Wednesday, 25 May 1988 Madam SPEAKER (Hon. Joan Child) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. Consideration resumed from 27 April. Mr STAPLES(Jagajaga-Minister for Housing and Aged Care)(10.01) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill implements, for the last time, the practice of introducing an omnibus Bill into each sitting of the Parliament as an expeditious way of making a large number of non-contentious amendments to legislation. Some of the amendments made by this Bill tidy up, correct and update existing legislation. Other amendments are of minor policy significance or are matters of routine administration. None of the amendments made by the Bill has a significant financial impact. As I indicated, this Bill will be the last Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. From the 1988 Budget sittings technical drafting amendments and repeals of spent and non-operative legislation will be included in a Statute Law Revision Bill. Minor policy amendments will be included in portfolio omnibus Bills. Honourable members are familiar with these portfolio omnibus Bills which may include amendments of legislation within a ministerial portfolio or of legislation within specific related subject matters within a portfolio. These Bills will not be subject to the same restrictions as apply to Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bills. The Government has agreed to new guidelines for the inclusion of matters in portfolio Bills which will enable them to include amendments of all legislation within a ministerial portfolio or of related legislation within the portfolio. Major new policy proposals will continue to be implemented, in the first instance, by separate Bills. Also in future, wherever possible, consequential amendments will be included in the principal Bill rather than in a separate consequential provisions Bill. In making these changes, the Government is seeking to enhance further opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny of proposed legislation. We have been conscious that some honourable senators and honourable members have expressed concern at the number of amendments, on quite disparate subject matters, contained in some Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bills. These changes are a response to that concern. We believe that the transferring of minor policy amendments from the statute law Bills to portfolio Bills will facilitate parliamentary consideration and debate. Most of the proposed amendments will be self-evident or sufficiently explained by the explanatory memorandum circulated with the Bill. I propose to confine my comments to addressing the more noteworthy amendments. Archives Act 1983 The Act currently protects the Commonwealth, authors of documents and the Archives staff who give access to the documents from the liability for defamation, infringement of copyright, breach of confidence and criminal proceedings when releasing Commonwealth records in accordance with the public access provisions of the Archives Act. But the act fails to provide suitable protection for other disclosures made in accordance with the Act. For example, the Act at present does not protect Ministers and other authorised persons who give special access to researchers in accordance with section 56 of the Act. The proposed amendments will ensure that protection against civil and criminal liability will apply to all persons involved in properly giving access to records under the Act. Australian Bicentennial Authority Act 1980 My Department has advised that the Australian Bicentennial Authority is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, Ombudsman Act and Archives Act. The Government considers that the Authority should be subject to these Acts. Accordingly, the amendments of the Australian Bicentennial Authority Act 1980 deems the Authority to be an authority of the Commonwealth for the purpose of the Archives Act 1983 and deems it to be a prescribed authority for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Ombudsman Act 1976. Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court Act 1933 The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court Act is to be amended to provide for the appointment of a Master of the Supreme Court. There is a pressing need for an additional judicial officer on the Court, which has had three resident judges since 1972. During this period, the ACT's population has increased from about 158,000 to over 260,000. The judges of the Court are also required to serve from time to time on the Federal Court of Australia and other tribunals. This situation has resulted in a backlog of civil matters. The appointment of a Master will alleviate this problem. The position will be equivalent to similar positions, which exist with the same title, in state supreme courts in the United Kingdom and, from last year in the High Court of New Zealand. The Master will do a substantial part of the Court's interlocutory work and some other civil matters. The appointment of a Master-which would cost much less than the appointment of another judge-will result in a reduction in the waiting time in the Court and also enable the judges to devote more time to the Court's criminal lists. In the longer term, the judicial work of the Court will be made more attractive, since the judges would be enabled to concentrate on more important matters. Australian National University Act 1946 and Maritime College Act 1978 The amendments proposed for the Australian National University Act 1946, and the Maritime College Act 1978 are similar in two respects. The amendments clarify the power of the university and the college to form companies to exploit commercially research and consultancy activities. ANUTECH Pty Ltd is an example of a successful commercial venture. Several State universities and colleges of advanced education have companies or are involved in joint ventures. The second common aspect of the amendments relates to the disclosure by Council members of any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in matters under consideration by the Council. The governing councils of these two tertiary institutions are concerned that the existing sweeping prohibition that prevents members from being present during deliberations or taking part in decisions after disclosure of a pecuniary interest can be counterproductive. For example, when discussing student administration fees, it would be useful to have the views of the student representative on the Council. The amendments proposed will enable each council to make statutes, which are delegated legislation similar to by-laws, to determine conditions under which members may in such circumstances participate in discussions and decision. Persons likely to be effected will be student representatives, academic and general staff who are members of the Council. Further amendments to the Australian National University Act provide for the inclusion of other bodies as well as research schools in the Institute of Advanced Studies. The repeal of other provisions will allow a research school to be organised in more flexible ways. The flexibility allowed by these changes reflects contemporary organisation in higher education institutions. Further changes to the Maritime College Act will enable a member of the general staff of the college to be elected to the council under the same conditions as the academic staff representative, and give the college the power to borrow and lend in line with standard provisions prescribed by the Treasurer. There is also included clarification of the college's power to be involved in projects outside Australia. Other minor amendments are described in the explanatory memorandum. Economic Planning Advisory Council Act 1983 It is proposed to increase the membership of the Council by two people. One will be selected after consultation with such organisations which the Minister considers representative of the professions and the other after consultation with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The increased membership reflects a greater emphasis on monitoring prices and incomes policy matters following the abolition of the Advisory Committee on Prices and Incomes. First Home Owners Act 1983 The Act provides for the making of payments of assistance to eligible persons who are purchasing or constructing their first home. One proposed amendment will provide for the Secretary to the Department to waive or write off irrecoverable debts arising out of overpayments under the Act and will require the Secretary to report to the Parliament on the amounts waived or written off. The purpose is to avoid unnecessary duplication of action under the Audit Act where a decision has been made under the First Home Owners Act. A further proposed amendment will specify the minimum lease period which will comprise an `approved interest', the basis for application under the scheme. This will ensure that only long term secured tenure of land similar to an estate in fee simple or a life estate is included in the scheme. There is an amendment to overcome an anomaly in respect of the income test in the Act which has the effect that the income of some recent arrivals in Australia cannot be tested. The amendment is designed to ensure that recent arrivals in Australia are tested against a full year's income in Australia so that they do not receive an unfair advantage over other Australians by being tested on an income year in which no income that is taxable in Australia was earned. The provision is intended to ensure that all applicants are tested fairly and equitably. A further provision will enable the making of regulations to allow the disclosure of prescribed information to prescribed people such as the Secretary to the Department of Social Security and the Australian Commissioner of Taxation. The amendment will meet the concerns expressed by the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances by narrowing the existing provision so that it does not trespass unduly on personal rights and liberties. The remaining amendments are designed to redefine terms to be consistent with other legislation to which the Act is linked. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986, Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and Sex Discrimination Act 1984 I propose to deal with the amendments to these three Acts together as several of the amendments are interrelated. The proposed new section 16 (2a) of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act will remove any doubt about the effectiveness of Commonwealth-State arrangements under which functions of the Commission-mainly those concerned with investigation and conciliation of complaints-are performed by State anti-discrimination and equal opportunity bodies. These arrangements provide a one-stop shopping approach to human rights in the States which is of benefit to complainants and ensures cost savings to the Commonwealth. Other related amendments are the proposed new section 45 of the Racial Discrimination Act and the deletion of section 48 (2) of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act. New section 45 will remove an anomaly whereby the Race Discrimination Commissioner and persons dealing with the Commission are protected against civil actions when the Commissioner is exercising the Commission's functions and powers but are not similarly protected when exercising those powers specifically conferred on the Commissioner. The new section 45 is in similar terms to section 111 of the Sex Discrimination Act. Amendments to section 25z of the Racial Discrimination Act and section 81 of the Sex Discrimination Act will make it clear that where a complaint is brought on behalf of persons other than the person lodging the complaint, remedies may be provided for those other persons as well as the person lodging the complaint. There are also several amendments of a machinery or drafting nature. Marriage Act 1961 The Act currently requires the annual publication in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette of lists of authorised marriage celebrants and of persons who are prescribed authorities in relation to marriages. Proposed amendments will remove this requirement and so result in a cost saving by allowing the Minister to approve publication of such lists by making them available, for example, at registry offices in the States and Territories. There are other amendments of a drafting and technical nature. National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975 Officers of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Australian Government Solicitor's Office are negotiating a new lease for all Aboriginal land in Kakadu National Park. There is an existing lease over a part of the land. However, it is intended to surrender this lease and to enter into a new lease over all Aboriginal land in the park. The proposed amendment to the Act prevents the land from ceasing to be a national park upon surrender of the existing lease and will allow the Director to enter into the new lease without affecting the status of the land and without requiring the Governor-General to amend or revoke the proclamation of the park. This amendment will apply generally to parks and reserves but at present only Kakadu and Uluru national parks involve land leased by the Director. The Act also specifies that the Director cannot enter into a contract involving the payment or receipt of an amount exceeding $50,000 without the approval of the Minister. This amount has not changed since the Act was proclaimed in 1975 although the real value of this amount has been substantially eroded through inflation. In relation to the capital works program it has become necessary to approach the Minister repeatedly to seek permission to enter into or vary contracts. This results in unwarranted administrative costs and can also cause problems due to the strict time limits often encountered under the tendering process. Current policy guidelines for Commonwealth statutory authorities and government business enterprises specify $100,000 as an appropriate limit for non-commercial authorities. As there is no administrative mechanism to enable the Minister to vary the amount prescribed, an amendment to the Act is necessary. A provision enabling the Minister to prescribe a higher amount has been inserted. This type of provision has been incorporated in recent legislation, and it obviates the need for future amendment of the Act simply to increase the figure. Such regulations are, of course, subject to the scrutiny of the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill. I commend the Bill to the House. Mr REITH(Flinders)(10.15) —We are today debating the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 1988 and I think you, Madam Speaker, will be very pleased to hear that in fact this is the last of such Bills to come before the Parliament. Today we bury the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bills-SLMP Bills-once and for all. For 10 or 11 years, they have been a feature of this Parliament in the way it deals with certain legislation. SLMP Bills are those Bills which have been used to pick up all the bits and pieces of legislation which in themselves would not be sufficiently important to require a separate Bill. So in the SLMP Bills we have had everything and the kitchen sink. One will appreciate that, while that has seemed a good idea over the years, it has presented a few problems. The sort of problem we have had has been that, while these Bills have been drafted on the basis that they deal with technical and drafting matters-the dotting of the i's and the crossing of the t's-from time to time something else sneaks in: the dotting of the i makes a big difference to some policy issue. So the Parliament has been concerned that we should have a system whereby, when Bills come before us for debate, honourable members should have a fairly good idea of what is in them. We do not like to see Bills with too much fine print because things can slip through unnoticed. That is not good because our primary task is as legislators. Members of parliament cannot deal with legislation and form a considered view unless they have seen what the fine print is all about. I think that is a proposition that you, Madam Speaker, would support in recognition of the duties of members of parliament. As an aside-and I shall come back to it-that is why the Opposition is so worried about these referendum questions. The questions do not tell people what the fine print is really all about. The other problem we have had with these Bills is that the practice in this Parliament is to allow a member 20 minutes to speak on each Bill. If a Bill deals with 31 separate Acts, as this Bill does, and repeals another 10-so it deals with 41 Acts-the right of members to speak on legislation on behalf of their constituents is restricted. That is the sort of basis upon which we in this Parliament last year said to the Government, `This is not a party political thing. It is a matter for the Parliament to examine because it goes to how we run this place. We need to make sure that we run it effectively so that when things are passed through this Parliament we know what all the fine print really means'. The Opposition is therefore happy to see the Government addressing this issue at our suggestion and that the Government has come up with an alternative. The alternative is that, instead of having omnibus Bills with everything plus the kitchen sink thrown in, Bills covering a very wide range of topics, in future Bills which are necessary to pick up minor technical and drafting matters will be restricted to specific portfolio areas. In other words, a Bill will not cover, as does the Bill now before the House, everything from archives to superannuation. Archives, census and statistics and those things that all go together will be dealt with together in one Bill. If we are going to have something about taxation and superannuation-two matters in which this Government is very interested-we will need to have a specific Bill so that people will know what the Government is really on about and have an inkling that they ought to be looking at the fine print on that particular proposal. The Minister for Justice (Senator Tate) tabled in the Senate some guidelines as to how instructions will be drafted and given to Parliamentary Counsel in regard to working out whether a matter is of such significance that it needs to have a special Bill of its own or whether it can be put in with the sorts of minor technical drafting matters in which are contained in one of these omnibus Bills. Basically, the guidelines which the Minister tabled just a week or so ago cover the field. Subject to looking at them pretty closely, I think that they are certainly going in the right sort of direction. The second guideline states: 2. Major new policy proposals not previously included in any legislation should be implemented, in the first instance, by a separate Bill. I just mention that briefly. Whilst I do not have a final view on it, I think that it needs to be looked at pretty carefully because it is not entirely clear what `in the first instance' means. The guideline talks about new policy proposals. However, how one can have a new policy proposal which is being implemented on a second occasion is not obvious to me. I think it would be to the benefit of all honourable members if we had some clarification and the Government gave some careful consideration to that issue. I suppose that one other comment on the guidelines would be that it is perhaps regrettable that there is no attempt to put some limit on the number of omnibus Bills that may be introduced in any one session. I have, in fact, referred to this issue before. I hope that now that I raise the matter again the Government might give some consideration to it. We have had before us in recent times, in fact earlier this year, a Bill entitled the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1988. In that situation we were faced with the Government introducing a Bill. However, a few weeks later when the Bill was before the Senate we had a whole swag of amendments introduced there. Those amendments were of such scope that arguably there could have been another Bill just to deal with those. That Bill came back here. In the end we still have another crimes Bill which has not yet been dealt with. We had all these separate pieces of legislation. Quite frankly, the matter should have been dealt with on a one amendment at a time basis, instead of having a new Bill every time somebody had a bright idea. One had the feeling that some people were waking up in the morning and getting the bright idea that they could give the Minister a Bill to feed into the system. That is not the way to prepare legislation, nor is it the way for this Parliament to deal with legislation. That situation really was highlighted last year with the family law amendments. The Government introduced two Bills, one in respect of family law jurisdiction in general and the other in respect of family law maintenance in particular. In both Bills there was an amendment to one of the sections in the principal Act. We had two separate Bills proposing to amend the one section of the principal Act. We ended up with the most complicated provisions. On top of all that, in the Senate the Government introduced very significant amendments to one of the Bills. I think that finally at one stage we also had a cognate debate. It really was not the way to legislate. I simply say to the Government that we recognise that from time to time there are pressures on it to introduce legislative measures to deal with particular problems but that it really does need to give some consideration to ensuring a proper framework for bringing into this Parliament legislation for the Parliament's consideration. As I said, there are 31 Acts to be amended by the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill and 10 Acts to be repealed. The subjects of the Bills range from Aboriginal land rights through to export marketing, housing loans, national parks and removal of prisoners down to such things as superannuation. In the area of the Attorney-General a wide range of Acts is being considered. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act is to be amended, and some amendments are to be made to the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court Act. That Act has been the subject of some comments from the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills. The Committee noted that, although the amendments do not appear contentious, it may be thought `that they border on the lengthy'. That comment highlights the borderline problems that occur in deciding what ought to go into a separate Bill which otherwise might be dealt with in an omnibus Bill. The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court Act is also interesting because it provides for the appointment of a master with powers similar to those vested in masters of State supreme courts. The appointment of a master will lighten the workload of judges, and that is a good idea. It is interesting, though, because when the same idea was introduced for the Family Court of Australia, which honourable members on both sides of the House are keen to see brought back into the mainstream of the judicial system of Australia, and a replica proposal was made earlier this year and last year, it was decided that masters were not to be called masters but registrars. The Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) knew they should have been called masters, but when he took the proposals to the Caucus, Caucus said, `No, that is sexist. We have to call them registrars'. Apart from being petty and trivial, it is a pity to change that title because people understand what the word `master' means. Apparently in South Australia there is a female master of the court, and that position has a long tradition which people understand to be a position of authority, and that is most important in the judicial system. I am glad that the Attorney-General has done the right thing in this Bill. He was not overthrown by the Caucus on this occasion and, as I say, that is a provision which the Opposition obviously supports and it is a sensible one. Also in the area of the Attorney-General's jurisdiction amendments are also being made to the Bankruptcy Act, the Federal Proceedings (Costs) Act, the Marriage Act, the Judiciary Act and three or four others. Also of interest are amendments to the Parliamentary Counsel Act. Although it may be argued that in a sense the amendments to that Act are minor, they raise some fairly important matters. The Bill substitutes the word `Minister' for `Attorney-General' in accordance with the practice in modern legislation of avoiding the use of names of portfolios where possible. That brings into contention the role of the Attorney-General. The Bill also provides for the removal of the requirement that the resignation of a parliamentary counsel not have effect until accepted by the Governor-General. This requirement is not common in modern legislation, and recent experience demonstrated the inconvenience of the requirement by delaying action to replace an officer who had resigned. The Bill also enables acting appointments to be made by the Minister rather than by the Governor-General, as at present, and removes some subsections which have been made redundant by other legislation related to acting appointments, so it covers a wide field. Parliamentary counsel play a very important role in parliament because they are the people who are the experts in the drafting of the legislation which we have to deal with. They are not the people concerned with the question as to what should go into the Bills. They are the people who have a vital role in deciding how Bills shall be drafted. A critical part of the work of parliamentary counsel is the receipt of instructions from the Government as to what is to be placed in Bills. The draftsmen are required to put together legislation in words and in a form which will reflect the meaning of what the Government wants to achieve by way of policy. Let me give honourable members an example. The Senate is debating referendum Bills. It is very interesting that one of the Bills has provision for trial by jury. There is no question that this is something that we all support. The argument is whether or not this provision actually achieves its objective. The Government has a Constitutional Commission which has been giving it some advice about what it might do by way of changing our Constitution. The Commission also drafted some Bills. When it was drawing up a Bill concerned with the guarantee of trial by jury, it said, `Look, we have to have a guarantee which says that you will get a trial by jury if you commit a serious offence'. The Commission said that a serious offence would be one which attracted imprisonment for more than two years. One would think that a pretty serious offence would have to be committed for it to attract a gaol term of more than two years. The Commission said that if there was to be a trial by jury, one should be tried by one's peers in cases where the sentence involved corporal punishment. I do not think there are many examples of corporal punishment in Australia. I would be interested to know where corporal punishment remains, but that is for the Government to tell us. The advisers to the Constitutional Commission said, `Well, the most serious punishment is, of course, capital punishment'. So the Commission took account of three provisions-trial by jury if the sentence involves more than two years imprisonment, capital punishment and corporal punishment. I might add that the legislation introduced by the Government was prepared by two of Australia's top draftsmen. There is no question that they are two of Australia's great experts in drafting Bills. But it is very interesting to note that the parliamentary counsel who prepared the Bill that was introduced by the Government left out capital punishment. That raises a lot of very interesting questions. Mr Lavarch —Capital punishment is-- Mr REITH —We have a back bench expert from the other side. Whilst his opinion may be of some worth, I simply ask him to put it up against the opinion of Messrs Finemore and Ewens, QC. I simply make this point: the referendum Bills seek to change our Constitution. These changes are for keeps. Not only will it cost $40m to achieve the changes; the changes will be forever. When some top draftsmen in Australia argue-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Will the honourable member come back to the Bill before the House? Mr REITH —Mr Deputy Speaker, I am very sorry that you were not here when I made sure that my comments fitted-and I see that I have a nod from the Government back bench that this is the position-within the confines of the Bill. I simply make this point Mr Deputy Speaker: when one is playing around with the Constitution, one really has to make sure that one gets it right. There is a real question of doubt and ambiguity about what the legislation all means. I think it is just amazing that this Government would guillotine and rush this legislation through without giving any chance for proper discussion. I think it is amazing that the Government should rush a matter through the House without adequate opportunity-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The Chair has always been willing to allow a wide-ranging debate on legislation which contains a number of things, but I do not think that it should be so wide that the honourable member should discuss a matter passed by the House last week. Mr REITH —Mr Deputy Speaker, if you refer to the Bill that we are debating you will note the provisions with respect to the Parliamentary Counsel Act, the amendments and the relevance of those amendments to Ministers, to the resignation of parliamentary counsel-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I have no difficulty with the honourable member discussing parliamentary counsel, but to include the referendum is drawing a rather long bow. Mr REITH —I would not do that, Mr Deputy Speaker, as you would be aware. I simply bring to the notice of Parliament the importance of parliamentary counsel and make the point that their job is how to draft not what to draft. I think with a matter such as this, a matter of great moment to every Australian, it really would be a good idea if the Government's instructions were tabled so that we could have some clarity as to what it really intends. I refer to another example, the question of extension to the States. In the second reading explanation the Government says that this is a great idea because it will make sure that the States have a guarantee of trial by jury. However, it does not tell us that the Government will remove the existing right of trial by jury for people who now have that right where an offence carries a penalty of only six months imprisonment. So instead of enhancing a person's rights it will reduce their rights. I would like to know what were the drafting instructions on that issue. Did the Government give proper consideration to the final effect of this particular Bill, which will limit a person's rights? The other question that I should ask about this referendum, its drafting and how-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I think we might talk about Parliamentary Counsel and his influence on it rather than the referendum as such. Mr REITH —That is exactly what I am doing, Mr Deputy Speaker. When parliamentary counsel, Messrs Finemore and Ewens, QC, advised the Constitutional Commission they said, `What you must not do is to say that you give a guarantee of trial by jury and then so qualify it as to negate it'. They drafted a Bill which has been available to our parliamentary counsel, whom we are now discussing, which ensured that that principle would not be negated. Mr Deputy Speaker, I ask you: What is your idea of trial by jury? I will tell you my idea and I will tell you the idea of every Australian listening today. Their idea of trial by jury is 12 men and women good and true making a judgment on an alleged offence. Under this provision a person can be convicted not by 12 people but on the say so of two people being a majority out of three. That is not my idea of trial by jury, and my guess is that that is not the idea of trial by jury held by parliamentary counsel in this place. It is certainly not the idea of trial by jury held by every Australian who knows anything about how our judicial system works. When one looks at the importance of parliamentary counsel, the issue is not just how the Bill is drafted but what is to be drafted. When one looks at the fine print, one realises the importance of the words, and I will provide another example. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I am interested that the honourable member draws my attention to fine print. I draw the honourable member's attention to the very fine print on page 29 of the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill and the very small amendments to the Parliamentary Counsel Act 1970. I do not mind if we have a wide ranging debate but it has to relate, if in ever so passing a way, to the matter before the Chair. If the honourable member wants to debate the referendum he will have great difficulty relating that whole matter to the matters before us. There is very little in the amendments to the Parliamentary Counsel Act and there is very little about the other matters about trial by jury the honourable member has mentioned. I think we might come back to what is before the House. Mr REITH —Mr Deputy Speaker, what is before the House is an amendment to provisions in the Parliamentary Counsel Act which relate first to the role of the Minister and, secondly, to the role of parliamentary counsel. It is quite clear that the role of Parliamentary Counsel brings into question the importance of the drafting of words. I do not want to see my time taken up by a debate about the referendums, as I am sure you will appreciate. Mr Deputy Speaker, but I make the point that we are talking about an example of the work of parliamentary counsel. Mr Deputy Speaker, you may say that these provisions are minor, but they call into being the amendments and directly refer to the role of the Attorney-General. I am sticking very carefully to that point. I do not raise these matters lightly, because I think referendums are of great importance to the electorate, and the fine print, the drafting of the words, is one of the big issues. As we have seen already, we have some real worries about the questions drafted by parliamentary counsel. The fact of the matter is that they do not tell people what they are to vote on. Let us take question No. 2, for example, drafted by parliamentary counsel. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —We are not going to rehearse the referendum debate. The amendments to the Parliamentary Counsel Act are very minor and it is drawing a very long bow to relate them to the referendum. I think the honourable member had a reasonable go in that regard. He must either come back to the legislation before us or directly relate what he has to say to the legislation before us. Mr REITH —I do, Deputy Speaker. I take your direction, as I am required to do. I must say that it is unfortunate if today I am to be limited in explaining to the people the importance of the fine print of Labor's referendum proposals-fine print, the task of the draftsmen. These amendments are about the Parliamentary Counsel Act. Mr Deputy Speaker, if it is difficult to see the importance of the words in the Bill, I refer you to the explanatory memorandum. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I do not have any difficulty in seeing the importance of any of it. I just have difficulty finding out how the honourable member relates the referendum to the matters before us. Mr REITH —Very simply, Mr Deputy Speaker, parliamentary counsel have drafted these referendum questions. They do not tell people what the questions are really about. I am sure you will agree that it is the job of the draftsmen to draft not what they want but what the Government wants. Their job is how to draft the questions, not what to draft. In making that point, I simply say that I do not believe that parliamentary counsel, in drafting the referendum bills, have set out to mislead the Australian electorate. I do not believe they have done that off their own bat; they have done it on the specific instructions of the Government. If I am wrong, let the Attorney-General table his drafting instructions, but I can assure the House that when they worked out the questions they said, `Let us see whether we can slant these questions to get the best possible result'. The reality is that if we are to have a referendum we have to give people an opportunity to make an informed decision. It really is a poor reflection on this Government that it should give such instructions to parliamentary counsel because, although we talk about fair elections, in fact it is not prepared to ask fair questions, I say to the people of Australia: beware of the fine print, because that is what these referendums are all about. They are about Labor's agenda and the reality is that the Labor Party is not prepared to come up front and say what it is really on about. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! We should get back to the matter before the House. The honourable member's time has expired. Mr CLEELAND(McEwen)(10.45) —Mr Deputy Speaker, whilst taking note of your ruling in relation to the speech of the honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith) on the Constitution, I think it would be appropriate if I made some short comment in line with the matters already raised in the House. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for McEwen might in making his contribution wish to debate what the honourable member for Flinders said but he will not debate a matter that has already passed through the House. He will relate his remarks to the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. Mr CLEELAND —Of course, Mr Deputy Speaker. My remarks will be appropriate to the debate that has occurred in the House and the comments that have been made. Section 80 of the Constitution provides: The trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall by by jury, and every such trial shall be held in the State where the offence was committed, and if the offence was not committed within any State the trial shall be held at such place or places as the Parliament prescribes. We should note that the Constitution does not mention capital punishment. It is not mentioned in the current provision for trial by jury and therefore I must assume from the honourable member's comments that the Opposition would like to have the expression `capital punishment' put into the Constitution. One can only ask why it would want that. Why would anyone in this country want to have the expression `capital punishment' put into the Constitution? If that was not the intent of the honourable member, why did he raise it? It was raised by him specifically to suggest that the Opposition would support an amendment to the Constitution concerning trial by jury by including the words `capital punishment'. Let me say clearly and unequivocally that my side of the House, the Government, would oppose the suggestion that capital punishment should be considered at all, let alone included as a constitutional expression. The horrific and barbaric act of killing a human being under official sanction is regarded as wrong in any civilised community and by any civilised, decent person. Those who would condone judicial killing are barbaric and their approach to the sanctity of human life is inhuman. To suggest, as the shadow Attorney-General, the honourable member for Flinders, has suggested, that we should have that expression in the Constitution indicates to me and should indicate to every member of this House and to the Australian people who are listening that the Opposition wants it in for one reason-it would introduce capital punishment in this country. The only reason they would want it in the provision that calls for trial by jury is to ensure that if we are going to hang someone they should have a jury trial first. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I think the honourable member for McEwen is about to run out of rope. Mr CLEELAND —I just wanted to make that point, and I hope people pick it up. We have a lot of people opposite who would start stretching necks again. They would do it very happily and very readily. We saw the evidence of it in the speech of the honourable member for Flinders. My main concern today is not to talk about the nonsense that Opposition members have been going on with about fine print. They never find fine print; they talk about it but they can never produce it and show it to us. They spend most of their time looking for reasons to justify their own stupidity and lack of intelligence in opposing the referenda. They are desperately trying to find some reason to oppose them. I am concerned only about amendments to the Australian Federal Police Act 1979. I note there has been a great deal of publicity recently about an Australian Federal Police Force Association submission to the Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority (NCA). Strangely, that submission, made during an in camera hearing of that Committee, managed to find itself in the hands of many journalists in Australia and the critical aspects that Mr Eaton and his colleagues in the Australian Federal Police Force Association raised concerning the National Crime Authority were spread over quite a few newspapers. What is unfortunate about that submission is that it does not exactly tell the whole view on what policemen and police forces think about the National Crime Authority. It puts a rather biased viewpoint. The odd thing about the Australian Federal Police Force Association's criticism of the National Crime Authority is that it is criticising policemen. It is criticising its own members. It does so, strangely enough, without having had consultations with colleagues who are actually seconded to the National Crime Authority. It should be pointed out that those members of the Australian Federal Police and the members of the State police forces on secondment to the National Crime Authority do not accept the view of the Police Association. In fact they hold a totally contrary view. I just wonder what sort of examination the Australian Federal Police Force Association made and what sort of inquiry it undertook within other organisations and among policemen before it came to the conclusions it did and the criticisms it made of the National Crime Authority. I might also add that those criticisms of the NCA were not supported by any serving chief commissioner of any police force in Australia. The fact is that the NCA has the wide and unqualified support of a large body of senior policemen throughout Australia. That fact has not been publicly mentioned. Those details have not emerged publicly. I think the Committee properly took the view that it was an initial evaluation and was not to be seen as homing in on any areas of the NCA's operation. It is also a great pity that at the time the report was released in this House outlandish and outrageous statements were made in the media by a senior solicitor from Victoria. He has been criticised in this House and in the Senate because of the comments he made. I want to repeat that any member of the legal profession, any officer of the judicial system of this country, who makes unverifiable and incorrect public statements about matters deserves to be condemned when the only conclusion one can draw from reading those statements is that they were designed to seek public notoriety for himself and himself alone. Those comments did nothing whatsoever to assist the proper conduct of the judicial system in this country. They did nothing whatsoever to assist in the resolution of matters currently before the courts and which are still, as I have pointed out publicly, sub judice. I was saddened to see and read them and I am still angry. If that senior solicitor, Mr Galbally, has information supporting the matters he raised at the meeting I invite him now to come along and arrange a meeting with the National Crime Authority Committee of this Parliament and put those matters properly before the Committee. If he has not got the evidence and the material to support his claims he should publicly apologise for the comments he has made and get himself into a position where he can gain some respect as a solicitor and not lose respect as a result of the outlandish statements he has made. I agreed to speak only briefly, and I have only a couple of minutes left before my agreed time of 10 minutes elapses. Other matters have arisen from the Committee's report on the National Crime Authority. Much of what has been said is erroneous. Unfortunately some media commentators have not seen fit to report the positive aspects of what the report detailed and rather have gone only into what they see as the negative aspects. It seems that sometimes sections of the media take the view that they are entitled to confidential and in camera material for them to form their view in a public forum on the matters which the Committee has before it. It was said by one commentator in the Melbourne Age that the Committee itself was secret. There is a big difference between secrecy and confidentiality. If sections of the media think that much of the material which the Committee obtains from in camera hearings should be thrown across the front pages of newspapers in a very prejudicial and dangerous way, as only journalists seem to like to do, they are talking to the wrong body of people, because I believe all the parliamentarians on this Committee, without question, respect that confidentiality. They also respect the fact that much of the material we have would be extremely prejudicial to people if it were ever released, if it were ever debated or if the media ever got their hands on it. Quite frankly, from the way the media report things, I do not view them as being concerned with the rights of individuals. They are primarily concerned with getting a story. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! I draw the attention of the honourable member for McEwen to the fact that I do not find the National Crime Authority Committee mentioned in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. We might get back to what is before the House. Mr CLEELAND —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I must confess that I was wandering off on the Australian Federal Police Act 1979. In conclusion, I again point out that it is a great pity that the Australian Federal Police Association saw fit to release such material to the media, much of which was wrong and which was not supported by the active serving members from both State and Federal police forces serving on the NCA. It is a great pity that the Association did not ask its own members what they thought before it criticised them. Mr McGAURAN(Gippsland)(10.57) —As a member of the Joint Statutory Committee on the National Crime Authority, I endorse the spirited defence by the Chairman of that Committee, the honourable member for McEwen (Mr Cleeland). He has quite rightly and very properly addressed some of the fundamental issues that have arisen out of the tabling of initial evaluation by the Committee last week on the performance of the National Crime Authority (NCA) in its three years of existence. It is true to say, having reference to the Federal Police Act 1979 that is under discussion by the House at present, that the territorial instincts of too many police officers hamper the work of a body such as the NCA. The interstate rivalries among police forces are something of a serious drawback to the workings of a central body such as the NCA. Nobody is more aware of that than the Authority itself, nor for that matter the various State police commissioners, all of whom work and make special effort to overcome the inherent suspicions of not just one police force of another but often of one policeman of another. One should never underestimate the difficulties that that creates for a body such as the National Crime Authority. I, together with the Chairman of the NCA Committee, express my anger at the Australian Federal Police Association for allowing-if not directly-its submission to our Committee to find its way into the media before it had been properly considered. The honourable member for McEwen touched on the matter of capital punishment and launched a vitriolic attack on Opposition members, employing emotive terms such as `stretching the neck' and `barbarians'. I shall not dwell on that except to say that capital punishment is a matter of conscience. I would think that there would be a number of coalition members who would, as a matter of conscience, not support capital punishment, whereas there would be a great many others who would. One thing is for certain: a debate about capital punishment is not assisted in any way by the sort of cheap grandstanding and the employing of political slogans such as those used by the honourable member for McEwen. Nor should the honourable member for McEwen or anyone else underestimate the wave of fury in the electorate at present-it has been building for some time-against early release schemes. There is no doubt whatsoever that people are at a loss to understand how prisoners whose papers are marked `never to be released' find their way on weekend leave after only a few years in gaol and are released a short time later. As legislators we have a very grave responsibility to reflect community views and values. On the matter of crime and punishment, I do not believe that this Parliament, nor State legislatures, accurately reflects the groundswell of community views. It may well be that New South Wales, with its change of government and with its election of a Premier who largely came to office on the basis of a new approach to crime and punishment and with a new vigour and determination to root out corruption wherever it appears, will change things substantially. If it does, its approach will prove to be a precedent for others to adopt. The Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill is known to all members as an omnibus Bill which incorporates a whole number of changes to different Acts. This is the last time such a Bill will be presented in this fashion. From here on the various changes to legislation will be introduced into the House by way of portfolios; that is, each Minister will bring to the House the various changes specifically relating to his responsibilities. That appears to be a sensible identification of changes relevant to a specific portfolio. It will assist, I would think, to some extent at least-and to what extent is debatable-the supervision of parliament over Ministers. In other words, there may well be a greater degree of accountability arising out of this change in arrangements-not that I would wish to overstate the ability of the Parliament to properly supervise Ministers by a change from the statute law method to the portfolio method. Nonetheless, this is an issue which is of tremendous concern to parliamentarians, particularly those of us in opposition-to what extent can we properly scrutinise the Executive? That the Executive is dominating the legislature has been a worrying trend in the Australian system for a couple of decades. Such a mountain of legislation passes through this Parliament every week that few members, if any, can hope to read, let alone understand, all the different pieces of legislation. The Opposition works on a system of shadow Ministers who have specific responsibilities for identifiable areas, but it seems that their shadow Minister colleagues and backbenchers are limited to perusing that legislation which either directly affects their electorates or is of special interest to them. Mr Rocher —We have abandoned the legislative role to the Senate. Mr McGAURAN —Not just to the Senate, which as a House of review has a proper role, but more particularly to the Executive. It may well be that this problem will be compounded with the shift in the next few weeks to the new Parliament House, where the Executive will be physically more remote than ever before. I understand that there are a number of security doors that any member of parliament has to pass through to get to a Minister of state. Moreover, the media will have much less access to the Ministers. That is not, in itself, a bad thing. Nobody would seek to impose limitations on media access to Ministers. Nonetheless, I would think that all of us worry about the extent to which the media set the agenda in the Parliament. The fault of that lies fairly and squarely with parliamentarians who are too anxious, too ready, to respond to issues raised by the media, so that it becomes a self-fulfilling crisis. If parliamentarians resisted the temptation to answer, word for word, stories or issues raised by the media and did so in a more measured and calculated way, issues would not blow up in their faces. Obviously, that is more a problem for Ministers than perhaps shadow Ministers. I am concerned that discussion on the new Parliament House has centred mostly on the building. It was, after all, the Clerk of the Senate who made the very poignant point, the very telling observation, that the institution of parliament is so much more important than the building. Yet all of the analyses of the new Parliament House have centred on the beauty, size and facilities of the new building. Those features should complement the institution of our Westminster-style democracy. But at the same time one cannot ignore the effect that physical surroundings will have on the operation of the institution of the parliament. I have already referred to one such effect that the building imposes on parliamentarians; that is, the Executive will be secured in its own wing, the media may or may not have access to it and the Executive will be increasingly remote from the elected representatives of the people of Australia. Another possible detrimental effect of the new building on the institution of parliament will be the isolation of members from each other. It is an enormous building and members' offices and meeting rooms are located at varying distances from each other. That is something of which parliamentarians will have to be very aware-that the size of the building does not shape the workings and character of the institution to an unhealthy degree. Mr Hand —Oh, sit down. Mr McGAURAN —The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, who has just entered the House, cannot resist the opportunity of immediately launching into the fray by way of interjection. Of course he will sweep into the underground car park as the media representatives shiver in the cold of Canberra unable to get even close to him. He will be spirited out of his car in a special courtyard which will be assigned to Ministers of state and whisked up a special lift to his multi-roomed office. He will be cocooned from the realities of political life and accountability to his colleagues on his side of parliament as well as on this side of parliament. He will be able to forget about the media, as he wants to do. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! We might have some accountability and get back to the realities of the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. Mr Hand —Hear, hear! Pull him into line. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The Minister will cease interjecting. Mr McGAURAN —Of all the Ministers who have more to hide from the prying eyes of the media, this Minister has. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for Gippsland is compounding the situation by making accusations against Ministers in response to interjections. He will get on with the matter before the Chair rather than launching attacks on individuals in the House. Mr McGAURAN —In drawing my remarks to a conclusion, let me say that I welcome the change in arrangements from one omnibus Bill to specific portfolio omnibus Bills and look forward to a further opportunity to properly scrutinise Ministers' administration of their departments and to hold them accountable to this Parliament. Mr LAVARCH(Fisher)(11.10) —The Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill seeks to amend a large number of Acts in a relatively minor way. Although such amendments are not normally related, in my opinion, there are at least two important changes which are in a sense related. They are the institution of the office of master of the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court and an extension to the membership of the Economic Planning Advisory Committee (EPAC) by two. One of the delegates is to be a representative of the professions, including the legal profession. The change reflects the need to take note of incomes and prices policy. The decision to install the office of master of the Supreme Court in this Territory is a recognition of the delays being experienced currently not only in the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court but also in courts throughout Australia. The master will relieve judges from hearing a number of applications and normally uncontentious matters which presently are heard by judges. As a result, the time of the three Supreme Court judges more properly will be able to be used in hearing actual cases. The sorts of matters which the master will hear include those of an interlocutory nature, such as applications for discovery, further and better particulars and simple applications concerning summary or default judgments. By doing this, the judges will be freed from hearing such matters. Unfortunately, the problem of delays in the court will not be solved simply by appointing a master or, in the case of other courts, more judges. The problems of delays and excessive costs of the legal system need to be tackled on a number of fronts. For instance, at the moment it is quite common for a civil matter, such as a personal injuries matter or a contract dispute, to have to wait a considerable period-say, up to a year-before it can be placed in a call over list. Once a matter has been placed in a call over list, an applicant, defendant or plaintiff can expect to wait possibly another three to four months before the matter is reached in the call over list. The length of delay from the time that it is reached in the call over list until the case is actually listed for hearing, is often some six to nine months. Often, on the day that is allocated for hearing a number of matters are listed. That occurs because the vast majority of cases are never determined by a judge; they are settled well before that time. Unfortunately, the vast bulk of cases which are clogging up the legal system will never be determined by the court. That brings me to the specific point I wish to raise; that is, the need to improve the quality of the negotiation skills which are presently exhibited by the legal profession. Perhaps I can give myself as an example. I completed my law degree and did two years of articles of clerkship and at no time in that training was I ever given specific instruction in the area of negotiation. It was something which one simply had to pick up on the job. Since most cases are determined through a process of negotiation and not through a process of court determination, it seems to me to be ludicrous for that to be the case. In many cases it leads to a prolonged process of matters not being settled. Often, actions are brought and matters are listed for hearing when there is never any real desire on behalf of either of the parties involved to have the matter go through court. They simply want a result to their dispute and they want it in the cheapest and quickest way. That is obviously the position of every party involved in a legal dispute. But that is not happening, and it is not happening because there is a lack of expertise on the part of the legal profession in the area of negotiation. A good starting point would be to include negotiation skills as part of a law degree, or at least to require it in those States which do not have the legal practice course between the law degree and entering into practice; to require some sort of supplementary training for clerks who are doing articled clerkships. The second point I raise is the question of continuing legal education. The other problem which I have experienced with the law-which, of its nature, is rapidly changing-is that many practitioners are unable to keep up with those specific changes. As a result, if a practitioner is not 100 per cent in control of the matter of which he has the carriage, that in itself will lead to delays. There is a responsibility on individual practitioners and legal firms to ensure that they are up to date with all matters and that they take on board only work in which they are competent. I recall that, at least in Brisbane, in the yellow pages of the telephone book there is a chart of all law firms in cross-referencing of the various areas of law, with little ticks indicating whether a particular firm has expertise in a particular area of law. If one goes through that, one sees that very few firms do not claim to have expertise in absolutely everything. However, once one is involved in the profession, as people quite quickly find out, that often is not the case. Practitioners have a responsibility to ensure that they take on only work for which they have the expertise. A final point I make relates to the question of cost. I notice that the Bill increases the size of the Economic Planning Advisory Council by two; and one of those extra representatives will be a representative of the professions. This is extremely important because, as honourable members would be aware, the Commonwealth has no constitutional power to control prices. Hence, in the vast majority of fields-certainly in terms of the various professions-it is really a situation where the individual is able to set his own fee. There is no control over that except, one would hope, some sort of market force; but the same professions are normally regulated in such a way that a free market force of a competitive nature cannot operate. A firm is not able to advertise its fees or what the costs of a particular matter will be. Therefore, a person seeking legal advice will probably go to one firm and accept what he is told; there is no comparison shopping. So it is important that the cost of the law is kept in check, not only by instituting the office of master and making sure that there are plenty of judges so that there is less delay, but also by making sure that there are checks and balances on the charging practices of law firms. In my experience, a great many firms and sole practitioners are extremely reasonable in their charging practices, but there are quite a number of exceptions whose rate of charging is absolutely outrageous; and that needs to be brought into the open. Those firms should be identified and their practice open for public scrutiny. I hope EPAC will take that on board, at least to a limited extent, so that people are given the opportunity of getting their legal remedy at reasonable cost. Given the time constraints, I will in closing simply comment on the remarks made by the shadow Attorney-General, the honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith), in relation to the drafting of the referendum question on trial by jury. The honourable member tried to make out that, because there was no reference to capital punishment in that particular section, this was fine print and the Government was limiting rights rather than preserving rights. That really is a nonsense argument. I will make three quick points on the matter. Firstly, in no State is capital punishment a mandatory outcome of being found guilty. Therefore, there is always a term of imprisonment as alternative punishment; hence, the provision which refers to punishment over two years would always apply. That covers that case. Secondly, a constitutional provision provides a minimum in terms of rights; it does not provide a maximum. Therefore, there is nothing stopping a State government or this Commonwealth Parliament from enacting laws in relation to trial by jury which extend it. What the Constitution does is to provide a minimum, not a maximum. Thirdly, on a point made by the honourable member for McEwen (Mr Cleeland), it is interesting that there should be this great focus on capital punishment. One would wonder why, unless the Opposition was suggesting that it supported capital punishment and hence needed this safeguard against it. It certainly is not the position of this Government or any of the State governments at the moment that capital punishment is a viable alternative. Hence, for all those three reasons, I totally dismiss the arguments put forward by the honourable member for Flinders. On the whole, I believe Parliament is well served by the fact that this is the last of the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bills. They are generally too wide ranging to allow full debate on them. However, my perusal of this particular Bill indicates that the changes it makes appear to be sensible. They are generally minor in nature, and I commend the Bill to the House. Mr ROCHER(Curtin)(11.22) —The major stated function of this Bill is to `tidy up, correct and update existing legislation'. Considering how often this type of legislation is presented, one could be mistaken for thinking that the laws of the Commonwealth were a model of precise drafting, carefully amended and under constant review by the Government. Unfortunately, that is not the case. This Government has a remarkable penchant for producing lengthy, tortuous Bills which require constant amendment and produce enormous problems for those who have to adhere to or interpret the legislation. These problems are compounded when policy is implemented by Press release before any legislation exists. That particular technique leads to hastily drafted legislation, which must often accommodate the ill-considered strictures of the initial Press release. For example, the Government is proud of its dividend imputation legislation, but the process of implementing it was a real mess. Significant changes were necessary from the details of the initial announcement by way of Press release and were eventually made. The lingering effect of that particular process was that businesses, shareholders, accountants and others in the securities industry were imposed on by unnecessary uncertainty. This is relevant because it points to basic problems in the Bill now before the House. Matters of much greater importance than changing a title from chairman to president, so as to ensure gender neutrality, should be a feature of these Bills. In particular, this should apply to similar Bills to follow, involving both statute law revisions and portfolio-based Bills. The revision and updating of the statutes of the Commonwealth is important work indeed. It should not be trivialised by superfluous changes or efforts to confuse policy matters with legitimate revision legislation. I hope that the new procedure for these omnibus Bills will help to establish that division between policy and drafting or technical matters. This process of easy revision can too easily lead to poorly drafted legislation amended on the run as faults emerge. While the goal might be impossible to achieve, we should aim to get legislation right the first time rather than expect continuing changes. Evolution of the law is one thing, but changes resulting from a lack of early application in making sure that legislation is correct and in its simplest form is quite another thing. One section of this Bill will make the Australian Bicentennial Authority subject to the Freedom of Information Act and other legislation which provides for public scrutiny and accountability. The Government was reluctant to allow that scrutiny. The early history of the Bicentennial Authority under this Hawke-Keating Government involved a degree of scandal and controversy which should not have arisen in a body with the express function of preparing for celebrations of an anniversary which was intended to appeal to all Australians. The pay-out of the former head of the Authority was just one such scandal. The Government courted controversy by attempting to use the bicentennial celebrations as a platform to promote its political vision for Australia's future, as well as for rewriting Australia's history. It is clearly appropriate that the Bicentennial Authority should be subject to the most rigorous scrutiny. It has had control of a very large budget and has had an extraordinary discretion over how its money should be spent. Apart from the spectacular displays on Australia Day 1988 and other major projects, the Bicentennial Authority has funded and supported a range of smaller activities which should be justified in the same way any other government program using taxpayers' funds requires justification. This part of the legislation will not necessarily allow that to happen but it will allow the scrutiny of the actions, programs and projects of the Bicentenary to be undertaken in some detail. This Bill also seeks to add a further two members to the Government's Economic Planning Advisory Council (EPAC). This Council was deemed an essential part of the efforts of the Hawke-Keating Government when first elected to achieve a corporate style of consensus around its policies. It was to be a type of on-going committee of the National Economic Summit Conference. We all remember the Economic Summit, a grand exercise in group therapy, although it has faded into history now. EPAC keeps alive the concept, albeit in the form of a much smaller grouping of people. Despite these inauspicious origins, EPAC has published some very useful papers on subjects important in economic debate. However, it is interesting to note that these papers do not arise from deliberations of the Council but come from the resources available to the staff of EPAC or the individual members of EPAC who have presented papers for examination. The addition of two new members to EPAC will not assist this aspect of the work done under its auspices. This proposed expansion of EPAC will involve some cost but, more importantly, the increased size of EPAC is a symptom of the way this Government is chained by obligations to its masters in the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Apparently the Government cannot even seek wider representation on an advisory council without consulting the trade union movement and conceding to it another place on that council. No reason is given for the addition of a fifth person to be chosen from the panel of names, presumably put forward by the ACTU. It is proposed that the other new representative be chosen from the professions. It is not possible to argue that this proposed amendment preserves the balance of the EPAC membership since the professions clearly are not from an employer group. In many respects the professional organisations are more like unions. The Minister for Housing and Aged Care (Mr Staples) in his second reading speech indicated that the: . . . increased membership reflects a greater emphasis on monitoring prices and incomes policy matters. The Minister should explain whether this will duplicate the functions of the Prices Surveillance Authority. How two extra members of a discussion group such as EPAC can aid in monitoring prices and incomes policy escapes me and is not immediately clear. The Government might like to believe that it can circumvent Parliament by establishing a series of councils of interest groups to deliberate on important matters of policy. However, it forgets that even the representatives of EPAC do not speak authoritatively on behalf of the interests which they are nominally supposed to represent. For example, a representative of the professions who is a doctor can have only some relative knowledge about the prices and incomes of legal practitioners. The whole notion of monitoring prices and incomes policy is often based on a misunderstanding of how prices and incomes are determined in the market anyway. If, through some misguided policy of the Government, prices and incomes diverge too much from what would emerge on a free market we will be plagued with shortages, gluts and, eventually, painful readjustment. In the case of incomes, the consequences of government intervention can be seen in unemployment levels which are higher than they should ever have been. For many years the Australian Labor Party and the ACTU denied the link between wage levels and unemployment, condemning many young Australians to the dole queues. The Opposition has now been vindicated on this issue as the Government loudly proclaims the success of wages restraint in creating employment growth. Unless the Government can come to terms with economic reality, no increased number of EPAC members will assist in improving the well-being of Australians. Finally, I remind the House of my earlier remarks about the importance of well-considered drafting of legislation. It is very easy to announce changes at a time chosen for political advantage rather than when a measure is needed or after it has been properly considered. The Government does not make the task of its draftsmen any easier by hastily conceived legislation which inevitably needs amendment through Bills such as this before the House today. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support)(11.33) —I thank honourable members for participating in this wide-ranging debate which has not necessarily been confined to matters dealt with in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 1988. I commend the Bill to the House. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith. Bill (on motion by Mr Peter Morris) read a third time. Consideration resumed from 10 May. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support)(11.34) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill replaces the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill (No. 3) 1987 which was introduced in the Senate towards the close of the 1987 Budget sittings of parliament. That Bill was withdrawn because of the extensive drafting changes required to implement an adjustment to the policy for the grandfathering; that is, the protection of certain interests which contravene relevant ownership and control limits. The Bill provides for a major new package of commercial radio ownership rules and will provide an efficient and equitable framework for the future development of radio services in Australia. The opportunity has also been taken in the Bill to accomplish a substantial rearrangement and consolidation of existing ownership and control provisions in broadcasting legislation. These new rules, which implement the policy announced on 28 October 1987, will substantially complete the Government's unprecedented reform of the ownership structure of the Australian media. The Bill presents the results of the review of ownership limits for commercial radio. It also completes the review of cross-media ownership by addressing this issue in the context of revised radio rules. The new cross-media limits will effectively mean that media proprietors will have to choose between a major role in television or radio or newspapers. The existing radio limits in the Broadcasting Act 1942 are: one metropolitan radio licence in any State; a total of four metropolitan radio licences; a total of four radio licences in any State; and a total of eight licences. The factor that triggers the application of these limits is the holding of a prescribed interest in a commercial radio licence or the holding of a directorship in a company in a position to control a commercial radio licence. Broadly speaking, the threshold for attribution of a radio prescribed interest is the holding of more than a 15 per cent direct or indirect shareholding in a licensee company. This Bill does not propose changes either to this threshold level for radio prescribed interests or to the methods of tracing indirect interests. A change in the current 5 per cent prescribed interest level for commercial television licences is proposed, for the purpose of the revised television-radio cross-media limit. I will explain this change in addressing the provision of the Bill in more detail. Since the inception of the radio limits in 1935, the number of commercial radio licences has more than doubled, and more new services are in the pipeline. In February 1987 the Government announced the plans for 27 additional commercial FM radio stations in regional areas. In October 1987 the Minister for Transport and Communications, Senator Gareth Evans, added to this list so that by 1992 commercial FM radio services will be available to more than three million people living outside the mainland State capitals. This expansion of commercial radio services represents a radical change in the commercial radio environment in non-metropolitan areas which is not catered for by the existing radio ownership and control limits. The Government believes that the public interest will best be served if commercial radio services are competitive. A competitive industry will strive to present the best in commercial radio programming in order to attract audiences and, consequently, advertising revenue. Competition within radio markets will also promote diversity of programming in terms of news, information, opinion and entertainment. In summary, the new package of ownership rules introduced by this Bill will consist of: a national limit of 16 commercial radio licences; a State radio licence limit of no more than half of the service areas in that State; a limit of one radio licence to a service area; and new and revised cross-media ownership limits. National Limit The new national limit for commercial radio licences is to be 16. The number of these licences has more than doubled since the eight-station limit was introduced in 1935. To maintain the ratio of permitted licences to the total available today-that is, 139-would require a new limit of 17. If one takes into account the 37 new commercial or supplementary radio licences in the pipeline, the number may need to go as high as 21 to maintain that ratio. When the new services are in place the new limit could represent just over 9 per cent of licences, as compared with 6 per cent under the current eight-station rule. In this context, the new 16-licence limit is both realistic and conservative. State Limit The present State limit of four licences impacts unevenly upon the States because it takes no account of the differing number of licences among them. The new limit in the Bill will prohibit a person from holding prescribed interests in more licences within a State than half the number of service areas in that State. For this purpose, service areas that are substantially coextensive with each other will be counted only once. If the revised State limit were to come into operation today, the maximum number of licences in the States would be: New South Wales (including ACT)...17 Victoria...7 Queensland...11 South Australia...3 Western Australia...7 Tasmania...3 The principle underlying the State limit is that no-one should be able to exercise too great an influence within a State. The combined effect of this limit and others included in this Bill will achieve this result. Local Limit The Government believes that diversity and quality of programming are best ensured by the provision of competitive services at the local level. Under the current rules, there is a prohibition against holding two or more radio licences serving any State capital city. Only a few cities outside the State capitals have more than one commercial radio service and these are not commonly owned. However, with the planned expansion of commercial services in non-metropolitan areas, it is necessary to give the metropolitan area prohibition general force. The general application of the one to a market limit is consistent with the one licence to a market rule for commercial television. The intent of the new rule is that, where licences are in direct competition, they should not be commonly owned. There are many services that are not in direct competition but whose service areas, for historical or other reasons, overlap. The `one radio licence in a service area' rule therefore has a built-in margin of tolerance of 30 per cent. That is, if two service areas overlap to the extent that more than 30 per cent of the population of one is also within the service area of the other, the licences serving those areas will not be able to have common ownership links. There will, of course, remain the case of supplementary licences. These will be granted only where the service area concerned is judged to be unable to support a competitive service. As at present, supplementary radio licences will not be subject to the radio ownership rules. Cross-media Limits In early 1987 the Government introduced cross-media limits in connection with changes to the television ownership and control rules. Those limits restricted, for the first time, holdings across media-in that case, television-radio and television-newspapers. Since then there has been a considerable realignment of interests within the industry with a significant uncoupling of cross-media linkages. The present Bill extends the cross-media ownership restrictions to radio-newspaper holdings and amends the application of the existing television-radio restrictions. In the case of radio-television, the current restriction is that prescribed interests may not be held in both a television licence and a radio licence if, anywhere within the television service area, there is a monopoly for the commercial radio service. The new rule will prohibit the holding of prescribed interests by one person in both a television licence and a radio licence if more than 30 per cent of the population within the service area of one of those licences is also within the other's service area. For this purpose a prescribed interest in a television licence will be attributed to interests of more than 15 per cent. This television-radio limit will mean that there is uniform application of the prescribed interest levels to radio and television for the cross-media rule. The rule will apply universally across Australia-not just in monopoly radio markets. For radio-newspapers, cross-media holdings will be limited in an equivalent manner to television-newspapers. That is, a person will not be permitted to hold prescribed interests in both a radio licence and a newspaper if that newspaper: has 50 per cent or more of its circulation within the radio service area; is published, in English, on four or more days per week; and is sold, as a newspaper, to the extent of 50 per cent or more of its circulation. The threshold for a prescribed interest will be 15 per cent for both radio and newspapers, as already defined in the Act. The effect of these rules will be that media proprietors will essentially have to choose between a major role in television, or radio, or newspapers. Directorships The existing radio directorship limits in the Act have also been changed to make them consistent with the revised radio prescribed interest limits. The existing television-radio cross-media directorship limit has also been amended to reflect the changes made to the corresponding cross-media prescribed interest limit. The new radio-newspaper cross-media prescribed interest limit is also supported by a corresponding directorship limit. The changes made to the cross-media directorship limits include an exemption to cover the circumstances where a person holds more than one directorship within a corporate group which has grandfathered cross-media interests. Administration and Enforcement For the purpose of the new radio rules, the Minister will be required to determine the percentage service area population overlaps between radio licences-to give effect to the one-radio-licence-to-a-service-area limit-and to determine the number of discrete service areas in each State, to give effect to the revised State limit. The Minister will also be required to determine percentage population service area overlaps between commercial radio and television licences for the purpose of the new television-radio cross-media limit. The determination of service area population overlaps is to be based on census count results published by the Australian Statistician. For the purpose of the new radio-newspaper cross-media limit, the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal will be required to determine those newspapers having more than 50 per cent of their circulation within the service area of particular commercial radio licences. The Bill will ensure that these determinations made by the Minister and the Tribunal are available to the public in the form of ministerial Gazette notices and the Tribunal's Associated Newspaper Register. The notices and Tribunal Register must also be updated to take account of new circumstances such as new census count results, changes in service areas and changes in newspaper circulations. The administration and enforcement system closely follows the scheme which applies at present to the 60 per cent population reach television limit. Investors in the media will thus be able to ascertain those investments that would contravene the new limits through reference to the Gazette notices of the Minister and/or the Associated Newspaper Register of the Tribunal. Contraventions of the new limits will be treated in the same way as contraventions under the existing Act. Grandfathering As already indicated, this Bill implements a revised approach for the grandfathering of interests than that which was provided in the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill (No. 3) 1987. In his second reading speech for that Bill the Minister indicated that, following consultation with broadcasting industry representatives and other interested parties, amendments to the grandfathering rules would be considered when debate on the Bill was resumed in these sittings. In particular, the Minister foreshadowed that consideration would be given to the application of grandfathering to inadvertent contraventions of the new radio and cross-media limits caused by changes in census count population figures for relevant commercial radio or television licences. Following this consultation process, it has been decided to amend the provisions in the previous Bill by extending grandfathered protection to: (a) eligible prescribed interests or directorships held before the date of ministerial announcement not only if they contravene as a result of a subsequent change in service area, but also if they contravene as a result of a subsequent change in population distribution between service areas or a subsequent change in newspaper circulation; and (b) prescribed interests or directorships acquired after the date of ministerial announcement if they contravene as a result of a change in population distribution between service areas or a change in service area, not including service area aggregation. These adjustments to grandfathering policy are designed to provide protection from inadvertent contraventions of the new ownership and control limits caused by circumstances beyond the legal control of licensees or media investors. This protection does not apply, however, to prescribed interests or directorships acquired after the date of ministerial announcement where they contravene as a result of service area aggregation. This is because of the large scale nature of aggregation and because such prescribed interests or directorships have been acquired in full knowledge of the new ownership rules and the impact of aggregation on those rules. Similarly, no protection is provided under the adjusted grandfathering rules for prescribed interests or directorships acquired after the date of ministerial announcement which contravene the relevant cross-media limits because of a change in the circulation of a newspaper, or other changes in the circumstances of newspaper publication sufficient to cause a contravention of those limits. This is because such circumstances are ultimately within the control of newspaper publishers and because the extension of grandfathered protection in this way could allow a complete change in the character of a newspaper publication which would not be caught by the cross-media rules. The new grandfathering rules also maintain the requirement in the previous Bill that, to be protected for prescribed interests or directorships held before 28 October 1987 which contravene a revised radio or cross-media limit, a person must not have contravened the corresponding existing limit immediately before that date. For example, if a person contravened the existing State limits-four commercial radio licences-by holding prescribed interests in five commercial radio licences in South Australia before 28 October 1987, that person would, if the revised State limit for South Australia is three licences, be grandfathered for the holding of a prescribed interest in only four of those licences. On the other hand, a person who was grandfathered under the existing television-radio cross-media limits would continue to be grandfathered for contraventions of the new television-radio limit. The revised grandfathering rules will apply not only to the new radio and cross-media limits introduced by the Bill, but also to the existing television and cross-media limits. In particular, there is special provision in the Bill for the application of grandfathering rules to the 60 per cent population reach television limit to provide protection in the circumstances where that limit is contravened as a direct result of a change in service area or a change in population distribution between service areas. This is subject to the requirement that additional or new television interests are not acquired after the grandfathered date. Again, service area aggregation is not included within the scope of grandfathered protection. Consequential Drafting Changes The Bill provides for consequential amendments of the licence grant, renewal, and transfer provisions of the Act to take account of the new limits. A cursory glance at the Bill will also reveal that significant structural changes have been made to the arrangement of the ownership and control provisions to accommodate the new limits. The existing and new cross-media provisions will be contained in a separate division of the Act. The existing and new grandfathering rules have been consolidated in a new division to avoid the need to refer to the transitional grandfathering provisions in recent broadcasting amendment Acts. The parliamentary draftsman has also taken the opportunity to provide a more logical and coherent arrangement of the ownership and control provisions and to streamline the ownership and control rules by deleting duplicate radio and television provisions. I am sure that these improvements will be welcomed by lawyers and representatives of the broadcasting industry. Financial Impact The new measures will place some additional administrative burden on the Department of Transport and Communications and on the Tribunal. These will be absorbed within current resources, although some reordering of priorities may be required. Conclusion This Bill marks the culmination of a process of reform for radio that commenced when the previous Minister, early in 1985, asked the then Department of Communications to inquire into future directions for commercial radio. That process has resulted in two major advances. Firstly, there is the program to provide additional radio services in regional areas, which was announced in 1987. Secondly, there are the rules provided for in this Bill. These new radio and cross-media rules and the new radio services, together with the television rules and the television equalisation scheme, will usher in a new era of broadcasting that will increase the quality and quantity of broadcasting services available to the public at all levels and in all areas. This new era has not been brought about by new technology or outside or overseas influences. It is a direct consequence of the Government's policy initiatives. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill and commend the Bill to the House. Mr BLUNT(Richmond)(11.54) —No other area of government legislation illustrates more clearly the principles, the ethics and the confused decision-making process of the Hawke Labor Government than communications. Even the withdrawal and replacement of legislation by the Bill now before us, the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill 1988, provides ample evidence of the Government's confused decision-making process. The concluding remarks by the Minister for Transport and Communications Support (Mr Peter Morris) are in fact superficial comments. He talks about completing the process of a new policy for radio. He forgets to add that the Government still has not announced a policy in regard to FM conversion for existing AM stations in metropolitan areas. But that is not what we are going to talk about in great detail today. I would like to discuss the provisions of this Bill and the background to those provisions. We begin any examination of the communications policy of the Hawke Government by looking at the major protagonists. Of course, the major protagonists for the Government are the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and his Treasurer (Mr Keating). When the Minister for Transport and Communications Support introduced the Bill, he referred to a former Minister for Communications. Unfortunately, the former Minister did not hold the same views on communications policy, in particular with regard to radio and television, that were held by the Treasurer at least and perhaps more latterly the Prime Minister, and of course I refer to the Minister for Trade Negotiations (Mr Duffy). I think that he was a fine Minister for Communications who understood the significant role of radio and television in our society. He understood the immense power that major proprietors could have, particularly if they had access to large networking operations. He proposed a policy which we on this side of the House, particularly the National Party of Australia, thought was excellent. It provided for diversity of services, choice of programming and limits on the amount of media control that could be held by one particular company or one individual. Of course, he met a sad end-he was rolled and replaced along with his policy. When his policy disappeared out the window, into the vacuum came the policy of the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. In recent weeks we have seen considerable research; in fact, I guess it is not weeks but months because it is a perception that has been built up over the entire term of the Hawke Government. This research indicates that the community is extremely concerned at the close links between the Government and big business, particularly those people who are involved in media ownership and broadcasting. I notice that a member of the Australian Labor Party is now in the House, and I am surprised that he is present to hear these remarks. Mr Hollis —I always come to listen to you. Mr BLUNT —Because he knows it is true. The honourable member knows that the right wing machine has forced its views through the Labor Caucus and rolled the principles of the Labor Party, tossing them out the window for the sake of short term expedient political advantage. So much for the principles of the Left! That is the way it goes-give it a pyrrhic victory on child-care and sell out on broadcasting policy. Mr Peter Morris —That's very nice of you, Charles. Mr BLUNT —The Minister's comment shows that he has also felt the hot breath of the Prime Minister's mates from time to time. He is like Lazarus-he has come back. I return to the measure before the House, which of course is far more important than the personal careers of Ministers of the Labor Government, even though they may have some commitment to principle and fair public administration. Let us look at how the Government's media policy has developed. It has developed as a result of concern for the interests of three major groups. Over a period of months we have seen the Government do back flips; we have seen the debate in Caucus changed; we have seen legislation withdrawn and Budget announcements reversed within eight weeks; and we have seen change after change in priorities. In the commercial sector we have also seen various interests pre-empting government decisions. With major relevance to the Bill now before the House is the purchase by one group of companies, Hoyts Media, of a network of radio stations which at the time of purchase-towards the end of 1987-put it in breach of the ownership legislation in respect of radio stations in Australia. It spent multi-millions of dollars purchasing these additional stations. Mr Charles —Do you mean Hoyts? Mr BLUNT —Yes, Hoyts. At that time it knew that it was in breach of the legislation. At the Press conference to announce the purchase of these radio stations a member of the media asked: `Are you at all worried that the money you have spent, which is quite considerable, on acquiring these additional stations is in jeopardy? Do you think that you might be forced to divest?'. The reply was to the effect, `Let us not worry about that; it is not a problem'. Mr Charles —Don't you worry about that! Mr BLUNT —That is right, `Don't you worry about that'. That is what the media proprietor said. Lo and behold, a very short period after that purchase by the media proprietor, having confidently spent his shareholders' money buying radio stations in contravention of existing law and following the Press conference at which he said, `Don't you worry about that', the Minister announced that the Government proposed to change the law. What a lucky coincidence! That is a typical example of how the Hawke Labor Government conducts its media policy, with a nod and a wink to its mates-a nod and a wink and they are right. They do not have to worry about Caucus or Parliament; they have simply to get the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and a few other flunkeys on side and then go ahead and spend some money because everything will be all right, they do not have to worry about it. So much for democracy; so much for Parliament; and so much for the interests of the Australian people! So much for the concern of the Australian people who do not want to see massive media monopolies built up in radio or television, or in the Press for that matter. Of course, the Government talks about how this is not true, but I will cite one more example. I refer to Mr Murdoch, a well-known former Australian citizen who is now an American citizen after changing his citizenship because he wanted to buy television stations in the United States of America. Under the legislation there is a strict prohibition on foreign ownership of Australian television stations. It is very strict and it simply says, though I will not quote the legislation, that foreign ownership cannot exceed 15 per cent. Of course, Mr Murdoch is now a very prominent American citizen. At the end of last year Mr Murdoch owned 17.16 per cent of the Channel 10 network. Unlike many other provisions dealing with ownership limits there is no period of grace for foreign ownership-it is sudden death. When one goes over the limit there is a requirement to do something-the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT) is required to act. Of course, the Department of Transport and Communications was well aware that Mr Murdoch and interests associated with him had exceeded the 15 per cent limit, so the Department advised the ABT. The Department is to be commended because it was simply administering its legislation, as it is supposed to do. But, what has the ABT done? It has done nothing. What has Mr Murdoch done? He has done nothing. What has the Government done? It has done nothing, yet it says that its media policy is fair. It is a media policy based on the interests of its mates. I mentioned that the Government did not know where it was going. In last year's Budget, a celebrated document, the Government announced that new radio licences would be auctioned. Within eight weeks of that announcement, and I presume that the Government put some effort into its budgetary deliberations and its decisions, the Government reversed that decision and said that the auction system was out and that the licence fee would be determined on 100 per cent of estimated revenue. Of course, that was really motivated by concerns within Caucus and the need to balance the Budget. Of course, the Government is not particularly worried about the inconsistency because in respect of FM licences there are two ways to obtain a spot on the FM frequency. One can apply for a new licence, and the fee for that is one figure. The other way to get a spot on the FM frequency-of course, it is the same FM frequency with access to the same listeners within a market-is to convert from AM. The cost of converting from AM is a different figure. Where is the consistency, the equity and the fairness? It just underlines the total confusion of the Government in this area. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the Government has yet to address the question of AM conversion in metropolitan areas. That is far too hard. The only questions that this Government can address are those that directly affect its mates. At the present time within the Department we have nothing short of what I describe as a gaggle of inquiries. One is described as an inquiry dealing with telecommunications and the managerial environment of government business enterprises. There is also a review of international telecommunications regulations and a series of interrelated reviews on broadcasting policy matters, commercial, national and Special Broadcasting Service matters. There is also another inquiry on metropolitan radio, which is the one that I mentioned where significant questions have not been addressed. There is also an inquiry into radio frequency spectrum pricing. The Budget established the cost of new entry and how one converts. There is an inquiry into that matter so I guess the Budget pre-empted the results of the inquiry. One must wonder why the Government holds these inquiries. There is also a review of the policies governing the allocation of frequencies for radio. It may be great for the people who are involved in conducting these inquiries and it may give them job security, but it does not really do much for the people of Australia who are interested in having some choice in broadcasting. They want access to good quality entertainment and unbiased, fair and diverse news sources. They do not want groups in society to have a dominant control over the whole thing. The Minister made great play in his second reading speech about the cross-media ownership limits that apply between radio and newspapers. One question I would like the Government to address is how it reacted to the departmental paper that said that in some areas the application of such limits is probably not a very good idea because it affects the viability of both newspaper and radio. That is true in many country areas. The Government has quietly ignored and hopes that no-one will notice the fact that its definition of `newspaper' is very precise. It does not address the question of magazines. Anyone who has been a student of media realignment in this country in recent years would know that Mr Packer owns a very considerable slice of magazines published in this country. The definition of newspapers is framed in such a way as to exclude nearly all of Mr Packer's magazines. There is no prohibition on Mr Packer, who by any standards must be a major publisher in this country. He does not publish daily newspapers any longer but he publishes a vast range of magazines. Mr Charles —Nonsense. Mr BLUNT —We have some Labor member on the back bench guffawing about magazines. Perhaps he does not know that Australia has one of the highest readerships of magazines in the Western world. Mr Hicks —He reads the Women's Weekly. Mr BLUNT —One can tell that he reads the Women's Weekly while he is doing his knitting on the back bench, which is where he deserves to be. This Government's legislation very carefully excludes the interests of Mr Packer. Mr Packer's interests are such that if he chose to go back into television at some stage, and that may be an option he is considering-I am told that he recently improved his interest in a Northern Territory licence, and he has some other interests in the electronic media-he will be exempted. He can continue to own these magazines, which are significant in terms of communication and the dissemination of news and opinion around Australia. If the Caucus of the Labor Party is not bright enough to realise that, it does not say much for the future of democracy in this country because once again we will see the Treasurer, who aspires to be the Prime Minister within a very short period, rolling straight over the top of it. I wish to address some remarks to an amendment which has been circulated in my name and which raises a very important area of media policy in this country. I therefore move: That all words after `That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: `whilst not declining to give the Bill a second reading, the House is of the opinion that all television audience reach restrictions should be removed to allow a potential 100% audience reach for all competitors on the conditions that: (a) the Government's moratorium on the introduction of pay and cable television be removed; (b) the existing television licensing procedures be substantially streamlined; (c) cross-media rules between pay and cable television and existing free-to-air broadcasters be introduced subject to `grandfathering' of existing holdings; and (d) when the process of aggregation has been completed, the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal conduct an inquiry into issuing new television licences in metropolitan markets, subject to a final decision being made by the Government'. That amendment encompasses the basis of what could be a sound, competitive and fair media policy for television in Australia. When this Bill was considered in another place some time ago the Government had proposed amendments which had some bearing on television ownership. Thankfully, they were not proceeded with. They were beaten in the other place, and well they might have been because they were another example of the Labor Party looking after its mates. I mentioned earlier the Hoyts incident in which that company bought radio stations in breach of the ownership control provisions. One television proprietor in Australia went ahead and purchased television stations which took him into direct contravention of the ownership control limits. He visited Canberra and made a statement on the steps of Parliament House in which he said he confidently expected that the limits would be increased to accommodate his position. The problem is that one has to decide who is responsible for governing this country-whether it is the Parliament of this country, the Government of this country or people with considerable commercial muscle. Lo and behold, after the proprietor had breached the limit the Government started talking about an increase in the limit from 60 to 75 per cent. That was fine, provided the Government was not handing him commercial advantage and restricting the choice of Australian television viewers. If one is successful in having the limit raised from 60 to 75 per cent because one applies a bit of muscle, a bit of pressure-perhaps some of that pressure is applied to the Labor Party secretariats and not the politicians themselves-how long will it take before the limit goes from 75 per cent to 100 per cent? The question that must be asked is: what does the Australian public get out of it? If we give media proprietors greater access to the audience, in their terms we are enhancing their viability. That can be translated into giving them greater profit opportunities. Now profit is fine; there is nothing wrong with it, but if one is to be given access to a significant public good-a spot on a broadcast frequency, be it television or radio-perhaps the community has a reasonable expectation of getting something in return. Under the Labor Party's policy that is not the case. In fact, the public has a very good chance of getting less. The Labor Party's policy would establish a three-party monopoly on television broadcasting in Australia. It would have three major networks operating right across this country. Their influence on the few small remaining regional stations would be quite considerable. Competition in television and broadcasting generally comes down to a question of program choice. Three networks would not provide much of a program choice at all, particularly when much of the programming was sourced from overseas and the programming choice was determined by the taste of the television producers in Los Angeles or somewhere else. There is no intrinsic reason to impose an increase in television audience reach limits above 75 per cent. In fact, it is quite responsible and reasonable to say that a television proprietor wishing to establish a network should have access to 100 per cent of the audience throughout Australia, provided that, when he is given that access, the Australian public has reasonable choice. That is the essence of our policy. We have no objection whatsoever to the Government raising the limit to 100 per cent, provided that in doing so it is prepared to give choice, to reduce the monopoly, to reduce the influence, to reduce the market control, and to enhance the competition between the providers of television programs in Australia. Of course, it is not prepared to do that. It has an absolute moratorium on the granting of pay and cable television facilities in this country. The Government frequently refers to the overseas situation, but it forgets to say that overseas there is a choice of more than three commercial television networks. Technologically it is possible for Australians to have access to a considerably greater range of television networks than we have at present or than the Government is prepared to give the Australian people access to. Big Brother knows best! Treasurer Keating will determine how many knobs people can have on their television sets. He thinks three commercial stations are enough. Perhaps some of the people that he and the Prime Minister talk with have been able to convince him that it would be dangerous to give the Australian people a choice. The Australian people are fed up with the diet of tripe and rubbish that is being fed to them at present by the commercial networks. They all talk about ratings and how people watch the programs but there is not much else to do. People do not have much of a choice. There are not enough television broadcasters in Australia at present to have alternative programming. All the programming is competitive. Whether one wants to watch Miami Vice or some other American cops and robbers program, it will be on at 7.30 at night. Many people in Australia lament, legitimately, the declining standards of our television programs. The Treasurer himself even acknowledges this. He refers to the programs as `slop'. That is what he calls them. Of course the Caucus sat there meekly and obediently and did what it was told. It went along with the Treasurer's views on what audience reach and ownership limits should be and on the number of program choices, knowing full well that what he said was inherently true-that it was slop and that the only way we can get away from that, the only way we can get improved broadcasting standards and better programming choice, is to have more competition. Of course the only way we will get more competition is by giving more people access to television licences for the use of new technology, particularly cable television and pay television. That is the bottom line in the Opposition's policy in this area. We want to make sure that Australia does move into the twentieth century in terms of television and radio broadcasting and that we do have greater diversity of programming choice. There are a number of other issues relevant to this debate today, but the only comment I want to make in conclusion is that, while the Government persists with a policy motivated by concern for the best interests of its mates, while the Labor Party Caucus allows itself to be rolled by the influence applied by the Treasurer, the polls will continue to show that the Australian Labor Party is out of touch with the people of Australia-and it is. No area provides greater demonstration of that remoteness, of that eliteness, of that confused decision-making process, of that concern with priorities other than the priorities of the Australian people and of those politically expedient decisions designed to enhance the standing of the Labor Party in the community than its communications policy. We have seen it with television, we have seen it with radio and we have seen it with newspapers. We have heard the Treasurer's views on the foreign ownership of newspapers. It is about time the Labor Party started to show some backbone in Caucus, started to go back to those fine principles. This is a democratic socialist party. It often proclaims that. There is nothing democratic about it. The Treasurer comes in and says, `Listen, go along with this decision because what we are going to do is give them slop, slop and slop'. Honourable members opposite are voting for three choices of slop. They are not even questioning this policy. They do this because they know what an appalling and parlous political state they are in. Perhaps they think by going along with this policy, which is obviously supported by the major media proprietors, they might get better Press. When the Government is that far down in the polls, when its image as a government is so low, it will do just about anything to enhance its standing with the people who have the power and influence in the community. It is a sad thing that a government that is supposed to govern in the best interests of all Australians is prepared to prostitute its principles and introduce legislation which completely distorts the competitive environment in such an important industry as communications. It pretends that communications is no different from the manufacture of dog food, but of course it is. Communications is about the dissemination of information, and the dissemination of information is fundamental to the maintenance of a well-informed democracy in this country. That is why this particular area of government policy is so important to the future of our country. We have one of the highest concentrations of media ownership in the Western world. It is important to understand that. Who has given us this high concentration of media ownership? The Hawke democratic socialist Labor Government, the government concerned with the well-being of the Australian worker. My foot! It is a government concerned with its own well-being, with looking after its mates, making sure that certain members of the Government get invited on fishing trips on fairly luxurious boats owned by fairly prominent media proprietors. Talk about cronyism. Cronyism is the word for it. It is more like mateship, but the only trouble is that the Australian Labor Party, particularly its right wing, has redefined mateship. Mr Jull —They have made it an art form. Mr BLUNT —They have made it an art form. It is not mateship in the great tradition of the Australian community, that is, looking after a mate in trouble. Mateship, according to the Labor Party, is looking after a bloke who can do you a favour, or looking after a bloke you are not prepared to cross because he might do you some harm. That is the guiding principle of this Government's communications policy. Of course if running a policy based on such a corrupt principle is not bad enough, members of the Labor Party keep making mistakes, they keep getting it wrong. Nearly every piece of legislation that comes into this Parliament has had to have corrections, adjustments, alterations and amendments made to it because in technical terms they get it wrong. In this case the grandfathering provisions are wrong; the frequency provisions are wrong; the financial arrangements for the granting of new licences are wrong. They keep changing it and hacking it around. As I said in my opening remarks it is a classic example of what is wrong with this Government. It has no real commitment to good public administration. It has a commitment to political expediency in the best interests of the right wing of the Labor Party. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Ronald Edwards) —Is the amendment seconded? Mr Tim Fischer —I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. Mr CHARLES(Isaacs)(12.21) —We have just heard one of the most extraordinary speeches on communications made in this House for a long time. It is interesting that that speech has come from a member of the National Party of Australia, which has moved in relation to the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill an amendment suggesting we should have 100 per cent audience reach. It was the National Party that said last year that it would like 60 per cent. The honourable member for Riverina-Darling (Mr Hicks) nods his head. Now the National Party is saying that 100 per cent is okay, and 60 per cent is all right too but there is something wrong with everything in between. A television reach figure of around 64 per cent or just under-I think it is about 63.8 per cent-would incorporate the five mainland capital cities. Therefore, with a mere 4 per cent increase, from 60 to 64 per cent, we could incorporate every capital city in mainland Australia. But no, the Opposition, including the National Party, says, `No, we cannot have that. We do not mind 60 and we do not mind 100, but we do not want 64 and we definitely do not want 65 or 75; there is something wrong with that'. I am not quite sure what is wrong with it because what the Opposition is saying is that all the networks can own Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and let us say Adelaide, but they cannot own Perth. So we would have three individual companies owning one Perth station each, and supposedly that would increase competition dramatically. That logic escapes me, as I think it has escaped the vast majority of people in Australia. Nevertheless, the amendment has been moved. The debate on this legislation has been, dare I say, rather wide-ranging, going from radio through to cross-media ownership rules. It is a very extensive piece of legislation. The first part of the legislation concerns the new radio limits. Basically it increases the number of radio stations one can own from eight to 16. In fact this is a decrease in percentage terms because since the inception of radio we have seen a doubling of licences and when the licences now in the pipeline are introduced we will probably see a tripling of radio licences. However, this legislation will enable a doubling from eight to 16 in the number of radio licences which can be owned by one individual or company. An interesting point raised by the honourable member for Richmond (Mr Blunt) was that this was another gift to one of our friends. I did not realise that Hoyts Media, a relatively new company, was a friend. It may well be or it may not be-I do not know-but it had nothing to do with what Hoyts had done or were about to do some months ago. That company knew that we were already investigating this area, as we were investigating the whole cross-media ownership rules-a continuation of a debate within the Government that we started some 18 months ago. It is interesting that the radio limits have been accepted across the board because they bring a lot of rationalisation into the industry. This is coupled with extensive cross-media ownership rules so that a company must make up its mind to be in television, radio or newspapers; it cannot be in all three. It cannot be in two of them. The honourable member for Richmond talked about diversity of ownership. I remind honourable members opposite that they were in government for over three decades during which most of the television and radio regulations legislation were brought into operation, particularly with the advent in 1956 of television. In a number of regional centres, for example, we had companies owning the one and only television station, the one and only radio station and the one and only newspaper. And the honourable member for Richmond, representing the Opposition in this House, talks about diversity of ownership. What drivel! The honourable member for Goldstein (Mr Macphee) will probably say, as he has said before, that we have seen a concentration of ownership since we have come into government. Technically one could argue that, because there are fewer owners in television. I would argue, though, that there are just as many, if not more, powerful owners. That is what it is all about. It is not much use saying that, if a company owns Woop Woop television station, it has control over what happens; it has none. It buys what it is given. Under this Government there has been a rationalisation to make the networks more economical by giving them broadcasting rights across Australia, to give them national advertising. In return for that, the Government is looking at a review-this was passed in the Government rooms some weeks ago-to look at returning some of the powers of the Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT) that the Opposition when in government took away from it. Having made the networks more efficient and economic and having given them national advertising, the Government is looking at returning to the ABT the public interest powers in regard to licensing, ownership and control, ensuring that the ABT has the power to determine and enforce rules concerning local program content, and providing the ABT with the appropriate powers concerning the operation and programming of networks. That will take some months, but I hope that later this year we will be in a position to instigate a package of legislation or regulations, or whatever is needed, in regard to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal powers, which will be most welcome. We heard an attack on almost everyone. We heard an attack on Hoyts, Mr Packer, Mr Murdoch, and just about everyone else who is involved in the media. The honourable member for Richmond forgot to ask what we gave our supposed good friend, Rupert Murdoch. I will tell the House what we supposedly gave him. He has a 15 per cent interest in the Ten network which he must now divest down to 5 per cent. In the democratic way in which we work over here, the Government decided that the 5 per cent cross-media ownership rule of newspapers owning television shall remain. Mr Murdoch must thus divest his interest down to under 5 per cent. I am sure that will occur in the given time, but we did not hear any of that today from Opposition members; their contribution was all about what we supposedly had given our good friends in various quarters. I was talking before about the concentration of ownership in regard to Melbourne and Sydney. We now have more owners of television and newsprint-the two major media forums for influence of opinion in this country-in Melbourne than there were before. Previously, the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd owned television, radio and newsprint. We had Fairfax, Murdoch and, at one stage, Packer, whose company is now owned by Bond. We now have five major media owners. We have gone from four owners to five. The same has happened in the Sydney market. In the two biggest markets there has been an increase in ownership in the two big media areas. I return to the amendment and that part referring to pay and cable television. Point (a) of the amendment says that we should look at introducing pay and cable television. Point (c) says: cross-media rules between pay and cable television and existing free-to-air broadcasters be introduced . . . I would agree with that, if (a) were ever introduced. I think we will see that happen. The amendment then goes on to state: subject to `grandfathering' of existing holdings . . . I am not quite sure what that means. Could someone please explain it to me? If pay television does not exist, I do not know what existing holdings there are, unless the Opposition is referring to Bond's Sky Channel, which one could argue is a pay channel. I would argue that way. That is a debate that is presently under way within the Government. Unless the Opposition is arguing about Bond, there are no pay networks involved now; no grandfathering is needed. In regard to entertainment, I believe we have really passed cable by in this country. It is interesting that the National Party should argue for cable television when cable television probably will never go into the bush. Can honourable members imagine some entrepreneur taking a cable from one house to another five kilometres down the road? It is not on. It will never occur. The honourable member for Fadden (Mr Jull) raised an interesting point about satellites. One could argue about pay television in some other form. That is the most logical way to introduce it. When talking about competition for the networks, I do not think we are looking at pay television. Obviously, it will give people another source, but initially we are looking at an equitable system. Those opposite can say that we should give people a greater choice and have more competition by trying to charge people for an extra channel, but the working people of Australia, initially anyway, will not buy that. What will be put on that channel? Is it another network? Does it transmit just films or sport? If it transmits sport, how do we grandfather all the sport that is on the free networks now? Is the Opposition seriously saying, `We will allow the Melbourne Cup, the VFL Grand Final, Wimbledon, or some other event to be put on pay television.'? There would be a nice revolution, would there not? Will it say, `Last year you could see it free on Channel 9, Channel 2 or whatever, but this year we have a really good idea-we are going to slug you ten bucks to look at it.'? Mr Lee —That would be really popular. Mr CHARLES —Yes. That is absolute nonsense. This amendment is just drivel. The Opposition has just thrown it together. There is no cohesion whatsoever on the other side of the House. There has been, and still is, a revolution in communications. There is a vast amount to say which, unfortunately, I do not have the time to go into. This legislation increases the level of ownership in radio. No-one has argued seriously about that. The legislation does many other things, mainly regarding the cross-media ownership rules which represent a devastating victory for this Government and are a great thing for this country. Even some members of the Opposition now think that they were a good idea. They institutionalise that area. I hope that everyone will support the legislation. Maybe at some stage in the not too distant future the Government's original plan of 75 per cent will be brought to bear. Mr MACPHEE(Goldstein)(12.36) —My views on the question of television ownership are very well known; so, as I have only about eight minutes in which to speak, I will not repeat them. But I must say several things about the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill and the remarks of the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Charles). The revolution of which the honourable member spoke is far from over. The Minister for Transport and Communications Support (Mr Peter Morris) was quite wrong to say, in his second reading speech, that the new radio rules `which implement the policy announced on 28 October 1987, will substantially complete the Government's unprecedented reform of the ownership structure of the Australian media'. Mr Jull —They have only just begun. Mr MACPHEE —They have only just begun and the honourable member for Isaacs has admitted as much. While it is true that the Government has introduced cross-media ownership rules-I applaud it for that-they do not go far enough. The honourable member mentioned Sky Channel which is owned by Mr Bond. We saw the spectacle last year of the Australian win in the World Cup Series against India. We were able to watch the first innings on Channel 9 but we had to go to a pub to watch Sky Channel to see the second innings in which the Australians won. That is an outrageous situation. Cross-media ownership rules should extend to Sky Channel. Sky Channel is broadcasting and should be brought under the legislation now before the Parliament. I am delighted that the honourable member agrees with that. I hope that that will come in as part of the so-called revolution and that cross-media ownership rules will be extended not just to Sky Channel but to the production houses. The honourable member for Isaacs was right when he said that television owners are becoming bigger and more powerful. It is the very power of which I am afraid. I would like to ensure that they do not use the stations across the nation which this Government has so kindly given them, merely as conduit pipes, cash flow pipes, for the production houses, which will be overseas-owned and in which they will have an equity. Otherwise there will be a clamouring-much earlier than one might think-for pay television as an alternative. We should also have cross-media ownership rules for production houses. I am pleased that the Government has chosen a figure of 5 per cent. Newspapers cannot have more than 5 per cent ownership of television stations. Similarly, I think that television stations should not have more than 5 per cent ownership of production houses and production houses more than 5 per cent ownership of television stations. Similarly, where Bond has a monopoly on Sky Channel, he should not be able to have a 60 per cent audience reach in television. The Bill seeks to double the number of radio stations. I would have thought that if this great reform was to be complete there would be an audience reach for radio. I put to the House as a serious proposition that the Government, in completing its reforms, should not just look at an ad hoc doubling of the number of stations. If the biggest proprietors-if they are not the Government's friends now it will try to court them-have bought enough stations for the Government to double the number from eight to 16, what happens when they have 20 or 24? Will the Government just increase the number again? It would be much more sensible to have an audience reach. If it can apply to television, why not to radio? I feel very strongly that media ownership should be a specialised business. It ought not to be the cash flow plaything of people engaged in other business, such as Mr Bond with his gold and Mr Murdoch with his airline. It is very important that we recognise the conflict of interest about which I have spoken many times and the threat to democracy that comes from that conflict of interest when it can be said, `Look, you introduce a gold tax and I'll give you pretty bad coverage on the 9 network-don't worry about that'. I have said before that those things are very serious. I honestly think that the media are so important that media specialists are required. The print medium is different from the electronic medium and radio is different from television. The cross-media rules fit in perfectly with such an approach. I think that some government some day will have to introduce that. The Minister said in his second reading speech: The new measures will place some additional administrative burden on the Department of Transport and Communications and on the Tribunal. These will be absorbed within current resources, although some reordering of priorities may be required. That is an absolute scandal. The Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT) and the Trade Practices Commission do not have enough resources. The chairmen of both organisations have said so. A House of Representatives committee is inquiring into the powers of the Broadcasting Tribunal. I gave evidence to that Committee and I will not repeat it here. I do not believe that the Minister or the Government is likely to take seriously the recommendations that come in, even from a committee chaired by one of its own members, moreover, a member who understands the area. It is very important that the Government act quickly on that Committee's recommendations when they are put down and that it recognise now that there is no point in putting more burdens on the Broadcasting Tribunal. Last Thursday I asked a question of the Minister who represents the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans) and a similar question was asked of the Minister in the Senate. It took him five hours to produce a Press statement in answer to the question. In that statement he suggested that the Broadcasting Tribunal was, strangely enough, looking into the matter. The matter was Mr Murdoch's exceeding the law of this country-the law about which the honourable member for Isaacs boasted-which says that he can have a 5 per cent share, by having a 17 1/2 per cent share of the Ten network. The Broadcasting Tribunal has done nothing. Presumably, it has done nothing because it thought there were other priorities to look at. It is understaffed and under-resourced. Yet this Bill is asking it to do still more. It will never enforce the law about which the honourable member boasted because it does not have the resources to do so. I propose to introduce, in the Budget session, a private member's Bill to amend the Trade Practices Act. I am waiting on a judgment in the Queensland meat case which is now before the Federal Court of Australia to see what changes need to be made. But I believe that at the moment the public interest is not adequately protected by section 50 of the Trade Practices Act; that there ought to be a return to a test such as the substantial lessening of competition test that was there before. I also want to see the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal's powers in respect of ownership of television and radio transferred to the Trade Practices Commission. The Broadcasting Tribunal would continue to look at licence renewal hearings, foreign control and so on. But the actual question of competition within the broadcasting industry should be in the hands of the Trade Practices Commission because it is able to look at the print media. If we are to have cross-media ownership rules, all the media should be within the ambit of the Trade Practices Commission in respect of ownership, competition and the concentration of ownership. I do not have time to say any more than that the Government, I believe, is knowingly depriving the ABT and the Trade Practices Commission of the resources to do the job they are doing. They are saying that the law is there and that it is being defied. There is no serious intention of the law being honoured by the owners who are now in breach of it. There is no serious intention, but for the proddings of certain people on this side of the House, of those tribunals giving priority to examining and then enforcing the law. I have put some questions on today's Notice Paper addressed to the Minister. I will be interested to see how long it is before they are answered, because the Government's track record in answering sensitive matters is a very poor one. I think that in the time available to me I have covered most of the important issues. Let us not be content with what the Government says is a sweeping reform. The job is far from done. In many respects, not least because of the maladministration of the foreign takeovers legislation, the problem has worsened and the threat to freedom of speech in this country is a very serious one. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Ronald Edwards) —Order! It being 12.45 p.m. the debate is interrupted in accordance with sessional order 101a. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. Sitting suspended from 12.45 to 2 p.m Mr HAWKE(Wills-Prime Minister) —As a matter of courtesy, I inform the House that the Treasurer will be absent from the House during Question Time today on Government business. Mr Beale —Is he preening himself? Mr HAWKE —Opposition members will see plenty of him tonight, and they will not like what they hear either. Questions normally directed to the Treasurer should be directed to the Minister Assisting the Treasurer. Mr EWEN CAMERON —My question is directed to the Attorney-General. I refer to reports today that the head of Australia's anti-terrorist body, the Protective Services Coordination Centre, believes terrorist bombs pose the most dangerous potential threat to security in Australia. Why then is Australia one of the few countries where unsupervised luggage lockers remain located in busy public places at Kingsford-Smith and Tullamarine airports? Mr LIONEL BOWEN —The thrust of the honourable member's question certainly is important. The Government, as he would know, spends an enormous amount of resources in counter-terrorist operations and intelligence and has been very successful. I am not aware of the specifics as to why there is not the protection that the honourable gentleman suggests should be there. Obviously it is a matter that would concern security. I will have the matter taken up, and I will advise the honourable gentleman further. Mr MOUNTFORD —My question is directed to the Minister for Employment, Education and Training. Can the Minister inform the House of public reaction to the Wran plan, which proposes that participants in higher education make a small contribution to the cost of their tuition if and when they begin to benefit financially from education? Mr DAWKINS —I had another quotation this afternoon but it was of a rather different character. There has been a very varied response to the proposals of the Wran Committee on Higher Education Funding. The responses have ranged from very enthusiastic support through to total rejection. As indicated by reputable opinion polls, there is substantial community support for these proposals. The most important part of the community reaction-and indeed I think reaction across the board-is that there is very strong support for the notion that there should be an expansion of the higher education system, as foreshadowed in the Government's Green Paper. There has to be a recognition, therefore, that additional funds must be found from somewhere if we are to achieve that particular purpose. I think the Government realises, as do most people, that more funds are needed not only for an increased number of places but also to provide additional income support for students. I want to quote, if I may, from an article in this morning's Age which reported the views of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Professor Penington, whose views reflect, I think, the views of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee, as currently stated. He says: The Wran proposals are in reality the reintroduction of fees with an associated loan scheme. The fees (or `contributions') are less than 20 per cent of cost and are associated with interest-free loans to be repaid through the tax commissioner as a two per cent surcharge on tax once graduates reach an acceptable income. The Wran proposal removes any bar to participation at the time of entering education and would provide the funds to expand the Austudy scheme substantially so as to improve equity of access. The financial support to poorer people would be considerably greater than the fees they would have to repay many years later. In my view, Government funding is to be preferred, if adequate, but the Wran proposals are a reasonable alternative for part of the funding. Mr Hawke —Hear, hear! Mr DAWKINS —I acknowledge the Prime Minister's endorsement of that remark. One group in the community is wildly out of step on this issue and that, not surprisingly, is the once great Liberal Party of Australia. There is obviously a reticence on the part of the Liberal Party to publicise its policy because its policy involves the freezing of Commonwealth funding at the existing number of places and then giving people who cannot get one of those places the option of paying full fees if they want to enter the system. That means that the 20,000 people who are now denied a place in higher education would have the not entirely attractive option of paying full fees if they missed out on one of the limited number of places which a Liberal Government would provide. That is, someone who wanted to do medicine and who did not fit within the Liberal Party policy would have the privilege of paying some $120,000 in order to achieve a degree in medicine. Mr Carlton —Come off it. Mr DAWKINS —The honourable member can say, `Come off it', but that is the full cost of providing a course in medicine in an Australian university, and that is the opinion that the Opposition is offering to ordinary Australians. That means, in the end, that with one stroke of the pen the Liberal Party would eliminate the queue, not by accommodating the students but by making it absolutely impossible for them to pay for the places which would then be on sale under a Liberal government. There could be no starker comparison between the policies of the Government and those of the Opposition. The Government's policies are for growth and equity. The Liberal choice is one of stagnation and the further entrenchment of privilege. Mr MILLAR —I address my question to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will be alert to clear evidence of the rapidly escalating prices of real estate properties in Australia, particularly in Sydney, where it is reported that there has been a 40 or 50 per cent escalation of costs within the last six months. On the basis that this will result in Australians being unable to acquire homes or, alternatively, being able to purchase them only at considerable cost, will the Prime Minister inform the House whether he and the Government have addressed this emerging problem, and what steps are available for them to ensure that Australians are not so denied? Mr HAWKE —I thank my honourable friend for his question and I shall just make these comments briefly. The honourable member would be aware of steps that were taken last year in regard to limitations upon the acquisition of private property. I do not rehearse those details, but I make these more general points at this stage. It is properly a matter of concern for all Australians, particularly in the areas the honourable gentleman mentioned, that there has been this escalation of housing prices which has made the acquisition of homes more difficult; it would be foolish and dishonest to attempt to deny that. However, I remind the honourable gentleman of the record of the Government in the area of housing generally, without belabouring the facts in great detail. When the Government came to office the level of housing starts was 105,000, a very low figure. As a result of the general macro-economic policies we pursued and the counter-cyclical scheme we introduced-the first home owner's scheme, which by this stage has already put another 270,000 Australians into homes-that 105,000 has been lifted very substantially. According to the Indicative Planning Council and the industry, we are now looking at starts of the order of 150,000, which one has to concede-I think the honourable gentleman would agree-is putting the physical capacity of the industry right up towards its limits. The Government wants, generally speaking, to continue broad macro-economic policies which will keep the general level of economic activity at a high but sustainable level, including in the housing industry; but it would be counterpro- ductive-and I think the honourable gentleman would agree-if we were so to conduct the relevant instruments of policy as to increase further the demands upon the housing industry at this time. That, of itself, would only have the effect of further escalating prices. I hope the honourable gentleman will regard those points as relevant. I know he does have this belief in the desirability of increasing the capacity of Australians to acquire their own homes. I assure him that the broad range of our economic policies in general, and those of our housing policies in particular, will be directed towards trying to ensure that the maximum number of Australians are able to acquire their own homes. Mr SNOW —I refer the Minister for Industrial Relations to a report that the Government's objectives of Public Service staff savings of 3,000 staff years in 1987-88 from the machinery of government changes last year is unlikely to be achieved. Can the Minister advise the House whether this report is correct? Mr WILLIS —I am aware of a recent report in the Australian Financial Review which made claims of the kind referred to by the honourable member for Eden-Monaro. Those claims are not true in two respects. Firstly, the Government never claimed that there would be 3,000 staff years savings in 1987-88 resulting from the machinery of government changes, that is, the reorganisation of government departments which we announced last year. We said that those staff savings would be achieved in a full year. The Forward Estimates published by the Department of Finance last December made it quite clear that total staff year savings from the machinery of government changes were expected to be 3,117, of which 1,315 would be in 1987-88 and the remainder of 1,802 in the year 1988-89. The second point is that the Government's full year objective will be achieved. The latest estimates are that we will fall slightly short in 1987-88 on the target reduction in staff years but that we will get the full 3,000-plus staff year savings by 1988-89. The article stated also that the Government had rejected a proposal for severance payments for redundant public servants. The fact is that, although there was an initial proposal for a rather generous redundancy scheme to apply to redundant public servants, which was rejected, in recent times a more modest proposal has been implemented and effectively utilised. The general tenor of this report I think was quite misleading. It was to the effect that the Public Service reforms of the Government had not amounted to a great deal. It even suggested that they might have been no more than a public relations exercise. I think that that was a very great distortion of the effect of those reforms which have been introduced and which have, indeed, been wide-ranging and the most effective Public Service reforms in the history of Federation. Just in the last couple of years in particular we have had extremely important changes. I instance some of them. For example, we have had the various improvements to management practices, such as program budgeting and improved processes for dealing with inefficient and surplus staff. We have had the streamlining procedures in 1986, which involved a whole host of Public Service procedures either being eliminated or short circuited. We have had the office structure reclassification in which 100 clerical and administrative job classifications have been reduced to eight, enabling enormous efficiencies to be attained over time by the more flexible use of staff. We have had further efficiencies required to be made up by the Public Service to achieve the 4 per cent increase under the second tier for public servants. We have had the efficiency dividend of 1 1/2 per cent which has now been introduced for all departments and which they are required to meet each year. We have had efficiency scrutiny reviews which are on-going through the Efficiency Scrutiny Unit. We have had the machinery of government changes to which I have referred. These changes have resulted in Public Service numbers, firstly, stabilising, and secondly, now declining. They have resulted in very considerable productivity improvements taking place. It is quite clear that this Government stands for very substantial structural reform in this country. As the major employer, we are setting the example in our own area. We will have more to say about that matter in the statement by the Treasurer tonight. Mr PROSSER —My question is directed to the Minister for the Arts and Territories. I ask: Why is the Army no longer involved in psychological assessment and selection of applicants for the Australian national Antarctic research expeditions? Is it correct that the psychological assessment function previously performed by the Army has been contracted out, at a cost of about $1m, to Dalman and Associates, a firm of consultant psychologists? Is it a fact also that, during the selection process in Tasmania earlier this year, the two psychologists carrying out the selection procedure were paid around $800 a day; stayed at the new Sheraton Hotel in Hobart; and were transported to and from the assessment area in the central highlands of Tasmania by Commonwealth car, a two-hour trip each way? Mr McGauran —Take it on notice. Mr PUNCH —I will take the question on notice. The Antarctic is a matter for the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Senator Richardson. I will even ask the Minister about the Sheraton Hotel and the Commonwealth cars. Mr LINDSAY —My question, which is directed to the Prime Minister, concerns the work of nation-building by the Hawke Government. The question will be of interest to the honourable member for Kennedy and the former member for Moreton, Sir James Killen. Will the Prime Minister inform the House of progress on construction of the Burdekin Dam and the Hawke Government's contribution to this wonderful national project? Mr HAWKE —I thank the honourable member for Herbert for his question about the Commonwealth's contribution to this most significant national water resources project. Like the member for Herbert, I am very pleased that I am able to deliver this answer at a time when a former distinguished representative from the State of Queensland, Sir James Killen, graces this place in the far corner. I may see him later. Of course, as everyone in this House would expect me to do-- Mr John Brown —What about Fred Daly? Mr HAWKE —And Sir James Killen's sparring partner over on the other side of the House. I think that they both vote for the same party now. There is no prize for guessing which one. Of course, as would be expected, I preface my answer to this question by noting the well known fact-the absolutely tireless efforts of the honourable member for Herbert in bringing the Burdekin Dam to reality. Although the reality was a long time in the making, the Burdekin Dam will stand as a monument to the commitment of successive Labor Government to national development in general and, in particular, to our concern for the needs of north Queensland. I remind those honourable members with a shorter sense of history that it was the Chifley Labor Government that took the first step towards the dam's construction, with the setting up of a joint Commonwealth-State ministerial committee to investigate northern development. That was the genesis of the emergence of this great edifice. Then it was the Whitlam Labor Government that in 1974 made available the first Commonwealth funds for water resources development in the Burdekin region. Of course, then it was this Labor Government which in 1983 initiated construction of the Burdekin Dam and which has seen the project through to completion. I know it will be a matter of undiluted joy to every honourable member that I am now able to inform the House that the dam is not only completed but, following the recent cyclone, also full. I can say that the construction of this great Burdekin Dam has been fully funded by the Commonwealth to the tune of $129m. In the spirit of conservative cooperation which is now emerging between me, and the current Premier of Queensland, Mr Ahern, I am pleased to say that I recently received an invitation from him to participate in a joint ceremony to officially dedicate the dam. The Burdekin Dam-and this is a matter of fundamental importance-will benefit the north by stabilising agricultural development in the fertile Burdekin delta, and it will contribute to the security of water supply for Townsville, Thuringowa and the surrounding areas. In all, I am pleased to say that perhaps 250,000 people will directly benefit from the dam's construction, and many hundreds of thousands more people will indirectly benefit from it. Finally, I take very great pride in the fact that it was this Government that committed the Burdekin Dam to construction, fully funded it and has seen it through to completion. Mr McGAURAN —My question of the Minister for Trade Negotiations follows on from the question addressed by the honourable member for Gwydir to the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy yesterday. The Minister is, of course, aware of the frustration and anger of the cattle producers of Australia regarding the lack of access into South Korean and Japanese markets. I ask the Minister: What progress is being made in relation to General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade action against both these countries and what access has Australia gained into the Japanese market for the 10 processed agricultural products following earlier and successful action by the United States of America at GATT? Mr DUFFY —The frustration of the cattle producers is something that we all share. Australia and the United States have been pressing strongly for Japan and Korea to liberalise their beef markets. We want them liberalised in a non-discriminatory way consistent with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, but unfortunately, as the honourable member is obviously aware, bilateral discussions to date have not reached a satisfactory resolution. In order to complement those bilateral discussions, Australia has commenced GATT action, and at the GATT council meeting on 4 May requests by Australia that panels be established to examine both Japan's and Korea's beef import regimes were agreed to, as were requests by the United States. The process involved in reaching agreement between the parties about appropriate administrative arrangements for the panels is currently being negotiated in Geneva. In an effort to seek a quick resolution the Australian Government has indicated to Japan that it is prepared to continue bilateral discussions in parallel with the GATT proceedings. Our preference and, we believe from discussions, the preference also of Japan is to resolve the issue bilaterally without the need for formal GATT adjudication, but that is partly because from our point of view it would be six months before the GATT panels produced their findings. At this stage if it is not settled on a bilateral basis there will be no choice but to proceed with the GATT panels. In answer to the second part of the question about Korea, there were indications that a limited beef marketing reopening had been planned for May this year, but following the recent National Assembly elections we understand that this announcement has been postponed. Although the Japan-United States negotiations appear to have reached a total impasse at present, we have agreed to continue, as I indicated earlier, with the bilateral discussions in an attempt to resolve the issue on that basis with Japan. But as far as we are concerned, if that does not resolve the matter, we are in a position to proceed with action in this matter by going to the GATT panels. The honourable member referred to the GATT report on the Japanese import restrictions on 12 agricultural items. A panel that reported in November last year found that Japanese restrictions on 12 categories of agricultural products are not in conformity with Japan's GATT obligations. The products included dairy products such as processed cheese and skim milk and some processed fruit and vegetable products. The panel found against Japan on all these items. The panel's report was adopted in its entirety at the council meeting in Geneva on 2 February, although Japan expressed reservations about some of the interpretations, particularly those relating to dairy products and starch. Japan indicated that it would endeavour to implement market liberalisation measures as soon as possible on 10 of the 12 items-I think the honourable member for Gippsland referred to 10 items-in accordance with the findings. But it is not clear at this stage what action Japan will take on starch and dairy products, and compensation may be offered as an alternative to liberalising access to the market for these products. Further discussions between Japan and the United States are reported to have taken place to seek a mutually agreeable solution. The question was raised by the United States of America at the May GATT council meeting which I referred to earlier, and those countries responded to the effect that the new measures were under consideration. The importance to Australia of the adoption of the panel's report is that the liberalisation of access to the Japanese market for some of these products should be of direct benefit to Australian exporters. That will depend to some extent on efforts made by Australian exporters to take advantage of the new arrangements that will be put in place, but it is a very useful precedent that has been established within GATT to facilitate the removal or easing of other import restrictions maintained by Japan and other countries, particularly on agricultural products. Mr TICKNER —I ask the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, more in sorrow than in anger, whether he has seen the news release issued yesterday by the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs which made a call for unity in relation to matters pertaining to Aboriginal affairs. How does this call for unity stand in the light of the response of the Opposition to the proposal put forward by Father Frank Brennan, adviser to the Australian Catholic bishops, calling for the Parliament to recognise, as one of the first acts in the new House of Parliament, the prior occupation of Australia by Aboriginal people? Mr HAND —Like the honourable member for Hughes, it is with some sadness that I address this question, but it needs to be addressed. Firstly, I go back to a statement by the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs published in the Melbourne Herald which gave the impression that it was his motion which he was going to take to the shadow Cabinet and with which he and the Liberal Party of Australia were going to proceed in the new Parliament House. The point is that it was not the honourable member's motion or that of the Liberal Party. It was a motion shown to him by Father Frank Brennan on behalf of the Catholic bishops. They put it forward to try to get the politicians of this country to come to the new Parliament House and move a motion which recognised the prior occupation of Australia by Aboriginal people-not an unreasonable request, I should have thought, for the bishops to make of us, the politicians in Federal Parliament. Father Brennan then thought it would not be a bad idea to see the Leader of the Opposition. So the Leader of the Opposition saw Father Brennan, along with the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, and the Leader of the Opposition gave his support to the motion. Father Brennan thought that was pretty good and that he had better come to see me, so he told me what a good meeting he had had with the Leader of the Opposition. Again, publicity emerged out of this; expectations were built up in the Aboriginal community that this was a first step towards the Government's preamble and to the reconciliation that the Government is trying to achieve in this country between Aboriginal and Islander people and non-Aboriginal and Islander people -a first step or a foundation for the future. What happens then? There is a shadow Cabinet meeting. The shadow Minister puts forward the motion. The Leader of the Opposition supports him and gets done yet again. What was the reference made yesterday-the limp-wristed leader? Mr Hawke —Hollow-chested. Mr HAND —Yes, the hollow-chested and limp-wristed leader. The point is that the Leader of the Opposition, on an issue such as this, an issue that causes no effects in terms of legal consequences, cannot carry his own shadow Ministry. The Opposition then comes out into the public arena and blames the Aborigines, because the Leader was lumbered in his own shadow Cabinet. The point is that this has been viewed by the community in a very bad light. In fact, an editorial in the Age described it as `pitiful'. I ask the Leader to read that editorial. The Catholic Leader released in Queensland today shows what Father Frank Brennan thinks of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader told Father Frank Brennan that he would support him, and I think he was correct to assume that the Liberal Party would deliver on the commitment made by the Leader of that Party. The Leader of the Opposition was able to come in here on St Patrick's Day and support a bipartisan resolution, but in the new Parliament House cannot support a motion which tries to recognise prior Aboriginal occupation of this country of 40,000 years. There is another thing for the Leader of the Opposition to feast his eyes on-what Father Frank Brennan thinks of him. I have offered to discuss these questions and others with the shadow Minister on a number of occasions, but I will now tell him what we are going to do. We will move the motion in the new Parliament House and we will then see whether the shadow Minister can deliver the numbers in his party room to get his Party to support the motion. Forget about the shadow Cabinet. Take it to the party room and back up the commitment to Father Frank Brennan. I say to the shadow Minister, `Come up to the new Parliament House with us and try to bring about the unity that you are always talking about'. Mr IAN CAMERON —As this may be the last question I ask in this old House, I ask all honourable members to listen attentively. I wish to ask a question-of course, this is another privilege-of the Prime Minister, in the absence of the Treasurer. As the National and Liberal parties have at long last obtained bipartisan support from Labor Caucus for more funds from the exorbitant excise paid by motorists for roads in this nation, when will the Prime Minister direct the Treasurer to allocate more of these taxpayers' funds into more real dollars for roads in this nation? I expect the support that we are already getting from the Government. Mr HAWKE —I thank the honourable gentleman for his question. He will have to wait for a few hours until the Treasurer delivers his statement and also tables the associated documents in which he will see, firstly, an indication of the very fine record of this Government in the area of road construction. That is a contribution which has been marked by significant funding in the area of local roads, national highways and State arterial roads. The Treasurer's statement will also outline the constructive funding pattern which will be provided by this Government-and not merely for 1988-89, I point out-and which will have significant real implications in the future. All I can say is that we are proud of this Government's record in the area of road construction at the three levels I have mentioned-local roads, national highways and arterial roads. We will continue to ensure into the future that the needs of Australia in regard to these important parts of the economic infrastructure are maintained. Mr CAMPBELL —My question is directed to `mighty Michael', the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. It is reported that the President of the United States of America last night vetoed the United States Trade Bill. What does the Minister perceive the ramifications for Australia to be? Mr DUFFY —I thank the honourable member for Kalgoorlie, as always, for his question. It is always nice to know that one has the support of the leader of a faction, albeit a faction of one. It is true, as the honourable member for Kalgoorlie has indicated, that President Reagan has vetoed the Trade Bill. I think it is worth mentioning that we had considerable notice that it would be vetoed. In fact, it is something that the President has been stating for some time. The Trade Bill presented to the President was a different Bill from that which we were so concerned about last year. That came about for many reasons, one being the work done by this Government. Fortunately, for once, we had bipartisan support in relation to that. A considerable amount of work was also done by those opposite and we were able to achieve a good deal. Nevertheless, the provisions of the Bill, as it emerged, removed many matters of considerable concern to Australian primary producers. In particular, the proposed quota on lamb imports was removed. The sugar drawback provision, which in fact was an export subsidy for sugar producers, was also removed from the Bill. The food labelling provisions, which would have caused considerable difficulties for a country such as Australia, were also removed. In addition, the exclusion of Australia from the area of government purchases was also removed from the Bill. However, having said that, it must be said that the Bill was still a protectionist Bill; there is no doubt about that. In particular, the so-called process provisions of the Bill, sections 201 and 301, contained measures to do with trade practices which it was very difficult to interpret as to how they would have worked from Australia's point of view and which could have caused us considerable concern. Therefore, although ultimately the reason for the veto was more domestic-the concerns expressed by the President regarding notice of closures of plants in the United States-I think that the real concern is not in that area but is as to the role that the United States will now play in the current Uruguay Round. A United States mandate in that Round was given by the Trade Bill which has now been vetoed, but it should be said that that mandate is not tied exclusively to the Trade Bill. We hope that alternative legislative options to secure passage of the mandate will be pursued in the United States. Unless the United States is in a position to give the leadership that we consider necessary in this current Round, particularly having regard to the tension between the United States and the European Commission, I do not think that we can have as successful a Round as we would want. Mr PRATT —Can the Minister for Administrative Services explain why the South Australian Valuer-General values a piece of land in Adelaide's Port River wetlands at $120,000, yet the Commonwealth's valuation is $1.9m? Is it a fact that the Torrens Road Drainage Authority wants to buy the land at a fair price to ensure that the drainage area continues to service 200,000 Hindmarsh, Enfield and Woodville Council residents; to serve the industrial area as a pollutant and heavy metal catchment area; and to ensure the protection of this important ecological area, which is a nursery for South Australia's fisheries and a World Heritage mangrove environment? Has the Government broken a commitment given by a former Minister? Why has the Commonwealth valued the land at 15 times the local valuation? Mr WEST —The honourable member has not specifically identified the tract of land to which his question pertained. If the land he is talking about is included in the area known as the old Dean rifle range-- Mr Howard —Are you going to privatise it? Mr WEST —Yes. The Government's decision was to sell that particular area of land. I have put that land out to tender and tenders are being evaluated. The Adelaide City Council and the South Australian Government have expressed a great deal of interest in that tract of land. The evaluation of the tenders is continuing. I am certainly not going to discuss those matters in the House at this time. If the honourable member was speaking about this tract of land, I expect to be in a position to announce the results of the tenders in the near future. Mr BILNEY —I ask the Attorney-General: Is he aware of the situation applying to United Kingdom pensioners in Australia whereby those pensioners do not benefit from automatic cost of living adjustments in the United Kingdom pension, by contrast with pensioners in the United Kingdom or in a number of other countries who do receive those increases? What action has the Australian Government taken to assist those pensioners in Australia to obtain recognition of their entitlement to cost of living adjustments from the United Kingdom Government? What further avenues can the Attorney suggest to assist the more than 85,000 United Kingdom pensioners in Australia to persuade the United Kingdom Government to live up to its obligations? Mr Hawker —Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. The honourable member for Goldstein put this question on the Notice Paper last week. Mr Bilney —On the point of order, Madam Speaker: I had spoken to the honourable member for Goldstein about this matter and pointed out that the question was addressed to a different Minister. I therefore submit that it is in order. Madam SPEAKER —The question is in order. I call the Attorney-General. Mr LIONEL BOWEN —This is a matter of concern to people on both sides of the House. For a long while now representations have been made on behalf of British pensioners in Australia. There are 117,000 British pensioners in Australia who are not getting the benefit of the indexation of pensions. This seems to amount to discrimination because such pensions are indexed in 27 other countries. I know that strong representations have been made over a long period by Ministers and, indeed, by my Prime Minister, to the British Government, asking why it cannot give British pensioners in Australia equity with British pensioners in other countries. Strong representations have been made by the honourable member for Kingston and by Mr Roy Byrne, the Chairman of the Australian-British Pensioners Trust Fund. I am aware also that my colleague the Minister for Social Security has made repeated representations on a number of occasions to see whether the British Government would change its mind. Apparently the answer has always been, for some extraordinary reason, that the British Government, due to financial constraints, could not see its way clear to meet the obligation. I do not think that is good enough. There might be merit in the case. There might be an opportunity in Britain to test the validity of that determination. I am prepared to assist the British pensioners to obtain legal advice. In accordance with representations made to me by the honourable member for Kingston and Mr Byrne, my Department will arrange for our agents in the United Kingdom to obtain counsel's advice as to whether any legal action can be taken in that country to guarantee justice for its pensioners here. Mr ANDREW —I ask the Prime Minister: Does he approve of a tax being applied to staple food? If not, how does he defend the anomaly of a tax on 100 per cent orange juice, which is no more a processed food than is milk or honey? Mr HAWKE —I have no need to defend the policies of this Government in the area of tax, including the tax to which the honourable gentleman refers. If the people of this country have any cause for concern about actual or potential taxing policies that may emanate from this Parliament, they should properly direct their concern to the honourable member's side of the House. Those opposite have given totally irresponsible indications about their intention to abolish the fair and equitable taxation measures that we have brought in to close the tax rorts, to stop the tax privileges to the wealthy of this country. If they are going to go anywhere near a bull's roar of delivering the promises that they have made in other areas, they will have to do what, I remind the House, the Leader of the Opposition is totally committed to. The Leader of the Opposition is Mr Make-believe. He wants honourable members to believe a position about Aborigines, a position about local government, a position about anything one likes to name. Let us come to the real position of the Leader of the Opposition in regard to taxes, including taxes on food-the real position of the person that honourable members opposite for the time being continue to tolerate as their Leader. He said in this Parliament on 20 March: If we really want to reform the Australian taxation system, if we really want to take the load off those marginal rates of personal taxation, we have to bring in a broad-based consumption tax. He said: Furthermore, that broad-based consumption tax has to operate with minimal and desirably no exemptions. Unless we do that, we will not have enough money to bring about a major reduction in personal income tax. That was a statement in this Parliament by the honourable member's Leader about taxation policy in regard to staple foods. He was saying, `We have to have a broad-based consumption tax and no exemptions for food, kids' toys and all those sorts of things'-the lot, including staple food. If the honourable member has any concern at all about protecting the people of this country from the impost of taxation he should make sure that he accelerates the processes that are already under way to get rid of the fellow sitting opposite me. As long as he has him here he will have a Leader who is committed to bringing in a wide range of taxes, including a tax on the very items that the honourable member professes to have a concern about. If he has a concern about those areas he should not look at this side of the House but direct his concern to his Leader, because that is where it should be directed. Mr LAMB —I direct my question to the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business. Can he inform the House of the effect the restructuring that is going in within the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) will have on the National Bushfire Research Unit (NBRU) and its steering committee? Mr BARRY JONES —The work of the National Bushfire Research Unit is adding to our understanding of Australia's highly inflammable vegetation. As we all know, the south-east of Australia ranks with California and the south of France as one of the three areas in the world most at risk. In 1985 the Government announced that the NBRU would operate within the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and that research projects would be chosen with the advice of a program steering committee, including representatives of the key State agencies concerned with fire control. The honourable member for Streeton was appointed to that committee. The bushfires inquiry of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation, chaired by the honourable member for La Trobe, which reported in August 1984, made recommendations about research coordination and funding. So far CSIRO has had to bear the cost of running the NBRU, apart from welcome support from the Government of South Australia. In 1987-88 the unit received $400,000 in appropriation funding but attracted only about $35,000 from outside sources to cover operating costs. The capacity of the unit is completely dependent on the size of the contribution from potential beneficiaries, including State governments and other government departments. Part of the task of the steering committee will be to raise community recognition of the importance of and the need for support of bushfire research. If the community, in an area of obvious self-interest, is not able to contribute to this, it will make things very difficult for CSIRO. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or indeed a free National Bushfire Research Unit. Nevertheless, I have asked CSIRO to give a high priority to the unit, given the financial constraints, and to maintain the steering committee, which I think can potentially do very valuable work. Madam SPEAKER —For the information of honourable members I present a schedule showing Government responses to House of Representatives and joint committee reports for the period 30 October 1987 to 28 April 1988 and outstanding responses to reports presented from 1982. Copies of the schedule are being made available to honourable members and will be incorporated in Hansard. The schedule read as follows: Title of report Date presented Date of response Response within time specified (a) Aboriginal Affairs (House, Standing) Return to country-The aboriginal homelands movement in Australia ... 14.5.87 nrtd (b) No Aboriginal Education (House, Select) ... 26.11.85 nrtd (b) No Aircraft Noise (House, Select) ... 28.11.85 nrtd (b) No Australian Capital Territory (Joint, Standing) Metropolitan Canberra ... 28.5.87 nrtd (b) No Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings (Joint, Standing) Televising and radio broadcasting of both Houses of Parliament and their committees ... 4.6.86 nrtd (b) No Provision of sound and vision services in the new Parliament House ... 14.5.87 nrtd (b) No Environment and Conservation (House, Standing) Hazardous chemicals First Report ... 29.4.82 nrtd (b) No (d) Second Report ... 29.12.82 nrtd (b) - (d) Protection of the Greater Daintree ... 24.8.84 nrtd (b) No New South Wales Heritage properties Commonwealth/state administrative arrangements ... 26.11.85 nrtd (b) No Namadgi National Park ... 14.10.86 nrtd (b) No Fiscal measures and the achievement of environmental objectives ... 19.2.87 nrtd (b) No Expenditure (House, Standing) Control of prohibited immigration by the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs ... 13.11.85 nrtd (b) No The Darling Harbour fiasco ... 27.11.85 8.12.87 No Meteorological Services ... 3.6.86 nrtd (b) No Telecom's zonal and charging policies in rural and remote areas ... 20.11.86 (k) (b) No Review of the Auditor-General's efficiency audit report into construction project management practised by the Department of Housing and Construction ... 23.3.87 (g) (b) No Finance and Public Administration (House, Standing) Australian Iron and Steel Industry ... 24.11.87 nrtd (e) No Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (Joint, Standing), (j) Australia and the Philippines ... 20.11.86 nrtd (f) No Disarmament and Arms control in the Nuclear Age ... 25.11.86 nrtd (h) (f) No The Management of Australia's Defence ... 7.12.87 nrtd No Parliamentary Privilege (Joint, Select) ... 3.10.84 (i) No Procedure (House, Standing) The standing orders and practices which govern the conduct of Question time ... 27.11.86 nrtd (b) No Improved opportunities for private Members: Proposed sessional orders ... 5.11.87 (l) Yes The ringing of the bells and the Chamber precincts in the new Parliament House. Certification of petitions not in the English language ... 14.4.88 (c) (c) Publications (Joint, Standing) Review of the cost and distribution of the Parliamentary Papers Series ... 26.11.86 18.12.87 No Transport, Communications and Infrastructure (House, Standing) Constructing and restructuring Australia's public infrastructure ... 7.12.87 nrtd No Transport Safety (House, Standing) Sports aviation safety ... 24.2.87 8.12.87 No Video Material (Joint, Select) ... 28.4.88 (c) (c) Notes: nrtd-no response to date (a) the time specified by Government is now 3 months from the presentation of the report-S. Deb. (24.8.83) 141. (b) the Government reported progress in the preparation of responses on 24.11.87. (c) the 3 month period for response has not expired. (d) the Government said its commitment to more prompt responses does not apply to reports presented in previous Parliaments-S. Deb. (15.12.83) 3853. (e) Interim response on 16.3.88. (f) In a response to the list of Government responses to Committee reports tabled by the President of the Senate on 16 December 1987, the Government stated that: ``Events have overtaken the recommendations in the reports of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence on `Australia and the Philippines' and `Disarmament and Arms Control'. Accordingly, the Government does not intend to respond to the reports.'' (g) Interim response on 2.4.87. (h) Interim response on 17.3.87. (i) Legislation introduced by Presiding Officers (7.10.86, 19.3.87), supported by Government and subsequently passed both Houses. Proposed resolutions tabled in each House. Resolutions passed by Senate 25.2.88; one aspect before Procedure Committee. (J) Includes reports of the former Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. (k) Interim response on 1.5.87. (l) Resolutions put to the House on 9.12.87, new procedures operative from 15.3.88. Sources: Unless otherwise indicated, Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives. Other committees: Responses to reports of Public Accounts Committee are usually made in the form of finance Minutes, which may themselves be considered by the Committee. Government responses to Public Works Committee reports are normally reflected in motions for the approval of works after a Public Works Committee report has been presented and considered. Certain reports of the Joint Standing Committee on the New Parliament House are not included, nor are reports of the Members' Interests Committee. Mr BEAZLEY(Swan-Leader of the House) —Pursuant to section 48 of the Canned Fruits Marketing Act 1979, I present the annual report of the Australian Canned Fruits Corporation for 1987. Mr HOWARD(Bennelong-Leader of the Opposition) —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 HOWARD —Yes. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —He may proceed. Mr HOWARD —During Question Time, in reply to a question from the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Andrew), the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) referred to some remarks I had made about the introduction of a broad-based indirect tax. To quote the Prime Minister as accurately as I can, he said that those remarks had been made on 20 March. He did not append any year to those remarks, and the normal and natural meaning that any person hearing them would give to them was that he was alleging I had made my remarks on 20 March of this year. In reality, I made them on 20 March in 1985 or 1986. The Prime Minister was just indulging in his normal practice of deliberately and dishonestly misleading this Parliament. Assent to the following Bills reported: Student Assistance Legislation Amendment Bill 1988 Communications Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1988 Admiralty Bill 1988 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Madam Speaker has received advice from the Opposition Whip that he has nominated Dr Wooldridge to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, in place of Mr Shack. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Madam Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The Hawke Government's failure to keep its Medicare promises as evidenced by the ever increasing public hospital waiting lists. I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of members required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Mr TUCKEY(O'Connor)(2.55) —In presenting this matter of public importance today I remind the House that my commitment is such that recently I was suspended from the service of the House for taking up this matter. Today, of course, I have been absolutely silent to ensure that I get the opportunity to present this case on behalf of the people of Australia. The matter of public importance states: The Hawke Government's failure to keep its Medicare promise as evidenced by the ever-increasing public hospital waiting lists. Today the Victorian Minister for Health, Mr White, has announced that he is investigating another scheme at taxpayers' expense to reduce Victoria's public hospital waiting lists, something that neither he nor his Premier denies exist. It is a scheme to pay 100 per cent of the ever-increasing gap, which is now fast approaching 100 per cent of the actual rebate available to basic cover privately insured patients, for people on basic cover who are prepared to go to a private hospital instead of a public hospital, as they presently are obliged to do because of their lack of cover. The scheme involves a cash payment for many elderly people in our society today who can no longer bear the pain, suffering or blindness of these waiting lists and who choose to go to a private hospital even with basic private cover. A typical cash payment that these people must pay as they depart the hospital can be in the order of $1,000-hardly an equitable scheme. The scheme is fraught with danger, as is evidenced in an Age newspaper article of today, which states: The concern was expressed by some public hospital officials that the scheme could affect their revenue and may be open to exploitation if people now paying top cover insurance dropped to lower levels in the belief that the Government would pay the gap for their treatment in private hospitals. This is the first problem. People are abandoning their commitment to top private cover. The Australian Medical Association (AMA) Victorian branch President, Dr Ken Sleeman, said about the proposal: It does not address the fundamental problem that patients who had been on the lists for long periods often tended to be the costly patients, those needing advanced surgical care, including heart treatment, hip and joint replacements and cancer investigations . . . He said a little later in the article that the other fundamental problem was to make sure there was enough funding to ensure that the poor, chronically ill and socially disadvantaged had access to equitable medical care in public hospitals. That is the opinion of the AMA. The problem of public hospital waiting lists was highlighted in an address in Sydney, entitled `Effective Hospital Management', given to the Institute for International Research by a member of the prestigious New Zealand Gibbs inquiry into hospital and related services, Dame Dorothy Fraser. Dame Dorothy is also the chairperson of the Hospital and Specialists Service Committee of the New Zealand Board of Health and a former chairperson of the Otago Hospital Board, and has been involved in hospital management for over 25 years-surely an expert. She said that New Zealand has 50,000 people on its waiting lists and those people, on average, have a waiting time of two years for hip replacement, kidney stone, cataract and heart by-pass operations and osteoarthritis treatment. I remind the House of what Dr Sleeman said. Dame Dorothy Fraser went on to say: The New Zealand public hospital system uses waiting lists to ration its services and encounters great difficulty in determining patients' priorities. It tends to respond to pressure from patients, family doctors, politicians or the media rather than develop criteria for priority. Finally she said: Uncomplaining, less articulate and poorer members of society tend to gravitate to the end of queues. That is the problem with waiting lists. The difference is that that highly placed New Zealand health administrator, Dame Dorothy Fraser, is prepared to be honest. That lady tells us that in New Zealand they use waiting lists to ration their public hospital services. She paints a picture which is identical to the one that exists in Australia. Mr Cain, the Labor Premier in Victoria, said at the opening of the National Conference of the Australian Hospital Association on 22 October that he was `concerned that by abolishing the private hospital subsidy and reducing Medicare benefits for out-of-hours services, the Commonwealth had distorted incentives and placed even greater pressure on the public hospital system'. He is the Labor colleague of the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) in Victoria. He is laying the blame on Medicare. Mr Collins, the New South Wales Liberal Minister for Health, is also very concerned about the public hospital waiting lists. Victoria now admits to having 25,000 on its waiting lists. New South Wales now confirms that it has 40,000 on its waiting lists-and it is to the credit of Mr Collins that he is prepared to be honest. The present New South Wales Government's predecessors refused point blank to say how many were on the waiting lists. Take it from me, if it were good news they would have told it. South Australia under Mr Bannon has 10,000 on its waiting lists. Through computerisation it found another 1,000 the other day. The total for Australia is clearly of the order of 100,000 people waiting in pain and suffering. The honourable member for Canning (Mr Gear) will give us his standing response that that is all somebody else's fault. The Minister will read from the West Australian today instead of answering the real problems that people have if they are on those waiting lists. Let us look at some of the examples of personal suffering. I ask honourable members to remember what Dame Dorothy Fraser said in published articles. Mark Ragg, a doctor himself, in the Weekend Australian of 12 and 13 December 1987, said, when talking about New South Wales public hospitals: At least two patients died after being refused a bed in the intensive care unit (ICU) at a main Sydney inner west teaching hospital, Concord hospital, because of nursing shortages. The Minister will tell us that that is none of his fault. Nursing shortages never existed before Medicare. Mark Ragg further stated: At St George Hospital, one of the most severely affected, a patient with poor circulation to the foot- and I ask the Minister to listen to this and take note of it when he tells us how wonderful his institution is; I am giving him examples of individuals- needed an operation on her arteries. Because this is classified as elective surgery the patient was put on a waiting list-but was later admitted into hospital with gangrene. She needed an amputation. A doctor said: Patients with gallstones are placed on elective surgery waiting lists and can wait two years. In that time the stone may slip and block the pancreas, causing pancreatitis or jaundice. The result-serious illness, prolonged hospital stays and sometimes death. An elderly woman with a small skin cancer on her ankle needed quick one-day day admission. When finally admitted for the operation after twelve months the cancer had spread and she needed a much larger operation with skin grafts and ten days in hospital. During the night of the opening of the new Parliament House an obstetrician from Tasmania who was present told me that when a woman requiring the tying of her tubes comes to him now with that green-and-gold card and no other means of gaining access to hospital she will wait 20 months to get into hospital. That is two babies later. It is not funny if one is in that situation and has a good, honest reason for that treatment. There is a 20 months wait, yet the Minister runs down to Tasmania to give some obscure organisation a big cheque. The Minister did not even know what the organisation was; he could not find out. The reality is that the Minister has not fixed the situation for women with that particular problem. State Ministers are desperately attempting to fund their public hospitals with an ever declining Federal Government support. They are the ones at the coalface. They experience personally the problems of our elderly and others in pain, such as the people I have just mentioned. They are the tip of the iceberg. A woman wrote a letter to the Minister, and sent me a copy, saying, `Why did you let me down? I believed you. I cancelled my private insurance when you brought in Medicare and now, due to advancing cataracts, I am obliged to grope around in the dark for another two years because you cannot move me up in the waiting lists to heal my blindness'. What is the attitude of this Minister for Community Services and Health? I guess he carries the burden as things are happening. He is the self-proclaimed inventor of Medicare. He denies that he is responsible. The 70,000 people on waiting lists in two States alone are invisible to this Minister. He does not care about them. He blames their position on others such as State governments, doctors, nurses, et cetera. He uses Press releases to say things such as: One of the most important social consequences of Medicare is that it gives access to every Australian to basic hospital and medical services. But when, and how basic does he mean? Does he mean a medical service such as putting a patch on a finger? I have given the House examples and they are the examples of 100,000 people. The Minister is shrugging it off. He is so intent on defending his institution of Medicare that he has forgotten about all the people. I challenge him to read his last four or five Press releases and find where he mentions people once. I have read them. He tells us where he is saving money. He tells us all sorts of things, but he cannot find time to identify people's problems. I challenge him today not to try to bucket the suggestions that I make-I know that he wants to do that-but to tell us what he will do for those 100,000 people. I ask him not to tell us about the $50m with which he will match the States. He has done that and it has not worked. The numbers keep going up. I ask the Minister not to tell us that he will give the States more money this year because they have put out Press releases to the effect that the Minister will give them less. Premier Cain has claimed in the newspapers that since the Minister has been in office the share the Commonwealth is contributing to public hospitals has dropped from 50 per cent to 38 per cent. There is a general national average that shows that it has dropped over the whole nation from about 50 : 50 under the Fraser Government to something like 52 : 48. The Minister had better be careful because Premier Cain knows the figures. I am not interested in the Commonwealth figures. I am interested in what Premier Cain has said in the paper. I have his Press release here. Mr Hunt —He is a Labor comrade. Mr TUCKEY —Yes, he is. The Minister tells us in another Press release: In recent days, the success of Medicare has been publicly acknowledged by national and international commentators, most notably one of President Reagan's economic advisers. I bet that the lady with the amputated foot, who is hopping around on her crutches, will thank the Minister for the opinion of one of President Reagan's economic advisers. What a scandal that the Minister has to put those sorts of things in the newspaper. He wants to tell us what is wrong with the policy that I am trying to get people to consider, but he will not tell us one thing in the next five minutes. We do not have to worry about the honourable member for Canning, the member for dullness who keeps trying to interject. He was so dumb that he let the Minister trap him into getting his fingers caught in the political till. Mr Gear —I raise a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I request that you ask the honourable member for O'Connor to withdraw those statements. Clearly they reflect on another member of the House. Mr TUCKEY —I do not mind withdrawing them. He obviously finds it offensive to be considered dull. It will not change the fact that he is. The tragedy is that this Minister believes in his own rhetoric. The statistical evidence is that since he has had Medicare in place waiting lists have increased every year. They are not going down; they are going up. The pain and suffering and blindness among individuals are increasing. People are showing their feelings. The Minister is not taking much notice. The exit polls in the New South Wales elections identified, above all else, dissatisfaction with health services. But the Minister says it has nothing to do with Medicare. The Minister goes on blaming the doctors and the nurses. When did we have doctors' strikes, when did we have nurses' strikes before we had Medicare? When did we have waiting lists before Medicare? Of course there is an association; it is an association of pain and suffering and blindness. Why can the Minister not be as honest as New Zealanders and say that he refuses to provide the money? He continually tries to cut down and force more and more of the cost of Medicare on to public hospital administrators, who are now sending out letters saying there have to be cutbacks. In Victoria hospitals only have to take one Medicare patient to two other patients so they can get enough money to survive. Private hospitals are nearly going broke and the Minister has forced all the extra patients on to public hospitals, which cannot handle them. The Minister tells me that these things are not happening. He will get up and sneer and carry on in a minute and say that what I am proposing would not help. It has to help because the Minister has failed completely. He has 100,000 people on the waiting lists and he has done nothing about it. Dr BLEWETT(Bonython-Minister for Community Services and Health)(3.10) —First of all, let me congratulate the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) on at least using the forms of the House on this occasion to raise this issue rather than simply behaving like a hoodlum. That is certainly an advance which should be noted. The first thing to say about the waiting list problem is that we have always had waiting lists in this country and we will always, I suspect, have them in the future. Perhaps the most relevant point made by the honourable member for O'Connor was that New Zealand had a waiting list of 50,000. Of course, New Zealand does not have Medicare. If the honourable member would think about these things, rather than indulging in cheap ideology, he would realise that all countries in the Western world, no matter what form of health system they have, are faced-like New Zealand and Australia-with problems of waiting lists in their public hospital system. I was in Europe in January and in practically every country I visited the same issue was raised, primarily because of the massive expansion in demand that has been possible because of change, particularly in medical technology, in the 1970s. I will come to some examples of that later. The only question that has to be asked here is this: why does the Opposition bring forth this one hackneyed argument time and time again, an argument which it has never effectively been able to link with Medicare? In a moment I will show the Opposition that even its own members, when they are being responsible, make it quite clear that this demand problem, which is faced by nearly all hospitals in the Western world, does not relate to the specific health insurance system in this country. The reason the Opposition continues to bring forward this argument-it was fatuously obvious in the speech we have just heard-is that in five years in opposition it has never produced an effective alternative health policy. Until the last election we had had five Opposition health policies and none addressed the realities of this country's health problems. Indeed, at the last election Medicare was, once again, overwhelmingly supported by the people of this country. The Liberal member for Boothby (Mr Steele Hall), when he analysed the Liberal campaign in the last election, said: Our promise to `tear up' Medicare disturbed the most dangerous of all political `sleeping dogs'. No subject is more important to a family and we promised to alter it yet again . . . A significant number of people still care about social values as well as balance sheets. That was the post mortem by one of the Opposition's own people of its last election performance in terms of health care. Of course, the honourable member for O'Connor takes no notice of that. In November last year he leaked a whole series of health ideas. He was immediately reprimanded by his Leader and those ideas disappeared. Now he is supposed to have another alternative health policy. We were going to hear about it as a result of the Gold Coast meeting, but it is quite clear that he has again been sent back to the drawing board to work it out. The only reason the Opposition constantly comes in here with the tales we have heard today is that in nearly six years it has managed to produce no effective health policy which addresses the real problems of health in this country. Let us find out what those who have been prepared to look at the waiting list problem have acknowledged. The two governments which have paid the most attention to the problem-that is, the Victorian and South Australian governments-have identified in reports, presented and publicly available, the sources of the problems contributing to excessive waiting times for elective surgery and have made it quite clear that the Medicare issue has little, if anything, to do with the problem. I quote from the South Australian report: None of these statistics (on public hospital admissions) point to a dramatic, or even strongly evident, Medicare effect as having occurred in either the major hospitals or Statewide. Other effects on admissions are both likely and, in some cases, discernible in the data. The Victorian report stated: Shortage of nurses, leading to bed closures, is a principal reason for reduced throughput at the major hospitals with the longest waiting times. In April 1987, all the Australian Health Ministers came together and agreed that they had the primary responsibilities for the administration and delivery of public health services and that the Medicare issue was of minimal relevance to the challenges they faced in their public hospital systems. Let us not take just the governments of Victoria and South Australia because one might say that they are Labor governments. Let us take the new New South Wales Government. On 11 March 1988 the then shadow Minister, Peter Collins, in a debate on waiting lists in New South Wales, said: Medicare has got nothing to do with the debate on health. The primary issue in the health debate in this State is public hospital waiting lists. I think that public hospital waiting lists are attributable to poor management of the hospital system, to the fact that orthopaedic surgeons have not been available to operate on public patients in the numbers they're needed. During the New South Wales election Mr Collins made it quite clear that Medicare had nothing to do with hospital waiting lists. Knowing what politicians on that side are like, he might have been talking simply for election purposes. But, after the election, when he had become Minister, he said: The largest single cause of the waiting lists was the continued stalemate with orthopaedic and ophthalmic surgeons. There is no doubt that one of the major problems in New South Wales has been a deliberate campaign, never condemned by this Opposition, by some orthopaedic and ophthalmic surgeons to deliberately cause problems in the public system to pursue their own vendetta against Medicare. When Opposition members are prepared to get up and frankly admit and acknowledge that those things have been happening, we will have somewhat more respect for their views. Let me bring forward the evidence for the statement I have just made. I refer to a report which quotes the President of the Australian Association of Surgeons as saying, on 1 March, that the then New South Wales Opposition-that is, the present Liberal Government-had agreed to terms under which all general and orthopaedic surgeons would return to public hospitals should the coalition be elected. Dr Aroney stated: Yes, we will return on the express promises they . . . have given. We will take them on their word. That made it perfectly clear that those men, and a few women, were prepared to use the public hospital system, to blackmail the public hospital system, in order to get their way. One of the things that I would say to Mr Collins as he faces the problems in New South Wales is that the public hospitals of this country were paid for by ordinary taxpayers. The training of most of the doctors who refused to work was paid for by this country's taxpayers. I acknowledge that when a doctor goes into the public hospital system he has rights, but he also has some very real obligations to the public hospital system and they should not be sold away. Let me turn again to what all of the evidence suggests as to the major factors for waiting lists in our public hospital system. One factor is nurse shortages, which have resulted both in bed closures and shortage of staff in operating theatres. All the governments of this country, including this Government, are moving actively in terms of the recruitment and training of nurses. I am glad to say that the responses are beginning to come through in our system. The nurse shortages, a feature of the last two or three years, though still serious in Sydney and Melbourne, are declining. So gradually we are getting on top of that problem. Another factor is the shortage of some specialist medical services such as orthopaedic and ophthalmic surgeons. I have instanced some cases of orthopaedic and ophthalmic surgeons simply being willing to blackmail the hospital system, but that is unfair to many other orthopaedic and ophthalmic surgeons. We have to recognise that enormous technological changes took place in the 1970s-for instance, the development of the immuno suppressant drugs which made hip replacement a simple operation at last. In the early 1970s a hip replacement was rare; today it is the most common surgical procedure on people over 65. Again, the change in the technology in relation to ophthalmic surgery has meant that so much more can be done. Unfortunately, the planning processes in this country-in respect of these issues I refer to those of eight or nine years ago-have not been adequate. We would not have enough ophthalmic surgeons or enough orthopaedic surgeons, even if they were all working in our public hospital system. Again, that planning issue needs addressing. We have been addressing it; but I have to say that the training periods are eight or nine years and it will be some time before we get on top of this. But the most important thing of all is the point that I have already mentioned: the massive changes in medical technology which have made so many operations possible today that were not possible 10 years ago and so many operations easier which were difficult 10 years ago. That has created a demand that we had not had in our hospital system before; but let us acknowledge that that demand is being fully met. There are more people going through our public hospital systems than ever before in the history of this country. Some 250,000 people are treated every month in our public and private hospital systems. There are more people going through our public and private hospitals than ever before in the history of this country. Nevertheless, the demand is there and the Government acknowledges that growth of demand for the reasons that I have pointed out. Again, we should not allow ourselves to be carried away by some of the legends we build about waiting lists. I notice that Peter Collins has said that there is a waiting list of 40,000 in New South Wales. He admits himself-perhaps more honestly than the honourable member for O'Connor-that that is a guesstimate because he acknowledges that they do not have waiting lists in the New South Wales hospital system. Mr Collins has promised that the 40,000 list will come down. I have not the slightest doubt that, without a single change to Medicare, that 40,000 list will come down. That is one bet I would take with confidence for any member in this House. We do need to be careful about the way the concept of the waiting list is used. Whatever the size of the waiting list, the majority of people on the waiting list are treated within eight weeks. If one looks at the most detailed figures available in this country-that is, the figures in Victoria and South Australia-one sees that the majority of those on the list are dealt with in that relatively short period of time. The real problem-and this is the one I have already addressed and noted and the one on which we are all working in this country, irrespective of political party-is with those particular blocks of patients in the orthopaedic surgery area, the eye surgery area and, in some States, the urology area where we all agree that the waiting times are unacceptable. Finally, let me say a little about the alternatives. We have, all the time, an attempt to blame Medicare for this problem which, as I have said, is not just a problem in this country. The honourable member for O'Connor acknowledges the bigger problem in size in New Zealand than here in Australia, on the figures that he has presented. There is no Medicare system in New Zealand. If he goes to most European and North American countries, he will find the same problem for the kind of international reasons that I have talked about. As I have said, in this country we are treating in our hospitals 250,000 patients a month. We are treating in our hospital system in this country a higher proportion per capita of our population than is treated in Canada or the United States; and we are doing all that within a relatively constrained budget-that is, 7.5 per cent of our gross domestic product. That is why people are coming from all over the world-we have a cost efficient system which, as I say, in per capita terms is treating in our hospitals more people than either Canada or the United States. The Government is, of course, in cooperation with the States, taking a whole series of initiatives. We have done that with a number of States, and in New South Wales we will continue the program that we initiated with the previous Government. We will continue with the present Liberal Government a series of enhanced services in the identified difficult areas. The New South Wales programs are particularly in cardiac surgery, in ophthalmology, orthopaedics and paediatric surgery, and we are spending money in cooperation with the States to home in on those problems. In Victoria, which has the best approach to waiting list problems in this country, we have cooperated with that Government. The waiting lists have been dropping in Victoria-not as fast as any of us would like, but dropping. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The Minister's time has expired. Mr PETER FISHER(Mallee)(3.26) —This Government, and particularly the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett), has failed to provide the Australian people with an effective health delivery service. During the past five years living standards in this nation have declined markedly, and the average Australian family has been squeezed as never before. Family allowances have fallen; the spouse rebate has crashed by at least 30 per cent; and taxation has risen as middle income earners have been pushed into higher tax brackets. The average family is at least $45 per week worse off than when this Government came to office in 1983. Nothing has contributed more to our falling living standards and reduced the effectiveness of our public services than the management and distribution of health services and policies. Medicare not only has been a financial disaster but also has thrown public and private hospital administration into chaos. Waiting lists at public hospitals are a national disgrace, and it is not the well-off in our community that are suffering, but the poor and the underprivileged who are standing in queues and having medical treatment delayed. Let us examine what is wrong with Medicare. Firstly, it is costing more than is claimed. Tax levies have gone from 1 to 1.25 per cent, and current estimates indicate a 4 per cent levy would need to be charged to meet costs. Our hospital scheme is complicated and complex with a majority of people needing some component at least of private insurance; and of course the ideal and high standing of private, professional medical practitioners has been progressively put down by this Government and particularly by this Minister. The increased presence of the Government in the surgery has demoralised and to a degree corrupted the effective relationship of doctors and their clients, the patients. Finally it has placed additional strains on an already stretched public hospital system by discouraging the use of private hospitals. Not only does Medicare reintroduce the unfortunate concept of so-called free public hospital treatment without income or means test, but it loads the dice heavily against private hospitals in the competition from privately insured patients. There are heavy disincentives against private hospitals in the proposed insurance and subsidy arrangements, which have encouraged State Labor governments to pursue their own vendettas against the private hospital system. Mr McGauran —And they have done it. Mr PETER FISHER —They certainly have, and I will refer to that briefly in a moment. As public hospitals are already suffering massive queuing problems they are placed under further strain with the new weight of numbers wishing to transfer from private hospitals. It is therefore ridiculous that privately financed facilities should be thrust into idleness at a time when every public dollar is being stretched to the limit. It is on this final point of Medicare's effect on the private system that I now concentrate my remarks. In particular, I refer to the bush nursing system that operates in Victoria-a system developed as a result of great strength and strong leadership in rural communities which, through the selfless service and generosity of local communities, built and maintained highly regarded hospitals with competent local staff. I refer now to a couple of remarks made by the Minister in this debate today when he referred to the situation in Victoria. I will tell the Minister what they think of his system in Victoria. I refer to an article in the Melbourne Age which reports the Victorian Premier's remarks about Medicare. It states: Victorian hospitals have missed out on about $500m over the past six years because of changes in Federal Government funding arrangements to the States, the Premier, Mr Cain, told State Parliament today. Mr Cain said that the Federal Government's share of the costs had dropped from 50 per cent in 1981 to 38 per cent in 1986-87 . . . under the current Minister's rule. I should also refer to some of the comments the Minister made about the new Minister for Health in New South Wales, Mr Collins, and his views about Medicare. I will tell honourable members what he said about Medicare. He believes in Medicare so completely that he has placed a submission before the next ministerial conference stating that Medicare is the fault and at the heart of most of our health problems. There are 38 hospitals in the Victorian bush nursing system. They have a bed capacity approaching 1,000. Although they are community owned, non-profit organisations they are categorised as private hospitals and must therefore be self-supporting. Mr Lloyd —Discrimination against the bush. Mr PETER FISHER —It is discrimination. The Hawke Government's health policies combined with years of depressed incomes in rural areas has had two major effects. Firstly, there are patients who are unable to afford both the taxation levy and private insurance and are therefore bypassing their local hospitals and, with the penalty of time, expense and risk, travelling to public hospitals long distances from their own districts. What therefore is loudly hailed as a universal health scheme cannot be used by those in need, particularly those who have to rely on the bush nursing community hospital system. The prime purpose of community health service delivery is being destroyed as this Government continues with its ideological rantings. People recover quicker from illness in their own environment with contact from family and friends. Particularly with obstetric cases, there is understandably a demand and desire for those services to be close to home. The availability of a local hospital has a large social and economic bearing on a rural community as a whole. Local hospitals maintain support services so necessary for doctors, for ambulance services, chemists and, of course, with the excellent expansion of aged persons facilities during the past decade, they maintain facilities for a full range of health needs for our ever-increasing aged population. Rural people in particular have been allowed to bear the unfair burden of nationalised medicine. The Government's answer has been to rationalise or to regionalise a system that has serviced the nation effectively and efficiently. It has been an act-it is seen to be an act-of social vandalism. The Minister for Community Services and Health and his counterpart in Victoria will stand condemned if Medicare is not dismantled or at least recategorised so that the bush nursing system has this injustice corrected. Mr McGauran —What hope is there for that? Mr PETER FISHER —There is not a lot of hope. Fortunately the Victorian Minister for Health, Mr White, while not acknowledging the problems of Medicare or of waiting lists, has at least put up another scheme in an attempt to reduce the waiting list situation in Victoria and the problems that Medicare is bringing to bear on our private hospital system. My colleague the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) has clearly stated an alternative to Medicare which is a health system not designed for health delivery but unfortunately designed as a financial system. What we need is a system to meet the needs of people, not the vast coffers of the Treasury. This Government therefore must address the twin crises of oversupply of patients in public hospitals and the under-utilisation of private hospitals. The introduction of Medicare has been a monumental mistake. Because of our disastrous economic situation and massive foreign debt, this Hawke Government has been forced to move away from the Whitlam era when giant steps were taken to place the delivery and financing of community functions under central control. The Whitlam era has not been recycled but has finally been bedded down. The experiment in Medicare has failed. This Health Minister has to recognise that the attempt to live in the past with Medicare and the socialisation of medicine will fail too. In recent times the Federal Government's effort to control the cost of health care expenditure in line with the Budget has seen the position of private health insurance and private hospitals further eroded. We simply have to reduce the private use of public hospitals by at least 1.23 million bed days per year-a limit that private hospitals can easily service and accommodate. This would deliver the extra capacity to Medicare patients in public hospitals at no cost to them or to the Government. This increased capacity would be more than enough to deal with waiting lists and waiting times for public hospital admissions for Medicare patients around Australia. We need to do no more than restate some of the startling figures which have resulted from the Medicare system in order to prove the validity of this matter of public importance today. There are hospital waiting lists in New South Wales of 40,000 people, in Victoria 28,600 and in South Australia 10,000-a disastrous total figure of over 100,000 throughout Australia. People are suffering unnecessarily from pain and fear in addition to that suffering caused by their illnesses. What of their future? Mr Cobb —A scandal. Mr PETER FISHER —It is a scandal. It will be a scandal, as the honourable member for Parkes said, if the strangulation of the public hospital system, the low staff morale, staff resignations, the closure of wards and a further deterioration of the standards of service in our health care system continue. Medicare has failed. It has hit the poor, the underprivileged and the low income earners. It is part of the reason why this Government has been forced, for the first time in the history of this nation, to introduce a poverty package. That is a disgrace. Mr GEAR(Canning)(3.35) —In all the contributions made by honourable members opposite on the matter of public importance only two points have come out. Also, there was only one real criticism brought forward in the matter of public importance today, and the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) has dealt with that. The honourable member for Mallee (Mr Peter Fisher) in his contribution talked about Victorian bush hospitals. As he acknowledged, that is a Victorian Government problem; it is not a Federal Government problem. He pointed out that the Victorian Government is doing something about that. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a graph and a table that I have shown to the Opposition. Leave granted. The documents read as follows- Table 15 ALL GENERAL HOSPITALS Pre-Medicare 1969-70 1974-75 1979-80 Medicare 1982-83 1984-85 1985-86 Public Occupied bed days (m) ... 17.18 18.44 18.74 17.82 16.99 16.90 Patients treated (m) ... 1.75 2.10 2.39 2.38 2.36 2.47 Private Occupied bed days (m) ... 3.19 4.27 4.19 4.39 4.27 4.39 Patients treated (m) ... .44 .56 .58 .69 .86 .87 Total Occupied bed days (m) ... 20.37 22.71 22.93 22.21 21.25 21.29 Patients treated (m) ... 2.19 2.66 2.97 3.07 3.22 3.34 Av. length of stay (d) ... 9.3 8.5 7.7 7.2 6.6 6.4 Per 1000 population Occupied bed days ... 1,637 1,653 1,566 1,454 1,357 1,350 Patients treated in hospital ... 176 194 204 201 205 209 Costs in current prices Average cost per day ($) ... 26 67 152 256 291 309 Average cost per pat. ($) ... 242 510 1,170 1,843 1,921 1,978 Mr GEAR —I will refer to the graph and the table that have been incorporated in Hansard. In particular, I would like to look at the four years from 1981 to 1984 when the overall admission rate was two to three cases per 1,000 of population, less than the long term trend would indicate. What happened in that time was that the Fraser Government cut back on its hospital spending. It moved from a system of funding hospitals based on usage to a fixed grant system. The effect of that policy has been outlined by Dr J. Deeble in his three-year review of Medicare. I would like to quote from that public document which stated: In the short run at least, a shortfall of 2-3 cases per thousand of population will lead not to changed techniques but to an annual addition of between 30,000 and 40,000 patients to the national waiting lists. That is the effect of cuts by the Fraser Government back in 1981 to 1983. That Government built up a backlog of patients which we are dealing with now. Honourable members opposite have the audacity to stand up here and blame Medicare for the waiting lists-a situation caused by honourable members opposite when they were in Government. The simple fact is that they cut government spending to hospitals. They built up a waiting list which we have inherited. The good news as far as patients are concerned is that Medicare is working. The incorporated table shows that at present there has never been a higher rate of patients treated in hospitals. It is up to 209 patients per thousand. The good news for Medicare is that at the next election honourable members opposite will not even have this argument of waiting lists to use-their one and only criticism of Medicare. Honourable members opposite cannot criticise Medicare effectively on that ground and they cannot effectively criticise it on any other ground. That was borne out by the contributions by honourable members opposite here today. Let us not just refer to that Medicare review but let us refer to what the consumers have to say-the patients and the people who represent the patients. I would like to refer to a letter written by the Consumers Health Forum of Australia Inc. That group actually had to write to the editor of the Times newspaper in London because the orthopaedic surgeons spread mis-information through the international Press. That letter stated: Consumers are well aware that Medicare is not perfect (and what system is?). But in relation to such things as waiting lists, it is simplistic and inaccurate to blame Medicare. The lists- as the Minister has pointed out- are a result, among other things, of industrial disputes (the nurses and the doctors have been on strike), a shortage of nursing staff and shortages of certain medical specialists. We all know who controls the medical specialists. Very importantly, we should look at who signed that letter to the Times. It is signed by Louise Sylvan, the Coordinator of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, Philippa Smith from the Australian Consumers Association and Robin Brown from the Australian Federation of Consumer Organisations. Each of those organisations is a non-political organisation, and they are saying exactly what the Minister said in his contribution: that the waiting lists in our hospitals are not the result of Medicare; they are the result of other factors, in particular, as the Minister pointed out, the surgeons. I refer to an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald following the last New South Wales State election concerning the Doctors Reform Society. The article states: The Doctors Reform Society is outraged that the orthopaedics have got their way. The President of the Society, Dr Robert Marr, predicted the `cave-in' was only the first step in the orthopaedics' battle to privatise health care- aided, I might say, by the Liberal and National parties- `This renegade group has been greatly responsible for the waiting lists that have caused so much suffering', he said. `They're an extremist faction interested in destroying Medicare . . .'' So one can see that they play their politics pretty tough in the medical game. Waiting lists and suffering are nothing new to them, but if they can use them as a vehicle to gain their ends they will do so. Let us turn now to the alternatives. When the Liberal Party of Australia was in government it had about five health policies; it has had two or three since then and we are about to have another one trotted up to us, so this is about mark 8 or 9 of the Liberal Party's health policy since 1976. In a now famous-or one might term it infamous-speech in Townsville, the Liberal Party health spokesman had this to say, and I quote from an article in the Australian: The first thing I want to walk away from is community rating, where everyone in the community is charged the same premium. I believe it's destroying the system because- get this- it's a major distortion of normal business practice. What the Opposition does not realise is that this is not normal business. We are not insuring cars here; we are insuring people. Senator Peter Baume knows that. The great speech he gave at the ANZAAS Congress indicated that at least there are some Liberals who know that this is a social issue; it is not a matter of being out there insuring motor cars. We are insuring people, and therefore the community rating principle has to stay. The Liberal Party did not want it, I know that. How do honourable members think the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) responded to the speech by the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey)? Do they think he was enthused about it? At the time, the honourable member for O'Connor was talking to the surgeons in Townsville. What a great group to be talking to about health insurance! All they want to do is get rid of Medicare because it interferes with the doctor-dollar relationship. That is the Opposition's stance on medical insurance. I do not blame the honourable member for O'Connor for getting up there and making a big man of himself; we all like to play to the gallery now and then. The worst part about it was that the speech was reported outside of Townsville. It got a great run in the newspapers, and the Leader of the Opposition heard of it. The next day the headline in the Age read, `Howard ticks off Tuckey for health policy comments'. The Leader of the Opposition raced into the office of the honourable member for O'Connor and said, `Gee, Wilson, what are you doing to us? You are promising the people out there that you are going to get rid of community rating'. It did not take long for the political ramifications of that proposal to get to the Leader of the Opposition. He kicked the honourable member's health policy straight out the door, and that is why the honourable member is working on another one now. The first one he ran up the flagpole was shot full of holes by his own Leader. The Leader of the Opposition is no mug. He has a very tenuous hold on the leadership and is trying to do the right thing out there in the community. He is trying not to alienate everyone. That is why he is sitting on the fence and cannot get a policy. At least he is no mug; he could see what was wrong with the policy. Under that policy pensioners would have to pay three or four times more than healthy people have to pay. Mr Tuckey —No. Mr GEAR —That is how it was reported, and the honourable member for O'Connor knows it. The Opposition cannot bring in a policy on anything. Mr Lightfoot yesterday pointed out the weakness in the Liberal leadership-the hollow-chested, limp-wristed leadership. As soon as the Leader of the Opposition talked about his tax policy he got blown out of the water. As soon as the honourable member for O'Connor brought up his ideal tax policy-that is, normal business practice-the Leader of the Opposition blew him out of the water. In government and in opposition the hard things to do are to sit down and work out policies that work. Medicare works; it has public acceptance. If the honourable member for O'Connor thinks that under any policy he brings up the waiting lists are going to be reduced, he has only to refer to the stated intention of the Opposition, which says it is going to cut government spending by between $11,000m and $13,000m. If I were an administrator of a hospital anywhere in Australia and I had half a clue, I would know that I was not going to get any more money out of a Liberal government that was being obtained under this Government. As was pointed out by the Government and endorsed by the Leader of the Opposition, the Opposition plans to cut Government spending by that amount. Do members of the Opposition honestly believe that hospital administrators think they are going to get more money out of a Liberal government when it has to take that huge amount out of the Budget. People outside are not fools, and neither are the consumers of health services. They know that in Medicare they have a system that works. The honourable member for Boothby (Mr Steele Hall), as the Minister for Community Services and Health pointed out, knew that; he tried to tell members of the Opposition after the last election that one of the reasons they lost was that the Opposition tried to get rid of Medicare. I am happy as a Government backbencher to go to any election where the Opposition goes to the people on a policy of getting rid of Medicare. The next time it does that it will get the thrashing it got the last time, and the Opposition will deserve it. As the honourable member for Boothby said, it will raise all the sleeping dogs about Medicare. We have heard one argument against Medicare today that cannot be substantiated. The one thing that can be substantiated about Medicare is that it is a system that has been here for five years. It is working, it is getting better, and it is recognised out in the wider community. Let the Opposition go to the next election with its dopey proposal. I will be happy to stand up and defend Medicare. I will be back here, and the honourable member for O'Connor will not. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Order! The honourable member's time has expired. The debate is concluded. Mr HOWARD(Bennelong-Leader of the Opposition) —I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr HOWARD —Yes, I do. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The honourable member may proceed. Mr HOWARD —It relates to the matter I raised after Question Time concerning the answer given by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) to a question from the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Andrew). I have established now, after further investigation, that the measure of misrepresentation by the Prime Minister was much worse than I originally suspected. You will recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, and honourable members will recall, that the Prime Minister was asked a question about sales tax on orange juice. The thrust of the Prime Minister's reply was that the Government was as pure as driven snow on the question of broad based indirect taxation, and it was we on this side of the House who posed a threat to people who were concerned about broad based indirect taxation. The Prime Minister referred to some remarks of mine using the description `on 20 March'. As I said in my earlier explanation, the clear implication was that those words were uttered by me on 20 March this year. The truth is that those words were uttered by me on 20 March 1985, which is 3 1/2 years ago. Even worse, I discover that at the time I uttered those words the Prime Minister and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) were advocating the introduction of a 12.5 per cent broad-based consumption tax. It goes on even further. Mr Jull —Option C. Mr HOWARD —Option C. It was at the time they were advocating option C. No wonder the Prime Minister said `20 March' and slimed over the year. But it went on even further. The longer quote of mine that the Prime Minister referred to contained in the very next clause a reference to the fact that both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer at that time embraced the introduction of a broad-based indirect tax. Honourable members on both sides of the House have come to expect a certain vigour in debate, but that degree of dishonesty and downright misleading of the House by the Prime Minister is the worst example I have encountered in the time he has been the Prime Minister of this country. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The Leader of the Opposition cannot impute dishonesty and misleading. Mr HOWARD —You are not seriously asking me to withdraw, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am not prepared to withdraw that. If you ask me to withdraw that, you have another think coming. I am not withdrawing that. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The Leader of the Opposition might listen to me for a moment. We have had questions about whether accusing someone of misleading the House is something that should be done by substantive motion. My recollection is that it is necessary to say more than that, but it does not help the processes of the House if people make those allegations. The usual arrangement is that if a member wishes to do that, it must be done by substantive motion. That is obviously the mechanism by which these things ought to be done. Mr Carlton —Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek your advice on that matter. Given what you have just said, would it then have been correct for the Prime Minister to move by substantive motion to make totally misleading remarks about the Leader of the Opposition and his position? Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I am not in a position to give the honourable member for Mackellar advice; he should seek that elsewhere. Mr Smith —He is a member of the House. If he seeks advice you should give it to him. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The honourable member for Bass should be as well aware as anybody of what I have said. 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. As a preface, I point out that the size of this Bill and the other Bills to be introduced in this package is a record since Federation. The Bills represent one of the largest legislative undertakings of any Australian government. Before turning to the individual Bills, I propose to outline the genesis of the legislation. Cooperative Companies and Securities Scheme The present cooperative companies and securities scheme came into being nearly 10 years ago. Even when it was put in place, the existing scheme failed to recognise the fundamental need for a national approach for companies and securities control. The need for a national scheme was recognised by the Rae Committee-the Senate Select Committee on Securities and Exchange-in 1974, which concluded that when considering the regulatory needs of the securities market it is essential to recognise the national character of the activities being regulated. The Rae Committee specifically rejected the concept of a commission established by several governments with continuing responsibility to all the governments concerned. The period since the establishment of the cooperative scheme has been one of rapid and fundamental change in the character of the Australian financial and securities markets. Yet the scheme has failed to meet the need for a truly national approach. The cooperative scheme was, in some respects, a product of its time. The then Federal Government was more intent on leaving State governments with control of companies and securities within their jurisdiction than it was with meeting the needs of the wider Australian community. Our economy is national; companies operate across the country and often in the international sphere. To overlay artificial boundaries on the national economy was to do a grave disservice to the interests of Australian business and the broader community. From the outset the cooperative scheme was fundamentally flawed. The most important deficiency was that it provided a regime in which no parliament, no government and no Minister had responsibility and accountability for the operation of the scheme. Thus, the scheme fell short of the fundamental democratic principles which should underpin government activity in our society. In its operation the scheme was also deficient. It has not been able to meet the challenges of recent years when the companies and securities market has undergone major change. There has been community concern that markets have been manipulated. Where problems have occurred they have been difficult to identify and to deal with satisfactorily because of the division of responsibility between State and Federal bodies. The performance of the cooperative scheme has been examined by the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs. That Committee in its report The Role of Parliament on the National Companies Scheme in April 1987 concluded that the cooperative scheme had outlived its usefulness. It unanimously recommended that the Commonwealth introduce comprehensive legislation to assume responsibility for all areas covered by the existing scheme. The Committee's recommendation was founded on an opinion of Sir Maurice Byers, QC, which asserted that the Commonwealth does have the power to enact comprehensive legislation covering company law, takeovers and the securities and futures industries. It was against this background that the Government set out to reform the cooperative scheme and provide a regime that can meet the needs of the Australian economy into the 1990s and beyond. In doing so the Government has consistently sought to meet the legitimate wishes of the business community, State governments and other interested groups within the community. It is unfortunate that much of the criticism which has been mounted against any change in the present system, notwithstanding its self-evident defects, has arisen from State government concerns about perceived loss of revenue. State governments have simply refused to accept that the national interest has required a new approach and have continued to assert that new life can be put into a scheme which has been increasingly unable to meet the pressures put on it. If Australia is to achieve its potential it must have a basic framework for its business enterprises which promotes efficiency, which represents the national and increasingly international outlook of much of our industry and which is capable of quick reaction as circumstances change. While ensuring that the interests of shareholders and the broader community are protected, the Government must also ensure that the regulatory framework is consistent with the broader international interest. The Bills which I am introducing today will be a significant step towards that result. A National Approach In response to the Senate Committee's report and growing community calls for action, in September last year I announced the Government's intention to introduce a new companies and securities scheme based solely on Commonwealth law and with effective national administrative arrangements. I have held extensive negotiations with representatives of State and Territory government, and a wide cross-section of the business community in all parts of Australia and also State and Territory Public Service employee representatives. To meet concerns expressed about some aspects of the original proposals I have been prepared to make a number of significant modifications where this does not erode the Government's fundamental objectives. I believe that the modified proposals which I put to the State and Northern Territory governments on behalf of the Commonwealth Government in April 1988 now substantially address concerns about the viability of independent business communities in the smaller States and Northern Territory, their access to decision-makers, the revenues of State and Territory governments, and employment conditions of existing State and Territory employees. This is achieved by: (a) State corporate affairs commissions administering the Commonwealth laws as delegates of the Australian Securities Commission and participating in an ASC management committee to supervise the operation of the scheme; (b) States collectively nominating two part time members of the ASC, which would also have three full-time members; (c) States being consulted on the content of future legislative amendments with their views being reported to Parliament on the introduction of the legislation; (d) States being reimbursed seven-eighths of all revenues, with the remainder being retained by the Commonwealth, to fund the ASC. (e) the highest priority being given to the establishment of a national computer system enabling access by the public to information about every company in Australia. The Commonwealth Legislation The Bills I will introduce will replace the separate State and Territory legislation on the cooperative scheme with a single regime of Commonwealth laws applicable throughout Australia. This will restore the proper relationship between legislative policy making and the Parliament and the legitimate interests of business and other community groups. The Government is responsible for this legislation and will be held accountable for its operation and for any future legislation it seeks to introduce. The legislation for the Commonwealth scheme will be contained in the following Bills: (a) an Australian Securities Commission Bill to provide for the administrative arrangements for the new scheme; (b) a Corporations Bill to set out in the law covering the regulation of companies, takeovers, the securities industry and the futures industry; (c) a Close Corporations Bill to provide a new simpler and more flexible form of incorporation for small business; and (d) ancillary Bills covering the imposition of fees and levies. The legislation, for the most part, follows the existing cooperative companies and securities scheme legislation. However, the Government, in consultation with the industry, has taken the opportunity to introduce a number of substantive reforms in order to remove unnecessary regulation or to overcome specific problems in the existing legislation. These are detailed below and in the Corporations Bill. Jurisdiction to hear cases arising under the scheme will be vested concurrently in the Federal Court and the State and Territory supreme courts. The appropriate appeal process in companies and securities regulation has been a vexed question within the cooperative scheme. The extent to which the cooperative scheme approach should be varied under the Commonwealth legislation is a matter upon which there is opportunity for review before passage is sought. Many changes of form from the existing legislation derive from the need to express the Bills in language reflecting Commonwealth constitutional powers and to reflect their character as truly national legislation. Although principally based on the Commonwealth's constitutional power over trading and financial corporations, a wide range of other supporting constitutional powers have been relied on where appropriate. These include the powers in respect of interstate trade and commerce, post and telecommunications, banking and insurance, and cheques and negotiable instruments. The opportunity has also been taken to rationalise the structure of the legislation and to correct some minor anomalies. Community Consultation I would like to publicly record my appreciation for all the time and effort being voluntarily put into the project by members of the Companies and Securities Consultative Group. Consisting of a wide spectrum of business and other interests, the group has made many useful suggestions on the legislative and administrative proposals. In particular, the Australian Securities Commission Bill reflects the group's very considerable input. The introduction of this legislation does not mark an end to the consultative process. Rather it is the beginning of a new phase. I envisage a process of continuing consultation leading up to and beyond the passage of the legislation. The consultative group will continue to meet and will act as a focus for further constructive analysis of the legislation by the broader business, professional and industry interests. I welcome the continued participation of the business community in this process. As well, the Government is working in close consultation with the Sydney Futures Exchange on proposals to accommodate the inclusion of non-corporate futures brokers and advisers within the regulatory framework before passage of the Bills in the Parliament. Introduction of this legislation will also give State and Territory governments a firm basis upon which to determine whether to be involved in the administration as I have proposed. Australian Securities Commission Bill 1988 The Australian Securities Commission Bill 1988-the ASC Bill-establishes the major administrative organs of the new national scheme. The first among these is the new Australian Securities Commission, which will replace the National Companies and Securities Commission (NCSC) and will be responsible for the administration of the scheme. The powers given to the ASC will ensure that it is able to be a strong and effective regulatory body, yet one which is flexible and responsive to developments in the marketplace. The ASC Bill also specifically recognises the role of the ASC in the formulation of legislative policy. The ASC Bill clarifies the relationship between the ASC and this Parliament. In the Westminster tradition the ASC will be solely responsible to the Commonwealth Minister and, through him or her, to Parliament. The independence of the ASC is made clear in that the Bill does not permit the Minister to give directions on specific matters. In the interests of accountability, this is balanced by enabling the Minister to give directions as to general policies or priorities, which must both be written and made public. By contrast, the NCSC may be subject to a direction by the Ministerial Council on Companies and Securities on any matter, whether specific or general, and the direction need not be publicised. As a measure of the importance which the Government attaches to community participation in the development of business regulation, the ASC Bill will establish a new statutory consultative body, the Companies and Securities Advisory Committee. The Committee will be composed of a broad spectrum of community interests-business, market participants, company administrators, investors, professional advisers and other interested groups. It is important that all parts of Australia are adequately represented on this Committee. The role of the Committee will be to advise the Minister on the legislation and administration of the national scheme and to keep the Minister informed of new developments in the markets that may require action. So as to ensure that the Advisory Committee is able to perform its functions effectively, the Bill provides for separate funding, staffing and research facilities for the Committee. The ASC Bill contains provisions which give strengthened inspection and investigation powers to the ASC compared with those of the NCSC and clarify the scope of the hearings powers. The separate inspection and special investigation powers of the existing legislation will be amalgamated to make the operation of investigations more effective. The Bill authorises the ASC to disclose information to overseas agencies performing comparable functions. The opportunity for harmonising companies and securities laws and administrative arrangements will be greatly enhanced by ensuring that ultimate responsibility rests with one Australian government rather than eight. In this context I mention that representatives of the Australian and New Zealand governments are having discussions this week about harmonising their respective companies and securities laws and other business laws. A major new feature of the legislation is the establishment of the Corporations and Securities Panel on the recommendation of the consultative group. It is considered inappropriate for the regulatory authority, which has a legitimate charter to investigate malpractices in the marketplace, to also perform adjudicatory functions in relation to those malpractices. The panel will perform those adjudicatory functions. The panel will initially be conferred power to declare acquisitions of shares or conduct in relation to a takeover unacceptable. It will be required to hold a hearing before making such a declaration. The panel will also have powers to issue restraining or remedial orders which were previously exercised by the courts. Decisions of the panel will be final subject, of course, to appeals on questions of law. It is envisaged that, in the future, further functions will be conferred on the panel when it is sufficiently established to conduct a larger number of adjudicative hearings. In view of the role of the Corporations and Securities Panel to conduct hearings, and the expanded investigation powers of the ASC, the ASC's function to conduct hearings has been narrowed. It is limited to two main situations-to afford natural justice to a person whose licence or registration it proposes to revoke and to hold public hearings to ascertain views on the exercise by the ASC of its administrative responsibilities, for example, a proposed policy statement or guideline. In order to enable the ASC to maintain complete national registers for the benefit of the public and to obviate any need for documents lodged under the previous legislation to be relodged by companies, the ASC will be empowered to acquire records kept by State and Territory corporate affairs commissions, in the event that they are not voluntarily provided. A separate disciplinary body, the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board, which presently exists separately in most States and Territories, will now be constituted as a single entity in the ASC Bill. The Bill also re-creates, in statutory form, the current Accounting Standards Review Board. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.07) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The Corporations Bill heralds a new direction in national companies and securities law and administration. If Australian business enterprises and markets are to remain competitive in the new national and international trading environment, it is essential to have national legislation which provides a flexible and responsive regulatory environment in which companies can operate efficiently. The Corporations Bill provides this national legislation. Because the highest priority attaches to the establishment of a national regime for the regulation of companies and the securities and futures industry, the Corporations Bill, for the most part, re-enacts the existing legal requirements. I do not consider it appropriate to introduce reforms to much of the existing law without consultation with interested sectors of the community. Nor do I consider it desirable for the introduction of the national legislation to be accompanied by a plethora of changes that would unnecessarily disrupt the business community. However, the Corporations Bill amalgamates into one law the areas presently covered by the separate cooperative scheme codes-the Companies Code, the Acquisition of Shares Code, the Securities Industry Code and the Futures Industry Code-and, in this exercise, a number of improvements have been made to the existing legislative scheme. Structure and Style of Legislation The consolidation of the existing law into the Corporations Bill and the Australian Securities Commission Bill has led to the removal of much duplicated material and to a major rationalisation of the structure and arrangement of the legislation. The definitions and interpretation provisions for the Bill have largely been incorporated into one interpretation chapter. The next five chapters generally conform to the structure of the existing Companies Code. Other chapters, such as the acquisition of shares, the securities industry and the futures industry chapters essentially cover the same ground as the corresponding codes under the existing law. There has also been a re-organisation of material across chapters: For example, the provisions dealing with prospectuses and the transfer of marketable securities have been moved from the companies-related chapters to the securities chapter, where they more properly belong. In addition, large groupings of sections have, wherever possible, been broken up into smaller groupings, and long sections and subsections split into shorter ones, thus allowing a much greater use of part, division and section headings. These headings will help the reader to find the provisions of concern to him or her and make them easier to follow. The existing law has, in some important areas, been revoked to give it clarity and simplicity. These include, in particular, the parts of the Corporations Bill that deal with financial statements of companies, names of corporations, registration of foreign companies and the transfer of marketable securities. The chapter dealing with the acquisition of shares adopts a number of the structural improvements suggested by the Victorian Law Reform Commission in its final report, Plain English and the Law. However the essential language and concepts of the previous law remain, in order to accurately reflect the existing law as currently understood by market participants. Major Reforms In the drafting of the national law, the opportunity has been taken to introduce a number of substantial reforms in areas of the law that have been bedevilling the business community because of the excessive and unnecessary regulation imposed. These reforms reflect substantial input from the business community. Some of the main reform proposals are as follows: the fundraising provisions of the legislation will be substantially simplified and new provisions introduced to shift the thrust of the fundraising controls from the regulatory authority to the market. Thus, to ensure that fundraising activities are not impeded by delays or the imposition of unnecessary costs by the regulatory authority, the Australian Securities Commission (ASC) will not pre-vet prospectuses. There will also be no pre-vetting of part A statements, profit forecasts and asset valuations during a takeover. As well, the complex and detailed rules as to the content of prospectuses will be replaced by much more basic disclosure rules designed to provide investors with the information they need to make informed investment decisions. Obligations will be imposed on those engaged in fundraising to promote self-enforcement by the market. There will be a general prohibition on misleading or deceptive conduct in relation to the issue of or trading in securities-based on section 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974. To maintain appropriate safeguards for investor protection the Australian Securities Commission will be able to issue orders to stop serious misrepresentation or malpractice and investors will have an enhanced range of remedies enabling them to take action against a wider class of persons involved in the preparation of the prospectus. The procedure provided by section 261 of the Companies Act, which enables a company to trace beneficial ownership of its shares, imposes a costly paper burden on the market as a whole and has been abused. The Bill removes the scope for this abuse. Only the Australian Securities Commission will have power to obtain information as to beneficial ownership. However, in order to maintain appropriate levels of shareholder disclosure, the substantial shareholding reporting requirements have been reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. The procedure for registering company names has been simplified. The provisions establishing the present `subjective test' on whether a name is available for reservation have been removed. All company names will be allowed, except for identical names and names of a type to be prescribed in regulations such as names suggesting connection with the Government. The Bill also clarifies that companies are permitted to incorporate with number names to facilitate faster incorporations. To assist in the development of a more efficient securities market, provisions have been included to remove delays in the transfer and registration of securities occasioned by unnecessary forms. The requirement that a transferor sign a transfer form has been removed. However, full compensation will be available from the National Guarantee Fund, provided for under this Bill, for any losses arising from unauthorised transfers. Transferee acceptance forms will also be deleted. There will no longer be a requirement that companies maintain branch registers at a shareholder's request. This will save costs for the several parties involved in processing certificates and transfers and will simplify the operation of the proposed new transfer and settlement system currently being developed by the Australian Stock Exchange. It is proposed to discontinue the licensing of representatives of securities dealers and advisers and of futures brokers and advisers. To ensure that proper responsibility is taken for the activities of their representatives, the principals will be made fully liable for the conduct of their representatives. In the light of the abolition of the doctrine of ultra vires and rules of constructive notice affecting outsiders, proprietary companies will be relieved of the obligation to lodge a copy of their memorandum and articles of association with the ASC upon their incorporation. This reform will reduce administrative costs for the ASC. In making these changes to the existing legislative controls, the Government has sought to create a more efficient commercial environment by reducing unnecessary and costly regulatory burdens while ensuring adequate protections remain for both shareholders and other investors and providing a framework for the fair and honest operation of the market. An outline of the principal features of the Corporations Bill and, in particular, the main changes it makes to the existing legislation are set out at the front of the explanatory memorandum that has been circulated for the benefit of honourable members. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill and the 10 associated Bills. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) 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. This Bill authorises the making of regulations for fees payable under the Corporations Bill. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.15) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with fidelity fund contributions payable under the Corporations Bill by an applicant for membership of a securities exchange. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.16) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with annual fidelity fund contributions payable under the Corporations Bill by the members of a securities exchange. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.17) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with fidelity fund levies payable under the Corporations Bill by the members of a securities exchange where the fund is depleted. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.18) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with levies imposed under the Corporations Bill on reportable transactions undertaken by securities dealers where the guarantee fund is depleted. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.19) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with levies payable under the Corporations Bill by a securities exchange where the guarantee fund is depleted. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.20) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with levies which may be imposed under the Corporations Bill by a securities exchange on its members where the guarantee fund is depleted. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.21) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with fidelity fund contributions payable under the Corporations Bill by an applicant seeking membership of a futures exchange or futures association. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.22) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with annual fidelity fund contributions payable under the Corporations Bill by the member of a futures exchange or futures association. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.23) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with fidelity fund levies payable under the Corporations Bill by the member of a futures exchange or futures association where the fund is depleted. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.24) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of the Close Corporations Bill 1988 is to provide a new simplified corporate structure for small business. Many of the current detailed rules applying to companies that are more appropriate for larger companies impose inflexible requirements and costly and unnecessary burdens on small companies. The distinctive features of the new corporate form which will enhance flexibility and reduce operating costs involve the reduction in financial and other reporting requirements and replacing the usual concept of management with simpler association rules. Details of the provisions are set out in the explanatory memorandum that is circulated with the Bill. Memorandum and articles of association will not be required and will be replaced by a non-registrable written association agreement. This enables the formal shareholder-director distinction to be eliminated and will allow the internal affairs of the corporation to be governed by simpler partnership rules. An optional model association agreement will be prescribed in the regulations. Basic information about the close corporation will be filed in the form of a founding statement which will be updated each time there is a change to the material particulars. A certificate of compliance will be an annual document in which the close corporation states that accounts have been kept which accurately reflect the financial position of the corporation. The close corporation provides a simple means for small business to obtain the benefits of incorporation such as limited liability. However, under the Bill the interests of creditors are also safeguarded by a number of provisions which enable the corporate veil to be lifted and personal liability to attach to the members. Thus, members may be personally liable for a debt incurred by the close corporation, particularly where accounts have not been properly kept, or if the close corporation becomes a holding company and subsequently becomes insolvent, or where there is unreasonable delay in taking action where the corporation is insolvent. The Bill permits a close corporation to acquire the shares of members in certain circumstances including, where the members have signed a declaration of solvency. Personal liability will attach to the signatories of that declaration where subsequently the corporation commences to be wound up and will attach to members where the close corporation has unlawfully acquired its own shares. The Bill is a major innovation in corporation law to meet longstanding needs of small business for an uncomplicated business structure. I now present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill and the three associated Bills. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.27) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill authorises the making of regulations for the fees payable under the Close Corporations Bill. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.28) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with the contributions to the Liquidators Recovery Trust Fund payable under the Close Corporations Bill. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Lionel Bowen, and read a first time. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(4.29) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill deals with the additional contribution to the Liquidators Recovery Trust Fund payable by a close corporation under the Close Corporations Bill when the fund is depleted. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Moore) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Beazley, and read a first time. Mr BEAZLEY(Swan-Leader of the House)(4.30) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this Bill is to reduce the quorum of the House of Representatives from one-third to one-fifth. The House will recall that on 9 December 1987 it resolved to endorse the principle of a reduction in the quorum from one-third to one-fifth as recommended by the Standing Committee on Procedure in its report on Days and hours of sitting and the effective use of the time of the House. Until now, the quorum of the House of Representatives was laid down by section 39 of the Constitution, which states: Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the presence of at least one-third of the whole number of the members of the House of Representatives shall be necessary to constitute a meeting of the House for the exercise of its powers. The object of this Bill is to provide otherwise. The effect of the Bill is to reduce the quorum to 30 members or 20 per cent of the membership of the House. Members have many demands on their time and it is generally accepted that they need to spend more time on electorate and family responsibilities. That objective can be achieved only if the time of the House, when it is sitting, is used effectively. While the House is sitting, members have many calls on their time in addition to chamber responsibilities. These include Cabinet and Cabinet committee work for Ministers, parliamentary and party committee work for all members, correspondence and visitors. The need for one-third of members to answer quorum calls is an harassment of members discharging legitimate duties outside the chamber. The quorum requirement cannot of itself affect the number of members who remain in the chamber during a debate. This is determined by the nature and quality of the debate. Lowering the quorum will not affect overall attendance in the chamber. Reducing the size of the quorum and perhaps consequentially the number of quorum calls members feel it necessary to make will allow more members effective use of their time outside the chamber. Although quorum calls do not take up a great amount of time in total, they may take up critical time and there is additional time lost through the disruption of activities which must be resumed after the quorum call. The Bill is a significant step towards ensuring that the time of the House is not taken up with procedural trivia when it should be directed towards consideration of the major issues affecting the nation. As the Committee noted in its report, the rationale behind the quorum requirement is to ensure that the number of members present in the House and voting on any decision is reasonably substantial. A 20 per cent requirement is substantial. It was so considered by the previous Government when it introduced Bills in 1970 and 1971 to reduce the quorum to one-fifth. Therefore, we follow, very nobly, in the tradition of the Liberal-National Party coalition Government in moving this proposition. The requirement is substantial when compared with the quorum requirements of other legislatures. The most significant comparison must surely be with the British House of Commons, which has no quorum although it requires 40 members, of a total membership of 650, to participate in a division; otherwise the business in held over. We recollect the words of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) the other day when he asked, `Can we not think that Britain is at least as democratic a country as the United States?'. Britain has no quorum and a requirement that only 40 members participate in a division. One-fifth of the current House of Representatives is 30 members. Until 1947 the quorum for this House was 25 members. The membership of the House was increased in 1947 from 75 to 123 members, requiring a quorum of 41 members. Section 39 of the Constitution clearly contemplated a need to vary the quorum requirement as the membership of the House increased. It is the obligation of all members of the House to maintain the House. The quorum is of course a minimum requirement. It in no way prevents any or all members remaining in the chamber to participate in decisions of the House. If sufficient members of the Opposition are present that will of necessity require the presence of a correspondingly larger number of government members. In any case where a member requires a division of the House, while the minimum requirement of the quorum will be sufficient to decide the question, all other members can participate. The number of members participating in a division has been consistently higher in the majority of cases than the minimum quorum requirement. This Bill relates only to the quorum of the House. The quorum for the Senate is laid down by section 22 of the Constitution and is not affected by this Bill. I commend the Bill to honourable members and present the explanatory memorandum for the Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr West, and read a first time. Mr WEST(Cunningham-Minister for Administrative Services)(4.35) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill is intended to give legislative effect to the Government's decisions on the issues arising out of the Australian Law Reform Commission report on lands acquisition. The present law governing Commonwealth acquisition, the Lands Acquisition Act, was enacted in 1955. However, many of the provisions it contains are a carryover from the original legislation passed in 1906. In turn, that was based on an 1845 United Kingdom statute. In July 1977 the then Federal Attorney-General requested that the Law Reform Commission examine the Commonwealth legislation. The terms of reference for the Commission specifically concentrated on the rights afforded to persons whose land was acquired by compulsory process by the Commonwealth. The report of the Commission was tabled in the Parliament in April 1980. The Commission was critical of a number of aspects of the Lands Acquisition Act. During recent years the Commonwealth Parliament has enacted legislation to enable the independent review of administrative decisions which adversely affect individuals. The decision to acquire property, particularly by the use of the compulsory process, is a decision which affects, sometimes profoundly, the owner of the property. There is no mechanism within the current Act whereby an owner may require the acquiring authority to justify publicly the need for and choice of his property. When persons' homes are acquired it can cause significant disruption to the individuals involved. There is no legislative provision to ensure that displaced owners can provide for themselves, out of their compensation money, a suitable alternative home. It seems reasonable that people in those circumstances should be provided practical assistance and recompense for the intangible effects of removal from their home. This is not provided in a legislative sense in the current Act. Another problem not covered by the Act is that of blight. It is not uncommon for a government's acquisition decisions to be generally known some years before an acquisition may take place. Someone whose property is involved can find himself in the situation where there is no market for his property because of the Government's intentions and the Government might not be ready to acquire the land for some years. Under the current Act there is no facility for the owner to compel the Government proposing the acquisition to purchase from him. Inflation can also cause difficulties for owners, particularly if there is a significant lapse of time between acquisition of the property and payment of compensation following final agreement on the amount to be paid. These and other deficiencies with the Lands Acquisition Act were identified by the Law Reform Commission in its report, which contained a series of recommendations with three main objectives: more open procedures in the acquisition process, greater public accountability for decisions to acquire property and, more generous statutory provisions for compensation for persons deprived of their land by the Commonwealth. Following the Law Reform Commission report an interdepartmental working party comprising representatives of the major policy departments concerned was set up to review the report and develop recommendations for government consideration. In 1983 the Government agreed to the implementation of most of the Commission's recommendations to be incorporated into new legislation. This Bill represents the fulfilment of the Government's decision. It is obvious that it has taken some years to get to the stage of being able to present this Bill to Parliament. Whilst that is regretted, it is this Government's intention that priority should be given now to seeing this Bill enacted and implemented. The Bill is not yet complete in that it does not at this stage include details covering transitional arrangements and consequential amendments that will be necessary. Those provisions are to be tabled at a later date. However, it has always been my intention that this Bill would be tabled and a period of some months be allowed to elapse in which members of the public and members of this House could obtain copies of the proposed legislation, study it and provide detailed comments back to the Government. The Bill is now in a form which would allow people to provide such comment adequately and effectively. It is proposed that the Bill will not be debated until the Budget session. Lands Acquisition Bill...25 May 1988 REPRESENTATIVES 2999 3000 REPRESENTATIVES 25 May 1988...Lands Acquisition Bill Lands Acquisition Bill...25 May 1988 REPRESENTATIVES 3001 3002 REPRESENTATIVES 25 May 1988...Lands Acquisition Bill I now turn to specific provisions of the Bill. There are numerous provisions being written into this Bill which are not contained in the current legislation. Time does not permit me to highlight all of those issues. However, there are a number of matters which should be brought particularly to honourable members' attention. This Bill specifies an entirely new and comprehensive process that must be followed when the Commonwealth wishes to acquire property. At the start of the process the Bill at clause 22 requires the Government to make a pre-acquisition declaration. This declaration is a statement of intention which is provided to the owner giving the Governments reason for the acquisition and identifying the owner's rights. Clause 23 says that at the same time the Government's intention to acquire is to be made public by publication in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette and a local newspaper. Furthermore, the Bill at clause 38 requires that the marketplace be alerted to the Commonwealth's intentions by providing that the declaration will be registered on the title of the property and, by clause 39, the owner will be required to tell intending purchasers of the Commonwealth's intention. The Bill places numerous requirements on the government to complete acquisitions expeditiously. Throughout the Bill time limits are identified in which the Commonwealth must act or make decisions. One example of this is at clause 44, which says that, where an owner has been served a pre-acquisition declaration, he can in writing agree to the acquisition and require the Commonwealth to acquire his property within three months. One of the particularly significant provisions of the Bill is that an owner can seek a review of the Government's decision to acquire a property. Clause 26 of the Bill stipulates that the owner can formally seek that the Minister reconsider the decision to acquire. Following that, if the Minister reaffirms the decision to acquire, clauses 28 and 29 provide that the owner is able to seek review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of the Minister's decision. The Bill provides at clauses 29 and 30 that the Tribunal will hear the appeal expeditiously and recommend to the Minister a course of action. It is intended by clause 31 that any review by the Tribunal should be limited to whether the Minister's decision was fair, sound and necessary for the implementation of the policy decision. The review should not include environmental matters where an inquiry has been held under the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act and should take into account technical, operational and economic factors. It is intended by clause 31 that any such review would encompass a number of matters, including the nature of the public purpose; the extent to which the public purpose is in the public interest; the suitability of the land for the public purpose; the effect of the acquisition on the land owners; the environmental effect of the use and development of the land; and any other means of achieving the public purpose. However, clause 22 makes it clear that the policy decision of the Government which has led to the acquisition cannot be subject to review. This Government is concerned by the need to strike a balance between the rights of private property owners on the one hand and the legitimate needs of society for land for public purposes on the other. It is also concerned at the effects on efficient administration of legislation relating to acquisitions of land and the speedy resolution of claims for compensation. For these reasons the Bill specifies instances where a review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is considered inappropriate and should not be allowed. However, such circumstances are clearly defined and constrained and include, for instance, at clause 24, where the Minister is prepared to certify that the review should not be held due to urgency or where to not acquire would be prejudicial to the national interest. It is also not intended that review processes would apply in situations described in clause 40 where the acquisition is of the nature of a normal commercial transaction between parties dealing with one another on an equal basis and from which any party is able to withdraw. This Government is concerned at the effect on owners of some of the Government's activities which might be undertaken leading up to a decision to acquire a property. Consequently, whilst the Bill retains the present powers of the temporary entry to enable the Commonwealth to enter onto land to investigate its suitability, there are, at clauses 9, 13 and 95, added requirements over the present legislation for the Commonwealth to give seven days notice of the proposed entry; minimise damage to the land; and compensate for any expenses incurred by the landowner as a consequence of the temporary occupation in addition to any damage or loss suffered. Furthermore, where a pre-acquisition declaration has been issued to an owner and the acquisition does not eventually proceed, clause 96 of the Bill provides for the owner to claim and be paid compensation for any loss suffered as a result of the Commonwealth's activities. Where an owner claims compensation as a result of the Commonwealth's temporary entry, occupation and/or abandonment of an acquisition, initiative rests with the claimant. There is to be a new requirement, at clause 96, limiting the claim period to three years. The Bill requires at clause 103 that, once the claim is lodged, the Commonwealth is to decide within two months on whether the claim will be accepted and what compensation will be paid. Many of the new provisions which have been written into this legislation relate to the process involved where a compulsory acquisition takes place and compensation is to be paid. Under clause 41 of the Bill compulsory acquisitions are to be authorised by the Minister rather than by the Governor-General, as is the current requirement. The present Act provides only limited guidance for the determination of the question of compensation, although practices in use have been developed in line with case law over the years. This Bill adopts, in clauses 54 to 63, a detailed statutory list to provide guidance to all parties and the Federal Court of Australia as to the basis of compensation. The Bill retains the existing provision that compensation should be based on a market value of the land which includes by judicial interpretation any special value to the owner. However, the Bill provides that the compensation entitlements will be expanded to provide for: Disturbance including loss or damage incurred as a reasonable consequence of the acquisition. Clause 55 says that such costs should at all times be reasonable having regard to market rates and should also be directly related to the acquisition. Clause 59 says that compensation is to be assessed on the basis that any zoning restrictions for a public use are to be ignored, provided that a claimant who bought the property in the knowledge of any restriction would not be entitled to compensation on a `without restriction' basis. Where a person's principal place of residence is acquired, clause 61 stipulates that there will be provision for a householder's solatium to compensate for the intangible and unquantifiable losses suffered by the owner. A fixed statutory payment is to be provided and the nominated figure is $5,000. Where a person's principal place of residence is acquired and the compensation payable, including compensation for disturbance but excluding any solatium payment, is insufficient to acquire replacement housing, clause 61 provides that compensation is to be increased to enable the acquisition of a reasonably equivalent dwelling or home. Clause 58 says that optional compensation shall be paid on the basis of cost of the equivalent reinstatement where land is used for a purpose for which there is no general demand or market and use will continue on other land, for example, schools and churches. Clause 55 provides that the reasonable expectation of an owner of any renewal of leases or licences if the acquisition had not occurred will also be included in the assessment. The Bill also provides at clause 60 that any increase or decrease in the value of a property due to the proposed work by the Commonwealth is to be disregarded in assessing compensation. Additionally new provisions will clarify in clause 60 that: where a site can only be developed by a Government body the special suitability of that site is to be disregarded in compensation; any increase in the value of the property due to unlawful use is to be disregarded; and any increase in value due to improvements carried out without the Minister's approval after the service of a declaration is to be disregarded. The Bill provides that the present system should be retained whereby properties acquired using the compulsory process are acquired by publication of a notice in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette of the acquisition. However, in order to facilitate claims by interested persons the Bill requires at clause 41 that a notice should also be published in a local newspaper indicating that the acquisition has occurred. The Bill clearly indicates the procedure that must apply whereby the owner can claim compensation. Once the property has been acquired the Bill requires in clause 48 that the Commonwealth will notify the former owner of the acquisition and advise him of his rights including his right to legal and valuation advice at Commonwealth expense. In clause 67 the owner is requested to prepare a claim on an approved form for submission to the Commonwealth. After the Commonwealth receives the claim from the former owner the Commonwealth then has a limited period of 42 days in which to make an offer to the former owner and disclose the basis of the calculation of the offer. Clause 75 says that the claimant may then respond, either accepting the Commonwealth's offer or submitting full details of the basis on which his claim is calculated. Once the owner has made his revised claim clause 76 provides that the Minister must make a final offer within two months. Where the owner and the Commonwealth cannot reach agreement on the amount of compensation that needs to be paid the Bill provides for the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review the Minister's decision on the amount of compensation. These provisions apply not only in clause 81 to compensation following compulsory acquisition but also in clause 107 in relation to compensation for temporary entry and occupation of land and abandonment of acquisition proposals. The Bill provides in clauses 81 and 107 that both parties would be bound by the Tribunal's decision on how much compensation should be paid. It should be noted that in this Bill in clause 131 in cases where an owner applies to the Tribunal for review of a decision to acquire or a reasonable application to review the quantum of compensation, the Tribunal is able to recommend to the Attorney-General that the costs of the appeal should be met by the Commonwealth. It is possible that negotiations on the amount of compensation to be paid and ultimate review of the quantum of compensation by the Tribunal may take some time. The Bill contains provisions which are aimed at minimising the difficulties faced by an owner. For example, the Bill contains at clause 47 a provision whereby the owner is allowed to remain in occupation for six months where the Commonwealth has no immediate need of the property, either on agreed terms or on terms decided by the Minister. Furthermore, clause 110 of the Bill provides that where the Minister has accepted a claim and made an offer of compensation but the offer is not accepted by the claimant the Commonwealth shall make an immediate payment of 90 per cent of the Commonwealth's offer. When agreement is reached on the amount of compensation to be paid, clause 115 provides that interest will be paid on the balance of the amount compounded at three monthly rests from the time the claimant lodged the claim. There are many other matters covered and provided for within this Bill. One which is of particular significance relates to the acquisition of land in public parks. The current legislation does not allow the Commonwealth to acquire land which is in a public park. The Australian Law Reform Commission accepted that this was an unreasonable constraint particularly in instances where an intended acquisition may not be controversial but may nevertheless be necessary for the Government's purposes. It is not uncommon for the Government to need a facility such as a navigation beacon or a communications tower in a location within a park. At present to acquire such a property, no matter how small, the State Government has to excise the land in question from the park to enable the Commonwealth to acquire the land. However, whilst recognising that the Commonwealth should be able to acquire land in public parks it is also essential that safeguards be provided within the legislation to ensure that this power is used properly. For this reason in clause 42 the Bill requires that where the Commonwealth wishes to acquire land in a public park the following conditions must be met. Firstly, the relevant State must agree to the acquisition. Secondly, there must be a full inquiry under the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, except that both Houses of parliament may veto the need for a full inquiry. Where that happens the requirements of the Environment Protection Act must still be met with a further stipulation that where the property to be acquired is part of a World Heritage property or a property on the National Estate then a full environmental impact statement must be prepared. Finally, once the acquisition has occurred clause 46 provides that either House of parliament will have to veto power whereby the acquisition can be made null and void. I believe that this process will enable non-controversial acquisitions by the Commonwealth of land in public parks to be achieved expeditiously whilst at the same time sufficient safeguards are provided to ensure that those acquisition powers are not abused. The process provides protection of States rights and ensures that environmental and heritage issues are adequately addressed. Clause 124 of the Bill provides for regulations to be made to prescribe the conditions for exploration and mining on Commonwealth land. The Government's policy for access to Commonwealth land for exploration and mining does not apply to national parks or Antarctica. The existing Lands Acquisition Act allows for mining and exploration on Commonwealth land and there are some existing exploration and mining rights in this regard. However, access to Commonwealth land for mineral exploration and development has been constrained by the lack of a coordinated policy and the lack of clearly defined administrative procedures. The Government considers there is scope to implement a multiple land use policy through developing procedures which could allow exploration and mining on Commonwealth land, subject to conditions which protect the Commonwealth's interests in the land such as environmental, heritage and socioeconomic factors as well as its specific use of the land. The Government has accepted a set of policy principles which it believes should apply in order that a multiple land use policy may be facilitated. Mineral exploration and development on Commonwealth land will be allowed to proceed where these activities do not preclude the purpose for which the land is designated, and where they comply with all relevant Commonwealth, State and Territory laws and policies. When the Commonwealth proposes to acquire land or change the use of an existing area of land, the resource potential of the area will be taken into account as part of the Commonwealth's general assessment of the area's suitability for the proposed use. The Commonwealth will acquire mineral rights only where the principal purpose for acquisition precludes mineral development. Where the Commonwealth disposes of land on which it holds the mineral rights, the Commonwealth will normally dispose of the mineral rights to the States and Territories. This Bill provides for the making of regulations prescribing the conditions for exploration and mining on Commonwealth land. The regulations may also make provision for the making of arrangements between the Commonwealth and a State or Territory of the officers of the State or Territory to perform functions or exercise powers under the regulations. It is envisaged that the regulations made under the Bill will contain provisions similar to those of relevant State or Territory mining laws. All proposals to explore or mine on Commonwealth land administered under the Lands Acquisition Act will be examined for the effect they will have on the environment in accordance with the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 and the Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975, where applicable. Also, all proposals must be approved by the Federal Minister responsible for the Lands Acquisition Act. I have identified here what I believe to be the main provisions in the new legislation which depart from the requirements of the current legislation. Following the introduction of the Bill there will be time to examine the detailed provisions of the new legislation and for people to provide comment. I believe that the Commonwealth needs to update its approach to the acquisition of land and in particular to protect the concerns and interests of the property owners whose property is to be acquired by the Commonwealth. This Bill achieves all this. It provides a balance between the protection of the rights of individuals and the ability for the Government to meet its property needs. It offers to property owners the ability to question the Government's decision to acquire their property. It clearly specifies the wide range of factors to be taken into account in assessing compensation. At the same time it also provides an efficient process that the Government can use when it is dealing in a normal commercial market situation. I commend the Bill to the House and present the explanatory memorandum to the Bill. Mr FIFE(Hume-Manager of Opposition Business) —Before I move the adjournment of this debate, I seek your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, to commend the Minister for Administrative Services (Mr West) for agreeing to place on the table of the House this important Bill-- Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Ronald Edwards) —You have my indulgence. Mr FIFE —and to allow adequate time for it to be considered. This is obviously in marked contrast to what we have witnessed over the past two days when the Government forced 14 Bills through the House, and last week when it forced 12 Bills through in two days. This is very important legislation. It continues the initiative of the Fraser Government. The legislation is long overdue, and the Minister has my assurance that the Opposition will cooperate with him in relation to the public and parliamentary consideration of the measure. I move: That the debate be now adjourned. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill presented by Mr Peter Morris, and read a first time. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support and Minister Assisting the Treasurer)(5.03) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill will amend the capital gains tax and substantiation provisions of the income tax law and the fringe benefits tax law. Capital Gains Rollover Relief The Bill gives effect to the proposal announced on 28 January 1988 to extend relief from tax on capital gains to a number of kinds of business reorganisations, and to make a number of technical amendments to the existing rollover provisions. Generally the rollover amendments in this Bill will apply to reorganisations commencing after 28 January 1988. Interposition of a Company into an Existing Business Structure Rollover relief will be given where a resident company is interposed between an existing resident company and its shareholders who dispose of their shares in the existing company for non-redeemable shares in the interposed company. Crown Leases The Bill will allow rollover relief from 20 September 1985 where a Crown lease of land is converted to freehold or to a lease in perpetuity, or is renewed, extended, reduced or expanded in size, subdivided or consolidated with another Crown lease held by the taxpayer. The 28 January 1988 announcement indicated that rollover relief would be available where the land under the new lease was the same, or substantially the same, as that under the original lease. This Bill clarifies what is meant by substantially the same by broadly proposing that rollover relief be available to the extent to which land under a new lease or a freehold interest comprises land held under the original Crown lease. A related amendment to apply from 20 September 1985 broadens the scope of the principal residence exemption to include a dwelling on land under a Crown lease, regardless of the term of the lease. Rollover relief will also apply if the Crown pays compensation to the lessee where a Crown lease of land has expired and is not to be renewed and the lessee acquires a replacement asset. Renewal of Licences or Authorities Rollover relief will be extended from 20 September 1985 to the renewal or extension of a statutory licence, authority or permit. Prospecting and Mining Rights Specific rollover relief applicable to the mining industry will be widened from 20 September 1985 to include renewals, extensions, consolidations or splits of prospecting rights or mining rights and the relinquishment of part of an existing prospecting or mining right on the issue of a new right. Involuntary Disposals Rollover relief will be extended from 20 September 1985 where a government or government authority acquires an asset by voluntary agreement rather than under the compulsory acquisition processes. Also, a replacement for an asset acquired before 20 September 1985 will be taken to have been acquired before that date if its acquisition cost does not exceed 120 per cent of the market value of the original asset immediately before its loss or destruction. Transfer of Asset to Wholly Owned Company The Bill will extend the rollover relief available to a partnership that transfers assets to a wholly owned company where one or more of the partners are trustees and the requirement that at least one of the partners be a natural person is to be removed. Public Trading Unit Trusts Rollover relief will be extended where the trustee of a public trading trust established before 20 September 1985 makes, as a result of a reorganisation, a proportionate distribution in specie to unit holders of shares acquired before that date. Generally, the amendment to extend relief in this way will apply to transfers of shares after 28 January 1988 and before 1 July 1988. Marriage Breakdown The scope of the present rollover for the transfer of assets on the breakdown of a marriage is to be extended to include a court-directed or court-sanctioned transfer between a company or a trust and one of the spouses. Unit Trusts/Companies Categories of rollover relief now available for certain transactions by companies are to be extended to comparable transactions by trustees of unit trusts. Relief will also be extended to splits or consolidations of company issued rights or options to acquire shares and to rights or options to acquire units in a unit trust. Transfer of Assets to Non-Resident Companies In the announcement of 28 January 1988, it was said that where a taxable Australian asset was transferred to a non-resident company in circumstances in which rollover relief was available the asset would be taken to be a taxable Australian asset in the hands of the transferee and an asset received in consideration for the disposal would also be a taxable Australian asset. On further review it was found that a more satisfactory approach is to provide that rollover relief will be available only where the asset is in fact a taxable Australian asset of the transferee company, instead of treating the asset as a taxable Australian asset. To ensure that there is no element of retrospectivity in this approach, the limitation of the availability of rollover relief will apply only in respect of assets disposed of after today. Amendments to treat the transferred asset as a taxable Australian asset will apply in respect of assets disposed of after 28 January 1988 and on or before today. The nature of these rollover amendments is such that a reliable estimate of the revenue effect cannot be made. Substantiation Rules The substantiation rules will be amended in a number of respects. Overseas Travel Expenses Employees in receipt of a reasonable travel allowance will, with effect from 1 July 1986, not have to substantiate claims, within that allowance, for expenses in respect of food, drink or other expenditure incidental to overseas travel. Travel diary requirements for members of the crew of an international flight will also be removed from the substantiation rules. Motor Vehicle Fuel and Oil Expenses The substantiation rules were amended in 1987 to allow fuel and oil expenses for cars to be verified by a record of total kilometres travelled during the year. From 1 July 1986 this Bill allows similar treatment for other vehicles such as motor cycles and small trucks. Car Hire Expenses Car hire expenses incurred after the start of the 1988-89 income year are not to be treated as car expenses for the purposes of the substantiation rules. Instead, they will be substantiated as employment-related expenses or, if the hire car is used for overseas travel or extended travel within Australia, as travel expenses. Reimbursements The Bill also makes it clear that reimbursements of fringe benefits tax are exempt from income tax. Fringe Benefits Tax Several refinements of fringe benefits tax rules, generally having effect from 1 July 1986, are also proposed. Employers meeting the reasonable food, drink or incidental expenses of overseas travel by their employees will be able to reduce appropriately the taxable value of the relevant fringe benefits without first obtaining documentary evidence of those expenses. To ease the paperwork burden on fringe benefits tax employers, the Bill provides that employers may specify certain information about car fringe benefits in records to be retained by them, rather than in fringe benefits tax returns. From the start of the 1989-90 fringe benefits tax year, car records will have to be in a form approved by the Commissioner of Taxation. The remote area holiday travel concession, under which employers pay fringe benefits tax on only one half of the taxable value of fringe benefits arising from reimbursing employees' holiday costs is to be extended to cover cases where the benefit is an allowance paid to an employee's spouse or children. Another change is the exemption from fringe benefits tax of the cost to employers of compassionate travel. Broadly, the exemption will apply where an employer meets the cost of an employee's travel to visit a seriously ill spouse or child or to attend a family funeral. It will also be made plain that an employee contribution to an employer's fringe benefits tax liability does not reduce the taxable value of the fringe benefits the employer provides. Other minor technical amendments are included in the Bill. The fringe benefits tax and substantiation measures in this Bill will have a negligible effect on revenue. I present the explanatory memorandum and commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Braithwaite) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Punch, and read a first time. Mr PUNCH(Barton-Minister for the Arts and Territories)(5.15) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Australia Council Act to implement the Government's decisions in response to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure inquiry into Commonwealth assistance to the arts. The report of this Committee, en- titled Patronage, Power and the Muse, is generally known as the McLeay report after the Chairman the honourable member for Grayndler (Mr Leo McLeay). The Government's response to the McLeay report was tabled in the House of Representatives on 28 May 1987. At that time, the then Minister for the Arts, the honourable member for Robertson (Mr Cohen), outlined the process of wide consultation with the arts community which led to the preparation of the McLeay report and the development of the Government's response. The Australia Council was involved in the consultation process and conducted its own review of its role, structure and functions at that time. Many of the McLeay report's recommendations focused on the Australia Council, the Government's arts funding body. The Government agreed with the McLeay Committee that the Council's administrative structure should be streamlined and that the Council should take account of government policies at the Commonwealth, State and local government levels. The Government also agreed that community cultural development should be accorded a higher priority in the Council's activities. The Australia Council supported these recommendations and has already acted to implement those aspects of the Government's response to the McLeay report which did not require amendment of its Act. The provisions of this Bill enable the Australia Council to complete the implementation of those aspects of the Government's response to the McLeay report which relate to the operation of the Council. The main provisions of the Bill are as follows: The Act is to be amended to ensure that the Council has regard to government policies and, where practicable, the policies of State and local government as they relate to the arts. The amendments also provide for the Council to have regard to any matters which the Minister may specify in writing. The Minister will have the power to issue directions to the Council but this power will not apply to the Council's ability to make or refuse to make grants. The arm's length principle of arts funding is to be retained. The amendments allow representatives of the community interest to be appointed to the Council and its boards. This will allow the Council to broaden its focus to better reflect the concerns of the consumers of arts programs and the general public. The amendments also remove the requirement for Government representation on the Council and ensure all board chairpersons are members of the Council. Consistent with the need to streamline administration through the amalgamation of boards and enhance flexibility, provision for the maximum membership has been increased from eight to nine and minimum membership has been reduced from six to five. Another major change is the establishment of a new coordinating board which may have a membership of 13, including the chairperson. This new board will have a large, flexible membership which may comprise the chairperson and members of the Council, the chairperson and members of boards and wide representation from community arts and the broad public interest. The new provisions allow the Minister to establish this board as a Community Cultural Development Board to further the development of community cultural activities, in line with the Government's response to the McLeay report. A Community Cultural Development Board should assist the development of arts practice and access to the arts at the community level. It might also provide incentives for local and State organisations to promote existing cultural facilities and to extend creatively the use of our libraries, museums and art galleries. These amendments will not require additional funds for implementation. In line with Government policies in general and the Government's response to the McLeay report, the Council is continuing to give consideration to streamlining its administration. I am confident the amendments will provide the impetus to carry the Australia Council forward into the next decade with a structure which is responsive to changing needs and priorities and which is in line with prevailing community wishes. I commend the Bill to the House. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr Braithwaite) adjourned. Mr WEST(Cunningham-Minister for Administrative Services)(5.18) —I move: That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Stage 2 development of RAAF Base, Tindal, NT. The proposed work is for additional facilities at the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base, Tindal, as a second stage of a multistage plan to enhance the operational and support capabilities of the base. Tindal, 15 kilometres south-east of Katherine, is being developed as the major tactical fighter base in northern Australia. It will provide a home base for a squadron of the tactical fighter force equipped with Hornet fighter aircraft. In 1984 the House gave approval for the construction of the first stage of this base development. The majority of the construction of stage 1 will be completed in late 1988. The base will then have the minimum essential facilities to become operational for a squadron of Hornet fighter aircraft. This stage 2 proposal involves the replacement of some interim stage 1 facilities and the provision of new technical and support facilities to augment those provided in the stage 1 development. Some additional on-base housing will be provided by the Defence Housing Authority to accommodate additional RAAF personnel associated with the stage 2 development. Subsequent stages of development of RAAF base, Tindal, are envisaged and planning is already under way. These developments will include works to complete the airfield and facilities for the further enhancement of the operational and support capabilities of the base. The proposed work in the stage 2 development includes: technical facilities such as a general engineering workshop and a base calibration centre; support facilities such as an equipment warehouse and extensions to the medical and dental facility; individual facilities with special requirements such as ordnance preparation and storage facilities, and an aviation fuel storage installation; community facilities such as a chapel and additional recreation facilities; and the provision of 20 on-base married quarters by the Defence Housing Authority. The estimated cost of this stage 2 proposal is $37.65m at December 1987 prices. This cost comprises $34.9m for the base facilities and $2.75m for the on-base married quarters. Subject to parliamentary approval of the proposed work, it is intended to call the first tenders for the work in early 1989. Construction is planned to commence in mid-1989 and be completed by early 1992. I table selected plans of the proposed work and I commend the motion to the House. Mr PORTER(Barker)(5.22) —The Opposition welcomes this motion for the referral to the Joint Committee on Public Works of further work to be undertaken at the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base at Tindal in the Northern Territory. We on this side of the House have long been concerned about the run-down in the capability of our defence forces, and this further upgrading of the Tindal RAAF base is a welcome step. It will assist our defence forces, improve their capability and provide much needed support facilities for the Air Force in the north of Australia. As the Minister for Administrative Services (Mr West) has outlined, this is the second stage of the development of the base. The first stage of the construction started three or four years ago and this is the next step in the process of developing a fully updated RAAF base in the northern sector of our vast country. The reference to the Public Works Committee is part of the normal process when works of this nature are to be undertaken. I exhort the Public Works Committee to look closely at the proposal to ensure that the taxpayers' dollars are spent wisely on this project. I reiterate that the Opposition fully supports this referral. Our defence spokesman, the honourable member for McPherson (Mr White), will also speak in support of the reference. Mr WHITE(McPherson)(5.25) —As the honourable member for Barker (Mr Porter) has said, the Opposition supports this proposal because it is very important that proper facilities be provided at Tindal. It will become an important base for the defence forces of this country. The problem is whether anyone will be left in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) to man it, in light of the enormous wastage from which that service is suffering at the moment and the fiasco of the $70,000 bonus which has been given in an attempt to keep personnel, which will not succeed. It is only causing more disruption. I know that the Department of Defence is taking this base seriously, as it should. To a large extent it is experimental. It is located in a very remote part of Australia. Most of our major bases-in fact, all of them, as far as I can remember-are near major towns. When a base such as this is located in the middle of Australia, near a very small town such as Katherine, enormous problems will arise. Special treatment and consideration will be required for the personnel that are asked to go there to live. If the Government does not give that special treatment, if it does not give some recognition to the difficulty of living there in certain circumstances, particularly in the summer, it will increase the problems that are already inherent in the Defence Force. One problem not addressed-it is a bad start-is that people were posted to Tindal before the married quarters and other accommodation were ready and the families had to be shuffled off to Darwin. Separations were necessary before the base even started. As I understand it, the RAAF has enough volunteers to go to Tindal at the moment. I think that is to be expected. It is a new base, the facilities are good and there is always an element of adventure in going somewhere new. The real test as the years go by will be how many people want to stay there. If the facilities provided are not kept up to scratch, if it becomes a place to be avoided, that will only increase the problems that the Services already have. Katherine is a small town with few facilities. The recreation facilities are very limited. Those who have children at school in, say, Canberra and going down the road for weekly violin lessons will be hard pressed to find a violin teacher in Katherine. These matters must be taken into account. The remoteness of the location means that extra leave must be given to members and transport must be provided for their families. The present ridiculous situation in which about 70 out of 70,000 members of the Defence Force are in receipt of an education allowance must be addressed because of the very limited educational facilities in the town. Transport to Darwin is absolutely imperative for single men, otherwise there will be too many accidents and deaths on the road as single members travel to and from Darwin for their recreation. The RAAF is aware of the problems. It is moving to meet them, but a single service cannot do much on its own without a great deal of support from the Government in the areas I have mentioned-extra leave, extra transport, education facilities, education allowances so that members can leave their children at the school they attend at present and so on. If the Government does not give that support and treats Tindal as just another posting in the middle of Australia, it will run into enormous problems; it will simply be asking for trouble. Worthy of mention also is the quality of the buildings and homes at Tindal. I have not been there for some months, but I understand that the finished product is very good indeed. One of the problems is that the Government is patting itself on the back and saying, `Look how well we have done at Tindal'. The point is that facilities for defence personnel throughout Australia should be of this standard. This should not be just a one-off, unique base. Facilities and standards of this sort should be provided throughout Australia. We very much hope that the standards that are now being provided at Tindal become the norm throughout Australia as quickly as possible. We support the reference of further work to the Joint Committee on Public Works. We very much hope that the Committee gives its approval as quickly as possible so that these facilities can be put in place for a very hard pressed RAAF to ensure that it gets the treatment and facilities it deserves. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed. Mr LEE(Dobell)(5.30) —The first speaker for the Opposition in this debate on the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill was the honourable member for Richmond (Mr Blunt). He began his contribution by saying that no area better demonstrated the confused decision making processes of the Government than media policy. The honourable member for Richmond has, as they say, more hide than the rear view of an elephant because anyone who has followed the newspapers in the last month knows that there has been a massive series of divisions, arguments and disputes on the Opposition side of politics on media policy. I will demonstrate that with two quotes. The first is from an article in the Australian Financial Review of 27 April this year. This is to remind the people of what was happening in the Opposition a little less than four weeks ago. The headline is `Howard victim of Opposition confusion on media policy'. The article states: The Federal Opposition's leadership problems are being exposed by the coalition's inconsistency and confusion over its media policy. Last night the leaders of the Liberal and National parties were still trying to find a way out of the mess the Opposition has got itself into over the television audience share issue. They were searching for a compromise that would be acceptable to the Opposition party room and would be seen to be a credible alternative to the Government's position. More than any other single issue, the media policy has exposed the conflict of ideas in the conservative parties and the inability of Mr Howard to draw together the different strands of opinion into a coherent and credible alternative to labor policy. That was a commentary by Mr Geoff Kitney in the Financial Review, demonstrating not that the Government has difficulties with its decision making processes on media policy but that the Opposition is split and divided. To emphasise that, I quote one more of the massive number of articles that have appeared concerning this matter. An article in the Canberra Times of 2 May 1988, headed `Skase says Howard had promised the Opposition's support', stated: The decision by the Opposition last week to oppose an increase in television audience reach to 75 per cent has resulted in a public squabble between the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard, and the owner of the Seven television network, Mr Christopher Skase. Mr Skase said on Network Ten's Business Sunday yesterday that Mr Howard had made it clear to him that the Government's proposal to increase television audience reach to 75 per cent would be endorsed by the Opposition. But Mr Howard denied that any assurance or indication had been given. Mr Skase said that his `people', the Government and many others had `received very clear indications' from both Mr Howard and the Opposition spokesman on communications, Senator Messner, that the Government policy would be endorsed. He agreed with the interviewer that Mr Howard had `happily promised him 100 per cent', and said Mr Howard had told him he had shadow Cabinet `absolutely under control'. He said the Opposition decision showed a degree of disunity in the Liberal Party and the shadow ministry. Mr Howard, Senator Messner and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Peacock, all supported the increase proposed by the Government, but were outvoted at a meeting of the shadow Cabinet. So we had the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard), the man he has designated as the shadow Minister for communications, Senator Messner, and I understand also the honourable member for Menzies (Mr N.A. Brown) and other members of the Opposition declaring themselves in favour of an increase in audience reach to 75 per cent. But the Leader of the Opposition and his supporters were rolled in the shadow Cabinet. There is not division on our side of politics; there are not any problems with our decision-making processes on media policy. The case is exactly the opposite to that alleged by the honourable member for Richmond. It is the Opposition which has trouble determining its media policy. I will leave it up to the Australian people to judge which side of Australian politics has the greatest difficulty in coming to terms with media policy. This Labor Government can be very proud of the changes in media policy it has introduced in the last year and a half. We have taken action to ensure that in future people will not be able to establish media empires that cover not only newspapers but also radio and television. We have sought to uncouple the media enterprises which have sought to set up monopolies in this sector of the Australian economy. The honourable member for Richmond went on to allege that this Government conducted its policy by giving its mates `a nod and a wink'. He suggested that our Government had introduced changes to media ownership simply to benefit a few people who are currently involved in the media industry. I remind those opposite that, as the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans) has announced, Mr Murdoch will be required to divest his 15 per cent share of Westfield Holdings Ltd, which share contravenes the cross-media rules this Government has introduced. I mentioned that it was this Government which said to Mr Murdoch that he could not continue to own the News Ltd newspaper empire and the Channel 10 television network, or the Channel 7 television stations in Melbourne and Adelaide which he purchased when he took over Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. It was this Government which said to Mr Murdoch and News Ltd that they had to choose between television and newspapers. We can be very proud of the fact that this Government took that very tough decision, and we will follow that through to ensure that Mr Murdoch divests himself of that 15 per cent share which currently contravenes the cross- media ownership limit. I remind the House that, even though the Opposition seeks to attack this Government from the flank and suggests that we have not done enough to create diversity in the media industry, the conservative parties formed government for 24 of the 27 years after commercial television started in Australia, from 1956 until they left office in 1983. What action did they take to encourage diversity in the media industry in Australia? They did nothing. They simply introduced a two-station ownership limit which ensured that the Fairfaxes, Packers and the Murdochs, who owned the Sydney and Melbourne commercial television stations, were able to dominate the entire Australian television industry. For the Opposition to suggest that our progressive changes in introducing the cross- media ownership limit help the media moguls is just ridiculous. It is this Government which has been prepared to say to people, `You have to choose whether you want to be involved in television, radio or newspapers. You cannot be active and play a major role in more than one of those three major areas of media ownership'. Let us remember the situation of only 18 months ago in Sydney. John Fairfax and Sons Ltd owned Channel 7 in Sydney, the Macquarie Broadcasting Network operated at that stage Radio 2GB, and in the newspaper area John Fairfax and Sons owned the Sydney Morning Herald group, the Sun newspaper, the Financial Review and the National Times. Obviously the Fairfax group had a strategic stranglehold on all areas of the media in Sydney. The Channel 9 television station was owned by Mr Packer and the Channel 10 television station was owned by News Ltd, which was in turn owned by Mr Murdoch. In addition, Mr Murdoch had involvement in newspapers through the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and the Australian. What is the position today after our Government has introduced the cross-media ownership rules? We do not have two players who have a stranglehold on newspapers and television in Sydney. In fact we have had an increase in the number of major players in the Sydney market from three to five. As far as television is concerned, we have the Quintex group involved in Channel 7, the Bond Corporation owning Channel 9 and Westfield owning Channel 10. None of those three major players in Sydney television have newspapers in Sydney. Instead we have Fairfax still owning the Sydney Morning Herald, though I am not sure whether the company still owns the Financial Review or other papers; it seems to have a decreasing number of newspapers each day. Mr Murdoch continues to own the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and the Australian in Sydney. As I say, we have three new players in television in Sydney and that certainly is an increase in diversity by anyone's measure. We also heard the honourable member for Richmond criticise the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) for allegedly riding roughshod over the Labor Party Cabinet and the Labor Party Caucus on the cross-media ownership rules. In the next breath he went on to condemn the Government for backing down to Caucus and reversing its decision to auction new radio licences. The Opposition cannot have it both ways. It cannot suggest that Cabinet is not allowing fair debate in Caucus and then criticise us if Caucus suggests to Cabinet that it modify a decision and the Cabinet agrees to the suggestions of people such as myself that it is not helpful to auction radio licences to the person who has the greatest amount of money. I am happy to say that the Government agreed, rather than to auction new licences, to allow the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal to continue to seek to find the group which would provide the best service to the local community. That is certainly a Cabinet reversal which I fully support. It is a pity that the Opposition is always attacking the Government but is not prepared to make positive suggestions and contributions. That has been amply demonstrated by the amendment that has been proposed by the honourable member for Richmond. It has no positive suggestions on media policy; it is simply an attempt, once again, to attack the Government. As the previous Government speaker in this debate, the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Charles), explained, the Opposition does have a difficulty with its current policy. It was this time last year that the National Party of Australia in the Senate moved that the maximum audience reach for television be 60 per cent of the national audience. In the chamber at the moment we have the honourable member for Menzies, who in his own party room, according to newspaper reports, strongly supported the Government's proposal to increase that audience reach to 75 per cent. Yet the majority view of the Opposition today appears to be that 60 per cent at the moment is acceptable. It would also accept a 100 per cent audience reach, but anything in between, such as 75 per cent, is simply out of bounds. The Opposition simply will not wear it. Having read reports that Donald Regan, a former employee of the President of the United States of America, believes that the Reagan presidency made decisions based on astrology, I suspect, since the Opposition views 60 and 100 as being good numbers and 75 as being a bad number, that it has launched a new study of numerology or some other vague means of determining policy on media issues. It is totally ridiculous for the Opposition to be suggesting that a 60 per cent and a 100 per cent audience reach is acceptable but that 75 per cent is a no go area. I am very proud of the fact that this legislation, to a large extent, completes the establishment of the cross-media ownership legislation. I believe that this will be one of the great reforms for which this Labor Government will be remembered for many years to come. Mr JULL(Fadden)(5.43) —Historians in years to come will look back over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and I am sure that in their wisdom they will decide that the two biggest bureaucratic bungles in the history of Australia were, firstly, the decisions of the States on different gauges for their railway lines and, secondly, the development of electronic communications in Australia. I do not think that that statement is too wild. Once again-and I do not know how many times we have done it in the past 12 months-we are debating further media policy after flips and changes from this Government. I admit that past administrations also have not undertaken the development of the electronic media especially well, but we just seem to be getting ourselves deeper and deeper into the mire to such an extent that everyone is now totally confused. They are so confused that even the Government at the moment is undertaking some eight or nine different inquiries into the electronic media. I would have thought that by now the whole policy would have settled down. While I have the utmost respect for the honourable member for Dobell (Mr Lee) I was interested in his final statement that this piece of legislation went a long way towards completing the Government's program for the rationalisation of the electronic media. I am afraid that I cannot agree with him because we have only just begun to unscramble one devil of a mess that Australia has got itself into. The real losers in this area are the public of Australia. Members of the public in Australia at the moment are 20 years behind the times in terms of the delivery of electronic media services. I do not think any of us in this House has anything to be particularly proud of in that regard. It is true that the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill primarily deals with cross-ownership of radio and some of the new rules that are coming into place to govern the long lost relative of the electronic media, radio. If we go back over history we will see that Australian radio has certainly been a world leader. In those early days the development of drama and live broadcasting of orchestras on Australian radio was very much in the forefront. From the early days of the 1920s through to the advent of FM radio we had a great deal to be proud of. We were world leaders. But since the advent of the Labor Government in the early 1970s and the decision then to introduce what is probably the most important aspect of radio-the use of the FM band-we have seen the whole thing go haywire. It seems absolutely crazy to me that here we are in 1988 still without a fully developed FM radio frequency. It must be 15 or 16 years since we had an investigation by the Department into the clearing of the FM band. That is still going on. When we speak to the engineering people in the industry they tell us that it is physically possible now, in all the capital cities of Australia, to put about another 20-plus stations on to the FM band, yet we procrastinate, we go on with these inquiries and we stop the development of radio. Established broadcasters on the AM band are finding it very difficult to make a profit. Selected stations on the FM band do have a licence to make money. For example, in my city of Brisbane the commercial FM radio station has something like 30 per cent of the audience but it is getting more than 33 1/3 per cent of the total commercial revenue, starving the other operations. The AM band operators want to go onto the FM frequency but they cannot because we are tied up with all these inquiries, with all this procrastination. I do not know what we have achieved today. We will open up the FM band in some of the regional centres, but the AM operators in the capital cities just do not know what will happen. One of the things that I hope this Government will do very soon is to start promoting the concept of the changeover of the existing operators onto the FM band because the FM band is really what it is all about. That is where we get the best transmissions. That is where we get the best receptions. That is where virtually every overseas country in the world is delivering its signals at the moment, but not in Australia. While in this legislation we are principally talking about commercial radio, let us not forget the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). What is being done to get the ABC stations onto the FM band? Not a thing. One might argue that ABC-FM is listened to by less than one per cent of the population. That is the problem. There are no big hooks to get those mass audiences over to FM because that frequency, so far I believe, has been squandered. The wrong type of licences were introduced onto that frequency in the days when Dr Moss Cass was the Minister. He used the radio frequency Act to issue licences. That is part of the point I was making. We have never had the capacity in this place to take the broad option, to look at the broad spectrum, to ensure that we deliver the best possible broadcasting quality and variety of programs that we possibly can to the people of Australia. I think that is a disgrace. We have heard from government speakers that the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal will, once this legislation is in place, go back to its original charter in monitoring some of these programs. There is a great deal of concern in the community about the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal and it does not apply only in the cases about which we have been talking today and in terms of the delays that are involved with the Tribunal. There is a great sense of community unrest about some of the Tribunal's activities. Within the context of this debate I wish to bring to the attention of the House the situation of 4FRB Family Radio in Brisbane, a non- denominational Christian radio station that has gone through no end of trouble. That radio station established itself in 1974 and incorpo- rated itself in 1975. In 1975 the then Minister, Dr Moss Cass, promised it a licence on the FM band. We know that there was a change of government. In 1978 applications were called for three special category licences. At that stage Family Radio was not successful in the Brisbane market. Not to be deterred, and on the basis of discussions it held with the then Department, it decided that there was an option for it. An ethnic broadcasting station in Brisbane had been issued with a licence and I think it is fairly well established that at that stage that station was having a great deal of difficulty staying on the air. So 4FRB decided that it would lease time from the ethnic station 4EB. From 1979 to this date, it has leased about 18 1/2 hours a week from that station at a cost of $54,000 a year. I must point out that the yearly turnover of the Family Radio company is well above the average of public broadcasters. I am very pleased to see that the honourable member for Menzies (Mr N.A. Brown) is in the chamber tonight because in 1982 he was Minister for Communications and he did the right thing. He promised that he would change the licence situation for Brisbane, but, of course, we know what happened with the 1983 election. Mr N.A. Brown —A black day. Mr JULL —It was a black day, certainly for the people of Family Radio in Brisbane. So there was a whole new ball game. Family Radio continued to press on with its leased time on 4EB until such time as it had a chance to apply once again, after all the confusion that went on with the issuing of licences, for another community class licence. The interesting thing is that that station claims-I have no reason to disbelieve it-that it was told by ministerial advisers on public broadcasting that they were not happy that that station had missed out on a licence and that it should apply for another licence because it `would probably be right next time'. The hearing in Brisbane is now over. The fascinating thing is that 4FRB was told after this latest licence hearing in Brisbane that its members were not fit and proper people to hold a broadcasting licence. Mr N.A. Brown —Why? Mr JULL —We are still trying to work out why they were thought not to be fit and proper people to hold a radio licence. The only thing that I can think of is that there is a connection between a community licence and what was described as the old S class licence. Let us never forget that Family Radio was told by ministerial advisers to this Government that it should go in and get a licence because it was a cert. That station has been in business since 1974. It had undertaken something like 18 test programs and the test programs were approved. It had spent money on a transmitter. In fact, in the grounds of a Bible college in Brisbane it has built studios which are up to scratch. Where does it go from here since it has been told by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal that members of Christian denominations are not fit and proper people to hold a broadcasting licence? That is typical of the attitude and the garbage that goes on behind the scenes in the electronic communications area. I hope that the Minister for Transport and Communications Support (Mr Peter Morris), who is at the table, will follow up the situation of Family Radio in Brisbane. I know that the station has supporters on the government side. The honourable member for Lilley (Mrs Darling) has gone in to bat on its behalf. I am sure that she will be prepared to go in with me on any further representations that might be needed to make sure that such a group is not told that its members are not fit and proper people to hold a licence. That is unbelievable, but it is typical of the very great difficulties facing Australians today in broadcasting, including the confusion on the awarding of new FM licences and the fact that the present AM operators in the metropolitan areas still do not know where they are going to go. Even though today's debate has centred principally on radio licences, still the old bogy of television ownership has come in. We must remember that the Opposition is perfectly clear on where we stand on that. We are prepared to go to 100 per cent ownership of present operators provided we get a go at the new technology. As I said a few minutes ago, the great difficulty in Australia at the moment is that we are 20 years behind the times in technology and we are not prepared to give the people of Australia the best possible options. We were not prepared, with the satellite, to make sure that we could beam over the whole of Australia. We sliced up bits of Australian territory and said, `They can have a bit of this, but other areas can't'. We were not prepared to put in pay television. People would accept the principle of pay television delivered in that manner. In the run-up to the 1983 election we on this side of the House had a policy that we would introduce cable television straightaway. Mr Deputy Speaker, do you know how long it would take to get cables into the cities of Australia if we were prepared to do the right thing by the Australian taxpayer and put the whole thing out to private enterprise? I am told, on great authority, that we could have the first signals going in nine months. Yet at the moment we have nothing. We have a moratorium until 1992 and people are being deprived of that service. The fibre-optics technology that is available at the moment could mean that the people of Australia and more than 900 television signals going into their lounge rooms. I am not suggesting that they would watch 900-odd different television programs-that would not be practical-but they would have a choice of entertainment programs. It would be an ideal opportunity to bring in all sorts of sports programs. We could have a university of the air and revolutionise education in this country. We could deliver all the technology services under the sun. Yet we are told that, even though we have waited all this time, we must have a moratorium until 1992. The Opposition says that that is not good enough. That is why an integral part of our policy says, `Sure, go to the 100 per cent ownership for the present networks, but bring in that new technology straight away'. It is just not true that the people of rural Australia would be deprived because we were providing cable television services only in metropolitan areas. Of course, it is true that probably it would not be worth while cabling some of the country towns of Australia. However, we have new satellites going up and some of the transponders on the three satellites that are up there at the moment are unused. We would have the capacity to deliver a great deal of that information and entertainment material throughout Australia. Why are we not using the satellites for telephone communications to the extent that we should? It is all part of this bungle that I mentioned when I began my speech tonight. The revolution in technology started to hit in the early 1970s. Here we are in 1988 and still we have not taken full advantage of all that is on offer. We have a long way to go and the world is fast leaving us behind. Why do we not forget many of the inquiries that are going on at the moment, inquiries that are almost irrelevant? Why do we not go to this new technology, bring Australia up to date, and make sure that Australians, in terms of both their entertainment and information, and Australian businesses have the capacity to hook into all this technology which would make us more productive? Why do we not ensure that Australian manufacturers have the capacity to get into this new technology, because that is one area in which we perform very well, and make the most of it? There are thousands of jobs going for Australians and there are lots of dollars to be made for Australian companies in that area. There are great benefits for the community of Australia if only we would grow up, forget the bureaucratic claptrap and bring ourselves into 1988-not 1968, where it would seem we are sitting at the moment. Debate (on motion by Mr Snow) adjourned. Sitting suspended from 6 to 7.30 p.m. Mr KEATING(Blaxland-Treasurer) —by leave-Madam Speaker, tonight I will announce to the people of Australia far reaching economic reforms that will take our nation into the 21st century. Once again, cutbacks in government spending are a key element of these changes, paving the way for a Budget surplus next financial year in excess of $3,000m. This surplus is the culmination of all the hard work done in reforming the tax system and cutting back the size of the public sector. As we make further progress in restructuring the Australian economy it will form the basis of genuine, `paid for' reductions in personal income tax. But this statement is about much more than our success in transforming the Budget. Tonight I am also announcing another comprehensive range of fundamental economic reforms. They rival anything this Government has undertaken before and easily surpass anything attempted by our predecessors. They include a huge cut in one stroke to the company tax rate, from 49c to 39c, putting Australian companies at the leading edge of world business. At the same time we will further close the net on companies that have been better at exploiting tax breaks than at earning real profits. The Government's landmark imputation system of company tax, which ended the double taxation of dividends, is to be extended to all Australian investors. The taxation of superannuation benefits is to be radically yet sympathetically changed, putting it on a more logical long term basis without reducing lump sum and pension entitlements. There are to be big cuts to industry protection through tariff reductions, which will lower costs and further encourage our manufacturers to look beyond Australia for market opportunities. Similarly, the high levels of government assistance provided to some pockets of primary industry will also be reduced. Public sector business enterprises are to be put on a more commercial footing and many day to day bureaucratic controls lifted. Madam Speaker, shortly I will provide more details on these reforms and my ministerial colleagues will explain them fully in supplementary statements. But at the outset I want to make it clear why they are necessary. This Government is committed to getting all aspects of the economy right. For obvious reasons, our economic policy has had to focus on the broad issues, like the Budget deficit and Australia's balance of payments problems. The float of the dollar, the elimination of the huge Budget deficits and the repair of the wage system had to be the founding elements of our strategy. But to develop and prosper in the long term we must harness these vast economy-wide changes and carry their benefits into the economic heart of the nation to where individual firms and businesses operate. That is, the impetus for change must be transmitted to managements and workers who make the crucial decisions about where and when to invest, and how to go about their work. If we cannot get these things right, we will never really get the big picture right. This is why the Government has adopted such a complete and comprehensive strategy; big brush economic changes reinforced by sweeping strokes going to the micro or industry level. What we have been after is a full picture-not something half finished. Government Spending Madam Speaker, I said at the outset that next financial year the Commonwealth Government will budget for a surplus in excess of $3,000m. In other words, we will be repaying debt, rather than adding to it. This is crucial to our future. Just as any individual might borrow money to get over a bad patch, the Australian nation has been borrowing heavily over the past decade. Now we have the opportunity, we must pay some of it back. If we do not, another commodity price collapse could cripple our economy. Government saving through surpluses helps our external accounts in three ways. First, it means the Commonwealth can repay some of its own foreign debt. Second, more private funds are available for investment in export and import competing industries without borrowing from abroad. And third, curbing government spending will help to hold down domestic demand and import growth while the new industrial capacity is given time to improve our trade balance. These are the reasons why the Commonwealth had to impose further substantial cuts in State grants and borrowings at the Premiers Conference two weeks ago. Madam Speaker, next financial year's strong Budget surplus will be underpinned by the third consecutive annual cut in real spending by the Commonwealth Government. This outcome, unprecedented in Australia, has not been matched by any other industrial country. In the 1988-89 Budget, real outlays are expected to fall by 1.5 per cent, adding to cuts totalling more than 3 per cent in the previous two years. As a result, Commonwealth outlays as a share of the Australian economy will have fallen from 30 per cent to less than 26 per cent in just three Budgets. Again, this cannot be matched by any major industrial country. This third consecutive reduction in real outlays has been made possible by gross spending cuts of more than $1,350m. These decisions include cuts to defence, roads, pharmaceuticals, fertiliser subsidies, payments to the States and other changes detailed in the supporting documents. Once again we have made spending changes which build in their impact in later years to deliver a fourth consecutive cut in real outlays in 1989-90. Taxation Madam Speaker, the tax reforms I am announcing tonight are as significant as those implemented by the Government in 1985. I remind you that, at that time, reforms like the fringe benefits tax, the capital gains tax and the abolition of business deductions for entertainment were the subject of much dispute. But this Government saw to it that those changes were successfully implemented. Now they are permanent features of the tax system, playing a proper role in funding lower tax rates and lower interest rates for all Australians. Tonight's changes represent a second major wave of reform. The Government is to cut the corporate tax rate in one step, from 49c to 39c, to give Australian companies a tax structure more than competitive with the rest of the world. The lower rate will first apply for the 1988-89 income year. In determining the appropriate company tax regime, the Government takes the view that, when a potential investment is examined, the overall return should govern the decision, not the availability or timing of tax concessions. Accordingly, the Government has decided to lower the company tax rate by removing some tax concessions. That is, lowering the company tax rate by broadening the company tax base. So instead of tax breaks only being available to select businesses, with others shouldering the burden, all companies will now enjoy a lower tax rate. In other words, a better and fairer company tax system. The largest tax concession to be reduced is the accelerated depreciation system which allows companies to write off equipment over three or five years, even if its actual life is much longer. In future, deductions will be based on the effective life of the equipment, but with the bonus of a 20 per cent loading to stimulate new investment in all areas. Thus the tax system will no longer misallocate scarce national resources into projects which are tax driven by an artificial depreciation rate. From 1 July 1991 the special 150 per cent deduction for research and development expenditure will be reduced to 100 per cent and the management and investment company scheme will be discontinued. The unique position of gold mining as the only industry in Australia which does not pay income tax cannot be justified. In fully honouring the Government's 1987 commitments, that exemption will end from 1 January 1991 at an annual on-going saving to the Revenue of $300m per annum. Reflecting the reduction in the company tax rate, tax concessions currently available to life offices will also be removed. The concessional tax rate applying to friendly societies will be increased from 20 to 30 per cent. Our landmark dividend imputation system of company tax credits is also to be extended to those institutions. Concessions available to the livestock producing industries will be reduced, but to assist primary producers subject to erratic fluctuations in incomes, the tax link to income equalisation deposits is to be re-established from 1 July 1989. The existing 10BA film tax concession is to be replaced with a more effective, less costly and more visible Budget outlay administered by a Film Finance Corporation. Funding of $70m is to be provided in 1988-89. Tonight's statement also provides for assistance to employee share schemes. This will facilitate the legitimate interest of employees in getting a stake in the companies they work for. A range of measures is to be taken to prevent unjustified tax minimisation. These include the requirement that private companies pay tax on dividends where no company tax has been paid. The inter-corporate dividend rebate is also to be denied to dividends paid by tax exempt authorities, thereby closing off an opportunity for State governments to indulge in tax minimisation schemes. The standard rate of deduction under the prescribed payments system is to rise from 15 to 20 per cent to clamp down on evasion. Madam Speaker, like most individual Australians, the great majority of our corporate citizens are honest taxpayers. But this Government will not tolerate any action by companies which rip off the rest of the community. To that end, the Australian Taxation Office is to be provided with more resources to investigate complex corporate tax affairs. The Commissioner of Taxation believes that these measures could return upwards of $800m over the next five years. At the same time we will crack down on the use of international tax havens. A much more rigorous tax system is to be applied from 1 July 1989 to companies and individuals who use any of up to 60 designated overseas tax havens-that is, places like Bermuda, Monaco and the Cayman Islands. But at the same time we are providing a substantial benefit for genuine trading companies with the ambition to seek out new markets and opportunities abroad. Slicing 10c from the company tax rate enables a substantial modification of the foreign tax credit system. From July 1989, dividends received by Australian companies from non tax haven countries will be exempt from Australian company tax. The Tax Office has been given the go-ahead to develop a system for making greater use of tax file numbers in its normal administration, the same as it does now for the prescribed payments system. There will be no identity card and at no time will people be required to produce a tax file number as a form of personal identification. The only purpose of the file number will be to make it easier for the Tax Office to match information it receives about money earned and interest payments. This system is for the exclusive and limited use of the Tax Office-it will simply allow the better use of information the Tax Office already receives. Personal Tax Cuts Madam Speaker, as I indicated at the outset, the Government is committed to providing all Australians with personal income tax cuts in 1989-90. However, for the immediate future the full force of the nation's fiscal resources must be devoted to keeping domestic demand in check and dealing with our external debt problem. This task has been made all the more urgent by the recent evidence that demand has been running too strongly. Australia has made huge strides in recent years in cutting back our balance of payments deficit. After all this hard work, the very last thing we can afford now is to let excessive demand cause imports to run away from us. On top of that, the legacy of the massive commodity price collapse we have endured is an external debt burden which is far too big. Next financial year the Government must use its budget surplus to help prevent that debt burden mounting. To do otherwise would be to neglect our responsibilities to the nation. That is why personal income tax cuts cannot responsibly be afforded until 1989-90. It should also be understood that with company tax lagging income by one year, the company tax cuts I announced tonight will not impact on the Commonwealth's budget until July 1989. In other words, the personal and company tax cuts will be paid from the Budget in the same financial year. Until then revenue from both companies and personal income taxpayers must be devoted to combating our trade problem. Madam Speaker, a firm budget policy is only part of the answer to our balance of payments problem. Our overriding objective must also be to keep wages growth as close as possible to our trading partners so that we remain competitive on world markets. After the hard work and sacrifice of recent years, and with inflation now heading towards 5 per cent or lower, this objective is consistent with the overall maintenance of real wages in 1988-89. The personal tax cuts we have foreshadowed will provide Australia with a unique opportunity to bring our wages growth further into line with our trading partners. However, the size and timing of those tax cuts will depend upon the size and timing of future wage rises. That is, the Government is prepared to give substantial tax cuts provided there is an acceptable wages outcome in 1988-89 and an appropriate wages/tax trade-off in 1989-90. The Government will stress this point in its discussions with the Australian Council of Trade Unions over the next 12 months. I am confident that an acceptable basis can be established for a sustainable rise in real after tax incomes. Superannuation and Retirement Incomes Madam Speaker, this Government is the first since Federation to recognise the right of all Australian workers to superannuation. When we came to office in 1983, only four employees in 10 received any form of superannuation benefit. By the end of this parliamentary term that level of coverage will have doubled due to our support for superannuation, and particularly for its spread through industry based schemes. We are totally committed to superannuation having a special and secure place in the Australian savings and retirement income system. It will continue to be supported by generous tax concessions. Tonight's announcements will enhance the integrity of the superannuation system without disturbing the end-benefits of contributors, other than those on exceptionally high incomes. In other words, the value of existing and future lump sums and pensions will not be reduced by these changes. The particular problem we are addressing is the exclusion of superannuation funds from receiving tax credits under the dividend imputation system of company tax. This means that they cannot fully share in the profits of Australia's major corporations. It also means that our public companies are denied the full investment support of our superannuation funds and their many contributors. This distortion has the harmful side effect of encouraging elaborate tax minimisation schemes. The Government has therefore decided to bring superannuation funds within the full ambit of the imputation system, giving them access to dividend tax credits. To achieve this a tax of 15 per cent will apply to fund earnings. But this 15 per cent tax can be neutralised or offset by the receipt of dividend tax credits. For most superannuation funds this will mean in practice no tax at all on investment earnings. For others the rate will be minimal, and can readily be adjusted to zero by including more Australian company shares in their investment portfolios. This will ensure no detriment to any lump sum or pension end-benefit. The second measure which I am announcing tonight shifts the timing of the taxation of employer contributions for superannuation. Under the current arrangements, tax is paid by the employee on such benefits when they are taken out of a fund. The new system will mean that the tax is paid instead by the fund itself as contributions are made by employers. This change will not reduce the related end-benefits but will align the structure of superannuation taxation with other forms of savings. For most fund members, the lump-sum tax will be abolished completely. It also has the effect of bringing forward revenue to the Government that would otherwise have been collected many years in the future. That is, it will allow the Government to bring forward nearly $1 billion of its own tax money-now lying in superannuation funds-without diminishing any personal end-benefit by one cent. This money will contribute towards funding the personal tax cuts which we will make next year. As a further encouragement for people to provide for their retirement, the limit on tax deductions for contributions to small business and related superannuation funds will be doubled to $3,000 a year. Finally, we have acted to prevent these generous tax concessions being exploited by the very well-off through massive end-benefits. This tightening of the maximum benefit limits will diminish the tax advantages of excessive benefits for people on very high incomes. It will make the whole system more progressive. Together these changes complete the Government's review of superannuation tax arrangements. People can therefore plan for their retirement with complete certainty and confidence. Pensioners Madam Speaker, during the last five years this Government has increased the real value of the pension by more than eight per cent and increased the amount pensioners can earn without losing part of their benefit. They will be further assisted by our decision to increase the pensioner tax rebate from $250 a year to $430. This means a single pensioner will now be able to earn over $10 per week free of tax, compared with $3.70 per week previously. Further, in a new measure, any pensioner in receipt of any part of the pensioner tax rebate will be exempt from paying provisional tax. These changes will release 255,000 pensioners from provisional taxation. Structural Reform Madam Speaker, I described earlier how our economic reforms must extend to every business and workplace in the economy. In the past many of the so-called industry assistance arrangements introduced by successive governments have been anything but of assistance. Their legacy is a less flexible economy, too reliant on protection and regulation. The way forward for Australia is not to be closeted and sheltered, but to be open and dynamic, trading aggressively in the world. Only this kind of economy can provide the employment and rising living standards that Australians aspire to. This is the very point of the measures contained in this economic statement. Accordingly, the Government will peel away more of this protection. From 1 July tariffs in excess of 15 per cent will be progressively reduced to that level, while tariffs between 10 and 15 per cent will be reduced to 10 per cent. The changes will be phased in over a four year period. They are equivalent to a cut of around 20 per cent in average protection levels in manufacturing industry. The Government will be monitoring the impact of these measures, but I am confident that this gradual change can be absorbed without major disruption. Substantial reductions under the passenger motor vehicle plan have already been announced and further adjustments will be made to accelerate the textiles, clothing and footwear plan. The Government will also remove the two per cent revenue duty on imports, saving industry and consumers $240m a year. Madam Speaker, it is well known that our primary producers as a group do not receive nearly the same level of assistance as some of our manufacturers, but there are a few exceptions. Existing schemes which artificially prop up the domestic prices of farm products such as butter, sugar, tobacco and some fruit are to be phased down. Consumers stand to benefit by up to $100m per annum when these changes are fully implemented. Competition in grain storage and transport is also to be increased. Some of the gains from reducing primary industry assistance are to be directed to funding for crucial soil conservation and disease eradication programs. The Government has also taken major steps to reform its business enterprises and to put them on a more commercial and economic footing. Enterprises such as Qantas Airways Ltd, Australian Airlines, Telecom Australia and Australia Post have a key role to play in the development of this nation and it is absolutely essential that their performance be guided by commercial considerations. To this end they will be freed of many of their present day to day bureaucratic controls. They will be held more accountable for their own performance and their managements will be required to measure up. More competitive pressure will also be applied to the operations of Telecom and the Overseas Telecommunications Commission to provide better and cheaper services to business and consumers. Conclusion Madam Speaker, the measures I have just outlined represent another milestone in the transformation of the Australian economy and another chapter in the proud economic history of this Government. No Australian government has ever presented such a comprehensive program of change in a single package. Spending cuts to deliver the largest budget surplus in our history. Tax changes to put our companies at the cutting edge of world commerce. Changes to industry protection to promote competitiveness and efficiency. And, at the same time, setting the stage for major personal tax cuts without diminishing the essential programs which provide much of the fairness in our society. Madam Speaker, these policies are designed to further free up the dynamic forces within this economy, forces which if properly directed and harnessed will power our economy towards the 21st century. It is this strength which will sustain the aspirations of our people and secure their future. I commend the statement to the House. I present a copy of my economic statement together with the following related papers on reform of the taxation system: The 1988 business tax reform Taxation of foreign source income-a consultative document Reform of the taxation of superannuation. I move: That the House take note of the following papers: Economic statement, May 1988-Statement Related papers on reform of the taxation system-reform of the taxation of superannuation, taxation of foreign source income: a consultative document, the 1988 business tax reform. Motion (by Mr Beazley)-by leave-agreed to: That so much of Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition speaking for a period not exceeding 26 minutes when the debate is resumed. Debate (on motion by Mr Howard) adjourned. Mr Tuckey-Madam Speaker, on a point of order: a document has been distributed to honourable members advising them that only one copy of the associated financial statements will be made available to each member. That means, I presume, that we can have the choice of having them in our parliamentary or our electorate offices, and I think honourable members on the opposite side should be interested in this. We are also then told: Members are also advised that Treasury will be forwarding bulk copies of an associated document, a guide to the reform of the taxation of superannuation, to member's electorate offices at the earliest opportunity. This guide will not be tabled in the House. It is suggested, presumably, that these documents will be government propaganda that members must distribute. Is that to be the situation, Madam Speaker, or are we to get the proper accommodation from the Government in this area as members of this Parliament? Madam SPEAKER —To the best of my knowledge, one copy will be distributed to each member of the House. Mr DAWKINS(Fremantle-Minister for Employment, Education and Training) —For the information of the House I present a paper entitled The Changing Workforce. The paper accompanies the May economic statement of the Treasurer (Mr Keating). Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr KERIN(Werriwa-Minister for Primary Industries and Energy) —For the information of honourable members, I present the report of the Industry Development Review entitled Primary Industries and Resources-Policies for Growth. Madam Speaker, I seek leave to make a statement on the report. Leave granted. Mr KERIN —The creation of the Department of Primary Industries and Energy last year has provided a very timely opportunity to re-assess and re-align, where necessary, the policies and patterns of assistance to the primary industries and resources sector. But the review itself does more than that. It also recognises the linkages within the economy. In particular, it recognises that economic activity and government policy in one area spread through the economy and affect the cost, the outlook and the performance of others. By doing so, it forms an important element in the Government's achievement of bringing a total perspective to its micro-economic reforms. As evident in the report tabled tonight, my review encompasses not only policies and expenditure programs, but also relevant tax measures, the effect of protection within the sector and within manufacturing, and the dependence of the sector on transport and infrastructure industries. Before outlining the results of the review, let me say that our rural and mining sectors are already very efficient industries. In the face of the prolonged and continuing decline in the terms of trade, not to mention the collapse of commodity prices, they have continued to play a crucial role in maintaining our economic well-being. Although there are still problems in cropping industries and the coal industry, by and large the primary industries and resources sector are showing signs of recovery and parts of it are thriving. This augurs well for our ability to overcome national economic problems. But we cannot assume that the revival in commodity prices alone will solve our economic problems. We must continue to improve our efficiency and thereby our trade competitiveness. As my colleague the Treasurer (Mr Keating) has described, the Government will introduce a range of measures to improve further resources allocation and efficiently across the economy. These include phased reductions in industry assistance levels with a shift in emphasis away from border protection towards positive assistance to promote competitiveness and structural adjustment. They also include further improvements in the efficiency and neutrality of the tax system. The reforms, together with those contained in the Industry Development Review, will enable our traded goods sector, including agricultural and resource industries, to become even more efficient and to compete more effectively in an internationally competitive environment. The Industry Development Review therefore reflects, at a sectoral level, the longer term objectives which are central to the Government's overall micro-economic policy reforms. But of course achieving these objectives is only a means to an end. The Government's fundamental goals are greater and more equal opportunity, substantial improvements in living standards, an enhanced quality of life for the nation as a whole and care for our environment. In seeking greater industry efficiency and competitiveness we are seeking a better standard of living for all. Our long term objectives can be grouped into three categories: enhancing productive capacity; developing a more responsive industry structure; and influencing and responding to the external environment. Fundamental to enhancing our productive capacity is the protection of our natural resource base. The Government aims to manage our natural resources in a way that allows conservation together with sustainable development. We will provide funding of more than $47m over the next three years for soil conservation and salinity mitigation within a co-ordinated natural resource management policy that will also include water management and reafforestation. A national resource information centre will be established to ensure that an adequate knowledge base on the extent, status and nature of our natural, mineral and energy resources is developed. Just as important is the development of our human resources. Additional funds will be provided to develop rural education and training initiatives and to improve the access of rural and remote communities to these services. Over $1m will be spent to make non-metropolitan Australians as aware as their urban counterparts of government services and programs. Rural counselling and rural women's access grants will continue to improve the provision of information and advice. Research and development will be given even higher priority than before. An additional $10m in all will be spent in coming years on research into alternative transport fuels and on renewable energy and conservation projects. Both government and industry contributions to rural research will be increased towards the funding goal for each of 0.5 per cent of gross value of production in agricultural industries. A further aspect of the protection of our resources is the spending of $33m as the Government's share to see the brucellosis and tuberculosis eradication program through to completion. We will seek industry support for a jointly funded exotic disease preparedness program. Quarantine policies will be reformed in the light of the Lindsay report. Developing a more responsive industry structure-my second set of objectives-is critical to improving our national economic performance. Specific action has been taken to encourage more responsiveness in a number of primary industries which have been more highly assisted than both other primary industries and industries in other sectors. This matches the action taken to reduce tariffs in the manufacturing sector. It is part of a fundamental shift towards a lower and more uniform pattern of industry assistance. Supplementary market support for milk will be reduced. The butter and butter oil levy rates will be phased out by 1 July 1989. The present specific duty rate on tobacco leaf imports will be converted to an ad valorem tariff of 25 per cent and reduced to 15 per cent by 1 July 1992. The sugar embargo will be replaced by an ad valorem tariff of 25 per cent on refined sugar and 35 per cent on raw sugar which will be reduced to 15 per cent by 1 July 1992. Tariffs on citrus and dried vine fruit will be phased down to 15 per cent by 1 July 1992. These assistance reductions, together with those in other sectors, will benefit consumers and industries which use those goods as inputs. It is estimated that the reductions in manufacturing industry protection will increase returns in the agricultural sector by about $350m and by about the same amount in the mining and minerals processing sector. To further reduce costs on input prices the Government is disposed to grant duty-free entry on agricultural and mining equipment and parts not made in Australia. It will finalise its decision after the Industries Assistance Commission completes its report on this issue on 30 June 1988. While every effort is made to minimise input prices, it is inconsistent with our broad economic approach to do this through subsidies which distort a range of investment and production decisions. The agricultural fertiliser subsidies will therefore be abolished on 30 June 1988. The pricing of liquefied petroleum gas is now being reviewed and a decision is expected to be taken in July this year. The agricultural price underwriting schemes for certain commodities can delay adjustment to market changes at considerable cost. Existing schemes will be reformed to ensure that the underwritten price deals only with extraordinary downwards price movements and that the industry concerned assumes increasing responsibility for meeting the costs of reducing price uncertainty. The net effect of all these changes will be primary industries which are considerably more responsive to market changes. As well as the benefits this will generate for these industries themselves, enhanced price responsiveness will open up a whole range of new opportunities throughout the economy. New activities and new investments will appear where previously they were not worth while. This is likely to generate new opportunities in value adding to our primary commodities in particular, thereby improving the links between the primary industry and manufacturing sectors. A tax linked income equalisation deposits scheme will be introduced from 1 July 1989. This subsidy is to encourage farmers to provide for income fluctuations. Implicit in these initiatives is considerable change. The Government is sensitive to the costs associated with change and is acting to ensure that the burden of change does not become unduly high for those who are most affected. A chief device for both encouraging change and ensuring that its cost is shared equitably in agriculture is the rural adjustment scheme (RAS). The RAS will be reformed to improve its effectiveness in structural adjustment. Its objectives will be more precisely defined and the range of policy instrument available will be widened. Further, increased funding will be provided for RAS, including means tested rehabilitation grants of up to $28,000 to farmers leaving agriculture. Similarly, action is being taken to assist the coal industry, which presently is also subject to very considerable adjustment pressures. $20m is being provided on a dollar for dollar basis with the New South Wales Government for reduced coal freight rates to assist in bringing forward rail freight reductions in the coal industry. Retaining and re-establishment grants are being provided for retrenched coal miners under the relocation assistance scheme and the labour adjustment training arrangements. A long term coal industry strategy announced on 5 May 1988 includes strengthened administration of export controls, contributions to coal promotion and establishment of an Australian Coal Industry Development Council. My final set of objectives relates to the external marketing and trading environment. We will continue our efforts to bring home to overseas countries the damage their domestic policies do to us and to themselves when they subsidise their industries and limit market access. Australia has a high profile in world forums-partly but not only through its prominent role in the Cairns Group of agricultural fair traders. A successful outcome to the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations is vital to the continued growth and prosperity of the world economy. For this to occur it will be necessary for all participants to be prepared to review and reform their domestic industry policies. In implementing the measures I have just outlined, Australia will show its bona fides in the negotiations. Early results from the negotiations can be achieved in December this year if sufficient will exists. The measures we will implement will be a significant contribution to the agricultural liberalisation package which we wish to see agreed to in December this year. To provide positive assistance, the Government will fund a $5m series of courses in international primary industry marketing skills and introduce a coal marketing program. Wool promotion funding will continue but at a reduced level of $25m over each of the next three years. The Government also contributes to our marketing effort through its provision of export inspection services. Since industry is the main beneficiary of these services, the Government will reduce its contribution from 50 per cent to 40 per cent. At the same time, however, it is improving efficiency and reducing costs through initiatives such as fee for service charging and approved quality assurance arrangements. Perhaps most importantly, the Government believes that industries' marketing and export efforts will be improved by the development of more dynamic and outward looking attitudes within those industries themselves. The Government will work in partnership with industry, determined to be lean and flexible, to be ready for future opportunities as they arise and to contribute more than ever to the welfare of all Australians. I present the following paper: Industry Development Review-Ministerial statement, 25 May 1988. Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business) —by leave-Earlier this evening the Treasurer (Mr Keating) announced as part of a comprehensive program of micro-economic reforms a number of changes affecting industry, including a phased program of tariff reductions. The decisions announced tonight follow the strategy adopted by this Government since 1983. This strategy has been directed at developing an internationally competitive, export oriented industrial structure through attitudinal change in industry and the community, revitalisation of mature industries and creating the conditions conducive to the growth of new industries. In 1983 we inherited a weak manufacturing sector. Many of Australia's largest industries were sacking workers and reducing output. Years of sheltering behind protective barriers had taken their toll on the productivity and dynamism of Australian industry. This, combined with an overvalued exchange rate, had led to a dramatic slump in manufacturing output and employment in the early 1980s. In addition, Australia's performance in the newer high technology sectors was well below that of comparable countries. Other economies were adapting their industrial structures and supporting infrastructure to the realities of new products and activities while Australia was lagging behind. The tasks confronting the Government were threefold. First, the environment within which industry operated needed to be improved. Secondly, the Government needed to take action to improve the performance of our existing industries to arrest Australia's industrial decline. Thirdly, the Government needed to set a framework for the growth of more efficient and vital industry in the longer term. The Treasurer has outlined the macro- economic achievements of this Government. These have been a prerequisite for improved industry performance. Industry competitiveness has also been improved by regulatory reform, including the deregulation of the financial sector. In relation to the second aspect, industry plans were formulated for the steel, passenger motor vehicles, shipbuilding, heavy engineering, and the textiles, clothing and footwear industries. They are transitional mechanisms through which critical problems specific to these sectors are addressed. They provide a stable environment to allow revitalisation and restructuring to take place. An important component is the phased reduction in Government support, particularly through reductions in tariffs, and greater concentration on the underlying determinants of competitiveness. These plans have been successful. For example, in the steel industry, investment over the life of the plan has exceeded $1.5 billion, well above the $800m originally planned by the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd (BHP). BHP is now one of the lowest cost producers of primary steel in the world, and is well placed to capitalise on Australia's natural resources. Last month I outlined the enormous progress that has been made under the passenger motor vehicle plan. This progress made possible the removal of quotas and significant further reductions in protection accorded this industry. Individual reviews were also conducted into assistance arrangements for many other industry sectors. These included chemicals and plastics, pulp, paper and paper products, glass and glassware, medical and scientific equipment, computer hardware and software and communications equipment. One result of this process of review was the `tops down' reduction of protective barriers, through phased tariff reductions, to tariff rate ceilings of 15 per cent. Anomalies and distortions in assistance arrangements were also removed. The decisions announced tonight extend these established principles to those industries which were due for review in the near future. Having put in place a consistent and phased approach to tariff reductions industry was better able to concentrate on areas vital to the building of long term international competitive advantage. These areas include quality, design, marketing, and research and development. There has been a fundamental change in industry approach away from government assistance towards firms themselves addressing those factors so crucial to their success. Government policy has also concentrated on providing the conditions within which Australian industries generally can prosper and tap into the fastest growing areas of world activity. To this end initiatives aimed at improving research and development and industrial innovation, upgrading the internal efficiency of firms, increasing the availability of development finance and venture capital, strengthening international collaboration and cooperation and promoting our products in the international marketplace have been introduced. One aspect of our policies to link Australian industry into the world economy is the civil offsets program. This program has undergone significant changes in scope and direction in recent years. The emphasis is now progressively shifting from the short term and fragmented approach of the past towards an approach based on long term collaborative opportunities by linking local and transnational companies. Offsets are now seen as a potent industry policy mechanism capable of catalysing export oriented, competitive, high technology industrial activity where opportunities had previously existed but remained dormant. Following the review of government business enterprises (GBEs) it has been decided that offsets will continue to apply to Qantas purchases. In respect of purchases by other airlines the continued application of the policy will be reviewed. For other GBEs the continued application of the offsets policy to those aspects of their activities which directly compete with the private sector also will be reviewed. In addition, the Government has harnessed our considerable technological, research, education and training resources to the task of creating a world class manufacturing sector. Government funded research institutions, and particularly the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, are providing a better environment for commercial innovation and are seeking linkages with industry. All these initiatives have been designed to build on areas of underlying competitive strengths and have been framed to encourage innovation and self-reliance within industry. Programs generally are designed to operate for set periods of time to avoid the risk of replacing one form of dependency by another. In developing its policies the Government has fostered a greater dialogue and recognition of mutual goals between the Government, industry and the unions. The Australian Manufacturing Council (AMC) has been an important component of this dialogue. The Government has recently reviewed the AMC and the industry councils, and has decided to retain the industry councils system but with a reduced number of councils and more effective structure. This will enable the councils to continue with their work and will provide them with the flexibility and capacity to deal with the major issues concerning industry. The Government's policies have achieved significant success. For example, manufacturing output has grown steadily since 1983 and, most significantly, total employment in manufacturing has increased over this period. This reverses a long term decline in manufacturing employment. Our balance of payments difficulties highlighted the need for our manufacturing and traded services industries to make a greater contribution if our standards of living were to be maintained into the future. Under our policies manufacturing has responded. The value of exports of elaborately transformed manufactures has more than doubled since 1982-83. The success of the research and development programs is already manifest. In the early 1980s Australian industry's research and development performance was little short of abysmal. However, the latest information shows that research and development in Australian business in 1986-87 exceeded $1 billion and has increased in real terms by 85 per cent over the level of 1981-82. Business research and development as a percentage of gross domestic product has risen from 0.24 per cent to 0.42 per cent. That is still too low, but the trend line is rising. Despite this success more needs to be done to link our industry firmly into the world economy. The depreciation of the Australian dollar provided industry with a large boost to its competitiveness and has provided a springboard for many firms to enter the international market. Some people had argued for an immediate cut in protection following the depreciation. The Government, though, was concerned to allow industry time to reassess opportunities in the light of this new outlook and to build up productive capacity. It is now appropriate that we increase the pace of tariff reductions, but in a manner consistent with our past policies and in a way that will provide a predictable and stable environment into the future. Mr Hunt —Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but when do we get copies of speeches and papers? It is the first time I can ever remember copies of a Minister's speech not being available in the House. I have sat here hoping I might get a copy of it, and I think it is disgraceful that copies are not available. I do not know whether it is the Minister's fault or a fault of the system, but it is a fault that must be rectified. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) -The Chair was unaware that the speech had not been circulated. No doubt copies will be made available. Mr BARRY JONES —I only received a copy of the document myself very late in the proceedings. I will try to ensure that at the very least material is available tomorrow. I appreciate the inconvenience. Mr Fife —Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a further point of order. I hope I did not misunderstand the Minister but he indicated that he only received a copy of the document just prior to delivering it. Is it his speech? Mr BARRY JONES —It is the speech that Senator Button is delivering probably at this very moment in the Senate. It was important, particularly as this is a broadcast night, to get the information out as quickly as we could. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The Minister might proceed with the statement. Information has been provided that copies of the statement will be made available as soon as practicable. Mr BARRY JONES —This will ensure that we lock in the gains in competitiveness flowing from the depreciation. In addition we have taken other decisions to improve the environment within which industry operates. Industry Assistance Generally, tariff rates above 15 per cent are to be reduced to 15 per cent in five equal steps over the next four years. The first reduction will take place on 1 July 1988, and subsequent cuts will take effect on 1 July 1989, 1 July 1990, 1 July 1991 and 1 July 1992. Tariffs currently greater than 10 but not greater than 15 per cent will be reduced to 10 per cent over the same period. These changes will not affect tariff arrangements in the passenger motor vehicle industry, where the Government has recently announced substantially reduced protection, or in the chemicals and plastics industry. In this industry tariffs are phasing to a ceiling of 15 per cent and changes now would re-create the anomalies corrected by the Government in its recent decision on assistance for that industry. The decision will not affect items which are currently phasing to 15 per cent or below. This covers the bulk of items in the pulp, paper and printing, medical and scientific equipment, and glass and glassware industries. Items in the communications industry, which are currently phasing to 20 per cent, will not now reach 15 per cent over the four-year program. In the textiles, clothing and footwear (TCF) area, the Government announced a new plan for these industries in June 1987. The plan was developed in close consultation with industry and unions and is to commence fully in March 1989. The TCF industries, however, will benefit from general reductions in industry assistance and from the broader economic reforms outlined by the Treasurer. Accordingly, the TCF industries have been included in the ambit of the general reductions in assistance. The adjustments to the TCF plan have been made within the context of the plan. The changes reflect the benefits to the sector accruing from assistance and economic reform and help maintain the relativities in industry assistance between the TCF industries and manufacturing industry generally. The main changes are: a reduction of 5 percentage points for most of the higher tariff rates set for the new plan; a shortening of the new TCF plan so that it concludes on 30 June 1995; and no changes to the textile bounty arrangements except for the bounty on certain continuous filament yarn manufacture and for textile printing. In making these changes, the Government was particularly mindful of the previous agreement it had reached with industry and unions, and sought to maintain the spirit of those deliberations. The Government maintains its strong commitment to support the restructuring and revitalisation of the TCF industries. For its part the Government continues to stand by its assurances on the industry development strategy, the labour adjustment mechanisms and the safety net features of the new plan. The TCF Development Authority has been established to implement these programs and it will commence operations formally from 1 June. A `tops down' approach has been adopted to general tariff reductions consistent with changes over the past few years. This approach is preferable to across the board options as it targets the most heavily protected industries and therefore reduces disparities in assistance between industries. This decision speeds up the existing tariff review process and provides a predictable environment into the future. It is consistent with the Government's sustained efforts to reduce industry's reliance on inward looking barrier protection, and to create internationally competitive industries. As a result of the program, foreshadowed Industries Assistance Commission (IAC) inquiries into industries such as the fabricated metals, industrial machinery and whitegoods industries will not now be necessary for tariff review purposes. The IAC reports on mining, construction and agricultural equipment and precious metals, gems and jewellery are due to be considered by the Government. Because these industries will be affected by the general reductions in tariffs no additional action will be taken on tariff aspects of these reports. The Government is, however, disposed to extend concessional entry to certain items of mining, construction and agricultural equipment not manufactured in Australia, when the IAC report on these goods is considered. Apart from the bounties on fertilisers, which are referred to in the statement by the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin), and on TCF, manufacturing bounty arrangements will not be altered. Generally these bounties provide relatively low levels of assistance and expire before the end of the tariff reduction program. In addition bounties were reduced by 20 per cent in the 1986 Budget. Any extension to existing bounties will require an IAC inquiry, and at that time the tariff changes will be taken into account. The current inquiry into the shipbuilding industry, which is assisted by bounties, will continue and the Government will make a decision on future arrangements for that industry once the IAC report has been received. Similarly, the inquiry by the Steel Industry Authority into the steel industry will continue and decisions on that industry made upon receipt of the report. The 2 per cent revenue duty, which imposed a large cost on industry, will be abolished on 1 July 1988. Over 80 per cent of the duty was paid on intermediate or capital goods and was therefore a direct tax on production in Australia, handicapping our manufacturers facing international competition. The tax itself was not inconsiderable; revenue forgone by this decision is about $240m per annum. I am relieved to inform the House that Mafeking has been relieved and copies of the speech, eagerly awaited by a hushed and expectant House, are at the end of the table. Mr Hunt —Thank you. Mr BARRY JONES —We are a government that acts very quickly under stimulus. The abolition of the 2 per cent revenue duty and the reduction in tariffs will reduce input costs for many industries and make them more competitive on international markets. To further improve the competitiveness of Australian industry the Government has decided to simplify the duty drawback and by-law for export schemes and reduce their cost to users. By allowing relief from import duties on inputs into export production under these schemes, unwarranted costs will not be imposed on firms which compete in export markets. For similar reasons the Government will modify the commercial tariff concessions system (CTCS) to align more closely its operations with the Government's industry and technology policy objectives. Greater use will be made of the policy by-laws in those cases where the CTCS criteria are not met but strong grounds for concessional entry exist. Policy by-laws will, however, be granted only following formal consideration of the issues by the IAC. Last year the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) and Senator Button outlined new policies to encourage the development of the pharmaceutical industry. These proposals included the establishment of an independent authority to set prices for pharmaceutical products supplied under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. The Government has now agreed to the recommendation of the Authority as to how Australian industry activity and development should be taken into account in the setting of prices in order to encourage industry development. The guidelines are complex and the Government has recognised that the Authority will need to refine them in consultation with the industry and develop them in the light of experience. The details of the guidelines that the Authority will use are spelled out in a joint statement by Senator Button and the Minister for Community Services and Health. In recognition of the length of time that it has taken to develop these guidelines, the Government has decided to postpone the introduction of generic pricing arrangements until 1 December this year. These arrangements, which limit the price differential that can apply to alternate brands of the same drug to 20c, will generate some savings to partially offset the overall costs of the industry development initiatives. The Government has reviewed the export market development grants (EMDG) scheme and will introduce changes to increase the cost effectiveness of the program while maintaining support for exporters. These changes include an increase in threshold expenditures to $10,000, retention of the maximum grant rate of 70 per cent, reduction in the maximum grant which can be claimed from the present $200,000 for recipients of more than eight grants, introduction of a group of corporations test, a requirement that new claimants submit an export market plan and tightening of the export earnings test. Expenditure on export market development in relation to New Zealand will no longer be eligible for grants. The Government recognises the need for continued progress in developing the export orientation of Australian firms. There is scope for Austrade to enhance its role as a catalyst for export development, by supporting innovative undertakings, and with this in mind an additional $5m will be made available in each of the next two years for new discretionary export market development activities. This fund will be administered by Austrade in conjunction with the EMDG scheme. There will be a major review of export assistance arrangements prior to 30 June 1990 to ensure the continuing effectiveness of this assistance. For some time the Government has been supporting Australian exporters under the development import finance facility (DIFF) within the Australian aid program. The scheme allows grant aid funds to be used in combination with commercial finance from the Export Finance Insurance Corporation to provide concessional finance to support Australian exporters. However, under the current arrangements there is insufficient flexibility to fund large and unpredictable payments within the annual aid budget. The Government believes that these large, `showpiece' projects can be very important in establishing the credibility of Australian manufacturing industry and has therefore decided that, where a proposed project is of such a size that funds would not be available under the existing DIFF allocation, the Government will examine support for these proposals on a case by case basis. The tariff reductions will be phased over four years and take place at a time when Australian industry is competitive. In addition, other initiatives announced tonight will improve the environment for industry. As a result, the Government does not anticipate that the reductions will lead to large scale dislocation. However, the Government will establish an office of labour market adjustment in the Department of Employment, Education and Training to monitor the impact of its decision on the work force. Very long discussions with industry and unions prior to this decision highlighted concerns about developing country preferences and anti-dumping arrangements. While existing tariff preference arrangements will remain unchanged at this time, the Government has undertaken to keep the scheme under review as tariffs are reduced and in the light of other industrial countries' treatment of preferences. The Government recognises the need for fair trade, particularly at a time of accelerated tariff reductions, and is committed to effective and speedy anti-dumping arrangements. An independent Anti-Dumping Authority will be established-legislation was passed in this House yesterday-to improve the operation and timeliness of anti-dumping procedures by: enhancing the commercial expertise and advice available to the Government on anti-dumping matters; setting maximum statutory time limits on each stage of the process; making provision for complaints to be made and investigations to begin before goods arrive in Australia; and enabling groups of people, such as employees, affected by dumped goods to initiate complaints. Taxation Changes Innovation and entrepreneurship are at the heart of positioning Australian industry in the much more competitive world in which we now find ourselves. I mentioned earlier the initiatives the Government has taken to encourage private sector research and development. The 150 per cent taxation concession for eligible research and development expenditures will be continued until 30 June 1991. This will remove any uncertainty about this program and will enable industry to continue to lift its investment in research and development. After this date this concession will be replaced by 100 per cent tax deductibility for companies, partnerships, individuals and trusts. In addition, prior to 1991, the Government will also consider further Commonwealth expenditure support for industry research and development. While we are encouraged at the growth that has already occurred in private sector research and development, much must still be done to develop the new and innovative products needed on export markets. These announcements will provide the stable and supportive environment within which firms can undertake longer term research and development. The taxation concession for management investment companies' investments is to be extended and will now finish on 30 June 1991. In further extending this scheme, the Government recognised the continuing relevance of the program to the establishment of a viable venture capital market in Australia, particularly given the changed circumstances following the stock market collapse last year. This scheme has been particularly helpful to the development of small high technology firms, which are beginning to make their presence felt on world markets. The Government recognises that recent taxation rulings on wholesale sales tax on computer software have created uncertainty and anomalies. We wish to review these matters urgently with industry, and a meeting will be held in early June between industry representatives, the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce and the Treasury to examine this issue. Following that meeting the Government will consider the matter. The Government's decision on taxation treatment of employee share ownership schemes recognises that maximising the contribution of the work force can be a very powerful source of competitive advantage for a company. Successful implementation of modern manufacturing systems, technologies and quality improvement programs depends on positive work force attitudes. Employee share ownership schemes are an important means of encouraging greater employee commitment and this change to the taxation arrangements will stimulate their adoption. Conclusion The phased program of tariff reductions is an essential part of the internationalisation of the Australian economy. Australian industry, if it is to compete successfully internationally, must operate in a competitive environment. The taxation changes announced by the Treasurer, particularly the reduction in the corporate tax rate, assist in this respect. Similarly, improved efficiency in the operation of public enterprises, the reductions in tariffs, and the removal of the 2 per cent revenue duty, will bring input costs more into line with those of our major trading partners. Most importantly, the Government has established a predictable assistance environment for the next four years. Industry can now proceed with investment plans confident in the knowledge that its assistance levels are set for the foreseeable future. It will also be able to concentrate on the factors essential to international competitiveness such as quality, marketing, innovation and work practices. Real progress has already been made in manufacturing industry-some people are now starting to speak about a manufacturing renaissance. Whatever the truth of this judgment one thing is clear: We do not have the luxury of shooting at a fixed target; it keeps moving all the time. Therefore, ongoing changes need to be made if we are to compete successfully in an increasingly competitive and integrated world economy. I present the following paper: Industry Reforms-Ministerial statement, 25 May 1988. Motion (by Dr Blewett) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Tim Fischer) adjourned. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support) —I table the document entitled Australian Telecommunications Services: A New Framework. I seek leave to make a statement. Leave granted. Mr PETER MORRIS —In describing the Government's third term agenda, the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has given greatest emphasis to micro-economic policy, the structural adjustment of key industries and the relationships between them, with a view to establishing and sustaining longer term growth. The Government's goal is to ensure that the manufacturing and service sectors, in particular, become more efficient and so improve our trade competitiveness, reduce our reliance on imports and ensure the Australian economy has the versatility, adaptability and resilience necessary to take advantage of the rapid changes this nation faces in the years ahead. The Australian telecommunications services industry is well placed to make a major contribution to these goals of efficiency and trade competitiveness in the information economy, while continuing to serve the important social objectives associated with the central role of the telephone in the Australian community. With this in mind, the Government initiated a fundamental review of telecommunications policy in September 1987. One lesson of the recent past has been that current industry and structural arrangements do not readily lend themselves to the satisfactory and efficient resolution of many of the problems facing the industry. The Government has decided to reform the basic structural and regulatory framework, with the objective of establishing a framework within which appropriate service and price adjustments can take place without undue government intervention, while ensuring that the fundamental objectives of efficiency and equity continue to be met within the Government's new overall policy objectives. The policy statement, which was referred to by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) in his speech earlier tonight, is directed to resolving five fundamental structural questions: the extent to which existing monopoly arrangements for the provision of the basic network need to be maintained; how the boundary lines between monopoly and competition should be drawn in the provision of value added services; how the boundary lines between monopoly and competition should be drawn in the supply, installation and maintenance of customer premises equipment; the need for a new independent body to carry out necessary new economic and technical regulatory functions; and the extent to which the telecommunications carriers should be relieved from government constraints to enable them to perform more effectively. The statement explains in detail the consideration given by the Government to the complex set of issues involved in reshaping arrangements for the telecommunications services industry. It sets out the decisions we have taken to bring about structural reform and the reasoning behind those decisions. The decisions taken by the Government mark the most significant change in arrangements for the telecommunications industry since those the Labor Government put in place in 1975, when it set up Telecom Australia and separated telecommunications from postal functions. While the 1975 decisions have served Australia well, they have been overtaken by events. The decisions which have now been taken by the Government will bring much more certainly to regulatory policy and permit the continuing orderly adjustment to the dynamic pressures, and opportunities, of technological change and changing user needs. The Government has decided to restructure the regulatory environment of the telecommunications services industry to provide for: continuing authority for the existing carriers to be the sole providers of basic network facilities and services, subject to greater commercial and external regulatory discipline; full scope for competition in the provision and operation of value added services; increased scope for competition in the provision and maintenance of network terminal equipment for connection within customers' premises, in particular in relation to private automatic branch exchange maintenance and small business systems; and establishment of regulatory arrangements that are independent of the carriers and directed towards ensuring maintenance of minimum necessary standards, fair and efficient competition beyond the monopoly boundaries, and improved efficiency and accountability for the monopoly carriers. A central theme of the new arrangements is ensuring that the carriers, and in particular Telecom, are efficient, customer-oriented and fully responsive to both residential and business consumer needs. In developing the new arrangements, the Government has benefited greatly from the formal submissions it has received from users, unions, industry and State governments. The Government has also had the advantage of discussions with representatives of all sections of the telecommunications services industry and community groups affected by it. Those discussions have proved to be an invaluable input to the decision making process. This review has been carried out concurrently with the review of the major transport and communications government business enterprises, the results of which are also being announced today in the separate statement Reshaping the Transport and Communications Government Business Enterprises. Major changes have been announced in that statement relating to the managerial environment in which Telecom, the Overseas Telecommunications Commission and Aussat Pty Ltd will operate. The Government looks forward to the telecommunications services industry responding much more rapidly in future to pressing adjustment issues within the framework outlined in my statement. I present the following paper: Australian Telecommunications Services: A New Framework-Ministerial Statement, 25 May 1988. Motion (by Dr Blewett) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr White) adjourned. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support) —I table the following document: reshaping the transport and communications government business enterprises. I seek leave to make a statement. Leave granted. Mr PETER MORRIS —These initiatives are central to the Government's micro-economic reform agenda for the restructuring of the public sector. In the present difficult international environment public sector efficiency is especially important because so many public business enterprises-particularly those in the transport and communications portfolio-produce not only final goods and services for the consumer but intermediate inputs for the rest of the economy, and thus influence the nation's overall cost structures. With this in mind, the Government has undertaken a fundamental review of the eight major transport and communications government business enterprises, namely Qantas Airways Ltd, Australian Airlines, Australian National Line (ANL), Australian National Railways (AN), Telecom Australia, Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC), Aussat Pty Ltd and Australia Post, and has decided on a package of reforms which are aimed at reshaping these enterprises and improving their efficiency. The package applies, and builds on, the principles laid down in `Policy Guidelines for Commonwealth Statutory Authorities and Government Business Enterprises' tabled by the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) on 4 November 1987. The statement I now table explains in detail the consideration given by the Government to these enterprises and the decisions taken to bring about reform. All the enterprises make an important direct contribution to the Australian economy as well as providing services to other industries and businesses. Between them they are responsible for 37.9 per cent of Commonwealth employment and 9.5 per cent of total public sector employment. In all, they account for 2.9 per cent of the Australian work force. They account for 17.5 per cent of Commonwealth revenue and 15.7 per cent of Commonwealth expenditure. Total assets at book values are almost $21,000m. Australians have an important investment in the enterprises. As at June 1987 the Commonwealth's investment, through equity and loan, in these eight businesses was estimated at $9,400m, or $1,900 for every Australian household. Transport and communications infrastructure forms the very fabric of our economy. Without it industry could not function; our exports could not reach their markets; and we would be limited in our participation in global financial markets and the growing service industries such as tourism. It is clear, accordingly, that every improvement we can make in the way we deliver transport and communications services is economically vital. Fundamental improvement in the way the enterprises in question operate is not only desirable but essential. The era of effortless postwar growth in a protected environment is over. Worldwide trends are now towards greater competition; a more hostile international trading environment; global corporations; more open, less regulated economies; a more integrated and sophisticated financial world; and massive technological development and innovation. The transport and communications enterprises need, more than ever before, flexibility and the ability to respond rapidly to changes in the market and to take up opportunities as they present themselves. Consequently, the Government has decided on a reform package for each enterprise covering the appropriate structure for each enterprise; the relationship between government as owner-shareholder, enterprise boards and enterprise managers; new planning and accountability mechanisms; the modification of major strategic controls; and removal of controls over day to day activities. In summary, the new arrangements include: the implementation of new planning and accountability mechanisms which will include requirements for corporate plans and the setting of financial targets, and will allow the Government to focus on `bottom line' results rather than central controls over managerial decision making; revised corporate and financial structures for most of the enterprises, which will better reflect the new economic and commercial environment in which they are operating; OTC and ANL are to be converted into companies incorporated under the Companies Act-100 per cent Commonwealth owned; the Telecom and Australia Post Commissions to be renamed the Australian Telecommunications Corporation and the Australian Postal Corporation respectively, with new financial structures involving the conversion in each case of a quarter of existing Commonwealth loans to equity; ANL to be able to operate integrated transportation services for Australian overseas and domestic trades to sustain its shipping services; AN's legislation to be amended to enable AN to expand the scope of its business activities; and Australia Post to be allowed to undertake commercial development of its properties; significant modification of major `strategic' controls which presently exist in relation to borrowings, industrial relations coordination, superannuation and executive remuneration; and the removal of virtually all day to day government operational controls from the enterprises, including contracts, the investment of temporary surplus funds, the establishment of bank accounts, the terms and conditions of individual borrowings, and, subject to prior advice to the Minister, controls over the establishment of subsidiaries, joint ventures and share purchases. The Government expects that all these new arrangements will improve the way in which these enterprises conduct their business and will lead to marked efficiency gains which will mean better service delivery and improved productivity. I present the following paper: Reshaping the transport and communications government business enterprises-Ministerial statement, 25 May 1988. Motion (by Dr Blewett) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr White) adjourned. Bill-by leave-presented by Dr Blewett, and read a first time. Dr BLEWETT(Bonython-Minister for Community Services and Health)(8.57) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The Bill before the House, being one of a number of Bills resulting from the May economic statement, amends the National Health Act to increase the maximum general patient contribution for prescribed drugs supplied under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme from the present $10 to $11. The increase in the general patient contribution from $10 to $11 is estimated to achieve savings of $12.5m in 1988-89 and $14.3m in a full financial year. The Bill provides that the increase take effect from 1 July 1988. The $1 increase in the maximum general contribution is not an increase in real terms. By 1 July the increase will be less than the increase in the consumer price index since the contribution was last adjusted in November 1986. The increase is also less than half the growth in average drug prices over the period. Honourable members will note that the Government has continued to support those in need by maintaining both free pharmaceutical benefits for all pensioners and the concessional beneficiary rate of $2.50. Furthermore, the `safety net' scheme continues to provide protection for the chronically ill, ensuring that no family need pay for more than 25 prescriptions each calendar year. In 1987, the first full year of the safety net, 500,000 families and single individuals received free pharmaceuticals under the safety net. As announced in the May economic statement of the Treasurer (Mr Keating), the increase in the maximum general patient contribution is but one of a number of measures that the Government is taking to restrain the growth in expenditure of the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. In 1987-88 this expenditure increased by 25 per cent over the previous year. Clearly the Government had to act to rein in this unacceptable rate of increase-a rate of increase that would have seen expenditure on pharmaceutical benefits almost double over the next three years. The steps announced in the May statement will reduce this rate of growth to an estimated 12 per cent in 1988-89, although this will not prevent expenditure exceeding $1 billion next financial year. In addition to the $1 increase in the maximum general patient contribution, the Government is taking steps to reduce prescribing of expensive drugs and to reduce dispensing costs. As these measures do not involve amendments to the National Health Act I shall not discuss them in detail in this debate. Details have been announced in the Treasurer's statement and associated documents. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill and I commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr White) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Peter Morris, and read a first time. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support)(9.00) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this Bill is to amend the rate of departure tax contained in the Departure Tax Act 1978 from $20 per passenger to $10 per passenger. The proposed new arrangements taken together with a measure contained in a separate Bill to abolish the $5 immigration clearance fee will be welcomed by travellers, who from 1 July will only have to pay $10 when leaving Australia, rather than $25 as at present. The financial implications of the new departure tax and associated administrative arrangements for its collection are covered in the second reading speech on the Departure Tax Collection Bill. I propose that the two Bills be debated cognately. I commend this Bill and draw attention to the fact that there is a single explanatory memorandum which covers this Bill and the Departure Tax Collection Amendment Bill 1988. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Peter Morris, and read a first time. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support)(9.01) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Departure Tax Collection Act 1978 to transfer responsibility for the collection of departure tax from international air operators to the Government. Collection by the airlines is no longer appropriate following the Government's decision that departure tax revenue will no longer be part of the overall cost recovery formula for the aviation industry. The proposed new arrangements, taken together with measures contained in separate Bills to abolish the $5 immigration clearance fee and to halve the amount of departure tax from $20 to $10, will be welcomed by travellers, who from 1 July will only have to pay $10 in such fees when leaving Australia, rather than $25 as at present. As the Minister who introduced the current arrangements in 1986, I would like to place on record the Government's appreciation of the way the airlines took on this responsibility over the past two years. The Bill allows the Minister for Transport and Communications to appoint approved agents to sell departure tax stamps and issue exemption stamps on the Commonwealth's behalf. Australia Post currently has a contract with the airlines to collect the tax. As the new tax is to be collected for general revenue purposes, it is appropriate that the Department of Transport and Communications make provision in its budget to take over from the airlines the remaining two years of their current contract with Australia Post and associated costs. Consultations with Australia Post have been undertaken to ensure that the new collection arrangements will be implemented with as little inconvenience to travellers as possible. The principal amendments to the Departure Tax Collection Act are the transferring of responsibility for collection of the tax, contained in clause 4; the repealing of responsibilities of international air operators as set out in clause 5; and the provision within clause 6 for approved agents to be appointed under the regulations to sell and issue tax and exemption stamps to passengers. The departure tax collection regulations will be amended to incorporate the new arrangements. With regard to the financial impact of the proposed legislation, the estimated collection costs for 1988-89 are $2.5m. This includes the contract cost of Australia Post collecting the tax, as well as additional ongoing administrative costs to the Government arising from the proposal. Revenue from the sale of departure tax stamps at the rate of $10 per passenger is estimated at $36.9m in 1988-89, or $34.4m net after deduction of estimated collection costs. I commend the Bill and present an explanatory memorandum which covers this Bill and the Departure Tax Amendment Bill 1988. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill-by leave-presented by Mr Holding, and read a first time. Mr HOLDING(Melbourne Ports-Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs)(9.06) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The Bill contains amendments to the Migration Act 1958 to implement a recent decision to repeal the immigration clearance fee, which was introduced to offset certain costs incurred by or for the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs in dealing with international air passengers. The Australian immigration clearance fee was introduced into the Migration Act 1958 in 1987. It was modelled on the clearance fee operating in the United States of America, and requires adult passengers on international flights seeking to enter Australia after 1 January 1988 to pay a fee for the services relating to their immigration clearance. The scheme provides for the fee to be collected, and paid to the Commonwealth, by the international airline operator who brought the passengers to Australia, whether or not the airline collected the fee. Most-but not all-international airlines operating in the Australian market protested about the immigration clearance fee, and there is currently High Court action to test the validity of the fee and the airlines' liabilities under the Act. The Government's view has been that much, if not all, of the claimed shortfall in fees could have been made good by the airlines changing their administrative arrangements towards those used in the United States of America by many of the same airlines. The Government now proposes however to abolish the current $5 fee. The international air operators will continue to be liable to remit to the Commonwealth the fee payable by all passengers carried to Australia before 30 June 1988. The Bill also will enable the Minister to limit the range of officers of the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs and officers for the purposes of the Customs Act 1901 who may exercise the powers granted by the Migration Act 1958. As the Migration Act 1958 currently stands, all such officers have very wide-ranging powers, so that, for example, even the most junior officers, irrespective of their duties or responsibilities, could validly issue an entry permit to a person seeking entry to Australia, arrest a person suspected of being a prohibited non-citizen, or search aircraft and ships for stowaways or persons suspected of seeking to enter Australia illegally. It is clearly inappropriate for all officers to have such considerable powers. It is more appropriate that such wide-ranging powers should flow from the administrative necessities and the appropriate responsibilities. To remedy this the Minister is to be given a discretion to exclude an officer, or a class of officer, from the exercise of certain powers. This exclusion is to be made in writing. To bring the power to grant an entry permit into line with the power to grant a visa, the Bill amends section 6 of the Migration Act to provide that only an authorised officer, that is, a person authorised by the Minister, can issue an entry permit to a person seeking entry to Australia. The abolition of the immigration clearance fee of $5 from 1 July 1988 should be viewed in the context that the Government has agreed that a $5 share of the new and reduced departure tax of $10 will be notionally allocated towards migration costs incurred in processing international passengers. The revenue from such an allocation is estimated to be $18.45m in 1988-89, which roughly equates to revenue forgone from repealing the immigration clearance fee. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill. This contains details of the amendments I have outlined. I commend this Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill-by leave-presented by Mr Holding, and read a first time. Mr HOLDING(Melbourne Ports-Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs)(9.13) —I move: That the Bill be new read a second time. The Bill provides for an increase in the level of general purpose financial assistance being provided for local government in 1988-89. The 1988-89 level of assistance is to be $652.5m. This compares with local government's entitlement in 1987-88 of $636.7m. It is necessary to amend the Local Government (Financial Assistance) Act 1986 because of changes regarding general purpose payments to the States which were agreed at the recent Premiers Conference. Under that Act, general purpose financial assistance for local government for 1988-89 and subsequent years was to be determined by changing the amount with respect to the previous year, by the percentage change to Commonwealth general purpose payments to the States. For this purpose, general purpose payments to the States was defined by the Act under section 6 (5) (a) to include financial assistance grants, identified health grants and general purpose capital assistance payments. Changes to the funding of hospital services agreed to at the recent Premiers Conference has meant the elimination of the category `identified health grants' from 1988-89. So that local government is not unintentionally disadvantaged by this change, the Government has decided to include in the Act an amount in lieu of the existing formula. The amount of $652.5m represents a 2.5 per cent increase over local government's entitlement in 1987-88 of $636.7m. It is a greater increase than would have occurred had the present formula not been amended. This approach would have yielded payments to local government of some $95m less than the proposed payment. The payment will also be some $10m more than if local government funding had been constrained to the increase agreed for the States and Northern Territory at the Premiers Conference. As a result, the increase in payments of 2.5 per cent compares favourably with the increase in comparable payments to the States and the Northern Territory which for the next financial year are anticipated to rise by only 1.1 per cent. Given the Government's continuing need to restrain its own expenditure, this Bill provides a fair outcome for local government. It is evidence of the Government's continuing commitment to strengthening local government's place in the Australian system of government and gives effect to the Government's undertaking to treat local government no less favourably than the States in respect of general purpose financial assistance. I commend the Bill to the House. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill-by leave-presented by Mr Barry Jones, for Mr Kerin, and read a first time. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business)(9.15) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this Bill is to amend existing legislation in order to allow the Commonwealth to recover the administrative costs it incurs in collecting and disbursing receipts from agricultural industry levies. Honourable members may be aware that industry contributions to the operations of various authorities, and to research programs, are made through industry levies and charges imposed under Commonwealth taxation legislation. Most levies and charges are collected and disbursed at Commonwealth expense, which is estimated to be 0.2 per cent of total collections, or $1.193m, in a full year. The absence of cost recovery for this service represents a hidden subsidy to industry. In the interests of transparency, which is the new buzz word, it is desirable that the costs of collection be identified so that policy can be assessed in the light of their true full costs. Since the levies exist at the request, and for the benefit, of the relevant industries, it is appropriate that the industries not only be aware of but also pay the administration costs. If an industry genuinely requires assistance, this should be provided directly to the area of identified need, in contrast to the imprecise approach of subsidising industry in general for the cost of levy collection. Making industries aware of collection costs, and requiring that they meet these costs, will undoubtedly increase the level of accountability of both the Commonwealth, as the collection agent, and industry, as the beneficiary of this service. In the case of levies which fund the operations of statutory authorities, it is proposed that collection costs be recovered by way of fee payable by those authorities. In the case of research levies, the cost will be recovered from research trust accounts. In the first instance, the payment will be made at the end of the financial year. In future years it is intended to seek quarterly, and in some cases monthly, payments. It is proposed that these cost recovery arrangements take effect from the financial year 1988-89. This measure will produce revenue totalling $1.193m during 1988-89; this figure represents the full year cost of the levy collection. I commend the Bill to the House, and present the explanatory memorandum to the Bill. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill-by leave-presented by Mr Barry Jones, and read a first time. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business)(9.17) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. In his economic statement to the House tonight, the Treasurer (Mr Keating) announced that as part of the Government's package of micro-economic reform measures the export market development grants (EMDG) scheme-in contrast to the AMDG scheme, which, of course, was much older-was to be revised, effective from 1 July 1988. This Bill gives effect to the changes. The EMDG scheme, first introduced in 1974, aims to encourage small to medium size Australian exporters to seek out and develop overseas markets. It provides financial incentives in the form of taxable cash grants for eligible expenditure incurred on overseas market research and development. Items covered include advertising, overseas representation, the cost of participating in overseas fairs and exhibitions, overseas travel associated with trade promotion, and the cost of bringing agents or buyers to Australia. Generally, export activities covered by the scheme must involve goods with an Australian content of at least 50 per cent, certain specified service activities, or industrial property rights and know-how which are substantially the result of research or work performed in Australia. The scheme is administered by Austrade. It is due to terminate on 30 June 1990. Grants are on the basis of 70 per cent of eligible expenditure in excess of a threshold amount and are subject to an export performance test. Grants are not paid where export earnings are in excess of $20m in a grant year. The effect of the grant, for a company not affected by the grant ceiling, is to reduce the after-tax cost of eligible expenditure by about two-thirds. The Government intends that public funds provided for export development are used in a cost-effective manner and result in a sustained improvement in export performance. Against this background, earlier this year the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce (Senator Button) asked the Bureau of Industry Economics (BIE) to examine the scheme. Advice was sought on the most cost effective manner of delivering assistance to those actively involved in the process of undertaking exports particularly of manufactures and services. At the same time Austrade commissioned Price Waterhouse to aid it in its own evaluation of the scheme's operation. I thank those organisations for their contribution to the advice received by the Government. Mr Smith —What happened to the 150 per cent? Mr BARRY JONES —The honourable member should have listened to the statement delivered earlier. I thought it was very eloquently explained. The honourable member was not here. Mr Beale —I was here. Mr BARRY JONES —The honourable member was not listening. Mr Beale —I listened very carefully, but it was not explained at all. Mr BARRY JONES —The honourable member was not listening well enough. The BIE found that the case for government support for export market development relies on establishing whether there is likely to be a shortfall between the amount of export market development undertaken by private companies and the socially desirable amount of development. Two main arguments are put forward to suggest that this may be the case. First, firms are unable to appropriate all the benefits to Australia that are generated by their exporting activity. Exporting firms bring back to Australia information about particular markets, and how to operate in these markets. They also help establish the reputation and create awareness of Australian producers generally. As they are unable to prevent other firms from benefiting from this information their expenditure on export promotion will be less than is socially optimal. Secondly, small and medium sized exporters without any prior exporting experience will find accurate estimation of the costs and benefits of such efforts an impossible task. This may deter potentially successful exporters from attempting to enter world markets purely due to a lack of information. In this situation a case can be made for the Government to assist companies in respect of their export market development in its earlier stages. From this rationale, assuming the presence of the commitment essential for successful export market development, objectives which the EMDG scheme should possess include: the scheme should concentrate on new exporters and on small to medium firms; firms should spend a significant amount of their own funds on market development; an export performance test should be applied that provides an impetus for the firm to export after a reasonable time spent in market development; assistance should be given for the development of markets in countries about which potential exporters have the greatest difficulty estimating the costs and benefits of export market development; firms should be required to provide an export plan; the external benefits generated by exporters should be readily available to potential exporters; the scheme should be administratively efficient for both claimants and the Government; the scheme should complement other Government industry programs; and enough information should be collected from those using and administering the scheme that its effectiveness can be readily measured. Both reviews found that overall the scheme has focused to a considerable extent on these kinds of objectives. However, in a number of areas adjustments could be made to enhance the scheme's effectiveness. Three principal findings common to both reviews pointed to areas offering scope to improve the scheme. First, the studies questioned the cost effectiveness in applying limited funds for export market development in New Zealand, given the closeness and similarity of that market to Australia and in view of the negotiations on closer economic relations (CER)-if you like, exporting it to Tasmania. Mr Smith —There is nothing wrong with Tasmania. Mr BARRY JONES —No, indeed not, but it is not hard to do. The external benefits generated by the EMDG scheme are greatest where exporters are developing markets in countries where knowledge of the costs and benefits are least known. The reviews made the observation that the New Zealand market stands out as one where the differences between it and the Australian market are so small-after all, we speak nearly the same language-that Government assistance to overcome uncertainty about those differences hardly seems necessary. Furthermore, the CER agreement between the two countries provides for a gradual movement towards a single market by the removal of impediments to free trade. The conclusion was that the elimination of the EMDG scheme, as it applies to New Zealand would, among other things, assist in the fulfilment of this agreement. Accordingly, the Government has decided that export promotion expenditure in New Zealand will no longer be eligible; correspondingly the value of exports to New Zealand will be excluded from the ceiling and the earnings test calculations for grant entitlement. Second, both the reviews canvassed the issue of whether a viable export market can be developed with expenditure as low as the current $5,000 threshold. It was acknowledged that little export market development could be achieved with eligible expenditure of only $5,000 a year. Travel costs alone for the several overseas trips usually needed to begin market development would quickly amount to more than this. The purpose of this requirement was to obtain a minimal commitment from exporters. Given this criticism, the export expenditure threshold is to be increased to $10,000 before firms become eligible for grants. The third aspect revealed by the reviews was that of a diminishing rate of export returns over time with respect to assistance to individual exporters. While there were some exceptions to the general case, the evidence clearly pointed to a maturity of market development behaviour after firms had received an average of eight grants. As the EMDG scheme is intended to foster export expansion, delivery of grants in circumstances where export growth stalls is not consistent with the scheme's objectives. Bearing this in mind, the Government intends to tighten the export performance test and to reduce the maximum grant entitlement of claimants who have received eight or more grants. The present export performance test provides that, after receiving grants for two years, the maximum for subsequent grants was the lesser of 70 per cent of eligible expenditure in excess of the threshold up to a maximum grant of $200,000, and a decreasing percentage of export earnings. This percentage was set at 50 per cent for the third grant year and it fell in stages to 7.5 per cent after six or more years. The new percentages of export earnings are: for year 3, 40 per cent; year 4, 20 per cent; year 5, 10 per cent; year 6, 7.5 per cent; and for the seventh and subsequent years, 5 per cent. The maximum grant entitlement of claimants who are in receipt of a ninth grant will be reduced from $200,000 to $150,000 and to $100,000 for those who are in receipt of a tenth and subsequent grant. Both reviews found a case for a requirement for greater export planning and reporting. Also studies such as the Australian Institute of Management study of successful exporters, the AIM study of 1987, suggested that an export plan was a key feature of the approach of successfully established exporters. A requirement for exporters to submit an export plan need not impose an undue cost burden on them. It can be treated as a simple check list, aimed at ensuring that firms have at least a rudimentary knowledge of preparedness for export. Such a plan would be of help to both firms and to Austrade, while generally indicating a degree of readiness to develop export markets. The Government, therefore, has decided that the effectiveness of the EMDG scheme would be further enhanced if a reporting requirement was included in the scheme. Consequently, under the proposed amendments claimants may be required to submit an export market plan-without the need for its formal approval-as an indicator of commitment to export. It is expected that Austrade normally will require such plans only from new claimants. We live in an increasingly international environment, in which successful business transactions are determined not solely on financial criteria. Among other things, they also depend on cultural considerations. The ability to effectively communicate with all our trading partners, and not only English speaking countries, is obviously an important factor. To assist in encouraging greater foreign language skills and proficiency within our business community, the Government has decided that expenditure for language training will become an eligible item of expenditure under the scheme. The current arrangements place no restrictions on the number of grants payable to related companies-including wholly owned subsidiaries of a common parent. To an extent this can negate the impact of other mechanisms designed to effectively target the scheme such as the $20m export ceiling and the $200,000 maximum grant. For this reason the Government is to introduce an affiliated corporations test into the scheme. This test is intended to treat affiliated corporations which are claimants under the scheme as a single entity for the purpose of applying the$20m export ceiling test. The onus will be on claimant companies to identify whether they are affiliated corporations and to identify their affiliates. I refer honourable members to paragraph 8 of the explanatory memorandum for a detailed explanation of what will constitute affiliated companies. In addition to the changes that I have outlined, the Bill will also amend section 19 in order to give effect to the original intention behind that provision. The intention of section 19 is to enable Austrade to trace a business activity as it is transferred from one legal entity to another and treat the successor as having previously carried on that business activity. This is to ensure that any grant entitlements previously paid in respect of that activity are taken into account when determining subsequent grant entitlements. The amendment will achieve this by empowering Austrade to automatically deem grants paid to previous owners in respect of a business activity to have been paid to the new owner of that activity. As noted previously, the current scheme is due to terminate on 30 June 1990. The Government intends to conduct a major review of the scheme before this time. In the meantime it has also decided that in each of the next two years special funding of $5m will be provided to Austrade for new export market development activity outside of the EMGD framework. This will allow Austrade to implement some new discretionary targeted programs. It is envisaged that experience with these new programs will provide useful guidance to the Government in its consideration of appropriate cost effective export market development programs post-1990. The Government sees the amended scheme as maintaining a worthwhile level of assistance to committed, newly emerging, small to medium sized exporting firms in a more cost effective and measurable way. Australia thus remains firmly set on a course of improved export performance, continued economic development and a broadening of its economic base. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill and commend the Bill to the House. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill-by leave-presented by Mr Barry Jones, and read a first time. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business)(9.31) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill puts into effect the termination of the consumption subsidies for phosphatic and nitrogenous fertilisers as from 1 July 1988 as announced by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) in the May economic statement. Over recent years the Government has assisted farmers through the provision of a consumption subsidy on phosphatic and nitrogenous fertilisers manufactured in Australia. A bounty has been paid on domestically produced phosphatic fertilisers for much of the period since 1931, while consumption of nitrogenous fertilisers has been subsidised since 1966. The principal reasons for the continuing payment of the fertiliser bounty consumption subsidies have included assisting the rural sector when it was experiencing difficult times and encouraging productivity gains in the rural sector from the increased application of fertilisers. More recently, the subsidies have been compensating the rural sector for the cost impost which the sector suffers as a result of tariff protection for manufacturing industry. However, none of these reasons provides a convincing justification for continuation of the fertiliser subsidies in the present circumstances. The first of these reasons, to assist the rural sector when it was experiencing difficult times, suggests that the fertiliser consumption subsidies might be seen as similar to a rural welfare payment; that is, a payment by the Government to help alleviate falling returns or increasing costs being experienced by farmers. The first point to make in this context is that, while the rural sector has undoubtedly experienced some very difficult times during the last few years, the current outlook, particularly for the livestock industries, is more buoyant. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Research Economics has estimated that the cash operating surplus of farms will rise by about 49 per cent in 1987-88, with most of the increase occurring because of higher returns to wool growing. While incomes of specialist grain producers are still low, these farmers are also expected to have rising incomes over the next few years as the outlook for most major rural commodities is for either stable or increasing prices. However, quite apart from whether there is currently a need for the Government to assist the rural sector, there is also an important question as to whether fertiliser subsidies are an efficient way of providing rural assistance. Work undertaken by the former Bureau of Agricultural Economics, reported in 1984, showed that the assistance provided by the fertiliser subsidies was very unevenly distributed. Based on a 1980-81 survey of agricultural and grazing industries, almost 25 per cent of the farms in the survey did not use fertiliser, and so these farms received no assistance. A further 42 per cent received assistance worth less than $300. Only 9 per cent of farms received over $1,000 of assistance. It is thus clear that the payment of this subsidy is simply not an effective welfare measure. I turn now to the second reason which has been used to justify the continuation of the fertiliser subsidies, namely, to assist the rural sector to become more productive. The logic behind this argument is that the consumption subsidies lower the price of fertiliser and that farmers will respond to the lower price by applying more fertiliser, thereby raising agricultural productivity. In its November 1984 submission to the Industries Assistance Commission inquiries into assistance for the consumption and production of fertilisers, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics quoted a number of economic research studies covering a span of eight years which showed that the demand for fertiliser is relatively price inelastic, but that demand does appear to vary with farm income and liquidity. In other words the demand for fertiliser is unlikely to be influenced to any great extent by the price of fertilisers, but will be influenced by the farm's overall financial position. This claim is backed up by the current situation in which rising farm incomes and a favourable seasonal outlook for much of the continent have resulted in fertiliser manufacturers currently experiencing a high level of demand for their products. Assuming that the relationship between price and demand continues to apply, it can be concluded that continued provision of the fertiliser consumption subsidies will not lead to much increase in the purchase of fertilisers. In fact, the lack of sensitivity of fertiliser consumption to the price of fertilisers may be very fortunate for the productivity of Australian agriculture. If the subsidies were more effective they would encourage resources to be allocated to fertiliser application rather than other farm inputs. In doing so they would distort the pattern of resource allocation in Australian agriculture. As an example of the problems which these resource allocation distortions can create, there is increasing evidence that excessive application of fertilisers can lead to reduced gains in productivity arising from problems with soil acidification. Some of Australia's most productive agricultural lands are suffering these problems and the farmers concerned have to apply large quantities of lime or other substances to the soil to neutralise it. This is an expensive solution, and to the extent that the fertiliser consumption subsidies encourage the excessive use of fertilisers, the subsidies contribute to this problem. Another example of resource misallocation to which the fertiliser subsidies have contributed is the excessive cropping of marginal lands. In some cases the viability of cropping operations on marginal lands has depended on the application of large quantities of subsidised fertilisers. From the economy-wide perspective, resources used to develop the marginal land could have been more productively used in other applications. Quite apart from the economic misallocation of resources which arises in these circumstances, there are also frequently environmental problems from overcropping, such as degradation of soil structure and subsequent soil erosion, removal of trees followed by increasing levels of salt in the soil, and so on. Once again, the fertiliser subsidies have contributed to these problems. The third reason which has been used to justify continuation of the fertiliser consumption subsidies is to compensate the rural sector for the impost it suffers as a result of the tariffs protecting Australia's manufacturing industries. In the May economic statement the Government has introduced some major changes to its micro-economic policies and, in particular, to the tariff system. The purpose of these changes is to make industries more efficient by significantly reducing protective tariffs and exposing the industries to increased competition. The tariff reductions announced in the economic statement will significantly reduce assistance for manufacturing industries, and this will assist farmers both directly and indirectly. Although an estimate of the size of the benefit to the agricultural sector depends on the assumptions used, the increased returns which will result from the reduced assistance to manufacturing are likely to be at least $350m per annum. This is a most significant gain for the agricultural sector which greatly outweighs the impact of removing the fertiliser subsidies. I thought that the Opposition benches would be crowded with members of the National Party of Australia. The Deputy Speaker is an exception. I take it that they are in broad agreement. Mr Fife —Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There is a very good reason for members of the Opposition being absent at the present time. No fewer than 11 Bills are being introduced tonight and the Government requires all of those Bills to be debated tomorrow. That is disgraceful, and I thought the Minister would be supporting the Opposition in that regard rather than casting aspersions on members of the Opposition for being absent. Indeed, there are only two members of the Government in the House. Mr BARRY JONES —I thought the Manager of Opposition Business would have had enough sense of humour to know I was only teasing. For the reasons which I have previously referred to, the Government believes that it is now an appropriate time to terminate the fertiliser subsidies. The subsidies are a poor means of providing rural assistance and invite criticism from the European Economic Community or the United States of America that Australian agriculture also benefits from subsidies. The Government has taken the initiative and significantly reduced tariff levels, which will provide important benefits for farmers. In return, the Government believes that it is appropriate for the primary sector to forgo the rather questionable benefits associated with this subsidy. Accordingly, the consumption subsidies on phosphatic and nitrogenous fertilisers will not be available after 30 June 1988. Fertiliser produced and sold for use in Australia as a fertiliser, or used or sold for use in the production of a fertiliser mixture, on or before 30 June 1988 will be eligible for the consumption subsidies. I would stress that to be eligible for the subsidy the fertiliser must be sold or used for the purposes stipulated in the Fertiliser Subsidy Act, by 30 June 1988. Manufacturers will continue to have 12 months from the date on which the end use condition is satisfied to lodge their claim for the subsidy. Financial Impact Statement Withdrawal of the subsidies is expected to result in savings of $37m in 1988-89 and $13m in 1989-90. I commend the Bill to the House, and table the Bill's explanatory memorandum. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill presented by Mr Barry Jones, and read a first time. Mr BARRY JONES(Lalor-Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business)(9.48) —by leave-I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The Customs Tariff (Rate Alteration) Bill 1988 which is now before the House contains alterations to rates of duty imposed by the Customs Tariff Act 1987. The Bill introduces new customs tariffs resulting from the package of micro-economic reform measures announced this evening. The Bill removes the 2 per cent revenue duty introduced in July 1979 and implements the first stage of general tariff reductions. In the main, general tariff rates presently in excess of 15 per cent are to be reduced to 15 per cent within four years from 1 July 1988. General tariff rates presently in excess of 10 per cent but not greater than 15 per cent are to be reduced to 10 per cent within the same period. The annual reductions will be made in percentage point steps or multiples thereof; roundings to facilitate this will be made on the implementation of the first reduction. Proportional reductions will be made to those duty rates not expressed in ad valorem terms. These changes will not affect tariff arrangements in the passenger motor vehicle industry, where the Government has recently announced substantially reduced protection. The textiles, clothing and footwear industries are also the subject of separate arrangements which the Government has announced tonight; nor will the changes apply in the chemicals and plastics industries, where tariffs are already phasing to 15 per cent or less and changes now would recreate anomalies corrected by the Government in its recent decision on assistance for these industries. The decision also will not affect other rates which are currently phasing to 15 per cent. Those rates in the communications industry which are currently phasing to 20 per cent will now reach 15 per cent over the four-year period. Existing tariff preference arrangements will remain unchanged provided that this does not prevent the general rate reductions to which I have referred. Included in this Bill are the customs tariff changes necessary to meet the Government's initiatives regarding primary product prices announced by the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) tonight. The Government's intention is that primary product prices subject to Commonwealth administered pricing arrangements should be phased down to international levels. This initiative is aimed at improving efficiency in the industries concerned and should lead to significant reductions in consumer prices for a number of commodities. As a first step, the Government has decided to phase down protection to a number of primary industries in line with general tariff reductions so that tariffs reach a level of 15 per cent by mid-1992. The industries affected by these changes include sugar, tobacco, dried vine fruits, citrus and wine. At the expiry of the present Commonwealth-State Sugar Agreement on 30 June 1989 the embargo on the importation of sugar will be replaced by Customs tariffs of 25 per cent on refined sugar and 35 per cent on raw sugar. These rates will be phased down to 15 per cent by 30 June 1992. The Commonwealth has decided to end its involvement in administered pricing arrangements for domestic sugar sales. The present non-concessional tariff on tobacco imports will be replaced by an ad valorem tariff of 25 per cent, phasing down to 15 per cent by 30 June 1992. The concessional rate of duty provided as a component of the tobacco local content plan will be withdrawn from 1 July 1993. In conjunction with other elements of the micro-economic reform package announced tonight, these changes are a further logical step in the Government's science, industry and technology policy strategy. They will assist the growth of world class industrial activities within Australia by providing a predictable and supportive environment for industry, and by encouraging the development of competitive attitudes and cultures. Financial Impact Revenue implications are difficult to isolate accurately. However, it is anticipated that the tariff cuts covered by this Bill, tariffs which are already phasing, the changes to the passenger motor vehicle plan and the abolition of the 2 per cent revenue duty will result in revenue decreases of $460m in 1988-89, increasing to $900m in 1992-93. I commend the Bill to the House, and table the explanatory memorandum. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill-by leave-presented by Mr Peter Morris, and read a first time. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support)(9.52) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this Bill is to provide for the payment to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of its share of the revenue received from excise and customs tariff duties on aviation gasoline avgas as it is commonly known. For many years revenue from excise and customs tariff duties on avgas have been attributable for aviation cost recovery purposes; that is, utilised to offset the costs incurred by the Government in providing airport and airways facilities and services to the aviation industry. Avgas excise revenues have generally been used to recover the cost of providing en route airways facilities and services. In 1986-87, however, the Government adopted the suggestion of general aviation representative associations that avgas excise be utilised as the main means of recovering all costs from that sector of the aviation industry. A special avgas fuel excise surcharge was therefore introduced from 1 July 1987 to replace the previous fixed annual lump sum charge. Avgas is the fuel used by most general aviation aircraft. Recent joint reviews with industry of general aviation charging arrangements have concluded that avgas excise is an efficient means of collecting revenue from general aviation aircraft without adverse safety consequences. It is currently not possible to replace avgas excise with direct user charges because of the difficulty of recording movements of avgas aircraft. If the CAA is to have access to this efficient and widely supported charging arrangement, it is necessary for the revenue received by the Government from avgas excise and customs tariff duties to be paid to the CAA. The Bill implements this. Not all avgas excise revenue will be paid to the CAA. The fuel excise surcharge introduced from 1 July 1987 was utilised to recover the costs of both airways functions that will transfer to the CAA and some airport functions that will remain the responsibility of the Federal Government. Accordingly the Bill provides that the amount allocatable to airport functions-2.393c per litre-plus future indexation of this amount be retained by the Government as an attributable revenue. The Bill will have no impact on the level of avgas excise and customs tariff duties payable by avgas aircraft operators. Approximately $22.2m of estimated total receipts in 1988-89 of $24.7m will be paid to the CAA. I commend the Bill and present the explanatory memorandum. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Bill-by leave-presented by Mr Peter Morris, and read a first time. Mr PETER MORRIS(Shortland-Minister for Transport and Communications Support and Minister Assisting the Treasurer)(9.55) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this Bill is to give effect to a decision that from 1 July 1988 Commonwealth Government business enterprises currently exempted from State and Territory payroll taxes be liable for such taxes. This is in line with the general principle adopted by the Government that such enterprises be subject to taxation on the same basis as private business. The enterprises to become subject to State and Territory payroll taxes as a result of this decision are the Australian National Railways, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Federal Airports Corporation, Australia Post and Telecom Australia. At present the legislation providing for establishment of the enterprises concerned in each case provides for the enterprise being exempted from State and Territory taxation. The Bill contains amendments to the relevant legislation so that the exemption will not apply to State and Territory payroll taxes. The amendments are set out in the schedule to the Bill. They are to become effective on 1 July 1988. Financial Impact The annual payroll tax liability of the authorities concerned is estimated at $220m. In recognition of this increase in revenue to the States, the Commonwealth's payments to the States for the year will be reduced. This reduction will not be by the full amount but by approximately 90 per cent of the total amount of payroll tax involved. This should amount to just under $200m. Relative to the revenues of the enterprises involved, the additional costs to those enterprises arising from this measure are not great. Claims of enormous increases in charges as a result of this move therefore must be treated as either uninformed or else deliberate exaggerations. I commend the Bill and present the explanatory memorandum. Debate (on motion by Mr Beale) adjourned. Debate resumed. Mr SNOW(Eden-Monaro)(9.57) —Over 30 years of conservative government there developed a tired old business establishment which had neglected keeping up with the world. Instead of developing new ideas and making thrusts into new markets, business became protective. To protect itself, business became very partisan. Media owners, like industrial and rural owners, became partisan and protected their profits through anti-Labor and anti-trade union attitudes rather than through increasing efficiency and improving management. They basically opposed reformist parties. They knew reform would bring them unwanted challenges. The business establishment was one nurtured and protected over years of conservative government. After three years of challenges by the Whitlam Government, the Fraser-Lynch-Howard Budgets of 1976 to 1982 returned to blaming everyone but the business managers and owners for the woes of business. The honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard) knew then what had to be done, but he could not get his way. He knows what is wrong today, but he cannot get his way today any more than he could then. He has been rejected by his Party on his proposal for a consumption tax. He has even been rejected by the Liberal Party of Australia because he acknowledges that Aboriginals were the original inhabitants of Australia. How far is the Liberal Party prepared to go? His Party rejected his recommendations on the referendum questions and on media ownership. The Hawke Government's reformist and innovative approach to media ownership is little different in zeal from the reformist and innovative approach of the Whitlam Government. The difference today is that there has been constant consultation, something conservative forces in business discouraged in the Whitlam era. The Government's transport and communication policy committee, which I chair, has listened to radio and television owners and managers, to consumer groups and to the public servants. Its distinguished member, Senator Gareth Evans, has carefully developed a policy with the cooperation of highly competent public servants, his colleagues in Cabinet, the policy committee and those interest groups that I mentioned-radio and television owners and managers, consumer groups, media unions, the Public Service as well as the Ministers involved. The Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill is evidence of an important new approach to media ownership and control-an approach which has taken media from the trenches of protection. For far too long, media was highly partisan, anti-employee and uncritical of business management. I can recall from my teens in 1949 reading in a major daily newspaper above a picture of Prime Minister Chifley and his Cabinet a headline which read, `Chifley and his Henchmen'. The same firms which owned major dailies at that time owned the most listened to radio stations and, seven years later, in 1956, the major television stations. What the Government has done is restrict the amount of control of a television station by a newspaper owner to 5 per cent and of a radio station to 15 per cent. It has restricted the amount of control of a newspaper or radio station by a television owner to 15 per cent and the amount of control of a newspaper by a television or radio owner to 15 per cent. This has meant that a newspaper owner no longer has the ability to use the other important media-radio and television-by churning out the same views, the same news slant, on other media. The actions have ensured that new owners have come into the media-people who are prepared to have a go and put business before politics. I do not suspect for one minute that those people are new permanent supporters of the Australian Labor Party; they are not. But their arrival is refreshing because they are less partisan and more business-like. Under the changed system they are more likely to be challenged for their quality by other media. Competition will have a much sharper edge to it because much of the protection has been removed. These businesses, along with many other businesses throughout Australia, are less protected from other enterprising competitors. When a business becomes a monopoly or holds a large captive market, it loses the will to grow and it protects itself. That is far less likely with the media today. The Government now goes further than that. Passage of the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill 1988 will mean that media owners will not only have to choose whether they want their major role to be newspapers or television or radio-they will not be able to have a major role in more than one-but will also have to take account of other monopoly preventative actions. There will be a national limit of 16 radio licences; a State limit of 50 per cent of possible audiences; and a local limit of one licence. The radio listener will benefit from new FM radio stations across Australia. By 1992, commercial FM radio services will be available to more than three million people outside the capital cities. There are still bad gaps in our radio and television services. Some have actually occurred because of the new availability of FM radio. There are important fringe television areas in Tallaganda Shire and other municipalities where people who have television now may well lose it. This is because of the allocation of frequencies to FM radio. In Tallaganda Shire, up to 300 people are anxiously awaiting to find out what their television reception will be like when they lose their present VHF frequencies, which give them poor, sometimes reasonable, reception even though officially they are not in a reception area. Their stations will move to UHF frequencies. That those FM radio channels were needed is evident in other areas of my region-Eurobodalla and Shoalhaven. In those areas, over 16,000 people have no Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio. They will have that service when they receive Radio 3 on FM radio. I emphasise that Braidwood people will receive a new transmitter, one which extends up to 10 kilometres from the town. Areas beyond may well receive good reception. Others which now receive Capital 7 and the ABC from Canberra will still receive them. WIN television and ABC from Wollongong may well be seen by others even though their frequency will change from VHF to UHF. For those who will lose their reception, the Government is now reviewing the application of the remote commercial television service (RCTS) satellite provision because the commercial network which wanted that service is no longer prepared to provide it from the satellite. The honourable member for Gilmore (Mr Sharp) knows, as I do, what a combination of problems this will cause in some country areas. I know that the area around Crookwell will also be affected. I encourage the Government to move quickly into that review of what it will do about people who will no longer be able to get a satisfactory RCTS service. It must assist those people as soon as possible. However, there is good news for many country regions. Country regions will benefit from a change to aggregation. Canberra, Orange and Wollongong stations will each transmit in the areas of the others so that, from late 1989, local people will have a choice of three commercial television stations, as well as the ABC. The Minister for Trade Negotiations (Mr Duffy), when Minister for Communications, directed the move to those arrangements. The many people who today have little choice of commercial programs and sport will gain that choice and will be able to thank Minister Duffy for his hard work as Minister for Communications; Senator Evans, the present Minister for Transport and Communications; their departmental advisers who worked long hours; and the sharp contributions by the wardens of Caucus on my policy committee-all of which will usher in a new era of better quality broadcasting services which will be available at all levels and in all areas. We will experience a more competitive and business-like media environment. I am pleased to support the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill. Mr SHARP(Gilmore)(10.08) —There can be no more controversial legislation that this House can debate than the legislation we are debating tonight. In fact, this has been the situation for probably 18 months. Eighteen months ago, the then Minister for Communications and present Minister for Trade Negotiations (Mr Duffy) released a Press statement indicating that the Government would lift audience reach from its then position of 43 per cent to 75 per cent. As a result of that Press release, television station proprietors and media owners throughout Australia immediately began an avalanche of investment in the media industries. Billions of dollars were spent on the purchase of television stations, radio stations and newspapers. The value of those items increased many times over to figures that no-one would ever have imagined they were worth, purely and simply because this Government was under the impression that it could run this country not by parliamentary democracy but by Press release. When the legislation that the Government had promised would be delivered to the industry was finally brought to this Parliament and placed before the elected representatives of the people of this nation, we found that there was a hurdle in its way. We found that the people, as they were represented in this Parliament, were not prepared to allow the Government to go ahead and lift the audience reach from 43 per cent to 75 per cent. As a consequence, there was a great deal of hysteria and disinformation and a very heated debate took place in this House and throughout the community. That occurred because television station proprietors in Australia had invested billions of dollars. They were looking forward to massive cash flows and large profits and they expected that, as a consequence, they would have a substantial amount of power and influence in our country. When they saw the Opposition parties in Federal Parliament putting up a hurdle, they came to Canberra and tried to persuade, in very forcible tones, the people in our Opposition parties to buckle, to give in to the Government and accept the legislation as it stood. However, it proved to be a very confusing time for all people on both sides of the House, because misinformation was being toted to members of parliament by members of the television industry themselves. I can well remember receiving many deputations from television station proprietors. They would come down one week and tell me one thing; they would come down another week and tell me the exact opposite. This helped to create an environment in which making sensible decisions was very difficult indeed. At that time controversy raged. People made decisions at a time when they did not understand the full ramifications of what they were doing but, at the end of the day, I believe the right thing was done for the people of this nation because, as a result of negotiations, we established a figure of 60 per cent audience reach. That figure was acceptable to most people in this Parliament and to most people in Australia. It ensured that those people who had invested large amounts of money would not lose it. It ensured that the power of the audience reach that those television station proprietors would achieve would not put them in a position where they could have undue influence and power over the opinion forming processes of this country. The history of the matter is interesting. It all started when the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) decided that they would try to do something good for some of their mates and that they would lift the audience reach rules. The Treasurer at the time wanted to lift the audience reach rules to 100 per cent. The then Minister for Communications wanted to keep it at 43 per cent; and, as usual, the Prime Minister could not make up his mind what he really wanted. So, as a compromise, this figure of 75 per cent was arrived at. There is no logical base for 75 per cent. It is purely and simply some sort of mid-point between the position of the then Minister for Communications and that of the Treasurer. However, we ended up with 60 per cent because the National Party of Australia was able to negotiate with the Government at the time, as we were out of coalition, and establish a position which we believed was good for the regional people of Australia and the people of Australia in general. As a result of the negotiations that took place at that time, we saw the opportunity for regional television station proprietors to decide democratically whether they would choose to go down the path of aggregation or not. Unfortunately, since that time television station proprietors in regional areas have all chosen to go down the path of aggregation, despite the advice they gave us at that time that they did not want to. So we have a situation now where we have aggregation and where we have 60 per cent. I notice that the honourable member for Eden-Monaro (Mr Snow) spoke very informatively on some of the effects that aggregation will have within the areas that he and I share, which are the Tallaganda Shire, the Shoalhaven Shire, an area that the honourable member for Eden-Monaro is familiar with, around Crookwell and around the Goulburn district. We now find that many people in those districts are to lose their television reception. They will lose it as aggregation comes into being at the beginning of next year as channel WIN 4 and channel CBN 8 go onto UHF. This will mean that these people will miss out. I was at the Wombeyan Caves last weekend where there is a small community which, as of the beginning of next year, will completely lose its television reception. This situation comes as a result of the Government's decision not just to create aggregation but also to shift stations like WIN 4 from band 2 to give clearance so that more FM radio stations can be brought onto the airwaves. As a result, people in rural areas will be seriously disadvantaged. In addition to the disadvantage of losing television reception, localism in regional television will be reduced. The amount of local news that will be broadcast will be reduced; the amount of local current affairs and sport will be reduced. It is interesting to note that, in all of this huge media shake-up that has taken place, there has been a significant reduction in the number of television station owners in Australia. Some 18 months ago there were something like 35 or 40 television station owners in Australia. Now there are about 22 television station proprietors in this country. The change of ownership has basically taken place in regional Australia and that leads me to my concern about localism in regional television. I am quite sure that the reverse of what the honourable member for Eden-Monaro predicted tonight will take place. I am sure there will be fewer jobs in regional television. I am sure there will be less local content and less local current affairs, sport and so forth. These things concern us because, right throughout the changes in legislation that the Government has implemented, we have seen less competition; we have seen less choice for the viewer and we have seen more concentration of ownership into fewer hands, which I am sure will lead in the future to more power in fewer and fewer hands. It is for these very reasons that the Opposition is rejecting this legislation tonight. We reject it because, if we go as the Government wishes us to go, there will be less competition. You cannot have fewer owners and more competition. If we have fewer owners, we will have less competition. If we create more audience reach, conceivably this must mean that there will be less choice for viewers. It is that very point about which the Opposition is concerned. The Opposition is concerned to give more choice and more competition to the television viewers of Australia. We are concerned that, with this parcel of legislation that honourable members have seen in relation to broadcasting and television ownership and control in Australia, we have seen a moratorium on pay television. There is no earthly reason why we have to have a moratorium on pay television. Australians should have the right today to choose to purchase pay television if they wish. It will provide a tremendous increase in the choice that viewers have. It will provide a tremendous increase in the amount of competition for the existing television networks; and yet this Government chooses not to allow that to happen. Why does it choose not to allow it to happen? Because this Government, I am sure, has done a deal with the major television station proprietors to ensure that they can go through this change in ownership, this massive investment in capital that they have outlaid, without any additional competition. The Opposition is prepared to commit itself today to lift the moratorium on pay television and to increase competition and the choice that viewers have on television stations throughout this country. We want to see the television station audience reach rule lifted to 100 per cent. We want to see that moratorium on pay television lifted because we want viewers to have more choice and competition. This Government, through the legislation it brought down 12 months ago and the legislation it brings down in this House tonight, will ensure that the opposite happens. It will ensure that Australians have less choice. It will ensure that there will be less competition. It will ensure that the concentration of power and ownership of our television stations throughout this country will be forced into the hands of fewer and fewer people. We should not believe the words of the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans) when he says that this will improve television in Australia. It will not. We should not believe him when he says that the Government has chosen 75 per cent as a carefully crafted position for television audience reach. It is not a carefully crafted position. That is a load of rubbish. This 75 per cent audience reach rule represents a position of convenience. It has no logical base. It is a position of convenience because it suits the big business proprietors of Australia. It means that they can purchase more and more of the television stations in this country; they can have more and more influence; more and more power; and less and less competition. At the end of the day it will not be the people in this chamber or the television station proprietors who will miss out as a result of this legislation. It will be the ordinary Australian who will miss out on pay television; it will be the ordinary Australian who will have less and less choice and competition in television services. We on the Opposition side are prepared to vote against the Bill for those reasons and for those reasons of localism that I outlined in my speech tonight that relate to the people who will miss out altogether on television reception in the electorate of Gilmore, which is something that I am very concerned about. Mr RONALD EDWARDS(Stirling)(10.20) —May I, at the outset, say that I would like to thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your assistance in being able to make these remarks. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Cowan) —It was a pleasure. You always help me. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —Thank you. I think it is important for people listening to the debate to understand-- Mr Peter Fisher —Now be generous in your comments. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —There has been very good cooperation among members of the House of Representatives, regardless of which side they are on. The honourable member for Lyne (Mr Cowan) cooperates fully in conducting the proceedings of the House. I thank him. Having said that, there are a number of things I need to say about the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill. One thing that I need to say for my colleague the honourable member for Eden-Monaro (Mr Snow) is that the issue of aggregation in the electorate of Eden-Monaro is not the reason why some people will have a change in their television reception. In fact, the technical consideration is what is called band 2 clearance. In other words, stations are being moved in order to facilitate greater reception. One of the problems in Eden-Monaro was that 16,000 people could not get Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television. With UHF they will now be able to get ABC television. I just wanted to explain that point, which the honourable member for Gilmore (Mr Sharp) brought up. Having consulted with my colleague the honourable member for Eden-Monaro, that is the technical reason. Obviously, around the country there will be patches in which people who fortuitously used to get programs on VHF may not, when they move to UHF, be able to receive those programs. We are advised, however, that that will be the minority. I know that there are many members of this House who have country electorates who will be vigilant in looking after the interests of viewers in those electorates. Of course, this legislation in part relates to that. One of the issues we ought to establish at the outset is that the cause of this sort of debate is the satellite. The satellite meant that we were able to have networking of television programs. It meant that networks themselves could achieve economies of scale which previously were very difficult or very expensive to achieve with the terrestrial system. The satellite has meant that a network such as the ABC, the Special Broadcasting Service or one of the three commercial networks can distribute programs right around Australia. The question then became what kind of audience reach should we, in legislative terms, facilitate. In other words, how far should a network be able to distribute its programs. It makes sense to ask that question and obviously people have different views. Last year a decision was reached, by agreement with the National Party of Australia in the Senate, that 60 per cent was to be the audience reach. Clearly, it had been our intention to make it 75 per cent but because of the circumstances at the time, 60 per cent became the operating rule. What also became the operating rule was that cross-media ownership was now restricted. In other words, people could no longer so easily have a television station, a radio station and a newspaper in a defined geographic area. It seemed to us as a government to make sense because why should one in a particular area, particularly a provincial area of Australia, be subject to the opinions of only one media owner? It seemed to us that the greater the number of opinions that were available to people the more their opinions could be formed from a greater information base. Secondly, such a provision is inherent in the processes of democracy. Not only did we have to look at the question of audience reach-therefore that 75 per cent was our goal; that is the goal in this legislation-but also we had to consider the question of cross-media ownership. That is what this debate centres on. I might say that prior to today we had quite an interesting lot of contributions from the Opposition because obviously this was a matter which vexed the minds of honourable members opposite. It was a matter that vexed the minds of everyone, but particularly those of Opposition members because they were not quite sure what position they were going to establish. They had to decide whether it would be the old 43 per cent, 60 per cent, which was, if you like, prior to this legislation the existing rule, the 75 per cent which this legislation embodies or 100 per cent. We watched that debate go on. I can understand why the Opposition was troubled because in certain sections of the Opposition media ownership used to involve a cosy relationship in certain provincial areas-in the days of Anthony, Nixon, Sinclair and McEwen when there were small areas. Clearly, the cross-media ownership rules have now ruled out that concentration of opinion. Bear in mind that we have the satellite which facilitates economies of scale and that we have set a goal of 75 per cent. I add incidentally that if we take the five capital city networks and the audience reach the figure comes to 64.6 per cent. In other words, that is 21.9 per cent in Sydney, 20.4 per cent in Melbourne, 8.8 per cent in Brisbane, 7.1 per cent in Adelaide and 6.4 per cent in Perth. Those figures give us the five capital city audience reach. In effect 60 per cent would mean that we could not allow those stations to continue on a five capital city basis. On the other hand, if we go to 75 per cent, clearly that is facilitated. That is one reason why 75 per cent is important. The second reason is that in country areas we have held the view that we ought to make as many television stations as possible available to people. Anyone such as those of us in the Parliament who have had to endure the situation applying in Canberra where, aside from the ABC, there is only one commercial television station available, will understand fully why we want to open the coverage to three operators. Some of the offerings here in Canberra have been less than desirable. We have experienced that situation. However, let me make the point that when we talk to people around the country we find that what they want is the most up to date news and sporting coverage and the widest range of available programs, including films. In other words, they want as good a variety as can be got in the major cities. That is true in Western Australia, my home State, as well. This debate comes down to what kind of structure of ownership we should arrange to enable people to get the widest choice in television viewing. Very clearly, we are of the view that 75 per cent facilitates that. I think I have explained why to the people who might be listening to this debate. I will now take up another point that I think is very important. It is a very real concern to me that at the moment we have some television stations buying the exclusive rights to events, particularly sporting events, and then choosing not to cover them. Mr Deputy Speaker, you might recall that we had the situation a couple of years back when the Wimbledon tennis championships were on at the same time as Australia was playing cricket in England. We had one network that simply did not want to give up the rights to one of those sporting events and thus enable it to be carried on another station. In my view that was an extraordinary situation. It is something about which I would share the view of the honourable member for Goldstein (Mr Macphee), who has said that we really ought to examine whether stations should have such exclusive rights. I also hold the view that the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal has been deficient in the way it has managed that area of television. Such a situation just does not make sense. It does not make sense that we can have a major sporting event such as Wimbledon being bought up by a network which then does not run it because it chooses to run another program which it deems has more commercial value. People are thus denied a viewing experience they ought to have had. Those honourable members who, like Mr Deputy Speaker, come from country areas will know in relation to the Melbourne Cup, for example, that the ABC can no longer bid for that event because it has not got the money. As a result, a lot of people are denied seeing the Melbourne Cup. This is so because those networks that carry the event will not give secondary rights to the ABC. It is all right for people in metropolitan areas but very often people in country areas miss out. I do not think we should stand for that. I think it is something we ought to be bringing to the attention of the Broadcasting Tribunal. Certainly, it is something on which we should be making a submission to the relevant parliamentary committee and saying that this is a deficient area. In Western Australia the Seven network has bought the rights to the West Australian Football League coverage. However, it has now turned round and does not provide any television coverage of football in Western Australia. In effect, the West Australian Football League and the viewers are denied that product. In my view, that represents an unnecessary restraint of trade. I am certain that if we were determined enough we could take it to the Trade Practices Commission. By doing that we might begin to see some light at the end of the television tunnel, if I can put it like that. I think the situation is unsatisfactory. The other issue I want to develop relates to something which my colleague the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Charles) and the honourable member for Goldstein brought up. I refer to Sky Channel. I think that we really have to look seriously at the issue of cross-media ownership in that regard. I think that there is a potential for conflict of interest. It is possible, for example, for a network to buy the rights to a sporting event such as the fight involving Jeff Fenech and then broadcast that fight only through Sky Channel so that people who want to witness it have to go to a hotel to do so. It seems to me that that is a very bad way for this community to be heading. Incidentally, it is one of the reasons why we are reluctant to proceed down the path of pay television. We want to see what the implications of that are for the community. If we do not have a degree of concern in this Parliament and a degree of debate about it, we might have a situation where, as happened in the final of the World Cup cricket last November, a television station such as Channel 9 could choose not to put such an event to air by broadcast television but put it to air only through Sky Channel, meaning that one would have to go to a hotel or licensed premises to watch it. In my opinion that is a sporting event that all the community should enjoy. It is my view that if one chooses not to go to one of those venues, one should still be able to enjoy the sporting event. We ought not to let those who hold the purse strings dominate our viewing. I come back to this point: it is unsatisfactory under the current arrangements of exclusive rights that a network can buy the exclusive rights and then choose not to run that program, and it has happened. The network should be wary, because people in this place are very unhappy about that. We may have to look to the responsible Minister being in a position to declare that this is a major sporting event and that people should have access to it. It is very important and ought not to be overlooked. I want to say something else on that question. It seems to me that the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal ought to consider, in terms of the restriction of trade, whether a channel is restricting people's access to a particular sporting event or other major public event. I make the point also that I was one who strongly pursued the question of a third commercial licence for Western Australia. That happened, and I thank my colleague the honourable member for Burke (Mr O'Keefe) for his support. It was a sensible decision because the population of Perth had grown. It has a viable, vibrant community and we needed a third commercial channel. People went through the bidding process; they submitted on the grounds of local production, local employment, and local content, but what happened? The successful bidder who then won the licence proceeded to sell it off at a benefit to another group, which had none of the requirements in relation to Western Australia. The group had no commitment to local production, no commitment to local content, and so on. We are very fortunate that the new owner, Westfield, has honoured to the letter all its obligations in terms of that licence ownership. It began just a week ago, and I compliment it warmly on fulfilling its obligations. There was clearly a deficiency in the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal's processes at the time. I heard what the honourable member for Goldstein said earlier, and I compliment him on those remarks. The question of section 50 of the Trade Practices Act is something we ought to be considering further. It is a matter of concern in relation to the procedures of television ownership and control. We really ought to see that there are some social obligations to be fulfilled. I am happy that those social obligations are being fulfilled in the way television ownership is envisaged, but we also ought to be concerned about the other matters I have raised-the question of people having exclusive rights to a sporting event and then choosing not to cover it, which seems to be totally unacceptable; the question of people in certain areas being denied access to particular events of national importance, which is a matter of concern. On behalf of the ABC may I say that I have always found the ABC very encouraging in that, if it can do so, it will pick up further coverage for country areas on major sporting events such as the Melbourne Cup. However, that is something we ought to be aware of. When we go back over this whole debate on television ownership and control, the question that has to be borne in mind is that we now have a satellite. That satellite means that economies of scale make sense; economies of scale mean networking. The Government believes in 75 per cent audience reach because that means there can be effective programming and local content and a viable television industry. In my own city of Perth the benefit is to be seen. We now have the new Channel 10, and I welcome it warmly to Perth and the programs it is putting to air. The channel will provide a wider sporting and other program coverage, and the community will benefit from that. The Opposition must think through its policy more clearly. It has not really been thought through. The Opposition does not know whether it is going back to the old 43 per cent or whether it wants to go to 100 per cent. The Government is very unhappy with the contribution the Opposition has made so far because it has not clearly thought through the implications of its policy making. Once the old rotten borough mentality that the Opposition had has been removed, the Opposition has nothing to work on. The Government has a very clear goal of policy making, and that is to have a viable television industry. Madam SPEAKER —Earlier today the honourable member for Wannon (Mr Hawker) drew my attention to a point of order. The ruling I gave was incorrect. The honourable member for Kingston asked a question of a different Minister, but that has no relevance. I give my apologies to the honourable member for Wannon. Mr Hawker —Madam Speaker, thank you for correcting your earlier ruling. Mr N.A. Brown(Menzies)(10.35) —This is a debate on the Broadcasting Ownership and Control Bill 1988. It may come as a surprise to the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Ronald Edwards), who has just completed his remarks, that the Bill does basically two things. The first is that it increases the number of radio licences that may be held by one licensee-that is, by one person or one company-to a maximum of 16. The second thing the Bill does is to prohibit, by means of cross-media ownership rules, the ownership by one person of a radio licence and a newspaper in basically what we can refer to as the same region. That is what the Bill provides, although it also has a host of other provisions, as is normally the case. The measure can fairly be described as yet another broadcasting Bill. It comes as a surprise to me to hear the honourable member for Stirling accuse the Opposition of not having a coherent communications policy. What the Government seems to do in this House when it has nothing better to do is promote yet another piece of broadcasting legislation. There is no coherent theme or intelligible policy behind this collection of broadcasting Bills which the Government continues to introduce. In reality, this is one more piece of the patchwork quilt, where the Government has fixed up another one of its deals with its friends in the media over a few cigars and a bottle of whisky; the law is changed for the convenience of a handful of people; and then they make commercial decisions consistent with that and within that framework, of which, in most cases, it seems to me, they have already been given prior notice anyway. It is extraordinary that, after the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans) announces the change to the limit on the number of radio stations one person can own, the very next day the media proprietor is in a position to announce that he has acquired a large group of radio stations. That sort of thing just does not happen-special deals for special mates, advance notice, tip-offs, rigging the whole system and fixing it up for one's friends. And members like the honourable member for Stirling have the audacity to say that the Government has a coherent regularised communications policy. That is a nonsense proposition. It is the Opposition that now has a coherent communications policy, and it is probably the only party in this country that does so. In the course of the argument that developed publicly about radio licences, the issue arose as to the audience reach of television stations. A debate occurred concerning a proposal made by the Government that the television audience reach should be increased from 60 per cent to 75 per cent of the potential audience. I shall address a few remarks on this matter because, if I were a betting man, I would say that the Government is probably going to raise this issue again. It is not a dead issue; it is going to be raised again in one form or another. The Opposition is concerned that when the matter is raised and there is a further move to increase the audience reach of television stations, it should be done properly. To do it properly does not mean simply increasing the audience reach for the lucky members of the television club who already have licences-that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is to make sure that when they get those licences, because they probably will get them one day, there should be more scope for competition. It is the ultimate in hypocrisy for those who have a vested interest in this field to say, `Give us access to the whole of the potential audience' or, `Give us access to 75 per cent of the potential audience'-that is consistent with competition and freedom of commercial endeavour and all the other reasons that are advanced-and at the same time to say, `But make sure we don't have any more competitors and make sure that no more licences are issued. Make sure that we have to compete only within the membership of this club, and make sure that anyone else who tries to get into the club is blackballed'. That in substance is what the Government proposed in reality when it advocated some months ago that the audience reach should be increased to 75 per cent. That is exactly what the Government proposed. It said, `Yes, let us give them a wider audience reach. Let us give them 75 per cent, but we will not allow anyone to compete with them. We will let them keep their own cozy arrangements, their own club with its standard membership. We will let all of that remain, we will maintain it and we will oppose new licences and make sure that they do not have any additional competition'. The Government is speaking with a forked tongue when it advances that argument. If the Government really wants a lively television industry in this country and one which provides choice, by some means or other it must allow more competition. We have said that there are two ways in which to provide more competition in television. The first is to allow new forms of television. The Government could allow licences to be issued on the UHF spectrum and, more importantly, it could allow pay television, subscription television and cable television. The Government's response to that really is quite extraordinary when one thinks about it. In fact, the Government has said, `There is an embargo on pay television. It is illegal to enter into pay television'. I have been trying to think of some sort of analogy to illustrate better the Government's attitude on pay television. I suppose the best comparison that I could come up with is the Luddites, because the Luddites and others at various times in history smashed their machines rather than allow progress. When one thinks about it, what can be more obstructionist to progress and human endeavour than someone responding to a new form of available technology by saying, `Well, we will prohibit it; we will stop it'. We may as well outlaw the motor car. It is almost like passing a law when the printing press was invented outlawing it until, say, 1990 or 1992 because it might do some damage to the industry that makes pens, quills and ink. It is an absurd argument. It is an utter absurdity that the Government has got itself in the position where it says, `No, people will be denied the chance to watch television channels that they are prepared to pay for'. People will be denied by the force of law the opportunity to subscribe to television stations that show films, sport and all day news service, or even French cooking lessons for those who are disposed to study that particular field of human endeavour, and so on. It does not matter what it is, because the beauty of pay television is that one receives what one pays for and, if there is a market for something, someone will provide it. If there is a market for films on television without commercials and the other programs which are provided at the moment, someone will invest in that area and provide that service. However, in response to that the Government says no. I mention pay and cable television simply because the Government is not freeing up the system; it is locking it up because it is preventing more competition and it is preventing the establishment of pay television channels which will give people more choice. We say that pay television is one way of providing more competition in the television industry and, of course, that is really what it comes down to. In addition, we say that more competition can be generated by issuing new television licences. No-one would suggest that an unlimited number of licences should be issued willy-nilly, just as no-one would suggest that automatically overnight we should introduce pay or cable television. Obviously we must look at the economic consequences, and obviously we must take a serious look at the way in which that would affect the industry and the community as a whole. We are asking the Government, in all seriousness, not to put up the shutters against progress and not to place embargoes on people who simply want to invest, who simply want to provide a public service and who are prepared to have a go in this particular area of the industry. I said before that the Opposition has a coherent and detailed communications policy. In addition to the points that I have mentioned, we also have a commitment to cross-media ownership rules to ensure that when the new forms of television are introduced-and they will not be introduced under this Government-protection will be provided by cross-media ownership rules which are moderate and sensible and will ensure that those who enter this industry as new competitors do so not simply as new manifestations of those who are already in it but as genuine and serious new competitors, because that is what we want. I do not know whether I can add anything further, simply because, frankly, this Bill does not go very far. Despite its length, the Bill, apart from some mechanical matters, is confined to the two matters that I have mentioned. Firstly, it increases the number of radio licences that one owner may hold and, secondly, it prohibits a radio licensee and a newspaper owner from cornering the two markets in the same region. Unfortunately, the Bill does not take those giant strides that could be taken in communications. The Bill is simply one more instalment in the whole patchwork approach taken by this Government which, as I said before, is simply a matter of fixing things up for the convenience of its friends as circumstances change. We say that it is time for an all embracing approach to this industry so that there is more choice, more competition and a better deal for the viewer and the listener, because they certainly are not getting that at the moment and nor will they get it from this Government. Mr O'KEEFE(Burke)(10.48) —Before picking up one or two comments made by the honourable member for Menzies (Mr N.A. Brown) I indicate that this may well be my last opportunity to make a contribution in this the old Parliament House. Therefore, Madam Speaker, I want to say what a pleasure it has been to be a member of parliament in this House under your speakership. Mr Smith —Is this the adjournment? Mr O'KEEFE —No, it is not the adjournment; I am simply paying Madam Speaker a compliment which she has well earnt. I turn now to what the honourable member for Menzies had to say about the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill. I actually wrote down three words and put a big star alongside them because at one stage he said that out of all the debate on communications legislation the Opposition has now developed a `coherent communications policy'. In response to that, all I can say to the honourable member for Menzies is that, if that is so, he has failed to communicate it coherently. In all that he had to say I could not discern any strands of coherence in the way that the Opposition has attacked the whole question of communications policy. As a matter of interest, the views of another member of the Opposition, a man whose views on this area I have paid quite a lot of attention to, the honourable member for Goldstein (Mr Macphee), are considerably different, and rightly so, from the views of the Opposition in general. I am not quite sure whether the honourable member for Menzies and the honourable member for Goldstein have similar views. Perhaps it is they who have the coherent policy on the other side of the House, but certainly there is no coherent policy in general amongst honourable members opposite. Let us go to the patchwork quilt which the honourable member described. As he does not understand it, I will outline four key components that I am very happy to advocate in this House and to lay out in a coherent form. First of all, what the Government has done in this major restructuring of the communications industry is to implement what I consider to be the most far-reaching reform of the law, that is, the cross-media ban. I will relate an incident in my background that gives me such a strong conviction that it is right. For those who do not understand, the cross-media ban is the means by which it is now no longer possible to hold controlling interests in the range of media across a network in one audience area. In other words, one cannot control a television station, a newspaper and a radio station in the one area. I go back to an incident in my past when a trade union for which I was working found itself at odds with the editorial policy of Channel 7 in Melbourne. It turned out that Channel 7 was owned at the time by a group that also owned the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd and radio 3DB, which has now passed on. The general manager of the station at the time rang our union secretary and said, `We are not doing business with you any more. We are not going to convey your point of view'. That applied not only to his television station, which he was upset about because we would not accept one of his journalists as an interviewer; he also made it perfectly clear that the company would not carry any of our information in its newspapers or on its radio station. Not only did it make that policy clear, but it implemented it for five years. My trade union and its constituency had no access to the public information forum because that deliberate editorial policy was applied right across the network structure. The first and most major aspect of this policy is the introduction of the cross-media ban. That means that radio stations, newspapers and television stations are all independent of each other. It means, in my opinion, that over time we will see a greater degree of diversity and a higher quality of reporting and journalism in the dissemination of general information, editorial feature writing and all the rest of it. The pattern that will emerge in my opinion-and here I give only my opinion-is that the morning newspapers will set the tone for the day with their approach to news and information. We have already seen that that tends to lead to much more emphasis on talk-back radio, which picks up on the stories of the day quite independently and broadcasts people ringing in and talking about general issues, not following the editorial line set out in the newspapers but expressing their own attitudes. The television stations in their feature evening programs then pick up their particular thrust, trying to put a new angle on what has been going on during the day. I think as a result, we will see a broader and more informed information network, but it will take time to develop. The cross-media ban, in my opinion, is the key element in this legislation. The next core issue is the question of television audience reach and the capacity to network. I know that the honourable member for Goldstein on the other side of the House is a strong critic of networking. I hope I will be able to explain it in a form which will enable him to see the logic of it and perhaps accept that there are benefits for Australia in a television station being able to network right around the land, therefore picking up the capacity to spend money, to invest, in producing a program in a production headquarters. That will enable the station to get a national audience that is commercially viable to transmit to and therefore will make it possible for it to start producing programs that may have an international audience. It is just not feasible to produce programs that are limited to one or two of the capital cities in Australia, so I accept the need to allow these stations to network. I make the key point: it is a constant distortion to say that this means that someone will have control of Australia's television audience. The fact of the matter is that at the moment there are three major commercial television channels and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. There are four major channels covering all of Australia. All we are talking about is the audience reach of one of four channels. A very good station may have a chance of picking up one-quarter of the national television audience-not 75 per cent, not 60 per cent and not 100 per cent. That is something that needs to be understood, and as the discussion is carried further it will be. Not enough has been said about the Government's insistence on Australian ownership of our communications network. That matter has been addressed and faced up to and the Government's position is clearly that it will insist on Australian ownership. The position I have taken on these matters is well know in this House and I strongly support the Government's stance. As a representative of a constituency which is in large part rural and a member of the country task force of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), I have to say also that members of the Opposition leave themselves badly open on the question of choice to country viewers. I do not know whether they understand this or not, but they ought to understand it. People in the country resent the fact that people in the city can turn on their television sets and get any number of television stations whereas in the country one cannot do that. In the country the choice has been limited in the past by the restrictions on the ownership of television stations. One particular group is owned by a former member of the National Party of Australia who sat in this House for many years. We all know that. As a result of that, I ask why those opposite have tried so consistently to prevent country people from getting choice of ownership. Whose interests are they protecting? As it is approaching 11 p.m., I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later stage. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House do now adjourn. Mr MACPHEE(Goldstein)(10.59) —I wish in what will be my last speech in this Parliament House to say how honoured I have been to represent the electorate of Goldstein, named after Vida Goldstein, who was one of the more remarkable Australians in the earlier part of this century. The more I read about her the more I realise that she was a person who would have understood very much the workings of this Parliament and the traditions and evolving nature of our society. I say in the few minutes remaining to me in this building that I am proud to represent a seat which now bears her name and in which she served the community of Australia for a long time. I am pleased to have been in this building but, as I said in the debate on the Supply Bills, I will be pleased to go to the other building. I will not be here for the valedictory for this building on Friday of next week because I will be overseas. I would have liked to raise a number of things then, some of which were humorous and some of which can perhaps be raised in the new building. But there is one serious matter I would like to put before this chamber now, and that concerns the debate on immigration which will probably come before the Parliament and the Australian community very shortly. It will probably come before the House tomorrow, but we will not have a chance to debate the report of the FitzGerald Committee to Advise on Australia's Immigration Policies. I recall that when I came to this place 14 years ago one other person elected at that time was a man named Michael Jerome Young, who was the member for Port Adelaide. He will not be going to the new Parliament House because of a decision he made himself. I have not had time to find out from him the real reasons for that. But I want to pay a tribute to him-and it will not necessarily be popular with the Government side of the House-because when I was the Minister for Immigration and Mick Young was the shadow Minister we worked through a series-- Mr Campbell —You are one of the world's great shonks-on a par with Chaney. Mr MACPHEE —The Minister for emus might not understand what I am saying, but serious minded members of the House will. Mick Young is one of the greatest human beings I have known. I want to put that on the record. I knew him long before I came into this place. I know the Leader of the House (Mr Beazley) shares my view. He is compassionate, he is realistic, he is honest, and he has a great empathy for the evolving Australia. He understands the nature of the evolving Australian identity and I think it is tragic that he has left this place at this time as the FitzGerald report is about to come in. He and I travelled all over this great country of ours, from Hobart to Darwin and covering all places in between. We listened to people, including the present honourable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Campbell), and we learnt and reflected on what people had told us were the important immigration and citizenship issues facing Australia. Now is the time for a serious and enlightened debate; a compassionate, impartial and objective debate. Now is the time for every member of this Parliament, in both the lower House and the upper House, to lead. The essence of the bipartisan policy which Mick and I worked out in those days remains. We on this side disagree with many aspects of the Government's administration of the policy, but it is essential to have an immigration policy based on highly selective criteria but non-discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, country of origin, colour or creed. If this Parliament ever departs from that it will be letting this country down. Let us have a proper debate. I just hope that those who in the months ahead of us lead the debate in this country, whether they include the current Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (Mr Holding) or the current shadow Minister, can bring to bear the maturity which in the old days Mick and I were able to bring. I really believe that is very important for this country, and as we move from this building to the next I want to pay a tribute to the former member for Port Adelaide. Ms CRAWFORD(Forde)(11.04) —I realise the hour is late but I wish to pay tribute to a group of people to whom I am indebted as they have enabled me to become the first Labor member for the seat of Forde and so enabled me to become part of the history of this place. These people are currently visiting Canberra as part of a promise they made to me 12 months ago. All this is part of the history of my electorate. These people reflect very much the nature of my electorate. Les Watts is the most decorated Battle of Britain bomber pilot alive, and he has now come to live in Australia. He is here with his wife, Joan. There are the Feeneys, the Frawleys, the Bells, Joan McGrath, Sybil Ross, Alisa Jones, the Dorringtons, the Wilcoxes, the Forresters and others. Ray Ridge is driving and assisting. I say, `thank you' to those people and ask them to continue to work with me and to place their trust in me, which has enabled me to participate in the debates in this House and to have the opportunity to be a member in the new Parliament House. These people have entrusted me with what I believe is a great task, which as part of this Government, I believe I can continue to perform. I thank them and acknowledge their presence here with us tonight. Mr COBB(Parkes)(11.06) —As this is the first opportunity I have had to do so since the event, I wanted to record how much I enjoyed the day of the opening of the new Parliament House. The same can be said of the three people who accompanied me-my wife, Margaret, my father, Roy Cobb, and my sister, Barbara. I found the building to be immense and somewhat overpowering. I have to confess that the architecture is a shade too modern for my tastes, though as the day wore on I must admit that it grew on me. The Great Hall is a marvellous venue in which to hold functions. The size of it is quite something. I had some doubts about the tapestry when I first saw it in the daytime. It looked too much like Blue Poles and was not quite my taste. At night, with the light shining on it, I started to appreciate some of the beauty of it that people spoke about. The balconies going around the Great Hall are marvellous. There is plenty of space up there and one can look at what is going on down below. At the same time, while there is an event in the Great Hall one can escape out to the marble foyer at the entrance, or at the other end to the Members Hall. The marble foyer is something of undoubted and great beauty. I hasten to say that much of the marble and granite has come from the little town of Eugowra in the electorate of Parkes, as indeed did the coach that was given the day before to the Queen. It was designed and made by Jim Frecklington from the town of Peak Hill with the help of 36 craftsmen, many of whom also came from the electorate of Parkes. To return to the new Parliament House: as to the backbench rooms, quite frankly, I could not find mine because the building is so big. I think one would need a compass and a waterbag to find them. But in the one I did look at, the timbers I found inside in the furniture were absolutely magnificent. The craftsmanship was really something. I do note that when one sits in one's room, the staff will be in another room. One will not be able to swivel around and given them orders; one will have to get up and walk across to them, or ring them up, or even ring the electoral office to find out whether they are down there. I think the new building could be somewhat lonely when compared with this building, but I guess we will never know just how functional it will be until we finally move in. The chambers did disappoint me a little. I found the shade of green in the House of Representatives was far too pale. It looked like it needed hyping up a lot to me, though the Senate chamber was somewhat better. Madam Speaker, I do regret that the chair you are sitting in will not be moving up there. I thought the one that has been built in its place looked almost like a three-ply replica. The speeches on the day of the opening were quite good. I acknowledge the generosity of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) towards Sir Robert Menzies. I thought that the speech of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard), was quite brilliant and was the best of the day. I thought that there were a few sad things. The Aborigines outside who hurled abuse during the prayers sickened me. I think that action did their cause much harm. I was also puzzled, and I thought it perhaps inappropriate, that when the prayers were said, some of them were in languages that I could not understand. Here I was, a member of the Australian Parliament, sitting in the chamber, and I could not understand what was being said. I thought prayers just in English, of the Christian religion, would have been enough. Michael Mansell was banned from the doors on the day-though I would rather have let him in than another fellow I saw on the dance floor that night, Al Grassby. The sight of him with his pot-belly hanging over his belt set the night back considerably for me. I was amazed that the Government had no shame in inviting him there. I thought the Queen went about her job with considerable dignity on the day, and it was indeed a thrill when she shook hands and exchanged a few words with the group that was with me. The string band and the colonial band were quite good. I was delighted that they played without loud speakers so that one could talk to one's partner when dancing. It was marvellous to see all the women in their finest feathers. It was a great day, a memorable day in a marvellous building. I am pleased and proud to be able to say that I was there. Mr CAMPBELL(Kalgoorlie)(11.10) —I will comment briefly on what the previous speaker, the honourable member for Parkes (Mr Cobb), said. He was right on one point: the decor in the new chamber is a very insipid, wishy-washy green. It admirably suits the personality of the honourable member for Goldstein (Mr Macphee). I want to talk tonight about traitors. The Australian economy is in a very delicate situation. There is no doubt that we have to become competitive by world standards. We have to live in the real world. There is no doubt that we have to contain wages. While some people may find that fact painful, and I sympathise with them, it has to be done. If it had not been for this Government restraining wages we would not have those one million new jobs that have been created. Although those one million people who have employment may not give credit to the Government, they are infinitely better off than they would have been on unemployment benefits. Let me return to traitors. Traitors are people who set about destroying the initiatives this Government has taken, people who set out to undermine the thrust of the economic recovery of this country. I refer specifically to the Board of Qantas Airways Ltd. These days it is advised by one Michael Jerome Young. The Qantas Board recently announced that it has made a profit of $150m on assets worth about $1 billion. Let me be generous and say that is a 15 per cent return before tax-a very mediocre performance, something about which the private sector would be appalled, but a run of the mill return before tax. This is after years of making nothing for the shareholders of Qantas, who are the people of Australia. Having made this enormous 15 per cent before tax profit Qantas has decided it will get rid of it by taxing itself. It will do this by giving a week's extra wages to all its staff, who I suggest are already generously paid, and by two other devious means. It will take its trade categories from three to two, thereby raising the effective level of pay, and it will take the allowances it pays to some staff and roll them over into wages, thereby raising wages-all, I might add, outside the Government's guidelines. It is outrageous behaviour from the Board of Qantas and completely undermines the thrust of Government policy. What can we do with a body such as this? Obviously, it does not have any consideration for its shareholders. If it were a private corporation there would be redress. The board probably would have been taken over long ago. In fact, the whole company would have been taken over, and it would have been improved. But Qantas is in a sacred position. Anybody in Australia who believes that Qantas operates in the national interest must have rocks in his head. Qantas obviously operates for the benefit of its own Board and its own employees. Effectively, it has decided to tax its profits by distributing them amongst its employees. It does not give the profits to shareholders. I might add that if this were a private company the directors would probably end up in gaol, and I think that would be a very good place for Mr Menadue. As a matter of fact, I have thought that for quite some time. I wish to devote the last couple of minutes of my speech to tonight's economic statement and to take to task the Treasurer (Mr Keating). Treasurer Keating said in announcing his gold tax to be imposed in two years time-I cannot imagine who in his right mind would telegraph his punches to the industry by two years, thereby reducing the life of the high grade open cut deposits from six years to two years-that the goldmining industry had not made a contribution. This is nonsense. The goldmining industry has made a contribution to the economy far in excess of anything the Department of the Treasury indicated, and in fact far in excess of what the private sector indicated it would do. I remember when the private sector said, `If you do not tax us we will produce $1 billion worth of export income'. Treasury pooh-poohed that. It is now worth $2 billion. There is an enormous amount of pay as you earn taxation and taxation on all the companies involved in the goldmining industry and that has been a contributing factor in the economic recovery of this country. It is obvious that Treasurer Keating-and it is my view that tonight he made sure that he will never be leader of this country-has acted on an ideological basis, not a rational basis. Question resolved in the affirmative. House adjourned at 11.15 p.m. The following notices were given: Mr Tickner to present a Bill for an Act to prohibit the advertising, promotion and certain sales of tobacco products in the Australian Capital Territory. Mr West to move- That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Relocation of Albion Explosives Factory to Mulwala, New South Wales. Mr Beazley to move- That- (1) standing order 103 (11 o'clock rule) be suspended for this sitting; and (2) in relation to the proceedings on the following bills, so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the House making one declaration of urgency and moving one motion for the allotment of time in respect of all the bills: Departure Tax Amendment Bill 1988 Departure Tax Collection Amendment Bill 1988 Migration Amendment Bill 1988 National Health Amendment Bill 1988 Local Government (Financial Assistance) Amendment Bill 1988 Primary Industries (Recovery of Levy Collection Expenses) Bill 1988 Fertilisers Subsidy Amendment Bill 1988 Customs Tariff (Rate Alteration) Bill 1988 Aviation Fuel Revenues (Special Appropriation) Bill 1988 Commonwealth Authorities Legislation (Pay-roll Tax) Amendment Bill 1988 Mr Beazley to move- That, unless otherwise ordered: (1) the House, at its rising, adjourn until Friday, 3 June 1988, at 10 a.m.; and (2) the routine of business on 3 June 1988 be as follows: 1. Notices and orders of the day. 2. Questions without notice (at 2 p.m.). 3. Presentation of papers. 4. Ministerial statements, by leave. 5. Notices and orders of the day.