing as a World Heritage of such a vast area, including areas of State Forest scheduled for Timber Harvesting on a sustained yield basis, will have a detrimental effect on the Timber and Allied industries and on the citizens and economy of North Queensland. The listing as a World Heritage of such a vast area will inhibit the future development of North Queensland on a broad economic base. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House should take all possible steps to prevent the listing of Wet Tropical Rainforests of North Queensland as a World Heritage. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Punch (from 11 citizens). To the Honourable Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows: We oppose the advertising of alcohol in any form. Alcohol is recognised as Australia's number one drug problem which is responsible for at least 50% of all road fatalities; a high percentage of serious crime and vandalism. Hospital beds are filled with sufferers of the many alcohol related diseases including: cirrhosis of the liver; heart disease; stomach ulcers; various forms of cancer and mental illness. Alcohol also causes much family unhappiness and marriage breakdown, as well as being involved in some cases of child abuse and molestation. Your petitioners request that the House of Representatives, in Parliament assembled, should ban all advertising of alcohol on television and radio because of its persuasive effect on children and young people. by Mr Ruddock (from 275 citizens). To the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. Your humble petitioners showeth: 1. The proposed Australia Card represents a grave threat to the personal privacy and civil liberties of every Australian. 2. Therefore your petitioners request a national referendum on the Australia Card Bill before the proposal is re-submitted to Parliament. As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray. by Mr Shipton (from 159 citizens). To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth: That we are strongly opposed to the proposal for metering of local telephone calls by Telecom since- (i) higher phone bills would add more pressure to the family budget, and some would not be able to pay them; (ii) elderly, sick and lonely people, many of whom are pensioners, rely on the telephone as their communication with the outside world. We therefore request the House to give this matter a lot more thought before acting on the proposal. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mrs Sullivan (from 129 citizens). To the Honourable The Speaker and members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament: The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House that placing a 20% Sales Tax on the essential food item, Soya Milk, will present unnecessary financial difficulties to families. Where many people in the community show a marked intolerance to dairy products, Soya Milk supplies a much need alternative. We, the petitioners therefore request that the new sales tax on Soya Milk be rescinded. by Mr White (from 86 citizens). Petitions received. Madam SPEAKER —Order! There being no business relating to committee or delegation reports, in accordance with standing order 104 as amended for this session, private members' business will be called on. Mr LANGMORE(Fraser)(10.05) —I move: That, in view of the severe constraints on global economic growth and on the development of lower income countries caused by severe trade imbalances, high real interest rates, massive debts of many countries, historically low commodity prices, and industrial and agricultural protection, this House urges the Group of Seven major Western industrial countries (the G7-the United States, Japan, Federal Republic of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada) to- (1) co-ordinate their national fiscal and monetary policies so as to reduce trade, exchange rate and interest rate imbalances and instability; (2) strongly encourage current account surplus countries to adopt expansionary macroeconomic policies so as to increase their imports and stimulate world trade; (3) reduce their wasteful military expenditure and urge Warsaw Pact countries to do the same so as to reduce fiscal imbalances, reduce interest rates and increase resources for economically and socially useful activities; (4) establish facilities through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for phased, partial debt forgiveness and rescheduling; (5) increase overseas aid for developing countries to the greatest extent possible with the ultimate goal of reaching the UN target of 0.07% of Gross National Product; (6) support a new issue of Special Drawing Rights by the International Monetary Fund allocated to developing countries to allow relaxation of their balance of payments constraints; and (7) convene a global conference on reform of the international monetary system. This is an unusual motion in that it urges action by other governments. However, it is written in these terms because the Group of Seven major industrial countries-the United States of America (US), Japan, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada-are the principal influences on the state of the global economy. Therefore, the Australian Government cannot avoid having attitudes and opinions about the policies of those governments and urging them to take appropriate actions. The global economy is increasingly interdependent. If the United States Government contracts domestic economic activity, that will reduce US imports and so reduce Australian exports. When, in the early 1980s, the United States Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy, forcing up interest rates, the effect was to force up interest rates in Australia also. So anyone concerned about the Australian economy must attempt to follow what is happening internationally. The global economy is experiencing turbulent and uncertain times. The stock market crash in October is the clearest example. There has been some recovery of confidence since that crash, but the severity of the decline in share prices, which was greater in Australia than anywhere else, has left an atmosphere of insecurity. Part of that crash was desirable correction to overinflated prices, but the size of the decline in share prices causes uncertainty which has some real implications. For example, with much reduced share prices, companies are less readily able to raise capital through new issues on the stock exchange, and this may lead to reduced levels of corporate investment. There is also a decline in the value of wealth which will cause wealth holders to reduce both their investment and their consumption. However, it is too early to be sure of the extent of the consequences of the crash on Wall Street and other stock exchanges around the world. More important as an indicator of the severity of the current crisis are the low and declining global economic rates of growth. In 1986 world output grew by about 3.2 per cent. The estimate for 1987 is that world output will grow by 2.8 per cent, a small decline. Estimates for this year are of a further decline in that rate of growth. With global population growing at over 1 1/2 per cent a year, this means that real per capita average growth rates are less than 1 1/2 per cent. There are wide differences between regions and countries. Industrial country growth rates tend on average to be slower than those of developing countries. But there is negligible or no growth in many parts of Africa and Latin America. In fact, many African countries are experiencing a decline in their economies, and have been experiencing a severe depression for much of the last five or six years, whilst in the newly industrialised countries of East Asia and China growth rates are particularly rapid-in the 6 to 8 per cent range each year. Another obvious cause for concern is the size of the United States current account deficit-it was over $US50 billion in 1987-and the current account surpluses of Japan of about $US85 billion and Germany of about $US40 billion last year. Australia is experiencing a similar imbalance, our current account deficit being estimated at $11.5 billion in the current financial year. Another symptom of turbulence is high interest rates. Late last year long term interest rates in major industrial countries were 5 per cent or more in real terms, which by historic standards is very high. The consequence of that is to retard investment, to increase the cost of servicing loans among borrowers and so to slow economic recovery and growth. High real interest rates are a particular problem for heavily indebted developing countries. In 1987 African countries were, on average, having to pay 33 per cent of the value of the exports of their goods and services in interest payments on their debt. Countries in central and Latin America were having to pay more than 50 per cent of the value of their exports of goods and services in debt service. Heavily indebted countries have ratios of debt servicing to exports which are, of course, even higher. One reason that these debt service ratios are so high is that no matter how hard indebted countries try they are experiencing great difficulty in servicing or repaying their debts because during the last three or four years the prices they received for their commodity exports have collapsed, as they have for Australia; we can understand their circumstances well. Non-oil primary commodity prices have declined on average by around 16 per cent during the last three years. In recent months there has been some recovery but not nearly enough to offset that decline, the consequence being that, while indebted countries have tried to increase the value of their exports by increasing the volume, that increase in volume has been offset by a deterioration in price so that the value has often stagnated. Australians are familiar with this problem because we have experienced it as well and the deterioration in our own terms of trade is the major factor behind our high current account deficit and growing overseas indebtedness. Yet the major industrial countries are not taking action to offset these trends. In fact, during the 1980s trade has been made more difficult by growing protectionism in North America, Japan and Western Europe. It is not surprising that the rapid growth of imports to the United States of America should have led to calls for increased tariffs and protection, nor that the vociferous claims of farmers in the United States, Japan, France and Germany should have led to high levels of agricultural subsidy and protection in those countries. But it remains true that protection is contrary to the interests of both consumers in those countries and all producers and consumers in commodity exporting countries. It is essential that there be a reduction in agricultural protection. Australia's initiative in establishing the Cairns group, so as to effectively advocate reduced agricultural protection during the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, should be vigorously pursued and vigorously supported. The heads of government of the seven major Western industrial countries meet annually to discuss principally economic policy. Therefore, it is relevant to urge them to take coordinated action. In any case, coordinated action is important because unilateral actions to correct some of the imbalances could intensify the problems. For example, the United States current account deficit must be reduced. That country has become the world's greatest debtor with international debts totalling more than $US400 billion. The consequence of cutting United States imports is that the exports of the rest of the world to the United States will fall. This could have the effect of initiating another global recession unless world trade is stimulated by those countries that have the capacity to do so. So a cut in United States imports must be offset by an increase in imports by Japan and Germany, the major surplus countries, by the other small surplus European countries and by the surplus newly industrialising countries such as South Korea and Taiwan. A reduction in the United States fiscal deficit might also contribute to a reduction in United States interest rates through a relaxation of monetary policy. That would contribute to maintaining and encouraging investment in the rest of the world and so ease the debt servicing problem for indebted countries. Greater stability is also required in exchange rates because instability inhibits trade. Stability of exchange rates requires coordinated intervention in foreign exchange markets by those countries with the capacity to do so. There has been much more intervention in recent months and a reduction in instability as a result. That has come about because of coordination between Washington, Tokyo and Bonn in particular. Much more is difficult to achieve because any coordination involves some reduction in national sovereignty. Yet the extent of global interdependence is such that coordination is essential. This suggests that the institutions for arranging coordination must be strengthened. For example, the powers and responsibilities of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank should be strengthened. The role of the Bank for International Settlement should also be enhanced. In fact, a global conference on reform of the international financial system is required in order to strengthen these international institutions and redirect their policies. It is good to see that the proposal for a global conference on international financial reform is receiving some more support internationally, notably from President Mitterrand in France, who has again nominated for that country's presidency. Another reform of these international financial institutions which is required is to admit the Soviet Union and the eastern European countries, which are not at present members. It is an outdated anomaly that communist countries are not generally represented for they have a growing role in the global economy and their presence at debates concerning international financial and economic policy would enhance the effectiveness of these institutions. The US has recently indicated that it is considering supporting admitting these countries to membership. I hope that that proposal will be accepted and that the Australian Government will support it, too. Japan and West Germany have adopted somewhat more expansionary macro-economic policies during the last couple of years. The West German Budget deficit is up to about 3 1/2 per cent of gross domestic product and some further tax reductions are planned. In Japan, public investment has increased. In both countries the volume of imports has increased and the extent of the current account surplus is starting to fall, principally because of the massive appreciation of their currencies. However, both countries' changes in macro-economic stance have been modest and more would certainly be warranted. Expansionary policies are also required in other surplus countries. There is a surprising waste in the size of the international reserves of Taiwan and South Korea, for example. Both countries could change their exchange rates and/or build up internal demand significantly, which would contribute to removing these imbalances. It is essential, too, that progress be made during the Uruguay Round of negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade so as to reduce protection not only of manufactured goods but also of agricultural goods and services and to stimulate world trade in all those areas. So far virtually everything I have said would be generally accepted. It is part of the conventional wisdom about the current state of the international economy. Other steps are also required though, and it is important that they not be neglected. One such step which is commonly neglected is to recognise the economic damage of the massive military expenditure in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Warsaw Pact countries, and in the Third World, by the way, and the economic benefits which would accrue to all those countries from reducing military expenditure. During the 25 years from 1960 to 1985 military expenditures have gone up considerably faster than income per head. Gross national product (GNP) per capita globally rose by about 160 per cent between 1960 and 1985. Military expenditure increased by about 250 per cent-that is, 160 per cent compared with 250 per cent. So there has been a particularly rapid increase in military expenditure during the last 25 years-much faster than the rate of economic growth. There was a particularly sharp increase in military expenditure in the first years of the 1980s, with much of that increase occurring in the United States, where for five years real military outlays increased by 7 or 8 per cent a year. Military expenditure was the major item of growth in outlays during that period and so was the major cause for the tightening of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, which believed that outlays were growing too fast and had to be restrained. This forced up interest rates. Real interest rates soared to historically high levels, pushing up interest rates throughout the world. In a very real sense the growth in United States military expenditure under the Reagan Administration was one of the causes for the hike in interest rates in Australia in the first half of the 1980s. Mr Kerr —Good point. Mr LANGMORE —I thank the honourable member very much for that support. Home buyers, business investors and buyers of consumer durables in Australia paid a price for the growth in military expenditure in the United States. The central point, though, about military expenditure is that it is wasteful. It has what economists call a high opportunity cost, the cost of lost opportunities for using those funds for other important economic and social programs. Every dollar spent on military activity is a dollar which cannot be spent on upgrading roads, improving hospitals and improving the quality of the education system, let alone being spent on social security or aid to developing countries. That is the central reason why it is important that military expenditure be reduced not only in the United States but also in western Europe and, of course, in the Soviet Union and in eastern Europe because without negotiated, balanced reductions such decreases in military expenditure could not be politically sustainable. The signing of the agreement between Gorbachev and Reagan on intermediate range nuclear missiles is a small but important first step. It is in the economic interests of all of us, as well as being important for our survival, that further agreements be negotiated reducing both nuclear and conventional armaments by both the superpowers and also by smaller countries. Another factor undermining the global economy and contributing to the present decline is the extent of Third World debt. Both debtors and creditors must recognise that present attempts at alleviating the problem are inadequate. As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned in its December Economic Outlook, the root problems of Third World debt have become less tractable since 1982. Multilateral solutions are essential. Many schemes have been devised, several of which have intellectual and political momentum. One which is being advocated by the Australian Council for Overseas Aid and which has momentum in the US Congress is the establishment of a debt management authority through the International Monetary Fund. This would require the establishment of a new fund to which contributions would have to be made and so there would be a small cost to governments. But, with an appropriate gearing ratio of, say, 10 : 1, such an authority could borrow hundreds of billions of dollars on the international financial markets over several years by selling bonds, mainly no doubt to current account surplus countries, which could then be used for buying up Third World debt at a discount. This would benefit developing countries by reducing the amount of their debt and their debt servicing obligations and also benefit creditor banks by enabling them to increase their liquidity, even though they would sustain a loss. But such a practice is already in place in the secondary market on Wall Street and it requires only extension of that principle to this proposed multilateral agency. The principle has also been accepted by the United States Administration in the new debt agreement with Mexico, so it could now be extended multilaterally with much less difficulty. It is important that Australia seriously examine this possibility and that it be supported by our Executive Director of the IMF. As long as the Third World debt problem remains unresolved, Latin American, African and some Asian countries will not be able to make a significant contribution to global recovery. It remains as true now as it did 30 years ago that aid to developing countries is both an important humanitarian step towards reducing absolute poverty and in the interests of the industrialised countries, including Australia, because it enables the developing countries to expand, to increase their imports and so to stimulate world trade and production. There has been a growth in real levels of aid from OECD countries during the 1980s. Some countries such as the Nordic countries and the Netherlands are remarkably generous, but other countries as well, such as Italy and France, have been increasing real aid flows. It is essential that all countries, including Australia, aim to build up their aid to the 0.7 per cent of GNP United Nations target. The undertaking by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) to maintain the real level of Australian aid in the next Budget is an encouraging first step. Another step, which would ease the problems of deficit countries, would be to renew issues of special drawing rights (SDRs) by the International Monetary Fund. Most countries support this change. Only the Group of Seven major industrial countries, plus Australia, oppose this change. Their argument is that a new issue of special drawing rights would be inflationary but at a time when inflation is under control and when the contribution of a new issue of special drawing rights to global reserves would be tiny, and when there are severe current account deficit problems in many countries to the easing of which a new issue of special drawing rights would make a significant contribution, the arguments for not issuing SDRs are very weak indeed. The case for a new issue would be strengthened if it were made to developing countries. Ways of coping with the technical aspects of that have been suggested and are quite satisfactory. Madam Speaker, these seven measures would all contribute to easing the current severe global economic problems. A short speech allows only superficial discussion but all the steps I have suggested would make an important contribution to resolving the problems. I hope that the Australian Government will advocate these policies in the global forums in which we are a member, and that this advocacy will be picked up by other middle-level countries so as to change the pattern of international opinion, which is a prerequisite to making the required changes in policy. Madam SPEAKER —Is the motion seconded? Mr Kerr —I second the motion. Madam SPEAKER —Do you reserve your right to speak later? Mr Kerr —Yes, Madam Speaker. Dr HARRY EDWARDS(Berowra)(10.25) —Madam Speaker, one can only support, and indeed approve, the general thrust of the motion moved by the honourable member for Fraser (Mr Langmore), though it is somewhat difficult to escape an air of unreality and of wishful thinking in some of his remarks. I suspect that his speech fails to get down to real specifics. The basic thrust of the honourable member's remarks is to urge the countries of the Group of Seven to coordinate their national economic policies. That principle is certainly appropriate. But the reality, as perhaps came through in some of the honourable member's remarks, is that countries are very different. They are subject to varying domestic pressures; they have varying historical, cultural and other differences; they have different objectives. In these circumstances the matter becomes very complex. The essence of the world situation of imbalance and instability, which is addressed by the motion before the House, is as follows. The balance of payments deficit in the United States of America is of the order of $US150 billion-truly massive, but less as a percentage of gross domestic product than for this country. The United States has a Budget deficit, not unrelated to the balance of payments deficit of the same magnitude. In the face of the trade imbalance, the United States dollar has fallen about 40 per cent, mainly occurring in the latter part of 1987, providing a natural correction. By contrast, Japan and Germany, the other main players on the world scene, are running large balance of payments surpluses. In addition, the newly-industrialising countries of East Asia are making their presence felt on the scene and they also are running very large export surpluses. It is a situation, particularly in the United States which cannot persist and which policy, co-ordinated or not, must address. The Treasurer (Mr Keating) said of the United States situation: You cannot build a lifestyle on a massive supplement of overseas savings. He was referring to how the United States would finance the payments deficit. The Treasurer's comment was every bit as true of this country, under his own stewardship. I said in a recent speech: Australians have to recognise the plain truth that their standards of living and real wages depend upon large-scale borrowing from foreigners. Looking at the world economic scene, we see a Christmas Eve package in the United States hastily negotiated between the White House and Congress to reduce the Budget deficit, with little prospect of more decisive action until after the presidential election later this year-a completely inadequate response to the massive structural adaptation required, and one which will involve that country in an historically high level of new investment. Of course, the situation is no different in Australia-but there is more evidence in the United States of the essential new investment than in Australia's case, despite the Treasurer's recent rhetoric about the new equipment allegedly being installed. Meanwhile, as the honourable member for Fraser said, Germany and Japan have introduced modest packages of increased spending and tax cuts. However, referring to the second proposition set out in the honourable member's motion, those moves have not been very expansionary, despite much world pleading. Referring to the newly-industrialising countries in the Far East-notably Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea-their currencies are tied to the US dollar, so that a depreciation in the value of the US dollar has little effect. How would one change that? What I am saying is that the sentiment of this motion is in the right direction. But the reality is that there has already been much pleading for so-called coordinated action, and one soon reaches the limits of feasible coordination. But that is not to say that readjustment is not taking place. United States exports and German and Japanese imports have very much increased. Whilst the magnitude of the required adjustment is so vast that the danger of a slow-down-hopefully not a recession-in the world economy is considerable, currently world economic activity is holding up well, partly due to the relatively easy money conditions implemented since the stock exchange crash. For Australia that has meant a surge in commodity prices of the order of 11 per cent since last September, worth $3 billion on an annual basis in additional export receipts. It is of the utmost importance that the Hawke Government nevertheless presses ahead with the appropriate adjustment policies to take advantage of the breathing space so provided. I turn to the other propositions in this motion. Proposition No. 5 is that there be increased aid to developing countries. Regularly in this House I enter the same plea, directed not only to the G7 group but to all development assistance donor countries. The outlook, unhappily, is bleak. There has been a worldwide declining trend in capital flows and development assistance to the developing countries over the past five years. One may well doubt whether Western governments will ever really recapture the generosity of past decades. There is, I submit, an urgent requirement to explore ways in which, say, the World Bank and other development institutions and governments can be much more active than they have been in the role of catalyst in promoting private lending and private initiative in development assistance activity. More of the right policies in developing countries-such as less regulation and control giving, freer markets, sound overall economic policy, outward oriented trade policy and a welcoming commercial environment for foreign investors-will encourage a significant enlargement of direct private investment in developing countries. In recent years the net annual financial transfer from the rich to the developing countries has been a disaster picture. One estimate is that, whereas in the three years prior to the Mexican debt crisis in 1982 the 18 major developing countries received an annual net transfer in the order of $US40 billion, in the years since then there has been a net reverse flow from the poor countries to the advanced countries at an average of $25m to $30m. Mr Webster —That is tragic. Dr HARRY EDWARDS —It is indeed. It is a flow from the poor to the rich, which means that the developing world is about $70 billion a year worse off measured in terms of control over resources than it was four years ago. Apart from the direct impact that has on developing countries, it is a major constraint on world growth. That only underlines the importance of coming to grips with the trillion dollar-$1,000 billion-debt overhang of the developing countries which is referred to in proposition No. 4 of this motion. I turn to the urging in proposition No. 3 for countries to `reduce their wasteful military expenditure'. There can be no doubt that the enormous cost of maintaining the nuclear balance and spending on armaments generally of the order of $900 billion a year, or about $1.7m a minute, adversely impacts on development assistance. Whilst a very large proportion of total military spending is by the superpowers, it is not confined to them. The complexity, the challenge, the utter frustration in this whole context, the juxtaposition of development needs and high military spending-I recognise the role of superpower rivalry in Third World situations in this context-are underlined by this statistic, that since the early 1980s developing countries have spent more on imports of armaments than they have received from all sources of development aid. Again military spending in total by Third World countries exceeds their spending on education, health and welfare put together. As I have said on previous occasions, it would be great if we could have some sort of formula which linked the receipt of aid and development assistance with a decrease in spending on arms in recipient countries. The Germans tried this a few years back with some Latin American countries. But I fear that that is utopian, a dream world. Yet this perverse situation should not lead us to curtail efforts to provide development assistance on an increasing scale. That is one important and urgent imperative. But at the same time we-the world powers-have to work out and negotiate for arms control and the restraint of military spending as the other imperative. The situation is not without hope. I instance the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty of last year. While only this morning we had the announcement of a further Reagan-Gorbachev summit, with the prospect of an agreement to reduce long-range strategic weapons by 50 per cent. The imperative is to work on both these fronts at once, in the interests of the development of the world economy and the furtherance of world peace. Mr LAMB(Streeton)(10.37) —Once again I have the honour of following the honourable member for Berowra (Dr Harry Edwards). He injected quite a lot of commonsense into this debate. I compliment the honourable member for Fraser (Mr Langmore) for raising this most important matter before the House as it is probably central to the well-being and continuation of harmonious relationships between countries on this globe. It is easy to think of Australia and the major industrial countries as being self-sufficient. It is easy to think of them as world policemen. It is easy to think of them as having a high level of development and being quite independent from the developing nations. Yet, as has been said in this debate by the two contributors so far and as has been said in these types of debate before, global problems, identified by the honourable member for Fraser, require global solutions. The honourable member for Fraser has knitted them all together in his preamble. He asks the developed countries, in particular the United States of America, Japan, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada-whilst Australia is not one of those seven major countries we must be willing to do these things if we are going to ask other countries to accept responsibility-to bring in a coordinated plan to overcome the severe constraints on global economic growth, on the development of lower income countries, caused by the severe trade imbalances, high real interest rates, massive debts of many countries, historically low commodity prices and industrial and agricultural protection. We would prefer to start off with a clean sheet. With all the knowledge we have from hindsight, we would like to start afresh and avoid these problems. However, they are very much part of our real world. Many of the mistakes of the past cannot be overturned overnight. It is important that we have the goodwill and intelligence to tackle those problems. The honourable member for Fraser has articulated in seven points the various approaches that could be made to make the well-being, the future and the standard of living in the developing countries somewhat better. For instance, he referred to the need to overcome the debt problems of the developing countries. It is very easy for people to sit back in their armchairs in a middle-developed country such as Australia and to say that the developing countries have brought the problem on themselves, that they have denuded their forests, increased the amount of desert in their countries and therefore decreased the amount of arable agricultural producing land. We have to remember that all countries, including our own, have gone through several phases of development from subsistence to manufacturing to a predominance of service industries. Unless we understand that the developing countries are still concentrating on their agriculture and therefore their import earnings from agriculture we will not come to grips with the task before them. When we realise the magnitude of their debt servicing problem-50 per cent of their export income earnings, mainly from raw commodities, are required to service their debts-we can see that there is very little left over for the import of capital equipment and technical knowledge to develop their own economies, to develop their own diversification, so they can get on the springboard for industrial development. One of the big tasks for the leading developing countries, the Western countries, is to come to grips with the size of the debt, which is in excess of $1,080m, and determine how we can eliminate that. The honourable member for Fraser put forward a very interesting suggestion about establishing facilities through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for phased partial debt forgiveness and rescheduling. Let me draw an analogy between debt consolidation and eliminating debt in our own country, a modern economy. It is better for the developed countries which are owed money to have a least part of that debt settled and to receive some compensation than to have a mounting debt, a mounting interest bill, that will never be paid. In this country a debt collector is quite happy to pass onto the creditor some portion of what is owed rather than to lose the lot. In other words, half a loaf of bread is better than none. I would support the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank working out a system whereby the developed countries could purchase the debts of the developing countries at a vastly reduced price. I do not know what the price would be, but it would be far better if those who are owed money receive, say, $200m from the developed countries and then wrote off the the $1 billion debt of the developing countries. Both sides would be far better off and the developing countries would be able to use far more of their income earnings from commodity prices for their own development. Much of the servicing of these debts comes not from the importation of technology but from the armaments area. I receive plenty of letters in my electoral office from people who recognise the problem major developing countries face. A large part of their economy is dependent upon the manufacture and sale of arms and the arms race. Much of the opposition to the de-escalation of the arms race, and to Gorbachev and Reagan seeking arms reduction, comes from the very industries that profit from its operation. It is not an overt argument; it is covert. It is very hard to argue that one wishes to make more money out of providing the weapons that will devastate the lives of not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of people and ultimately, with nuclear weapons, may well cause the destruction of the world as we know it. It is exceedingly important that all developed countries support the arms reduction talks and put pressure on those two world leaders to ask countries to forgo export earnings that come with the export of arms and realise that, if it is a choice between, to use the Mussolini phrase, `guns and butter', then it is better to produce butter. I want to pick up the point of freer agricultural trade throughout the world. We hear a lot about the way Australia has suffered in relation to its export of commodities because of efforts by other Western countries, particularly the European Economic Community and the United States of America, who because of their domestic political situation feel obliged to support the farming community with enormous subsidies and so on. One can imagine how much more pertinent and serious it is for countries that depend solely on their export income from agricultural production to face these embargoes on and barriers to free world trade. The argument for freer world trade is far more important for the developing countries, and that is why I think it is a good idea at this point to remind the House of the efforts made by this Government to develop a seven-point plan to revitalise freer world agricultural trade. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) recently outlined in Davos, Switzerland, the seven-point plan that Australia would support, a plan that I believe the honourable member for Fraser would see as one that the G7 countries should be supporting. Our Prime Minister, quite rightly, called for, first, a commitment to halt farm subsidy increases, to which I have referred; secondly, a reduction in the gap between the internally administered farm prices and real market prices; and, thirdly, a move towards responsible management of stockpiles of surplus farm commodities. It is no use dumping our excesses, our pools, our lakes in the case of liquid exports, on the market because it only devastates the income of the developing countries. Fourthly, the Prime Minister called for a decoupling of farm support measures from farm commodity prices and fifthly, he called for an acceptance of a set of principles for world agricultural trade liberalisation. These were almost the same words as those used in the honourable member for Fraser's motion before the House. Sixthly, the Prime Minister called for an accord on international agricultural reform to be agreed to at the Venice Summit, after the declaration; and, seventhly, he called for negotiations to take place throughout the world to apply effective discipline to farm subsidies and/or price support programs and increased market access. I am a great advocate of government intervention in the market, and I believe that those who advocate most strongly deregulation and privatisation in this country accept thoroughly a perfect free market situation that exists nowhere outside the economic text books. Many first-year economic students at university would have to reject that model, because in Australia, with its very small population and very small market, its oligopolistic situation with a few producers in any one area, we are a very long way from a perfect market. However, we probably come closest to a perfect market, a free market, when we talk about agricultural products on the world scene. The theories of comparative advantage that we learned at university, that all countries benefit from free trade, are actually realised in practice with a free world agricultural trade market where barriers to world trade, where subsidies, are eliminated. I totally agree with spokesmen from the other side, such as the honourable member for Berowra. I conclude by saying that the motion moved by the honourable member for Fraser has my full support. Dr HEWSON(Wentworth)(10.50) —I welcome the opportunity to speak to a motion of this significance moved by the honourable member for Fraser (Mr Langmore). Having been interested in this subject for about 20 years, I welcome debate on these issues in this Parliament. But I cannot help warning the House. After listening to a lot of the remarks made so far, and after following the literature on this subject over a period of years, I am constantly reminded of the comment of Dr Samuel Johnson that a second marriage is a victory of hope over experience. The motion before the House today has a substantial element of hope and very little of substance in terms of some of the major solutions that will be required in our current circumstances. In view of the limited time I would like to make just three quick points. The first relates to the nature of our current economic circumstances. I agree with the honourable member for Fraser that they are particularly difficult circumstances and they have been compounded- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Unfortunately the time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting Thursday. The honourable member for Wentworth will have leave to continue his speech if and when the debate is resumed. Mr LLOYD(Murray)(10.51) —I move: That this House recognises the need to maintain a strong and expanding trade relationship with the USA and that to this end the Government should- (1) invite a delegation of key US Congressmen to visit Australia for talks with key farm and government personnel as a matter of urgency; (2) devote more resources to the promotion of Australia's primary industry produce in the US, as less than half of one per cent of Commonwealth outlays go to the Primary Industry portfolio, even though Australia's primary industries account for some 40% of export earnings; (3) establish a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Primary Industry, with US trade a matter for immediate discussion; (4) seek to arrange further talks between Australian parliamentarians and US Congressmen and farm leaders; and (5) maintain regular and direct contact between US administration leaders and Australian Ministers, including the Prime Minister. This motion was put on the Notice Paper on 15 September last year because there was then, as there is now, a potentially very protectionist trade Bill before the United States (US) Congress. That Bill provided for a broader range of export subsidies, principally through the export enhancement program, thus imposing in the eyes of Australia, and certainly of our primary produce exporters, unfair restrictions on Australian access to the US market, and also creating unfair competition against Australian exports on the world market. The implication was very clear: Australia's exporters cannot rely on the US Administration-that is, the executive wing of government-to protect Australia's access not only to the US market but to other markets because the Congress and the Administration do not necessarily move in the same direction and to the same degree. The motion was drafted at that time also because of the great initiative of the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt), the then Deputy Leader of the National Party of Australia and shadow Minister for primary industry, in maintaining pressure on the Australian Government for an all-party delegation to visit the United States to make better contact with Congressmen, who are the key actors and operators in determining law in the United States Congress; that is, to maintain contact at the political level as well as the executive wing level. I emphasise that it was an all-party delegation, because I believe this is very much a bipartisan issue. We must protect our exports, particularly our primary produce exports, because they are now, and will continue to be for many years, the base of our export efforts and the best way in which we can reduce our mounting foreign debt. The success of that all-party delegation was quite clear. It prevented the extension by congressional action of grain subsidies to all United States export markets. Without that success the Bill, if it had gone through Congress, would have been disastrous for one of our major export industries, the grain industry. When this motion was set on the Notice Paper some months ago it was very significant, but I believe its implications and its meaning have greater significance now. That trade Bill is still before Congress. One of the features of the US congressional system is that individual members of Congress can attach to Bills of any nature special provisions of a quite parochial nature which can have quite a disastrous and perhaps, on some occasions, unintended effect on Australian exports. For example, there has been a to and fro battle about imposing very restrictive lamb quotas through the trade Bill that is presently before Congress. That is something we have to watch all the time by maintaining communication not only at the political and farm industry level but also at the government level between our countries. We have to be alert at all times to see that these things do not happen, and I hope that, with communication, we are able to ensure that they are not even attempted. The second point of greater significance is that the US presidential election campaign is well under way. Trade issues are being highlighted, and the campaigns of some of the leading protagonists or hopefuls on both the Democrat and Republican sides are alarmingly protectionist. I think it is to the benefit of all Australians that the campaigns of Congressman Gephardt and Senator Dole appear to be, if not dead, declining, because their policies would not be to the advantage of Australia or to a world wanting commercially freed up international trade arrangements. That is important, but it is also important that we are ready to begin talks with the new US Administration when it comes in early next year, because most of the significant decisions on international trade will be made after that Administration comes in. So we have to be ready and be sure that we are communicating so that it is aware of our situation. We have a general need to communicate with the different groups of people in the United States who influence decisions on the general international trade issues-the Multilateral Trade Negotiations, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) round, the Uruguay Round, if you like, the bilateral negotiations which, whether we like it or not, keep appearing and which we must watch very closely, We do share the common concern of gaining equitable access to that very protected and restricted Japanese market, and beef is very much an issue at present. We are also concerned about the European Community's (EC) disastrous surplus agricultural product disposal policy. We have to make sure that when any decisions are made by the United States, whether made in Congress or by the Government, under pressure from farm industries, organisation and so forth, the US in total is made very much aware of the result and the consequences that they will have for Australia, including, as I said before, the unintended consequences of, for example, the lamb import quotas. We must ensure also that when the US is out to retaliate against what it sees as unfair trade practices by the European Community it does not hurt Australia, the innocent third party in this, more than it hurts the EC. We must also make the United States aware of the intended consequences as well as the unintended consequences. For example, it should be made aware of the consequences of some of its quarantine decisions, which are purely political, and its disastrous domestic sugar policy, which I would rate even worse than the EC's domestic sugar policy, which is bad enough. By the United States maintaining its sugar price at several times the world level it has caused a dramatic reduction in sugar consumption in the United States. This has had adverse effects not only for Australia as a major exporter of sugar but also for many developing countries that rely almost completely on sugar for their international currency. We have to be sure, by this greater degree of communication at all levels and at all times, that, when the United States discusses fair trade with the EC and with Japan, it is credible because it, too, must maintain a fair trade stance. I could provide quite a number of examples where it does not take a fair trade stance at the present time. It does not do any harm either to remind the United States that we are and want to remain a major contributor to and part of the Western alliance; but if we are to fulfil our involvement with a strong presence, we must have a strong economy, and that means the ability to have fair trade. The purpose of this motion is quite clear. It is to provide for increased and better continuing communication at all levels. That communication must be maintained with members of Congress, who are important but distinct from the executive wing of the Government-far more so than in the Westminster system-with farm leaders and, of course, with Government officials. A further purpose of the motion is to provide for a standing committee on primary industry and agriculture in this Parliament. This proposal was inserted for the specific purpose of highlighting the priority we must give and must be aware of at all times to primary industry and its export earning capacity for Australia. As I said earlier, if Australia's export position is to improve so that our balance of trade deficit is gradually reduced, we must at all times be alert to maintaining primary industry's export competitive advantage to ensure that access is available to other markets. And there are plenty of them. The primary production and agricultural export areas provide Australia with the greatest opportunity for increased trade. In relation to our beef exports, the restrictive quota arrangement that Japan has placed on our beef is the biggest single potential increased trade opportunity for Australia of any commodity of any type of industry at present. Australia exports to Japan, to the United States, the EC, South East Asia and the Middle East. In those markets there exists the potential to increase trade, but at the same time, there is the danger that Australia will be shut out of markets to which it should have fair access. Pressure must be maintained at all times, not only on this Government, which is acting for Australia's interests, but also on parliaments, governments and leaders of other countries, in particular the United States because of the overwhelming importance not only of trade with the United States but also the consequences that decisions made by the United States have on our trade elsewhere. Although agriculture provides on a net basis 60 per cent of Australia's export earnings, and that percentage will continue to be maintained, it is also important through communications to maintain and improve trade opportunities for related commodities. I am referring in this context particularly to coal, which industry is experiencing difficulty at present. With coal, despite these difficulties, there is a tremendous opportunity to provide increased trade and export earnings for this country. At the moment there is an urgent need to maximise our communications; to maintain pressure. Information should be provided about the consequences of actions taken by the United States and other countries. As I said earlier, we have Congress and the trade Bill. We have Japan with the 1 April deadline imposed by the United States that, unless it removes its quotas, it will be taken to GATT. We have the GATT round in general, the Uruguay Round, and the EC and its negotiating position on its surplus production. I believe that in recent months the Government has not maintained this overall pressure or there has there been a high profile of senior Ministers maintaining this pressure overseas. I acknowledge that by itself the Government cannot do this. Parliament has to do it and that is the purpose of this motion. This motion makes it clear to the rest of the world that what we are saying here goes for both sides of the Parliament. This is a bipartisan approach. We are all in it together to try to maximise our export opportunities. Our rural industry leaders have played and will continue to play an important part. However, over the last couple of months, they have been left to carry too much of the burden, when one takes into account both the Sheep Meat Council of Australia and the Cattle Council of Australia. Key people have been visiting countries in relation to those issues. Mr Ian McLachlan, the President of the National Farmers Federation, has been conducting a campaign on behalf of Australia in the United States and in Japan. To provide adequate time for other members to contribute to this debate I shall conclude on this one point: the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) leaves for Japan at the weekend to participate in this critical round of negotiations for better access for Australian beef to the Japanese market. He will seek better and fairer access. Fairer access is equally as important as better access. That access hinges on two issues: not only the ultimate abolition of those very restrictive quotas that Japan applies against imports of Australian beef, but also the abolition of that corrupt agency, the Livestock Industry Promotion Corporation (LIPC), which handles the great majority of the imports of beef into that country and, in the process, lifts the landed price of Australian grass fed beef by 300 per cent before it is released onto the wholesale market. That helps to ruin the major competitive advantage of Australian beef, which is its cheap price, as well as having the effect of ripping off billions of yen from Japanese consumers. I wish the Minister well. He has the full support of the Opposition. I urge him to argue not only for fairer access in relation to the more favourable position that the United States has gained over recent years concerning the actual tonnage of beef that flows to the Japanese market, but also the unfair intervention of the LIPC, which corrupts the pricing mechanism on the Japanese market to the disadvantage of Australia with Japanese consumers. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Is the motion seconded? Mr Andrew —I second the motion and reserve my right to speak. Mr SIMMONS(Calare)(11.08) —At the outset I wish to say that I welcome the majority of the comments made by the Deputy Leader of the National Party of Australia, the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd), in this debate. This motion is essentially of a bipartisan nature. All honourable members would be aware of the importance of the rural sector and its contributions towards reducing our foreign debt and, of course, in closing the current account deficit. Both those points were made by the honourable member for Murray. A further point that should be made at this stage of the debate is that notice of this motion was first given to the Parliament on 15 September 1987. Therefore, to some extent, although the broad sentiments of the motion may certainly be canvassed here today in a bipartisan way, we must recognise that, since that time and certainly before the notice was given, the Government has recognised the importance of Australia's trading relationship with the United States of America (US) and has undertaken steps to ensure that that trade continues unimpeded and in our best interests. Since we have come to government we have recognised the importance, as all governments have since Federation, to be fair, of our trade relationships with the rest of the world. In the sense of our relationships with the United States during the past five years we have certainly recognised that continual contact with United States congressmen has been essential in that process. It is very easy, of course, for people who do not really understand the nature of the American political system to say rather glibly that all of our activities should be concentrated at the Administration level. I think that the point made by the Deputy Leader of the National Party is very valid. Certainly, while we should not miss the opportunities to consult and to press home Australia's case as far as the Administration is concerned, we should not lose sight of the importance of continual contact with US congressmen in our relationships with the United States. Of course, that is not a new proposal for this Government. We have been doing that. We have concentrated our efforts on US congressmen ever since what looked to be a highly protectionist trade Bill was first mooted in the US. It now looks as though some of the major detrimental elements about which we were at first very much concerned are being removed. I guess that our efforts have contributed to this change. I join the honourable member for Murray in paying tribute to the joint parliamentary delegation to Washington in May last year, which played a very important role. It demonstrated the importance of the Parliament, rather than just the Executive Government, making a contribution. While it is important for us to recognise that on a government to government level the Australian Government deals with the US Administration, it is just as important that we, who see trade as being largely a bipartisan issue in this Parliament, should deal with this issue by way of a joint parliamentary delegation, as we did last year. Its objective, as stated in its terms of reference, was to press Australia's agricultural trade concerns and policy reform proposals with the US Congress and appropriate farm groups. We would all recognise the contribution that that delegation made. There was some scepticism about the way in which the delegation would be received when it was first mooted, but overall we can be entirely satisfied that that delegation was very successful. Other visits were made to the US, including the visit by a former Minister for Trade, the present Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins), in May 1987. He met with a number of congressmen and specifically discussed the trading relationship between Australia and the US. The primary focus of that visit was on meetings with congressional leaders, the major reason being to discuss the concerns of the Australian Government regarding the effects of the possible trade legislation about which we were all concerned. The Deputy Leader of the National Party also commented about the highly protectionist stance that seems to have been adopted in the United States at present in the lead-up to the US presidential elections. One of the sad things that happen when people in the United States have a set time in which to choose their future leaders is that there is a period during that lead-up in which issues regarding relationships, both internally and certainly externally, are dampened down. Naturally, the incumbent would like to leave office feeling that he has made some sort of contribution. Yet the people who aspire to that office also have to watch the vested interests within the United States. We are well aware of the highly protectionist stance that is being adopted there. We need to be aware of the propensity in the debate in the US to become even more protectionist at a time when a lot of farmers in the US are feeling threatened. While we recognise that, we certainly cannot sit back and watch it happen. It is important that we continue those high level discussions. The current Minister for Trade Negotiations (Mr Duffy) has made his first overseas visit in that capacity. He went to North America, where he met with 10 congressmen and presented Australia's concerns on the US Trade Bill and our wish to develop and improve trading relationships between Australia and the US. The other important thing in this debate is that we need to have some sort of understanding of the economic, trade, political and military roles of the United States in world affairs. The Deputy Leader of the National Party touched on this issue. While I am pleased to say that he did so in a very sensible way, we must continue to press home the point he made-that is, that we in the Western alliance are friends and we need to make sure that that friendship remains very strong and positive. To be able to maintain that strong and positive relationship, we have to ensure that the wealth of Australia is protected. Nowhere is that more important than in making sure that our export industries, particularly in the commodity areas, are protected in that process. Of course, we are aware of the role of the US Farm Act, which has substantially reduced prices received by Australian farmers, particularly in 1985-86, when we saw a very severe downturn in the terms of trade. We are aware of the ongoing role of that Act, particularly in regard to the export subsidies under the export enhancement program and the role that that plays in greatly suppressing world grain prices. Many members of this chamber have wheat growers in their electorates who are very concerned about the impact of that program. As I have said before, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Government has recognised these developments in our trading relationships. Right from the word go we have attempted to tackle some of those impacts as positively as we possibly could. In concluding my comments in this debate-I know that others want to make a contribution-we should look at the point raised by the Deputy Leader of the National Party concerning the promotion of primary products in the US and in general. The first point that we should make is that the United States is a competitor rather than a potential market for a wide range of Australian agricultural produce. Whether we like it or not that is a reality, particularly in the grains area. I think we also, to some extent, have to question this rather glib and simplistic approach the Opposition is taking by relating primary industry promotion expenditures to the budget of the Department of Primary Industries and Energy. As most people would be aware, promotion of our commodities is largely financed by the industries themselves. That has been the case for many years and has been particularly emphasised since the Government has moved to reform statutory marketing authorities. It has also been done through Austrade and, as well, comes under the portfolio responsibilities of the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, Senator Button. The chief promotional expenditure undertaken by the Department of Primary Industries and Energy is related to wool, much of which is directed to the US. Many members would recall that the Fraser Government held the Government's contribution to wool promotion constant at $20m for three consecutive years before our Government increased expenditure to its current level of $35.4m. In the current context of what is happening in the wool industry we have recognised the importance of those promotional efforts. The question of Government support for wool promotion is the subject of review at present. No doubt that report will be considered by the Government and a response will be indicated in due course. Debate on these subjects is important in that in most cases the issues go right across party policy. We all recognise that to survive as a nation we need to make sure that our primary industries are well protected, not in the traditional sense of the word but in the sense of ensuring that our markets are retained and enhanced in the future. Mr ANDREW(Wakefield)(11.20) —I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate this morning and to second the motion moved by the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd), namely, that the House recognises the need to maintain a strong and expanding trade relationship with the United States of America (USA) and that to this end the Government should take certain steps. I welcome and recognise the fact that the honourable member for Calare (Mr Simmons) in his remarks to the House has reflected the bipartisanship of this motion. I recognise, too, that the honourable member for Calare was just a shade sensitive about the motion being raised at all, lest it be seen as a criticism of the Government's track record in this area. Far from this motion being intended as a criticism of the Government's track record, it is intended to alert the Government, lest it be distracted by its current political fortunes and no longer focus the attention we think is necessary on trade arrangements with the USA. I remind the honourable member for Calare that we are simply pleading with the Government not to rest on its laurels. I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate on this motion which is vested in the long term interest of Australia's most productive sector and that sector of the Australian economy which exports that which is constantly renewable. While the national Press would currently have urban Australia believe that in rural Australia, in some magic way, things have turned around and all is well, the truth is a little different. It is true to say that wool prices are presently booming. If it rains, it will be fair to say that grain prices are barely satisfactory. It is also true to say that there are great opportunities in other primary producing areas, particularly horticulture. But if we look at agriculture in the long term perspective we see that in real terms returns are desperately down. I want to illustrate this point by using the sort of analogy that the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, Senator Button, used in today's news. Senator Button said that the car plan had resulted, sadly, in a rise in the price of the average suburban car by 40 to 60 per cent over the past four years. Mr Deputy Speaker, if you were a barley grower on Yorke Peninsula in my electorate you would consider for a moment this sobering fact: in 1974 with 30 tonnes of barley one could purchase a new Ford Falcon motor car. In 1988 if one wants to purchase a new Ford Falcon motor car one has to produce 200 tonnes of barley. That is a reflection of the way in which the returns to primary producers across Australia have fallen. In no other sector-nowhere in the Australian Public Service, in the work force, in Australia's current transport industries, and I say that for the benefit of the Minister for Transport and Communications Support (Mr Peter Morris), who is at the table, or on the wharves-have employees faced that sort of fall in income. The very fact that there are still farmers in the electorate of Wakefield and they are productive is a measure not only of their productivity but also of their efficiency. In any other sector they would have disappeared off the face of the earth. In this motion we are not suggesting for a moment that farmers have been beaten by the unfair competition of overseas countries; instead we are saying that they have been unfairly impoverished and that no other sector has had to face this sort of decline in income. It is true that the manufacturing industry as an export industry, along with primary industry, faces the dilemma of having to employ people in a wage protected market and then sell their goods in a producer protected market. Today's motion is designed to focus the Government's attention on the producer protected market. This is not a plea. It does not call for the Government to act and protect Australian farmers. It is not even a plea for the Government to intervene on behalf of Australia's primary producers. Rather it is a call for the Government to be a facilitator or a catalyst that will allow us to continue to reduce the unfair competition-unfair, mark you-that Australia's primary producers have to face overseas and, in the case of this motion, particularly in the USA. The motion moved by the honourable member for Murray, the Deputy Leader of the National Party of Australia, has five recommendations attached to it. First, it calls on the Government to invite US congressmen into Australia, reflecting precisely what the National Farmers Federation (NFF) has been endeavouring to do by informing congressmen in the US about what their protectionist policies are doing to Australian farmers. We are inviting the Government to bring congressmen into Australia not to berate them but so that we can inform them of the effect of their protectionist policies on the productive measures that Australian farmers might currently have in place. We do not want to berate them. We want to appeal to their US pride. We want them to recognise that they are a major factor in world trade, that they dominate world markets and that they have a responsibility to keep world trade alive. We want to point out to them the hazards of their present policy continuing. Those hazards are as much a danger to US producers as they are to Australian producers. Honourable members should consider the editorial in the Australian of 29 January. The President of the NFF, Mr McLachlan, on his return from the US, stated: The US sheep industry is the best example in the world of an industry being helped our of existence. It has been broken by subsidies. In four decades they have gone from 60 million sheep to 9 million sheep. Mr Lloyd —How many? Mr ANDREW —From 60 million sheep to nine million sheep because of the protectionist policies of the US Government. The editorial continued: Mr McLachlan said the slow demise of the sheep industry had been paralleled by the number of farmers sent broke by government featherbedding. . . . . The Australian wool industry, which was facing ruin less than two decades ago, is now strong and vigorous. Rather than give in when prices fell, woolgrowers established a self-help scheme to stabilise prices and enable their industry to ride out the fluctuations that must be expected in any world market for rural produce. We are saying to the US, `Come and see what we are doing and act as we are acting not only in our interests but in your own interests'. Secondly, we are calling on the Government to be involved in a small way in the promotion of Australian products. I noticed that the honourable member for Calare said that this is unrelated. He said, `How can you compare the Department of Primary Industries and Energy budget with promotion for Australian products?'. Only half of one per cent of Commonwealth outlays goes into primary industry. All we are doing this morning is focusing the Government's attention on the fact that Australia's primary industries do not make demands on the taxpayer. They currently generate 60 per cent of our export earnings and it would be reasonable for the Government to consider doing something to facilitate the promotion of Australian primary products overseas-not in the interests of Australia's primary producers, but in the interests of our whole society, because we need more exports and more export sales to address our balance of payments deficit. So we are saying, `Let us consider the Government giving some attention to the promotion of Australian primary industries'. Furthermore, the US is the second largest market for our export produce-21 per cent of our export produce finds its way into the USA. We could be sorely tempted to enter into the sorts of trade deals with the USA, one for one, that would create, once again, the sorts of cartels that have so failed world primary industry. We are resisting that. We are, instead, inviting the Government to aid the promotion of Australian primary industry overseas. Thirdly, this motion calls for the establishment of a standing committee on primary industry. If honourable members look at the Notice Paper on these benches any day of the week they will see that it is full of standing committees that have been set up by this Parliament. I do not want to run through them because time does not permit, but it would be reasonable to say that, in an area as important as primary industry and so calling for a bipartisan approach as primary industry does, we ought to consider the establishment of a standing committee on primary industry. The fourth point of the honourable member for Murray's motion calls for further talks between Australian parliamentarians and congressmen. The fifth point encourages the US Administration leaders and Australian Ministers to talk about what we can do to break down the present protectionist mentality of the United States. Mr Deputy Speaker, the motion moved by the honourable member for Murray is a timely one. It is designed to slot in with the current United States presidential election campaign and to encourage United States farmers to accept what they already know-that, fundamentally and simply, not only can the present level of protection not continue, but it is not in their own interests. Of course there are faults in our own economy; of course there are faults in the way we go about things in Australia. We are not proud of the fact that, while exports as a percentage of gross domestic product have increased in North America, East Asia, Western Europe and the world in general between the years 1960 and 1988, the Australian figures have fallen. We must address that decline. The motion before the House is part of the steps we must take to do that. I support the motion. Mr CLEELAND(McEwen)(11.31) —May I first congratulate the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd) on moving the important motion now before the House. Having said that, I wish to tackle some of the matters raised by the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Andrew). I always find it interesting that we have an Opposition which wants to slash expenditure to the bone, which goes to the electorate calling for cuts of $8 billion but which every day in this House criticises this Government. Mr Peter Morris —It is $11 billion. Mr CLEELAND —I am rightly corrected by the Minister. Daily in this House members of the Opposition debate matters economic, calling for further expenditure cuts, but when it suits their political purpose they regularly stand up in this place and call for increased expenditure. It seems to me that they want to have their cake and eat it. One cannot, on the one hand, call for reduction in public sector spending and, on the other hand, support the sort of motion moved by the honourable member for Murray. That is an impossibility. Ministers and Senate Committee System Though I am supportive of the general thrust of the motion, it fails to tackle the problem facing Australia in terms of our international trade. Though the United States of America is a key player in the trade difficulties we face, the problem is not limited to that country. The harsh reality is that, like it or lump it, the United States is using its protectionist arguments in its battle against the European Economic Community (EEC) and Japan. One cannot isolate the United States as the source of the problem facing Australia's agriculture and resource exports. The world must examine where it stands in matters of international trade. It must look carefully at the distortions occurring in the wealthier nations, such as the EEC, the United States and Japan, whose collective policies deny free trade and entry into their markets of cheaper unsubsidised goods, such as those which Australia exports. Japan, of course, has a strong anti-import regime. Australian beef, which could sell very cheaply in Japan-considerably below the current price-is denied entry. I understand that a kilogram of beef currently sells on the Japanese market at a price equivalent to $A480. It staggers me, as it must any Australian, to think of anyone paying such a price, when our country has the capacity to export to Japan tonnes of prime fresh beef which would substantially lower the cost of living and provide the Japanese with good food. The Americans face a similar problem in the importation of beef into Japan. I stress again that the motion before the House is too narrow. It does not go to the problems facing the United States; it does not go to solving the great problems of world trade. For those reasons I believe it has some deficiencies. It is interesting to hear members of the Opposition talk about statements made by the National Farmers Federation, the body which only two years ago raised a large amount of money from Australian farmers, estimated at millions of dollars. In terms of the promotion of agricultural exports- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting Thursday. The honourable member for McEwen will have leave to continue his speech when the debate is resumed. Mr BURR(Lyons)(11.35) —I 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. This motion is not designed in any partisan way. It is not designed to give a political advantage to one party, or to allow one party to score political points at the expense of another. I have moved this motion in an attempt to put in place a better administrative system in the Parliament, so that it can more efficiently perform the function expected of it by the public. I bring this motion forward because parliament is simply not doing that. It would be an understatement to say that there is widespread community disillusionment with parliament and parliamentarians of all political persuasions. All honourable members receive that reaction when they go out into the community. The community is not satisfied with the standard of public administration in Australia. As the elected representatives of the people, it is incumbent on us to put in place a more effective and more efficient system. Most voters believe, when they go to the polls, that they are electing a government. They give no thought to the difference between government and parliament, but in reality there is an enormous difference. Perhaps the roles between government and parliament should be more distinctly defined. In the years since Federation, the distinction between government and Parliament has become blurred by the impact of political parties. No-one could criticise our founding fathers because they were unable to predict the impact that political parties would have on our political structures and, therefore, our structures of public administration. At the time of Federation, political parties were new; they were in their embryo stages, and our founding fathers would simply have been unable to predict their impact. The Executive Government is formed by those appointed as Ministers. The task of the Government is to plan policies and to administer all the departments of state. On the other hand, the Parliament is made up of all elected members and senators. The role of the Parliament is to legislate laws to scrutinise the functioning of those laws and to monitor the actions of the Government. The Government can make proposals, but only the Parliament can make laws. In theory the Government must be accountable to the Parliament for all of its actions; however, in practice it is the Government that dominates the Parliament. My comments are not a criticism of the present Government or of past governments. It is a fact of political evolution that must be taken into account by the present elected representatives. Though such a state of affairs was never intended by our founding fathers, it has evolved because of the rigid discipline applied by all political parties. The political process has moved markedly from that originally conceived, but at the same time the Public Service has become a very significant power source in its own right. At present 30 Ministers are trying to administer about 200,000 public servants; at the same time they must cope with all the political pressures to which they are exposed. It is little wonder that the Yes Minister syndrome has now become a well-entrenched fact. The public is disillusioned, and who can blame it for that? The standing of our Parliament and its members has never been lower in the public estimation. Parliament is simply not doing what is expected of it by the public. There is a clear need to reform the Parliament and its procedures so that it will reflect modern day political and administrative realities. In framing reforms we must keep in mind the distinctive roles for the government and for the Parliament but we must also bring into sharper focus the different responsibilities carried by the Senate and the House of Representatives. It should also be accepted that the influence and the discipline of the political parties will remain a very firm and fixed political fact of life. Ministers &Senate Committee System The function of government is to plan policies that allow the country to run in an orderly and progressive manner. Its further responsibility is to ensure that government policies and the laws of the land are efficiently administered. The Public Service is available to administer government programs but the Public Service has also become increasingly involved in policy planning. There is now a significant policy unit in each government department. The government needs help to administer the Public Service. It is unrealistic to expect one Minister to be accountable for the actions of thousands of public servants while, at the same time, helping to plan government policies and coping with the intense political pressure that Ministers are exposed to. Parliament must legislate laws and scrutinise government policy and government actions. To fulfil those roles, the Parliament has two Houses-a House of government, which is the House of Representatives, and a House of review, which is the Senate. For legislative purposes each House has equal authority. A proposal cannot become law unless it is passed by both Houses. However, when scrutinising government activity, each House should have distinctly different functions. That was what was intended by the founding fathers but, to a large extent, it is not happening at present. Because of political parties what is decided in the House of Representatives will simply be mirrored and reflected in the Senate when the proposals reach that chamber. Governments are made and unmade in the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is the House of government, and it should be the House of government. The House of Representatives comprises members from competing political parties. The ambition of all of those members is to win government. Party allegiance is very powerful in the House of Representatives. It is the discipline exercised by the parties that allows the government of the day to maintain superiority over the Parliament. The Senate, on the other hand, is the House of review. It has a distinctly different function from the House of government. Its role is to ensure a very thorough scrutiny of government proposals and government activity. In reality, however, the Senate has now become equally dominated by party allegiances. The Senate takes on political significance only when the Government party does not have control of a majority of senators. If the Government party does have control of a majority of senators, then proposals of political significance in the House of Representatives will simply be rubberstamped or mirrored when they reach the Senate. Added to that, a number of Ministers are also drawn from the Senate. Unfortunately, the Senate has now become an extension of the House of government rather than a distinct House of review. The Senate committee system is much more extensive than that of the House of Representatives, but the outcome in the Senate will reflect the decisions made in the House of Representatives. The systems need to be changed so that each House fulfils a distinct and different function. The House of government needs to be distinctly different from the House of review. The House of Representatives must be the House where the Government and the alternative Government parade their policies and give public expression to them. The committee system of the House of Representatives should be structured so as to assist the parties to gather facts and information that will be helpful in determining policies for the future. That is not to say that the House of Representatives should determine those policies; nor should it be the Public Service that determines them. Rather, the structures of the House should be designed in a way that will allow the political parties to gather facts and information so that they, within their philosophies, can put together policies so that the public can judge competing policies when elections are being held. The rules of the House should also be changed, but not in great structure, because each political party, Government and Opposition, should have equal opportunities to present their policies to the public so that the public can then make a reasonable assessment and judgment of those policies. To ensure that the House of Representatives is a genuine House of government all Ministers should be drawn from the House of Representatives. The Senate should have no Ministers. The Leader of the Government in the Senate should be a member of the Executive Council, but without portfolio responsibility. The structures of the Senate should be changed to give much greater emphasis to its review process. Not only proposed legislation should be reviewed, but also the functioning of past legislation and the general efficiency of government administration. It is an unfortunate fact that we in this Parliament pass many laws but we do not have the capacity to go back and review their efficiency and functioning. It may well be that programs that were put in place five, 10 or 15 years ago are still in place within the Public Service structures but may no longer be appropriate to modern day community living. We should have a structure within our Parliament to be able to go back and look at past programs and laws to see whether they are still appropriate for contemporary Australia. I am suggesting that it is through a restructured and much upgraded Senate committee system that we should have that capacity. At the moment the only way that past legislation can be reviewed is if the Government decides to reintroduce it into the Parliament. That is not good enough. The Senate, through its review process, should have much wider powers and a much wider capacity to review past legislation and programs. Much more emphasis should be given to the Senate committees. The committees should be geared so as to review constantly all departments, as well as the programs and legislation for which the departments are responsible. I am suggesting that the Senate committees should have the power to review the efficient administration of the Public Service departments because, so often, public servants are hidden in the cloisters of departments of state with one Minister being responsible for their administration. We cannot expect one Minister to know what those thousands of public servants are doing. I am suggesting that the Senate committees should have the power to go into departments to see whether they are operating efficiently in an administrative sense, and, if they are not operating efficiently and to the satisfaction of those Senate committees, the Senate ought to report that fact to the Parliament. The Senate committees should also have the power to subpoena documents, witnesses and Ministers and the power to take evidence under oath. No area of government activity should be exempt from Senate scrutiny. I know that people will be aghast at this proposal to give a committee of the Parliament the power to subpoena a Minister to appear before it. But it happens in other countries, in particular in the United States of America. I see no reason, if we are to make this Parliament perform the function that the public expects of it, not to give that power to committees of the Senate. I think it would play a very large role in improving the efficiency of public administration in Australia. In summary, I bring this proposal forward not in any attempt to criticise the present Government or any past governments in Australia but as a proposal that as elected representatives we consider trying to improve the efficiency of the administration of the institution for which we are responsible, to make parliament and the process of government and the process of public administration more efficient, more appropriate to what the public expects so that the public can have more confidence in the administrations that they have representing their interests. At this stage we should all accept that parliaments and governments have never had lower esteem with the public. I think it incumbent on all of us as elected representatives to apply our minds to put together a much more efficient and appropriate system of public administration. Mr SCHOLES(Corio)(11.51) —I second the motion. I believe the major function of the motion is the opening up of debate something like 90 years after the first debates which established the basic rules under which this Parliament has operated during the entire time since Federation. An unfortunate consequence of the contract which was reached at the time of Federation was that the parliament that was adopted was entrenched in an almost ironclad Constitution which it has not been possible to re-examine or adapt to meet the changes that have taken place in society, government and responsibilities since Federation. The only major change which has taken place in the relationship between the Houses and the way in which they function took place in the 1940s when the system of election to the Senate was changed to proportional representation. This guaranteed that some balance between the major political parties would be evident in that House. Prior to that an almost farcical situation existed in the Senate wherein one party had all but a handful of the senators in the chamber. When this Parliament was established it was established by an Act of the British Parliament. All of those who had an involvement in the preparation for Federation were persons whose major experience was with a Westminster style parliament. But even with that background, and with the Minister of the day in the British Parliament determined that the Parliament in Australia should reflect the British experience, we did not in fact adopt a Westminster style parliament; we adopted a Westminster style government, which is quite different. We adopted the basic rules and privileges which existed in the British law at that time. However, we adopted a parliament which took for the House of Representatives the House of Commons structure and the system of government of Great Britain as had operated in that chamber at the time of the passage of the Constitution Bill. We did not adopt a House of Lords, be it by appointment by the colonies-now the States-or by some other form of appointment or tenure. We adopted the American Senate as the model for the second chamber of this Parliament and the strictures which have existed since Federation have prevented the evolvement of what was expected to be a quite different chamber of the Parliament from taking place. I do not think that anyone should seriously consider that the passage of a motion such as this will bring about the evolution in our Parliament which we now have the opportunity to commence. Not only are there constitutional constrictions on parliaments; there are physical constrictions. The Federal Parliament spent 27 years in temporary accommodation and has now spent 60 or 70 years in this building. We are about to embark with a totally new set of criteria. The new Parliament House has had built into it facilities for functions which were impossible in this building and it is incumbent upon us, and I suggest the members of the Senate, to look at the way in which we conduct our affairs to see whether they can be better conducted. There is no way in which the House of Representatives can be changed from what it is. It is the House where the acquisition of a majority of members to support a particular ministry is necessary, and necessary to be continuous, in order for government to take place. There is no justification or reason for the Senate to ape or imitate that system while putting forward some pretence of having a superior ability to do it because its members do not have direct electoral responsibility in the same way as occurs with members of the House of Representatives. Some years ago there was fairly wide discussion about changes in the relationships between the Houses. In the early 1970s resolutions were prepared by the Standing Orders Committee of this House which would have enabled Ministers from this House to appear in the Senate in order to answer questions raised with them by senators. That was a first step towards a parliamentary, as opposed to a house, system of government. It did not get past first base because of the campaign by those people who saw what was good enough in 1900 as the be all and end all of all examination and all operations of the Parliament into the future. I believe the Senate would be enhanced if it were not the second chamber of government but rather the chamber of the Australian Parliament which examined the way in which government operated, which carried out substantial inquiries not inhibited by the presence of Ministers and its role as a government chamber. I think it is important that a serious and real examination of the manner in which we conduct our affairs should take place. I reiterate what I said before: This motion is not an attack on a chamber; it is an attempt to revitalise a debate which started 20 years ago and which died on the altar of the lack of interest and the protection of the status quo. The Parliament should examine itself on a regular basis. It should examine how it can better perform the changing functions that now exist as compared with those which were envisaged: because there was no parliamentary experience in Australia at the time of Federation. A change took place in the 1970s when the Senate set up a committee system. That committee system is now looking old, tired and almost irrelevant. Senators find it an imposition to have to serve on more committees than they can devote themselves to. It is time we examined the present system and the move to the new Parliament House makes it imperative that we do so. Mr MILDREN(Ballarat)(12.00) —It is a rare occasion when this House has the opportunity to look at the relationship between the two Houses of the Parliament in a dispassionate way. On most occasions when that occurs it is in the heat of some major contentious issue. We have a worthwhile opportunity today to look at this, and I congratulate the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr) for raising the matter. From the earliest discussions of the possible role of the Australian Senate, it has been held by liberals-those of the more philosophic variety, not to be confused with those opposite-that the Senate as contemplated was undemocratic. The conservative position, regarding the Senate as a body that would protect the society against the rise to power of the hotheads of the lumpenproletariat, is one which still has currency. Today it is quite obvious that the philosophic distinctions have become somewhat muddied and the contemporary apologists for the Senate are to be found in superabundance on both sides of politics. Their motives might differ, but they are there, nevertheless, and the justification for the Senate as a necessary entity of constitutional politics in Australia is now very rarely debated seriously. The role or function of the Senate is also dealt with only occasionally and even then in a rather narrow context. Occasionally this function becomes the subject of very bitter and acrimonious debate. We on this side of the House will never forget the events of 1975, which simply illustrate the problem we encounter. The relationship between the Senate's function and that of the House of Representatives, in practice and in theory, is clouded by rhetoric, by self-interest, by State paranoia and, unfortunately, by unexamined precedent. The more conservative elements among those Constitutional Convention delegates of the 1890s saw the role of the Senate very precisely. Crisp, on page 175 of the Parliamentary Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, says: These sought for the Commonwealth a States House which would also constitute a bulwark for property and the established social order. As my colleague the honourable member for Corio (Mr Scholes) indicated, we derived our lower House from the House of Commons and our upper House largely from the American Senate, but farther back the notion of having to have an upper House was again from the House of Commons. It was also recognised that the Senate should not be accorded the same status as the House of Representatives because senators are more indirectly elected than members of the House and, therefore, senators are less representative than members because they do not face the people as directly in elections to be judged on their own merit and record. Senators are, in fact, required to face the people, which is different from the system that was discussed before Federation. The fact that they are elected from a State-wide electorate does, for all practical purposes, remove them from the direct and ongoing scrutiny of electors. There was an assumption that senators would have considerable latitude to engage in debate outside the restraints imposed by party discipline, but such a view was not held universally, even if the Senate was referred to, hopefully, as the States House and the House of review. My celebrated and illustrious predecessor in the seat of Ballarat, Alfred Deakin, saw this with quite remarkable clarity. I quote once again from Crisp at page 177. He quotes Alfred Deakin as saying: The contentions in the Senate or out of it, and especially any contention between the two Houses, will not and cannot arise from questions in regard to which States will be ranked against States . . . He says further: Contests between the two Houses will only arise when one party is in possession of a majority in the one Chamber and the other in possession of a majority in the other Chamber . . . Further he says: The contest will not be, never has been, and cannot be between States and States . . . It is certain that once this Constitution is framed it will be followed by the creation of two great national parties. I suppose the coalition falls roughly into that category. This was Deakin's very acute observation in 1891. In fact, there was considerable divergence of opinion on the role, status and functions of the Senate. What is true, though, in practice is that the Senate became, and still is, a tool of party politics. Its desire to act as either a States House or as a House of review is based on a rather archaic and romantic but quite erroneous perception. Senators are, by and large, preselected by their party machines and are rarely known in a non-party context by many citizens. This contrasts with the position of members of the House of Representatives who, while also chosen by their respective party machines, as a rule must run the gauntlet of local electorate examination. It is in respect of the appointment of a person to replace a senator who has resigned or died that we see the difference in the relationship between a member of the House of Representatives and a member of the Senate. Without entering into the details of procedures to be adopted as specified in chapter I, part II, the Senate, section 15 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia as amended by the Constitution Alteration (Senate Casual Vacancies) Act 1977, let me say that such a person need not be elected by the people of the State but rather appointed by the Governor of the State. It is, therefore, not so much to the individual electors that such a person is directly responsible but to that body called the State. Such is not the position should a member of the House of the Representatives resign or die. The replacement member shall be chosen at a by-election as stated under section 33 of the Constitution. It is in part IV that the functions of the Houses are spelt out and it is here that the source of so much disputation exists. It is, for instance, clear that there is a legislative distinction between the House of Representatives and the Senate. This applies in particular to section 53, which states inter alia: Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall not originate in the Senate. Further, section 53 imposes strict exemptions to its powers in respect to the above such matters, that is, the powers of the Senate. It is worth recording once again the details of this section. I do not want to go through it all, but it does impose major restraints upon the powers of the Senate. So it is also in that section that a point of major dispute about the powers that ought to reside in the Senate arises. The final paragraph of section 53 states: Except as provided in this section, the Senate shall have equal power with the House of Representatives in respect of all proposed laws. It seems that, in effect, where the behaviour of the Senate is concerned there is a conflict built into section 53, and in this section and in section 57 the confusion of functions can be seen. All of this derives from the role of the Senate as the House of review. The questions we should ask ourselves are whether the House of review should have the power to reject or simply defer Bills, as is the case with the House of Lords; and, secondly, if it should have such a power, whether this sits well with the functions of representative government. We need to address both of these questions because it is quite possible that the assumed powers of the Senate, in theory, conflict with the role some senators have as Ministers of the Crown, of the Government. That is the point that the honourable member for Lyons makes. At present they are required not only to debate legislation and review it, but to act as Ministers of the Government at the same time. There is a confusion of roles. It seems to be a confusion of roles for a senator, as a Minister, to introduce a Bill, which certainly happens, and to advocate its smooth passage as its protagonist when, according to one interpretation of the Senate's function, he or she should be reviewing legislation. The reality is that the roles of the two Houses overlap, and it is here that we might question the fittingness of such an arrangement. The duality of the Senate's functions as a House of government and a House of review certainly presents some conflict of roles, and because the Senate never really fulfilled its function as a States House but rapidly became a party House it is simply an extension of the House of Representatives, but with a major difference-parties, because of the vagaries of the Senate electoral system, can frustrate the will of government even though the people elected a party of the House of Representatives to be the Government. I agree with the motion: it is inappropriate for the Senate to be both a House of Representatives and a House of the States and of review. Changes to the Constitution ought to be made, first, by changing the powers of the Senate to reduce its power to frustrate the will of the House of Representatives, the people's House, the House of government, by removing from the Senate the power to defeat legislation; and, secondly, by requiring that all Ministers-that is, the Government-be members of the House of Representatives. The added benefit of such a change would be to ensure that Ministers, that is, the Government, are all elected in the same way and are responsible in a more direct way to the will of the more closely defined electorate, and it would also mean that the Senate would have more clearly defined functions as well. It could act as a House of review and it could have the most appropriate committee system, although I doubt whether for all practical purposes it could break away from the party structure and become a States House. Some might well suggest that there are no particular virtues in the proposition that there should be a States House, anyway. They might well claim that the concept of a States House is not just anachronistic but positively destructive in that it poses divided and divisive loyalties for both politicians and private citizens. That, however, is another issue. I wish to lend my support to this motion. Debate (on motion by Mr Scott) adjourned. Mr SCHOLES(Corio)(12.15) —I move: That this House advises His Excellency the Governor-General that the arrangements for the opening of future Sessions of the Parliament, whether after the dissolution of the House of Representatives or the prorogation of a Session, should be altered to remove all elements which place the House of Representatives in an inferior position to the Senate and, in particular, that- (1) the declaration of the opening of a Parliament by a Deputy appointed by the Governor-General and the speech of the Governor-General on the occasion of the opening of a Parliament be delivered in the Members Hall or the appropriate equivalent in the new Parliament House; and (2) all parliamentary arrangements for the formal opening be the joint responsibility of both Houses. This motion does not have the potentially far-reaching consequences of the motion we have just been debating. The moving of this motion at this time is designed to address a situation which has no relevance at all to the functions of this Parliament and to accept the opportunity presented by the different facilities which will be available to the Parliament in the new Parliament House. The arrangements for the formal opening of Parliament are those which exist in the British Parliament, and they reflect a totally different parliamentary structure from the one that exists in Australia-a structure which has embodied in it a second-class role for the members of the House of Representatives. The origin of the present ceremonies and the delivery of the speech from the throne goes back into British history. It does not have a parallel in Australian history. There has never been a House of Lords in Australia and there has never been a king's or queen's council, an advisory body which exists in the United Kingdom today and has existed since prior to the development of a House of Commons, which came into existence to place a brake on the excesses of the Crown and the Crown's advisers, namely, the barons of England. We still go through a ceremony at the opening of our Parliament in which the members of this chamber do not enjoy equal status with the members of the Senate, and the members of the Senate allow themselves the luxury of the pretence that by some means they are the successors to the king's council of a day gone by. The President of the Senate is not the Lord Chancellor. He is the President of an elected chamber of the Australian Parliament. The Speaker of this Parliament is not a minion subservient to the barons of England, to be summoned before the bar of the Senate to sit at the end of the table and be lectured. The Speaker of this Parliament should have equal status in all things, including the opening of the Parliament, as should the members of this House with the members of the Senate. It is an illusion of grandeur and a pretence that an elected House of this Parliament is in some way parallel to the House of Lords in England. There are not many members on this side of the Parliament-I do not know about the other side-who would mind if the Senate declared itself to be parallel to the House of Lords. Accepting that position, I would even give them life tenure if they want it. They could vegetate over there for ever. The House of Lords no longer has any powers whatsoever over the decisions of government. That is what they want; that is what the evolution of the British system has brought about today. The Budget can be passed without even being referred to the House of Lords, and certainly it is no longer necessary for it to be passed. To deal with the motion: we will move to a new Parliament House in the next six months. It has facilities which have never been available in this House and so we have never been presented with the opportunity to really examine what is in fact the role of the two chambers. I inform the people who do not know what goes on here at the opening of Parliament that the members of this chamber sit and wait to be summoned, like schoolboys, by the Usher of the Black Rod to attend in the Senate to have a proclamation read to them. Why can the proclamation not be read in the Great Hall? In fact, why could it not always have been read in King's Hall? The motion mentions the Members Hall or more suitable accommodation. That does now exist. If the Governor-General can appoint one deputy, he can appoint two deputies. He does that on occasions for the swearing-in ceremony. The message is 50 seconds long. That is no great hardship and I am sure that the judges of the High Court of Australia are all able to read for that length of time. The motion calls for a change in the arrangements whereby at the opening of Parliament all members are summoned and all senators are summoned to attend the reading of the proclamation. They are then requested to return to their chambers and elect their Presiding Officers. I would envisage that the representative of the Crown-or the Crown itself-would read the speech from the throne in the Great Hall of the new Parliament, with the Presiding Officers seated appropriately beside the representative of the Crown, and that members and senators would be given equal status within that ceremony. I understand that if this motion is carried there will be an amendment to refer it to the Senate. Mr Hollis —I do not like its chances there. Mr SCHOLES —I am aware of the grandeur and pretence of the House of Lords. But I hope that if the Senate decides it is not prepared to accept equality between the Houses, it is at least prepared to accept that it should change its role and become the barons of England and not a representative House pretending to be something that it is not. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Mildren) —Order! Is the motion seconded? Mr Ronald Edwards —I second the motion and reserve my right to speak. Mr MILLAR(Wide Bay)(12.23) —It is rather noteworthy that there is such an ecumenical spirit in the House today, and quite clearly it is based on a fairly firm conviction as to the merits of the proposition that the honourable member for Corio (Mr Scholes) has put to the House. He has done so on a thoroughly informed basis and has been most persuasive. I would be surprised if any thinking member in the House found reason to differ with his proposition that the Houses of this Parliament should be at least of equal status. I would like to think that in due time the House will, in a manifest way, support the proposition. But I believe, as foreshadowed by the honourable member for Corio, that the motion as it is put in the first instance invites a further qualification. I therefore move the following amendment: That the following words be added to the motion: ``; and that a message be sent to the Senate acquainting it of this resolution and requesting that it take similar action''. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Is the amendment seconded? Mr Burr —I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. Mr RONALD EDWARDS(Stirling)(12.24) —I am pleased to support the motion moved today by the honourable member for Corio (Mr Scholes), and I recognise the contribution of the honourable member for Wide Bay (Mr Millar). There is often criticism that there is too much division between the Government and the Opposition of this country. But those who are listening to this debate would be delighted to know that there are many members in the chamber from both sides who support the proposition, such as the honourable member for Throsby (Mr Hollis), my colleague the honourable member for Hinkler (Mr Courtice), who is a very hard working member, the honourable member for Wide Bay, the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr), the honourable member for Cook (Mr Dobie) and my colleague the honourable member for Scullin (Mr Jenkins). There is a good mood of support for this proposition. I want to make a couple of quick observations in support of my colleague the honourable member for Corio, who himself has been a Speaker of this House, and the honourable member for Wide Bay who has been Chairman of Committees. They have a good understanding of both the relationship between the House of Representatives and the Senate and our obligations to the Australian community. This motion is put with a great awareness of that responsibility. In practical terms the motion means that if on our move to the new Parliament House this ceremony is to be conducted in the Great Hall we can have a far greater assemblage of the public, and that is something that attracts my interest, and certainly that of other members of this House. If we were to make that change we would be saying to the senators that we are not above them, but we are simply equal partners in the process of policy making. Mr Millar —The galleries would be full. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —We could have the galleries filled in the Great Hall. If people think intelligently about that, I am sure they will recognise that that would be a great gesture towards the Australian community, which is already very interested in this event. It will be a very significant event in the history of this country. But it will also tap into something else. I am happy to pick up this theme mentioned by my colleague the honourable member for Corio. There is a mood of Australian nationalism, not rampant nationalism but properly thought through pride in the Australian community, and we, as an Australian Parliament, ought to be supporting that mood. One of the pleasures that I have as a member of this chamber is to be part of that process of making decisions on behalf of the Australian community and supporting the community's pride in its country. This motion is really part of the recognition of that. It recognises that arrangements were struck at the time of the writing of the Constitution, but we now say that those arrangements do not reflect the new mood in Australia. They in fact reflect the mood, as my colleague has said, of England at the time the arrangements were struck there. But in the Australian community today we, as members of the House of Representatives, feel that we are equal to those in the Senate. I am happy to support this motion. I believe that those in the Australian community who are listening to this debate will gain some confidence from the thought that we are bipartisan in this approach. I respond to the intelligent remarks of the honourable member for Wide Bay. I believe that if we were to make this move more people could witness the opening of Parliament in the Great Hall of the new House, and I am sure they would take great pride in that event. Amendment agreed to. Motion, as amended, agreed to. Question proposed: That grievances be noted. Mr DOBIE(Cook)(12.29) —I rise in this grievance debate because last weekend was remarkable for three separate events in the electorate of Cook. In the first place, and of great interest to this House, I feel sure, the Liberal Party of Australia won all four seats within the Sutherland Shire in the New South Wales State election on Saturday last, 19 March. In the St George area, it won the seats of Earlwood and Georges River and held the seat of Hurstville, leaving the Australian Labor Party only the former Premier's seat in Rockdale and the seat of Kogarah, which remains doubtful. Not only do the Liberals now hold seven of the nine seats in the St George-Sutherland area, but the seven young men who hold these seats are of outstanding quality and each one of them will be an adornment to the New South Wales Parliament and to the parliamentary process in this country. The three who were re-elected were Malcolm Kerr in Cronulla, Ron Phillips in Miranda and Guy Yeomans in Hurstville. All were returned with vastly increased majorities which reflected not only the Statewide swing, but also the appreciation of their electorates for the tremendous work each of them has done during his first four years. The new members in the area are Allan Andrews in Heathcote, Chris Downy in Sutherland, Phillip White in Earlwood, and Terry Griffiths in Georges River. I still have confidence that Stephen Milgate can get up and win Kogarah. If he does not this time, he will next time. The relativity of these results to this Parliament lies in the clear warning they give to the Australian Labor Party that, irrespective of what money it puts into the next campaigns for the seats of Hughes, Barton, St George and Banks, the Liberals are going to win the lot. The clear message of this Liberal resurgence in southern Sydney is that the people of southern Sydney have had enough of Tammany Hall-type politics. They have shown that they are concerned about the quality of their representation and they achieved this in seven out of the nine electorates in the Sutherland and St George districts last Saturday. This is a dramatic change from 1981 when the Labor Party held all nine of those seats. I do not intend to take up too much time of the House in discussing this remarkable situation but it should be borne in mind that it comes as a clear illustration that middle Australia rejected the Labor Party throughout New South Wales and will do so next time this Federal Parliament goes to the people, because, essentially, the same group of the Labor Party is controlling this Federal Parliament as controls the New South Wales Labor Party and the now former Labor Government. I do not wish to sound as if I have a political prejudice in this regard, but I am delighted with the results and I am confident that the State of New South Wales under the leadership of Nick Greiner, a man of great personal integrity, and his team will bring a long absent honour and integrity to public life in New South Wales. As a New South Welshman in this House, I have grieved at the reputation which my State has gained throughout the rest of Australia during the past 12 years. The canker of corruption within the law, the chaos that exists within the health services and the lack of direction, that is, political direction, in education, have been monstrous obstacles to my State. Let me assure this House that all this will change under this new State Liberal Government; but I suspect that as the new Ministry come to grips with individual portfolios, it is going to take a long and sustained effort to put things right. I wish Nick Greiner and his team the success they deserve and to which the State of New South Wales is at long last entitled. Though this is a grievance debate, I have no intention of grieving for any of the eight defeated Labor Ministers, nor do I find myself grieving at the loss of Premier Unsworth from his position. Let their fate be a warning to all the Ministers in this place and in the remaining Labor-run States throughout Australia. I do grieve for the mess in which the State of New South Wales finds itself after 12 awful years of Wran and Unsworth-led socialist governments. I will use another opportunity of the House to discuss the mini-series of lectures we received last week from the honourable member for Macarthur (Mr Martin) on the role and significance of polls. Though I have a grievance with what he said, I shall not waste the time of the House today on that subject. On a somewhat different note, the second and third matters concerning the Cook electorate last weekend were both of a sporting nature. In the first case, we had the great pleasure of seeing the Cronulla-Sutherland Rugby League team notch up its first win for the 1988 season-a cause for great celebration. As an avid supporter of that club, I congratulate the team and wish it well for the rest of the season. I am confident it will finish among the top five clubs at the end of the year. The third great event we had in my electorate over the weekend was, of course, the national surf-lifesaving championships. This is Australia's largest annual sporting event in so far as the number of sporting participants is concerned. It is my great pleasure to note that these are the third national championships to be held in my electorate while I have been the Federal member. The first was in 1968 at North Cronulla, which was distinguished by the attendance of Prime Minister Gorton. He thereby became the first Prime Minister to ever have attended a national surf-lifesaving championship. Other Prime Ministers, but not all, have followed his lead since then. John Gorton's visit to that 1968 carnival will long live in the memories of those who were there and closely associated with that great carnival. He found time to have a surf during the carnival, which added great interest and some amusement. The second time our district hosted a national championship was in 1981, when the Wanda club did an absolutely magnificent job staging what is now regarded as one of the finest national surf championships Australia has ever seen. This year, as part of the bicentennial, the Surf Life Saving Association of Australia agreed for the carnival to be held at Wanda Beach again, but under the joint sponsorship of the four clubs in my electorate, namely Cronulla, North Cronulla, Elouera and Wanda. What a splendid four days it turned out to be. I thank the national president of that association, Alan Whelpton AM, national executive director Gus Staunton MBE, and the Australian Championship group of the Surf Life Saving Association of Australia for having allocated the bicentennial carnival to my four clubs. His Excellency, the Governor of New South Wales, Air Marshal Sir James Rowland said in a foreword to the official program: How appropriate it is that the Sutherland Shire Beaches have been chosen for this year's Australian Surf Life Saving Championships. Just across the sand dunes in Botany Bay is where Captain Cook landed, and later in 1788 where Governor Phillip first dropped anchor before going on to Port Jackson to proclaim New South Wales. I agree with his remarks. For the information of honourable members it should be known that more than 4,000 surf-lifesavers competed at these championships, each one of whom had undertaken his or her beach patrol obligations and passed his or her annual proficiency test. The significance of this national sporting championship is that it is a national sporting championship of active Australian lifesavers who go each weekend to serve the surfing public. The championship was a great success. I offer my congratulations to all the medal winners. The local organising committee was chaired by my good friend Bill Stafford. The secretary was another good friend, Alan Cameron, as are treasurer Doug Bruce, and Shirley Cameron, who acted as assistant secretary to Alan. I congratulate them on having achieved such success after having worked so tirelessly since 1985 when it was first known we were to have the championship at Wanda. My thanks and deep appreciation also go to the 40 members of the organising committee, who worked so diligently for so long. It is also appropriate to thank the major sponsors-Kelloggs, Cadbury-Schweppes, Speedo, Ansett and BP. The national president, Alan Whelpton, said: This kind of support by the sponsors allowed the SLSA to display the life saving skills of our members at no cost to the public. I thank the Sutherland Shire Council, which has been a very active and generous supporter of surf-lifesaving clubs for generations, for its continued generous involvement. On this occasion, it was helped substantially by the locally-based transportation company, Rapid Transport, which I also acknowledge. In conclusion I should like to offer my personal congratulations to outstanding lifesavers Warren Rennie of North Cronulla Club and Bill Marshall of Cronulla Club who were among seven great men who have served the Surf Life Saving Association well and who were presented with their life membership badges at this carnival. I thank all those who were involved. I just wish that more members of this House had been able to attend what is a distinctly Australian sporting activity, essentially of amateur sports people around the country. Mr O'KEEFE(Burke)(12.39) —As honourable members would be aware, for some time I have been personally concerned with the Buy Australian campaign and the need for the campaign to be promoted broadly. From time to time I have drawn attention to examples of positive and less than positive activity in this regard. Today I wish to make mention of a number of matters that cause me both pleasure and concern in relation to the Buy Australian campaign and the need for Australians to show a preference for Australian-made products. On many occasions I have indicated my view that many problems have been due in part to lack of packaging and marketing skills on the part of Australian enterprises. I remember drawing to the attention of the House an example of a particular cheese brand, Geramont, which for all intents and purposes looks like a European imported cheese-it has a French or German sounding name-but is a high quality Australian-made cheese. I criticised this company for not having applied to license the product as an Australian-made product. I am pleased to say that it has now done so. When people look for this brand in the supermarket, they will now see on it the green Australian made label which depicts a kangaroo. There is just one problem: it is stacked on the supermarket shelves horizontally. The logo is on the top of the packet, so that when people look at the supermarket shelves the logo is hidden because the packets are stacked one on top of the other. So while we are making progress, some thought must be given to the way in which products are presented. That leads me to the other side of the story. Mr Deputy Speaker, I know that you come from central Victoria and would be most interested in this matter. I draw the attention of the House to a small firm named Kyneton Fine China which has been established in Kyneton in my electorate. It is making beautiful handcrafted and very precise fine china products such as the little penguin I have here with me in a package. It is developing an exclusive market for both local and international buyers. Its products are of a very fine quality of which we can all be proud. The most important thing is that the company has researched the tourist market. It has seen that Japanese tourists in particular have complained that they cannot get high quality, very fine precision work. The firm has realised that the Japanese are looking for products which can be packaged and taken home without fear of their being damaged in the plane. It has gone to the trouble of providing fine quality boxes, packing the product in foam, and supplying authentication certificates. The firm has properly researched the sorts of things that need to be done to produce a high quality product that tourists coming to Australia will want to buy and for which they will pay a good price. I want to draw the attention of the House to that comparison and I congratulate Kyneton Fine China. The principal point I want to make today will cause some controversy. I draw attention to an article in this morning's Sydney Daily Telegraph which refers to plans of the Government to allow Swissair Pty Ltd to fly additional flights into Australia but not to allow those flights into Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport. A decision like this has been too long coming, in my opinion. Many people want to travel to Australia. We are trying to present ourselves as a high quality tourist destination, yet we have the absurd nonsense of flights from places such as Hong Kong and Singapore having to leave at midnight in order to arrive in Australia at 6 o'clock in the morning after the curfew at Sydney Airport. Of course, there is congestion resulting from that. I believe that we have to take a much more rational approach to the use of our airports and facilities. It is time that the international operators-not only Qantas Airways Ltd but others-took a good hard look at scheduling many more flights to arrive in Australia at Tullamarine Airport. Mr Beale —You could fix up Sydney. Mr O'KEEFE —The honourable member interjects that we could fix up Sydney. Sydney Airport has been a problem for a long time. There is talk about additional runways and that sort of thing. A plan is on deck to build a second airport in Sydney. While all that takes place we have major airports in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth which have facilities available 24 hours a day. I believe a lot more flights should use those airports. We have the infrastructure at Tullamarine Airport particularly to develop a fully fledged aviation industry. We also have the infrastructure to develop a bigger and better freight zone. Because that airport was planned later, everything has been tied together. The highways from Sydney and Adelaide converge, and there is also the planned new R5 freeway. There are close links to the railway and to the dockyards. There is every opportunity for us to develop the area around Tullamarine Airport as a major trade zone for Australia. I have to say that in many other countries it is quite a common practice for an aircraft to be diverted, for instance, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which for the international traveller is only an hour down the road, so to speak. It is quite common now for people to arrive at an airport and take an internal commuter plane up the coast to their final destination. Perhaps if we were to merge Qantas Airways Ltd and Australian Airlines, we would be able to take that further by scheduling some of these things so that we made much better use of those airport facilities. It is essential, in my view, if we are going to develop fully the commercial prospects of the growing areas around central Victoria-Ballarat, Bendigo-and if we are going to exploit the opportunities being presented to us by the companies such as Kyneton Fine China, to look at a much more rational approach. So, for all those reasons, I am foreshadowing my own view that while we go about the process of trying to get in place a second airport at Sydney, and while we are now acknowledging that while the curfew stays in place, and that is the wish of the people around the area, those resources are no longer suitable; they are not assisting Australia in developing its full potential as a high quality tourist destination. I am suggesting that both within the Government, and certainly within the operations in the management of the major airport operators and, I guess, for the interest of the Federal Airports Corporation, they will have my support for every step that is taken to better utilise the opportunities that are available at Tullamarine. I guess, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am foreshadowing my grievance that we are putting the pressure on organisations and companies. We met with the National Farmers Federation last week and talked about this very issue of the packaging and marketing of Australian made products. As we do more of this, as we encourage more tourism to Australia and as we embrace the world better as a trading partner, then it is essential that we use these airports and our infrastructure in a way that fully develops the potential. In my view, Tullamarine Airport, which is under-utilised by at least 40 per cent, represents a prime opportunity and should be further explored as an option. Mr ROCHER(Curtin)(12.48) —After more than five long years in government, the defence of blaming the previous Government for the shortcomings of the present Government and our present economic malaise is wearing more than a little bit thin. In fact, Madam Deputy Speaker, the ploy is as threadbare as the mental processes bedevilling the Hawke-Keating Government as it looks for some new and better scapegoats in the wake of dismal outcomes and of its commensurately dismal economic management. It is a compelling indictment of the Treasurer (Mr Keating), in particular, because it is increasingly difficult, I must say, to take the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) seriously these days. For the Treasurer to have to confuse present needs and future directions with the events of over five and up to 12 years ago shows that the pressure from the Australian Labor Party factions, his prime ministerial ambition and inability to make timely and correct decisions, and the pressures of his office, have made him somewhat of a toothless tiger; in fact, I would say, a fiscal eunuch. In his desperation, the Treasurer dredges out the same drivel he was peddling when this Government came to office over five years ago. On the rare occasions he gets down to questions and problems that only he and his Government can answer and resolve, the technique he uses is to cite a single statistic and build a story or prophecy around it. If for the time being there is no statistical straw to grasp at-and there have been many such occasions-it then becomes necessary, it seems, to dig up some obscure forecast, usually published overseas, which may only in part be flattering of Australia's economic prospects. In earlier days it might have been Moody's assessment but that was before it relegated us from our AAA credit rating which, I might say, was diligently earned and jealously protected before the present Government was elected. Even Gough Whitlam's Government could not achieve that doubtful honour. Sometimes the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is selectively quoted. The uninformed do not generally realise that OECD figures and predictions merely parrot information from the Treasurer himself. Making use of the OECD material is just another fine example of the chicanery and deceptions being practised on this Parliament and the people of Australia. The confidence trick practised by the Treasurer when he selects a particular statistical indicator is, of course, as varied as the numbers of indicators published. The House does not need to be told that there are hundreds of economic statistics and indicators published every month, so there are plenty of opportunities to indulge in that sort of political trickery. How many times have we heard the Treasurer say something like, `The latest figures for such and such show a favourable trend', or, `The current account deficit is in line with the Budget forecast'. Never mind that the latest figure is the first, and maybe only, lower figure after a series of record highs. Having been driven to the heights it seems that we are expected to applaud the still outrageously high, and albeit slightly reduced, figure which can by this Treasurer alone be deceitfully interpreted as indicating a new and favourable trend. It is a lot of nonsense. It is absolute nonsense. The Max Walshes of the media are among the few who swallow that line any more. To make a virtue out of our current account deficit being on target with the Budget forecast is equally deliberate deception. Never mind that it will be $10,000m or $11,000m for the year to 30 June. Never mind that that figure is the second or third highest ever and that the only other higher annual deficits were also reached under this Treasurer. Never mind all of that. The Treasurer would have us stand up and clap for him and his wondrous fiscal achievements. I suppose the need for applause is explainable coming, as it does, from a fiscal eunuch and there is not much else that will please him in that circumstance. But it would be taking charity just too far for us to go along with that sort of rhetorical nonsense. To go along with and condone what is, in effect, plea bargaining with the voting public by the Treasurer would also be to ignore the effects which impinge so seriously on the well-being of all but his wealthiest mates. All the fudging in the world will not obscure the fact that the living standards of low, middle and fixed income earners and their families have fallen dramatically during the terms of this Hawke-Keating Government. It is as simple as that. Inflation as measured by the consumer price index is in no way an indication of the increased costs of everyday living for families in Australia. That circumstance, along with the tax bracket creep which reduces discretionary income even before hard-earned wages or salaries are spent at supermarkets and petrol stations, is at the very heart of falling living standards. The direct cause is to be found in a combination of deliberate, considered action and inaction of the Hawke-Keating regime. It is to be found, in particular, in the Government's approach to economic management of budget strategy, economic policy, monetary policy, which means, I might say, no stated policy at all, and interest rates. There also is the Government's conniving with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Last weekend we witnessed hopeful signs that the voting public has at last seen through the charade. For the Treasurer merely to claim that he has taken the tough decisions to arrest falling living standards is no longer good enough. Getting to a balanced Budget by increasing taxes and letting high inflation and ensuing bracket creep take more billions of dollars out of wage and salary earners' packets and pockets is not a tough decision. It is the opposite. It is the easy way. What is more, the prospect of getting responsible, whether tough or otherwise, decisions from the Treasurer is very, very bleak indeed. For reasons all too obvious to those observing the Treasurer and his increasingly apoplectic Prime Minister in the chamber these days, ministerial changes to the Cabinet are long overdue. I suggest that the Treasurer should be relieved and made Minister for aspiring to the Prime Ministership. That would give him time to stroke and soothe the factions and the faction leaders and at the same time create an opening for the present de facto Treasurer of Australia, Mr Simon Crean. Alternatively, perhaps, the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) could become Treasurer as he has long wanted to be and his present portfolio could be allocated to the de facto Minister for Industrial Relations, who is Mr Bill Kelty, also of the ACTU. To reach a more serious conclusion, there are ominous signs that the onerous responsibilities of the present Treasurer will become next to nothing while he aspires to please his parliamentary colleagues in his personal push to become Prime Minister. It will be a very sad day indeed for Australia if because of his pursuit of personal popularity the Treasurer does not devote all his time and all his energy to redressing the economic malaise which his Government and his policies have largely created. Mr TICKNER(Hughes)(12.58) —When I came into the Australian Parliament and spoke for the first time in the House of Representatives the Leader of the Opposition, the honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard), was kind enough to say, and I quote him, in reply to my maiden speech: I respect the integrity with which he holds a genuine Labor viewpoint. I welcome the prospect of sharpened debate along ideology lines with Labor opponents espousing what I have always understood to be the essence of Labor Party policies. Those words, of course, are a welcome comment from the Leader of the Opposition when describing my attitude to social reform and to the Australian Labor Party, but they are equally true of the commitment that the Hawke Labor Government has to social reform in its historic third term of office. I seek in the time available to me to speak on a subject that is not often talked about in the House of Representatives and that is the philosophical differences that exist between the Australian Labor Party and our conservative opponents on the Opposition benches. It is quite clear that the core of the Liberal and National parties' philosophy is that individualism is put on a pedestal but solidarity with disadvantaged groups in society is rejected. As a result of that, injustice obviously increases. Their philosophy is predicated on absolute and uncritical support for the free market opinion moulders who say that people must make it on their own. They say, in essence, the law of the jungle and the survival of the fittest. We in the Australian Labor Party reject that philosophy and believe that we are, indeed, advanced as a society in our relatively wealthy society and a moral one. We ought to be putting in place social priorities and structures that take us beyond the law of the jungle. It is for that reason, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we have seen evolving in the Australian Labor Party a grand plan, a clear philosophical base to our third term of office which will take us as a Federal Labor Government well into the next decade and to the year 2000. That strategy, that grand plan, is, of course, the national social justice strategy of the Party and of this Government. That strategy is only just being understood by many people in the media but it will be the main talking point, I believe, about this Government's approach to social reform in the remainder of our term. So it is, therefore, important that his House and the Parliament understand what that social justice strategy is all about. It has been given tangible form by the establishment of a social justice unit in the Prime Minister's Department which will soon be producing a national social justice achievements document that looks to what this Government has achieved already during its period of office and also looks to the future. Importantly, Federal Labor parliamentarians have adopted a proposition that the pieces of legislation coming before the Labor members and the Caucus ought to have a social justice impact statement attached to the document so we can gauge, as representatives of the people, the impact of that particular legislation in meeting the goals of the Party to implement social justice. Madam Deputy Speaker, it is not an overstatement to say that social justice is the Labor Party's reason for existence. It is the common goal that unites all of us as parliamentarians in the process of social reform. It is truly the major strategic objective of Labor in government. The Australian Labor Party has now held power nationally for four years and during this period Labor has endeavoured to rebuild industry, provide employment, expand the social wage, restore welfare provisions and improve the lives of Australian people, but much more needs to be done. Mr McGauran —You have failed on each. Mr TICKNER —I note, again, the honourable member for Gippsland has interjected. The honourable member for Gippsland, of course, who purports to represent the Victorian establishment, is best known in this chamber as being the rudest, most offensive, young member of Parliament. Many people, of course, in his own Party, believe that he is not really an appropriate person to be representing what was once the party representing rural Australia. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Darling) —Order! I must draw to the attention to the honourable member for Hughes that it is against Standing Orders to cast personal reflections on members in this House. Mr TICKNER —Madam Deputy Speaker, I will hope that you will ensure that the honourable member for Gippsland ceases his intemperate and rude behaviour. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —The honourable member for Hughes can be assured that I will continue to note what members on both sides of the House are saying. Mr TICKNER —The Australian Labor Party in its 1986 National Conference unanimously resolved to adopt the national social justice strategy and that strategy involves not only the Federal Labor Government but also the National Executive of the Australian Labor Party, the Federal Caucus, the national policy committees and State branches of the Party. It is a strategy which, I should emphasise, is concerned not only with ideals, but I stress that it is not an impossible list of expenditure items. It argues that a government fully committed to social justice must be tough-minded and committed to achieve it with the resources and organisation it already controls. Opposition members interjecting- Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! Members of the Opposition will cease interjecting. Mr TICKNER —Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Again it is an example of the sort of rude behaviour I have been referring to that brings the whole Parliament into disgrace. There are four essential elements of the social justice strategy of the Australian Labor Party. They are equity, and that involves a commitment to fairness in the distribution of economic resources in political power; equality, the notion that equal and effective and comprehensive rights for all people are an essential part of modern democracy; and it involves the concept, thirdly, of access, which means that fair and equal access should be accorded to Australians to essential services including health, education and housing. It involves, very importantly, the concept of participation; that Australians should have the opportunity to participate fully in their personal development in social and community life and the decisions which affect their lives. I have a great commitment to that ideal. Having served for many years in local government, I believe that what we ought to be striving for in society is not just triennial ballot box democracy, where we accord to members of Parliament a blank cheque to do what they like, but far greater accountability for members of Parliament and rights to citizens, to Australians, to make decisions and contribute to decisions that affect their everyday lives. I want to emphasise that the social justice strategy of this Government is not just about welfare measures. It looks far beyond welfare measures and short term improvements to the principles that govern society. It seeks to broaden the meaning of citizenship by endowing all Australians with certain inviolable rights. It is concerned about outcomes and fair shares, not just about fair rights and opportunities. The social justice strategy of the Party is not something that we see as confined to the members of the Australian Labor Party. It is something that we see as involving the entire Australian population because we believe, in the Australian Labor Party, that as members of Parliament we have enormous rights and responsibilities as members of this Federal Parliament. If we are really serious about achieving social change, about really reforming and improving our society, then what we have to do as a government, and what we will do with our social justice strategy, is to mobilise public opinion and to get the full and participatory support of Australian people in our social justice strategy. I make two final points: I believe that we have to have concrete objectives. We have to have main points of emphasis in our social justice strategy. I welcome the commitment of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Government on child poverty but I believe the other main commitment that we ought to rally behind as a Government is the issue of unemployment. That means becoming very involved in a comprehensive policy on investment, retraining and restructuring. I commend the social justice strategy to the Parliament. It is one that strikes at the very heart of Labor's reason for existence. It is our light on the hill. Mr McGAURAN(Gippsland)(1.08) —I wish to draw the attention of the Parliament to a serious but largely unknown public safety issue. It is one with which I would expect you, Madam Deputy Speaker, with your distinguished record as chairperson, or chairman if you will allow me to use the better and more traditional language, of the House of Representatives Transport Safety Committee, to be familiar. I refer to the fact of defects within railway lines. There would be few people who are aware that there are some 5,000 rail track defects detected every year in Australia and that is with only a hopelessly inadequate amount of testing. I will say more of the current testing procedures later. Let me start off by outlining the nature of the problem. Information I have to hand leads me to believe that in Victoria there is a fault in the rail track every 1.9 kilometres, on average. For every kilometre of track tested on V-Line there are faults detected every 1.9 kilometres. A breakdown of specifics shows that on the Melbourne-Albury line 248 defects were detected over 307 kilometres of track with a frequency, therefore, of a fault every 1.2 kilometres. On the Mangalore-Toolamba line there were 54 defects over 55 kilometres tested, with a fault frequency of one fault every one kilometre. On the other side of the coin, on the Ararat-Sunshine line there were only four defects over 211 kilometres, meaning a frequency of one fault for every 53 kilometres. The situation is just as serious, if not more serious, for Metrail which is, of course, Melbourne's rail system. On the Flinders Street-Pakenham line there was a frequency of a fault every one kilometre. On the Camberwell-Alamein line every 0.4 of a kilometre a fault was detected. On the Flinders Street-Sandringham line there was one fault for every one kilometre; on the Spencer Street-Werribee line there was one fault for every two kilometres. I should say that I have figures for all over Australia and they compare just as unfavourably with what V-Line's figures reveal. It is not surprising that few people have to date expressed much interest in the safety issue of rail lines because the defects are invisible to the naked eye. The splits and fractures are inside the rail and not externally obvious. Madam Deputy Speaker, and again I note your special interest in this area, the testing occurs when a rail-bound car carrying sophisticated ultrasonic equipment as well as computers, locates defects in the rail below it. Australia's technology is equal to the most advanced in the world. Indeed, opportunities for one of the principal operators in this field, Sstech Railway Technology Pty Ltd, are possibly opening up in Malaysia, New Zealand and the United States. Sstech is based in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria and has proposals to construct, to varying sizes, these rail-bound test cars. The possible establishment of a manufacturing and maintenance plant in the Latrobe Valley has been enthusiastically embraced by local authorities, particularly by the Latrobe Regional Commission. But to what extent would Sstech's services be utilised? On present indications, as well as past indications, precious little. There can be no underestimating the gravity of the problem. In Australia there have been several derailments over the past few years, fortunately though, with relatively few deaths. There is no question that a number of those derailments have been, or should be, attributed to defects in the rail track. It is next to impossible to know with certainty the exact numbers of derailments caused by track defects as the results of internal inquiries are rarely, if ever, made public. It may well have been, Madam Deputy Speaker, a proper reference for your House of Representatives Transport Safety Committee to inquire into. Sadly that Committee, on the resumption of this Parliament following the last election, has been disbanded. I would submit that the problem of inadequate rail testing and maintenance is so sensitive and revealing that rail authorities will not publish the causes of derailments. The inescapable conclusion is that rail testing in most parts of Australia is appallingly inadequate. In Victoria it is an outright joke. Yet, the safety of the travelling public and crews manning passenger and goods trains is at risk. Annually New South Wales tests for flaws or fatigue in the rail track a total of 16,000 kilometres; Queensland tests a total of something approaching 8,000 kilometres; Australian National Railways, 4,000 kilometres; Tasmania, 500 kilometres; Westrail, the Western Australian railway system, 500 kilometres; and Victoria with all of its tens of thousands of railway kilometres tests a paltry, almost insignificant, 2,500 kilometres. Compare those figures to the mining railways which annually test 19,000 kilometres. I understand, as would at least all of my colleagues on this side of the House, the need for budgetary restraint by State governments. But increased traffic density, higher axle loads and faster trains make the problem even more serious than before. State governments, particularly the Victorian Government, must afford rail testing a higher priority. Put simply, our rail network is an accident waiting to happen. On the Nullarbor Plain and at Hornsby derailments occurred in the last couple of years and a life was lost in both of those accidents. The Federal Government has a central role to play in addressing this problem; after all, it is Commonwealth grants which directly, or indirectly, fund State railways. What is needed is a Federal body within the Department of Transport to act out a watchdog role. I do not for a moment suggest yet another quango or statutory authority; far from it. Instead I suggest a realignment or reorganisation within that massive Department to create a central forum that would set standards and would collate information, as well as dispense the new technology in this field. This would go a long way to lessening the danger of undetected faults in the rail line system. The Federal Government cannot run away from its responsibility to correct the failures of the State governments. Obviously it is not possible ever totally to eliminate the inherent dangers but a lot more could be done that is not being done at present. What price safety? The Victorian Government puts a price of $88,000 only on sophisticated rail testing; $88,000 only was spent last year in testing in this manner. In my own electorate of Gippsland the line between Sale and Melbourne has not been tested for two years. Yet I can only hazard a guess at the number of people who have travelled on that line in that time. This is the State in which the Southern Aurora crash of the late 1960s-from memory Australia's worst rail crash-occurred. One would have thought that the Victorians had more of an appreciation of the dangers of loss of life caused by derailments due to defects in the track than any other State. The technology for ultrasonic detection of rail flaws or fatigue is available. The latest computerised high-tech equipment is just waiting to be used. All that is needed is to employ this technology. There has to be first a recognition by both Federal and State governments of the seriousness and depth of the problem and, secondly, a reorganisation of priorities within transport departments to allow greater testing for defects. Neither I nor any other rational person in or outside this Parliament wants the loss of life to occur before governments are galvanised into action. For once let us act before the accident actually occurs. Mr SCIACCA(Bowman)(1.18) —My grievance today relates to the now obvious blatant victimisation of a former Labor member of the Queensland Parliament by the then Premier of the State, Bjelke-Petersen, and the denial of justice to the member's widow after his tragic death some four years ago. The late Kevin Hooper, MLA, was a fearless campaigner against corruption in my State of Queensland. Recent revelations before the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct in Queensland have completely vindicated the scores of allegations made by the late Mr Kevin Hooper. It is indeed sad that he is not alive to witness the day to day proceedings of that inquiry. I feel sure that the tangled web of vice now being unravelled would not be better understood by anyone than Kevin Hooper. He has even been denied the `I told you so' that he knew would eventually come. On 20 May 1980 the Labor MLA for Archerfield, Kevin Hooper, was involved in a minor car accident while driving home. I was a practising solicitor at that time and was for a long time prior to the accident the Hooper family solicitor and friend. I acted as Mr Hooper's solicitor in the court case which followed the incident. My advice to Kevin, based on a not inconsiderable amount of experience in these matters, was that he could expect to be charged with undue care and attention which in Queensland is an offence under the Traffic Act. It is important to note at this stage that Mr Hooper was not charged at the time of the accident but some time later by way of summons. The accident attracted a considerable amount of publicity. But while Kevin and I suspected, no one could have known the level of interest shown in the case by people in the highest of places. We now know as a result of the tablings at the Fitzgerald Inquiry of the former Police Commissioner's diaries that the incident attracted the attention of not just the media. Entries in the diary of the now stood-aside Police Commissioner, Sir Terence Lewis, indicate that he phoned that other infamous Queensland knight, Sir Joh, then the Premier of the State, just days after the accident in relation to Mr Hooper's alcohol content. Mr McGauran —Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek your ruling as to whether or not the matters being touched upon by the honourable member breach the sub judice rule, as the matters he is referring to are not yet the conclusions of a royal commission under way. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —I would believe that they are not before the court at this stage and therefore are not sub judice. I would like to check on that to be quite accurate. According to the Standing Orders and the Pettifer ruling, I can see no reason why the honourable member should not continue along these lines, but I would caution him that when he makes statements he should in no way prejudice the well-being and rights of people who are before the Fitzgerald Inquiry and who may, in fact, be before a court in the future. Mr SCIACCA —Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Incidentally, the blood alcohol level at the time of the accident was .038, less than half the legal limit at the time. On 14 May, the Premier of the State phoned the Queensland Police Commissioner, and I quote from the diary, `Wanting Hooper blood samples safeguarded'. Honourable members should remember that at this stage Hooper had not been charged with any offence and yet the State's top law enforcement officer was asked to safeguard his blood sample by the Premier. That is something which has come out as a result of the diaries and has been the subject of massive publicity in Queensland. According to his own diary, Sir Terence phoned Dr Shaw from the blood bank two days later regarding Hooper. Six days after this and four weeks after the actual accident, Mr Hooper was summonsed and charged with the criminal offence of dangerous driving. He was subsequently convicted, fined $300 and disqualified from driving for six months. The more usual offence of undue care and attention under the Traffic Act would have resulted in a loss of points and a small fine. Madam Deputy Speaker, I can still distinctly see Kev Hooper leaning across my desk and saying to me, and I quote, `Con, if it was anyone else, do you think they would be doing this?'. Knowing the circumstances of the case, I had to admit that he was being treated differently. On 9 March 1984 after faithfully serving the people of Queensland and the Parliament for a period of 12 years, Kevin Hooper died aged 57 of cancer. What followed was a most pathetic lack of sympathy or compassion shown by Bjelke-Petersen towards Kevin Hooper's widow, Terri. The question of whether Mrs Hooper was entitled to receive a lump sum from the parliamentary superannuation scheme was a subject of much controversy in the months following Kevin's death. The State parliamentary superannuation scheme had been changed not long before his death. At the time parliamentarians had three months to consider transferring to the amended superannuation scheme and many members, including Kevin, had neglected to sign up with the new scheme. This resulted in a technical anomaly which prevented Mrs Hooper from receiving her lump sum entitlement and a pension. The extent of the anomaly can be seen, Madam Deputy Speaker, by the fact that had Kevin resigned rather than died in office he would have been eligible for a lump sum payment of about $160,000 in 1984 terms and Mrs Hooper would have still been entitled to a pension after his death. But because he died, Mrs Hooper could receive only a pension of about $200 a week. This is despite the fact that Kevin had contributed about $33,000 to the scheme over his 12-year period of service in the Parliament. Mrs Hooper commented at the time that she would have to live to be some 80 or 90 years before she even got back her husband's contributions, at the rate of pension she was being paid. So ridiculous was the anomaly that the then Leader of the Opposition in Queensland, and now member for Capricornia, in this place, Mr Keith Wright, urged State parliamentarians to sign undated letters of resignation to avoid the anomaly which would arise if they died in office. Kevin Hooper was not a wealthy man. He was described as having very long arms and very short pockets when it came to donating his money to charity. He left a large family for Terri to feed and their small house is in the Brisbane working class suburb of Inala. Despite representations from the Opposition, the community and the church, the Premier stood firm and repeatedly insisted that nothing could be done, that the rules could not be bent in the slightest to get around this obvious flaw. In the words of the Courier-Mail editorial, `To many people a pension of $224 might seem like the riches beyond the dreams of avarice. In light of Mr Hooper's contributions however, it seems rather unfair, and it is precisely this kind of anomaly which the Government must address'. Madam Deputy Speaker, the Government and, in particular, Sir Joh, showed a complete lack of willingness to address the anomaly or, it seems, even to consider the suggestions, despite attempts by the new member, Henry Palaszczuk, in that State. I understand that, in fact, a motion was put forward at the time but the Government would not accept it. In an act of incomprehensible determination to ensure no lump sum would be paid to the Hooper family, the Government of the day refused to allow the motion. You do not have to be much of a believer in conspiracy theories to believe that Kevin Hooper and his family were victimised by Sir Joh and his band of cronies. Kevin was an annoyance, a thorn in the side of the Government, corrupt police, the former Police Commissioner, and organised criminals. He had some powerful enemies; enemies who discussed his car accident and his blood alcohol content. After having been requested by the widow and the children, who are now all grown up, as a result of the fourth anniversary of his death, which occurred only some two weeks ago, I wrote to the Premier, because he is a new Premier who said that he had a new vision of excellence and he was going to right wrongs. I wrote to him. I did the right thing. I said to him, `Look, I ask you for some compassion in this case. In view of what is going on about superannuation payments, think about it'. He said publicly, `I will give it to my Under-secretary of the Treasury to look at'. How obscene, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Under-secretary happens to be Sir Leo Hielscher, who only recently announced that he is going to retire, I think, on 30 April, with $800,000. This morning, after three weeks, after a lot of public pressure from the community throughout the whole of Brisbane and Queensland, for that matter, I received a letter from the Premier saying, `Sorry, but we cannot do anything because the law is the law'. Now, I asked him in my letter to change that law; to make it retrospective, and to put in amending legislation to allow this one person to obtain what she was rightfully entitled to. The fact is that he has refused and he is to give it to a person, as I say, who obscenely will be taking $800,000. The Police Commissioner, who has now been stood aside, is eligible for some $800,000 or $900,000 and yet the Government up there is in a quandary as to whether he should get it or not. But they certainly have said `no' in this case. I call upon the Premier of Queensland to look at it again. Let us not just say that it is a new broom. This seems to be a case of a new broom which refuses to sweep clean. I call upon the Premier to look at this, to try to rectify this obvious anomaly and, in the name of justice and equity, I ask him to look at it once again; otherwise he will be forever condemned by the people of Queensland. Mr DOWNER(Mayo)(1.28) —Madam Deputy Speaker, I have from time to time spoken in this House about Australia's foreign policy and I have tried to make sure that my speeches give a balanced view of the direction of our foreign policy. Sometimes I have been critical of actions the Government has taken, but by no means always. Today what I want to do is raise the issue of Australia's relationship with Ireland, both north and south, and to express my very deep concern that the Australian Government is conducting that relationship in a casual and negligent way. All of us, I think, will have been very struck in recent weeks by the extraordinarily horrible and poignant photographs we have seen on television of violence in Northern Ireland. I do not think, as Australians, it does us much credit, or is a particularly constructive thing to do, to go out and pick and choose who is particularly responsible for these appalling acts of violence. But, suffice it to say, it is my view that the Sinn Fein political movement in Northern Ireland, which is the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, is one of the most abhorrent political movements in the Western world. But, at the same time, I am no apologist for some of the really terrible things that the loyalist side of the debate in Northern Ireland has also been responsible for. Honourable members will be aware that some three years ago, in 1985, the British and the Irish governments came to an agreement with a view to making some sort of constructive progress towards a settlement for the problem of Northern Ireland. That agreement is known as the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It has been extremely controversial, and rejected by Sinn Fein, of course, because it does not put all power into its hands. It has been rejected by some of the loyalists and the unionists in Northern Ireland because they feel that it is in some way a sellout by the British Government to the Republic of Ireland. But, I think, as outsiders, we would see it as a first step towards some sort of intelligent cooperation between the two communities, the Catholic and Protestant communities within Northern Ireland. One of the things that came out of this 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement was the establishment of something which is called the International Fund for Ireland. This was established formally in December 1986. The objectives of the fund are outlined in article 2 of the agreement to establish the fund-the agreement between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland governments. Article 2 says: The objectives of the fund are to promote economic and social advance and to encourage contact dialogue and reconciliation between nationalists and unionists throughout Ireland. That is a pretty laudable objective, an objective that I know everybody here in the House would support. And we are particularly conscious, I know, of the economic problems in both Northern and southern Ireland which lie as one of the causes of the terrible political difficulties which endure in Northern Ireland. When we go through Belfast, in particular west Belfast, and we drive up areas like the Falls Road as I did last week, and see the deprivation, the unemployment, the economic strife that those people live in, perhaps we should not be surprised that terrorists find it easy to find recruits in that area. If jobs could be created, if economic development could be advanced in that part of Belfast and throughout Northern Ireland and indeed in the Republic of Ireland, it would be all the easier for the security forces in those two countries to fight terrorism in the way that they are having such difficulty doing at the moment. It comes back of course to the role of the International Fund for Ireland, because what it is designed to do is to get funds from other parts of the world to try to relieve the economic crisis of Ireland, north and south, in order to try to tackle the very deep-rooted political problems there. Do not forget that in Northern Ireland unemployment is now 18 per cent and in the Republic of Ireland 19 per cent. There are major economic problems. The International Fund for Ireland was set up to try to attract funds principally from countries outside of Europe which have large Irish communities. There are really four relevant countries-the United States of America of course, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. And, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would remind the House that some 25 per cent of Australians, it is estimated, are of Irish origin in one way or another, although I would point out that I do not happen to be myself in that 25 per cent. Mr Simmons —Surprise, surprise. Mr DOWNER —That is a very interesting comment which would need to be analysed by a sociologist, that the honourable member would regard that in some way as a surprise. Historians, too, would be interested in that sort of comment. Coming back to the International Fund for Ireland, its objective is to spend funds that it can raise from the governments, in particular but not exclusively, of those four countries on a whole range of different projects. For example, some of the money is to be used to help establish local businesses and enterprises in Northern Ireland and in some of the border counties of the Republic of Ireland. Some of the money is to be spent on tourism projects; some of the money is to be spent, thank goodness, on urban redevelopment projects. The donors are able to direct, if they wish, how the funds should be spent and in the case of Canada, which is one of the donors, it has asked that its contribution be spent on youth training and exchanges and on business cooperation. Other countries who have contributed have not necessarily asked that the money be directed specifically. So far, there have been contributions from three countries out of the four which have significant Irish populations or people of Irish origin: the United States of America has contributed $85m to this fund; Canada has contributed much less, $1.5m; and little New Zealand, with only three million people, has contributed $300,000. In total, in pounds sterling, the fund has contributions of #53m. Madam Deputy Speaker, it will not have escaped you that the country which has not contributed to this fund, shamefully, is Australia. It comes as a real surprise to me that a Labor Government which has its roots so deeply embedded in Irish Australia, a party which has often said it was founded by the Irish in Australia, and that party in government in Australia and, has turned its back on the problems of Northern Ireland and the pleas of the Republic of Ireland to contribute to the resolution of those problems in a small way. When the Prime Minister of Australia (Mr Hawke) last year visited the Republic of Ireland he arrived on the tarmac there and made some platitudinous comment about how, whilst he was not of Irish origin himself, he was somehow home. It made many people snigger, I can tell you, around Australia. But, when he was in Ireland during his visit to so-called `home', Mr Haughey, the Prime Minister of Ireland, raised this issue of an Australian contribution to the International Fund for Ireland and the Australian Prime Minister told Mr Haughey Australia would not contribute because, apparently, in spite of being one of the richer countries of the world, in spite of the claim of the Treasurer (Mr Keating) that all is well with the Australian economy, we could not afford it. I was still away last week, but I was browsing through last Thursday's Hansard, the Hansard of St Patrick's Day, and there it was again. The Prime Minister, ever conscious, I suppose, of the need to try to get the Irish vote in Australia, was making a glittering speech about his passion for Ireland and moving some motion to be sent to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland saying how much Australians cared about the Irish. There it was again, political presentation, but where was the reality? Whilst a month or so ago, the Australian Government announced that it would give $100m over three years to the front line states of Africa, the Prime Minister of Australia has I think disgracefully told the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland and the British Government as well that Australia will not contribute one brass razoo to the resolution of this frightful confrontation in Northern Ireland that we see night after night on our television screens. I think that is a really disgraceful matter. I do not raise that as a party political point; I raise it with great sincerity. I am utterly aware that there would be many members of both sides of this House, perhaps particularly the other side in the Labor Party, who would be very surprised to hear this story and very concerned about the negligent and irresponsible way Australia has handled this issue. I call on the Prime Minister and I call on the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mr Hayden), in the light particularly of the recent horrific events in Northern Ireland, to reconsider that decision and show just a little bit of generosity from Australia, from the Australian Government. I know that many millions of Australians, particularly of Irish origin, would be anxious that we would play some small part in trying to resolve the horrendous situation that exists in Northern Ireland. Mr CLEELAND(McEwen)(1.38) —We have heard many platitudinous comments in this House, but the speech by the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer) surely was one of the greatest. It is yet another example of an Opposition calling-- Mr Downer —On a point of order: I think that sort of comment simply brings this Parliament into disrepute. I made those remarks with great sincerity. It is an extremely important issue and the member for whatever it is is not bringing this House's reputation-- Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —There is no point of order on that issue. I call the honour- able member for McEwen. Mr CLEELAND —That just proved the point I was making. If ever I have heard another platitudinous statement, I just heard it then. The reality is that the honourable gentleman described Australia as one of the richer countries of the world. Coming from a member of the Opposition which spends its entire time in this Parliament telling Australia that under this Government we are going backwards, that we are a banana republic, it is a good admission that the economic policies of this Government are, indeed, working and we are improving our wealth and we are a richer country. I am pleased to hear the gentleman, in fact, say that. Then, of course, he says we should increase our expenditure. Yet another statement from a member of the Opposition is calling for increased expenditure. What is the reality of that, from the Party which calls for cuts of $15 billion? Mr Sharp —Madam Speaker, I take a point of order. Is the Grievance Debate supposed to be a debate amongst members about the previous speech? This speech that the honourable member for McEwen is making is totally irrelevant to today's events. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —There is no point of order. Honourable members can choose their subjects and I call the honourable member for McEwen. Mr CLEELAND —Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. When they bleed they bleed very openly, do they not? When facts are pointed out and the sham which they represent is pointed out, they bleed. I was not going to mention that but having listened to the speech I thought it was a most appropriate point to make. I noticed last night on the conclusion of the debate on the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill, the shadow Attorney-General, the honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith), said: I have no doubt that it was the Attorney-General, Mr Lionel Bowen, who coached the honourable member for McEwen, Mr Cleeland, as to some of the things he said in his second reading contribution. That is a point which the honourable gentleman may make as a throwaway line, but let me assure the House that my comments on organised crime, my concern on organised crime, my contribution as to the extent of organised crime, the fact that I pointed out to the House that organised crime now has tentacles leading into the very basic structures of this community, are observations of my own. They are observations based on my own experience as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority. It may well be that those throwaway lines expose a shallowness of the Opposition's approach to all matters involved in the reform of our criminal systems and the attack on organised crime. It was not the Opposition which mounted the greatest legislative attack on crime in this country; it was the Labor Government, the Hawke Labor Government, which when it took office, found a complete lack of organised crime attack, no legislation in place at all, and extradition treaties which were ineffectual because the former Government had even failed to bother to update the Extradition Act, had failed to bother to negotiate extradition treaties with other countries so Australian criminals could escape overseas from the jurisdiction of Australian courts. It was this Government, this Labor Party in government which, in fact, changed all of that. It was this Government which introduced and got through this House the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill, not the Opposition. It was this Government that introduced and passed through this House the Proceeds of Crime Bill. It was this Government that introduced and passed through this House the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Bill. It was this Government that passed and got through this House the legislation establishing the National Crime Authority and it was this Government that introduced and got through last night the legislation the extension of the term and the removal of the sunset clause. It was this Government which introduced important changes to the Extradition Act and the associated treaties with other countries. None of those things was ever suggested as a policy matter by the Opposition; none of those attacks on organised crime was initiated or suggested by the Opposition. Yet in this House continual shallow throwaway lines pass for debate which indicates all the time the lack of real concern of the Opposition in anything to do with organised crime. If honourable members opposite do not know and do not care that organised crime is entrenched in this country and if they are prepared to treat such debates with throw- away lines like that, it does, indeed, denigrate this Parliament. It does mean that legislation which is intended to cut off some of the hydra-headed monsters that organised crime represents is treated shallowly by the Opposition. I shall say again that I need no coaching from anyone as to my attitude to organised crime because I will stand here day in and day out as long as I can get a forum to speak on and oppose it. I will stand here day in and day out trying to educate the Australian community that in this country we have an enormous problem and there are many, many people in this country of wealth, substance and standing who know about organised crime, who are involved in organised crime and who need to be exposed. Some of those people may well be too close to some people in this House; I do not know, I hope that is not true. Because of the reactions we get from some people in this place, we must sometimes wonder. It is about time that due credit was given to the Labor Government. It is about time that credit was given to the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen), because on the record, on the facts, without question there has not been a government in this country's history, federally, that has passed the quality legislation, the amount of legislation and the legislation which is necessary to attack the tentacles of organised crime. I have no doubt that the Government's approach on organised crime will not stop the legislation being introduced but the Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice, Senator Tate, will continue to search for ways, will continue look for vehicles of legislation, for approaches to changes to law and systems of law which will ensure that those changes already made will be strengthened. Any person who wants to become involved with the major organised crime links will face some degree of certainty that he will be caught, that the veil under which he hides will, in fact, be lifted and he will be exposed as a criminal no matter what his status in life is, no matter what his position in society, no matter what his wealth. That is the aim of the Government. It is an aim I support and in that aim I certainly do not need any coaching from anyone. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Rocher) —Order! It is now 1.45 p.m. and in accordance with Standing Order 106, as amended for this session, the debate is interrupted and I put the question: That grievances be noted. Question resolved in the affirmative. Mr DOWNER(Mayo) —I bring to the attention of the House the quite extraordinary fact that in the last few days the Treasurer (Mr Keating) has told four senior journalists of an ultimatum he has issued to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). The ultimatum is this: unless the Prime Minister gets his act together and improves his performance by the end of the year he, the Treasurer will resign both as Treasurer and as member for Blaxland. The Treasurer has told the Prime Minister that he can stay as long as he likes as Prime Minister but that the member for Blaxland will not be there to hold his hand. This revelation is the proof, if ever it was needed, that the Labor Party in this country is facing a very major crisis of leadership. It is a government which is losing direction because it has no direction from the top and we are seeing that by additional statements from senior Ministers, not least Senator Graham Richardson, the knee-capping numbers man of the New South Wales Right, who has apparently gone to the Prime Minister and said, as the Treasurer has been saying, that he, the Prime Minister, is in no way performing. This is a government which is losing leadership, a government which is being revealed by the leaking of information from the Treasurer himself that he has no confidence in the Prime Minister. I think this is an important issue and an issue that all Australians ought to be aware of. The Treasurer puts the leaking of this ultimatum to four journalists-about the stability of the Prime Minister as the leader of this nation-before he puts forward the interests of the economy and of Australia. Mrs DARLING(Lilley) —I display for the information of the House these petitions, numbering over 2,500, by Brisbane residents opposed to the time charging of local phone calls. I do so in full knowledge and appreciation of the Federal Government's February decision not to accept the Telecom proposal, and I do so as a demonstration of the will of the people. This is the second time in seven years that an Australian national government has responded to the voice of the people on this particular issue. The same proposal was considered by the Fraser Government in 1981-82 but was dropped after a similar public campaign, in the course of which I distributed similar petitions. On both occasions thousands upon thousands of phone subscribers signed petitions and with the same effect. The people's voice was heard, as it must always be heard. Many of these petitions have been presented under the old format. These cannot. But I would record for future governments, including this Government, and future bureaucrats that the electors of Lilley and surrounding areas say: We object to the proposal of Telecom to charge for each three minutes of a local call as we feel this would disadvantage the elderly and people who are unable to leave their homes. The telephone is often the only contact relatives can have to check on the safety and wellbeing of those they care for. The inordinate time span which elapses between connection to a business premises and speaking as the caller holds the line or is transferred between departments would also disadvantage subscribers who cannot afford it. Mr MacKELLAR(Warringah) —I have here a document containing over 14,000 signatures which have been collected in order to protest about the Federal Government's decision to sell over four hectares of land on Sydney Harbour foreshore. This, as we all know, is an absolutely gross decision and people are desperate to force the Government to change its mind because, as we all know, the Sydney Harbour foreshore is a part of the heritage not only of the people of Warringah but of the people of New South Wales and, in fact, the people of Australia. The land should remain open space as it presently is. It should continue to form a leafy backdrop for an important part of Sydney Harbour and the fact that 14,000 people have signed this petition to the New South Wales Government demonstrates the degree of community support for the proposition that I am putting. I would add to that statement, Madam Speaker, that over 55 per cent of those signatures come from outside the area of Mosman demonstrating the broad appeal of this wish of the people of New South Wales and Australia to force the Federal Government to change its mind. Mr CHYNOWETH(Dunkley) —I rise to take this opportunity to express my concerns about the development of the Frankston central business district. The Frankston Council has signed a heads of agreement document with a developer called Galvin Construction Group Pty Ltd. So far Galvin has only started work on the multi-storey car park which the Frankston Council is paying for. This car park is costing the residents of the City of Frankston approximately $3,400,000. The cost of the total development at Frankston has been estimated at over $140m. Already the developers have struck problems in the areas of foundations and subcontractors not being able to perform at quoted prices. The Council will mortgage land that is owned by the residents to obtain loans from banks and financiers so that the main project can go ahead. Already the Federal Government is being blamed for the fact that there is not enough money for an overpass costing $8m. I wonder when we will be asked to assist with the financing of this project. I certainly do not want to see the residents of Frankston lose their land through a defaulting developer. I would like to see an independent consultant appointed by the State Minister for Local Government to oversee this huge project. I believe the Council and the developer do not have the expertise to carry this project through to completion. Mr HICKS(Riverina-Darling) —Under equal opportunity legislation special offices have been set up in the Public Service to look after those people who may be handicapped, to try to find them employment. I am very concerned about what is happening at the moment because I do not think the whole thing is fair dinkum. A young friend of mine has been trying for some years to obtain a job in the Public Service. He has recently written to me. As I read the letter honourable members may understand what I am talking about. It reads: Dear Mr Hicks, As you know from previous telephone calls and our meeting together I am a diabetic with a visual impairment. I have successfully completed typing and audio-visual typing courses as well as a basic computer skills course at the Leeton College of TAFE. It has been 2 1/2-3 years since I enrolled with the Public Service. During this time I have kept in contact with the Special Placement Officer in Canberra. A forever arising problem has been the changing of the officer in this position and the change in the phone numbers and after all my calls they do not bother to inform me of these changes. The Special Placements Officer has been changed eight or more times since I have been involved with them and maybe once or twice they have informed me of this. At one stage the position of Special Placements Officer was dropped and I am quite certain that it was through your involvement with the officer that the position was reinstated. The person in this position I had regularly called every week before the position was dropped had told me that I would not have to do the exam again because it was not my fault I did not have a job. In February when I got on to the new Officer (after several phone calls) she did not know who was calling: she found my file which stated that I have to do the exam again. I think it is about time that department was looked into. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr SIMMONS(Calare) —I would like to warn Australian businesses to be very wary indeed of a bodgie offer to be placed on a world-wide facsimile directory. I have received an invoice seeking payment of $US760 from International Telefax Services of an address in London. However, neither I nor anyone else in my office has ever sought entry in the international directory, world edition. I would like businesses to question the validity of this invoice even though it appears genuine, quoting a business address and facsimile number. I seek leave to table a copy of the invoice. Leave granted. Mr SIMMONS —I have had a letter from a businessman in Orange who received the same invoice for the same amount from an address in Hamburg. Both the letters ask for payment to be sent to Hamburg. Even if this directory were genuine, which I seriously doubt, the payment seems to be far in excess of what the service would be worth. On the reverse side of the invoice it says that the directory is `upon request, distributed free of charge to the customers throughout the world', but it does not say what customers or what they do to make it known that the directory is available. As I said before, it is highly suspect and businesses should exercise extreme caution. Mr MOORE(Ryan) —I wish to draw to the House's attention the plight of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Queensland. The ABC Advisory Council decided to formulate and distribute a petition headed, `We believe that further funding reductions would have an adverse effect on the ABC's ability to reflect cultural diversity, provide career paths paths for young broadcasters and would lead to the demise of regional stations as well as making it impossible for the ABC to fulfil its charter'. Over 50,000 people signed that petition. The ABC then presented the petition to the honourable member for Brisbane (Mr Cross) and me. The honourable member for Brisbane-I do not want to dob him in of course-dumped the petition on the office floor of the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans). I wish to present mine to the House but that has been precluded because of the forms of the House. It is an easy way out to just put them to the Minister but over 50,000 people in Queensland signed the petition originating from the ABC Advisory Committee. Because of a technicality and a change in the procedure of this House, those people are prevented from having that petition presented here today. So I wish to raise that question with you in the House and do so with great force. Mr LEE(Dobell) —Today I wish to call on the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business (Mr Barry Jones) to ban the importation of pig bull-terriers. Pig bull-terrier dogs have been developed in the United States by selective breeding with the intention of developing a dog which is an aggressive and almost perfect killing machine. Pig bull-terriers have a reputation already for wounding other dogs and killing and wounding humans and children. This concern in my electorate about the danger to children posed by pig bull-terriers was first brought to my attention by the members of the Tuggerawong Progress Association. In addition, a number of local residents have also contacted me following publication of an article on the dangerous nature of pig bull-terriers in the Good Weekend Magazine supplement. Any observer who saw an item on the A Current Affair program would also have been convinced that pig bull-terriers should not be imported into Australia. That item graphically demonstrated that an apparently harmless pig bull-terrier can, without warning, turn on and attack a child of the owner's family. Madam Speaker, at this stage I understand that there are at least seven pig bull-terriers in Australia. I believe that those pig bull-terriers which are in Australia should be sterilised and we should ensure that no further pig bull-terriers are allowed to be imported into Australia because of the threat they pose to adults and children in Australia. Mr HALVERSON(Casey) —On 11 March 1988 I sent an urgent telegram to the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) expressing alarm at the fact that Ringwood Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) operations are at risk owing to the failure of the Department of Administrative Services to resolve ongoing, long term accommodation problems. I requested the Minister's urgent intervention to ensure that full job-seeker servicing would continue to be provided by the Ringwood CES. I asked for his urgent advice as to what action was being taken regarding this matter. In the absence of any response to my telegram, on 17 March I sent the Minister a hand delivered letter. Again I requested his urgent intervention to resolve this unacceptable situation. Almost a fortnight has passed since I sent the urgent telegram, a week has elapsed since the letter was delivered and still I have received no response from the Minister. I must therefore conclude that either the Minister is not concerned about or interested in this matter or he is incapable of responding quickly to a reasonable request for advice and action regarding important issues relating to his portfolio. Either option is unacceptable. This lack of response is symptomatic of the two years of delays and broken promises which have led to the current situation at the Ringwood CES, a situation which has far reaching implications and potentially unacceptable consequences for my constituents who are entitled to be able to access the full range of services and facilities which it is the responsibility of the CES to provide and which should be available at the Ringwood CES office. Mr KENT(Hotham) —Lately it has become very fashionable to say that Labor has abandoned its base. This idea is promoted by the media whose editors or owners have never stood up for the worker in any dispute. The newspapers have always written that the bosses are right and have never supported the workers whatsoever. This idea is taken up now by the Opposition, by people like Elliott, Julian Beale, Howard and other millionaires who are now saying that our Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has abandoned the cause of the workers. I want to tell them that our Prime Minister all his public life has worked for the worker and his family. He has never done anything else in his public life but stand up for the rights and conditions of the workers. I pay tribute to him for that. If the working men and women of Australia ever become so gullible as to put the Opposition back in power, they will be in for a very rude awakening. Mr PORTER(Barker) —I want to raise the subject of the disastrous housing situation in South Australia. The situation quite simply is that Federal and State Labor Government-imposed charges are putting houses out of the reach of young Australians. The level of new housing starts in South Australia is the lowest of all mainland States. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show South Australian housing starts for the last half of 1987 were 4,200; that is less than half the next lowest State, which was Western Australia with 8,790. Every State and Territory, even the Australian Capital Territory-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! It being 2 p.m., in accordance with sessional order 106a, the time for members' statements has concluded. Mr LLOYD —My question is directed to the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy. The Minister visits Japan this weekend, with the support of the Opposition parties and the cattle industry, to negotiate better access for Australian beef to that market. The Minister will be aware of the tremendous pressure the United States (US) is maintaining on the Japanese Government on this issue, including threatened General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade action from 1 April unless the very restrictive quotas which are unfair to Australia are abolished. Will the Minister not only argue for open and fair access for Australian beef in relation to quotas but also press for the termination of the corrupt Livestock Industry Promotion Corporation (LIPC) importing system, which outrageously destroys the competitive price advantage of Australian beef and rips of billions of yen from Japanese consumers? Mr KERIN —I thank the Deputy Leader of the National Party of Australia for his question. The points he has made are very true and accurate. Australia is arguing so vigorously that liberalisation of the Japanese market is the only way to remove discrimination because of the way the present quota arrangements are being administered by the Japanese through the LIPC. That discrimination was recently analysed in great detail by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. It was pointed out, for example, that beef coming into Japan from the United States has an effective tariff against it of 180 per cent, whereas for Australian beef the tariff rates is about 210 per cent; and yet the beef is charged out to Japanese consumers at the same rate. Similarly, with respect to diaphragm beef, a tariff is charged and it is nearly double the rate of frozen beef from Australia. With respect to that part of the quota that particularly concerns Australia, chilled grass fed beef, there are quite severe constraints on our trade and access to the Japanese market. It is not for me really to tell the Japanese that they need to give up the LIPC, but if we can get liberalisation within any sort of sensible, economically based time scale the LIPC should naturally disappear because once the market determines the demand for beef in Japan there will be no need for all this rigmarole of regulations and administrative mechanisms which, as I said, clearly discriminate against Australia's beef. I hope that the pressure that both Australia and the US are putting on Japan will lead to a situation that was best described by the Japanese Prime Minister when he said to me that Japan has been the main beneficiary of free trade. He understands fully the benefits of free and growing trade. I am sure both sides of the House acknowledge the fact that Japan is a great customer for Australian goods, just as I hope the Japanese understand that we are also a great customer for theirs. Mr COURTICE —Can the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade inform the House of the outcome of the trial of the Australian missionary, Mr Ian Grey, in Mozambique? Will the Government be taking any further action to assist Mr Grey in lodging an appeal against his conviction? Mr HAYDEN —It has been reported, and correctly, that Ian Grey, an Australian citizen detained and charged with serious offences against the internal security of Mozambique, has been found guilty of a number of those charges. He has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment slightly in excess of 10 years. I think that on balance and from what I know-I say this from what I know of past gaol sentencing for offences such as this-Mr Grey has been most fortunate. Other people sentenced for offences similar to this one have received gaol sentences of between 20 and 30 years. Mr Grey was also fortunate in that the main charge against him of espionage was withdrawn. The mandatory sentence there is death. I suggest that the active involvement of the Australian Government right from shortly after Mr Grey's detention has been beneficial in protecting Mr Grey's interests. I should also say that, from my experience as Foreign Minister for several years now and being exposed to what is done by other countries in various parts of the world in looking after their nationals, no country does more than this country in looking after the interests of a national. Very few indeed would do as much as this country, if indeed any do. I think it should be borne in mind that there is an extremely high cost borne by the Australian taxpayer in providing the consistent attention which the Australian Government provides in defending the consular rights of Australian citizens cast into a situation similar to that of Mr Grey. The Australian Government will now make representations to the Mozambican authorities for remission of the sentence. I should parenthetically put on the record the fact that many of these things which have evolved in the last 48 to 72 hours are matters which were touched on only properly in my discussions with Dr Macumbi, the Foreign Minister of Mozambique, and President Chissano of Mozambique, when I was there some few weeks ago. We will now make representations to see what can be done to present a case for remission of the sentence. We may or we may not be successful. There are two things I want to say now: the first is that when we handle these very difficult and sensitive consular cases there is a need for patience on the part of members of the Australian community-that includes some of their representatives in this House. Operations are not helped in any way at all by cheap domestic political point scoring at a time of sensitive and difficult negotiations with representatives of foreign governments on behalf of Australian citizens who find themselves in a very difficult situation. At the time of the Barlow-Chambers case we had the experience of at least one person being bitterly abusive towards the Government, no doubt to cover up his own shortcomings as a legal representative, for not having done enough. The fact is that we knew at that time that one of the duo had confessed to Australian sources that he was guilty of the offences for which he had been found guilty and was part of a drug running operation. We are placed in a very difficult situation in such cases. We have confidential information and, at the same time, we have an obligation to respect the laws of other countries. We also have an obligation to look after the consular rights of these people. The case of Mr Grey was not helped by some cheap gimmickry point scoring by the honourable member for North Sydney who was more interested in trying to promote himself at the expense of Mr Grey than in displaying a genuine concern for the rights of Mr Grey. In the Pantelich case a little earlier, we were making some slow but difficult progress in representing Mr Pantelich's rights to a government of a country with a totally different political system and a totally different system of court processes to that which we are used to. The point scoring which occurred then resulted in the Australian Government's position being put in reverse and made much more difficult. It took considerable effort to overcome that sort of adversity. One other thing I want to say is this: the honourable member for North Sydney in the course of engaging in cheap political point scoring was critical of the $6m in aid which we agreed under a memorandum of understanding to provide for Mozambique. That was a decision taken some considerable time before my arrival in Mozambique. Perhaps to give the flavour of the need to provide humanitarian aid-and it was largely food relief aid-I could quote from a cable sent to us from Geneva. The cable said simply: Senior officers of the International Commission of the Red Cross and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees describe the Mozambican refugee situation as being the worst they have ever witnessed. The cable went on to say: Dewy (an official) also gave a dramatic description of the crisis. Measles and other diseases were very prevalent amongst the refugees but they were fleeing not only from starvation and disease but from the actuality and the fear of `every human rights abuse in the book'. In reply to my question, Dewy said that, all things considered, Malawi and its infrastructure (including its health services) were holding up surprisingly well under the load of 400,000 desperate refugees. The refugees referred to came from Mozambique. The cable continued: There was, however, a serious problem developing in regard to potable water supply. In these circumstances we are not prepared to engage in some cheap political gimmickry and say that we will withhold a miserable $6m-which is a very modest amount-of emergency food aid from the people of Mozambique, who are suffering the most extreme forms of distress, even worse than that experienced in Ethiopia. We will not withhold, or threaten to withhold, that sort of aid, because the only people who will suffer are starving men, women and children. The infants and the aged will be the first and most telling casualties. But that is what the honourable member for North Sydney, on behalf of the Opposition, wants us to do. Furthermore, from my experience the withholding of aid would have had no influence and would have been totally counterproductive to the sort of result we were trying to bring about in protecting the interests of Mr Grey. Today Mr Grey has been sentenced to imprisonment for a little over 10 years. That is a severe sentence by our standards, but in terms of what is generally passed in the court system in Mozambique for the very serious offences-and they were serious offences-to which he pleaded guilty, it is quite a moderate sentence. The Opposition was of absolutely no help in this matter. The honourable member for North Sydney was completely counterproductive in the statements he made on this subject, just as he has been totally unhelpful when engaging in cheap political point scoring in other instances where the Government has painstakingly, patiently, and with great dedication represented the interests of Australian citizens detained in other countries with different cultural and legal systems. I repeat that Mr Grey has nothing for which to thank the honourable member for North Sydney. Mr SHARP —I address my question to the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. Is the Minister aware that 160,000 travellers have refused to pay the $5 arrival tax in its first two months of operation and that it is estimated that this number will reach one million by the end of the year? Is the Minister also aware of the damage the tax is doing to Australia's reputation as a tourist destination? In view of the fact that the Australian Tourism Industry Association estimates that the average tourist generates about $1,000 in taxes and charges to Federal and State treasuries, and that the Minister has been reviewing the arrival tax, will he now admit that its introduction was an outrageous bungle and scrap it forthwith? Mr HOLDING —It should be pointed out that, when the tax, the levy, which is a charge on incoming airline passengers, was imposed, it was indicated that its purpose was to enable immigration authorities to update and produce new processes by which incoming passengers could be processed more quickly. If we are to effectively move passengers through the processes of visa examination, we must introduce new technology. I have always understood that the coalition's position on an issue such as this is that the user pays. Anyone who claims that a $5 charge will act as a disincentive to potential tourists, Japanese or otherwise, is talking palpable nonsense. The second point I make is that the airlines requested that the Government allow them to work out the method of collecting the charge. That was a reasonable request and we acceded to it. The fact that the airlines have not merely failed but there is substantial evidence to show that some airlines have gone out of their way to consciously obstruct the collection of that fee that does not reflect well on them. Despite that, on three separate occasions the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and the Territories and I have met with airline representatives to look at a methodology to upgrade the processes and move tourists far more quickly through our airport terminals. Only this week have the airlines produced their preferred position, which is being examined. I do not make an apology for the Government's position on this issue. I say to the shadow Minister: let us know what the Opposition's policy is on this matter. The Opposition continually tells the Government that it must cut costs. However, when one speaks of cutting costs, one is talking about cutting the living standards of the average Australian. At the same time, when it comes to adopting the principle of user pays, those opposite do not want to be in it. We are looking at quite substantial sums of money, and the charge does not have any effect at all on the tourist trade. For the honourable gentleman opposite to suggest that it does indicates that he is adopting the same lazy, sleazy approach of most shadow Ministers. If he did his homework, he would realise that the airlines have made a series of submissions to the Government. Those submissions will be seriously considered, but only on the basis that this Government will not impose additional burdens on the average taxpayer to meet the cost of providing new facilities which can and should be borne properly by overseas tourists visiting Australia. Mr GRIFFITHS —I address my question to the Treasurer. I preface the question by drawing the attention of the Treasurer to comments made by the Leader of the Opposition, delivered one octave below hysteria, responding to Mr John Elliott's renewed and untimely calls for a consumption tax. Madam SPEAKER —Order! Just keep to the question. Mr GRIFFITHS —I ask the Treasurer whether he could please inform the House-- Mr Spender —On a point of order-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! I have asked the honourable member to keep to the question. Keep your asides out of it and stick to the question. Mr GRIFFITHS —Will the Treasurer please inform the House how he intends to finance the corporate tax cuts which he foreshadowed in last year's Budget and which he and the Prime Minister have indicated are likely to be announced in the May statement? Mr KEATING —The corporate tax review being undertaken by the Government will be undertaken on a revenue neutral basis-that is, one where the Government is quite happy with the current mix in the tax arrangements between personal and business taxes in this country. The point of the exercise is to pull down the corporate tax rates so as to level the playing field within the corporate tax system; in other words, to remove the dead hand of tax preference which affects the allocation of resources within the economy. Because the tax system has developed, particularly under 30 years of coalition government, without any rhyme or reason to many of the provisions, and because the dead hand of tax preference misallocates resources, that is having a compounding effect on the way in which the economy operates and on its efficiency. Our tax reform will be unlike that of the United States (US), the United Kingdom and New Zealand where there have been reductions in the nominal rate of company tax and increases in the aggregate level of tax paid by corporations to the treasuries. Let me give an example. Total corporate tax collections in New Zealand have increased from 2.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985-86 to 4.1 per cent in 1987-88, a substantial rise. The US has lowered its company tax rate but expects to collect an extra $120 billion over a three-year period. In other words, those countries have had nominal rate reductions in, but increases in total collections of, company tax. The President of the Liberal Party, Mr John Elliott, constantly maintains that in some way Australians are paying a higher proportion of tax than people in other countries. He says that the tax base in Australia is rising, whereas tax bases around the world are falling. That is untrue. He repeats it perpetually in Australia and out of Australia. He has no loyalty to the place. He is always bagging Australia in London, New York and everywhere else he gets the chance. He has no concept, not just of promoting his own country, but of referring to it in accurate and decent terms. Let me take the opportunity to kill the notion that Australia is a high tax country. Our total tax burden of 30 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) compares with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 37 per cent. Our corporate tax burden of 2.8 per cent compares with the OECD average of 3 per cent. I have some OECD tables here, which I will table at the end of my answer, which show that Australia is at the bottom of the OECD league table in relation to total taxation and corporate taxation as a proportion of GDP. Mr Elliott's claim is not correct. The Australia tax burden, the tax base, has not been rising, whereas other tax bases have been rising even though those countries have had nominal rate reduction. The essence of what Mr Elliott has been saying lately is that he wants a company tax rate cut financed by a consumption tax. In other words, he wants some redistribution of the cake from the poor to the rich. That is his idea of tax reform. He said that he is going to bring that to the next meeting of the Liberal Federal Council and argue it strongly. He is saying, `We do not want a revenue neutral reform. What we want is some money pumped up the system from the general public to allow reductions in both personal tax and the corporate rate'. For the information of the House, I had a couple of calculations made which show that if Australia were to use a consumption tax simply to reduce its company tax rate to that of the United Kingdom-35 per cent-it would require a 5.9 per cent consumption tax. If we were to reduce the rate to that of New Zealand-28 per cent-it would require a consumption tax of 6.8 per cent. In other words, Mr Elliott is trotting around the country saying that we should put a 6 or 7 per cent tax on items such as food, children's clothing, footwear, school textbooks, pharmaceuticals, electrical bills, stamps-everything-to reduce the corporate tax rate to levels which he thinks are appropriate for the companies which he controls to operate within. At the same time Mr Elliott had the hide in the newspapers yesterday, or earlier, the tax advantages available in having a box at the Victorian Football League with everything laid on, courtesy of the tax system. These are the standards of the Liberal Party's President in relation to taxation. There are his fallacious claims that Australia's tax burden is rising when it is not, claims that cannot be substantiated. Australia's ratio of tax to GDP is amongst the lowest in the OECD. He advocates a corporate tax reform financed by a consumption tax which would blow our inflation rate to pieces, putting another six to seven percentage points on inflation, while we are recovering our competitiveness in our current account deficit-so that we can have the kind of tax mix that he thinks is appropriate for the Liberal Party at this time. No wonder the Leader of the Opposition is ropeable with him. He could hardly conceal his anger on a television report yesterday when Mr Elliott made it clear that he was going to take all this to the next meeting of the Liberal Party's Federal Council and argue it with vigour. Perhaps a few more facts along with the vigour might lead the Liberal Party to conclude that the changes to the tax system which the Government is promoting are the only decent, sensible and fair ones for Australia and that all the changes it wants are essentially about ripping money off ordinary people and sticking it into the pockets of corporations. I table the two charts to which I referred earlier in my answer. Mr REITH —I refer the Attorney-General to the proposal which was announced last December to include in a preamble to legislation a declaration to recognise that Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders were the prior occupiers and original owners of Australia and to the Attorney-General's letter to me recently in response to my freedom of information (FOI) application and I ask: Since the December announcement, why has it been necessary for the Attorney-General to obtain a Queen's Counsel's written opinion? Why has the Attorney-General referred to the matter as being of `high sensitivity' and refused to release that legal opinion under the FOI Act? Is it not a fact that the Cabinet decision of 7 December 1987 was made with the benefit of legal advice from the Attorney-General's Department included in the coordination comments attached to the relevant Cabinet submission and a hurried opinion received orally from the Queen's Counsel on the same day? Mr LIONEL BOWEN —I recall that the honourable member was suggesting that an opinion was available at the time the Cabinet made the decision. That was not the case, except for the coordination comment from my Department. That is where the honourable member was in error in the first case. Secondly, as the honourable member knows, there is litigation related to the matter. Queen's Counsel is involved in that litigation. Naturally, following the introduction of the legislation, the Queen's Counsel expressed a view about the preamble. That is the extent of the matter. In no way does it affect the case. In no way does it affect the legislation. Mr Reith —The legal opinion was received on 7 December. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member asked his question and got his answer. Mr O'NEIL —Will the Minister for Defence inform the House of progress on the new submarine project? What does the project mean for South Australia? Mr BEAZLEY —The honourable member will no doubt be pleased to know that the construction of a $123m facility is currently under way in Adelaide to establish the means by which the submarine can be produced. It will produce a great deal of work for Adelaide. The honourable member would also be pleased to know that contracts worth $50m have so far been won by South Australian companies for ancillary work related to the submarine. Those companies include British Aerospace Australia Ltd, Nilsen Electrical Industries Pty Ltd and Fairly Australasia Pty Ltd. Many more companies in South Australia will become involved as the project proceeds. It is a critical project for the development of South Australian industry. Whilst this Government remains in office, as it will for a considerable period, the project is not under threat. That, however, is not the situation which is offered by honourable members opposite. The chairman of the all-powerful back bench finance committee of the Liberal Party persistently comes into this place setting aside what are alleged to be the views of the Opposition defence spokespersons on whether that project will proceed. Just as persistently as he says it will not, persistently the others speculate on whether we might get nuclear-powered submarines. It is clear that, when one suggests that, one suggests, in effect, cancellation of that project because that is not the type of build site one would need for nuclear powered submarines. One would have to cancel the project and go through to a totally different type of production. The submarine program, by subterfuge and directive, is persistently being threatened by senior figures in the Liberal Party and senior figures in the National Party. That needs to be borne in mind because the future employment prospects of people in a wide range of industries in South Australia, from the black trades through to the electronic industries, are very substantially dependent on that project going ahead. Whatever persiflage Opposition members go on with in this place of saying `It does not matter if a few of our back bench chairmen of committees, or whatever, happen to say they do not believe in it, we believe in it but at the same time we will put to study nuclear submarine programs', there is a clear indication from them that as soon as by-elections are out of the way, as soon as they feel they have cleared the decks in the area, they will be straight into that project, as they have been from day one. Mr MILES —I refer the Prime Minister to his statement to the House on 10 December 1987 in answer to a question as to whether he had received legal advice on the implications of the preamble to the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Bill, when he said: I have not received any advice in the area. I also refer the Prime Minister to a letter received from his Department which states that Attachment E to Cabinet Submission No. 5436 includes no coordination comments on the implications or legal consequences of the preamble. I ask: Does not the correspondence from his own Department contradict the Prime Minister's answer given in the House on 10 December 1987? Mr HAWKE —The answer is no, it does not. I made it quite clear what the position was then. Clearly I was referring to the concept of formal legal advice which, clearly, as the Attorney- General has just said, had not been received and instructions were given for the reception of such advice. The facts are clear. They have been for so long now that I do not know why the honourable member has waited this long to raise the subject, unless it is another desperate attempt to get down in the gutter where he properly belongs. Mrs DARLING —Can the Minister for Employment, Education and Training inform the House of progress with the implementation of the Government's reform of student assistance? Can he say whether there is any substance to recent Opposition allegations of delays in the processing of Austudy applications? Mr DAWKINS —I thank the honourable member for her question. One of the important areas of policy which this Government had to review on being elected in 1983 was the situation in which young people in school were being enticed to leave school early as a result of the mismatch of assistance schemes available to those within the education system and those outside it. Madam Speaker, you might recall that a young person from a lower income family could receive nearly twice as much by leaving school and receiving the unemployment benefit as he could by remaining in school to finish his secondary education. As a result of decisions taken by the Government, we have now removed that Liberal Party imposed incentive to leave the education system and have replaced it with an incentive for young people, particularly those from low income backgrounds, to remain in school until the completion of their secondary education, with the hope that they will then proceed in other forms of formal education and training beyond the secondary school system. As a result of the changes that we have made there has been some 50 per cent increase in the expenditure on assistance to students compared with a real decline in support for such people during the period from 1979 to 1983. So our commitment to enhancing the opportunities for young people from lower income families is clear, whereas the previous Government was intent on ensuring that those young people continued to have inferior opportunities as they approached a working life. My colleague the Minister for Employment and Education Services has informed me that the administration of Austudy has improved markedly from last year. It is true that there were some difficulties in the administration of Austudy as a result of the substantial changes that we had introduced but I am informed by my colleague that as of 18 March the Department had received some 220,000 applications, of which 90 per cent had already been processed, and students were therefore looking forward to receiving their Austudy payments. We expect during this year to receive applications from some 245,000 students compared with 225,000 last year. This very substantial increase will be reflected, of course, in a continuation of the increase in retention rates, which increased from 36 per cent when we were elected to 53 per cent last year. These Austudy improvements, combined with the effects of the family assistance scheme, represent a very substantial boost to the circumstances of lower income families, particularly those with students. I make the point in conclusion that those students who may be eligible for Austudy and who have not yet applied should do so before the end of March. If they do so they will receive allowances for the full academic year, whereas if they apply after 31 March, and are eligible, they will receive benefits from the date of application. I should also remind those students in the education system who are about to turn 16, when they become eligible for Austudy, that they can apply up to two months before their sixteenth birthday to ensure that the payments are made to them as soon as they become eligible. Mr MILES —I refer the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to his statement in the House on 10 December 1987 that he had `no specific advice of a legal nature' on the proposed preamble to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission Bill. I also refer the Minister to: firstly, the Attorney-General's answer given a few minutes ago acknowledging the existence of advice in the coordination comments; secondly, a letter from his Department which states that the Minister's Cabinet submission included coordination comments prepared by a legally qualified officer in the Attorney-General's Department on the subject of the preamble; and, thirdly, a further letter from the Attorney-General's Department stating that additional legal advice was obtained from a Queen's Counsel on the same day as the Cabinet considered the Minister's submission on the preamble. I ask the Minister: Is it not a fact that this correspondence contradicts his statement to the House on 10 December that he had `no specific advice of a legal nature' on the implications and/or legal consequences of the preamble? Mr HAND —As usual, my answer has been taken out of context by the shadow Minister, as has been his wont with a number of Press releases. My answer to a specific question asked by the Leader of the Opposition was: `I have received no specific advice of a legal nature on that point'. I stand by the Attorney-General's earlier answer and the answer I gave on 10 December. Mr TICKNER —I address my question to the Minister for Social Security. In the light of this Government's united commitment to the national social justice strategy, could the Minister explain the differences in the approach taken by this Government and that of the previous Government on the important issues of unemployment programs and the labour market? Mr HOWE —This Government, unlike the previous Government, has not administered the Department of Social Security as some sort of massive automatic teller machine that spits out placatory cheques for the unemployed. This Government, unlike the previous Government, has not been content to sit back and watch the number of people receiving unemployment benefit increase. When the Government came to office, the number of people queueing up was increasing by an average of 20,000 a month. The number reached 635,000 in April 1983. It is now 502,000, which is a dramatic reduction in the number of people receiving benefits and reflects the extraordinarily successful management by this Government of the economy, the success of the labour market programs that have been the responsibility of this Government, and the effectiveness of the Government's strategy to link income support and labour market programs. The Minister for Employment, Education and Training just referred to the changes that occurred in relation to Austudy enabling the removal of any disincentive for young people to be on the unemployment benefit as opposed to being in education. Measures such as compulsory registration with the Commonwealth Employment Service in order to maintain eligibility for the unemployment benefit, the requirement for personal lodgment, and a number of other changes have ensured that income support going to the unemployed and their families has been sustained and, indeed, has increased in real terms during our period in government. Since March 1983 the real value of unemployment benefit for a person with a spouse and three children and renting privately has increased by almost 25 per cent. The Government has been concerned to introduce programs to allow people of all ages with all sorts of skills, as well as those with a lack of skills, to find employment. It has been concerned to re-establish the integrity of the unemployment benefit program, to break down stereotypes of the unemployed, such as the unemployed being dole bludgers, an image encouraged by the previous Government because it could not offer real solutions and offered no real hope for the hundreds of thousands of people who were thrown out of work during its period in office. The people of this country and in this Parliament ought never to forget the years 1981 and 1982. In those years the government of the day gave this country its only period of negative growth since the Second World War. The direct result of its actions during that period was that 300,000 Australians were thrown out of work in the prime of their working lives. That scarring of lives which occurred in 1981 and 1982 is something that will remain as a scar on the Opposition for many years to come. The honourable member for Bradfield talked yesterday with a crocodile tear approach about how long term unemployment and child poverty had been created under this Government. No-one in this Parliament and no-one in the Australian nation ought to forget what that scarring meant. There is a cohort of people who went into the unemployment benefit system in 1982-83 and are still there today. They are there today not because of the policies of this Government but because they were so scarred during that period. That is the tragedy of the previous Government's performance and that is the legacy it left, along with the prospective deficit of nearly $9 billion. In terms of policies, the Opposition can offer nothing but further attacks on the unemployed, threatening to remove people after six months and cancel labour market programs, and suggesting that somehow, to fund the $8 billion worth of savings that the Leader of the Opposition promised, one can single out the unemployed and supporting parents to get the large part of these savings. It is in that context that one has to look at Mr John Elliott, the President of the Liberal Party of Australia, who is suggesting that, while those savings no doubt ought to be endorsed, we ought to rip more money off the unemployed and sole parents, and that while we do that we ought, in some strange notion of justice, to introduce a consumption tax, with no compensation, which is likely to affect adversely those people who have been the victims of that recession of the Fraser-Howard Government and of its policies. It is all very well for John Elliott, who would not be too proud to have his Party impose a consumption tax, but what about those who would not be too proud to pay a consumption tax or who are just too poor to pay a consumption tax? What does John Elliott have to say to these people? It is all very well for him to say that his grandmother, or his mother, was perhaps too rich to accept benefits but then he condemns those who are necessarily dependent on social security. The honourable member prefaced his question with a reference to social justice. What this Party has been about in government and opposition is some sense of fairness and equity. What the John Elliotts of this world are on about, and indeed the honourable member for Bradfield and certainly the right honourable member for New England are on about, is negative redistribution, as the Treasurer said. They are on about protecting the millionaires who are on pensions. They are on about ensuring that the capital gains tax is removed and they are on about ensuring that the taxpayer pays for the businessmen's lunches. On the other hand, they are on about ripping into sole parents and the unemployed. That is not what the policies of this Government are about. They are about some fairness and some equity. Madam SPEAKER —I present the reports of the Auditor-General dated 23 March 1988 on audits, examinations and inspections carried out under the provisions of the Audit Act and other Acts and an efficiency audit of the Australian National Railways Commission: Commission Traffic. Motion (by Mr Beazley)-by leave-agreed to: (1) That this House, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliamentary Papers Act 1908, authorises the publication of the reports of the Auditor-General, dated 23 March 1988, on- Audits, examinations and inspections carried out under the provisions of the Audit Act and other Acts, and An efficiency audit of the Australian National Railways Commission: Commission Traffic. (2) That the report upon an efficiency audit of the Australian National Railways Commission: Commission Traffic be referred to the Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure. Mr BEAZLEY(Swan-Leader of the House) —Papers are tabled as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members earlier today. Details of the papers will be recorded in Hansard and the Votes and Proceedings. The schedule read as follows- Stevedoring Industry Finance Committee-Annual Report 1986-87-including the Auditor-General's Report-sub-section 30 (3) of the Stevedoring Industry Finance Committee Act 1977. Australian Capital Territory Health Authority-Annual Report 1986-87-including the Auditor-General's Report-section 63m of the Audit Act 1901. Australian Institute of Family Studies-Annual Report 1986-87-including the Auditor-General's Report-section 114n of the Family Law Act 1975 and section 63m of the Audit Act 1901. The Commonwealth Prisoners Act-Law Reform Commission Report No. 43 (Interim)-section 37 of the Law Reform Commission Act 1973. Joint Coal Board-Annual Report 1986-87-including the Auditor-General's Report-sub-section 20 (3) of the Coal Industry Act 1946. Australian Agricultural Council-Resolutions of the 129th Meeting, Fremantle, 5 February 1988. Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr SPENDER(North Sydney) —Madam Speaker, I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Madam SPEAKER —Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr SPENDER —I do. Madam SPEAKER —Please proceed. Mr SPENDER —In the course of an answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mr Hayden) today he said, amongst other things, that I was critical of a $6m decision on aid to Mozambique, and he went on to say, `We will not withhold aid to starving people'. The Foreign Minister managed, with his exquisite talent for the half truth, to convey the clear implication that I had no concern for the starving and would withhold humanitarian aid. I have been critical with respect in particular to the following matters: the priorities shown by this Government on aid, the aid announcement which was made and which coincided with the Foreign Minister's trip so as to elevate his political profile-something that I described as a cynical and futile exercise-and Australian aid to Mozambique in a particular context. I quote from a Press release of 14 March, in which I said: Australian aid should not be given to Mozambique unless and until- I repeat: unless and until- the Australian missionary, Mr Ian Grey, gets a trial that is demonstrably fair or is released. Then I went on to say that, if Mr Grey's case was not fairly dealt with, the $6m aid package announced by the Minister should be diverted to another country. There are, I interpolate, a lot of people in need of our aid, in Africa and elsewhere. Mr Beazley —On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: the honourable member is debating the matter. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -The honourable member might come to where he has been personally misrepresented. Mr SPENDER —I have stated that; I am just pointing it out. I also said in a Press release of 22 February: Would it not have been a much more sensible use of Australia's humanitarian aid to Africa to concentrate it in one area of great need with supervision by Australian aid personnel to make sure that aid gets to the people who need it, and that it is not politically or corruptly misused? The implication which the Foreign Minister, in one of his regrettably characteristic personal attacks, sought to make against me is as I have explained to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I entirely reject it. Mr HAYDEN(Oxley-Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade) —Mr Deputy Speaker, may I have the opportunity of making a personal explanation? Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Does the Minister claim to have been misrepresented? Mr HAYDEN —I claim to have been grievously misrepresented by the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Spender), once again in that characteristic fashion he adopts. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The Minister may proceed. Mr HAYDEN —The honourable member for North Sydney said in his Press statement that if Mr Grey's case was not fairly dealt with-- Mr Spender —On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: my point is very simply that a personal explanation may be made by a member for the purpose of correcting a misrepresentation. I gave a personal explanation. It was not interrupted or ruled out of order by you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and that is an end to the matter. The Foreign Minister is now seeking to debate the issue by reference to parts of my Press release. If he wishes to have a debate on the subject of his lamentable exercise in diplomacy, I will be glad to accommodate him. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for North Sydney gave a personal explanation in which he raised a number of issues he was concerned about. He was provided with a fair level of tolerance, even when a Minister called a point of order on him. I will hear the Minister for Foreign Affairs on a matter of misrepresentation. Mr HAYDEN —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I commence by apologising for upsetting this crumpled Rumpole of the Sydney bad debts court who has come into the Parliament to grace the front bench of the Opposition as an addition to the brightest and the best it has to offer. It shows why the Opposition is going into liquidation rather rapidly. Mr Spender —Come on, you bitter little man. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for North Sydney will not interrupt. The Minister will come to where he was misrepresented or resume his seat. Mr HAYDEN —What I said was that the honourable member for North Sydney had argued that we should hold the starving and the needy of Mozambique up to ransom by declaring that they would get no aid unless certain things were done for Mr Grey. That is all I said, and I said that was unacceptable to us. The honourable member did say that, if Grey's case was not fairly dealt with, the aid package should be diverted to another country-which means we do not give them any aid unless they do the things we say, and if they do not do the things we say they do not get it. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The Minister might come to where he personally has been misrepresented by the honourable member for North Sydney. Mr HAYDEN —He said that I misrepresented his position, but I represented it absolutely accurately. I should add that the food aid to the starving also subsidises the grain farmers of Australia. Mr Spender —Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: the Foreign Minister has to abide by the rules of the House as well as anybody else. He knows very well he is seeking to abuse them, and he should be sat down. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member will resume his seat. I call the honourable member for McPherson. I think the Minister is past his misrepresentation. Mr WHITE(McPherson) —Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr WHITE —I do. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —He may proceed. Mr WHITE —The Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley) in Question Time indicated again that my views and the Opposition's views were that we would move to cancel the submarine program which has now been in place since May 1987. Since that time he has been peddling this gross untruth, and I would think even the people of Port Adelaide would be getting sick and tired of it. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for McPherson might come to where he has been misrepresented. Mr WHITE —The misrepresentation is simply that that is not my view. My view and the Opposition's view is that on that contract-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I think the honourable member for McPherson has said that it is not this view; he has cleared up the misrepresentation. Mr WHITE —Mr Deputy Speaker-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Is there a further misrepresentation? Mr WHITE —There is. In that answer the Minister for Defence also said that as soon as we attained government and pursued plans for nuclear powered surface ships and submarines we would cancel the existing submarine program. That position has never been expressed by this side of the House. It is not our view and it is an absolute disgrace that the Government has never pursued the nuclear option, as we intend to do. Mr CONNOLLY(Bradfield) —Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr CONNOLLY —I do. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The honourable member may proceed. Mr CONNOLLY —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Last evening when we were debating the Social Security and Veterans' Entitlements (Maintenance Income Test) Bill, the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) entered the House rather late in the piece and listened in silence, for which he is not characteristically known-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member will come to where he was misrepresented. Mr CONNOLLY —Thank you very much. This is very important. When I finished my address-I quote from Hansard-Mr Howe said: You ousted hundreds of thousands of families, Connolly, and you know it. The fact of the matter is that that is a physical impossibility, and I am not an Idi Amin or anything like that. I take the greatest exception to even the inclusion of such comments in Hansard. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member has made his point. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Madam Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The damage done by the Government to prospects for continuing reconciliation between Aboriginal and other Australians by its insensitivity and unrealistic raising of expectations. 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 MILES(Braddon)(3.00) —The Opposition is not satisfied with the answers it received today in the House to questions which we put to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Hand), the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen), and we intend to make sure that we pursue the matter further. Before going on to the details, I begin by addressing my remarks to the general nature of Aboriginal affairs at this time. I want, firstly, to comment on the extent to which this Government has raised expectations far beyond what could be delivered. I raise this matter of public importance because of both my deep concern and that of the Opposition about the Hawke Government's performance in Aboriginal affairs and its impact on the prospects for any continuing reconciliation between Aboriginal and other Australians. There is no area that better illustrates the Government's abject failure to come to grips with the needs of Australia's disadvantaged people. As the Minister has said, `Too much has been said for so long and not enough action'. These words were said over eight months ago. The Minister may well fall back on the claim of increased Government spending in the area of Aboriginal affairs as evidence of its commitments. The simply staggering and tragic fact is that not one of the recognised social indicators has shown any improvement. In fact two or three of the key social indicators have got dramatically worse, even though $2.5 billion has been allocated to Aboriginal advancement in the past five years under this Government. The fact is that the Australian Labor Party's judgment that grandiose solutions would meet Aboriginal needs has been wrong in the past and is wrong now. Why should the Australian people generally, let alone Aboriginal Australians, believe that the rhetoric of the Labor Party will bear fruit in 1988? It obviously will not. The rhetoric of the past is proving to be empty and barren. I want to go back over some of the empty promises which have been made over the past five years by this Government. Remember the Holding resolution of 1983 which raised the hopes of Aboriginal people. It lapsed and now gathers dust in the Table Office. Mr Rocher —I can't even remember Mr Holding. Mr MILES —Indeed, that is very true. Remember the national land rights proposal, when the Government broke the spirit of bipartisanship and brought on a confrontationalist model, only to abandon it when the Western Australian Labor Government looked like being defeated. It will be years before the disillusionment, despair and bitterness of the fallout from Labor's land rights debacle are overcome. Let us look at some of the Government's standing promises in the area of Aboriginal affairs. The Government is committed to introducing a program to house all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people over a period of six years to a standard acceptable to them and devised in consultation with the Aboriginal people. This has been Labor Party policy since 1983. Now with less than one year to go the Aboriginal Development Commission has estimated that the housing backlog has actually increased 6 per cent since the Government came to power. Instead of moving forward and achieving its goals, the Government is going backwards. To achieve the goal of meeting housing demand it would need to spend $1.3 billion. The next commitment of the Labor Party is to ensure that there will be 1,000 Aboriginal teachers by 1990. It is clear that that commitment will not be achieved. Whilst projections fall well short of Government promises, the Government is not going to maintain the Abstudy special teachers training award. In fact, that has disappeared. There are likely to be no new grants this year and, as I have said, the Government is certainly unlikely to meet its commitment of 1,000 teachers. Mr Rocher —Another broken promise. Mr MILES —Another broken promise, as the honourable member for Curtin has said. The Government's failure to meet expectations in such a vital area is a real blow to the hopes that many families had of gaining better schooling for their children. The Government's third commitment is to ensuring that during this year the proportion of Aborigines and Islanders employed by Commonwealth departments will be at least equal to their proportion within the Australian population. Again that is another promise that will fail. When we recount this sorry chequered record is it any wonder that many in the Aboriginal community now view any initiatives by governments with a great degree of scepticism and mistrust? We condemn the Government for raising expectations far beyond what is achievable because we believe that in so doing the Government has put back what is achievable. Father Frank Brennan-and I see him sitting in the chamber today-adviser to the Catholic bishops on Aboriginal affairs, has said so succinctly: The broken promises are the greatest breach of faith committed by any Government towards the Aboriginal people since white settlement . . . Their votes have been bought, they have been betrayed totally. By seeking to do the impossible the Government has made the possible impossible-a disaster in political terms. Here we are, five years into the Hawke Labor Government and we are yet to see one significant policy advance from this Government in the area of Aboriginal affairs. I repeat: we are five years into this Government's term of office and we are yet to see any advances in the area of Aboriginal affairs. The coalition parties have an extensive list of achievements over a period of 12 years in government. Not only did the coalition have a sensitive and caring understanding of the situation; it also had the political competence to put in place measures of far-reaching consequence. Expectations were not raised beyond what was achievable and, as a consequence, a degree of mutual trust developed which enabled progress to be made in this area. It is this Government which is betraying the trust of many Aborigines. It is this Government which has increased the volatility of racial feelings by creating mirages for the Aboriginal community. With a new Minister a fresh start could have been made. The Minister made it clear that he did not intend to make promises. There was the hope that we were going to leave the land of promises and move forward for the first time in 4 1/2 years. The hope was to be short lived. In this term the Government has promised to remove child poverty by 1990. Does anybody truly expect that there will be no Aboriginal children living in poverty in this nation in 1990, in two years time? Does anybody expect that to be the case? Opposition members-No! Mr MILES —As honourable members have said, certainly not. Children suffer because families suffer. Considering the depth of need amongst the Aboriginal people, can anyone in this House believe that there will be no children in poverty? That is certainly not going to be the case. In a similar vein the Government has also committed itself to the elimination of Aboriginal disadvantage by the year 2000. Further, the Government has announced the Aboriginal employment development policy, with a target of creating 46,000 extra jobs. The whole exercise is reminiscent of a past media stunt, when the Prime Minister tried to con young people into Priority One. If the Aboriginal employment policy is equally as effective as Priority One, no more than 8,500 jobs will be created-and there was a promise of 46,000 jobs. There is no way in which that will be delivered either. So much for a no promises administration of Aboriginal affairs. But perhaps the most breathtaking of promises was the Prime Minister's commitment to a treaty. The Prime Minister was making policy without due consideration. His insensitivity to the feelings and aspirations of many Aboriginal people in wanting a treaty was shown to be all the more callous when he later told the Parliament that it was a considered statement. Clearly, a treaty was always unachievable. The Government has again betrayed the trust of the Aboriginal people. Three days after the Federal election the Prime Minister announced that the main Commonwealth bodies within the Aboriginal affairs portfolio would be amalgamated into a new commission; a most substantial reorganisation of Commonwealth administration in this area carried out at the whim of the Prime Minister. There would be no review and no consultation with the Aboriginal people. It would take place even before a Minister had been appointed. The Minister was appointed some 10 days later with one of his major agenda items already determined for him. On 10 December 1987 the Minister presented Foundations for the Future, a document that included a preamble filled with warm glow statements. On the one hand the preamble pledged that the Aboriginal people were the original owners of Australia; on the other hand it claimed that these rights had been extinguished. What advantage was that to the Aboriginal people? I make it clear that the coalition believes that an important step to promote reconciliation would be for the Australian community as a whole to come to terms with the history of Australia, both Aboriginal and post-1788. However, we know that we are here in this Parliament not as a writers club for historians but as law makers. The first question we raised was: Since this is a proposal for a law, what are the legal implications of this form of words? To our amazement the Prime Minister and the Minister both claimed that they received no legal advice on the issue. We found that hard to believe. The shadow Attorney-General, the honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith), lodged freedom of information requests with the Minister, the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General. I shall leave it to the shadow Attorney-General to flesh out those ideas. I shall continue to outline briefly what has happened. It has become increasingly clear that legal opinions were drafted even before the proposal went to Cabinet. Correspondence from the Attorney-General indicates that a document dated 27 November 1987 was prepared by Mr McDonald in his capacity as a legal adviser, in which he advised on legal issues considered by the Attorney-General's Department to arise out of the submission. Further, the correspondence confirms the existence of another document consisting of extracts from a draft Cabinet submission and comments, in relation to those extracts, from a legally qualified member of the Attorney-General's department, and it states: comprised legal advice in the capacity as legal adviser to me. These legal documents were produced not only before the launch of the Foundations for the Future proposal but also before the Cabinet considered the proposal, in what I believe was a marathon session on Monday, 7 December 1987. The Prime Minister determined to put a warm glow statement on the record before Australia Day 1988. Cabinet approved the proposal in the last sitting week in 1987 and the proposal was tabled on the last sitting day of the House for 1987. It is apparent that this bulldozing approach caused heartburn in the Cabinet. The Attorney-General confirms the existence of a further fax sent on 7 December, which records views of a legal nature previously orally expressed by counsel. It was a fax presumably hurriedly sent to the Cabinet room to try to reassure the waverers. Yet the Prime Minister and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs came into this House on 10 December and claimed that they had no legal advice. This is a very serious matter. The Minister acknowledged this when, in a report in the Canberra Times on 16 January, a spokesman for the Minister said that allegations that the Minister had misled the Parliament were being treated will all the seriousness that they deserve and that the Minister would probably issue a statement on the following Monday. We are still waiting for that statement. I demand an explanation from the Minister as to how he has not misled the House. If he is not willing to do that, he should resign. Further, the correspondence indicates that later in January the Government received legal advice from a Melbourne Queen's Counsel. The freedom of information process has also raised some real concerns about the bona fides of the Government. In answer to a question put to him in the House on 10 December 1987 the Prime Minister called for bipartisan support for the preamble. That bipartisan support has not really been forthcoming from the Minister or the Prime Minister. The situation is that the Government has not addressed the issues of Aboriginal people in this nation. I conclude this matter of public importance with the following comments: We believe that 1988-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr HAND(Melbourne-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs)(3.15) —Over the luncheon break we gave this matter of public importance some thought, thinking that it would be something constructive and worthy of a response. It is based on the argument that nothing has been done and on a desire for everything that is being tried-attempts are being made in a whole range of areas-to improve the lot of Aboriginal people to fail. That is the message that I got from the contribution of the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles). Never have I said in this place or anywhere else that everything that ought to be done is currently being done and that every program will be 100 per cent successful. On every occasion I have spoken on this issue in this Parliament I have tried my best to adopt a bipartisan approach. A bipartisan approach is something we all ought to strive for, and as the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) said, we were hoping that the Opposition would adopt that attitude too. However, as has happened in recent years, it did not take long for the shadow Minister to fall into the trap of his predecessors. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that he is not permitted to express his own private views in a public forum. He has been gagged and harnessed by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) and those who surround him. I find it extraordinary that the shadow Minister's statements in recent times do not correspond with the lengthy discussions I have had with him in my rooms and around the corridors of this building. About that I am extremely disappointed. I for one had great hopes of being able to work with him, as people have in the past with members of the Opposition, trying to improve things. He has indulged in cheap point-scoring by coming in here telling us that problems exist out there in the Aboriginal community. We know that. I have just completed 49 days of continuous travel around this country attempting to talk to as many Aboriginal community organisations and individuals in a manner that has never before been attempted. I have not bragged about that in the past but I will inform the honourable member for Braddon about it. It would do him well to travel around and talk to these people also, because he is a long way short of the mark. I have said also that I will not make promises that I cannot deliver. I defy the honourable member for Braddon to tell me of any instance when I have made a commitment or promise to an Aboriginal community, while I have been the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, that I have not fulfilled. That will be the record that people will judge me on in my time in this position-my achievements. I do recognise, however, and this was alluded to by the honourable member for Braddon, that governments and people in power over the past 200 years have been guilty of gilding the lily when talking to Aboriginal people. We are all guilty of this-members on both sides of this chamber, even members of the National Party of Australia who are part of the Opposition side of the House. But that time has passed. I wish to refer now to the latter part of the contribution of the honourable member for Braddon. He referred to the amalgamation of the four areas into a new commission. In this chamber I said that discussions would have to be held with the Aboriginal people, and that we had to get it right. I said that we would take note of what they said. I did not say, `This is what we are going to do; cop this'. I said to people, `This is a concept developed by examining various documents that people have prepared over many years and by analysing proposals that have come forward from Aboriginal people and trying to put together a package and make it work'. We have then gone into the Aboriginal community and talked to the community in a way that has never been done before. Let us cut out this nonsense by the shadow Minister's Party, and others who are feeding him the information, most of which is incorrect, that consultation of this type took place when the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC) was formed. I say to him that there is no way that that happened-not to the extent of the consultation that is currently in process. We have conducted 453 meetings around Australia; I have attended 46 regional meetings. A series of repeat meetings is taking place. Never before have so many Aboriginal organisations and people been brought together to discuss a government's concept or proposal prior to such legislation being introduced. Mr Kerr —Unprecedented. Mr HAND —That is correct, it is unprecedented. The days of governments ramming things down Aboriginal people's necks have finished. The honourable member would do well to take heed of that instead of trying to score cheap political points. I thought he was better than that. The problem today is that the Liberal and National parties have moved back from the position they held in the 1970s and early 1980s. Most other political parties around the world-some slowly, but most-are moving forward in a progressive way. The Liberal Party is moving backwards at a hundred miles an hour. I refer the honourable member to the Bonner-Withers motion in the Senate to which I have referred previously, which urged the admission of prior ownership. That was proposed in 1974. In 1980 Senator Chaney, a member of the Liberal Party, moved a motion relating to the Aboriginal Development Commission which recognised past dispossession and dispersal. In 1980 there was acknowledgment by Ministers Chaney and Viner that there had been no divisive political argument on the justice of Aboriginal claims, or of the prior ownership of Aboriginals of the whole of Australia before British settlement. In 1981 Senator Peter Baume told the Parliament, `The Government is prepared to acknowledge prior ownership'. For God's sake! Minister after Minister under Fraser said these things, yet under the Leader of the Opposition there is a movement backwards. A member of the Liberal Party has the audacity to talk about land rights when the Liberal Party in New South Wales will rip the guts out of land rights legislation. The New South Wales Liberal Party leader campaigned about that during the election campaign. The National Party in New South Wales has been saying it for years. The honourable member has the audacity to talk about our land rights proposals. Mr Reith —Give us a copy of the legal opinion. Let's hear it. Mr HAND —We have a broken down suburban solicitor sitting at the table who cannot even read Hansard. I am normally a very placid person, but I greatly dislike it when people do not tell the truth. The fact is that the honourable member for Flinders put out a sleazy Press release-I am very disappointed in the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs because he put his name to it, too-in which he misquoted me. He did not have the decency to quote me correctly. He used the trick of leaving out a few appropriate words. I have not misled the Parliament and the honourable member, as a lawyer, knows it. I was asked a specific question and I gave a specific answer. There is no doubt that I told the truth in this place. I ask him to read my answer. He has a great inability, apparently, to do that, or he had better get a new typist, because he left out the appropriate words. This was another of the sleazy exercises they engaged in during January when they selectively put out Press releases implying that people had misled the Parliament. It is not true. I return to the more important points which were raised by the shadow Minister. He talked about people being let down. I concede that. I have told him privately that it is my job to ensure, as best I can, that no one, whilst I am the Minister, lets anybody down. We are engaged in genuine consultations with Aboriginal people. In tours around the country and in the trip I have just undertaken regarding the new Commission, I was presented with a unique opportunity to talk to many members of the community about other questions-questions that went to the points the honourable member raised concerning the plight of people in terms of health, education and the frightful housing situation in this country. But it is simplistic in the extreme to say that these things can be fixed just like that. I have never said that they can be, and the shadow Minister knows that. The Government has never said that they can be fixed quickly. No Government, not even the previous Government, has ever said that. It seemed to me-I do not know what the people listening thought-that the shadow Minister wanted all these things to fail. What is wrong with Aboriginal people having expectations? What is wrong with the Government saying, `We are going to try to eradicate illness in the Aboriginal community.'? What is wrong with the Government saying, `We are going to try our best to train 1,000 Aboriginal teachers.'? What is wrong with saying, `We are going to house all the Aboriginal people.'? What is wrong with saying, `We are going to try to create 48,000 jobs for the unemployed in the Aboriginal community.'? What is wrong with adopting that approach? There is nothing wrong with it. It is honourable to say that we are going to try to achieve these things. The shadow Minister ought to wander around a bit further from his home town than he has in the few selective visits he has made. As has occurred in the past, my Department will make every effort to ensure that he sees everything he needs to see, wherever he goes. Another point that has been made concerns the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. The shadow Minister came to me as the spokesperson for his Party. During a break in the consultations-after about one hour and 45 minutes of briefing by me on the first half of the consultations-I said, `I will make available to you all the necessary information, all the minutes of the meetings, all the discussion papers and every conceivable thing I have at my disposal about this proposal we put forward to the Parliament'. Why? Because there is nothing to hide, because we want to get it right, and prove to the whole of Australia, through the Liberal Party and through my Party, that we will get this right. What has happened? It is as though that offer was never made and we are trying to hide something. I say to the shadow Minister again that that information is available to his Party, as it will be made available to the National Party, if it so desires, and certainly to the Australian Democrats. That offer still stands. There will be nothing to hide in this amalgamation. The amalgamation will bring together four areas of government, namely, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the ADC, Aboriginal Hostels Ltd and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. The shadow Minister knows that. He said in his remarks that he welcomed it. Mr Miles —That is not exactly a quote. Mr HAND —The shadow Minister made the point that he had some reservations about certain aspects, namely, the preamble. I acknowledge that. In the discussions I had with him about the treaty, the compact, the makarrata, the agreement-whatever it is that the people in the Aboriginal community and the rest of the Australian community determine to agree upon-I said to him, `Why don't we keep out of it? Why don't the politicians, for a change, keep out of the debate?'. Why do we not let the community-that is, the Aboriginal community and the non-Aboriginal community-discuss this issue and stop muddying the waters, like politicians normally do on these issues? We should keep away, let the community have the discussion, and then have the political debate. But we should not try to kill it off, like he and his Party are trying to do now. The honourable member cannot welcome something on the one hand and then go about undermining that statement on the other hand by saying, `We don't need a reconciliation, a treaty or a compact', thus undermining the discussion before it is properly off the ground. I make the plea again to the Opposition to give it a go. What is wrong with allowing the community outside Canberra, where the people live, to have a discussion about this important issue? The important issue before us is the treaty or the compact. Mr Reith —Why don't you release the documents then? No answer to that. Mr HAND —The honourable member might get away with that behaviour in a suburban court where he comes from while arguing about land deals, but even his former leader in the upper House in Victoria gave him away, so I am not terribly worried by him. The point about it is: why do we not give it a chance out there in the community? How can members of the Opposition say that this is unacceptable or will be unacceptable to the Australian community before it has even discussed the issue? It is elitist in the extreme for them to come in here and say that this is unachievable. I believe that the Australian community desires this discussion to take place. I believe, from my discussions with people and from the many letters that the Department and the Government have received, that there is a desire by people to give it a go, to talk about it, to question, to find out about Aboriginal culture, to look beyond 200 years, to question what did occur in that period of 200 years and to see whether an agreement can be reached between us. I see nothing wrong with that at all. But, no; members of the Opposition are back in the bunker and they have decided that it is not on. They are going to do everything they can to undermine it. It gets back to my original concept; that is, it seems as though members of the Opposition want these things to fail. I say to members of the Opposition again, irrespective of what the honourable member for Flinders who is at the table says, that I expected better of them. In recent times their Press releases have been following the normal pattern of opposition as though they are obligated to oppose everything the Government wants to do. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The Minister's time has expired. Mr REITH(Flinders)(3.31) —The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Hand) asks what is wrong with his approach. Let me tell the Minister, chapter and verse, what is wrong with his approach. The fact of the matter is that he came into this Parliament on 10 December last year and said, `Joy, oh joy, you are going to have a preamble'. He described it as an historic and significant declaration that was going to be the hallmark of his policy. Since then he has dropped it like a hot potato. That is the first thing wrong with the Minister. He has no capacity to follow it through. Mr Hand —Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. What the honourable member has said is not true. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. Mr Hand —On a further point of order-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! Does the Minister have a further point of order? Mr Hand —On a further point of order: I seek your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Will the Minister get to his point of order. Mr Hand —In terms of the point of order, if a member comes into the House and states something which is blatantly untrue, does another member have the right to object at that point, or should that other member raise-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. The Minister can make a personal explanation at a later time in the debate. Mr REITH —The second thing that is wrong with this Minister's approach is that he comes in all sweetness and light, with all reason to prevail, and the reality is that he has misled this Parliament on an essential part of the policy which he has been putting to this Parliament. The reality is that when he says, `Let us have a public debate about this matter', he says that-- Mr Blanchard —Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. My point of order is that my understanding as to this debate is that there was to be one speaker from each side of the House. We seem to be in a position where there is a second speaker-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The Chair is not aware of any arrangements that have been arrived at by the parties. If a member stands, the Chair is required to call the member. Mr REITH —For all this talk about encouraging debate, the Minister does not tell the Australian electorate-but let me inform the Australian electorate now-that, when I ask him for some documentation to support his position and the legal opinions that he has received on this issue, up go the shutters. I am in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal trying to get some documents out of this Minister. I go to other Ministers and ask them for some documents and what do they say? They say, `The documents exist but, of course, you cannot have them'. That is the reality of his idea of informed debate. He has the information but there is no release of the documents. That is why the matter is going off on appeal. Let me put this whole matter into some context. On 7 December 1987 this Minister goes to the Cabinet with a submission. The submission is that he will introduce legislation which will have some introductory comments in it, to be known as a preamble. Included in that Cabinet submission, as is often the situation, are some attachments. The attachments have within them some comments from the Attorney-General's Department. They are called co-ordination comments. On the same day, as a result of discussions presumably within the Cabinet, advice is obtained from a leading Queen's Counsel in Melbourne. How do I know that advice has been obtained? Because the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) has told me in writing. Honourable members can imagine the situation. Members of the Cabinet have this proposal before them and it is a pretty complicated sort of legal area. There is a case in the High Court of Australia. One of the members of the Cabinet says, `Look, Gerry, we know that you are full of good intentions, but I think we ought to just see what are the legal implications of all this'. Members of the Cabinet have a look at the advice prepared by the Attorney-General's Department and someone says, `Look, I would like a bit more advice on this'. It seems that someone rings Mr Graham, QC, in Melbourne and obtains advice. I know, because the Attorney-General has told me, that that advice is communicated to the Attorney-General. So the picture is that on 7 December there was, apparently, a seven-hour heated discussion in Cabinet about the Minister's proposal. What happens then? The Attorney-General gets the advice, presumably, from one of his departmental officers and probably Mr McDonald, who has been handling the matter. The Attorney-General says, `Look, I will be going back into the Cabinet with this advice from the Queen's Counsel, but I think we had better cover the situation. You, Mr McDonald, prepare a memo and send it down to Mr Graham to confirm what Mr Graham has told us, so that we have it in writing'. The Attorney-General waltzes into Cabinet with a copy of the fax which has been sent down to the Queen's Counsel and says-- Mr Miles —On what date was that? Mr REITH —It was on 7 December. The Attorney-General says to the Cabinet, `Look, we have the co-ordination comments'-which, I might add, are prepared by a legally qualified member of the Attorney-General's Department and, I might further add, have been the subject of a freedom of information request. Why has the request for them been refused? The ground of exemption claimed is that legal opinion and professional privilege status applies to the documents. Here we have co-ordination comments, legal opinions prepared by the Attorney-General's Department and a copy of the fax which has been sent down so that the Attorney-General has got himself covered in terms of the advice that was received orally from the Queen's Counsel in a hurried consultation over the phone because members of the Cabinet were considering the matter and they wanted to have the best possible advice before they made a decision. That happened on 7 December. There was a Cabinet decision with the benefit of advice from a member of the Attorney-General's Department and a senior barrister in Melbourne-a Queen's Counsel, a silk. On 10 December in comes the Minister with his proposal. He announces it in the morning. At Question Time the Opposition asks both the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs two very simple questions-the same question to each. The question is: `You have introduced a preamble proposal this morning. What legal advice have you got on the implications of it?'. Mr Hand —That is not true. Quote what I said. Mr REITH —I can quote it to the Minister, chapter and verse. I will give him the documents. He can read it. It is all there clear as day, chapter and verse, in black and white. It is as clear a case as one could possibly get. He comes in with his answer on that day, 10 December, only three days after Cabinet considered the matter. Surely there will be no excuses about poor memory in terms of what advice members of the Cabinet had when they considered it. The Prime Minister was very generous in his response. He said that he did not have any advice whatsoever. That is not right because the Minister wrote to him at the end of October with a copy of his submission. In that submission, as advised to me by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, there were comments on the legal implications and/or consequences of the preamble. So the Prime Minister is not off on this one as yet. That is the situation. The Prime Minister says that he has not had any advice whatsoever. The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs is a bit more careful either because presumably he has been talking directly to the Attorney-General's Department-he nods his head-or because his advisers have been talking to the Attorney-General's Department because of the co-ordination comments. He is very careful. As recorded on page 3196 of the Daily Hansard, he said: I received no specific advice of a legal nature on that point. I did, however, receive a lot of advice from a number of people on the question of this proposal. And off he went. That is no misrepresentation; it appears in Hansard and I have given a copy of it to the Minister. Today I asked a very simple question of the Attorney-General. I told the Attorney-General that his Department was providing the legal advice that the Minister and the Prime Minister say they have never received. I asked the Attorney-General what advice was given on this preamble. What was the Attorney-General's reply? He said: I recall that the honourable member was suggesting that an opinion was available at the time the Cabinet made the decision. That was not the case, except for the co-ordination comment from my Department. That is where the Government was in error in the first place. The Attorney-General cannot say `except for the co-ordination comment' because that is the legal opinion. The best answer the Government now has is, `Here is a legal opinion but it is not a legal opinion'. When is a legal opinion a legal opinion? Is it when it is produced by the Attorney-General's Department? Is a legal opinion such a document when prepared by a qualified legal officer of the Attorney-General's Department? Is it not a legal opinion when the Government claims that the Opposition cannot have it because it is a legal opinion? The reality is that the Minister and his colleagues have been replying to my freedom of information application and telling me I cannot have the documents. However, the good thing is that they have been telling me what the documents are and what they contain. The reality is that on that day, 7 December 1987, the Cabinet had before it legal advice on the proposals. The documents prove it. When the Minister came into the House on 10 December and said that he had no legal advice, the reality was that he did. I have the documents to prove it and now the Minister has a copy of them. Mr GAYLER(Leichhardt)(3.41) —At the outset may I address some of the comments made by the honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith) in what can only be described as a diatribe. The Government has cooperated in consultations with those opposite in a bipartisan endeavour to solve some of the difficulties faced by Aboriginal people in this country. It is appalling that the honourable member could speak only about legal opinions and freedom of information, with not one phrase in relation to the better standards of living that Aboriginal people deserve. Mr Hollis —Because they don't care. Mr GAYLER —There is no doubt that they do not understand. Aboriginal affairs has always been a sensitive and contentious issue. If the attitude shown by Opposition members continues, the position will only deteriorate. Who will be the meat in the sandwich? Who is the pawn in this game? The shadow spokesman on Aboriginal Affairs, the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles), was appalling and pathetic in the attitude he displayed to the matter before the House. Let us consider those who really require us as a nation, as government, including members of the Opposition, to address the difficulties they face and to come forward with a positive and constructive method of overcoming them. It is interesting to note the recent media approach of the shadow Minister. He is condemning the preamble; he said that it could be used to undermine the constitutional framework of Australia. The coalition condemns the Government's reckless disregard for possible legal consequences. That certainly addresses the difficulties of the Aboriginal people. I find it somewhat difficult to follow through, but the shadow Minister sees some difficulty in the preamble that has been mentioned. We must start somewhere-and I commend the work of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Hand) in this regard-but Opposition members are prepared to simply sit on their hands, as they did for so many decades when they were in office. It is interesting to note the shadow Minister's comment about the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) dropping the proposal for a treaty. Once again, that is a very negative approach to Aboriginal affairs. Unfortunately, the honourable member for Flinders had some difficulty in reading the proposition; if he did read it, he certainly did not speak to it. It referred to raising the expectations of the Aboriginal people. Members of the Opposition will never be guilty of that, because they give the Aboriginal people nought and expect them to get nought. It is a disgrace. The bipartisanship that should be shown in this area has been undermined in a disgraceful and despicable manner by members of the Opposition. Let us look at the question of the Aboriginal secondary assistance scheme (ABSEC). What has the Opposition done about that? Once again, an extremely positive contribution of nothing! According to the shadow Minister, ABSEC is a proposal the Government is promoting for the use of Department of Aboriginal Affairs boundaries, ignoring tribal and cultural affiliations, with State-based zones not being acceptable. If the shadow Minister knew what was going on in this nation, he would know he is wrong on every count. He cannot get anything right. He sits in the House with a smirk on his face, worrying about nothing. What about the Aboriginal people? I say to him, `Put a smirk on your face and go out and address them'. ABSEC is an attempt by this Government to address some of the difficulties faced by the Aboriginal people. Time and again the Minister has said-and I will repeat it for the benefit of the shadow Minister-that ABSEC will not be proceeded with if the Aboriginal people are not in favour of it. As a result, consultation is taking place throughout the nation at a grassroots level, not by sitting back in the party room despicably planning how to undermine positive steps for the welfare of Aborigines. The Government does not do things in the comfort of the party room in Canberra; it goes out and speaks to the Aboriginal people, their delegates and leaders, and those at the grassroots level. In the past three or four months the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has had more consultation on these matters than any former Minister who held that portfolio. The Government will act on the feedback being received from the Aboriginal people. As I have heard the Minister say on more than one occasion, the shadow Minister is welcome to have access to the minutes of the meetings and to the attitudes expressed by Aborigines. If he wants to do his job half properly, I suggest that he avail himself of that information, because everything he says, and every document emanating from his office, is wrong on every count. The bipartisanship which should not be in question in issues such as this has been undermined. We are going backwards. Again I ask: Who are the pawns in this game? It is not the Government; it is not Opposition members, who have a negative approach to any suggestion; it is the Aboriginal people themselves. I find it appalling-to be honest, quite sickening-that the shadow Minister can come into this House and simply blurt out negative responses to any suggestion to create a future for Aborigines. The proposal before the House has a stench about it. It follows upon the disgraceful and despicable discussions and decisions of the New South Wales colleagues of those opposite, who intend to take away the rights for which Aborigines have fought over centuries. This matter was proposed to simply dress up the retrograde and negative steps that will be taken by the New South Wales coalition parties as a result of their recent election victory. Mr Wal Murray, the Leader of the National Party in New South Wales, should be condemned for his comments on Aboriginal people and their rights. However, I know that the mentality of cockies is such-and we have witnessed this for many decades-that they go into the streets and say to people, `If we give the Aborigines a bit of land today, tomorrow it will be your farm'. That is the negative and unrealistic approach of the National Party. I do not wish to comment further. The proposition is baseless and hollow. It has a stench about it. It is simply an attempt to dress up the decisions made by the Opposition's colleagues in New South Wales. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Lea McLeay) —Order! The discussion is concluded. Motion (by Mr Beazley) agreed to: That the House, at its rising, adjourn until Tuesday, 12 April, at 2.15 p.m. Motion (by Mr Beazley)-by leave-agreed to: That Mr Lee be discharged from attendance on the Joint Committee of Public Accounts. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! Madam Speaker has received advice from the National Party Whip that he has nominated Mr T. A. Fischer to serve on the Standing Committee on Community Affairs for the purpose of the inquiry reviewing the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service. Mr HOLLIS(Throsby) —On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the fifty-first general report. Ordered that the report be printed. (Quorum formed) Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(3.51) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The proposed Admiralty Bill will give Australia, for the first time, a comprehensive, up to date, locally enacted and uniform law governing the exercise of admiralty jurisdiction by Australian courts. The law will replace existing Imperial legislation. In the bicentennial year it is appropriate that we remove one further piece of old, inherited British legislation from our statute book and replace it with legislation specifically designed for Australian conditions. This the Bill is designed to do. The Bill follows the recommendations contained in report No. 33 on civil admiralty jurisdiction prepared by the Australian Law Reform Commission and issued at the end of 1986. That report followed a reference given to the Commission by the former coalition Government in 1982. The need for reform in this area has been recognised over a long period. A Joint Committee of the Maritime Law Association of Australia and New Zealand and the Law Council of Australia, with Justice Zelling as Chairman, in 1982 had produced a joint report on reform of admiralty jurisdiction. The Law Reform Commission was required to have regard to this report in its consideration of the matter. It received as well input from other maritime and legal bodies, State governments and individuals whom it consulted in the preparation of the report. All were agreed on the need for reform of admiralty law. The report is a comprehensive analysis of admiralty jurisdiction and the Government, in seeking reactions to the report, found widespread support for early implementation of the recommendations contained in it. I commend the Commission for its report, which has been widely praised. Admiralty has long been a distinct jurisdiction in the court system. Business expectations rely on the fact that jurisdiction over ships and shipowners will be asserted in special ways. Australia is principally a country of shippers rather than shipowners and is dependent on foreign shipping for much of its import and export trade. It is, therefore, in Australia's interest to support a broad admiralty jurisdiction which is dependent principally on the presence in the jurisdiction of the ship or sister ship in relation to which a maritime claim arises. The proposed legislation, therefore, asserts a broad admiralty jurisdiction but at the same time takes account of international trends and remains within internationally acceptable limits. Admiralty jurisdiction exercised by the courts has its own distinctive features. The key feature is the ability it provides to bring an action in rem-that is, the power to arrest a ship, including foreign ships, within the jurisdiction of a state and to use that ship as security for a maritime claim. Actions in rem arise from the existence of a maritime lien or a statutory right of action based on a proprietary or general maritime claim arising under the general law and involving the ownership or operation of ships. The Bill also provides for admiralty jurisdiction to be exercised in relation to claims in personam-that is, claims directed against a specific person-in relation to maritime claims or claims for damage to a ship. The Bill does not attempt a substantive overhaul of the law. It does not, for instance, create new causes of action or, with the exception of clause 34, create new substantive rights, as distinct from creating new procedures. The Bill, therefore, seeks to clarify what claims are subject to admiralty jurisdiction and which courts can exercise that jurisdiction. It is proposed that the Federal Court of Australia as well as the State and Territory supreme courts be invested with admiralty jurisdiction. I turn now to address the significant features of the proposed legislation. Maritime claims are defined in detail in clause 4. A distinction is made between proprietary maritime claims and general maritime claims. Proprietary claims involve claims relating to ownership or possession of a ship. General maritime claims include a wide range of claims arising from the operation of a ship. The legislation retains the existing distinction in admiralty law that exists between actions in rem based on maritime liens and statutory rights of action in rem based on causes of action arising under the general law and involving the ownership or operation of ships. It confers a right to proceed in rem over claims involving maritime liens in clause 15 but does not seek to codify or define the substantive law governing maritime liens. Their traditional priority, ranking ahead of other maritime claims, is maintained. The scope of the statutory right of action in rem is defined exhaustively and in detail. The circumstances in which claims in rem can be brought on maritime claims are set out in clauses 16 to 19. These clauses outline the nexus between a ship and the relevant person against whom the claim arises which is required before an action in rem can be brought. Provision is made in clause 19 for the first time in Australian law for arrest of surrogate or sister ships. This is a feature of admiralty law in certain other countries, including the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Admiralty jurisdiction in personam is conferred in clause 9 with respect to maritime claims and in addition with respect to claims for damage done to a ship. Concurrent jurisdiction in admiralty is conferred on the Federal Court and State and Territory supreme courts. Appeals will proceed through the Full Court or Court of Appeal of the relevant Federal, State or Territory court to the High Court of Australia under the ordinary rules governing appeals from the respective courts. The experience of the State supreme courts in admiralty matters is preserved. Provision is made for the promulgation of uniform admiralty rules, applicable to all admiralty actions. There is provision for a rules committee with a judge of the Federal Court and a supreme court to advise the Attorney-General on the rules and possible amendment to them. The rules will be made by the Governor-General-in-Council and will be subject to disallowance by the Parliament. The Bill will remove the uncertainty that arises from the continued application of old Imperial legislation. In particular, the 1890 Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act will cease to operate in Australia. A number of other old Imperial enactments are repealed. The Bill makes a number of minor consequential amendments to the Navigation Act 1912 and the Shipping Registration Act 1981. Financial Impact Statement The financial impact of the legislation is expected to be minimal. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr Reith) adjourned. Mr LEO McLEAY(Grayndler) —I present the report of the Selection Committee relating to the program of business prior to 12.30 p.m. on Thursday, 14 April 1988. The report will be printed in today's Hansard and the items accorded priority for debate will be published in the Notice Paper for Tuesday, 12 April 1988. The report read as follows- Pursuant to sessional order 28d, the Selection Committee has approved the items of private Members' business listed below to be accorded priority on Thursday, 14 April 1988. The order of precedence and the allotment of time determined by the Committee for each of the items is shown in the list. Committee report Statements upon presentation Procedure Committee-Report relating to certain procedures in the new Parliament House. [The Selection Committee has determined that any Member may make a statement on the report-all statements to be made within a total time of 15 minutes.] Private Members' Business Order of pre- cedence Item Time allotted *1 Mr Downer: To move-That this House expresses its deep concern at the negligent way the Government has conducted Australia's relations with the South Pacific nations since 1983. (Notice given 15 September 1987.) 45 mins *2 Mr Nehl: To move-That this House calls on the Government to review urgently the implementation of the care aggregate module and prevent a severe decline in the standard of care in Australian nursing homes. (Notice given 23 March 1988.) 45 mins *3 Mr Scott: To move-That the Government promotes Australian agricultural produce as being free from nuclear contamination and non-irradiated. (Notice given 15 September 1987.) 45 mins *4 Mr Connolly: To move-That- (1) the Government's failed social and economic policies have caused widespread poverty among Australian families which will not be overcome by the Government's new family assistance package; and (2) the Government must reverse the record interest rates, high unemployment, high marginal tax rates, housing shortages, high rents and falling value of family allowances if it is to offer real assistance to Australian families. (Notice given 15 September 1987.) any remaining private Members business time *The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.01) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. In line with the Government's commitment to ensure that the National Crime Authority has all the necessary powers at its disposal to fulfil its functions, subsections 219a to k of the Customs Act 1901 are being amended to provide the NCA with the same powers as the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to apply for a judicial warrant for the use of a listening device in the investigation of narcotics offences. The abuse of both legal and illegal drugs is acknowledged as one of Australia's most serious social and law enforcement problems. As exemplified by the national campaign against drug abuse, the Commonwealth Government, together with the State and Territory governments, is committed to fighting drug abuse on both fronts. The National Crime Authority's primary function is to assemble and furnish admissible evidence to Commonwealth and State prosecuting agencies. Its concern over drug trafficking, as a major profit earning activity of organised crime, is reflected in the fact that the majority of its eight references and of its general investigations involve drug-related offences. In order to perform its functions effectively and efficiently, the National Crime Authority, as with any law enforcement agency, needs to have at its disposal the most effective investigative techniques. Over recent years it has been recognised that traditional methods of detecting and investigating criminal activity are rarely successful against the increasingly sophisticated techniques of organised crime. Electronic surveillance techniques such as telephone interception and listening devices have now emerged as an invaluable investigative tool in this area. Overseas experience, particularly in the United States of America, has confirmed that such a useful tool should be available to all agencies investigating organised crime, especially in relation to drug trafficking. If we are to be successful in our efforts to attack major drug trafficking networks, it is important that the NCA be put in the same position as the Australian Federal Police and State police in having available the most appropriate, up-to-date techniques. Listening devices have made key contributions in a number of major narcotics investigations undertaken by the Australian Federal Police, for example in the Paltos case. The amendments to subsections 219a to k of the Customs Act 1901 also clarify the disclosure provisions for information obtained by use of a listening device under warrant for the purpose of conducting legal proceedings, in particular to ensure that prosecution authorities and defence counsel are able to be provided with the necessary information for the conduct of the proceedings. The amendments will also extend the disclosure of such information to applications for orders in confiscation proceedings under the Proceedings of Crime Act 1987 and to extradition proceedings. This is consistent with the current provisions relating to confiscation proceedings under the Customs Act, and will contribute to law enforcement agencies' ability to deal effectively with major drug importation and related offences. Part III of the Bill effectively makes five amendments to the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1987-the MA Act. That Act provides the legislative basis for Australia to enter into and give effect to treaties and arrangements with other countries whereby it can request or grant assistance in criminal matters. The assistance relates both to the investigation and prosecution of crime. The range of assistance covered by the legislation includes provision of evidence, documents and articles, location and identification of witnesses, execution of requests for search and seizure, and tracing, freezing and seizure of proceeds of crime. A number of implementation problems with the MA Act emerged during recent treaty negotiations with other countries. All but one of the five amendments proposed in this Bill are to redress those problems. The first amendment is for the purpose of expanding the current definitions of `Australian forfeiture order' and `foreign forfeiture order' in the MA Act. These amendments are consequential upon amendments to the statutory forfeiture provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act-PC Act-whereby an Australian court can make a declaration that automatic statutory forfeiture of property has occurred. Under section 30 of the PC Act statutory forfeiture occurs where a restraining order made against property of the defendant is still in force six months after the defendant's conviction of a `serious offence' as defined by the PC Act. Such a declaration can then be recognised for enforcement purposes by a foreign court pursuant to a request by the Attorney-General under section 32 of the MA Act as a judicial order for the purposes of executing an MA request by Australia. A further amendment will enable a similar declaration by a foreign court, where the law of the particular foreign country has equivalent `automatic' forfeiture procedures, to be registered and enforced by an Australian court pursuant to an authorisation by the Attorney-General under section 34 of the MA Act. The second amendment is to include a definition of `political offence' in the MA Act. Offences of a political character are excluded from those for which assistance may be granted under Australia's extradition and mutual assistance legislation. Until recently it was left to the courts to determine whether an offence was of a political character. The Extradition Act 1988 now limits the offences which may qualify as political offences for extradition purposes. That limitation was to declare Australia's clear abhorrence of terrorist conduct and our unwillingness to withhold extradition to other countries seeking to bring to justice criminals whose serious or violent crimes have been allegedly perpetrated for ideological reasons. The amendment is intended to achieve the same objectives in the field of international mutual assistance. Clause 13 of the Bill inserts a limiting definition of `political offence', and substitutes that expression for `offence of a political character' in the operative refusal of assistance provisions of the MA Act. The definition excludes from political offences crimes which have been recognised by the international community in multilateral treaties as being extremely serious-hijacking, safety of aircraft, genocide, torture, and the taking of hostages-and the protection of internationally protected persons. The definition also permits crimes to be excluded by way of regulation, such as crimes recognised in future multilateral conventions to which Australia becomes a party, crimes against heads of state or heads of government and crimes of violence committed in circumstances where a collective danger to innocent life is created. The third amendment deals with the foreign law testimonial immunities of persons who give evidence in Australia as a result of a request by a foreign country or by Australia. Where a person gives evidence in Australia as a result of a request by a foreign country, the amendment confers on the person the testimonial immunities the person would have if giving evidence in the requesting country. Where a person consents to come to Australia temporarily to give evidence as a result of a request by Australia the amendment preserves the foreign law testimonial immunities which apply in the requested country. The amendment ensures that the person may refuse to answer a question or produce a document in the Australian proceedings on the grounds of a privilege, duty or obligation which does not apply before Australian courts, but which would enable or oblige the person to so refuse in proceedings in the person's own country. This is to remove concern that such a person, upon return to his own country, could be liable to civil or criminal action for breach of the duty or obligation on which the privilege is based. The amendment also provides for a certificate procedure to facilitate proof of, and application of, foreign law immunities in particular proceedings, together with a definition of `foreign law immunity certificate'. The fourth amendment is to clarify the ambit of immunity from civil suit of a person when in another country to give evidence or assist in an investigation at the request of that country. The intention of the existing provisions is to ensure that advantage is not taken of the presence of the person for the purpose of civil proceedings in the requesting country. In particular, the intention is to protect the person from the commencement, continuation or enforcement of civil proceedings, which could not occur but for the presence of the person in that country. A number of countries have also expressed concern that the Act arguably protects the person even from suits which do not depend upon the person's presence. The proposed amendment will clarify and limit the immunity to that which was originally intended. The final amendment will ensure that the Attorney-General is able to grant a request where the foreign government gives an adequate undertaking of civil suit immunity, even though it falls short of an unconditional guarantee. Several foreign governments had doubted whether their authorities had the practical or legal competence to give what they regarded as the unconditional guarantee of civil suit immunity on their reading of the Act as presently worded. Parts IV and V of the Bill contain amendments to the National Crime Authority Act 1984 and the National Crime Authority (Status and Rights of Chairman) Act 1984. The primary purpose of the amendments to the National Crime Authority Act is to enable the National Crime Authority to disseminate information relating to criminal activity or to security matters in a proper and timely way. The Authority's significant achievements to date in combating organised crime in Australia have resulted in a growing amount of unsolicited information relating to criminal activity being provided to the Authority by members of the public and other agencies. Under the present provisions of the National Crime Authority legislation the Authority has prescribed to it as one of its general functions, the dissemination to law enforcement agencies and designated persons, criminal information and intelligence related to `relevant criminal activity'. The Authority also has a clear discretion to furnish to law enforcement agencies any information that comes into its possession in the course of an investigation conducted by it, concerning the commission, or possible commission of a Commonwealth, State or Territory offence. The Authority has a similar discretion in respect of passing information to authorised authorities and persons responsible for taking civil remedies action arising out of offences against Commonwealth, State or Territory laws. Much of the unsolicited information now being received by the Authority, however, falls outside the definition of `relevant criminal activity' in the Act and is not relevant to any investigation by the Authority. This has resulted in the Authority being unable to pass such information to the relevant law enforcement agency. This is clearly an undesirable situation. Accordingly, the amendments proposed to subsections 59 (7) and (8) are designed to enable the Authority to disseminate unsolicited information relating to criminal activity in a proper and timely manner. A similar defect in the present Act has been highlighted in respect of the receipt by the Authority of information relevant to security, as that word is defined in section 4 of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979. At present the Act does not provide the Authority with the power to transfer such information to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Clearly it is desirable that such information when it is received should be passed by the Authority to ASIO in accordance with ASIO's functions. The proposed new subsection 59 (11) is designed to overcome this difficulty. Similar provisions exist in the telephone interception and Customs legislation. The amendments will also enable the Authority to delegate, by signed instrument, to a member or acting member or to a member of the staff of the Authority, its powers to furnish information under subsections 59 (7), (8) and (11). At present section 59 of the Act requires the Authority to meet to determine when information should be provided to another agency. It is appropriate that such decisions be delegated to ensure that where information is to be transferred, that action occurs with a minimum of delay. The Government is also proposing an amendment to the National Crime Authority (Status and Rights of Chairman) Act 1984. This amendment is consequential upon the Government's recent announcement of its intention to recommend to the Governor-General in Council that the Chairman of the National Crime Authority, Mr Justice Stewart, be reappointed for an additional year. The amendment is required to ensure that the provisions of the Status and Rights of Chairman Act will apply to Mr Justice Stewart for the period of his reappointment. Part VI of the Bill amends the Telecommunications Interception Act 1979 to enable a certified copy of a warrant authorising the interception of telecommunications to be received in certain proceedings as if it were the original warrant. This provision will help to reduce the cost and inconvenience arising at present in connection with the secure transmission of original warrants. The amendment does not alter any rule of evidence which may apply in relation to proof of the issue of a warrant, except that the original warrant will not be required to be produced. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr Reith) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.14) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of the National Companies and Security Commission Amendment Bill 1988 is to amend section 21 of the National Companies and Securities Commission Act 1979 so as to clarify the power of the National Companies and Securities Commission (NCSC) to give a general direction to a division established by the Commission. In addition, the Bill will retrospectively validate any past directions to a division under section 21 of the National Companies and Securities Commission Act. The Bill will not, however, necessarily operate retrospectively where a past direction under section 21 is the subject of court proceedings that are in progress when the amendment commences operation. Section 21 of the National Companies and Securities Commission Act in its present form permits the NCSC, by resolution, to direct that its functions or powers in relation to `a matter' be performed or exercised by a division of the NCSC. The purpose of section 21 is to enable the NCSC to make the most efficient use of the limited number of its members by delegating certain of its functions or powers to a smaller division. The present Bill is necessary to overcome the doubt now cast on the provision by comments made by some members of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, in a recent as yet unreported case-NCSC v. Sim, 23 February 1988-on the power of the NCSC to give a general direction to divisions. In that case it was said by those members that the reference to `a matter' in section 21 of the Act appeared to contemplate specificity in the resolution, and would not enable a general bestowal by the Commission of all its functions and powers upon a division. The section if construed in this way would mean that the Commission's method of operating through divisions would be fettered in that each individual matter would require a specific direction. It would not be possible for the Commission to give a general direction to a division that it exercise or perform the powers or functions of the Commission. It was not the intention that the ambit of section 21 be confined in this way. Indeed, since the formation of the Commission in 1979 it has been accepted practice for its standing divisions-which now comprise the companies, takeovers, executive, securities industry and futures industry divisions-to perform most of the Commission's day to day decision making functions. In addition, the Commission has given a general direction that all matters arising under the legislation for which it is responsible are able to be exercised by a relevant division. It is also desirable that the amendment preserve the validity of past actions by a division of the Commission to avoid possible administrative dislocation and public confusion which would result if previous decisions or acts were to be nullified. However, to protect the rights of those persons who may have already begun proceedings against the Commission, the amendment will not apply in those cases to retrospectively validate the Commission's direction in question, except where the court decides that it would be just and equitable for the direction to be treated as valid. The Bill, therefore, aims to redress any misconceptions about the intended operation of section 21 and endeavours to ensure that the Commission can conduct its business through its divisions by virtue of either general or specific grants of power. In accordance with the Commonwealth's obligations under the formal agreement establishing the cooperative companies and securities scheme, this Bill was approved by the Ministerial Council for Companies and Securities on 17 March 1988. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr White) adjourned. Mr JENKINS(Scullin) —I present the fifth report of the Publications Committee. Report-by leave-adopted. Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time. Mr PUNCH(Barton-Minister for the Arts and Territories)(4.19) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill makes provision for amendments to Commonwealth Government conservation legislation to clarify and strengthen the protection afforded under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983, known as the World Heritage Act. The Bill amends the definition of `identified property', which is protected by the World Heritage Act, to follow more closely the format of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage-the World Heritage Convention. Protection against damage or destruction is extended to property which the Commonwealth Government believes may be of World Heritage value and which is subject to an inquiry to determine World Heritage status. The Bill also makes provision for some other amendments to the World Heritage Act to rectify problems that have arisen with its operation since its enactment in 1983. These include the provision of a ministerial power to appoint inspectors under the Act for the purpose of obtaining information concerning the making of proclamations and regulations or of determining possible breaches of the Act. Additionally, it is proposed that sections of the Act held invalid by the High Court in the Tasmanian dam case be repealed. The provisions in the Act regarding compensation are also to be simplified. The Bill also makes it clear that the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 does not apply to action taken under the World Heritage Act nor to any submission by Australia of a heritage property as suitable for inscription on the World Heritage List. Before examining the provisions of the Bill in detail, let me first explain what it is that makes World Heritage so important and, secondly, discuss the circumstances which make these proposed amendments imperative. The World Heritage Convention is the most important international expression of the need to protect and conserve the natural and cultural heritage for the benefit of the whole world. This Convention was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation General Conference at its seventeenth session in Paris on 19 November 1972. The Convention came into force on 7 December 1975. It promotes cooperation among nations to protect areas and buildings which are of such outstanding universal value that their conservation is of concern to humanity generally. Australia was the seventh country to ratify the Convention in August 1974. Since then the number of parties to the Convention has steadily increased; 100 countries from all parts of the world are now parties. The Convention is the world's most successful instrument for the promotion of heritage conservation. Parties to the Convention commit themselves to help in the identification, protection, conservation and presentation of World Heritage properties. In addition, the Convention provides an objective system for identifying those natural and cultural heritage properties within membercountries which are of outstanding universal value for all the world. The Convention also establishes a list of such properties. This list is known as the World Heritage List. The Convention is intended to ensure that, unlike most of the seven wonders of the ancient world, properties on the World Heritage List will be preserved for all time. The conditions which have to be satisfied before any property is inscribed on the World Heritage List are extensive. First, the property must satisfy the definition of World Heritage specified in Articles 1 or 2 of the Convention. Secondly, nominations for listing must meet detailed criteria adopted by the World Heritage Committee, the policy and decision making body under the Convention, as part of its operational guidelines for the implementation of the Convention. In the case of natural heritage, nominations must also satisfy certain conditions of integrity. In assessing new nominations, the World Heritage Committee is assisted by professional organisations which provide impartial technical advice on the World Heritage nominations. The International Council for Monuments and Sites and the International Centre for Conservation in Rome are the advisory bodies for cultural sites, while the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) advises on natural properties. Normally, the expert advice provided by these bodies would be based not only on an analysis and evaluation of the written nomination against the criteria but also on an inspection and assessment of the nominated property itself. Often internationally acknowledged scientists are also invited to act as referees for a nomination related to the natural environment. Not all nominations are successful. Of the 63 nominations scheduled for consideration by the Committee at its 1987 meeting only 41, or approximately 65 per cent, were accepted for inscription on the World Heritage List. There are now 288 places on the World Heritage List. They include the Pyramids of Egypt, the Grand Canyon of the United States, the Taj Mahal of India, Chartres Cathedral in France and the Sagarmatha National Park, containing Mount Everest, in Nepal. Australian properties on the World Heritage List are the Great Barrier Reef, stages 1 and 2 of Kakadu National Park, the Willandra Lakes Region of Western New South Wales, the Lord Howe Island group off the coast of New South Wales, the Australian east coast temperate and sub-tropical rainforest parks-the New South Wales rainforests-the western Tasmania wilderness national parks and the Uluru (Ayers Rock-Mount Olga) National Park. This Hawke Labor Government has a record second to none in its commitment to the environment and to heritage conservation. The Australian community increasingly looks to the Commonwealth Government to continue this role, in particular in relation to Australian properties which form part of the World Heritage. In most cases, this is being achieved in close collaboration with the States and Territories. It is an unfortunate fact, however, that this is not always the case. The area known as the wet tropical rainforest of north-east Australia, nominated by Australia in December 1987 for inclusion in the World Heritage List, has been identified for a number of years both nationally and internationally as being of World Heritage value. Despite this, the Queensland Government continues to oppose the nomination. In the Commonwealth Government's opinion, there is no doubt that this area, also known as the north Queensland rainforests, will be an appropriate and deserving addition to the World Heritage List. Independent studies indicate that the rainforests conform to the definition of natural heritage in article 2 of the Convention. Indeed, the best evidence suggests that they meet not only one but all four of the criteria set down for establishing outstanding universal value. The north Queensland rainforests contain the highest concentration of primitive flowering plant families on earth, are home to a high diversity of animal life including a number of threatened species, and hold important clues to the origin, evolution and migration of flowering plants. The region also has many features of outstanding natural beauty, with waterfalls, deep gorges, fast flowing rivers and mountainous peaks. The Government believes that the wet tropical rainforests also qualify for the World Heritage List on cultural grounds. The only remaining recognised Australian Aboriginal rainforest culture is found in the wet tropics. The area has been recommended for World Heritage nomination by the Australian Heritage Commission and is included in the IUCN's list of the world's most outstanding natural areas. As long ago as November 1984 the General Assembly of IUCN called upon the Australian and Queensland governments to `overcome current difficulties' and nominate the wet tropical rainforests to the World Heritage List. The area has been acclaimed by internationally recognised scientists from all over the world. Against this background the Queensland Government has consistently refused to consider World Heritage nomination and has maintained that rainforest logging should continue. The Commonwealth Government had no option, therefore, but to nominate the area and ban rainforest logging. This course was essential to fulfil Australia's obligations under the World Heritage Convention. Even after the formal nomination by Australia, the Queensland Government has publicly stated that it will strongly resist changing its normal forestry management practices in north Queensland. While forestry operations in the north Queensland rainforests have presently ceased because of the onset of the wet season, under normal practice operations would resume in April of this year. In the Government's view such forestry operations would clearly damage or destroy the integrity of the nominated World Heritage area as a whole or particularly valuable features of it. The amended World Heritage Act will make it absolutely clear that the north Queensland rainforests are afforded interim protection under that Act pending a decision by the World Heritage Committee on whether to include them on the World Heritage List. The World Heritage Committee is the appropriate body to determine once and for all whether the north Queensland rainforests constitute natural heritage of outstanding universal value-for all the world. The Committee will make that determination at its next meeting in November 1988. It will do so with the advice of independent experts who will have inspected and assessed the area and who will have discussed the matter with both the Commonwealth and Queensland governments. Prior to that determination by the World Heritage Committee it is essential that the area be afforded protection under the Act. It would be ridiculous if the World Heritage Committee decided later this year to inscribe the north Queensland rainforests on the World Heritage List and Australia had allowed those same rainforests to be irreparably damaged during the year of nomination. If, in the unlikely event that the Committee agreed with the Queensland Government and refused to inscribe either all or part of the area on the World Heritage List, then under the proposed amendments protection under the Act would cease. I turn now to the Bill itself. As noted, the major consideration is the clarification and strengthening of the World Heritage Act. `Identified property', the property protected under the Act, is to be redefined to be more in line with the format of the Convention itself. Identified property would be property subject to any of the following: first, a Commonwealth inquiry to determine whether or not it is World Heritage; secondly, a World Heritage nomination by Australia; thirdly, World Heritage listing; or finally, if it is property which is World Heritage and which is declared by regulation to be identified property. In other words, the Act would follow the three stages of the World Heritage Convention: identification of property, nomination and listing. Interim protection would be afforded at each stage. This would cease, however, if the property ceased to be identified. The ultimate World Heritage test would be left to the appropriate and proper authority-the World Heritage Committee. The existing provision to identify property by regulation is to be retained, although in such cases protection will depend for its efficacy on the establishment, as a matter of fact, that an area is of outstanding universal value within the meaning of the Convention. Another provision to strengthen the Act is a ministerial power to appoint inspectors. Inspectors' powers will relate to obtaining information relevant to making a proclamation or regulations under the Act, or determining whether an unlawful act has been, is being or is likely to be committed. The circumstances in which inspectors may enter places to exercise their powers are restricted under the Act. Inspectors may enter land or buildings only if they obtain the consent of the person in charge or a judge's warrant, or if there is an urgency requirement. An inspector has no authority in any circumstances to enter a person's home or dwelling. It is not the Government's intention to take away or diminish the rights of private citizens. The proposed amendments also drastically simplify the procedure to be followed when the operation of the Act results in an acquisition of property within the meaning of paragraph 51 (xxxi) of the Constitution. There will be two stages only: negotiation on a reasonable amount of compensation; and, failing agreement, determination of the amount by the Federal Court of Australia. It is also proposed to repeal sections of the Act held invalid by the High Court in the Tasmanian dam case. These are paragraphs 9 (1) (a) to (g) and subsection 9 (2). Part III of the Bill relates to the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974. The Bill makes it clear that the Act does not apply, and is taken never to have applied, to action taken under the World Heritage Act or to any submission by Australia of a heritage property as suitable for inscription on the World Heritage List. Finally, in part IV of the Bill, the existing proclamation and regulations under the Act relating to the north Queensland rainforests are taken never to have had effect. It is the Government's intention to seek a new proclamation and regulations in identical terms to be promulgated pursuant to the amended legislation. These provisions, along with clause 5, are designed to place the protection of the north Queensland rainforests during 1988 on a more appropriate footing in the light of their nomination in December 1987 for inscription on the World Heritage List. The amended legislation would enable the rainforests to be protected on the basis that the World Heritage Committee is considering the nomination. The repeal of the proclamation and regulations will not weaken the protection of the rainforests. It is also not intended to affect any accrued rights that there might be. This Bill strengthens the protection afforded by the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act to follow more closely the format of the World Heritage Convention. It should also be seen as a measure of the Commonwealth Government's determination to protect World Heritage, particularly the wet tropical rainforests of north-east Australia. I present the explanatory memorandum and I commend the Bill to the House. Leave granted for debate to continue forthwith. Mr BRAITHWAITE(Dawson)(4.36) —It is ironic that probably the most important Bill to come into this House for a long time-the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill 1988, which contravenes many of the old principles that governments in this place have applied-is supported by the presence in this chamber of only two Government members. One would have thought that the Government's determination to bring this into law would have commanded the support of all its members. I can only suggest that those members who are not here would be too embarrassed to come in here to hear this Government bringing forward this matter at any time, let alone at this time. The Opposition generally is appalled by the legislation, and I think this was demonstrated during the debate in the Senate. Today we are being asked to finalise this Bill, which was introduced on only 25 February without any consultation with the States and after very little consultation with the people. I understand that the Bill is to be passed into law by 1 April. Mr White —Pure arrogance. Mr BRAITHWAITE —Pure arrogance. We are appalled, and there is anger and resentment within the electorate in Queensland and, I think, throughout the rest of Australia. I think I can comfortably say that all Tasmanian members would like to take part in this debate, and that Western Australian members are greatly concerned about this legislation. I know that all Queensland Liberal Party and National Party members would give their eye teeth to have an opportunity to debate this legislation. Mr Millar —The people made a comment on Saturday. Mr BRAITHWAITE —Yes, that comment was made on Saturday during the New South Wales election. It was made through the power of the ballot box. The people of New South Wales understood that they had been left right out of it by the Labor factions. The people demonstrated how they felt about environmental and other matters. We have only limited time to debate this legislation properly and to give all members on both sides an opportunity to let us know what their feelings are and tell us whether they have been to the area in question. Government members are embarrassed, as their absence from this chamber at the moment indicates. I describe this legislation as shotgun legislation, for this particular reason: the Government has embarked upon a course of stepping over the rights of States and individuals. In case the decisions it has had from the High Court of Australia do not subsequently stand up, this shotgun approach will pick up the people who might have missed out on the legal decisions made so far. Because it is shotgun legislation inspectors will be appointed. I say inspectors advisedly because they will be policemen for the Government. In the other House they were referred to as `Richardson's greenjackets'. I assume that was meant as a comparison with the jackets that were evident in Gestapo Germany. The inspectors will probably have the same powers as Gestapo officers. This is shotgun legislation because it will take away from the courts of this country the power to make decisions on what is an Australian matter. It is shotgun legislation because it will not provide any real power to ensure that the Commonwealth will probably compensate people for the losses they incur. It is shotgun legislation because now more than ever the Government will not have to consult with people, to return to the grass roots. Least of all will it have to consult with the constituent States. Mr White —It might after last Saturday. Mr BRAITHWAITE —I should think that Government members would be thinking very deeply on that. When reflecting about what happened at last Saturday's New South Wales State election some members of the Government might be having second thoughts on this. I regard this legislation as shotgun legislation because it picks up what the Government missed out on with its jack boots diplomacy. The Government is ignoring the rights of individuals and making political decisions to win votes rather than for the good of the people. This legislation was guillotined in the Senate so that we could debate it in this House at this late stage. As a result, I fear that the members of the conservative parties in this House, the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia, who would wish to participate fully in the debate will not be given that opportunity. I wish to remind honourable members of the words of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), who said in this House that he wished to make it clear to all Australians that there would not be any capital gains tax. We all know what happened about that. I meant to make it clear to the Government that the coalition opposes this legislation and we will fight it to the end in the time that has been made available. It is my opinion-and it is my opinion only-that when the coalition returns to office it will repeal this ghastly legislation. The legislation is unnecessary and offensive. As recently as 10 March the High Court of Australia delivered a decision in the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests issue in which it indicated clearly that the powers that are being sought in this legislation are already available to the Commonwealth. I ask why Senator Richardson and the Government persist with this legislation, which is considered by legal experts to be unnecessary. The reason that the Government thinks the legislation is necessary is that it wants to get the last drop out of this. It wants to grind the ordinary people of Australia, those who populate this country, who derive a living from it, and who are proud to be called Australians, into the dust-never to reappear. The Government wants to appoint an inspectorial service so that the demands from Canberra can be carried out in the backblocks of Australia. It seeks to adopt a scattergun approach to remove all the doubt and the opposition it has faced to this time. The Government will do all these things by invading people's privacy and rights. The Government may even contemplate the reintroduction of the ID card is connection. We need more Commonwealth inspectors like we need holes in our heads. I invite Government members to ask doctors and pharmacists in this country what they think of health inspectors. Health inspectors go about their policing duties in such a way that they believe people are guilty until they prove their innocence. I invite Government members to ask any doctor or pharmacist within their electorates and to tell us of their findings. In this regard I mention also the taxation inspectors that are going around this country. Not a week passes without a complaint being made by a taxpayer about the dictatorial powers of inspectors; of their telephoning taxpayers' premises at 8 o'clock in the morning, 8 o'clock at night, or indeed any time, bypassing the taxation agent and going direct to the individual without even giving him the courtesy of representation or a face to face confrontation. As I have said, we need such inspectors like we need holes in our heads. This Government is notorious for the manner in which it appoints inspectors to police this Commonwealth. We avoided the ID card only by the skin of our teeth. This legislation is offensive to me as an individual, and I believe it is offensive to every Australian who claims to have some pride as an Australian. The freedoms of our Constitution, which were established in 1901, are being interpreted in a manner that was never envisaged at that time. The legislation is offensive to the legal practices that we have followed in the past and the powers that have been conferred on the Commonwealth Government by the States in the original Constitution. It is offensive because the Government is going beyond the realms of possibility and righteousness. The legislation offends the basic rights of the States. I understand the honourable member for Leichhardt (Mr Gayler) will contribute to this debate. As a Queenslander I ask him where his feelings lie in this regard so far as his State, his electorate and this Government are concerned. It has always been the practice for States to have the right to nominate and receive support from the Commonwealth for whatever is done. I have always believed that all six States of the Commonwealth have always been responsible in the discharge of their powers. We all know that for many years this Government has been prepared to take away completely the rights of the Territories, without any opportunity to prepare submissions in defence of any action to legislate laws involving those Territories. The Kakadu National Park stage 2 declaration springs readily to mind. In that case there was no consultation. The Northern Territory had to fight in its own right before the world body. Mr Deputy Speaker, I make mention of the fact that on the Government side of the House a member is speaking with an adviser. That action is offensive to the rules of the House. There is a stranger in the House. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Mildren) —I ask the honourable member for Calare to resume his seat. Mr Gayler —Get on with it. Mr BRAITHWAITE —I am getting on with it. This is exactly the practice we have had in this Parliament for so many years-the normal forms are offended. What I have drawn attention to is just one small example, among many others, of matters that we are trying to correct at the moment. The honourable member for Leichhardt thinks this is a laughing matter. I suggest that after the next ballot he will not be laughing as he is at the moment. This legislation offends the basic rights of the States, just as this Government seeks to offend against everything. The legislation offends against cooperative federalism. I thought that this Government came in on the great notion of consensus. In this particular case there has been no consensus and no consultation, which has been usual in previous cases. Mr Punch —Oh! Mr BRAITHWAITE —The Minister for the Arts and Territories grunts and says, `Oh'. I have no doubt that correspondence is available that suggests that Queensland Premier Ahern was quite prepared to meet with the Government to discuss this matter, yet no consultation took place. Mr Punch —What about the past four years? Mr BRAITHWAITE —I am talking about an Act that will be introduced on 1 April. Mr Ahern has been the Premier of Queensland for four months and no consultation has taken place whatsoever. It seems strange that in that period the coalition has had no trouble whatsoever consulting with Premier Ahern. We have received a very good hearing. That type of consultative process is lacking in this matter. There is reliance on external powers and this extension of those powers, I believe, was not envisaged by our founding fathers in 1901. These powers have been used to the extreme-to enable the Government to use a jack boot approach in regard to the powers of the States. The legislation is offensive as it demonstrates the hard line on conservation attitudes for Federal and New South Wales election purposes that did not pay off. I suggest to those who think that this Government has any sort of mandate to implement conservation powers that they look at the results of Saturday's election in New South Wales. The legislation is offensive also because of the basic assumption that the Opposition parties should be embarrassed by their history on conservation. I deny that. If one examines the list of those areas that have been placed on the World Heritage List, one will see that many were so declared by successive conservative governments after consultation and agreement with the States involved. I take up the point of the power of the green vote in Australia. There has been one report on this subject by Dr Peter Coaldrake for the Queensland Chamber of Mines. In assessing the last Federal election he said that the claim by the conservationists that there was a massive response to their attitudes on conservation had been disproved. That is also supported by Morgan gallup poll research which indicates that at the very most environmental matters affected the result of the last election by one per cent. Perhaps that one per cent is very important to the honourable member for Leichhardt, because that is probably the percentage to which his majority was reduced in that last election. I think it is reasonable to refer to the Coaldrake report in this debate. On the basis of Dr Coaldrake's research it is reasonable to state that there is no conclusive evidence to support the contention made by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and some others that the environmental lobby was responsible for determining the results of the last election. While Senator Richardson continues to cultivate the environmental vote, that did not have the actual result that was contemplated. It must be said that Senator Richardson's position could be regarded as the basis of a personal political strategy as much as a party strategy. Mr Simmons —Why don't you like conservationists? Mr BRAITHWAITE —That is a very good point. The honourable member in his ignorance suggests that there is a hatred-this is the offence that we find in the Bill-by us of conservationists. Every Australian today has a greater awareness of conservation issues than we had 30 years ago. Our Party platform, our Party strategy, is based on that concern. One of the members who will follow me in this debate, the honourable member for Mallee (Mr Peter Fisher), has had a greater interest in the environment and in these matters than the honourable member for Leichhardt or any of the other Labor members who are present at the moment have indicated during their political lifetime. The involvement of the Australian Labor Party in environmental matters is as slim as its numbers present in the House at the moment. Mr Peter Fisher —We include people in our policy. Mr BRAITHWAITE —That is right. That is a very important difference. We include people in our environmental policy. To suggest, as did the Labor Party member who, in his ignorance, interjected, that we have no environmental concerns, that we hate environmentalists, is to overlook completely that in the heart and mind of every conservative on this side of the House is a fundamental concern for conservation and the future of Australia. I think that that matter should be placed on the record. The other result of the Coaldrake report that is also worth mentioning is that a survey of the membership of the Australian Conservation Foundation revealed that 2 per cent of ACF members were blue-collar workers. One might call them the true Labor voters. Three per cent of members were tradesmen. One could say that half of that number were Labor voters and half were conservative voters. Less than 5 per cent of members were in managerial positions-maybe we are the ones who might confess to having the vote of those in managerial positions-and 76 per cent were academic or professional people. That is where the strength of the greenie vote comes from-the universities and such places around Australia-and that is where most of the comments have been made in recent times. If the Government wants to know of the power of the green vote, I suggest to all honourable members from New South Wales-they would be quite knowledgeable on this fact by now; it is four or five days since the State election-that they ask anyone about the power of the green vote in the State election. They will find exactly where that power lies. There was the most stunning rebuff to right wing Labor politics yet experienced in State politics in this nation. That shows exactly what the power of the green vote would be. During that election Labor had to come clean with the fact that in the last Federal election it received donations from certain lobbies in connection with environmental issues-donations that were not revealed in the course of that election. When Labor members talk about hard line conservation matters, I suggest that they look very hard at their own platform, their own performance, and the donations they have received. There is a glimmer of hope in this matter because some members are questioning the Government's policy. The Sydney Morning Herald of 17 February reported that the honourable member for Eden-Monaro (Mr Snow) had moved that the Caucus executive and relevant political committees take-and I quote: . . . full account of the recommendations of the Forestry and Land Resources section of the Department of Primary Industry, when considering National Park and World Heritage Listings. The article continued: The Minister for Primary Industries, Mr Kerin, said there was a need for a `constructive' approach to the environment, particularly in the south-east. The honourable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Campbell) also expressed similar reservations. According to the Sydney Morning Herald of 22 March, the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) said that an advisory body would be set up to ensure that new proposals would not lock up natural resources from development. He also said that weight should be given to economics against other environmental matters. He said that the theory that conservation issues can be dealt with on the basis of deals for the delivery of votes had to be very carefully looked at. This legislation is all about policies for the delivery of votes. That is all it involves. The only opposition to those reports apparently was from Senator Richardson. We all know that this environmental matter was the subject of research by Rod Cameron, who picked up matters, and Senator Richardson ran with them. Kakadu was one such matter. The Prime Minister visited the area, then we had this sudden rush to declare the rainforest. What is the cost of this legislation? I understand that $300,000 was spent by the Minister, Senator Richardson, to get certain studies done. Apparently these have not been tabled. One can only judge that they have not been tabled for a very obvious reason, that is, because there are conflicting results. Senator Richardson steps away from these studies and that expense, picks up some research of the Queensland organisation, the Northern Rainforest Management Agency, and deliberately misrepresents and misinterprets the findings of that report. That is one cost. But there is also a cost to industry-to forestry, primary industry and small business. More importantly, there is also a cost to the individuals-the farmers whose land values will be degraded. We had the opportunity to visit Ravenshoe. There is the threat of massive devaluation of houses in that area. People in businesses and hobby farmers are also affected. Somebody who was selling tourist-type goods made from wood suggested that they would be the last he would be able to make because of the threat of the environmental policy-the World Heritage listing-to his business. Various figures have been put on the additional cost of the new Parliament House. What Australians feel about that is a matter of individual interpretation. We have had figures from the Minister ranging from $500,000 to $900,000 as being the additional cost of recontracting for timbers used in furniture because timber from the rainforests of north Queensland is now banned from that construction. I suggest that the figure is higher than that. Industry sources put that figure between $10m and $15m because of the additional cost in administration. Clerks will have to sweat over their books and vouchers and invoices, saying, `This is good timber, that is bad timber, we can have this, we can't have that', and all because of a date on a form. There is also the loss of hope, not only of people in the immediate vicinity but elsewhere, their loss of pride in being Australians and their loss of faith about what is going on in this country. Mr White —Strung up by their thumbs by the inspectors. Mr BRAITHWAITE —The honourable member is entirely right. They will be the ones wearing the jackboots, making sure that the legislation is enforced. I refer to Kakadu National Park and particularly the listing of stage 2. I would imagine that what Minister Kerin was saying the other day applies particularly to Kakadu National Park. The boundaries of stage 2 were not related to any environmental survey or boundaries that were already drawn. The boundaries were declared on the basis of old cattle properties and leases. I have been through there, as have a lot of my colleagues. We were up there about two years ago as a party. There is no doubt that Kakadu has some of the loveliest country in Australia. Katherine Gorge is part of it. The escarpments and the wetlands are absolutely beautiful. I suggest that the land in respect of which miners are now seeking approval to mine is no better or no worse than some of the land in the coal mining areas of my electorate. One could go over that land and not see anything unique or attractive about it, but it does hide some of the most valuable coal resources in the world. Because this land in Kakadu hides some of the most valuable uranium and mineral resources, the mining companies are being held to ransom, and so is Australia's economy, by the manner in which certain people approach national park declarations. I repeat that this Bill represents a political experiment to gain votes. That conclusion was drawn not only by me. It is unnecessary and represents a waste of effort and time of this Parliament; it is a waste of resources, which Minister Kerin has referred to; it is economic vandalism as far as we are concerned; but, worse than anything else, it indicates a complete contempt for people from a government that, within the last four months, has lost Minister John Brown, seen the retirement of Senator Ryan and has also seen Mick Young go to greener and higher pastures. But, more importantly, the Government has lost not only those Ministers, because of various matters, but also touch with the people. That is basically what the people in New South Wales were saying about it recently. The coalition's attitude on World Heritage listing is as follows: we would consult with the States; we would not override the States; in fact, we would consult with the Territories on anything they would want to put up on Territory matters. We would probably go further with the Territories and try to hand over to them the residual powers that have been denied for so long on matters which mean so much. We would consult with the States. As I said, Premier Ahern was quite prepared to consult with us. We would give support only if the States made a submission on and agreed to the World Heritage listing. Our record shows that we did consult with regard to the Great Barrier Reef. I think that was a good example of consultation. We do have a proposal where, in conjunction with the States, we would encourage a greater Daintree National Park, with proper boundaries drawn, and not the ad hoc boundaries that have presently been drawn. We would consult with all the bodies, such as the National Farmers Federation, the mining industry, other industries and the people who are concerned about the ramifications of this Bill and what it will do. Mr Simmons —Why don't you move their amendments? Mr BRAITHWAITE —We do not move their amendments because we are so offended by this Bill that we will oppose it totally. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Mildren) —Order! The honourable member for Dawson will ignore the interjections. I ask members on my right to allow the honourable member to proceed with his speech uninterrupted. Mr BRAITHWAITE —Our proposition would be consultation, not confrontation which has been the method of this Government. We would agree to sensible multiple use plans and management plans. Senator Puplick has visited the Daintree rainforest many times. The Leader of the National Party, the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair), has been up there at least twice. The Leader of the Opposition, the honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard), has been up there at least once. I know that Queenslander members of the Federal Parliament and other members of the Parliament have been there to make sure that they know what they are talking about. We are very impressed with the management plans of the Queensland Forestry Division. It has embarked upon a system of management and selective logging. It does not log near the streams or on the banks. It has embarked on every good environment practice that has been known. I suggest that it is in front of the Commonwealth in terms of its experience. This Bill is about nominating World Heritage areas. The Minister read into Hansard exactly what was going to happen. Page 2 of the second reading speech indicates the areas that are to be nominated. It is nearly all land owned by the Queensland Government-State forests or leasehold and vacant land in Queensland-but there is some federally owned land and also some in private ownership. Page 3 refers to responsible administration. Page 6 mentions the agent responsible for preservation and conservation. In no way does the Government really get to the meaning or the purpose of the submission by indicating that Queensland is responsible for the administration. Nowhere is it mentioned that this Government does not have the support of the Queensland Government in this submission. By that admission alone, the submission is fraught with fault. Quite apart from the Bill being about the matters that I have already mentioned, such as inspectors, who determine certain things and what the interpretation of the Bill is, it also determines that the States and the Australian courts will not list the World Heritage areas in the future; that the Australian judges are not capable of making a meaningful judgment of the areas suitable for World Heritage listing; that it will be put in the hands of an external body. I think Kakadu National Park is a great example of that. The World Heritage people did not make an inspection of stage 1 or stage 2 of the Kakadu National Park. In fact, they were quite embarrassed that they were not asked to make an inspection of stage 2. We completely oppose the legislation. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr GAYLER(Leichhardt)(5.06) —Never in the years that I have been in this place have I heard such a savage attack on a piece of legislation and on the Government. The legislators would be vibrating with fear, having heard what the previous speaker, the honourable member for Dawson (Mr Braithwaite), said. Not only have there been attacks on the legislation and the Government but the university students got a guernsey as well. All I can suggest to the previous speaker is that if he wants to close down the universities because there are too many greenie votes in them for the Australian Labor Party he should get out there onto the campuses and say so. In fact, I am so impressed by his speech that I am going to get a lot of copies of it and distribute it in my electorate. The honourable member has talked a lot of nonsense and has been wrong many times. I have never come across the likes of it before in my parliamentary experience. Let us get back to something which is relevant to the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill and which we have not heard in this debate. The Bill relates to two pieces of existing legislation-that is, the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983 and the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974. The latter Act is only brought into this debate in the sense that the legislation that we are now debating will not apply to the existing legislation. I mention that just to clarify the position. The Bill makes provision for amendments to Commonwealth Government conservation legislation to clarify-this is the important part-and strengthen the protection afforded under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983-the World Heritage Act. The Bill amends the definition of identified property which is protected by the World Heritage Act to follow more closely the format of the convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage. Protection against damage or destruction is extended to property which the Commonwealth Government believes may be of World Heritage value and which is subject to an inquiry to determine World Heritage status. The Bill also makes provision for some other amendments to the World Heritage Act to rectify-once again it is a rectification-problems that have arisen in its operation since its enactment in 1983. These include the provision of a ministerial power to appoint inspectors under the Act for the purpose of obtaining information concerning the making of proclamations and regulations or of determining possible breaches of the Act. Additionally, it is proposed that the section of the Act held invalid by the High Court of Australia in the Tasmanian dam case be repealed. So there is a repealing of that section which the High Court has already held is invalid. The provisions in the Act regarding compensation are also to be simplified. The Bill makes it clear that the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 does not apply, as I have said, to action taken under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act or to any submission by Australia of a heritage property as suitable for inscription on the World Heritage List. Before examining the provisions of the Bill in detail, let me first explain what it is that makes World Heritage so important and, secondly, discuss the circumstances which make these proposed amendments imperative. The World Heritage Convention is the most important international expression of the need to protect and conserve the natural and cultural heritage for the benefit of the whole world. This Convention was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation General Conference in its seventeenth session in November 1972. It came into force on 7 December 1975. As the Minister for the Arts and Territories (Mr Punch) said, the Convention promotes cooperation among nations to protect areas and buildings which are of such outstanding universal value that their conservation is of concern to humanity generally. Parties to the Convention commit themselves to help in the identification, protection, conservation and presentation of World Heritage properties. In addition, the Convention provides an objective system for identifying those natural and cultural heritage properties within the member countries which are of outstanding universal value for all the world. The Convention also establishes a list of such properties, known as the World Heritage List. The Convention is intended to ensure that, unlike most of the seven wonders of the ancient world, properties on the World Heritage List will be preserved for all time. It is important to point out, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the amendments do not remove the rights of the Queensland Government, or any individual, to challenge the legislation or a nomination in the Australian courts. It is not constitutionally possible for the Commonwealth to exclude the High Court from pronouncing on the constitutional validity of its laws. Consistent with the High Court judgment of 10 March, the Commonwealth is guaranteeing interim protection under the Act to areas which are the subject of either nomination or a duly constituted Federal inquiry, or to any area identified by regulation where World Heritage values will then have to be proven. The High Court found that the Commonwealth had the constitutional right and the international obligation to identify areas containing World Heritage values and to guarantee interim protection under the Act while these values were being assessed. It is interesting to note that the honourable member for Dawson said that there was no necessity for putting this into legislation. Of course, he would prefer to turn a blind eye to the incursions by timber cutters into that particular area of the north-east Australian tropical rainforests after the pronouncement of the boundaries of that area. Those are the sorts of breaches of the legislation which must be carefully guarded against, especially when one comes from a State such as Queensland. It took several media announcements by me and protestations to the Department and the Queensland Government before anything was done to investigate the incursions by timber cutters, not only into a World Heritage area but into a Queensland national park. Those responsible for the incursions are now being prosecuted by the Queensland Government. The new, sounder basis for interim protection which the Bill provides, and the protection measures themselves, will be as open to legal challenge by Queensland as the old Act and measures. No powers of challenge to the High Court are eroded by this legislation. The north Queensland logging season is due to recommence on 1 April. I ask the coalition parties whether they are trying to delay this legislation because they do not care about tropical rainforests. Would they prefer to hear the roar of chainsaws begin again on 1 April, destroying-probably irrevocably-rainforests which are of universal standard? Where is the commitment to saving an area which the Liberals know should be on the World Heritage List? I say that the Liberals know that because Senator Puplick has made that very statement. In August last year he issued a Press release in which he said: The Queensland Wet Tropical Rainforests are worthy of inclusion on the World Heritage List. He went on to say: They are unique; they are of international significance; they contain one of the greatest and scientifically most significant concentrations of unique flora and fauna in the world. Australia is the only industrialised country with remaining tropical rainforests and we have a responsibility to protect them. Mr Simmons —Is he still saying that? Mr GAYLER —Of course he is saying it. The only people who are saying there should not be World Heritage listing are his cronies in the National Party, not only in Queensland but unfortunately also in Canberra. For three years Queensland effectively vetoed the nomination of the State's rainforests to the World Heritage List. Anyone suggesting there should be consultation and not confrontation either does not know what he is talking about or is unaware of the facts about the period during which consultations were held. The irresponsible, inane, and at times insensible attitude of the former Premier of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen-notwithstanding he was a little senile at the time-was, `How could there be any consultation?'. As far as he was concerned, he wanted confrontation. It was for that very reason that he told the people of north Queensland that they were at war and should take on the Federal Government. He whipped up hatred and fear in the minds of the people of north Queensland, to the extent that they saw fit to physically attack the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories (Senator Richardson) when he visited the area. There can be no consultation while one has a government such as the Queensland National Party Government with its attitude to conservation and many other issues relating to public conduct. The Opposition believes Australia has a responsibility to protect rainforests but is not prepared to do anything about it. In Queensland we have seen procrastination, prevarication and corruption as the hallmarks of national park management and acquisition, despite the richest diversity of any Australian environment and hundreds of well-researched park proposals-many of them, unfortunately, more than a decade old. One of Premier Ahern's problems has been the poor advice his Government has received on the significance of the north Queensland rainforests and the future of the timber industry. Five years ago many people thought that saving tropical rainforests meant stopping a road at Cape Tribulation. We all remember the ridiculous statements made by the now Queensland Minister for Mines and Energy, Mr Tenni. He thought that, if one stopped the road at Cape Tribulation, one would stop World Heritage listing. He is on the record as having said that. The Australian Heritage Commission report, written by Dr Aila Keto and published in September 1984, shattered that illusion by identifying values which placed the rainforest region between Townsville and Cooktown alongside the top ten World Heritage sites in the world. Despite this evidence, the Queensland Government has persistently-and some would quite rightly say wilfully-argued that there is no scientific base to the World Heritage nomination. Only last week in the Queensland Parliament, the Minister for the Environment, Conservation and Tourism, Mr Geoff Muntz-another extremely intelligent Minister from the Queensland Administration!-denigrated Dr Keto, who in February won the 1988 BHP Environment Award for excellence. Mr Simmons —Did he apologise? Mr GAYLER —He would not know how to. Yet late last month the Queensland Government's key adviser on rainforests, Dr Ross Hynes, admitted to his few dozen listeners at a public meeting in Innisfail that, apart from some minor errors with the maps and the species listed, Dr Keto's report had established beyond doubt the World Heritage values of the region. The most recent embarrassing advice which the Queensland Government has chosen to distance itself from has come from the scientific subcommittee of the Northern Rainforest Management Agency (NORMA), chaired by Dr Hynes. The work of that committee is very welcome because, despite the hopes of its political masters, it has confirmed heritage values which the Commonwealth is committed to protecting. Despite quite crude back-flips by Environment Minister Muntz, trying to downplay the significance of the report, it was not the work of one scientist, but rather the synthesis of input from about 14 scientists who have acknowledged expertise relating to rainforests. We should and will choose to ignore, for the moment, the important work of about another 10 scientists who were approached but either could not or would not participate in what was seen as a politically compromised piece of science. Mr Muntz's ranting about the report being `preliminary stolen', when it was publicly available in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation library, and about it containing computer errors has shattered whatever claims NORMA and its scientific committee ever had to political independence. In February this year, the north Queensland Press carried advertisements for public meetings in Malanda and Innisfail where the public was advised to `come to hear the latest report on the vital work of NORMA's scientific committee opposed to World Heritage Listing of our rainforest'. This advertisement angered many of the scientists on the committee, who were wholly in favour of World Heritage. The committee demanded a public retraction and never got one. The mistake was explained away as a `clerical error'. Rather, it seems yet again that this political interference stems from the top. The advertisement was the work of a Mr Ken Crook-quite aptly named, I might say-Press secretary to former Premier, Sir Joh. Mr Crook has just taken up a position as Director of the National Party in Queensland. There has been much loose and ill-informed talk about the impact of this legislation from various interest groups. The Australian Mining Industry Council (AMIC) put out a Press release on 6 March claiming that the `rush to list endangers Australia's sovereignty and erodes the civil liberties of citizens'. This concern for civil liberties is very touching, but obviously AMIC was more concerned about access to resources. The reality is that, apart from national parks in some States, the mining industry has access to most lands, including freehold and leasehold properties. In Queensland, as I have pointed out, only 2 per cent of the State is national park. In Tasmania it is 13.4 per cent. Most of the rest of these States is already open to the miners. In north Queensland, Senator Graham Richardson, the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, has stated on several occasions that mining operations are not prohibited provided they do not involve clearance of rainforest areas or other threats to World Heritage values. Twice the Government has been approached with specific mining proposals in north Queensland. Twice the Government has given the go-ahead. In this week's Press, AMIC Director, Lachlan McIntosh, claimed `consultation has been negligible' and that no management plan had been produced. Mr McIntosh failed to mention that AMIC's cooperation has been sought in the development of management plans involving an appropriate mining regime for the area. AMIC's and the Queensland Government's concern for civil liberties and the rights of landholders is perhaps best characterised by a recent State Government proposal-albeit unsuccessful-to amend the State mining Act to allow holders of authorities to prospect to enter private land at any time, without notice, without the owner's permission, and without consulting the owner as to the works program. The Government's and, by implication, the mining industry's justification for this was the stated aim of the Government's Green Paper: `determination of the most appropriate land use at any given time should rest with the Government and not with the party owning or controlling the land in question'. So much for the police state! The comments of my colleague the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) yesterday about the campaign by the National Farmers Federation (NFF) are also worthy of note. The Minister said that the Federation was `whipping up the issue'. He pointed out that there were only a handful of freehold properties in World Heritage areas-about 20 in north Queensland and eight in South West Tasmania-and that there is no way this Government is going to debase the currency of World Heritage by listing every bit of untouched bushland or threatened forest. The NFF is concerned about the lack of legislated definition of procedures for consultation, compensation and management. All nominations are discussed with State governments, as they will be in this case. The Premier, Mr Ahern, mentioned only this week that he is now prepared to consult. Consultation, especially in the case of north Queensland, has been extensive and exhaustive over a period of years. Neither the NFF nor the AMIC has been able to produce one example-I challenge them to do so-of a property owner who has been disadvantaged unduly by Heritage listing. In fact, in Cairns a salesman for one of the major real estate companies in north Queensland said that he thought that World Heritage was the best thing that could have happened to property values in the area. Management arrangements are the responsibility of the Australian Government, not the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. Suitable management arrangements have been put in place for all Australian World Heritage areas. The decision to list the north-east Australian tropical rainforests on the World Heritage List will be seen in years to come as one of the great decisions of the Hawke Labor Government. Mr SMITH(Bass)(5.26) —I say to the honourable member for Leichhardt (Mr Gayler) that quite the contrary is the case: the decision to go ahead with the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill 1988 will be the very cause of the Government's demise. One would have thought that the Government, after seeing the State election results in New South Wales, would have learnt something. What do we read in the newspaper this morning? We read that the architect of this legislation, the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Senator Richardson, is now so arrogant he is telling the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) that he is not doing a good job. I agree with him, but is it not fanciful to see a Minister, only just into the Cabinet, now possessed of all integrity and wisdom, telling the Prime Minister in the national Press to lift his game? Dr Klugman —You got us all the environmental votes. Mr SMITH —I was going to refer to the speech made by the honourable member for Prospect in the adjournment debate last night. Perhaps he ought to send it to the honourable member for Leichhardt to read carefully. He can read about how the environment vote is not worth the chase. I see that the honourable member for Leichhardt is about to leave the chamber. He should stay in his seat and listen. I could not understand what he was saying. It was the rambling exercise we have become used to hearing from him. The Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill 1988 is totally opposed by the Opposition, as the honourable member for Dawson (Mr Braithwaite) so rightly pointed out. During the debate many speakers from the Opposition side will set out clearly the very important issues the Government has chosen to ignore. This Bill is the handiwork of Senator Richardson, the new Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories. It began in the Senate several days ago where it was debated for quite some time. There have been many speakers on it. Interestingly, the debate was guillotined earlier today to make sure that it got down to this place so that it could become law. It is being rushed through in the hope that people will not have the opportunity to look clearly and closely at some of its provisions. I wish to point them out this afternoon. In its broadest sense, this Bill is an admission of the Minister's failure to make the federal system work and his inability to deal with the constituent States of our federation in proper consultative fashion-and this from the Party that told us it was going to make consensus and consultation an art form. What we are witnessing is a mockery of the federal compact. What does the Bill do? It amends two interesting Acts of this Parliament: the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act of 1983 and the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act of 1974. The primary purpose of the Bill is to provide legislative backing for interim protection of the north-east Queensland rainforest and to deem that the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 does not apply to World Heritage land since the commencement of the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983. In a word, it is retrospective legislation. The method by which Senator Richardson has gone about this can best be described as jackbooted, a resort to bully boy tactics which Senator Puplick, who led the debate in the Senate for the Opposition, so aptly described as `reminiscent of what goes on at the Enmore branch of the Australian Labor Party'. The Minister for the Arts and Territories (Mr Punch), who is at the table, would be well aware of that reference, I am sure, coming as he does from Sydney and being a member of the Sussex Street team, no doubt. He is smiling, anyway. There are objections to this legislation. I am sure that the Minister at the table knows of them. They have been flooding into my office and to the offices of many other Opposition members. I am sure that honourable members on the other side of the House have been receiving similar objections. Concerns have been expressed by the National Farmers Federation, by the Australian Mining Industry Council, by an organisation in my own State, the Tasmanian Chamber of Mines, by the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties-from which I will quote at length later-by the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association and by many other organisations. The honourable member for Dawson (Mr Braithwaite) in his speech referred to some of the concerns expressed by those people. This Bill seeks a significant extension of the Commonwealth's power to areas which are, or are potentially, being considered for listing on the World Heritage List. Clause 3 of the Bill redefines the term `identified property' to include property which is subject to an inquiry established by a law of the Commonwealth whose purpose is to consider whether the property forms part of the cultural heritage or natural heritage of Australia. This whole amendment now really has a negative effect, given the decision of the High Court of Australia on 10 March in the Lemonthyme case. The editorial in the Australian the day after the decision encapsulates in fairly succinct terms, as editorial writers are wont to do, the significance of that decision. I quote from that editorial: The decision strengthens the Commonwealth's legislative powers through its constitutional power to make laws about External Affairs, while further whittling away the power of the States and the people. It goes on further to say: . . . by upholding the Commonwealth's powers to protect the Lemonthyme and Southern forests area of Tasmania on Thursday, the High Court gave the Commonwealth power to protect areas it was merely thinking about having declared, at some later time, as part of the World Heritage. It goes on to say: By using this latest decision, the Federal Government could declare its interest in nominating an area for World Heritage listing and immediately gain total control over the area-ignoring the sovereign rights of the State government and the people-and then take no immediate action other than implementing a study or inquiry. But of more concern than the environmental issue is the increasing concentration of power in the hands of the Federal Government. The important point is that the High Court has said that the power which the Government claims it needs to put into legislation is a power which it already has. Why then proceed? Why was the Bill guillotined and rushed here to be put through tonight before we rise before Easter? Why is there such a rush? Use of this external affairs power to protect areas of forest came to the fore with the Tasmanian dams case. As a Tasmanian, of course I followed that case with extreme interest. The power was used to implement the World Heritage convention. The decision of the High Court in the Lemonthyme case on 10 March dealt with the validity of the Helsham Committee of Inquiry into the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests. When the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests (Commission of Inquiry) Bill was brought to this place, it was vigorously opposed by all of us on this side of the House. It in effect overturned a memorandum of understanding between Tasmanian and the Commonwealth and has put in jeopardy a $1 billion downstream value adding pulp mill in Tasmania. Representatives have been to the Prime Minister. They have explained to him: `We want to go ahead with this very large project which will be an economic boon to Tasmania. Tasmanians want it. Yet you have set up this inquiry. We need to know the situation so that we can make a decision'. The honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr), who is in the chamber today, earlier in the week asked the Prime Minister a question without notice at Question Time. He asked: `Are you going to follow the findings of this independent inquiry that you set up?'. The Prime Minister would not give an answer. He was very non-committal. All he would say was, `We will have a look at it'. And why? Because the Helsham Inquiry, as we have been watching it, is starting to see the validity of the arguments that the Tasmanian Government has been putting to it: that logging, done sensibly with environmental concerns, following the most stringent management plans of anywhere in Australia-no one in this place, regardless of where he sits, can deny that fact-perhaps ought to be going ahead. By holding this inquiry we have taken out a section of time. We have stopped the industry in its tracks. Now we may find that a world leading pulp mill will be denied to Tasmania. That inquiry was a sop to extremist environmentalists. It has achieved nothing. It has cost thousands and thousands, both directly and indirectly, all because we have an environment Minister who is said to be born again. It is a piece of environmental cynicism. The results in the New South Wales election were worse than those in 1975. Honourable members opposite cannot ignore this fact. At 25 minutes to six o'clock, all the people driving home in their cars all over Australia listening to the Parliament of Australia, ought to know that the New South Wales election saw the worst result for the Australian Labor Party since 1975. If that does not send a signal to the rest of Australia I do not know what will. But why is it that the people on the other side will not listen? Why go ahead with this piece of legislation? It has not done them any good at all. When Mr Unsworth said, `I have to resign for the good of the Party', poor old battling Barrie, he said one of the reasons-- Mr Snowdon —What does Barrie Unsworth have to do with the Queensland rainforests? Mr SMITH —We are going to talk about Kakadu so the honourable member can interrupt now if he wants to. He will get his chance. We will do him over later on. What Barrie Unsworth said was that one of the points-- Mr Simmons —I raise a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am intrigued as to the relevance of the honourable member's comments to the Bill that is before the House. I fail to see the relevance of his comments about the former Premier of New South Wales to this conservation Bill. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) —There is a certain amount of substance to the point of order but there were a lot of interjections. I ask the honourable member for Bass to return to the Bill. Mr SMITH —Mr Deputy Speaker, of course I was encouraged by those interjections to respond in kind but I will try to concern myself with the elements of the Bill because they provide the opportunity to refer to a story of monumental significance, the politics of which I am sure does not escape those who try to interject and to interrupt the flow of my speech. I was saying that in the Lemonthyme case the High Court voted in favour of the entire legislation. While two justices dissented, this was due to a lack of sufficient evidence to establish necessary facts and there was no disagreement with the general principles relied on by the majority. I quote the judgment of Mason, CJ, and Brennan, J: The taking of action by way of interim protection pursuant to the external affairs power, for example, by the enactment of legislation prohibiting the destruction of, or damage to, particular property, pending a determination of its status as a property to be nominated for inclusion in the World Heritage List may be supported as action which can reasonably be considered appropriate and adapted to the attainment of the object of the Convention, namely the protection of the heritage. So there we have it: the High Court gave it all away to the Commonwealth. We on this side of the House view that with some alarm. The legislation represents an undesirable and unnecessary escalation of the confrontationist approach of Senator Richardson. The hope of a return to any consultation and cooperation between the Commonwealth and States on a whole range of these issues is now lost by the stupidity of pursuing this legislation. Indeed, Mr McIntosh of the Australian Mining Industry Council points out graphically the undermining of investor confidence of this legislation. I quote from a letter I am sure all other members have received. Remember that the mining industry is the industry that provides Australia with its greatest wealth. Mr McIntosh said: More than 23 per cent of Australia is difficult to access or completely closed to exploration and mining, and a further 20 per cent has been nominated by various groups for closure. The result would be to strangle the industry which earns more than 40 per cent of this nation's foreign earnings, and return Australia to the living standards of the 1800s. He also said: The Australian Mining Industry Council strongly supports the National Conservation Strategy. The industry is at the forefront of environmental management and conservation technology. We are not dealing with an industry that is not sensitive to the environment; it is. Do Government members understand what is being said to them? They are putting in jeopardy major developments in this country by pursuing this piece of legislation. Senator Watson also sought details from Senator Richardson in the Senate about the two interdepartmental committee inquiries on land use and forestry that are being set up. He could not get very much information out of him but it is interesting that those committees have been set up. The material that he provided states: One of the aims of the review is to improve existing arrangements and develop new principles and criteria to apply to Commonwealth land use decisions, taking into account the principles of sustainable development embodied in the national conservation strategy for Australia. That is sensible. But who was it the other day who said, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, that we ought to be looking at these matters more carefully, given the New South Wales election result, and perhaps we ought to be looking at cost-benefit analyses before we go ahead and lock up natural resources from development? Mr Braithwaite —That was not Mr Kerin, was it? Mr SMITH —It was indeed the honourable member for Werriwa. He is the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy. We know, as do members on the other side of the House, that he stood up at the Caucus meeting and put his view. Senator Richardson, the born-again greenie, stood up and put his view. Now the Government is not sure where to go. If Senator Richardson can get away with telling the Prime Minister on the front page of the Australian that he is not doing a good enough job, he has all Labor members bluffed, has he not? What did Mr Kerin say? What he had to say was reasonably sensible. The Australian reports Mr Kerin as saying: The theory that conservation issues can be dealt with on the basis of deals for the delivery of votes is wrong. This approach denigrates the dedication of the conservation movement and distorts the balanced way responsible Cabinet government should deal with conservation issues. He went on further to say that there should be a scientific basis to making decisions. I could not agree more. Why will the Government not follow that? Why chase the votes? The major item in this legislation to which we object most strongly is the matter of the inspectors. Those who are lawyers on the other side of the House surely have looked at the legislation. They have been described as Richardson's greenshirts by some honourable senators in the other place because they will be appointed by Senator Richardson and they have amazing powers. These inspectors may do just about anything. They may enter and search premises, they may take photographs, they may inspect, measure, and so on. They should do so with the consent of the property owner. But the let-out clause says: . . . circumstances that are of such seriousness and urgency as to require and justify immediate entry without the consent of the person in charge or the authority of a warrant issued. Notwithstanding Senator Richardson's assurances that it is not his intention to take away citizens' rights, the proposed provisions are of exceptional width. In the definition of `eligible purpose' a reference to unlawful acts `likely to be done' gives extraordinary scope to the powers of the inspectors. The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties wrote to me-I have the letter here-stating: . . . it is exceedingly important that such a major extension of powers of the state into a new area be subject to the strictest safeguards to prevent misuse of such powers. The Council made several suggestions. I am sure that honourable members have received the same letter. They say that the inspectors ought to have tape recorders to ensure that evidence is obtained properly so that it can be legitimately admissible in court. They also say that the warrant issuing process needs changing to avoid a misuse of powers. They also say that the penalties for obstruction of inspectors seem to be excessive in the circumstances. The Bill provides for a penalty of $1,000 or 12 months imprisonment for any obstruction to an inspector appointed by the Minister, Senator Richardson. They say that there is a need for any inspectors to be properly trained as to citizens' rights. At present, such inspectors will be appointed by the Minister. The Tasmanian Council for Civil Liberties has been in touch with the Minister. Who is the Chairman of the Tasmanian Council for Civil Liberties? It is John White, Labor shadow Minister for the arts in Tasmania. He is the man who had the courage to stand up against the Australia Card Bill. Why do honourable members opposite not listen to these people? It is not the member for Bass expressing these concerns; it is people who are sympathetic to the Government's cause who are expressing them. Some honourable members opposite are lawyers. Why do they not listen? Are they going to respond to those concerns in the debate? Where are their amendments at least to meet those concerns? They are not here. They are just letting the legislation go straight through without any consideration at all. This legislation is disastrous, it is arrogant, and it smacks all over of Senator Richardson. The whole process of World Heritage listing is under scrutiny. An interesting piece of paper came my way this afternoon. It is a telex from the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Mr Mott, and it is a report he sent to Senator Richardson. It discloses that when the representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Mr Thorsell, came to Australia he was not taken to Kakadu. We might have an opportunity for this telex to be distributed widely. It shows that the Ambassador was very embarrassed about going back. What has happened, of course, is that the listing has been made on the basis that it was inspected by Mr Thorsell, and it was not. So how will the Minister explain that? The whole question of World Heritage listing is under scrutiny. Another interesting document came my way earlier this week. It is a summary by Dr Croft, the Secretary to the Department of Law in the Northern Territory who attended the eleventh session in Geneva of the World Heritage Committee on assessment procedures. I would like to read this into the Hansard so that the people of Australia can see what are our concerns about this process, this lack of definition, this lack of commitment to basing decisions about World Heritage listing on true scientific evidence. That is the point. We are not saying that World Heritage listing is all bad; we are saying that the processes by which it is being put into place ought to be subject to more scrutiny. The document reads: After sitting through the Eleventh Session Croft and Thomas gained the impression that the whole process lacked rigour of any kind. While the technical delegates regard World Heritage listing as very important and scientific the predominating the diplomatic influence views it more as a means of raising general environmental consciousness world-wide. It can be seen in some ways as a boutique tourist label more or less available on request to member countries. The disparity of views of the varying factions of the committee and the weak assessments provided by IUCN at this Eleventh Session raise the very real issue as to whether any World Heritage nomination has ever been scientifically evaluated against the stringent requirements of the Convention. It is more than probable that there are properties around the world inscribed on the list that fall short of these requirements. It took the active lobbying of the Northern Territory Government in 1987 to even stir the Committee into critically evaluating the Kakadu nomination. As far as extensions are concerned it would appear that experience to date has seen such areas gain inscription without having to satisfy the same criteria as would be applied to new nominations. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr SNOWDON(Northern Territory)(5.46) —That was a very entertaining performance by the honourable member for Bass (Mr Smith) but way off the mark as usual. I will be addressing some of the remarks made by the honourable member for Dawson (Mr Braithwaite). Mr Duncan —You will be burying them. Mr SNOWDON —Perhaps the honourable member for Bass, who is leaving the chamber, would like to stay and listen. He might learn something about the Northern Territory Government and the way in which it has behaved in international forums, the way in which it has misrepresented Australia's interests, and the way in which it has discredited the people of this nation. They have performed in a similar fashion to the way in which the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) has performed recently. This matter was addressed by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in Question Time. It is the sort of activity we are seeing from the Opposition in this House. It is the sort of activity it supports in international forums. It is the sort of activity that is being carried out by the Northern Territory. The purpose of the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill 1988 is to provide legislative backing for the interim protection of the north-east Queensland rainforests. I say interim because unfortunately the Queensland Government wants to continue to log the rainforests of north-east Queensland while the Australian nation waits to see whether this magnificent area is judged worthy of registry on the World Heritage Lists. I think it appropriate, before I turn to the substantive provisions of the Bill, to put some historical perspective on environmental law. For the information of honourable members opposite, it was over 100 years ago, in 1870, that laws were introduced in this country to curb timber cutting in sensitive environmental areas, in that case in the Murray River and some parts of the coast of New South Wales. Since then there has been a variety of legislation passed to protect areas of significance, to prevent wholesale destruction of the nation's natural assets, to ensure a meshing of environmental values with responsible resource management. In December 1982 the Fraser-Anthony Government nominated the western Tasmanian wilderness national parks and the Lord Howe Islands to the World Heritage Authority. Both these nominations were successful and registration took place in 1983. In regard to rainforests, since the white settlement of Australia we have managed to exploit and destroy 75 per cent of our rainforests. Queensland is now in the enviable position of having 55 per cent of this nation's remaining rainforests. But Queensland has no regard for its rainforests. It wants to knock them over. I say enviable because I think that most other governments would give their left arm and their eye teeth to have within their State or territorial borders such a precious natural resource. Mr Ian Cameron —You have chopped down all yours in the Northern Territory. Mr SNOWDON —Rainforests are home to well over half the species of flora and fauna on this planet. It is beyond the honourable member for Maranoa (Mr Ian Cameron) to comprehend what that means. Rainforests now cover only some 10 per cent of the land surface of the earth. In 1985 the World Bank launched an $11 billion plan. The honourable member might be able to understand what $11 billion means because that is what the Opposition was going to slash out of government spending if it had been elected last July. We would not have had any rainforests left in this nation-we would not have anything left-if the mob opposite were in government. I have carefully used the word `resource' in describing the rainforests of north-east Queensland because some honourable members opposite would have us believe that by protecting the rainforests somehow we have gone soft, that we are locking up vast tracts of the country in some kind of deal with the environmental movement to the detriment of the economy and the creation and maintenance of jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth, and well they know it. The coalition has backed down. We remember that after the last election the Leader of the Opposition made soothing noises about fixing up the coalition's environment policy. That has been thrown out the door, as has every other bit of policy the coalition parties have ever had, in the debate on this Bill. Their hypocrisy is plain for everyone to see. Let me quote Senator Puplick, the Liberal shadow Minister for the environment. In August last year Senator Puplick had this to say about the heritage listing of the Queensland wet tropical forests-honourable members opposite may not like it, but this is what he said: The Queensland wet tropical rainforests are worthy of inclusion on the World Heritage List; they are unique; they are of international significance; they contain one of the greatest and scientifically most significant concentrations of unique flora and fauna in the world. Australia is the only industrialised country with remaining tropical rainforests and we have a responsibility- I repeat: a responsibility- to protect them. That was the shadow Minister for the environment. He is supporting the World Heritage listing of this area. Now this mob are denigrating the legislation. They do not know what day it is. My colleague Senator Richardson commented yesterday in the Senate: That is the only thing Senator Puplick ever got right on the question of rainforests in north Queensland. Even the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair) had a bite of the cherry last October. He was quoted in the Cairns Post of 1 October last year as saying: World Heritage listing might be appropriate for parts of the far north. Mind you, he would not commit himself. We never expect him to commit himself about anything. He was trying to have it both ways, as usual-as the National Party of Australia does on most occasions. The forces of darkness in the coalition obviously have got their way once again. Now they are saying that a Liberal government would not nominate any areas for World Heritage listing if an individual State did not agree. What are they saying? Would they mind telling the people of Australia what their policies are and what they stand for? They do not have any, and they do not know. If the Queensland Government refuses to budge, they will drop the whole thing. They will support a scorched earth policy in areas that experts such as Dr James Thorsell, the executive officer of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, have said on the public record are clearly of World Heritage calibre. What would members of the Opposition have done with that kind of irresponsible policy if Kakadu was coming up for listing? Would they have abrogated the responsibility of the Federal Government of Australia not only to the people of Australia but also to the international community and all the generations to come to ensure that areas worthy of World Heritage listing were preserved? Their short term parish pump politics in this issue are there for the whole nation to witness. They are a disgrace, and they know it. They do not know what day it is. They have no respect for the environment or the concerns of the people of Australia. Mr Braithwaite —Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: how can the honourable member say that when we know it is only five days after the New South Wales election? Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) —Order! There is no point of order. Mr SNOWDON —What will the heritage listing of the north Queensland wet tropics mean to the people of Queensland? Honourable members opposite should ask themselves that. They should ask their fellow members of the National Party who have an interest in the tourism industry in that part of Queensland. What are they saying about the World Heritage listing? They are supporting it, and those opposite know it. The proposed listing of the Queensland wet tropics area on the World Heritage List-- Mr Duncan —It is five days after we won the Cairns City Council elections. Mr SNOWDON —That is right, five days after we won the Cairns City Council elections and all local government elections north of Rockhampton, if I am not mistaken. The proposed listing of the Queensland wet tropics area on the World Heritage List, if successful-and I hope it is; I expect it to be-will mean that Queensland, like the Northern Territory, which boasts Kakadu and Uluru on the World Heritage List, will also be in the happy position of having two areas listed. Queenslanders not only will get to retain this precious remnant of the world's remaining rainforests but also will reap direct benefits through increases in the tourist industry that will surely follow the heritage listing of this region. Let me illustrate this point with an appropriate example drawn from my electorate of the Northern Territory. Stage 1 of Kakadu National Park was placed on the World Heritage List in October of 1981 and since that time visitor numbers to the park have risen dramatically. In 1982 the total number of visitors to Kakadu was a mere 48,500. By 1985 the annual number had topped 100,000 people and last year, in 1987, some 195,000 people went to Kakadu. Next year we expect a quarter of a million people. In other words, since stage 1 was listed, visitor numbers have increased by over 300 per cent. I fully expect that, following the recent heritage listing of Kakadu stage 2, the staggering growth rate for the tourist industry in the Top End will continue. I am sure that even my learned friend the honourable member for Maranoa-dare I used the word `learned'; I have some suspicion about how learned he is-can appreciate that tourism means dollars and cents. I know he understands bucks because that is where he comes from-the big bucks country. The tourism and hospitality trade means jobs. It means building motels and hotels, and the multiplier effect, for the economic illiterates on the other side of the House, of the tourism industry on local economies is not difficult to work out. Tourists need petrol, entertainment and food. They need a place to sleep or camp, although I have noticed that the honourable member for Maranoa is not too choosy where he camps on occasions. Tourists buy books and newspapers. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for the Northern Territory will cease speaking to the member for Maranoa and address himself to the question before the House. Mr SNOWDON —They go to banks and post offices; they buy souvenirs and T-shirts; and they take photographs and have them developed. If they have an enjoyable and memorable time-as I have previously noted that honourable members opposite often do-they will tell their friends and their friends will go back and spend a few bucks. Tourism brings money into this country. We all know it. It injects large sums into the local economy. In saying this, I do not want to create the impression that I think the tourist industry in any region of this country should be allowed to grow like Topsy. Tourism, like any industry, needs careful planning and management. We need to know why people come to our country or travel from State to State or State to Territory. We need to understand the pressures that tourism creates-its social and economic impact on local communities. However, it is interesting to note that approximately 26 per cent of the 399,100 visitors who went to visit the north-eastern Queensland rainforest area in 1985 noted rainforests as a medium or high factor in their decision to visit the area. Approximately 50 per cent saw rainforests during their visit, while some 15 per cent, or almost a quarter of a million tourists, took part in activities which were classified as involving an environmental experience-something the honourable member for Maranoa would find difficult to understand. Australian Tourism Commission surveys show that overseas tourists come to our country because they want to experience a back to nature holiday. The comparison of the activities of the Northern Territory Government and its hostility towards the World Heritage listing of stage 2 of Kakadu with the Queensland Government's opposition to the listing of its rainforests has not escaped me, just as it has not escaped members opposite. Unfortunately, they have got the bull by the tail, as usual, and have no real understanding of the issues. Both governments put up similar arguments to justify their waste of taxpayers' money. Both governments said they based their opposition on economic grounds. The Territory Government tried to say that stage 2 of Kakadu National Park was not worth listing. Well, what did it do? It employed Harry Butler, the conservationist's friend, and some clapped out academic from England to do a shonky video on Kakadu. They spent almost $870,000 or thereabouts on presenting a submission to the 1986 Paris United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation conference. As we would expect, they were laughed out of court. Opposition members use hollow rhetoric. They talk repeatedly about jobs and economic growth but, I repeat, it is hollow rhetoric. What the Northern Territory Government managed to achieve, apart from running up a huge hotel bill in Paris both in 1986 and 1987, was to embarrass the Australian community just as the Queensland Government is doing at present and just as the Opposition is trying to do at the moment. The Territory Government managed to damage the tourist industry in the Northern Territory. We all know that the Northern Territory is a mineral rich region, with mining being one of the top money earners for the Territory economy. But so is tourism. Tourism is, of course, a renewable resource. In the meantime the Territory Government on the one hand promotes the Crocodile Dundee country to the hilt and, on the other, with typical hypocrisy it denigrates the very country that the tourists want to visit. In the two years prior to the listing of stage 2 the Northern Territory Government tried to claim that stage 2 was not worthy of listing according to World Heritage List requirements. It claimed that the submission by the Australian Government was flawed and a fraud. We know who the fraud was. It was the Northern Territory Government. It spent endless dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to make a stupid, banal political point-just as the Opposition is doing at the moment. The Northern Territory Government also managed to waste scarce taxpayers' dollars. For the benefit of honourable members opposite, and especially for the benefit for the shadow Minister, I remind them that the Northern Territory gets almost 80 per cent of its revenue through Commonwealth coffers. The Northern Territory representatives went off to Paris in 1986 and took a QC with them. Mr Lavarch —Who? Mr SNOWDON —They took Tom Hughes, who is a very eminent QC. But what a waste of money. What a dead loss. That is the sort of activity that those blokes opposite support. It just goes to show what they think of this country. They have no respect for the taxpayer, the Treasury or the environment. But the inconsistencies catch up with the coalition forces and they start fighting amongst themselves. Remember when the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer) was the Opposition spokesman on the environment. Do we hear him? Where is he? I hope he will be speaking later in the debate. In July last year he made the mistake of putting out the olive branch on environment policy. He admitted that the Liberal Party's policy needed `substantial revision'. He is a revisionist. Honourable members would understand what that means as there are a few of them in the National Party. He was reported as saying: Future Liberal governments should be prepared to use Commonwealth powers to override States' rights in a bid to win support from the conservation lobby. There it is. Honourable members opposite should stop their bleating, whingeing and whining. If they want to talk about people who are aiming to win votes from the conservation lobby-let me repeat this, just in case those opposite have not heard it-the previous shadow Minister was reported as saying: Future Liberal governments should be prepared to use Commonwealth powers to override States' rights in a bid to win support from the conservation lobby. Predictably the responsible Minister in the Northern Territory swung into action and described our friend the ex-shadow Minister as `a silverspoon trendy from the Adelaide Hills'. Is that what honourable members think he is? The Northern Territory Minister responsible went on to say: The last thing we need is wet statements from wimps like this. The responsible Northern Territory Minister has described the former shadow Minister in the Opposition here as a wimp and a silverspoon trendy. It is obvious what has happened. Since Senator Puplick put out his policy option paper on the environment, the forces of reaction and darkness have got their act together and crushed any chance of the coalition having a responsible environment policy. I have here the Opposition's policy option paper entitled `Environmental Policy Option Discussion Paper' prepared by Senator Chris Puplick in December 1987. Let me tell honourable members that one of the options in this policy is to withdraw entirely from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation conventions. The boys want to take their bat and ball and go home; they want to get rid of it. They want this country to walk out and take no responsibility in the international community for looking after places such as the north-eastern rainforests through World Heritage listing. I commend the Bill to the House. Mr PETER FISHER(Mallee)(6.04) —The Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill clearly indicates the intention of this Hawke Government to centralise further all power in Canberra and to provide the mechanism, through this legislation, for the Government ultimately to take unto itself the sole rights to dictate and control management of public and private property throughout this nation. I am very concerned, as is every member of the Parliament, that Australia's unique environment be protected, that it be managed and maintained for the benefit of present and future generations. Many practices in the past in both urban and rural areas, either as a result of ignorance or in the quest for economic growth, or even in the quest for economic survival, have seen many parts of our environment damaged and many cases of enormous input being required from government to correct some of the damage that has been done. We could think of the inappropriate placement of chemical dumps or sewerage plants along our river systems in many of our States, serving both-should I mention this?-cities and rural townships. We could think of the enormous problem of salinity in the Murray Valley that is now extending to many of our dryland farming areas and our other river systems. We well remember the priority of the Hawke Government when it came to office and removed from the water resources program-a massive program-projects that would have corrected some of these problems that are so severely harming our environment. This nation is struggling to come to grips with the continual need to balance conservation with development. I was very interested in the comments made by the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) on this issue. I believe that he has brought this debate back into some sort of perspective. No issue more clearly distinguishes the coalition from the Australian Labor Party, as it now moves relentlessly to extinguish private rights and civil liberties under the guise of a conservation Bill. The approach of the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Senator Richardson, in his approach to his portfolio, and his dictatorial attitude, which I remind the House may be the only way to stay at the top of the Australian Labor Party right wing pile, do not suit the people, as the recent elections throughout Australia have shown. This Bill amends the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983 and the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974. It redefines `identified property' to bring it more into line with the actual workings of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. It allows any part of an identified property to be proclaimed and subjected to ministerial direction. It allows a property to be subject to the World Heritage listing protection before it is formally listed; for example, where a nomination is pending before the World Heritage Committee, or where the property is subject to an inquiry established by a law of the Commonwealth for the purposes of considering the potential World Heritage values of such property. Mr Ian Cameron —More government from Switzerland. Mr Cobb —Why have a government at all? Mr PETER FISHER —I can only agree with the interjections that have been made by my two colleagues, the honourable member for Maranoa (Mr Ian Cameron) and the honourable member for Parkes (Mr Cobb). Why have a government when we are going to accept some overseas authority over what should be our own responsibility? The passing of this Bill will also establish a system of inspectors for World Heritage properties. Under the Bill the inspectors are supposed-and I emphasise the word `supposed'-to act with the consent of the property owner and on the basis of a judicial warrant, and in special or urgent circumstances. Fortunately, under this legislation entry to a dwelling house is prohibited. However, in relation to the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, this is taken as not applying and never having applied to World Heritage properties. So while the rest of the community, such as mining companies, farmers and foresters, all have to abide by the environmental impact legislation, the Government's actions are to be exempt. I ask the Chairman of the Standing Committee on the Environment, Recreation and the Arts, my colleague the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Milton), to comment on this particular action that excludes the Government from responsibility for its actions whilst expecting everyone else in the community to follow the environmental impact legislation. What then are the effects and the ramifications of this Bill? Firstly, and importantly, it intends to pass the final and sole responsibility for deciding World Heritage status in Australia to an external body. It abrogates Australia's sovereignty on these important conservation and environmental issues. Tragically, it ensures that the States cannot challenge any Federal Government decisions in respect of nominations of property for World Heritage status. The Government is saying to the people that they, as Australians, are not considered to be capable of making the informed decisions necessary on matters relating to their own heritage and in their own land, and that it is handing it over to an unelected, unrepresentative group overseas. I remind the House that some of the current membership of this overseas body, which includes of course Australia and about 100 other countries, includes such countries as Algeria, Malawi and Cuba, which are certainly not countries that are high on the list or known exclusively for the conservation and preservation of their lands. Most disturbing of all is this system of inspectors who will be able to gather data on individuals and their activities for the Government. The Government assures us that these inspectors will be wearing photographic identity cards. It is claimed that these `Richardson's greencoats', as they have been called in this debate, will require a judicial warrant to enter private property. However, under the legislation there is an escape clause, which will allow inspectors to act even without such a warrant. I point out that these inspectors will need no special qualifications, yet they will have the right to enter, search, photograph and examine private property and vehicles at any time of the day or night-providing it is for, as they see it, an eligible purpose. Mr Ian Cameron —Disgraceful. Mr PETER FISHER —It is disgraceful. It will allow this Government and the Australian Labor Party to further extend the jobs for the boys concept, which they have taken to an art form over recent months. One can well foresee a regime of World Heritage inspectors led by more and more failed Labor Party politicians as they find themselves incapable of finding work in the real world. We are entering a very sad stage of development in the evolution of Australia and Australian culture when we start adopting these sorts of attitudes and taking these sorts of actions towards ordinary Australians. The protection of the rights of individuals will be completely infringed by this legislation. There must occur invasions of privacy as we witness transgressions on the basic right to own land and to have a quiet and peaceful possession and occupation of that land. What about the penalties that may be imposed? Under this legislation if a property owner should seek in any way to restrict an inspector's right to enter his property, he may be fined $1,000 or be imprisoned for 12 months, or both. Even if the landowner seeks to question the inspector, he may still be imprisoned for 12 months or fined $1,000. An owner could be treated as having transgressed on his own land, and he faces penalties worse than many criminals receive for abuse against the property of a fellow citizen. In other words, under this legislation a private property owner could well be treated worse than any abuser of game laws in any State. As a result of this legislation he will be put in a more inferior and onerous position than one who trespasses on land. A major aspect of this legislation relates to the action on the part of the Government in rejecting the jurisdiction of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act. I referred to this issue earlier. That will mean that the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act in this instance no longer need apply to World Heritage areas. It seems quite incredible to me that the Hawke Government is not willing to have its World Heritage areas, such as those proposed in north Queensland, stand up to the open scrutiny of environment impact procedures. The only conclusion that one can draw from this is that the area does not in the main have the intrinsic value that the Government claims it has. It is no wonder, therefore, that we have witnessed this untimely haste to push this proposal through in this legislation. I am particularly concerned about the effect of this legislation in the short term on the listing proposal for Queensland rainforests. I shall spend some time on this subject as it is an important issue in the concept of this debate. The misrepresentations and misinformation of the Minister, Senator Richardson, should be corrected. For instance, he has never told the Australian people that effective forest management in Queensland has seen the Queensland Government, of its own volition, reduce the timber harvest from 195,000 cubic metres a year to 60,000 cubic metres a year to ensure that it can sustain the logging industry indefinitely and continue to employ between 2,000 and 3,000 people in the industry at an economic benefit of $33m a year to Queensland and Australia. Instead, the Minister has used this positive action of the Queensland Government to promote his argument that the industry is not viable. The Minister claimed on 3 March that 45 per cent of the rainforests in this region has been logged. That statement is deceitful and wrong. The proposed World Heritage area is now clear for all to see. It shows that there is in excess of 900,000 hectares of land-in other words, land the size of the State of Victoria-included within the World Heritage listing. Of that 900,000 hectares, 143,000 hectares has been logged. The Minister said that 45 per cent has been logged. But he conveniently forgot the 61,000 hectares in the timber reserve, 120,000 hectares in national parks, 44,000 hectares in cattle grazing leases, and 5,000 hectares on freehold and freehold selections. Therefore, only 16 per cent of the total 900,000 hectares has been logged and only 23 per cent of the rainforest has been logged. Mr Braithwaite —That is deceitful. Mr PETER FISHER —It is deceitful. As a Victorian I am concerned that these people in Queensland, to whom many of us have spoken-that is, foresters, timber mill operators and workers, and personal holders of private property-are being used as personal pawns and are being manipulated by the Hawke Government. The political conquests of this Government must not be permitted to bring about the abolition of private property. Nor should professional idealists and vote gathering politicians be permitted to manipulate this issue in such a way as to serve their own predatory and, in some cases, devious purposes. It is fitting in this debate to mention the coalition government's record on conservation and environment issues. The coalition's policy has been consistent and is one of compromise and consensus. I genuinely believe that the performance of the coalition government, at Federal government level, speaks for itself. Honourable members should remember that a coalition government established the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. A coalition government placed stage one of the Kakadu National Park on the World Heritage List and brought about the cessation of whaling in Australian waters. It was also a Liberal-National Party government that took the major initiative of developing and endorsing Australia's national conservation strategy. A coalition government also, of course, introduced the national tree program. The National Party, probably more than any other political party, has a vital and vested interest in conserving Australia's environment. Most of our members live in rural areas. Many derive their income from the soil and the products of the soil. It is therefore in their best interests, if for no other purpose than to maintain a sustainable livelihood, to conserve our soil, water and wildlife. It is so important that there be continual and sustainable use of this country's resources, while at the same time ensuring that the natural heritage of this nation is approved. Mr Cobb —In other words, applying commonsense. Mr PETER FISHER —That is so; applying commonsense and ensuring that policies fit in with an overall pattern for government, as I believe the coalition's policies do. The coalition's policy in this regard is balanced, affordable and workable and has regard for our national heritage. I now wish to sum up the effects of this legislation. There is not the slightest doubt that the powers of the Commonwealth are enhanced and further extended by having greater power over many parts of the World Heritage listed areas rather than more general areas. Environmental impact statements will not be required for actions or projects in World Heritage listed areas approved by the Minister, as they are for every other authority and individual. A new system of inspectors will permit greater gathering of data. During consideration of a World Heritage nomination, avenues of appeal to the High Court of Australia have been effectively curtailed, as is apparent with the current Queensland appeal. There is absolutely no justification for an extension of these Commonwealth powers, nor for the exclusion of environmental impact statements provisions over ministerial approved projects. The Opposition finds the inspectorial system most objectionable also. It is virtually an openhanded invitation to abuse of private ownership and rights. The warrant provisions that exist in this legislation are farcical, given that such a warrant may be granted by any judge of a court created by the Parliament, who consents to serve for this purpose. In other words, even a Family Court of Australia judge could qualify to grant a warrant. The system of photographic identity cards for inspectors is an interesting attempt to bring the ID card issue back into public debate. A number of Government members have said in this debate that following recent High Court rulings about Tasmania's southern forests it is inaccurate to suggest that the Federal Government can prescribe State land use. I disagree. Some judges in their conclusions suggested that the Commonwealth would have power over any area it may consider declaring as World Heritage in the future. It is clear also that if the control of buffer zones around World Heritage areas is necessary under World Heritage requirements, the power of the Federal Government could well be limitless. As Mr Justice Dawson said in his ruling, there appears to be no practical limit to the scope of the external affairs power. This legislation removes the sensible course of consultation and agreement between State and Federal governments. It overrides the legislative role of the State in land use. It does not just affect environmental issues; it paves the way for massive expansion of Commonwealth powers across a broad spectrum of responsibility. This nation, of course, has quite clearly shown in the last week in elections held around the country that it is not prepared to tolerate government by factions. I condemn the Federal Government for its unilateral approach to World Heritage listing without the support of various State governments, and particularly local government. Labor has been defeated not only in recent Federal and State by-elections and elections but also in council elections. In the Shire of Johnstone in the rainforest area, all Australian Labor Party councillors were defeated last Saturday. We praise the Forestry Department of Queensland-I have studied this very closely-for its effective forest management of the 18.7 per cent of the defined area in which logging is permitted. We also praise the Queensland Government for designating 75 per cent of the region either as national park or as forest reserve in which no logging is permitted. I condemn the way in which boundaries have been determined in this exercise and for their irrational nature. Areas which are not tropical rainforests have been included, while others which are have been excluded. I refer honourable members to the original maps that were produced in regard to this listing. Not only could we not clearly define the reasons why the area had been so drawn, but also we were shocked to find that many areas had been excluded, areas which rightfully should have been included as World Heritage areas, particularly those on the fringing reef. Mr Cobb —They have looked after their mates. Mr PETER FISHER —That is exactly what happened. Areas were excluded because they were owned by conservationists and environmentalists. In other words, the Government excluded areas that belonged to its mates. Fortunately, our promotion of this issue ensured that this position has been rectified. I also express concern that the boundaries include some private land which is defined as corridors between recommended areas, but in regard to which normal rights of ownership are still prejudiced. I express concern that the Federal Government has ignored the social, economic and employment interests of those involved in the area, including those who utilise its timber and mineral resources. This House should note the irony of the proposal to close off a small area in which timber harvesting is effectively managed. This will necessitate imports from Third World countries where rainforest management is generally totally absent. I refer, of course, to what took place in relation to the building of the new Parliament House in Canberra. I believe that the World Heritage listing of the area, if it proceeds as proposed, will meet neither the objectives of those who live or work in the region nor those of the genuine conservationists. I oppose the legislation. Mr MILTON(La Trobe)(6.23) —I rise with much pleasure to speak in support of the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill 1988 which amends the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983 by strengthening and clarifying the protection afforded under that Act. On 4 May 1983 I spoke in this House in support of the original World Heritage Properties Conservation Bill. On that occasion I referred to the unlawful and immoral acts which the Tasmanian Government had perpetrated in the south-west forests of Tasmania. It is pleasing to note that the World Heritage legislation has added strength to the protection afforded to the existing World Heritage sites of the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park, Willandra Lakes, Lord Howe Island and the western Tasmanian wilderness national parks. Since that time the Federal Labor Government has added to the World Heritage List stage 2 of Kakadu National Park, Uluru (Ayers Rock-Mount Olga) National Park, and also, with the strong support of the previous New South Wales Labor Government, the Australian east coast temperate and sub-tropical rainforest parks. With last Saturday's election win by a conservative Liberal-National Party coalition Government in New South Wales, it is with much regret that I forewarn that we will not see much support for conservation of our national heritage in that State for the next four years. To those New South Wales conservationists who might have voted for the Liberal and National parties in that election, I can say only that they will find to their cost that conservative politicians, with few exceptions, will inevitably support development and so-called States rights even if it means sacrificing the protection of the built and natural environment. And so it is with the present Bill. In the Senate and the House of Representatives there is total opposition by senators and members from the Liberal and National parties on the grounds of so-called States rights. Nobody more vehemently puts that point of view than the honourable member for Dawson (Mr Braithwaite). One important aspect of the amendment Bill is that it will overcome the intransigence of the Queensland Government by providing interim protection to the wet tropical forests in Queensland pending a decision by the World Heritage Committee on the nomination by the Federal Government of the wet tropical rainforests of north-east Australia in December last year. In my speech in 1983 I suggested some amendments which would strengthen the Bill. I am most pleased to note the new provisions of the amendment Bill which, in my view, will achieve that purpose. In particular, the amendments ensure that the Act will provide interim protection for all three stages of the nomination process for World Heritage listing, involving identification of the property, nomination of the property and, finally, listing. I also welcome the power to appoint inspectors, who will prevent unlawful acts being committed which could jeopardise the World Heritage status of the property, such as wilful damage or destructive development. The proposed amendments will ensure that attempts by the Queensland Government to sabotage the World Heritage nomination of the north Queensland rainforest will not be successful, as the amendments will provide official protection to prevent such acts of vandalism. I was particularly surprised to read the remarks of Senator Puplick in the Senate last week. He described the legislation relating to the inspectors as an appalling, new intrusive system. Of course, we heard similar remarks from the honourable member for Bradfield (Mr Connolly), the honourable member for Mallee (Mr Peter Fisher) and other members of the Opposition. They choose to ignore the vandalism of the Queensland Government and its supporters in its attempts to destroy the Daintree Rainforest, in particular, which has necessitated the appointment of inspectors. I have witnessed scenes of vandalism on a number of occasions during visits to north Queensland. The honourable member for Mallee asked me why I supported the proposal for the appointment of inspectors. It is because I have seen this vandalism. In August 1984 the then House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation presented a report in this House on the need for protection of the greater Daintree Rainforest and referred to the desecration of the rainforest presented by the construction of a coastal road north of Cape Tribulation. As Chairman of the Standing Committee I, together with other members of that Committee, visited the road construction site on several occasions. Our first inspection was in July 1984. It included a visit to the site of the Cape Tribulation-Bloomfield Road. We undertook an aerial inspection of most of the greater Daintree area. We also made a trip by boat along the coast between Cape Tribulation and the Bloomfield River. I wish I had time in this debate to describe the beauty of the area, which is really most spectacular. I have been asked not to be too long, so I will confine my remarks to the World Heritage values. There are 30 major vegetation complexes in the area, including 15 distinct types of rainforest, eucalyptus forest, mangroves, coastal swamps and mountain moorland. The rainforest types contain a large number of species, including rare plants. There are many examples of plant communities and species which do not occur anywhere else in the world. After the dinner break I will quote from the report of the Committee, which confirms the importance of the greater Daintree. Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 8 p.m. Mr MILTON —Before the suspension of the sitting for dinner, I was speaking in support of the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill that is now before the House. I was pointing out why I am so very much in favour of this amendment Bill which will strengthen the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act, particularly by the appointment of inspectors. Members of the Opposition were ranting and raving before dinner-- Mr Goodluck —You wait until after dinner. Mr MILTON —Yes, I am sure that there will be more, especially from the honourable member for Franklin who is sitting over there at the moment. The point is that they were ranting and raving about the appointment of these inspectors, saying that it was a great intrusion and so on. I want to point out the reasons why it is necessary to have these inspectors in place and able to prevent the sort of vandalism in which the Queensland State Government in particular has been involved. Mr Hand —And Tasmania. Mr MILTON —And the Tasmanian Government also, as the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, who is at the table, has just pointed out. I will quote from the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation, of which I was Chairman. As I pointed out before dinner, we have been to the area of the Daintree Rainforest in particular, and I described what a beautiful and unique area it is. The report states: The area contains examples of 8 of the 14 primitive plant species and is therefore considered to have some of the most important botanical sites in Australia. It has been suggested that there has been a continuous line of evolution from the earliest flowering plants with the vegetation developing relatively undisturbed by continental and climatic change over the last 150 million years. For this reason the area holds immense interest for botanists. The forest near Cooktown was the first in Australia to be examined thoroughly by botanists and has remained relatively unchanged since the naturalists who accompanied Captain Cook explored the area in 1770. It therefore forms an important benchmark for ecological research. Since that time both logging and development land subdivisions have caused desecration problems. I quote again from the Committee report: Virgin rainforests with high conservation and scientific values are being sub-divided and cleared for rural housing in the Cow Bay area. Approval for this sub-division was given before the National Park was established and is occurring on privately owned land. The Committee inspected some sub-divisions and associated roads and were concerned that the developments might be causing serious environmental impacts and might not be an appropriate form of zoning for that area. The destruction of this rainforest may not be consistent with the proposals to preserve and protect the vegetation of the Greater Daintree region. I point out that at that time there were advertisements in the Press in Victoria and New South Wales advertising this land for sale and saying, `Buy your own piece of rainforest-10 acres of rainforest'. Of course, many people were foolish enough to buy slices of this land before actually going up there and having a look at it. This area in the wet season is covered by several feet of water and has rocks and all sorts of vegetation over it. It is virtually an impossible place in which to build any sort of dwelling. Yet this is what was being done. It was complete desecration of rainforest. A majority of the Committee made a number of recommendations in their August 1984 report of which the most important was that the Commonwealth Government consider applying the provisions of the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act if it were found that the greater Daintree region was worthy of World Heritage nomination and that consultation with the Queensland State Government and offers of financial assistance were unsuccessful. Regretfully, the three Opposition members of the Committee dissented from the recommendations, basically on States' rights grounds which I have to say amounted to permitting the destruction of the rainforest which was being caused by the road construction and by subdivisions. In preparing its November 1985 report which was on the protection of the Great Barrier Reef, the Committee visited the area again. Members were absolutely appalled at the desecration of the rainforest which had occurred as a result of the road workers. Mud had been washed down onto the reefs which were offshore from the beaches which extend from Cape Tribulation to the Bloomfield River. I point out to honourable members that the reefs are part of the Great Barrier Reef and are the most extensive fringing reefs adjacent to rainforest in the world. They have developed despite the high rainfall in the area because the watershed is drained by numerous small creeks. The action of the waves is also weakened by the extensive mangrove development. That allowed the reefs to grow also. Scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in their surveys of the coral on the reefs found that, whilst the corals were not as scenic as those on the deeper reefs of the outer reef where the water is clearer, the reefs were more diverse, with an unusually high number of coral types. The scientists' conclusion was that the corals were both significant and unique from a conservation and scientific view. Another quote from the 1985 report will indicate the concern which Committee members of all parties had at the effect of the road works. The scientists had observed these problems. We decided to put this in our report because we were concerned as well. The report states: The scientists later observed that muddy water from the road was flowing into creeks and discharging over the reefs where some of the sediment was deposited. There are no relevant studies in Australia which would enable the effects of this increased sediment load on the reefs to be assessed but reports from Thailand and Japan suggest that the loss of coral and death of the reefs is possible. It is difficult to predict what the long term outcome will be but it appears that at best there will be an alteration of the species composition and possibly a reduction in the diversity of the reefs. At worst the reefs will be destroyed. The Committee views these possibilities with concern and considers that urgent action is required, not only to protect the reefs in the long term but also to prevent further erosion and damage to the rain forest. Extensive work will be required to stabilize the road and the surrounding earth works, regardless of whether the road remains open or is closed. That is a fairly long quote, but I think it is very important for honourable members to appreciate what the scientists of the Australian Institute of Marine Science had said and what we Committee members were concerned about. I also want to quote from the Committee recommendation. It states: the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment seek discussions on the importance of the fringing reefs with the Queensland Government and jointly sponsor an independent engineering study to determine ways of reducing the impact of runoff from the Cape Tribulation to Bloomfield Road on the fringing reefs north of Cape Tribulation. At this stage I commend both the previous Minister, the honourable member for Robertson (Mr Cohen), and the present Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories (Senator Graham Richardson) on their determined efforts to save the Daintree Rainforest. Despite many attempts by the honourable member for Robertson to have meaningful talks on the possibility of closing the road and providing some protection for the fringing reefs, the Queensland State Government refused to take part in any meaningful discussions. That situation still applies. Anybody who visits that road can see the terrible state that it is in. It was never contoured properly, the work was never done properly; in fact, there really was no need at all for that road to be constructed and for the rainforest to be destroyed in the way that it was. It is for this reason that this amending legislation is put before the House. It is for this reason that we need inspectors in that area to ensure that these sorts of acts of vandalism do not continue. It is absolutely necessary that we protect these World Heritage areas, not only for Australians but for all the people of the world, because the areas have an important value for everyone. The main point I wish to make is that this amending legislation has been forced upon us because of the intransigence of the Queensland State Government, in particular, and also of the Tasmanian State Government. I am pleased to be here today to support the Bill. Mr BURR(Lyons)(8.11) —The Bill before the House is to amend the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983 and the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974. It is impossible to consider this Bill without also considering the effect it will have on matters not directly related to it, such as States rights and civil liberties. One must also consider matters that might be broadly termed conservative issues. In my contribution to the debate tonight I wish to refer to those two matters, particularly the impact that this Bill, and other measures that are being taken, will have on civil liberties and the right to own private property. I also want to consider the impact of this Bill and other conservation measures on the balance of powers between the Commonwealth and the States. Let me remind honourable members on the opposite side of the chamber of some of the provisions contained in the Bill. I shall quote directly from the Bill, without any elaboration. First, let us consider the definition of an identified property as contained in the Bill. An identified property is, firstly, property subject to an inquiry, such as the Helsham Commission of Inquiry into the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests, or other inquiries that might be set up by the Commonwealth; and, secondly, property the subject of a World Heritage List nomination. It does not necessarily have to be on the World Heritage List; a nomination is sufficient. Thirdly, an identified property is property included on the World Heritage List or, fourthly, forming part of the cultural or the natural heritage and declared by the regulations to form part of the cultural or natural heritage. The fourth clause does not refer to World Heritage values or anything related to them. It simply says that some public servant, some member of a government at some time in the future, may in his opinion consider an area of land to be of such value that a regulation should be passed declaring it a cultural heritage area and therefore coming within the provisions of this Act. It does not draw a distinction between Crown land or private land; in fact, it does not draw any distinctions at all. The Bill completely distorts the values which in the past we may have placed on the private ownership of land. I think we can probably obtain an assessment of the attitude of members of the Government towards the private ownership of property from a statement made by the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) in a debate in this House on the proposed introduction of the Australia Card. He said that civil liberties were akin to a bourgeois right to hold private property. That statement indicates the opinions of Government members towards the private ownership of land. Mr Deputy Speaker, let us consider what is happening right now in your State of Queensland. This Government is introducing legislation to say that an area of north Queensland is to be nominated for inclusion on the World Heritage List. Included in the area of listing are over 2,000 private properties, yet this Government draws no distinction between land held by private owners and land held by public owners. It is simply an area that this Government alone considers should be included in that listing. What the Government is doing is placing not only Crown land but all private land in jeopardy. There will no longer be sanctity for anybody to own private land. The Government is not drawing a distinction between what might be contained in the Daintree area or in the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests of Tasmania, or any other cultural area. Why would it not be within the capacity of any future Federal government under this legislation to declare Bondi Beach for World Heritage listing and exclude people from bathing there? I would like to point out to the House and to the people of Australia some of the measures which the Bill proposes. In the debate on this Bill in the other chamber, some of these measures were likened to jackboots and nazi-type tactics. I would not use expressions such as that; I do not think that is appropriate in parliamentary debate. But those remarks indicate the strength of feeling which members of parliament have about this Bill. If a person owns private property, it will be unlawful for him to do any act, if it comes within the provisions of this Bill, except with the consent in writing of the Minister. It does not matter that it is a person's private property. He must obtain approval in writing from the Minister to perform any act on that property. In earlier contributions to the debate we heard about the so-called inspectors who are to be appointed under this Bill. What can the inspectors do? The Bill provides that the Minister may, in writing, appoint a person to be an inspector for the purposes of this Act. It also provides that an inspector may enter and search an eligible place; take photographs and record occurrences in an eligible place; and inspect, examine and take photographs and measurements of an eligible thing. For the purpose of exercising powers under paragraph 2 (c) of proposed section 17a, an inspector may stop, detain, enter and search any vehicle. What on earth is the Government doing? Has it no concern for civil liberties? In earlier debates I have heard the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Hand) plead with great passion about the need to protect civil liberties, and I agree with him. But what the Government is doing in this legislation is destroying civil liberties. I acknowledge that the Minister believes passionately in the need to preserve the environment, but what he is saying is that, because he believes passionately about the environment, the Government will destroy all civil liberties if they threaten the environment. I am sorry, but I do not agree with that. I think that the maintenance of civil liberties is far more important than the maintenance of a few trees. One can grow more trees, but once civil liberties are destroyed they cannot be reimposed. Mr Hand —You are not reading it right. Mr BURR —The Minister should study history. He will see that in nazi Germany the undermining of civil liberties began innocently and developed into a very nasty event. We should learn those lessons of history. What will happen if people owning private property dare to contravene the provisions of this Bill? They will be exposed to a penalty of $1,000 or imprisonment for 12 months. So, one would hardly lightly contravene the provisions of the Bill. In order to ensure that one does not do so, the Government will appoint a whole series of inspectors to go around and take photographs, enter property, and take any evidence they choose. This takes democracy in Australia into a whole new ball game. We should not head down that path very lightly. We have heard from the honourable member for Bass (Mr Smith) about the responses of the Council for Civil Liberties and people around this country-responsible people-who are concerned about the undermining of civil liberties which this measure threatens. That seems to mean nothing to honourable members opposite. They believe that the environment is far more important than civil liberties. I do not agree with them, but that is their response. There is no doubt that responsible civil liberties groups around Australia are extremely concerned about the effect this measure will have. One should ask why the Government is prepared to take such an extreme measure. I guess that we can only speculate. It is my view that this Government, for electoral purposes, is trying to pander to conservation groups around this country. I urge my friends on the other side of the chamber to consider very carefully the conservation groups they are trying to appeal to. They will find that most of them are fanatics. They are fanatically interested and involved in the conservation movement and the environment. Mr Hand —That is good. Mr BURR —That is okay. I do not disagree with that. They have every right to be fanatical about a single issue. Many other concerned people are fanatical about single issues, too. We might disagree with them, too. One cannot bow to fanatics. In governing one must make decisions that are balanced for the majority of people, not decisions that pander to a few fanatical people who might lobby for a particular issue. That is what this Government is doing-pandering to fanatics. I remind the Government that it cannot appease fanatics. If one gives in and appeases them on one issue they simply move on to another area and ask one to appease them again. One cannot strike a balance. This is what has been happening, particularly in my State of Tasmania, with the conservation groups. It has been going on for a long time. We are well experienced in it in Tasmania. Conservationists say, `We want this area, which is a lovely area'-all of Tasmania is lovely, for that matter-`preserved for all time in the form of a national park'. The State Government says, `Right, it is a lovely area. We will declare it a national park'. Thirty per cent of Tasmania is now in the form of national parks. But the conservation movement says, `Thirty per cent of Tasmania is not enough. We want more'. It keeps on agitating for more. If one looks at the movement's agenda now, one finds that it still wants more. Even if the Government gets this legislation through and has the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests declared on the World Heritage List the conservation movement still has a list as long as your arm of other areas that it wants declared. One cannot appease them. One has to strike a balance based on commonsense. That is what this Government is not doing. I put a proposition to the Helsham Commission of Inquiry into the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests that what we should be doing in this country is declaring only one category that will protect an area for all time; that is, a national park. Once an area is declared a national park it should no longer be available for any form of development of its natural resources. Its timber resources, its mining resources and any other resources should be totally protected for all time. But if an area is not in a national park it should be available for development. Then the timber can be felled and regenerated; the area can be mined. What we are seeing at the moment is the conservation movement expanding its territories by saying, `We consider that land to be a buffer zone'. That is the latest. It says, `We have that lovely national park. We have that area on the World Heritage List, but now we must have a buffer zone around that national park to protect it'. Once one has a buffer zone around a national park then one has to have a buffer zone around the buffer zone, and so on. That is what has been happening in Tasmania for years. I am sorry that my friends in Queensland are about to learn the same lesson. Let us consider what this Bill does to States rights. Under section 51 of the Constitution, which has not been amended-it is still there-certain powers belong to the Commonwealth, and if certain powers are not listed it has always been assumed that any residual powers belong to the States. In the name of conservation the Constitution has been prostituted. The balance of powers between the Commonwealth and the States is changing dramatically. I do not mind if the Government wants to change the balance of powers between the Commonwealth and the States. I do not mind if it wants to be a centralist government. But it should not do it through the back door. Mr Cleeland —Mr Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order. As I understand it, under the Standing Orders of this House it is not permissible for a member to criticise the High Court of Australia. The High Court has made certain decisions on the Constitution which the honourable member calls `prostitution'. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Millar) —Order! There is no point of order. Mr BURR —As I was pointing out, there is a change in the balance of powers between the Commonwealth and the States. I most certainly am not criticising the High Court. The High Court has upheld legislation that has been put through this Parliament by this Government. It is not the decisions of the High Court that are wrong; it is the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests legislation and the Franklin River legislation-the legislation the Government has put through the Parliament-which have changed the balance of powers. If the Government believes that it is appropriate and if it believes that it has the support of the people of Australia to change the balance of powers between the Commonwealth and the States, it should put up a referendum-take it to referendum and try to have the Constitution changed. It should change section 51 of the Constitution to give the Commonwealth more powers. But it should not go through the back door. It should act openly and honestly and give the people of Australia the opportunity to say whether they want the balance of powers changed. That is not happening. I challenge my friends on the other side of this chamber, if they believe that they have the support of the people in accumulating and centralising more power here in Canberra, to put up a referendum and take it to the people to see what they say. But the Government does not have the guts to do that. It is prostituting the Constitution by back door methods. I do not consider that to be legitimate in this day and age. I consider this Bill to be the most draconian Bill I have seen in my 13 years in this Parliament because it completely undermines our Constitution. It drastically changes the balance of powers between the Commonwealth and the States without legitimate authority from the people of Australia. At the same time, it sets up a series of so-called inspectors, which, very markedly, will undermine the civil liberties of people throughout this country, changing the whole ethos that has always surrounded the ownership of private property. No longer will there be a sanctity about owning private property. Some of my friends opposite might say, `That is fair enough'. But I ask them to consider that it has always been the dream of every Australian-good, hard working Australians-to own a little piece of this country, to own a house and a block of land. What the Government is doing in this Bill is destroying the sanctity that has always surrounded the ownership of private property. Mr Simmons —You are not serious. Mr BURR —I wonder what would happen if somebody suddenly decided that it was the honourable member's backyard that should become part of a World Heritage area. Mr Simmons —Mr Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order. Perhaps the honourable member for Lyons could tell us about the inspection powers of the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. The honourable member should not engage in specious points of order. Mr BURR —Even at this late stage, I urge my friends on the other side of the chamber to reconsider what they are doing to this country under this measure. Even at this late stage there may yet be a last opportunity for them to change their minds. I urge them to think very carefully before they vote here this evening. Mr CLEELAND(McEwen)(8.30) —We have just heard from the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr) that this country is under attack in the most grievous and injurious way, that our Constitution has been prostituted, that every Australian must stand aside because some unknown person is going to race out and snatch the land from under his very house, and the house will then collapse into a hole in the ground. If one has ever heard a speech of nonsense or a speech without foundation in law or fact that was it. The Opposition is so concerned about the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill that there is not one member of the Opposition in this chamber. Mr Simmons —Not even a shadow Minister. Mr CLEELAND —Not even a shadow Minister. Yet people from the Opposition have been stating in this Parliament the great concerns they allegedly have about this legislation. It is a pity there are not television cameras in the chamber so that all of Australia could see that not one member of the Opposition is sitting in this chamber now. This shows how concerned Opposition members are: they are so worried about the legislation before the House that they do not give a damn and they do not even bother to come into the chamber to listen to the debate. This proves the shallowness of everything they have said in the Senate today and everything they have said in this House tonight. They are the most shallow Opposition this country has had the misfortune to have in its history. That is without question. They stand condemned tonight for their total lack of concern for the Parliament and for this legislation. This is the first time in my nearly four years in this Parliament I have ever seen this happen. There is no Opposition member in the chamber, not even a shadow Minister. Here comes the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer). He has left the Young Liberals meeting downstairs and has decided to come in to show that the Opposition does have some concern. He is the only member on his side of the House. Why does he not sit in the shadow Minister's seat? There is nobody there. Let us look at some of the nonsense the honourable member for Lyons raised. He suggested to this Parliament that the Constitution has been prostituted. He drew attention to the specific powers contained in section 51 of the Constitution. He forgot the rest of the powers. That is typical convenient Liberal memory. Liberal members mention only one part of the Constitution and forget the rest of it. I suppose that is because in most cases they do not bother reading it. The simple fact of the matter is that the High Court of Australia-mostly populated by people appointed by Liberal governments, not Labor government nominees-has determined as a principle and a fact of law that this Parliament, the Parliament of the Australian people, has the constitutional power to enact such legislation. It is an unarguable fact. So let the Opposition members stand here with their platitudes, their nonsense and their distortions of truth and fact; the judgment of the people will be upon them. We know how shallow they really are. As I said, what has happened tonight simply proves it. The honourable member for Lyons raised the wonderful image that suddenly people would be created who would wander around the place pinching people's land. Again, this is an indication of the lack of legal knowledge he has. This is the Opposition that was so concerned about civil liberties that it denied the Australian people the right to have a Bill of Rights. We see that finally, 35 minutes after the House started sitting this evening, the first shadow Minister has walked into the chamber. Maybe he is slightly concerned. Why does he not go to sit at the table? He is the first one who has fronted so far. We would like to see someone from his side concerned about the running of the House and with the legislation. Apparently he does not want to sit at the table either. I was referring to the wonderful notion that somehow one can take land away from people in the manner I referred to. The honourable member for Lyons does not have an iota of knowledge or understanding of the English legal system. The simple fact is that all land vests in the Crown, be it the Crown in right of a State or the Crown in right of the Commonwealth. The best that any individual owns at law is a fee simple title. At law, a title in fee simple means that subject to the rights of the Crown a person has the right of occupation but the right of resumption is a right of the Parliament acting as the Crown in this country to resume that land at any time, subject to the laws of the country. That has always been English law. It is the law of all of the States of this country and it is the law of this Parliament. So what the honourable member for Lyons was talking about is an absolute nonsense. Is he suggesting that this Parliament should not have the power, in the interests of the nation, to resume land? That is the tenor of what he was saying. I guess one would draw the conclusion that as a member of the Opposition he is saying that if Australia were faced with an external threat of some magnitude and the Australian Parliament, representing the Australian people, saw fit in the defence of this country to resume land from private ownership, it should not have that power as the Australian Parliament. Is that what the honourable gentleman is suggesting? Or is he suggesting that if a local council in any of the States of Australia desires for public purposes to create a public facility, that local government body does not have the right at law to resume land for that purpose either voluntarily, by negotiation, or compulsorily? The simple legal fact of the matter is that every local government body in this country has that legal power. But the honourable member does not seem to understand that or he wants to neglect that very simple legal fact. So on all matters raised by the honourable gentleman he is wrong in fact and wrong in law, but his remarks are typical of the misdirection the Liberal Party of Australia so often takes. That misdirection was very obvious tonight. I went to a function at an embassy in Canberra tonight. In leaving the side door of the House to drive there I saw that a car full of Young Liberals drove the wrong way in a one-way street. Young Liberals cannot even get their road directions right so what hope does the Liberal Party in this House have when future Liberal members of this House drive up one-way streets the wrong way in Canberra? It bodes no good future for the Liberal Party. This is really a debate about conservation but one would not have known it from some of the rubbish spoken so far on the Opposition side of the House. The real issue and the real debate is very simply about the rights of the Australian people to preserve for the future and for all time very special and rare flora, fauna, vegetation, forests and timber in areas of this country. There is no question that at this stage of Australia's development if steps are not taken to put aside forever, to preserve forever as wilderness areas such as the Daintree, the South West of Tasmania, Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef, if legislation is not put down now to ensure that forever unarguably these areas are set aside for the future of Australia, for the posterity of this country, we will never again have the chance. That is what this debate is really all about. Forget the semantics that both sides go on with, ultimately it comes down to the view of the Australian Labor Party in government and the view of the National Party of Australia and the Liberal Party in Opposition. They can say what they like about this legislation-scare tactics and scaremongering, which is their wont-but really what they have to answer in this Parliament is why they opposed the introduction of Kakadu National Park, why they opposed the Daintree World Heritage listing, why they opposed the preservation of South West Tasmania and why they opposed every major conservation initiative undertaken by this Government? That is the real, simple issue in this debate in this Parliament, despite what anybody in the Opposition says in this House. Members of the Opposition sometimes say that this Government has no mandate to do that. Are they seriously saying that in the 1987 election, when the preservation of the Daintree forest was an issue in the electorate, the Australian public, who voted with their feet and increased the majority of members on this side of the House, did not support the Daintree forest preservation program? Are they seriously saying today, six or seven months after that election, that the Australian people did not give this Government a mandate to pass the necessary legislation to ensure the future preservation of areas such as the Daintree? Is that what they are now seriously saying? If they are they are misjudging the mood of the people. If they are they are mistaken and they are foolish. If they are I am looking forward to the next election because I know where I will be; I will be back here. Mr DOWNER(Mayo)(8.41) —I strongly endorse the position taken by the Opposition in relation to the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill, not, as honourable members on both sides of the House will know only too well, because I am unconcerned about environmental issues-I have a very real personal concern about conservation-but because when we look at this legislation fairly carefully we see that it is a political gimmick. This legislation is not a real piece of legislation designed to improve the welfare of this country, as it should be. I suppose one could say in a sense that the legislation is really about increasing the power of the Federal Government over properties which fall within the auspices of World Heritage listings, and I will come back to World Heritage listings a little later. The legislation is also a concession by this Government that it has failed to deal constructively with Australia's federal system. In this particular instance the Federal Government has done nothing even to enter into negotiations with the States to try to achieve some sort of consensus. This Government, after all, came to power in 1983 on the slogan of consensus. `Bring Australians together', I think, was one of the other slogans that were used. Ironically, when it comes to the environment, when it comes to cheap calculations of votes instead of matters of principle and national concern, as the previous speaker, the honourable member for McEwen (Mr Cleeland) pointed out, the Government will quickly abandon consensus and move on towards a policy of confrontation, which is precisely what this is. That is an argument that is simply incontestable. I accept very well that environment and conservation issues should be an important part of national debate, and we on this side of the House want to do everything we can to ensure that there is a national approach to that important national issue. That is why we initiated, when we were in government, a national conservation strategy for Australia. Yes, it was the Liberal-National Party Government that initiated the national conservation strategy, which brought together conservationists, developers and politicians of different varieties. We know that in this country there is a broad measure of agreement about the need to conserve much of the beauty and the scientifically important parts of our natural environment. We know that there is a national consensus but, unfortunately, the Government is turning its back on that and using the issue simply as a political football. I think we exercised in government very responsibly our commitment to conservation. We created stage 1 of the Kakadu National Park, which was an historic decision and initiative by the Fraser Government. We are very proud of the fact that we proclaimed the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority as well. I have mentioned already the national conservation strategy for Australia. We also, surprisingly to people on the other side of the House, regard the preservation of Australia's remaining rain- forests as a very important issue. We sincerely recognise the beauty, the scientific importance and the ecological significance of, for example, the Queensland wet tropics. It does not matter who one speaks to on this side of the House; there is a recognition of that, and there is no desire by anyone on this side of the House to see the Queensland wet tropics destroyed, nor is there any desire by the Queensland Government to see the Queensland wet tropics destroyed. Anybody who sits down and looks at the facts instead of listening to empty rhetoric will realise that that is a self-evident truth. I must admit that it has always made me slightly angry to listen to the politically motivated and anti-Liberal-National Party rhetoric we get from some people in the Australian Labor Party-since they are our political opponents we cannot blame them for making political points-and from some people amongst the leadership, but not the ordinary members, of the Australian Conservation Foundation who say that if there were a Liberal-National Party government in Canberra or a National-Liberal Party government in Queensland, or whatever, the Queensland wet tropics would face extinction. If we sit down and look at the way the Queensland Government manages the wet tropics, whilst we may quibble about some of the exercises that take place-and I have sympathy and respect for people who quibble about the way logging takes place in the wet tropics-that is not the same as saying that the Queensland Government is hell bent on the destruction of the whole of the Queensland wet tropics. That simply is not the case. I plead with people, if they are serious about conservation issues, to try to put forward their own case with some intelligence and take that into account. Everybody knows that in reality, if we set aside the cheap political rhetoric, the Tasmanian Government is not hell bent on turning the whole of the State into a desert and destroying the forests. It is clearly not true and I do not think any intellectual assessment would ever come to that conclusion. It is just rhetoric. However, it is regrettable that some of that hysterical and extravagant rhetoric, which is politically motivated, as we know too well, has been bought by the media, none of whom is here tonight to hear this debate; they only ever report Question Time. The fact is that members of the media will not investigate the details of the case. They simply pick up the loudest, most extravagant, most hysterical Press releases from all kinds of groups around the country, regardless of how representative or unrepresentative they might be, and give them all kinds of prominence. It does not do the country much good in terms of intelligent debate. I plead not only with members of this House, but with the three or four people around Australia who are perhaps listening to this broadcast, to try to ensure that we have a proper debate about conservation issues and not let it be reduced to sloganism and political rhetoric. I think it is true to say that many honourable members on this side of the House recognise that there is a role for the Federal Government in ensuring that we conserve, intelligently and responsibly, our great national environmental resources. After all, we would not have sponsored the national conservation strategy for Australia if that were not our view. I do not oppose World Heritage listing per se. As I said throughout the last election campaign, I hope World Heritage listing can be achieved with the agreement of State governments and with a genuine attempt to reach agreement with State governments, instead of doing what this Government has done, which is simply to ride roughshod-obviously for political purposes-over the relevant State governments, not being Labor governments. When we talk about World Heritage listing we have to be a little cautious not to take the rhetoric and the slogans on face value but to look into what World Heritage listing really means. I will look into it tonight in a slightly different way by referring this House to the telex which the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Mr Charles Mott-he is a friend of mine and I think a very professional diplomat-sent to Senator Graham Richardson. As Senator Puplick said in his Press release recently, it blows the whistle on the Federal Labor Government. In the telex that Charles Mott sent in December 1987 he admitted: The IUCN in fact has never visited Kakadu officially, not even in 1981 when Stage 1 was listed- that was by the Federal Liberal-National Party Government, of course- and certainly not for Stage 2. Goodness me, that really is a revelation. I wonder how many people in Australia who are interested in conservation issues-and there are a lot of such people-knew that the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) did not actually visit Kakadu stage 1 and stage 2 in this particular context? Mr Jenkins —Is there something wrong with that? Mr DOWNER —Somebody on the other side of the House asks whether there is something wrong. The answer is that there is something wrong because under the rules of UNESCO, which as we know is responsible for the World Heritage Committee and World Heritage listings, it is a requirement that either the IUCN, in the case of natural sites, or the International Council on Monuments and Sites, where nomination involves things that have been built, must visit the particular site before the nomination is accepted. So it is a little surprising that we learn from Ambassador Mott that this did not happen in the case of stage 1 and stage 2 of Kakadu. It is really quite a revelation. If we read on through Ambassador Mott's telex we learn more and more. I have said already that the normal, formal procedure, which was to follow the guidelines for the implementation for the World Heritage Convention, as they are called, was not followed in relation to Kakadu stage 1. Mott's telex goes on: There was . . . no IUCN report on Kakadu, a fact which the Americans, the only delegation on the Committee unhelpful to our cause, pursued at length in questioning . . . They may have been unhelpful but the fact that the guidelines were not followed is not a bad point, is it? Funnily enough, apparently nobody in Australia actually knew this, until now. What is going to happen in the case of the World Heritage listing of the Queensland wet tropics? I turn again to Ambassador Mott's historic, I think, telex to the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, (Senator Graham Richardson), who, as we all know, has nothing to do with the environment but lots to do with trying to ensure that the greenie vote is delivered to the Australian Labor Party. Everyone knows that; I do not know why I bother to mention it. Ambassador Mott's telex advises Richardson: For Queensland it is desirable that Thorsell- that is, James Thorsell of Canada, a very well respected gentleman who is expected to lead an IUCN team to Australia later this year- visit and he be well looked after. Mr Braithwaite —He will be well looked after? What does he mean by that? Mr DOWNER —The honourable member for Dawson raises a very good question: What does he mean by that? Let us look at Mott's telex. He goes on to say: It would also help if Canberra Ambassadors of WHC member states could be taken to the forests and shown around. So we are going to look after the key man and we are going to show around the ambassadors from the countries that might be involved in making decisions. It is not exactly a government calling for an objective assessment; it is a government running a political campaign. That is what I would do if I were running a political campaign. As a politician, I have a few ideas about political campaigns. That is not the way to get an objective assessment, and unfortunately Ambassador Mott's telex reveals the game being played. This UNESCO Ambassador, Charles Mott, reports in relation to the World Heritage Committee secretariat: Secretariat would like to use Australia as `a motor' (their words) to promote World Heritage Work in Asia, a region that is below par in the field . . . That may be so; but to use Australia as a motor? Again that is not an objective assessment; it is using Australia as a motor-a vehicle if you like; a motor being a bit smaller than a vehicle-to try to achieve some sort of political end. Frankly, I think that revelation from the telex of Charles Mott raises enormous questions, unfortunately, about the whole issue of World Heritage listing that need to be very carefully considered when these issues are debated. I urge all members of this House to try to look at the facts and not just be swept along by a lot of empty, excited rhetoric. I mention these points as a person who has a lot of sympathy for the idea of World Heritage listing. I am not in principle opposed to it but I would like to feel that the system is a genuine system and not one which is being promoted and abused for simple political purposes. We on this side of the House want a co-ordinated national approach to these issues, not just legislation which is confrontationist-which is what this is. The Minister for the Arts, Sport the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Senator Richardson, has apparently in the case of the Queensland wet tropics refused to negotiate with Mr Ahern, the Premier of Queensland, and the Queensland Government. That contrasts with the position taken by the Opposition spokesman, Senator Puplick, and by others. The Opposition has literally sat down with Mr Ahern to discuss ways in which the Commonwealth and the State could work together to ensure that the Queensland wet tropics are properly conserved and that a minimal amount of logging can go ahead in areas where it will not do fundamental, long-lasting environmental damage but will, on the contrary, conserve the jobs of people who work in those industries. This legislation is the antithesis of that approach that the Opposition has been able to establish-and we are only an Opposition; it is an approach that the Government has refused to countenance because, let us face it, the Queensland Government is a National Party government and the Federal Government is a Labor Government. It is great politics for the Labor Party to go around and the kick the Nats. It gets all the greenies to think that the Queensland Government is a government of environmental vandals. The Government tries to create that impression while, on the other side of the debate, it tries to project itself as a government that is serious about conservation. Admittedly, fewer and fewer people now believe that the Labor Government is serious about those issues. Those honourable members who read conservation literature will be only too well aware of that. Perhaps some of them do not read it, but they would be aware of that if they did. Still, that is the name of the game certainly as far as Senator Richardson is concerned. Here we have legislation that significantly increases the Commonwealth's power without any consultation with the States. It increases the Commonwealth's power in a whole variety of ways. It increases its power over parts of World Heritage listed or proposed World Heritage listed areas so that now the Commonwealth's power apparently extends to areas subject to an inquiry whose purpose or one of whose purposes is to establish whether the property is part of the cultural or natural heritage of this country. That gives the Commonwealth Government gigantic power. As somebody who is, at least from the point of view of this side of the House, quite strongly on the side of the Commonwealth having an involvement in the conservation of our greatest national environmental assets, I do think this oversteps the mark in an extraordinarily extravagant way. This legislation also increases the Commonwealth's power very significantly by establishing this notorious system of inspectors-inspectors, who, by the way, go around with identity cards. I liked Senator Puplick's expression that these people should be described as Richardson's greenshirts. They certainly will be that. These inspectors can go anywhere on private property without the consent of the owner of that property. They can just march in. This reminds me of the famous comment by the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) about private property being a bourgeois concept and nothing that should be taken too seriously by a socialist party such as the Labor Party, or words to that effect. Really and truly, we have it here again. Investigators and inspectors can march through private property. They can go anywhere, except, by the way, inside a dwelling house. They can stop, detain and examine any vehicle. The Government, by enabling the bureaucracy to do that sort of thing, is giving it an enormous amount of power. Also in terms of the accretion in Commonwealth power, we have this quite extraordinary situation where environmental impact statements are required for any actions or projects in World Heritage areas but under this legislation, apparently for some reason-it is unclear to me why, in my ignorance-Commonwealth action is immune from those environmental impact statements. If honourable members on the other side of the House are sincere about conservation-I know that some of them, though not a lot, are sincere about it-why do they support that particular provision of this legislation? Why would honourable members support the proposal that the Commonwealth could build the monorail that it wanted to build at one stage from Ayers Rock out to the Olgas without an environmental impact statement? It is completely irrational. Either one is strongly in favour of conservation and wants environmental impact statements, or one is not. One cannot have it both ways. The Labor Government is trying to have it both ways with this legislation. I find that quite extraordinary. If the private sector wants to build a hotel, a convention centre or something else in a World Heritage area, there first has to be an environmental impact statement, and we on this side of the House have always supported that. But if the Commonwealth Government wants to build a monorail in such an area, there is no mention of an environmental impact statement. Here we have legislation which is not genuine; it is a political stunt. No effort has been made to consult and to reach agreement with the Queensland Government, which we found easy enough to do in a few weeks. No effort has been made to reach an intelligent, cooperative solution. The rhetoric of consensus was just a political stunt and this legislation, unfortunately, is the same. I look forward to subsequent speeches from the other side of the House and hearing what the Government's responses are to Ambassador Mott's telexes from UNESCO in Paris revealing so much of the background of how Australia and the World Heritage Committee have actually worked in practice. Mr SIMMONS(Calare)(9.01) —Towards the middle of his speech the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer) tried to suggest that a lot of the debate on this legislation could be described as empty, excited rhetoric. If one is fairly objective in analysing his contribution, one would certainly apply that phrase, particularly after some of the scaremongering campaigns that the Opposition has once again tried to get going through the Australian community. I am sure that Peter Sawyer, with some of the nonsense he has been putting out of late, would be very proud indeed of some of the members of the Liberal Party and the National Party of Australia-who have at times condemned some of the nonsense that he has put abroad-because the Opposition's contribution goes along the same sort of track. Let us take the powers of search and entry that are mentioned in the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill. There were a couple of special contributions to this debate, but I must say that the prize tonight goes to the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr). He told us of all of the horrific powers of search that would be involved under the Bill. But he failed to tell us that in his own State officers of the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service have far greater powers than those proposed for these Federal inspectors. For example, the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service Act 1970 gives authorised officers, as they are termed under section 41 of the Act, the power to seize anything on reasonable grounds suspected of being taken contrary to the provisions of the Act. Under section 42 of the same Act they have the power to search any premises, including private homes and vehicles. Under section 43 they have the power of arrest without warrant, even for failure to give one's full name and address. In a report called Privacy and Statutory Powers of Intrusion that was produced in 1981 by the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia some significant points were made regarding so-called concerns about civil liberties that we have heard about in this debate from the honourable member for Lyons and the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer). One should be aware that in Western Australia, under the Poultry Industry Trust Fund Act 1948-1969, inspectors checking the chooks must make entry `at a reasonably time', with the lights kept on day and night. So we obviously assume that the privacy and civil liberties of the chooks were eroded years ago when that Act was introduced. This legislation is hardly a precursor to some sort of new environmental police state, which was suggested to us tonight by the honourable member for Mayo. During the debate in the Senate, Senator Walters expressed concern about being in a dark and lonely spot after midnight with a man trying to get into her car flashing something-a badge, it turned out. If the Opposition is really serious about looking for some sort of Big Brother or badge flasher in the bottom paddock, he is already there. He is not wearing a green shirt; he is wearing a brown shirt and he is probably a friendly officer from one of the dozens of boards, authorities or departments that deal with such important civil liberties concerns as public health, forestry, national parks and primary production. I think it is important to make those comments because once again the Opposition has no reasonable grounds for attacking this legislation. It has no amendments of any great substance to move, and it certainly did not move any in the other chamber. All it can resort to is the politics of fear. We have seen it time and time again, and once more it has wheeled out the old fearmongering wheelbarrow to try to scare everyone in the community about this legislation, about what it purports to do and what it will do to people's civil liberties. But I do not want to concentrate on that. In the time remaining to me I want to mention a deputation that I led last Friday to the National Farmers Federation. The country task force of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), which I am honoured to chair, had some discussions with the National Farmers Federation (NFF) about a whole range of issues. One of the issues brought to our attention was the Federation's concern about World Heritage legislation, part of which is the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill before the House tonight. The National Farmers Federation made a number of comments to us. It mentioned that it had a number of serious concerns about what it saw as deficiencies in the Act. It mentioned that it saw no procedures in the legislation for the selection of land to be considered for nomination, not even a requirement that there be an inquiry. It also pointed out that property can be identified when it is subject to an inquiry, but that the processes are not spelt out. When it is listed it is quite clear that it can be declared by regulation, but again the processes are not spelt out. It pointed out that it felt there had been a lack of consultation, although I understand from subsequent discussions with the office of the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories (Senator Richardson) that it has met the Minister over the last couple of days. It also pointed out that there were no provisions for management once nomination had been accepted by the World Heritage Committee. I was concerned to learn of some of the points that were made by the National Farmers Federation. It is an important peak body representing the interests of the farming community in Australia. Upon hearing of these concerns, I and a number of other people who were present in that delegation decided to follow things up with the Minister's office. I am pleased to report to the House that the proposed amendments that were put forward by the Federation have been examined by the Government, but they have not really been accepted simply because they show a great misunderstanding of some of Australia's legal obligations under the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage as well as a misunderstanding about the process of nomination, the types of sites listed and the management of World Heritage sites. I should point out to the National Farmers Federation that the conduct of a resource study would be quite inappropriate. The issue to be settled is really whether a site is of outstanding universal value. The Convention contains extremely stringent criteria against which a site is assessed. The NFF amendments presuppose that there can be properties of proven World Heritage value which are not desirable for nomination because of their resource value. This is certainly not the case. Properties are either of outstanding universal value or clearly they are not. I should point out that we should put into context the sorts of numbers we are talking about in this debate. I am informed by the Minister's office that we are dealing with some 20 private properties in the area of north Queensland and about eight in South West Tasmania. Yet after the contributions tonight by the honourable member for Lyons and the honourable member for Mayo, one could be excused for thinking that the Commonwealth was suddenly going to move into far north Queensland and Tasmania and assume total control over every piece of private property or that that had already happened. The proposal that was put forward, to hold an inquiry in all cases, ignores the great deal of public consultation that has already taken place and is still taking place. While an inquiry may be appropriate in some cases, it is ludicrous to establish an inquiry for all proposed nominations; for example, the nomination of an archaeological site or restricted area within a national park. The NFF assumes that World Heritage listing locks up an area and that activities such as grazing and mining are prohibited by that listing. Honourable members should understand that listing does not prohibit any of those sorts of activities. Management plans determine the future operations of World Heritage listed areas. Grazing occurs, for example, in the Willandra Lakes area in western New South Wales, and a wide range of activities are permitted on Lord Howe Island. Of course, there is also the tourist activity that is exploited on the Great Barrier Reef. Activities that do not affect World Heritage values will quite obviously be permitted under this particular proposal. It is not appropriate, necessary, or required by the World Heritage Convention for management plans to accompany a nomination. The role of the World Heritage Committee is not to consider management plans but the value of particular regions. It is for the nominating country to decide how an area will be protected and managed. I am not talking about some outside group determining what type of management plan will be adopted in our own country. Quite clearly, that would be a decision for the Australian Government to make. The development of management plans often proceeds in parallel with a nomination. In some cases, proclamation and development of detailed management plans actually follows the listing. For example, on the Great Barrier Reef and Lord Howe Island, long, complex processes are required through a pro- cess of public consultation. Management plans also change and evolve in time. Therefore, the proposal of the NFF, if accepted, would quite clearly be a retrograde step. Finally I wish to refer to the NFF's comments on compensation. The Bill provides for simplified provisions for the payment of compensation where the operation of the Act results in the acquisition of property within section 51 (xxxi) of the Constitution. It is not appropriate for compensation for other effects of the Act to be covered by the legislation. This, quite clearly, is a matter of Government policy and is not a legal requirement. The NFF has said that it is not opposed, as a general principle, to conservation issues. Indeed, it has been very supportive of some of the efforts of this Government in relation to land degradation and the Government's conservation policy in that regard. However I should point out to the NFF that in this case it has been somewhat misguided in its representations to the Government and with some of the proposals it has put forward. I am sure the NFF put the proposals forward in good faith and I am sure it has sought to protect the interests of its members; but I am satisfied, following the consultation the Government had with the NFF last Friday, and advice provided to me by the Minister, that the concerns the NFF has for some of the elements embodied in the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill are unjustified. I am sure that the NFF can be satisfied that the interests of its members will not be affected in any negative way. I totally support the sentiments of other members who have contributed to this debate in relation to the Government's point of view. I urge all thinking people who are concerned about genuine conservation issues to dismiss some of the rhetoric and nonsense we have heard in this House tonight. Quite clearly that type of rhetoric and emotional debate is no substitute at all for logical analysis of an important Bill such as this. Mr HALVERSON(Casey)(9.15) —This so-called Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill is, in reality, just another illustration of this Government's willingness to sacrifice the long-term best interests of Australia and Australians on the altar of political expediency. The challenges we face in regard to sensitive and significant conservation issues cannot be solved by adopting such ill-founded and potentially dangerous legislation. The coalition's opposition to this latest attempt by the Government to substitute confrontation for consultation will, no doubt, be deliberately misinterpreted by misinformed people as an indication that all coalition members, together with all mining companies and those involved in forestry industries, have no commitment to the protection and preservation of our environment and or the sensible and responsible management of our natural resources. This is demonstrably false and totally incorrect. We are opposing this legislation because it not only is unnecessary, but also sets dangerous precedents in regard to retrospectivity, the redistribution of power, and the rights of ordinary law-abiding Australians. It is yet another indication of this Government's preference for confrontation rather than consultation. This Government claims to be concerned about the environment, but the provisions of this legislation include the removal of the requirement for environmental impact studies and, instead, substitute the approval of the Minister. In other words, the Minister can make up his own mind as to what is, and what is not, acceptable in regard to any activities in World Heritage listed areas. This has an obvious and inherent danger. But even more dangerous and objectionable is the proposal to introduce an environmental hit squad of inspectors appointed by the Minister. I am well aware that my coalition colleagues have already mentioned these appalling provisions. But their warnings cannot be overemphasised and bear repeating again and again. An inspector may, for an eligible purpose-and I quote the wording of the explanatory memorandum: enter, search, photograph in and record occurrences in an `eligible place', . . . and inspect, examine, photograph and measure an `eligible thing' (with specific power to stop, detain, enter and search a vehicle for the latter purpose). When one sees the wording, the officialese, of the parliamentary draftsman the mind actually boggles. There are few limitations on the powers bestowed on these inspectors. A token gesture restricts their power to enter an eligible place other than a public place or, in some circumstances, a vehicle, unless the consent of the person in charge of the eligible place or vehicle is obtained. This provision is immediately watered down by another, which allows an eligible judge-who is satisfied by information on oath from an inspector that it is reasonably necessary that the inspector should, for an eligible purpose, enter an eligible place or vehicle to inspect, examine, photograph or measure an eligible thing-to issue a warrant authorising the inspector with such assistance, and by such force as is necessary and reasonable, to enter the eligible place or vehicle and exercise the not inconsiderable powers bestowed upon him or her. As if this is not enough, there is yet another provision that allows the inspector to enter an eligible place if he or she believes, on reasonable grounds, that entry is necessary to prevent the concealment, loss or destruction of any thing and the circumstances are of such seriousness and urgency as to require and justify immediate entry without the consent of the person in charge or the authority of a warrant. This is an unreasonable, unjustifiable and unwarranted negation of civil liberties. It is a clear and frightening demonstration of just how far this Government is prepared to go in its attempts to subvert the rights of ordinary Australian citizens. We saw it with the identity card legislation and we are seeing it again here today. My commitment to the protection and preservation of our natural heritage is very sincere and very real but it does not and cannot extend to supporting this draconian, insidious and demonstrably unnecessary legislation. There is no valid reason for this proposed extension of Commonwealth ministerial powers; no justification for setting up a special environmental police force with such unrestrained powers; no reason to substitute ministerial whims for environmental impact studies; and no reason to believe that conservation challenges will be better solved by the coercive measures and tactics contained in this Bill rather than by consultation and cooperation with and between all concerned parties, be they State governments, companies involved in the mining or forest industries, or any other appropriate groups, organisations and individuals. This is the wise, reasonable and acceptable alternative. It is the alternative the coalition is committed to and the alternative the present Government should adopt. Mr JENKINS(Scullin)(9.22) —I have much pleasure in supporting the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill 1988. It is interesting for one who has listened closely to the debate so far and taken the trouble to peruse the report of the debate in the other place over the last week or so. It is unfortunate, as in current discussions of the matters of importance, that members of the coalition parties have chosen to misuse the facts. It is inherent in every debate they wish to enter that they choose to distort and to conduct fear campaigns. Let us look at some of the often repeated concerns about this legislation. One is the effects of part III of this legislation-an amendment proposed to the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act. It has been suggested that the amendments in the legislation before us will mean that in all cases the application of the impact of proposals Act will be null and void. That is not the case. Clearly, if the Opposition bothered to study and digest the legislation it would see that it concerns only the action proposed under this legislation, which is merely listing under World Heritage and nothing else. The often repeated example that has been used by Opposition spokespersons-the monorail from Ayers Rock to the Olgas-clearly under the Act would be subjected to an environmental impact statement. There is nothing in this legislation that suggests otherwise. It is one of a number of furphies that have been raised in the debate in this chamber and in the other place. As I have said, it is unfortunate that this type of tactic is adopted day in and day out on a whole range of matters that come before us in public debate. I do not intend to touch upon the notion of Richardson's greenshirts-the inspectors who will inspect properties-because my colleague the honourable member for Calare (Mr Simmons), in indicating the powers of a range of inspectors under different Commonwealth and State legislation, debunked that argument. It is sheer nonsense. It is part of a continuing fear campaign that has little to do with the facts but a lot to do with mounting hysteria and sheer political gain. One of the main concerns-it is a genuine concern-people have when we talk about World Heritage listings that might be contemplated or enacted under this legislation is that in some way they might lead to job losses. It is unfortunate that there is a notion abroad that in any way protection of the environment per se has something to do with loss of employment. If we look at a whole range of examples we find that that is not the case. My colleague the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Snowdon), in his contribution to this debate, clearly showed the situation concerning listings of Uluru and Kakadu and the increasing tourism in those areas. In those cases the World Heritage listings have been of great benefit in a range of employment opportunities. It is a nonsense to presume that environmental protection is in some way counter to the restoration of other forms of employment. If we look at the particular listing that is the main topic of this debate, that is, the wet tropical rainforests of north-east Australia, and at the great concern amongst those in the logging industry, we find that that is something the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories (Senator Richardson) has taken into account. People have been given the impression that there has been no consultation, but that is not true. Honourable members would have to acknowledge the number of visits made by the Minister and the most open way in which he has tried to conduct discussions. He has been subjected to all sorts of abuse but continues to try to work out ways in which those people most affected in the areas in question can be given other prospects. It should not be forgotten by those who raise questions about the loss of jobs in the forestry industry in far north Queensland that the logging operations were winding down. There had been great difficulties which in some cases had not been confronted. It is unfortunate that, whether or not the listing went ahead, those problems would have had to be faced. There is very little evidence to show that the Queensland Government had addressed that problem. So there was already a problem that was not being addressed in an appropriate manner. The action which is now being undertaken gives us an opportunity to look at these matters. Senator Richardson has gone out of his way to try to provide alternatives, and I think it is a disgrace that as yet there has not been proper cooperation. I return to the Federal Government's sovereignty in regard to putting up nominations for World Heritage listing. I listened with interest to some of the points made by honourable members opposite and the discussion of some of the decisions of the High Court of Australia and its interpretation of the Constitution. My colleagues the honourable member for McEwen (Mr Cleeland) and the honourable member for Calare, who preceded me, have commented on the remarks made by the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr) about the prostitution of the Constitution by legislation such as this. That is just a nonsense. The Constitution is not able to be tampered with by legislation. The High Court has made several decisions over a number of years about the Federal Government's rights in this regard. The relevant section of the Constitution, section 51(xxix), says that the Commonwealth has the power to make laws for peace, order and good government with respect to external affairs which govern conduct in and outside Australia. That is the relevant portion of the Constitution upon which a number of our international treaties and the Federal Government's ability to act under those treaties hinge. For the honourable member for Lyons to suggest that because of the way that this part of the Constitution has been interpreted-he does not particularly like the way it has been interpreted-it should be subjected to referenda is flying in the face of the manner in which Australia has continually developed since Federation in 1901. Let us just quickly go over the history of environmental legislation. My colleague the honourable member for the Northern Territory referred to legislation in the 1870s that was to do with the control of the forestry industry along the Murray-Darling Basin. Unfortunately from that time on there was very limited legislation on the environment. This will probably raise the hair on the back of the necks of those opposite: it was not until the Whitlam years that we saw further major advances in the protection of the environment. In May 1973 Australia joined the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources which had been established in 1948; so it was not as if it was something that we just merely jumped into. In 1975 we joined the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property which had been founded in 1959. In 1975 the Whitlam Government established the Australian Heritage Commission and the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. Again, during the Whitlam years Australia became the seventh signatory to the World Heritage Convention. By 1986, 89 national governments had accepted the Convention. Today there are 100. Honourable members should be interested to know, as has been indicated earlier in the debate, that there are now some 288 listings throughout the world. I want to touch on one aspect of a telex that has been bandied about in this debate. It is a telex from our representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). It is unfortunate that it has been selectively quoted on a number of occasions. A number of suggestions are made in that telex that are of importance and should not be sneezed at. One suggestion was sneezed at by the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer). It was suggested that the World Heritage Committee was conducting its future development to widen the scope of the World Heritage listing that `Australia be used as a motor to promote World Heritage work in the Asian region'. We hear a lot of talk from those opposite of the need for Australia to widen its horizons on the international front. In matters such as environmental protection there is no harm in Australia being seen as a motor to promote World Heritage. If we look at the 288 listings we see that there are few other countries that have listings in our region. There are a couple of listings in New Zealand and that is about it in regard to our near neighbours. We should look upon Australia with pride because it has had some motivating influence in trying to get other countries in our region involved. One absence in the signatories to the Convention is, notably, Japan. I think that people in this House would recognise and understand that there are a number of both cultural and natural properties in Japan that would be most suitable for World Heritage listing. I think it is a nonsense to pooh-pooh the notion that we should be seen as being some example in our region. There was another selective quoting about the need for us to take action to ensure that the representatives of the 21 nations on the World Heritage Committee-it should be noted that Australia has been one of those nations since the inception-fully understand our proposal. Tonight that has also been taken out of context. The suggestions from our representative to UNESCO were that the States and the Territories-the Northern Territory and Tasmania in particular-in the most recent of the World Heritage listings have taken large contingents across to Paris when the Committee met for its annual meeting. As my colleague the honourable member for the Northern Territory indicated, they have spent a lot of money on promoting and lobbying for their case. It was in that context that suggestions were made that we should be more diligent and careful in the way that we conducted ourselves in the promotion of our listing. I am sure that all Australians would be proud that we have such a significant area. Many people overseas are looking forward to having it placed on the World Heritage listing. The honourable member for Lyons suggested that we were doing things for a small minority. I would like to think that when we are putting forward the tropical rainforests of Australia we are acting on behalf of the majority of Australians. When we talk to young people in Australia we find that they have a clear perception and understanding of the environment. I have discussed these matters with the school children in my electorate. They have a clear appreciation of what is involved. But the tragedy is that because of a number of factors they will be unable to share the beauty and the importance of those areas; they may not be able to visit those areas. But that does not make it less important that we continue with the action we are taking. It is important that we act on behalf of future generations of Australians, because that is what we are really on about. This year some thought is being given to where Australia is going. That is important. We should at least have some maturity and be able to look at matters such as environmental protection on the basis that it is something for all Australians. As a signatory to the World Heritage Convention we have an international obligation. I think that that is important. I do not think that it is something that we should sneeze at. I note in the debate in the other place some suggestion that because the 21 countries on the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO are not the most friendly nations we should ignore what they are doing. Let us get the nonsense out of the way that because something is listed under the World Heritage Convention we lose some power over that listing. We should recognise that Australia is one of the few nations that have legislation on this matter. It is important legislation. I will conclude by quoting some very important words that were part of the late Justice Lionel Murphy's statement in the Franklin Dam case. It is important that honourable members opposite listen to these words because I think that they sum up the position that we, as Australians, should be taking. We should see this as an obligation. Justice Murphy stated: The cooperation of Australia with other nation States to preserve the world cultural and natural heritage falls easily within the external affairs power. It is part of Australia's external affairs to participate with other nations bodies and persons in this process of declaring that world renowned monuments, scenic and architectural sites belong to the world and not merely the nation or the province where they are situated. It is also part of Australia's external affairs to cooperate with others, each nation doing what it can to preserve the sites within its area, as part of a web of internal regulation and supervision of such sites. Even if there were no treaty the preservation of world heritage is part of Australia's external affairs and federal laws directed to preservation of any part of that heritage in Australia would be within the legislative powers of the Parliament. He went on to say: The preservation of the World's heritage must not be looked at in isolation but as part of the cooperation between nations which is calculated to achieve intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind and so reinforce the bonds between people which promote peace and displace those of narrow nationalism and alienation which promote war. Mr GOODLUCK(Franklin)(9.40) —I am pleased to enter this debate. It is good to see my colleagues from Tasmania present in the House-people such as the honourable member for Bass (Mr Smith), the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr) and the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles)-and other members of whom I ask forgiveness if I have not mentioned them. It is good to have support from the Tasmanians. I listened tonight to the speeches of two Tasmanian members and I was proud of them, as the elder statesman of the Tasmanian delegation. I thought their speeches were marvellous. If the greenies are listening tonight, they had better switch off because I am not going to give them any cheer at all. I have heard Government members tonight talking about the philosophical point of view of the Australian Labor Party, the conservation movement, et cetera. What about the poor old workers in the timber industry and the truck drivers who take the timber to the mills, the people who are heavily involved in the industry in Tasmania? They must be saying, `What is the Federal Parliament doing?'. They hear about this legislation and they must be very confused. This Government does not care about those ordinary, average working people. The Labor Party has sold its soul. I said that Bob Hawke was like Dorian Gray-he had sold his soul to the devil, meaning the conservation movement. He thinks that will get him votes. It did not get him many votes in New South Wales. He lost votes in that State and he will lose them in Tasmania, and also at the next Federal election. The poor average working man, whom the Labor Party claims to support and assist, has been forgotten in this debate. I am referring to the blue-collar workers, the sort of people who really make Australia. The poor fellows down at the Lemonthyme and in the Southern Forests who are listening tonight must be wondering what is going on. I am not going to run down judges, but some of them have never been through the mill in the true sense of the word. Their hands are clean. I know we are not allowed to talk about judges in this House, but I will talk about anyone who I believe is going to jeopardise an industry in Tasmania and cause even more unemployment. All Tasmanians would agree with that. The ordinary people are forgotten in this debate. Let me just go through this very slowly. First of all, we began with Lake Pedder. The Bob Browns and the Norm Sanderses of this world, and others I could name, came out of the woodwork. They opposed the damming of Lake Pedder. They said, `No, don't touch Lake Pedder. You can't do that'. Everyone in Tasmania was up in arms; people marched through the streets, including, surprisingly, a few we know. They said, `We are going to stop the damming of Lake Pedder'. That was the first shot they fired. People looked me straight in the eye-they were somewhat taller than I am but I stood up to them-and said, `Bruce, it is a cause. You must get behind it'. I said, `Look, some of the people I represent can ill afford a motor car, let alone go and see Lake Pedder. They cannot put haversacks on their backs and march around Lake Pedder or fly there and come down in a parachute. We need development in that area. I would like the people of Tasmania to see Lake Pedder. They have never seen it. The only way they can go there is by a road'. So the Hydro Electric Commission developed Lake Pedder and the conservationists lost that particular case. That was the beginning. I thought, `Where do these Browns and Sanderses come from? Where are all these other greenies coming from?'. They had never done anything for Tasmania before but they came out of the woodwork and decided to get involved in Lake Pedder. After we won the case, I said, `We will have trouble from here on'. I was right. We came into Federal Parliament and what did we find? The fight for the construction of the Franklin Dam. Suddenly that was taken completely out of context. Everyone was saying, `Save the Franklin. Don't let the dam be constructed'. Before we knew where we were, the greenies were there. Bellamy came from England-that silly looking coot. I could call him a few names. He came to Tasmania to celebrate his birthday in gaol. He should not have been given a passport. He was the first one. Then we had Yehudi Menuhin-he should have stuck to his fiddle. He said, `You have got to stop the dam'. We even had Prince Charles saying a few things about stopping the dam. All these conservationists jumped on the band wagon and the ordinary people were forgotten. Then thousands of conservationists went to Warners Landing. Most of them were unemployed. They put good people out of work in Tasmania. We fought and fought, but we allowed the Franklin River to be taken over by those so-called educated people who seem to know everything but have never got their hands dirty with a bit of hard work. Let us go back in history. Brown, Sanders and the others, and a few members of this chamber, said, `We will have development down at the south-west. We will have hotels'. What has happened? Nothing. People are talking about building a hotel at Warners Landing but the conservationists will not even give permission for that. I will tell honourable members what the conservationists want. They already have 30 per cent of Tasmania locked up but they want it completely locked up to be their own little playground. They want to put their haversacks on their backs and walk down there and say, `Gosh, we have travelled around Tasmania'. It does not matter about the poor workers, the ordinary average people. The greenies are continually attacking Tasmania, wanting it for their own purposes and forgetting about ordinary Tasmanians who have given their lifeblood to that State, made it such a good place to live in, educated their children, and worked hard. They are being taken to the cleaners. We lost the issue of damming the Franklin River and we said, `It's over. They have won. Let them have it. Don't get too agitated about it. That is the end of it'. But it was not the end. The greenies started again at Farmhouse Creek in my electorate. I looked at the 25 people arrested at Farmhouse Creek; 20 of them were unemployed and came from another State. They got all the publicity under the sun. They wonder why Bruce Goodluck goes crook at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the media. The greenies were given all that publicity, but the good people were forgotten. The poor people at Geeveston were battling to pay their hire purchase agreements and to feed and care for their children, but these silly coots were sitting up in trees putting on a great show for the Australian people and saying that this and that should be saved. That was the beginning of what we are now involved in. We all knew it but we could not stop it. The greenies thought, `We have stopped them on the dam; we did not stop them on Lake Pedder but we will stop them in the forests'. That is where they started, down at Farmhouse Creek. Regrettably, my friend the Tasmanian Minister responsible for forests and the environment-a very nice fellow for whom I have the highest regard-has been quoted in the media as saying, `Bruce, we don't want any bitterness in this debate. Let them go on and don't be bitter as on the dams issue'. I regret that it is a bitter debate because the people of Tasmania are being taken to the cleaners by these conservationists, who are hell-bent on a single issue. If we give way to them-and we are tonight, because we do not have the numbers in this House-they will win. This legislation will give Senator Richardson more power. He is a self-confessed turnabout greenie. He is saying that he realised at the last Federal election that there were votes to be gained from the conservation movement. If he gets those greenies on side, the Government can win elections. I say to the Minister that that will not be the case because the ordinary average people in Australia are starting to wake up. This Bill will give the Minister more power. It will override State governments. As things are going at the moment, we may as well not have a State government. Mr Smith —That's what they want. Mr GOODLUCK —That is what those opposite want. They want the power centralised in Canberra so that they can dictate the terms. The Tasmanian Forestry Commission is doing a magnificent job trying to preserve our forests in a constructive way. The honourable member for Dunkley (Mr Chynoweth) laughs. He laughs because he loves the birds and the bees. He thinks that the birds and the bees and the bushes supply Tasmanians with work, but they do not. We know that they do not. The environmentalists may want Tasmania as their own playground, but the people I represent do not want it as a playground. They want to conserve our forests but still be able to work them sensibly-to cut down trees to make wood for the new Parliament House, for instance. Even the dining room in the new Parliament House is lined with Tasmanian blackwood. But the Government is going to stop that. All the things that are said about there being no more timber here and no more timber there in Tasmania are a lot of rot. The Forestry Commission in Tasmania is well organised. It is trying to do the best possible job by looking after conservation but not forgetting development. That is what it is all about-a balance. I do not want to hear any more from those in that little group in my own Party. They do not have my support. They should not believe that Bruce John Goodluck will support them just because they are in his Party. One cannot walk on the barbed wire fence in this game. One is on either one side or the other. I am on the side of looking after the ordinary, average working people in Tasmania who depend on us Tasmanians to bring forward their point of view. Some of them are not very well educated. Some of them have been taken to the cleaners by the educated, the university people, in Tasmania who continually say, `You have to save this and save that'. What about their wages? What about their groups. This legislation will go through. The Australian Labor Party is on a path of disaster because it has forsaken its support base, that is, the ordinary, average working person and his family. The Bob Browns and Norm Sanderses of the world and other conservationists are listening tonight. They are single issue people. They believe in only one thing-what they want. They get bitter if we have an opposing point of view. My colleagues and I on this side of the House look after every aspect of the person. We try to look after all his problems. All the crowd opposite are interested in is what they want, and what they want is to save the forests at any cost. They say, `Don't cut down one tree in Tasmania. We want it for ourselves'. Where is the development that was promised after the dams issue? There was no development at all. They have refuted their promise and left Tasmania in disarray because of what they are trying to do. Mr TICKNER(Hughes)(9.53) —It is extremely difficult, even impossible, to follow the contribution of the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck) to the debate on the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill. His contribution, with respect, did nothing to advance the cause of the Opposition. Regrettably, prejudice piled upon prejudice does nothing to advance the totality of human knowledge and rational debate in this Parliament. But I say to the honourable member for Franklin that he is always good for a laugh and brings some entertainment to what otherwise might become an overly serious debate. I should address a couple of matters that the honourable member for Franklin at least implicitly raised in his contribution. What he was really advancing was the view that environmental protection was somehow inconsistent with full employment. That is an extremely short-sighted and Tasmanian view of the world, one which is clearly at odds with the rest of Australia and certainly at odds with this Government's view of environmental protection. I stand here as someone committed to the principle of full employment. I am proud to call myself an environmentalist for full employment. Let us consider Tasmania as an example of what rape and pillaging of the environment over the entire course of a government does for the economic development of a State. Tasmania's economy is in decline. It has a government that is, according to the public opinion polls, increasingly unpopular and unable to deliver the jobs, a government that, had the Federal Government not intervened, would have been responsible for the destruction of a unique World Heritage area. It is not surprising that the honourable member for Franklin now leaves the chamber. I have not yet finished dealing with some of the remarks he made. He might not care to hear some of the other things I have to say. I was interested to hear that the honourable member's contribution to this debate involved an attack on his own Party. He referred to differences of opinion. Of course there are differences of opinion in the Liberal Party on environmental protection. I acknowledge that there are some decent people in the Liberal Party, people we think of as small `1' Liberals, or wets, as they are on occasions called, people who have a genuine commitment to preserving these unique, natural areas, irrespective of what the rednecks in the National Party might think about the issue. One has to remember that what we are talking about when we talk about World Heritage areas are not small, local environmental issues but sites of, not just national, but international significance. We are talking about South West Tasmania. We are talking about Uluru (Ayers Rock-Mount Olga) National Park, known to many people as Ayers Rock. We are talking about the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu National Park, places that are truly of international significance. That is not the responsibility of a State government that is prepared to turn its back on these issues. This Government, at the national level, should ensure protection of these areas in the event of State governments refusing to look after them. This Bill amends the Commonwealth conservation legislation to clarify and strengthen the protection afforded under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983, commonly called the World Heritage Act. It is important to remember that Opposition members are not speaking in support of amendments to this Bill. They are not proposing any small changes or substantial changes. They are opposing the very nature of the legislation. They are on record as taking the view that the Federal Government should have no role in ensuring protection for a World Heritage area in the event that a State government fails to live up to its responsibilities. The Government's powers and responsibilities in this area are based on the World Heritage Convention, which was a reflection of the desire of humankind throughout the world to protect the natural environment. The Convention is formally called the International Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. It was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation General Conference at its seventeenth session in Paris in 1972 and came into force in 1975. It promotes cooperation among nations to protect areas and buildings which are of such universal value that their conservation is of concern to humanity generally. I repeat: these are sites of global significance. We ought to take pride when Australia's natural features are listed as World Heritage areas. It is a matter of enormous pride to this Government when we are able to secure new listings on the World Heritage List because our listings join the pyramids of Egypt, the Grand Canyon of the United States and the Taj Mahal of India. Such is the calibre and importance of our natural resources. I have said many times before-and I am sure that my close colleague the honourable member for Denison (Mr Kerr), the fighter from Tasmania, agrees with my sentiments-that this Government is committed to cooperation, to trying to achieve social reform and social progress by working with State governments, local authorities and people from all walks of life in a cooperative way to ensure that we can achieve reform by consensus. That is the best way to achieve social progress. It is not our view that we should seek or promote division for some short term political end, to grab a headline. It is not our view that we should promote divisions between private and public school sectors, between major employer and union bodies. It is not our view that we should have barricades between conservationists and foresters. Those are the results of the policies of confrontation which the ideologues on the other side continually promote. That does not mean that there are not serious questions that have to be resolved. On occasions a Federal government has to take a stand to protect the national interest. But the approach that we adopt is initially one of compromise to seek to mediate where there are conflicting views. Of course, in relation to the tropical forests of northern Queensland that is the approach that we have adopted, not just for a matter of weeks or months but for years. For years we have tried to get some advance in Queensland. Of course, initially it was the former Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who provided the obstacle and the hardline opposition but now we find with a change of government the same trenchant opposition, the same provocation, the same encouragement of division and refusal to protect these World Heritage areas. Mr Kerr —Head in the sand stuff. Mr TICKNER —As the honourable member for Denison said, this is a head in the sand approach. It is even more than that because it is a deliberate attempt to cause division, a deliberate attempt to engage in political confrontation for some short-term gain. It is in that context that when our Government is confronted with the obstinate, redneck National Party Government in Queensland we are determined to ensure that the north Queensland tropical rainforests are preserved for all time for Australians and indeed for the world. I want people to think back to the approach of the Opposition during the period of the Fraser Government. Tonight we have heard people from the Liberal Party and the National Party saying that environmental protection is a matter for the States and that land use matters are not a Federal responsibility. But I ask the Opposition to tell us which government used its export powers to stop sandmining on Fraser Island. Was it a policy that was implemented by the Whitlam Government? Was it a policy of the Hawke Labor Government? No, it was a policy implemented by Malcolm Fraser. Even Malcolm Fraser knew that Australians were not prepared to accept this blinkered view, this warped and distorted view of the Australian Constitution which suggests that the interpretation of the Australian Constitution should be fixed for all time as it was originally interpreted in 1900. The High Court of Australia has ruled that it is a perfectly valid exercise of Commonwealth power to intervene using those powers to protect the natural environment. Malcolm Fraser did it; now the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) and everybody on the Opposition benches repudiate what the Fraser Government did in that area. I want to turn my attention particularly, directly and specifically to the policies of the Opposition on the environment right now as they stand in 1988. In the document that Senator Puplick, the Opposition spokesman on the environment, has put out he makes a very frank acknowledgment: that the current policies of the Liberal Party-can you believe this, Mr Deputy Speaker?-are the same policies as the coalition had in 1977. And where did the policies come from in 1977? They came from the then spokesman for the environment, the north Queensland National Party senator, Stan Collard. They were the policies and they remain the policies. I have absolutely no doubt that those who determine policy in the Liberal and National parties in this area will not be the, with respect, token inclusion in the shadow Cabinet, the wet Senator Puplick. They will be the likes of the honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard) and Senator John Stone, the ideologues. Mr Deputy Speaker, I bet you and my other colleagues that they will not budge an inch. They will not give even a little bit to Senator Puplick to try to establish some credibility with the environmental movement. As I said, the policies were and remain those promoted by Senator Stan Collard in 1977. I do not say that; Senator Puplick says that. They are the policies of the Opposition now. Senator Stone will have his way and the Opposition will be stuck with those policies. My time is running out and I must conclude but I want to make a couple of brief remarks in conclusion. I believe very strongly-I make these views known on most occasions when I speak in this Parliament-that as much as possible there should be a bipartisan approach to important items on the national political agenda. I do not seek to promote confrontation. For the sake of my children, in the future if there is a change of government I do not want to see the Kakadu National Park and the Great Barrier Reef at risk because of hardline, extremist and unacceptable policies. So I give the Liberal Party a message: its environmental policy, its States rights, hands off policy on environmental issues, is unacceptable to workers, to middle class Australians and to people from all walks of life. Environmental protection is not a middle class issue; it is an issue for workers and an issue for all Australians. The majority will not accept the Opposition's extremist and unacceptable fringe policy. Mr MILES(Braddon)(10.07) —It is with pleasure that I rise to speak on the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill, which relates to the environment, because I personally have a concern about the environment. Unlike the honourable member for Hughes (Mr Tickner), the previous speaker, I live in an area which has a natural environment which still exists in a very real way. I am sure that people in Tasmania realise the great need to maintain the natural environment. I repudiate some of the things the previous speaker mentioned about the coalition's policies. The Opposition is concerned about the environment but at the same time it is concerned about families and jobs and opportunities for families. It is also concerned that businesses have the opportunities to get on and develop jobs for Australians. At the moment the really big question which we are faced with as a nation is: what is the balance to be struck? Many people listening tonight would be asking that question. Where do we strike a balance between opening up new opportunities for jobs which will go on for hundreds of years and locking up areas forever so that future generations do not have the flexibility of making that choice for themselves? The Opposition is very much about allowing flexibility in the future for those people who come after us to have the opportunity to make decisions as to whether various businesses start up or whether new mines open up in certain areas. Tasmania is at the front of this area of operations and so much of our land, so much of our forests is being locked up that future generations will not be able to exploit, use, get the benefits of it-it does not matter what words are used-to provide jobs for future generations. As one of the previous speakers from Tasmania, the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck), told the House, 30 per cent of Tasmania is locked up. I want to try to impress upon people that this is the equivalent, in mainland terms of all Queensland being blotted out with no mines and no forest activities of any kind, all of New South Wales being blotted off the mainland, with no mines and no forest activities, and the same for Victoria-one-third of the mainland not being allowed to be used. That is what has happened in Tasmania. That the Government did not allow that part of Tasmania to be made available for logging operations seriously restricts the opportunities for young people who will have to build businesses in the future and help develop mines. I put it to the House that it should consider the ramifications of this type of legislation. The coalition is concerned about the environment. It is concerned that we should live in a healthy, natural environment. Might I point out to the House that we talk about the environment as though there were only the natural environment. What is the Australian Labor Party doing about the urban environment? It is doing very little. It is good to see a new government in New South Wales that has policies not just for the natural environment but also for the urban environment. It was elected because in its policies there was a balance between the natural and the urban environment. It is interested in combating crime and corruption-part of our environment. Let me return to the natural environment. This legislation indicates that the Government wants to go over the top in environmental areas. The legislation is obviously for political expediency; there is no doubt about that. On the matter of inspectors, I was absolutely bemused by a Press statement released by Senator Aulich in Tasmania last week. The headline read: `New conservation legislation-inspectors will not enter people's homes'. Is that not a great headline for this sort of legislation? The Press statement did not say anything about people's farms. It did not say anything about people's businesses. The idea was, `Don't be afraid, at least you can be guaranteed that these inspectors will not enter your homes'. How far from the truth that sort of headline is. The honourable senator was grabbing headlines for political expediency. If he spent more time in Tasmania and less in other places he would not have to try to get those headlines. I refer now to the external affairs power. I was interested that the honourable member for Scullin (Mr Jenkins) said that the legislation came under the external affairs powers in section 52 of the Constitution. Let me read that again. Section 52 states: The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have exclusive power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth. . . I wonder what our forests have to do with peace, order and good government. Obviously, nothing. It was well put by Barry Prismall in the Hobart Mercury: The reforms are the most far reaching in Australia's environmental history. . . . . Decisions about an area's World Heritage values-which was the basis for the Tasmanian High Court challenge over logging-will be put squarely in the province of the World Heritage Committee. . . . Where did this Committee meet? It did not meet in Hobart, or in Canberra, or even within Australia. It met in Paris. Are we as a nation prepared to allow decisions to be made about our backyard by countries overseas? People say that the High Court of Australia has made decisions on this matter, and I agree that that is certainly true, but I suggest, as the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Burr) did earlier, that if the decisions that have been made by the High Court of Australia over the last five years which moved power from the States to the Commonwealth were put to the Australian people, they would not be passed. Average Australians know that the more power that is given to the central government the less control they have over their lives. There is no doubt that the Australian people would reject those decisions which have been made, quite correctly, by the High Court. I put it to the House that there is a great concern in Australia that the external affairs powers should be limited. Another point I should like to make relates to land use. Under the Constitution, land use is a matter for the States and it is one which we should jealously protect for the States. If it is provided under the Constitution that the States have power over land then it should be the State governments which decide on nominating any areas for World Heritage listing. Mr Chynoweth —They would not nominate any in Tasmania. Mr MILES —I am interested in what the honourable member for Dunkley suggests. Of course, the assumption is that people who enter the Commonwealth Parliament somehow have a higher set of moral values than anybody who enters a State parliament. That is absolute nonsense. Mr Chynoweth —I am talking about different parties. Mr MILES —Of course I will respond to that comment because I would like to go on. The honourable member likes it because he will have his name in the record. Tasmania has the best record on forest practices of any Australian State. I want to illustrate the detail to which the Tasmanian Government has gone in putting together a forest practices code to ensure that the environment is handled sensitively and carefully, that various fauna and flora in the forests are protected. I do not want to dwell on that aspect; I want to talk about other areas such as soil erosion. The Forest Practices Code, which is covered by an Act of Parliament in Tasmania, requires the operators in our forests to be very careful. This is the detail which this Government, in bringing in the legislation, totally ignored. Code B.6. relates to the construction of bridges, causeways and fords. I hope the people of Australia are listening to this information because the Liberal Party, particularly in Tasmania, has made enormous strides in regard to the environment and is a long way ahead of the Labor Government. The Labor Party had 35 years, yet it did not do one tap in regard to the environment in Tasmania. The State Liberal Party has moved further down the track than any Labor State government on the mainland. Those governments do not have a code of practice. The code sets out the sort of things that loggers have to do when constructing bridges, causeways or fords. It states: Permanent bridges on major watercourses should be designed to withstand the fifty (50) year flood level. This is the case even though some of the watercourses are quite small streams. The code further states: Where causeways or fords are planned for stream crossings they will be constructed on stable substrate with solid rocky surfaces immediately downstream and an adequate length of properly rendered or gravelled dry approach will be provided on both sides. Tractors and other equipment will operate in a manner that will cause the least disturbance to the stream bed and stream banks. Do not push fill into running streams. These are the guidelines which the people who go into the forests have to abide by. The code continues: Plan activities in streams to coincide with low water flows, unless advice indicates problems for fresh water fish in sensitive localities. So where streams are very low the loggers are given instructions on how to handle that situation. The code continues: Stream bed and bank areas will be restored as nearly as practicable to their original condition upon completion of the operation. It is not just how they go about it, but what happens when the operations actually finish. The code goes on: Wooden bridges and components will need to be secured properly where they will be subjected to high water flows or maybe submerged. Lastly, it states: Protect bridge embankments to minimise erosion by use of suitable concrete, timber logs, vegetation or rip rap. I continue on to another section which deals with snig tracks. Some people might ask what snig tracks are. Snig tracks, of course, are the small tracks used in the operations to get logs out of the forest. This is what the code says about them: Snig tracks will not cross a Class 1 watercourse. In other words, there can be no logging anywhere near particular watercourses. Further, it states: The number of crossings of other watercourses will be restricted to clearly marked crossing points. Temporary culverts or log crossings will be provided in any such crossing. Tractor damage to stream banks will be minimised. No watercourse bed will be used for snigging. Where practicable snigging should be carried out in an uphill direction on soils in the high erosion class. . . . . Cording of snig tracks-- I guess most of those who have spoken on the environment and have talked about our forests would not even know what cording is, because they are out of touch with what our timber operations are all about. It is incredible that so many people from the Government side really do not have much idea about going about operations in a forest in a sensitive way. Cording, of course, is putting bark and that sort of thing over the ground to prevent erosion. The paragraph states: Cording of snig tracks in wet areas and use of temporary culverts should be considered to reduce severe soil compaction. Cording is used particularly around areas where the logs are pulled in and loaded onto trucks. Lastly, the code states: Outsloping of snig tracks should be considered to reduce scouring. The outslope should be about 2 per cent and not more than 6 per cent as logs slide off slopes greater than 6 per cent. I could go on, but time does not permit. There is a lot more detail in this Forest Practices Code, which is the best forest practices code in Australia. Mr Webster —In the world. Mr MILES —As the honourable member from the Blue Mountains would certainly know, coming from such a beautiful area of Australia, this is the best code for operations in our forests. It was brought in by a Liberal government. It is wrong of Government members to say that the coalition is not sensitive to the environment. Mr Smith —Did you know the honourable member for Denison is not speaking? Mr MILES —I am interested to hear that, as the honourable member for Bass says-and he gave a very good speech earlier in the day-the only member from Tasmania not listed to speak is the honourable member for Denison (Mr Kerr). It is interesting that a person like that, who is a greenie, is not speaking on this legislation. Of course we are the members who really are concerned for the ordinary, average person in Tasmania who wants to have a job and support his family. We are interested in the future of the young people in our colleges; we want them to be able to go out and get jobs and get apprenticeships. We are concerned about them, and that is why we are speaking on this issue. The other issue I am interested in is the issue of private property, referred to by Government members including, I think, the honourable member for Calare (Mr Simmons). He said: `Of course, only 20 private properties in Queensland and only eight in Tasmania will be affected by this legislation'. That is an absolute, outright-- Mr Burr —Outrage. Mr MILES —It is an outrage that any private property should be listed by somebody else in this manner when the owners do not get any say in whether it is listed. That is something which, as a parliament, we should object to very strenuously. People buy their private property, and some people in some areas of Tasmania have owned it for 100 years, and yet somebody else is able to go along and say, `This has got World Heritage status' and they have no say over it whatsoever. It is an outrage, as the honourable member for Lyons has said. The Opposition is totally opposed to this draconian legislation, which has really come at the zenith of the environmental debate. It has really gone over the top. Mr Smith —Richardson's greenshirts. Mr MILES —Yes; the honourable member for Bass refers to Richardson's greenshirts-inspectors who can go into the farms and business operations of people interested in forest operations. This Bill should never see the light of day as an Act of Parliament. The Opposition is totally opposed to it. Mr CHYNOWETH(Dunkley)(10.26) —I believe the honourable member for Denison (Mr Kerr) will have an opportunity to speak this evening on the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill. The reason he could not get on the list is that so many people on this side want to speak on the Bill. There are so many that I could hardly get a guernsey, and I have been on the environment committee since I have been a member of this Parliament. So it is very hard to get on to speak. The honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles) mentioned the urban environment. Let me tell him that we have done a lot in connection with the urban environment. If he was aware of what was happening next week he would know that the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories (Senator Richardson) is coming down to the beautiful electorate of Dunkley to have a look at the urban environment, and we will be taking steps to protect that environment down there. These people who knock us environmentalists think we are at the zenith of our power, at the zenith of our influence, but we have not started. The environment movement in Australia began in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the destruction by the Tasmanian Government of Lake Pedder. That was sort of covered over. One has only to look at the beautiful photographs of Lake Pedder to see what we have lost. We have lost forever a magnificent lake. Some day maybe someone with a bit of nous will knock down that dam and Lake Pedder will be rejuvenated. I suggest that is not a bad idea. It has been stated quite often that Tasmania still has these huge stands of trees because the forests there have been managed in a sympathetic manner. The only reason those trees have been left is that these areas are so isolated from the mainland. The market did not exist to sell off all these trees. Now the markets do exist and there is the opportunity to sell this timber, and that is what the companies are trying to do. However, we will not let them. It has also been said that there was 35 years of Labor government in Tasmania and nothing was done. Environment was not an issue when the Australian Labor Party was in power in Tasmania. Surely honourable members opposite know that. The environment has come from nowhere, 15 years ago, to being an issue which now has a high profile-and it will continue to get a higher profile in the future. I have always claimed that we should save as much as possible of what is left of our natural environment throughout Australia. It is my policy to try to do this-to grab it now while we have the opportunity. We can fight over whether it has minerals or whether some development should go ahead in the future. However, if we get it now while Australia is in the unique position in the world of being a fairly wealthy nation which does not need some of the resources in world heritage or national park areas, and put this land aside, maybe at some time in the future we will be able to mine it. I have always said that national parks could possibly be mined in another 20 years with some sort of robot or equipment that digs underneath the ground and does not disturb the environment on the top. Maybe we could manage it a lot better than we do at the moment. These areas should be set aside for our children, such as the young girls from Queensland in the gallery at the moment. We are looking after their future. We are leaving them something-something that, only through luck, has been left to us. It is important that we actually keep as much as we can for the future residents of Australia. Debate interrupted. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) — Order! It being 10.30 p.m., I propose the question: That the House do now adjourn. Mr Beazley-I require that the question be put forthwith without debate. Question resolved in the negative. Debate resumed. Mr CHYNOWETH —There was some discussion by the honourable member for Braddon about the best forest practices in the world that he claims the Tasmanian Government has put into operation. But Tasmania put those forest practices in place only because it was forced to do so by the environmentalists. To say that everyone adheres to that code is incorrect. I was in Tasmania last year and the year before, and I can assure honourable members that everyone does not follow that code. I think 10 metres either side of creeks and rivers was supposed to be left, but the trees were knocked over and into the water. The snig tracks were well compacted and no steps had been taken to rejuvenate them after logging had finished. There was also some logging going on. Cranes were placed on top of mountains and the logs were drawn up to the top. A couple of years ago the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation was holding an inquiry into the crown of thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef. From the air, this area in Tasmania where all the logs had been pulled up to the crown of the mountain looked as though it had been attacked by crown of thorns starfish eating their way slowly along the mountain top and destroying it all. That is something symbolic that has stuck in my mind and I will never forget it. As I have said before, we must try to save as much of Australia as we can. I could speak for my full 20 minutes, telling the people of Australia about the great things that the Australian Labor Party has done in relation to the environment. We have made certain that woodchipping is carried out on a controlled basis. There is a lot of pressure on the New South Wales and Victorian governments at the moment to increase woodchipping, but I trust that does not happen. Why should we chop down beautiful gum trees and other trees and turn them into cardboard that gets wrapped around some plastic toy from Japan or Korea? We should look at the work practices that are followed in these forests. A lot of logs are not suitable for pulp as they are sawlogs, and to say otherwise is incorrect. Last year a small exhibition was staged in front of Parliament House by the woodchippers from Eden. They brought up all these dirty old logs with cracks and holes in them and made it look as though they were the logs that they would send to the pulp mill. That is not the case. I have seen rumbling along back roads in Tasmania plenty of excellent logs which should have been classified as sawlogs, but which were being turned into pulp and paper. The Australian Labor Party has also done a lot in the area of rainforests. We have taken steps to preserve them for future generations. Why have we had to do this? We have had to bring in this legislation to make certain that conservative Liberal-National Party governments do not destroy the environment. We should not need this sort of legislation, but it is necessary to protect the natural heritage for future generations. I believe that this Bill should have been in force some time ago. If it had been, we may not have had the problems we have had with certain governments. I commend Senator Richardson for his far-sightedness and I commend those in his Department who have worked hard to make certain that this legislation was in a proper form. I hope the Bill passes through this House and the Senate and is enacted in the near future. Mr COBB(Parkes)(10.35) —The Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill is nothing more nor less than typical socialist legislation designed to hoodwink the people of Australia. The Government is going to jackboot this legislation through the House so that it can build some sort of monument to Senator Richardson. He has just messed up things in New South Wales, and what he is doing here is no better. It is just another step to transfer power from State governments to the Federal Government via such mechanisms as international treaties and to centralise the power. That is what those on the other side seem to want. Under this legislation the Government will set up a system of inspectors, it will abolish the environmental impact statement considerations and it will take away any say or right of appeal that State governments have-and we are talking about Queensland in this case. It is worth dwelling for a minute on the history of this matter. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), that discredited offshoot of the United Nations, set up the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in Paris on 19 November 1972. That came into force on 7 December 1975, but Australia ratified it before that, in August 1974, and was the seventh country to do so. About 100 other countries have done so since. We now have a World Heritage Committee which lists monuments and sites, and also natural sites. The group that is responsible for giving advice to the World Heritage Committee on natural sites is the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). About 288 places around the world have been listed. We all know the famous ones. They include the pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, Yellowstone National Park and so on. Australia has already listed the Great Barrier Reef, the Kakadu National Park, the Willandra Lakes in New South Wales, Lord Howe Island, the New South Wales rainforests, the Uluru National Park, which contains Ayers Rock, and some of the Western Tasmanian Wilderness National Parks. This sounds all very well but in practice it is not working out too well in this country. We only have to go to Lord Howe Island to see the little ways in which that beautiful island is being messed up. To do some work on the side of the road which had recently been washed away, the authorities had to bring stones from the mainland. This is the sort of nonsense that goes on. I have a copy of a telex here from Ambassador Mott of UNESCO, who telexed Senator Richardson in December 1987 and said: IUCN in fact has never visited Kakadu officially, not even in 1981 when Stage I was listed, and certainly not for Stage II . . . So IUCN has not even followed its own guidelines before some of these places have been listed. It makes me wonder whether the Kakadu listing should be declared invalid, because the guidelines have not been adhered to. Mr James Thorsell of Canada will lead an IUCN team to Australia later this year to evaluate the north Queensland rainforests. He is a respected figure, but Ambassador Mott, in telexing Senator Richardson, said: For Queensland it is desirable that Thorsell visit and he be well looked after. He went on to say: It would also help if Canberra Ambassadors of WHC member states could be taken to the forests and shown around. In other words, he was saying, `Junket this whole group around, look after its members well, pour a few whiskies and ports into them and then we might get listing. We will try to follow the guidelines on this case'. This is the sort of thing that has been going on. But the area of Queensland rainforests proposed for listing extends roughly from Townsville in the south to Cooktown in the north, a stretch of country extending over about 500 kilometres and in places up to 100 kilometres wide. It encompasses about 857,000 hectares, or in excess of two million acres. A decision on this matter is expected by November 1988. We should not forget that the Queensland State Government has managed this area very well over the past 100 years. Some 76 per cent of the area has been set aside and has never been logged, and only about 18.7 per cent is logged now. The Government believes that logging is incompatible with listing because logging will destroy the area for World Heritage listing. As I have said, some areas have been logged two, three and four times over the past 100 years. One can enter such areas and have difficulty determining whether they have been logged or they are virgin forest. Yet logging is supposed to be so harmful. Why does the Government want to stop the logging; why does it want to list the area? To do so will have the effect of destroying an industry which earned $33m last year. There are 13 mills operating in the area which will no doubt close down. The Government is not even concerned about them; it is so out of touch with people in this country. There will be $50m worth of investment wasted in this industry. By my calculations 765 people are employed directly in the industry who will be put out of work. A further 378, who are indirectly involved, will be out of work also. The Government is so out of touch. That was demonstrated recently in the results of the New South Wales State election, and it will happen again in Queensland. Not only will people be out of work but towns will go under. Mr McGauran —And families. Mr COBB —And families. Beautiful little hamlets such as Ravenshoe will be lost. What will that do for tourism? Tourism will actually drop. We have 106,000 people involved in forestry and in wood manufacturing industries in the country and this Government is doing the best it can to take away their jobs. The industry is a $8,000m industry when it is followed right through, and this Government is trying to destroy it. Mr McGauran —What about the human tragedy? Mr COBB —The Government has not considered the human tragedy; it has not even considered the alternatives. Let us examine the alternatives if the hardwood industry in this country is shut down. The Government says that softwoods can be used. Softwood may be suitable to manufacture some things, but it is not suitable for everything. The Government apparently wants to build every table, desk and chair out of plastic. Some things can be built from plastic, but I, for one, do not want to see everything made out of plastic, aluminium or steel. The alternative is that we import hardwood from countries such as Malaysia or Brazil. It seems that it is immoral to chop down a tree in Australia but is all right to chop a tree down overseas. If the Government were genuinely interested in conserving rainforests, it surely would cut down those trees that have to be cut down in areas that are managed. The Government wants to shift the problem overseas to a Third World country, where the problem will be out of sight. This is the type of hypocrisy the Government indulges in. A further alternative proposed by the Government is that hardwoods be grown in plantations. Where will the Government get the land from? Where will the money come from to buy the properties to grow the hardwood? Even if it were possible to grow the hardwood in 40 years, by my calculations it would realise only a 5 per cent gross return-a very poor investment indeed. It should not be forgotten that many trees that are cut down, such as cedars, do grow to an acceptable height in 40 years but the wood has not matured and does not have an acceptable colour. Such wood would be suitable only for pulp return. In any event, after a period of 40 years there will be no sawmills because they will be closed. The industry would have to be started again. In plantations, I am sure all honourable members are aware, only one species is grown, which I find very unattractive. So I do not think the alternatives are at all suitable. Senator Cook in his Senate speech said that in the Government's view such forestry operations-he was referring to logging-would clearly damage or destroy the integrity of the nominated World Heritage area as a whole or the partly valuable features of the area. As I said earlier, we have been logging for 100 years and the Government considers that the land is still suitable for listing. The Government is correct when it says it is beautiful land, which means that logging has not done so much damage to it after all. The Government is desperately out of touch not only on this issue but in chasing the greenie vote in the way it has. That was proved at the recent New South Wales State election. The Australian Labor Party lost many of its country seats, Monaro being one of them, and it was hurled out of office. The Australian Conservation Foundation has 1,100-odd members and a survey conducted some time ago revealed that 548 of that membership answered positively that the ACF should support a political party. The findings of that survey opens one's eyes. They reveal that 361 members said that they would support the Australian Democrats or the Nuclear Disarmament Party. Only 46 members said that they would support the Australian Labor Party; only three said that they would support the Liberal Party; and not one said that he would support the National Party of Australia. The ACF membership is totally unrepresentative. There is no balance in its membership whatsoever. It has no representative from the Labor Party, for heaven's sake. In excess of 76 per cent of its membership are either academics or professionals. Less than 2 per cent are blue-collar members, from which the Australian Labor Party base is supposed to come; less than 3 per cent are tradesmen; less than 5 per cent come from managerial areas; and 63 per cent of the membership have no children in their families. That is a revealing statistic. The majority of the leadership of the ACF are university academics. The leadership and the membership are overwhelmingly urban. It is a completely out of touch lobby group. It received $1.3m in government grants in 1986. It has fooled the Labor Party completely. This legislation also is out of touch. Let us look at it in some detail. It gives the Commonwealth greater power over specific parts of World Heritage listed areas. In the past the power was more general. This legislation represents a grab for more power. Further, an environmental impact statement is not now required in World Heritage listed areas. This aspect was referred to by other members in this debate. If one seeks to do anything to anywhere else in the country, one has to have an environmental impact statement; but not in this case. If the former Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, the honourable member for Parramatta (Mr John Brown), who now sits on the back benches, wished to erect a monorail in Uluru National Park, he would not have had to have an environmental impact statement. He could have gone ahead without one. It makes one realise the sheer hypocrisy of this legislation. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) is out there playing golf with Kerry Packer and smoking cigars with Peter Abeles while legislation of this sort is going through the House. I have never seen a Government so out of touch. Mr McGauran —Jobs are being lost. Mr COBB —Jobs are being lost everywhere. Let us look at the proposed system of inspectors-who have been called `Graham's green-shirts' or `Richardson's raiders', or whatever. It is completely anti-Australian that inspectors with plastic ID cards should be running around gathering information, if they feel there is a serious and urgent need to do so, and reporting back to the Minister. They are supplied with warrants for this purpose, which are granted by any judge of a court created by the Parliament. Does that include a judge of the Family Court of Australia, for example? None of these matters has been spelt out. In addition, the Commonwealth will be able to shut down activities in an area before listing is even granted simply because an area is being considered for World Heritage listing. If a nomination is pending, all activities will be ordered to cease by the Minister. As well, the avenues of appeal to the High Court of Australia will be, in effect, curtailed, which means that the current Queensland Government appeal will fall into this category. There has been no consultation as such at all. What has happened to the famous consensus? The Prime Minister has lost interest in it. His chief minder, who is pushing this legislation through, has lost interest in it. The cigar smoking golfer seems to have forgotten the common people of Australia who are creating this country's wealth. The Prime Minister's minder, his henchman, the Minister responsible for this legislation, is riding roughshod over Queenslanders to push the legislation through. At the next election the Government will lose the electorate of Leichhardt, and the National Party majority in the electorate of Kennedy will increase. Australia cannot afford this nonsense. Our import-export ratio of timber is running at five to one against us and this Government will exacerbate that problem with this legislation. Does the Government know what has been going on with logging? On average, only eight trees per hectare are cut down every forty years. There is no clear-felling. Only the mature trees are cut down, many of which are defective and would fall down anyway. The best trees are left for seed production. The Forestry Commission identifies these trees and indicates in which direction they should fall. Only 0.5 per cent of the forest is logged each year. The average person who visits the forest would be hard pressed to say where logging had taken place. When a tree is felled it opens up the canopy and lets in a bit of sunlight. Such an area is the most exciting part of the forest because of the fauna and flora that are concentrated there. The canopy filters about 98 per cent of the sunlight. When a tree is taken out, the filtering is reduced to about 84 per cent, but after 10 years the normal canopy returns. One has only to look at the damage caused by Cyclone Winifred to the canopy 15 or 18 months ago. It stripped virtually every leaf from every tree. A person who returned there now would not be able to tell that there had been a cyclone in the area. The rainforest is very vigorous and robust. There are about 1,000 trees per hectare with a breast-height diameter of greater than 10 centimetres. The rainforest has a tremendous capacity to regenerate. No logging occurs near streams or in special areas. The timber workers have done a magnificent job. They love these areas and they have looked after them for the last hundred years-before these latter-day conservationists heard of the areas and started to take an interest in them. I congratulate the Forestry Commission and the workers for the magnificent job they have done. Mr Hicks —The salt of the earth. Mr COBB —They are the salt of the earth, as the honourable member for Riverina-Darling says. Originally, it was proposed that about 1,200 to 3,000 private properties would be listed. The Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories (Senator Richardson) did not even know that that was the case. He said that only 120 to 200 were to be listed. I was interested to see the number of private properties that had been excluded in the Cape Tribulation and Cape Kimberley areas. Some cleared properties had been included while virtually virgin areas had been left out. It seemed that there was quite a correlation between the greenies' mates' properties, which had been left out, and normal decent people's properties, which had been left in. That was quite a scandal. When we examined the original maps of the Cape Tribulation-Cape Kimberley area that became very obvious. It is totally illogical to stop logging. Apparently, quarry mining can continue, building can continue, the power generation that now goes on can continue, but logging can be stopped. The Minister makes much of tourism by saying that World Heritage listing will increase tourism. But when the Great Barrier Reef was listed, domestic tourism actually fell off in the years following the listing. It was only the heavy advertising in this area which turned around the figures. There was no change in the number of international tourists who flocked to the area after the listing. At the same time, while tourism to the Great Barrier Reef was falling, tourism to the Queensland State forests actually increased very sharply from half a million tourists to 1.2 million tourists. The State forests had been managed very well because of the setting up of recreation zones, scientific area zones and catchment area protection zones. This was all done when conservation was unfashionable. The World Heritage listing is very suspect. More and more people in this country are starting to realise that what seemed to be a good idea at the time is actually of little value. If Queensland wants it, it can have it and the Opposition will support it, but it is up to the Queensland Government to decide. If it is so good, why is it not asking for it? Mr Campbell —If they did, they would be fools. Mr COBB —I wish the honourable member would return to his seat and stop interjecting. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) — Order! If the honourable member for Kalgoorlie wishes to interject he should return to his own seat. Mr COBB —What a good idea. A wider agenda is at work here. This Bill is overriding States rights. It is centralising more power in Canberra. It is shutting up the productive areas of Australia. It is the first step in passing power to overseas bodies. It is destroying the jobs of private enterprise workers. It is repugnant to everything we on this side of the House stand for. We totally oppose it. The Minister should come to his senses and have this legislation withdrawn. Mr Smith —I raise a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is the practice in this House for honourable members not to be interrupted when they are speaking by those who sit beside them. The honourable member for Kalgoorlie has sat there for the last 10 minutes making a fool of himself by deliberately interrupting and whispering something to the speaker. It is a discourtesy to speakers. I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to speak appropriately to the honourable member for Kalgoorlie, who is again rising whilst not in his place. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The Chair has advised the honourable member for Kalgoorlie of that. The honourable member for Kalgoorlie will resume his seat. Mr KERR(Denison)(10.55) —Earlier in this debate I heard a poignant remark from the honourable for Braddon (Mr Miles) with which I agreed entirely-that is, that this debate needs balance. The fundamentals are that we are dealing with the need to accommodate two very important elements of national policy, namely to provide jobs and to protect the environment. Both of these elements need to be preserved. Behind the mask of the honourable member for Braddon, we then heard the authentic voice of Australian conservatism-the speaker who has just sat down, the honourable member for Parkes (Mr Cobb)-the voice of hatred, the voice that cannot accommodate any view other than his own very narrow perceptions. I hope that those who are still listening to the broadcast at this late hour listened to the honourable member for Parkes and make their own judgment about his contribution. In my view, there is no room in this House for a view which is tainted by hatred or misunderstanding. The other day my colleague from Tasmania, the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck), addressed us on the subject of conservation. For 10 minutes he explained why he hated those whom he called the greenies. There is no room for that in this place. In our form of democracy we need to accommodate those people who need work, whose jobs are at stake, and those people who see value in our natural environment and the need to make sure that we as a nation preserve aspects of our heritage for future generations. It is a complete distortion of the focus of this debate to say that it is an issue upon which one can take the crude and simplistic analysis that has been put before this House by the honourable member for Parkes. Let me address some very fundamental issues. Without national heritage legislation by now we would have seen the destruction of that natural heritage area, the Gordon River. This is an area which has been saved because of the courage of the Australian Labor Party in bringing before this Parliament the necessary legislation to ensure that the heritage of Australia is saved. Mr Peter Fisher —Why did Whitlam flood Pedder? Mr KERR —The honourable member demonstrates the depth of his ignorance in mentioning Lake Pedder. The Whitlam Government made a very generous offer to the people of Tasmania to provide all the funding necessary to ensure that that project did not go ahead. The honourable member displayed the fact that he has no comprehension of the history of the matters under discussion. In Tasmania it is vital that we address these important elements concerning the environment and the creation of jobs. I have the most serious contempt for those who put before us the record of the Tasmanian Government as a protector of jobs. The destruction of jobs in the forestry industry saddens me the most in this debate. There have been so many jobs lost as our industry has moved from a small industry based on small sawmillers and a pulp industry to woodchipping. That process has led to the loss of jobs in the timber industry. Over the many years that this has been occurring, employment in the timber industry has declined by more than half. We now have a situation where the industry is not sustaining the numbers that it did before, when it was using much less resource. We have a situation where we are not using our product most efficiently, where we have not used value added products and where we are not moving into areas of high employment but, instead, at least at the Gray Government level, are still clinging to outdated and simplistic notions of what it is to exploit forests. That is just not good enough. My friend the honourable member for Braddon spoke about the forest code. That is a real step forward. I would be the last to begrudge the credit that the Tasmanian Government deserved last year in bringing forward for the first time a sensible code for forest practice management. That code is a large advance. It has problems in terms of making sure that it is enforced and that valuable timber that should be sawlog is not chipped. It has many difficulties, but at least it is a step forward. However, it is a step forward which has been brought about only in the last year and only in the face of the success of the Labor Party in raising these issues and making certain that the people of Tasmania recognise the necessity for such intelligent and creative responses to the issues that are now before this House for debate. I am deeply saddened by the tone of dislike for the commonsense of the Australian people that is evidenced from the Opposition. In this debate we have heard the most gross distortions of the policies of this Government and we have heard, unfortunately, from those who share with me the pleasure of representing Tasmania some of the saddest statements about their motivation and what advantage they seek to take in a debate which really should be one where we are joining to ensure that national priorities are maintained, namely, protecting both jobs and the environment. In Australia in the future no government that ignores either of those two fundamentals will be returned. If the crude redneck statements that have been made by some speakers on the Opposition side in this debate reflect the tone that they will be bringing to future election campaigns, they will certainly consign themselves to a significant lack of electoral success in future elections because both the fundamentals-employment for Australians and the environment-need to be preserved. In conclusion, I say that we need to be moving now to make sure that the resources we do hold and can use for timber production are used most wisely, that we draw back from crude use of those resources for simple woodchipping, and that we move down into value added production, pulp use, high quality timber, sawlog timber, furniture making and the like, veneer production and paper production. We should move down that track and get away from simple analyses, hatred and fraudulent hypocrisy and deal with the issue that should be before us, which is-I think that this is the bottom line-the need to protect both of these very important fundamentals for our future. Mr McGAURAN(Gippsland)(11.04) —As a representative of one of the most important timber industries in Australia, in East Gippsland in particular, I cannot allow the mealy-mouthed, sanctimonious performance by the honourable member for Denison (Mr Kerr) to go unchallenged. It is a long time since I have heard such a string of meaningless platitudes imposed upon members of this chamber, as well as those listening to the broadcast. The honourable member for Denison sought to portray himself as the personification of reasonableness and balance. Instead, he simply again portrayed more graphically than any member on this side of the House could hope to demonstrate the utter imbalance in this debate. Let the honourable member for Denison and any other of those urban-based members of the Australian Labor Party visit areas such as east Gippsland and meet with the workers and their families who are being driven out of their industry and their local communities. Those opposite should not pretend that it does not occur. When is the Labor Party going to put a human face on the drafting of its policies, particularly in regard to conservation? Those members of the Labor Party who try to portray themselves as the arbitrators of all wisdom in this debate are doing a great many Australians a grave disservice. Anyone who does not believe that the environmental debate is hopelessly imbalanced towards radical conservationists is totally out of touch. That is a characteristic one so easily associates with the Australian Labor Party in today's climate. It is an attitude that is costing the Labor Party dearly, as the New South Wales election so vividly demonstrated. I refer to the case of the honourable member for Denison, an urban lawyer from Sydney before he was drafted by the greeny movement to Denison specifically for the task of turfing out the then sitting member, the Honourable Michael Hodgman. Mr Chynoweth —He did a good job. Mr McGAURAN —He did it, all right. He did it because of the combined strength and force of a totally outrageous, totally unrepresentative conservation movement. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The honourable member for Gippsland might address himself to the matters before the House. Mr McGAURAN —Mr Deputy Speaker, in addressing this debate about balance in the conservation argument I will set out for you the case of the East Gippsland Coalition in my electorate which has extraordinary and totally undue influence over the Cain Government in the drafting of the timber strategy which affects East Gippsland and, to a certain extent, West Gippsland. No member of the East Gippsland Coalition of whom I know, or of whom anybody else knows, lives in East Gippsland. That coalition is made up of people from different walks of life-as far as we can tell, centred on academia-who have no connection with East Gippsland. We have a State government that responds to this unrepresentative group, in total disregard of the desires of the local community. I do not wish to take up the time of the House much longer, except to point out that the honourable member for Denison spoke of being deeply saddened by the divisiveness of this debate. The divisiveness originates because of the imbalance and narrow-mindedness of the Federal Government. As long as a centralist, socialist government imposes on State governments and, by extension, regions, its own unrepresentative, totally illogical, ideological idiosyncrasies we will have such divisiveness. Members on this side of the House introduce balance to the areas we represent. We want conservation balanced by the opportunity for industry to grow and flourish so that blue collar workers, whom honourable members say they represent but who are turning to us in droves, can live in those areas. We want balance. Nobody sets out to raze the forests-certainly not those who work in them. Let us have none of this hypocrisy from members of the Labor Party who are indebted to the conservation movement for their very presence in this chamber and who, therefore, are merely paying back debts. Mr PUNCH(Barton-Minister for the Arts and Territories)(11.14) —in reply-To say the least, tonight the debate on the Conservation Legislation Bill 1988 has been a most interesting one. Supposedly we were to see the new Liberals. These are the Liberals who dumped the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer) after the last election. Nonetheless, putting that aside, these are the Liberals who are going to be, supposedly, responsible and even-handed in regard to the environment. However, tonight when they had the opportunity to show whether they had changed their spots about the environment-given all the talk from their ranks after the last election-they again opposed any legislative security for the environment at each and every point and turn. I say to the House tonight that in this debate we have returned to the fundamentals in regard to the environment. It is a case of us against honourable members opposite. It is a case of pro against anti. Honourable members opposite have returned to their fundamental beliefs. It is in their blood. Once again Opposition members are out and about to get the best chance-a bit of rock, a bit of minerals, a slice of timber, live for today only. The Opposition still cannot see the long term benefits and the long term necessity of protecting and enhancing the environment for anything other than the perceived short term gain which clouds their vision. After tonight one would truly have to be a mug to believe that the Liberal Party or the National Party is anything other than anti-environment, as we on this side of the House have always known. Tonight the Opposition's real views are again exposed for the world to see. The concept of a Liberal Party or National Party Minister for the environment is something akin to having a wolf standing guard on a flock of lambs. Let me deal now, Mr Deputy Speaker, with a number of specific points raised by the Opposition in this debate tonight. First, the amendments proposed by the National Farmers Federation (NFF), as my colleague the honourable member for Calare (Mr Simmons) so adequately explained earlier, were carefully examined by the Government and rejected as being inappropriate. However, the NFF's views on compensation and the procedures for nominations will be further considered by the Government in the development of the World Heritage policy. Let me turn now to the contribution made to the debate by the honourable member for Parkes (Mr Cobb). In terms of the World Heritage Bill which we are talking about tonight, there are about 20 privately owned properties included. The reduction from the numbers which the honourable member was talking about a few moments ago is a direct result of the extensive consultation process undertaken by this Government. It is a great pity that the honourable member conveniently forgot to mention that. Let us talk now about the subject of negotiations and put this in perspective. In September 1984 the Australian Heritage Commission recommended that the wet tropical rainforests of north Queensland should be nominated to the World Heritage List. For the next three years the Commonwealth tried to talk to the Queensland Government about rainforest conservation, but the State of Queensland, which has 54 per cent of Australia's rainforests, refused to alter its destructive logging schedule. And Opposition members talk to us about negotiations! Despite these obstacles, the House should be reminded, the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), the former Minister responsible for the Environment, the honourable member for Robertson (Mr Cohen), and the present Minister responsible for the environment, Senator Richardson, persisted in attempts to negotiate with the Queenslanders. Let me say to this House loud and clear once and for all that we on this side of the House have never refused an offer to negotiate. Earlier this evening an Opposition member raised the prospect of negotiating with the Queensland Premier. The Prime Minister wrote to the Queensland Premier on 11 December 1987 suggesting talks between the two governments. Less than two weeks later Premier Ahern said that his State would `fight to the end'. On numerous occasions the Minister responsible for the environment, Senator Richardson, has requested talks with the Queensland Government. On 20 January he telexed Premier Ahern requesting talks on the future of the Queensland rainforests. All this has been done by a Federal government which will not negotiate! I am relieved to learn from the Minister that talks have now been agreed to and that the Minister will be reporting to the Parliament once the talks have been completed. Despite the Hawke Government's attempts to secure the rainforests of north Queensland, despite the fact that this Government has a mandate secured from the people of Australia on 11 July 1987, the Opposition parties have sought to frustrate and thwart the will of the people at every turn. Let me say loud and clear once again in this House tonight that there is no hidden agenda in this, as Opposition members paranoiacally go on about. There is no plan to list all of Australia and there is certainly no plan to lock up large areas of Australia forever for no purpose. Our proposals for World Heritage listing will not cheapen or belittle the meaning of the listing in any way, as intended by Opposition members. The Government is not interested in nominating every piece of pretty landscape or threatened bushland, as Opposition members seek to imply. Let us talk about the issue of inspections and civil rights, as raised by the Opposition. A desperate Opposition, despite defeat on these issues by the will of the people in July 1987, now seeks to delay the legislation with some wild accusations that it is unconstitutional and somehow a threat to civil liberties. Let me say loud and clear once again that the rights of private citizens will not be diminished under this Bill. Even if there is some red cedar rather than reds under the bed for the Opposition to be paranoid about now, inspectors have no power under any circumstances to enter a private dwelling. There will be no power of seizure or arrest. The inspectors' powers are not draconian. They are only sufficient to obtain information relating to the protection and identification of World Heritage values. Inspectors can only enter property-- Mr White —Let's go home. Mr PUNCH —It would do the honourable member a lot of good to listen to this. I know that it will upset the Opposition's pamphlets and Press releases, but it will do it the world of good to listen to this. Inspectors can enter property without permission or a judge's warrant only in serious and urgent circumstances. Mr Cobb —Such as? Mr Peter Fisher —Such as? Mr PUNCH —Honourable members ask, `Such as?'. I thank them for that. Those urgent circumstances as outlined in the proposed Act, relate to the concealment, loss or destruction of anything related to illegal activities that requires urgent collection of information. That is pretty specific. I know that nothing like that will appease honourable members opposite because they do not want to be appeased. They are looking for excuses. I hate to put the facts in the road of a good story, but that is the truth. Let us consider the Tasmanian State Government. The honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck), who is sitting out of his place, raised that earlier. Mr Goodluck —This is my correct position. Mr PUNCH —We think that he would do a better job as Deputy Leader also. The lack of cooperation from the Tasmanian Government in the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests has demonstrated the need for independent Commonwealth inspectors-the inspectors he so queries. However, officers of Tasmania's National Parks and Wildlife Service, as the honourable member for Franklin should know, have far greater powers than those proposed for these Federal inspectors. For example, section 41 of the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Act 1970 gives authorised officers the power to seize anything on reasonable grounds. Section 42 gives them the power to search any premises, including private homes and vehicles. I would like to hear what the honourable member for Franklin intends to say to the Tasmanian Premier about that. Section 43 gives the power of arrest without warrant, even for failing to give the full name and address. Not wishing to promote shock horror headlines, it is, however, my duty to inform the house of the powers of the various banana, chook, seamen and other inspectors right across the Commonwealth, in State jurisdictions, which contrast with those under this legislation which the Opposition is seeking to misrepresent tonight. This legislation is hardly the forerunner of a new environmental police state. If the Opposition is really looking for Big Brother in the bottom paddock, he is already there. The person the Opposition really fears is not a greenshirt but a brownshirt. He is the friendly, ordinary every day officer from the dozens of boards, authorities and departments dealing with production across the Commonwealth. Most of those regulatory bodies are set up under State legislation, often giving those various inspectors far more powers, particularly in the area of arrest and seizure, which inspectors under this legislation do not have. Once again, I am sorry, for the sake of those opposite, to spoil a good story and a good Press release, but those are the facts. Let us consider the constitutional question which was also raised. This Bill does not remove the right of the Queensland Government, or any individual, to challenge the legislation or a nomination in the Australian courts. Honourable members should remember that it is not constitutionally possible for the Commonwealth to exclude the High Court of Australia from pronouncing on the constitutional validity of this Bill. In interpreting the external affairs powers, the High Court has been aware of the federal backdrop against which the Australian Constitution was originally created. There is nothing in this Bill that has not already been endorsed as constitutionally valid by the High Court in the Tasmanian dams case and the Lemonthyme case. The legislation and the protective measures will be as open to legal challenge as the old Act and measures. However, I would have thought-and this is particularly relevant to Queensland and Tasmanian taxpayers-that the Commonwealth's success in all four of the challenges to its external affairs powers should be enough to convince those States in particular of the legality of the Commonwealth's commitment. Furthermore, contrary to many claims made in the other place and elsewhere, part III of the Bill does not mean that the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act no longer applies to World Heritage areas. The effect of the Conservation Legislation Amendment Bill is to make it clear that any World Heritage nomination by Australia or any other action under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act to protect and conserve property would not be subject to the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act. Given the conservation objectives of the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act, it should be obvious that the Federal Government has never intended the EP (IP) Act, as it is known, to apply to such activities. All other actions and decisions of the Government in World Heritage areas are still subject to the EP (IP) Act. No double standards, such as those proposed by honourable members opposite, are being applied. It is a pity that the same cannot be said for the attitude of the conservative parties which we have seen in this chamber today. Why, for example, do both the National Party and the Liberal Party sanction the continued logging of the north Queensland rainforest without any form of environmental impact statement having been prepared? On this issue and on other environment and heritage issues the coalition parties might make all the comforting noises in the world about conservation and heritage. However, we on this side of the House and the vast majority of the Australian public will not be misled by their words. They tolerate a charade which allows the bulldozers to roll in the dead of night, demolishing hotels, the chainsaws to howl until the last of the Queensland rainforests is ravaged and the tiptrucks to fill with concrete until the last of the wild rivers is no more. This Government is committed to the environment and sensible, rational environmental policies. That is what we have done tonight. Question put: That the Bill be now read a second time. The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker-Mr Leo McLeay) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 50 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 18 —— Baldwin, P. J. Jakobsen, C. A.Beazley, K. C. Jenkins, H. A.Beddall, D. P. Johns, G. TBlanchard, C. A. Jones, BarryBlewett, N. Kelly, R. J.Bowen, Lionel Kent, L.Brown, Robert Kerr, D. J. C.Campbell, G. Lamb, A. H. (Teller)Charles, D. E. Langmore, J. V.Chynoweth, R. L. Lavarch, M. H.Cleeland, P. R. Lee, M. J.Courtice, B. W. Lindsay, E. J.Crawford, M. C. McHugh, J.Cross, M. D. Mildren, J. B.Cunningham, B. T. (Teller) Milton, PDarling, E. E. Morris, AllanDawkins, J. S. Morris, PeterDubois, S. C. Mountford, J. G.Duncan, P. 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. 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. Wright, K. W. Adermann, A. E. Lloyd, B.Aldred, K. J. McArthur, F. S.Beale, J. H. McGauran, P. J.Blunt, C. W. MacKellar, M. J. R.Braithwaite, R. A. Macphee, I. M.Brown, N. A. Miles, C. G.Burr, M. A. Millar, P. C.Cadman, A. G. Nehl, G. B.Cameron, Ewen (Teller) Porter, J. R.Carlton, J. J. Prosser, G. D.Cobb, M. R. Reith, P. K.Connolly, D. M. Rocher, A. C.Cowan, D. B. Ruddock, P. M.Dobie, J. D. M. Shack, P. D.Downer, A. J. G. Sharp, J. R.Edwards, Harry Shipton, R. F.Fife, W. C. Sinclair, I. McC.Fisher, Peter Smith, W. L.Goodluck, B. J. Spender, J. M.Hall, Steele Sullivan, K. J.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.Jull, D. F. Woods, R. L. Kerin, J. C. Andrew, J. N.Hawke, R. J. L. Howard, J. W. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith. Bill (on motion by Mr Punch) read a third time. Motion (by Mr Punch) proposed: That the House do now adjourn. Mr TUCKEY(O'Connor)(11.30) —Tonight I have two students from my electorate of O'Connor in the Speaker's gallery who are visiting Canberra as part of my student scholarship program. I understand that a Government member has a similar group here, which I welcome. I congratulate that member for doing something I have been doing for quite some time. The two are Sonia Walsh from Corrigin, a country town in Western Australia situated approximately 240 kilometres east-south-east of Perth, and Penelope Duncan from Doodlakine, a town approximately 200 kilometres east of Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. Corrigin, a friendly and community conscious town of 1,600 people, is an important centre for a farming community, which has as its main produce wheat, barley, lupins and sheep. A seed cleaning business, several stock agents and an engineering firm are amongst the many small businesses located in the town. The locals publish a biweekly newspaper focusing on community issues, and another recent project has been the formation of Central Ag Care, which provides a counselling service for rural people in hardship. Doodlakine, a smaller town but no less important to the local farming community, is a friendly centre situated on the main rail link between Perth and Kalgoorlie, this link being important for the transport of farming produce to the port of Fremantle for export. Neither Corrigin nor Doodlakine is large enough to have senior high schools and both Sonia and Penelope are year 12 students at the nearby centres of Narrogin and Merredin. Sonia and Penelope will complete their tertiary entrance examinations at the end of this year, Sonia at Narrogin Senior High School where there are 850 students from years 8 to 12, and Penelope at Merredin Senior High School, which was officially opened in August 1957, where there are 400 students-somewhat less than in previous years due to the economic downturn in the rural sector. Sonia boards at the Narrogin Hostel, which provides accommodation for approximately 250 fellow students from surrounding districts, whilst Penelope travels 100 kilometres a day to attend school. Both schools have an elected student council which organises various functions on behalf of the students and acts as a liaison body between the teachers and students. Narrogin is a larger version of Sonia's home town of Corrigin. The town is farming orientated and has friendly people. Narrogin is a main shopping and medical centre for nearby districts. It has a large, modern, well-equipped hospital and also has a number of doctors, dentists and physiotherapists. Narrogin is also a major regional centre for the lower central wheat-belt of Western Australia and is located approximately 180 kilometres south-east of Perth on the main rail line between Perth and Albany, a port on the south coast of Western Australia. Narrogin is also located close to the town of Wickepin where Albert Facey of A Fortunate Life fame originated. Merredin, which was opened up as a farming centre after the Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie gold rushes of the 1890s, has a large railway junction, a growing industrial area and many regional government offices. It is also a large service centre for the farming needs of the district, where wheat, wool and pig raising are the main industries. The town services an area of some 3,372 square kilometres. Merredin Senior High School also provides for students as far afield as Southern Cross, Mukinbudin, Kellerberrin, Narembeen and Bruce Rock and has a fine record of producing students outstanding in both academic and sporting achievements. The motto of Merredin School is `Advance' and Penelope believes the staff and students endeavour to uphold this tradition. Other activities with which students are associated are the annual dance eisteddfod at the University of Western Australia in which Merredin did extremely well last year, and a school based youth leadership option which includes the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Sonia and Penelope are the eleventh pair of year 12 students that I have brought to the nation's capital, Canberra, under this scholarship scheme. I would also like to take this opportunity of thanking Ansett Airlines for its assistance. The teachers and students are proud of their high schools and both Sonia and Penelope are honoured to represent students from the Narrogin and Merredin Senior High Schools here today. I thank the Parliament, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker again for the opportunity of bringing to the Parliament the speech written by these young people and finally prepared in my office today. I think it is to their credit and it is a very worthwhile exercise. I thank the Parliament for the attention it has given me. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —On behalf of the House, I welcome the young people from both the O'Connor and Forde electorates. Ms CRAWFORD(Forde)(11.31) —I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fine calibre of the youth from my electorate of Forde who are seated in the gallery tonight. I am somewhat concerned that I have won the accolades of the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) but it has been said that people who like children cannot be all bad. I wish to mention in particular four students who come from Christ the King School in Graceville. This is part of my electorate and is in the parish and district in which I live. These young ladies are Emma Forrester, Rebecca Handy, Philippa Creagh and Caroline Dunworth. I particularly wish to welcome them and say that I am sure they have found the parliamentary processes both interesting and informative. I know that they will take back home to their families, parents and friends many stories of what eventuated here. I wish to thank the Speaker, Ministers and colleagues who made the girls so welcome. While I am thanking people, I also wish to thank two members of my staff, Lyn Rowe and Colleen Forrester, for their long-suffering and generous spirit. It is important when we look to the youth of today to acknowledge their very real strengths and the value of their contribution to our community. They make that contribution within a family environment as the result of the support that families give to them. These four girls are very lucky in that they have family support and extended family support which of course makes for a much more stable environment in which to grow up, learn values and support the kind of hopes and aspirations which they have. A visit to Parliament also enables them to participate in a real life learning process. A visit to this Parliament House in this year is of particular importance because, after all, this is part of our history and heritage. The girls have been very fortunate in being able to see Question Time in this House, to see the old Speaker's Chair and to sit in this chamber in the last session here. It is important to recognise that youth is the future of Australia. In this our bicentenary year it is important to look not only at our past but also to our future. Of course it is the youth of our country-and in particular these four girls-who will contribute very much to the future of Australia. Their talents, hopes and aspirations will be part of Australia's own vision. They will take us into the twenty-first century. This visit is therefore particularly important for them. To Emma, Rebecca, Philippa and Caroline I say: remember, girls can do anything. I think that they have seen many real role models here today. They have recognised that women do have a vital role to play in the political processes of this country. It is important to acknowledge that women comprise 54 per cent of the voters in the electorate. We, as women, have made and will continue to make a lasting contribution to the political processes of this country. I say to the youth in my electorate of Forde, and in particular to the four representatives who are present here tonight, that we look forward to their taking to us into the twenty-first century. I thank everybody who has been concerned with their visit. Motion (by Mr Beazley) agreed to: That the question be now put. Original question resolved in the affirmative. House adjourned at 11.41 p.m. until 2.15 p.m. on Tuesday, 12 April 1988, in accordance with the resolution agreed to this day. The following notice was given: Mr Beazley to move- That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the notice lodged by Mr White relating to disallowance of Statutory Rules 1988 No. 17 being called on forthwith. The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 24 March 1988: Census and Statistics Act-Australian Bureau of Statistics-Statement of disclosure of information-1988-No. 2-List of names and addresses of waterfront industry establishments for Inter-State Commission and Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics. Quarantine Act-Determination fixing fees pursuant to section 86e, dated 24 March 1988. Seat of Government (Administration) Act-Determination listing charges for purposes of the Motor Omnibus Services Ordinance, dated 19 February 1988. The following answer to a question was circulated: (Question No. 566) Mr Beale asked the Minister representing the Minister for Transport and Communications, upon notice, on 10 December 1987: (1) What will be the cost of Sydney's second airport at Badgerys Creek. (2) Will the Federal Airports Corporation have the responsibility for the airport; if so, (a) at what cost, (b) on what basis and (c) when will its responsibility commence. (3) How will the terminal buildings and other operational facilities be funded. (4) Will the financing of Badgerys Creek Airport be subject to public sector borrowing requirements; if not, why not. (5) What is the state of progress of the Government's acquisition of properties for the new airport, including (a) how many properties have been bought at what individual and total cost, (b) how many remain to be bought and (c) what sum will they cost at current real estate values. (6) When will the Government commence construction of the new airport. (7) What arrangements has the Government made with the New South Wales Government for the provision of infrastructure, including transport systems supporting the new airport. (8) What is the estimated cost of providing this infrastructure. (9) Will landing charges be used to meet the cost or partial cost of the new airport; if so (a) on what basis will they be levied, (b) at what levels will they initially be set, (c) what percentage of the total cost of the new airport will be recovered from the aviation industry and over what time scale and (d) from where will the remainder of the cost of the airport be raised. Mr Peter Morris —The Minister for Transport and Communications has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1) to (4) At this stage the Government has made no decision on the timing, funding or future management of the proposed second Sydney airport (SSA) at Badgerys Creek. In February 1986 the decision to acquire the airport site stated, inter alia ``The decision does not mean that work will start immediately on the second Sydney airport. Rather, it sets aside land so that when the time comes for the airport to be built-and the timetable for that will depend on what the needs are-then at least the land will be available''. I am ensuring that close liaison is maintained between officers of the Department of Transport and Communications, the Federal Airports Corporation, the New South Wales Government and the aviation industry. This will enable recommendations to be made to the Government at the appropriate time to facilitate the continued efficient operation of Sydney's airports. It is expected that the SSA will be developed in stages with the ultimate extent outlined in the Master Plan being required only after several decades. (5) As the acquisition of the SSA site falls within the portfolio responsibilities of the Hon. Stewart West MP Minister for Administrative Services, it will be necessary to direct any questions on this matter to him. (6) As for questions (1) to (4) (7) and (8) Close consultation and coordination took place with the NSW Government in the planning for the site. As indicated above no action is taking place to develop the airport or its access at this time. (9) As for questions (1) to (4)