Tuesday, 30 August 1988 Madam SPEAKER (Hon. Joan Child) took the chair at 2 p.m., and read prayers. Mr HAWKE(Wills-Prime Minister) —Madam Speaker, as a courtesy I inform the House that the Minister for Employment and Education Services, Mr Duncan, is representing the Government at Solomon Islands Day at World Expo 88 in Brisbane and will be absent from Question Time today. Questions which would normally be addressed to Mr Duncan should be directed to the portfolio Minister, Mr Dawkins. Madam SPEAKER —I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon a parliamentary delegation from Western Samoa, led by the Prime Minister of Western Samoa, the Hon. Tofilau Eti Alesana, MP. On behalf of the House I extend a warm welcome to the members of the delegation. Honourable members-Hear, hear! Mr PEACOCK —My question is directed to the Treasurer. I refer him to an answer given by the Minister for Industrial Relations in the House on 18 September 1987, in reference to the lack of evidence of productivity improvements under the second tier salary negotiations. He said: The real impact will be felt in 1988-89; we will see the full impact of this system when a full year of productivity improvements then applies. There will be a large boost to national productivity in that financial year. I also refer the Treasurer to the Budget forecasts which imply that labour productivity will increase by less than one per cent in 1988-89. I ask him: How can such a small increase in productivity projected for 1988-89 be consistent with the expected large boost referred to by the Minister for Industrial Relations when speaking on national productivity? Mr KEATING —There will be very clear and obvious benefits in terms of productivity in the system resulting from the 4 per cent case. Opposition members interjecting- Mr KEATING —Do honourable members opposite want to hear the answer? Opposition members interjecting- Mr KEATING —Well, they do not want to hear the answer. Ms FATIN —My question is directed to the Minister for Social Security. Can he inform the House of the Government's progress in implementing its commitment to improving the situation of sole parent families, which are some of the poorest families in Australia? Mr HOWE —I thank the honourable member for Brand for her question. I say in passing that quite effective work was done by a joint parliamentary committee on the situation of sole parent families. The honourable member was a member of the committee and I think the whole committee assisted the Government a great deal with its deliberations and consultations. I think it is important to recognise that the situation of sole parents has improved dramatically under the present Government. I say that within the context of an understanding that sole parents, generally speaking, are the poorest group within the social security system and the Australian community. Four hundred thousand of the 800,000 children who were in poverty when we came to office were children of sole parent families. As honourable members will understand, the Government has made a number of changes which are all interlinked. We have made changes with respect to family assistance and sole parents have been major beneficiaries. We have increased the mother's/ guardian's allowance. As a government, we have improved the levels of rent assistance and introduced an earnings concession for sole parents and other beneficiaries. We have eased income tests to provide greater incentive for sole parents to move into the work force. As you know, Madam Speaker, we have introduced stage 1 of the child support scheme and in this Budget we announced the broad details of stage 2. I mention briefly that I think all honourable members should be aware that stage 2 of the scheme is entirely prospective. Stage 2 will take away a lot of the complexity and the costs associated with legal action under the current arrangements. Of course, stage 2 will ultimately mean a significant improvement in the level of maintenance for tens of thousands of sole parent families. I make the point about stage 2 that where there are private arrangements in place and a sole pension parent is not involved, then people can continue with those private arrangements provided that one partner does not end up on the sole parent pension because of the inadequacy of payments. I want to quantify the significance of the improvements that have occurred for this group of people who, I repeat, when we came to office were regarded as the poorest group of people within the social security system. Let us take the position of the sole parent living in a modest rented house with two children-one a teenager-and consider the effects of the changes made over the past three years. We have maintained the value of her pension through indexation. We have increased the value of her child payments from $32 to $55 a week. We have increased the mother's/guardian's allowance from $10 to $12 and rent assistance from $10 to $15. For someone in her position-- Mr Ian Cameron —What about isolated children in western Queensland? Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for Maranoa will cease interjecting. Mr HOWE —For someone in her position, the measures announced in this Budget will mean further increases in child payments to reach the family allowance supplement benchmarks. If she has a husband earning $30,000 per annum, she will receive a net increase in income from child support of $72 a week and she will receive increases in rent assistance from $15 to $25 a week. So the safety net for such a person will be in place with disposable income increased by $120 a week over and above the indexation of that pension. All honourable members in this place, including the honourable member for Maranoa, would say that we ought to look after people most in need in our social security system. We ought to attack child poverty. I do not think that anyone could argue with the level of increases and the extent to which we have restructured the system to ensure that there are incentives for sole parents to work. We have ensured that in the future non-custodial parents pay realistic levels of maintenance. Together, those measures represent a massive increase in the real disposable income of sole parent pensioners. Mr Tuckey proceeding to address a question to the Treasurer-- Madam SPEAKER —The question is out of order. It is not within the Treasurer's portfolio responsibility. Mr Tuckey-Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. Any comment that the Treasurer makes about his Prime Minister is surely his responsibility. I remind you-- Madam SPEAKER —It is not within his portfolio responsibility. Mr Tuckey-Madam Speaker, I remind you that car conversations have been raised in this place before. Madam SPEAKER —The matter is not within the Treasurer's portfolio responsibility. Mr WRIGHT —Can the Prime Minister advise the House of the attitude of the Australian Local Government Association to the referendum question on the constitutional recognition of local government? Mr HAWKE —I thank the honourable member for his question. It is quite clear that the Australian Local Government Association supports, and supports very strongly, that referendum proposal being put to the people of Australia next Saturday. Unfortunately, we have here yet another illustration of the total incapacity of those on the other side of this place to tell the truth on just about any issue in politics. That is not something that is said lightly. Let me refer to the letter written to the Leader of the Opposition by the Australian Local Government Association on 25 August. That letter to the Leader of the Opposition was accompanied by a press release headed `Local government condemns statements by Mr Peter Reith'. I will refer briefly to some parts of that before going to one section of the letter which shows the concern of the Local Government Association that its very strong support for this referendum issue should be clouded by the misrepresentations coming from the Opposition. The press release said: The President of the Australian Local Government Association . . . today bitterly condemned comments made on national television by the shadow Attorney-General, Mr Peter Reith. Mr Reith had suggested . . . that many Councils in Australia are defecting from the official Local Government position . . . Mr Tuckey —They are. Mr HAWKE —Okay: come in sucker! The spokesperson for the Local Government Association said: `This is a blatant distortion of the facts' . . . `Mr Reith is entitled to promote the Coalition case but however difficult that may be for him on the Local Government question, he is not entitled to manipulate the truth. What did the spokesperson say to the Leader of the Opposition? Mr Tuckey —What about the whole of the Country Shires Association in Western Australia? Mr HAWKE —Your noise is no substitute for fact, my friend: make your noise; you are hopeless. The Local Government Association, by way of a letter dated 25 August to the Leader of the Opposition, said: Dear Mr Howard, I am writing to appeal to your sense of fair play. One might say that that would be a pretty hopeless exercise. Nevertheless, he tried. He referred to the 7.30 Report on which the shadow Attorney-General had made a statement about the Local Government Association's turning away. I quote from a letter to the Leader of the Opposition which shows what the spokesperson of the Association had to say about the Opposition and what it was saying: These are blatant lies which will do an enormous amount of damage to the Liberal Party's credibility with Local Government both in the short and the long term. Madam Speaker, just to give you a sample of the lies that have been told, the transcript of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio program-- Mr Tuckey —Madam Speaker, on a point of order-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Prime Minister will take note of the fact that even if he is quoting he is not permitted to use unparliamentary language in the House. Mr HAWKE —I withdraw, Madam Speaker. I will rely on the transcript of an ABC radio program yesterday concerning the well-known Mayor of Port Augusta. We will find out whether the Opposition is telling the truth or not. It says that it is being misrepresented. What did she have to say about the Opposition? Its spokesman got up and said that Port Augusta was one of those which would give it away. The Opposition spokesman has a fate worse than death coming to him as he listens to this. Mr Reith —I know. Mr HAWKE —Not at my hands, Peter, but at the hands of Joy. You had better watch out, mate; rather you than me. Madam SPEAKER —Order! Will the Prime Minister speak through the Chair. Mr HAWKE —I am, Madam Speaker. What did Joy Baluch, the Mayor of Port Augusta, have to say about this gross misrepresentation which had been going on all over the country? She was asked: One of the councils mentioned as having bailed out of the general local government `yes' push, was Port Augusta Council. Well, did it change its mind and, if so, why? She said: Well nothing's changed here in Port Augusta. We certainly haven't changed our mind-but I would think that Mr Reith who was responsible for that statement, that in his rhetoric he certainly should have checked with the councils he named. She was asked: Where does that leave you? This was her delightful answer: Well the little darling- that is, the honourable member for Flinders- will probably get a telegram tomorrow morning because I have a Council meeting this evening, and it will be certainly drawn to Mr Reith's attention very strongly tomorrow that he should have made contact with us first. Of course, the honourable member would never do that. She said: As a matter of fact- not of the honourable member's misrepresentations; as a matter of fact- our sister cities of Whyalla, Port Pirie and ourselves have combined in an advertisement on our regional television to advocate the `yes' vote. What does the honourable member do? He stands up and says that they have withdrawn. They say he is wrong. No wonder the Mayor finishes up on a delightful note. I ask the honourable member for Flinders to listen to this, because here is his fate. The interviewer asked: Is there anything that you can do apart from a telegram to the shadow Attorney-General? She replied: I'm too far away from him to choke him dear. It is a pity that the honourable member's own principles will not lead him to tell the truth in these matters. It is a pity that the honourable member's Leader has not got the principle and the guts to stop him spreading untruths. That will not do the honourable member any good. May I say that the honourable member deserves the fate that awaits him when he goes to Port Augusta. The best of luck to Joy. Mr PEACOCK —I direct my question to the Treasurer. I ask: Given that the rate of growth in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to slow down in 1988-89 due to the projected decline in the inflation rate, why has the provisional tax uplift factor been increased from 11 to 12 percentage points? Further, I ask: Is the increase to 12 percentage points due to the impact of bracket creep forcing taxpayers into higher brackets? Mr KEATING —That is the killer question, the knock out punch. Every year the Australian Taxation Office makes judgments about the company tax payments in prospect and also about non-pay as you earn incomes and determines what it thinks is a reasonable uplift factor for provisional tax. As provisional income is set to rise again this year, the view was that another one per cent would be reasonable. Taxpayers have the option of self-assessing, if they wish. They are not obliged to meet an increased uplift if they wish to self-assess. That simply is the answer to that part of the question. While the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has been ruminating on this particular issue, I mention that I have just been through the article written by Mr Burrell in yesterday's Australian Financial Review in which he put questions to the shadow Treasurer about his economic policy. What I found was the most profound bit of waffle and wishful thinking that perhaps I have seen in a long time. Normally I would give these things more thought before I commented on them, but this is so crass and ridiculous that it is worthy of comment immediately. He was asked about taxation and provisional uplift factors. We are now talking about what the shadow Treasurer would do. He was talking about a $10 billion tax cut, working on $56 a week for the average taxpayer. When we look at all the other things which the Opposition would abolish, such as fringe benefits tax and all the rest, he is looking at spending cuts of as high as $15 billion. The writer of that article asked him, `What about the poor and the handicapped?'. The honourable member for Kooyong said, `We are not touching those'. That brings him down to about the last third of the Budget. To secure the savings he is talking about a 33 per cent cut to government spending in Australia-a 33 per cent cut on where outlays to GDP already are; that is, about 5 percentage points lower than where we found them, which was around 30 per cent of GDP. The writer of the article says: . . . slicing another third would alter the way the role of government is perceived in post-war Australia . . . add to the political perception of the death of government as we know it. `The most significant contribution to the program', says the Deputy Leader, `will be health, but I am not prepared to give details of where else will be examined. Health spending, by the way, this year is about $11.7 billion'. Even if he wiped out all of the Commonwealth's health spending, he still would not be able to afford his tax cuts. The long and short of it is that members of the Opposition are asking questions about the tax uplift factors, not seeking to detail about $15 billion worth of spending cuts which would underpin the tax cuts and with not the foggiest idea of what those tax cuts would do other than impact upon demand and upon the current account and blow our economic strategy to bits. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition goes through these arrant prattlings; he gets a couple of questions shoved into his hands for Question Time, and then he annoys me with them, trying to make a couple of cheap political points rather than deal with the major issues: What is the Opposition's economic policy? In which way will its economic policy be different? In which way will it cut spending, as it says it will? Where would its outlays to gross domestic product level settle? What functions of government would it cut? Mr SCOTT —My question is addressed to the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. Madam SPEAKER —We cannot hear you. Try again. Mr Tuckey —Speak into your microphone. Mr SCOTT —Get some pliers and fix it up yourself. I address the question to-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! I cannot hear the question. Mr SCOTT —Madam Speaker, can I say that the problem is mutual. I cannot hear what is going on up there. Madam SPEAKER —I know: it is difficult, is it not? Mr SCOTT —Sorry? Madam SPEAKER —We are in the process of fixing it up. Honourable members interjecting- Madam SPEAKER —If the House will come to order, we will have a third go at the question. Mr SCOTT —I address my question to the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. Opposition members-Hear, hear! Mr SCOTT —Those opposite will not be cheering when they hear the answer. Can the Minister advise the House on the degree of public support for the non-discriminatory character of the Government's immigration policy? Mr Howard —Can I have the right to reply? Mr HOLDING —I will certainly be delighted to give the Leader of the Opposition the right of reply. I thank the honourable member for his question. He will be aware, as honourable members will be aware, that there has been overwhelming support from leaders of ethnic communities, from Australian community organisations, and from leaders of the Liberal Party-including distinguished ex-Ministers responsible for immigration, the Leader of the Liberal Party of Victoria and spokesmen representing the Liberal Party in Victoria-making it perfectly clear that they support the policy of multiculturalism and support a non-discriminatory immigration policy. Mr Howard —You did not get much support. Mr HOLDING —Let us talk about support. I prefer the support that I have on this issue to the support of the Leader of the Opposition. Since the Leader of the Opposition has wanted to raise this matter, let us look at the level of support he received when he recently visited his own Party conference in South Australia. Before the Leader of the Opposition arrived, the Leader of the Liberal Party in South Australia made it perfectly clear where he stood on this very important issue. Mr Sinclair —Why were you sacked? Mr HOLDING —I realise that, if you cannot dominate any member of the Liberal Party, you get a little excited and annoyed. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Minister will address the House. Mr HOLDING —Mr Olsen has made it perfectly clear where he stands on this matter. Talking to his own Liberal conference, he said, `We have an attitude to immigration which is not only non-discriminatory but is seen to be non-discriminatory'. That is his position. Mr Howard —Oh! Mr HOLDING —I know that you find this a little upsetting; nevertheless, let us persevere. Madam SPEAKER —The Minister will ignore the interruptions. Mr Howard —Why have you been sacked? Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Leader of the Opposition will heed the Chair. Mr HOLDING —Madam Speaker, let the Leader of the Opposition go. After all, he is a man in some difficulty. He has polls which tell him that more Liberals in Australia prefer the Leader of the Labor Party to be the Prime Minister of Australia than prefer him. There is absolutely no reason why the Leader of the Opposition should not be a little bit testy and excited. He was confronted with having to go into a Liberal Party conference when he knew the policy that he was embracing and putting would not have any support. The comments of Mr Olsen, as presented in the Adelaide Advertiser, made no apology for the fact that he was clearly seen to be attacking the Leader of the Opposition for his policies. When this was put to the Leader of the Opposition he said, `Well, of course, we know Mr Olsen was misquoted'. That particular statement, which was designed to mislead members of the press who put that question to the Leader of the Opposition, was then answered by Mr Olsen. As we see in the Sunday Mail newspaper, his response was: I was not misquoted and I did not tell Mr Howard I was misquoted. It is my view that Mr Howard's policy is widely perceived to be racist and I do not support it. That was then interpreted-and I think accurately interpreted-by the journalist who reported it as Mr Olsen virtually accusing the Leader of the Opposition of not telling the truth. Added to the general opportunism of the Leader of the Opposition we are now seeing in his efforts to defend himself a developing capacity for mendacity. I do not know whether he was trying to confuse the House or mislead it, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt. When asked about the matter yesterday the Leader of the Opposition gave an explanation to the Parliament in which he again said that he had had a discussion with Mr Olsen. In a very carefully worded statement he indicated that what he, the Leader of the Opposition, had said to the press was accurate. The difficulty about that is that the Canberra Times has now further contracted Mr Olsen and his position is perfectly clear. He told the Canberra Times last night, after he had had an opportunity-- Mr Sinclair —God, you are windbag, Clyde. Mr HOLDING —We will not talk about the sort of strange-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Minister will ignore the interjections. Mr HOLDING —Mr Olsen, having had the benefit of hearing the Leader of the Opposition's statement to this Parliament, went on to say that he had not been misquoted in the Advertiser article. When it was pointed out that this appeared to contradict the Leader of the Opposition's statement, he said: I'm sticking to my version which I believe is a very accurate account of events. Not only does the Leader of the Liberal Party in South Australia repudiate and deplore the Leader of the Opposition's policy-he has made his position perfectly clear-but he deplores the attempts made by the Leader of the Federal Opposition to suggest that somehow or other he, Mr Olsen, was quoted out of context. He made it perfectly clear that the capacity for opportunism showed by the Leader of the Opposition in this matter had now been exceeded only by his capacity for mendacity. Mr HOWARD —I refer the Prime Minister to the double page $20,000 advertisement placed in today's Melbourne Age by the Council for the Defence of Government Schools, commonly known as DOGS, which again raises the divisive issue of government funding for independent schools. Does the Prime Minister accept that he and his Government are directly responsible for the reopening of this divisive debate by proposing the fourth referendum question? I ask the Prime Minister whether he agrees with the statement by the Minister for Justice, Senator Tate, when he said in the Senate on 1 June that if this proposal were carried: I cannot, nor can anyone, give an absolute untempered guarantee about any decision. He was referring to any decision the High Court of Australia might make on the state aid question. Mr HAWKE —I preface my answer by reminding the Leader of the Opposition that it was a Liberal Attorney-General who gave these people the status to go to the High Court on this issue. But that is history; let me come to the present. I pick up the last part of the Leader of the Opposition's question. Like all Ministers on this side of the House, Senator Tate is totally honest in what he says and the truth is-as even the Leader of the Opposition would know from his Sydney solicitor's practice-that there is such a thing as the division of government between the Parliament, the Executive and the judiciary. It is totally improper and impossible for any politician or any figure outside the High Court to say, `This is what the High Court will do'. If the Attorney-General were to say, `I will tell you what the interpretation of the High Court will be' we would be entitled to arraign the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice cannot say what a decision of the High Court will be. What they can do, and what the Attorney-General and Senator Tate have done, is to point to the line of interpretations, both in our own High Court and in the United States Supreme Court, to abolish from the mind of any fair-thinking person the lunacy of the fear and hysteria which have been proposed by honourable members opposite who on every issue in this campaign have attempted-- Mr Reith —What about the Catholic bishops? Mr HAWKE —Let me say this about the Catholic bishops: The Leader of the Opposition invokes the bishops when it suits him. He invokes them on the referendum question, but he repudiates their position on the question of multiculturalism and race. The Leader of the Opposition is the man of inconvenience. Truth is the first casualty with him on all occasions. Consistency is never-- Madam SPEAKER-Order! The Prime Minister will not cast aspersions on members of this House. I ask him to withdraw. Mr HAWKE —I withdraw, Madam Speaker. Instead, I will go straight on to this question of the referendum to establish right at the beginning what reliability we can place on this man. I make the allegation of no consistency. Let me read to the Parliament what the Leader of the Opposition said in a letter to the Leader of the Government on 10 February of this year about one of the issues in the referendum. He said this: I fully support the Ryde Municipal Council's request that a chapter should be inserted in the Constitution dealing with local government. Those were the words of the Leader of the Opposition in February of this year. Mr Howard —What about that? Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Leader of the Opposition has been requested to cease interjecting across the table. I ask him to please heed the Chair. Opposition members interjecting- Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Leader of the Opposition has been interjecting considerably across the table. He continues to ignore the Chair. The Chair will not put up with it; it will cease. Mr HAWKE —Let me repeat that in February of this year on a referendum question the Leader of the Opposition said: I fully support the Ryde Municipal Council's request that a chapter should be inserted in the Constitution dealing with local government. That was in February of this year. What is his position now? He is out there arguing against it and condoning the misrepresentations of the shadow Attorney-General. The Leader of the Opposition should not come in here talking about principles. Let me put this question of the implication for aid to non-government schools firmly to rest. If there is one thing in the area of education-- Opposition members interjecting- Mr HAWKE —I am talking about what we would be prepared to do in creating opportunities for that situation. As far as the law is concerned, I have said all that can be properly said on this matter by any Prime Minister or any Attorney-General. I repeat for the slow learners on the other side the simple and obvious proposition: firstly, no Attorney-General or spokesperson for this Government can presume to say, `This is what the High Court will determine' if in fact-- Opposition members interjecting- Mr HAWKE —All right, okay. If honourable members opposite purported to say, `This is what the High Court will say', they would be equally wrong. I repeat: what the Attorney-General can do is explain, as he has properly, in terms of the lines of decision of the High Court and the completely different lines of decision and issues in the Supreme Court of the United States, that it is virtually impossible in those circumstances-- Opposition members-Oh! Mr HAWKE —All right. Honourable members opposite can wag their little empty heads. But they should read the transcript and understand the reality of what I am saying. It is the same in economics, law, or any discipline: one cannot dogmatically say, `This is what will happen'. One can explain the line of reasoning and the issues involved. But, in the end, Harry, as you know, all one can honestly say-- Mr Porter —Which Harry? Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for Barker will heed the Chair. Mr HAWKE —The honourable member knows-and he nodded in agreement-that all that can honestly be done at the end is to say, `This is the most likely course of action', and I acknowledged the nod of agreement I am getting from him. The point I am making about the politics of this matter is that this Government would do nothing which in its opinion would put at risk the right of any government to provide financial assistance to the non-government education sector. I say that for this reason: one of the proudest boasts of this Government is that since coming to power, and only since we have come to power, we have buried the state aid debate. It was something that was ugly and divisive in this country. The great misfortune is that the only way in which these uglinesses can be revived-whether they are in regard to racism or state aid-is through a blatant disregard of the truth and the way in which honourable members opposite try to divide the community and mount hysteria in the community. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that, not only have people already had the courage in this Parliament to display their repudiation of him, but also it is now a matter of only weeks or months until he receives the fate that he deserves, as he has betrayed many of the fundamental principles of what in many respects was once a great party. He is a disgrace to the Liberal Party and, more importantly, he is a danger to this nation. He will be repudiated by the party before he has the opportunity to be judged by the nation. He ought to be ashamed of the fact that he has raised and given respectability to racism and that he has brought up the state aid debate. He ought to be ashamed of himself. Mr O'KEEFE —My question, which is directed to the Minister for Trade Negotiations, concerns opportunities for Australian producers to secure beef exports to Korea. I ask the Minister: Is it true that for the first time since 1984 Australia recently secured beef exports to Korea? If so, what is the significance of this for the Australian beef industry? Mr DUFFY —I thank the honourable member for Burke for his question. I am pleased to advise him and other members of the House that Australia has been successful in the second round of tenders for beef quotas in the recent partially reopened Korean market. This Government has been pressing Korea to reopen its beef market since 1984 when, as the honourable member is aware, it was closed to imports. We have worked through bilateral representations and also the establishment of a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade panel to review the Korean beef import controls. The fact that we have now secured a quota in what is a partially reopened market is of particular interest to Australian farmers. Mr Lloyd —What tonnage did we get? Mr DUFFY —If the honourable member will just wait a moment, I will tell him. That is the next point I am going to make. More than just the 1,130 tonnes that we will export as a result of this particular tender, it means that we now have our foot in the door in that market. We are able to establish a presence in the Korean market. That is a very important first step towards ensuring that we share in any longer term opening of that market. It also establishes our competitiveness in supplying that market. At the same time, I would like to inform the House that the Government will, nevertheless, continue both bilateral discussions with Korea and the process of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade panel to ensure that the permanent opening of that beef market is secured as soon as possible. Mr CADMAN —Does the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs agree with the honourable member for Kalgoorlie that formal immigration quotas should be set and that, because he holds a marginal seat, his judgment of the immigration issue is better than that of the Prime Minister? Mr HOLDING —The answer to both questions is no. Dr THEOPHANOUS —My question is to the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, and it is about the issue of business migration. Is the Minister aware of allegations made on the Sunday television program that the business migration program is being used as a method of buying one's way into Australia, that there are inadequate safeguards, and that in some cases the funds involved are the proceeds of illegal activities such as prostitution and drugs? Are these allegations correct? Mr HOLDING —I thank the honourable gentleman for his question. I am aware of the allegations made on the Sunday program, including assertions by the Opposition spokesman, the shadow Minister, of malpractice. Other allegations have been made recently about the program and in each case I have instructed my Department to follow up immediately with those who made the allegations so that follow-up action can be taken. I understand that the honourable member for Mitchell is being contacted in respect of the allegations that he made. I should also say at the outset that the general allegation that has been around for some time about people using this program to get into Australia and then shipping funds back to their country of origin was brought to my attention within weeks of my becoming Minister. I set in train widespread inquiries, through the Department and through those who have been acting for and on behalf of business immigrants. To date, no single example has been produced in respect of that practice. To date, there has certainly been no evidence to substantiate some of the wild assertions that have been made. The simple fact is that the business migration program is not an easy track into Australia. It is subject to the same safeguards as the rest of the migration program. Business migrants are subject to the same visa requirements as other migrants and to the same character checks. Visa issue and character checks are the responsibility of the Department and not that of agents acting for and on behalf of applicants. The program has been subject to both monitoring and formal research to cope with the larger volume of migrants under the program and, to accommodate the recently introduced accredited agency system, new and more intensive monitoring of evaluation arrangements has been introduced. No other migrant group at any level of the program is subject to the same level of monitoring. As stated, the Department follows up allegations of malpractice and criminal involvement in Australia's immigration program, wherever they are made. Continued attacks on the business migration program may well discourage business migrants and lead them to prefer other countries which are actively engaged in encouraging them-places like Canada and New Zealand. That, I think, would be unfortunate for Australia. It should be pointed out that business migrants are selected on the basis of their successful business background. This is the essential quality of skill that they bring to Australia. In 1987-88 business migrants transferred to Australia some $1 billion, at an average of $550,000 per migrant. Mr Tuckey —Is it still here? Mr HOLDING —The figure for 1988-89 could be in the order of $1.5 billion. Banks monitoring the program and survey data indicate that business migrants tend to follow their initial transfer with additional funds. Survey data indicate some 30,000 jobs have been directly generated by business migrants arriving between 1982 and the present. Survey data also indicate that more than 50 per cent of business migrants engaged in exporting once their business is established. It therefore behoves those who want to make simple political statements like, `How much is left?', to look at those figures and objectively appraise this very important aspect of our immigration program. The kinds of loose, wild assertions that have been made do no damage to those who make them, but they are capable of causing considerable misapprehension within the community at large. I advise all honourable members to look very closely at all aspects of this program because if they do I believe they can only reach the conclusion that this aspect of the program is serving Australia's interests very well indeed. Mr Cadman —Madam Speaker, could the Minister table the document that he read from and the surveys that attach to it? Madam SPEAKER —Was the Minister reading from a public document? Mr HOLDING —I will not table it but I will make all the information available to the honourable gentleman so that when he makes the sorts of allegations he made on television in future at least he will be speaking on the basis of correct information. Mr Peacock —Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. Is it not correct that when asked, the Minister must table unless the document is confidential? Madam SPEAKER —If it is a confidential document the Minister does not have to table it. Mr Tuckey —Ask him. Madam SPEAKER —I asked him. He said no. Mr Tuckey —Madam Speaker, on a further point of order: The Minister has already offered to give the documents to the shadow Minister. They are clearly not confidential. Under Standing Orders he has to table them. Madam SPEAKER —Is the Minister reading from a confidential document? Mr HOLDING —The document is confidential as between the Department and me. As to the statistics involved, I have no problem about making them available to all the honourable gentlemen opposite. There is no problem about that, but I will not table what are essentially confidential notes between me and the Department. Mr FIFE(Hume) —Madam Speaker, with your indulgence, may I raise a matter with you? Madam SPEAKER —Yes. Mr FIFE —During Question Time I observed that the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Charles) seemed very interested in what he was listening to through an earpiece of the sound system that is available to assist members in this chamber to better hear speeches made in the chamber. So interested was he that I noticed he handed it across to the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Lionel Bowen). Thereupon I asked for a sound system earphone to be supplied to me and I was clearly able to listen to an answer to a question being given in the Senate. I ask you, Madam Speaker: Is it intended that the sound system to which I have referred be used to monitor proceedings in the Senate chamber? Madam SPEAKER —If it is, I have not heard of it. But I will certainly investigate the matter and report back to the House as quickly as I can. Mr BEAZLEY(Swan-Leader of the House) —Papers are tabled as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members earlier today. Details of the papers will be recorded in Hansard and the Votes and Proceedings. The schedule read as follows- Science and Technology Statement 1987-88. Variation agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and K.K.F.C. Proprietary Ltd-section 9b of the Fisheries Act 1952. Canberra Theatre Trust-Annual Report 1986-87-including the Auditor-General's Report-sub-section 63m (3) of the Audit Act 1901. Trustees of the Canberra Public Cemeteries-Annual Report 1986-87-including the Auditor-General's Report-sub-section 63m (3) of the Audit Act 1901. Canberra Retail Markets Trust-Annual Report 1986-87. Australian Capital Territory Fire Brigade-Annual Report 1986-87. Motion (by Mr Beazley) proposed: That the House take note of the paper. Debate (on motion by Mr Fife) adjourned. Mr Sinclair-Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. I was concerned at the ruling you gave during Question Time. I sought to refer to our Standing Orders to determine the basis on which the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (Mr Holding) was able to assert to you that he was not going to table the document. Standing order 321 states: A document relating to public affairs quoted from by a Minister or an Assistant Minister, unless stated to be of a confidential nature or such as should more properly be obtained by address, shall, if required by any Member, be laid on the Table. There have been a number of what we see as quite inadequate claims by members of the Ministry as to the character of documents from which they have been quoting. I believe that this particular standing order is designed to ensure that if Ministers refer to statistics or obviously read from source material which relates to a question without notice before the House such material should be tabled. The Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs implied in his response that it was really none of the business of the House for us to have the information. He said he was quite prepared to provide it to the honourable member for Mitchell (Mr Cadman) but that he did not really like the fact that the request was expressed in the way it was. This is a very important part of the protection of the rights of private members in this place. There is a need to look very closely at the interpretation of that standing order as it is now being used by Ministers in giving answers to question without notice. If a question is, as that question quite demonstrably was, a dorothy dixer, it is even more important that if a Minister quotes from a paper he be prepared to table it. I understand that a ruling has been given and that what you need to do, Madam Speaker, is to look at the question of the future. Madam Speaker, I ask that, in the future, you look closely at the interpretation of this standing order as we feel that when a Minister replies using information specifically related to the question in hand it should in the normal course be tabled. If not, there should be no need for him to refer to the document. Madam SPEAKER —I point out to the Leader of the National Party that if the Chair asks the Minister whether a document is a confidential document and the Minister replies that it is, then the Chair is not in a position to have it tabled. The Minister claimed it was a confidential document between himself and the Department-- Mr Peacock-He did not. Madam SPEAKER —Just a moment. Mr Peacock-You gave him the escape clause. Madam SPEAKER —That will do. He offered to make the statistics available to the shadow Minister. I agree with the Leader of the National Party that standing order 321 is not very clearly written. It has been in the Standing Orders for quite some time and I have seen it used on occasions. If the Minister claims confidentiality, the House is not in a position to dispute it. Dr KLUGMAN(Prospect) —Madam Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation. Madam SPEAKER —Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Dr KLUGMAN —Yes. Madam SPEAKER —Please proceed. Dr KLUGMAN —On page 408 of Hansard, in the report of a speech by the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair), the following two sentences appear: Let no-one mistake the fact that the Prime Minister, when he was President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said some appalling things when we were in government and we sought to prevent the Vietnamese boat people coming to Australia. Those views were certainly endorsed by members such as the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman). Hansard has got it completely wrong. I would like to make the point that I have always supported the admission of refugees from anywhere and, more specifically, I argued in my Party, where my views were not extremely popular, that if we let South Vietnam and Cambodia be overrun by extremely unpleasant dictatorships, we had an obligation to accept refugees. I always dissociated myself from Mr Whitlam's opposition to the admission of Indo-Chinese refugees on the basis that they would be Asian Balts, arguing that it would be completely immoral to refuse Balts or Indo-Chinese refugees admission on the basis that they might not vote Labor. In fact, Mr Hodgman and the Opposition's new immigration policy have undoubtedly helped to consolidate the Indo-Chinese vote for the Labor Party. Mr SINCLAIR(New England-Leader of the National Party of Australia) —Madam Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation. Madam SPEAKER —Does the right honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr SINCLAIR —Yes. Madam SPEAKER —Please proceed. Mr SINCLAIR —The honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) spoke to me in the corridors yesterday. I have subsequently asked Hansard to correct the weekly Hansard. The comments I made were certainly not reported accurately. The honourable gentleman was certainly one of those who supported the case that we presented at that time-that is, that Indo-Chinese refugees should be admitted to Australia. It was not a policy that was endorsed by the Australian Labor Party at that time and I commended the honourable gentleman because I believe, as he does, that the cause of-- Dr Klugman —The leader didn't. Mr SINCLAIR —I am sorry, the leader did not. Mr Howard —Nor did the leader of the ACTU at the time. Mr SINCLAIR —The leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the leader of the Labor Party took a different point of view to the honourable member for Prospect. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The right honourable gentleman has finished making his personal explanation. Mr SINCLAIR —The circumstance of my assertion in the House was that the honourable member for Prospect, together with members of this House, endorsed a policy of facilitating entry of Indo-Chinese refugees into this country and I commend him for it. Madam SPEAKER —The honourable member for Hume raised with the Chair a question that the broadcast of the Senate's proceedings was being received in the House of Representatives on one of the headphone channels. As soon as that was discovered we arranged for it to be turned off. We hope that this will not happen in future. Madam SPEAKER —I have received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The threat to individual rights and liberties posed by the fourth proposition in Saturday's referendum. 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 HOWARD(Bennelong-Leader of the Opposition)(2.57) —Over the last three weeks, in the context of debate on immigration, the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has scaled new heights of misrepresentation and personal abuse in claiming that statements made by me, the Liberal Party of Australia and other people about immigration have inflamed prejudice and bigotry. The Prime Minister and his colleagues have endeavoured on every count to associate me and my Party with any manifestation of intolerance or lack of fair dealing on the immigration issue. The reality is that, on referendum question No. 4, it is the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) who, more than anybody else, have reopened one of the most divisive debates that this nation has ever seen, and that is the debate about government assistance to independent schools. If we needed any illustration of it today, I would remind the Attorney-General that two full pages of the Melbourne Age carry some of the most demented bigotry that I have ever read. I notice that the Attorney-General is nodding his head. He knows who is responsible for this: he is responsible because he has reopened the debate on government assistance to independent schools. Mr Lionel Bowen —On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: The honourable member said that I am responsible for-- Mr HOWARD —Did he object to the Prime Minister's personal remarks? If somebody gets a bit of paint on his nose-- Mr Lionel Bowen —I want him to listen to my point of order. Mr HOWARD —Sit down. Mr Lionel Bowen —The honourable member should sit down; I am speaking to a point of order. Mr HOWARD —The honourable member is debating the question. He is not taking a point of order. I will not be abused by his Prime Minister. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. Does the Attorney-General have a point of order. Mr Lionel Bowen —I do, Mr Deputy Speaker. In no way have I been responsible for anything that is divisive in this matter. I want to make a point which I think has escaped the honourable gentleman. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. Mr Lionel Bowen —My point of order is this: I have been deliberately misrepresented on this issue because the letter was written by Senator Durack. Senator Durack wrote the letter. The Leader of the Opposition should get up and table it. Mr HOWARD —The Attorney-General is doing his block because he cannot stand the heat. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! There is no point of order. I call the Leader of the Opposition Mr HOWARD —The Attorney-General cannot stand the heat. It is all very well for his Prime Minister to accuse-- Mr Lionel Bowen —Is this debate on state aid or Asian immigration. Mr HOWARD —I would be very happy to get onto state aid. There are two pages on it, and who is to blame? The Attorney-General's referendum is to blame for that. How many full page advertisements appeared in the Melbourne Age? I ask my Victorian colleagues in particular how many times they have seen advertisements in the Melbourne Age about state aid since we thought that issue was killed by the High Court of Australia in 1981. Absolutely none! The Attorney-General has let the state aid genie out of the bottle. He knows it. He has been caught out by the 14 catholic bishops. He knows quite well that what he has done with the fourth referendum proposal is that he has reopened the most divisive, most bigoted, most prejudiced and most sectarian debate this country has ever seen. I would have thought that the present generation of Australians would have buried for all time something that divided the Australian community in a way that nothing has divided this community this century. Yet because of the craven desire of this Attorney-General and this Prime Minister to attain some kind of notoriety and some kind of constitutional niche, what has he decided to do? He has decided to trot out four referendum proposals which he thinks, because of their motherhood character, will attract immediate support. Of course, when one looks at it, it is beguilingly simple. It is almost seductive in its straightforwardness. It is a Bill for an Act: To alter the Constitution to extend the right to trial by jury, to extend freedom of religion, and to ensure fair terms for persons whose property is acquired by any government. It sounds terrific on the surface. There is one problem: nobody wants it. There is only one other problem: nobody is marching in the streets about it; nobody is saying that their religious freedom is under challenge; nobody is suggesting that their right to trial by jury is under any serious threat. We must therefore say in relation to this question, as we do in relation to the other questions on the referendum, that there is really far more to it than meets the eye. What is that? I will tell honourable member what is the additional part to this question that does not meet the eye. I say this is the Attorney-General in all candour and sincerity: If this question is carried, religious freedom in this country will be less, not more than it is now. That is the charge that we bring against the Attorney-General. In case the Attorney-General thinks that that is purely a partisan political charge, let me remind him that we are supported in those views by none other than the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. This is not a body which is notorious for taking our side on political disputes. It is not a body that is notorious for entering any kind of political debate. After weeks and months what did the conference do? After weeks and months of agonising and after obtaining independent legal opinion, as the Attorney-General and the Minister for Trade Negotiations, (Mr Duffy) know, the Catholic bishops came out with a statement that said that the proposal represented a potential threat to religious freedom in this country. That is the bishops' proposal; it is not ours. What the Catholic bishops were saying to the Government and what they are saying to all the Australian people simply was this: `We have religious freedom in Australia now; why put it at risk? We have put to rest the divisive issue of state aid; why reopen it?' I say to the Deputy Prime Minister and Attorney-General: why on earth in 1988 would he even run the theoretical risk of reopening the state aid debate? It is a very simple question. We buried that issue years ago. People of the demented character I referred to before were put in their place by the High Court of Australia in 1981. What does the Attorney-General want to do? He wants to reopen the whole issue. What he ought to do at this late stage-he would make a great Attorney-General of himself if he were to do so-is to have the decency to call the last question off. Does he really want to go down in history as the Attorney- General who reopened the most divisive debate in Australia's political history? I would think that the present Attorney-General would not want to do that. The Catholic bishops are not alone in expressing concern about this question. We have Dean Lance Shilton, the Anglican Dean of Sydney; Archbishop Penman, the Archbishop of Melbourne: the New South Wales Council of Churches; the Australian Parents Council; the New South Wales Association of Independent Schools; the Victorian Association of Independent Schools; the Australian Small Business Association; the State chambers of commerce and the Western Australian Council of Civil Liberties. As we read through that list, we will find represented just about all the major bodies that represent parents who send their children to independent schools. They know the potential lethal damage that could be done if this proposal were carried. Let us not be in any doubt: the defence of government schools people, those who raised the $20,000 to put this bigoted and perverted advertisement in the Melbourne Age, have made it clear that, if a Yes vote is carried on question No. 1, they will be back in the High Court of Australia challenging state aid. It is no mere theoretical danger, because the Attorney-General knows that the critical words on which the High Court decision of 1981 rested were the words `make any law'. Those words now appear in section 116 of the Constitution. Yet if the Government's proposal is carried, those words will not appear in section 116 of the Constitution. It is, therefore, no mere sophistry, no mere piece of rhetoric, and no mere debating argument that there is a danger that the 1981 decision of the High Court could be reopened. The Attorney-General can quote his opinion, the opinion of Sir Maurice Byers, and the opinion of all the Queen's Counsel under the sun: the fact remains that he knows, as the Prime Minister and Senator Tate have acknowledged, that there is at the very least a risk that that decision could be reopened. I say to the Attorney-General and to the millions of Australian parents who want the right of free choice of education, `Why on earth should we even run the risk of reopening that divisive issue?' It is as simple as that. I say to the Attorney-General, to the House, and to the Australian public that this particular question runs the risk of creating a saga and a chronology of litigation in this country about fundamental religious rights and religious observance, the likes of which the United States has seen and the likes of which we have never had in this country. We have never had it in this country because we have never tried to graft into our Constitution a Bill of Rights approach. The Attorney-General knows darn well that section 116 was put there in the first place not as a constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, but to prevent the establishment of a particular denomination as an established church in Australia. It is playing with constitutional fire, and taking a leap into the constitutional dark to try to convert a clause put there to stop the establishment of a particular church as the state church of the infant Commonwealth of Australia into a general constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. The reason that the Attorney-General is playing with constitutional fire is that he is trying to graft the foreign body of a Bill of rights onto a Constitution that was never intended to follow the United States model of laying down basic rights. Our basic rights in this country are guaranteed by three great things: parliamentary democracy, a free press, and an incorruptible judiciary. We do not need to write guarantees into the Constitution. The Attorney-General runs the great risk with this, as with all other basic guarantees to be written into our Constitution, that by trying to write down fundamental rights he may leave something out, he may provide an inadequate definition, and he may end up limiting those rights. That is the danger that has been identified by the Catholic bishops. What they said with singular clarity was that this proposal not only threatened a reopening of the divisive state aid debate but, even more importantly, it threatened a restriction rather than an expansion of religious freedom. How amazing it is that an Attorney-General of this country in 1988 can seriously be asking this of the Australian public, which has, certainly in recent generations, a history of religious freedom and religious tolerance. I get no letters from people complaining about the lack of religious freedom, and I have been a member of this chamber for 14 years. It has never been an issue that has been raised in my Party room; it is simply not an issue under political debate. We may well ask ourselves, `Why in heaven's name are we raising this issue?' We are raising it because the Attorney-General is desperate, as some kind of retirement swan song, to get a few constitutional proposals up. I say to the Attorney-General that if he wants to get some referendum proposals carried he should go away and play with something less important than our religious freedom. He should go away and play with something that has nothing to do with the right of Australian parents to send their children to the school of their choice. He should go away and play with something that does not go to the heart of the right of any parent in a liberal democratic society; that is to say, `I will choose to send my child to a religious school of my choosing if I wish and I will not have any bigot, lawyer or anybody else trying to take my right away'. It is all very well for the Prime Minister to try to give some kind of guarantee about what the Government will do. Leaving aside the motives of the Government-- Mr Kerr —They do not like it. Mr HOWARD —I know they do not like it because the Government has been nailed on this issue. The honourable member for Denison has been caught out-as the Attorney-General has been caught out-proposing a change to the Constitution which, if carried, will put at risk something that is fundamental to the liberal democratic society we have in Australia and something that will reopen the most divisive, the most bigoted and the most prejudiced debate that we have ever seen in this country. In the words of the Prime Minister at Question Time today, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for raising this proposal. Mr LIONEL BOWEN(Kingsford-Smith-Attorney-General)(3.12) —I will try to deal with the matter of public importance without being as impassioned as the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) wants to make this debate. It is rather tragic that we have now got into the state aid debate on a party political basis because the honourable gentleman is anxious to make it an issue in the forthcoming referendums. Let me make this point: Who got into this debate so quickly? Does the honourable member not know that Senator Durack wrote a letter some weeks ago well before the bishops issued their statement? Senator Durack said: I am writing to express my concern about the implication of the Hawke Government's referendum proposal, the proposal of extending freedom of religion to Australia. I assure you that Australians have for a long time agreed with freedom of religion. You wonder why this freedom needs to be extended. The danger by the new proposal is that we may find ourselves not having the guarantees that we ought to have. We might be perhaps following the United States and therefore it could well be that you would not be allowed to continue the present funding arrangements for your church schools. This is what the Leader of the Opposition is saying has suddenly arisen from our side. That was a letter written by Senator Durack weeks ago. Does the Leader of the Opposition not know about it? Does he not know that I had to go to the trouble of arranging to write to all the school principals? I wrote: I am advised that Senator Durack has informed a number of school principals that this extension may effect the funding of education and independent schools. The honourable gentleman does not know, or perhaps he does not want to know, what a former senior Minister in his Party has already done. This is not the first time that Senator Durack has done this. He is well known for his performance This matter was first proposed in Hobart in 1976, well before the DOGS case-the case put by the Council for the Defence of Government Schools. Senator Durack may have been Attorney-General at that time but he was certainly a delegate to the Hobart conference where it was proposed by Mr Pead, representing the Australian Capital Territory, that freedom of religion should be protected. The honourable gentleman is completely ignorant of the law. The Constitution does talk about a prohibition on laws establishing a religion. It also guarantees freedom of religion, but the Leader of the Opposition said that it did not. When the proposal was put before the delegates in Hobart in 1976 Senator Durack objected to it because he thought there would be complete protection against the laws of the state. Senator Durack said: This is a very dangerous thing because it could be interpreted as affecting state aid. That was in 1976. Five years later the DOGS case was argued with a fiat issued by a Liberal Attorney-General in Victoria. That is the only way there was any standing in the case. The honourable gentleman does not know that. For a start, anybody who wants to take this issue to the High Court would need to get a fiat from a State Attorney-General. Perhaps he could only get it from a Liberal one because that might be the way to create the political mischief that has been created here today. The Leader of the Opposition did not argue the merits of this case. He never once spoke of the submissions made to the Constitutional Commission. Why is he so devoid of principle that he comes in here and relies on an advertisement put in by the DOGS? Does he think that that has any merit? Does he think that by smirking over there he can get away from the fact that he has raised an issue here today that certainly will run wild? It ran wild when it was first raised by Senator Durack. Mr Ian Cameron —You said it yourself. Mr LIONEL BOWEN —No, it was raised by Senator Durack before the bishops issued this statement. It was well raised by him; in fact he probably encouraged it because that is the issue. If the Opposition cannot win an argument it tries to raise the issue of sectarianism. Perhaps it can win that way, but it will upset the people. I want to make a point that has been made clearly before. What is the reason for this debate today? The issue is this: a number of people gave evidence to the Constitutional Commission and those people represented a number of faiths. They told the Commission that there was a gap in the law here. Surely there is some gap in the law. One only has to look at the Grace Bible case and the decision taken on that in South Australia. Is the Opposition so ignorant of that? The State Supreme Court said in that case that there was no common law right to the freedom of religion; there was no protection for freedom of religion against State law or State action. Why did the Leader of the Opposition not mention that today? That is the whole reason for the submission-to extend the right of freedom of religion against all action, whether it be by Federal or State legislation. That is why there were many submissions made to the Commission. I wish to read from page 629 of the Commission's report. It would be to the advantage of the Leader of the Opposition if he understood the problem. The report says: Section 116 attracted many submissions. Most of these recognised that the freedom to believe or not to believe in a religion is of fundamental importance. The right should be entrenched in the Constitution. Four main arguments were canvassed: (a) Freedom of religion is of the essence of a free society and its constitutional guarantee should be extended to the States. That is the reason for this question. The report continues: The National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs stated: `Whatever the rationale of the framers of the Constitution in restricting the ambit of section 116 to the Commonwealth, it is submitted that no valid distinction may be maintained in the latter part of the twentieth century, and that there is no good reason why the States too should not be subject to the constitutional safeguards currently enshrined in the section.' Why can the Leader of the Opposition not address that issue? The Constitutional Commission recommended the extension of protection and it did so on the basis that there obviously were gaps. The Commission identified the gaps, for example, in terms of the statement made at the time in what is called the Grace Bible case. If a group of legal professionals has taken evidence and if a gap has been already identified-as it was in 1976-why could Senator Durack not address his mind to the DOGS case in 1981 when it was said quite clearly that the establishment of a religion as an issue had nothing to do with the funding of schools. Sir Maurice Byers, who was the counsel for the Commonwealth in that case, had the honour of winning on the very basis that if one is talking about `establishment' one is talking about a church of state. If we are saying that that is what it means and that is what the High Court said it meant, we must accept that it had nothing to do with the funding of schools-and the High Court said so. So why have Senator Durack and again today the Leader of the Opposition, for the most miserable of purposes, raised this sectarian issue? Of course, the argument that the bishops themselves have relied on is an opinion by Mr David Bennett, QC, who said something that is very obvious. He said that the High Court can always be asked to change its mind. It does not need any new matter; it can always be asked to change its mind. Having raised the issue that way, is it any wonder that DOGS has come in with a $20,000 advertisement? DOGS relied on the fact that Senator Durack has worried all the non-government schools; it relied on the fact that Mr Bennett, QC, has said, `Of course, the High Court can change its mind'. Therefore, we are back into the state aid debate. Of course, the issue is very clear. The situation is that a State might well deny religious freedom-and none of the honourable members opposite have addressed their minds to that. I invite the Opposition speaker who will follow me in this debate to talk about the issue that has been put here. Why would the Jewish community and so many others make a submission to the Constitutional Commission to the effect that there is an obvious gap in regard to religious freedom? Mr Justice White dealt with this matter in the Supreme Court in 1984 and said, `There is no common law right of religion; there is no entrenchment of the right of religion against a State parliament. It needs to be entrenched in a constitution'. Why could not that issue be identified today? Of course, one does not want to put any argument that might be reasonable if one wants to have a good political joke and try to mislead the people. The Opposition has had to rely on somebody who has placed an advertisement which says that this referendum will raise the issue of state aid. Honourable members opposite are not talking about freedom of religion; they are talking about sectarianism and state aid. That is the issue here. Let me make it very clear. We fought out this issue in 1973. I happened to be the Minister responsible for the establishment of the Commonwealth Schools Commission. Of course, the Liberal Party opposed it. I want to pay a tribute to the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt) and one other. Because members of the Country Party, as it then was, crossed the floor to vote with us, we were able to establish a schools commission. The Liberal Party opposed the measure at that stage. This is the sort of history that Senator Durack drags in here. He was a member of that Opposition at the time. He knew very well the position. Why is it that Senator Durack wrote that letter recently-well before the bishops issued a statement and well before they got a counsel's opinion-saying, `This looks like raising the issue of funding for schools'? It had the base political malice of saying, `Well, we are going to create fear'. I am making the point that Senator Durack said that. He said it in 1976; he has not changed his mind in 12 years. He made no reference to the decision and the rationale given in what is called the DOGS case. So it is very clear, looking at the report given to me by the very man who carried the cause of what one would call the freedom of religion, that there is a gap in the Constitution created by the Grace Bible case, which I have mentioned. People have made submissions to this effect. How is it that in 1976 the delegates at the Hobart convention were concerned about this gap and said that it ought to be closed? The only rationale given then was that Senator Durack was worried about state aid. But he was proved wrong in the decision of 1980. Why does he not admit his error? What was the reason for encouraging the Leader of the Opposition to say here today, `This is a dreadful thing. This matter has been raised again'. He raised it. Mr Howard —It is your referendum. Mr LIONEL BOWEN —The point I am making is that it is the Commission's recommendation, on evidence given to it-- Mr Howard —It is your referendum. Mr LIONEL BOWEN —Yes. I do not resile from the fact that it is being done by referendum, but it has had to go through both Houses of Parliament. But honourable members opposite have said no to everything. Mr Howard —We voted against it. It is your problem. Mr LIONEL BOWEN —Let me come to the point of what I am about here. When the Constitutional Commission came to consider recommendations on section 116, Sir Maurice Byers said: . . . I had not forgotten the challenge mounted in the DOGS case nor had my colleagues. None of us had any doubt that the proposal now would not imperil State aid. My colleagues included two very distinguished professors of law in Professors Zines and Campbell of the ANU and the Monash Universities respectively. Do honourable members not understand that? That is the point. Sir Maurice Byers. made the following point about following American precedent: No reason in language nor principle exists to abandon the significance of our history as colonies of a country where an established church existed and thus where the dictionary meaning of `establish' naturally embraces the notion of establishing a religion . . . . . . . I have read the opinion of Mr D. M. J. Bennett Q.C. which you were kind enough to send me. I do not agree with it. It is really overstating things to say that the Court's recent decision in Cole v. Whitfield suggests the possibility of a change of similar magnitude in the Court's approach to an altered section 116. I think . . . Mr Bennett has misunderstood the passage from the judgment of the present Chief Justice- when he talks about those matters. The point the judge makes is that aiding all religions equally is not establishing any one in particular. He goes on to make the point that, after referring to the proposal's application to the States and Territories, the authorities basically were relying on one issue, and that was the argument put by Mr Bennett-President Jeffersen's letter to the Danbury Baptists in construing the First Amendment. In that letter occurs the reference which is the basis of Bennett's position as to the separation of state and religion. We have no such history, nor do our legal principles admit to interpretation by presidential correspondence. I am disappointed that this matter was raised in this way today, particularly from my point of view, because I have had a lot interest in education. Mr Reith —You were stung, you might say. Mr LIONEL BOWEN —No, I am not stung at all. The people will express their judgment. The Leader of the Opposition has made the issue today. With his weak-kneed approach to this issue, he has dragged in a sectarian issue. The honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith) has not been here for a couple of weeks and he was not even prepared to argue this issue. I do not mind, but the issue is not a question of sectarianism but one of religious freedom, and the Leader of the Opposition did not address it. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr COBB(Parkes)(3.27) —In four days' time, on 3 September, the Australian people will have to vote on four of the most bizarre and fraudulent questions that have ever been put to them since Federation. They are written in such a way that they look very bland, but they will bring about 33 clause changes to our Constitution. In the 87 years since 1901, the Australian people have changed only eight clauses. On this occasion, in one day we will be asked to make more changes than we have in the previous 87 years. I shall run through the first three questions very quickly. The first question is about reducing the term of the Senate from six years to a maximum of four years. It abolishes the fixed term of senators and the rotation of senators. The second question is absolutely ridiculous. It will put on the State parliaments conditions that do not apply anywhere else in the world. They are conditions and criteria that the Federal Government is not prepared to apply to itself. The third question is a totally meaningless proposition on local government which offers nothing beneficial whatsoever, but which opens up the possibility of the Federal Government eventually changing the face of local government in Australia as we know it, with the Labor Party's long-cherished dream of regionalism of councils. Nothing highlights this matter more than an advertisement on page 2 of today's Australian, signed by Alderman Barry O'Keefe, QC, President of the Local Government Association of New South Wales, in which he states that, if this question is passed, `fresh elections will be held soon after any dismissal of a local government body'. Nothing could be further from the truth. He goes on to say: . . . elected local government cannot be abolished and replaced by appointed administrators. That is totally wrong. If the President of a State local government association, a Queen's Counsel, is so confused and misled, what chance does the Australian public have of making a meaningful decision come 3 September? Question No. 4, which we are debating here today, is a three-part question and is nothing more or less than a mini-Bill of Rights being brought in by the back door. That was rejected by the Australian people two years ago and here we have it put to us again. The Australian people realise that as soon as the rights of people are written down those rights are actually defined and thus are limited to what has been written down. I refer briefly to the trial by jury proposition. It may seen innocuous, but we already have trial by jury throughout Australia. That is not under any threat whatsoever. In fact it is one of the cornerstones of the justice system in this country. But if this proposition is passed, if we read the fine print of the document, all it will do is open up possibilities-where we have juries of less than 12 people, where we have majority decisions instead of unanimous decisions and where the people who are being charged will probably end up having fewer rights than they do now. If we do have a problem in the legal system in this area in Australia it is to do with the delays in getting the cases before the courts. If the Government wanted to do something about that through administrative changes, perhaps we would support it. Another part of question 4 talks about just compensation for land taken. It is a vague proposition that the Government has put before us. It is unnecessary and the expressions, such as `just terms', are not defined at all. In other words there will be no guarantee that the people of this country will get a better deal than they are already getting, so why would we want to change the Constitution for something that guarantees virtually nothing? I am appalled at the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party putting this up, because a former Federal President of the Labor Party, a former Premier of New South Wales, no less than Neville Wran-- Mr McGauran —Nifty. Mr COBB —Nifty, as the honourable member for Gippsland says, took away the rights of the people in New South Wales when he took away the coal rights owned by private people. The Labor Party did that and now it is writing this sort of nonsense into the Constitution. It will be the New South Wales State Government, the Greiner-Murray Government, that guarantees the rights of the people in this regard and corrects that dastardly wrong. As we heard in the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) earlier, it is really the freedom of religion proposal that is concerning people around Australia. Freedom of religion in this country is not under threat at all. As the Leader of the Opposition said, there are no people marching in the streets. No-one is demonstrating on the lawns in front of Parliament House. Australia has one of the best freedom and tolerance records in this area of any country. Now the Government comes in here and wants to remove the very words in our Constitution on freedom of religion that led to the Defence of Government Schools case being unsuccessful in the High Court of Australia decision of 1981. I remind the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) that 26 per cent of Australian students go to private schools. That is something like 760,000 pupils. On 15 August, not so long ago, the President of the Defence of Government Schools group, Ray Nilsen, said that he will challenge again if this goes through. As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, there is a two-page advertisement in today's Age newspaper-costing in excess of $20,000-saying virtually that. The DOGS group, I remind honourable members, consists of such luminaries as John Halfpenny of the ALP, Bill Hartley, Wally Curran and others. If this proposal goes through on Saturday it will again open up State aid debate in this country and split it down the centre. To paraphrase a saying of the Treasurer (Mr Keating), the DOGS are barking, but the State aid caravan is not moving on. If the people of Australia vote Yes, it means we will be moving towards a similar wording to that in the American Constitution. Over there freedom of religion has also come to mean freedom from religion. Certain consequences have flowed from that because of High Court decisions made over there. No doubt we will see that in Australia too. There will be that funding threat to church schools. Prayers have already been taken out of government schools in America because some parents have objected to their children being subjected to prayers, and no doubt there will be a strong chance that we will see that here. Perhaps we will even have prayers taken out of Parliament soon. Already in America public authorities are not allowed to display a cross at Christmas time. Can honourable members believe that a fire brigade, a child-care centre or whatever cannot display a cross at Christmas time? It is a fact. It has happened in America. Christmas carols have even been taken out of some shopping plazas and a nativity scene has been banned from being displayed in Central Park in New York. Even the American motto `In God we Trust' is in some danger of being limited in its use. We have only to look at an American bank note to see the motto `In God we Trust' but there is some talk of a case for its removal. If this question goes through we could well have religious programs removed from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It will perhaps also weaken the tax exempt status of churches in Australia. Already religious people are worried about that. Ministers may even be prevented from ministering in public hospitals. As I say, what has happened in America-honourable members opposite may shake their heads but it has happened over there-as a result of High Court decisions, will undoubtedly happen in Australia. There is absolutely no need for this. As I said, there are four seemingly innocuous questions to be voted on on Saturday but there are 33 changes to our previous Constitution if they do go through. And the Australian people have not even been told about this. The proposed changes are fundamental and far-reaching. In many ways they are the most important changes that have ever been proposed to the Australian people. There is more to these referendum questions than meets the eye. They simply mean more power being put in Canberra's hands, less power in the States' hands and less power to the people. Surely that is where the power should be-with the people. Of course the Government does not want discussion of this. It hopes that these questions will slip through. The Constitution has served us very well. Let us not make major changes without knowing what we are voting on. We are, in effect, being asked to sign a blank cheque on Saturday. There is no demand for the referendum. It is costing $41m of taxpayers' money. I urge the Australian people to vote No to question 4 as well as to the other three questions on 3 September and keep Australia the great and free democratic country that it is. Mr CLEELAND(McEwen)(3.37) —The honourable member for Parkes (Mr Cobb) made ludicrous statements today in which he dismissed the opinion of a Queen's Counsel. I point out that this is the honourable member who stood on a public stage and drank a glass of 2,4,5-T. We are told that it affected his brain, and we know it to be true. Let me quote to honourable members from an address by the Hon. Sir Anthony Mason, the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, made in Townsville on 11 July 1988. I hope the honourable member for Parkes is listening. Perhaps he will dismiss the words of the Chief Justice of Australia as he did the earlier opinion. The Chief Justice began his speech by saying: I begin with a disclaimer. I am not about to discuss . . . the Government's referendum proposals with respect to trial by jury, property rights, freedom of religion and discrimination against out-of-State residents. By no stretch of the human imagination do those modest proposals amount to a Bill of Rights. I hope the honourable member clearly understands what the Chief Justice was saying when he said that under no circumstances do those modest proposals amount to a Bill of Rights. Let us take the factual position. Let us not talk rhetoric and let us not do with this debate what the Opposition did with the immigration debate. It failed to address the legal position, failed to address the human position and failed to address the moral position. Let us factually put the position as it now stands in this country in a legal framework. Fact No. 1 is that the High Court of this country is bound by no precedent, not even its own. The simple fact is that the High Court can at any time make a ruling on any matter and ignore its previous precedents. So the 1981 decision is not sacrosanct, it is not a decision which any future bench of the High Court of this country cannot overturn at any time it sees fit based upon the current law of the day, with or without constitutional change. That is an unarguable proposition. The second proposition is that section 116 of the Constitution does not apply to State governments. It is only binding on the Crown in the right of the Commonwealth; it is not binding on State governments. If honourable members want the legal proposition they should go to the Grace Bible case in 1985, South Australian State reports, where it is clearly established that any State government in this country can pass legislation to abolish religion. That is the legal position in this country and not one honourable member opposite, from the rantings and ravings of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) to the nonsense from the honourable member for Parkes, can dispute the legal fact. The Opposition is saying that despite the fact that State governments can legally abolish religion and that section 116 of the Constitution does not extend the right of protection to the States, it will oppose the fourth proposition in the referendum. As the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) rightly pointed out, its campaign of fear, which is its standard approach to any intellectual question in this House, was started by Senator Durack long before the Catholic archbishops came on the scene. Talking about Catholic archbishops, let us turn to Vatican II to see what it says about religious freedom. I will quote from page 679 of The Documents of Vatican II, edited by Abbott and Gallagher: The Synod further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person, as this dignity is known throughout the revealed Word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognised in the constitutional law- I emphasise that so that some people can clearly understand that- -whereby society is governed. Thus it is to become a civil right. That is the position of the Vatican and the Catholic Church. But those opposite will ignore that fundamental position and the fact that State governments have the legal right to abolish religion. Yet, honourable members opposite will stand here and oppose the extension of section 116 of the Constitution so that the States are also bound. Where do other people stand on this issue? The reality is that Catholic teachers, en masse, have disagreed with the bishops. I refer honourable members to a press release issued by the Independent Teachers' Federation of Australia dated 25 August 1988. It states: Teachers employed in Catholic schools throughout Australia today slammed the position taken by the Australian Catholic Bishops on the Constitutional Referendum. The Federal Secretary, Michael Flinn, attacked the Bishops for taking the ill-informed position they had recently adopted. The Federal Executive of the Independent Teachers' Federation of Australia has unanimously adopted a resolution which states that there is no basis in law to believe that a successful High Court challenge would proceed on the basis of the proposed changes. The Independent Teachers Federation did not rely upon its own view. As stated in its press release, it got the opinion of a Queen's Counsel. The Federation's QC also supported the position of Sir Maurice Byers, QC, that the position put by Mr Bennett and the Opposition is ludicrous. It is wrong in point of law and in the way this country is run. To rely upon an American precedent in this situation is a joke. As the Attorney-General pointed out-no-one in this House should ever forget this-Sir Maurice Byers was a solicitor-general for the Commonwealth. In fact, he argued the Council for the Defence of Government Schools (DOGS) case on its behalf. The arguments advanced by him, together with those advanced by Mr Shaw, QC, for the other defendants, were, as to section 116, adopted by the States and accepted by the majority of the court. When the Constitutional Commission considered the recommendations on section 116, Sir Maurice Byers had not forgotten the challenge of the DOGS case and nor had his colleagues. None of them had any doubts that the proposal would not imperil State aid. As Sir Maurice Byers pointed out, those colleagues include two very distinguished professors of law-Professor Zines of the Australian National University and Professor Campbell of Monash University. The Opposition is led by the very desperate Leader of the Opposition-a man who is only holding his current position because no-one is prepared to take it on. Opposition members know that whoever leads them will lose the next election. He holds his position by default no-one is prepared to run in that position in the next election and lose it. He is there because the numbers are totally against him. Opposition members do not want to be two-time losers at the next election led by an extremely desperate and frantic Leader of the Opposition. He is so desperate that he runs his immigration debate on fear and not on morality. In an intellectual argument based on the law of this country, he will not and cannot deny that my legal position is correct. He will not deny it because he cannot. Because he cannot deny the intellectual force of the argument, what does he do? Months in advance, he sent out Senator Durack to raise the DOGS argument. He set it all up. I would not be surprised if some of his colleagues paid the $20,000 for DOGS. It is the sort of set-up that occurs on the other side. That is the way the Opposition runs. It probably got DOGS to place the advertisement. Then suddenly, the week before the referendum, DOGS is the spectre. Honourable members will not argue the intellectual position. Not once did the Leader of the Opposition address the legal position and not once did he deny the legal position I put. He runs on DOGS as he ran with Asian immigrants. When there is no force of morality, no force of intellectual debate and no legal position to adopt, what happens? The Opposition does it every time-it runs with fear and avoids the argument. I invite the Leader of the Opposition at any time to state that the legal position I put is incorrect. He should stand up and tell the Australian people the simple fact that the High Court is not bound by its precedents. He should explain to the Australian people that the Grace Bible case clearly establishes the legal position that the State governments can abolish religion. He should stand up and tell the Australian people or say that I am legally wrong. But he will not because he knows that the legal position I put is correct. He cannot argue on legal grounds. Mr Howard —So the bishops are wrong? Mr CLEELAND —The bishops are totally wrong. There is no question about that. The Leader of the Opposition should look at the Vatican II document which clearly establishes that the bishops are wrong. There is no problem with that. Because the Leader of the Opposition cannot argue the legal position he runs on fear. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —The honourable member's time has expired. The debate is concluded. Mr HOLLIS(Throsby) —On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the eighth and ninth reports of the Committee for 1988, relating to the development of new utility helicopter facilities, phase 2, at Royal Australian Air Force base Townsville and Oakey Army Airfield, Queensland, and the redevelopment of HMAS Coonawarra, Darwin, respectively. Ordered that the reports be printed. (Budget Debate) Debate resumed from 29 August, on motion by Mr Keating: That the Bill be now read a second time. Mr ROCHER(Curtin)(3.48) —When the debate was interrupted last night, I had just made the point that the Hawke Labor Government has dredged the depths of the taxation well to produce a Budget surplus at the expense of hardworking Australians. At the same time, its spending remains virtually untouched. It has accepted for itself none of the discipline it seeks to impose upon the citizens of Australia. Inflation-driven bracket creep and economic growth have produced a desirable Budget surplus but this has required little initiative and no great imagination. The surplus is well within the predictions of commentators prior to the Budget. A simple truth with this Budget is that it relies on high tax and the maintenance of benign international economic circumstances to maintain the status quo established by the past excesses of this Labor Government. It is a Budget devoid of any direction other than myopic concentration on the next election. To that end it engages in half-smart tricks and repackaging the good old pork barrel as a beer keg. It might seem clever to reduce the consumer price index by some selective and undoubtedly popular reductions of sales tax but it will do little to reduce the underlying inflationary pressures in the economy. The Treasurer (Mr Keating) argues cynically that Australia cannot afford tax cuts because of the effect of those cuts on imported goods and hence on our balance of payments. In so doing, he oversimplifies the magnitude of the problem with the current account deficit. It is not just a demand management problem. If it was, the Budget surplus and ruinously high income tax levels would have already gone a long way towards correcting that problem. The Keynesian analysis of the current account deficit which the Treasurer trots out but does not believe, is not appropriate to the present problem. The problem is that, because of low investment, high taxation and inflexible labour markets, Australia's exports have not grown with the rest of the economy. Imports have, to a large degree, consisted of plant and equipment, to invest in Australian industry, as well as consumption goods. There is more to the current account deficit than too rapid expansion in consumption and imports. How we pay for that deficit is more important than the existence of the deficit itself. The unfortunate fact is that the Labor-induced deficits have, in large measure, been paid for by further debt. If domestic savings ratios are presently low, that is because the cost of basic goods such as housing and transport, which are a product of our domestic economy, has increased rapidly. All honourable members should be aware of the effects of declining disposable income on Australian families. It is little wonder that they find it difficult to save, when the inflation rate is double that of our major trading partners and bracket creep pushes those on average earnings into the highest marginal tax levels. Australia's current account deficit, which has contributed to an unsustainable growth in foreign debt, will not be assisted by the opportunistic postponement of tax cuts by the Treasurer. Admittedly, tax cuts are not a panacea for all economic problems but, when tax revenue has increased by 66 per cent over the life of this Government, they are a very good place to start. The average Australian income earner still needs $56 a week to restore real family income to the same level as it was in 1983 when Labor came to office. The coalition's approach to taxation would restore a degree of incentive and integrity to the Australian tax system. Labor's promises to return a small fraction of the huge tax harvest which it has reaped over its years in government are cynical and shallow and, for many Australians, they come far too late to alleviate declines in living standards. Australia, like much of the world, has had a persistent problem with unemployment. Again, in this Budget, the Government has returned to ineffective and expensive `make work' schemes and training programs to keep-often through no fault of their own-the idle busy and out of the unemployment figures. No doubt the intentions of the new start and the jobs, education and training (JET) programs announced in the Budget are laudable but, if past experience is any guide, they will have little effect. Such programs have an unfortunate tendency to become the principle means of support for those administering them, rather than being directed towards solving the problems which lead to the creation of these programs. If we must have the current array of programs for the unemployed, which I doubt, their very existence should be seen as an admission of failure in labour market policies, rather than an achievement of the Government. Another major change hidden away in the Budget Papers could have severe effects on pensioners-those people who have already been hit hard by the continuing inflation under the Hawke-Keating Government. The continuous assessment of capital growth in equity and property trusts, as well as a range of other common investments, for the purpose of income testing the pension, will add further uncertainty to the financial planning of the aged and those facing and approaching retirement. When added to the proposals to tax superannuation funds, this change represents a further disincentive for those who want to remain independent of the Government after many years of hard work paying high taxes. It encourages pensioners to concentrate on maximising income and consumption rather than capital accumulation and savings. Although pensioners might benefit from the capital growth of their investments, they do not have the proceeds of that growth available to spend as income when the continuous assessment threatens to reduce their pension. The Department of Social Security and the Government seem to envisage pensioners constantly liquidating assets to maintain their standard of living. Never mind that such sales are subject to capital gains tax in any case. The largest problem with these changes is that they consider capital growth without allowing for the effects of inflation on the real value of that growth. On top of this are huge potential problems in the administration of the changes which consider the growth record of an investment over three years. How will the Department of Social Security assess drastic changes in the performance of investments? What of new investment funds? How will negative returns be treated? Too often Australian pensioners are caught in impossible dilemmas, trying to accommodate the whims of the Department of Social Security, the Australian Taxation Office and the limited resources available to them to provide for future security. The Hawke Labor Government stands condemned for the continuing uncertainty which it foists upon the elderly and those approaching retirement who wish to plan for their future. At the time of the May economic statement the Treasurer attempted to deflect justified criticism of his record by announcing that labour market reform was to be the next area for the Government to tackle. This was presented as a part of the so-called great micro-economic reforms of the third Hawke-Keating Government. This Budget makes it clear how shallow all that rhetoric was. When the Treasurer addresses structural reform in his thin, self-congratulatory Budget speech, we hear little other than a tendency to dwell on the very limited achievements of the past. The removal of the distinction between trading and savings banks in eliminating statutory reserve deposits is desirable, but hardly enough to justify the Treasurer's heady talk about reform. What has become of the sudden fancy of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) for privatisation? It has been sacrificed on the altar of Australian Labor Party factions and political expediency. Yet privatisation is one of the most important steps which could be taken towards reducing the size of the public sector in Australia and improving, at the same time, the efficiency of Australian industry. In the transport area alone, the benefits to be gained from the private ownership of airlines and shipping offer huge potential advances over the present system. The Liberal and National parties have comprehensive and workable plans for the privatisation of many industries which need not and should not be in government hands. The delays of the Labor Party in making firm decisions about privatisation have cost Australians dearly in terms of the efficiency of government-owned business operations and the potential drain on the Budget as these operations need capital to continue to compete against the private sector. The danger is that, as the Government prevaricates on this issue, private enterprise will advance so far beyond its government-owned competitors that the money to be raised through privatisation will become negligible. A Budget surplus is undoubtedly a good thing after years of high deficits but, if it is to turn into a slush fund for spending promises before the next election, all Australians would be better off with tax cuts right now. In summary, this Budget offers no spending restraint, because outlays will grow by 4.1 per cent, and some new programs have been introduced. It is brought down in the context of high debt, high inflation, continuing unemployment and declining standards of living. Even the notoriously cautious Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development emphasises how precarious Australia's economic situation is with continuing improvements very much dependent on world economic growth and the present high commodity prices. It is the Budget of a Labor Party desperate to hold on to power and the fruits of office at any cost. It contains no major free market reforms, no spending restraint and no tax relief. It could and should have done all of those things. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Darling) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Before I call the honourable member for Port Adelaide, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's maiden speech, and I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies. Mr SAWFORD(Port Adelaide)(4.00) —Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. From the very beginning, in this my very first speech in the Parliament and, in fact, the first maiden speech in the new Parliament House, I would like to acknowledge the people of the electorate of Port Adelaide who put their trust and confidence in me as their representative in the national Parliament. No member of this House represents an electorate as a result of his own singular efforts. As a new member, I am especially conscious that my representation embodies the aspirations and hopes of thousands of people. By-elections are difficult campaigns and I am very appreciative of the sweat and effort put in by several hundred volunteer campaign workers who toiled for long hours for my successful campaign team. I am delighted that my wife Aldona and my children, Luke and Daina, are here today. I am delighted also that Senator Dominic Foreman and John Scott are here representing former members in Mick Young, Ron Elstob, Clyde Cameron and Jim Toohey, and present State members of Parliament in Kevin Hamilton, Murray Delaine and Don Ferguson. This speech is very important to me for it provides an opportunity to place on the public record part of my rationale, ideas and vision for a better future for all Australians. When one has worked the majority of one's life in the western suburbs of Adelaide, the inter-relationships between the economy, employment opportunities and education mean more than just mere words. They are indelibly printed upon one's past and they form the basis of one's future aspirations. I am not an economist. I have not had great experience or knowledge of the restructuring of employment opportunities in industry; but I do know about education. Education is the basis in the long term for a better economy and improved employment opportunities. Along with many others, my family has seen the electorate of Port Adelaide through the good times and the bad; from the depressions of the 1890s and 1930s and the wars to today when Port Adelaide and the western suburbs stand on the threshold of a new, vigorous and exciting era. It is in that positive light that I wish to acknowledge the work of my predecessor, Michael Jerome Young-Mick to the people of Port Adelaide. During the last 10 years Port Adelaide has been the scene of one of the largest urban renewal programs in all of Australia-a $100m investment. The focus has been on commerce and tourism, two economic generators for future investment. The infrastructure is being set up to take full advantage of the $4 billion submarine contract. Mick himself promoted educational opportunities for both children and adults. His vision and concern set up what must be unique for any political party in Australia-the Port Adelaide Australian Labor Party Scholarship Trust. That trust over the last five years has enabled some 50 people to improve and, indeed, gain educational qualifications and a future. As chairperson of that trust I know we were delighted to fund 20 secondary students from 10 schools to visit Canberra last week. I am proud and honoured to follow such an outstanding Australian politician. It is a hallmark of the vision and courage of this Government that it has been prepared to restructure the economy and industry to build future opportunities for all Australians in a very competitive world. A simple comparative analysis of the 1986 Bureau of Statistics figures for my electorate of Port Adelaide with those of Boothby in South Australia or Kooyong in Victoria shows quite clearly the needed goals for the future prosperity not only of Port Adelaide but Australia as a whole. Compared with 23 per cent for Kooyong and 18 per cent for Boothby, Port Adelaide has 4.7 per cent of its population with tertiary qualifications. We are all familiar with the arguments of postcode, privilege and so on which attempt to explain those differentials. However, those simplistic arguments, although accurate on the basis of percentages, are wrong and ignore the real reasons. From a different perspective, they are the same ill thought out arguments that some members of the Opposition trot out about one Australia. They fail to address the real issues. We cannot have one Australia without promoting multiculturalism. We cannot have one Australia unless we overcome poverty. This Government does not just talk about poverty; it does something about it. The family allowance supplement is ample evidence of that. We cannot have one Australia unless we have full employment. This Government has allocated $114m over the next 3 1/2 years in a bid to assist 170,000 long term unemployed people. This Government does not just talk about unemployment; it does something about it. We cannot have one Australia if we refuse to accept the right of people to trial by jury, fair compensation, freedom of religion, one vote one value or the recognition of local government. We cannot have one Australia if, because of race, disability or gender, people are disadvantaged. The concept of one Australia is just an idea; on its own, it is meaningless. We need to address the issues and processes that strengthen an idea into reality. We could have an Australia of sameness, uniformity and mediocrity. We need an Australia of difference, equal opportunity for all, and excellence. From my teaching experience I developed three major personal beliefs. Firstly, I believe that nothing is more important than the impact of mind upon mind. From that dialogue of ideas will come the vision, direction and signposts for the future. Secondly, I believe that no process in human activity is more precious than cooperation, negotiation and the resolution of conflict. Thirdly, I believe no task is more important than the creation of alternatives and the provision of fair and equal opportunities for all to maximise their potential. Change is synonymous with growth. I have never experienced any beneficial changes implemented without the following three role people working together: Australia needs ideas people who possess the ability to recognise, receive and create ideas that can potentially benefit this nation. Australia needs process people who possess the ability to devise with others appropriate processes to work through ideas that will benefit this nation. Australia needs task people who possess the ability to persevere and commit themselves to carrying out the ideas that do benefit this nation. Most important of all, Australia needs to appreciate that in describing those roles one is not intrinsically more important than the other. When ideas people are missing, political parties call for inquiries; departments call for reports-we have all been there; institutions and businesses do what they did last year; people manage, but seldom lead; goals are always short term; the status quo is accepted often without question; and restructuring is impossible. When process people are missing, communication breaks down; people take sides; allocation of blame dominates thinking; and acknowledgment and recognition of people are absent. When task people are missing, it is all talk and no action; decision-making is carried to ridiculous extremes; and action statements become just that-statements. Internationally this country will be judged on how it cares for its young and aged persons. This Government has an aged care policy. It has undertaken the strain and pain of putting a long term strategy and policy into practice. Substantial reforms have been achieved, and more are in the pipeline. As the Minister for Housing and Aged Care (Mr Staples) has indicated, by 1990 this Government will have doubled the number of hostel places in just seven years. In effect, we will have added as many hostel places in seven years as were added in the 82 years of Federation before that. I would like to return to education-the key to the future successful restructuring of this country. I believe that to do that successfully we have to start at the beginning-child-care. As the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) pointed out in May this year, since 1973-74 and up to May 1988 about $1 billion has been spent on child-care. Of that, $853m has been spent by the Hawke Labor Government. Since 1983, spending on child-care has increased from $62m a year to $222m this year-increasing the number of child-care places from 46,000 to about 110,000 at the beginning of next year. The Minister for Health and Community Services also pointed out that there were fiscal benefits from the provision of work-related child-care. Overall, the economic advantages thus derived may offset all or most that is spent on child-care. That theme of early intervention, that prevention is cheaper and more effective than cure, is the major point I wish to make in this address. I mentioned earlier that we spend $222m on child-care. Yet for about the same number of persons we spend about $3 billion on higher education. Other than historical tradition, I do not believe this country will convincingly be able to justify those differentials in expenditure in the next 10 years. Continuing on that theme of early intervention, comparisons between secondary and primary education are illuminating. I appreciate that these sectors of education have, in the past, largely been the responsibility of the States. However, if the restructuring of education over the next 10 to 20 years is to be successful, the Commonwealth must make a substantial contribution to these sectors, especially primary education. Taxpayers will demand that, for the significant Commonwealth commitment to higher education of approaching $3 billion, we not only get value for money but also create access for all eligible students. Again this Government has acted: 40,000 places will be created by 1991. When expenditure on students is analysed between primary and secondary education, the statistics are startling. I use my home State of South Australia as an example. However, the comparison in other States and, in fact, in many parts of the Western world, is very similar. As an example I will use two schools of exactly the same number of students-430-but one being primary and the other secondary. On a comparative basis the secondary school has 170 per cent more basic staff, 34 : 20; 400 per cent more senior staff, 8 : 2; 225 per cent more ancillary staff; 500 per cent more base State Government grant; 244 per cent more per capita State Government grant; and 250 per cent more preparation time for teachers than a primary school with, I repeat, exactly the same number of students. I accept that some differential will exist, but not to that degree. What spectacular happenings occur in Christmas vacations to 11- and 12-year-old Australian children to explain those differentials? The simple answer is: very little. And here lies the heart of the problem of effectively restructuring education in this nation. There is no doubt in my mind that with our small population and the need for our citizens to be highly skilled we have an opportunity in the next 20 years to create the best education system in the world. While we restructure the economy and employment opportunities and begin to restructure education the rest of the world is not going to stand still. We need an edge. Education can give us that edge, which, in time, can produce for Australia the highest living standards and the highest per capita income in the best democracy in the world. I should point out that I am not questioning the actual allocations of resources to either secondary education or higher education but, compared with the resources allocated to primary education, they lack basic commonsense. I applaud the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) for having the vision and courage to begin the restructuring of education debate in this country and for his paper on strengthening Australian schools. That paper, Consideration of the Focus and Content of Schooling, should also address allocation of resources right across all educational sectors. To support my contention that early intervention in the education system is more cost effective, that prevention is cheaper and more effective than cure, and that quick fix bandaid remediation is too late, too expensive and has a terrible success rate, I would like to refer to two examples acknowledged internationally. The first one concerns the Inner London Education Authority's major four-year longitudinal study of primary aged children reported in the Times Educational Supplement of April 1986. The study states quite categorically that the effect of schooling on children between the ages of seven and 11 can make a substantial difference to a child's future progress and development, and that, more importantly, schooling is far more significant than the child's race, sex, age or background. In other words, schooling for children aged seven to 11 is the most significant determinant of future success, regardless of race, gender or socio-economic background. In 1974 in Australia the Reverend Ted Noffs, the founder and President of Life Education Centres, realised: . . . after 10 years of never ceasing crisis counselling on drug and related abuse . . . that nothing would be ultimately achieved if the situation continued to be tackled solely at the dire and desperate end of the road stage; and that breakthrough of a positive lasting quality could only come through preventive education of all young children from about 4 and half to 12 years of age. If one can change potential harmful negatives that could destroy a generation of Australian youth, then the sky is the limit in promoting potential positives. For a relatively marginal increase in resources, direct to schools, the Commonwealth could as a beginning over a period of five years do two things: increase basic staffing in primary schools by one teacher per 100 pupils; increase basic grants for primary schools students by 33 1/3 per cent; and allow the school communities to directly allocate those staff and resources to meet both future national guidelines and local needs. Although I admire the intellectual abilities of some educational bureaucrats in this nation, I sometimes despair at their lack of commonsense. We do not build houses with cardboard foundations and paper walls and then put in chandeliers. If a person is setting up a new industry he first pays attention to the infrastructure necessary for further success, because that is commonsense; that is nous! If education is to be successfully restructured in this nation it will need a huge dose of commonsense. Attitudes encouraged in children prior to puberty of a positive self-esteem, self-confidence, self-discipline, optimism and excellence with care and rigour will remain for the rest of their lives. Then and only then will secondary and higher education have the success demanded by future challenges this nation faces. Alienation, lack of social skills, lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence-fear on the inside while Rambo lurks on the outside-poverty, unemployment and disadvantage are the breeding grounds of disaffection and crime. We can replace earned income with social security protection for a time. But when we replace personal independence with dependence and personal pride and dignity with humiliation, futility and alienation, we transfer hope and expectation to despair and anger. It can be reversed. It must be reversed. The subsequent levels of stress in communities where living standards have fallen is extremely high. Additional stress is often resolved with violence by children and adults alike and the anger is often taken out on property and innocent victims and sometimes themselves. The teenage suicide rate of one person a day is unacceptable. One of the roots of intolerance towards people of a different race, religion or colour is the perceived notion that these people are in receipt of better and more-preferential treatment and in some way are the major reason for their present unsatisfactory predicament. The focus of attention is then not on themselves but on others. It creates a situation of negative thinking, bitterness and short term opportunism, the very enemy of being able to help oneself. People need success. I do not pretend to know all the answers for the long term disaffected, but I am comforted, as I am sure all Australians are, that this Government is courageously tackling the problem head on. However, I do know that we can change the future with young children. We can have a nation where ideas stimulate citizens to a better future, where processes of cooperation and negotiation resolve conflict, and where tasks are carried out with excellence of international repute. In conclusion, may I simply say this: I am privileged to be on this side of the House in the Hawke Labor Government-a government prepared to make the necessary long term changes to take this nation successfully into the twenty-first century. I add a final point: I wish the new honourable member for Groom (Mr Taylor) all the best for his maiden speech later today. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Darling) —I draw the attention of the House to the fact that we have another honourable member about to make his maiden speech. I would ask that honourable members extend to the honourable member for Groom the courtesies extended to the honourable member for Port Adelaide. I call the honourable member for Groom. Mr TAYLOR(Groom)(4.20) —I rise today not only for the first time in this impressive chamber but, like the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Sawford), more dauntingly for the first time in this Thirty-fifth Parliament. I congratulate the honourable member for being the first maiden speaker in this chamber. I am honoured to be the representative of Groom, named after Sir Littleton Groom, a distinguished Speaker of this House in the 1920s. I will do my utmost to fulfil the trust and confidence which my constituents have placed in me. I am conscious that electorally I follow in the footsteps of three great Australians of the last 50 years: Sir Arthur Fadden of the then Country Party, Sir Reginald Swartz of the Liberal Party of Australia and, for the last 16 years, the Honourable Tom McVeigh of the National Party of Australia. Today, whilst acknowledging the very significant contributions of the first two honourable gentlemen, I pay particular tribute to Tom McVeigh, who is known affectionately by many across the electorate and whose warmth and understanding of people's problems transcended partisan attitudes and party politics. I hope to emulate his commendable efforts in this direction. In 1973 he spoke of Sir Reginald Swartz as `a manly man and a friendly friend'. In 1988 Tom McVeigh also fits that category well. On behalf of the electorate and his parliamentary colleagues I wish him every success in his new public role as the Queensland Agent-General in London. The Liberal Party's victory on 9 April against seemingly impossible odds would not have been achieved without an undivided team effort. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people-parliamentary, organisational and grassroots alike-without whose support, dedication and plain hard work I would not be standing here today. I cannot let the occasion pass without thanking my parliamentary colleagues, in particular the honourable members for Hume (Mr Fife), Ryan (Mr Moore) and Moreton (Mr Donald Cameron), Senators MacGibbon and Parer and Mr Graham Morris of the office of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard). There is one very special person sitting in the gallery today. I thank my wife, Jan, for her loyalty and understanding, sons Andrew and Nick, and the wider Taylor family for its support in my bid for a second-and I hope successful-career dramatically different from the first. Last, but by no means least, I thank the people of Groom who were persuaded by our campaign thrust for the `people' politics of care for the ordinary person as distinct from the impersonal `machine' politics represented by our opponents. I can assure them that I will not resile from such a philosophy. From the tenor of his statement last Tuesday evening, clearly the Treasurer (Mr Keating) still flies the impersonal flag of a Labor Party that, despite its electoral failures over recent months, continues to lose touch with those ordinary people. He opposes substantial personal income tax reductions now but supports some nebulous carrot and stick wage-tax negotiations on this point with the Australian Council of Trade Unions early next year. I do not accept that the economy would overheat under such circumstances, particularly if real public expenditure cuts were to be made, rather than the Treasurer's net addition of nearly $400m in public expenditure since the May economic statement. I echo the view of the honourable member for Fadden (Mr Jull) last evening in saying that Treasurer Keating continues to pick the pockets of most Australian families. He perceives that tax cuts in the next Budget will set the scene for his Government's electoral chances late next year or early in 1990. In other words, people's real immediate needs are to become a casualty of calculated political expediency to provide the foundation for his insatiable, albeit unpopular, ambition for higher political office. As the honourable members for Bennelong (Mr Howard), Kooyong (Mr Peacock) and, most recently, Curtin (Mr Rocher) have said, the Australian people are hurting financially and should be mindful that the average family will need at least another $56 per week by 1 July 1989 simply to restore its financial position, in real terms, to the 1983 base line. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) should not take too much solace from the self-satisfied aura generated by the mathematical sleight of hand and questionable dependence on external factors of much of last week's Budget. Now we find the July current account debacle being casually dismissed as a seasonal aberration. Madam Deputy Speaker, I move to a more pleasant subject. The people of Groom have every right to be proud of the area in which they live. Demonstrably, it is one of the most picturesque and productive in this great country of ours. In terms of population it is centred on the garden city of Toowoomba, which is the largest inland city in Australia after the national capital. The smaller towns of Gatton, Laidley and Forest Hill in the Lockyer Valley and Oakey and Cambooya on the eastern Darling Downs also provide valuable support to the outlying hamlets and farms which surround them. Whilst it is a rural and tourist area which is renowned for its grain, beef, dairy, fruit and vegetable production, the electorate is better described as a microcosm of the broader Australian society with small business as its focal point. Below its veneer of affluence regrettably lie elements of poverty and deprivation so endemic to our society. Its light industrial base and private transport infrastructure, for example, provide substantial input to domestic and export earnings and local employment levels. Without internationally respected local companies such as Southern Cross Corporation Ltd and Defiance Milling Co. Pty Ltd Treasurer Keating's national accounts would be the poorer. Without the tertiary institutions of the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education in Toowoomba, which I hope will achieve full university status shortly, and the Queensland Agricultural College in Gatton, our country's undergraduate programs in agriculture, business, engineering, applied science, education, the arts, journalism and tourist hospitality management would suffer appreciably. The recent policy statement by the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) on the higher education contribution scheme has cast dark shadows on both campuses, about which I will comment shortly. The electorate's many primary and secondary schools, public and private, are a substantial national asset and complete a picture of academic excellence, drawing students from many corners of the country and overseas. I congratulate the local educational community on its very tangible contribution to the social development of the young people of the region. I also pay particular respect to the local medical profession, which provides sterling service and is the envy of many other regions of Queensland. Madam Deputy Speaker, the real engine-room of any electorate is its people, and the electorate of Groom is no exception. The large majority of my 73,000 constituents are hardworking, conscientious, traditional and god-fearing people-most of whom, I have to say, do not support the Hawke Government, which they see increasingly moving away from the Australian way of life and consistently turning an impersonal cold shoulder to their everyday needs, as was amply demonstrated once again in last week's Budget by its intransigence towards the traditional family and the rural sector. I share their views in the strongest terms. It is such a perception that was one factor in my decision to resign from the Australian Defence Force after 30 years of proud service to attempt, in a small way, to redress the situation. I intend to honour that commitment within the constraints of opposition for the remainder of this Parliament and in government beyond. After watching carefully the activities of the latter half of the final session in the provisional Parliament House and last week's debate in this chamber I must say that I can understand the perception of many Australians that, in general terms, they are not getting due return from some of their parliamentary representatives. Simply because we move into the grandeur of this House does not of itself predicate better government and parliamentary procedure. It behoves us all, irrespective of party politics, to make a conscious effort towards a quantum jump in the standard and substance of debate and to minimise the self-centred opportunism and non-productive opposition simply for opposition's sake that regrettably appears to dominate proceedings on both sides of the House. Yesterday afternoon's irrelevant diatribe in this House by the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Ronald Edwards) is a classic example of the worst aspects of such a negative approach. On the other hand, to his credit, the honourable Government member for Capricornia (Mr Wright) made some sensible points last evening on foreign equity investment transcending party politics and indicative of the broader electorate. I hope we will hear much more of such bipartisan comment. As has been suggested by some in the electorate, many of whom judge our performance solely on the basis of parliamentary broadcasts, such a measure of performance must inevitably-and I suggest, not unreasonably-lead them at times to place us in a category with unruly primary school children, with due respect to those children who are in the gallery now. Furthermore, simply because I sit on the Opposition benches should not of itself dictate that all Government initiatives and legislation are badly conceived and delivered; that all Government Ministers and members are deceitful and/or incompetent and that I should oppose all of them on the basis of blind party politics. For my part, such premises are false and I am not reluctant today to say that the Hawke Government, like most of its predecessors since Federation, has provided Australia with sensible and overdue changes. However, we on this side of the House can do far better. I therefore support the Treasurer's Budget in the areas of family assistance, child support, sales tax reduction, reskilling and training and consumer price index constraint, although I reiterate my earlier comments on its lack of compassion for the average family and for rural and regional Australia which the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd) so aptly described as being `silently slugged'. Of course the Government has a number of competent and honourable Ministers and members. While I do not agree with everything that they have expressed over five years in government, I single out the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen), despite his major aberration on the 3 September referendum; the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce (Senator Button); the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business (Mr Barry Jones); and the Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley) for their individual reason and contributions to the national good, although in a moment I regret that I must qualify in strong terms the Defence Minister's performance over the past year. None of these comments should leave an impression that I am politically naive or disloyal or wish in colloquial terms to have a political `bob each way'. My remaining comments therefore concentrate on the more important side of the Labor political coin from my perspective-that is, its dominantly negative side. I turn initially to education and in particular to the statement by the Minister for Employment, Education and Training on a new commitment and the White Paper on higher education. Again, some of the Government's underlying principles are sound-as well they might be after being plagiarised from the Opposition's policy document of 1987. However, the Government's counterproductive thrust includes: first, a bigger central education bureaucracy in Canberra, ever remote from the realities of local life on the campus; secondly, an unrealistic preoccupation with rationalisation for rationalisation's sake; and thirdly, despite protestations to the contrary, a catchcry of `big is necessarily beautiful' in terms of educational institutions. The Queensland Agricultural College in Gatton sits uneasily on this third point if the White Paper criterion of 2,000 effective full time students is accepted. It is already causing deep concern and uncertainty amongst its academic and student bodies. I would like to place on the parliamentary record the proud academic and employment history of that college in the fields of agriculture over nine decades and, in more recent years, of tourist hospitality management. I also pay tribute to the strong leadership provided over the last 10 years by its recently retired Director, Dr Mac Morrison. In the next few months I will seek discussions with the new Director and his council to work out an arrangement that will optimise its undeniable place in the higher education field. Madam Deputy Speaker, in the Budget higher education package we also see a major contradiction wherein the Government promises an expansion of the number of available places, yet introduces the massive disincentive of a higher education contribution scheme at the same time saying that higher education should not be the preserve of the privileged. I am on public record in my electorate-and I reiterate it today-as opposing a graduate tax of this kind which I see as being not only clumsy and unworkable but also inequitable, particularly for our younger first degree students. Once again unnecessary bureaucracy would be the only winner. I have seen nothing in Minister Dawkins's Budget statement, nor did I hear anything new from him in this House yesterday, to alter my views and he should expect increasing student unrest and opposition to the measures he proposes. The students in my electorate are already petitioning on this point. I fail to see why a segment of our population so vital to the future of our country should be singled out as the financial whipping post for the economic rationalism that dominates the Government's strategic thinking. I endorse unreservedly the eloquent rejection of it and, in particular, of its adverse ramifications for country students, by the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Carlton) last evening. I move to the portfolio of the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett). I have to say at the outset that it is the largest and most expensive blunder of the Hawke Government under a Minister who does not want to know unless it suits him. The honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) summed up the situation succinctly in his Budget summary when he said: it will be too little too late for the people already suffering in the massive queues. In five years we have seen the health services degenerate to a national disgrace and the Minister would be better advised to consider the actualities of the situation wherein queues lengthen as expenditure increases, rather than to resort to his glib replies to questions without notice that we saw in this chamber yesterday and last week, and recent superficial newspaper defence of the system. Australians expect and deserve something better. In government we would do just that. I would now like to turn the House's attention to defence matters, drawing heavily on personal experience over many years. In particular I wish to focus on the reluctance and/or inability of both the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel (Mrs Kelly) to resolve the most immediate issue within their portfolios. As the honourable member for McPherson (Mr White) has said many times, it is no exaggeration that the Australian Defence Force is bleeding to death in terms of personnel shortages, unsatisfactory skills levels, poor morale, and neglect of pay and financial conditions, which are arguably the worst since the early 1970s. I appreciate that the underlying reasons for the personnel wastage are complicated and I look forward to the Cross report which looks at these matters. However, no force remains viable with 40,000 losses in four years and many units no longer operational-so much for self-sufficiency! It is clear that action is needed now and that the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal is unable to resolve the vexing question of financial conditions of service in the short term. Although I do not criticise the distinguished members of that Tribunal personally, this inability is undeniably a factor in the personnel losses. The root cause is the bureaucratic inertia of the Department of Industrial Relations umbrella under which the Tribunal is administered. Madam Deputy Speaker, the Defence Force is unique in character and in industrial relations terms and this should be recognised in the creation of a standing, independent committee of regular review which should be tasked immediately to report to this Parliament on the Services' pay and financial conditions within three months and annually thereafter, not as part of the existing industrial relations machinery. The Remuneration Tribunal's terms should be amended to assume that function. While I have respect for Minister Beazley's intellect, I regret that I cannot say the same for his detailed administrative capacity. Although I support the major capital acquisition programs in train, blind Freddy can see that on present projections the Defence Force will not be able to man the new equipment, either in numbers or at the requisite skill levels when it comes on line. Minister Kelly has drawn the Defence short straw in responsibility terms. She has the more difficult problems to resolve, problems which affect the most valuable Defence commodity-people. New equipment programs may attract more kudos, more industrial and electoral appeal which Minister Beazley exploits effectively, although at times I question his degree of political nepotism. I regret to say that despite the rhetoric the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel has tossed a lot of conceptual balls in the air but has yet to recover one with any substance. Both Ministers continue to tread a very fine line between management indecision and maladministration. I wish to place on the parliamentary record that I will be seeking some assurances from the Minister for Defence shortly in respect of the long term future of two establishments: first, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) No. 7 Stores Depot in Toowoomba, as a result of the Cooksey report on defence facilities; and, secondly, of the Oakey Army Aviation Centre's potential as the tri-service helicopter training establishment for reasons of its ideal operational topography and the urban encroachment of the existing facilities at RAAF Fairbairn in Canberra. The Toowoomba City Council, the Jondaryan Shire Council, local chambers of commerce and residents are supportive of such measures. The present working conditions of the aviation regiment are appalling. I have already mentioned one reason for my resignation from the Defence Force to seek political office-that is, the Hawke Government's disregard for the needs of ordinary people. I would like honourable members to be aware of two other reasons which are germane to today's debate. Firstly, the increasing politicisation of the higher echelon of the Commonwealth Public Service which has been given impetus by this Government and which is having a stifling effect on objective departmental decision-making; and, secondly, the inexcusable tendency towards bias of elements in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. There are exceptions, but I wish that a larger proportion of that gallery would exercise better the professional ethics of a free press and not simply act as an extension of the Government's propaganda machine, attempting in the process to pervert the integrity of a number of very honourable gentlemen on this side of the House. This Parliament and this Parliament alone should set the appropriate agenda. To conclude, I hope that my further experience in this House will not confirm King O'Malley's view that: In this country the less you know about anything the better qualified you are to be in Parliament. I thank the House for its time. Mr MILTON(La Trobe)(4.40) —In making my response to the sixth Budget presented by the Treasurer (Mr Keating), I make the point that, whilst I am concerned at Australia's reliance on the blessings of the financial markets of the world, there is no doubt that, as a result of the financial and trade strategies of the Hawke Labor Government, Australia is in a stronger economic situation than it was in March 1983 when the Australian electors overwhelmingly voted the Liberal-National Party coalition Government out of office. The Government has tackled the serious structural unemployment problems with strong employment growth policies, and the unacceptable 1983 peak of 10.4 per cent unemployment was reduced to an average of 7.8 per cent in 1987-88. The position in Victoria is even better as a result of the industrial growth generated by the progressive economic policies of the Cain Labor Government. Clearly, Victorian electors will ensure the the Labor Government in Victoria is returned with a substantial majority at the 1 October election which was announced yesterday. Inevitably, with fewer people looking for work, there are some skills shortages, and they have arisen in particular in the construction industry. I wish to commend the Treasurer and the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) on the measures included in the Budget to assist people in poverty and to help the long term unemployed to gain a worthwhile job. Despite the creation of more than a million new jobs over the past five years, as reflected in the lowering unemployment rate, too many unemployed people are unable to gain a job for long periods. Social justice is vital if the quality of life is to be improved for all Australians and not just for the fortunate majority. In this respect the new start program for the long term jobless, involving 21- to 54-year-old people who have been out of work for more than 12 months, is a most commendable initiative in the Budget. Another important initiative is the voluntary jobs, education and training scheme, called JET. The main target group of JET is sole parents who have children over the age of six years and who have been in receipt of a sole parent's pension for 12 months or more. Two other target groups are pensioners whose youngest child will reach 16 years of age within two years and teenage sole parents. A number of sole parent pensioners have spoken to me about the problems they encounter when they no longer qualify for the sole parent pension. I hope that this new scheme will prove a genuine opportunity for them to overcome the poverty trap in which they are presently caught. There are a number of other social justice initiatives for which I will express my strong support-initiatives such as the increases in payments for child support and housing assistance-but time does not permit me to cover the details. I can say only how pleased I am that most welfare payments are now indexed and, while some poverty traps may still need to be identified, the Government has taken positive steps in this Budget to enable social security recipients to break out of poverty. Over the years of the Federal Labor Government, social security pensions have increased in real terms. As the Budget Papers indicate, single age pensioners with rental assistance received a 4 per cent increase in real disposable incomes over the period 1982-83 to 1987-88. And depending on the number of dependent children, a married unemployed social security recipient has received upwards of a 9 per cent real increase. I now wish to turn to one aspect of the Budget which gives me great concern. This relates to the allocation of research funding. First of all, I refer to the cuts which have been made to the funding of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Let me quote the views attributed to Dr Max Whitten, the chief of the Division of Entomology. An article in the Age of 25 August 1988 stated: However, morale among CSIRO scientists is reported to be at an all-time low, and there is dissatisfaction among staff at the failure of CSIRO executives to convey to the Government the dangers of axing nationally important research programs. One of the CSIRO's most outspoken chiefs, Dr Max Whitten, of the division of entomology, said yesterday that the CSIRO's appropriation funds in the budget made no allowance for a likely inflation increase of about six per cent. It continued: . . . Dr Whitten said the CSIRO should never have allowed itself to be put in a position where external funds won in competition with other research agencies were counted as revenue, nor should funds for new, research projects assigned to the CSIRO by government agencies be counted against normal appropriation funds. This article, by Graeme O'Neill, goes on to say that both the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) and the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business (Mr Barry Jones) are `deeply disillusioned with the Government's treatment of . . . science'. I have not had a chance to check with the Ministers whether they are deeply disillusioned, but I can say that I am deeply concerned. I would like to quote from another article, this time in the Australian of 24 August 1988, which referred to critical comments by the chairman of the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee, Professor John Scott, on the cuts in government funding for further research projects of the CSIRO and the universities. I believe that it is important, in the context of the present debate on the appropriations, for honourable members to appreciate the comments that are made in the article. The article stated: Following the CSIRO chief's warning of an impending crisis in the nation's research effort, Professor Scott said that the withdrawal of funds is at a level which will cause problems for universities. They would have to cut back on support, research and teaching staff and perhaps put some projects on ice and abandon others. . . . . `Requiring the universities to do more with less may have certain short-term political attractions but could damage the nation's research fabric and its capacity to respond to future change', he said. . . . . `The White Paper talks of a full commitment to basic research but there is no mechanism to ensure this', he said. . . . . `Similarly, there is an absence of commitment on how the Government intends to protect ``quality'' in research effort'. . . . . `So at a time when the Government is keen to change the funding system in a way which will cause significant problems for the universities, it is coy about, or unable to specify, how it will achieve two things which are so central to the university ethos-maintenance of excellence, and maintenance of a balance between basic and applied research'. The bureaucratisation of research was the trend that most concerned universities, he said. I know too well how pertinent those comments are, because before I came to this place I worked for some 17 years in a university as an assistant registrar for a faculty of science. As I have indicated, I have considerable concern. I have also completed my own survey of long term and short term environmental problems. I would like to quote a remark by the editor of the Gaia Atlas of Plant Management, Norman Myers: Environmental degradation is like a cancer-spreading silently, unseen through the body of our planet. The plain fact of the matter is that this is a very serious problem. We have land, sea and water degradation. In fact, land degradation is the single most important threat to the world environment. It occurs because of erosion, salinity, chemical poisoning and soil quality loss. In 1983, 66 per cent of the Australian land surface was environmentally degraded. All over the world we are losing our forests and watching our deserts grow. We are likely to lose 18 per cent of all the world's arable land by the year 2000. The second environmental degradation problem is caused by pollution. The world's atmosphere and our oceans, rivers and lakes are now dangerously polluted, mainly because of our huge consumption of fossil fuels-oil, coal, gas and wood-which pour millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Chemical wastes from the factories of the industrialised world are being dumped into seas, lakes and rivers. Nuclear power is no answer because it produces the most dangerous waste of all-long-lived radioactive wastes. The land is also polluted with chemical wastes and the residues of herbicides and insecticides. Even now, thousands of seals are dying in the North Sea from an unknown disease which scientists believe is caused by the heavy pollution in that ocean. Even more seriously, holes in the protective ultraviolet light shield of ozone, caused by the release of industrial gases-that is, chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs-could result in increases in human skin cancer. Ominously, scientists predict a greenhouse effect from the layers of pollutant gases which will cause, and undoubtedly are causing, increases in world temperatures. Such increases in temperature will change the world's climate to the detriment of millions of people, although some may gain. Acid rain, the result of sulphur and nitrogen oxides from factory chimneys, is causing the death of forests in southern Sweden, Norway, central Europe and eastern North America. For example, the Black Forest has lost one-third of its trees. Photochemical pools over the major cities of the world caused by motor vehicle exhausts are resulting in ill health for the inhabitants of those cities. The loss of species is another aspect of environmental degradation. With all the effects of land and water degradation and pollution, there is the additional effect of the huge expanse of the human population. Our consumption needs and the spread of our towns and cities are causing a loss of plant and animal habitat. At the present time it is estimated that 25,000 species of fauna are under threat. With the loss of flora there is a loss of the animals dependent on that flora. It is estimated that through extinction we are losing one species of fauna per day. More insidious is the loss of genetic diversity as the numbers of species become less and less. If present trends continue we can expect an annual rate loss of 50,000 species by the year 2000, of the five million to 10 million species thought to exist. Finally, there is the problem of the lack of conservation management. So-called development can reduce the quality of life by alienating human beings from nature. It is essential to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. We must conserve existing energy sources. We must expand our use of solar, wind and tide power and improve our use of water power. We must reduce fossil fuel pollutants, with technical improvements to equipment. We must resist economic imperatives to degrade the environment for apparent short term economic gain. Urgent action must be taken to halt the greenhouse effect and the holes in the ozone layer. Environmental degradation is a worldwide problem but it is tragic that, at a time when the world environment has never been under such serious threat, the Government is relying on private industry to provide the shortfall of research funds which have been cut from the Budget. The Chairman of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Mr Neville Wran, is proposing to sell off CSIRO assets to cover the funding cuts in the Budget. If these assets, which have not yet been identified, are non-productive and of no environmental value to the community, I have no objection to such a proposal. However, such sales will not cover the continuing annual cost of CSIRO and the adoption of a managerial attitude, as suggested by Mr Wran, may not necessarily overcome the long term problems of environmental degradation to which I have referred. We need to look at alternative energy sources to fossil fuel consumption and to such processes as superconductivity, which can reduce the costs of electrical power conversion quite phenomenally. This has been mentioned by the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business (Mr Barry Jones), who I am glad to say is present in the chamber at the moment. Australia should be leading the world in such scientific and technical innovations and at such a vital time we need the creativity of basic science, but the Government has chosen to rely on industry support for research, with the inevitable result that industry will support scientific projects which give promise of early profits. Basic science leads to applied science, as many examples of past scientific history have shown. In my view, the present Budget funding cuts for research represent an unfounded optimism that the present private business sector will respond to the long term problems of, for example, land degradation, which is the most serious environmental problem facing Australia today. The CSIRO Chairman, Mr Neville Wran, is reported in the Age today as saying that the Budget cuts will not affect CSIRO's research into the greenhouse effect. I certainly hope that that is the case, but I have to say that I do not feel so optimistic about this myself. In fact, Mr Wran said in the release today that a booklet is about to be released, called The Greenhouse Effect. I believe that this will prove to be very valuable. It is a collection of papers which have been presented to national conference on the possible impact of the greenhouse warming in Australia. I believe that all members of this House should obtain a copy of that publication. Mr Barry Jones —It's an outstanding publication. Mr MILTON —As the Minister has said, it is an outstanding publication. The problem in relation to the greenhouse effect is very serious indeed. It is affecting the whole of the world. Recently when I was in Poland I talked to some people who are aware of the problem. They had a conference recently with Ministers from the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. They say that they cannot afford to bring in the capital equipment that is necessary to prevent the pollutants from going into the atmosphere. This is a problem that is affecting all of us. I believe that the Government must take a stronger stand here in relation to such problems. Many of us are very concerned about the CSIRO funding cuts. I believe that the Government should monitor this situation very carefully and ensure that, if necessary, supplementary funds are provided to the CSIRO if, in fact, industry does not provide the shortfall. I am not optimistic, I am sorry to say. Mr IAN CAMERON(Maranoa)(4.55) —First, I would like to congratulate the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Milton) on raising some of the matters that he has raised, particularly the savage cuts that his Government has imposed on the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Of course, the primary producers whom I represent in the electorate of Maranoa are more than concerned. Specific cuts have been made in plant and animal research. I note that the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business (Mr Barry Jones) is here: there is quite an increase for one of his babies, namely, the telescope. I do not blame him for that. I think that is well and good. We need these things for Australia. Australia is at the forefront of this radio telescopic research in the world. Mr Barry Jones —And it has industry spin-offs. Mr IAN CAMERON —It does have industry spin-offs, and I think that that should be encouraged. But I do not believe that it should be encouraged to the detriment of primary industry, because it has more than industry spin-offs-it keeps this country afloat. With the balance of payments the way it is, unless this Government is prepared to continue to support our great primary industries in their endeavours and to keep them abreast of the world in their scientific and production methods, we will slip back and we will become the banana republic that the Treasurer (Mr Keating) speaks of. Let us hope that that does not occur. At least the honourable member for La Trobe has brought these things forward, and probably in the face of criticism from his Government. One cannot criticise Labor policy. We saw the honourable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Campbell) castigated in this House yesterday by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), and I am going to ask him to support a few of the other measures that we have suggested. I would just like to say to the honourable member for La Trobe that there is an awful lot of concern about the world changing its climate, but these debates always get out of perspective. The world's climate has been changing since the beginning of time. The Minister shakes his head, but we have dug up the remains of dinosaurs and we know that thousands of millions of years ago Australia was covered in jungle, while a thousand million years before that it was desert, and so it goes on. Mr Barry Jones —That wasn't in the lifetime of the Hawke Government. Mr IAN CAMERON —Well, anything is possible in the lifetime of the Hawke Government. The world's climate and the world itself are continually changing. Australia is a completely different place to what it was a thousand million years ago. An awful lot of crap is spoken about holes developing in the ozone layer, but there has been no greater polluter in our modern knowledge of geology since Krakatoa went off. That huge volcano blew its top off and covered the world, and the sun was blacked out for weeks. We have found in geological digs thick layers of carbon that were laid down by volcanic activity over the years. The world is a wonderful place: it seems to have survived all those things. It has survived Barry Jones even-and that says something-and even the honourable member for La Trobe. I wanted to put that a little more in perspective. I also want to congratulate the builders of this grand new mansion that we now occupy. I think we all agree about the workmanship and the quality of this building. In this year's Budget there is still an allocation of $82m in relation to this building and an allocation of $300m to run the Parliament. I think we must all join together in congratulating the contractors, Concrete-Holland Joint Venture, on the brilliant job that they have done in building and finishing this project. Notwithstanding that all of us have had some difficulty settling into this place-and, of course, that always occurs in any new home, when one always has difficulty in making the doors open and shut and seeing that the airconditioning works properly-I think we must be agreed that the people who have worked on this building have done a brilliant job. It is of world standard and we should all be very proud of it. Madam Deputy Speaker, the other thing I would like to mention is that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference will be held in this building very soon. Some years ago you went to Nairobi, in that wonderful country of Kenya, with me as a delegate to the conference. But I am very concerned that there does not seem to be anything being done either by the Government or the Opposition for us parliamentarians to welcome those delegates in this House. I am told the conference is to now be opened in the Senate rather than the House of Representatives but as yet I have not received any invitation to any function that might be held. Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like you to look into the fact that in three weeks' time we are to welcome probably hundreds of governments to this parliamentary conference to this new Parliament House. The Government-and I blame the Opposition as well-seems to have done nothing, and that is a disgrace. I will keep on asking questions around this place until the end of the week to see if we cannot at least have a function for all those parliamentary delegates-they are all members of parliament-to welcome them to this new building and to Australia. Let us hope we can do that. We have conjurer Keating again presenting us with a Budget. Obviously we are all amateur economists. We have all tried running some sort of business. I am still trying to run my farm. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Darling) —Order! Without wanting to interrupt at this stage I want to draw the honourable member's attention to the fact that Ministers are to be addressed by their title. It is the second time on which the honourable member has gone against Standing Orders in that manner. Mr IAN CAMERON —Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will do anything to please your presence. The Treasurer has brought this Budget down and we are continuing to see enormous amounts of tax collected from us Australian citizens-a 10 per cent increase. He skites about bringing down the inflation rate to 4.5 per cent. Let us hope that it does happen. But if we do see it happen, we will see a real increase in taxation of 5.5 per cent. The Prime Minister and others on the Labor side of Parliament get up and argue that taxation is not increasing. I say to the people of Australia that we have continued to see massive increases in taxation since this Labor Government has been in office. Unfortunately we have a gross foreign debt of nearly $115 billion, we have a net foreign debt of $88.7 billion, and we have seen $5.3 billion borrowed between March and June of this year. Of course the appreciation of the dollar has helped to decrease that debt by $6.1 billion, or at least it has balanced itself out. But three days after the Treasurer brought down the Budget Treasury announced this horrific balance of payments monthly deficit of $1.7 billion. That is the second highest on record. I was recently talking to the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business about the lack of input into research, et cetera for primary industry. On seasonally adjusted terms we have seen exports fall by 3 per cent while imports have continued to increase by 10 per cent. That is one of the basic reasons why we have this imbalance of trade. We have yet to see this famous J curve that some four or five years ago the Treasurer promised would occur. The only curve we see is the one between him and the Prime Minister, jostling one another to see when the Prime Minister might go and when the Treasurer might be Prime Minister. I wish the Treasurer well. There have been no cuts in fuel taxes. We have seen this Government massively cut the excise on beer, which is a non-productive item. I suppose the Treasurer feels an election coming on some time next year, so he has done this for the beer drinkers of this country. I have never seen anything terribly constructive about the beer industry, except that the breweries do buy barley and I suppose in an indirect way that helps primary producers. But in the overall context of our economy it is a regressive form of production; it is not like fuel which is used in all inputs. Fuel is used to keep the cost of our production down and so allow us to compete on world markets. I did not know that beer was going to help us compete on world markets and bring down our balance of payments. But we have seen this massive cut in beer excise. For someone who drinks in moderation and who has had a reasonably low reading of late I must support the Treasurer's move to lower the excise on low alcohol beer. I think that is a move in the right direction. I only wish it had happened a few months ago. Maybe I would have drunk more of the low alcohol stuff instead of the high alcohol stuff, but that is beside the point. We see the usual two-card trick being played with the excise. In fact because it has been indexed-the Treasurer indexed it in 1984-the Treasurer has collected an extra $636m in that time. In this Budget he has decreased the amount of excise to $630m, so he is still $6m ahead in this little taxing arrangement. That is the way it seems to go these days. The Government gives with one hand and takes away with the other and we do not see anything. Of course the excise is almost back to the original figure and the indexation of that tax continues on from Budget night. From that base the beer drinkers in Australia will continue to pay a higher price for beer. The worst aspect I find about the Budget-obviously there are always some good things but one tends to highlight the worst because the Budget document is a very large one-is the cut in assistance to isolated children. It is an absolute disgrace. As I mentioned in the House at Question Time, the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) comes in here full of socialist conscience but this Labor Government has set out to pick out this particular group of children. There are 4,500 isolated children being affected by these cuts. I think this is a gross injustice. In effect there has been an overall increase in the Budget to education of some $7m. Yet the Government has selected this very small group of very underprivileged children to cop the main cuts of the education package. To put it another way, approximately 100 schools have been affected. But it is not only a matter of cuts in assistance to isolated children; there is also the introduction of the assets test. Primary producers are often rich in assets and poor in cash. We can often have capital and property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars but because of drought, flood, fire or whatever, we find we have no cash income. Due to the low commodity prices that we have had in the last three or four years we have had zero returns on wheat, sorghum and barley. I know prices have risen in the last few weeks. Everyone thinks that will last forever but it will not; it can change overnight. Because the Treasurer thinks the wheat growers and other farmers of this nation have become rich overnight he has decided to bring in this assets test. It is called a one-off assets test. I would like to call on those people out in the electorate of Maranoa, Mallee and other parts, and I would also like to call on some of the Labor members, such as Graeme Campbell from Kalgoorlie, who was very outspoken yesterday, to support me and others in the National Party of Australia and to speak out on this issue. I would ask Lloyd O'Neil of the huge electorate of Grey, and Graeme Campbell, with the biggest isolated electorate with many families who have to travel many hundreds of miles to attend boarding school, to support me, and Bob Collins from the Northern Territory, John Gayler from Leichhardt and even Keith Wright from Capricornia-- Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! Would the honourable member please refer to honourable members and senators by their titles? Mr IAN CAMERON —Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, they are the people who are on your side of politics who ought to be supporting us. They are the people on the Labor side of politics who represent isolated families and I am sure they must be aghast at the introduction of this assets test on those people. They will still be able to claim a one-off grant of $989 a year. But I would like to add that all grants are now added to one's income. Years ago one used to be able to get a tax deduction for education expenses. Governments encouraged parents to send their children to school to get an education. But, of course, in these times all the grants are added on to parents' income-if one is lucky enough to make an income out in the bush-and then the parents are taxed on that. In effect, the Government gives them $900 with one hand and takes away $400 with the other. These days all the grants are taxed. There are now no deductions in the tax system for anything to do with education. That is a disgrace although the Government has continued to allow some deduction-$1,200 for the first child and $2,400 for each child thereafter. These families pay twice as much tax because they also pay, as we all do, indirect taxes. We know too well how much fuel is used in the bush. Half the fuel used in inland Australia is petrol and it is continually taxed. It is now taxed at the rate of 22c in the litre. It is an indirect tax which is indexed to inflation which continues to rise. These people are paying these indirect taxes as well as paying for the state school education system. Yet they have to pay more. If they are too isolated for their children to attend a state school, they have to pay out of their own pockets. That is a disgrace. This was the reason why the scheme was initially introduced. I do not believe that people should be assets tested in respect of education. Why does the Government not assets test all the people in Sydney with children who attend state schools? It should be assets testing these people and if their income is over the assets test limit they should be charged for their children to attend those schools. This is the system the Government is coming to. This is what the Government is doing to people living in the electorates of Maranoa, Mallee and Wide Bay. This is what the Government is doing to children. It is an absolute disgrace. I would like to think that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, were not part of the pre-Budget talks and education committees that supported this. It is really something that should be changed. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mrs Darling) —Order! The honourable member has one over the Chair. Because I am here keeping the chamber in order I am unable to answer any questions directed to me. Mr IAN CAMERON —The Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) has mooted changes in the wheat plan. The underwriting in this Budget is $167m. The primary industry plan next year is to totally withdraw that underwriting. Again, we in the National Party feel that that is a disgrace. We cannot support anything to do with the Kerin plan if he intends to withdraw that underwriting. It is amazing that the Labor Government can give $200m for the restructuring of the steel industry, $150m to $200m for the restructuring of General Motors-Holden's and $200m for the banks of this country-as if they need a subsidy. The wheat growers of this country have only asked for a bit of money to put a stabilisation scheme in place supported and, if need be, financed by the Government. The Government has had to do it once. It is now putting forward a system to change that so it does not have to contribute. Again, it is a disgrace and I will not support it. I support the Government's increased allocation to soil conservation. This is a major problem in this nation. At this time of our settlement we cannot spend too much money on saving our soil. In Queensland we have high summer rainfall and we are very aware of the amount of soil erosion that is taking place. There are towns in my electorate such as Goondiwindi, which have started their own conservation groups. In the Darling Downs, again in my electorate, there is a lot of strip farming. People there have been involved in soil conservation for 10 or 15 year now. The Government has increased the amount from $6.3m to $10m. I support that. I remind the people who are listening in the electorate of Maranoa that an amount of $38m has been allocated for these iniquitous referenda questions that we will have to vote for on Saturday. I take this opportunity to tell them to make sure that they man the polling booths on our side of politics. I encourage every citizen of that great electorate to vote no, no, no and no. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member was not referring to the Budget in the last couple of seconds of his speaking time. Mr LAMB(Streeton)(5.15) —I congratulate the honourable member for Maranoa (Mr Ian Cameron), who gave his usual entertaining dissertation and once again indicated that he had signed the pledge. However, while he might understand the reduction in excise duty on beer, he does not understand what the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Milton) was talking about when he argued strongly that governments all over the world-let alone the Australian Government-should do more to overcome the problems associated with man-made pollution. The honourable member for Maranoa talked about natural phenomena. He tried somehow to compare the pollution through aerosols and so on on the ozone layer with Krakatoa and other volcanoes which are natural phenomena. Maybe he is a natural phenomenon in this place but if we are ever to come to grips with environmental problems and damage, we must understand the difference between natural phenomena and man-made pollution. I must say that I was pleased the honourable member for Maranoa congratulated the Government on the allocation of an extra $10m for soil conservation. If we are to overcome one of the most creeping, gradual erosions of our natural heritage-the soil-we must combat salinity, acidity, dodicity and associated problems. When I went to Queensland as a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation to study these matters we saw some excellent initiatives and efforts being made by farmers and other people on the land. The honourable member for Maranoa was quite right in saying that the answers come with cooperation and recognition by ordinary people as much as they come through government finance. He also repeated the usual criticisms. We heard the about-turn in the Opposition's attitudes to taxation and budgets generally. He used all the big words but once again, like all the other speakers, he committed the sin of lack of analysis. Of course, with a lack of analysis and understanding of the economic problems and difficulties that face this nation one lacks credibility. He lacks credibility just as his leader lacked credibility last Thursday and just as the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock) who follows me in this debate will lack credibility. If anyone doubts my words they only have to look at polls amongst businesses. Five per cent of business people-the people one would expect to understand economic matters-now support the Opposition. Ninety-five per cent of business people are committed to the policies which have been explained in the Budget by the Treasurer (Mr Keating). The Budget is much more than beer-led. The task of any Budget, as with monetary policy and other weapons open to the Government, is to constantly steer the economy in the right direction and keep it on the right track so that we enjoy less unemployment, higher economic growth and increase the amount of redistribution in the economy to bring about social justice. Only two days ago we were reminded of the difficulties and the pitfalls of steering the economy along its correct path. I refer to the trade deficit for Australia of $1.7 billion which was also referred to by the honourable member for Maranoa. There is no doubt that we cannot at this stage loosen the reins on the economy as much as we would like to. As much as the people in the electorate would like to have more dollars in their hands to spend, we must be cautioned by this huge trade deficit and remember that if there is increased consumption in this country, it will inevitably spill over into imports. Mr Ian Cameron —What about exports? Mr LAMB —When we import more than we gain in revenue for our exports, our trade deficit increases even further. Now is the time for caution. We must not go overboard in responding to irresponsible demands for increased consumption. We are enjoying economic growth along the lines predicted 12 months ago by the Treasurer. The Budget strategy places us in a holding position to underpin the value of the Australian dollar. We must give consideration to our export earnings, about which the honourable member for Maranoa interjected. We have had a huge reversal in our terms of trade. Australia is enjoying higher commodity prices and that has helped us to build up our surplus and strengthen the Australian dollar. But we cannot rely on that. The Treasurer has recognised that we cannot rely on predictable high levels of commodity prices and, therefore, foreign exchange income. However, the Opposition's whole strategy-if I can call it that-is to reduce government spending in the public sector, along with possible reductions in taxation. I will come to that later. That is the wrong formula. It denies a government flexibility and, more importantly, it denies the people the social justice that can come about through government programs. People are not fools. They would love to pay less tax, but they know that they must wait a little longer before doing so. They demand government services. We cannot maintain government services and reduce taxes unless we have almighty high deficits. The Treasurer and the Government have the correct formula. It is the right formula for our times. Honourable members can argue as to the size of the surplus. Members of the community can criticise some of the decisions and require them to be altered, but the important thing is that the thrust of the Budget is the correct one. This Government has been successful in carrying out that thrust and can point to a stronger Australian dollar and a Budget surplus because of its compact, its accord, with the trade union movement. There has been union cooperation. Union leaders are able to persuade their membership to wait for taxation cuts because the Government is delivering on economic stability, on increasing employment opportunities, on reducing unemployment and on bringing about a greater social wage-in other words, government services that improve an individual's life. Through that cooperation with the trade union movement, Australia has a lower wage growth and, as a result, lower inflation, than would have been possible under the alternative policies of the Opposition. In a nutshell, the Opposition has no wages and incomes policy at all. It merely talks about reducing taxation and government expenditure as if these considerations have no relationship to the overall strength of our economy or the economic direction that is required. We still face a large foreign debt and adverse balance of payments. But, apart from mouthing the words, the Opposition has not come forward with one strategy, proposal or suggestion as to how those issues might be tackled. That was no more evident than in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard), the would-be Prime Minister. He put forward no policies. It is no wonder the electorate rejected the Opposition so soundly just over 12 months ago. We have just heard a repeat of what was said 12 months ago at Budget time, just after the Federal election. It would seem that nothing has changed. No energy has been expended by the Opposition on devising policies. All the Opposition wants to do, as we have heard in this debate, is whip up emotion about the fact that the ordinary working men and women of Australia have to wait a little and have a little patience before their tax can be reduced. The Opposition talked about that in 1983. The then Treasurer tried to shore up the falling stocks of the Fraser Government and to buy votes with irresponsible surpluses and spending, after promising taxation reductions. The Opposition, when in government, enjoyed the profits that came to government from bracket creep. Suddenly that is a bad thing. It was a good thing then because the present Opposition hoped to buy votes. However, the people were not fooled. The Opposition cannot harp about tax bracket creep unless it has an economic strategy and an economic rationale for keeping Australia on the straight and narrow path. I predict that the honourable member for Kooyong will fail in that task as well when he follows me in this Budget debate. The Opposition is in a shambles on matters economic. As I have said, only 5 per cent-that is, less than one in 20-of members of the business community will even acknowledge that it may have some credibility. The other 95 per cent know that the correct path is that postulated and detailed by the Treasurer. So Opposition members are stuck. Those once great economic managers through the easy 1950s and 1960s have dropped the ball. There is no way that business in this country, which understands economic matters, will follow a football team that drops the ball. What is the Opposition's answer? It has no new policies and no new prescriptions, so it says, `Let's reshuffle the front bench'. Because the honourable member for Kooyong has failed in his duty to put up an alternative Budget, he will be either replaced or joined by the honourable member for Wentworth (Dr Hewson). The honourable member for Menzies (Mr N.A. Brown) and the honourable member for Mayo (Mr Downer) will then join the front bench as a result of those in-out, on-off changes which are like a revolving door. We were promised by the Opposition that there would be a revolving front bench. Or was the term `revolting', because it is business which is revolting against the Opposition. The revolt against the Opposition at the polls will be repeated whenever the next election is called. The revolt continues against its own leader. Three men of high principle on matters of immigration crossed the floor to join the Government on what was no more than a declaration of basic and equal human rights; that no-one's race will be used against him in any selection procedure. Two other men of principle walked out of this chamber. So the revolution is well and truly on on that side of the House-the revolution against the leader and the revolution by business against the Opposition's economic policies. We are to be told that the honourable member for Tangney (Mr Shack), the honourable member for Barker (Mr Porter) and the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Carlton) are all casualties in this revolution and will be put on the back bench. Let us turn to bracket creep because that is what Opposition members harp on and whinge constantly about. They say that somehow the right formula and prescription would be to suddenly shell out sackfuls of taxation dollars to the people in the street. As I have said, the Australian people will not be fooled. The union movement is not fooled. It knows that the time is not yet right. Difficult times are still with us: we still cannot loosen the belt. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel and it will be reached soon. The shadow Treasurer, the honourable member for Kooyong, recognises that. Will he have the courage, later in this debate, to repeat his understanding that taxation reductions cannot be given in one hit and that he would phase them in over three years-a recognition that what the rest of the Opposition's backbenchers have been saying is absolute nonsense in economic terms? An analysis of the Budget surplus of $5.5 billion reveals that it is not made up of bracket creep taxation collections. Only some $1.5 billion of that can be related to bracket creep. The rest of the surplus has come about through economic growth. Higher employment has meant higher taxation growth, not of the individual but of the community. Also, there has been a drop in taxation collections. This is the second successive year in which government collections as a percentage of gross domestic product have gone down. There has been some minor pruning-not wholesale slashing, which the Opposition would like to see-of government expenditure of between one and 1 1/2 per cent in real terms. There have been reductions in taxes. We have seen a $400m drop in excise duty on beer. Once again I see the honourable member for Maranoa smiling at that point. I see a reduction of $200m as a result of the dropping of the 2 per cent revenue tax. Also, due to the drop in tariffs, another $240m in savings has gone to the public. Those amounts when added up-I ask honourable members to get out their calculators-almost exceed the bracket creep. We then need to look at the other sources of taxation income-for example, the increased taxation resulting from the fringe benefits tax and the capital gains tax and the end to the deductions for the so-called entertainment rorts. These three major reforms have brought about greater equity and fairness to our taxation system. However, we hear the repeated promise from the Leader of the Opposition that he will get rid of these taxes, lock, stock and barrel. Let us look at the term `lock, stock and barrel'. I remember that not more than a decade ago the then Government went to the people and offered them tax cuts. Having locked in their votes the Government then imposed a tax surcharge and took back more than it gave before the election. It promised indexation. That Government actually had it in operation for a year. Having locked in people behind that, the Government suddenly abolished it. Let us look at the word `stock'. The Opposition's greatest stock in trade is to redistribute wealth in this country from the poor to the rich; to change the tax structure; to let those tax rorts I talked about continue so that the highest paid, those on the highest incomes and the wealthiest people, pay less tax than those on low incomes and with less financial status. The Opposition has no concern for giving real tax cuts to the working people. The Opposition wants tax cuts for the wealthy. That is the Opposition's stock in trade. To finance any of these tax cuts the Opposition would slash government expenditure. Of course, it has bragged that it will cause $13 billion worth of government programs to hit the deck. The Opposition says it would slash a range of government programs. However, it will not identify those programs. Therefore, by not identifying those programs the Opposition has alienated pensioners, students and the homeless. In fact, the Opposition has them well and truly over a barrel. There we have it. Once again we hear from the mouth of the Leader of the Opposition-no doubt, we will hear it from the mouth of the honourable member for Kooyong-that the Opposition will get rid of the fringe benefits tax and the capital gains tax and will restore deductions for entertainment, lock, stock and barrel. It will reduce equity and fairness to the rottenness it was when it was in government. More importantly, the only program that the honourable member for Kooyong has identified that he would get rid of is Medicare. That is despite the fact that right now we have record community support for Medicare. Over two-thirds of Australians now strongly support it. A survey taken this year showed a 67 per cent approval rating for Medicare-an all time high. Medicare is an accepted part of government programs, social justice and the proper spending of taxpayers' money. When we took government the approval rate was barely 52 per cent. As I said, it has now risen to 67 per cent because it provides basic cover for all. Medicare helps the financially less well off. Therefore, when the honourable member for Kooyong identifies one program he will slash, he hits at the weakest and the sickest. He hits at those who have the least defences in our society. Honourable members opposite should learn right now that Medicare is here to stay. They should learn to live with it. In the final minute available to me I want to congratulate the Government for integrating social justice strategy with its sound economic policies. In fact, a separate booklet entitled A Social Justice Budget Statement Towards a Fairer Australia was issued by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) to accompany the Budget. A Labor government really does not merely manage the economy, bring down Budgets, control monetary policy and so on, without an objective. That objective is to achieve economic stability, price stability and greater employment. But, more importantly, it is to bring about greater fairness in our community. It is to bring about social justice. Here we have for the first time a Government and a Treasurer bringing out a separate statement showing that we can have economic responsibility and social justice at the same time. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Hon. J. D. M. Dobie) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr PEACOCK(Kooyong)(5.35) —The honourable member for Streeton (Mr Lamb) is a fellow for whom I have some affection. I knew him at school-something which he does not like me saying. He does not like his Party to realise that he can be identified with the same upbringing as I can. The tragedy is that he was burnt out before he left school in Year 12. As for the nonsense I listened to in the concluding part of his speech when he made some allegation that this side of politics would be, if it won government, redistributing income from the poor to the rich, I remind the honourable member that only two groups in this great Australian community being looked after under this Government, to some extent, are those in poverty-as they ought to be-and, at the other extreme, Labor's mates. However, the great bulk of Australians, comprising middle to low income earners who are, if one wants to use the cliche, the salt of the earth and hard working, are the people the Government fobs off and makes carry another year of reduced living standards as it fiddles with its bracket creep in an effort to give a tax cut to them at election time. They are not going to wear that. They are not going to wear the nonsense honourable members opposite have been talking about when they know that the cross they carry is a result of the Government's high taxes impacting on their living standards. I refer to high interest rates, high inflation and high taxation-the burden that has been brought down on them by the Government. The honourable member for Streeton gave me some honourable mention by saying I was `honest enough' to say that we would be perhaps phasing in our tax cuts over three years. It is not simply a question of being honest. I would love to be able to undertake to correct the burden in a year. However, the size of the task that we will inherit from the Government from next financial year on is such that we would have to return to an Australian on average weekly earnings, with dependent spouse and two children, $56 a week by way of a tax cut simply in order to return him to the level of household income he had in March 1983. That is the size of the task. I am not mug enough to say that we can just do that overnight. That figure is used to point out the facts to Australians, of whom I see so many in my electorate office-I have never seen them before in the numbers I do now-who have nothing left from their small household budgets at the end of the day, thanks to the Keating-Hawke Government and the proposals it has dumped on those people. The facts are that if we wanted only to return to the situation of 1985-86 when the Government projected tax cuts for late 1986 and mid-1987, it would cost $7 billion this financial year and $10 billion next financial year just to get people back to those levels. If honourable members opposite think that Australians are not aware of bracket creep or, as I have said many a time, the more accurate description `tax creep'-I stopped using that term because people thought I was talking about the Treasurer (Mr Keating) personally-they are mistaken. If honourable members opposite think people are not aware of bracket creep and its effects they should go out into their constituencies instead of sending their little hand- outs to the local papers and running from their people. Then they would recognise the impact that lower living standards are having on Australians today. Mr Deputy Speaker, we are debating the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1988-89. This legislation sets out the expenditure plans of the Keating-Hawke Government over the current financial year. Many members of that Government have been lauding this Budget as a `social justice' document. I do not see much social justice in the low standard of living that this Budget actually offers. I see the social element, as I see the Treasurer in his dinner suit with his mates frequently, but I do not see the justice element of it. `Social' and `justice' put together mean something different from the Treasurer hiding behind the darkened doors of his limousine from Australian taxpayers. And social justice does not pervade this document. As I said in my introductory remarks, the reality is that Australians are being crippled by the tax burden being imposed to pay for the measures in the Appropriation Bills. While the Treasurer cynically holds back income tax cuts until he feels they will maximise his electoral chances, low and middle income earners suffer. The Budget has meant little for the living standards of the vast majority of Australians. Let me just start with the case of pensioners. What has not been widely reported is the reality that tens of thousands of pensioners face a cut in their pensions following the changes announced on Budget night. As honourable members would expect, the Treasurer did not include this fact in his self-congratulatory Budget Speech. The Government has decided to impose the pension income test on money received from market-linked investment products. From 1 December 1988, retirees holding market-linked insurance bonds, friendly society bonds, approved deposit funds, deferred annuities and unit trusts could see their pensions cut substantially. The Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) dismisses this, and said yesterday in Question Time that only 33,000 people would be affected. Mrs Harvey —Why should they have special treatment? Mr PEACOCK —The honourable member for Hawker, coming into the House on a rare occasion, says, `Why should they have special treatment?' I will tell her why they should have what she terms `special treatment' but not what I term `special treatment': because her Government encouraged and told them to invest in these forms of bonds and securities. That is why they put their money in. Instead of saying that those who invest henceforth will have their investments included in an incomes test, the Government, having handed out its documents, having written to these pensioners, and having said that it was quite an entitlement for them to so invest in that manner, is going to hit these people by a form of retroactive or retrospective action. I am not asking for special treatment. I am so glad the honourable member interjected, because once when I was speaking on a matter like this, another member, the former member for Casey, did that and I made sure that every one of his constituents got hold of that interjection; and it cost him his seat. So I would reflect on the so-called `special treatment'. I suppose that to the Minister 10,000 people here or there, like $10m here or there, are not really relevant. But for those 33,000 people the new ruling is very relevant. For example, a married couple who may have $67,000 invested in one of the schemes affected stand to lose as much as $47 a week out of their $190 a week pension, plus their fringe benefit concession card. I repeat for the honourable member that these people purchased various market-linked products not just in good faith but with assurances from the Keating-Hawke Government that such prudent investment would remain income test free. That was what they were told, and now they are being penalised for following the Government's advice. I understand and I argue for cutbacks in expenditure. I am not denying the Government the right to look at measures. I call on it to cut expenditure. But when it does so, will it bring to it some notion of fairness and equity and some idea of the community it is developing? At the very least, can it not take the advice that these new rules should apply only to those people who start investing in market-linked investments after 1 December? The Government cannot encourage people into a form of investment and then, having so done, tax them for following its advice. What other facts were not mentioned in the Budget Speech? We all heard that beer excise was reduced. However, the Treasurer neglected to mention that sales tax will now be levied at a rate of 20 per cent on all goods used to wrap or secure products for marketing, delivery or household use-everything from cardboard boxes, to plastic wrap, to masking tape. Just pause for a moment to see how that will impact on prices around the community. Containers for marketing biscuits, snack goods and ice creams are now to be taxed at 10 per cent. Muesli bars and similar so-called health bars are hit while for those who prefer-and there are even a few of them who would be listening to this broadcast-thick shakes and ice cream mixes, there will be a new 10 per cent sales tax. All prepackaged coffee, chocolate and malt flavoured milk drinks with less than 95 per cent milk content will now be taxed at the rate of 20 per cent. I read out those items-- Mr Howard —He will hit McDonald's next. Mr PEACOCK —They will be on the list. I read out all these items because no Government Minister is prepared to say this to the public. If the Government is fair dinkum and thinks that it is being equitable in its treatment here, the honourable member for Hawker should get up here and repeat it and proclaim it as a proud boast of her Government. We had to search for this material. It was buried away in the Budget Papers. The Government is trying to keep the increases quiet, just like the Government has quietly increased sales taxes year after year. As I say, I am aware of the need for cuts in expenditure. This Government not only is not prepared to get into areas that could be cut, as Senator Walsh has said, but also finds new ways of taxing, year in and year out. Last financial year, the Government increased its sales tax take by 19 per cent; 10 per cent the year before that; and 15 per cent the year before that. This is all significant real growth above the inflation rate and obviously-- Mr Hunt —Consumption taxes. Mr PEACOCK —It is the Government's own form of consumption tax. The point I was actually making, before the distinguished member interjected, was that this was another example of taxation by stealth. The former Deputy Leader of the National Party, the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt) will not be rejoicing in the Budget. He likes a glass of beer now and then. But if one does not drink much beer and does not go overboard with the use of cosmetics, then basically one loses from this Budget. There has been no increase in living standards there. Of course, we will have one more year of tax bracket creep to pay for the appropriations which are before us now. The Treasurer claims that bracket creep is offset this year by other revenue cuts. If so, where are the offsets for the total of $7 billion in bracket creep estimated to have been collected by the Government, as I indicated earlier, since 1985-86? That has not been offset. It is ludicrous for the Treasurer to deflect people away from the fact that he is the highest taxing Treasurer in Australia since World War II by saying that the total revenue figure is down. The fact is that, if honourable members turn to page 359 of the Budget Papers, they will see that at 27.3 per cent of gross domestic product total revenue is over one whole percentage point higher than the average for the whole decade leading up to 1987-88 and over four percentage points higher than in the previous decade. The Fraser Government did not come anywhere near that record. It is a history lesson that the Treasurer really could start learning. Another history lesson is apparent from the expenditure columns of the Budget. Public debt interest-that is, the annual payments made to service the enormous Commonwealth government stock of debt-will be $7.6 billion this financial year. That is over $1 billion more than has been allocated for education. If people who are driving home are interested in their children's education and are listening to this broadcast, they might just reflect that for interest on public debt this Budget has provided $1 billion more than has been allocated for education and an amount equivalent to the total amount spent on defence. The debt servicing task's history lies right back in the early years of the Keating-Hawke Government's failures. The Treasurer's first Budget deficit in 1983-84 was $8 billion. That disastrous maiden Budget was followed by a succession of deficits which virtually bankrupted the country. In its first two years the Hawke-Keating Government added $15 billion to Australia's public sector borrowing requirement. These deficits swallowed Australia's domestic savings and forced us as a nation to borrow overseas and run up a huge foreign debt, a foreign debt that has-wait for it-quadrupled under Labor between 1983 and 1988. The decline in our terms of trade in 1985 was not, as the Government was then arguing, the cause of our external problems. It simply exacerbated our already serious situation. Now that commodity prices have been at record high levels the Government has brought down another Budget of wasted opportunities. This Budget has failed Australia because it has failed to force the pace of adjustment. The day after the Budget came down the Australian Financial Review editorial on the Budget said: In short, the economic foundations of this Budget may be built on quicksand and even a slight fall in commodity prices could send the whole scenario into disarray. It went on to say: . . . There is an eerie feeling of tightrope walking about the whole strategy. The fact is that the pace of adjustment in the face of our external imbalances is slow. The evidence that this is so is shown by three facts: fact one, net exports are forecast to make a negative contribution to gross domestic product in 1988-89, as they did in 1987-88-- Mr Rocher —Not again. Mr PEACOCK —Yet again. Fact two, the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data show that investment in the vitally important mining and manufacturing sectors is forecast to show little, if any, growth in 1988-89; and fact three, imports of capital goods actually fell as a share of total imports in 1987-88. These three facts certainly cast doubt on the much touted restructuring of the economy. Meanwhile, Australians are still being implored to tighten their belts. The honourable member for Streeton said, `All we are saying to Australians is, ``Just be a little more patient''. Why can't they be patient?' They could show the patience the Treasurer displayed in Question Time today when he could not answer a question. He sat down in a fairly petulant manner. Mr Howard —What has he done with sales tax on tapes? Mr PEACOCK —Sales tax on tapes of car phone conversations is something about which I know a great deal but I would prefer not to answer. As I said to my Leader today, if the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) is annoyed with the fact that there is floating around a transcript of a taped conversation between Senator Richardson and the Treasurer I understand because I know how leaders react to these things. In another year or two the Prime Minister and the Treasurer could have the relationship that the Leader of the Opposition and I have today. Australians have been implored to tighten their belts while the balance of payments is being improved. As a result, in the last few years the living standards of many Australian families have been savaged. Yet the current account deficit in 1987-88 exceeded the Budget forecast, despite the unexpected rise in commodity prices. In fact, the terms of trade rose by 9 per cent in contrast to the 1987 Budget forecast of 2 per cent. Without the increases in commodity prices the Australian economy would be in very poor shape. Once again, the economy is being needlessly put at risk because the Government cannot deliver the goods. As the ever helpful Senator Walsh commented, in what is becoming a regular post-Budget commentary-on this occasion, in fairness to him, it was two weeks ago and therefore a pre-Budget commentary: The Opposition can quite legitimately argue that the pace of adjustment might be faster. The Government cannot force the pace of adjustment because, in the same Senator's words, it lacks `the political courage' to cut spending. This Budget delivers reductions in outlays of just 1.8 per cent in real terms. Of that, around 90 per cent of the cuts are borne by State governments. The reality is that this Government is tiring; it is suffering badly from fatigue. In such governments we have seen it before. It is typical to see the sniping between leaders, would-be leaders, Ministers and senior Ministers as their minds wander from job to job. Let me raise one issue dealing with Commonwealth expenditure which does not seem to have attracted much attention. Capital infrastructure expenditure was only 4.4 per cent of total expenditure in 1987-88. That compared with 95.6 per cent for current outlays. That is in contrast with capital outlays sharing over 9 per cent of expenditures in the last year of the Fraser Government. The Commonwealth Government should be taking the lead in restructuring its priorities if the necessary structural adjustment in the economy is to take place. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Hon. J. D. M. Dobie) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mrs HARVEY(Hawker)(5.55) —It is with great trepidation that in the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1988-89 I follow such an eminent person as the shadow Treasurer, the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock), particularly when he interrupted the flow of his discourse to threaten that he would see to it that I lost my seat in the next election because of an interjection I made. To refresh the honourable member's memory, the interjection was, `Why should they get special treatment?'-`they' meaning the 2 per cent of pensioners who, until now, have been able to benefit from a loophole whereby income from market linked investments is not assessed for social security purposes. If the shadow Treasurer wants to talk to those 2 per cent of my pensioners and convince them that they should not vote for me I will tell the other 98 per cent, many of whom come into my electorate office to complain about the fact that these other people get privileges that they do not get. Even the shadow Treasurer would realise that 98 is a lot more than two. I would like to congratulate the Treasurer (Mr Keating), the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) and the members of the Expenditure Review Committee on bringing down a Budget which is the culmination of five years of superior economic management by this Government. There is no doubt that turning a Budget deficit of $10 billion, which was the sad legacy of the last Liberal Government, to a surplus of $5 billion is an economic tour de force unsurpassed in the history of this nation. The remarkable thing is that this achievement has not simply been a dry economic exercise. It has been carried out within a framework of fairness and equity. The economic restructuring which has taken place at the same time will ensure long term economic and social stability and a fair distribution of the wealth of this country amongst all Australians. I would like to concentrate my remarks initially on the reforms contained in this Budget in higher education funding and income support for students. From 1 January 1989 the Government will levy a charge through the higher education contribution scheme on those leaving higher education institutions and going into employment. The funds from this charge will be dedicated partly to providing an extra 40,000 higher education places over the next three years. In all, this will mean an extra 110,000 places since 1983, a massive 43 per cent increase. It is a sad situation when a student, on graduating from secondary school with qualifications sufficient to take him or her on to tertiary studies, is denied that opportunity because no tertiary place exists. As has been pointed out many times in this House, our year 12 retention rates, particularly in state schools, have risen remarkably in the last five years largely as a result of the equity measures of this Government. But I believe that it is criminal to encourage young people to stay on at school, to raise their expectations and then, when they matriculate say, `Sorry, there is no room for you. There are not enough places at the universities or at our colleges'. The funds raised by this scheme will mean that over the next three years 40,000 people who would not otherwise have gained places will be able to undertake higher education. But for me the benefit of this scheme which is equally important as the increase in the number of places is the increase in student support. In my electorate office I am frequently visited by students or parents of students from low income families who are in great financial strife because of the presently insufficient levels of student support. They may be low income earners whose total income is just above the allowable income threshold for Austudy and they therefore receive no payment, or they may be students who are receiving Austudy but find the level too low. I sympathise particularly with tertiary students who find their Austudy payment inadequate to live on. Many of them are either contemplating giving up their courses or are forced to take on a part time job or two, which jeopardises their studies. I believe that the most practical and productive form of assistance we can give to students is adequate income support while they are studying. I was able to attend university in the 1960s by the good graces of a South Australian Education Department scholarship. The State Government paid the fees, which was essential of course, but the crucial aspect for me was the fortnightly allowance which I was paid during my four years of study which enabled me to keep body and soul together. In return for this I was obliged, upon graduation, to teach for three years in a State school or pay back the allowance I received. As it happened I taught for three years and more and I considered it a small price to pay-if it could even be called a price-for a university degree and a teaching diploma which would ensure me a job and a secure income for as long as I wanted. That is why I find it very hard to swallow the argument put up by the opponents of this scheme to the effect that this payment will act as a disincentive to people to undertake higher education. During this debate last night the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Carlton), who is the Opposition spokesperson on education, said that this contribution scheme would be a barrier to entry to higher education, that it somehow constituted a contradiction of our stated aims of increasing access. Is the honourable member for Mackellar seriously suggesting that a school leaver who is offered a tertiary place which would mean a degree, a meal ticket, an assured high income for the rest of his or her life, would turn down that offer for no other reason than that on graduating and earning a good income he or she would have to pay back $4 or $5 a week for a few years as part reimbursement for the cost of the course? Have potential students come up and told him that? If that is the case, I can see another advantage in this scheme. It would become a kind of informal tertiary self-selection system because anyone who thinks that way is clearly not intelligent enough to go to university. The only cases in which I can see such a payment acting as a disincentive is for graduates, such as teachers or nurses, who are working and may want or have to take refresher courses to update their knowledge and skills, but who would not necessarily earn any higher pay as a result. To cater for this group, the Government has announced the creation of 15,000 postgraduate scholarships, a large number of which will go to teachers-although this is a matter of discussion between the Federal and State governments. In the case of nursing courses, the introduction of the scheme will be deferred until 1993 and again discussions will have to take place between the Federal and State governments to work out the details. If anything would be a disincentive to entering higher education, it would be the Opposition's higher education policy, such as it is. The last I heard-and it might have changed in the meantime-the Opposition's policy was one of scholarships and full fees. Back to the bad old pre-Whitlam days. Is the honourable member for Mackellar suggesting that full fees up front-thousands of dollars a year-would not be a disincentive to people wishing to undertake higher education? His opposition to our policy and our proposals is purely illogical in the context of his own policy. The widening of the eligibility for Austudy and the increased levels of payment, in some cases to the level of the adult unemployment benefit, will, more than anything else, ensure that people from low income families will be able to enter higher education, stay there for the full length of their course and graduate successfully. I now wish to return to a matter I mentioned at the beginning of my contribution and that is the Budget provision dealing with new rules for assessment of investment income for social security purposes. In the last week there has been a lot of panic and misinformation spread amongst pensioners about this, pushed along by a good deal of hypocritical stirring by the Opposition. From 1 December this year-and only from 1 December; it is not retrospective-income from so-called market linked investments will be assessed for social security purposes in exactly the same way as other investment income and income in general have been for some time. In a fair and equitable system there is no reason why the 2 per cent of pensioners with income from these sources should be treated any differently from those with other kinds of extra income. Representatives from the other 98 per cent of pensioners come to me and say, `Why should these people get special treatment? Why is it that people with large sums of capital can invest it, get in the long run a high return on that capital and still get the full pension?' Well, from now on they cannot and I believe that 98 per cent of pensioners will come to see-if they do not already-that this is a fair thing. I have heard of people who retire early, put their lump sum in a roll-over fund, invest it selectively in market linked products and then get the full unemployment benefit. They can draw upon this investment at will, provided that they do not exceed the $70 a week limit-if they are a couple-and then continue to receive the full pension. Or they can take it all in one year, lose their pension for that year and get it back the following year. This is a loophole in the social security assessment system which should not and will not be allowed to continue. The withdrawal of this privilege is a measure which the 98 per cent of pensioners who do not enjoy its benefits should applaud as fair and just. But the reprehensible part of all this, as the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) pointed out in this House yesterday, is that the Opposition, which is always calling for greater Government expenditure cuts, when presented with a sound and fair expenditure cut measure, spreads unnecessary fear and resentment by condemning it. As the Minister said, the Opposition is all for sound economic management and expenditure restraint until it sees a window of opportunity for a bit of stirring and a bit of shock-horror publicity. Then its much vaunted small government, low spending position is abandoned. The Opposition has only one policy at the moment and that is the policy of opportunism. It is false, it is crass and it is ultimately doomed to failure. I would like now to speak briefly about the Budget measure reducing the excise on beer and, in particular the increased differential between the rate for full strength and low alcohol beer. This is a Budget measure which has a sound basis in preventive health. If people can be encouraged, through cheaper prices, to drink low alcohol beer, that has definite advantages for the health of individuals and any others who may encounter them on the road. This, as the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett) said, is a responsible health measure. Those of us who are involved with the Federal Government's Price Watch will be making sure that this cut in excise is passed on to the consumer and not pocketed somewhere along the line before it gets there. And, most importantly, we will make sure that the difference in excise on low and full strength alcohol beers is passed on. My colleague the honourable member for Canning (Mr Gear) pointed out some time ago the widespread practice in hotels and bars of charging the same price for full strength and low alcohol beer. Obviously the uncomplaining public was not aware that low alcohol beer should have been cheaper. From now on Price Watch coordinators in all States will be vigilant in ensuring that the retail beer prices come down and that the appropriate price difference exists between full strength and low alcohol beer. I have heard cries from some members of the public, including the shadow Treasurer, the honourable member for Kooyong, who preceded me, that there is something outrageous or immoral about reducing excise on beer and putting sales tax on flavoured milk. Let us be honest about this. Flavoured milk is a soft drink which contains significant quantities of refined sugar, artificial colouring, artificial flavouring and preservatives. Any goodies which may be in it in the way of a bit of protein are far outweighed by all the nasties. It is a soft drink and therefore there is no reason why it should not attract the same sales tax as other soft drinks. Yet the Opposition is crying out as though the Government were putting a tax on mother's milk. Finally, I wish to congratulate the Government on bringing down this Budget and I commend the Appropriation Bill to the House. Dr HEWSON(Wentworth)(6.10) —This Budget is the product of an arrogant, devious, pragmatic political opportunist who is buying support for his run for the leadership of the Australian Labor Party, basically at the expense of the average Australian. Despite the claims of the Treasurer (Mr Keating), the Budget does little or nothing to secure our economic future and it does little or nothing to address what are fundamental problems in the Australian economy at the present time. Despite press comments to the contrary, this Budget certainly is not the product of an economic rationalist, for there is virtually no economic rationality left in the document. It is also certainly not the product of an economic and social reformer, because all the reform has gone and has been forgotten. And it is certainly not the product of a visionary. There is no vision in this Budget-it is just a case of short term expediency; there is a total lack of long term direction. This Treasurer is arrogant and devious enough to believe that he can fool everybody in Australia that he is dealing with our problem of inflation by artificially lowering the consumer price index (CPI). He is arrogant and pragmatic enough to believe that he can cast aside economic rationality, that he can forget about financial markets and that he can take the traditional Labor voter for granted by attempting to buy the support of some of his colleagues in his run for the leadership by throwing money at some of their pet projects. Average Australians do very poorly out of this Budget. They will face still high, if indeed not higher, inflation, higher interest rates and significantly higher tax burdens, at least for another 12 months. So it is unlikely that average Australians will derive much comfort from the fact that the Treasurer has fudged a lower CPI, because they will still face price increases of 6 or 7 per cent when they go to the supermarket. This will be the case irrespective of where the Treasurer puts the CPI. Equally, average Australians will not feel too reassured by all the Treasurer's talk about tax reform because, as they see their take home pay eaten away by bracket creep, the truth will come home to them. And, of course, average Australians certainly will not be too chuffed with the Treasurer if they get a couple of increases in their home mortgage interest rates in the course of the next 12 months. I guess the only reason the Treasurer cut the excise on low alcohol beer was so that the traditional Labor voter could afford to drown his sorrows while he waits for his tax cut around the middle of next year. There are four points that I would like to concentrate on in my comments on this Budget: firstly, the anti-inflationary strategy; secondly, the so-called claims of `genuine expenditure cuts' and `genuine tax reform'; thirdly, the issue of monetary policy; and, finally, I will come back to the point at which I started-that is, whether or not this document secures our economic future. The Treasurer uses very strong language in regard to inflation-indeed, inflationary language. He says: . . . inflation remains Australia's number one economic disease. What is his solution? His solution has three parts: firstly, he will cut indirect taxes and thereby artificially lower the CPI; secondly, he has some magic wage-tax deal with the unions, yet to be negotiated; and, finally, he will maintain the exchange rate pretty much where it is. I think it is appropriate to begin with a review of the Government's record on inflation. If we look at the Government's time in office-over the five years or six Budgets-we see that the Treasurer has overshot his inflation forecast in every year except the first one, in 1983-84. I suggest to the House that he is now going for five straight strikes-he is about to miss this year's inflation number as well. An annual rate of inflation of 4.5 per cent by the middle of next year was never on. And even if he attempts to fudge it by cutting the excise on certain commodities, he will still not achieve it. I would put some basic questions to the House: how long will everybody be fooled by that sort of strategy; how long will the workers be fooled; and how long will the electorate be fooled as people visit the supermarket and find that price increases are nowhere near where the Treasurer said they would be or claims they are? There is also a logical problem with the Treasurer's proposal of cutting indirect taxes to lower the consumer price index. If he really believed that, why not go all the way? Why not cut excises even a bit more, spend a bit more revenue and eliminate any increase in the CPI altogether? Clearly we would not get rid of inflation even if the CPI increase were zero. Inflationary forces would still be there pumping away through the Australian economy. A similar comment can be made about the Treasurer's wage-tax trade-off. Here he is simply reshuffling the sources of the inflationary pressure. He is substituting a demand-pull pressure, as the economists would say, for a cost-push pressure. Although he has changed the nature of the forces, those inflationary forces are still there. Of course, the presumption that he can hold the exchange rate is an interesting one. To be fair, he does not say it explicitly; he says it implicitly. But the overall stance of his macro-policies will probably ensure sustained downward pressure on the exchange rate on several occasions during this financial year. Would he have us believe that he will seek to hold the current exchange rate, that he will raise interest rates to achieve that exchange rate? It will be interesting to watch as the year progresses. The second area on which I want to comment is the claim-and I quote from the Treasurer's Budget Speech-that: I can give this commitment with confidence because we have made room for genuine tax cuts by making genuine spending cuts. He says that his commitment is to fund substantial tax cuts next year and still to provide a further surplus. As an economist, and an economic rationalist, I of course would welcome a larger Budget surplus, as is evidenced in this document. But we cannot overlook the fact that this Budget surplus has been achieved entirely by increased taxation rather than by expenditure restraint. Indeed, if we look at this Government's record on expenditure restraint, if we cut through the rhetoric and do some hard numbers, we find that there has not been any significant amount of expenditure restraint at all in the last several years. The Treasurer has consciously exaggerated the extent of expenditure restraint, as it is declared in his documents, by doing four things. Firstly, he has included, so far, about $1.7 billion worth of asset sales over the last two years. He treats these as negative expenditures. Secondly, the only restraint in the Budget as a whole has been on payments to the States. But we have not yet seen that restraint transferred to effective restraint on State expenditure. So total public sector expenditure has not been anywhere near as restrained as might have been indicated by looking at the Treasurer's documentation. Thirdly, he has changed the way he finances a lot of our budgetary expenditure in the way in which he has handled the public debt. To some extent there has been a lower demand for borrowings and, in part, there have also been lower interest rates. But he has also consciously shifted the pattern of financing from bonds to treasury notes, seeking lower interest costs. Fourthly, he has used a number of reclassifications of expenditure as revenue, and he has shifted some expenditure items off Budget, with the practical effect of exaggerating the extent of expenditure restraint in recent years. For example, if I were to exclude those four adjustments in this particular year, the Commonwealth's own expenditure, rather than falling by 1.8 per cent in real terms, as claimed by the Treasurer, would actually go up by about 3 per cent in real terms. A similar exercise can be done for each of the last several years, for which one sees in the Budget Papers a dramatic exaggeration of the true extent of any restraint on expenditure. The Treasurer would have us believe that he has restrained expenditure enough to be able to cut taxes responsibly next year. This is a fundamental difference between the Government and us. We believe that the only way to get genuine tax reductions is to cut government expenditure-and the Treasurer has yet to do that in terms of making room for his promised tax cuts. Nevertheless, let us set expenditure aside and look at the Treasurer's efforts with taxation. There has been a phenomenal-that is no exaggeration-increase in tax revenue over the life of this Government. And it is no accident that the $5.5 billion surplus projected for this year is roughly equal to the net increase in pay as you earn tax. While there has been some broadening of the personal tax base, a substantial part of the additional revenue is due to bracket creep. Indeed, if we count four years, including this year and next year, the total in bracket creep will be about $10 billion, which is a significant proportion of the increase in revenue over that period. This phenomenal rip-off of average Australians has been achieved by increasing incomes and pushing people into higher and higher tax brackets. On the basis of these estimates, we could suggest that bracket creep has financed about twice last year's Budget surplus and almost all of this year's Budget surplus. So if the Treasurer wants to talk about genuine tax cuts, he has to talk about giving back, as a minimum, that $10 billion, because that is what he will have taken from average Australians by the middle of next year through bracket creep alone. Any genuine tax reductions will need to be over and above that particular amount. The third area of this Budget I wanted to say something about is the monetary policy and interest rates. It is interesting that the Treasurer says very little in the Budget documentation about monetary policy. But there is one fundamentally important statement, and that is: For the future, while other instruments have taken a greater share of the weight, monetary policy must continue to play its vital balancing role- I emphasise `vital balancing role'- in the overall strategy of restraint. Here we have the bottom line. What the Treasurer is saying to us is, `I will not go back and touch fiscal policy any more if some of our forecasts do not work out. And I will not go back and touch wages policy any more. I will rely on tighter monetary policy and higher interest rates'. I therefore find it unbelievable, against that background, that in the past couple of days the Treasurer has been trying to create the impression that interest rates are on a downward track. To do this he significantly underestimates the magnitude of the economic problems that are before us and seeks to create the very false impression that interest rates are about to fall. Indeed, they are probably about to rise. Just look at financial markets now. The final matter that I want to say something about concerns a line that he repeats twice in the speech, namely: It is a Budget which will do much to secure our economic future. I put the question to the House: What does this Budget do to secure our economic future? Clearly, the Treasurer's forecasts are pretty optimistic. Indeed, they are unnervingly pretty much like they were last year. It is as though some Treasury officer just went down the list of forecasts and repeated last year's outcome. As such, it makes one suspicious as to whether, in fact, there is not another set of forecasts within the Treasury that did not make its way into the Budget documentation. There is no doubt that the Government's forecasts are consistently optimistic. One interesting way of setting those forecasts in context is to compare them with a recent survey that was published in the Age of 40 private sector and academic forecasters of the economy. We find that only three of those 40 forecasters were more optimistic on growth than the Treasurer; only one of them was more optimistic on investment; seven were more optimistic on the balance of payments; and three were more optimistic on the exchange rate. Not surprisingly, the Government was clearly the most optimistic on inflation. On that basis one would usually be tempted to conclude of course that, if his forecasts are so optimistic, such that they do not come in on track, surely the Treasurer will not achieve the surplus that he has projected for 1988-89. But honourable members should not be fooled by that approach in relation to this Treasurer. He has a clear track record of being successful in achieving his forecasts of the Budget outcomes, of being overly successful, of getting a bigger surplus than in fact he had projected. He will do the same again this year. I want to make it clear that I do not think that those forecasts will be validated; I think that they are unsustainable. But the Treasurer has kept about $1.5 billion up his sleeve which he has not yet brought into account in the Budget documents and which will be available to cushion the effect of those forecasts not being achieved. Specifically, I believe the Treasurer has about $1 billion in asset sales which he has not brought to account this year and I estimate that he probably has about $500m of additional profits in the Reserve Bank that he can tap if he needs to. While the forecasts will not be validated, we should not be fooled: he probably will not miss his Budget surplus numbers. Indeed, an alternative way of saying that is to recognise that he could have budgeted for a surplus of about $7 billion instead of $5.5 billion. Why are his forecasts so optimistic? There are two main reasons, and I want to draw them to the attention of the House. First, he has made a very bullish assessment of the prospects of the world economy. I shall paraphrase what he has said in the various papers. There are five elements to this assessment. Firstly, there is a fairly bullish assessment of the prospects for continued growth in the industrialised world. Secondly, there is a very confident belief that commodity prices will stay up, that they will not fall, and that our terms of trade will again improve by 9 per cent this year. Thirdly, there is a tendency to downplay the possibility of any significant rekindling of global inflation. Fourthly, there is a tendency to downplay the possibility, or at least its consequences for us, of a significant jump in United States or other world interest rates. Finally, there is an implicit assumption about the maintenance of reasonable financial market stability. I put it to the House that the risks in the world economy are much greater than the Treasurer has conceded and that this is the basis for the optimism in his forecasts, although it is totally unjustified. There is a very real chance that the economic growth in the industrialised world will taper off through the year and, secondly, there is a very real chance that commodity prices will fall and our terms of trade will deteriorate. I think there should also be greater recognition of growing inflationary pressures, particularly in the United States, and the fact that through the early part of next year United States interest rates will be the only instrument that that country has to deal with that problem. United States interest rates are on an upward course, as indeed they are in a number of other countries. Finally, I think that, as the financial markets recognise that the United States balance of payments is not really on track, as has been projected, and as they recognise that the United States budget deficit is nowhere near its projected targets, there will be further financial market instability. I cannot rule out the possibility of a secondary stock market collapse during this financial year. The Treasurer's track record in this area is abysmal. His incapacity to forecast the external economy cannot be exaggerated. He missed the pick-up in commodity prices two years ago-and it has been going on since early 1986-and he underestimated its significance. In the 1986-87 Budget he was still talking about the fall in the terms of trade of 1984-85. He exaggerated that fall and he missed the turning point. In the 1987-88 Budget, he belatedly recognised the turnaround in commodity prices and the terms of trade. But he underestimated that and, indeed, the terms of trade improved by about five times his forecast. Now this year he is extrapolating that upturn in commodity prices and the terms of trade, when they are both about to turn down. The Treasurer has also made some fundamental mistakes in economic management domestically which have put us in a very precarious position. His two major failings were, firstly, that he failed to recognise that commodity price trend and, secondly, that he played politics with interest rates. Over the past 12 months or so, up until at least March of this year, the Treasurer expanded money supply and lowered interest rates, primarily for political reasons-at the time of the July election and again prior to the New South Wales election-and, in the process, significantly stimulated domestic demand, blew out imports, and thus spent most of the benefits that would otherwise have accrued to our balance of payments. Instead of getting the full benefit of an improvement in our balance of payments from those commodity prices, he spent it and now has the Australian economy on a very dangerous collision course between strong domestic demand and renewed balance of payments weakness. To summarise, there are some very real risks in the world economy, and there are some policy errors in terms of the Treasurer's domestic economic management, both of which are now coming home to roost. In simple terms, the economic strategy of this Budget is unsustainable. The forecasts are unattainable and we are in for a very difficult set of economic circumstances in the course of the next 12 months. Mr LINDSAY(Herbert)(6.26) —The remarkable record of economic and fiscal achievement by the Hawke Government over the past 5 1/2 years must surely guarantee its place in Australian history as the best Australian Government ever. By any measure of reckoning, its outstanding administration of the affairs of this nation must rank the Hawke Government as the best this nation has produced. The Hawke Government came to office in March 1983, having inherited from the Fraser-Howard Government a Budget deficit hovering around $10 billion. In just 5 1/2 years, Australia's taxation system has undergone the most comprehensive reform since 1942. Tax rates have fallen dramatically for both company and personal taxpayers. The introduction of the fringe benefits tax and the capital gains tax has helped ensure that the tax burden is borne fairly and equitably by all Australians, not just wage and salary earners and honest taxpayers. Tariff protection has been reformed. Industry has been restructured. Mature and formerly highly protected industries, such as the steel, motor vehicle, shipbuilding, chemical and plastics, textile, clothing and footwear industries, have been increasingly exposed to reduced protection designed to make those industries more competitive and more efficient. Each of those industries is now far more competitive and efficient than was the case when the Fraser-Howard Government was thrown out of office. The floating of the Australian dollar and the accompanying deregulation of the financial markets, the liberalisation of foreign investment, and the creation of a social wage system in cooperation with employers and trade unions have forced Australia into the international economy. As John Button once said, these measures were enormous steps in `shaking Australia out of a Dreamtime era of the sheltered economy'. Australia now has to compare itself in an ongoing way with other countries. We compare our exchange rate, current account, inflation rate, fiscal policy, the level of corporate taxes, and other economic indices. Put simply, our economy is now globally oriented. Now in 1988, Australia's bicentennial year, a record Budget surplus of $5.5 billion is projected for 1988-89. Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 8 p.m. Mr LINDSAY —As I was saying before the suspension of the sitting for dinner, now, in 1988, Australia's bicentennial year, Australia has a record Budget surplus of $5.5 billion projected for 1988-89. By any standard of comparison it is a magnificent achievement of first-rate political leadership and brilliant economic management. The Treasurer (Mr Keating) deserves and is owed the gratitude of every Australian. Previous Federal Budgets provided a direction to all Australians to face up to the challenges of the changing world. Those Budgets provided a practical demonstration that the Hawke Government had not only reinvigorated Australia's market economy but at the same time had improved the standard of living of average Australians and the welfare of the sick and the poor. But fundamentally this Budget, the sixth Keating Budget, is about guaranteeing and securing Australia's future; it is about a Budget surplus; it is about repaying Australia's overseas debt; it is about Australia not borrowing any new money; it is about reducing government expenditure as a proportion of gross domestic product; it is about the eradication of high inflation; it is about tax cuts for the millions of Australians who pay tax; and it is about social justice for those Australians who are in genuine need-the family, the unemployed, the elderly, the sick, the homeless and the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Above all this Budget places a high priority on the education and training of young Australians who will be the skilled work force and the taxpayers as Australia begins its third century of Western civilisation. Almost everyone acknowledges that the nation needs more graduates, yet tens of thousands of young Australians who want a tertiary education and who have the ability to complete a tertiary education successfully are denied access to Australian tertiary institutions. This Budget makes a specific pledge: within three years there will be 40,000 new student places. That pledge will be honoured not only because there are more than 40,000 bright young Australians who want to graduate from Australian tertiary institutions, but also because this Government is fundamentally committed to this proposal. These young Australians want to become graduates, they want to acquire the skills that Australia so desperately needs to compete successfully in the global economy. I now refer to industry restructuring. Domestic reform and restructuring of Australia's industries continue to be a major priority of the Hawke Government. There were compelling reasons for this decision. Australia's terms of trade had deteriorated, partly brought about by unfair trading practices among the world's major economies, and there had been less demand for most raw material products-indeed, there was a tendency to world oversupply. Other reasons were the dramatic changes internationally in technology and the move towards sophisticated manufactured goods and services. Above all, there was an absence of an export culture in Australia. Even until the late 1970s, Australia had an almost totally resource dependent economy. Raw materials that were exported had little value added to them. The protected manufacturing sector was basically uncompetitive and had a low level of research and development. The pressing need for rapid adjustment to industry in Australia is hampered by too many governments and their bureaucracies, by our small population and economy and vast distances and, finally, by the difficulty in changing people's attitudes. Most people find it hard to change. Sometimes change for the better involves in the beginning some economic cost. There seems to be an ever-present tendency to rely on the Government to absorb the pain, to pay the price of change for the better, to protect the risk-taker and always to be the provider. All Australians have a duty to accept and work for constructive industry adjustments. Australia will inevitably become less reliant on raw material exports and more reliant on manufactured goods and services. We cannot and must not squander any opportunity to improve industry development. There are plenty of winners for Australian industry to back. There is evidence that the Government's measures to improve exports of manufactures are working. In 1984-85 primary products, that is, unprocessed raw products, minerals and fuels, accounted for 76.8 per cent of Australia's total exports by value. By 1986-87 this figure had fallen by about 10 per cent to 69.4 per cent. During the same period, exports of manufactures as a percentage of total exports increased by 19.2 per cent to 23.2 per cent, a rise of about 20 per cent. But there is still a long way to go. Any economy which in the 1980s relies on primary products for 69 per cent of its export earnings is still a vulnerable economy. We must continue to encourage industry to invest more in research and development and venture investment. The Hawke Government is committed to tax concessions for research and development and venture capital investment. The 150 per cent tax concession for research and development will continue until June 1991. From that time there will be 100 per cent deductibility for companies, partnerships, individuals and trusts. This is just one of the many measures introduced by this Government to provide investment money for research and development. Whilst all Australians will justifiably applaud the Hawke Government's economic achievements and its well-intentioned ambitions for the advancement of Australia, there is one area of expenditure in the Budget which gives rise to concern. Expenditure on research and development should be far higher than it is. Comparatively speaking, research spending in Australia is lower than it was 20 years ago. It appears that between 1982-83 and 1988-89 there has been a fall in budgetary allocations for science of about 21.6 per cent. The Budget allocation for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) over this period has been reduced by 31.3 per cent. In a recent speech the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business (Mr Barry Jones) observed: The Parliamentary Library has calculated that in constant 1979-80 prices the changes between 1982-83 and 1987-88 (the last budget) were as follows: 1. Defence...10.9% 2. Education...7.7% 3. Health...69.3% 4. Social Security and Welfare...13.3% 5. Housing and Community Amenities...21.7% 6. Culture and Communications...35% 7. Transport and Communications...-34.2% 8. Industry Assistance and Development...-25.8% 9. General and Scientific Research...-14.6% He went on to say: CSIRO's position, while at first glance it seems worse, is strengthened slightly by the provision of triennial funding, a major advance. So is the ability to retain outside earnings and the sale of assets-estimated to total $125 million for 1988-89. Dr Keith Boardman, the Chief Executive, has revised his estimates of CSIRO's financial position for 1988-89. He estimates total income at $463 million, a dollar increase of 6.5 per cent, and making a 5 per cent allowance for inflation, a real increase of 1.5 per cent. However, all of the increase is attributable to higher external funding: the Budget figure is stationary. This does not provide much flexibility for the organisation. Most of that outside funding is tied: funds collected from the dairy industry must be spent in that area, it can't be transferred to superconductivity or new materials. If Australian industry doesn't understand the importance of the last two, then CSIRO will be completely dependent on a declining Budgetary allocation or to distort its program to areas where partners are available to sponsor research. CSIRO has a major facility at Townsville. Davies Laboratory is one of the leading CSIRO laboratories involved in advanced research. Its staff of 70 is engaged in major research in tropical animal production, soils and tropical crops and pastures. The head of the division of tropical animal production at Davies Laboratory, Dr Jim Hogan, with the support of exceptionally talented staff, is making a major contribution to improve cattle production in northern Australia. For many reasons, including prolonged drought, the size of the cattle herd in northern Australia has declined dramatically over the last 5 years. The re-opening of the Korean beef market and the liberalisation of the Japanese beef market pose major challenges for Australia's beef industry. In north Queensland, a major problem in the beef industry outside the farm gate is the intermittent nature of employment in beef processing enterprises. The highly skilled labour force in meatworks is often stood down for at least half the year, with serious consequences to the local and national economies and economic disruption to the families involved. The labour force at meatworks is equivalent to about one person per day per beast slaughtered. Hence as 250 beasts put through the works represent one person's year of work, each 1,000 extra beasts result in direct employment of four workers. There are two components to the problem. The first is a limit to the numbers of cattle available, which reflects the low calving percentage in northern regions because of the hot tropical environment, and the second, the concentration of saleable cattle into a period of a few months, is associated with the seasonal production of pasture. The first of these is being investigated in the Australian Meat and Live-stock Research and Development Corporation sponsored northern Australian project, a joint study conducted by CSIRO, James Cook University and the Queensland Department of Primary Industries. There are two requirements for increasing the turnoff of beef: producing more calves and turning grown bullocks off the property at an earlier age. It has been shown by Dr Tony Schlink of CSIRO that the first goal can be achieved by simple management practices. These reduce nutritional stresses on the lactating cow by either weaning the calf earlier than normal or by giving the calf access to supplementary feed denied to the cow. The latter practice has been shown with three month-old calves to reduce milk demand from the cow by two litres a day while in no way affecting the growth of the calf. Early weaning creates the need to feed the calf. It has been found profitable to achieve this without calf losses for $40 to $50 per head to a stage where the calf can readily look after itself at pasture. The calf diets used have been based on locally produced maize plus protein concentrate. In the longer term improved pastures tailored for weaner nutrition are seen as the preferred option. More rapid growth of bullocks is seen to require a sustained supply of better quality feed. Part of the answer will come from the pasture legume newly released by Mr Les Edye of CSIRO division of tropical crops and pasture at Townsville. This legume, a member of the stylosanthes family, has been named amiga and has clearly outperformed the popular verano in the drier parts of the Gulf country. Other legumes can help fill the feed gap in different regions. Desmanthus, introduced by Dr Bob Burt at Davies Laboratory, and clitoria are undergoing nutritional evaluation at present. While improved benefits will be derived from better quality feeds, there is still a need to find ways to improve the efficiency of use of existing feeds. Various growth promotion substances, such as ralgro, of great benefit to the beef producer, have been banned in Europe. However, there is promise in studies by Dr Derek Lindsay of CSIRO, Rockhampton, of extracting and synthesising naturally occurring growth promoters from animal tissues. These substances, when commercially developed, should assist in the attainment of the goal of producing beef at younger ages, but at the same time free from artificial chemicals. The success of these ventures will have a marked bearing on the capacity of Australia to take full advantage of current market opportunities and, in particular, of the Japanese market. That market-worth hundreds of millions of dollars and many tens of millions of dollars to the economy of my electorate-requires a beast of about 500 kilograms at a little over two years of age. This beast can be produced in the north by a combination of better pastures and of feedlotting, a notably risky enterprise, and will create more employment in both feed and cattle processing enterprises. However, many problems remain to be solved. As I have said, the drought of the last five years has greatly reduced the northern cattle herd and with the return of better seasons there will be need to employ the best technological advances to bring cattle production up to its normal level. This will, of course, require increased funding if the excellent work being done at Davies Laboratory is to produce the intended benefits for the Australian beef industry. I congratulate the Hawke Government on its increased funding to $68.6m for medical research. This will have a profound impact on tropical medical research in the Townsville area. In the 1986-87 Budget the Hawke Government provided funds to establish at Townsville's James Cook University the tropical health surveillance unit. The purpose of the unit is to conduct research and foster research training in epidemiology, biostatistics and population health. This initiative by the Hawke Government will have a profound and beneficial effect on tropical health and medical research. The decision to establish the unit came none too soon for the people of north Queensland, who are known to have a higher mortality rate from high blood pressure, cervical cancer, diabetes, stroke and accidents than people living in southern Queensland and the rest of Australia. Within the next few months the director of the unit, Dr Hedley Peach and his team of researchers, will conduct a regional analysis of health statistics to help determine the reasons why north Queensland has a high hospitalisation death rate from heart disease and cancer. The unit will also investigate whether the consumption of tropical fish can offer protection against heart disease in the same way that eating cold water fish has been found to do. I have outlined in brief the research activities of just two research establishments in my electorate. Research at James Cook University of north Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Science continues to attract international renown and increasing funding. The opportunities in this Budget are now present for all Australians to build on a solid foundation. The prize of national and individual prosperity is there to be won. Australia, richly endowed with human virtues and skills and natural resources, is better prepared than most other nations on earth to be worthy of the almost unlimited opportunities which God has given us. Mr PETER FISHER(Mallee)(8.17) —This Keating Budget takes a high risk gamble that commodity prices will stay where they are for at least the next 12 months. The situation highlights a fundamental importance of the foreign exchange earned by agricultural and resource industries. Yet this Budget, like all Keating Budgets before it, continues not only to bite the hand that feeds it but also to impose further impediments on productive industries and productive people. Nothing has been done to reduce cost burdens or to ease the problems of managing price fluctuations for industries battling against subsidised world production and export policies or to create an environment of confidence for people engaged in rural living. The major feature in this Budget is the surplus of $5.5 billion. This has been achieved, as we all know, by massive and cumulative taxation increases. Personal income tax revenue will rise by 13.6 per cent this year after a 10 per cent increase last year. While about 2 per cent of this increase is from additional employment, the impact of the bracket creep and sales tax increases of 14.4 per cent will bear heavily on the pay as you earn taxpayer. The observation that the only people to benefit will be those who do not earn an income from their efforts and drink low alcohol beer is not far off the mark. Once again, the large brewers will be happy with the quite dramatic changes taking place in this Budget. I have great difficulty in reconciling this decision with the support the Federal Government has to give to programs on drug and alcohol abuse. I, of course, acknowledge the need for increases in some social welfare programs. The family allowance supplement to be increased by 10 per cent to $24 per week for children up to 12 years and to $31 a week for children 13 to 15 years, to apply from December, is an important initiative. The additional cost of this to revenue is estimated at $69m in 1988-89, rising to $133m the following year. Offsetting this welcome change however for our lower income earners is a cut in funding for many recipients of the family allowance. It does away with the universal nature of the scheme's recognition of the importance of the family in Australian society. We also see the need for rent assistance for low income earners to be increased by up to $30 a week as from June 1990. This increase in the Budget simply points to the appalling homelessness which exists throughout Australia as declining living standards reduce the capacity of the unemployed or the first home buyer to enter the housing or rental market. Both these measures, while hailed by many of my colleagues in the Government as progress, should be seen for what they are-a plunge by large sections of the economy into a subculture of poverty unprecedented in recent years. While this is not the time to enter the appalling emotionalism, misrepresentation and destructive political opportunism of the immigration debate, I will say simply one or two things on this issue. Firstly in the past our immigration program has been non-discriminatory and non-racist, and it must remain so. But that should not deny the right for mature debate on matters of legitimate concern. Immigration programs-their scope, nature and pace-are important to our future stability and homogeneity. The economic and social well-being of the present Australian population and all those joining us in the future-new arrivals and old-are entitled to this type of security. If not, social disharmony will occur. Secondly, multiculturalism, in its broadest sense, should be a means of promoting integration and cohesion into one Australian identity and society. If multiculturalism promotes different schools, languages and social facilities to the exclusion of others, be they of Australian citizenship or ethnic communities, the potential for the rise of racial bigotry is to be expected. Economic conditions have also dictated other increased welfare benefits in this Budget and have dictated new programs. The study allowance for sole parents is to be doubled to $30 a week. Aboriginal affairs outlays are to increase by $57m in 1988-89 and a further $96m in 1989-90. A program called new start is to be introduced for the long term unemployed and a program called the jobs, education and training program-JET-is to be introduced to offer job training to sole parents. However, this Parliament should be concerned that the need for increases in funds for welfare indicates a deep-seated malaise within our society and community. I simply wonder how single income families, average taxpayers, view a government that lowers corporate tax substantially but leaves the working class struggling to fund increased welfare and our economic debt. I wonder what they really think about this Keating Budget. In the broadest sense, even if commodity prices remain stable, the Budget of the Treasurer (Mr Keating) will not ease Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development concern, as expressed on just 9 August, that Australia's inflation is still higher than that of our trading partners and unemployment remains too high. This Budget does not ease the personal income tax burden of the average Australian worker, who today needs a cut of $56 a week to restore his earning capacity and situation to the level that existed in March 1983 when this Government took office. This Budget does not substantially drop Australia's chronic net foreign indebtedness, which at the end of 1987-88 stood at nearly $89 billion. This Budget does not stimulate new private capital expenditure, which rose by a small 3 per cent in real terms in 1987-88 and which is forecast to show little real growth, if any, in 1988-89. This Budget does not change the fact that the duration of unemployment under Labor has increased from eight months to the present 11 months and that it does not provide any substantial and lasting reduction in interest rates. I turn now to some specifics that impact heavily on rural Australia and on an electorate such as mine-Mallee-as well as on those of many of my colleagues who are in the chamber tonight. Mr Tim Fischer —Including Farrer. Mr PETER FISHER —Including the electorates of Farrer, Murray and Richmond. Mr Nehl —And Cowper. Mr PETER FISHER —And Cowper. I am pleased for the support of my colleagues tonight. This Budget impacts very heavily on rural Australia, as the Hawke Government continues to squeeze the life out of Australia's highest export earning sector-primary industry. Not content with five years of gross discrimination against our nation's farmers, Labor has now resorted to taxing our farmers in a very surreptitious way. Total revenue from primary industry levies will rise by $105m in 1988-89 and the revenue from other primary industry charges will rise by a further $19m. These increases relate to rises in wool tax, livestock slaughter levies, milk levies and export inspection charges. Coupled with this there will be no relief to primary industry in fuel taxes. Indeed, total excise revenue from fuel tax will increase according to our inflation rate, which at best will be at least 4.5 per cent in 1988-89. Madam Speaker, I ask you to compare these increased charges with the need for this Government to ensure that commodities, be they agricultural or resource commodities, continue to provide the high level of export income that they do presently. If they do not do so, this Budget will fail. Mr Lloyd —It is an anti-trade Federal Budget. Mr PETER FISHER —It is anti-trade. To impose these additional charges at this time is absolute madness. We have seen a reduction in sales tax on French cosmetics and low alcohol beer. While that may, in the short term, cut the inflation rate, country people bitterly resent the failure to reduce fuel tax or stop the indexing hike that will see at least an additional 4 per cent to 6 per cent increase on fuel in the next 12 months. We in the country also resent the total disregard of Australia's road infrastructure. This is the sixth Budget which reduces road funding. We despair that this Government will even address this critical problem. While the nation is asked to bear the cost of a meaningless referendum proposal aimed at currying the political support of local government, the Government withdraws another $33m from road programs. Mr Nehl —Shameful. Mr PETER FISHER —It is shameful. Road funding issues in Australia are becoming a social problem as well as an economic one. Major road problems are contributing to an increase in road accidents and personal trauma. The panic calling of an election in Victoria emphasises the desperation of that Labor State Government, burdened with a $24m debt and declining levels of basic community services. The honourable member for Herbert (Mr Lindsay), who spoke before me, spoke in glowing terms of Labor's education record and of the 40,000 places that it will create in our higher education facilities. Obviously he has not been out in the electorate recently and encountered the uncertainty and the divisions that are taking place as a result of this Government's period in office. I believe that the Cain Government's future will not be helped by the contradiction of the Hawke Government's higher education package. Mr Lloyd —They are going to take a caning in Victoria. Mr PETER FISHER —I hope that Labor will take a caning in Victoria. I believe that the education package will contribute towards it. In this package the Government has claimed a much needed expansion in places at universities and colleges; and it removes the much vaunted two-year-old $263 administrative charge, but replaces it with a $1,800 annual debit, regardless of a student's or a family's financial position. Mr Beddall —What is your Party policy? Mr PETER FISHER —The honourable member will get it in a minute. I find it quite fascinating that the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) believes that such a change will improve access, particularly for the underprivileged. The changes and the cuts made by the Government for rural education programs smack of blatant discrimination. Rural children and their families have been savaged by the restriction of their rights to equal education opportunity. The introduction of a `sudden death'-what a great name that is; the Budget Papers refer to it in that way-assets test on Austudy and isolated children's program recipients and their families will seriously restrict the development of rural Australia and the educational needs of children. I believe that the measure is a disaster. The assets test will come into effect on 1 January 1989 and will apply to all assets other than the family home. It will have other features; for instance, a family assets cut-off point of $300,000 for dependent students, aligned to the new family allowance supplement assets test cut-off point. The cut-off point for personal assets will be aligned with the levels under the unemployment assets test of $127,000 for married students and $89,250 for single independent students. In recognition of the severity of the test on farming and other self-employed families, certain assets that are used to generate farm or other business income are to be discounted by 50 per cent. What does this mean? What assets are to be discounted and how severe must hardship be before any discounting takes place? As we have seen with other assets test legislation, whether it be in regard to pensions or unemployment benefit, the hardship clause is almost irrelevant. The assistance for the isolated children's program is to be hacked back by nearly 17 per cent in 1988-89 compared with Commonwealth allocations for the previous year. According to the Budget estimates themselves, this will mean a cut of nearly 24 per cent in the number of students being educated through this program-from 19,000 in the calendar year 1988 to 14,500 in 1989. This is a graphic example of the real concern of Labor for the development of country Australia and the education needs of the children of country Australia. This all comes at a time when commodities are so important, when productivity out of rural Australia is so vital and when the future of this Budget will be determined by the particular resources and export income maintained from those commodities. I would like to speak now about the cuts to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). I have a major division of CSIRO in Merbein in my electorate-a horticulture division. It has been responsible for so much of the development, diversity and quality of horticultural products throughout Australia. I am concerned that we are seeing another cut-a cut of 32 per cent-this year. The only hope CSIRO has of maintaining its research programs and expenditure is by obtaining outside income. The general attitude of this Government to science and research is appalling. It was obvious from the comments of the honourable member for Herbert that he is very concerned about the future of research facilities in his electorate. I believe that this Budget will be lucky to survive. Even the political commentators will be saying this over the next few weeks. I am sure that in the 12 months ahead this Keating Budget will be seen to achieve no more and no less than did the Budget of the past 12 months. Mr SIMMONS(Calare)(8.32) —At the outset I take this opportunity to warmly congratulate the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Sawford) on the occasion of the making of his maiden speech, the first in the permanent Parliament House. I would also like to acknowledge the fact that the honourable member for Groom (Mr Taylor) was the first Opposition member to make a maiden speech in the new Parliament House. This has been a very historic occasion indeed. Initially tonight I would like to address some of my comments in the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1988-89 to some matters affecting the rural sector of Australia. I believe that the 1988-89 Budget marks a return to prosperity for the Australian economy and really the beginning of the end for the belt tightening that all Australians, whether they live in the capital cities or right throughout rural Australia, have had to bear, particularly over the last two years or so following the collapse of our commodity prices. I have been fortunate in the course of this Parliament to be the chairman of the country task force of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). The task force met with the executive and affiliate bodies of the National Farmers Federation in late July this year to discuss some of the National Farmers Federation's preferred outcomes for the 1988-89 Budget. I must say that I am very happy with the Budget that was handed down last week by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) because in many respects it mirrored some of the preferred positions of the National Farmers Federation on a number of important general economic points. The Government's position did vary from the National Farmers Federation's position in some ideological areas. We appreciate that. For example, the National Farmers Federation wanted expenditure cuts made in health and education, which are areas to which this Government is very strongly committed indeed and which are being expanded, not cut, in this year's Budget. Just reflecting on the comments of the honourable member for Mallee (Mr Peter Fisher) a few minutes ago, it is significant to note that he had some concerns about the level of road funding in Australia. Indeed, it was the National Farmers Federation which, some 12 months or so ago, called for a massive reduction in government expenditure, including a reduction in expenditure on road funding. From memory, the figures were in the order of $143m. However, we have persons such as the honourable member for Mallee getting up and bemoaning the fact that the Government has cut back on road funding and suggesting that this road funding cutback has been at the expense of local government. Let me remind honourable senators that the reductions in road funding made by this Government were not made at the expense of road funding for local government. Indeed, most members of this House would remember that as part of the bicentennial road development program, a program begun by the Fraser Government and continued by this Government, it was intended that the national highway system, as planned by the Government, be substantially completed by 1988. It certainly stands to reason, as a result of any analysis, that if that important infrastructure development has been completed, the amount of money one will spend on maintaining that asset will not be nearly as great as the amount required to provide the funds in the first place to construct that asset. While obviously many of us would like to see further spending on roads, perhaps with new national highways being designated, most honourable members on this side of the House take a responsible attitude to road funding. We recognise, for example, that local government has some special needs that should be addressed. However, I reject out of hand the criticism by the honourable member for Mallee that somehow or other we have hacked into road funding for local government. The contrary is the case. We have maintained the level of road funding to local government in this Budget. I might say that that was a view that was almost unanimously endorsed by all country members on this side of the House. Indeed, it was the basis of a very firm recommendation of the Prime Minister's country task force following a visit that it made to central Queensland early in May of this year. That is something that I am very pleased to say the Treasurer took on board in the May economic statement. Let me return once again to some of the rural elements of the Budget. We had the opportunity at our recent meeting with the National Farmers Federation to meet with a number of key people in that organisation. In particular Dr Gus Hooke, who is an economist employed by the National Farmers Federation, gave a very substantial briefing to our committee on the Federation's proposals. In essence, that National Farmers Federation urged the Government to achieve a position of zero inflation and a correction of what it saw as a problem in the external account through significantly reducing Budget expenditure and less restrictive monetary policy. While zero inflation may be a little too much to hope for, one of the main thrusts of this Budget is a reduction in inflation. I am confident, as I am sure all honourable members on this side of the House are confident, that through a series of measures that Government will achieve its aim to reduce inflation to the order of 4 1/2 per cent by the middle of next year. It will be able to do that because we have in place an incomes policy which has been substantially the hallmark of this Government since its election in 1983. Honourable members on the other side of the House have scoffed from time to time at the incomes policy agreement that was reached between the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Labor Party prior to the 1983 election. I think that all fair-minded people would acknowledge the fact that it has, with the occasional hiccup, worked remarkably well and has, indeed, served us particularly well at a time when this country has faced significant difficulties, particularly with the downturn in commodity prices and the resultant problems that has brought to our economy. In regard to the second of the main points raised by the National Farmers Federation, I am sure that that organisation is very happy with the news that this year for the first time ever the Federal Government will undertake no new borrowings; in other words, the public sector borrowing requirement will be zero in 1988-89. That is a very substantial achievement by any measure. Obviously this will be of significant benefit to people in the cities but it will be particularly important to people in the country. In those areas of Australia where farming is very important people have found themselves facing dramatic problems as a result of increasing farm indebtedness over the past few years. Of course, that has been brought about by a combination of drought and the downturn in commodity prices. But the measures in this Budget will substantially create a climate in which interest rates are likely to fall over the course of this financial year. One of the main priorities in the National Farmers Federation was to obtain increases in government expenditure on such things as afforestation, water resources and soil conservation. Once again, I am happy to acknowledge the fact that the Government has responded in a very positive way to these important points made by the National Farmers Federation. Often the conservation debate in this chamber and, indeed, in the community in general, focuses upon, if you like, those high points that people tend to be very excited about from time to time. For example, we hear about conservation issues relating to the Daintree rainforest in Queensland, the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests in Tasmania and the problems relating to the woodchip industry in south-eastern New South Wales. I put it to the House that the most important conservation issue facing this nation is the question of land degradation. While these other issues are certainly important, and while I do not wish to downplay their importance, I think we must acknowledge that the question of land degradation is a very important issue that this nation is facing up to. Significantly, this financial year the Federal Government will increase funding under the national soil conservation program by over 70 per cent and, in doing so, lift expenditure on this very important program to in excess of $10.6m. The 1988-89 allocation brings the total spent on this program since it was introduced in 1983-84 to almost $32m. This Government has done something about land degradation and soil conservation issues generally. In marked contrast, in my view the agrarian socialists who call themselves the National Party very much downplayed the importance of this issue when they were part of the coalition during the Fraser-Howard years. I believe that some very significant changes have been made in all sorts of other areas relating to agriculture. Significantly, there is increased funding for rural industry research funds. The Government will also allocate in excess of $62.6m in 1988-89 for the Federal water resources assistance program. This is a 20 per cent increase over expenditure on the same program in the last financial year. A total of $1m is being provided by this Government under a new program known as country link to give people in country areas access to a 008 number. This will enable them to find more information about the vast range of Commonwealth services that are offered throughout the nation. Often, because of isolation and other factors, people have great difficulty in trying to come to grips with what is available or, indeed, being able to visit a regional office of a particular government department. We are looking at other important initiatives in the women's area. Funding for the rural women's access program will be doubled to $200,000 this year. Indeed, a lot of good work has been done in that program. An amount of $700,000 has been allocated for a new program called the rural education access program which will improve access to education, training and associated activities in rural communities and industries. I make this point about education in country Australia: I was surprised to find that we had to wait until 1986 for the first official meeting between the Federal Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) and the Federal Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) to take place on the very important issue of rural education. That meeting at Orange Agricultural College in my electorate was attended by representatives of rural education from such centres as Hawkesbury Agricultural College and my own college at Orange and by people from the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training. We often take it for granted that Ministers such as the Minister for Employment, Education and Training and the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy are linked in a very important and significant way. But it took a meeting of that nature to establish that there needed to be much more formal structures in place before matters could be addressed. I will turn briefly to some of the initiatives that have been taken in education. I spent some 16 years in the education sector prior to coming into this Parliament and, therefore, I have an interest in this subject. Significantly, some of the big issues that have needed to be addressed for some time have been addressed by this Government. In particular, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training, the Treasurer and the Budget Cabinet have come to grips with the question of underrepresentation in higher education in respect of people such as the youth in country areas, Aboriginals, women in rural Australia and country kids generally. I pay tribute tonight to the Mitchell College of Advanced Education at Bathurst for its important initiative this year of not relying 100 per cent on the tertiary score. It is considering other ways in which entry to tertiary education can be looked at. Through its initiative this year, some kids who did not quite qualify in terms of the tertiary entrance score have been given access to higher education. Obviously some of those students could perform very well when not facing pressure from external examinations. All sorts of other concerns relating to the future of higher education are being addressed in a very positive way. I have seen the very positive way in which the dynamic leadership of Orange Agricultural College and the Mitchell College of Advanced Education in Bathurst have responded to the challenges of the Government's White Paper. I am very confident that the future of higher education in the central west area of New South Wales, extending to far western New South Wales, is going to be addressed in a significant way as these colleges come to grips with the challenges-they see them as challenges-under the Government's White Paper proposals. These colleges are supported by the important spending initiatives in education in this Budget. My time is limited tonight. I have taken the opportunity to make some comments to cast aside some of the nonsense that we traditionally hear at this time of the year from the National Party, the agrarian socialists, who come into this Parliament and want to cut government expenditure all the time, but increase expenditure in their own little hobby horse areas. This Budget is very significant for Australia indeed. In summary, the Budget really is about continuing solid growth in this economy. It is about continuing job creation, reducing the inflation level to less than half of that inherited from the Fraser-Howard years and creating an investment climate which has not been seen in this country for at least a quarter of a century. I commend the Budget to all honourable members. Mr SHACK(Tangney)(8.48) —In rising to debate this year's Budget, I intend to spend most of my time dealing with areas in my shadow portfolio: the areas of employment, training and youth affairs and, in particular, the labour market programs which the Government has set in train. However, against this background I wish, first, to make a few general remarks about the Government's Budget strategy and its political ethics. If we borrow the words of the Treasurer (Mr Keating), this Budget is one which `brings home the bacon'. In my shadow portfolio the real issue is that for the past five years the nation's unemployed would have been lucky to have been able to afford bacon. Even the Government's new found commitment to social justice is unlikely to produce any significant benefits for them or their families. I ask honourable members to think about this rhetorical question: What should we think of a government which has lost its moral authority on the question of unemployment to its mates in the trade union movement-a government which, during its first five years in office, has tolerated an average monthly unemployment rate of 8.6 per cent; a government which has tolerated such an inhuman waste of the talents of more than half a million Australians simply because it has not had the moral fibre, the guts, to stand up to the trade union movement? The reality is that the unemployed have been sacrificed by this Government as a trade-off for peace with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. I realise that the Government will try to sweep all of this under the carpet and fall back on its chorus that it has created more than a million new jobs. I would like to say a couple of things about this. The first point is that it is not the Government which has created these jobs; it is private enterprise. The second point is that providing the right macro-economic and micro-economic framework to stimulate job creation by the private sector is exactly what we expect of government. There is nothing exceptional about the fact that jobs are created during a government's term in office. In fact, employment growth is the very least we would expect to have in a growing population with increasing participation in the labour force. It is one of government's responsibilities to see that policies are always tailored to ensure that growth in the labour market keeps pace with population increases and that the number of jobs available rises along with the demand for places in the work force. If a government fails in this regard then it deserves to be harshly judged by the electorate. My point is that this Government has nothing to be proud of in relation to its labour market policies. In fact, during its time in office unemployment has remained at an exceptionally high level. If one looks at Budget Paper No. 1 one will see that the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) is anticipating an increase in people registering for employment in 1988-89. Sadly, for these additional people hunting for jobs and registering with the CES, the New-Start and jobs, education and training (JET) labour market programs, announced as part of this year's Budget, are nothing more than a further token gesture towards the unemployed. They are just two more names in a long line of catch phrases given to a range of labour market programs that this Government has introduced since 1983. The single distinguishing feature of all of these labour market program names is that they are designed to sound impressive and positive. They are designed to give the impression that the Government is really doing something about the unemployed. Sadly, for the unemployed and their families, the labour force statistics tell a very different story indeed. The statistics show that, despite all the fancy names and all the accompanying glossy promotional material produced at the expense to Australia's already overburdened taxpayers, the average duration of unemployment under the Hawke-Keating Government has leapt from 33.3 weeks in March 1983 to 51.6 weeks in July 1988. The stark reality is that almost one in five young Australians cannot find work and there are 127,000 adult Australians aged between 21 and 54 years with 90,000 dependent children who have had to eke out an existence on unemployment benefits for more than 12 months. Meanwhile, the Government, trumpeting its success at job creation, has been tinkering at the margins of the problem of unemployment and achieving nothing in the face of marked increases in the average duration of unemployment. The Government's highly publicised labour market programs such as the Priority One Australian traineeship system have failed dismally to achieve the targets set. We recall that when the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) launched Priority One in a nationally televised address three years ago he announced that the Australian traineeship system would deliver 75,000 traineeships by 1988-89. What is the reality? So far, over the past three years, just 20,951 traineeships have been created. That is not even a third of what was promised. Budget Paper No. 2 for 1988-89 shows that in the past financial year almost $44m was set aside for the Australian traineeship system but, incredibly, out of that $44m only $28.8m was actually spent. On that basis alone it is very hard to see the justification for increasing the appropriation for this year to more than $45m, which is the case. That means a hike of almost 60 per cent over and above what was actually spent on 10,166 traineeships last year. Yet the Government is expecting that only 15,000 traineeships will be commenced this financial year. Even if this target of 15,000 is reached through the Australian traineeship system it will still be around 40,000 places short of what the Prime Minister promised three years ago. It will be 40,000 places short of the promised 75,000 positions. Next year, four years after all the media hype which accompanied the launch of Priority One and the Australian traineeship system, even on its own reckoning the Government will have failed to deliver even half of what was pledged for young Australians. Given the track record with the Australian traineeship system-honourable members do not have to take my word for it; they can just look at the statistics-how can the Government seriously expect anyone to believe that its latest commitment in terms of the new start and JET programs will do any more for the unemployed? Does the Government honestly think that the Australian people will swallow its line, given the track record of the Australian traineeship scheme, that new start program will deliver an additional 25,000 places-that is, a total of 50,000 places a year for reskilling and training long term unemployed adults in the 21 to 54 years age group-in programs such as Jobstart, Jobtrain, Skillshare and Job Search? How can the Government expect Australians to believe that when the JET program is fully operational it will provide 12,000 employment and training places each year for sole parents? Quite frankly, against the Government's own track record, measuring performance with what was promised, it is laughable that the Government should hold up Jobstart as part of the salvation of the unemployed, given that earlier this year Jobstart seemed to exist in name only. The reality of Jobstart is that prospective employers were not being told about the program. Those employers who knew about it as a result of the fanfare which accompanied its launch were being fobbed off by the CES staff they approached. Those unemployed people who qualified for inclusion in the Jobstart program were not even told about it. Those who had been accepted as qualifying for Jobstart but who had been unlucky enough to lose or misplace their canvassing card-that is, the little bit of paper that demonstrated to a potential employer that they, as the unemployed, could attract the Jobstart subsidy-were not being reissued with cards. That is the reality; that is what we have before us. Once again the Government has revealed its true colours. It announces labour market programs with a blast of trumpets and then quietly changes the ground rules. Expectations raised are continually being dashed. Sadly, it is the unemployed who are being used as pawns in the Government's media games and its public relations hype. Another element of the new start program which the Government has proudly announced is that officers-and I want you to listen to this, Mr Deputy Speaker-of the Commonwealth Employment Service will be conducting around 40,000 interviews a year with the long term unemployed. The purpose of these interviews is to find labour market programs to assist the long term unemployed to re-enter the work force. What is so amazing about this so-called new initiative is that surely this is what should have been happening all along. I ask the honourable member for Farrer (Mr Tim Fischer): If the Commonwealth Employment Service had not been conducting interviews for the unemployed and if the Commonwealth Employment Service had not been trying to find labour market programs to assist them, then what the hell has it been doing for the entire period of this Government? It is an absolute disgrace that this Budget should trumpet as a new labour market program the fact that the Commonwealth Employment Service will interview 40,000 of the long term unemployed. It is absolutely unbelievable. Are Australia's taxpayers footing a bill of around $185m this year for an employment agency which has not been trying to help the unemployed? Is that what the Government is now admitting? Why has the Government chosen to address labour market difficulties by means of labour market programs-trumpeting interviews as a labour market program instead of pursuing much needed structural reforms-if it has not been ensuring that the Commonwealth Employment Service is interviewing people and introducing them to those very programs? When one realises that 40,000 interviews this year are being put forward as a new labour market program on behalf of a Commonwealth Employment Service that costs us $185m with 120,000 long term unemployed out there in our community, one sees that it is an absolute joke. The Government is talking as though its plans to provide 40,000 long term unemployed adults with interviews and information to assist them in job hunting represent a radical departure from the norm. It is talking as though interviewing the long term unemployed to try to find labour market programs and job opportunities for them is a daring innovation. Perhaps the Government is reduced to doing this because it is embarrassed by its mismanagement of the implementation of the Commonwealth Employment Service's job seeker computer system. This is a system which has the potential to radically improve and speed the delivery of service to CES clients, but which has been bungled from the outset. More than four years and millions of dollars later, the job seeker system has still not achieved the objective of being able to deliver an integrated information system which could match the unemployed and the available jobs on a national basis. But the Government is saying nothing about this. Instead it is trying to pretend that New- Start, JET, Skillshare and the whole range of unemployment labour market programs will offer the unemployed a new deal. I have already expressed reservations about the likelihood of the new start and JET programs being able to fulfil the Government's optimistic targets. In relation to Skillshare, the general thrust of this program is a welcome acceptance by the Government of key policies, directions and strategies developed by the Liberal and National parties. We on this side of the Parliament have argued long and hard that this nation's problems will be solved only if we pay greater attention to the quality of our work force-the skills, initiative and creativity of working Australians, and the ways in which our work places are organised and can be improved. The increased emphasis on training, which is to come into effect under Skillshare, will be of greater benefit to the unemployed than some of the basket weaving and photography oriented outfits which have operated under the programs which it will subsume. Nevertheless, there is one point of concern which I want to raise and that is for the future of the many extremely effective community volunteer program projects which seem to have no place in the new scheme of things under Skillshare. There is a good case for the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) to reconsider the role of established volunteer groups and agencies and the contribution which they could make under the successful Skillshare program. In conclusion, it is welcome that the Government is demonstrating that it has learnt something from the past-that its `make work' job creation schemes, such as the community employment program, do very little to improve a person's long term employability. On the other hand, it seems to me that the Keating-Hawke Government's biggest labour market program, or job creation scheme, has been in employing people to come up with catchy names for other labour market programs. Let me just list them: Go for it, Get it together, Jobstart, Jobtrain, Skillshare, Jobclubs and Priority One. These are just a few of the programs which have been launched on an unsuspecting public by this Government. Mr Tim Fischer —They are an insult to the unemployed. Mr SHACK —They are not only an insult, but they have also failed to address the fundamental and underlying causes of unemployment-that is, the Government's inappropriate economic policies. These programs reflect the Government's failure to move with the times, to speed up the pace of structural reform, to develop labour market programs and industrial relations policies which are in tune with this day and age and which can take us forward into the next century. In this bicentennial year Budget, the Government has failed to take the action necessary to safeguard our standard of living. Instead, it is relying on illusion, deception and a large measure of luck. In terms of our fellow Australians who remain tragically unemployed, complacency has replaced competence. More than half a million Australians are still paying the price by their unemployment for this Government's lack of courage, vision and purpose and for its loss of moral authority to its masters in the trade union movement. Mr MILDREN(Ballarat)(9.07) —The speech of the honourable member for Tangney (Mr Shack) was very interesting. He made the comment that the Government, through its efforts, had created a million jobs. But he went on to say that it was private enterprise that had created those jobs and private enterprise could only do that in the appropriate macro- and micro-economic climate. Mr Barry Jones —Amen. Mr MILDREN —Yes, one does not have to say any more, does one? Except of course to say that this seems to be in contrast with the last year of the Fraser Government, of which the honourable member for Tangney was a member, if I recall rightly. I know that he had a sojourn on the interchange bench, but I think he was a member of the Fraser Government at that stage. In that year a quarter of a million jobs disappeared-so much for that Government's competence and its macro- and micro-economic policies. I do not think that we have to say much more about the honourable member's speech. It is interesting to note that during the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1988-89, Opposition members have generally berated the Government for firstly not providing sufficient funds for whatever lobby groups and hobby horses they happen to have pressuring them at the time; secondly, not giving adequate tax breaks to this or that group; and, thirdly, not cutting expenditure hard enough, always of course in unspecified areas. Apart from the inherent contradictions involved in their position, it is obvious that, firstly, Opposition members have a very poor sense of history and, secondly, they are bereft of vision and coherent policy direction. That seems a very harsh criticism of the Opposition but it is true and there are some in the Opposition who agree with me and are truly concerned about the state of their parties. In fact, the turmoil caused by the flirtation of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) with racially divisive immigration policies is part of the problem. This Government has had the awesome responsibility over this past five years of turning an ailing economy into a vibrant modern economy. We have heard often of the appalling Budget deficit bequeathed to us by the departed Fraser Government. It is to the credit of this Government that this appalling deficit of $9.5 billion in 1982-83 has been turned around to a planned surplus of $5.5 billion in 1988-89. It is extremely important that this surplus be maintained into the medium future, firstly because in a deregulated economy, which this now is, we are exposed to the realities of the free world marketplace. The international money market will see the discipline and responsibility that is being exercised by the Australian Labor Government. Secondly, it is imperative that the Government maintains this rigid budgetary position in order to reduce the pressure upon our own financial markets and also upon our external debt repayments. It is quite remarkable that, in a period of rapid readjustment of the Australian economy in which the balance of trade problems are still resulting in current account deficits, the Government is able to reduce its own borrowing program to nil for this financial year. For the past couple of years, the pundits of the various business sector peak bodies and the private financial gurus of Australia have called upon the Government to cut government expenditure with a view to reducing Budget outlays. On every occasion they have tended to up the ante with a view to embarrassing this Labor Government. What a telling story of their own inability to do their sums. They know that a government of-I guess it is reasonable to say this-their own political persuasion would never have been able to meet these targets. For such a government these goals would have been far too difficult to achieve. Because of the narrow focus of these people, the only way such targets could have been pursued would have been at the expense of the working men and women of this country. Such strategies have never worked without causing vast social, economic and political turmoil and much hardship-that is, for those people on the lower and middle income levels in this country. Just as the current Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard)-that rather pathetic figure with a rather tawdry little mind-has seen the racist cause as a lever with which to raise his collapsed ambitions, so the same person and his party have seen social division in the labour market as a means of grabbing a little bit of popularity. Demagoguery is the sanctuary of moral cowards and is always a threat to the democratic process. This, I believe, the Leader of the Opposition ought to try to understand, and to understand well. I said this Government was achieving remarkable results in a very difficult economic environment. It has the responsibility to steer industry into a new era of investment in the manufacturing area and to ensure that there are suitably trained personnel to meet new industry requirements. It is concerned with this major task of industry readjustment, a task which only this Government has attempted to do. We have recognised what the world market-place told us and that the collapse of commodity prices bore this home to this country like no other message could have done. I must say that it is to the credit of the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, Senator Button, that he has taken it upon himself throughout the tenure of this Government to ensure that Australian industry is restructured in the right direction. This the Government is doing through a revitalised secondary and tertiary education sector as well. It is providing the adequate personnel. Also, the Government is more appropriately targeting the immigration program. I might add that the latter is being achieved without recourse to the grossly unacceptable practice of racial discrimination as advocated by the Leader of the National Party (Mr Sinclair) and the Leader of the National Party in the Senate, Senator Stone. It is to the shame of the Leader of the Opposition that he has permitted this outrageous position to be given legitimacy in Opposition circles and to be fostered out in the community by extremist groups without any attempt on the part of the Leader of the Opposition to repudiate it. While the Government has pursued sound economic policy and structural adjustments, it has not done so without continued recognition of the need for a social justice policy. Also it has recognised that there are other areas of policy that demand attention, even though it is committed overall to reducing expenditure. I would like to mention just a few of these programs and the increases of funding that illustrate the continuing determination of the Government to pursue the cause of social justice. We believe that social justice is not something that should have been suspended while we got the economy right. For instance, the problems of sole parents are being relieved considerably by this Government. As the Minister has indicated, sole parent families in this country have become the new poor, one of society's most disadvantaged groups. The new pension rate for sole parents, which is $320.50 per fortnight, with a permissible income of $104, goes part way towards what we believe ultimately will be a matter of justice. On this basis the pension cuts out at $745 per fortnight. As well as this, the Government has introduced the jobs education and training program (JET) to start in March 1989. The Opposition, of course, which never did anything coherent in this area of job creation, can be as disparaging as it likes, but we can imagine what would have happened had it remained in office. The unemployment figure in this country probably would have been 1 1/2 million. The Government recognises that many sole parents have limited or inappropriate job skills. While wanting to return to the work force or, in some of their circumstances, to enter the work force for the very first time, perhaps the problems can appear to be just insurmountable. JET was therefore designed to help sole parent pensioners to become more economically independent by assisting them to gain necessary skills and to enter the work force and thereby lift themselves and their children out of poverty. The Government estimates that by 1990-91 some 12,000 sole parents will be involved in the program. For those proceeding to tertiary education, the Austudy education allowance will be doubled from $15 to $30 per week. This is happening in a time of economic stringency, and one has to take that into account. It is a time when we have to reduce the expenditure to create a surplus. Yet we have to ensure that the social justice program continues. Rent assistance to low income families in private accommodation will be increased from $15 per week to $20 per week from June next year. Another very important change for pensioners is the increase in the pensioner rebate, from $250 a year to $450 a year. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you, from your seat of Lilley, will be very concerned about this matter, as is the rest of Australia. For full pensioners, this measure will have the effect of raising the threshold before which no tax has to be paid from $6,142 to $6,892. That is very important during a period when pensions are indexed, as they now are, of course, through the initiative of this Government. This compares with a threshold of $5,100 for other taxpayers. As I say, this change was mentioned in the May statement, but it is worth repeating in the context of this Budget. I would also like to mention in this debate the Government's program new start, which is aimed at long term unemployed persons in the age range of 21 to 54. I have often had complaints from older unemployed people who felt that their cause had not been given due consideration, and maybe it has not. But at least here we have now an attempt by the Government to ensure that they are brought into the program. On another matter, I wish to make reference to the Budget allocation for country counselling and access services. The increase from $1.533m to $1.995m will extend the particularly valuable work that has taken place in this area. The extra $200,000 for the rural women's access grants will open up new opportunities for rural women to gain new information and also access to programs that they would otherwise miss out on because of their isolation from major population areas. One of these programs is operating in my electorate. It was one of the first of these programs to be introduced, and I am very proud of it. It is based in the Lismore-Derrinallum area in Victoria's western district. The program is being run very effectively and has contributed very much to the quality of life and to the information and help available to large numbers of women in that area. I wish also to make reference to an increase in funding for the national soil conservation program. This program has been increased by 77 per cent to $10,634m. Funding for the Federal water resources assistance program increased from $52.4m in 1987-88 to $62.654m in 1988-89. Both of these programs are central to the Government's determination to change attitudes towards land and water usage and to assist with programs at the same time. The vast extent of water and land degradation through inappropriate practices over the past 200 years has now reached critical proportions in many areas. In economic terms, the cost of land degradation in the Murray-Darling basin, for instance, works out about $200m a year. Therefore, this is a major problem, particularly in terms of the entire Australian continent, and the situation is worsening every year. I must say that the problem will not be solved through government action alone. But with the cooperation of land users, the States and farmer organisations the attitudes to land husbandry can be changed. I am very pleased to say that there is now tremendous cooperation in all three sectors. I am very excited by the work that is being done in this area in cooperation with the Victorian Farmers Federation. There is a very sober understanding of the degree of difficulty that will be encountered. Nevertheless, there is a major concern to get this under way. I am glad that the Government is showing its bona fides in this area. Honourable members from both sides of this House ought to understand that no progress can be made in this area unless it is on a no blame, cooperative basis. The past is the past and the damage has been done. Our problem today is to try to arrest the decline and, in fact, solve the problem. I was pleased to note that the Government is to intensify its commitment to child care by increasing the number of child care places by 30,000. The $209m for the home and community care program will extend the provision of non-institutional care for frail aged people and younger people with disabilities. I am very pleased to see this increase of almost $40m. I am sure that the veterans' community will applaud the new extreme disabled adjustment addition to the general rate of pension. This will mean an extra $42.15 a week for those who are eligible. Likewise, the reduction of the disability requirement for the totally and permanently incapacitated pension from 100 per cent to 70 per cent will be a matter of relief for many. I know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there are many pensioners and ex-servicemen in your electorate, as there certainly are in mine, who will in fact find this very beneficial. I believe that this is a remarkable Budget. It is economically very sound. It continues the extension of social justice that should be a characteristic of Labor governments. What a pity it is not a characteristic of all governments. I am very proud of this Budget and I commend it to the House. Mr N.A. Brown(Menzies)(9.24) —I wish to address my remarks tonight to Budget related document No. 9, which is entitled Labour Market Reform, the Industrial Relations Agenda. As we all know, industrial relations and our wage fixing system are important, indeed vital, to the economic progress of this country. Honourable members opposite would recall that in the May economic statement the Treasurer (Mr Keating) said that the next mountain to be conquered was the problem of excessive restriction and centralisation in the wage fixing system; he said that his next great conquest would be to usher us into this new dawn of a more liberalised industrial relations system. Presumably, Budget related document No. 9 is the Government's manifestation of the early morning rays of that new dawn. Let me say at the outset, having read this paper fairly closely, that there are things in it which are plainly good. I would not like it to be thought that I am seeking to reject the entire contents of this paper, because I am not. It is good, in part, because it contains the Government's first, I would think, very grudging admission that there is a need for introducing flexibility into our industrial relations and wage fixing system. Without being churlish, it is good that the Government, despite its argument for many years that there was no need to bring flexibility into our industrial relations system, has at long last and at this late stage conceded that there is a need for introducing some flexibility into the system. It must be said, of course, that this has come at a stage well after the Opposition parties and many people outside the Parliament had argued so strongly for a commitment in this country to substantial deregulation of the industrial relations system and the introduction of more flexibility into it. It must be said that, on occasion, governments can be influenced by oppositions, and surely public debate on this matter has been influenced very favourably by the debate on this subject within the Opposition, the debate which has been taken by the Opposition into the public domain over the past few years. We see in this document, albeit grudgingly but nevertheless in black and white, a concession by the Government that there is a need for getting some flexibility into our industrial relations system to make it a more modern system appropriate to the needs of this country. So far, so good-and I repeat the simple point that there are many things in this document that are good. However, it is not all good. There are many shortcomings in the document which I want to emphasise in the course of my few remarks tonight. First of all, it is inadequate because it does not go far enough. It does not allow complete deregulation of the relationship between employers and employees. It does not allow for agreements to be made between employers and employees on wages and conditions of employment free from the iron mask of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and the industrial tribunals in this country, which at least to some extent is needed. That is the major shortcoming of this document. The other shortcoming of the document and the Government's whole approach is that the attempts that the Government will now be making to introduce its own form of flexibility into industrial relations will be stultified. The Government has committed itself to a flexibility that will be forced into the mould of the industrial relations tribunals that we already have. For instance, we have seen already in the Government's Industrial Relations Bill, which is presently before the Senate, a proposition which is good so far as it goes, in that employers should be able to make some agreements with their own employees on wages and conditions. Unfortunately, the Bill then goes on to provide-and the Government keeps repeating this-that if we are to have that sort of agreement, it must be trotted off to the Arbitration Commission to get its stamp of approval. That is why I say that the Government's attempts at flexibility unfortunately-and it is very sad that this will be the case-will be stultified because the Government has committed itself to a flexibility which will be forced into the mould of the industrial tribunals and the award creation system which we presently have in this country and which we have had for very many years. Although, as I say, there are some good things in Budget related document No. 9; nevertheless, in the final analysis, what one must conclude is that the Government has, in effect, turned its face against real liberalisation and the real freeing up of our industrial relations system, which this country needs. As a supporting point to that-and for the life of me I cannot understand why the Australian Labor Party cannot accept this-I point out that the Government's position is militating against the interests of working men and women. The Government should concede that individual working men and women want to have a direct say in, for example, their working hours. The hours that married women are obliged to work under an industrial award today are not necessarily convenient for them or their families; nor do those working hours bring about a happier and more productive work force. If we allowed a larger measure of deregulation and freedom in this area, working hours would be convenient for employees, particularly married women with children at school. I venture to say that the work force would be happier and more productive and would have more commitment to the enterprise to which it relates. Having said that by way of introduction, I turn in a little more detail to some of the propositions contained in Budget Related Paper No. 9. As I say, the first point which is made in the document is that there is a need for flexibility. We congratulate the Government for this concession, albeit a grudging one and one which has come very late in the day. Nevertheless it is there and the Government should get credit for at least acknowledging the need for flexibility in this system. But even when the Government puts forward in this document the need for flexibility it sows the very seeds of the stultification which is going to come about as a result of the very program which it is putting up because in almost the same sentence stating that there is a need for flexibility the document warns against sectional wage increases. The whole point is this: if we are going to have freedom in the system, if we are going to have flexibility and a wage fixing system which will encourage people to work more and more productively, we must accept the fact that there will be sectional wage increases. The great evil and shortcoming of our present system is that conditions of employment are universal. No matter what the state of the individual firm the workers work for, no matter what the state of the economies surrounding the place where the individual enterprise conducts its affairs and no matter what the state of the market it is trying to sell into, we must ignore all of that and have universal, flat wages and conditions of employment, irrespective of what the particular employer needs and irrespective of what the particular employees want. That is the death knell of any genuine liberalisation of our wage fixing system. The document goes on to list a long series of reforms which are needed, and this is the most important part of this paper. The first proposition contained in this section is that we need a more skilled and adaptable work force. We agree with that and we have long advocated that. It is good to see there is now a thrust-albeit not a perfect one, nevertheless a thrust-by the Government to do whatever it can to bring about a more skilled and adaptable work force. The point is made in the document in support of this proposition that one of the things that can be reformed to produce a more skilled and adaptable work force is our apprenticeship system. The document makes the point that one of the shortcomings of the apprenticeship system is that it limits the age when an apprentice may start his or her apprenticeship and the age when he or she may complete it. It goes on to make the point that there are unnecessary restrictions on the ratio between apprentices and tradesmen, and that the apprenticeship system does not provide incentive for skill. I point out that over two years ago-in 1986-we put those propositions forward in our industrial relations policy and they were ridiculed by the Government, foolishly in my view. If you have any doubt about this, Madam Deputy Speaker, I take you back to some recent history. I think it was in May 1986 when the then and current Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Willis)-he has a couple of days to go-relieved himself of his reaction to our industrial relations policy which was released in that month. He said-presumably he had read it, because I cannot imagine that a Minister of the Crown would give a Press conference on an opposing party's policy without having read it-that it was patently irresponsible and there was nothing in it of any value from beginning to end. Presumably in 1986 the propositions we had, about the need for a more skilled and adaptable work force and the need to improve our apprenticeship system, were also patently irresponsible! It is a very good example of the proposition I made at the outset-that we have led this debate and, to the Government's credit, it has now come along, albeit late in the day, and very grudgingly conceded that these reforms are long overdue. The document then says that there is a need for flexible forms of work organisation and management, and in particular there is a need to adjust working times and to get rid of restrictive work practices. We went through all of that debate in 1986. We argued for that and, according to the Minister, that was patently irresponsible. But now of course it is holy writ according to the Government. Again that is a grudging concession, but although it comes very late in the day we have to concede that the Government has now seen the light. The point that comes from that very issue is this: if we are going to have an industrial relations system which is to provide for incentive and encourage people to get up and have a go and make the most of their lives, we must look at having our industrial relations system centred on the place where people work. We must ask them what they want, what sorts of working hours they want and what sorts of rewards they want for skill. If we respond with a system which meets the needs of individual workers and if we respond with a system that meets the needs of the individual employers, we will get two things: we will clearly get a better industrial relations system than we now have and we will certainly get one which will increase productivity in the individual enterprise. The next proposition is the need for award restructuring. The document says that awards are old fashioned and stultifying and have to be restructured. Of course they do. That also was in our policy in 1986 and we argued for that, but apparently it was patently irresponsible according to the Minister when he responded to it in 1986. Today it is legitimate, it is respectable, and we give the Government a point for this, albeit very late in the piece. Nevertheless it has now made this grudging concession that our present award system is outdated, archaic, and that our awards have to restructured. As I have already said, we said that and we promoted that view and the Government has now accepted it. I emphasise again that it is not the end of the argument. It is no good stopping at the point where we restructure awards. It is no good trying to liberalise the system if we are going to say to free people, employers and employees, `All right, when you restructure your relationship, your agreements and awards, you still have to come back to Nauru House and see the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission heavies there and get them to put their stamp of approval on it'. Because if we have to go back to institutions such as that every time we make a decision and get the institution's approval, we are really not going to achieve very much. So one could go on and on. One could spend all night analysing this document in the way in which I have but there are other speakers who want to contribute to this debate. I will conclude simply by referring very briefly to one final issue, and that is the need for employee shares and for some sort of profit sharing arrangement. We believe that if an employee share ownership scheme and a profit sharing scheme are introduced then employees will have a very strong commitment to the firm for which they work. They are going to work harder because the incentive and the rewards will be there. More than that, they are going to have an identity of interest with the firm for which they work. The reason I mention this, very briefly, is that the document commits the Government to employee share ownership schemes. We give it credit for that. I simply make the point that when we advocated this in 1986 the Minister-I refer to the transcript of the same Press conference-said: Well maybe there are some workers who would get some shares but of course overwhelmingly shares go to management people and they would get a nice extra tax concession thank you. The Minister was saying, `Employee shares are just another tax dodge and we in the Australian Labor Party do not have any part of that sort of arrangement'. In the meantime the Government has seen the light because we have led the debate. To its credit it has now conceded that if it introduces reforms like employee share ownership schemes, that will achieve far more than award restructuring and probably far more than even training or many of those other reforms because it is saying to people, and they will respond, `If you work hard, there is a return for you. If you increase productivity there is a return for you. If this firm succeeds then you will succeed also. You will prosper as the firm prospers'. In conclusion, if there is anything which sums up our attitude to wage fixing and industrial relations it is simply that if one gets a community of interest going and people are encouraged by means of incentive devices such as employee share ownership schemes, we can turn this country around and make it a real powerhouse. I say to the Government: `Do not stop where you have stopped, because you have only gone a quarter of the way. Go the whole distance and reform our industrial relations system and you will be doing a very great service to this country'. But above all, the Government should reform it in the way in which we and other people who have led in this debate, outside as well as inside the Parliament, have suggested. Mr PRICE(Chifley)(9.41) —It is indeed an honour to follow the honourable member for Menzies (Mr N.A. Brown) in this debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1988-89. As the former shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, he had a great deal to do with the Opposition's policy; so when he speaks about industrial relations, it is fair enough to say that it is less a question of the Government recognising the worth of that policy and more a question of the Opposition recognising the contribution of the honourable member for Menzies, who now languishes on the back bench. I agree with him that indeed it is in the common interests of Australia for both management and workers to have a commonality of purpose. Just as he invites that and recommends financial incentive, I think it is important that the Opposition recognise the legitimate role of workers and the organisations that represent them. I am of course referring to unions. It is regrettable that historically in this House time and time again the Opposition, rather than recognising the constructive contributions that the trade union movement has made, particularly in the life of this Government, has tried to denigrate them. There are a number of ingredients that go to make any successful parliament. They include not only parliamentarians and those who service it, but also the press. Today was a very important day for me because I and some of my parliamentary colleagues were pleased to host some 14 young cadet journalists from the Cumberland newspaper chain. These cadet journalists were predominantly from the western suburbs of Sydney. I would like to thank my colleagues, including the shadow Minister, the honourable member for Mitchell (Mr Cadman), the honourable member for Dundas (Mr Ruddock), the honourable member for Reid (Mr Uren), the honourable member for Dobell (Mr Lee), the honourable member for Lindsay (Mr Free) and the honourable member for Parramatta (Mr John Brown), who could not be with us but who generously agreed to share in the charges, for making an outstanding day for the cadets and exposing them to what one day in the life of the Parliament is all about. I would also like to thank the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Treasurer (Mr Keating), who graciously agreed to see them, as well as the President of the Press Gallery, Paul Kelly, who facilitated arrangements while the House was sitting. I will return to some of the highlights of the Budget. There was one allocation that I looked for but which has not been made. It was an allocation to the State of New South Wales to examine the feasibility of finding safe storage for nuclear waste within that State. It is a sad indictment on the previous State Labor Government that we did nothing. It is my sincere hope that this current State Government will identify a safe storage location for quite significant amounts of nuclear waste that are stored not only in my electorate of Chifley at the St Marys munitions factory but also in other western suburbs locations such as the Royal Australian Air Force base in Richmond, the Army base at Moorebank, at Lidcombe and at other sites in Sydney such as Lucas Heights and the University of New South Wales. The Government, and particularly those advising it, always says that the risk is minimal in these places where nuclear waste is stored. But I, and the people in my electorate, say that if we are to take any risks, let us not take them in the most populous capital city in Australia; let us put the waste in a location where there will be minimal risk. In fact, the potential risk is much diminished by the population being much smaller. Ever since December 1984 when I became a member of this Parliament I have sought to get this nuclear waste removed from my electorate. I have wasted no opportunity to press successive Ministers about this matter. This Budget is yet another disappointment because all States have agreed that there should be a safe site identified. Apart from Western Australia, no State has identified one. I hope that New South Wales will rise to the occasion. It is appropriate, with the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) at the table, that one ought to comment about developments in the western suburbs of Sydney, particularly with Chifley University College. It is true that we in the western suburbs of Sydney wait with great expectation for a joint statement from the Minister and his State counterpart, Dr Metherell, indicating both governments responses to the task force that has so recently completed its report. One does not have to be a genius to understand that there will be an inevitable amalgamation of the Chifley University College with the Hawkesbury and Nepean colleges. Certainly as the Federal member for Chifley, who does not enjoy having such a tertiary facility in his electorate, I have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted not only with the principals and staff of both Nepean and Hawkesbury colleges, but also of becoming familiar with the facilities and the tremendous service they do the western suburbs of Sydney. Clearly, we are looking for a significant grant in this triennium as far as the new institution is concerned. I refer not only to development on the Werrington site but also to using the current infrastructure to maximise the opportunity to place more higher education places in the western suburbs of Sydney. It is pleasing to see in this Budget such a commitment from this Government to 40,000 extra places being created in tertiary education. We are not complacent in the western suburbs of Sydney. We have a responsibility to ensure that more places are created in the western suburbs of Sydney, commensurate not only with our size but also with the outstanding talents, abilities and potential of the young people that reside in the western suburbs of Sydney. The campaign for a university is not over. We have an ongoing campaign to ensure that our children and their children have a quality of access to higher education, have the opportunity to develop their talents, have their ability recognised and have a fair go on the job market. I now turn to something which is a non-Budget item; that is, the issue of senior high schools which I have been pleased to speak about in this House before. On the last occasion I spoke on the issue of senior high schools, I was once again critical of the former State Government for not having adopted the idea and congratulated the then Opposition spokesman, Dr Metherell, for having adopted it. How cruelly he deceived me and, more particularly, the people of the western suburbs of Sydney. When the State member for Riverstone, Richard Amery, reactivated this campaign some two years ago, we were campaigning for a senior high school with six feeder high schools with no exclusion criteria and the possibility of providing not only a new ethos but also new attitudes and a much wider choice of subjects. But what has Dr Metherell done? In opposition he said he supported a senior high school. He is now establishing yet another elite institution-not to give working class people new opportunities but to select the very best out of 50 high schools and put them into St Marys school. He has cruelly deceived us. It is no wonder that instead of getting the praise such a decision may have deserved had it been implemented, he is scorned right across New South Wales. No government can survive on such gross deception. There is no doubt that this has been an outstanding Budget. The man on the street has no complaints. One had to look hard to find any criticism in the response of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard). Our Treasurer, Paul Keating, has brought down his tenth major financial statement-six Budgets and four May statements-in this House. What a change of circumstances there has been between the last Liberal Budget under John Howard and this sixth Budget of Paul Keating. We are actually providing a surplus-Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure you would approve-of $5.5 billion. This year the net public sector borrowing requirement for Federal, State and local government authorities will be zero; that is, no government instrumentality or agency will compete on the private market for dollar investments, crowding our private investments. What a spectacular figure our anticipated level of business investment is-12 per cent in real terms. In the short run, that might not mean very many jobs and it might mean that our current account deficit worsens as we import capital equipment, but in the long run it means we will build an infrastructure of import and export competing business that will strengthen the Australian economy and provide more jobs. That is the essential challenge. What we on this side really like is that, as we have continued to operate in a financially demanding situation and have continued restraint, we have targeted our assistance. I mentioned education before and the 40,000 higher education places. At the beginning of this year the Opposition was saying to us, `What about the 20,000 people that could not find places?' Over the next three years we will provide 40,000 places. This Government has an objective of having a retention rate-a participation rate-of 65 per cent of students going on to Years 11 and 12. We want 65 per cent, or 6 1/2 out of every 10, of those students who start off in primary school, kindergarten, to end up doing Year 12 studies. We want to see that in the 1990s. As a further commitment to this ideal, we have increased the number of Austudy places-that is, assistance to such students-by some 48,000. That is a dramatic improvement. I just spare a thought for my pensioners. In some ways it is ironic that the member of this House that has statistically the least number of pensioners in his electorate should spend so much time with them. I do that and I thoroughly enjoy it. I am pleased to see what we are doing for pensioners in this Budget. Consistent with our commitment to index pensions, we are providing some $500m so that pensions can be indexed at the end of the year. It is worth while speaking about a little, unnoticed provision in the Budget. When tragedy besets a pensioner couple and one of them passes on, the six ex gratia payments over 12 weeks at the combined married rate will continue but, as a result of this Budget, will not be taxed. I welcome that. In fact, it is rather ironic that, prior to this session beginning, a case was brought to me by a gentleman from Rooty Hill whom I respect very much and who was in that situation. At the age of 70, he had to actually go and work in the Rooty Hill RSL, just to pay off that tax. So I am very pleased with that provision in the Budget. Many of my constituents will be delighted that the price of beer has come down by $2.20 for a carton of super-if I can refer to it colloquially-and $5.50 for a carton of light. More than that, this Budget has set the framework for significant tax cuts in 1989. Those cuts will be negotiated, as has been the case with so much of our important legislation, through the accord with the trade union movement. I conclude my speech as I began: I regret that Opposition members talk about community of interest between workers and management but frequently denigrate not only the trade union movement and the officials that service the trade union movement but also the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Much has been accomplished in Australia because of the ACTU and because of the responsibility of the trade union movement. I say to my electors that next year the leaders of the ACTU, quite properly and quite legitimately, will sit down with key Ministers in the Hawke Labor Government to negotiate significant tax cuts. They will not be sleazy tax cuts. They will be tax cuts that have been hard won and hard fought by cutting expenditure year after year in four May statements. It is incumbent on an opposition, if it wants to be a constructive opposition, not just to harp, nag and pick at the Government but to outline a cohesive set of proposals. If it wishes to speak on the Budget it should say not just that it would cut expenditure but where it would cut expenditure. For example, would it pull back the 40,000 extra places in higher education? Is the money being spent on the JET scheme offensive to it? Would it cut back Austudy? Are pensions too high? Where would it make expenditure cuts? I believe that politicians have a responsibility in terms of leadership and integrity to the people of Australia. I believe that the Opposition should be fair dinkum and tell the people of Australia not only why it objects and what it objects to but also what it would do. It should spell it out. It has not done that for five years. Before it earns credibility as an opposition, it will need to do so. Mr LLOYD(Murray)(9.57) —The Treasurer (Mr Keating) in his Budget Speech claimed credit for the improved economic performance of Australia-the Treasurer is a very modest man-and included in that the trade performance part. He referred to the over $13 billion trade deficit two years earlier being reduced to over $11 billion last year and, hopefully, $9 billion this year. In spite of the Treasurer's optimistic comments about the Budget surplus, one has to recognise that with a projected trade deficit, even put optimistically at over $9 billion, this means a continuing deterioration in our trade performance and standard of living. The Treasurer also gave credit to the Government's restructuring of the economy. He said that we were more able to compete in the world. I will return to that later. He said that, on the export front, there were new manufacturing activities and tourism. In his whole speech he gave only two passing acknowledgments to the most significant reason for the present respite in that trade performance, that is, the dramatic improvement in commodity exports. On one occasion he said: Commodity prices have picked up. Later on he said that there had been a strong boost to incomes from the lift in commodity prices and that monetary policy had been tightened. He also stated that the Government placed the highest priority on education and training and that children from disadvantaged backgrounds would receive better study allowances. I will return to that later in relation to the isolated children's allowance. We have a Budget strategy which relies heavily on continuing and necessarily improving our export performance to prevent a further decline in the living standards of all Australians. But if that is to occur, it will be agriculture and mineral commodities-I include tourism-which will achieve this, if it is at all achievable. It will need a continuation of the strong upturn in the commodity cycle, particularly for agriculture. For example, wool alone, by adding an additional $2 billion to our exports in the last year, has added more to our export income than every other industry export combined. But nowhere, absolutely nowhere, in the speech of the Treasurer was there any recognition of or congratulations for this tremendous performance by agricultural export industries. Since the Treasurer made his speech, the July trade figures have been revealed. These underline the fragility of the Government's strategy-the absolute dependence on commodity exports for the continuation of our standard of living. We had a $1.7 billion trade deficit. This was the highest trade deficit in the history of this country. We also had the second highest current account deficit. Rural exports, of which wool was the largest component, were down by $134m. Metals were down $138m. Imports were up. Instead of recognition of the need to strengthen these imports which these July trade figures underline, there was nothing at all in relation to incentives for export industries, secondary or primary, to invest, to do research and to be more productive. Rural Australia in the Budget was silently slugged. There was no recognition. All this Government was doing was continuing the policy of taking the benefits of these productive Australians while slugging them with costs and charges. It is a continuation of what Dr Andy Stoekel, formerly of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and now of the Centre for International Economics, calls the Australian Government's anti-trade policy. I think that is a very apt statement. Stoekel, in his May 1987 book Successful Strategies for Australian Trade, foreshadowed the rise in commodity prices. He also cautioned that those rises would be temporary and that the breathing space provided while these commodity prices were up would be essential to put our economy in order to withstand the inevitable downturn which would occur by about 1990. Other people have since stated the same. For example, Paul Kelly, reporting in the Australian after the Treasurer's speech, referred to the Treasurer's strategy as surviving on the basis, `provided God looks after commodities'. On the basis of my Sunday School lessons, I do not know that God does pay particular attention to commodities. Mr Millar —An awful responsibility to put on his shoulders. Mr LLOYD —That is a fair comment. Stoekel indicated then-and nothing the Government has done since then alters its validity-that this Labor Government bites the hand that feeds us with exports. Instead of recognising in the Budget and in government policies those critically important issues necessary to retain competitiveness after the boom, to encourage research and productivity, to avoid a repetition of the dreadful cost price squeeze forced on our farmers as exporters in the mid-1980s, the Treasurer slugs them with more and more taxes and costs. Mr Hunt —Takes the farmers for granted. Mr LLOYD —Not only does he take them for granted; he also takes them to the cleaners. Stoekel, in his now famous chart `Allocation of Effort According to Payoff', indicated that for a policy effort to improve our trade performance, 60 per cent of that effort should be on domestic policy. Labour costs and productivity were the single most important; tax and positive assistance such as research allocation and lower tariffs were all in the 60 per cent range of where this Government should be concentrating its efforts. Let us see how that Stoekel prescription is matched by Government policy. First, we have to define the major exporting group in this country. We have to define which offers the best prospects for future exports and which is the sunrise industry of this country. The answer to all of those questions is agriculture. In 1987 over 37 per cent of our exports were raw primary products. The figure will be higher this year. However, it is higher again if we take into account simply processed agricultural commodities which used to be classed as agriculture but which are now classed as manufactured. For example, caseine is classed as a manufacturing export and not a primary export. Therefore, if we add caseine then our percentage will go up. If we add in again the net basis of our exports-that is, we do not have the repatriated profits or the overseas interest payments-we see that agriculture's net contribution to the exports of this country is well over 50 per cent. Primary production is the sunrise industry. Let us look at wool. As I said earlier, wool added more again in exports last year than every other export industry combined. Wool is the best example of any Australian industry of value adding; that is, maximising the quality price differential from that product. Wool has quality; it has tight standards and a status price. Mr Peter Fisher —And a 40 per cent duty when it is imported. Mr LLOYD —That is a good point. If some of that Australian wool comes back as cool wool, it will have a 40 per cent import duty added to put it out of the price of Australians. This is despite the fact that it was Australian money from the farmers that provided the research effort to achieve that. What is the next best sunrise industry to wool? I suggest that it is beef. We now have the purest beef in the world. This is no thanks to the Government because it was the failure of the Government's own residue testing program which caused the residue test problem. It was the beef producers' own money that put it right, so that industry must be next. Let us look at wheat and sugar. They are the best quality exports of those types of commodities anywhere in the world. Let us look at some newer primary industries such as the production of new grains and legumes, new horticultural products, new fibres such as cashmere, mohair and cotton-which is increasing-and wine. In net terms all of these commodities have a bigger export potential than any new secondary industry. How is this great agricultural industry, with its productivity two to three times that of Australian industry generally, with its continuing and often painful adjustment to the sometimes corrupt international market, being treated by this Government? First of all, because of the government's undue reliance on monetary policy we have an interest rate several points higher than that of our competitors. It is going to go higher. The National Farmers Federation has estimated that for every one per cent increase in interest rates, the cost to the farm sector is $100m in direct costs and $500m in indirect costs. Mr Hunt —An indirect tax. Mr LLOYD —That is a very severe tax on this export sector. In turn, this adversely affects the exchange rate, the inflation rate and, subsequently, our international competitiveness. The National Farmers Federation also has estimated that for every one per cent increase in the inflation rate it costs the farm sector $160m. I want to highlight the critical importance of interest rates in relation to farm viability and investment. Agriculture in Australia is our most capital intensive industry. That is one of the reasons why it is our most efficient. In the 1985-86 year, that very bad year for farm incomes when the average farm income was only one-third that of average weekly earnings, a reduction of 5 per cent in interest rates-let us remember that in that year interest rates were up to 20 per cent-would have doubled average farm incomes. However, what has happened with budgetary measures? I quote my colleague the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt) who calculated that up until the last Budget this Government had added $500m in direct budgetary costs to the farm sector in the years it had been in government. In the May statement this year we estimated an additional $150m in further costs and charges; in this Budget, we estimate $124m in additional costs and charges. Let us look at some of these charges. Export charges for meat are now up to 60 per cent of the cost of the export inspection requirement. The producers of the countries which we compete against are not required to pay those charges. Fish are an important export and there has been a 33 per cent increase in fishing vessel licensing fees. The Hawke Government has twice broken agreements on wool promotion. Honourable members should remember that the research and promotion effort of the wool industry, financed by the woolgrowers themselves, has broken the critical price relationship between synthetics and wool and that wool is now selling around the world at five times the price of synthetics. The $200m annual contribution by the woolgrowers of this country is the single most significant investment in this country in improving our trade performance. Let us look elsewhere in the Budget. This Government has increased the excise on fuel by 300 per cent and it decided that it would have a $500m reduction in indirect taxes. Mr Tim Fischer —Plus a reduction in road funding. Mr LLOYD —There will be a reduction of over 30 per cent in real terms for road funds with another reduction of $30m this year. But let us discuss fuel for a minute. If this Government had used the $500m reduction in the beer excise to reduce the cost of fuel there would have been the same impact on the consumer price index, although it would have taken one quarter longer to achieve. Look what it would have done in equity terms for everybody in Australia, particularly for country people and those people in the export industries where transport is such a high cost. Let us look at sugar. The embargo on the importation of sugar will be removed in 12 months' time. The sugar industry will have to face corrupt international markets, just as will the wheat industry if Government policy is implemented in respect of wheat marketing. This Government, by suddenly and dramatically removing the protection for the sugar industry, is doing nothing to improve the exorbitant cost of coastal shipping in this country. For example, once that embargo is removed sugar producers will have to take a cut in price of $70m if the Australian sugar industry is to retain the refined sugar markets of Perth, Darwin, Adelaide and Tasmania. If they do not, the markets will fall to overseas countries because of the dramatically different cost of international shipping. That is the story all round of tariffs, protection and assistance to primary industry on the one hand and secondary industry on the other. With primary industry it is dramatic, it is sudden death-there is no level of protection. Agriculturalists do not argue against that provided the same principle is applied to secondary industry. But that does not happen to secondary industry. Honourable members should just look at the textile and motor vehicle industries. Mr Hand —What about the textile workers? Mr LLOYD —The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, who is sitting at the table, should have a look at the level of protection that will continue in the textile industry to 1995 and even beyond 1995. Let us look at that in relation to the equity between what that industry is achieving-- Mr Hand —What about the textile workers in your own electorate? Mr LLOYD —The workers in my electorate will achieve far more in terms of their standard of living by allowing the most efficient industries in that electorate to compete properly in world markets, and they know it. The Minister should have a look at what his Government is also doing to education and the disadvantaged. The Treasurer (Mr Keating) stated how the Government will assist that sector of our society. The Government has hit the most disadvantaged educational group in this country with an assets test; that is, the children who live in isolated areas. Does he call that equity? I cannot think of anything more cruel that any government can do. Let us also look at research which is the basis for the improved productivity of industries in this country. Research for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has fallen by over 30 per cent in the last few years. It is down again this year. The emphasis is away from agriculture. Dr Max Whitten of the Division of Entomology claims that his section alone adds $50m to $100m a year in benefits for this nation at a cost of $14m. Dr Boardman, the Chief Executive of CSIRO, referred last week to the widening gap between Australia's research and development effort and that of the leading industrial nations. But there is also some subterfuge and double dealing when it comes to the accounting in this Budget on primary industry. The Government claims that it is increasing rural adjustment by 24 per cent and water resources by a similar amount. Yet if one looks at what the Government promised in last year's Budget and what it actually spent, one will see that it spent dramatically less than it promised. The Government promises the same again this year and makes great claims that spending will be up by a certain percentage. Yet its promise of what it will provide this year is actually $5m less than it was last year. That is real cynical subterfuge and there is more of it. If honourable members look at chapter 7b, industry assistance and development, and at how assistance for agriculture has been calculated, they will see that the Government has quietly changed the terminology so that all the industry levies and charges which the farmers provide is now called direct government assistance. So there is a completely false impression in this Budget document of assistance for agriculture. It looks as if it is three times as high as anything else. The single biggest figure is $500m of the woolgrowers own money for the 8 per cent revolving fund. The second biggest figure is the whole milk levy provided by the farmers themselves. Mr Hunt —What a fraud! Mr LLOYD —That is the sort of subterfuge and fraud that this Government gets up to. I am sad that when the commodity cycle does move in a couple of years, this ungrateful and hypocritical Government will have failed to put the economy in order and that will be a two-fold disaster. First of all, the nation's future export potential will be jeopardised because of costs, reduced research and productivity and, secondly, farm families as efficient exporters and citizens of Australia deserving of an acceptable income level will be forced to return to their cost price squeeze incomes of the mid-1980s. They deserve better than that. As a representative of a great agricultural and export-oriented electorate, I reject the Budget. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Hon. J. D. M. Dobie) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr BLANCHARD(Moore)(10.18) —There have been some excellent speeches from both sides of the chamber on Appropriation Bill (No. 1), though I must say that the speech we have just had does not come into that category. I want to mention the maiden speeches of the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Sawford) and the honourable member for Groom (Mr Taylor). I think both those speeches were excellent and certainly show that those two honourable members will have a great future if they are able to remain in this Parliament over a number of years. In supporting this Bill I would like, just briefly, to refer to the comments made by the Deputy Leader of the National Party of Australia, the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd). Mr McGauran —Very sensible comments. Mr BLANCHARD —I wish I could agree with the honourable member, but I just do not agree with him. The Deputy Leader of the National Party has produced the usual tired cliches which I am afraid we have come to expect from the National Party in this House. We tend to get used to the habit of members of the National Party thinking that they are the only ones who are interested in the rural sector of our economy. That is not so. Mr McGauran —That is not so. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member is out of his chair. Mr BLANCHARD —No-one on our side of the House denies the importance of our primary sector to the economy of this country. We should point out that due praise needs to be given to the primary producers who share the burden of creating those export markets of which we should be proud. In supporting the Bill I am conscious of the fact that there are no more important documents debated in the chambers than the Budget Papers. That is as it should be, for they reflect the current thinking of the government of the day in the budgetary context of the main issues of the day. The Budget can reveal statesmanship or pragmatic politics. Usually we have a mix of the two, with pragmatic politics in the ascendancy. A good Budget is one which veers towards statesmanship and away from pragmatic politics. The Budget brought down by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) fits the criterion to which I have just referred. It is an excellent Budget. The Treasurer deserves the plaudits he has received. It is a Budget which has left the Opposition with little on which to attack the Government. It has been well received in the community. The Opposition is on the defensive in respect of the broad strategy adopted by the Government in restructuring the economy. It has been left with little but empty rhetoric, as we have just heard, with which to attack this Budget. Its problems are compounded, unfortunately, by weak leadership, confused policies and deep divisions within its ranks. Let me turn to the background of this Government's Budget policies. We are living in a world from which we cannot be isolated. World economic developments have a marked influence on the Australian economy. The share price decline of October 1987 was expected to lead to declining economic activity, and world trade was predicted to fall. Fortunately, that was not the case and economic activity in the industrial countries is now in its sixth consecutive year of growth. That has no doubt helped to improve Australia's trading position, although recent trade figures show that we have a long way to go. Certainly our economy has been assisted by recent improvements in commodity prices, but this must be set against the drastic falls in commodity prices which plagued our economy in 1985 and 1986. Those falls adversely affected our export earnings and led to a shrinking of our national income and a rise in our national debt. The structural adjustments that this Government has instituted over the past few years has made this country, in the words of the Treasurer, a much more dynamic place more able to compete in the world. We are now in the position that this year we will see our balance of payments deficit halved from its peak of three years ago. Our foreign debt has stabilised and has begun to fall. At the same time inflation is down, and we have the highest job growth in the Western world. These are positive economic indicators which clearly show that structural adjustment is working, and working effectively, through these far-reaching reforms. This does not mean that this country can rest on its laurels. Commodity prices do rise and fall, and whilst it is anticipated that they will remain firm over the next 12 months there is no guarantee of that. This emphasises the need to concentrate on two areas which will assist further in strengthening our economy: firstly, we must reduce the current account deficit; and, secondly, we must reduce the national debt. This Government is going to do that within the Budget strategy. Good economic management is essential not only to keep satisfactory living standards but also to provide the means to support the various social service programs designed to assist the weak, the poor, the elderly and the unemployed. It is in this area that I propose to comment. The Government is to be congratulated on its initiatives in assisting the less well off in our community. These initiatives are part of the broader social justice strategy of attempting to bring about a fairer and just society. The proposal to introduce two new programs-New-Start and the jobs, education and training (JET) program-in this year's Budget is a recognition of the plight of the long term unemployed and sole parents who wish to re-enter the work force. The New-Start program is aimed at those aged between 21 and 54 years who have been receiving unemployment benefits for more than 12 months. It recognises that these people need special assistance. That there are 127,000 people in this group emphasises the need for urgent action. The program recognises that a person who has been unemployed for more than 12 months has little money to meet the extra costs associated with moving back into the work force: costs of transport, clothing and tools. To meet this disadvantage there is a special one-off payment of $100. Because there are psychologically handicapped people, often with feelings of inadequacy, there is to be an increase in counselling, assessment and referral. As the honourable member for Grey (Mr O'Neil) stated in his speech, the long term unemployed feel as though they have let down their families, the community and everyone with whom they are associated. There will be a joint Department of Social Security and Department of Employment, Education and Training job placement strategy which will create an extra 15,000 job opportunities this year. This program will involve direct approaches to employers and include a campaign to challenge negative perceptions of the long term unemployed. As the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) knows, I have been critical of the attempts to place pressure on sole parents to enter the work force. For those people in the older age groups, it has been traumatic to take those first steps towards employment, knowing that the possibility of achieving that goal would be difficult, if not impossible. I therefore welcome the JET program for sole parents. The program will involve three ministerial portfolios, including social security; employment, education and training; and employment and education services. It will link services and advice from across these portfolios to provide a consolidated range of assistance to sole parent pensioners seeking to enter the work force. These include a doubling of Austudy for full time student pensioners to $30 per week, payable on top of the pension, and the provision of extra child-care places. Both programs are designed to create attitudinal change in the long term unemployed and sole parents to give them hope that they can be part of the work force. Attitudinal change should not stop at these disadvantaged groups. Employers will have to recognise that there is a need for a change of attitude and that people who have been in the work force for years can, with community support, become valued members of the work force if given a chance by employers. I am very pleased to note that the Government, through this Budget, has provided a substantial increase in assistance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. I do not need to detail to the House the disadvantages which Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders have experienced and continue to experience in so many areas including health, education and employment. Madam SPEAKER —Order! It being 10.30 p.m., the debate is interrupted. I propose the question: That the House do now adjourn. Dr WOODS(Lowe)(10.30) —I am indebted this evening to Emma Williams, of the Presbyterian Ladies College in Croydon, not only for her industry but also for her perceptiveness in preparing this speech. For most of our time on earth, the human species has been a relatively insignificant part of the environment. Man has been one animal among many and in the position of prey as well as predator. Humans have learned to exploit, to control and finally to dominate the environment. The impact on our environment could be termed overwhelming. We have eliminated or reduced most of the dangers in our environment. The minerals that form the surface of the earth provide a valuable, but limited resource. In agriculture, living things of the planet are cultivated and bred so that we can obtain from them the commodities that we need. But in his ignorance, man has destroyed many plants and animals and great areas of natural vegetation. Unless humans limit their own numbers and treat their environment with more care and understanding, they could make the earth's surface impossible to live on. All living things are dependent upon the environment for their survival. Humans, as the most powerful species in the environment, have enormous, yet poorly understood, responsibilities. Only recently have we become acutely aware of the dangers posed by unexpected and unwanted side effects of our peacetime technology-over-population, depletion of natural resources, and contamination of air, water and land by agricultural poisons and industrial wastes. We are beginning to recognise that we are part of a complex natural system and to wonder exactly how to play that part. Forests in Australia coexist with agriculture and urban development on the periphery of the continent, and in this geographical situation they are under pressure to produce wood for urban development and wood-based products for the population. Coupled with the demand for wood supply are the demands of the urbanised populations for many forms of recreation in forest areas, the need for urban water catchments to be protected by forests, and the pressing need for preservation of endangered plant and animal habitats, as well as wilderness areas. These pressures have led to public conflicts in several areas, notably wood chipping at Eden in New South Wales, rainforest logging in north-eastern New South Wales, logging of alpine forests in Victoria and pine planting programs in the eastern States. Forest management needs to balance the demands for wood for local consumption, and in some cases export, against the environmental and social costs of particular forms of forest management. Living organisms depend on each other in order to remain alive, grow and reproduce. An important way in which they depend on each other is for food. Basically all animals depend on plants for their food. Their relationships are shown in food webs. If some event interferes with a food web, all the organisms in it are affected in some way. One obvious way to upset these delicate balances is to remove some of the plants or animals which form part of the web. Man kills animals for food and profit and sometimes for sport. Examples of this are commercial fishing and agriculture. Today we are facing perhaps the greatest conservation issues of our age with large scale desert encroachment on the land and irreversible destruction of resources in the seas. Over the past 100 years we have been squandering the world's wealth and the present economic crisis is a direct reflection of over-population in the face of already diminishing resources. The danger signals are clear enough to see and there is still time to rethink our global strategy. We would be wise to use the decades that are left-whilst we can still rely on the luxury of fossil fuels and water-to develop the concept of ecological management and to rehabilitate the world's wide range of renewable resources on which survival will eventually depend. Without water plants and animals cannot survive. They use water for photosynthesis and the movement of nutrients, food and waste products in plants. Water also forms the solvent base for blood which transports oxygen, food, hormones and waste products around various parts of the body. Therefore, it is extremely important that we conserve our water and keep it fresh and free from pollutants. The environment is not just important in the lives of plants and animals, it is essential. Without a well balanced environment all organisms living upon it will become extinct. Humans, with their control, must look after the environment carefully or they will be the cause of their own destruction. Mr SNOW(Eden-Monaro)(10.36) —Today I met with a group of RATS. RATS stands for remote area telephone subscribers. These people came to Canberra to put the case for would-be telephone subscribers, some of whom applied for a telephone service seven years ago. These people come from remote areas in the electorate of Eden-Monaro and some of them were told in Sydney or Melbourne, before they moved to the area, that they would have the connection in `probably six to eight weeks'. Some of them had been misinformed and told they would be connected in 1986, then again in 1987 and then again in 1988. I took these people to see the expected Minister for Transport and Communications, the present Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Willis), with a view to making clear to him, before he takes over this portfolio, the importance of servicing remote areas and the fact that people who go to live in these remote areas are very often deprived of a telephone service for far too long. When I entered the Parliament and signed these people in through the security door it was quite interesting to see that every other person who came into the Parliament at that time had a telephone number to enter but these people just put a dash in the space provided for the telephone number. We told the Minister of these people's problems. I realise that it costs Telecom Australia about $30,000 to install a radio telephone service. These people individually pay about $1,500 for installation, so there is a loss to Telecom. It is cheaper for Telecom to service towns where it can connect five times the number of subscribers for the same price and thus get a better dividend and have a better result to show in the numbers of telephones connected. I know that the Government has told Telecom that it is expected to operate as a business, but in remote areas traditionally governments, including this one, have shown that they are prepared to support people who provide, in many cases, a large proportion of our exports. In fact, agriculture provides almost 50 per cent of our total exports. There is a golden opportunity to decentralise by continuing to provide services, both postal and telecommunications, to people who live in the country. There are many reasons why we need to give special consideration to people who live in remote areas. I have outlined only some of them, but these people need assurances. They need to be told when they will get a service and to be given the actual date of connection. Telecom must stick to its schedule because these people need to be provided with a service much more quickly than is the case now. Mr McGAURAN(Gippsland)(10.38) —I was quite fascinated to listen to the contribution of the honourable member for Eden-Monaro (Mr Snow). I too, as the member for Gippsland, represent a large number of people living in remote areas and I thoroughly support his comments made in the House tonight that government instrumentalities have a very grave responsibility to provide services to those who live in remote areas. However, I just wish that the honourable member had taken up one of the disadvantages that people in remote areas will now suffer by courtesy of the announcements by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) on 23 August. I am referring, of course, to the assets test on Austudy and assistance to isolated children. If the honourable member for Eden-Monaro were really fair dinkum about representing people in remote country areas, he would condemn out of hand the Government's introduction of an assets test on Austudy and assistance for isolated children programs which will effectively deprive a number of people from pursuing certainly tertiary education and, in many cases, even secondary education. Whilst I thoroughly endorse the honourable member's remarks regarding communications, I would ask him also to have the courage of his convictions, represent his constituents consistently and honestly and join with the Opposition in condemning the assets test on Austudy and on assistance for isolated children, following as it does the assets test not just on age pensions but also on unemployment benefits and the family allowance supplement. All in all, the effect of this assets test is to cut out country people, especially those who have a holding of land which may not generate income-probably not enough income to live on-but which disqualifies them from the benefits provided by government and enjoyed by so many others, particularly those in the cities. So when we talk about people in country areas being stripped of their proper entitlements to government services, why does the honourable member for Eden-Monaro not include in his list of grievances the assets test on age pensions, on Austudy, on assistance for isolated children, on unemployment benefits and on family allowance supplement? Regrettably, the upper limit under the assets test for the family of a dependent student is $300,000, although the Government will allow a 50 per cent discount on assets used to produce farm income. Because we do not have the legislation and because the Treasurer was, not surprisingly, vague in his announcement, we really do not know to what type of asset that 50 per cent discount will apply. Mr Hand —Was that $300,000? Mr McGAURAN —Yes, $300,000. There is not a viable farm in Australia worth $300,000. Mr Hand —Three hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. Mr McGAURAN —Does the Minister think a $300,000 farm is viable? Madam SPEAKER —Order! The Minister will cease interjecting. Mr McGAURAN —Three hundred thousand dollars is certainly a lot of money, and it is brought about after generations of work-and it certainly will not produce a livable income. But we do not know what the 50 per cent discount on assets used to produce farm or small business income really means. I suspect it refers only to the machinery. It will be fascinating to see whether or not the 50 per cent discount will even apply to the stock on a farm used to generate farm income. I doubt it, but I would be tremendously relieved if that were the case. For a married student the cut-off limit will now be $127,000 and for a single independent student receiving Austudy the cut-off limit is $90,000. The assistance for isolated children, which is a secondary students scheme mostly providing travelling supplements, will also be drastically cut by some 17 per cent. I am very disappointed in that measure by the Government. People in far east Gippsland will be deprived of very crucial secondary education. The net result undoubtedly will be a curtailing of the involvement in secondary and tertiary education of those living in remote country areas. Also, now that the dust has settled on that infamous Budget and we are beginning to see the whole strategy begin to unravel with shocking trade figures, we notice that, because the Treasurer has introduced a retrospective tax on some 50,000 pensioners by deeming as income accrued capital from trust investment funds, there really were a number of hidden traps that were not immediately apparent. The Opposition will follow that one through vigorously as well. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr CUNNINGHAM(McMillan)(10.43) —I wish to raise a couple of matters in this adjournment debate tonight following the speech of the honourable member for Gippsland (Mr McGauran), in which he spoke about one of his favourite hobbies-the defence of those who have substantial assets. Every second speech he makes in this House seems to be geared to that angle. Before moving to that matter, I would like to make a couple of comments in relation to his activities over the last three weeks. He has been touring around by private aircraft with his brother and colleague from the Senate in relation to a campaign against the referendum proposals being put to the people. In fact, tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock we are having a local radio debate on the matter, which I am very much looking forward to. We certainly understand clearly why these two very prominent members of the National Party in Victoria are flying around doing this. At whose expense it has been we do not know just yet, but it will be interesting to find out just who is paying for the private aircraft and who is getting the tax deductions for it as it flies around delivering these two crusaders for the National Party who are determined to do one thing and one thing only; that is, whip up opposition to the referendum proposals in order to protect the base of the National Party-the National Party in Queensland, not in Victoria. They are just interested in doing the work for the National Party because they want to protect that base in Queensland. This is a party which has doughnut seats-a seat, as the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) said in this House yesterday, whereby the boundaries can be rigged to the point that the centre is plucked out of it. The honourable member for Gippsland quite clearly has one ambition; that is, to do favours for the power brokers of the National Party, to get around Australia pretending that he is working for local government. A local government body has a large advertisement in today's Australian saying just what the situation is in relation to the referendum. It clearly points out that the honourable member for Gippsland and his brother, Senator McGauran, are deliberately deceiving the people around Australia in relation to this issue. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for McMillan will withdraw that aspersion against the honourable member. Mr CUNNINGHAM —I will say `mislead' then. The information they are providing is designed to mislead the voters. Madam SPEAKER —The honourable member will withdraw before he substitutes. Mr CUNNINGHAM —Clearly I will withdraw the fact that he is deceiving the people, but he is certainly spending his time getting around Australia with the intention of misleading many people in relation to the referendum which is coming up next Saturday. On the assets test, every time the honourable member stands in this House we hear him make speeches on behalf of the $300,000 and upward asset-rich people. Anyone who has $300,000 worth of assets, whether it is in a business or a farm, and cannot make a living without a handout of income support from the public purse is a very poor operator-$300,000 worth of clear assets. Let me make one point clear: the honourable member for Gippsland is also misleading the people in relation to this matter in his statements around the country. He has regularly said that the Government's measure applies to a person who has a property worth $300,000. He neglects to tell the people with a farm worth $300,000 that, if they have a debt of $200,000 on it, their asset is only $100,000 and they will not be impacted in the way he claims. The McGauran brothers have one thing in common: they have the ability to mislead, they have the ability to distort, and they certainly have the ability to do the bidding of the power brokers of the National Party, mainly coming from Queensland. The honourable member for Gippsland would be much better off defending some of those people in his electorate-some of those people whom I meet regularly in Gippsland-who do not have $300,000 worth of clear assets. Some people may have a farm worth $300,000 with $200,000 worth of debt on it, but for many years they suffered under National-Liberal Party governments and they then turned around and called on the Australian Labor Party to fix the economy and so fix up their problems. It is time that the honourable member for Gippsland and his brother became honest, got out of their aircraft and got down with the people. Mr PROSSER(Forrest)(10.48) —In mid-1987 the Australian beef export industry, worth some $3 billion a year, suffered a major setback with the discovery in the United States of excessive levels of chemical residue in samples taken from Australian meat. The shock waves were felt on every beef farm in the country as authorities took action to salvage the reputation of the Australian beef industry. Now, well into the second half of 1988, how successful have we been and at what cost? Pesticide residue sampling regimes have been greatly improved and increased at export abattoirs, and in Western Australia in domestic abattoirs as well. The use of organochlorines in agriculture has been banned and the movement of stock controlled by stringent quarantine regulations. Ironically, while Australian beef is back in flavour again, largely as a result of those measures, it has been a bittersweet victory for hundreds of farmers around the country who are beef producers in name only. They are the forgotten victims. Tragically, some States have completely ignored the plight of these farmers, who cannot sell their stock and face financial ruin. In Western Australia at least, the State Government has recognised the serious social and financial problems that have generally been ignored or overlooked in the context of the larger threat to beef exports. The Western Australia Agriculture Department's actions, resulting in a range of assistance measures being introduced to help affected farmers, deserves praise. As yet the Government has not taken the ultimate step to acknowledge an element of responsibility for chemical contamination, based on advice given to producers by Department of Agriculture personnel over a number of years. Because of very high levels of contamination on many properties, viable beef production will not be possible for a number of years. The State Government offered to purchase from farmers stock of all types and ages that had been affected in this way at well below market value. The compensation was to be paid from the cattle industry compensation fund, which is 50 per cent funded by the State Government and 50 per cent by the compulsory levy on cattle producers. In normal circumstances, sale of stock would be orderly and planned to maximise financial return. The aim of the purchase scheme was to enable farmers either to purchase sheep, which are less susceptible to chemical contamination, or to expand the infrastructure of their properties in order to pursue alternative farming ventures, such as horticulture. Without doubt, the scheme would have been of great assistance to a number of farmers but the Australian Taxation Office dashed those expectations with a ruling that proceeds from the disposal of stock in this way would be treated as assessable income in the year that it was received. Many farmers desperately in need of capital have not been prepared to risk the consequences and have battled on without assistance. Three farmers, who were forced by their extreme circumstances to take up the offer in spite of the threat, now face significant tax liabilities-in one case up to $20,000. The Commissioner of Taxation has declined to allow farmers who dispose of their stock to offset their losses under section 36aa and section 36aaa of the Income Tax Assessment Act. It is the Commissioner's view that disposal of contaminated cattle to the cattle industry compensation fund does not qualify under those sections and that there is no provision in income tax law that provides relief when cattle are to be grazed on clean pasture until contamination levels fall. Despite strong representation from the Western Australian Farmers Federation, the Commissioner of Taxation will not be deflected from this opinion. The Treasurer (Mr Keating) and the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) have since been lobbied extensively by the Western Australian Farmers Federation, the Western Australian Government and me. The Minister has at least acknowledged the problem, but we have not had one word of concern from the Treasurer or any indication of what action he plans to take. It appears that the problem can be overcome by a single amendment to the Income Tax Assessment Act, by inserting the words `chemical contamination' in section 36aaa (1) (a) of that Act. Now that the Treasurer has brought down the Budget, it is hoped that he will attend to other no less important matters, such as the taxation liability on beef producers whose stock has been affected by pesticide contamination. Mr CHYNOWETH(Dunkley)(10.53) —I want to bring to the notice of the House tonight what I consider to be a very serious situation in relation to the Ranger uranium mine. In the first couple of weeks of June I travelled to the Northern Territory. I then flew by charter aircraft along the escarpment. As we took off from the Jabiru airport I noticed that part of the tailings dam at Ranger was uncovered. I took a photograph of it just to make certain that what I had seen was correct. When I returned to Melbourne I contacted the Office of the Supervising Scientist and spoke to the person in charge there about exactly what had happened to the tailings dam. As the Minister for the Arts and Territories (Mr Punch) said in this House late last week, in answer to a question from the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Milton), the operators at Ranger are trying out a new way of disposing of the tailings-what is left over after the uranium ore has been milled out of the actual rock. They are turning it into a wet slurry which just lies in the dam with no water covering it up. The Supervising Scientist told me that they were taking precautions to make certain that this mud did not dry out and that the radioactive tailings were not blown all over Kakadu National Park. It is possible to keep it wet; water can be sprayed over it to keep it damp all the time. However, one of the problems which has not been looked at and which I believe is quite serious is that many birds and animals walk over this huge area of mud. When I was at the mine some years ago as a member of a parliamentary environment committee we actually saw a trial plot of this process. I took photographs of animal tracks going through the mud. I believe that the Supervising Scientist has not looked closely enough at this problem. What is happening is that the birds are landing in the mud, the radioactive tailings are getting onto their feet and then they are transporting that material back to the nest. They return to those nests year after year, so these radioactive tailings will gradually build up in the nest and who knows what the effect might be on future generations of young birds and animals. There were also tracks of larger animals-I do not know, probably dingoes, wild dogs or whatever-through this trial plot. I believe that there has not been sufficient examination of this problem. I also believe, although I have not yet checked this, that the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry report states that one of the conditions that enables production to proceed is that the tailings will always be covered by a certain amount of water. The present situation has come about because Ranger mines does not know how to manage the water correctly. This year there has been a bit of a drought in the area. A couple of years ago there was an over abundance of water necessitating pumping out the tailings dam, and there was some concern that the water would spill out into the Magela Creek. However, during the last wet season water was sprayed all over the general area that is set aside for Ranger so that there would not be this problem of having too much water. However, there was a drought this year and consequently there is not enough water, necessitating the use of the new slurry method to try to dispose of the tailings. I think we should take a good look at what is going on at Ranger because I am quite certain that the proprietors do not know how to manage the tailings dam. We could have a very serious environmental problem if the situation is not watched closely. I am a bit concerned because when I raised with the Supervising Scientist the fact that animals were walking through these tailings it seemed that that was the first time that he had heard of it. I would have thought that that sort of thing would have been fairly straightforward and that if anybody had looked it would have been seen straight away. Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA), which is the managing group in control of the Ranger mine, has a fairly good safety record and has not had too many spills in the past couple of years, although until that time it had a pretty bad record. However, I think it should look again at what it is doing to Ranger and make certain that the process being used to dispose of these tailings is not detrimental to the very sensitive environment of the Kakadu National Park. Question resolved in the affirmative. House adjourned at 10.58 p.m. The following notices were given: Mr West to 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: Construction of National Medical Cyclotron facility, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. 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 work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Development of new utility helicopter facilities, phase 2, at RAAF Base Townsville and Oakey Army Airfield, Queensland. Mr Willis to present a Bill for an Act to make certain reforms in relation to certain government business enterprises and authorities. Mr Willis to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Judicial and Statutory Officers (Remuneration and Allowances) Act 1984. Mr Willis to present a Bill for an Act to amend the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission Act 1985. Mr Peter Morris to present a Bill for an Act to provide for grants to the States and the Northern Territory. Mr Peter Morris to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Australian Shipping Commission Act 1956 to convert ANL into a public company, and for related purposes. The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 30 August 1988: Audit Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 206. Barley Research Levy Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 215. Christmas Island Act-Ordinance-1988-No. 3-Workers' Compensation (Amendment). Civil Aviation Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 209. Cotton Levy Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 212. Customs Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 207. Epidemiological Studies (Confidentiality) Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 204. Excise Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 216. Export Control Act-Export Control (Orders) Regulations-Orders-1988- No. 9-Export Control (Fish) as amended (Amendment). No. 10-Export Control (Fees) as amended (Amendment). No. 11-Export Meat as amended (Amendment). Extradition (Foreign States) Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 210. Grain Legumes Levy Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 214. Income Tax Assessment Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 208. Meat Inspection Act-Meat Inspection (Orders) Regulations-Orders-1988- No. 5-Meat Inspection (Fees) as amended (Amendment). No. 6-Meat Inspection (General) as amended (Amendment). Postal Services Act-Australian Postal Commission-By-laws-1988-Postal-Amendment No. 5. Public Works Committee Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 211. Supply and Development Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 205. Trade Practices Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 203. Wheat Tax Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 213. The following answers to questions were circulated: (Question No. 1037) Mr Downer asked the Prime Minister, upon notice, on 24 May 1988: Could he explain the application of the Government's policy on the promotion, either with or without remuneration, by Ministers of commercial enterprises or products. Mr Hawke —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: In a ministerial statement on 22 September 1983 concerning public duty and private interests, I stated that Ministers may not derive any income through personal exertion other than as Minister and a member of the Parliament. As regards the promotion of commercial enterprises or products without remuneration, there are clearly examples which are unexceptionable: for example, book launches where the book is on an appropriate subject, the opening of new business premises or the promotion by a Minister overseas of Australian technology or products. Obviously, it would generally not be appropriate for a Minister to promote one specific product or enterprise at the expense of another of similar type and quality. (Question No. 1076) Mr Porter asked the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice, on 3 June 1988: (1) What week-end conferences, including management meetings and team-building exercises, and involving overnight accommodation have been conducted out of Canberra for staff of the Minister's Department for the year ending 31 May 1988. (2) When and where were the meetings held. (3) How many days were involved. (4) What was the agenda for each meeting. (5) Who attended each meeting from the Minister's Department and from outside the Minister's Department. (6) What was the total cost to the Minister's Department. (7) What were the itemised costs, including transportation, accommodation, speakers, food and drink costs. Mr Holding —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) to (7) There have been no weekend conferences involving overnight accommodation conducted out of Canberra for staff of my Department for the year ending 31 May 1988.