Tuesday, 11 October 1988 Madam SPEAKER (Hon. Joan Child) took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers. Mr HAWKE(Wills-Prime Minister) —I inform the House that the Deputy Prime Minister and Attorney-General, Mr Lionel Bowen, left on 5 October on Government business overseas and will return to Australia on 27 October. In his absence the Minister for Justice, Senator Tate, is the Acting Attorney-General, with the Minister for the Arts and Territories, Mr Holding, representing the Acting Attorney-General in this chamber. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Mr Humphreys, is also overseas on Government business. He departed on 9 October and will return to Australia on 14 October. Questions normally directed to Mr Humphreys should be addressed to the Minister for Housing and Aged Care, Mr Staples. Madam Speaker, it is with great regret that I inform the House that the Minister for Community Services and Health, Dr Blewett, will be absent until further notice due to a family tragedy. In his absence the Minister for Housing and Aged Care, Mr Staples, is the Acting Minister for Community Services and Health. Mr REITH —I direct my question to the Acting Treasurer. What is the Government's current position on taxes and wages? Is it a tax cut and a wage increase as promised by the Prime Minister? Is it a tax cut but no wage increase as suggested by the Treasurer? Or is it neither as threatened by Senator Walsh? Mr DAWKINS —Of course, last night the Prime Minister made the position of the Government very clear. Just in case there should be any further misunderstanding, I will quote from what the Treasurer himself said last week: Whatever trade we make with the trade unions in relation to taxation no trade-off is capable of putting a zero in the AWE forecast because we've got pipeline effects from the previous system and it's too early anyway to anticipate what kind of arrangement will be made with the trade unions on taxes and wages. That is precisely the same as what the Prime Minister said last night. Mr LINDSAY —My question is directed to the Prime Minister. What steps has the Government taken to investigate the death of an Australian citizen, David Blenkinsop, in Indonesia? Mr HAWKE —I must say that the information so far available to me makes it clear that an appalling tragedy has occurred. From the account given by David Blenkinsop's fiancee I must repeat here in this House what I have said publicly, that is, that I find the actions by the local Indonesian officials involved in this incident to be totally reprehensible. I am sure that I am speaking on behalf of the whole House when I extend our deepest sympathy to the Blenkinsop family. For a number of weeks our representatives in Jakarta have sought to obtain a satisfactory account of what occurred and have kept the Blenkinsop family informed of developments. I can say to the House that in the last few hours we have been advised by the Australian Embassy in Jakarta that the policeman involved in the incident has been suspended and will be charged under the military penal code and that the civilian involved has been placed under arrest under the civilian penal code. Of course, none of that will diminish in any sense the tragedy which has befallen the Blenkinsop family. But I must say-again I am sure that I speak on behalf of the whole House-that we are pleased to hear that those steps have been taken. I can assure the honourable member who asked me the question and I can assure the whole House that we will continue to monitor developments in this case to ensure that what has now been announced will be an adequate, impartial and proper inquiry into what certainly appears to have been a dastardly event. Our embassy in Jakarta will stay in the closest possible touch with the Indonesian authorities in order to see that these processes are appropriately carried through. Mr PEACOCK —I ask the Acting Treasurer: Is the increase in productivity of less than one per cent projected for 1988-89 in this year's Budget consistent with the alleged large boost to productivity stated time and again by the former Minister for Industrial Relations, among others, to flow from the second tier salary negotiations? Mr DAWKINS —The productivity measures in the Budget are for economy-wide increases in productivity. The former Minister for Industrial Relations has been referring to the fact that, in most cases, the second tier wage increases have been fully offset by productivity increases within those awards. Mr CHARLES —Is the Minister for Defence aware of reports that the HMS Edinburgh is in need of repairs? Of course, the House would know that the HMS Edinburgh is in Australia for part of the bicentennial celebrations. Has the United Kingdom Government approached our defence authorities for assistance with those repairs? Mr BEAZLEY —The HMS Edinburgh has a mechanical defect affecting the control of one of her propellers. Some work has been done on the propeller with Royal Australian Navy assistance. The Royal Navy (RN) has decided that no further work needs to be done at this stage. The RN has concluded that the nature of the defect is not sufficiently serious to warrant docking. The RN intends that the Edinburgh will now continue her deployment as planned. The Australian Government has told the United Kingdom Government that, if the ship's condition deteriorates to the point that it needs to be docked, the Australian Government will make docking facilities available subject to the normal safety requirements. Mr SINCLAIR —My question is directed to the Acting Treasurer. Was his colleague the Minister for Finance correct when he said on Friday, 30 September that an average worker would need a reduction in his tax liability of 52 per cent to make up for the imposts that his Government-the Hawke Government-imposed between March 1983 and 1 July 1989? Mr DAWKINS —The Finance Minister was referring to the assertion by the Leader of the Opposition that there would need to be a $56 tax cut in order to compensate those people on average weekly earnings for some alleged changes in their living standards. The Minister for Finance went on to say that, if these cuts were to be made proportionately for all taxpayers, the cost to the Federal Budget of that kind of tax reduction would be in the order of $23.5 billion-that is, a 27 per cent reduction in total government revenue. It is preposterous for members of the Opposition to say that they would be prepared to provide tax cuts which would cost a total of $23 1/2 billion. Of course, they have refused to say how this would be funded but they do say that they would quarantine certain parts of the expenditure-that is, certain parts of the Budget would not be subjected to expenditure review. They talk about defence spending. They say that they would not touch pensions and benefits. Of course, they say that they could not touch public debt interest. It means that they have quarantined some 50 per cent of the whole Federal Budget. In order to fund the kinds of tax cuts they are talking about there would have to be a 60 per cent slashing-more than a half-of the rest of the Federal Budget. Of course, this is a totally preposterous suggestion. They just throw these figures around like confetti. They dream up these figures to try to increase expectations. The tax cuts that we provide will be provided responsibly. They will be provided in the context of what economic circumstances are at the time and, of course, they will be entirely conditional on the kind of negotiations, the kind of agreement, we can reach with the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the wages question. Mr SNOWDON —I direct my question to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Madam SPEAKER —I do not believe the honourable member's microphone is on. Opposition members interjecting- Mr SNOWDON —I am confident that I will make more sense than the Opposition. I direct my question to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, whose response will no doubt be welcomed by the Opposition. Is the Minister aware of recent statements by the Federal President of the Liberal Party, Mr Elliott, concerning the continued ownership of Uluru National Park? Does the Government have any plans to review its policy in relation to the Aboriginal ownership of Uluru under the existing Northern Territory Land Rights Act? Mr HAND —I thank the hard-working member for the Northern Territory for his very timely question to me about this very important issue. The Liberal Party, because of the unfortunate statements made in the Northern Territory by the Federal President of the Liberal Party when he was up there campaigning in the Flynn by-election in support of his political candidate, saw a 20 per cent swing against it. The Leader of the Opposition claimed that he, also, supported Mr Elliott's comments on Uluru. The Labor Party will not be shifting from its decision about Uluru. The issue becomes more confusing by the intervention of the shadow spokesman on Aboriginal affairs. We all know that the wrong bloke was rung up in regard to Tasmania and he is still with us. On Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio in the Northern Territory, the shadow Minister said that he disagreed with Mr Elliott and with his leader. Later that day he put out a press release to say that he had thought it through and that what he meant to say was similar to what his leader said. Following this we had more confusion in the Liberal Party about the policy on Aboriginal affairs. We had a statement by the Opposition in Western Australia proposing food vouchers for Aboriginal people to replace their unemployment benefits. We had the spectacle of the Federal shadow Minister agreeing with that proposal. Recently, we saw John Elliott on a television advertisement. It said that it is all right to own a football team, it is all right to own a brewery, and it is all right to own a political party. But the public need to know, and I am sure the Aboriginal community, particularly in the Northern Territory, need to know, what the Liberal Party policy is in regard to Aboriginal affairs. Is it the shadow spokesman's views? Is it the Leader of the Opposition's views? Is it John Elliott's views? Whose views represent the view of the Liberal Party when it goes to the people? Are they the views of Nick Greiner, who wants to take away the rights gained by Aboriginal people in New South Wales, where they have obtained land rights and land councils? Is that the policy of the Federal Liberal Party? Does the Aboriginal community have to fear from now on that everything it has gained by way of legislation introduced in the past by the Liberal and Labor parties will be taken away when, if ever, the Liberal Party is returned to the treasury bench? So I say to the Leader of the Opposition: Produce your Federal policy and put an end to the John Elliott-type comments that are constantly being made. I feel some sympathy for him because it must be worrying to have Mr Elliott breathing down his neck all the time. Mr Elliott is making these statements and the Leader of the Opposition is having to fall into line, but I think it is important for the public to know just what is the policy of the Liberal Party in regard to Uluru and other Aboriginal issues. Mr PEACOCK —I refer the Acting Treasurer to Senator Walsh's comment on Sunday that further expenditure cuts might be necessary if the current account continued to run at much higher levels than had been anticipated. Will the Government be waiting, in Senator Walsh's words, `for one more month's figures at least' before deciding on the need for further cuts in expenditure? Mr DAWKINS —I think the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is referring to Senator Walsh's comment made during an interview on Face to Face. Senator Walsh was describing what he considered to be a worst case scenario which he did not think was likely to eventuate. He then went on to say, however, that if this worst case scenario did develop-and he did not expect it to-the Government would have to give consideration to the appropriate policy responses. This is precisely what the Government has said on many occasions. The Treasurer remarked on 9 September: Whatever the economic circumstances, the Government will remain acutely attuned to changes in economic conditions. The economic security of the Australian people remains our pre-eminent concern. We will not hesitate to adjust policy further if our balance of payments or inflation objectives are being threatened. That is precisely what Senator Walsh said. Mr MILDREN —Has the attention of the Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support been drawn to the alleged $3m campaign being waged by motorists' associations against the Government's road funding program? Are the demands and claims being made in the campaign valid? Mr ROBERT BROWN —My attention has been drawn to a campaign which is currently being undertaken by the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), together with its State affiliates. I am not sure whether the amount of money that is involved is $3m or whether it is a sum of $2m over three years, which would involve an amount of $6m. I am enormously disappointed not so much that the campaign has been undertaken but with the nature of the campaign. It is counterproductive to have campaigns of this kind which can leave the motoring public with the impression, for example, that the number of crashes on the roads, including almost 3,000 fatalities during the last year, results from the condition of the road when the research of these organisations, our research and public knowledge and public understanding indicate quite clearly that the main reason for that level of crashes and that level of fatalities rests with the motorists themselves because they do not modify their driving behaviour to fit the conditions of the roads upon which they happen to be travelling. We need to keep in mind as well that, while these claims are currently being made by the AAA and its State affiliates, the fact remains that during the six years of this Government there has been a real increase in road funding of 21 1/2 per cent compared with the six years of the Fraser Government. The AAA, at the same time, is drawing attention to the adjustments that have taken place in the level of road funding since 1983-84. That was the first year of this Government. In 1983-84 not only was there a very substantial increase in the level of nominal funding-- Mr Tuckey —This is your first question and you cannot even tell the truth. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for O'Connor will cease interjecting. Mr ROBERT BROWN —I am aware that honourable members opposite are a little embarrassed by these details but the fact remains that in 1983-84 there was a very significant increase not only in nominal terms but also in real terms in the level of funding for roads. What the AAA is in the process of doing now is comparing the current level of funding-which for this year will be nothing less than $1,215m-which the Commonwealth Government will be providing for road development and road construction throughout Australia with the 1983-84 level. The AAA, as well as its State affiliates, needs to draw attention to what it believes the alternatives will be. If road funding were to be increased by $420m to satisfy the AAA's campaign, quite clearly it would be necessary for the Commonwealth Government to decide whether it was going to increase taxes or cut funding in other areas, including education, health, housing, social security and defence, or cut back on the $5.5 billion surplus we have budgeted for this year in order to reduce Commonwealth debt. I want to make it perfectly clear that the Commonwealth Government has no intention of increasing those tax rates. It has no intention of reducing the allocation of funds to education, health, transport, social security and defence. It has no intention, either, of reducing the $5.5 billion with which it intends to cut back the Commonwealth debt. I appreciate the fact that this question was asked by the honourable member for Ballarat. Since 1983 the Commonwealth has committed in his electorate-as he knows, because he was largely responsible for those allocations being made-$35m. That includes $22.5m for the national highway program. That reflects very well on the effectiveness with which the honourable member for Ballarat represents his electorate. It has been an outstanding achievement. I know that his constituents appreciate it and value his representations, as they should. Mr DOWNER —Is the Acting Treasurer aware that the South Australian Government has decided to transfer temporarily $25m to the Western Australian Government, to be repaid after the Western Australian election? What is the purpose of this loan? Can the Acting Treasurer give an assurance to the House that this money has not come out of general revenue grants to South Australia? Mr DAWKINS —I am not aware of the allegation made by the honourable member. Ms McHugh having addressed a question to the Minister for Administrative Services- Mr Tim Fischer-Madam Speaker, I take a point of order. I draw your attention to paragraph (b), second occurring, of standing order 144 which relates to the announcement of government policy. Clearly, the terms of the question asked by the honourable member for Phillip relate very much to the announcement of government policy on purchasing and, as such, the question should be ruled out of order. Madam SPEAKER —Did the honourable member for Phillip ask about government policy? I ask the honourable member to repeat the question. Ms McHugh-I asked whether the Government is proposing to streamline its purchasing-- Madam SPEAKER —The honourable member's question is out of order. Mr TUCKEY —I address my question to the Prime Minister. In light of widespread public concern regarding the extensive overseas, taxpayer-funded holiday undertaken by Mr Hayden-a trip which Australian Labor Party National Secretary Bob Hogg observed as having the appearance of putting `snouts in the public trough'-will the Prime Minister take steps to curtail Mr Hayden's trip after he has paid his courtesy call at the palace? Mr HAWKE —No. Mr BLANCHARD —My question is addressed to the Minister for Social Security. In the light of the Government's family package, will the Minister explain the benefits to large families as a result of the introduction of the family allowance supplement (FAS)? Mr HOWE —A family with four or more dependent children is considered a large family, I think, in today's circumstances. A family with four children under 13 years of age and renting privately would receive family allowance of $30.77 per week on an income up to $57,500. It would also receive the maximum family allowance supplement of $103 per week if its income was $336 per week or lower. That will be increased to $111 per week in December. In addition, add $7 per week for any teenage children. From January, family allowance entitlement will be based on the previous full year income, initially the 1987-88 year. That means that from January such a family will receive full family allowance supplement payments if it earned 71 per cent of average weekly earnings in 1987-88. That family will receive part payment until its income reaches 118 per cent of 1987-88 average weekly earnings. At precisely average weekly earnings in 1987-88, in January this family will be entitled to $43.50 per week. That is equivalent to an additional before tax income of $61.30 per week. Many people tend to think of the family allowance supplement as being relevant only to poor families. However, in the case of large families FAS extends to quite substantial incomes. Large families relying on one breadwinner on average weekly earnings are likely to be receiving the equivalent of a 22 per cent or more increase in pre-tax earnings. We often hear in this Parliament the suggestion that if the terrible event occurred and the Opposition became the government it would slash middle class welfare. I think in those circumstances, in terms of payments such as the family allowance supplement for families that have need arising out of the fact that they have a number of children, one can only ask the question: is that one of the objectives? Is that what the Opposition would set out to slash? Mr BLUNT —My question is to the Minister for Telecommunications and Aviation Support. I refer to reports of aircraft overloading by Air India and a subsequent investigation by his Department which made specific recommendations for action in order to prevent the recurrence of these incidents. What has been the Government's response to this report? Have the recommendations been implemented? If so, what has been done? Mr PUNCH —I am not aware of the issue. Opposition members interjecting- Mr PUNCH —I do not mind admitting it. I am not aware of the report. I will get an answer from the Department and get back to the honourable member as soon as I can. Ms McHUGH —I ask the Minister for Administrative Services whether the Government is proposing to streamline the administration of government purchasing. Mr WEST —I have examined a financial management improvement program review of Commonwealth-wide procurement aimed at creating opportunities for greater efficiency, effectiveness and economy in government purchasing. The review was prompted by the potential for improvement and savings in Commonwealth purchasing, which accounts for something like $8 billion of Budget expenditure each year. We are looking at changes recommended by the review, including a shift from total regulation of procedure to one of accountability for results. The review proposes such methods as open and effective competition, allowing the use of purchasing methods in addition to public tendering, but also proposes the retention of principles of accountability, probity and fair dealing. It also recommends reliance on management rather than upon-- Mr Beale —Does it apply to Commonwealth cars? Mr WEST —I would have thought that the honourable member would agree with this, if he would just listen. It recommends reliance on management rather than on regulation and control of detailed processes and procedures. The review states that purchasing methods could include the greater use of functional and performance specifications, staged procurement instead of strict reliance on one-stage public tendering, the use of post-offer or post-tender negotiations which, of course, basically are not pursued at present, and an upgrading of skills and training for purchasing officers. If we accepted these recommendations, public tendering would still be a very important delivery system but would no longer be the only prescribed method above the current $20,000 threshold. If we accept the review's recommendations, program managers in departments may be issued with guidelines which would allow them freedom to choose alternative delivery systems, such as an invitation to register an interest, request for a proposal, request for quotation, or an invitation to known suppliers to establish pre-qualifications for selected tenderers. Consultation has already taken place with a number of the major industry players and with client Federal departments on proposals for reform. Mr Tuckey —Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. It has been very clear today that the Government is trying to make Question Time what it is. This is the first abuse about which I must complain-that is, the Minister is clearly making a statement to the House to avoid the consequent debate that would follow if he did so at the proper time. I draw your attention, Madam Speaker, to the fact that in 1982, 82 statements were given to the House. Last year there were 29. That is clear evidence for my complaint, and I ask you to ask the Minister to bring his answer to a close and use the appropriate measures to make a statement in due course. Madam SPEAKER —The Minister is answering a question. The question was in order and so far the answer is in order. Mr WEST —Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would have thought that, seeing that the Opposition often raises these and similar types of matters in the House, it would have been interested in what I have to say. The Government will consider formal recommendations in the near future. If we decide to proceed-which I think is highly likely-of course, I will most likely take the opportunity to make a formal statement in the House and will fully publicise the proposed new arrangements. Mr HOWARD —I refer the Acting Treasurer to his statement in the Parliament on 27 September 1988 in which he said: . . . this Government has set the circumstances whereby there will be a general downward trend in interest rates. Since then the Reserve Bank has lifted its rediscount rate from 13.5 to 13.9 per cent and a number of financial institutions have raised interest rates, including home loan rates. Does the Acting Treasurer stand by his statement of 27 September? If so, when will we see these lower interest rates? Mr DAWKINS —I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. Of course I stick by what I said previously. What I said then, and what I think has been repeated since, is that this Government, through its fiscal policy, the creation of a $5 1/2 billion surplus, the fact that there is a zero public sector borrowing requirement for Australia this year, the fact that we have a wages policy in place, and the fact that inflation is trending down, has set the circumstances which are conducive to a general lowering of interest rates. I said at the same time-and I repeat it-that I will not make any predictions about short term trends in interest rates. Indeed, it is irresponsible for one to do so. It is true, of course, that there was a tightening of monetary policy a few months ago. Of course, the effects of that tightening of monetary policy are still working their way through the system. As the Treasurer said the other day, monetary policy will remain firm. Mr KENT —I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade-absolutely without notice-whether he has noted the very strong wish of the Chilean people to return to democracy as expressed in the referendum of a couple of days ago? What is our Government doing to assist the unfortunate people of Chile to get rid of the bloody dictatorship of Pinochet? Mr BEAZLEY —I thank the honourable gentleman for his question. He may or may not have been aware that shortly after that excellent referendum result we did make a statement very much supporting the outcome and expressing the very strong view of this Government that we believed that the people of Chile had spoken and that the time had obviously arrived for President Pinochet to move on. That is the view that has been strongly expressed by the Government. Of course, we have over the years been very supportive of the Chilean people on issues of human rights abuses. We intend to maintain that policy into the future and now have, of course, the added ammunition to our argument that the people of Chile have freely expressed their point of view about where the President ought to be. Mr MACPHEE —Is the Prime Minister aware that the radio station 2KY in Sydney is advertising that because its audience ratings have doubled it is halving its commercial advertising rates and that its advertising features Ron Casey, who has used 2KY to preach his gospel of racial hatred? As 2KY is owned by the New South Wales Labour Council, which has endorsed the Prime Minister against the Treasurer in the leadership stakes, will he repudiate Casey's racist ravings and urge the Labour Council to promote 2KY on the basis of personalities who do not threaten our social cohesion as a result of their outrageous expressions of bigotry? Mr HAWKE —I thank the honourable member for Goldstein for his question. I fail to understand why, in a matter which is serious and which I think he regards as serious, he introduced the extraneous matter of the question of leadership on this side of the House. Opposition members-Oh! Mr HAWKE —I would have thought, Madam Speaker, that the honourable member for Goldstein is either serious about this or he is not, and he should concede that that is an irrelevancy, as it is. So he should just put it aside and we will answer the question, leaving his irrelevancy aside. If the other side of the House wants to raise in this House the question of leadership of either side of the House, we are more than happy to give that a good run, because, Madam Speaker, it would make a very interesting topic for discussion. I would even be prepared to extend Question Time if we could look at the honourable member's side and the great confidence that he has in the current leadership on his side. So the honourable member should just leave that aside and get down to the issue of importance that he has tried to raise-and it is an important issue. I do not know what is happening about advertising rates on 2KY because, with the great range of matters I have to take responsibility for in this country, I do not follow what is happening to the advertising rates on 2KY. But I will come to the guts of the honourable member's question. He knows perfectly well that the statements and the attitudes expressed in the area of race by Ron Casey are absolutely repugnant to me. The honourable member has not the slightest doubt in his mind that they are absolutely repugnant to me. I understand that because they were repugnant to the proprietors of the station, they sacked Casey in the first place and I understand that a condition of his re-engagement was that there should be no repetition of those repugnant statements. As far as I am concerned, I would expect that if Mr Casey were to repeat those statements and sentiments-and I know that the honourable member for Goldstein finds them repugnant; I share his repugnance equally-he should be sacked, and finally sacked. Mr GAYLER —My question, to the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, relates to the sugar industry not just in the Babinda area but throughout the State of Queensland and northern New South Wales. Is the Minister aware of proposals to produce ethanol within the sugar industry and can he inform the House of the implications of such a development? Mr KERIN —The question of ethanol comes up from time to time. Ethanol, used as an extender for gasoline, would currently be free from excise. A company in Queensland named Sucrotech (Queensland) Pty Ltd, in conjunction with the Queensland Government, is giving detailed consideration to the economic viability of sugar cane-based ethanol production in North Queensland and marketing the product through refineries in Brisbane. Excise considerations aside, specific market opportunities have yet to be identified in Australia for the use of ethanol as an octane enhancer for gasoline. Product markets would be critical to the viability of any project and although Sucrotech is holding discussions at present with refiners, as I understand it, firm markets have yet to be established. The opportunities will depend on whether producers and end users can settle on prices for ethanol as an octane enhancer. I point out that all these matters depend on the price of other energy sources. If we look at the price of oil at present and at previous calculations done when Senator Evans was Minister for Resources and Energy, we realise that at that time most of the studies showed that producing ethanol and other substitutes or enhancers for petroleum from a range of plant material really required an oil price in the vicinity of $US46 to $US50 a barrel. There is always that very big impediment. A lot of people are putting a lot of effort into turning gas into gasohol, brown coal into gasoline and sugar cane into ethanol, but really it all comes down to economics. We are prepared to cooperate in any way and to continue to look at new technologies and consider the whole question in terms of fuel shortages, but by and large at this stage the economics do not stack up. We are very happy to cooperate, but it is a matter for commercial determination at this time. Mr COWAN —My question is addressed to the Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support and refers to the Treasurer's announcement in the Budget that there will be a new roads category known as national arterial roads. How will national arterial roads allocations be administered and determined, keeping in mind such important roads as the Pacific Highway? Mr ROBERT BROWN —I thank the honourable member for his question. I am delighted with the amount of interest that has been generated in the new road funding program of this Government. As the honourable member indicates correctly, on 1 January next year a new classification of roads will be introduced-national arterial roads. One of the chief reasons for the introduction of that classification is that, as a result of our having broken the back of the work on the sections of the national highway system which most urgently require such work, it is now possible for us to take an interest in some of the feeder roads which are of national importance, particularly in relation to the Commonwealth Government's approach to industry restructuring. In conjunction with the States we will identify particularly important arterial roads which will link centres of primary production or manufacturing with the chief ports and terminals, and centres of manufacturing with other centres of manufacturing. We are in the process of doing that now. I understand that we have received submissions already from Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory and I expect submissions to come from the other States as well. When we have received them we will examine the particular roads on which the States want to place emphasis. We will not declare individual roads as national arterial roads. We will be identifying particular roads which will qualify for funding under that national arterial funding proposal. As I say, that starts from 1 January next year. That means that the existing system of road classification, that is, the urban arterial and the rural arterial, will be replaced by the national arterials to which we will give our greatest attention as well as the State arterials. Of course, the States will continue to be chiefly responsible for those. We will be assisting them. We will be assisting local government as well out of that $1,215m that I referred to which will be provided for our total road funding this current year. The honourable member for Lyne referred particularly to the Pacific Highway. As the honourable member and his colleagues along the north coast know we will, together with people involved in local government, be meeting shortly to give consideration to that. The question of whether the Pacific Highway will be classified in a way which will make it possible for us to provide additional funding will depend essentially on the sorts of decisions and considerations which are given to it by the New South Wales Government. I am not offloading responsibility. That happens to be the fact. The New South Wales Government, together with this Government, will give consideration to the sorts of roads where we can apply additional funding. The Pacific Highway undoubtedly is an important road. The honourable member understands that and his colleagues up on the north coast understand that as well. It would be very desirable, I suppose, for the Commonwealth to be in a position to provide additional funding for it. Whether it is possible for us to do that, I am not sure at this stage. That will be the subject of further investigation. I am sorry that although the honourable member has asked a question as he obviously wants a reply there are some people who do not want me to give the honourable member the reply. The honourable member for O'Connor might allow one of his colleagues to hear an answer to a question which he asked. The behaviour of the honourable member for O'Connor is disgraceful as it normally is. Mr Tuckey —Are you going to spend any money on it? Mr ROBERT BROWN —The honourable member is disgraceful. His colleague has asked me a question. May I answer it? Mr Tuckey —We don't want talk; we want answers. Mr ROBERT BROWN —The honourable member is mad. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member for O'Connor will cease interjecting. Mr Tuckey —I rise on a point of order. As the Minister will not tell us how much money he is going to spend, he can withdraw the remark. He is entitled to think that I am mad, but nobody else. Madam SPEAKER —Order! The honourable member will sit down. Mr ROBERT BROWN —I withdraw. I leave it to the judgment of my colleagues. Mr Hawke —Rest on the evidence. Mr ROBERT BROWN —I will rest on the evidence. We will be having a look at that not only as a result of the approach that the honourable member for Lyne and his close colleagues on the north coast will be making but also together with the New South Wales Government to determine how much of the allocation that we have coming back to New South Wales can be allocated to that road and under what classification it will be allocated. 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- Australian Science and Technology Council-Annual Report 1987-88-section 27 of the Australian Science and Technology Council Act 1978. Casting the Net-Post-Harvest Technologies and Opportunities in the Fishing Industry-Australian Science and Technology Council Report-section 6 of the Australian Science and Technology Council Act 1978. High Court of Australia-Annual Report 1987-88-including the Auditor-General's Report-section 47 of the High Court of Australia Act 1979. Commonwealth Grants Commission-Fifty-fifth Report 1988-section 25 of the Commonwealth Grants Commission Act 1973. Commonwealth Grants Commission-Third Report 1988 on financing the Australian Capital Territory-Part Two-Analysis of Findings-section 25 of the Commonwealth Grants Commission Act 1973. Australian Federal Police-Annual Report 1987-88-section 67 of the Australian Federal Police Act 1979. Australian Police Ministers' Council-Annual Report on the Activities of National Common Police Services 1986-87. Access to Administrative Review: Provision of Legal and Financial Assistance in Administrative Law Matters-Administrative Review Council-Report to the Attorney-General. Annual Report by the Attorney-General on the Operation of the Bankruptcy Act 1966-1 July 1986 to 30 June 1987-section 314 of the Bankruptcy Act 1966. Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security-Annual Report 1987-88-section 35 of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986. Economic Planning Advisory Council-Annual Report 1987-88-section 27 of the Economic Planning Advisory Council Act 1983. National Debt Commission-Annual Report 1987-88-section 18 of the National Debt Sinking Fund Act 1966. Mr PEACOCK(Kooyong) —Madam Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation. Madam SPEAKER —Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? Mr PEACOCK —Yes, I do. Madam SPEAKER —Please proceed. Mr PEACOCK —There is an article in the Age newspaper of today that I find somewhat inexplicable. I sought to ascertain the basis of this from the journalist but nothing much was forthcoming there. It claims that I am responsible for closing down the aerobics classes. As one of the few in the place who attend aerobics classes, I would be the last to be seeking to close them down. As you would confirm, Madam Speaker, I have not raised this matter with you; I have not raised it with the President; I have not raised it with any member of the Joint House Committee; I have not raised it with your staff or the President's staff or the staff of the Joint House Committee. Two members complained to me and I mentioned that to the manager. I took the matter no further. I did not; I would not; I have not; and I will not do anything about this sort of thing. I find that snide little personal attack mystifying. I do not know this journalist. She might have been here for a considerable time but such is her work that she is not known to me and as far as I could ascertain she is not known to any of my colleagues. I make that remark because honourable members would think that the journalist would telephone me. But no, there was not a telephone call to me; there was not a telephone call to my press secretary. After a conversation with a hardworking young female member of my staff, who is a researcher, she clearly said that she did not know anything about it and how could she. I was going to say a great deal more about this journalist but I will simply say that it reveals, at root, a lack of professionalism not even to seek to contact me or my press secretary. I understand that the journalist made a call and was advised that my press secretary was in Melbourne. The journalist works for a Melbourne paper so I suppose that she could have dialed the number, and probably is used to doing it, but she did not. I think that grubby little piece of journalism ought to be seen for what it is. It lacks professionalism. No element of truth or facts was allowed to get in the way of a bit of a beat-up. It is quite clear that a few people are whipping themselves into a lather. I would rather that they whipped themselves into a lather by physical exertion than by the emotional or political deals that they seem to be peddling. Madam SPEAKER —Order! I think the honourable member had explained to the House where he has been misrepresented. I apologise to the House as I think the honourable member for Murray wanted to ask me a question. It is a bit out of order, but the honourable member can ask his question now. Mr LLOYD —Madam Speaker, my question, which is addressed to you, concerns plans by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) to change the frequency and band of parliamentary broadcasts and so deprive much of rural and regional Australia of the right to listen to Parliament. In light of the obligations imposed by the Parliamentary Proceedings Broadcasting Act 1946 on the ABC, what steps will you take to ensure that Australians, wherever they live, are equally able to listen to Parliament if they so wish? Madam SPEAKER —At the moment, a trial period is going on, on the new bands, which was agreed to by the Joint Statutory Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings. That trial period will now go on for another fortnight. The Joint Committee gave no undertaking that it would approve the final changeover. It wants to see the result of the trial period before any further decisions are made. So I will most certainly refer the honourable member's question to the Joint Committee and make sure that his thoughts are taken into account when the final decision is made. Mr GOODLUCK —Madam Speaker, I do not wish to complain, but I found it very hot and oppressive in the chamber during Question Time. Could I ask whether anybody else-- Mr Peacock-Because we have been putting the heat on the Government. Mr GOODLUCK —I realise that. I just found it hot and I was wondering whether anybody else did. Madam SPEAKER —I certainly did not. I do not think the heat is any greater in here today than it has been on any other day. Madam SPEAKER —I have received a letter from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Peacock) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The threat that the Keating-Hawke Government's confusion over economic policy poses for living standards in Australia. I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of members required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Mr PEACOCK(Kooyong)(3.24) —This matter of public importance is brought forward by the Opposition because of the very evident confusion in the ranks of the Keating-Hawke Government in terms of economic management. It was very evident from the question that the honourable member for Flinders (Mr Reith) asked today when he referred to what has been transpiring both last week and this week on the wage-tax front. Of course, last week, prior to the Oxley by-election, the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) said that Australians will have tax cuts and a wage increase. The Treasurer (Mr Keating) then weighed in and said, `Yes, they will have a tax cut but no wage increase'. Then on Sunday Senator Walsh seemed to threaten that neither would be forthcoming. Quite frankly, we can check the direction of the wind today and have a punt on what might be the policy tomorrow because it is changing so frequently. In the midst of the campaign in which average Australians were being told by the Australian Labor Party that their living standards would rise, they then rose up on Saturday and told this Government what they thought of both its economic management and the impact of living standards on them today. They told the Government, by their vote, what we have said for months; that this is an arrogant Government, out of touch with the needs of average Australians. It is not just us who have said this. Mr Hogg, the National Secretary of the Labor Party, getting in for his piece on the Face to Face program on Sunday, cited as one of the reasons for Labor's dismal performance on Saturday: So I think, bluntly, people appearing to be putting their snout in the public trough gets a bit wearying, and I think we deserved an element of the response we got this weekend. Mr Hogg, who knows about these things, gives us the picture, or the caricature, of the Labor politician today: the snout in the trough, the left hand in the till, and the right hand in the cookie jar. That is the impression that is being created. Meanwhile, while the Labor Party seeks to redefine the whole concept of living standards, the average Australian suffers. Look at what Senator Walsh did last week, when to try to paint a picture showing that living standards are good, and to calculate what the average wage earner's living standards would be he took into calculation the income of Labor's rich mates. Some sort of facade is that! Meanwhile, the average Australian suffers. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) and I, over many months now, have accurately pointed out that if the Government wants at the beginning of the next financial year to restore the living standards of an average weekly earner with a dependent spouse and two children, to get him to the position of having the same disposable income that he had in March 1983 when we went out of government, it would have to cut taxes by $56. Fifty-six dollars is the measure of the task if the Government wants to return him to where he was in March 1983. Now this, from the biggest spending, highest taxing government: The week before last the Acting Treasurer (Mr Dawkins) told this House that he foresaw a downward trend in interest rates, when the trend in fact, both then and since, has been upwards. That is why, in the midst of the suffering that he does not care about, there is also this cloud of confusion over the Government's economic policy. We should bear in mind that it is just seven short weeks since the Budget was brought down in this House. Already the underlying strategy contained within that Budget is unravelling. The Treasurer-where is the Treasurer? Mr Peter Fisher —The Treasurer is overseas. Mr PEACOCK —That is a reasonable interjection. We heard that the Governor-General designate's grand tour is going on, but where is the Treasurer? We knew that he had to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting and the World Bank and that he paid off a little bit of debt somewhere en route. We know that he then went to an economic seminar-which my friend the Leader of the Opposition not only went to but returned from; he has been back for five days. But whilst the nation is racking up more debt, the Treasurer may well be journeying to another spot allegedly to pay off a little more debt. Mr McGauran —Where is he? Mr PEACOCK —I do not know where he is, but he is taking a long and tortuous journey simply to attend the IMF. This man, who is meandering around the world, is doing so within weeks of bringing down a Budget which had as its base the aim of a current account deficit of $9.5 billion. The $1.4 billion current account deficit recorded in August brings the current account deficit for only the first two months of 1988-89 to almost $3 billion. That is, we were to have this financial year a current account deficit of $9.5 billion. One-third of that has already been chalked up in one-sixth of the time-in only two months. The current account deficit will have to average less than $660m per month for the remaining 10 months of this financial year if the Budget forecast of a current account deficit of $9.5 billion is to be met. How many believe that as the figures roll out month by month, we will be sitting on $660m? It is just not on. It is an indictment of the riskiness of the Treasurer's Budget strategy, a riskiness that is further highlighted by the recent decline in commodity prices. Indeed, the State Bank of Victoria's commodity price index has fallen by 18 per cent since 10 June. Such a decline hardly augurs well for the continued strength of commodity prices, upon which the Government's economic strategy is so precariously based. There can be no doubt that Labor's economic management has, as we have said time and again, increased the vulnerability of the Australian economy to international economic circumstances. We have described the Australian economy as one of the most vulnerable in the world. We chose this word deliberately for it accurately mirrors the state of the underlying economic situation in this country today. `Vulnerable' is an interesting word, one which we would not anticipate the Government suddenly using. What did the ever-reliable Senator Walsh say in his annual post-Budget commentaries on the Face to Face program on Sunday? He said: Any country which has a foreign debt the size that Australia has and a continuing current account deficit, is very vulnerable to international pressure. He is realistic because the fragility of our balance of payments position certainly has implications for next year's tax cuts. `The biggest tax cuts in the history of this country' was the description given to them by Labor's de facto Cabinet member, Mr William Kelty of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The Treasurer was at that time saying, we will recall, `Taxpayers don't want a tax cut; there is no need for it'. However, the Treasurer, as reported only two weeks ago in Berlin, is saying that next year's tax cut would nevertheless go ahead even if Australia's trade performance suffers as a result of slower world growth. This meandering of economic policy is occurring while Australians continue to suffer. The Leader of the Opposition, the week before last, said in this House that Labor has not been able to jettison the figure that the Opposition has produced about the extent of suffering by Australians today. They need $56 a week to return to the living standards of five years ago. That is the reality. Are Australians getting any clear prescription for a lift in their living standards from this Government? No. Confusion abounds within the ranks of both the Government and its supporters. I was asked when I arrived at the House this morning whether the confusing and conflicting stances by the Government on income tax would jeopardise negotiations with the trade union movement. Under the methods used by this Government I hope they do not, in one sense, but as I said the system yet again is wrong. Wages in this nation ought not to be set as a consequence of a deal between the Government and a trade union movement. Wage increases must be related to increases in productivity. Yet again on Sunday the ever-reliable Senator Walsh, in one of his yet again post-Budget annual exercises, warned Australians of the concerns regarding productivity. What have we been highlighting in this Parliament from time to time in regard to productivity? It is abysmal. The former Minister for Industrial Relations, who has now moved on, confidently predicted throughout last year that the second tier wage negotiations would bring about the most significant increases in productivity. When I pointed out to him that they had not occurred yet and asked when we would receive the benefit, he said, `In 1988-89; it is all coming'. The 1988-89 Budget has forecast an increase in productivity for this nation of less than one per cent. It is not a question of determining whether this will jeopardise the deals to be done between the trade union movement and the Government but how this economy is being jeopardised by concentrating on increasing unit labour costs at the expense of real drives on productivity. If there are two things we can claim without making any political points out of Senator Walsh's comments-the only ones that have any coherence about them-they are that he highlighted the need to address productivity in this country and the need to look at cuts in Government expenditure. Is that not what this side has been pleading with the Government to address for so long? But, oh no! The Government is enjoying, allegedly, the big picture. Its big picture does not have within it the millions of little people. Those people brought out their wrath on the Government last Saturday. They will continue to do so, as they have done in every electoral contest this year, and in increasing numbers. What pride Liberals have in looking at the figures. There was Adelaide, Port Adelaide-I will not mention Groom-and Oxley on Saturday. We know that the philosophy we espouse and the policies we propagate are appealing. We are not crass enough not to recognise that there is an element of protest within it as well. That protest is being brought about because the Government now epitomises all that we have described. It is an arrogant Government. It looks after its mates and the party operators and, at the expense of the taxpayers-their money, not the Government's money-it allows the former Foreign Minister to make the grand tour. The Government comes into this place not knowing whether it is promising a wage increase, a tax cut, or both, or what is transpiring on the interest rate front. These sorts of things might be mere political games to the Government, but at root there are people who have to cope with daily living. At the end of each day and at the end of each week, for the majority of average Australians it is a real struggle. If the Government does not understand that, it is not even starting to fulfil its role. As I said, it is a real struggle. The Government can come in here and arrogantly say that it is the best government in the nation's history. Look at what the people think of that! It can come in here and try to dump it on the Opposition and deride us. It should have a look at the election results and see what the people think of us. Then it can start talking in its jargon that does not relate to the average person. I am telling the Government now that, if it continues with these policies, which impact on Australians in the way they have done, with the incoherence in its programs and with the hurt in their impact, then the people will do to the Government at the next election what they did to it on Saturday. Mr DAWKINS(Fremantle-Minister for Employment, Education and Training and Acting Treasurer)(3.37) —The astonishing thing about the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock), is that he never mucks up a speech by putting any facts in it. There is a content-free quality to all the speeches that are made by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Today we have just heard another in a long line of those content-free speeches. `Shallow' and `vacuous' are the adjectives that most readily come to mind when one is thinking about conjuring up some qualities of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Again we have had an abysmal expression of concern, a concern which the Deputy Leader quite clearly does not genuinely feel. How on earth would he understand the circumstances or ordinary Australians? Indeed, how would anyone on the other side of the House understand the circumstances of ordinary Australians? What are they doing? What are they saying? What are their policies that are addressed to the concerns of ordinary Australians? Let me, firstly, ask the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, for instance, what he thinks about the improved circumstances of the one million people who are now in work as a result of the policies of this Government. What does he have to say about those hundreds of thousands of people whom the previous Government tipped out of employment as a result of its policies? I do not want to dwell for too long on the record of the Fraser-Howard Administration, but one is entitled to look to some extent at its record in the absence of any policies now being proposed by this current shambles of a coalition. We are entitled to look at what the previous Government did about the living standards of ordinary Australians, particularly those whom it tipped out of work. Can the Deputy Leader for a moment imagine the devastating circumstances confronted by someone who loses his or her job? How would he understand what that meant? And how dare he come in here saying that we do not understand these matters when we have set about, quite deliberately and very zealously, creating the circumstances where there are now one million more Australians in work, that is, one million more families which otherwise would have been relying entirely on social security. What a massive improvement there has been in the living standards of those people. Again, looking at what happened during the period of our opponents, hundreds of thousands of jobs were eliminated during its tenure of office. The other question that needs to be asked, I think, is: what is the Opposition really proposing to do about the circumstances of these people of whom it complains? I have said that it has no policy. The burden of the matter of public importance is the allegation that there is some policy confusion on this side of the House, some policy confusion in the Government. That is not an allegation that one could lightly make about the Liberal Party or the coalition because when one has not got a policy one has nothing to be confused about. Underlying the absence of a policy is absolute turmoil within the ranks of the coalition as torturously it tries to work its way through to some promised policies, which of course were proposed to be announced in August, then in September, and now perhaps later this year. As of this moment there is no evidence of any policy for tackling the very serious problems that confront our economy, the very serious processes of adjustment this country has to go through if we are going to sustain a national income capable of supporting rising living standards, which is the objective of this Government. Not only does it not have a tax policy, not only does it not have a view about fiscal policy, but it certainly does not have a wages policy. Mr Reith —What about our industrial relations policy? Haven't you read it? Mr DAWKINS —Maybe the new shadow Minister for employment and training, the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey), who emerged from the recent shadow shuffle, might at some stage enlighten us on this question. I can tell the honourable member for Flinders that his Party, the Liberal Party of Australia, on every occasion that there has been a wage case before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission has actually opposed every wage increase that has been awarded by the Commission. What basis is that for it then to launch an attack on us in terms of allegations of falling living standards? What is the most important determinant of the living standards of families-the household income? It is, of course, what it receives in its pay packet. What the Opposition wants and has argued for constantly is bigger cuts to real incomes of ordinary Australian families. There is a total inconsistency, a total confusion, as far as it is concerned in these matters. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition repeated again today that the way to fix up living standards is to give the average weekly earner a $56 tax cut. That is what he is saying. He said it today and he was simply referring to something the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) said on 29 September 1988 in this place: All families in Australia, wherever they may live, ought to understand that, unless they get a tax cut of $56 a week, their living standards will still be well below... He referred to some earlier figure. The Opposition wants a tax cut of $56 a week. I notice that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was keen to quote on many occasions today my colleague Senator Walsh. Senator Walsh decided to make a calculation of what that kind of tax cut would cost in forgone revenue for the Commonwealth. He was able to calculate that it represented a 52 per cent tax cut for the person on average weekly earnings. He asked what, if one were to extend a 52 per cent cut for all taxpayers, that would cost in terms of forgone revenue? It would cost something in excess of $23 billion. Is the Opposition really urging us to provide tax cuts of that magnitude? That is what it is trying to say and that is what it is saying is essentially its policy. When one asks members of the Opposition, `How would you fund tax cuts of that magnitude or of any magnitude?', they are totally silent. Indeed, the person who now has the job of trying to identify where the savings should be made in order to fund those tax cuts says that he should not be put under any pressure to identify where savings in expenditure should be made. He said, `I am new in the job. Don't ask me where we are going to find $23 billion worth of expenditure savings in order to fund a $56 a week tax cut'. So when one really puts members of the Opposition to the test on any of these matters they fail on every occasion. Let me refer a little more to the consequences of a tax cut of that order. That $56 a week cut, as described by the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, represents a reduction in total Commonwealth revenue of about 26 to 27 per cent. If members of the Opposition say that they will fund tax cuts as a result of savings in expenditure, they have to identify those savings, and identify them on the basis of the restrictions that they have already imposed upon themselves. They have said that they will not touch pensions and that they will not touch defence expenditure. Indeed, most of them say that they want to increase defence expenditure. Of course, they cannot do anything about public debt interest because that is a fixed expenditure which cannot be reduced, unless they pursue our policy of repaying the debt which, of course, they seem to oppose. What they have done is to quarantine about half of the Commonwealth Budget. They then say, `We will fund the savings by a massive 60 per cent reduction in what remains of the Federal Budget which is open to our scrutiny for the purposes of providing expenditure cuts'. Everybody knows that that is absolute rubbish and absolute nonsense, and it defies any stretch of the imagination. I have indicated that the Opposition does not have any policies, so I think we are entitled to look at what happened when it was in office. It is also worth looking at what has happened in some other countries, particularly one whose Government-that is, the Government of Mrs Thatcher-the Opposition likes to gloat about and with which it compares itself. If one looks at the comparison between Australia and Britain on the employment front, one finds that the employment record of this Government, frankly, is spectacular. The important point in making that comparison is that Britain has gone through a process of adjustment which is not unlike the process of adjustment that Australia is going through. But the havoc that has been wreaked in terms of unemployment and dispossession of individuals in Britain is enormous, whereas in Australia we have been able to ensure that the restraint which has had to be exercised has been done in a way which has protected the least well-off in the community. I refer to another of Senator Walsh's figures-a figure which the Opposition would not like to refer to. He returned to the fact that in two out of the last three years there has been an increase in net household disposable incomes. Of course, the reason that that has occurred is that we have put more people into the work force. There are now more people actually earning decent incomes. Also, we have been able to increase support for those people who are totally reliant on welfare payments. It is very important, in considering this question of adjustment, to consider how it is being managed in Australia and how the Opposition proposes to manage it. What the Opposition says-the Leader of the Opposition said this in his reply to the Budget Speech-is that there is a narrowing of the policy approaches of the Opposition and the Government. In other words, it has essentially embraced the processes and the policies that we have been pursuing, except in one area to which it constantly refers-that is, the pace of adjustment issue. It says that the pace of adjustment should be more rapid. It is one of the favourite themes of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Of course, what does quickening the pace of adjustment really mean when you do not have a wages policy, when you do not have a tax policy and when you do not have a fiscal policy? What it means is a massive increase in unemployment, and that is really what the Opposition stands for when this little glib expression rolls off its tongue about quickening the pace of adjustment. It is really saying that, just as in Britain, the burden of adjustment should be taken on by the unemployed. What the Opposition wants is massive increases in unemployment in order to encourage the pace of adjustment. Just imagine for a moment what kind of impact that would have on the living standards of people so affected by the quickening of the pace of adjustment-in other words, the throwing out of employment of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Australians. This whole approach of the Opposition simply rings very hollow indeed. It has no policies. It has nothing to suggest to the Australian people about how we ought to manage this adjustment process, an adjustment process which was essentially forced upon us by the fact that the world decided to reduce our national income as a result of reducing the prices it pays for our commodities. Whilst things have improved, it is nevertheless the case that for a couple of years there was a very dramatic reduction in commodity prices and, as a result, in our national income. The real point that the Opposition has never come to grips with is how we can ensure that a reduction in the national income can, first of all, be overcome-one restores the circumstances in which one can secure a future for this country; the Opposition has nothing to say on that-and secondly, how we can ensure that that reduction in national income can be spread in a fair and equitable way? Again, the Opposition has nothing to say about that, and yet this Government has been able to ensure that not only does the process of adjustment occur but it occurs in a way that avoids the devastating circumstances of the kind which the Opposition would bring to this country. Mr HICKS(Riverina-Darling)(3.52) —I rise to support the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock) on this matter of public importance because I believe that over the past several years this Government has brought the Australian economy to the razor's edge. This is a fact, despite what some of the Government-supporting media would have us believe. Of course, daily in the newspapers we read about how the Government is doing a magnificent job, but I find in my electorate that there must be something terribly wrong or some difference between what is happening in the electorate and what I am reading in the press. The present Government, in the space of a few short years, has quadrupled our overseas debt. Everyone has to agree with that because that is fact. The Government has always brought down a Budget that depends very much on the maintenance of Australia's export commodity prices. All Australians-and I am one of those-would hope that those commodity prices would be maintained; but if they are not, we as a nation are in serious trouble. It already appears that there are troubles in that area. May I say, and certainly on behalf of the National Party of Australia, thank heavens for the primary industry sector, which once again has come to Australia's aid. Having said that, we find here an article by Julian Cribb which says that 90 per cent of the poorest electorates in Australia are rural. This is despite the fact that it is rural electorates that are keeping Australia on the tracks at the moment. Their family incomes average barely one half of those in the more affluent metropolitan areas. I believe that Riverina-Darling, my electorate, is about thirteenth on the list so far as poverty goes. Let us look at the recent Budget and see some of the kicks which people in rural electorates have received. Apart from the cuts which the Government has imposed on the States, which have affected the health sector, the school sector, et cetera, assistance for isolated children is now means-tested. This means that the number of children being assisted is reduced from 19,000 to 14,500. This will make it very, very difficult for a number of children in rural electorates-I am talking particularly about my electorate-to obtain the kind of education they deserve and which, of course, in this Australia they should have. Let us look at roads. Road funding has been reduced by $50m. I heard a Minister at the table in Question Time saying that most road accidents are caused by people not driving according to the state of the roads. I agree with the Minister to a certain extent, but people must go somewhere sometimes. One cannot drive along only at 5 kilometres per hour. In some areas in my electorate, the road has been cut for up to 60 days. If people want some sort of social contact, if they want to get their children to school or to get their product to market, they have to be able to use the roads. Yet we find this Government cutting expenditure on roads by $50m. Not only does this cause social problems, but it also cuts back the number of jobs on which people in rural sectors depend. As I have mentioned before, the average earnings of a person in the Riverina-Darling area is about $19,000 to $20,000 a year-not much compared with average earnings in other areas. Local government has suffered cutbacks. There is a phenomenon evident at the moment in rural electorates. Because of this Government's policies, many people can no longer afford to maintain housing in city electorates so they are moving to country electorates. When they arrive in the country they are caught in a catch-22 situation because local government, as a result of cutbacks, cannot provide the services that these people expect. Therefore, people who move to the country have a real problem. They cannot live in the city and when they come to the country they find that things are not as they thought they would be. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation-a great organisation-has had its funding cut. That is a scandal because it does such great work and provides a wonderful means of income for this nation. The means testing of the family allowance supplement will do a tremendous amount of damage in rural electorates. All these problems have been created by this Hawke-Keating Government, and the Australian population is now aware that this Government has been living beyond its means for far too long and now needs and will continue to require all Australians to make sacrifices. I am sure that Australians are prepared to make sacrifices, but only if the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) are prepared to get their act together and tell the Australian public what the real situation is instead of making promises before elections that they cannot realistically meet. Thank heavens there are some honest men in the Ministry. I do not know whether they are honest for altruistic motives or because they know that they are the ones who will be expected to deliver the goods next year and so keep the Prime Minister's rash promises in case he wishes to be re-elected. It is a little like the sign in the Ettamogah pub, just outside Albury, which says `Free beer tomorrow'. It is only by listening to what the honest Ministers say that the Australian public will get the true picture. During the recent Oxley by-election campaign we heard the Prime Minister say that next year we can look forward to long overdue tax cuts as well as wage increases. Both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have said that the big cuts in government expenditure are over. On the other hand Senator Walsh has said that further cuts will be needed in Federal Government spending to finance next year's tax cuts if the recent poor trend in the current account deficit continues. Other Government members have made different statements, and this adds to the confusion. Who can the Australian public believe? One thing they can believe-as the honourable member for Kooyong reminds us-is that the average family will have suffered a decline of $56 a week in real household disposable income since March 1983 when the Hawke-Keating Government came to office. A while ago the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) chided the Opposition for saying that the Government should give back the $56. The Government ripped that money out of the Australian people and I think it is up to the Government to replace it. This is particularly so in the case of those families which are struggling at the moment. Senator Walsh has indicated that the average person on $24,000 would need a reduction in tax liability of 52 per cent to restore this cut in his or her standard of living. Despite this, Mr Kelty of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, who is supposed to be the champion of the workers, has said that workers in Australia are living in an economic paradise. This may be so for some in Canberra where the average household income is about $40,000, but to most working Australians the present situation is far from paradise. I wonder whether some of us politicians-particularly those in government-are out of touch with the real world. Take for example a simple matter like boarding an aircraft to come to Canberra to attend the Parliament. How many of us pause to wonder how many Australians can afford to get into an aircraft? Yet we have the Governor-General designate, Mr Hayden, on a 39-day junket around the world at taxpayers' expense. This is despite the fact that he was Foreign Minister for a number of years and surely must have seen most countries in that time. I remember that sometimes when he returned to the Parliament some people wondered who he was. I wonder what pensioners think about this. Pensioners sometimes get the consumer price index increase 11 months after it is granted. I wonder what they think about the tax on beer being reduced in order to lower the consumer price index. I wonder how many pensioners now can have their good fill of beer. I am sure they cannot afford it. All of these things add up. Mr Citizen is really feeling the pinch. How do Mr and Mrs Citizen and their children feel about this loss of real income of $56 per week from the Hawke Government when they go to fill the aged family car with fuel or when the family goes to the supermarket for groceries or, more importantly, when they go to pay the rent? What do young newlyweds do when they find the great Australian dream of owning their own home is beyond their financial means? I read recently where the price of housing in Melbourne is up 20 per cent. That would be a minimum, I would say. Imagine what it is like in Sydney. Who can afford to buy their own home at the moment? While recognising the recent Budget's attempt to provide some relief for families through increasing the family assistance supplement, many people including me, believe that relief should be given to all families. In fact, the family allowance supplements go to fewer than 10 per cent of families, that is, only 140,000 out of two million. This tends to discourage self-sufficiency by those families because the supplement is income tested. Why should a person work to earn more money when by earning more money he will be income tested and he will lose some of these benefits? The whole situation is ridiculous. The Budget does not return to most families what the Government has taken from them since 1983. A wage rise would have to be very substantial for any worker with dependants. Of course, when one gets a wage rise most of it goes in taxation anyway. The lack of concern for the family unit is putting a great pressure on our society with the subsequent social problems which in the short and long term will cost our nation greatly, not only in social terms but also in economic ones. Recently, there has been an ongoing debate on migration. While I believe migration is essential, I also believe that if Australian families were given some incentive to have children of their own the immigration debate would be lessened as people already in this country produce their own population increase. I am one who believes that there should not be one piece of legislation, of a budgetary nature or otherwise, that passes through this Parliament that is not carefully scrutinised to see what effect it will have on Australian families. We can no longer afford for the future of this country to have the spouse rebate declining by 50 per cent in real terms or the abolition of assistance such as the concessional tax rebate for education and medical expenses. My request is that the Government's real plans for the future be made clear and that those plans do not further impoverish Australian families. Mr LAMB(Streeton)(4.04) —The catchcry opposite seems to be that somehow this Government is out of touch. When I heard the words of the honourable member for Riverina-Darling (Mr Hicks) I could not help but think how out of touch he was. He talked about a $50m drop in road funding and yet when one looks at the amount of funding going to roads one finds that it is still higher in real terms than the amount the Fraser Government contributed to roads in 1982-83. More importantly, if the honourable member for Riverina-Darling had cut out his rhetoric and looked at the facts he would have seen that it was part of a deliberate policy. Mr Nehl —It was not rhetoric. Mr LAMB —If the honourable member for Cowper kept quiet for a moment he would learn too that there has been a shift in the allocation of road funding into local roads. If honourable members had looked they would have seen that there has been a 17 per cent increase in the amount going to local roads. If those opposite are not happy with that increase they should go to their mates who make up the Government in New South Wales, who make up the Government in Queensland, and ask those State governments to give their proper contribution to road construction because it is a join Federal-State approach to road funding that is necessary. As the Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support (Mr Robert Brown) has pointed out, if we are to have an economic revival in this country we need to redirect our road funding to make sure that we have an economic arterial road system that is properly funded. When we are talking about being out of touch we do not have to go any further than to look at the so-called economic spokespeople opposite. The silvertail from Kooyong is hardly someone that working class people could identify with. After hearing him speak today I can only say that in the 22 years he has spent in this Parliament and the 32 years since he left the school that he and I attended, he has learnt nothing of substance to put in his speeches; it is still the empty rhetoric, the schoolboy badinage that we had to put up with in those days. But in the rotisserie exercise that takes place for the shuffling of the Opposition front bench, we have another silvertail come on to give a gee-up to the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock). I hardly think that the honourable member for Wentworth (Dr Hewson) could identify strongly with struggling families. He is someone of a not inconsiderable fortune. He is someone who drives a Dino Ferrari. I do not know how many working class families drive those. When interviewed about that he said, `Please do not tell the public'. He is on record as saying, `I do not want anyone to know that I drive a Dino Ferrari'. In other words, we have the sham opposite of people who pretend to be concerned about the living standards of ordinary families. Yet, they are so far out of touch, with their personal attitudes and living standards, that one is not surprised that the public does not accept or believe that they are good economic managers. Do not take my word alone for that. In a recent public opinion poll carried out in Victoria by Quantum Research, by a Mr Camakaris, we found that the general public cannot accept that the Opposition is superior in economic management. In fact, it competes for leadership daily. I do not know whether the latest competitor is the honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard), the honourable member for Kooyong, the honourable member for Wentworth, or the honourable member for Deakin (Mr Beale). They would all like to grace the Opposition leadership bench and may one of them stay there for a long time. They trotted out the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Chaney, to somehow defend the Opposition against the criticisms by the general public. The public does not have confidence in their leaders. The people do not have confidence in their economic management. They somehow tried to attack Mr Camakaris, the research and the methodology. But the facts still come true that the people out there, while they are finding it a matter of belt tightening because Australia's economic fortunes are not as good as we would like them to be due to external pressures, they reject entirely any pretence that the Opposition might be true, honest, fair dinkum or indeed have any policies about restoring our economic fortunes. In fact, the honourable member for Kooyong said nothing of substance. He said only one word about substance or figures. It is something that I will come back to in a moment-the figure of $56 a week. But, there was no policy, there was no explanation as to how that would be achieved responsibly. So, if we do not have any substance today, we have to go back to the economic record of the Opposition; and what a pitiful, sorrowful record it is indeed. There was a wages blow-out of some 16 or 20 per cent in its last year of office. Inflation edged up above 12 per cent, job losses blew out to more than 11 per cent and there was a Budget deficit which it still has never denied of $9 billion. There is no substance here today, but there is a substantive record that is sorrowful and dismal and would be repeated despite the academic record of the honourable member for Wentworth, who has been trotted out onto the front bench, but this is no substance for a policy. There is a government record of combining economic and fiscal responsibility with social justice which this Government, under the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), has brought about. We are talking about living standards not just for a small section of the community but for all Australians. There is no way under the economic constraints that we now have that one can lift economic standards for people who have been down on their uppers because of the Opposition when it was in government without asking working people, those who have a job, and those who have some standard of living worth talking about, to share it with others. That is what has happened. That is why the trade union movement, that is the labour movement of this country, recognises it and through the properly constructed, negotiated settlement called the accord we had agreement to hold down wage increases so that two things could happen. The first was an increase in living standards, an increase for those who suffered so badly under the Opposition such as the unemployed. We have created over one million jobs since we have been in office. For those on very low pensions we have increased pensions to the point where they are almost a quarter of average weekly earnings. We have topped up the income of low income families through the family assistance supplement. This is something for which the honourable member for Riverina-Darling gave due credit. Of course, the second thing is that we have been able to increase the social wage-that is, the government-provided services. We cannot determine standard of living purely by what we can purchase before or after tax; we can measure our standard of living only by what is provided through our own purchasing power and what is provided by the Government. Let me return to that $56 per week bribe-I use the word advisedly-that is being dangled like a carrot before the public as something that people would be given should the Opposition mistakenly be voted into office. What does the $56 a week mean? It means, as the Acting Treasurer and Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) said earlier, that if $56 a week were to be given to the average weekly earner, and to those on either side of average weekly earnings the same 52 per cent cut in tax, we would end up with a massive cut in government revenue and that would lead directly to a massive cut in government services. We cannot have both unless we have productivity increases, as have occurred under this Government-they are not as high as we would like, but they have occurred-and unless we have an external balance, which we are moving towards. We have our fluctuations up and down but we are moving towards a plateauing of imports. Fortunately they are mostly machinery and capital injections, which are necessary for building up our export value-added base. Our imports are stabilising but our exports are still heavily dependent upon primary production. If we have a 26 per cent cut in Budget outlays or if we accept-and I do not-that the Opposition would quarantine pensions and defence spending, only 60 per cent of the unquarantined part of the Budget would be left. Let members of the Opposition go out and talk to students and tell them what will happen to education. Let members of the Opposition go out and talk to families and tell them what will happen to health with the abolition of Medicare. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Leo McLeay) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. The debate is concluded. Consideration resumed from 29 September. Schedule 3. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Proposed expenditure, $86,006,000. Department of Finance Proposed expenditure, $128,071,000. Department of the Treasury Proposed expenditure, $855,913,000. Advance to the Minister for Finance Proposed expenditure, $170,000,000. Dr HEWSON(Wentworth)(4.14) —I would like to direct my comments to the estimates of the Department of Finance and the Department of the Treasury. In particular, I would like to focus briefly on the forecasts that underlie the whole of the Budget Estimates. They are the crucial part of this Budget and, as I have said a number of times in this House already, they are the most questionable part of the Budget. I would like to focus on the balance of payments forecast for this year which was for a current account deficit of $9.5 billion and, if I have time, I will say something about the inflation forecast-two crucial forecasts in the estimates that are before us today. As I said in my Budget assessment, my concern about the balance of payments forecast is that it is based on particularly optimistic assessments of the world economy. I have identified five heads under which I believe the statements of the Treasurer (Mr Keating) in his Budget Speech and in Budget Statement No. 2 are very optimistic. Firstly, there is the bullish assumption that recent world growth will be sustained; secondly, that commodity prices will stay near their current levels-certainly that there will not be a significant fall; thirdly, that there will not be a rekindling of global inflation; fourthly, that world interest rates will not rise, at least not in a way that will cause us any particular difficulty; and, finally, there is an implicit assumption about continued stability in financial markets. In that regard I wish to draw to the attention of the House the possibility of a secondary correction in the stock market. There has not been a major correction in the stock market since 1810 that has not been followed by a secondary correction. Maybe the Treasurer knows something more than the rest of us about the financial market situation at present, but I doubt it. There is an increasing risk of a correction with rising interest rates and flattening activity and as there is growing concern about the United States budget deficit and the United States balance of payments and the lack of structural adjustment in that regard there could indeed be a secondary correction in the stock market this year as well. So the forecasts for the balance of payments are based on very optimistic assessments of our likely trading performance, how much our export volumes will grow, the sort of export prices we will earn and an assumption that the recent acceleration in the growth of imports will not be sustained in a way that will cause us problems. Of course we know, and it was documented by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock), in the matter of public importance debate that has just been completed, that we already have two bad months balance of payments numbers for this year and we have already reached one-third of the balance of payments forecast in one-sixth of the time. In order to achieve the $9.5 billion outcome for this year we would need to see balance of payments deficit numbers averaging about $660m per month over the course of the next 10 months. In this regard I think it is important for the House to recognise that there have been only three monthly balance of payments figures since early 1985-we had our major balance of payments crisis through 1985 and into 1986-when the balance of payments deficit number was less than $660m. So I do not put a very high probability, on the basis of recent experience alone, on achieving anything like an average of $660m per month in the course of the next 10 months. To my mind, the balance of payments forecast is clearly unsustainable and as the whole economic and Budget strategy of the Government crucially hangs on that number the whole strategy is decidedly at risk. Of course, in the last few months, as the two balance of payments numbers for this year have been released, we have seen the usual classic Treasury process of rationalising these numbers. Treasury is saying, `They are not as bad as they look. They are not as bad as they might first appear'. The most popular explanation is that the whole thing is seasonal. Everybody knows that as recently as the other day Senator Walsh, in a television interview, was talking about the seasonal nature of our balance of payments numbers. I am not sure what he means. If we look back over this year we see that in only two out of the first eight months of this year have the balance of payments numbers been less than they were in the same month last year. So if there is a seasonal pattern there I do not have any idea what Senator Walsh is talking about and I do not personally think that he believes that when I look at the context of his remarks with some of the other statements he has made. He admitted quite frankly, in the interview on the Face to Face program last Sunday, for example, that the risks are very real. He said: We are vulnerable. Yes, that's true. Any country which has a foreign debt the size that Australia has and a continuing current account deficit, is very vulnerable to international pressure. Senator Walsh, one of the more honest members of the Government, has certainly left the rest of us in no doubt as to what he genuinely believes about those balance of payments numbers. We are particularly vulnerable. If we look at any of the five assumptions that I mentioned before there is evidence in almost every case already that they are moving against the Government. Of course, the most notable is the recent trend in commodity prices. We have seen, using the indexes of the State Bank of Victoria, a fall since around mid-June, in Australian dollar terms, of around 18 per cent. Commodity prices are on the way down; they are not sticking up where they were assumed to stick. That, apart from anything else, will invalidate the numbers in the course of the next 10 months, not to mention the fact that we have an overheated economy and sustained import demand pressure. The disturbing thing, though, about Senator Walsh is that while he admits that the economy is quite vulnerable he is not prepared to go to the next stage. He is not prepared to go actually to the stage of saying that we should act decisively to deal with the problem. I will quote from another statement Senator Walsh made on the Face to Face program. He said: It would be I think foolish to say that we should not be concerned about those first 2 months' figures. They are obviously very much larger than the monthly average forecast in the budget however there is a seasonal factor involved- ha, ha, that explanation- and before we make any hasty judgments I think we should wait for at least one other month's figures. In that case I pose the obvious question: How bad does that next figure have to be before the Government acts? Are we to assume that if it is above the $660m monthly average required for the rest of the year, that will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, or are we to hear again in one month's time that we need to wait for just one more month's figure before we know what is happening? It has been a characteristic feature of this Government's macroeconomic policy: too little too late; it waits to see the whites of the eyes of the financial markets and then before it can act those markets usually thump it. The interesting point in this regard is that Senator Walsh has gone further and specified in fairly glowing terms what he considers to be the `worst case scenario' in terms of our balance of payments and the sort of response that might be required in those circumstances. In the same Face to Face interview Senator Walsh said: But if, take the worst case scenario, and I'm certainly not suggesting this will happen, but if the current account deficit continued to run at much higher levels than had been anticipated, sooner or later one would expect that would have an effect on the price of the dollar. And if that happened, and depending on how severe it was, the government would respond to that as it has done in the past and that probably would entail doing something further on the outlay side of the Budget even though in my opinion that is no longer the problem. But the perceptions of the rest of the world I believe would be such that we might have to do something on the expenditure side. He has foreshadowed the situation very clearly, I think. Whilst Senator Walsh refers to it as the `worst case scenario', I put it to the House that it is the most likely case scenario for the rest of this financial year. The circumstances he described, with the current account deficit continuing to run at much higher levels than had been anticipated, is already happening and it is well on the way to happening yet again on a couple of occasions in the next few months. We can look for Senator Walsh's `worst case scenario' to be validated in the course of this year. We can look for the Government to review its expenditure, as indeed it must, and as Senator Walsh was honest enough to suggest. We can probably also look to the Government producing higher interest rates as it tightens monetary policy. The tax cuts could well be at risk. In those sorts of circumstances, a review of overall policy, of fiscal policy and expenditure policy, would probably include a review of tax policy, and of course, there could be a further adjustment possible on the wages front. So in all four areas of macroeconomic policy endeavour, I think we can look for further adjustment. In response to what Senator Walsh has described as the `worst case scenario', I put it to the House that it is a very realistic possibility under the trends that are at present evident in our balance of payments and financial markets. Mr RONALD EDWARDS(Stirling)(4.23) —This debate provides us with an opportunity to reflect upon the current economic circumstances and to pose a number of significant questions that relate to the performance of our economy and to the policies that might be necessary to manage that economy. It is important to get the broad picture clear at the outset. In the context of an economic debate of this kind, we need to say that the strategy entailed in this Budget-and the honourable member for Wentworth (Dr Hewson) has referred to matters entailed in this Budget-is to go for a $5.5 billion surplus. Clearly what is involved is, for the first time in many years, the Federal Government playing its part in reducing the burden on the private sector in terms of its ability to operate. To go further, it is also important to say that with the Government's borrowing reduced in the past five years from 7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to zero, we have an enormous reduction in the pressure of the government sector upon the community generally. I repeat: government borrowing is down, in the five years that we have been in government, from 7 per cent of GDP to zero. That is an extraordinary achievement. As an economic commentator, the Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support (Mr Robert Brown), who is at the table, would understand just what has been involved in that. When we reflect upon that in this place, we see that it is an important indicator of the level of achievement of this Government. We ought not get away from that. When we go back to the $9.6 billion deficit we inherited and compare it with the present $5.5 billion surplus, we can see that there has been an extraordinary achievement in terms of what has happened on the Treasury bench. Let us take another indicator. The Budget outlays represent 25 1/2 per cent of GDP. That is a very low figure and it is an extraordinary achievement. We can go through the Budget Papers. As the Minister at the table would understand, that requires a great degree of discipline in terms of government. It requires an ability of government departments and Ministers on the Expenditure Review Committee to come to grips with that. We have to juxtapose those sorts of achievements, the significant reductions in terms of government borrowing and government outlays, and that kind of fiscal discipline that has been necessary to produce economic stability in this country. It has been achieved-and achieved in the context of an effective wages policy. The result of that is to be seen as well in the reduction of industrial disputes. When we are talking about the broader economic picture-and I acknowledge that the honourable member for Wentworth was addressing the broader picture-we have to say, `Yes, and in that broader picture this Government has made some significant achievements'. I heard the honourable member for Went- worth refer to the external account. This Government has had to come to grips with a significant change in the external account. That comes about due to two or three things. It is very clear that we brought about a floating of the Australian dollar. I say to the Opposition that we cannot turn the clock back. We cannot go back to the old days when, in government, it used discretionary exchange rate policy, depending upon who was exerting pressure on it at the time. We cannot go back to the managed exchange rate when we have floated the dollar. We have taken the difficult decision. We floated the dollar. The consequences of that are that we then have to go for restructuring of the economy. The Opposition sat on its hands for many years in government and did not bring about that restructuring. It has not been able to come to grips with the fact that we no longer have that managed economy where specific interest groups were looked after. We have been prepared to restructure the economy and to bring about some significant change. The other issue that the Opposition has to address is a tax policy. We have waited for it in this place and I know Mr Elliott is out there waiting for it. Mr Elliott gave the Opposition until the end of August to produce a tax policy. We hear today that there is a further time slip in terms of the tax policy. We know what will happen. The Opposition will wait-and my colleague at the table will understand this-until three weeks before an election to announce its tax policy. That has been its practice in the past. Mr Robert Brown —Then they were $500m out, anyway. Mr RONALD EDWARDS —Yes, and they will get their numbers wrong. The honourable member is quite right. Our tax policy has been to reduce the burden of tax. The 60 per cent rate-- Mr Rocher —Come on, even you don't believe that. Mr Braithwaite —What tax policy did you have in 1983? The CHAIRMAN —Order! Mr RONALD EDWARDS —Mr Chairman, they are edgy today, and I think it is probably their leadership problem that is stirring them a little. They are very edgy in this post-Oxley euphoria. They are facing a leadership problem and the results of Quantum research. The 60c rate was in place and the Opposition left it in place when it was in government. We have reduced it. It is now down to 49c at the personal level and the corporate level is down to 39c. That has been accompanied by a restructuring of the tax law to close loopholes. The tax avoidance and evasion that was a characteristic of the period when the Opposition was in government has been overcome. We now have a fairer and more equitable tax system. We are on the record as saying that not only will we reduce the corporate rate but we will also reduce personal income tax. What is more important is that, unlike the grab bag of Opposition promises made before the last election, our tax cuts will be funded. There will be none of this out of the sky business; they will be funded tax cuts. We are very clear on that. The $5.5 billion surplus indicates that we are on the way. We will have funded tax cuts. It also has to be said that in terms of the significant policies, if we can produce a wage-tax trade-off-which is what we are about-we have to have a wages policy. And we have a wages policy. The wage policy is in place and that is because we recognise that trade unions and the trade union leadership play a part in this economy. We recognise union members as being responsible people and we recognise that we ought to come to terms with their needs and their demands, and because of that we have engaged in arriving at an effective wage policy. The difficulty for the Opposition is that they have not been able to produce a wage policy. We are still awaiting one. There is an opting out provision that they have but there is no clear arrangement for a proper centralised wage fixing system. Again since we are talking about the broader issue and about the management of the economy, we ought to juxtapose some of these matters. Let us not run away from that. We have not run away from the fact that it has been necessary in this place to produce a restructuring of the economy in the face of changed external circumstances. Some comment has been made about the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh). The Minister for Finance is simply recognising what this Government has recognised since it has been in office. It is a tough, competitive world out there. The external world owes us no favours. The only way we can get to compete is to become a leaner, more efficient economy, with a wage policy that works and a tax policy that works. All of those things are in place. Opposition spokesmen are talking about the tax take. One of the significant factors why the tax take has gone up is that there are more people in work. In the last year in office of the Liberal-National Party Government a quarter of a million people lost jobs. We have run in the other direction. We say it is important in terms of human dignity to give people jobs and to give them houses to live in. The net effect of that is that not only have we increased, thereby, the available base on which we can take tax because we have more people in the work force but also, because we have stimulated industries like housing, there is a bigger take in those areas. Let me say something else. All the areas that the coalition parties neglected when they were in government, all the special little tax arrangements, are now being taxed. We now have a tax system that not only collects in a fairer and more equitable way but it also has a broader base because we have succeeded in getting more people back to work and the areas which were tax shelters are now being dealt with. When we look at the broader record, and the Opposition wants to address the broader record-we are happy to accommodate it-the issue that must be addressed is this: we have policies that have worked, this Budget indicates where they are and the Budget numbers come out in a way that provides management of the economy and economic sense. Because we now have a surplus in the Budget we are in a position to accommodate changes in external economic conditions. That is the situation and that is the contrast we can draw in the debate today. I acknowledge that the honourable member for Lyne (Mr Cowan) has been helpful by occupying the chair to enable me to make this speech. I am happy to say that, in terms of addressing the wider economic issue, this Government has nothing to run away from. It has managed the economy very well. The record is there and the Australian voters know that. Mr WILSON(Sturt)(4.33) —I propose to use the opportunity of taking part in this Estimates debate to talk about a threat to the cohesion of the Australian community and our national sovereignty. Yes, I plan to talk about immigration. Not the immigration of people, but rather the increasingly unregulated immigration and emigration of capital in the form of foreign debt and direct foreign equity in Australia. It is the very essence of national sovereignty that only the democratically elected government has the right to determine both the overall and the specific composition of our intake of foreign investment. This Parliament should assert, without qualification, that it must be the role of the elected government, acting on behalf of and with the support of the whole community, to make the final and absolute decisions on what capital will or will not be granted entry to Australia on a temporary or permanent basis. This means that any government must reserve the right from time to time to vary and alter policy, including making adjustments to size and composition of the intake of foreign capital in response to changing requirements, be they social, economic, political or humanitarian. The established principles of our foreign investment policy should always be subject to this overriding right. We should insist that foreign investment is able to make a positive contribution to our national well-being and advancement. In doing so we will truly stand for one Australia. Our debt to gross domestic product ratio has been increasing over the past seven years; on the other hand the ratio of direct foreign investment to GDP has been fairly constant. As at 30 June 1980 our net debt was 5.63 per cent of GDP. This had increased to a staggering 31.52 per cent by 30 June 1987. Net direct investment by foreigners in Australia was 14.8 per cent of GDP as at 30 June 1980 and 13.1 per cent as at 30 June 1987. But this could change in the future. Furthermore the mix of countries who have been making this direct foreign investment has been changing. In the case of the migration of people, the Australian community is most aware of the last wave of migrants to settle in Australia. Similarly the Australian community is most aware of the last wave of foreign investment to flow to this country. In particular, if this last wave of investment differs from past experience it is subject to greater public scrutiny, and like the last wave of migrants it is often the butt of criticism because it is perceived by many as a threat by the host community. There is considerable public concern about the increase in the level of Australia's foreign debt. Since 30 June 1984 Australia's gross foreign debt has risen from $43 billion to $115 billion at 30 June 1988 whilst gross private sector debt has risen from $25.9 billion to $62 billion over the same period. Gross foreign debt as a percentage of GDP has risen from 22.9 per cent at 30 June 1984 to 39.4 per cent at 30 June 1988 whilst the annual interest bill on our gross foreign debt as at 30 June 1988 was 19.3 per cent of export income as compared with 13.5 per cent at 30 June 1984. These debt service ratios indicate the real growth in gross foreign debt. However, foreign debt is only one component of our foreign liabilities. Another component is foreign ownership of Australian enterprises and other assets. To obtain the full picture of the state of the Australian economy, we must consider both of these components. A country travels down the Argentinean road not only if its foreign debt rises to an unsustainable level but also if the extent of foreign investment combined with foreign indebtedness reaches this level. But our national sovereignty is identifiably eroded long before this level is reached. This is especially so if foreign investment is unduly high. Debt can be and must be repaid. Assets sold do not usually leave the vendor with a right of repurchase in the future. A major problem facing the Australian economy is the balance of payments deficits we are experiencing month after month. Whilst the Labor Government may claim the growth in the current account deficit is slowing, the statistics show we may still be headed down the Argentinean road-even if it is at a slower pace. It is essential that these deficits be converted into surpluses if Australia is to travel on a path to economic prosperity. I am concerned that if we continue to experience current account deficits in our balance of payments the Government will seek to fund them by urging those who would otherwise lend us the money to make direct equity investments in Australia. We had an illustration of that today when the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) welcomed the President of Italy. He was urging greater Italian investment in Australia. Such a course of action would result in a lower level of overseas indebtedness than would otherwise be the case. However it would not reduce our overall liability to foreigners. It would merely change the mix of foreign debt and foreign investment. In more recent times Japan, as a result of its success in the export of manufactured goods, has built up huge international currency reserves. This has enabled it to become a significant exporter of capital. It has exported some of this capital to Australia. Japan's share of the foreign investment flowing into Australia has been rising. This has been increasing its share of total foreign investment and foreign ownership in this country. There is a real fear in the minds of many Australians that the Japanese are taking over or at least reducing our sovereignty. People are worried by what they believe to be an undesirably high level of Japanese investment in Australia. There is no doubt that Japanese investment in Australia has been increasing and has reached a level where it is being headlined as `Japan's investment spree'. Australian statistics regrettably do not give a clear picture of where Japanese money is being invested, but Japanese statistics do. These reveal that in the year to March 1988 one-third of a total of $US1.2 billion went into real estate in Australia, and the total of direct Japanese investment for the year ended March 1988 was 40 per cent higher than for the previous year, and this despite the stock market crash which caused many foreign investors in Australia to disinvest. Because of the increase in Japanese investment activity, much of which has been in land, housing and the tourist industry, and because of the simultaneous spectacular growth in the number of Japanese tourist visits to Australia, the Japanese presence in Australia has been highly visible. Research carried out by the Spectrum organisation has revealed that Japanese investment spending has reached a level where it is testing community tolerance. We should all be seriously concerned that this is the case, as there is evidence available which indicates that an enormous wave of Japanese investment is approaching our shores. As Japanese companies make a success of their Australian investments, they increase the extent of their investments here. As other companies learn of their success, they too invest in Australia. What we have seen is the first wave of adventurous investors. The second wave of investors who wait for the success of others is about to flood in. The consequences of this echo effect will heighten public concern not only about Japanese investment but about all foreign investment. If there is a continuing need for overseas capital investment in Australia, it is imperative that the community be convinced that it is in its interest for this to occur. In view of the fact that the limit of tolerance has been or is about to be reached, action must be taken to reassure the community. This can be done only if we can satisfy Australians that overseas investment is being monitored and permitted not for its own sake but for the sake of Australians. To do this, it is essential that in a largely unregulated marketplace there are adequate border monitoring arrangements to enable accurate assessment of the extent and nature of overseas investment in Australia and Australian investment in overseas countries. There is a need in Australia for long term capital inflow provided the bulk of that flow is directed into long term productive investment, particularly if it creates export earnings or results in import substitution. The worry is that for some time a proportion of our capital inflow, whether in the form of foreign investment or foreign debt, has been used to support current consumption. We simply cannot afford to go on living beyond our means and spending overseas more than we earn ourselves. If we attempt to do so, we erode our national sovereignty. Australians expect their government to take action to preserve and maintain national sovereignty. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Ronald Edwards) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr ROCHER(Curtin)(4.43) —The Treasurer (Mr Keating), in his relentless pursuit of more and more taxes, has shown that he has forgotten or is prepared to overlook some of the traditional aspects of natural justice which are now being denied to many taxpayers. Not only is this indicative of his arrogance-for which he is well known and which, in turn, is common to the Government-but also it is illustrative of the fact that he is out of touch. As some of my colleagues have said, `When was the last time you saw the Treasurer in a supermarket or pounding the beat in an electorate, talking to those Australians whom we are sworn to represent and to whom we owe allegiance and our best endeavours?'. The same Treasurer, given his leadership aspirations-we all know that he aches to be Prime Minister-now avoids all sorts of issues in Caucus which have any smell of controversy about them. He avoids the controversial issues because he knows that he has to muster enough votes to fulfil his prime ministerial ambitions. So he wants to offend as few people as possible in his Caucus. The Treasurer is not concerned that taxation of all kinds, but particularly personal taxes, represents an enormous burden on Australians and their families and is probably the largest single item of expenditure in family budgets. The only item that would be greater for some families, although not for the majority, would be the cost of housing. That would be enough for most reasonable people to ensure that the actions of both the Government and its instrumentalities adopt the highest standards of frugality and integrity. Those same reasonable people would want to make sure that spending on the administration of the tax collection function, supervised by the Commissioner of Taxation, is directed towards ensuring that the cost of collecting taxes from those legally bound to pay is kept to an absolute minimum. This brings me to the point. The princely sum of $701m is being appropriated for expenditure in the total Treasury vote to finance the collection of taxes. Hidden away, but not stated, in that $701m is a considerable amount to be spent by the Commissioner of Taxation on what might loosely be termed public relations. Part of the product of that burgeoning backroom operation has launched the Commissioner into a program of spending apparently intended to convince Australian taxpayers that the burden of taxation does not really exist or at best, to the extent that it does exist, that the burden is not too great. If the Commissioner's public relations exercises were strictly limited to explaining all that was necessary to facilitate the fair and efficient collection of taxes, there might be something to be said for it, but even that is doubtful. The fact is that the Commissioner's public relations assault also includes promoting the argument that all taxes, even at their present record high levels, are actually a good thing. Never mind that that is, without question, a political argument not worthy of one holding his responsible office. It is not an argument that would have been pursued by any senior public servant prior to the present regime and the present Treasurer coming to office. The traditionally respected ethical standards of the Commonwealth Public Service which would have obliged previous Treasurers to come down like a ton of bricks on any departmental head or Commissioner of Taxation for advancing political arguments, or even arguments concerned with the alleged behaviour of certain groups or professions, has no place under this Administration. Management of its public servants is simply not one of the Government's strong points. There are one or two notorious instances of departmental heads swapping insults with individuals in public without the responsible Minister doing what he is paid to do and exercising control over or responsibility for the actions of those in departments for which the Minister is constitutionally and otherwise responsible. Is it any wonder that, finding themselves in the public arena and unchallenged by their Ministers, the next requirement must be for public relations minders to be employed within a department? That is what has happened in the case of the public relations section within the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The more the Commissioner ventured controversial or essentially political views, the greater the need for public relations back-up. Although not apparent from the Budget Papers, a figure has been suggested in the press for the cost of this public relations exercise within the ATO-about $8m. Any organisation spending that sort of money on public relations quickly finds, not a consumer-led demand, but more of an ego- tripping need for a publicity-led demand. Gone, it seems, are the days when the Commissioner of Taxation was solely engaged in the full time task of efficiently and fairly administering tax law. It is something of a sad commentary on the Government's priorities that in addition to its own Goebbels-like propaganda unit, located in the ministerial offices and charged with the task of feeding the chooks, it also needs a public relations section costing taxpayers something like $8m a year within, of all places, the Australian Taxation Office. It is a simple fact that public relations advisers are first and foremost just that-public relations people. They are not first and foremost tax officers. They are not likely to be concerned with fair and efficient administration of tax laws. They are not likely to be bothered about injustices done to individuals in the tax collection process but are more likely to direct their skills towards defending the actions of those responsible for injustices. The same public relations operatives are no doubt responsible for dreaming up the slogan which appears on letterheads used by Australian taxation offices throughout Australia. That slogan is: `Taxes-Building a Better Australia'. Amongst other things, the record high taxation inflicted by this Government cannot even begin to build a better Australia, not least because of a trebling of Commonwealth Government indebtedness over the past six years. It is very hard to build a better Australia when the Commonwealth interest bill alone confiscates more taxpayers' dollars than the Government is spending on education. None of that fazes the Commissioner of Taxation, of course. As far as he is concerned, his public relations boys are on the right track and the slogan they parade-`Taxes-Building a Better Australia'-is just the ticket. I wonder what ridiculous nonsense those same public relations experts will come up with next, apart from the little badge they have given all their staff to stick on their refrigerators-goodness gracious me!-telling them what a good job they are doing. The Commissioner and the senior officers are being laughed at by staff. The creation and expansion of a public relations section within the ATO is part of a vote of some $701m for the administration of tax law this year. That total vote represents a 17 per cent increase on appropriations for the same period last year. The Commissioner and the Australian Taxation Office have obviously been doing something right in the eyes of the Treasurer because their spending will increase by approximately four times his shonky projected rate of inflation over the same period. This is despite the promise that the introduction of new procedures like self-assessment for income tax are supposed to lead to greater efficiency and cost savings in the administration of income tax law. Furthermore, a series of amendments to sales tax legislation, to come before the House soon, are supposed to clear up anomalies and make the administration of tax law more efficient. This year the only major new tax is that on superannuation funds, while in past years we have had new taxes like capital gains tax and fringe benefits tax, which all cost a great deal of money to introduce and administer in those years. We are entitled, therefore, to ask: why the proposed blow-out of 17 per cent? Is it because the Commissioner is not intending to concentrate just on administering existing law fairly and efficiently? We must pose that question because, given-- The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Ronald Edwards) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Proposed expenditures agreed to. Attorney-General's Department Proposed expenditure, $441,469,000. Mr WEBSTER(Macquarie)(4.53) —This afternoon I wish to focus my comments on the programs under the general heading of family services. In particular, I want to discuss the funding and workings of the family counselling organisations, marriage education organisations, family conciliation centres, and the Institute of Family Studies, all of which are extremely important under the heading of family services. Each year about this time I try to ensure that the Committee focuses on these programs and organisations. I have over successive years sought a significant boost to funding in this area. I have argued that such funding would constitute a preventative approach to family break-ups and therefore produce significant welfare and law court savings in the long term. I have argued that such funding would make a start in preventing the heartbreak and disadvantage which every year befall tens of thousands of women and children who suffer marriage break-ups. This year I do not hesitate to commend the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen)-I am sorry he is not here this afternoon-for the funding increases for counselling and education work and for the Institute of Family Studies that he has been supporting. I appreciate very much his commitment to the family unit and his efforts within the Government during continuing periods of financial restraint to get the increases that I and others have called for. I would like to pass that on to him. Relative to the resources which are directed to cope with the after effects of divorce and family break-up, funding for preventative education and counselling work is still a drop in the ocean. Nevertheless, the increased funding is there in the appropriations, and I commend the Attorney-General for that. The Attorney-General will no doubt have seen the comments by Dr Don Edgar of the Institute of Family Studies reported recently in the Sydney newspaper the Daily Mirror. He was speaking on the problems arising for young couples because of inappropriate preparation and forethought for marriage. I do not agree with the implicit directions of Dr Edgar's comments, but his raising again of the lack of attitudinal foundations for marriage today is, I believe, very timely. The Attorney-General and other honourable members might also have read Dr Edgar's comments about family support policy in the Institute's August newsletter. The thrust of those comments related to the need for a broad supportive policy framework aimed at prevention of family breakdown. I refer to Dr Edgar's recent comments partly to draw attention to the work he and the Institute are doing to keep this policy area before the public and before policy makers. I refer to his comments also, however, to seek some discussion by the Attorney-General about the potential role the Institute and his Department could have in developing a family impact approach to the totality of government policy making. The Institute has shown its capabilities to analyse Government and Opposition proposals. From time to time it has done this in regard to its impact on the family. With appropriate resources, and so long as independence was retained, the Institute could take up the role of analysing all areas of policy and all legislative proposals with a view to preparing family impact statements for the Parliament. I ask the Attorney-General for his comments on this proposal. I refer also to a specific section of Dr Edgar's newsletter where he mentions innovative overseas programs in the area of family education. Apparently, for example, in Portugal cartoons and easily read stories are placed in television guides and popular magazines by the Director-General of Families. These are designed to reach young parents, who might otherwise not read the detailed child rearing manuals or seek professional help. Dr Harry Edwards —We need something like that here. Mr WEBSTER —We do indeed. The honourable member for Berowra is very keen on the strengthening of our families. We certainly do need these things here, and I will say a little more about that as I go on. In Japan for a period of five years after the birth of a child butterfly birthday cards, as they are called, are sent to parents from the hospitals where their child was born. These describe typical development patterns, likely illnesses and problems that the parents might experience during that five-year period. They also suggest sources of assistance. These are all very simple things and I think they are worthwhile taking notice of, particularly as we are talking about these very important appropriations. Dr Edgar also refers to United States programs where disadvantaged parents are shown how to cope, how to be competent parents and how to help their children flourish. Sadly, in this country there is a great lack of this kind of readily available and attractive information for parents. The Attorney-General's Department funds a number of organisations involved in marriage and family education and counselling. Perhaps it is time for it to consider some direct role in family education-perhaps in programs such as those that I have mentioned which have been drawn to our attention by Dr Edgar. I note that the Government spends $35m each year on advertising, of which a large proportion is of a political nature. I note that over a million dollars of taxpayers' money is allocated to the National Media Liaison Service which acts as a media tool for the Government in monitoring and manipulating public opinion as expressed in the media. I believe that that money could be more wisely spent in other areas-for example, in advertising to help families as I have suggested. I raise another matter concerning family conciliation centres. I ask the Attorney- General to explain the Budget cuts in more than passing detail and to outline future Government policy and funding for such centres. Recently I called for taxation deductions for couples who spend money seeking professional help to save their marriages. This was dismissed by the Attorney-General's Department as being too simplistic. The suggestion was not meant as a solution but as an additional non-cash way in which the Government could help to solve this very serious social problem. It is still costing every one of Australia's four million families about $500 each just to support the families affected by marriage breakdown. That amounts, as I have said before, to nearly two new Parliament Houses every year, if we want to put it in present day terms. Even taking into account the increases about which we have been told, the amount allocated nationally to marriage education is only 50c per family, and not much more has been allocated to marriage counselling. These allocations, as I am sure many honourable members will agree, are quite ludicrous. The inadequacy is potentially more dangerous for our future well-being than virtually any other factor. We need to think about that. Every government, I believe, ought to have a very strong, obvious and clear-cut commitment towards preserving marriages and families. I am pleased to say that the Opposition has a clear-cut commitment to do so. The Government must act now. We should see a lot more action in terms of the finance that it provides for these worthy organisations. I say in conclusion that I believe that it is common sense to do so. It is not an option; it is absolutely imperative. Mr N.A. Brown(Menzies)(5.03) —A few weeks ago, when I again became the shadow Attorney-General, I asked the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) whether I could have a briefing in his Department. He readily agreed to that request and arranged for a series of briefings for me, extending over a whole day. I take this opportunity to thank him for that because he made a substantial contribution to my bringing myself up to date in areas of interest in this portfolio. I also take the opportunity to thank the officers in the Department of the Attorney-General for the briefings that they gave me, which extended in detail over a very long and interesting day. I believe that the Government should be given credit on the rare occasions when it is due to it, and this is one such occasion. I think that should be placed on the record. Without prejudice to anything that might arise in the future, it should also be said that, although one, naturally, has differences of opinion with the Government on matters arising in the Attorney-General's area, as in other areas, nevertheless one cannot help be impressed by the general work undertaken by the Department of the Attorney-General and the high professional standard which is exhibited in the work that it does. That, likewise, should be placed on the record. Human nature being what it is, I should add the caveat that that is without prejudice to any issue which might arise in the future in regard to which I might have to be a bit stringent in my remarks. However, as things stand at the moment, an acknowledgment should be made of the high professional standard of the work performed by the Attorney-General's Department, often under considerable pressure imposed on it by a government which expects things to be done more instantaneously than wisdom would dictate that they should be attended to. Having said that, I would like to say something about a matter arising under the War Crimes Amendment Bill. It has become the practice in recent years for the explanatory memorandum to a Bill to contain a statement with respect to the financial impact of the Bill. I notice in the explanatory memorandum to the War Crimes Amendment Bill-which, of course, has passed this House and is awaiting debate in the Senate-a curious proposition. Under the heading `Financial Impact' we find the following words: It is not anticipated that the Bill will occasion any additional costs to the Government. I do not know whether the Government was serious when it wrote that. I say to the Committee that if this legislation is passed-and the Opposition supports it, subject to amendments-there will be very substantial additional costs to the Government as a result of implementing the legislation and, presumably, conducting prosecutions under the Bill which will then be an Act. At various times we have been given varying estimates of the number of prospective defendants. That number has gone as high as 400. On one occasion I think the figure was given as 500. I understand that there are names on a number of separate lists which are common to each list. There is considerable doubt, even at this stage, as to how many actual prosecutions will be launched. The simple fact is this: with a piece of legislation of this magnitude, with the inevitable substantial costs of prosecutions which are down the track, it simply cannot be the fact that the Bill will not occasion any additional cost to the Government. I think, with respect, that it is about time that the Government gave an indication of what the likely costs are to be of implementing this Bill, if and when it becomes an Act. We are told, of course, that the cost of prosecutions will come from the budgetary allocation for the Director of Public Prosecutions. But it must surely be the fact, if there are to be new prosecutions under a new law, that there must be additional costs. I would like to know, arising from this debate on the Estimates, what is the real-in so far as the Government can determine it-expected cost of prosecutions under the Bill. In addition, the Government is proposing an amendment in the Senate to provide legal aid-indeed, not only legal aid but also legal and other financial assistance-for defendants. Clearly, there must be a cost there. It would help our understanding of the overall budgetary implications to be given some clue as to what is the expected or possible expenditure in this area. The Government will, after all, be dealing with some very long and expensive trials-trials which, I would hazard a guess at this stage, will frequently end in long and protracted appeals. There simply must be a substantial cost. To say in the explanatory memorandum that it is not anticipated that the Bill will occasion any additional cost to the Government is quite fanciful. While I am addressing some remarks to this particular piece of legislation, but again in the context of the debate we are pursuing at the moment, let me take the opportunity of making it perfectly clear that the Opposition supports the War Crimes Amendment Bill but is very anxious to ensure that some proper and necessary amendments are made to make it a fairer Bill and a Bill which will remove any scope for injustice that could be done to prospective defendants. I have written to the Acting Attorney-General, Senator Tate, today once again to draw his attention to some reasonable, sensible, balanced and moderate amendments which, frankly, the Government should accept. I make this plea to the Minister at the table, the Minister for Housing and Aged Care (Mr Staples), who is presumably going to take note of what is said in this debate, that he should use his good offices to promote the amendments which we will be proposing to the War Crimes Amendment Bill. If these amendments are accepted, the Government's Bill will remain intact. It will not be weakened in any respect. It will still be able to achieve the purposes that the Government wishes to achieve from its Bill, but it will be a fairer Bill and, above all, it will remove the scope for injustice that may be perpetrated if the Bill, in fact, is not amended. So I would hope that the Government, in the cooperative spirit in which I make this suggestion, will, in fact, act on it and will give very serious consideration to the amendments to the War Crimes Amendment Bill that we have proposed. Mr WRIGHT(Capricornia)(5.12) —If one were to ask the average citizen around this country what the Attorney-General's portfolio is about, I imagine we would get many responses; but I suggest that the main response would be a rather simplified one saying that it is something to do with the law. Knowing that I was to speak in this debate, I thought it was worth while delving into the activities of the Attorney-General and enunciating some of the programs in which the Attorney-General's Department is involved, because it is quite educative to follow such an exercise. There are seven major program areas. First, there is the provision of legal services to the Commonwealth. Obviously, we need the best legal brains in advising the Commonwealth on many activities. Then there is the provision of law-related services to the community, and I will expand on that at a later time. There is also the administration of justice, when it come to our courts. There is the provision of corporate services, the High Court itself-the administrative costs, the back-up services to those judges-the provision of legal aid, and the maintenance of law and order and security. Those are just in general terms but if one starts to look further into those programs one finds that they have involved matters that are everyday, such as law and justice, legal services, human rights, civil liberties, law enforcement, marriage and family law, the coordination of protective security and counter-terrorism services, business and law practices, consumer affairs-something that affects every one of us, regardless of what we might be in the community, our income, our academic base-legal aid, bankruptcy, insolvency, censorship, copyright, and finally, negotiable instruments. You will note, Mr Deputy Chairman, that the areas covered by the Attorney-General are all-encompassing. It is a very important portfolio affecting the quality of life of every citizen in this country. I want to centre my remarks on a few aspects, particularly on the maintenance of law and order and security and, given time, to make a few comments about legal aid. There is an ever-increasing concern in the Australian community about the escalation of crime. There is a demand in the community that a person has the right to walk the streets and not be accosted, not be assaulted, not be molested. People have a right to leave their property hoping they can come home and find that the window has not been smashed and their private property has not been taken. However, that concern spreads in a broader way today because of organisation crime and because of the growth and expansion of illegal drugs. There is a fear there and there is no capacity within the States to address this problem. So it comes back to a national responsibility, a responsibility that is clearly being taken up by this Government, the Hawke Government. I think the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct, in my home State of Queensland, is demonstrating just how in-depth, how widespread, crime can be, how far-reaching corruption can be when it starts to reach the very heights of a police department, involving knights of the realm and sporting and business personalities. So it is understandable that this Government has given a special commitment to the maintenance of law and order programs. I suppose one can add to this the concern that is expressed to every member of parliament that there are people out there ripping off the system, rorting the social security system, and they tell of cases of fraud against Commonwealth revenue, of people undermining, misusing, abusing and certainly rorting the social welfare support systems. It is understandable that this financial year we will be providing $152.565m in the area of combating crime. We will be increasing the Australian Federal Police manpower, the human resources involved in this area, by an additional 85 people. When that is added to the 26.5 per cent increase since 1983, it means an increase of 852 personnel. We will be continuing a three-year program to develop the Australian Federal Police. It will cost a lot of money. It means improving the technological backup that the force has, and not only the human resources. It means extending and enhancing the force's computerised intelligence and investigating and management systems. We must make our forces more effective because no longer is it a matter of trying to stop the robber in the street, the hoon who might hide in the dark alley; we are talking now of criminal elements that are involved right across not only this nation but the world. So there is a new element, a new characteristic, being adopted by the world's enforcement agencies. It is part of this Government's emphasis to have a pro-active intelligence gathering program. This is in contrast to a reactive program where instead of looking only at the crime and then trying to find the criminal, we are involved in prevention, rather than just detection. This means money. This means the Commonwealth Government must go beyond its national boundaries. It must cooperate internationally. It is for that reason we now have a close working relationship with New Zealand. We are involved in the South West Pacific Commissioners of Police Conference, which involves New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. We have a close working relationship with the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations, and we are expanding and establishing a sophisticated overseas liaison and intelligence network. Australia has 25 Australian Federal Police officers in this network around the world-in Manila, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, London, Washington, Honolulu: it just goes on and on. We are now targeting South America, because it is part of this idea of being preventive. From the information that is coming through, one notes that there is a growth in cocaine traffic in South America. So we are now setting up an office there. We are part, obviously, of a nation-wide campaign that involves our State forces. But there has to be an emphasis on intelligence gathering. There has to be an emphasis on placing our personnel on the spot throughout the country. I was reading a report recently by the Minister for Justice, Senator Michael Tate, in which he points out just what is being achieved when we have intelligence groups on the ground. He made a comment that back in February this year three people were arrested for importing 3.6 kilograms of cocaine. This was as a result of information from German Customs. In March this year two other people were arrested because they were conspiring to import heroin. This information came because our police forces cooperated with the Thai Government. So it goes on, whether it is cooperation with our water police, cooperation with the Queensland Police, the New South Wales Police or other State police forces, or internationally, even Interpol. We are starting to set up a network which means we are beginning to combat crime at its source. I note from the Minister's remarks that there have been many people arrested, drugs prevented from coming into this country, yachts seized, vehicles obtained and massive amounts of money seized because of the information and intelligence gathering that has taken place throughout this country and worldwide. One can add to this the major fraud investigations in which our Australian Federal Police are involved with complex and protracted investigations dealing with tax evasion. In one case there was sales tax evasion of $41m which resulted in the arrest of 10 people. There were fraudulent social security claims which resulted in 16 people being arrested and $1.4m being saved for the taxpayers of Australia. So it goes on. There are constant instances of the Commonwealth being defrauded of moneys and it is our law enforcement network that is trying to prevent this. There are so many other activities that I will not have time to list them all. For example, there was the misappropriation of moneys and property of Australia Post to the value of $250,000. Thanks to the Australian Federal Police that was stopped. There was theft from Australian Airlines cargo of $100,000 and once again, thanks to the activities of people on the ground, that was detected. Our Government is acting in every possible way and this means a financial commitment-a commitment to ensure that we have the personnel, some 3,200 people in the Australian Federal Police and another 900 in the protective services area. I wish to turn to legal aid, but before I do, Mr Deputy Chairman, I wonder whether my time is about to expire. I believe I had only eight or nine minutes. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Ronald Edwards) —You have been given the appropriate time. Members have 10 minutes each in this debate. Mr WRIGHT —That will prevent me from making the broad comments that I wished to make-- The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I advise the honourable member for Capricornia that he can rise again in a committee debate. Mr WRIGHT —I will make some brief comments in relation to legal aid. There is a grave concern on the part of many people that because there are limitations on the funding available at Commonwealth level-and this year we are spending more than $85m in legal aid-we have to give a special emphasis-- The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. As there are no other members wishing to take part in this debate, the honourable member may rise again. Mr WRIGHT(Capricornia)(5.23) —I want to express this concern that the demand on our legal aid resources, our funds, is quite frightening. This year the Commonwealth will spend $85m-a massive amount of money-right across this nation. I note too that the Commonwealth is negotiating with the States to bring about a new agreement whereby the Commonwealth will supply 55 per cent of all funds and the States will pick up 45 per cent. That is pretty much the situation operating in New South Wales at the moment. The Commonwealth is paying 55.45 per cent of the legal aid bill, which means that the State Government is picking up around 45 per cent. However, in Queensland the Commonwealth picks up 63.37 per cent of the costs; in Western Australia it is more than 73 per cent; in South Australia it is more than 80 per cent; in Tasmania it is more than 90 per cent; and, as one would expect, in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory it is 100 per cent of the costs. That is a lot of money. In Queensland, for instance, we spent $3.97m back in 1981-82. This grew in 1986-87 to $11.64m and this year it will be $13m. That is just in the State of Queensland. While there are considerable funds available for legal aid there is also considerable demand for legal aid. In one case alone in Queensland $1m was spent on providing legal aid support for one criminal. Few people can be assisted if there is only $85m to spend and one case can cost $1m. I believe that a similar case occurred in Victoria. Therefore, there must be some rule that says legal aid must go to the needy not the greedy. Certainly that is in place. Also there must be a greater application of the rules to ensure that there is at least some reasonable guarantee of success in the litigation that one pursues. I had a case in my electorate recently where a share farmer took on a local farmer and his family. Despite representations from myself to stop his application, the share farmer got legal aid. I moved to stop his application because I had information that he had rorted the system, that he had transferred tens of thousands of dollars out of certain accounts. But despite that and despite what was clearly a poor case on his part, he was given legal aid. Whilst that is a burden on the taxpayer, the issue I want to raise is that those who had to respond and defend in this case-the farmers-are up for $53,000 in costs. The court has awarded them something like $10,000. I believe that because legal aid was wrongly used in this instance, these people are not only carrying the costs but also the taxpayers are carrying costs and justice has not been done. I am convinced that had legal aid not been available this litigant would not have pursued the issue. I believe that he did it in a vexatious way, to try to force these people into a degree of poverty and to pursue the vengeful position he had taken. The system does not always work. It does not work when criminals can have $1m spent on them in legal aid; it does not work when legal aid is given so that a person is able to pursue a case that should never go to court. I believe that this Government is doing an excellent job in the provision of legal aid. It has carried the burden for a long time. But we need to be very sure that the funds of the taxpayers of this country are used wisely and for those in need. Proposed expenditure agreed to. Department of Transport and Communications Proposed expenditure, $865,975,000. (Quorum formed) Mr SNOW(Eden-Monaro)(5.30) —One of the problems in the area of transport and communications that the Government has had to face is the need for more efficiency at less cost to Australians. This will not be solved by the Opposition's preoccupation with privatisation. Once again in the discussions on the Appropriation Bill before the Parliament, prior to going into committee, the Opposition showed this excessive preoccupation with privatisation. In Australia we do not want the sort of experience that the British have had with British Telecom, such as the farmer in Scotland who had to pay the equivalent of $A10,000 to have a telephone service connected by this privatised industry. This is what the Opposition is virtually saying that we should have in Australia. It is saying that the lucrative parts of Telecom Australia ought to be privatised. What it really wants to do is to privatise the whole of Telecom. In Britain as well we see the unionists in each region having to bargain for their wages. We find that some families in rural areas which are employed in the telecommunications industry are far worse off than those in the inner metropolitan areas. Because they have to cover the cost in each region wages are lower. We also find in the United Kingdom an increase in complaints about a marked drop in telecommunications services. This sort of action would mean a drastic reduction in services in country towns in Australia. We would find that Telecom services in the country would have rentals increased, sometimes doubled, sometimes tripled, if they were to cover costs. If we looked at other areas of transport and communications we would find that this sort of action-the sale of lucrative parts of Australia Post or Telecom-would mean that we would have no official post office in Bombala, Braidwood and many other small country towns of up to 2,000 people throughout Australia. This Government has taken decisive action in a wide range of telecommunications industries. When we were re-elected in 1987 we were confronted with an urgent need to take action as regards Qantas Airways Ltd, Australian Airlines, Telecom and broadcasting. Of course, we also realised that we would have to face up to major shipping and waterfront issues. I must say that it was with great pleasure that I learnt of the recent appointment of the Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support (Mr Robert Brown). He showed at Question Time today that he has an excellent grasp of the needs of the portfolio. Under the leadership of the Minister for Transport and Communications (Mr Willis) we can expect to see some important changes in those areas. In the case of Qantas, it has had important discussions with companies in other countries about uniting with them to ensure that we meet competition throughout the world in the best possible way. We have streamlined the organisation, as we have with Australian Airlines. With Telecom we have developed a wide range of electronic services to ensure that an organisation owned by Australian people will provide services in an efficient way and keep up with developments in other countries. Just recently Telecom has shown that it can compete on the world markets. In the area of broadcasting we have seen moves which have meant that there will be new stations in country Australia. We have seen a development of aggregation, which will bring a greater variety of programs to people in country areas. We have seen another $163m added to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service. We are still setting the agenda through our nationally owned networks in news and current affairs. Action is definitely needed in the area of road transport operations, for instance. Most of the decisions must reside with the industry itself. When one gets an industry where one has too many people taking on business it is difficult for government to enter, unless it is to regulate in a way which encourages inefficiency. There have to be decisions made by road transport operators themselves. People who go into the industry need to get a perspective of what the opportunities will be. They need to get all the advice they can. State and Federal governments have advisers. I plead with all people who are thinking of entering the road transport industry to talk it over first with as many people as possible-advisers within the industry and within government departments. In the area of shipping and the waterfront there are many inefficiencies which we have to confront. While we are talking about inefficiencies, we need to acknowledge that there are also many efficiencies in the industry. We have recently had a visit from seamen from waterfront areas throughout Australia who have made it very clear that many of our ships are not overstaffed. They are mostly extremely efficient. Of course, we have had visits from the industry as well which have indicated that our shipping industry can compete in the world if it is not disadvantaged by subsidies and other protective measures taken by other countries. Now is the time to move on road transport, on shipping and on waterfront issues. I believe that the Government, having dealt with an enormous workload in aviation, telecommunications and broadcasting, and the Government policy committee on transport and communications which I chair, now need to move into the areas of road transport, shipping and the waterfront. The previous Minister for Transport and Communications, Senator Gareth Evans, helped develop policies in those other areas. We now have with us the Minister for Transport and Communications, the Minister for Telecommunications and Aviation Support (Mr Punch) and the Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support. The Minister for Transport and Communications has enormous industrial experience which we will be able to draw on as we come into discussions. The Minister for Telecommunications and Aviation Support and the Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support will deal with their respective areas, which have been clearly delineated. I look forward to dealing with the Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support on those road transport, shipping and waterfront issues. The objective is to seek the most efficient way of developing enterprises which will provide efficient services to metropolitan and country Australia. Mr BLUNT(Richmond)(5.38) —It is indeed a pleasure to speak on the departmental estimates for the Department of Transport and Communications. Mr Staples —I didn't think you would make it. Mr BLUNT —Let me assure my friend that I will always make it, which is perhaps more than some people will do on his side. The honourable member might mention to some of his colleagues that they ought to come into the House a bit better briefed so that they can answer questions. If that is the tone of interjection that we are going to cop, then they will cop it straight back. I would like to debate the issue that is before the Committee because, as we have members of the Presbyterian Ladies College in the gallery, I think the tone of this debate should be far higher than the interjection from the so-called Minister for Housing and Aged Care who is at the table. We are debating something of great significance to the Australian community: the way this Government administers the policy affecting transport and communications in this country. Blind Freddy would know that our road system is in a mess. But what he might not know is why it is in such a mess. It is in a mess because from the first day this Government was elected it continued to use road funding as a balancing item in the Budget. It does not have any political priority. As a result of that in real terms road funding, depending on how one does one's mathematics, has dropped by about 30 or 40 per cent. That is why when we go to work or school we hit traffic jams. When we go on holidays and we drive through the country or when we live in the country and drive on the roads, the roads are deteriorating and there are potholes. There are no massive road works to upgrade what is a fundamental asset for the Australian community. Of course, this Government does not attach priority to road funding because there is no direct spin-off in terms of votes. But it does not understand that road accidents cost this country about $5 billion a year. Perhaps it ought to think in terms of the cost in human lives of its priorities. In the last Budget we saw a cutback in the excise on beer but there was no increase in road funding. The Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support (Mr Robert Brown) is very fond of coming into this place and going into other forums and talking about where the money will come from. Let me respond to that jibe that he makes quite often. The money should come from the reimposition of the excise on beer and it should be spent on roads because they are a far higher priority for the Australian community. This Government was seeking to re-establish itself with its traditional base by cutting the price of beer. What a blatant political tactic that was! While the Government cut the price of beer by reducing the excise, it continued to index the excise on fuel but there is no further expenditure on roads. I think that says a lot for the way this Government runs the transport portfolio. When we come to the other aspects of transport the Government's record is appalling. I am very pleased to see that the Minister for Transport and Communications (Mr Willis) is in the House because I will be looking to him to see what he will do to the Australian coastal shipping situation. We have an Industries Assistance Commission (IAC) report which says that coastal shipping in Australia is nothing short of an absolute disgrace. It is parlous. Of course, we all know what the answer is. This Government has not been prepared to address micro-economic reform. It has said that this is on the agenda so let us see it. Let us see some moves to do away with some of the more restrictive work practices. Let us open up coastal trade to a bit of competition from, say, the ships of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. Those countries have similar working standards and working conditions to those that we should have in this country. Let their ships compete with our ships. That is fair dinkum. This Government says that it is all for freedom of competition and for doing away with restrictive trade practices. How does our attitude to trade line up with our attitude to protecting coastal shipping? When we talk to our international colleagues about the need to do away with the restrictive approach to trade of the European Community, or perhaps some other countries, what do they say when it comes to our coastal shipping? They say, `You want it when it benefits you but when it comes to something really close to home, when it comes to letting shippers compete on your domestic coastal runs, what will you do about it?' This is the only way to force change because the unions are very strong and the only thing that will make the industry address the need to be competitive internationally is to have competition. It is about time that the Government recognised that. The other problem that we have in this whole area is that the Government's concern is political and not economic. The Government is tired. It has a case of terminal decay. Let us look at an organisation such as Qantas Airways Ltd. Qantas is a prisoner of the Australian Labor Party factions and the consequent policy paralysis of this Government. Over the next few years Qantas has to expand. Our tourist industry is going ahead in leaps and bounds and Qantas has a major share of that market, probably somewhere between 40 per cent and 50 per cent, depending upon which market we are talking about specifically. But as the market continues to grow Qantas will need more aircraft. Currently, it has about 32 or 33 aircraft. It wants to buy more aircraft. Later this week we will be debating in this House a Bill to finance the acquisition of more aircraft for Qantas. But most people do not appreciate that Qantas wants to spend about $5 billion on new aircraft. The Bill that I have mentioned will appropriate about $250m but the expenditure Qantas needs will be about $5 billion. Qantas is a great organisation. It is a great airline and it does a great job for Australia but it just does not have enough capital to finance that sort of expansion. The only way that that can be done-and the Government knows this-is for the Australian public and Qantas employees to be able to buy shares to contribute to their airline. The Government cannot do this because it is hung up with ideology. The left wing will not let it do this. If the Government will not do this it has the option of spending consolidated revenue to provide a capital base for Qantas. If the Government does that it knows that it will have to cut back on other areas. It will probably have to cut back on welfare spending or even further on road spending. That is the fundamental problem. The Government will not address the policy imperatives that exist in this community at present. Members of the Government wander around talking about what a great government this is but when it really comes to the test-government providing the backbone or the infrastructure for our community-it fails. This portfolio highlights exactly how bad this Government is. It is bad on roads, on shipping and on aviation. In fact, this is a classic example of how this Government will not address what is fundamentally important to the community. It does not have a commitment to developing this nation to ensure that it has the capacity to compete in the future. Other examples come to mind, not only Qantas. Let us take Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport. The other day one of the Ministers responsible in this area finally announced that the Government was going to upgrade the international terminal at Sydney Airport. There was no comment whatsoever about the runway, except that the Government vetoed the addition of the third parallel runway. There was no comment whatsoever about what will happen at Badgerys Creek. But the Government has decided to upgrade the terminal. It should have been done five years ago. Qantas offered to build the terminal for the Government. We have a developing problem in Brisbane where the private sector has offered to build a new terminal for the Government. There has been no action there. We have 45,000 Lions Club members coming to a convention in 1991 and there are only six international gates at Brisbane Airport. That airport will never cope. But of course we do not have a reaction there. We have a preoccupation with effect and public relations. We now have the super Department of Transport and Communications. In the aviation area we have the Civil Aviation Authority and the Federal Airports Corporation (FAC). When the Government was asked what it was going to do about Brisbane Airport the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (Senator Gareth Evans) representing the Minister for Transport and Communications in the other place said, `That is the FAC's problem. It is not a political problem'. Of course it is a political problem. The Government cannot avoid the responsibility for doing something about it. Let me get back to the Sydney international airport. The Government made the announcement but two inquiries are going on at present as to what should be done with Sydney Airport. There is the Senate Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure inquiry and we have the IAC inquiry into the tourist industry. Both are relevant to this. The Government pre-empted the inquiries when the pressure for change at Sydney became too great. But why were these inquiries set up in the first place? Why was the reference given to the Senate Committee to examine this matter if the Government knew what it was finally going to do? It is just another example of this Government pushing things off centre stage, doing something that provides political management, but not addressing the fundamental problems. Transport and communications is an example of the failings of this Government that are now coming home to roost because it has been concerned for too long with public relations and is not concerned with the building blocks of our community. Mr SMITH(Bass)(5.48) —To continue the debate from the Opposition side on the Budget treatment of transport and communications I say to the Minister for Transport and Communications (Mr Willis), who is in the chamber, that I did not intend to speak about this area but, given that the Minister is present, I will take the opportunity to raise a couple of matters that I think are important to raise in the Budget context. Being a Tasmanian I suppose that we are affected by the fact that Tasmania is an island. We were pleased that there was no cut in the Budget to the Tasmanian freight equalisation scheme. Some people thought that there might have been cuts to that scheme but, thankfully, there were not. That scheme is vital to the economic well-being and continued health of Tasmania. It is interesting to state the reasons for the Tasmanian freight equalisation scheme and these should not escape honourable members regardless of where they sit in this House. We have a scheme such as this because of the freight rates that need to be charged. If businesses did not charge those rates they would not be economic. Those rates are as high as they are because of the matters raised in the Industries Assistance Commission (IAC) inquiry and the coastal shipping review, the first volumes of which have just been released. It is an indictment of this Government that we saw on the front pages of newspapers around this country the former Minister for Home Affairs, the present Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (Senator Robert Ray), blast the findings of the IAC report, yet the Government is now wringing its hands in anguish and saying, `Yes, there is a problem but we are not sure exactly what we ought to do about it'. The prescription is there. It is a matter of having the political courage to proceed, and to proceed far more quickly than the Government is doing. I concede that the Government has at last recognised that it is a massive problem. The cost to this country of excessively high freight rates is such that we are all carrying that burden. The cost of moving things from Tasmania is totally excessive. We have heard many examples of how it is far more expensive to move paper from Burnie to Melbourne than it is to move it from Burnie to Vancouver in Canada. There are endless examples of that. Obviously, something is wrong with the whole coastal shipping arrangements. It is not just a matter of kicking the unions; there are other players as well. There are management structures within port authorities which the Minister has rightly identified as being in need of attention. There are stevedoring arrangements that go back many years that the inquiry has also identified. All of those issues need to be addressed. The arrangements on the waterfront are probably more the cause of high freight rates than are the unions involved in the running of the ships. I think that is well documented. I say to the Minister that schemes such as the freight equalisation scheme will continue to be necessary, and vitally so, while we do not address that very fundamental problem of making far more competitive our coastal shipping arrangements and getting into better order the arrangements we have at our wharves, the gateways for the movement of goods. Until we do that, we will need freight equalisation schemes. It is a tragedy that the Government is going so softly and so quietly. I say to the Minister, as he takes over this portfolio with a wealth of industrial experience, that he ought to recognise that things need to be done quickly for our overall economic well-being. I cite one example of the Tasmanian freight equalisation scheme and how important it is. It relates to wool. Surprisingly, quite a deal of wool is produced on the Bass Strait islands, Flinders and King. The freight equalisation scheme, as it applies, allows that wool to be sent to Melbourne for sale rather than to Tasmania. I have written to the Minister seeking his agreement so that we can see the Tasmanian freight equalisation scheme apply equally to the movement of wool back to the Tasmanian mainland for sale, so that when it is put into the dumped form it can add benefit in ensuring that there is a continuation of sales of wool in Tasmania. This country has been particularly lucky, indeed this Government has been particularly lucky, over the recent 18 months with the very high wool prices that we have been able to obtain. It is no small credit to the wool industry and to the producers that the quality of the product is able to fetch such very large prices on world markets. We want to ensure that the freight equalisation scheme works to the benefit of maintaining viable sales of Tasmanian wool, which is recognised as being some of the best in the world, certainly some of the best in Australia. As people drive home tonight, it is probably appropriate that we are talking about transport and communications, because they touch all of us regardless of where we live in this country. But the communities on Flinders Island and King Island are isolated communities. They need special consideration. The telephone system as it applies in this country has recently been reviewed by this House. The House of Representatives committee that looked into zonal charges recommended that Flinders Island be given special consideration. It is a travesty of justice, and typical of this Government, to ignore that recommendation and to make no concession to the people of Flinders Island and change the zonal charging arrangements. This Government needs to recognise that we have benefited greatly by people going out of the cities and living in isolated areas of Australia. I know that the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Snowdon) will appreciate this point because he represents an area in which communities are isolated. People have gone out, they have pioneered and they have added wealth to this community, whether it be by way of agriculture or mining. We must recognise the difficulties they face and, where we can, we should give them benefits. We had a very good opportunity to assist the people of Flinders Island with regard to the changes in Telecom zonal charges. But because the bureaucrats in Telecom got their way, that was not possible. That is to be regretted. Another interesting example in regard to Tasmania is the application of the excise duty on fuel to ships. People are probably not aware that the operators of the Abel Tasman, the ferry that runs between Tasmania and Melbourne-a vital link in our tourism industry-pay nearly $1m a year in fuel excise. That fuel excise applies only to ships. That is our primary connection other than by airlines. It is my view that that excise ought to be waived, to the direct benefit and support of the Tasmanian tourism industry. Other areas in Australia do not rely to such a large extent on transport modes similar to the Abel Tasman. That also is a matter that I have brought to the attention of the Minister. The Minister has a very wide area of responsibility. That is evidenced by the fact that he has two assisting Ministers. At the same time, he will also be required to take a broad overview. One of the areas I suggest he look at is mentioned in an interesting letter in the Australian Financial Review in the past week by the Director of Compass Airways Pty Ltd, Bryan Grey. He talked about the leasing arrangements with regard to airports. We have heard much in past months about the dirty float of the dollar. Effectively what we have at present is a dirty deregulation of the two-airline policy because of the arrangements that the Government put into place before those announcements were made on leasing benefits given to the two established airlines. A deregulated system will operate effectively only if we give to other operators the opportunity to get access and space in existing terminals. In these leasing arrangements the Government has given carte blanche to the existing operators to make determinations about where those new operators would go. It is like Caesar appealing to Caesar. If Compass Airways asks for space in the Launceston Airport and Ansett Airlines of Australia and Australian Airlines say, `Sorry, there's no room for you, but you can have the downstairs back office', it will effectively mean that its operation is hamstrung from the very beginning. I think those arrangements, for which the Minister was not responsible but for which his Government was responsible, need to be reviewed and changed to ensure that when deregulation comes-something for which we on this side of the House have argued for a long time-it will be clean and fair and that future operators will get a fair crack at utilising those existing airport facilities. Another matter I wish to raise is Australia Post. It has been given the squeeze by the Government by having to pay taxes, which has meant that many post offices are closing. The closure of the Invermay Post Office in Launceston is a typical example of how post offices have been closed without consultation with the community. I am sure other members have such examples in their electorates. That consultation must be expanded. The Government must ensure that post offices do not close and disenfranchise those people, particularly the elderly, who may live near them. The final matter I wish to raise is referred to in the press release I issued today-the airport fire services. It is all encapsulated in a little paragraph in a document I received which says: The front wheel assembly of a mark 3 fire tender at Canberra airport fell off this morning as the vehicle was slowly moving out of the fire station. There are some problems with the fire service maintenance levels. I have called on the Minister for Telecommunications and Aviation Support (Mr Punch), who supports the Minister for Transport and Communications, to inquire and to investigate and to report back to the Parliament urgently. We do not want a compromise on the safety of Australian air travellers. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. As no other member has risen, he may speak again. Mr SMITH(Bass)(5.58) —Mr Deputy Chairman, as no other member has risen to speak, I will delay the Minister for only a few more minutes. The last point I made about fire service tenders is particularly important. I just read from a minute that was provided to me by a community spirited individual within the fire service. It reveals a very disturbing set of circumstances. He says that in March the front wheel assembly fell off a fire tender at Canberra Airport while it was being operated. These tenders are exceptionally complicated and sophisticated pieces of machinery. All of us would accept that. What is most important is that those tenders are not in any way compromised, because pilots and airlines have a responsibility to their passengers. We need to know that the fire services provided at airports around Australia are capable of responding to any emergency. That is why this information has been made available to me. There is concern about this amazing incident of a wheel falling off. After tests on fire tenders were done nationally, it was decided that 17 axles had to be ordered from a United States supplier. The tests showed that it was not only the one in Canberra that had a problem. There was one in my electorate that had a problem. I have asked the Minister who assists the Minister for Transport and Communications to give some indication as to the level of concern and the level of serviceability of the existing fire tenders such as to confirm to the community that there can be no doubt that in the event of an emergency there is adequate cover. All people, and particularly those of us who regularly come to Canberra, would feel a lot safer if they knew that the fire tenders were fully operational. That is not the case. The Minister must respond urgently to these concerns which I have raised today. I have been told that the particular axles will not be available until the middle of next year. Does that mean that the fire tender parked in the back garage at Launceston Airport, which cannot be used, will stay there for 12 months? What is the exact situation with regard to the fire tenders? When aircraft arrive late at night in Launceston, the third largest freight terminal in Australia, will the tenders be there if there is a crash? Will the aircraft be lost or will we lose the pilot? There is a whole range of concerns. I do not want to be alarmist and the press release does not cause that type of response, but it does point out a major problem which requires an immediate response from the Government. The only other issue I raise with the Minister concerns his comments reported in the press recently with regard to the Government's decision about radio. It is to be lamented that when I, as a member from Tasmania, speak in this Parliament it is extremely hard for my constituents to hear me. I think that is a travesty of justice and I hope the Australian Broadcasting Corporation can fix it. The honourable member for the Northern Territory is in a similar predicament and perhaps, he being on the Minister's side of the House, the Minister will respond equally favourably to his needs to ensure that his constituents can hear him speak. Another point I want to make relates to changes the Minister announced in the granting of FM radio licences. This debate has been raging for some considerable time and the new Minister has just stepped into it. I was surprised, as were many in the industry, to see that a decision has been made that no longer shall the commerciality of existing operators and perhaps new operators be taken into account in determining who shall get new FM licences. Commercial radio Australia is undergoing dramatic changes as people move from AM to FM, and that will cause major problems particularly for some existing operators. All I ask is that perhaps the Minister take a slightly slower approach and listen a little more carefully to people in the industry. In some cases they are arguing for the maintenance of the status quo, but I believe the industry is amenable to change and wants change in a measured way so that existing operators are not put to a great disadvantage. Also the Minister should take into account that the joint committee inquiry into the broadcasting system in this country will be looking at some of these issues and making recommendations. Perhaps in making his decision the Minister has in some aspects pre-empted the findings of that joint committee, and that is to be regretted. There are many other issues I could raise relating to Tasmania and to the nation, but I think I have covered the field reasonably well. Perhaps there is one other final matter I should raise. The Minister is in the chamber and I should not let this opportunity go by. It is in regard to the Tasmanian Aero Club based in Launceston, in my electorate. Does the Minister know that his Department has liens over the three aircraft belonging to the Tasmanian Aero Club to make good claims he has been making through the Civil Aviation Authority and the Federal Airports Corporation for landing fees charged under a system which was subsequently changed by the Minister's predecessor, and that those liens will now be exercised and the aircraft repossessed? I have never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. I do not know whether it is a bureaucratic threat that the new Minister does not know about but I have raised it with his colleague, the Minister assisting him. If the three aircraft belonging to the Tasmanian Aero Club are repossessed to recover fees which it is already admitted have been improperly imposed on this club, based at Launceston Airport, under an anomaly-and it was accepted by the Minister's pre- decessor that it was an anomaly-because the Minister now has registered liens and will exercise those liens, the Labor Government will never win Bass, will never win Franklin, will never win Braddon and will never win Lyons and, more particularly, Michael Hodgman will be back here again because the honourable member for Denison (Mr Kerr) will go. When one looks at the totality of communications and transport issues in this Budget, one finds that Tasmania receives a raw deal. I have given some examples. I hope, as I have had the opportunity to raise these matters in the presence of the Minister, that he will have a far more sympathetic approach to these very vexed issues relating to my electorate and those of my colleagues. I note that the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles) and the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck) are in the chamber. We Tasmanians have to stick together and fight the Government as hard as we can to get a fair go. Mr WILLIS(Gellibrand-Minister for Transport and Communications)(6.06) —I wish to make a few points in winding up the debate on the estimates for the Department of Transport and Communications. Many points have been raised, particularly by the last speaker, the honourable member for Bass (Mr Smith), who said he had not intended to speak and then covered a wide spectrum of issues, not all of which can be responded to today. I wish to make a few remarks about the contribution of the shadow Minister for transport and communications, the honourable member for Richmond (Mr Blunt), who raised in particular the issue of road funding. I say quite specifically that much of what is being said about road funding-both within this chamber and, more importantly, outside it in a campaign which is being quite heavily funded-is absolutely incorrect in that it gives the impression of a considerable cutback in road funding under this Government. The fact is that in the period that this Government has been in office there has been a considerable increase in the funding of roads in real terms, after taking inflation into account, compared to the period of the previous Government. Over the period in which we have been in office there has been an increase of 21 per cent in the real level of expenditure on roads compared to the last five years of the Fraser Government. That is a very dramatic real increase in expenditure on roads and the kind of comment that we heard from the honourable member for Richmond and the kind of comment being made by other honourable members and, more importantly, the kind of material being put in advertisements around the country as part of a very substantial and well-funded campaign is, I think, giving a wrong impression of the situation. The factual position is that there has been a very large real increase in expenditure on roads under this Government and the current substantial level of real expenditure on roads will be maintained in future years, as already stated in the Government's policy. So it is important, first, to correct the very wrong statement by the honourable member for Richmond about this Government not caring about roads and not being concerned and not giving the matter any priority. That is untrue. If any government can be accused of that it would be the previous Government, the Fraser Government, because since that Government went out of office real expenditure on roads has increased very considerably. It is also true that this Government has been concerned to address the micro-economy. The honourable member for Richmond said we were not concerned about that. All the evidence would point the other way. The evidence clearly demonstrates that this Government has in a variety of policy areas shown a great concern to address micro-economic policies, that is, to address policies which relate to industries and to enterprises and not just policies in the macro or economy-wide level. Without going into other areas, just in this portfolio it has clearly done so in the area of shipping and the waterfront, where it has commissioned substantial reports. Those reports are with the Government, by way of the Industries Assistance Commission information report which has recently become available to the Government and which has been made publicly available, and we have a preliminary report from the Inter-State Commission (ISC) on the waterfront. A final report from the ISC will be available early next year, probably in March. By commissioning those reports the Government has indicated that it is determined to take some action in this area. It has indicated an awareness of concern. We are aware of the fact that many industries or enterprises complain that one of the problems they have in competing with the rest of the world, particularly in getting into export markets, is the high cost of getting things across the waterfront and the cost of shipping. So, we have demonstrated our awareness of that concern. We have commissioned those reports. The Government will not simply shelve those reports. They will be acted upon. The structural adjustment committee of Cabinet, which has overseen much of the micro-economic policy development and implementation by this Government, will be considering those reports in due course and the Government will be taking the appropriate action. The honourable member for Richmond said that there was a considerable problem for Qantas Airways Ltd, given that it had a high capital expenditure program for the future with a need to purchase a lot more aircraft if it was going to keep up with the growth in the market. That is a true statement. The honourable member had the figure wrong. He talked about $5 billion. It is, in fact, $6 billion. That is, by anyone's measure, a substantial amount of money. Qantas then has to finance that kind of expenditure. The way in which it will go about that is very important to the future of the organisation. If it were all to be done as borrowings, there could be a problem in terms of the debt to equity ratio which could present long term problems for the organisation. It has been made clear by Qantas that it would be desirous of capital injection to ensure an appropriate debt to equity ratio. That is an issue which the Government accepts has to be addressed. It is being addressed and will be met in time for Qantas to embark on the appropriate expenditure program without putting the commercial viability of the organisation at risk. The issue of Sydney Airport was also raised by the honourable member for Richmond. He said that we had made no mention of Badgerys Creek. Let me say to the honourable member for Richmond and to the Committee that what we have done in relation to Badgerys Creek is to take a decision which the previous Government would not take. We have decided that there should be a second airport in the Sydney basin area and that that airport should be at Badgerys Creek. We have decided that a land acquisition program should be put in place to acquire land for that airport. That land acquisition program has been going on now for some time. So, we are not sitting around idly, looking at a difficult problem at Sydney Airport. Action is being taken to address the issue. A joint Commonwealth-New South Wales task force will report to me shortly on the issue of the future airport needs of the Sydney basin, particularly in relation to the extent to which Badgerys Creek should be marked up in its first phase, in other words, what kind of operation and what level of operation should be at Badgerys Creek in its first phase. That is an important decision to be made. The Government's decision about what is appropriate in that respect will be made on the advice of this joint Commonwealth-New South Wales task force. I would like to refer to two other issues. The issue of parliamentary broadcasts was raised by the honourable member for Bass. As the Committee would be aware, this issue was raised with Madam Speaker today in a question after Question Time. We are in a test phase in which the parliamentary broadcast through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in the evenings is occurring not on Radio National but on stand-by transmitters on other frequencies. This week and next week we are looking at a further testing in which four of the parliamentary sitting days will be broadcast solely on the stand-by transmitters. We are doing that to test the appropriateness of taking the parliamentary broadcasts entirely off Radio National and putting them on the stand-by transmitters. We will be making the appropriate assessment at the end of that time as to whether that is a satisfactory process. Clearly, it is a very strongly expressed wish of the ABC to remove parliamentary broadcasts from Radio National so that it can have its normal programming which is not interrupted by the sittings of Parliament. That is understandable. On the other hand, the Parliament is very concerned to ensure that we have an appropriate alternative. As I say, we are in a test phase. We will be concerned to ensure that we have an appropriate alternative through those stand-by transmitters before a decision is taken to remove the parliamentary broadcasts entirely from Radio National. The honourable member for Bass also raised another important broadcasting issue in relation to FM operators. In particular, he talked about the issue of commercial viability. I think he misquoted me when he said-as I heard it-that I had made a decision that commercial viability was not to apply. If I might correct him slightly, what has happened is that my predecessor, Senator Evans, made the announcement that the commercial viability factor would be removed in respect of the additional FM stations which were to come into play over the next few years in each of the metropolitan areas. There would be two FM stations in each of the major metropolitan areas and the issue of commercial viability would not be considered in that respect because the FM station licences would be achieved by way of tender and not in the normal process of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal deciding who was the most suitable operator. The issue of commercial viability is obviously one which, as the honourable member indicated, the industry has considerable concerns about-somewhat understandably. On the other hand, there is a substantial degree of logic in the argument that, if we have a tender process and people are willing to pay considerable amounts of money for a licence, it follows that at least in their view the industry must be commercially viable, if they make a considerable investment in a licence in order to get into the industry to become a new player or an additional player. So, the issue is one which, I indicated in a speech I gave on Sunday, the Government will consider in the course of the broadcasting review. The legislation for the additional FM licences will be brought forward in the autumn session of Parliament next year. By that time we will have determined the commercial viability issue. In the meantime there is a capacity for the industry to make representations to us. We will consider those representations prior to the legislation for the new stations being brought in next year. Finally, I indicate to the honourable member for Bass that I have no knowledge about the problems of the Tasmanian Aero Club in Launceston. I will look into the issue and see what information I can get for him. Proposed expenditure agreed to. Department of Employment, Education and Training Proposed expenditure, $2,234,112,000. Department of Aboriginal Affairs Proposed expenditure, $395,668,000. Mr TUCKEY(O'Connor)(6.18) —I wish to speak primarily in my capacity as Opposition spokesman on matters relating to labour and employment, in particular employment and training. This issue will test this Government more and more. It is interesting to note that, whereas the unemployment rate is now down to about 7 per cent, we are still looking at an unemployment rate of almost 16 per cent for youth. This is an issue which the Government, notwithstanding its many well-advertised efforts, has really failed to do anything constructive about. It is a problem that clearly is not being resolved by the sorts of programs the Government has brought forward. Not that long ago we had to look at photographs of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in full page advertisements in every newspaper in Australia under the heading `Priority One'. Priority One was to create about 75,000 jobs by this stage, but some of the Prime Minister's old mates-they are not his new mates-in the trade union movement decided that they were not going to have a bar of that situation. It did not suit them to have anybody coming into employment at anything other than rates that were almost equivalent, certainly in terms of productivity, to adult rates. Consequently the program has failed. We have probably achieved a third of the number that was predicted by the Prime Minister at that time. The only benefit that seems to have accrued from the whole exercise is to the Government in terms of the advertising program that it has again forced the Australian taxpayer to pay for. These are only some of the problems confronting us presently. It is notable that not long ago the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd put out its excellent survey on job advertisements. Job advertisements, of course, are a significant indicator of the job outlook and the opportunities for employment for Australians. It is encouraging to see that, more through the efforts of the private sector than the Government, those advertisements have been growing. What is rather sad is that within that ANZ Group press release, which it embargoed until Sunday, 2 October, the following words are used: Overall, the broad trend in the index points to continued solid growth in the economy. Unless this is based around export or import-replacement activity-and this seems unlikely- the figures reinforce concerns about the general strength of the Australian economy and the outlook for the balance of payments. In other words, I will not say that is bad news, because I think that is the wrong word, but it is sad news that we have got job growth because we have got bad economic management. We have a government that tried originally to borrow itself into prosperity with a mere $26 billion worth of borrowing. One cannot rewrite history in this place. It is all on the record, and it is on the record that that was the deficit level the Treasurer (Mr Keating) ran in his early attempts at economic management. Now, of course, he is trying to rectify that. We have money sloshing around in the community creating jobs that do not reduce our overseas trading difficulties. I remind the Minister at the table, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Hand), that just last month Australia, the nation, was forced to borrow $1.391 billion-nearly $1,400m-to make up the difference between what it bought from the rest of the world and what it sold to the rest of the world, in the simplest terms. In fact, we have job growth based on debt. It is interesting if we divide into that figure the number of additional jobs that were created throughout Australia last month, we find that we are borrowing something like $27,300 per additional job. It is of great concern to me, and it is of great concern to the Opposition, that whilst we are achieving job growth, and that is good, it is not occurring to the benefit of our nation. We are not achieving the levels of productivity necessary to allow our manufacturers and others to be either exporters or import competing. We are still buying from the rest of the world; we are simply paying people to sell those goods here in Australia. That is not the only problem confronting us. We find in other surveys that when people are asked why they are unemployed they are now giving a different answer. Not very long ago the most significant answer to that question was that there were no vacancies. That is not the answer the unemployed are giving now. They are giving other answers, predominantly that they are either too young or too old to gain employment or that they lack the necessary skills. There is some attempt within this program of expenditure to make something of that. We are yet to see whether it is going to be more successful than some of the Government's failed previous schemes. As I said, the Australian traineeship scheme is one classic example of huge expenditure with very little result, and certainly it has reached less than half the target that was trumpeted by the Prime Minister in his original advertisements. Furthermore, we are looking at a substantial shift in the way the Government is proposing to spend this money. Training and skills formation is getting more money; job creation and employment assistance is getting substantially less. We have already said that one of the problems people are claiming is that they lack the necessary skills. That might be an adequate trend, but within the program we have just about every form of training one could imagine. One that was put to me as being something that should be progressed substantially, but not by the means being used, is the new enterprise scheme. That scheme is one where the Government tries to assist unemployed people into their own business. I hope within the next few months to give the Government a demonstration of the Opposition doing that without any taxpayers' money whatsoever. I have practised it within my electorate very successfully using very small amounts of my own money, which I am always willing to do to help some enterprising young Australian get out of unemployment. We have to recognise a few things. When I look at the estimates I find that something like $1.61m was spent last year for 450 start-ups, of which 62 per cent were still in business three months after the financial assistance ran out. The Government is talking substantially more money this year for 600 start-ups. There has to be something when we start to talk $7.717m for 600 new businesses. Of course, a lot of the money is being consumed in administration and in bureaucrats making decisions as to how to get into business. Let me remind honourable members of the words of Maggie Thatcher when she was out here recently. She said in our Liberal party room, `If politicians were any good at business, they would be in business'. Mr Hand —Do you agree with that? Mr TUCKEY —I successfully left business, and I am one of the few-- Mr Hand —You don't agree with it, do you? Mr TUCKEY —I do, because I am looking straight at the Minister and I think he would be an absolute failure in business. He is not much of a politician but he would be hopeless out there. Mr Hand —I wouldn't be up to the shonky arrangements you were up to. Mr TUCKEY —The Minister should not say I have ever been up to shonky business because he will get a smack in the eye. That is untrue. He can withdraw that because there is not one ounce of truth in what he said. I challenge him, because he has said it, as I challenged his mate Senator Walsh, to get up-- Mr Hand —You started it. Mr TUCKEY —The Minister interjected and he got a clip around the ears because he is a lousy politician and he would be worse as a businessman. I have said that politicians are not much good-- Mr Hand —It is a well known fact-- Mr TUCKEY —I challenge the Minister under the privilege of this Parliament to produce one example, because he is wrong. Mr Hand —You might be surprised. Mr TUCKEY —The Minister has been challenged and I will give him the privilege. He will not be charged with defamation. He should just lay the information on the table and prove it. Mr Hand —You have nothing to say. You come in here-- Mr TUCKEY —I have said plenty. I have said that I do not believe that bureaucrats are suitably adjusted to advise people how to get into business, although I think there are huge opportunities in that area. I ask the Minister, if he is such a good businessman, to tell me what value there is to the community in creating 600 new small businesses, half of which will probably fail, with an expenditure for 1988-89 of $7.717m-$7,717,000. Mr Hand —Are you declaring that? Mr TUCKEY —No, the statistics tell me that. The Minister's own documentation, which I have just read, says that last year 62 per cent were still in business three months after the money ran out. It is obvious that a few more would fail after that. What I am saying to the Minister is that his Government has not done very well in this area. Its Australian traineeship system has been an absolute disaster. It relies more heavily on advertising than on good job construction. In 10 minutes it is pretty hard to go through a document of many hundreds of pages, but I think the money the Government is spending is not achieving the desired results. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Sitting suspended from 6.29 to 8 p.m. Mr SNOWDON(Northern Territory)(8.00) —I refer to the appropriations dealing with Aboriginal affairs. In particular, I refer to the moneys allocated under the public awareness program and moneys allocated for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) for 1988-89. I refer first to the public awareness program. I remind the Committee of the objectives of this program, which are to promote awareness within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the wider Australian community about matters concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in order, firstly, to encourage the development of positive attitudes towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; secondly, to challenge misconception and correct misinformation about Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders which have a damaging effect on relationships within the general community; thirdly, to meet a growing demand for information about Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders; and, fourthly, to ensure that these processes portray Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women positively and that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women participate in the development and/or production of programs. The public awareness program is seen as important as a result primarily of a McNair Anderson gallup poll in 1986 which showed that 74 per cent of the population supported government assistance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders at existing or increased levels. In September 1987 a Melbourne Herald poll indicated that 70 per cent felt that Australia needed to reassess its approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders after 200 years of European settlement. The function of the public awareness program is to act as a catalyst for the increasing interest being shown in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues and to seek to guide this interest in a positive way and to fill gaps in information and knowledge where they are perceived. On 23 August this year, as part of the Government's approach to Aboriginal affairs, this Parliament passed a resolution on Aboriginal occupation of Australia. That was very much part of this Government's approach to increasing public awareness about Aboriginal affairs. We tried to get bipartisan support for the motion but, unfortunately, we were unable to do so because the Opposition chose to oppose it. In addition, on 24 August the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Hand) delivered the second reading speech on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Bill 1988. These two aspects of the appropriations are important because, in the first instance, we are dealing with the concern of the Government to ensure that the community is aware of the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal Australians and of their importance within our community. This Government sought bipartisan support from the Opposition to ensure that we could try together to get support for the Government's programs, which are designed to alleviate the problems which Aboriginal people are confronting as a result of their historical position and their dispossession within Australia. Unfortunately, as I say, we were unable to get that support. It was no surprise that the Opposition opposed the ATSIC Bill. What is of some surprise, however, is the way in which it has gone about trying to suggest that this Government has not carried out appropriate consultations with Aboriginal people. It has tried to suggest that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has not been aware of community needs. We all know that the ATSIC Bill arose primarily out of a document entitled Foundations for the Future, in regard to which the Minister made a statement to the House on 10 December 1987. Whilst the Bill dealing with ATSIC is extremely important, the Committee will recall its purpose was to establish a commission which would be established as a body corporate with responsibilities across the whole spectrum of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. Since December last year the Minister and his advisory staff and departmental officers have travelled the length and breadth of Australia and have held an unprecedented number of meetings with Aboriginal communities to discuss the ATSIC proposals. Indeed, they have received resounding support, despite the spurious claims which have been made by the Opposition spokesman on Aboriginal Affairs, the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles). They reflect, unfortunately, the Opposition's sad record in this area and the inability of the Opposition to see that the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal people are being met by this Bill. The Opposition has sought to undermine the Minister. It has sought to undermine those community representatives in the Aboriginal community who have, by their best endeavours, brought to the Minister their advice on the question of ATSIC. A couple of criticisms have been made. Some people have alleged that ATSIC represents a greater control being exercised by the Minister or that ATSIC is simply the old Department of Aboriginal Affairs under a new name. An examination of the Bill, as the Opposition spokesman would be aware, clearly puts a lie to those sorts of suggestions; yet he and his cohorts are prepared to suggest to the community that that is not true. The new Commission will conduct its affairs subject only to the general direction of the Minister, just as the Aboriginal Development Commission conducts its affairs subject to general directions. What we have seen in the attempts by certain sections of the community to undermine the ATSIC proposal is the protection of vested interests. We are aware that that is exactly the exercise in which the Opposition spokesman has been involved, because he has not, unfortunately, taken up the Minister's offer to accompany him and discuss these matters with Aboriginal people. He has not taken the opportunity to ensure that he has been well informed on the subject, nor has he taken appropriate advice from a wide range of Aboriginal community organisations around Australia which support the ATSIC recommendation. There have also been accusations that ATSIC will deprive Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of self-management and self-determination. An examination of the legislation, as the shadow spokesman well knows, shows that such suggestions have no basis in fact. Let me digress for a moment to talk about the Aboriginal affairs policy of the Liberal Party, as espoused by the shadow spokesman and other members of his Party. The honourable member for Bradfield (Mr Connolly) brought down this policy last year. In a press release he stated: Our policy seeks to restore better community understanding and support for Aboriginal advancement. . . . . Establishment of regional consultative bodies to give communities access to Government to advise on policy implementation . . . Of course, there was not one iota of consultation with the Aboriginal community about this policy. The honourable member's policy statement is rather illuminating. In addition to talking about the accountability, rights and responsibilities of Aboriginal and Islander people, he said: Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders should be assisted and encouraged not only to enjoy the many benefits, but also to accept the social and economic responsibilities of being full and equal members of the Australian community. This is essential to gaining respect within the wider community and improving their self-image. . . . . Aboriginals will be appropriately consulted in the implementation of policy. They will also be encouraged to accept responsibility for the administration and success of assistance programmes. There was no consultation with the Aboriginal community about that document. There was no consultation about the paternalistic and patronising attitudes that are exhibited by the Opposition. What the Aboriginal community groups have said about the ATSIC proposal give a lie to suggestions made by the Opposition and, indeed, reinforce in one sense this aspect of their proposal which talks about-- Mr Beale —Mr Deputy Chairman, I raise a point of order. The honourable member has referred twice during his speech to statements by the Opposition that `give a lie'. On the first occasion the comment was broad enough to preclude my colleague the Opposition spokesman, but on the second occasion it was not. I ask that you ask him to withdraw that comment. Mr Hand —On the point of order, Mr Deputy Chairman: If the honourable member for Deakin reads the Hansard, he will find that on the second occasion-given that he is not worried about the first occasion-the comment was that it `puts a lie'. The honourable member for the Northern Territory did not attribute that comment to any individual. The honourable member for Deakin is attempting to waste the time of the honourable member for the Northern Territory. I am correcting his misunderstanding. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Ronald Edwards) —I have heard the point of order. There is no substance to the point of order. Mr SNOWDON —As I have said, if members of the Opposition talk to the Aboriginal people, what they will say will give a lie to the policies of the Liberal Party which are enunciated in the policy statement to which I have referred. Let me remind honourable members opposite of a statement made by Aboriginal people in central Australia-a statement of members of the combined Aboriginal organisations of Alice Springs-in which, in referring to ATSIC and their support for it, they said: It will for the first time give Aboriginal people direct control over funds previously administered by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. It will also give control over the setting of spending priorities at a National and regional level. The autonomy of Regional Councils in relation to its programs has been guaranteed. What did they say about the Minister? They said: In our opinion, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has proved his ability to respond to Aboriginal wishes by changing important aspects of the original ATSIC proposal. That is the truth, but unfortunately it is not recognised by the Opposition. Members of the Opposition have gone around the country in a belated attempt to undermine this Government and undermine the bipartisan approach we have sought to bring to Aboriginal affairs. They have not been successful, and they will not be successful. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Ronald Edwards) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr BEALE(Deakin)(8.10) —The first comment I make is to draw attention to the fact that the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) is not in the House when we are discussing the expenditure in relation to his Department. I suppose the reason that he is not in the House is that he took a mauling this afternoon in his role as Acting Treasurer. Mr Hand —You never laid a glove on him. What are you talking about? You have nothing to say in this case and you are off talking about Question Time. You have nothing to say about education. You should get on with the legislation. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —The Minister will restrain himself. Mr BEALE —The Minister should contain himself. Actually, he should be out comforting his colleague, who took such a mauling today that he should be in the House now hiding from the representatives of the press, who are no doubt after him to ask, `How can you aspire to be the Treasurer of the country after the mauling you took in the House today?' Mr Hand —Mr Deputy Chairman, I rise on a point of order. The honourable member for Deakin ought to pay his debts, instead of coming in here and yapping. There is a matter before the House. We are not here to discuss Question Time or what occurred at that point. The fact that the honourable member is wrong about Question Time is another point, but the point I am making is that we are here to discuss policy and, as usual, Opposition members are displaying their lack of understanding or willingness to discuss policy. I ask you to pull the honourable member back into line and make him talk about the business before the House. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —I have heard the point of order. I was allowing the honourable member for Deakin to set the scene for his later remarks. Mr BEALE —That point of order, which took about three-quarters of a minute, indicates how sensitive the Government is, how out of touch it is, how arrogant it is, and how the living standards issue that hit it so hard in Oxley has started to bite. Arrogant; out of touch; falling living standards-the clear message for the Australian people. Mr Hand —Talk about education. Mr BEALE —I will talk about education and I will start by talking about higher education, on which the Government has estimated it will spend just over $2.8 billion in 1988-89. I want to quote from the explanatory notes on the Employment, Education and Training portfolio, Budget Related Paper 8.6A. It states in regard to objectives in higher education: In co-operation with government and non-government education authorities, higher education institutions and the private sector to: . . . maintain a higher education system that takes a long-term and independent approach in pursuing its teaching, scholarly and research functions. In the light of the higher education White Paper, I want to examine the extent to which the Government really wants to take an independent view of higher education in Australia. What is happening is that in fact the Dawkins plan for higher education is not about an independent system; it is about the centralisation of power and forcing his own view on Australia's education system. It is the nanny state all over again. We have got it with big government, big business, big unions, and we have our clubs. The nanny state has its club. We have the IR club-the industrial relations club-the waterfront club, and the shipping club, and what has the new Minister for Transport and Communications (Mr Willis), our arch regulator, done about that? Now we have the education club. Mr Hand —On a point of order, Mr Deputy Chairman: The point is that I, like a lot of people, have come here to discuss a particular item of policy, and the honourable member clearly is not doing that. The point of order is that he should be brought back to discuss policy, because I doubt he has much to say. He cannot fill out the 10 minutes. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —There is no point of order. Mr BEALE —If the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs will listen instead of gabbling on his feet like a magpie, I will tell him what his Government is doing in higher education-how it is centralising higher education and forcing its own view of Australia's education system on the Australian people. This can best be illustrated by what the Minister for Employment, Education and Training is doing in regard to his treatment of Australia's higher education institutions. He is using blackmail and coercion to force them to join a unified national system of higher education against their will. I asked the Minister a question in the House the other day. In the course of his answer he said something that I want to quote back to the House. He said: In any event I am not the kind of Federal Education Minister who would go around interfering in the autonomous administration of a university campus anywhere in Australia. He has not read his own document. I will just take two or three quotes from the document. In regard to the amalgamation of institutions, his own document says: Continued Commonwealth funding from 1990 within the unified national system will be contingent on consolidation. In the course of this higher education White Paper he says to the universities and higher education institutions: `If you do not join my unified national scheme, we are not going to continue your funding'. Are those the actions of a man who is taking an independent view of Australia's higher education institutions? Are those the actions of a man who says he is not the kind of Minister `who would go around interfering in the autonomous administration of a university campus'? Certainly not. There are still 20,000 students around Australia who are unable to get university places, and the graduate tax-another invention of this Minister-will do nothing to address that urgent problem. Where is the money to come from to fund those additional places? It will not come from the higher education White Paper. All that is about is forcing the Minister's view on our higher education institutions. It will not come from his tertiary tax, because that will take years to work through the system. The Minister has put up no solution to this problem, because the proper solution to the problem of additional places in Australia's tertiary institutions, the proper answer, is to free up the system, not to impose all sorts of rules and regulations on it. Mr Snowdon —It is to charge full fee. Mr BEALE —You go back to Darwin, into your electorate office, where you have the ALP blazoned all over the window in complete contravention of every convention-- Mr Price —On a point of order, Mr Deputy Chairman: I believe the shadow Minister should refer to members by their title. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —There is no point of order. Mr BEALE —I just want to quote again from the White Paper so far as amalgamations and interference are concerned. I just want to quote one item from the institutional management section of the report on organisational effectiveness in higher education institutions, in which the Minister says: On this basis, an appropriate size for the governing body of a higher education institution would be in the range of 10 to 15 members. He is telling these institutions how many people they can have on their councils. He is telling them what their boards should consist of. This is the nanny state in operation in our higher education system. Our institutions are being blackmailed into joining the Minister's vision of the world. The threat is quite simple: do what I say or I will cut off your money. Acceptance of the unified national system by the higher education institutions is not acceptance in the true sense; it is acceptance because the Minister is coercing, blackmailing and forcing these people into a system that they do not want. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Ronald Edwards) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Ms JAKOBSEN(Cowan)(8.20) —It is a great pleasure to participate in the debate this evening and I am sorry to hear that the Opposition has nothing more to do than to attack the Government on spurious little matters when we have done so well economically and in the employment field. Economic statistics confirm that the Australian economy is generally in a healthy state and that employment is one of the many areas where this Government's record contrasts starkly and positively with that of the Opposition when it was last in power. Social security statistics indicate that 435,518 people are unemployed, which is 22 per cent less than the figure for even two years ago. Of course, this is still too many people out of work. No country can afford to waste its human resources in this way, but the Budget has dealt seriously with the problems associated with unemployment and with the inadequate skills base in Australia at present. Skills formation comprises more than $200m of this Budget, including moneys earmarked for trade training, the Australian traineeship system and more general skills training. The Hawke Labor Government has always supported the development of a local skills base, over and above the mere importation of people with skills because the country and industry have failed to make sufficient provision for training our own citizens. That is not to say that either I or the Government is opposed to immigration. On the contrary, I personally strongly support the family reunion program and skills migration in areas where the need arises too quickly for normal training arrangements to respond in the short term. It is crucial that Australian employers seriously address the need for appropriate industry training and it is pleasing to see an increasing number of joint industry/union training bodies being set up around the nation. The Australian Council of Trade Unions accord has contributed markedly to the improvement in the Australian economy in so far as it has permitted a reduction in labour costs, promoted an increase in productivity and made possible the creation of more than a million new jobs-85 per cent of which are in the private sector. Simultaneously Australia's unemployment rate has dropped to below 7 per cent, from 10.3 per cent when Labor came to office in 1983. Other programs funded in this Budget which will be of significant benefit to unemployed people are those contained in the category of special employment and education and income support, such as Jobtrain, Jobstart, Skillshare and the new enterprise incentive scheme. I also include the jobs, education and training, or JET, scheme which is very important. These are all programs which I wholeheartedly support, together with the Jobsearch training program which is financed as part of labour market operation funding arrangements. The Jobsearch training program is funded as a labour market program because it will help a large number of young school leavers gain interview and other skills and assist them into the work force. This is a very short term course, being normally one week long, but it is quite effective. I think that the technical and further education colleges running this course are finding it popular and useful for the young people involved. I believe that if it were possible, an extension to two weeks would be beneficial to permit more coverage of particular skills and to enable a little more time to be spent with those participants who are particularly disadvantaged. The proposed New-Start program, which is designed to assist long term unemployed people improve their employability, permits a wider range of vocationally relevant activities, such as short term courses, while people are on the unemployment benefit. It also permits the waiver of waiting periods when reclaiming benefits under certain circumstances. As part of the New-Start program, 40,000 intensive interviews will be able to be undertaken each year so that Department of Social Security and Commonwealth Employment Service staff can provide personal counselling, assessment and referral for participants to help them obtain the most appropriate training and education and also identify suitable employment opportunities. Skillshare is another element of the Government's employment strategy which will be most successful because it specifically targets those people in need of assistance in the community from the community. Skillshare expands the scope of community groups with an interest in helping unemployed people and increases the range of groups able to be assisted. I believe that, like me, some other members are involved with Skillshare projects in their areas and are endeavouring to get funding for them. Personally, I feel that although regional employment needs have not been specifically addressed in the Budget, Skillshare is a possible method of dealing with pockets of unemployment in certain parts of Australia where these exist. I would like to see the Government give a little more emphasis to this area of regional unemployment. I am very happy to see three Ministers-the Minister for Employment and Education Services (Mr Duncan), the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) and the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins)-dealing so comprehensively with their portfolios and bringing so much cooperation to them, especially given the complexities of the problems facing people who are unemployed and the need to resolve difficulties of a bureaucratic nature that frustrate them. As most honourable members are aware there are many barriers confronting people who are out of work and I know that the Budget deals with these areas in a sympathetic and helpful way, to the point of providing a return to work allowance, a beneficial and improved training allowance and child-care facilities for those who would not be able to work unless child care was available. The question of people returning to work after being on the sole parent's benefit after some time has been raised before in other debates in this chamber. There is a part for this matter to play in the Employment, Education and Training portfolio discussions because without sympathetic and appropriate action by the Minister we would not be in the position to assist these people when it comes to training them to take up their proper place in the community and assume a role in society with full time employment and a better standard of living. It is amusing to hear members of the Opposition talking about the standard of living dropping in Australia. We have a social justice strategy which the Opposition could never have brought forward and we have an accord with the unions-- Mr Beale —Tell that to the voters of Oxley! Mr Price —Don't forget Victoria-we won in Victoria. Ms JAKOBSEN —Yes, we won the Victorian election-I thank the honourable member for Chifley for that comment. I know that some honourable members opposite may have dreams of being in government but they are simply dreams because the people of Australia will never be sufficiently foolish to put the Opposition back-- Mr Miles —Don't be so sure about that, not after Oxley. Ms JAKOBSEN —Oh no, my word they will not. They will not put the Opposition back on the Government side of the House, given Opposition members' lack of sensitivity in the past and their ineptitude when it came to dealing with matters of employment in particular. I commend the Bill to the House. Mr MILES(Braddon)(8.29) —I want to refer particularly to the area of Aboriginal affairs. First of all I wish to make a few comments on the speech made by the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Snowdon) a few minutes ago. He said that the Opposition did not do very much consulting with the Aboriginal people. I have asked the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Hand) to provide me with the same sort of resources to enable me to consult with the Aboriginal people as those that are available to him. I look forward to his answer. Will I get the resources to trip around the country to the same extent as he has done in order to undertake that consultation which the honourable member for the Northern Territory says that Opposition members should undertake? I look forward to the reply from the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the near future about that area. Today we find that the whole administration in regard to Aboriginal affairs is in turmoil. Within the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and other departments $808m is spent on Aboriginal programs in Australia. That amount of money is very substantial, as people would agree. We all recognise, and the coalition recognises, that Aboriginal people are the most disadvantaged cultural group in Australia. But I want to put the figures quite clearly and succinctly to the Committee tonight that over the last six years for a family of six Aboriginal people in Australia, Australian governments have contributed a figure of just over $100,000, over and above other benefits to other Australians. That is a very substantial contribution by taxpayers in Australia to alleviate that disadvantage faced by Aboriginal people. Today in the Australian Financial Review I was very interested to look at the evidence which has been collated in the Australian Bulletin of Labour. It was published by the National Institute of Labour Studies at Flinders University in an article by Mr Treadgold of the University of New England. He goes into various details. But in referring to the amount of money in the programs which governments have put into place in regard to Aboriginal affairs he sums up in this way: . . . namely that over a 10-year period of seemingly serious political commitment to improve the economic lot of Aborigines through an array of government policies and programmes the totality of achievement was of negligible proportions. He is saying that there has been a tremendous amount of money contributed in this area-as I said, over $100,000 for a family of six in the last six years by this present Government. We find very little change occurring. We have to seriously question the programs and the policies that this Government is putting into place in regard to Aboriginal affairs because quite frankly there has been a massive policy failure by this Government over 5 1/2 years in the area of Aboriginal affairs. Only today we see turmoil in the largest Aboriginal controlled organisation in Australia, the Aboriginal Development Commission. Yesterday a motion of no confidence was passed by commissioners in the Chairman. Today the General Manager has been moved sideways. That is just one indication of the extent of turmoil that is in Aboriginal affairs. I want to illustrate another area by having a look at the explanatory notes prepared on the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. We find: The Explanatory Notes do not equate with Budget Paper No. 3. The Department is conscious of the requirement for consistency between the two documents, but points out that the closing-off of the Department of Finance Budget Management System on close of business 3 August occurred before the Department had finalised its approved ongoing program . . . How long does the Department of Aboriginal Affairs need to get its programs in order? When one goes through this document one finds that out of the various lines of allocation, of 90 different allocations, 61 have been changed from the time in which the Budget was put together. So, in the two major portfolio areas what we find today is administrative chaos. That is the only way to describe the situation in which the portfolio of Aboriginal Affairs is in today. At a time when the Minister is wanting to put in place a new structure in Aboriginal affairs the most important thing that is needed is stability and continuity in the present administrative structure so that if that proposed reorganisation takes place there are the administrative structures which can ensure that the changeover can take place in an orderly and effective way. That is not the situation we are faced with in Aboriginal affairs at the moment. In the last few minutes I want to turn to some comments by the Auditor-General relating to Abstudy in Australia and the provision of funds for Aboriginal young people and education. In the Auditor-General's report-of which I have a copy-he makes some comments about various areas in regard to the Department of Employment, Education and Training. In regard to applications for these grants there must be verification of Aboriginality. There must be verification of the age of the applicants so that the money can be provided in an orderly way and to the people who deserve that money. When the Auditor-General looked into it, he found that the Department rarely and generally did not seek that information. It is very important that the Department verify who the people are who should receive these benefits. Generally that verification was not being sought by the Department in providing those benefits to Aboriginal people. In regard to quality control the Auditor-General noted that it was required that there be checks performed by supervisors and also that there be sample checks taken. When the Auditor-General looked into this he found that he was unable to locate: . . . any evidence of the random checks or of the report to Central Office and, on inquiry, was advised that the reports had not be submitted since- when?- 1983. That indicates the type of administration which is going on in Aboriginal Affairs. The Australian people need to know the type of administration that this Government has put in place with regard to monitoring these systems. We could go on with several other points that the Auditor-General raised. I include this one in regard to the recovery of over-payments. He said that when they investigated the Department it was impossible to find the exact value of the outstanding overpayments because it was not known by the Department but when they looked at the particular date, 8 August 1987, it was able to say that the minimum value of outstanding overpayments was over $300,000. When they inquired as to what measures were taken by the Department in following up those overpayments it said that letters had been sent out to recover those moneys but there had been no follow-up by the recovery section of the Department to see what really had happened. That is the situation of the administration we see in regard to this money which is required to be targeted to help the most disadvantaged people. The administration is slack in this area. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Ronald Edwards) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr PRICE(Chifley)(8.39) —I would like to make a few comments on this legislation but I must say that I have been very much provoked by the remarks of the shadow Minister, the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles), when he claims that our Federal Minister is guilty of coercion. I ask him to cast his eye north of the Victorian border and witness what is happening under the newly instituted conservative Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, Dr Metherell, and the Premier, Mr Greiner. I would suggest that he has a real hide in saying that the Minister for Employment, Education and Training (Mr Dawkins) is coercing institutions, particularly when he issued a Green Paper, then a White Paper and indulged in a wide round of community consultations in arriving at the Government's position. I believe that the Government is to be commended. I want to warn the people of Australia not be lured by false promises coming from Opposition shadow Ministers, be they in State or Federal parliament. I think we have a couple of good examples that we can look at. Firstly, we have the senior high school. One of the important initiatives of the Federal Government has been to establish a national goal of achieving 65 per cent retention rates in years 11 and 12-a very worthwhile and dramatic goal to set. Indeed, we have seen the whole shift nationally, in aggregate figures, of retention rates moving up to about 57 per cent. But what happened in New South Wales? What happened to the promises and undertakings of a conservative Leader of the Opposition and his shadow Minister? In opposition they promised to institute a senior high school, in particular in my electorate, similar to the ones we have in the Australian Capital Territory. I am sure that most honourable members would be familiar with the successful model that operates in the Australian Capital Territory where we have a school devoted to years 11 and 12 and we have a number of feeder high schools that go up to year 10. That is what was promised. What happened? The New South Wales Government is implementing a senior high school at St Marys but it will not have feeder high schools that cut off at year 10. In fact we will have 50 feeder high schools so that that institution will not make a dramatic impact in lifting retention rates and altering attitudes and peer pressures in the western suburbs of Sydney. It will cater for elites. It is perfectly legitimate to cater for elites but it does not address the real problem. I would also like to draw the attention of the Committee to the current arguments about amalgamation. The shadow Minister for education, the honourable member for Deakin (Mr Beale), referred in his speech to amalgamations and was very critical of the Federal Minister. In my area and those of my neighbours, the honourable member for Greenway (Mr Gorman) and the honourable member for Lindsay (Mr Free), we take a great interest in higher education and we currently have two proposals. On the one hand we have the proposal by the conservative Premier, Mr Greiner, and the Minister for Education, Dr Metherell, that the Nepean and Hawkesbury colleges of advanced education should become outposts of Sydney University and that that should continue for a period. On the other hand, we have the Federal Minister saying that he has some concern about that and, in particular, he is very sensitive to the legitimate aspirations of the people in the western suburbs for an autonomous university. One of the things that I would like to take up, because it involves both State and Federal governments, is the accusation reported in the Sydney Morning Herald two days ago. The Minister, Dr Metherell, accused local politicians of `rushing around like headless chooks pushing their own parochial barrows without regard for what structure would lead to the best quality institution in the western suburbs'. It is true that the Chifley College was to be a college of the University of Sydney and was to be granted full autonomy in 1996 when it would have had 3,000 students. Let me place on the record that I believe that in any amalgamation, whether it is Dr Metherell's proposal, which is doomed to failure, or the proposal of the Minister for Employment, Education and Training, we should see at least an extra net 3,000 places in the combined institution by 1996. But there is a big difference between arguing that a college with an initial size of merely 300 students, building up to 3,000, should have to wait before being granted full autonomy and saying that existing institutions with combined effective full time student numbers of 5,300 in 1988 should wait some time, or six years, before they get full autonomy. The situation has changed. Let me say why I find the proposal that we should be outposts of Sydney University particularly unattractive. Those western suburbs campuses at Westmead, Kingswood, Werrington and Richmond would become degree factories. No-one really believes that Sydney University will transfer its research facilities or some of its post-graduate research students to the west. Sydney University would get the advantages of the numbers through degree factories but would keep the cream for the central campus. The shadow Minister talked about coercion. The Chancellor at Sydney University has come out in opposition to the Minister's proposal, the Senate has voted on it and has come out in opposition to it and it still looks as though the Premier of New South Wales, Mr Greiner, and his Minister will try to dragoon those institutions into their model. It will be a very retrograde step and that is why we are opposed to it. Of course, one of the good things in New South Wales is that the Australian Democrats take an interest in this amalgamated institution. They have already indicated that they will support the retention of the name Chifley and I know that all members on this side of the chamber will be very pleased about that and will deprecate the uncharitable and unkind comments made by Dr Metherell. But I also believe that they will resist the proposition that Sydney University, Nepean College of Advanced Education and Hawkesbury College of Advanced Education should be coerced by State legislation into the Sydney University outpost concept that Dr Metherell is proposing. I believe that local politicians, rather than running around like headless chooks, have taken a lead position initially with the people of the western suburbs in fighting for that university and getting the Chifley University College approved and agreed to by both the then Labor State Government and the Federal Government. Legitimately, they are now taking an interest when the progress that has been made is under threat and under challenge. I say quite frankly to the House that I was one of those who opposed the multi-campus approach that was initially advocated because I believed that the colleges of advanced education were doing an excellent job and that they had their own place in the world. But the White Paper has changed all that. Three thousand places is not large enough and we have to go back to the drawing boards. I now fully support this concept of a multi-campus approach for Chifley University. I wish to make just one comment about Mr Parry who was the author of the Parry report and also a member of Dr Metherell's task force into higher education in the western suburbs of Sydney. I have always admired Mr Parry and he often has a lot to say which makes sense. But I think it is rather regrettable that, when he wrote the historical section of the task force report, he selectively quoted from his own report. When he said that the Parry report had nominated the site of a fourth main campus to be close to rail services he was correct. But he did not go on to say that he had also recommended that it be located either at Blacktown or Parramatta. I suggest that public servants should always be accurate when they are giving historical context. I support the legislation before the Committee. Mr WEBSTER(Macquarie)(8.49) —I would like to place on record my thanks at being granted membership of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. I am looking forward to a very happy time on that Committee. Tonight I wish to focus attention for a brief period on three areas of the appropriations for Aboriginal Affairs. Firstly, I raise the general point already referred to by the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles). The evidence, reflected in a report published in the media today, is that much of the expenditure on problems confronting Aboriginal people has been ineffective. According to the Treadgold research, over a 10-year period there has been negligible achievement in the task of improving the economic status of Aborigines. The media states that where there has been a rise in income, one of the main contributing factors has been social security payments. The important question not just before the Minister but before the whole House, because of the evidence arising from the period covering both coalition and Labor Government programs, is how we can improve the monitoring and the evaluation of programs undertaken in conjunction with Aboriginal people. I am sure it is something that has exercised the Minister's mind and I hope it will continue to do so in a substantial way. The second point to note is the increased allocations for public affairs and, in particular, public awareness programs. Recently, a well-known sociologist in the United States of America, Charles Murray-and I am sure that the Minister has read some of his work-has warned about what he sees as the emergence of `custodial democracy' in the United States, in particular in regard to the black underclass. He claims that there is now developing a real frustration and anger within the majority white community concerning the task of improving the opportunities and status of black people. He suggests that with the precedent now well-established through the affirmative discrimination, of dealing with people as group members rather than as individuals, and with the growing perception that nothing works when dealing with black people, there will develop a new paternalism, a new discrimination, a new exclusion of black people from the mainstream of national life. I believe that we should reflect very seriously on this trend because it seems to be becoming evident in Australia. The task before the Government is, first, to get back to basics in the area of Aboriginal affairs. It is, secondly, to use its public awareness program to fight the sense of frustration and hostility that seems to be developing in the non-Aboriginal community in regard to Aboriginal advancement. What is necessary is not to push a line in the face of stereotype and misinformation, but to accept the majority of non-European concerns as the starting point for a new effort to lift community opinion to the same level of concern and commitment to Aboriginal advancement that was achieved prior to the 1967 referendum, which we all agree was a great decision made by Australians. My final point has to do with what will be the new format in the Appropriation Bills next year if the Government has its way with the centralisation of power in the structure of the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. It could be said that in the development of political control and participation within the Aboriginal community, Aborigines have before them two models. One contains space for a pluralism of views and for institutional checks and balances. That model gives due regard to the diversity of opinion, interest and skill within the Aboriginal community and due regard to age-old lessons about decentralisation of power and responsibility. The other is the model being pushed by the Government. It is the imposition of one central structure, one dominant agenda, and one dominant group within the developing Aboriginal elite. It seems to me to be a recipe for failure. The coalition supports the former model of participation and community development. It is opposed to the Government's proposals for a centralised structure. I put it to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs-I do not want to antagonise him as I think that he is certainly giving much thought to many things in his portfolio-that his model will merely add divisive internal political rivalry to economic and welfare stagnation for the Aboriginal people of Australia. That is based on the Treadgold report and also on what Charles Murray expressed. Those things need to be given careful attention. In the long run it will mean that these appropriations, like those for the past 10 years or so-that is, those covering both conservative and Labor governments-will do little to improve the life opportunities and equalities of individual Aboriginal Australians. Mr HAND(Melbourne-Minister for Aboriginal Affairs)(8.55) —I thank honourable members for their participation in the debate tonight, which has covered a wide range of issues. There were some interesting contributions. Naturally, I will reserve most of my comments for my own portfolio. Mr Beale —That is because Dawkins is not in the House. Mr HAND —There is a reason why the Minister for Employment, Education and Training and Acting Treasurer (Mr Dawkins) is not here. I will deal first with the contribution of the shadow Minister for education, the honourable member for Deakin (Mr Beale). His contribution ought to be read by anybody who has the slightest interest in education to see his lack of understanding and his lack of appreciation of the subject of education. Why in the name of goodness he was appointed to look after this shadow ministry is beyond me. He made such a hash of the other ones he has had. All I can say is that the Opposition must rate education very lowly to have given that shadow ministry to him. It was evidenced by his comments tonight that he did not understand what he was saying. He did not understand the comments of the Minister. He selectively misquoted details from the report. He showed all in the gallery and those listening that he has absolutely no understanding of education. He tended to concentrate on one particular sector. Even there his comments were very narrow. I think he was more than grateful for the odd interruption he got by way of points of order. Had he not attracted those points of order, he would have sat down after six or seven minutes because he had nothing else to say. It was obvious. People ought to read in Hansard what he said. He was wrong about the Government's intention to `stand over', to `interfere'-which I think were the words he attributed to the Minister. The honourable member for Deakin is totally wrong. He misunderstands. Perhaps if the honourable member and staff sat down over the next weekend or two and studied the area, he might put in a better performance when he comes in here in the future. Then we come to the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey). Mr Beale —Is that all? Mr HAND —There was nothing else to respond to. It is my job tonight to respond to what is said. I have been sitting here for the past two hours trying to think about what I was going to say about the honourable member's contribution, and that is all I could come up with. The honourable member for O'Connor is new in his job, as is the honourable member for Deakin. Therefore, one has to make excuses for him in that regard-although one is often trying to make excuses for the honourable member for O'Connor. He tended to concentrate on the unemployment schemes, particularly for youth. He related some of his own experiences. Whilst I personally admire what he said he did for young unemployed people as an individual in his electorate, I point out that there is an old philosophy in life that says that if one does a charitable deed, one does not need to stand up in public and tell everybody about it. Whilst I have admiration for what he did, the point is that there are probably many other members of the House doing similar things. Mr Beale —Not on your side. Mr HAND —I am more generous than the honourable member for Deakin-that is the problem. I recognise deeds whether they are done by members on this side of the House or by members on the other side. The honourable member for O'Connor tended to concentrate on what he perceived-this is in the short time he has been responsible for this shadow ministry-as the failures. I ought to refer his comments to the Minister. On the notes we have made here, the honourable member is absolutely wrong, again, on every point and interpretation he made on what has taken place over the last few years. He is wrong, wrong, wrong. I do not think it does anybody any good to come in here and make cheap shots. If one does not know what one is talking about, one is best not to get up. It is the oldest trick in the book in politics. He proved today that he does not understand. We could read out that in terms of age and education the system is meeting its objectives. At the end of June 1988, 91 per cent of all trainees were aged between 16 and 18 years, and 73 per cent of all trainees had not successfully completed year 12. That is the very group in our society, and I am sure most people in the Parliament will agree, which needs that extra assistance through training schemes. This is what we are attempting to do in all these schemes. The problem in this place is that if one does not attain 100 per cent success somebody get up and says something is a failure. That is not how we should approach these things. These projects are designed to help those in need, who have missed out somewhere along the way in terms of access to education or opportunity for one reason or another from all walks of life, rural and city, and are forced into situations beyond their control where they find themselves disadvantaged. Constructive criticism is welcomed by the Government but I point out again that the honourable member for O'Connor is substantially wrong in what he says. We will be reporting publicly on the success rates and performance rates of these projects in the coming 12 months, and the Government does not back away from that. If something is not working there is no difficulty in readjusting that particular program to ensure it goes better. Nothing is constant and nothing is not able to be changed or improved. The honourable member for O'Connor would do well to be less abrasive, less abusive and less personal in his comments and make more constructive comments in relation to his shadow portfolio. Then we would get on better. He even upset me at one stage tonight, which as he would know is very hard to do. I now move to my own portfolio. Firstly, the honourable member for Macquarie (Mr Webster) made a very balanced set of comments. He was constructive in what he said and he suggested different ways of approaching things. As he said, I am constantly grappling with those problems. They are immense, and the difficulty in this portfolio is that good news is bad news and does not sell newspapers. That is one of the big problems in Aboriginal affairs. It is difficult to get anyone to write about or talk about all the good things that happen in Aboriginal affairs, and we would have a lot of good news to talk about if we took the time to go through the various reports. The shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the honourable member for Braddon (Mr Miles), does not have a policy. He talks about approaching me for assistance to consult. I approached him early this year and suggested that I was prepared to consult with him on my discussions around the country, to have him briefed about what we were doing, and to have departmental officers sit down with him to go through the minutes and suggestions made by Aboriginal people. That was all open to him, but he never took up the offer. I made that offer to him on more than one occasion. He has written to me as he said, but he wants me to supply funds to him and his party to mount a consultation process around the country because of the longstanding Liberal Party opposition to the treaty. How long is a long time? Mr Miles —That is a misquote. Mr HAND —It is not a misquote-the honourable member said there had been longstanding opposition to the treaty. We have all heard that Senator Chaney supports the treaty concept. I have said to the Opposition in relation to the treaty that politicians should stay out of this. Why come in here scoring cheap shots when they should let the community have a reasonable and rational debate on something that is fundamentally important to this country without the scaremongering tactics of John Hay, the honourable member for Braddon and other people who have great difficulty in telling the truth. Mr Miles —Oh, come on! Mr HAND —I will withdraw that. They have great difficulty in understanding what is said and written and have the ability to twist it somehow so that it comes out different from what the person is saying. This Government has said to the Aboriginal people and to the non-Aboriginal people, `We would like to have a treaty between our indigenous people and the non-Aboriginal people in this country'. I would have thought that to be not an unreasonable thing to try. No-one in the Government has said publicly that anything in particular will be in the treaty. We had the spectacle of the shadow Minister putting out a statement, and circulating it to farmer organisations and to other organisations, which he knew was totally wrong. He has never retracted it. He was told to do that by the Chairman of the National Farmers Federation, and he knew what he put out was designed to create fear. Mr Miles —The truth is hurting. Mr HAND —It is not hurting me, and I will come to whom it is hurting in a minute. The honourable member came in here tonight and again put forward nothing constructive and again made no suggestion about how anything could be improved. One interesting thing he said tonight concerned events at the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC) over the last day or so. I have not had any communication from the chairperson of the ADC or the General Manager, and as I understand it from quick inquiries that have been made, no announcement has been made by the ADC regarding the issue raised. Mr Miles —It was on radio again in Adelaide. Mr HAND —The only people who seem to know about it there are the Opposition and the press. I find that extraordinary. The honourable member should find out who on the Opposition side of politics released it at lunch time. In relation to the comments made about the state of the Department, I believe that of all departments in the Public Service one of the most difficult areas is within my portfolio. I take my hat off to the people working in my portfolio because of the magnitude of the task, the degree of the difficulties they face and the way in which they carry out their duties. The Opposition spokesman also talks about the way things have deteriorated. I do not accept that. If one looks at the record one finds that in almost every area improvement is occurring. One has to consider things like Aboriginal life expectancy, which is up to 20 years less than that of other Australians. Mr Miles —Has it improved in the last five years? Mr HAND —Yes, it has. Infant mortality, while improving, is still higher. If the honourable member comes out with me and sits in the dirt and talks to people, he will see how difficult this job is. But all I get from the Opposition is smug, smart comments about cost-nothing about the degree of the problem, nothing about where people live, nothing about how people were rounded up and dumped in particular places in the past. Mr Miles —We recognise that. Mr HAND —The Opposition does not recognise it because all the Opposition does is look at negatives. One never hears the Opposition spokesman saying something was good, or that something worked. Mr Miles —It would be pretty hard to find under your administration. Mr HAND —It would not be hard to find under my administration if one looks at what has occurred since 1983. The foundations for many of these programs were put in place by Liberals-Peter Baume, the honourable member for Sturt (Mr Wilson), Fred Chaney. At that time someone did not walk around saying that in the first 12 months something had not worked properly. It has taken years for some of these programs to bear fruit and we have been supplementing and adding to the funds for those programs. It has been a long, hard struggle in this area. If the Opposition wishes to talk about achievements, I can state that we halved infant mortality in the Northern Territory between 1965 and 1985. That occurred mostly while honourable members opposite were in government. But that is how long it takes. The infant mortality rate in Western Australia was reduced by two-thirds between 1971 and 1984. Hospital attendance rates in Western Australia were halved between 1974 and 1984. A high percentage of Aboriginal children have now been immunised for tuberculosis. There has been the introduction and continuation of programs designed to prevent lifestyle diseases, such as diabetes. That was a new initiative in the Budget. There have been other new initiatives in the Budget. Not a word has been said by the Opposition about the new initiatives in the Budget, the programs that have been developed with Aboriginal people. The honourable member for Macquarie said that Aboriginal people ought to be involved in the process. That is exactly what our new proposals are about. If we all stand back and take a look, perhaps we will see that the missing ingredient has been Aboriginal involvement in the decision-making processes which we non-Aboriginals have created. Why have things not gone so rapidly? There have been many success stories. I have been with honourable members opposite on numerous trips with the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. We have seen many good things, but we have seen a hell of a lot of things that still depress me. I have just come back from a five-day trip carrying the swag, as they say, and camping out. It was depressing. But we are not going to give it away; we are not going to give it up. I say again to the Opposition that we need its help. We do not need its carping and criticism which is not constructive. My door is open. A number of Opposition members use it when they want to talk about trying to improve things. But to come in here and say that $X has been spent on every six Aboriginal people in the last eight years-or whatever was claimed-is not on. What an outstanding contribution to the problems facing Aboriginal people! What we ought to be asking ourselves is how we can do things better. The Bonner report, taking in the Anagu Pitjantjatjara lands in the top end of South Australia, which was commissioned by us shows that we have a massive job to do to fix up things. The Bonner report refers to 35 different government agencies roaming through the area, trying to address the problems. That is one of the big problems that need to be addressed. The honourable member for Macquarie, unlike the shadow Minister, talked about the public awareness campaign. If honourable members opposite have a constructive contribution to make about the public awareness campaign which the honourable member talked about, I am only too happy to hear from them. I doubt whether I will hear of anything constructive from the shadow Minister. The shadow Minister has yet to put forward one constructive view. The Opposition does not have a policy. The shadow Minister supports-God help us-food vouchers instead of unemployment benefit. That is the latest quotation in the press. If he thinks having food vouchers and whipping people's unemployment benefits off them will solve the problems facing Aboriginal people, he has a long way to go. God help the Aboriginal people if he ever gets this job. I doubt whether he will because we all know that the Leader of the Opposition's staff rang the wrong bloke and sacked him. They sacked the wrong bloke from Tasmania. What was the other fellow's name? It is nearly as hard to remember. He was the bloke who should have been saved. The shadow Minister was the bloke whom the Leader of the Opposition's staff was supposed to ring. They rang the other fellow, so the shadow Minister is still here and the other fellow got the sack. That shows how organised the Opposition is. Mr Snowdon —He will not deny it. Mr HAND —That is true. He will not deny it because it is true. What we are attempting to do now with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) is to bring about participation by Aboriginal people at the grass roots level. We have been through all that. The legislation has been supported by this House. It has gone through here, and I understand that it is now going to go through the Senate. The start-up date now will be 15 May. I look forward to that day. The legislation is going to do a number of things. We will not have Aboriginal people going from one agency to another, backwards and forwards, becoming more and more frustrated. There will be a one-stop shop to deal with matters at a Commonwealth level. In the farming industry, or any industry you like, the fewer bureaucratic organisational structures one has to deal with the better. I have heard the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd) talk about these sorts of things in the past in the House. The same thing applies to Aboriginal people. With our new initiatives program we are putting fences around the money so that we can go in and actually fix a particular problem. This approach has been welcomed by the States. We have an excellent working relationship with the States-unlike the Opposition-of all political persuasions. We have a $30.3m program for the town camp issue in the Northern Territory. People said that we would never be able to do it. Well, we did it, with Chief Minister Hatton and Chief Minister Perron. We have an excellent relationship with the Premier of Queensland and Minister Katter. We have been discussing issues with Premier Greiner, with Victorian Minister Roper, with South Australia and with Western Australia. Never before have we had this sort of togetherness between States and the Commonwealth to address these issues. I welcome the contribution and cooperation we are getting from the States. Change is taking place. Good things are happening. Let us look at and talk about the statistics. It is very difficult to get the message across. People look at the bad side of things. No-one ever takes the trouble to look at the good side. I am sure that has been said by every person who has held this job. A new era is developing in Aboriginal affairs this financial year. ATSIC will be off and running. Community involvement in the decision-making process will happen. We now have a togetherness with the States and an eradication of the duplication of services which must drive an Aboriginal person living in a community crazy. He can have up to 35 bureaucrats approaching him. All that is going. We are going to have the new era that I talk about. The shadow Minister has left the chamber, as usual. We have had the old hit and miss tactics from Opposition members. With the exception of the honourable member for Macquarie, who made a valuable contribution, the Opposition spokesmen-the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey), the honourable member for Deakin (Mr Beale) and the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs-knew nothing about the portfolio I have responsibility for and fired off a few cheap shots in areas which are difficult, but in which we are trying to develop a greater equality within our society, that is, employment and training, education and Aboriginal affairs. It is all about trying to create equality. A few cheap shots were the only thing we had from the Opposition. Opposition members stand condemned for their lack of understanding of all the issues that have been raised in this debate. Proposed expenditures agreed to. Motion (by Mr Duncan) agreed to: That consideration of the proposed expenditure for the Department of Defence be postponed. Department of Primary Industries and Energy Proposed expenditure, $352,533,000. Mr LLOYD(Murray)(9.19) —Many issues could be raised during consideration of the estimates for the Department of Primary Industries and Energy. For example, one could start with the Government's general economic policy, the increasingly high interest rates and what they are doing to reduce and slow down the investment necessary for the expansion and diversification of agriculture at this most critical time when there is a need to increase our exports and our productivity. Interest rates for rural borrowers are now 16 and 17 per cent again. There is the added problem of the time lag of several years between investment and any cash flow from it. If we are to take advantage of the Japanese beef market, feedlots, horticulture, wool and so forth, this country, not just the farmers, needs to have a better interest rate structure. It is interesting to note that in New Zealand, which is one of our major rural export competitors, the Lange Government decided two months ago that it had had enough of high interest rates and an artificially high exchange rate and determined to allow both interest rates and exchange rates to fall to a more realistic level in order to get investment in agriculture going again. That is what this Government should be doing. One could talk also about the removal of incentives from rural industry and the added tax burden that has been put on rural industry-for example, export inspection charges, the automatically increasing fuel excise, with country people being required to use so much more fuel, and the decreasing amount going back to roads; or the added imposts on country people in general terms. For example, no longer can one claim as an immediate tax deduction the cost of the connection of electric power to one's farm, as any other industry is still entitled to do, if it has to pay at all. One could refer to the new assets tests on assistance for isolated children or for Austudy, with their particular application to and implications for country people. One could talk about the reductions in research funding particularly the 30 per cent reduction in real terms for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation over the last few years, and what that will mean in reduced productivity for agriculture and other exports from this country in the future. In general, those sorts of policies add up to two indictments of this Government: first of all, that it is an anti-trade government at a time when more than ever there should be incentives for trade if we are going to turn around our massive trade imbalance; secondly, that this Government has double standards in that rural industries already have less protection than secondary industry or service industries. Rural exports are subjected to a corrupt world market through the European Economic Community and the United States and are being exposed immediately to these corrupt market levels. Yet there are other industries in Australia which are not as efficient and which lack competitiveness and which are adding to the costs of rural exports through their work practices or through their levels of protection. There are pay loadings, there is the textile industry, the automobile industry, the shipping industry, the waterfront, et cetera. All of this adds up when one talks about falling living standards. Living standards for farmers have fallen more than for any other single group in this nation. That is because the farmers of this country cannot pass on costs as exporters. Even now, in the boom time for commodities, if we allow for a return on the high capital that is necessary for agriculture, the average income for farmers is still lower than that for the community generally. I am not going to talk in any more detail about those issues because in the few minutes left to me I want to concentrate on another problem this Government has created in its primary industry policy. I refer to the Government's very dangerous quarantine policy. When the 1987-88 financial year began we had the Amman Aviation Pty Ltd fiasco, with all of the dangers that that created for coastal surveillance and the prevention of certain animal and plant diseases coming into this country. The year ended with the information that more Indonesian fishing boats than ever were reaching our shores. There were up to 15 at one stage, and they were not picked up by coastal surveillance because of the dramatic reduction in finance. We look after these Indonesians and then send them home by aircraft. They come out here again, making an absolute mockery of our coastal surveillance and quarantine policy. However, I do not want to concentrate even on that. The single most important issue in quarantine is the perverse and contradictory policy of the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS), which is actually applying stricter standards on the export from Australia of agricultural products than it is on the importation into this country of either products or plant or animal material. In general, AQIS has an acceptable risk policy for importation, and that could be more strongly confirmed if it accepts certain recommendations presently before the Government. Such an acceptable risk policy cannot be good for our very important and valuable livestock and plant industries in this country. They must be protected at all costs against the unnecessary incursion of diseases. One has only to think of the gamba grass, screw-worm fly and tissue worm problems that have occurred in the last six months. If one looks at New Zealand, it is not observing the quarantine protocols and rules which it should. The New Zealanders have a very commendable secure risk policy, not an acceptable risk policy, but they certainly have a double standard when it comes to getting animal or plant material into Australia. In general, we need a food import inspection system and standards of the same stringency for those products coming into this country as we have for our own domestically produced foods. To show the perversity of this Government's policy, I want to give examples relating to the export of oats and oranges that came up in the last month or six weeks. I have worked with the Ministry, the Department and the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) to try to overcome these problems because our exports are important. In both cases AQIS was requiring quarantine procedures which the importing country itself did not require. That to me is absurd. AQIS should be involved with export quarantine procedures only when the importing country requires it to be involved; otherwise it should get out of the way and let us get on with exporting these most valuable products, particularly oranges, for example, when we have the United States competing against us for the Japanese market. I want to deal now with a related danger for quarantine, and here I am not necessarily being critical of AQIS, the Government or the Department, because this is a great and growing problem. I refer to the illegal importation of plant material or semen or embryos. I will concentrate just on plant materials. There are two particular reasons why this danger is growing at the present time. First of all, Australia has been very late to introduce plant variety rights. Those countries that have had plant variety rights for many years are now years and years ahead of Australia with new varieties of fruit and vegetables. We can thank the Labor Government for wasting six years before we finally accepted plant variety rights. Although the Government is increasing official screening facilities to allow in more of this plant material, these are still inadequate. Secondly, there is a belief that if there is to be a profit made with horticultural products then one has to get into the act ahead of the Chileans or the Californians or the Israelis or whoever. We have seen it already just in my area of northern Victoria with kiwi fruit, nashi pears and new varieties of cherries and apples. There is the disputed Mildura situation of the red globe or emperor grapes. In the Goulburn Valley at this very moment there is a situation where some nashi plant material, which has been either illegally imported or at least purchased from those who illegally imported it, is bringing with it the great danger of fire blight. To the credit of the Government, it did not allow the importation from New Zealand of material such as apples, et cetera, which could bring in this disease. We have a greater problem coming because red skinned pears are the next ones on the way. There are 20 varieties in California, and this will increase the danger of more and more illegal material. We need very positive education, and a capacity for more screening. We need clear rulings, particularly when, as is the case in the Goulburn Valley at the moment, the grower quite innocently takes up material from somebody else who has perhaps illegally imported it. Here we have the problem of quarantine adding to the other problems we have with this Department at the present time. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr CUNNINGHAM(McMillan)(9.29) —It was interesting to listen to the comments made by the shadow spokesman on rural affairs, the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd), in relation to what he sees as important issues in this Parliament. It is becoming quite a habit, in that the last thing about which one hears from members of the National Party of Australia is those people who live in rural Australia, as opposed to the one sector that it still claims that it represents-that is, those who live on farms. In my contribution tonight I would like to talk about those programs in the Department which provide increased funding in order to improve opportunities for people in rural and provincial Australia-a key feature of the 1988-89 Federal Budget. Mr McGauran —This is rhetoric. Get down to facts. What are the facts? Mr CUNNINGHAM —The honourable member for Gippsland, as usual, is interrupting. He knows that he counts sheep and cattle as his voters. I am more interested in talking about the people of Gippsland. This Government has a commitment to Australians who live in rural areas and to the provision of an economic environment in which they can operate effectively. People in rural areas decided long ago that the conservative parties could not deliver that to them. When I was elected to the Parliament in 1980, people in the Gippsland area had started to move towards electing Labor governments. In 1983 they decided that the conservatives had to go, that the sort of grab bag of policies that they offered were not looking after people. We are very proud of our record in government. Highlights of the Budget that the Department is implementing include the new countrylink program which will cost almost $1m in 1988-89 and a $2.5m rural education and training package. The countrylink program will give people outside capital cities easier access to Commonwealth services and programs through specific initiatives such as the countrylink answer line, which is an information service that is available as part of the 008 telephone information service, shop front and displays at rural events, a database in regional Commonwealth offices, and an updated information directory. This will assist people who work and live on farms, as well as those who live in rural towns and provincial cities. The program is part of an ongoing assessment of the best way of delivering information services to country people. Within the education and training package, $750,000 has been allocated for a range of activities which include the rural access education program-something that is very important to country people. This program will provide grants for community projects designed to improve access to education and training or provide first step training courses which are relevant to individual needs. A comprehensive database on education and training options will be provided, and rural women's access grants will be expanded to $200,000 to improve access to education and training for rural women. In addition, the $1.5m innovative rural education and training program will fund educational institutions and industry to develop innovative methods for delivering relevant rural education and training programs at the local level. The Budget also included a substantial emphasis on natural resource management. Funding for the national soil conservation program is $10.634m-an increase of 77 per cent over the figure for last year. The water resources assistance program received $62.654m, which is a substantial increase on the $52.4m provided last year. Funding for the national afforestation program in 1988-89 is $5.94m. The Budget also includes funding to establish a national resource information centre to assess, collate and disseminate information on the extent, status and nature of Australia's natural resources. Total outlays for the Department of Primary Industries and Energy for 1988-89 are budgeted at $1,409m. In the five minutes remaining to me I would like to refer to how some of these issues affect people in country Australia, particularly in some of the more populated regional areas. I listened with great interest to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Hand), who made a very good point in summing up the debate on his Department. He said that one of his major objectives has been to bring together and create a one-shop approach to issues in Aboriginal affairs departments. That is something that we must look at in regard to rural and regional Australia. We should look at some of the initiatives of the Fraser Government which provided a change in direction. In many cases the conservatives funded community structured committees to deliver programs in many parts of Australia. The Hawke Government has continued to fund many of these programs. I believe that they need to be completely reappraised and reassessed to see in which direction they are heading and what they are doing. I believe that we have a problem in relation to this approach. Whilst it is much simpler for communities, using this approach, to move in different directions, as they are not affected by the restrictions that the Public Service can place on new programs, we have developed in many parts of Australia, over a period of 10 years since the programs were first initiated, a series of programs on education, training and support for women that need to be tidied up. I am initiating a program in my part of Gippsland called `time to tidy up'. I notice that the honourable member for Gippsland (Mr McGauran) has pricked up his ears to hear what I am mentioning. We have in our community a series of community committees which have reached such a point that we need seriously to assess whether they are duplicating services that are being provided to a target group of people in the community. People have willingly given their time to serve on these committees for 10 years. People have been working on these committees quite diligently to assist other people in their community but we need to reassess the situation and see whether we need to coordinate some of the programs that are being provided. We have a proliferation of Federal and State programs which I believe are cutting across the same target group of people. As the economy in the rural sector is improving, we certainly need to target some of our training and education programs much more precisely in a way that will deliver the maximum support to the people for the best use of the dollars that we are providing. Another area which I would like to cover is the traineeship program which is a very important part of country education for young people. The traineeship program was an initiative of this Government which has slowly developed over some years. It is aimed particularly at the rural sector. There is a real need, with the upturn in the rural sector, to have a traineeship program which is targeted specifically at young people who live in country towns and whose natural ability would lead them to take up employment opportunities on farms. Things have changed in the last 20 years. Many young people have natural attributes which would enable them to work on the land but who have not had the opportunity to gain any experience in this area. They may have lived in country towns or provincial cities all of their lives, yet their opportunities for employment lie in the revitalised country areas. Without a traineeship program to give them a start, very few employers in country areas-because of the very expensive machinery that they use-are prepared to give these young people a job and train them on-site because of the possibility of great expense to them if something goes wrong with the machinery that the young people are expected to use. In our area we are trying very assiduously to develop a package of traineeships so that many of our young townspeople who have a wish and a will to work on the land will have an opportunity to get the initial experience which will allow them to obtain employment at a time when there is such an opportunity in the rural sector, but when very often the employer is so busy that he does not have time to train the young people himself. We, along with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in Victoria, are developing a package. I believe that within 12 months we will see a pilot project in the Gippsland region which will enable us to train many young people from towns and provincial cities to work in our expanding rural sector. The rural sector is now picking up after the slump in commodity prices. There are great opportunities in that sector. I think that all members of the community and members on both sides of the Parliament should take an active interest in this matter. One thing that people find when they talk to young people in towns who have difficulty in getting jobs is that many of them would like an opportunity to work in the rural sector. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr ANDREW(Wakefield)(9.39) —I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate and to follow the remarks made by the honourable member for McMillan (Mr Cunningham) supposedly on behalf of rural Australians. I was interested to hear the honourable member for McMillan open his remarks by accusing the Opposition of ignoring the needs of rural Australians. In fact, he said: `The last thing you hear about is people'. Tonight I would like to address some of the issues of people who have been ignored entirely by governments, particularly the Federal Government, and in the debate this evening. I want to bring to the House's attention an article in today's Advertiser, a South Australian publication. The Advertiser runs the story of what is currently happening on the far west coast of South Australia. On page 12 of the Advertiser there is a story about Wally Nielsen, an 80-year-old Buckleboo farmer who has a property just north of Kimba and who this year expects to harvest nothing, along with most of his colleagues. Tonight we have heard nothing except comments about how things are relatively buoyant in rural Australia, and the truth is that for at least a geographical half of South Australia the season that the farmers face is nothing short of disastrous. If the member for McMillan wants to talk about people and wants to put his money where his mouth is and to show some evidence of the commitment that his Government has to people who live in rural areas-once again, to quote him-let me ask him: why is that in today's Advertiser? A little further on there was another article which said `Rural services face cuts'. I remind the honourable member for McMillan that in South Australia we currently have an ALP State Government and that the chairman of the United Farmers and Stockowners, Mr Pfitzner, is concerned because the proposals of that State Government are to reduce the services delivered by the State Department of Agriculture to farmers. While Wally is roughing it down on his Buckleboo farm, this party, which is so committed, supposedly, to individual Australians, is prepared to reduce the services it offers to South Australian farmers. All that, Mr Chairman, in light of an article that ran in the Weekend Australian on 24 September, where the headline in the editorial was `Farmers to the rescue again'. In view of the debate we have had tonight, and in view of the amount of money allocated to rural Australia, one could well be forgiven for asking what sort of gesture of gratitude this Government is currently making to Australia's primary producers, for the Budget being debated is a budget of varying amounts to varying sections of rural industry, few of them rising significantly. Hardly, sir, a gesture of appreciation. In fact, most of the movements debated in this Budget and in this committee debate have been little more than marginal, and in other areas not currently being debated tonight but that will come before the Committee we see that rural Australia will be disadvantaged. Take areas such as funding for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which has already been addressed by the shadow Minister, the honourable member for Gippsland (Mr McGauran) and by the honourable member for Bass (Mr Smith), and consider the implications for agriculture in this bicentennial Budget when we look at what is being allocated not only to research but to roads, to quarantine and to issues such as trade. In fact, in the area of primary industry, this Budget, in our bicentennial year, does nothing more than enhance the note of apology that seems to have saturated all that the Bicentennial has been about. We have been expected to be apologetic because of the way we, as European Australians, have treated the original Australians. I do not claim any pride for what happened, but I think there has been far too little recognition of the fact that most of what happened happened with honourable intention and that what in fact occurred under the watchful eye of the United Kingdom was at least par for the colonising course 200 years ago. In the area of agriculture, we have been expected to inject a note of apology about what presumably, in our bicentennial year, farmers have done about land development. There has been a real effort to make farmers feel as though they should feel guilty for all forms of land degradation, and a failure to recognise either in our Bicentennial celebrations or in this Budget statement that 200 years of farming in Australia has taken us from an import dependent nation-remember, we would have starved but for what was on the First Fleet-to a major world exporter; in fact, in the terms of an Australian editorial article, an exporter expected to earn $16 billion in this our bicentennial year. Of course, earning some of that money over 200 years has done something to our soils. But let us not be apologetic; let us recognise that in fact if there has been land degradation, it has been only when farmers have found that the weight of carrying the rest of Australia was just a little too much to bear. Of course, as a result of extended agriculture we face wider salinity problems than we had, but no generation has done as much as the present generation to counter that and to reclaim previously lost land. We have been expected to be apologetic for chemical use-but that argument fails to recognise that it has been the astute use of agricultural chemicals that has allowed us to reclaim some of the land that has been lost and to keep our costs of production down. Most of all, it fails to recognise in this bicentennial year that it has been the astute use of agricultural chemicals that has allowed us to meet the consumer demand that every primary producer has to meet. In this year, instead of feeling guilty or apologetic about agricultural chemical use, we should instead be celebrating the fact that no generation has done as much as the present generation, no scientific group as much as the present scientists, to do something to cultivate biological control and to encourage a mix between chemical and natural control of pests and diseases. On that note, we might well ask why it is that the Government has so ignored CSIRO funding. There has been a note running throughout the debate that 1988 is the year when agriculturalists have had it easy. The truth is that while our commodity prices in wool are up and in grains look like moving up, there are still many farmers who, like Wally Nielsen at Buckleboo, face a very grim outlook. There is precious little indication that this Government recognises the needs of those farmers. Look if you will, honourable member for McMillan, at what the assets test on Austudy, for example, is doing to Australia's rural producers. Look if you will at what your current attitude to road funding-I notice the Minister is here and I acknowledge his response in Question Time today-is doing to rural Australia where better roads are so desperately needed, the very roads that carry that $16 billion-worth of exports from farm to port. The truth is, of course, that in the trade area we need active government representation more desperately than ever before. If we consider that the same article in the Advertiser that I referred to earlier in my speech also carried a comment about the fact that the Indian Government has this day lifted the tariff on peas imported into India, principally from Australia, by 30 per cent, we consider an area where government action is immediately needed to ensure that Australian farmers in fact have a level playing field on which to compete. There has been far too much rhetoric in this debate and far too little substantial action by this Government to protect those who have been Australia's key export earners, its farmers-who, once again, are coming to the rescue of our balance of payments deficit. Mr SIMMONS(Calare)(9.50) —In the appropriations for the Department of Primary Industries and Energy the Government has allocated a sum in excess of $10m to the national soil conservation program in this current financial year. That is a significant increase-an increase of more than 77 per cent on the previous financial year. The funds will be provided for projects and programs by State government soil conservation agencies, community groups and other organisations which can contribute by way of research, demonstration and advisory services, resource assessments, planning, community involvement or publicity. Soil conservation and land degradation generally is, in my view, the greatest conservation issue facing this nation. Honourable members will have seen the publicity surrounding comments made last weekend by the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Senator Richardson, at a conference in Sydney which brought home some of the dimensions of this problem. In the context of this debate tonight on the appropriations for the Department of Primary Industries and Energy it is important to focus upon some of the issues involved in soil conservation programs and, more particularly, to look at some of the steps that the Government is taking to try to address these very serious problems. Recently a ministerial task force was established, made up of the Minister for Resources (Senator Cook), the Executive Director of the National Farmers Federation, Mr Farley, and the Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Mr Toyne, to propose new national soil conservation policies and initiatives. That step, in itself, is very significant. It is unusual-or certainly has been in the past-to find quite disparate groups such as the National Farmers Federation and the Australian Conservation Foundation coming together to address this important issue. I believe it is a step that all members of this chamber, particularly those representing rural constituencies should applaud. A recent meeting of the Australian Soil Conservation Council endorsed a local community-based approach, and this will be reflected in the allocation of the national soil conservation program funds in the course of the current financial year. To date the ministerial task force which has been established has decided, in addition to supporting the community-based approach to land degradation, to run a major public awareness program. It has declared 1990 as soil conservation year and, more significantly, because this is such a long term problem, it has declared 1990 to 1999 as the decade of soil conservation. Again, this move should be supported by all members of this chamber. All members should recognise the very serious way in which this Government is addressing this important national program. There is a consciousness throughout the rural community, among the 170,000 farmers throughout Australia, of the great dimension of the problem of land degradation. The conference of the Australian Conservation Foundation in Sydney at the weekend heard some of the alarming statistics which reinforce some of the concerns that have been reflected in rural Australia about the dimensions of this problem. I applaud this Government's initiative. As we move towards 1990, I believe that all members of this chamber, whether they represent rural Australia or the cities, should stress this matter because it is a problem that we must face, particularly as we are a country which depends so much on the strength of commodities for our international trade. Most people here would recognise-as indeed it should be recognised-that despite the attempts of the Government to diversify our manufacturing base and to broaden our export appeal, the primary industry and mining sectors of Australia will continue for many years-in fact, decades-to be the bulwark of Australia's export income. There is no argument about that at all. There is another issue which I would like to address in the brief time I have tonight, and that is the allocation in the Budget of a fairly modest sum-but significant in terms of the nature of the industry concerned-of $550,000 to fund coal initiatives which were announced earlier this year. The Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) announced on 5 May this year that the Commonwealth had developed a coal industry strategy. That decision came about as a result of the Government's very serious attempts to grapple with the long term problems of the coalmining industry. Most people would be aware that the coal industry in Australia-and throughout most of the world-is characterised by peaks and troughs and the whole intention of this strategy, which is being funded in the Budget, is to address this problem and balance the situation in a much more realistic way. The Minister indicated that the Government had addressed a number of key issues in developing this overall strategy. In particular, those issues related to the difficult questions of marketing, export controls, the industrial relations situation in the coal industry, the viability of the industry and, more significantly for the coalminers themselves, the question of long term employment in the industry. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on developing this strategy. A great deal of criticism has been levelled at the Minister by sections of the coal industry, but I believe that time will prove that those first steps he has taken will be very important in trying to do something about the long term viability of the coal industry. The coal industry is Australia's second most significant industry in export potential and, prior to the boom in wool prices which we have all been pleased to see in recent months, it was Australia's most significant export income earner. Therefore, it is important that the long term industry problems be addressed by the Government. As I indicated, the sum involved is modest, but some of the initiatives for which some of those funds will be used are significant. An amount has been set aside for coal trade promotion and market development, and this is the first stage of a two-year pilot program. Also, $250,000 has been set aside for strengthening export control administration. Again, there has been some criticism of the Government by some sections of the industry, particularly since the decision in September 1986 to relax some of the export parameters in relation to the sales of Australian coal. Some of those concerns have been misunderstood in terms of what the Government proposed to do. It is important to realise that at the end of the day the Minister is the person who has the ultimate power to accept or reject export price settlements for the coal industry. Anything that can be done to strengthen the Minister's hand in making sure that those decisions are made in the long term interests of the coalmining industry will be a significant step. I also take the opportunity in the context of the recent steaming coal negotiations, which have been very prolonged, to congratulate the coal companies of Australia on showing, for the first time in many years, a little intestinal fortitude-- Mr Hunt —And solidarity. Mr SIMMONS —And solidarity, of course, in holding the line on the long term contracts for sales of steaming coal to Japan. The fruits of those solid actions have been demonstrated in the fact that we have received an increase of about 20 per cent in the price of steaming coal. That, taken in conjunction with the positive attitudes that we have seen in recent times in respect of Coal Industry Tribunal decisions, suggests to me that while the industry will certainly not be characterised by a bed of roses over the coming months, there are signs that it is headed for better times. I think that the efforts taken in this year's Budget to support those initiatives will be welcomed not only by the coal companies but also, hopefully, by the unions involved in the industry in order to make sure that the coal industry continues to be a significant force in the potential export earnings of Australia. Mr HUNT(Gwydir)(10.00) —In addressing the estimates for the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, I agree with the sentiments expressed by the honourable member for Calare (Mr Simmons) regarding the importance of soil conservation to our agricultural industries and our nation as a whole. I compliment the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) who is at the table for the efforts that he has made to step up the Government's contribution towards this very important area of concern to our agricultural sector. However, I want to talk about the systematic removal of most of the measures of assistance that have been of benefit to the agricultural sector over a long period. This year's Budget outlays represent about 0.5 per cent of total budgetary outlays. Since 1983 they have been reduced by one per cent to 0.5 per cent. If other sectors of the budgetary outlays had been cut as much as the primary sector we may not have had the inflationary problems, we may not have had the difficulties that we have had generally. The primary industry sector happens to be one of the most productive and important sectors of the Australian economy. The farmers of Australia are now the least assisted farmers in the world, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The farmers are now left to fight on their own for their share of world markets which are corrupted by the farm subsidy and support programs of our competitors. This year's Budget reduces farm outlays by a further $56m or 12.3 per cent from last year. Labor has reneged on its promise to supplement woolgrowers' contribution to wool promotion at a fixed 1.2 per cent of the gross value of the wool clip. This year alone farmers have suffered the loss of $19m due to the increased inspection charges; $37m due to the abolition of the superphosphate bounty; $31m cut in wool promotion over the next three years; $35m due to increases in livestock natural increase valuations; $50m cut to roads; $190m due to sweeping changes to the depreciation allowance; and $124m due to increases in levies and charges. These few changes represent a loss or a transfer of resources of $488m as it affects the farm and the rural sector. We can add further costs to primary producers flowing from the sales tax increases on flavoured milk; the 4.5 per cent increase in fuel excise; the $5.4m cut in assistance for isolated children's education; the assistance to the sugar industry cut by $8.4m; the $8.7m cut to financial grants to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) over the next two years, most of which will come from the reduced rural research effort. That is in this year alone. Following this year's May mini-Budget and the September Budget the farm and rural sectors are about $500m worse off. Mr Lloyd —How much? Mr HUNT —They are $500m worse off. The virtual removal of the last vestige of rural assistance comes at a time when the Government wrongly believes that the farmers have never had it so good. Sure, there has been an improvement in some major world commodity prices for agricultural products and, of course, our commodity prices are very cyclic. We have a short term benefit from the North American drought and we happen to be enjoying one of the best seasons over a wide area of Australia that I can ever remember. However, a significant percentage of farmers remain heavily in debt due to the monetary, fiscal policies of the Hawke Government and the recent collapse in the world commodity prices and, I might say, the long droughts in the early eighties. Let us look at the total farm assistance cuts since the Hawke Government came to office in 1983. The 1983 mini-Budget cut the farm sector in these areas: the reduced general depreciation allowances; the removal of tax incentives from the income equalisation deposit scheme; the abolition of the depreciation allowance for on-farm fuel storage; the abolition of the opt in, opt out provisions of the tax averaging system; the abolition of the bicentennial water resources program; and a $10m cut in fuel freight equalisation. In the August 1983 Budget the Hawke Government went to work again. There was a 200 per cent increase in meat inspection charges. It imposed an excise tax on fortified wine. It further cut the petroleum products freight subsidy scheme. It removed the sales tax exemption for oils and lubricants. It increased fuel excise by 1.5c a litre and indexed the excise to the level of inflation. In 1984 Labor's grim rural reaper went to work again by not indexing the farmers diesel excise rebate costing farmers $25m; by imposing a 10 per cent sales tax on all wine and reducing the tax from 20 per cent to 10 per cent on imported wine; by increasing the valuation on livestock natural increases for tax purposes; by removing $18.6m from the rural adjustment scheme; and by reducing the Commonwealth contribution to export inspection charges. Still not satisfied, in the 1985 Budget the Government set the rural slasher going again. It cut $60m from road funding and $110m from the petroleum products freight equalisation scheme; it removed $6.8m from the liquefied petroleum gas subsidy and other cuts cost rural farmers $237.3m. In the August 1985 Budget the farmers enjoyed a temporary relief from Labor's rural reaper following the huge farmers demonstration outside Parliament House in July of that year. But what did they achieve? They achieved the restoration of the full rebate of the diesel excise for distillate used on farms but the $55m was lost forever to the farmers. It was never rebated. The replacement of the 15 per cent tariff on harvesters was replaced by a subsidy to local manufacturers but it had already cost farmers $28m. There was the slashing of the rural adjustment funds by $14.4m. They achieved $7m over four years for the marketing assistance to the beef and livestock industry-that was a big plus. There was the imposition of the capital gains tax at the marginal tax rate-that was a big minus. The introduction of quarantining or writing off of farm losses from other income was dropped because of the Opposition and industry protests. The amendments to tax averaging increasing off farm income exemption from $5,000 to $15,000 was a good move. There was the introduction of the fringe benefits tax and the removal of the immediate write off for on farm water conservation and conveyancing works. We then had the April 1986 rural statement. It was a great disappointment. Capital gains and fringe benefits taxes remained. There was an additional $20m extended to rural adjustment which was far less than the farm debt warranted. The quarantining of farm losses was dropped. There was no reduction in fuel excise and there were some reductions to tariffs on farm machinery but there were none for farm chemicals except that the 2 per cent general revenue duty on chemicals was abolished. In spite of the rural recession and the plight of thousands of family farmers and their families no assistance was extended of any real consequence. In last year's Budget the rural reaper had another go. The fuel freight subsidy was cut by another $8.5m. Assistance for wool promotion was frozen which cost $15m in spite of promises and, of course, there was an increase in quarantine service fees. Over the five years the transfer of resources from agriculture on a year on, year end, basis amounted to over $1,000m and this does not account for the cumulative effect. The rural reapers have slashed rural assistance in spite of the continuing agricultural subsidies of the European Economic Community, of the United States of America and of the protectionist policies of Japan. Ever since the Hawke Labor Government came to office it has selectively cut expenditures in primary industry and trade portfolio areas. No wonder we have a balance of payments difficulty; it is a chronic one at that. Since 1983 the Hawke Government has ripped off well in excess of $1,000m from farmers as part of its so-called restructuring program. On top of all these cuts, fuel excise was increased from 6c a litre to over 20c a litre. The introduction of the assets test and the high interest rate policies have all had the effect of reducing the competitiveness of our farm industries. They are the least assisted farmers in the Western world. I believe the Government is killing the goose that has laid the golden egg. I wonder why it is. Is it because of a deep seated prejudice or is it its damned stupidity? If it were genuinely concerned to improve the balance of payments situation in this country it would not slash funds available to the primary industry and trade portfolio; it would not reduce funds available for wool promotion; it would not reduce funds available to the CSIRO; it would reintroduce the income equalisation deposit scheme as a matter of urgency; and it would substantially reduce its reliance on fuel as a source of revenue. Unless it does some of these things urgently, when the bad seasons return and markets go down, we will be back into another rural recession. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr MARTIN(Macarthur)(10.10) —Mr Deputy Chairman-- Mr McGauran —You know nothing about rural industries. Mr MARTIN —Tonight in this debate I wish to make a contribution in respect of the energy section of the portfolio administered by the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin), who is at the table, and that relates to the Australian coal industry, which I profess to know a little about. Mr McGauran —How did your motion go at conference? Tell us about it. Mr MARTIN —I am very pleased to report-- Mr McGauran —They rolled you. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Order! Mr MARTIN —Mr Deputy Chairman, I am very happy to respond to that interjection. I think the figures were about 362 to 139. In anyone's language that is a successful victory. Mr Tim Fischer —At the third attempt. Mr MARTIN —That was at the second attempt. In response to the interjections from gentlemen on the opposite side of the chamber, who obviously do not care a great deal about the coal industry, I say that the Budget Papers mention a number of specific payments that have been directed to the coal industry. My colleague the honourable member for Calare (Mr Simmons) referred to some of these. He talked, for example, of the $550,000 directed towards the coal industry strategy which the Minister has developed and he also talked about coal trade development and promotion moneys and moneys being set aside for export control administration. I can only agree with the comments made by the honourable member for Calare as over a long period a succession of Ministers in this Government have had to deal specifically with problems in the coal industry. As honourable members would be aware, those problems are many and varied. The fact that there has been an oversupplied world market for both steaming and coking coal has meant that a major producer, such as Australia, has had to fight for the very rare markets that exist on the world stage. Accordingly, when peaks and troughs occur in the industry people always look to some other authority of some form or another to get them out of the troughs and raise them into the peak positions. In this case arguments have been put forward over a long period for greater government intervention. I would have to say that those calls for greater government intervention in the marketplace particularly have come fairly strongly from those of us who represent coal mining areas and those pleas to various Ministers who have represented the energy portfolio over the last 5 1/2 years have received varying degrees of sympathetic hearing. But the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, John Kerin, has certainly lent a sympathetic ear to the problems as we have expressed them on behalf of our constituents and I think that concern is reflected in the allocation of funds in the 1988-89 Budget. I simply pick up one of the points that the honourable member for Gippsland (Mr McGauran) raised with me about the result of the Australian Labor Party State conference and the motion on the coal industry. Clearly, my position unfortunately was misunderstood when the motion to congratulate John Kerin and the coal companies for holding firm in the face of Japanese pressure when achieving a 21 per cent increase in steaming coal was considered. However, that was rectified subsequent to that motion being dealt with. The members of the committee to whom I spoke and to whom I explained, perhaps in even more simple terms than they could understand, what the motion was all about clearly agreed that it should have been accepted and, as a result, the next day it certainly was. In respect of other parts of that motion I moved to congratulate the leadership of the Miners Federation for the role that it has played recently in the settlement of disputes within the coal industry, particularly in respect of the attitude displayed as a result of the Coal Industry Tribunal determination. There has been only a reluctant acceptance of those recommendations. Nevertheless, I believe that the likes of John Maitland and Tony Wilks deserve the congratulations of all members of this chamber and, in particular, those members of the Caucus coal industry task force who have worked very closely with them over a long period. Within the Budget Papers money is also set aside for three other specific portfolio responsibilities that I wish to bring to the attention of the chamber and highlight. An amount of some $7,344,000 has been granted as a special appropriation under the Coal Research Assistance Act 1977. Those honourable members who have had the opportunity of going down a coal mine would probably recognise it for what it is. It is a dangerous occupation in dangerous conditions. Indeed, those people who work in open cut mines suffer from similar dangers. Accordingly, any moneys that are set aside for research into things associated with more safety conscious methods of mining have to be applauded. I think the Minister has done extremely well to argue for an allocation in excess of $7 1/4m for research. That research is carried out through a variety of organisations variously associated with the coal industry. It comes from universities, the Australian Coal Industry Research Laboratories Ltd, a branch of which is located within my electorate, and from the Joint Coal Board's own offices which spend many hours underground looking at ways of improving long well mining techniques, looking at safety associated with underground mining and generally looking after the welfare of the miners themselves. As I have said, I think that is to be applauded. For too long we have seen carelessness particularly in underground mining that has led to problems that have occasioned injury and, of course, unfortunately death to some workers. However, because of moneys being set aside for research the incidence of that has lessened. As I have said, moneys of this nature are to be commended and the Minister should be applauded for making sure that they are included in each Budget allocation. There is also an allocation of $2.183m for the Joint Coal Board of New South Wales. The Joint Coal Board operates in a very difficult environment at present. It was established after the Second World War and it prospered under a variety of Labor governments. But, of course, in its present political environment in New South Wales one wonders just what its future might be. We believe that it has a very viable future simply because it is getting out into the marketplace and promoting Australia's coal industry into markets which we previously have not been able to get into. For example, a revolutionary scheme has been worked out by the Chairman, Jack Wilcox, whereby coal stockpiles are placed offshore somewhere near Europe, most likely in Spain or Portugal, so that they can service the markets in both western and eastern Europe which are available to Australia's coal producers. This is a project which is well worth examining. The allocation of continued funding for the Joint Coal Board to enable it to do those sorts of things but also, and probably more importantly in this uncertain industrial relations climate, to act as an honest broker in trying to work out some of those problems between employers and the miners themselves I believe is certainly necessary. Finally, an amount of $161,000 has been set aside under the industry assistance section of the primary industries and energy portfolio and allocated for coal cooperation with China. Again, I think this is something which is most appropriate. Chinese coal technology is not as advanced as in Western countries and anything that the Australian Government can do to assist in promoting that I think is to be welcomed. I would not go so far as to suggest that we should promote Chinese coal at the expense of coal from the Macarthur electorate or from the other electorates in Australia, particularly from the underground mines in New South Wales, but it is important that where Australian technology is available we should take advantage of passing it on to overseas countries because it could save the lives of miners in other parts of the world and I think this example is one that stands out. As I have indicated, I think the coal industry has been well looked after in the Budget allocations. I have run through what I consider to be the highlights and I follow the honourable member for Calare in picking up some of the other allocations that are included. I conclude by suggesting that if the Kerin strategy that has been adopted-- The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Cowan) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired. Mr McGAURAN(Gippsland)(10.20) —In speaking to the appropriations for the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, I wish to concentrate my remarks on the present state of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Sadly, I have to report to the House what it already knows; that the CSIRO is suffering from plummeting morale, from a brain drain and from a lack of resources, all caused by 5 1/2 years of savage cuts by this Government. Funding for CSIRO has been cut by a cumulative 32 per cent over the past five Budgets. The effects on CSIRO generally have been devastating. In the short time available to me, and given the context of tonight's debate, I shall concentrate on the effects on rural research of budget cuts within CSIRO. It flies in the face of logic for this Government to cut back on rural research within CSIRO given that economic benefits are derived from that research. Rural industries have been happy to fund a reasonable proportion-about 22 per cent overall-of the research done. It is an act of gross stupidity for the Government to upset this sector of CSIRO. Manufacturing industry is not expected to support CSIRO research in respect of its sector as much as the rural industries are. In effect, therefore, rural industry funds are subsidising manufacturing. The facts are that in the Division of Plant Industry 33 per cent of research capacity has been lost over five years, according to its chief, Dr Peacock. In the Division of Entomology 20 scientific staff will be lost this year. A number of scientific staff are working without charge, in their own time, having been made redundant but wishing to complete their projects. According to the chief of the Soils Division, Dr Smiles, staff numbers have been decimated and the Brisbane laboratory is closing down. Dr Trevor Scott, the chief of the Division of Animal Production of CSIRO, is stepping down from his position because: I can no longer manage and implement policies which are leading to a systematic destruction of the animal production research effort in CSIRO. His division has sustained real Budget funding cuts of more than 50 per cent in the last six years. Dr David Evans, deputy chief of entomology, has said that the Government is shooting itself in the foot by imposing senseless and illogical cuts. CSIRO is in a state of crisis. If it is not rescued soon, it will be reduced to a second rate research institute. But I do not think that concerns the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin), who is at the table. It certainly does not concern the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, Senator Button, who has little or no interest in CSIRO, and certainly none in rural research. The Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business (Mr Barry Jones) is obsessed by sunrise industries. He is preoccupied with that hobbyhorse of his and he is not giving attention to rural research within CSIRO. Given that the Department of Science was abolished some 18 months ago and its functions were split up amongst four departments, it is time to consider whether CSIRO should come under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). If this does not happen, I do not see what hope there is for CSIRO. Tensions are mounting within that organisation and within the science community at large. Expectations have been raised, because the Government has been sending signals recently, that it will simply have to respond to the mounting public criticism of its handling of CSIRO. But what do we get? What is the Government's response to the drastic cutbacks in CSIRO and the science community generally? What is it offering a disenfranchised and critically important section of our economy? At long last the Government has responded. The shadow Minister for primary industry, the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd), and my colleagues will be interested to know that the Government has finally responded today after months, indeed years, of effort by the science community and the Opposition. Mr Lloyd —What has it done? Mr McGAURAN —It has set up a committee. It is Sir Humphrey Appleby gone mad. I quote the words from the press release of the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business: The Government is to establish a committee of senior officials to make immediate recommendations on the most effective way to strengthen research and development in science and technology. That might be helpful, but we have had three major reports in the last three years. We have had Public Investment in Research and Development in Australia. It was a report to the Prime Minister from the Australian Science and Technology Council-ASTEC. We have had Future Directions for CSIRO, again by ASTEC, and we have had Improving the Research Performance of Australia's Universities and other Higher Education Institutions, which again was a report to the Prime Minister by ASTEC. The terms of reference of these detailed and very thorough reports on CSIRO and science are remarkably similar to those announced tonight by the Government. It defies belief. I challenge any honourable member in this House to compare the terms of reference for this new committee of inquiry with the terms of reference for others that have preceded it. For instance, one of the terms of reference for the Committee on Public Investment in Research and Development in Australia was that the Committee should report and make recommendations on-and I will choose just one inter alia-`the rationale and appropriate economic, social and cultural objectives-both long and short term-of government funding and performance of research and development in Australia'. That is so broadly worded as to incorporate almost every single one of the six terms of references announced by the Minister this evening. Mr Lloyd —What a joke! Mr McGAURAN —It is an absolute joke, except that it is tragic. The announcement by the Government today was to have been CSIRO's last chance. The science community might as well close up the laboratories and go overseas. Heavens knows, enough of them are going overseas as it is. We are losing some of our best scientists, not just from CSIRO but from the science community generally. Worse than that, even: nobody is going into the science disciplines with any confidence. A survey of science students at the Australian National University released a short time ago showed that a massive 80 per cent have no confidence in their long time future. Moreover, the same number would be happy to work overseas. The universities tell me that there are science graduates packing cases at Safeways, driving trams and conducting on buses. We are killing off decades of infrastructure. It is absolute tragedy that this Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, who loves to career around the countryside parading himself as the friend of country dwellers, coalminers and anybody else he comes in contact with, is an utter hypocrite if he can sit here and allow the premier research body in this country to disintegrate beneath him. He ought to be ashamed and I call upon him to expose the utter fake of this reference-- Mr Kerin —I raise a point order, Mr Deputy Chairman. I understand that the word `hypocrite' is unparliamentary. I think the young fellow from Gippsland could tone down his language. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Cowan) —The Minister has asked the honourable member for Gippsland to withdraw his comment. Mr McGAURAN —I made that accusation conditional. If he does not defend CSIRO, he is a hypocrite. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN —Will the honourable member withdraw his comment unreservedly. Mr McGAURAN —I unreservedly withdraw, Mr Deputy Chairman. I feel saddened tonight, as will a great many within CSIRO who were hoping for concrete government action. What do they get? They will get an inquiry. If the CSIRO does not get $20m a year, just to take it up to the level of funding it had 12 months ago, it is finished. Let us not muck around-the CSIRO does not. Its staff are ready to walk out en masse. Already the CSIRO Officers Association has condemned the Government, and it has condemned its own executive. The situation has reached that stage. Those of us on this side of the Chamber are not prepared to stand by and see our rural industries and our mining industries depleted of fundamental research. It is something I feel strongly about. My colleagues in the National and Liberal parties feel strongly about it. CSIRO has always been the flagship of science in this country and now the death knell is being sounded. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN(Mr Cowan) —Order! It being 10.30 p.m., I shall report progress. The Deputy Chairman having reported accordingly-- Madam SPEAKER —Order! It being 10.30 p.m., I propose the question. That the House do now adjourn. Mr TAYLOR(Groom)(10.31) —This evening I would like to raise an issue with important diplomatic ramifications. In 1982 the concept of an international aerospace congress as part of our Bicentenary was raised with the International Academy of Aviation and Space Medicine. Such congresses have been held for the last 35 years in nearly all European capitals, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Johannesburg, Santiago and Belgrade. After verbal assurances that members of the Academy would be granted visas in keeping with the Academy's prerequisite that for it to sponsor such a congress there must be no discrimination preventing an Academy member from entering the host country, Australia's bid for the 1988 congress was accepted in Houston, Texas in 1983. It is one of the two major events in the international aerospace medicine calendar. At least 300 international delegates are expected at that congress in Brisbane next week. Papers to be presented cover the spectrum of aviation and space medicine such as remote area aero-medical evacuation, space station medicine, aircraft accident prevention, aviation cardiology, neurology and jet lag. His Excellency the Governor of Queensland has graciously agreed to open that congress. On 16 August last, on behalf of one of my constituents who is the principal Australian organiser of this historic conference, I wrote to the then Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs in an attempt to expedite the visa applications of three South African delegates, including the Academy's President, Dr Nichole Nieuwoudt, a retired senior non-combatant medical officer of the South African Defence Force. Last week I was informed by the office of the new Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (Senator Robert Ray) that, in line with Government guidelines of 1983, a visa for Dr Nieuwoudt will not be approved despite the doctor's pledge on assuming the Academy's presidency in October 1987 that any decision he took would be based only on the good of the Academy and would not be made as a private person or a citizen of South Africa. Dr Nieuwoudt's official congress duty next week is to ask the Governor to open the Congress and to thank him and Australia for hosting the Congress. Inevitably his absence will be interpreted by the many foreign delegates as an insult to the Academy and may lead to a formal censure of Australia by the general assembly of that Academy. I am informed that this may take place in Geneva later this week. As well, it may put at risk our medical scientists' access to such forums at a time when a space station on Cape York is a possibility and a comprehensive exposure to the international aviation and space medicine community is a must if our bid for such a station is to remain credible. Furthermore, the Minister's decision flies in the face of this important and persuasive resolution adopted by the world medical assembly at its thirty-sixth meeting in Singapore in 1984: Professional independence and professional freedom are indispensable to physicians to enable them to give appropriate health care to their patients. Therefore there should be no barriers whether philosophical, religious, political, geographic, physical or of any other nature to prevent physicians from participating in professional activities that will enable them to acquire the information, knowledge, skills and techniques required to provide appropriate health care to their patients. Inasmuch as the purpose of the world medical assembly is to serve humanity by endeavouring to achieve the highest international standards in medical education, medical science, medical art and medical ethics and health care for all people of the world, there should accordingly be no barriers which will prevent physicians attending meetings of the world medical assembly or other medical meetings wherever such meetings are convened. Early last week I asked the Minister as a matter of extreme urgency to reconsider his decision and to avoid the international odium and embarrassment for Australia that would inevitably follow should Dr Nieuwoudt not be granted a visa. I am informed by overseas telephone conversations last week that some international repercussions for Australia are planned in that event. In Australia we hear so much about the value of fair play. It is about time that the Hawke Government applied such values and common courtesies in the field of inter- national diplomacy. I therefore hope that Senator Ray will look beyond narrow political ideology and allow Dr Nieuwoudt a visa so that he may take his rightful place at the head of the Brisbane congress in keeping with the general spirit of our bicentennial year. Mr HOLLIS(Throsby)(10.35) —Like many other members of this House, I receive frequent requests to present the Australian flag. Recently I was asked to present an Australian flag to a school in my electorate. I was informed that this flag was to be sent to the United States of America (USA) as part of the schoolmates project. The schoolmates project is one of the really worthwhile projects to come out of this bicentennial year. It links an Australian school with a similar school in the USA. The school in question is Kangaloon Public School in the southern highlands region of New South Wales, which is in the electorate of Throsby. It is a one-teacher school of 13 pupils. It is linked with Diamond Elementary School, Diamond, Oregon, which has a student population of 12. On my visit to the Kangaloon school I was fascinated to see the amount of material exchanged between the two schools. Both schools are in rural areas, so the pupils also have that in common. I have long believed it is people to people contact that will lead to the more peaceful world we all seek. This is an excellent project that can start at the school level, especially in one-teacher schools. The obvious benefit is stimulation for the children in their writing and artwork which are sent from the Kangaloon school to the USA, while the American school sends similar material to the Australian school. This exchange increases the children's knowledge of the United States in our case and is a fostering of cross-cultural understanding. The Kangaloon school will continue to correspond with the children and the school in America for as long as interest is maintained, and from the enthusiasm that was displayed by the teacher and by the students at that school I am sure it will be maintained for a long time. This has been a tremendous project, and I congratulate all associated with it. At the local level I especially congratulate Mr Dennis Purcell, the teacher in charge at Kangaloon Public School, the school captains, Craig Ford and Christine Purcell, and all the pupils-the whole 13 of them. I am sure this House joins me in sending best wishes and congratulations to the teacher in charge and the 12 pupils of Diamond Elementary, Diamond, Oregon, USA. Mr HAWKER(Wannon)(10.38) —The Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) regularly comes into this House and berates the Opposition for its attitude to social welfare. In particular, he likes to boast about how the Government is improving the lot of those on lower incomes. What the Minister does not tell us is that, while he may be targeting certain sections of lower income earners, he is also creating poverty traps, traps which many honourable members would not be aware of, and which I alert them to this evening. This is a very serious matter, and it is sapping the incentive of people to go out and work, and the incentive of people to try to better themselves. At the end of the day people are finding that they are no better off than someone who does not have to work so hard and sits back and collects extra benefits which the first person is denied. As we have seen in the Budget, a number of factors have been working against the family. For example, as has been pointed out today on a number of occasions, and in the past, the average family is already $56 a week worse off than it was when this Government came to power. Mr N.A. Brown —How much? Mr HAWKER —Fifty-six dollars a week. It is clear that the Government has failed to give tax relief to families. In fact, the family that tries to help itself is being penalised very heavily. Madam Speaker, I seek leave of the House to incorporate in Hansard a table which outlines in some detail two case studies, one where family assistance supplements are available and one where there are none. Madam SPEAKER —Has the Minister seen the table? Mr Peter Morris —Madam Speaker, the honourable member has shown me the table and said it has been prepared by a professional accountant, and I agree to his having it incorporated. Mr HAWKER —I thank the Minister. In both case studies we have a husband, a wife and three children renting a house. One family is obtaining the family allowance supplement and other social security benefits. The other family, because of the higher level of the husband's income, receives no assistance. In the first case the husband earns $325 a week. The wife has no income. There are three children for which the family assistance supplement is paid. The family also receives rental assistance of $15 a week and a health care card, which has a notional value. When we deduct the income tax that is paid on the husband's yearly income of $16,900 and take into account the spouse rebate and the fact that no Medicare levy is paid, we find that the family has a net disposable yearly income of $20,655. In the second case, the husband earns $200 a week more than the first family, in other words, $525 a week, the wife has no income and no family assistance supplement is paid. Obviously a higher income tax rate applies and a Medicare levy is paid. By the time we deduct all the extra benefits the lower income family is getting, the second family is less than $500, not a month, but a year, better off. So, at the end of the day, the family that is supporting itself with an extra $200 a week is less than $10 a week better off. Mr Andrew —Incredible. Mr HAWKER —It is incredible. This is a major problem that the Government is creating. It is going to get worse as the Government continues to ignore the plight of families by maintaining such a high level of income tax on families, particularly as it has not allowed the rebate for the non-income earning spouse to be increased in any way, shape or form. Poverty traps are being exaggerated. As has been demonstrated by the case studies I have described-no doubt we could produce examples of dozens of others in similar situations-a family that is earning $200 a week more through its own efforts ends up being only less than $10 a week better off. Madam SPEAKER —I inform the honourable member for Wannon that his table is in order with the guidelines. As he has leave of the House it will be printed in Hansard. The table read as follows- CASE 1 Husband, Wife and 3 children renting a house and obtaining Family Allowance Supplement and other Social Security Benefits. Husband earns $325 per week ... $16,900 Wife Income ... Nil F.A.S. 1 child under 13 yrs @ $24 per week ... 1,248 F.A.S. 2 children under 16 yrs @ $31 per week ... 3,224 Rental Assistance @ $15 per week ... 780 Health Care Card (Notional value) ... 520 Gross Income ... $22,672 Less Income Tax on $16,900 Gross Tax ... 3,047 Spouse Rebate ... 1,030 2,017 Medicare Free NET DISPOSABLE INCOME ... $20,655 CASE 2 Husband, Wife and 3 children renting a house without any assistance because of level of income. Husband earns $525 per week ... $27,300 Wife Income ... Nil F.A.S. assistance ... Nil Gross Income ... $27,300 Less Income Tax: Gross Tax ... 6,921 Spouse Rebate ... 1,030 -5,891 Medicare Levy ... -341 NET DISPOSABLE INCOME ... $21,068 N.B. Tax rates are 1988-89 rates. F.A.S. rates are as of December 1988. Mr CAMPBELL(Kalgoorlie)(10.43) —All I can say for the honourable member for Wannon (Mr Hawker) is that if he thinks an income of $525 a week for a family with three kids is a poverty trap he would have to be one of the silver spoon fed brigade. The Government's family income supplement has overcome a lot of the real poverty traps. I do not see why he should feel so chagrined that the Government is improving the position of the less well-off. To say that such a family earns $200 a week by its own effort is a nonsense proposition, as a lot would depend entirely on where the husband was employed. Having been diverted by the need to give out that message, Madam Speaker, I draw your attention to the Uranium Information Centre Ltd newsletter, a very good little publication. It is sent to every member of parliament. It is characterised by the factual nature of its material. In the last issue I picked up I noticed an article by John Firor, Director of the advanced study program at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He warned at a recent energy policy conference that the greenhouse effect is no longer a matter of conjecture, that it is certainly a fact. He said that in the next few years the rate of global warming will be five to 10 times higher than it has been over the last century, which saw a rise of 0.5 degrees centigrade. He predicted that global temperatures could be 3 degrees centigrade above current levels by the year 2035 with the following possible consequences: Sea levels worldwide would increase by a projected 30 to 100 centimetres. In real measurements, I think that is between 12 inches and something over a yard. Forest acreage will shrink. Estuaries, the most productive part of the world's seas, will decline dramatically. In order to slow the change, Firor said, the world must reduce the amounts of methane, chlorofluorocarbons and carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel combustion accounts for about 80 per cent of the CO2 emitted annually, which in turn accounts for about one-half of the damaging greenhouse gases. Deforestation, primarily in the tropics, is responsible for the remaining 20 per cent of CO2 emissions. These are very worrying facts and I think that they have to be taken very seriously. I do not believe it is possible for us to get out of coal fired power stations, which for the Australian economy is probably just as well. Within a very short time those ill-informed environmentalists who have been beating us over the head with their anti-uranium views will be clamouring for us to shut down all coal fired power stations and go to atomic energy. Of course, we will not be able to do this overnight; it will take at least 25 years. In the meantime, Australia should get some advantage, because our coals are substantially cleaner than a lot of coals produced and used in Europe, where a lot of these problems are created. We must also look very closely at reafforestation. It is simply not good enough for us to say to Brazil, `You must stop cutting the Amazon'. Brazil, a Third World country, is obviously striving for progress. I think it is essential that we look at reafforestation in other parts of the world. It is something Australia can certainly look at. The future is not, however, all glum. A recent study by the Institute of Energy Economics on behalf of the Atomic Energy Commission has found that electricity generating costs for nuclear power plants commissioned in the fiscal year 1987, based on average lifetime costs, are about 10 per cent lower than for coal fired plants. We must remember that coal fired plants are the cheapest of all the fossil fuel plants. Generating costs for the advanced light water reactor due to be commissioned by the fiscal year 2000 are expected to be about 30 per cent lower than those for coal fired plants. I think there is some hope that economics will determine the thing and that we will perhaps see a reverse of this situation. I predict that we will also see a situation where atomic reactors are set up dedicated solely to providing electricity to drive compressors to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Where we store that will be a subject for man's ingenuity, but I am sure that we will find a solution to that problem too. Mr TIM FISCHER(Farrer)(10.47) —Tonight I would like to raise a matter relating to an announcement made by the Government, not on the floor of the House or on the floor of the Senate but by the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) by way of press release, in relation to the proposed sale of loan portfolio and new lending activities of the Defence Service Homes Corporation. Before proceeding, I should say that this habit of avoiding the floor of the Parliament is one which we should reject and protest about every time it occurs. On the last day of sitting of the House of Representatives the Australian Bureau of Statistics, almost by sleight of hand, produced some regulations which once again were without any ministerial explanatory statement. Let me tell the House tonight that that same Australian Bureau of Statistics was caught red-handed before Senate Estimates Committee C in relation to the household expenditure survey. Did it dig a hole for itself tonight! We are going to hear a lot more about that following a spectacular clash in the Senate Estimates Committee just two hours ago. I return to the defence service home loans scheme and the announced new arrangements. It is proposed that the Westpac Banking Corporation will take over the defence service homes mortgage portfolio and certain other arrangements in a complex package which has taken years to finalise. This matter was first announced by the Government three years and five months ago in the mini-Budget of May 1985 when the Treasurer (Mr Keating) first said that the Defence Service Homes Corporation would be privatised. What got in the way was, firstly, that it did not suit the political rhetoric of the Government for a series of months, particularly round about the time of the previous South Australian State elections, and, secondly, that Senator Gietzelt, the then Minister for Veterans' Affairs, was not too enraptured by the idea in any case. So it was delayed and delayed. Finally, today we had this very big announcement on the revamping of a defence service home loans scheme. The Government chose a day when the Minister for Veterans' Affairs (Mr Humphreys), the Minister responsible directly for the scheme, even though it was in a joint announcement through the office of the senior Minister, was in fact out of the country. What does the announcement contain? It contains some arrangements which, to be fair to the Government, are an improvement, particularly on the cocktailing arrangements in housing finance. Where a house costs more than $25,000-tell me where there is a house that does not-they will be faced with only one set of bank charges and mortgage fees to get a top up loan from Westpac in a cunning arrangement which, hopefully, will be helpful to the veterans and service personnel who qualify. There are two categories of personnel who in fact are not dealt with by this announcement. Firstly, those who have enlisted since May 1985 in our Army, Navy and Air Force remain outside eligibility for the scheme. So we have these two categories of peacetime soldiers serving Australia at this time. We have those who are eligible for defence service home loan financing-they are the ones who enlisted prior to May 1985-and those who enlisted after May 1985 and are to be cast into some form of limbo. They are not eligible for the scheme, although the Government now says it may look at that again. When? That was not covered in this announcement today. Secondly, portability of existing loans for those who had defence service home loans pre-December 1987 has in no way been picked up by these new arrangements. Those people are locked into their existing arrangements. I might say that, by contrast, the coalition policy, which is all about a fair go for veterans, war widows and ex-service personnel, does in fact provide for that portability. The reality is that the defence service home loans scheme, set as it is with a $25,000 maximum limit of loan, really should be renamed the Westpac defence service caravan loan scheme, because that is all it can really purchase in terms of value. It has slipped tremendously with the rate of inflation and the explosive growth in the cost of housing around our capital cities and right throughout Australia during the 1980s. We now have a new defence service caravan loan scheme in this country-one which is inadequate, one which will not help overcome the rate of resignations from our Army, Navy and Air Force, and one which the Opposition will further challenge and scrutinise following the comprehensive press statement by the joint Ministers, a statement which should have more appropriately been made on the floor of this House of Representatives. Mr LAMB(Streeton)(10.52) —The task of a member of parliament is not an easy one. We must use judiciously those powers and privileges given to us. When a member of parliament intervenes on behalf of a client or a constituent in the interests of defending a person's rights, character and reputation-a proper task, honourable members will agree, indeed a duty-it is often seen by those anxious for an arrest or a successful prosecution as no less than defying or frustrating police in the course of their duty. If the member of parliament insists on upholding the civil rights of a member of the family or within the circle of friends of the family of the member, this does not alter the fact that the member of parliament is doing the correct thing. Remember that, under our system of law, unless someone is charged there can be no arrest and one is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. When two members of the Opposition in this Parliament last Tuesday week attempted to besmirch the reputation of a State member of parliament in Victoria who was doing no more than intervening on behalf of a constituent to see that civil rights were fully observed, it was obvious that the attack was launched not in the interests of justice but for cheap political gain. Those two members stand condemned for that, and they were rightly called to order by the Deputy Speaker and by the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Milton), who pointed out that at that time the case was sub judice. It is no longer sub judice so I am free to speak. The case involved was heard in the Ringwood court last week or the week before. As it turns out, the accusations and allusions that were made by those honourable members did not hold up in court. In contrast to the besmirching that went on of the character of this fine member of parliament the judgment by the people of her electorate-and I am referring to Mrs Kay Setches, the member for Ringwood-was that she should be re-elected for a third term on the record of service that she had given to that electorate. The people quite rightly were not interested in muckraking; they rejected any aspersions that were thrown unfounded on her character. It is pleasant to report to this Parliament that with Kay Setches's third election we also saw in Victoria the successful third election of the Cain Government. Once again the people were not fooled by what was said by the Opposition about the record of this Government federally or the Government in the State. The people judged that the Cain Government was one to be trusted, that it had fine leadership and an excellent record in its six or so years of government. As we saw here with an individual member of parliament, we now see with a government; the people are not easily fooled. They saw through the incompetence of the Liberal leadership in Victoria. They also saw through the frustrations and incompetence of a government that would have ensued should a coalition have been elected in Victoria, if that was possible. One of the sad things that happened in the Victorian election was that one seat went to the Opposition. That was the seat of Warrandyte, which is partly in my electorate and which was held by Mr Lou Hill. I want to place on record my thanks to a State colleague who has helped me. We have worked closely together to serve the common interests of the electorates of Streeton and Warrandyte. He leaves the Parliament, I hope for only a short time-he has returned to the Bar-with a record of solid civic and political achievement and contribution. I know he goes with the heartfelt thanks of the electorate of Warrandyte and he certainly goes to the Bar with my thanks for his cooperation in serving our people. Mr McGAURAN(Gippsland)(10.57) —I should warn the honourable member for Streeton (Mr Lamb) that the case of Kay Setches is anything but finished and her alleged hindrance of police activity in regard to an investigation is something that will be pursued by the Opposition of Victoria. If the fanciful suggestions that she may become a Minister in the Victorian Government per favour of the Socialist Left faction, the dominant faction in Victoria, become a reality, I can assure the honourable member that her behaviour, conduct and relationship with certain police officers will be investigated. It is of great concern to many Victorians that the Socialist Left faction-Victoria is the only State in Australia to be so dominated by the Socialist Left faction-is demanding a majority of Ministers within the new Cain Government. The people of Victoria unwittingly, even unknowingly, have voted in a Socialist Left dominated government, a matter that the Premier, when he went to the electorate was at great pains to disguise. Of course, now all bets are off and the favours are going to be called in by a rabble surrounding itself with the comforting cloak of socialism. Moreover, the Government is at long last going to have to answer in the Parliament allegations concerning corruption and maladministration within the Victorian Economic Development Corporation (VEDC), particularly its relationship with Wallace International Ltd, which of course conveniently posted a serious loss on the stock exchange on the Monday after the Saturday election. The role of the Deputy Premier, Robert Fordham, will be very closely examined and I would venture to suggest that he will no longer hold that position when the vote is taken in the very near future by the Victorian parliamentary Australian Labor Party. Sadly it is a sleazy Government that has been returned to office and one which will finally, on both an individual basis in the case of members such as Kay Setches and Robert Fordham, but collectively in regard to the VEDC and Wallace International, have to answer for its actions. There are many suspicions harboured within the Victorian community. It is a tragedy that Labor has been returned to office. It was returned only because of the fact that it so shrewdly, cunningly and dishonestly covered its own maladministration. Madam SPEAKER —Order! It being 11 p.m., the debate is interrupted. The House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow. House adjourned at 11 p.m. The following notices were given: Mr Willis to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Overseas Telecommunications Act 1946 to convert OTC into a public company, and for other purposes. Mr Peter Morris to present a Bill for an Act relating to the purchase of further shares of the capital stock of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Mr Holding to present a Bill for an Act to amend sections 85 and 86 of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization Act 1979, and for related purposes. Mr West to present a Bill for an Act to amend various Acts relating to matters dealt with by the Department of Administrative Services. Mr Kerin to present a Bill for an Act relating to an agreement between the Commonwealth and one or more of the States and the Northern Territory in respect of a scheme to provide assistance to persons engaged in rural industries. The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 10 October 1988: Australian Meat and Live-stock Corporation Act- Orders-1988- M39/88-1989 Performance. MQ25/88-High Quality Beef to EEC-1989 Quota Administration Scheme. MQ26/88-Sheepmeat and/or Goatmeat to EEC-1989 Quota Administration Scheme. MQ27/88-Buffalo Meat to EEC-1989 Quota Administration Scheme. Australian National University Act-Statutes- No. 202-Law Reform (Admission and Enrolment). No. 203-Limitation on Admission to Degrees Amendment No. 1. Banking Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 233. Defence Act-Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal-Determinations-1988-Nos 11, 12, 13, 14. Export Control Act-Export Control (Orders) Regulations- Orders-1988- No. 12-Export Control (Dried Fruits) (Amendment). No. 16-Export Control (Fees) as amended (Amendment). Export Inspection (Establishment Registration Charge) Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 241. Export Inspection (Quantity Charge) Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 242. Export Inspection (Service Charge) Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 244. Family Law Act-Rules of Court-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 236. Fisheries Act-Copy of agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and East Australian Fishing Development Company Proprietary Limited, dated 20 September 1988. Grain Legumes Levy Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 235. Health Insurance Act-Determinations pursuant to subsection 3c (1), dated- 2 June 1988. 3 June 1988. Lands Acquisition Act-Statement of lands acquired by agreement authorised under subsection 7 (1). Meat Export Charge Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 243. Meat Inspection Act-Meat Inspection (Orders) Regulations-Orders-1988-No. 7-Meat Inspection (Fees) as amended (Amendment). National Health Act- Authorisation for the purposes of paragraph 40aa (6) (ce). Determination, pursuant to paragraph 40ah (b), dated 15 June 1988. Principles, formulated under subsection- 40aa (7), dated 29 June 1988. 40afa (3), dated 29 June 1988. Naval Defence Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 234. Navigation Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, Nos 238, 239, 240. Proclamations by His Excellency the Governor-General fixing the dates on which the following Acts and sections of Acts shall come into operation- Community Services and Health Legislation Amendment Act 1988-Sections 12, 29, 30, 32 and 34-1 October 1988. Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Amendment Act 1986-Provisions other than sections 1 and 2-23 September 1988. Public Service Act-Determinations-1988-Nos 193, 197, 205, 207, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215. Remuneration Tribunals Act-Remuneration Tribunal- Determination-1988-89-Chief Executive Officer, Civil Aviation Authority and holders of public offices on other bodies. Report-1988/1-Justices and Judges. Seat of Government (Administration) Act- Determination listing fees for the purposes of the following Ordinances- No. 21-Agents. No. 22-Architects. No. 23-Building. No. 24-Building and Services. No. 25-Cemeteries. No. 26-City Area Leases. No. 27-Co-operative Societies. No. 28-Dangerous Goods. No. 29-Dog Control. No. 30-Hawkers. No. 31-Lakes. No. 32-Machinery. No. 33-Motor Omnibus Services. No. 34-Motor Traffic. No. 35-Nature Conservation. No. 36-Plumbers, Drainers and Gasfitters Board. No. 37-Pounds. No. 38-Rabbit Destruction. No. 39-Racecourses. No. 40, 41-Real Property. No. 42-Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages. No. 43-Registration of Deeds. No. 44-Sale of Motor Vehicles. No. 45-Scaffolding and Lifts. No. 46-Stock. No. 47-Surveyors. No. 48-Unit Titles. No. 49-Water Pollution. No. 50-Weights and Measures. Shipping Registration Act-Regulations-Statutory Rules 1988, No. 237. The following answers to questions were circulated: (Question No. 662) Mr Blunt asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, upon notice, on 24 February 1988: (1) What was the total budgeted expenditure in 1987-88 by the Minister's Department and instrumentalities and organisations responsible to the Minister for (a) advertising (b) public relations and (c) opinion research? (2) What has been the actual expenditure to date in 1987-88 on each area referred to in part (1)? (3) Is it estimated that expenditure on these areas in 1987-88 will be under or over budget; if so, by what sum will it be under or over budget and what is the reason for the discrepancy? (4) What has been the expenditure by the Minister's Department and instrumentalities and organisations responsible to the Minister on (a) job advertising and (b) other advertising? (5) What major advertising projects, campaigns or information campaigns have been undertaken, are being undertaken or are being planned, and in each case, (a) what was the cost of each project, (b) who undertook the project, (c) how were they selected, (d) were public tenders called and (e) which firms were invited to tender? Mr Barry Jones —The Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1) (a) $3,983,787 on Advertising. (b) $2,358,500 on Public Relations. (c) $236,000 Opinion Research. (2) (a) $1,013,288 on Advertising to 29 February 1988. (b) $1,587,884 on Public Relations to 29 February 1988. (c) $43,700 on Opinion Research to 29 February 1988. (3) The Industry Councils' Secretariat (ICS) had budgeted $150,000 for opinion research. As at 29 February $14,160 had been spent. A reassessment of project schedules by the Secretariat indicated some of the work would carry over into 1988-89 leaving this item $60,500 under spent on its budget for 1987-88. The ICS also expected to spend only $10,000 of its allocated $20,000 on advertising as a result of new arrangements under which industry associations agreed to disseminate information. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) advised that it had to spend $15,000 above its budgeted $55,000 for advertising because it had to make provision for a higher than expected level of recruitment advertising for internal executive positions. The Australian Institute of Marine Science spent $7,500 more on publications than originally estimated but expected to recover this through publication sales. (4) $1,013,288 on job advertising, public notices, tenders. (5) Major campaigns: Austrade Australian Export Awards To solicit entries, promote the importance of export, congratulate the 36 finalists and 7 winners. (a) Total net cost to 29/2: $360,000 advertising: $80,000 (b) In-house (c) (d) (e) n/a Austrade Seminars Program of about 12 seminars, each held in 4 or 5 cities, to motivate and inform exporters on methods of exporting and specific product and/or market potential (a) Total net cost to 29/2: $217,000 advertising: $40,000 (b) In-house (c) (d) (e) n/a Austrade Overseas and Undersold Television series produced for broadcasting on the ABC, 24 January to 1 April 1988. Also for use at seminars and promotions (a) Total net cost to 29/2: $206,000 (final net expected to be $600,000) advertising to 29/2 approximately: $40,000 (b) Film Australia (c) Preferred Government supplier; developed concept and arranged screening (d) n/a (e) n/a Australian Customs Service (ACS) campaigns for the introduction of the Harmonised Tariff and promotion of the ACS ADP computer Network. (a) Harmonised Tariff: $16,000 ADP network: $15,000 (b) ACS public Affairs Unit (c) n/a (d) n/a (e) n/a Austrade Market Promotion Program (MPP) The MPP is designed to support a wide range of overseas promotional activities. The program's major component is participation in overseas trade displays although other areas covered include publications, overseas trade missions and inward visits, consultancy and research and publicity and advertising. Publicity and advertising includes both public relations activities and generic advertising on a global basis according to market need. Expenditure is managed by the Trade Commissioner Posts on a discretionary basis. -advertising and publicity to 29/2: $880,062 -anticipated 87/88: $1,892,000 Proposed: Investment Promotion Program. Notional allocation of $200,000 with further anticipated expenditure in financial year 88/89. (Question No. 694) Mr Blunt asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, upon notice, on 24 February 1988: (1) Which firms or organisations have undertaken public relations campaigns on behalf of the Minister's Department? (2) How was each firm or organisation selected? (3) Were public tenders called; if not, (a) why not and (b) what other procedure has been adopted for inviting firms to quote? (4) Which firms or organisations undertook research projects, and in each instance, (a) what was the cost of each project and (b) how long did it take to complete? (5) Will the Minister provide copies of the result of each survey and details of the questions asked? (6) How were firms selected for this research work? (7) Was there a public tender; if not, why not? Mr Barry Jones —The Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1) Corporate Publishing Pty Ltd-public awareness campaign on integrated manufacturing for National Industry Extension Service (NIES). Turnbulls-Promotion and Marketing for the Industries Councils Secretariat (ICS). (2) The standard procedure for selection of firms or organisations is that a number of agencies are invited to submit proposals for a campaign and they are assessed on the basis of their submission. Approved procedures were followed including the use of Finance Regulation 52aa. (3) See answer (2) above. (4) Turnbulls carried out research work for the Industries Councils Secretariat (ICS). A further eight individuals and organisations did research work for the Commission for the Future (CFF). Listed below are the individuals and organisations used by ICS and the DFF showing costs and completion dates. CFF Mr T. Barr, Future Impacts and opportunities of Telecommunications Technologies. $22,500 completion time six months. Ms A. Butler, Work Leisure and Time Use. $4,000 completion time three months. Mr S. Deary, Unions of the Future, beyond 2000. $25,000 completion time twelve months. Ms H. D. Gieri, Unions of the Future, beyond 2000. $4,000 completion time 200 hours. Ms D. Greene, Greenhouse Project. $8,000 completion time nine months. University of Melbourne, Sustainable Futures-Productivity and Small Systems. $20,000 completion time twelve months. Dr R. Slaughter, Australian Futures Studies. $5,600 completion time three months. Roy Morgan Research Centre, Preliminary Assessment of Changes in Public attitudes to Technological Development in Australia 1983 to 1987. $1,150 completion time one weekend. ICS PA Consulting Group. $241,000 (max) over two years (Nil $ at 24 February). Turnbulls, Promotion and Marketing. $18,000 ($9,000 at 24 February) in progress. (5) Some projects were still in progress at 24 February however, copies of the completed projects would be available upon request. (6) ICS advise one company was selected on the basis of three written quotes from companies in the Register of Consultants (established following advertisements calling for expressions of interest), another on the basis of its clear demonstration of ability to undertake the specified work assessed via examination of parallel work done just prior for an industry group. The CFF advises it selected firms in accordance with prescribed regulations. (7) No. See answer to (6) above. Alternative approved procedures were followed including use of Finance Regulation 52aa (2). (Question No. 710) Mr Blunt asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, upon notice, on 24 February 1988: (1) What was the total expenditure in 1986-87 by the Minister's Department and instrumentalities and organisations responsible to the Minister, for (a) advertising, (b) public relations and (c) opinion research? (2) What were the major items in the advertising budget? (3) What were the major public relations initiatives? (4) What subjects were covered by the opinion research? Mr Barry Jones —The Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1) (a) $2,107,366 on Advertising. (b) $3,142,900 on Public Relations. (c) $94,000 on Opinion Research. (2) The major item in the advertising budget was recruitment of staff. (3) The Austrade National Export Drive: `Overseas and Under Sold', `Business Sunday', 1986 Australian Export Awards, seminars for exports. Other initiatives were videos, publications, research projects. (4) McNair Anderson's poll on Australia's export position and its implications for the economy and living standards. (Question No. 726) Mr Blunt asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, upon notice, on 24 February 1988: (1) Was (a) Mr P. Adams, (b) Mr J. Singleton, (c) Mr R. Cameron of ANOP or (d) any company organisation, joint venture, partnership or other structure in which these persons have a beneficial interest, employed, engaged or otherwise remunerated or compensated by the Minister's Department or any instrumentality or organisation responsible to the Minister in (i) 1986-87 (ii) 1987-88? (2) What was the nature of the work undertaken? (3) How was it decided to allocate this work? (4) What was the total cost? Mr Barry Jones —The Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1) (a) Yes by Australian Industry Development Corporation (AIDC)-see (d) below (b) Yes by Austrade (c) No (d) Yes, John Singleton Advertising by Austrade and Mojo Corporate by AIDC. AIDC engaged Mojo Corporate in 1986 before Mr Adams was involved with the Company. In August 1986 Mojo and MDA merged and as a result Mr Adams acquired an indirect interest in Mojo Corporate. (2) John Singleton Advertising developed a `National Export Drive' advertising campaign for Austrade in 1987-88. AIDC engaged Mojo Corporate to provide public relations consultancy for 1987-88. (3) Three agencies short-listed for an earlier campaign were approached to compete for the National Export Drive campaign. AIDC chose Mojo following a recommendation from another client. (4) The Austrade National Export Drive Campaign cost $45,000. The AIDC consulting cost $20,000. (Question No. 1100) Mr Leo McLeay asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 22 August 1988: (1) Does the New South Wales Division of his Department have a very high number of appeals to the Merit Protection Authority against promotions within the Department. (2) Are there more appeals against promotion on merit basis in New South Wales than in any other States; if so why. Mr Howe —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) The most recent details available on the number of appeals lodged against promotions in the New South Wales Administration of the Department are contained in the 1986-87 Annual Report of the Merit Protection and Review Agency. These details indicate that the New South Wales Administration has a high rate of appeals in comparison with the Departmental and Service-wide averages. The rate of appeals has decreased in recent years. (2) Yes-New South Wales is the largest administration in the Department and traditionally has had a high appeal rate. This is expected in a large organisation where a large number of similar jobs may be under consideration at the same time and people wish to keep their options open. The rate of appeals upheld in New South Wales is the lowest of all State administrations of the Department. (Question No. 1123) Mr Blunt asked the Minister for Housing and Aged Care, upon notice, on 23 August 1988: (1) Is the Government reducing the unmatched funds under the Home and Community Care program; if so, (a) why was this decision taken, (b) what was the amount of the cutback on a State by State basis and (c) what was the impact of this funding reduction on the program. (2) Will this cutback reduce funds to ethnic communities for bi-lingual and bi-cultural services for frail aged and persons with disabilities from ethnic communities. Mr Staples —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) In the 1988 May Economic Statement, the Government reduced unmatched Commonwealth funding for home and community care projects over the next three years. The reduction will be progressively introduced at the rate of $3 million in 1988-89, $8 million in 1989-90 and $12 million in 1990-91. The balance of Commonwealth unmatched funds available for home and community care projects is $66 million between 1988-89 and 1990-91. These unmatched funds are on top of the funds provided to State Governments on a matching basis. The matched funding available to States in 1988-89 is in the order of $200 million. Commonwealth outlays under the Agreements with the States have grown by a massive 100% from 1985-86 when the Home and Community Care Program began. This demonstrates the Government's commitment to caring for frail aged and disabled people in their own homes. The unmatched money is therefore a relatively small component of the Commonwealth's contribution to community care and is primarily aimed at researching and developing new approaches to service delivery. (a) Like many other areas aiming at innovation, it takes time to develop and implement proposals. Accordingly, appropriations were underspent in 1987-88. (b) The funds are not apportioned in advance between States. The Commonwealth does not intend the unmatched funds to substitute for joint effort under the HACC Agreements. The Commonwealth aims to achieve an equitable distribution of these funds on a per capita basis in the fourth year, 1990-91. The extent to which this is possible will depend on the States' achievements under HACC Agreements. States which do not maintain their efforts under joint programs cannot expect a full per capita share. (c) The revised level of funding is adequate for researching and developing new approaches to service delivery. (2) Adequate funds remain to explore methods of meeting the needs of elderly persons of non-English speaking backgrounds. Three projects in New South Wales have already been started with an emphasis on the needs of ethnic people. Further projects are being developed in other States which focus on these needs. (Question No. 1158) Mr Smith asked the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, upon notice, on 29 August 1988: How many inquiries each day are received by the Defence Force Recruiting Office in Macquarie Street, Hobart. Mrs Kelly —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: There were 2732 inquiries received over the period of 1 March 1988 to 31 August 1988. Naturally the number of inquiries per day fluctuates, but over the period mentioned the average was around 21. (Question No. 1162) Mr Blunt asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 30 August 1988: (1) For each year since the peak of unemployment in early 1984, how many persons who ceased to receive unemployment benefits (a) obtained employment, (b) were transferred to other benefits or pensions and to which benefit or pension were they transferred and (c) died or ceased to receive the benefit for another reason. (2) How many of the 126 700 individuals classified as long term unemployed in May 1988 had been unemployed for (a) more than 5 years, (b) between 4 and 5 years, (c) between 3 and 4 years and (d) between 2 and 3 years. (3) What are the conditions for a person to receive the employment entry payment. (4) When will the employed entry payment scheme commence and how many persons is it envisaged will receive the payment in (a) 1988-89, (b) 1989-90 and (c) 1990-91. (5) Does the departmental STRATPLAN computer system communicate directly with the computer network of the CES and, in particular, Job Search; if so, does the communication extend to all States and all offices within each State. (6) If the communication does not extend to all States or all offices within each State, what are the exceptions. Mr Howe —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) Terminations (i) of unemployment benefit by reason: 1983-84 1984-85 1985-86 1986-87 1987-88 (a) Return to work... 366,472 341,779 336,393 330,801 258,847 (b) Transferred to other pension/benefit by type - invalid pension... 3,678 4,024 3,662 3,896 2,294 - age pension... 404 365 328 357 272 - widows pension... 1,099 1,122 1,108 1,170 670 - supporting parents benefit... 3,121 2,994 3,421 3,688 3,018 - service pension... 2,368 1,680 1,372 673 441 - formal training allowance... 15,911 15,598 13,601 12,606 14,448 - sheltered employment allowance... 200 184 174 189 156 - rehabilitation allowance... 1,252 1,265 996 727 483 - carers pension... - - - - 422 - special benefit... 10,523 10,246 9,952 10,595 9,500 - sickness benefit... 36,920 33,777 33,343 37,750 35,516 - Total... 75,476 71,255 67,957 71,651 67,220 (c) Died... 757 702 783 740 702 Other reasons (ii)... 578,051 537,898 537,125 627,489 615,345 ,(i) The data referred to the number of terminations during the year ended May. During any year a recipient of unemployment benefit may have benefit terminated more than once. (ii) Includes UB recipients who failed to provide information to the Department or return the SU19B form. It can be assumed that a substantial number of these persons would have found employment. Since February quarter 1988 short-term cancellations subsequently restored have been excluded. Numbers in this category for 1987-88, therefore, are not comparable with the numbers for the previous years. (2) Long-term unemployment beneficiaries by duration: Of the 172,583 persons classified as long-term unemployment beneficiaries in May 1988 (I.E. beneficiaries with benefit duration of over one year), the number unemployed for: (a) more than 5 years was 24,390; (b) between 4 and 5 years was 11,822; (c) between 3 and 4 years was 19,974; (c) between 2 and 3 years was 35,972. At that time, 126,701 21-54 year olds were classified as long-term unemployment beneficiaries. Of these the number unemployed for: (a) more than 5 years was 19,638; (b) between 4 and 5 years was 8,845; (c) between 3 and 4 years was 14,946; (d) between 2 and 3 years was 26,249. (3) The Government's intention is that employment entry payment will be payable to long-term unemployment beneficiaries meeting the following conditions: Aged 18 years or over; In continuous receipt of benefit for at least 12 months; and Unemployment benefit cancelled because of obtaining a continuing full-time job. (4) The Government's intention is that the employment entry payment will begin from 1 February 1989. It is estimated that 23,000 payments will be made in 1988-89 and 55,000 in each of 1989-90 and 1990-91. (5) and (6) The DSS computer system does not communicate directly with the computer network of the CES in any office in any State. (Question No. 1171) Mr Hollis asked the Minister for Industrial Relations, upon notice, on 1 September 1988: What progress has been made with the revision of International Labour Organisation Convention No. 107: Indigenous and Tribal Populations, 1957. Mr Peter Morris —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: The revision of International Labour Organisation Convention No. 107, Indigenous and Tribal Populations, 1957 is being considered by two successive sessions of the annual International Labour Conference. The first discussion took place in June 1988 and the Conference adopted a set of conclusions which recognised that ``self-identification as indigenous or tribal should be regarded as a fundamental criterion'' for determining the groups to which the revised Convention should apply, and that these groups should: Enjoy the full measure of human rights and fundamental freedoms without hindrance or discrimination; Be fully consulted-in particular through their representative institutions-whenever measures directly affecting them are considered; Have the right to decide their own priorities for the process of development as it affects their lives, beliefs, territories, institutions and spiritual well-being; and Have the right to retain their own customs and institutions where these are not incompatible with fundamental human rights. In addition, the conclusions emphasised that special measures of protection should not be contrary to the wishes of indigenous peoples or be prejudicial in any way to their enjoyment of general rights of citizenship. The revision process will be completed during the second discussion at the June 1989 Conference which is expected to adopt a revised Convention.