1998-11-233911REPS35301998-11-23Mr SPEAKER(Mr Neil Andrew) took the chair at 12.30 p.m., and read prayers.Miscellaneous353Mr Bruce Craig Scott made and subscribed the oath of allegiance.Miscellaneous353353Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—Pursuant to standing order 18, I lay on the table my warrant nominating the honourable members for Wannon and Gilmore to be members of the Speaker's Panel to assist the chair when requested to do so by the Speaker or Deputy Speaker.Address in Reply353353Debate resumed from 12 November, on motion by Mr Cameron Thompson:That the following address-in-reply to the speech of His Excellency the Governor-General be agreed to.May it please Your Excellency:We, the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign, and to thank Your Excellency for the speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Before I call the honourable member for McMillan, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.12:33:00353Zahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA84HMcMillanALP01—In rising for the first time to speak as the member for McMillan, I want to make it clear that I come to this parliament with strong views and deeply held convictions. I do not intend to be trapped by tact at the expense of truth. I intend to make my view plain and I do not intend to hide behind watered-down language and pathetic half-truths.Nor do I intend to blindly seek out the political centre. The political centre is not where I want to be. The political centre does not work for our community in the electorate of McMillan. It represents the type of soft, flabby compromise which our community has suffered too much from already. It represents the political expedience which has cost us jobs and represents a culture which dismisses community pain resulting from government decision making as often necessary for the greater good. We have had the pain in my electorate, and we are wondering who got the greater good. I know it was not anyone in our community.I did not come here to leave my anger and my radicalism at the door of this chamber and I do not intend to forget what it is to struggle. As the youngest member of this parliament, I also intend to make sure that issues affecting young people—issues such as youth unemployment, youth suicide and award protection for young workers—are given the serious consideration they deserve.I grew up understanding hardship and I know what it is to work. I grew up around the hardness of the construction industry. My father was a building worker. I grew up shaking hands with men who had lost fingers, eyes and legs to unsafe work practices. I grew up helping my dad in his work: pouring concrete, clearing building sites, moving rubble and helping out the other tradesmen on site—I was referred to as my dad's apprentice. It was always a title I was proud to wear.As I got older, I saw all those men grow old—horribly—around me. Many died of heart attack or stroke, prematurely. Many are now in nursing homes—again, prematurely. Many have been condemned to die a hacking and awful death because they have been exposed to asbestos. This was the price that men like my father have paid so that their children could have the opportunities which they had not had. This was the price that those men and their families were made to pay.How different a life it is for the rich in our community, who live off their family name and inherited fortunes—inherited fortunes so often founded on the theft of land from traditional owners and on the provision of licences to family members by corruption-ridden colonial administrations. Their claim to empathise with workers is usually swiftly followed by their claim that they would be able to employ more people if only workers and unions would accept lower wages. We need to expose their hypocrisy and deceit and tear away their pretence.These are the same people who are always talking about the need for wage constraint. What about some wage constraint on the part of management in this country? The CEO of the National Australia Bank will be paid $2.5 million this year, a 43 per cent increase in his salary from last year. Are these guys serious? We need to plainly articulate that these people and their objectives have no place at our table, and we need to let people know that we find the hypocrisy of these men and women repugnant and offensive.Similarly, when employers say that they will sack young workers if they are forced to pay them competency based wages instead of discriminatory youth wages, we need to expose their hypocrisy. We need to stand against this unjust age discrimination and fight on behalf of young workers who are clearly being exploited. We must fight in the same way that the labour movement fought when it heroically took up the fight for equal pay on behalf of women. We must fight in the same way that the labour movement fought when it heroically took up the fight for equal pay on behalf of indigenous Australians. There can be no room for backsliding or weakness on our part. Our Labor history proudly spells out what our position on this issue must be. We must again insist on equal pay for equal work.No smooth-talking employer or coalition MP will ever convince me of the rightness of the entrenched form of discrimination that is youth wages. And no employer looking pleadingly into the TV camera and appealing to the community that competency based wages will mean that he will have to sack workers should be believed. What competency based wages means is that they will have to pay their workers a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. From the point of view of this young worker, the sooner young people get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work the better.The coalition has an appalling record when it comes to providing opportunities for young people. All the coalition has to offer young people in this country is a pay cut or a Work for the Dole program with no training, and in my electorate this is especially true. In our community of McMillan, we have a youth unemployment rate of 47 per cent, and we have the second highest unemployment rate in Australia, at 14.1 per cent—up from 9.2 per cent when John Howard took office.The choice that John Howard gives young people in my electorate is stark: stay in Gippsland and be unemployed or move to Melbourne and take your chances away from your family. Those who stay can also look forward to being forced into a Work for the Dole program with no training. Those who leave can look forward to a difficult time, without the support of friends and family and without government assistance, thanks to the Common Youth Allowance. They can also look forward to no help finding a job because of the privatisation of the CES. As short-term unemployed people, they are not worth much in terms of dollars to Job Network providers. Only when they are long-term unemployed will the Job Network take an interest in them, by which time they have probably decided to return home to their families in Gippsland. This is John Howard's solution to youth unemployment.Those same Liberal-National Party MPs who so piously appeal for wage cuts, youth wages and less union involvement in the name of jobs also describe John Howard's destruction of the higher education system in this country as a victory for freedom and choice. Those people are freedom maniacs. The loss of opportunities for working-class families to go to universities is seen as a policy triumph for the Howard government. There are a number of us on this side of the House who would not be here if it were not for the profound changes made to the higher education system by the Whitlam government in the 1970s. Gough Whitlam and Kim Beazley Sr made it possible for me and my two sisters to achieve based on our ability rather than on the social status and wealth of our parents.I find it absolutely heartbreaking to see that these incredibly important reforms have been wound back by this government through the introduction of aggressive policies such as up-front fees, increases to HECS, cutbacks in higher education funding and the absurdity that is the Common Youth Allowance. If you have got money in John Howard's Australia then you can go places, but if your family does not have much money and if you live in the country then basically you are stuffed. And this government considers this a victory for freedom of choice.Some of my mates and I were talking the other day about school—which, as you all know, was not that long ago in my case—and about how good it used to be that it did not matter how well off your mum and dad were: if you were smart and worked hard, you could pretty much get into whatever course you wanted to at university. I used to really enjoy the fact that the rich kids who did stuff-all work and bludged all day could not just buy their way into university. Ability and application were the two great levellers. But, thanks to John Howard, the `richy riches' of this country can now drive their new BMWs up to the university of their choice, and they can buy their way into any course they want. This is what John Howard calls freedom of choice.I suppose it is unrealistic of me to expect any more from the Liberal and National parties. What can you expect from a hog—except that it will grunt? How could those who represent the Liberal and National parties in this place understand what it means to need government support in order to get a decent education? They could never understand. Overwhelmingly, they are the sons and daughters still of the moneyed elites of this country. And to the tiny minority of those opposite who are not from affluent families I say this: you are in the wrong party.The coalition are not content to just tilt the education system in favour of the rich; they now want to tilt the taxation system so that it discriminates against low income earners. Through their support for a GST—a tax which is unquestionably the most regressive taxation measure ever proposed by a government in this nation's history—the Liberal and National parties forever condemn themselves to be remembered as partners in one of the most mean spirited political enterprises in Australia's history.The GST is a tax which is bad for small business, bad for low income workers and bad for families. And 51.5 per cent of Australians have just voted against it in an election which the Prime Minister himself said was a referendum on the GST. Despite this, the Prime Minister says he is going to go ahead with it. He says he has a mandate. Is it any wonder that our community has so little faith in politicians when we have such a duplicitous Prime Minister?One of the Prime Minister's many problems is that he lacks the political courage to change the taxation system so that it actually provides opportunities for middle and low income earning Australians. His version of political courage involves making it harder for workers and families. And for the act of cowardice that is a GST, the Prime Minister accepts the support of big business and the conservative economic press. I would suggest to the Prime Minister that he is not listening to the right people.I am not much interested in John Howard's type of courage, because it is not courage but weakness: pathetic, fawning weakness. And apart from incompetence, it has been weakness which has characterised John Howard's McMahon-like attempts to govern our nation. The Prime Minister is pretty tough when it comes to taking money off the unemployed or increasing nursing home fees. But where is the courage in that? What about John Elliott, Ron Walker and all those other Liberal-National Party mates who continue to avoid tax in this country? Why doesn't the Prime Minister make sure they pay their fair share? I will tell you why: because the Prime Minister does not have the political steel to do it. He is a weak man without political conviction. He has failed our community and will be remembered by the great majority of Australians with a great deal of ill will and bad feeling.Appropriately, I joined the ALP by sending off an ALP membership application which was on the back of one of my dad's union journals. I became active in the party and fought my way through Young Labor in the finest of Labor traditions, becoming State Secretary in 1995. As much as I enjoyed the combat of Young Labor, I was always most interested in what was happening in our community in my electorate of McMillan.McMillan is a seat which is unique in Australia. It represents one of the great strengths we have as a nation—diversity. Whilst McMillan is often referred to as a Latrobe Valley based seat, it also includes the important dairying region of west Gippsland—including the towns of Warragul, Drouin, Trafalgar, Neerim South and Rokeby—as well as Pakenham in the west, which is rapidly becoming part of Melbourne's south-eastern growth corridor.McMillan is a seat in which I have lived for nearly my whole life. I grew up in the Latrobe Valley, which is a region famous for its enormous brown coal reserves and forestry resources. It is also a region with a long and proud tradition of trade unionism and multiculturalism. Over the last five years, I have enjoyed getting closer to the community in Pakenham and west Gippsland and learning more about primary production and the important contribution made by people on the land. Similarly, I have learnt more about the many problems—especially transport problems—being experienced by those in rapidly growing regions like Pakenham. These are issues which I take very seriously, and I look forward to working constructively with local government representatives in particular towards ensuring proper access to transport and services for those in the growing communities in my electorate.Similarly, I will not lose sight of the massive unemployment in our region, nor will I ever fail to acknowledge the enormous hardship being experienced in the Latrobe Valley due to electricity privatisation. More than 12,500 jobs have been lost in the Latrobe Valley, due to electricity privatisation—12,500 jobs destroyed in a community of just 70,000 people. We produce 85 per cent of Victoria's electricity in the Latrobe Valley and I intend to continue to pursue the use of this resource as a means to attract new electricity intensive industries to the region through the provision of discounted electricity. At present, companies in the Latrobe Valley actually pay more for their electricity than companies in Melbourne. This is obviously an absurd situation which I intend to change on behalf of our community.In speaking about the Latrobe Valley and multiculturalism, it is with a great deal of pride that I can advise this House that I am the first Maltese born Australian to be elected to the federal parliament. The Maltese in Australia have made an enormous contribution to our nation. A significant contribution has been made especially in the areas of construction, shipbuilding and on the waterfront. Like my parents, most Maltese migrants came to Australia with very little and built a new life for themselves through sacrifice and hard work. I am very proud of my Maltese heritage and I have been moved by the many congratulatory letters and phone calls I have received from Maltese people right across Australia. Thank you all for your support. I hope that I make you proud.Before being elected, I worked as the Chief Executive Officer of the Central Gippsland Aboriginal Health and Housing Cooperative in Morwell. In the course of my work and subsequently, I made a number of close friends in the Koori community and learnt a great deal about the needs and aspirations of Aboriginal people. For Aboriginal people, injustice and racism remain a part of every day of their lives. I want to see a profound change in the status of Aboriginal people in my lifetime. At present, a huge gap exists in living standards between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. For many Aboriginal people, it is a tragedy. It debilitates our nation. It debilitates our culture, our reputation and our self-esteem. It undermines our ambition to be a good society.The best way—in fact the only way—to improve relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians is to provide a decent basis for reconciliation. We can only do this by closing the gap in living conditions. For my part, I am absolutely committed to closing this divide to the point where no-one can point to someone and say that the reason for that person's poverty or illness is that he or she is Aboriginal. It is a huge challenge and hugely significant to the determination of Australia's future. It is a challenge which the Labor Party has embraced positively and a challenge which I am pleased to support.In closing, I want to acknowledge the hard work and determination of my family, my campaign team and the many rank and file ALP members in McMillan who all worked tirelessly to get me elected. We were the only Labor campaign in Victoria to defeat an incumbent Liberal and this is a credit to the skill and sheer hard work of all involved. In particular, I want to acknowledge the work of Tony Flynn, Noela Amos, Andrew McDonald, Bill Bolitho and Jo McMillan, who all worked tirelessly and brilliantly in coordinating our campaign efforts.Some of my mates have made the trip up from the Latrobe Valley today and I want to acknowledge their role in keeping me at least reasonably normal for the last 12 months. They always made sure that I found the time to do some of the things I used to enjoy before being preselected, like having a beer every now and then and going to the footy.The people of my electorate elected me for a reason. They wanted a fighter. They wanted a representative in this place who would say what they were thinking. They wanted someone who they could relate to. They wanted someone who was unafraid to speak up when need be. I will not forget where I have come from and I will not forget who put me here, nor will I forget the work of the great Labor men and women who have gone before me. If I can leave this place having conducted myself with the integrity with which my father conducted his working life, then I am sure this parliament will be all the better for my contribution. I hope that some day I will be remembered as a man who worthily carried the Labor banner and as someone who never strayed from the task of representing the interests of working men and women.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Before I call the honourable member for Curtin, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to her the usual courtesies.12:53:00357Bishop, Julie, MPMs JULIE BISHOP83PCurtinLP11—Mr Speaker, during the life of this 39th Parliament we will celebrate the centenary of Federation. It is timely that we should reassess our expectations of our system of government. Since Federation, there have been many social, economic and cultural changes producing new problems and new issues for this country, and there has been a consequential demand for government solutions. The first half of this century tested our federal system with two world wars and the Great Depression—an economic crisis of unprecedented scale. At the end of the Second World War, some argued eloquently that federalism had no future in postwar Australia, that it had outlived its usefulness, that the circumstances and conditions giving rise to a federation as a necessary stage in the evolution of Australia's nationhood had passed away.As a consequence of the enormous pressures on the federal government to finance the national defence effort during World War II, the federal government took over income tax collection from the states, giving it a virtual monopoly over income tax. Further centralising of powers followed. On the world scene, the Keynesian challenge of macro-economic management and the implementation of the modern welfare state did lead to considerable expansion of central governments in many federalist systems, and Australia was no exception.There is no doubt that over more recent decades expectations for the central government have risen. The federal government has claimed, and is now granted, much responsibility for the state of the national economy and is responsible for welfare, health care, pensions and benefits, education and the like. It is an agent for multiculturalism and reconciliation.Many argue that the scope of government has expanded too much and that it has intruded into areas better left to private life. It is possible that we hold inconsistent views about what we want from government. Of course we want the security of a strong and stable economy and we want the budget balanced, but not at the cost of cutting large social programs.Australians alike share a number of basic goals for our society: steady economic growth and prosperity with low inflation and unemployment; a quality of life that includes a clean environment; a dynamic program in the arts; reasonable opportunities for everyone to succeed according to their abilities and efforts; protection from the major hazards of violence, poverty, sickness and disease; and respect for basic values, individual freedom and concern for the legitimate interests of others.But there is a view that governments just cannot get it right. Some think the government does too much; others think that it is not doing enough. But, whatever government is doing, people are far less sure that it is right. Coincidental with our expectations of government, there seems to be an increasing sense of disillusionment with its politicians and an increasing level of mistrust of government. It seems to be a hallmark of political life today that politicians are viewed, collectively, as simply not measuring up to the standards set by the community. Although it seems often the case that, while expressing dissatisfaction about politicians in general, many people have a high personal regard for their own elected representative.I expect that everyone who seeks to enter public office is asked, `Why are you doing this? Why would you want to be a politician?' During the campaign I lost count of the number of times I was asked, almost incredulously, why on earth I would be seeking to give up a relatively secure, professional career and a private life for the very insecure, much criticised and very public world of federal politics.My short answer was, and is, that I was in fact brought up to believe that entering public office should be one of the highest callings and that being able to direct your energies and abilities to the betterment of your state or your country is one of the greatest contribu tions of all. And I have always had an intense conviction that individuals can make a difference to the life of their times.Some people would nod and say, `Well, I'm pleased to hear you say that.' But, overall, I have been left with a sense of increasing scepticism and frustration that people have about politicians and governments generally. If this is a widely held view, should we be concerned? After all, Australians have always had a healthy scepticism about concentrated power and a healthy cynicism of politicians. Perhaps a certain level of mistrust of government is a good thing, but is there an optimum level? Are we in fact witnessing a deeper malaise not just with the performance of our politicians and government but also with our fundamental system of government? Whatever the position, we as parliamentarians must confront it.Of course, satisfaction with government is not just a function of how government performs relative to the expectations that people have for it; it is a function of perceived performance. Federal government is the most distant from most people's daily experience. It is thus the most dependent on indirect perceptions mediated by the press, particularly television. The media does play an important part. It provides most of the political views that people hear, and the views have become increasingly negative. The obvious rejoinder would be that the media does no more than hold up a mirror to political reality.If people are unhappy with what they see or hear, don't shoot the messenger. It behoves us all to maintain standards that people should be able to expect of elected representatives, irrespective of whether the media is reporting objectively or is having a distorted, subjective effect—the mirror held up being much like one found in a sideshow alley where the figures are recognisable but appear in distorted, perhaps entertaining, shapes.Governments often have to make hard decisions. They must impose unpopular costs in order to produce popular benefits. If people feel less likely to assume that the participants within government who make these decisions are acting in the public interest, there is a decline in trust. A deficit in trust can be made up not only by improved performance but also by greater public participation in the decisions. Are we asking the federal government to solve problems it cannot solve? Are we asking the government to do more things and solve more problems but without being willing to accept the reforms necessary to finance the efforts that would produce such solutions?Alongside an increasing dependence upon government there has been a lowering of individual and family responsibility, and an increasing culture of entitlement has emerged in Australia, which also gives rise to increasing expectations of government and its performance. At a personal level, people know that they cannot have what they are not willing to pay for. This knowledge encourages them to think through very carefully the implications of their choices and to ask themselves what they most want.I suggest that as we head into the 21st century we should, as a community, as a nation, reassess our values and, more particularly, our expectations of the life we want to lead and the life we expect for future generations.Should not the Australian people and their families decide what responsibilities are theirs and what responsibilities the taxpayer should pick up by funding programs which make a difference? I believe there are many issues upon which Australians need to take a view in terms of what we are prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and within our own families and what we expect the government or taxpayer responsibilities to be. This, of course, goes to the heart of the burning issue confronting the modern welfare state. If the state has obligations to individuals, what obligations do individuals owe to one another and to the state?Our government must devise and deliver pragmatic, responsible solutions that address the concerns of average Australians. The growth of entitlements, including the burgeoning cost of health care and social security benefits, means that governments of the future will have fewer and fewer resources to meet greater and greater expectations of the people.It will be incumbent upon each one of us, as elected representatives, to find ways for government to be sufficiently resilient, competent and just, to respond in ways that the public will trust as being in the public interest.Will our federal system of government be able to cope in the new world framework of the 21st century? I believe it will in fact endure as the most desirable form of democracy. We are in a changing world and our system of government must again adapt to change. Like other western democracies, Australia finds itself in a transition stage—on the way from the national industrial to the global digital society.We are experiencing a revolutionary societal change in time, space and power. The digital revolution makes it possible to run our economies all day every day through the coordination of economic activities on a global scale. It makes it possible for us to move people, goods and symbols faster through space. Production is changing from industrial goods to the production of knowledge, information and services. Knowledge will become of growing importance as a basis of power.The challenge is to ensure that Australia is ready and able to compete in this global information economy of the future. We will need to compete for investment capital in a global economy where capital moves to the most favourable climate—hence, the urgent need to reform our taxation regime.We need the skills for the information technology age for the next generation jobs. We need a national skills base as a critical component of a national comparative advantage. We need to equip our people with an enhanced knowledge base through education, as intellectual capital will be the key to prosperity and stability. Flexible and transferable skills will be the great human resource in our society.Governments cannot meet every expectation, but they can create environments in response to the changing world. In the coming century, it will be incumbent upon us to provide an environment that gives equality of opportunity. Central to this sense of opportunity must be the role of education and training. Capacities for lifelong learning will be absolutely vital for a dynamic, quality and spirited civilisation and culture. The new jobs of the future will be increasingly in new industries, and we need to ensure our people can both engage in those industries and develop them for us as a nation. And because the individual matters in communities, education is about giving individuals a capacity to live with the world of change in their own lifetime.Globalisation hands us a much more fundamental challenge to our form of democratic government. A nation state could lose its capability to govern the economy and society within its borders. As a result of globalisation, national society and economy are very much dependent on and intertwined with the entire global network of societies and economies. There has been no lack of prediction of the withering of the nation state under economic globalisation.From global capital markets to the growth of unrecorded intra-firm trade across borders and the emergence of a global economic marketplace on the Internet, market players could potentially bypass the nation state altogether. The engine of globalisation, the information technology revolution, challenges our system of government in ways our founding fathers could never have imagined.In recent decades, it was believed that computers would have the Orwellian effect of enhancing central government control. It is true that through central databases and the like computers can enhance some central government functions. But the current hypotheses tend toward the fact that information technology diffuses collective actions. It enables global production strategies and markets. It decreases the relative importance of commodities and territory. Geography is of less importance. The Internet makes borders permeable and jurisdiction less important. The exponential rate of technological change makes it difficult for governmental institutions and regulations to keep up. It creates virtual communities which may develop interests and power independent of geography.The potential erosion of the sovereign nation-state does not mean that our system of federalism is unable to cope: quite the contrary. Federalism, in the sense of being a system of diffuse power centres with overlapping jurisdictions, is compatible with this new world of globalisation and digitalisation. I believe that our federalist system remains even more relevant today and will continue so, whether we retain a constitutional monarchy or choose to become a republic. Our democracy depends upon the dispersal of power that state parliaments inherently provide as a counterweight to the federal parliament.A healthy federal system must balance a principle of fiscal equalisation with fiscal autonomy so that elected state governments have broadly sufficient revenue to meet their constitutional responsibilities. To date, one of the greatest drawbacks to a healthy federal system has been vertical fiscal imbalance, which is not simply bad for state governments but bad for democracy and bad for equity in our taxation system. It is an unintended effect of our constitution and gravely distorts the concurrent design of Australian federalism.The current tax reform proposal of this government is a significant step forward in improving Commonwealth-state finances and will reduce a major degree of dependence and uncertainty affecting the states. This historic step forward in federalism is entirely consistent with the steps we must take in meeting the challenges ahead of us in the globalised information age economy.Importantly, federalism ensures that power is exercised as close as practicable to the people. It enhances local democratic action through providing an additional level of government with powers closer to the people than national government. It ensures diversity and flexibility. It is more responsive to local communities and allows for a greater sense of involvement and participation. For us, as federal parliamentarians, to remain effective we must keep close to our constituents. We must be part of our local communities, not remote; be in tune with our communities, not out of touch.Nearly 50 years ago Sir Paul Hasluck took his seat as the first member for Curtin and a distinguished career followed. His successors, Vic Garland and Allan Rocher, also served the parliament in the electorate of Curtin well. I pay tribute to all three of my predecessors for their commitment to public office in their combined 49 years of service to the Curtin electorate and to this country.The electorate of Curtin is bound by the Indian Ocean to the west, the Swan River to the south, the edge of the central business district of Perth to the east and the burgeoning suburbs to the north. It is essentially a residential electorate comprising a number of older, established suburbs, some of which have always been regarded as affluent and others far less so. There are riverfront mansions but also areas of public housing.There are many business and professional people, students, many young couples buying their first home, and a large population of retired people. In fact, there are many electors of Curtin who need the support of the community through health care and welfare—people who are brought up with a self-help attitude but who now find, through age or circumstance, that they need a helping hand provided at least in part by governments. Curtin is an electorate that boasts many fine learning institutions and research institutions, including the University of Western Australia, Edith Cowan University and the Princess Margaret, King Edward and Sir Charles Gairdner hospitals.I thank the Western Australian Liberal Party for its undivided support, particularly the Curtin division of the Liberal Party, and to all the campaign workers, supporters, my family and friends. The risk in singling out any specific supporters is that others who are deserving of a mention are not so recognised. I thank them all.I am here to represent all the people of Curtin—to be the voice of the people of Curtin in the national debates on the national issues that will affect their lives, their fami lies, their futures—whatever their beliefs or political philosophy. My aim is, wherever possible, to give the needs of the electorate my priority in all that I do and all that I say as a federal member of parliament and to represent the people of Curtin with all the vigour, courage and ability I have to offer; to represent them with honesty, with decency but, above all, with their interests paramount to my own.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Before I call the honourable member for Kingston, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.13:13:00361Cox, David, MPMr COX83UKingstonALP01—Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I congratulate you on your appointment to your high office. I thank the electors of Kingston for the privilege they have given me to represent them in this 39th Parliament. Kingston was created in 1949. It covers the outer suburbs and rural areas south of Adelaide. I chose Adelaide's south as my home almost 20 years ago because, like most living there, I recognised that it was an extraordinary place—a coastal strip set between hills and the sea with open space, vineyards and Adelaide's best beaches—a place of such unique beauty that some of its citizens have been moved to establish Australia's richest prize for landscape art, the Fleurieu prize. Its geography, bordered by the Adelaide Hills, the escarpment and the sea, creates a real community of interest. The borders of Kingston closely coincide with both the McLaren Vale wine grape appellation and the Onkaparinga Council area. It also includes part of Marion Council.The two largest industries are car manufacturing and wine making. The finest cars made in Australia come from Mitsubishi, and they are built not only for Australians but are sold into some of the most competitive car markets in the world. The results of recent international wine shows demonstrate that some of the finest wines in the world come from the vineyards of McLaren Vale. Unfortunately, with the current state of the world economy, the international market for our cars is somewhat softer than the international market for our premium wines. We are a community whose future prosperity will depend on our export performance. That was one of my motivations a few years ago when I decided to become a grape grower.The region also contains a major oil refinery, sophisticated spectacle lens blank manufacturing, a range of light manufacturing operations, and substantial retailing and service industries. Close to the electorate we have two important institutions, Flinders University and Flinders Medical Centre, a good university and a good teaching hospital. I am particularly indebted to the economics and politics departments at Flinders for my own education. The economics department produced a long line of advisers—of which I was one—to treasurers and finance ministers in the last federal Labor government. I noted with some satisfaction that the present Liberal Treasurer, after having an adviser whom I know well and can comment on positively but who had spent considerable time at a prestigious north American university, reverted to Labor's traditional source of supply.I was senior private secretary to Peter Walsh, who as Minister for Finance produced four successive budgets in which Commonwealth outlays declined in real terms. That was achieved at the same time as funding was dramatically increased for some fundamental improvements in the social wage, in particular much higher family payments to those on low incomes. That those two things happened together is far more a measure of his success than the size of the budget surpluses that were achieved in those years.Later I was principal adviser to Treasurer Ralph Willis. He has the unique distinction of having managed without crisis a situation where the current account deficit became quite menacing—it reached more than six per cent. He left the economy in fundamentally sound shape. For him, it was just one of a series of major policy successes that began with the 1983 accord. Now retired, both men are a great loss to this parliament.Kingston also has some fine state and private schools and excellent vocational education facilities in the Onkaparinga Technical and Further Education College operating from campuses at Noarlunga and O'Halloran Hill. My definition of a fine school is one where the teachers and school community do their utmost to use the resources that are available to them to give every student the best chance in life. I just wish some of those schools had more resources.Kingston is a representative slice of Australian society, having both affluence and poverty within its boundaries. The rural area is enjoying the opportunities flowing from the present buoyant state of the wine industry, which has been significant in the district since the 1840s. The urban area includes well-established comparatively affluent suburbs, ageing less affluent suburbs, new suburbs with large numbers of first home buyers and suburbs which have a high proportion of public housing with large numbers of single parent families and families suffering long-term unemployment or underemployment. These are also dormitory suburbs where the majority of workers travel north to the Adelaide plains for their employment. Unfortunately, the South Australian economy has for some time been performing poorly—that means there are not enough jobs either locally or to travel to.The opportunities, challenges and problems facing the people of Kingston are similar to those facing the rest of Australia. We can collectively aspire to and achieve one of the highest living standards in the world, even if we do not necessarily have the highest average per capita income. The major components of that living standard are a job with decent pay and working conditions, quality education for our children, universal access to first-class health care, and aged care which treats the elderly with dignity and respect.During the 12 months that I campaigned full time for the election these were the things—jobs, health, education and aged care—which most people wanted to talk to me about, either on their doorsteps or in their homes, and these are the things they most want this parliament to focus upon. They know Australia should be the best place in the world to live. When they look at continuing high rates of unemployment or when government services are not up to standard, they ask why. They are aware that Australia's population is ageing and that there will be even greater pressure on health and aged services. This stands in contrast to the general experience of the 20th century which has resulted in an expectation that the world we hand to our children will be a better place than the one we inherited. Certainly as far as the environment is concerned, in the last 30 years we have recognised that as an imperative.The problem facing Australia of an ageing population with a relatively small number of taxpayers to support them is a problem shared with the rest of the world. How to finance the health services, aged care and aged income security as the number of people aged over 60 trebles by the year 2030 has been a major long-term public finance issue on the agenda of international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. These are issues which affect every generation, either because they will be expected to finance an ageing generation or because they will be aged themselves and dependent on the income security, health and aged care which is available.Australia needed to start taking steps to meet these problems 10 years ago, not in 20 or 30 years time. Fortunately, there was a federal Labor government in office at that time and we did start then. The principal actions were the introduction of systems of universal health insurance with Medicare and compulsory occupational superannuation. These are the foundations of a response to the problem of an ageing population which, when properly carried through, can provide income security in retirement and quality health and aged care. Those policies will have benefits now as well as in the future when the pressure on them is greatest. To do so, they must meet the tests of being adequate, sustainable and equitable.Compulsory occupational superannuation also helped to address one of Australia's most critical economic problems—its chronic shortage of national savings. The provision of an equitable system of funding nursing home care has yet to be achieved in Australia. The arrangements implemented by the current government certainly do not meet that test. The beginning of the solution to provide adequate access to nursing homes is to recognise that it is health care and treat it accordingly.When the Reserve Bank Act was passed in 1959, it set out the objectives of Australia's central bank: `stability of the currency, the maintenance of full employment and the economic welfare and prosperity of the people of Australia'. At that time the unemployment rate in Australia was around two per cent. Unemployment rates did not begin to move generally upward for more than another decade. The fact that they have in recessions exceeded 10 per cent and now remain at about eight per cent should not be taken to mean the full employment objective was written for an easier time and is now obsolete. Those who wrote the charter had personal experience of the Great Depression and would have been well aware of Keynes' words in his General Theory:It is an outstanding characteristic of the economic system in which we live that, whilst it is subject to severe fluctuations in respect of output and employment, it is not violently unstable. Indeed it seems capable of remaining in a chronic condition of sub-normal activity for a considerable period without any marked tendency either toward recovery or towards complete collapse. Moreover, the evidence that full, or even approximately full, employment is of rare and short lived occurrence.Australians today want their government to have a clear focus on creating jobs for them if they are unemployed or, if they are employed, for their neighbours or family or for a greater feeling of security in their own employment. Unfortunately, by their dismantling of Labor's active manpower programs for the long-term unemployed, their destruction of the Commonwealth Employment Service and their day-to-day management of fiscal and monetary policy, the coalition demonstrate that employment is not their priority.Unemployment in Australia has become so intractable because it is a structural problem. The barrier to economic growth, and therefore to growth in employment, is the current account deficit. The fundamental solutions are, therefore, going to be found in expanding both our export and national savings performance.There isn't any particular industry that is going to be our saviour. The size of the task requires improved export performance from every conceivable sector. Mining and agriculture, which have always been our strengths and are still where we have the greatest comparative advantage, are likely to make a large contribution.As a nation there are two things we can do to improve our export performance: go out and find minerals and markets. We will be greatly assisted in the latter by pursuing Australia's multilateral trade agenda because that will help open up more export opportunities for Australia in agriculture, manufacturing and services. Fewer corrupted markets means more opportunities for Australia.But it is also critical that at the same time we improve our national savings effort so that we can finance investments necessary to achieve that export expansion and to finance them with less reliance on the savings of foreigners than is now the case. By reducing the current account deficit we will be able to sustain much higher employment in the non-traded sector.One of the larger issues affecting the performance of the South Australian economy is federal-state financial relations. South Australia is one of the smallest states and is highly dependent on the present process of horizontal fiscal equalisation in state-federal financial relations. Put simply, the Grants Commission takes account of each state's revenue raising capacity and its cost of providing services relative to notional national standards. General revenue assistance is allocated to each state in accordance with these standards so that, subject to the choices made by each state government, all Australian citizens have the opportunity to enjoy broadly similar standards of health, education, roads and policing.There are two schools of thought that challenge the appropriateness of this alloca tion of the federal tax dollar. The first is the largest states, who from time to time seek a larger share of Commonwealth revenue. The second is those who want to correct vertical fiscal imbalance, that is, the supposed problem that the states raise only a fraction of what they spend. Reducing this imbalance is likely to be detrimental to the smaller states. They have relatively lower revenue raising capacity to begin with. The effect of handing over part of the Commonwealth revenue base to the states is likely to make the pool of money available for redistribution smaller. This has never been a problem for the advocates of competitive federalism. I am not one of them. Redistribution of income is one of the functions of any federation. Australia will be stronger for functioning as a nation and not as competing states. The alternative is for the Commonwealth to directly fund specific services such as health and education to achieve a predetermined national standard. That would be a greater use of specific purpose payments, something not welcomed by the states, which prefer maximum flexibility in their use of Commonwealth funding. This was brought home to me during the last couple of years of the previous Labor government. We sought to increase funding to public hospitals, but found the effort thwarted by states which responded by withdrawing an equivalent amount of their own funding. That experience justifies placing conditions on specific purpose payments so that the states maintain their own funding effort.The other option is to develop narrow definitions of what are state and federal responsibilities, but again I think that will leave states like my own more vulnerable. Because of its structure, South Australia has only outperformed the national economy for significant periods on a few occasions. The first was the mining boom, which followed the discovery of the major copper ore bodies late last century. The second was during the period of industrialisation which followed the Second World War, when South Australia received a disproportionately large share of Commonwealth loan funds to provide physical infrastructure and housing.The third was the product of extraordinarily generous financial arrangements that accompanied the railway transfer agreement of 1975. The Commonwealth made an up-front payment for the South Australian railways and then continued to provide general purpose funding as if the states still had to support that major loss making enterprise. This time the funds were applied to social as well as physical infrastructure. This lasted until the Grants Commission relativities were readjusted in 1982. State financial relations remain critical to South Australia because its economic health is dependent upon it. These are issues for the whole of Australia if the present focus on regional policy is to mean anything.It is appropriate today to acknowledge the efforts of the previous member for Kingston, Susan Jeanes, on behalf of the electorate. There are also a number of people whom I have to thank for the fact that I am here. First amongst these are my wife Karen and our two sons, Sam and Alex. Karen and I have a common view about the kind of free, egalitarian, prosperous, secure and tolerant country where we want our sons to grow up, and it is something we believe all Australians should have the opportunity to share. I want to thank my campaign director, Peter Schulze, who does a great deal for the Labor Party, only seeking the reward that comes from knowing that he has served a just cause. And I want to thank the hundreds of party volunteers in the Kingston electorate and Young Labor who did the leg work. I am particularly grateful to Gary Gray, Cathie King and the other staff of the national secretariat. I also want to thank Don Farrell of the SDA and a great many other friends for their support. And last but by no means least my staff—Sharyn Richardson, Brer Adams and Jenny Hefford—who worked tirelessly for my election.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!13:29:00365Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYDIK6RobertsonLP11—I acknowledge the maiden speech of the member for Kingston. He did very well. I do very easily remember how nerve-racking it is to stand in this place for the very first time. It is with a great deal of pride and honour and gratitude that I have the opportunity to again stand in this place to respond to the Governor-General's address as the re-elected member for Robertson. As honourable members would know, I was elected in 1996 in an election which saw thousands of traditional Labor voters turn to the Liberal and National parties for the first time.MG4LEEMr Lee—If I'm allowed to interject I will.IK6Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYD—I am sure that you will, Michael. This in turn saw many traditional Labor seats fall to the Liberal Party, including, of course, my seat of Robertson, which had been previously held for the last 27 years by Labor. During my first term as the member for Robertson, there was no shortage of members opposite, including the member for Dobell and other supporters of the Labor Party, who were more than happy to tell me that I would be a oncer and that the community of the Central Coast would go back to Labor at the next election.This, of course, did not happen. The ALP endorsed a very high profile candidate in the former Senator Belinda Neal and utilised the full resources and weight of the New South Wales ALP machine in a desperate attempt to buy-out the electorate of Robertson. The election result showed that the people of the Central Coast, the people of Robertson and the people of Australia would not be bought by expensive campaigns running, in many cases, totally outrageous misinformation. The people believed that the coalition government, under the strong leadership of our Prime Minister, John Howard, did indeed have a vision for this country, was doing a good job of managing the economy, was delivering on its promises, and was providing a real plan for a secure and prosperous future for our great nation.We now have an opposition in denial. It is an opposition that does not listen to the people of Australia. It is an opposition that has no plan and no vision for this country. It is an opposition that is yet to accept the judgment of the Australian public. In 1996, the people rejected the Labor government after 13 years because the Labor government had become arrogant, had a born-to-rule mentality and had failed to listen to the Australian people. It had mismanaged the economy and had left us in a desperately dangerous situation with a $10½ billion deficit.In listening to some of the comments by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Beazley, and some of his shadow frontbenchers on election night in 1998, you would have thought the Labor Party had won the election. Obviously, it did not because its members are still sitting on the opposition benches. The arrogance, disbelief and failure to listen to the Australian people is still there for the Labor Party. It has not learnt. It has no policies or no plans for the future. Whilst it continues not to listen to the Australian public, it is destined to be in opposition for many years to come.The 1998 election was a critical election for the future of this country. The people chose to stay with the coalition government and our Prime Minister, John Howard, who offered them stability and security for our economy and nation at a time when most of our Asian neighbours are now in recession. The Australian economy still continues to grow strongly and has a bright and optimistic future under the strong policies of the Howard government.I take this opportunity to congratulate my New South Wales class of `96 colleagues, all of whom demonstrated the importance of being a good, strong local member, of working very hard in the electorate and, most importantly, of listening to the concerns of your constituents. I particularly congratulate Jackie Kelly, the member for Lindsay, and Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney, both of whom came into parliament in 1996 and have now been appointed ministers. Both appointments recognise the ability of both these members. I am sure that they will do exceedingly well in their respective ministries.I also take this opportunity to thank many of the people who assisted me in my re-election campaign. Obviously all elections are a team effort. No one person and no one party can win an election without the support and teamwork of hundreds of people. I would first like to thank my permanent staff members, Lance Barrett, Leonie Newson and Sam Giddings, all of whom have been with me since the start in 1996. They have done a tremendous job throughout that time. Obviously, my staff are my representatives in the electorate when I cannot be there because of other parliamentary committees in Canberra and elsewhere. All three have done an excellent job throughout that time. I look forward to having them work with me for many years to come.I also thank Pam Leathley and Bev Ferrier, who have worked as relief staff for me on occasions throughout my first term. Thanks must also go to John Abel, the former member for Evans, whom many in this place would know. He was a tower of strength and advice to me during my first term and he was a great asset to me during this campaign. My campaign committee, ably headed by Joy Burrows and assisted by Joyce Napper, Jim Shires, Bob Mudge, Col and May Margin, Ken Lang, Phyllis Walton and George State, contained a strong and cohesive team which ran the campaign virtually without a hitch and spent many hours assisting me in this campaign.A special thanks must also go to Joyce Allan, Peter Grose, Pat Marsh, Brian Speary and Livio Pace, who all assisted me with my radio commercials. Colin and May Margin also organised the booth manning in the critical Woy Woy peninsula area and did a tremendous job in making sure that all those booths in what was a strong Labor area were well manned. Bob Mudge assisted in manning the booths in the Gosford area. My thanks must go to the hundreds of other campaign workers and supporters who gave up countless hours to assist in the campaign and on polling day.I think the significant difference between my campaign and the campaign of the Labor Party in my electorate was the fact that my campaign was run by local people on local issues and that I was seen as being very much a supporter of the needs of the central coast. The Labor Party campaign was run centrally by the Labor Party machine.MG4LEEMr Lee—Rubbish, absolute rubbish. You know it is rubbish.IK6Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYD—I do not know that it is rubbish. They had what seemed to be unlimit ed money and resources. Even on polling day they had people from outside the central coast—listen to this, Michael—10000Lloyd, Jim, MPMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Address your remarks through the chair. Ignore the noisy member for Dobell.IK6Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYD—My apologies. The people working on those booths were more than happy to tell our volunteer workers that they were being paid $100 to come up and work on the booths for the day in Robertson. OK6NAIRNMr Nairn—They did that all over the state.IK6Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYD—Is that right, Gary? Ultimately, that made the difference in our electorate. The local people supported our local campaign. Of course, I have to thank my family. My wife Kerry, who was at my side or elsewhere in the electorate, has constantly been a tower of strength to me over the past three years. My son Peter assisted throughout the campaign and on polling day. He was my representative in some of the more outlying booths that I could not attend on that day. My son Steven arrived unannounced from London two weeks before the election to assist with the election. I give a big thank you to each and every one of them. My brother Darryl and his wife Anne actually came back from their honeymoon to work on the polling day after having been married on the Saturday prior to the election. That certainly shows family dedication in ensuring that I was re-elected as the member. A very big thank you goes to my cousin Dan Fitzhenry, who drove from Sydney to assist on the day as well.The most gratifying thing about being re-elected as the member for Robertson is the fact that I will be able to continue my work for the people of the Central Coast and continue to see many of the initiatives that have been started by the Howard government and which I assisted in achieving for the Central Coast come to fruition. The largest and most prominent of these would be the Grahame Park redevelopment, which is a $30 million multipurpose stadium. The building of this stadium was only made possible by the securing of a $12 million Commonwealth contribution from the Federation Fund. The stadium will provide seating for 20,000 people, and it will be the key that unlocks massive opportunities for the Central Coast.I also acknowledge that the Carr state government contributed $12 million to this project; and the Gosford City Council, the Central Coast Leagues Club and the North Sydney Leagues Club are also contributing to the project. This stadium will enable the relocation of the North Sydney Bears to the Central Coast which will be a tremendous boost, particularly for the young people in our area. Not only will it allow for the relocation of a rugby league team, it will allow for many other top grade sports to be played in Gosford and for the provision of many other social events.We have already seen the benefits of establishing this stadium in the fact that the Olympic flame will travel through the Central Coast on its way to Sydney and will, in fact, stop overnight in Gosford, and the Grahame Park stadium will be the venue for community celebrations and special events to commemorate this particular event. Whilst it is magnificent that the Olympic flame will travel through the Central Coast and visit most areas of the coast, I have to express my disappointment that the torch will not be proceeding through the Woy Woy peninsula area at the southern end of my electorate. This area, with a population of over 35,000 people, has been excluded from the route and often misses out simply because of its geographical position.I will be pleased to see the completion of the Point Clare Headquarters of the Central Coast Naval Cadet Unit, TS Hawkesbury, a magnificent facility that was only made possible by a grant from the federal government of $500,000 to rebuild the building. I believe it is the only purpose built cadet headquarters anywhere in Australia. I thank the Minister for Defence Personnel—as she was then—the Hon. Bronwyn Bishop, for her great assistance in securing that funding.It will be pleasing to see the $500,000 in federal government black spot funding being used to upgrade sections of Woy Woy Road, a particularly notorious road which links Kariong to Woy Woy and has been the scene of many tragic accidents over recent years. That $500,000 will enable this road to be significantly upgraded. The expansion of the federal government's regional centres flood mitigation program, a $10 million program of flood prevention works in regional centres, will be an important asset to the Central Coast.Jobs on the Central Coast are vital and remain my highest priority. I welcome the latest unemployment figures, which show a significant decrease nationally and also in New South Wales and on the Central Coast. I am pleased to see that a new TradeStart office is opening in Gosford in conjunction with the Central Coast Regional Development Corporation. This office highlights the government's ongoing commitment to export growth through the expanded delivery of Austrade services on the Central Coast.Of course, I will be able to see the construction of a small business incubator on the grounds of the Central Coast Campus of the University of Newcastle. This, again, was only made possible by funding from the Commonwealth government which I assisted in securing last year. Then there is the Central Coast Export Development Centre, which will provide strategic planning and advice to Central Coast businesses which are looking to enter export markets for the first time—and I was very pleased to be able to launch that initiative in February of this year.I look forward to being able to continue to assist with plans to provide a fast ferry link from Gosford to Sydney, a ferry link that will help alleviate some of the transport pressures on our road and rail systems between the Central Coast and Sydney. It will provide fast, efficient and safe transport in about 45 minutes from the Central Coast directly into Sydney Harbour with large high-speed ferries. Not only will this be of assistance to commuters, but it will also be a major boost for our tourism industry.I look forward to the redevelopment of the Ettalong Beach War Memorial Club into an international hotel, accommodation and resort centre. This will provide many hundreds of jobs in the Ettalong, Woy Woy and Umina areas—jobs that are urgently needed, especially for our young people who wish to enter the tourism industry. Developments such as these would not be possible if the government had not created an investment environment—one that we have not seen in this country for 20 years—which is enabling businesses to get on with developments and investments and create jobs.I was pleased to represent the Hon. Bronwyn Bishop, Minister for Aged Care, at the official opening of the extensions to the Presbyterian Aged Care Centre at East Gosford last Saturday. These extensions have resulted in additional high-quality hostel places and were only made possible by a $335,000 grant from the federal government to assist with the provision of urgently needed high-quality aged care accommodation. I must also point out that the Department of Veterans' Affairs, through Minister Bruce Scott, also contributed $110,000 to that project.I look forward to assisting with the further expansion of the Work for the Dole Scheme, a scheme that was piloted in my electorate. We had, in fact, the largest pilot program anywhere in Australia, with Personnel Attention & Associates and Gosford City Council. It was an outstanding success and helped contribute to the expansion of this program nationwide. In fact, of the 200 initial participants who took part in that pilot program, over 120 now have found real work out in the workplace—and I think that scheme gives a very significant boost to employment on the Central Coast.I recently announced further additional grants for five childcare centres on the Central Coast: the Kariong Child Centre, the Gosford Community Child Care Centre, the Terrigal Children's Centre, the Woy Woy Peninsula Community Child Care Cooperative and the Papalya Children's Centre at Erina. All these grants were designed to help community based long day care centres maintain or improve their facilities, and I look forward to working with the government to further increase childcare facilities on the Central Coast.There are literally thousands of government initiatives and grants which I have been able to assist in securing for my electorate, and I look forward to working closely with the government to ensure that the needs of the Central Coast continue to be addressed and that we can continue to secure additional federal government funding for the many other projects that I would like to see come to fruition over our next term in government.I would like to sincerely thank the voters, the residents of Robertson on the Central Coast, for their continued faith and support in the job that I am trying to do for the community. I said in my maiden speech back in 1996 that one of the greatest honours that can be given to any person is to be elected by their community to represent them in the national parliament. I have enjoyed, both today and over the last week, listening to the maiden speeches of the new members on both sides of the House with their ideas, objectives and goals. It is great to see that they all take the honour of being elected here as being exactly that—a very significant honour.But I think it is even a greater honour to be re-elected, to be re-endorsed by your community to again represent them in the national parliament. I will do all I can to uphold the community's faith in me and to continue to speak out for its needs. When you are first elected, people may say that you happened to be in the right spot at the right time. But when you put yourself forward to the electorate again in an election campaign, you have a track record. As a candidate often you do not have a track record as such, and candidates are known for speaking out with promises of what they will do. But, once you become the member, you have to back what you have done; you have to support your track record. I am pleased that those on the Central Coast have continued to support me.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 1.45 p.m., the debate is interrupted in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 12 November. The member may seek leave to continue his remarks, if he so desires, when the debate is resumed. The debate may be resumed at a later hour this day.Statements by Members369369369Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON8K6HunterALP00—I apologise to my colleagues. I was not always happy about frontbenchers taking up the time of statements by members, but I will not sin again. On Saturday, 14 November I had the honour of attending and addressing a grand testimonial dinner held in honour of Singleton councillor Neil McNamara. Neil McNamara has led his local community for 27 years—first, as President of Patricks Plains Shire and thereafter, after a 1976 amalgamation, as Mayor of Singleton Shire. Indeed, until September this year Neil was the only person ever to be Mayor of the amalgamated Singleton Shire.Neil McNamara's election to Patricks Plains Shire back in 1956 must have been a real novelty, given that he was a man in his early thirties. Members will know that in those days, particularly in rural areas, people just did not get themselves elected to local government bodies at such a young age. Through his contribution to the council amalgamation debate, Neil McNamara made his mark on local politics very early, but his greatest achievement was the way he put the Singleton Shire on a new course to economic diversity and affluence.Neil's community involvement has not been confined simply to Singleton. He is a former Chairman of Energy Australia, the Chairman of the Hunter Region Association of Councils, a member of the Hunter Region Tourism Association and a member of both the Newcastle and Upper Hunter Beyond 2000 committees. In 1984 Neil's commitment to his local region was recognised with an Order of Australia award. Throughout all of this, Neil has been magnificently supported by his wife, Joan. I wish them well, and I thank them for their friendship. (Time expired)369369Nairn, Gary, MPMr NAIRNOK6Eden-MonaroLP10—Less than two years ago the Cooma correctional facility was operating very well and performing an excellent duty within the New South Wales system. It predominantly housed drug and sexual offenders. It ran an excellent rehabilitation program, which was the subject of outside studies which demonstrated just how effective it was. Cooma Gaol had a very low re-offending rate. In fact, it was almost nil. Despite all of this, the New South Wales Labor government announced that it was closing Cooma Gaol from July this year, thus taking 60-odd jobs out of Cooma and several million dollars out of our economy.The New South Wales Labor government has never adequately explained why this facility had to close with such haste, if at all. But it has, and it came at a bad time for the Monaro, following from five years of drought. It closed back in July this year. We had the revelation yesterday from Bob Carr that there is a drastic shortage of prison accommodation in New South Wales. Surprise, surprise! Either he or his minister are absolutely incompetent in not knowing that this was probably going to occur, or they closed that gaol because of some other hidden agenda. I wonder what that might be. Carr's admission yesterday is an insult to the people of Cooma. (Time expired)370370Rudd, Kevin, MPMr RUDD83TGriffithALP00—I would like to address the importance of school education and some of the practical problems facing it in the federal electorate of Griffith, which includes the southern suburbs of Brisbane. In the six weeks that I have been the member for Griffith I have visited 27 of my local schools: the primary schools at Bulimba, Morningside, Cannon Hill, Norman Park, Carina, Coorparoo, Seville Road, Greenslopes, Mount Gravatt East and Mansfield; and the high schools at Balmoral, Cavendish Road, Camp Hill, Coorparoo Secondary College and Mansfield. I have also visited St Peter's and St Paul's, St Oliver Plunkett's, St Martin's, St Thomas's, San Sisto College, Seton College, Villanova College, Iona College, Loreto College, Lourdes Hill College, the Christian Outreach College and the Brisbane Adventist College.I would like to thank the school principals of these schools and colleges for extending me their hospitality and time to discuss with me some of the practical problems that they face in their respective schools. These include, firstly, the problems of quality assur ance in relation to the curriculum, syllabus and work programs which they deliver; secondly, the management of information technology within their school systems and the cost associated with it; thirdly, the management overload of teachers and the dilution of effort as a consequence of that; fourthly, the challenges of behaviour management with children in the classroom as a consequence of family breakdown in our society; and, finally and relatedly, teacher morale. I would like to congratulate the professionalism of the teachers and principals with whom I have spoken. I am looking forward to working with them, their school communities, their P&Cs and their P&Fs towards practical solutions to the problems that they face on the ground.370370Billson, Bruce, MPMr BILLSON1K6DunkleyLP10—A horrific tragedy last Saturday night has seen our community shed a tear. Three young men from the Peninsula School lost their lives in a motor vehicle accident which has sent a chill through the Dunkley community and will leave an indelible mark on many of our citizens. My heart and thoughts are with the families and friends of those young men who will now not be able to make their contribution to this world, to add to the lives of those dear to them or to fulfil the dreams and goals that they had set for themselves.My hopes and encouragement go to the young people who survived the accident, as they fight to regain their health and adolescent spirit. The Peninsula School is feeling pain, grief and disbelief. Principal Ray Hille and his professional team are supporting and guiding the school community through this difficult time. The counselling activities are dealing with the particular circumstances faced by the many residential students affected by this tragedy. For those young men who lost their lives on Saturday, may I simply say, `Gone too soon.'370370Hall, Jill, MPMs HALL83NShortlandALP00—I wish to bring to the attention of the House my concern at this government's refusal to waive Nicaragua's loan repayment to Australia in the wake of Cyclone Mitch. Nicaragua has been devastated by Mitch, and hundreds and thousands of people have died and lost all their property. Many more will suffer from disease and hunger in the coming months. I find it incredible that this mean-spirited government is refusing to write off Nicaragua's measly $5.8 million debt. The cruel irony is that the loan was to purchase sugar cane and wheat harvesters, which, along with the crops that they were purchased to harvest, have most likely been destroyed.On the one hand, this miserable government is refusing to waive a $5.8 million loan, which would provide lifesaving assistance to Nicaragua, whilst on the other hand it has funded its GST election campaign with public funds to the tune of $17 million. I know there are many members on both sides of this parliament who are embarrassed by the Howard government's lack of compassion. That is why I am circulating a petition to all members of parliament, churches and community groups seeking to have this mean-spirited government waive Nicaragua's $5.8 million loan. (Time expired)371371Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAYHK6HerbertLP10—On Saturday night I was privileged to see at first-hand the professionalism and dedication of the Australian Defence Force. I flew with 5 Aviation Regiment in an exercise associated with their counter-terrorism exercises coming up with the SASR in Townsville in the next three weeks. We flew for two hours at 100 feet above the tree tops within three rotor blade diameters of the other four helicopters in the sortie. No helicopter had any lights on. It was pitch-black and we were in a night-vision-goggle exercise. The technology that our defence forces employ is truly amazing. It underlines the need for the government to continue to support the funding for that much needed technology in the defence forces. Our country is in good hands. Congratulations to the officers and men of 5 Aviation Regiment Townsville. Continue to be bold.371371371Hoare, Kelly, MPMs HOARE83YCharltonALP00—On 15 November I had the pleasure of participating in the presentation of the Queen's Scout award to Christine Winter of the Teralba Sea Scouts based in my electorate of Charlton. I was very proud to once again be involved with young people in our community and observe first-hand their moral and social conscience and their wonderful intellect. I was also pleased to be involved as Christine was the first female recipient from the Teralba Sea Scouts. This was particularly significant as I am the first female parliamentary representative for Charlton and I was also one of the first female venturers when venturing was opened up to females in 1976.The commitment given by these young people to achieve their Queen's Scout award is very inspiring. Much of the work they put in is of community service as well as of the more physical side. Our nation's young people are our greatest resource and it really is wonderful to see them being supported in a productive way by their families and the tireless group of leaders who assist them and guide them to maturity.Young people are supporting each other also through this period of instability and uncertainty. It is good to see that there are so many in our community who realise the importance of offering the youth of today some support, guidance and hope—which is more than this government has done with its ruthless attacks on income support for young people and the withdrawal of funding for the Australian Youth Policy and Action Coalition. I call upon the government to discard its agenda of sustained attacks on Australia's youth. (Time expired)371371Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSONRW5BradfieldLP10—Success in life depends on a number of things, but one of them is to maintain the integrity of one's intellect. Once the brain has been damaged, there are almost no ways of overcoming brain injury. After the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, Australia decided that it would turn its back on a culture of violence. But violence takes many forms, and one of them I believe is in the form of childhood or underage boxing. I believe there is a place and a role for national leadership in bringing state and territory jurisdictions together to adopt a uniform approach to boxing, and in particular to underage boxing. I believe that boxing by children—particularly girls and also boys as young as 11—not only demeans them, their families and the sport of boxing but also demeans the sort of society within which we live.372372Mossfield, Frank, MPMr MOSSFIELDMK6GreenwayALP00—I have recently received representation from the Kurdish community living in my electorate. One member of the local Greenway community, Mr Byran Alkan, is at present outside this parliament on a hunger strike to draw attention to the present problems faced by the Kurdish people. This community has expressed support for the leader of the Kurdish people, Abdullah Ocalan, who has now been granted political asylum in Italy. I join with the Australian Kurdish Association in welcoming these developments as the Kurdish community is of the view that political recognition of Abdullah Ocalan will send a message to all countries that the Kurdish people are entitled to basic human rights and political recognition. This would also give support to the many Kurdish leaders throughout the world who are endeavouring to negotiate a peaceful solution of the longstanding Kurdish conflict. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the European community for the Italian government's decision. I congratulate the Australian Kurdish community on their victory and urge them to continue their peaceful campaign in the interests of the Kurdish people throughout the world.372372Bartlett, Kerry, MPMr BARTLETT0K6MacquarieLP10—Blue Mountains Tourism has just released its latest conference promotion booklet—The Blue Mountains regional conference planner: escape, explore, experience . This booklet quite rightly outlines the many advantages of choosing the Blue Mountains for a conference or convention: its excellent range of accommodation, unique mountain environment, proximity to Sydney, and vast array facilities and attractions. But the good news is that you do not need to be attending a conference to come to the Blue Mountains.Anyone who wants a few days away, anyone who wants a unique experience: come and visit the beautiful Blue Mountains—the stunning scenery, the breathtaking views, the challenging and exhilarating bush walks, the superb restaurants, the intriguing art galleries and craft shops, the wonderful golf courses, the quality and affordable accommodation and the many fascinating relics of history. To anyone: if you want a quiet escape for a few days, if you want the holiday of a lifetime, come to the beautiful Blue Mountains.372372Horne, Bob, MPMr HORNEUU5PatersonALP00—In the lead-up to the federal election, I doorknocked large areas of the Paterson electorate, and it was not uncommon to come across people who were suffering because of the need for urgent health care. People that could not afford dental care were relying on the Commonwealth dental health program that unfortunately was axed. It is interesting to note today that Paterson is one of the electorates that is being targeted by the Minister for Health and Aged Care because of his program supposedly to give a 30 per cent rebate to the wealthy with health insurance and my opposition to it. I would like the minister for health to explain to those people in need of services that cannot afford health insurance: how is this program going to make services available to them rather than simply giving a rebate to people like me who can afford dental care and health insurance?10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 2 p.m., in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 12 November 1998, the time for members' statements has concluded.Ministerial Arrangements372372Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—Mr Speaker, I inform the House that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade will be absent from question time this week. He will be attending trade discussions in Argentina and Uruguay, and the first ministerial meeting in Chile under the Australia-Chile Bilateral Trade and Investment Commission Agreement signed in May this year. The Minister for Foreign Affairs will act as Minister in his place and will answer questions on his behalf.Questions Without Notice373373373Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister seen the comments made by the Tax Commissioner, Michael Carmody, on the 7.30 Report last week regarding tax avoidance when he said: What we are seeing here is a mass marketing of a style that we have not seen in a long time. It is potentially several billion dollars.Has the Prime Minister also seen Mr Carmody's comments that the benefits being claimed from tax reform will simply not be delivered if aggressive tax planning is not targeted and changed? Is this the reason why some high wealth individuals are avoiding paying their fair share of tax? Will you guarantee that the measures necessary to combat the problems identified by the Tax Commissioner will be put before this parliament alongside the legislation to introduce a GST?373Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—This is a question that has come from a man who sat for 13 years in a government that did precious little to clamp out tax avoidance practices. He is also the leader of an opposition that opposed the crackdown on the tax avoidance abuses under the syndication scheme. I take the opportunity of reminding the parliament of the measures that have been undertaken in the last 2½ years. There have been measures relating to abuses under R&D, the trafficking in trust losses, and the franking, credit and dividend streaming arrangements.If my memory serves me correctly, didn't the Labor Party vote against the measures to stamp out tax avoidance in relation to syndi cation? Didn't the Labor Party also vote against measures to ensure that high income earners in this country paid a greater contribution to removing their own budget deficit via a superannuation tax surcharge? Doesn't it pass very strange that this is the same group of people who voted to oppose measures to extract from high income earners in this country a contribution towards eliminating their own budget deficit?I can remember when the Treasurer's first budget was introduced in 1996 that one of the measures was the imposition of a surcharge on superannuation contributions. If I remember rightly that was widely seen in the community as being a fair measure. It was not a popular measure among high income earners: I can testify to that. The Treasurer can testify to that and so can anybody on this side of the House testify to that. It was a very unpopular measure but, very interestingly, the Labor Party moved heaven and earth to try to stop that measure being passed into law. It is therefore an act of great hypocrisy for the Leader of the Opposition to be up here asking me questions about tax avoidance.We have a tax plan that will create a fairer, more transparent Australian taxation system. We believe the measures contained in that, and the measures that have been introduced by the Treasurer over the last 2½ years, represent, in those 2½ years, a more vigorous assault on tax avoidance than we saw from the Labor Party in 13 years.373373Macfarlane, Ian, MPMr IAN MACFARLANEWN6GroomLP10—My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister inform the House of any proposals which will benefit the 20,000 people in my electorate of Groom who are currently covered by the Private Health Insurance Incentive Scheme? Will these proposals also benefit people who are not eligible for the Private Health Insurance Incentive Scheme but who have private health insurance?373Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—I thank the honourable member for Groom for his question. Can I say to him, and can he say to the 20,000 people in the electorate of Groom who currently have private health insurance, that the taxation plan of the coalition government is unambiguously good news for every last one of them. The government's 30 per cent rebate is good news for all Australians. It will make private health insurance more affordable and it will take pressure off the public hospital system. I am told that around 45,000 people in Groom will benefit directly from the government's 30 per cent tax rebate. If this rebate is passed into law by the parliament, it will put $10 million per annum directly into the pockets of the people of Groom.A very interesting thing about this debate on private health insurance is that it has spawned a new species of elite Australians—you could almost call them `Macklin's millionaires'. You hear people from the other side running around Australia saying that in some way our benefit is beneficial to high income earners. I am advised that no fewer than 700,000 Australians earning less than $20,000 a year have private health insurance. This proposition that everybody who has got private health insurance is a millionaire is absolute nonsense.There are literally tens of thousands, indeed, hundreds of thousands of Australians, who scrimp and save to give themselves the security of private health insurance. They are entitled to a greater reward than the insult they receive from those who sit opposite. They are entitled to a greater incentive. I want to say to the low income earners of Australia and to the pensioners of Australia that we will help them keep their private health insurance. The enemies of private health insurance are the members of the Australian Labor Party. Those who want to deny the pensioners of Australia and the low income earners of Australia the benefit of private health insurance are the members of the Australian Labor Party.Our measure is a fair measure. It is a measure which will help not only private health insurance but also the public hospital system. Those who sit opposite will remember, of course, a man by the name of Graham Richardson. Those who sit opposite will know that, whatever it takes, Graham had a few things to say about private health insurance. I will give a mere sort of classy selection of some of the things that he had to say about private health insurance: `On Labor's side, of course, they simply do not want to acknowledge that private health care matters. There is an ideological bent here that says, "Medicare is perfect," which is ridiculous. "Therefore, it cannot be changed," which is also ridiculous. "Therefore, nothing should be done about private health," which is also ridiculous because the one thing they do not want to acknowledge is that private health insurance matters. What they do not want to acknowledge is that as these people are dropping out of private health insurance they are simply queuing up in the public health system to be looked after.'Now this is the same man who in 1990 said that, `If you allow the critical mass of about 40 per cent of people in private health insurance to be lost, then you run the risk of a threat to the entire system.' He tried to get the Keating government to embrace incentives for private health insurance, and he was rolled by the former Prime Minister. He is still candid enough to say on this issue, `If you really care long-term about private health insurance in Australia, you will make sure that the private health insurance system does not fall over.' That is why we have a rebate system. That is why we are going into bat for the low income earners of Australia. That is why those people ought to be reminded that the real enemies of the low income earners on this issue are the members of the Australian Labor Party.374374Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Can the minister explain to the House the assumptions behind the government's figuring of the cost of the private health insurance rebate in the tax package? Could the minister specifically address whether the costs of additional people taking up private health insurance as a result of the rebate are being factored in, and does it include a continuation of the eight to 10 per cent per annum increases that the minister yesterday conceded would continue from next year?375Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4ChisholmLPHealth and Aged Care10—I thank the honourable member for her question. On the issue of the eight to 10 per cent increase, we have not factored in a number of that order because they are the figures that applied under the Labor Party. Of the increases that have happened over the last 10 years, nearly 40 per cent of those increases are due to specific changes the Labor Party made to make private health insurance less attractive, such as abolishing the bed-day subsidy and reducing the rebate for in-patient services from 85 per cent to 75 per cent.So the increases have been much higher than in previous years as to what they would have been had you left the status quo in place. This has put a much greater burden on those people who have private health insurance. A large proportion of them are low income earners. The other point I would make is that we are not doing this to hit some sort of artificial level of people in private health insurance. This is a tax cut. We are making private health insurance tax deductable. That is what the public want, so that is what are going to give them.Opposition members interjecting—7T4CROSIOMrs Crosio—Who is subsidising the tax cuts?Mr Martin Ferguson interjecting—10000Mr SPEAKER—Members on my left are denying the member for Wannon the call, and the member for Batman knows much better than he does.375375Hawker, David, MPMr HAWKER8H4WannonLP10—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Is the Treasurer aware of any independent assessments of the Australian economy and the government's economic management? What is the Treasurer's response to these reports?375Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—I thank the honourable member for Wannon for his question. The honourable member will no doubt be aware that last week the government released for the first time a public information notice put out by the International Monetary Fund with an assessment in relation to Australia's economy.The executive directors of the International Monetary Fund in that assessment commended the authorities in Australia for implementing sound macro-economic policies and structural reforms. The IMF said that they had built the foundation for Australia's impressive record of strong growth and low inflation. They noted that fiscal consolidation and inflation targeting framework had contributed to a fall in long-term interest rates.I say on behalf of this side of the House that we believe, for the sake of young home buyers and young families, low interest rates and lower mortgage charges are a great thing. They are giving young people a start in life which they could never get under the Beazley-Keating interest rates of 17 per cent, which they had in the 1980s. The IMF also said:Moreover, the adoption of the Charter of Budget Honesty, which sets a high standard for fiscal transparency and accountability, was welcomed by Directors.These are the big reforms in the Australian economy: filling in Beazley's $10.3 billion deficit, targeting inflation, getting interest rates down, introducing a charter of budget honesty, ensuring that we have world class financial regulation which, the IMF said in its report `would put Australia's prudential regime at the forefront of international practice'.I also report to the House that the International Monetary Fund warmly commended the Australian authorities for its proposals to change Australia's taxation system. The report said this:Directors strongly endorsed the proposed tax reform package. The introduction of a broad-based tax on goods and services would enhance efficiency, while protecting the revenue base from continued erosion.I say to the Socialist Left members of the ALP, those who really think about the provision of social services: you have an interest in ensuring that the revenue base does not erode. Those people who are serious about social services in this country are serious about tax reform. That is one of the reasons why this government is serious about tax reform. As the IMF noted:The accompanying reduction in effective marginal income tax rates would improve the incentives for saving and employment.Let me make it clear, let me make it stark. This side of the House believes that average income earners should pay no more than 30 per cent in income tax. This side of the House wants to reduce income taxes for middle income earners. The Labor side of the parliament thinks your average income earner should be paying 48½c on every dollar that they earn. Labor's great contribution to the tax debate in the course of the last campaign was to say that what Australia needed was a wholesale sales tax and a capital gains tax on pre-1985 assets. Their capital gains tax on pre-1985 assets lasted two weeks after the conclusion of the campaign. They went for 3½ years with no tax policy, they adopted one and they dumped it two weeks after the election. It did not even last for more than two weeks and now they say that what Australia needs is a wholesale sales tax—a whole sale sales tax like Ghana, the Solomon Islands and Swaziland. That is modern ALP thinking from a party which is caught in reaction.376376Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Prime Minister. If you are so worried about low income families with private health insurance, why are you giving them an extra $150 while you pocket $750?376Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—Nothing can alter the fact that 700,000 low income earners in this country have taken out—Opposition members interjecting—10000Mr SPEAKER—Order! The Prime Minister has the call.ZD4Mr HOWARD—Nothing can alter the fact—much and all as the Labor Party will rabbit on about millionaires and high income earners—that 700,000 people in this country who earn less than $20,000 a year have private health insurance. This is a debate about whether or not you believe in a dual health system in this country. It is perfectly obvious that the Labor Party believes in one system and one system alone—that is, the public health system. I happen to believe, and the members who sit behind me happen to believe, in both systems. I think Australia has a remarkably good public health system and I think the people who work in the public health system in Australia deserve our admiration and our unstinting praise.Mr Bevis interjecting—ZD4Mr HOWARD—That health system will be put under an intolerable strain if more and more Australians drop out of private health insurance. We do not intend to allow that to happen and the only way you can stop it happening is by giving people a greater incentive to stay in it. That is why we have introduced a non-means tested incentive for Australians to stay in private health insurance. I tell those who sit opposite that, if you imagine your attack on private health insurance is going down well in the electorate, you are even more out of touch than I thought you were.10000Mr SPEAKER—I remind the members for Dobell and Brisbane that I have given them a great deal of latitude. I call the honourable member for Sturt.376376Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE9V5SturtLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Is the minister aware of commentary about the government's 30 per cent tax rebate for people with private health insurance and the effect it will have on public hospitals? What is the government's position in relation to this rebate?376Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4ChisholmLPHealth and Aged Care10—I thank the honourable member for his question. The opposition have been making some comment—I am aware of this—and I will make several points about this. The first point is that, before the election, the only thing the opposition could say about private health insurance is, `We have no policy on this. We'll put it on the back-burner.' So something that is 30 per cent of the whole health care system was put on the back-burner. They did not have the intellectual capacity to put together a policy. They have dealt themselves out of the debate and they have no right to even comment.UNKNOWNOpposition membersOpposition members—Oh!8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—The fact is that you can believe Graham Richardson: the Labor Party is a bit biased against private health insurance. You could not come up with a credible policy. You are utterly condemned by your ineptitude and you are utterly condemned by your ideology.The second point is that, if you allow the private health insurance system to slowly wither away, what you will lose is something that has been almost unique to Australia—that is, a system where the public has had choice. We have done this almost better than any other country in the world. If you allow this system to slowly wither away, you invariably end up with a tiny private health sector that is the preserve of the wealthy and the rich and a large public health sector. If you want to know what this looks like, just have a look at the UK. I have worked under the United Kingdom National Health Service. I have sat in a surgical ward at two o'clock in the morning and watched a professor of surgery scream and argue for 45 minutes to get a 13-year-old girl a bed, and I have got to tell you that it is not particularly attractive.The third point I would make is that the notion of just throwing more money at the public hospital system is inherently flawed. During the 1996 election, the Leader of the Opposition on television complained that, because of the extra money the Commonwealth had put in the system, the states had just pulled their money out. They had done this for a couple of reasons: first, the extra money that had been put in was at the expense of the financial assistance grants—the so-called Medicare guarantee, where they gave with one hand and took with the other; and, second, they could not guarantee that the states would put in an extra effort so, when the Commonwealth put in money, the states took out money and the net effect was no better off.Up until July this year, I was dealing with the agreement signed by Paul Keating and Kim Beazley in 1993 and all its inherent weaknesses. This government has signed a new agreement that will increase public hospital funding in real terms by 19.2 per cent over five years, an unprecedented level of additional funding. We have done this at the same time as we have tried to actually do something to help the root cause of the problem, not just treat the symptoms.On the issue of just putting extra money into the public hospitals, I would like to read from the 1991 report Hospital services in Australia under the national health strategy chaired by one J. Macklin. On page 160, the report said:Expansion of funding to public hospitals would need to consider the potential effects on productivity and waiting lists, not only whether they need extra beds to be opened. The analysis of the relationship between waiting lists and patient throughput in Part 1—of this report—suggests an increase in hospital utilisation doesn't necessarily lead to a reduction in waiting lists or waiting times.She went on:Increased funding to public hospitals is also likely to lead to change in equilibrium between public hospitals, private hospitals and private health insurance without necessarily achieving the level of impact intended. If increased funding to public hospitals reduces the perceived pressure on public hospitals . . . it is likely private health insurance will drop. This could result in increased demand for public hospitals and reduced revenue from private patients. The result may be a return to the situation that existed prior to the provision of extra resources.She knew it then but ideology prevents the Labor Party from realising it now.377377McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMULLAN5I4CanberraALP00—My question is to the Treasurer. Are you aware that the Australian Fleet Lessors Association has advised that its members will need to increase car leasing rates immediately—that is, November 1998—to take into account the impact of your GST? Are you also aware that charities, welfare and employment organisations, amongst others, have already been advised of increases of 50 per cent to 100 per cent in the cost of car leases as a consequence? What immediate compensation do you propose to offer to these organisations and to the thousands of others around Australia affected in the same way for this dramatic impact on their viability as a consequence of your proposed GST?378Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—I am aware that various material is being put out. Some of it is accurate and some of it is not. The point that seems to be made by some of these lessors is that, because the price of vehicles will fall under the new tax system, they have to put the leases up. I would have thought it was an advantage to have the cost of vehicles falling. I would have thought it was an advantage to have cheaper vehicles. But if you happen to be in the Australian Labor Party, sniff around until you find a price fall and say how bad it is. Normally you are sniffing around looking for a price rise. Here are people who cannot maintain a policy position for 60 seconds.What did the member for Werriwa, inconveniently absent today, say? `People know what Labor is against; they don't know what Labor is for.' The member for Werriwa is engaged in an interesting experiment in this parliament. Is it possible to be in the Labor Party and be a thinker? We know it is not possible to be in the Labor Party, be a thinker and be on the front bench. He is now engaged in an interesting experiment—can you maintain a position on the back bench and be a thinker in the Labor Party?10000Mr SPEAKER—The Treasurer will return to the question.CT4Mr COSTELLO—In relation to the charities, under the government's tax policy charities are GST free. What that means for charities is that tax liabilities fall. Prices fall. For charities, they get back all of the taxes and all embedded taxes in relation to the inputs. If they are GST free, their costs actually fall. Charities actually do better.The argument which is occurring at the moment is in relation to charities which run commercial operations. Where commercial operations are competing with the private sector, we have said that the GST free status extends to non-commercial activity—that is, charitable activity—and not to commercial activity because, by definition, a charity is actually selling a service at a commercial rate in competition with the private sector. But, in relation to charities overall and their non-commercial activities, the prices actually fall. Not only do they get back all of the taxes on their inputs, they get second round effects of all of the embedded wholesale sales taxes which go into inputs which they currently cannot claim back. In relation to charities, the treatment under this tax package puts them in a better position than the current wholesale sales tax even in relation to their tax exemptions. That is why it is a good policy, and that is why it is good for Australia.378378Draper, Trish, MPMrs DRAPER0L6MakinLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business. I refer the minister to warnings from the South Australian government that the abolition of junior wages could lead to significant job losses among young people? Would the minister advise the House of the position of the other state governments and of the likely impact of such a move?378Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPWorkplace Relations and Small Business10—I thank the member for Makin for her question. We do have reports in this morning's papers, particularly in Adelaide, about the concerns of the South Australian government about job losses if the government is unable to secure the passage of our legislation which is aimed at protecting the jobs of young people. The South Australian government is concerned; it has reason to be. The South Australian chamber and retail traders association have estimated that up to 20,000 jobs of young people alone will be lost in South Australia if we are unable to achieve the legislation which we will be introducing this week. That is consistent with the views of the Australian Retailers Association based on a survey of their own members. They believe that up to 60,000 jobs would be lost virtually overnight and, over a period of time, in the order of 200,000 young people would be out of work as a result of a failure to pass this particular legislation. The question asks about other state governments. The position of the New South Wales government is also very relevant on this issue. We now have a copy of the New South Wales Labor government submission to the Industrial Relations Commission. It states:New South Wales has no immediate plans to abolish junior rates . . . There has been little substantive development of competency based or other alternatives to junior rates that we are aware of in the federal industrial jurisdiction. This has also been the position in the New South Wales jurisdiction.In other words, there is no reasonable alternative proposition being put within New South Wales. It goes on to say that it has assured New South Wales employers:. . . that the protection afforded age-based junior rates in New South Wales will not be removed until the industrial parties and relevant industrial tribunals have had a realistic opportunity to develop an adequate alternative to age-based rates.That is very important, because the previous Labor government spent 10 years attempting to formulate an alternative and was never able to do so. The whole issue is summed up very well by the Canberra Times , which said:In a system such as Australia which sets wage rates for adults in a range of industries and skill levels, it is inevitable that employers will avoid employing young people if they have to pay the same wages for them as adults. And the irony will be that a law which is there to prevent discrimination on the basis of age will have exactly the opposite effect. Sure, on paper youth will be treated equally, but on the ground the effect will be they will not get a job at all. Paper equality is not of much value.There has been far too much ideology from the Labor Party on this issue. They are opposing for the sake of opposition, with little regard to the job prospects of young people. That is why this government is determined to press ahead and protect the jobs of literally hundreds of thousands of young people.379379Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is directed to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister recall telling the parliament that `red hot competition' has brought down bank interest rates? Prime Minister, is this the same `red hot competition' that allows the Commonwealth Bank to announce today a $2 fee every time someone wants to take their own money out of the bank over the counter? Isn't it one of a new round of fee increases that all banks have recently announced? Prime Minister, if, as you claim, the banks and financial services sector will be $1.6 billion a year better off under your tax package, why should they be able to impose these new fees now?379Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—I have not seen the detail of the announcement made by the Commonwealth Bank. Let me make it plain: I assume the member for Hotham is not suggesting that interest rates have not come down a lot over the last 2½ years. I would have thought of all the movements in economic indicators that have occurred over the last three years the one that the Labor Party would least want to refer to was that of the cost of borrowing money because there is no area in the Australian economy where the aggregate benefits of the coalition's economic management have been more apparent than in the cost of finance. Why does the member for Hotham not believe that the Australian economy is now charging ahead at a level of growth that not even the most supreme optimist believed was possible about six months ago? One of the reasons that is happening is that we have very low interest rates.One of the reasons that is happening is that the cost of borrowing money, taking everything into account, is dramatically lower than what it was 2½ years ago. The average home buyer is more than $300 a month better off. The average Australian farmer is dramatically better off as a result.Mr Crean interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I do not know whether the member for Hotham is seeking the call.ZD4Mr HOWARD—Is there a point of order?10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Not that I am aware of.ZD4Mr HOWARD—No, I did not think there was either.DT4CREANMr Crean—I rise on a point of order, which goes to relevance, Mr Speaker. The question was about bank fees. Not once has he mentioned them. The question was about bank fees going up and what they are going to do about them. Answer it!10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Hotham has made his point. I will rule on the point of order, but I remind the member for Hotham that if he has a point of order his obligation is to stand and seek the call, not to offer advice to the chair. I also noted when the member for Hotham asked his question that he prefaced it with a statement about the Prime Minister's attitude as being someone in favour of `red hot competition'. It was in that context that I felt the Prime Minister's answer was still in order.ZD4Mr HOWARD—I was making the point that no-one can argue that over the last 2½ years there has not been a dramatic reduction in the cost of borrowing money in this country. One of the greatest economic gifts that the government has brought to the Australian people is the gift of lower interest rates. We have been able to reduce interest rates for home buyers, for farmers, and for small businessmen. This is one of the reasons why Australia is the economic strongman of Asia.380380Nehl, Garry, MPMr NEHLAE4CowperNP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the Minister for Foreign Affairs inform the House whether, and in what manner, Australian government concerns about the current situa tion in Malaysia were raised during the recent APEC meeting in Kuala Lumpur? Will the Minister for Foreign Affairs also inform the House whether alternative approaches have been recommended to the Australian government with respect to expressing Australia's concerns about the current situation in Malaysia?380Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the honourable member for his question, and I recognise his interest in the situation in Malaysia. I think many other members of the House are also very concerned, in particular, about the arrest and charging of Anwar Ibrahim, the former Deputy Prime Minister. The government has been clear and forthright in its expression of concern over the treatment of Anwar Ibrahim and was indeed very forthright about that matter during the visit of both the Prime Minister and me to Malaysia as part of the APEC meetings.The Prime Minister raised the matter directly with Dr Mahathir, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur. I had the oppor tunity to raise the issue and discuss it frankly with Education Minister Najib, and with a range of other Malaysians at the MalaysiaAustralia Dialogue preceding the APEC meetings. I also met with Anwar's wife, Wan Azizah, to discuss her concerns about her husband's welfare and, importantly, to convey my personal concerns and those of the Australian government to her husband directly. That has been the Australian government's measured and sensible approach to this difficult issue. I think the measured way, as the Prime Minister puts it, the Australian way, in which this was handled by the government was well recognised by the Australian community.The honourable member asked whether there were alternative approaches, and there were alternative approaches proffered to the Australian government, in particular, by the Leader of the Opposition. His starting point was that the Prime Minister should not meet Dr Mahathir at all. Then having realised he had made a mistake, he started to shift ground. One of the themes of the Labor Party's approach to foreign policy is of shifting ground. I have never seen a political party shift ground so quickly day by day as has the Australian Labor Party over the last week.The Leader of the Opposition was saying that Australia should be concerned about Anwar Ibrahim, but we should not mention it to Dr Mahathir, that we should boycott any meeting with Dr Mahathir—the international equivalent of a `no speakies' relationship. This government does not operate on the basis of a foreign policy by boycott approach, which is beginning to characterise Labor's approach. We like to be forthright, we like to be frank, and we like to express our concerns. Perhaps Labor has suddenly decided to opt for what is sometimes called the megaphone policy approach.The Leader of the Opposition often says that the former foreign minister, the now member for Holt, was the greatest foreign minister Australia had ever had. You often hear him say that. We do not agree with that, do we?UNKNOWNGovernment membersGovernment members—No!4G4Mr DOWNER—No, that is right. We are just encouraging you a bit there. He says that the member for Holt was the greatest foreign minister Australia has ever had. He also says that there should be a parliamentary inquiry to establish whether the member for Holt was involved in a cover-up over affairs relating to the Dili massacre and subsequent events. Where is the Labor Party? An inquiry into the former Labor foreign minister's activities but he was the best foreign minister Australia has ever had. In conclusion let me say it points to a simple direction for the Labor Party—the direction of populism. There is no coherent foreign policy in the Labor Party and, to be fair—and I always am fair to the Labor Party—UNKNOWNOpposition membersOpposition members—Oh!4G4Mr DOWNER—Yes, I am. Prime Minister, I am always fair to them. To be fair to the Labor Party, there was a coherence to Labor's foreign policy in government. There is a populist incoherence to their foreign policy in opposition. It is a matter of embarrassment for this country that its main opposition party is just a cheapskate populist party on important foreign policy issues.381381Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is again to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, what do you intend doing about the current round of banks putting up their fees, particularly against the background that your tax package claims they will get a windfall of $1.6 billion under that package?381Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—In answer to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: as Prime Minister, I intend to continue to pursue policies that will continue to deliver to the Australian people vastly cheaper finance than they obtained under Labor.381381Charles, Bob, MPMr CHARLESOT4LaTrobeLP10—My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Given the growing number of students at Australian universities, the import ance of education to Australia's future economic and social progress and Australia's role as a provider of education to the region, what action is the government taking to encourage quality teaching in Australian universities?381Kemp, Dr David, MPDr KEMPBT4GoldsteinLPEducation, Training and Youth Affairs; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service10—I thank the honourable member for La Trobe for his question. I acknowledge his long lasting interest in quality education for young Australians. In this country we give praise and recognition frequently to our high achieving sportspeople, people such as Cathy Freeman or Kieren Perkins. We praise our business leaders, but we too often overlook those who are responsible, perhaps more than any others, for moulding the minds of the next generation of leaders, and those are teachers.The awards that are being given today in the Great Hall of the parliament, the Australian Awards for University Teaching, recognise the enormous contribution that quality teaching makes to the next generation of young Australians. This is a very significant government initiative. It is a major item on the university higher education calendar each year. It recognises the tremendous role that quality teachers who care for their students have in producing the future leaders of this country. The 12 awards that will be presented tonight total some $765,000 in value. The highlight of the night will be the Prime Minister's award for the University Teacher of the Year, an award valued at $75,000.These awards have been embraced by the higher education sector. They recognise that this government is serious about providing a quality education to all young Australians. I have no doubt whatever that the recognition that university teachers get from these awards will promote quality, encourage talent to enter the teaching profession and encourage excellence.381381Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr KELVIN THOMSONUK6WillsALP00—My question is to the Treasurer. Does the government intend to overturn last week's decision of the Australian Competition Tribunal to abolish the newsagents' home delivery monopoly from February 2001?3K6CAMERONMr Ross Cameron—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The question is clearly and unequivocally asking for an announcement of government policy. I do not doubt that the minister is happy to take the question, but it is out of order.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Parramatta will resume his seat. I consider this matter as being widely canvassed in the press and it is entirely appropriate for the minister to respond. I call the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation.382Hockey, Joe, MPMr HOCKEYDK6North SydneyLPFinancial Services and Regulation10—There are some misconceptions that need to be clarified in relation to the decision of the Australian Competition Tribunal last week. The first point is that this is essentially an agreement within the private sector. It is an agreement between the publishers and the newsagents. An authorisation has been in place for some years in relation to the distribution of newspapers through newsagents. The first point to note is that there will be no change whatsoever in the distribution of newspapers by newsagents. In fact, the Australian Competition Tribunal upheld the current authorisation in relation to the distribution by home delivery of newspapers in Victoria, New South Wales, the ACT and Queensland. There is no change in relation to the home service delivery in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.The second point is that the decisions of the Australian Competition Tribunal in relation to the subagency arrangement and the distribution to look-alikes are under review. We will conduct consultation in the way that the Prime Minister outlined prior to the election. We are committed to a consultation process. I am beginning those consultations later today and I will keep the House informed of progress.382382Cameron, Ross, MPMr ROSS CAMERON3K6ParramattaLP10—My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. In view of the fact that we celebrated on the weekend the National Day of Lebanon, Lebanese independence, and with the recent appointment of a new President of Lebanon, General Emile Lahoud, I ask the minister: what is the Australian government's attitude towards the place of Lebanon in the unfolding Middle East peace process?382Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the honourable member for Parramatta for his question. I recognise the great interest he shows in the Middle East in general and in Lebanon in particular. We obviously welcome the positive response that there has been in the international community to the Middle East peace process and to the Wye River agreement. We would like to see as time goes on the Wye River agreement being an important stepping stone towards what we hope will eventually be a comprehensive peace settlement for the Middle East.In the case of Lebanon, the honourable member will be aware that the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people have sought for a long time the fulfilment of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. They can aspire to seeing UN Resolution 425 implemented in the context of an overall Middle East peace settlement. The important thing is that the Wye River agreement has given the Middle East peace process renewed momentum when momentum was lost. We very warmly welcome that.It gives me the opportunity to say that the agreement has now been ratified by the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Israeli Knesset. That is good news. There are going to be difficulties in the implementation, but, as I said, the implementation of Wye River is a part of the overall implementation of the Middle East peace process. We look forward to its eventual conclusion.382382Kerr, Duncan, MPMr KERRRH4DenisonALP00—My question is to the Attorney-General. Attorney, have you seen press reports by Michael McKinnon from News Ltd about the serious and disturbing audit reports of the management of drugs and money handled by the Australian Federal Police? Attorney, given that you were also the Minister for Justice for most of the period covered by these reports, when were you, the Minister assisting the Attorney-General or your officers first told about them? What were you told? What action, if any, did you take? And when did you take such action?383Williams, Daryl, MPMr WILLIAMS7V5TangneyLPAttorney-General10—I have seen the media reports to which the member for Denison refers. Like any report which raises the spectre of corruption within a law enforcement agency, they are of concern. However, it needs to be borne in mind that some of the matters referred to are as consistent with inadequate record keeping as they are with corruption. The reports, I am advised, go back to 1993. The member for Denison might recall that, between 1993 and 1996, he was the Minister for Justice.As the member for Denison mentioned, the subject of the media reports are in fact audit reports—but they are not just audit reports; they are internal AFP audit reports. I am also advised that, in 1996 and 1997, internal guidelines were amended as a result of those reports. In preparing for the tough on drugs initiative, the government examined the procedures for the handling and destruction of drugs seized by the AFP and by other law enforcement agencies. As a result of that review, legislation is in the process of being drafted to amend those procedures. So it is clear that there has been a recognition of the deficiencies both within the AFP and externally by the government. In addition, the Minister for Justice and Customs has sought a full briefing on the matters that are the subject of the report.383383Cadman, Alan, MPMr CADMANSD4MitchellLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Sport and Tourism. What role is the federal government playing to ensure the outstanding success of the Olympic Games?383Kelly, Jackie, MPMiss JACKIE KELLYGK6LindsayLPSport and Tourism; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Sydney 2000 Games10—May I thank the honourable member for his interest in the Olympics given that his electorate is in Sydney, which is going to be the town that hosts the Olympics in the year 2000.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—Town? It's a city.GK6Miss JACKIE KELLY—Let us not say that it is New South Wales's Games; let us make it Australia's Games. We are looking at the Olympics as being perceived throughout the world as the Olympics down under. We look forward to television images going around the world of Australia as a beautiful, tolerant and sporting nation.The federal government is contributing $460 million and is involving 30 different agencies such as Customs, the Australian Mint in the production of a coin program, the weather forecasting for the yachting program, Immigration and our own security forces in the defence forces. At the same time, we are using the Games to promote Australia and Australian tourism, which is of immense importance to me. We are seeing 1.6 million extra tourists coming to Australia because of the Olympic Games. It is an opportunity to showcase our nation to the world and to benefit from that in a financial fashion.Last year the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Trade and sports minister at the time, Warwick Smith, launched the `Australia—Open for Business' initiative, principally using the Games to boost exports and inward investment. We are a partner with Telstra, Westpac and the New South Wales Department of State and Regional Development in order to capitalise on the investment opportunities coming from the Olympics. We are looking at spreading all of the benefits available from the Games right across Australia so that all states and all parts of Australia benefit from the games that will be held in Sydney but that will be remembered as `Australia's Games'.383383Kerr, Duncan, MPMr KERRRH4DenisonALP00—Again, my question is to the Attorney. I refer the Attorney to my earlier question. Attorney, given that a break in the chain of evidence can seriously undermine a prosecution, will the Attorney confirm that, for example, the 1997 audit report into the AFP's Western Region found that `the recording of movements of exhibits is inadequate to preserve the continuity of evidence'? Has the government made any assessment of the number of criminal trials, past and present, that may be affected by the material disclosed in the audit reports? How many prosecutions may be affected? What action, if any, has the government taken in relation to those matters? Will the Attorney, before the House rises this evening, table the audit reports referred to by Mr McKinnon and any more recent reports? If not, why not?384Williams, Daryl, MPMr WILLIAMS7V5TangneyLPAttorney-General10—I am not in a position to respond to the detailed questions that the member for Denison first asked. As to the tabling of the documents, I will confer with the Minister for Justice and Customs and come back with an appropriate response at an appropriate time.384384Forrest, John, MPMr FORRESTNV5MalleeNP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. I ask the minister what his response is to the many requests for exceptional circumstances for the grain industry all around Australia, savagely ravaged by low yield from poor rain, extreme frost, and damaging late spring rainfall.384Vaile, Mark, MPMr VAILESU5LyneNPAgriculture, Fisheries and Forestry10—I thank the honourable member for Mallee for his question. Members may be aware that there is a forecast of a record wheat crop this year of some 22 million tonnes. But in amongst that, some severe climatic conditions have hit a number of areas of Australia. Yesterday I spent the day with the member for Mallee in his electorate in Victoria visiting some of the farmers who have been seriously affected by frost and by drought, which will have an effect on their income this year. There will also be a social impact on their family lives and on their local communities as we move through the spring and summer months.I inform the member for Mallee that I understand that there will be applications coming forward for exceptional circumstances in those areas. I will be getting the RASAC committee to have a look at those applications and to measure them against the very rigorous technical requirements that exist. Whilst we were visiting north-western Victoria yesterday we pointed out that there are rigorous requirements and criteria that must be met. I understand that there is an application in from the south western grains area in South Australia on the same basis. We have also referred that to RASAC for their assessment.Whilst talking to the grain growers in Victoria yesterday they expressed to us their appreciation of the reform measures that our government has undertaken to get the economy right. They appreciate the fact that we have a low interest rate regime at the moment that is underpinning their businesses. They appreciate the fact that we have stabilised the Australian economy, which is only going to benefit them. They appreciate the fact that we have introduced farm management bonds which they can use as a risk management tool in the future. I urge those farmers who are going to produce a good crop this year to take advantage of those tools. We are also going to look at what opportunities there may be for more flexibility in terms of insurance for the risks that they face. I thank the member for Mallee for the opportunity of meeting with the farmers in his electorate yesterday in those circumstances. I assure them that we will be taking their concerns very seriously.384384Swan, Wayne, MPMr SWAN2V5LilleyALP00—My question is directed to the Minister for Community Services. Minister, will you confirm that the government provided only around $1 million in the 1997-98 budget to extend carers payment to parents with disabled children and that as a result the eligibility requirements have been unnecessarily restrictive? Is this why parents of children like Andrew Ramsey, who is nine years old, suffers from Varter syndrome, is fed by a naso-gastric tube, is a chronic asthmatic, can only walk short distances and needs constant supervision, are not entitled to a carers payment? How fair is that?384Truss, Warren, MPMr TRUSSGT4Wide BayNPCommunity Services10—The honourable member for Lilley has provided details of a case of which I obviously have no personal knowledge. I will investigate the circumstances raised by the honourable member and provide an appropriate answer.384384Nairn, Gary, MPMr NAIRNOK6Eden-MonaroLP10—Is the Minister for Employment Services aware of ill-informed criticism of the Job Network? What is the minister's response? What effect are such comments having upon public perceptions of the Job Network?385Abbott, Tony, MPMr ABBOTTEZ5WarringahLPEmployment Services10—I thank the member for Eden-Monaro for his question. I am aware that just last week he helped launch the construction of a new building for Campbell Page Employment and Training, a Job Network member in Bateman's Bay and part of Mission Employment. Last week, a gentleman called Mark Jull, who is a senior official of the Commonwealth Public Service Union, made a number of ill-informed comments about the Job Network. He said that it was a disaster for unemployed people. He said that people in the Job Network have just not had the ability to find people and place people in work.In succumbing to the tendency to see all change as change for the worse, Mr Jull is consciously or unconsciously attacking a large number of community and charitable organisations, such as the Salvation Army, Mission Australia, Centrecare, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and many other agencies which are helping the Job Network to already produce far better results than the old CES ever could. In October 1997, the old CES had just 36,000 new job vacancies notified. In October this year, the new Job Network had 54,000 new job vacancies notified. In October last year, the old CES succeeded in getting just 17,000 unemployed people on benefit into work. In October this year, the Job Network succeeded in getting nearly 22,000 unemployed people on benefit into work. By the tests that really count, the new Job Network is already succeeding.Under the Job Network, 68 per cent of vacancies notified were for permanent jobs compared with just 60 per cent for the same period last year under the CES. In October 1998, the proportion of job seekers placed in jobs who were long-term unemployed was 43 per cent under the Job Network compared with just 37 per cent in October last year under the CES. So there has been a reversion to cloth cap cliches among sections of the Labor movement. However, I am pleased to see that the member for Werriwa said last week:It's often the combination and mix of public and private sector action, because it's neither government nor market. It's in the community—it's in the strength of civil society—that many of the answers to economic and social problems can be found.This is actually quite a good description of the Job Network rather than the Third Way, of which the member for Werriwa is so enamoured. But it is the beginning of enlightenment from the member for Werriwa. I commend him for that rather than the kind of strike first, think later mentality that is coming from the dinosaurs in the CPSU.ZD4HOWARDMr Howard—Mr Speaker, on that very positive note, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper .Committees385385385385Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—I present the following reports from committees of the 38th Parliament received by my predecessor after the last sitting of the House in July 1998 pursuant to resolutions agreed to on 2 July 1998:Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and Microeconomic Reform—Ship Safe: Inquiry into Australian Maritime Safety Authority Annual Report 1996-97 , together with minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.Tracking Australia: An inquiry into the role of rail in the national transport network , together with minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training—Today's training. Tomorrow's skills , together with minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts—Regulatory arrangements for trading in greenhouse gas emissions, interim report , together with minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.Joint Standing Committee on Migration—Immigration Detention Centres—Inspection Report , together with minutes of proceedings.Joint Standing Committee on Treaties—United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child , together with minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.Ordered that the reports be printed.Miscellaneous386386386Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—Pursuant to section 9B of the Public Service Act 1922, I present the annual report of the Joint House Department for 1997-98.Auditor-General's Reports386386386Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—I present the Auditor-General's audit report No. 16 for 1998-99 entitled Performance audit—Aviation Security in Australia—Department of Transport and Regional Services .Motion (by Mr Reith)—by leave—agreed to:That:(1) this House authorises the publication of the Auditor-General's audit report No. 16 of 1998-99; and(2) the report be printed.Miscellaneous386386Motion (by Mr Reith)—by leave—agreed to:That, in accordance with the provisions of the National Library Act 1960, this House elects Dr Theophanous to be a member of the Council of the National Library of Australia and to continue as a member for a period of three years from this day.Miscellaneous386Motion (by Mr Reith)—by leave—agreed to:That, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Act 1948, Mr McLeay be appointed a trustee to serve on the Parliamentary Retiring Allowances Trust.Committees386386386Motion (by Mr Reith)—by leave—agreed to:That Mr Andrews, Mrs Elson, Mr Hollis, Mr McArthur, Mr Neville, Mr Sawford and Mr Sercombe be members of the Selection Committee. 38610001CLERK ASSISTANTThe Clerk—Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate ministers:38611040FK6 XU5 KV5 ZT4 GT4Kelly De-Anne MP; Lieberman Lou MP; Neville Paul MP; Somlyay Alex MP; Truss Warren MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The Petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the Sexuality Discrimination Bill (SDB) which is expected to be introduced into Parliament in the near future. In particular, the petitioners wish to alert the House to concerns that this legislation will: Whilst granting special rights to homosexuals, take away significant rights from the majority of Australians. Force citizens to employ/tolerate homosexuals and their activities—where this is contrary to their beliefs. Further validate homosexual partnerships and pave the way for same-sex marriage and adoption rights. Burden proof on employers, churches, schools, etc, as to why they should be exempt from this legislation. Not exempt groups receiving government funding and thus force compliance under threat of loss of funds. Override States' rights, invalidate existing laws and put Australia at the mercy of international treaties. Curtail freedom of speech in churches when proclaiming scriptural truth on issue of family, sexuality, etc.Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House reject the Sexuality Discrimination Bill in its entirety and thereby protect the status and rights of the vast majority of Australians.Mrs De-Anne KellyFK6Mrs De-Anne Kelly(from 20 citizens)Mr LiebermanXU5Mr Lieberman(from 10,788 citizens)Mr NevilleKV5Mr Neville(from 79 citizens)Mr SomlyayZT4Mr Somlyay(from 35 citizens)Mr TrussGT4Mr Truss(from 118 citizens)386248DT4 LS4Crean Simon MP; Ferguson Martin MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.We the undersigned draw to the attention of the House our rising concerns in regard to political parties whose ideologies are based on the politics of racial and cultural division.We believe that candidates and political parties who do not place One Nation, and the like, last on their preferences are placing political expediency ahead of the best interests of this nation and as such are harming Australia's social, cultural and economic interests both at the domestic and international levels.Your petitioners therefore ask the House to support our call for all candidates and political parties to rise above short term political expediency at the next Federal election and place any party which is based on the politics of racial and cultural division last on their how-to-vote cards.Mr CreanDT4Mr Crean(from 187 citizens)Mr Martin FergusonLS4Mr Martin Ferguson(from 61 citizens)387399LS4 YU5Ferguson Martin MP; Tanner Lindsay MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.We the undersigned believe that the policies of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party are both divisive and detrimental to Australian community.Your petitioners therefore ask the House to call upon the Prime Minister John Howard to publicly call for all Political Parties to put Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party last on their How to Vote cards in all forthcoming elections.Mr Martin FergusonLS4Mr Martin Ferguson(from 199 citizens)Mr TannerYU5Mr Tanner(from 200 citizens)38768PG6 4I4Macklin Jenny MP; McLeay Leo MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House decisions by the Howard Government affecting the price and availability of medicines.The decision to remove (delist) a number of drugs from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and also the decision to pressure people to switch to cheaper, older and less effective drugs, will disadvantage the less well off in our community who will not be able to afford the best most suitable drugs, the drugs their doctors have prescribed for them.Your petitioners therefore pray that the House recognises that these changes are unfair. We call on the Government to reverse these decisions immediately.Ms MacklinPG6Ms Macklin(from 14 citizens)Mr Leo McLeay4I4Mr Leo McLeay(from 54 citizens)38728344K4Anderson John MPTo the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.The petition of the undersigned draw to the attention of the House the unsafe Warrego Highway (Gatton Bypass). Your petitioners therefore pray that the House support a 4 lane upgrade of the Warrego Highway (Gatton Bypass) immediately to bring an end to this dangerous section of the road.Mr Anderson4K4Mr Anderson(from 2834 citizens)387141KL6Andren Peter MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.The petition of certain residents of the State of New South Wales, draws attention of the House to our opposition any further government sale of Telstra.Your petitioners therefore request the House oppose any further government sale of Telstra.Mr AndrenKL6Mr Andren(from 141 citizens)38717HK5Andrews Kevin MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:This petition of certain citizens of Australia, draws to the attention of the House of Representatives the fact that members of the Royal Australian Navy who served in Malaya between 1955 and 1960 are still the only Australians, sent overseas on active service, whose service has not been recognised in three important areas:1. R.A.N. casualties are not yet included on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial alongside Army and R.A.A.F. casualties;2. R.A.N. service has not yet been recognised with the visible signs of service to Australia; the Returned from Active Service Badge and the Naval campaign medal; and3. R.A.N. service is still not acknowledged as eligible service for the Australian Service Pension, while service by Commonwealth and allied veterans from 55 other countries is.Members of the Army and R.A.A.F. who served during the same period in Malaya had their service fully recognised 24 hours after arriving in Malaya.In the 1997 Budget the Government partly recognised that R.A.N. service was `operational' and accepted responsibility for disabilities resulting from that service. Those affected appreciate the belated, partial recognition. However, government departments are still resorting to old, and inventing new excuses, to deny the above 3 points. Your petitioners therefore request that the House acts to help remove the injustice of 40 years and fully recognise R.A.N. service by providing the same recognition and benefits for that service. The cost will be minuscule, being mainly a transfer of pensions from `age' as paid by the Department of Social Security, to `service' pensions, paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs.Mr AndrewsHK5Mr Andrews(from 17 citizens)3881446ET4Bevis Arch MPTo the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in ParliamentThis petition of certain residents of the State of Queensland call the House of Representatives to advise the Federal Transport Minister to— not endorse the BAC's Masterplan recommendations for a western parallel runway; initiate instead a full and independent cost-benefit analysis of all runway options to be taken before any endorsement of any single runway option occurs; ensure that this full cost-benefit analysis includes an analysis of total numbers affected by each runway option.And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will forever pray.Mr BevisET4Mr Bevis(from 1446 citizens)38821577T4Crosio Janice MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in the Parliament:The petition of citizens of Sydney South West and Sydney West draw the attention of the House to the fact that our suburbs and quality of life will be severly depleted by the construction of Badgerys Creek International Airport. Your petitioners therefore ask the House to immediately abandon any plan to construct a Second Airport in Sydney Air Shed.Mrs Crosio7T4Mrs Crosio(from 2,157 citizens)388994G4Downer Alexander MPTo the Honourable Speaker and members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The Petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the crisis in General Practice. The Government is undermining the ability of GPs to provide high quality care by reducing, in real terms, the value of Medicare GP rebates. Your petitioners therefore request the House to instruct the Federal Minister for Health and Family Services to negotiate a fair deal for GPs and their patients. Mr Downer4G4Mr Downer(from 99 citizens)388219HQ5Fahey John MPTo the honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives assembled in parliament:The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House: the sufferings and anguish of the people of Cambodia for the past thirty years due to war and conflict that have been instigated and extended beyond their control; that the forthcoming elections scheduled for 26 July 1998 is the best hope for the Khmer people in selecting a government that could bring peace and development to the people; that the scheduled elections must be as free and fair as possible so that the outcome will truly reflect the will of the people, otherwise they will not represent democracy or bring peace to the people; that the voter registration process for the scheduled July elections has not been free from manipulation by the ruling Party who has stacked the election process in its favour from top to bottom; a significant number of Khmer people who want to vote but have been prevented from registering, whilst a large number of illegal immigrants who tend to support the ruling Party were actively encouraged to register; that the rule of law which is the foundation for a peaceful co-existence and fairness has not been respected; the stacked election process clearly indicates a deviation from the rule of law.Your petitioners therefore pray that the House:1. consult with Government of the day in view to ensuring that only outcomes of free and fair elections be acceptable to Australia;2. request the Government to use its influence to delay the elections to such time the rule of law is respected;3. consult with the Government, in any case, to send a large contingent of monitors for the elections;4. send a parliamentary team acting as observers and monitors of the elections.Mr FaheyHQ5Mr Fahey(from 219 citizens)38899HQ5Fahey John MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives assembled in the Australian ParliamentThis petition of citizens of Australia, and Cambodian people residing in Australia, requests the House to: Ask the Australian Government to cease providing aid to the Cambodian government until a truly democratically elected government is in place.Further, all Hun Sen government violence must cease immediately, and the Cambodian government must immediately find, arrest and convict the persons responsible for murdering the Buddhist monk, women and student recently.Ask the Australian Government to do all in its power to stop the Hun Sen, communist army, and the police to immediately cease the killing, bashing, shooting and violation of the lives of innocent Khmer people.Respect the lives and freedom of expression of Buddhist monks as they go about their daily human rights duties.Giver Khmer citizens freedom to demonstrate their wish for truly democratic government in Cambodia.Insist that Hun Sen immediately desist from the murder and torture of innocent Khmer citizens.Insist that Hun Sen immediately stands down from government.Asks the Australian Government to publicly condemn all extra Judicial, Killing, torture or other acts of violence following the election of the 26th July 1998.Request the United Nations to call and supervise a truly free and fair election, following the stand down from office of Hun Sen.Mr FaheyHQ5Mr Fahey(from 99 citizens)38958HH4Jenkins Harry MPTo the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled:This petition of certain citizens of the State of New South Wales respectfully showeth our concern that: the Federal Government's childcare policies are reducing the quality of care and making it unaffordable; fees have risen by up to $25 at some services and families are being put under pressure trying to meet costs; the Government's cuts and changes to child care are forcing parents, often mothers, to reduce the hours they work or quit work altogether reducing family income and making it harder for families to meet weekly costs; the Government's changes are forcing some parents to choose unlicensed backyard care which could put our children at risk.Your Petitioners ask that the Parliament make the necessary changes to ensure child care is afford able, quality care that is meeting the needs of Australian families.Mr JenkinsHH4Mr Jenkins(from 58 citizens)38951HH4Jenkins Harry MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:This petition of certain residents of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the House community anger over the backward stance of the current Federal Government on the environment. The decision to mine uranium at Jabiluka is a symbol of this government's preference for `development at any cost', and the failure of the government to protect the Kakadu World Heritage Area has destroyed Australia's international reputation as a leader in environmental protection.Your petitioners therefore request that the House of Representatives call on the Government to reverse its decision in the light of further environmental assessments that confirms the potential of the mine to impact on the wilderness and world heritage values of Kakadu National Park.And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.Mr JenkinsHH4Mr Jenkins(from 51 citizens)3893000HH4Jenkins Harry MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain residents of the State of Victoria, draws to the attention of the House the need for a Medicare facility at the Epping Plaza Regional Shopping Centre.Your petitioners therefore pray that the House immediately agree to establish a Medicare Office at Epping Plaza Regional Shopping Centre.Mr JenkinsHH4Mr Jenkins(from 3,000 citizens)3891002MH4Jull David MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:We the petitioners of Coombabah Branch of the Paradise Point and Northern Districts Progress Association Incorporated draws to the attention of the House the need for a Post Office in the Coombabah area.We the petitioners therefore pray that the House urgently consider the installation of a General Post Office in the Coombabah area Shopping Centre (Hansford Road) to accommodate the needs of the increase in population as well as the needs of the elderly in the area.Mr JullMH4Mr Jull(from 1,002 citizens)39010036MG4Lee Michael MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House, decisions by the Howard Government to prohibit use of the term `drug free' in describing and advertising vitamin and herbal remedies.The decision will disadvantage all Australians who use or provide alternate and complementary health products. It is discriminatory.Your petitioners therefore pray that the House recognises that these changes are unfair. We call on the Government to reverse this decision immediately.Mr LeeMG4Mr Lee(from 10,036 citizens)390514MG4Lee Michael MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:These petitions of the Division of Dobell are opposed to any downgrading of The Entrance Post Office.We are concerned that a town the size of The Entrance would have its Post Office replaced by a contracted postal service licensee.Your petitioners respectfully request that the House call on the Government to support the retention of Australia Post's current reserved service and reject the National Competition Council proposals to deregulate Australia's postal services.Mr LeeMG4Mr Lee(from 514 citizens)3904548HK6Lindsay Peter MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:This petition of certain residents of the State of Queensland notes with concern the continuing inadequate level of Federal funding for Queensland roads, restricting economic development and growth and, in many cases, resulting in unsafe roads and road conditions.Your petitioners request that the Members of the House of Representatives recognise the demand of the Better Roads Action Alliance for a 20 per cent real increase on the 1996-97 Federal budget allocation of $347.5 million for Queensland roads, sustained over 10 years.We request the Members of the House of Representatives act to ensure that $417 million annually in Federal road funding is allocated to Queensland in real terms over the next decade.Mr LindsayHK6Mr Lindsay(from 4,548 citizens)39089PG6Macklin Jenny MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House our desire for Telstra to remain in majority public ownership by the Australian people.We believe that as two-thirds owners of Telstra, all Australians are currently shareholders. We believe that taking Telstra out of the hands of the public would compromise its provision of free services and lead inevitably to higher charges and foreign ownership.Your petitioners therefore pray that the House recognises our desire for majority public ownership of Telstra to continue. We call on the Government to heed our wishes.Ms MacklinPG6Ms Macklin(from 89 citizens)39024PG6Macklin Jenny MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain residents of Australia notes with concern the impact of the policy of charging entry fees—often necessitating the sale of the family home—for people needing nursing home care. Furthermore, the petitioners note with concern the impact of the policy of charging residents of aged care facilities an extra daily fee which provides no additional benefit to the resident and is nothing more than a disguised Government tax.Your petitioners therefore request that the House of Representatives act to ensure that nursing home care is equally available to all who need it and further that the family home is exempted from any asset test related to the payment of such care.And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.Ms MacklinPG6Ms Macklin(from 24 citizens)390184I4McLeay Leo MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:This petition of certain residents of the State of New South Wales notes with concern the impact of the policy of charging entry fees—often necessitating the sale of the family home—for people needing nursing home care. Furthermore, the petitioners note with concern the impact of the policy of charging residents of aged care facilities an extra daily fee which provides no additional benefit to the resident and is nothing more than a disguised tax. Your petitioners therefore request that the House of Representatives act to ensure that nursing home care is equally available to all who need it and further that the family home is exempted from any asset test relating to payment for such care.And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.Mr Leo McLeay4I4Mr Leo McLeay(from 18 citizens)39122PG6Macklin Jenny MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain citizens draws the attention of the House to the negative effects the Government's jobs, education and health policies are having on Australian women. Failure to create jobs and sustain decent wages together with the rising costs of education, health and childcare which have resulted from deep Budget cuts have reduced both the incomes and the opportunities of Australian women.Your petitioners therefore ask the House to implement policies which advance the position of Australian women and which reverse much of the damage that has already been done to women as a result of two Federal Budgets.Ms MacklinPG6Ms Macklin(from 22 citizens)391608I4Martin Stephen MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:I strongly oppose construction of a nuclear reactor and/or nuclear waste reprocessing plant in Sydney. Nuclear activity generates radioactive emissions and radioactive waste for which Australia has no repository. A nuclear accident has implications for all of Sydney. Such facilities should not be located in Australia's largest city.Your petitioners pray that the House will join them in opposing increased nuclear activity in Sydney.Mr Martin8I4Mr Martin(from 60 citizens)39198I4Martin Stephen MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain citizens draws the attention of the House to the damaging impact of the Government's changes to post-secondary education. Upfront undergraduate fees; increased HECS fees and charges; cuts to student places; cuts to Austudy and Abstudy and decreased Commonwealth funding for universities are denying students fair access to university education. Your petitioners therefore ask the House to return post-secondary education to a system which is fair and accessible for Australians. Mr Martin8I4Mr Martin(from 9 citizens)39161JK6McClelland Robert MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.The petition of certain residents of the Federal Electoral Division of Barton calls on the Federal Parliament to immediately repeal Section 89A of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 which has removed important terms and conditions of employment from Federal Industrial Awards including provisions which are essential to the protection of job security for Australian workers and their families.Mr McClellandJK6Mr McClelland(from 61 citizens)3911682MK6Mossfield Frank MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled:This petition of certain citizens of the State of New South Wales respectfully showeth our concern about the proposals to close the Commonwealth Bank Branch at Lalor Park, NSW in the electoral division of Greenway.Many of our residents are elderly and have been able to travel the short distance to the bank that is to be closed.Your petitioners respectfully request that the House call upon the Government to take whatever steps are available to ensure that the residents of Lalor Park are able to have their Commonwealth Bank Branch re-opened.Mr MossfieldMK6Mr Mossfield(from 1,682 citizens)39110044V5Moylan Judi MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.The petition of certain residents of the State of Western Australia draws to the attention of the House the deficiencies of the Airports Act 1996. Under this Act a Bitumen and Asphalt plant at Lot 1, Talbot Road, Hazelmere, WA, is being built on Airport land zoned as `Public Purpose' and is only approximately 500 metres away from residential houses. The plant's emissions have the potential to cause health and environmental issues in the area.Your petitioners therefore respectfully urge the House to prevent any further construction or operation on the above-mentioned site until an appropriate consultation period has been established to allow the public and environmental bodies time to assess the plant's impact. Your petitioners also urge an amendment to the Airports Act 1996 to ensure any further development under $10 million is subject to the same scrutiny currently imposed on major developments on airport land. Mrs Moylan4V5Mrs Moylan(from 1,004 citizens)392961783TRudd Kevin MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.This petition of certain residents of the State of Queensland calls on the House to advise the Federal Transport Minister to— not endorse any existing or future Masterplans for the Brisbane Airport which recommend a western parallel runway; provide a further opportunity for public consultation on new information contained in any existing or future Masterplans; and review current practices and initiate new measures to reduce noise levels and other forms of environmental pollution arising from aircraft using the existing runway.And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will forever pray.Mr Rudd83TMr Rudd(from 9,617 citizens)392115SU5Vaile Mark MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives Assembled in the Parliament:The petition of certain electors of the Division of Lyne draws to the attention of the House the strong case for funding to expand SBS Television services to the Lower Mid-North Coast through a transmitter on the National Transmission Agency site at Middle Brother Mountain, north of Taree.We the undersigned ask the House to draw this matter to the attention of the Minister for Communications so that he may pursue the matter as a high priority as part of the Federal Government's expansion program of SBS Television services across Australia.Mr VaileSU5Mr Vaile(from 115 citizens)39210257V5Williams Daryl MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.The petition of the undersigned shows that the monopoly presently enjoyed within Australia by certain businesses on the importation, sale and distribution of Laser Discs is detrimental to the majority of Australians.Your petitioners ask the House to change the Copy Right Act to include laser discs in the amendment covering compact discs.Mr Williams7V5Mr Williams(from 1,025 citizens)Petitions received.Address in Reply392392Debate resumed.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Before I call the honourable member for Braddon, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.15:15:00392Sidebottom, Peter, MPMr SIDEBOTTOM849BraddonALP01—Forty years ago the last Labor member for Braddon, Ron Davies, made his first speech in this House, where he remained until 1975. I am proud to share this occasion with him, and I certainly hope to share his longevity in the seat. Ron Davies congratulated the then Speaker on being elected unopposed to his position. I similarly congratulate the Speaker and ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl, to pass on my congratulations.The seat of Braddon, which I represent, is named after Sir Edward Braddon, a founding member of this House from 1901 to 1903 and a Tasmanian founding father of Federation. Giving me a real sense of occasion today is the fact that Sir Edward is buried only a short distance from my home in the beautiful township of Forth. The people of Braddon have been extremely loyal to their House of Representatives' members back to the turn of the century and the famous King O'Malley, the great initiator of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.Remarkably, between 1917 and 1998 there have been only nine members of this House from my electorate. This loyalty is based on the principles of trust and honesty: trust that what you say is what you mean and do, and what you mean is what you say. What better way to convey this to you than through the eyes of Abby Gardam, a 13-year-old Wynyard High School student who wrote to me after the election. I would like to share with you part of that letter, which states:Dear Mr Sidebottom,I am currently attending Wynyard High School and I am in Grade 8. I am only 13 but I'm worried about my future. If you think you can do anything or be anyone maybe you'd like to raise the amount of employment on the North-West Coast. How could one man try to rule the whole of Australia without doing anything about further education, resources and employment. A lot of teenagers are likely to end up stuffed on drugs, alcohol and cigarette smoking. If you really care you'd help our area overcome these troubles. It's not too late. If only you could bring the light to our lives so we can be what we wish, but without your help Sid we will just end up as no-hopers in the future.PS: You have what you want, how about giving us a go.I am sure that letter could be directed at many members of this House.After the federal election there was a lot of discussion about what constituted a mandate. In fact, nearly every editorial in every newspaper in Australia tried to define it. Well, my mandate is clear. It comes from the people of Braddon on the north-west coast of Tasmania. It is the same mandate that Labor members overwhelming received in other Tasmanian electorates of Denison, Lyons, Franklin and—joyously—Bass. It is the same mandate given to Labor members in this place by the majority of the Australian voting population. It is the same mandate that three Tasmanian Labor senators also gained from the election. The mandate that the majority of Australians gave to the parliament of Australia was that they did not want an unfair goods and services tax. Ask Tasmania's Liberal Senator John Watson if you want to know about that. They did not want the further sale of Telstra. They did not want more cuts to Commonwealth services, and they did not want any further breakdown of industrial relations in this country.It is sad for me to say that, like a number of regions around Australia, my electorate is in many ways in economic and social crisis. There is an air of melancholy. The actual electorate size in terms of voting numbers has dropped since 1996, making my electorate the smallest based on enrolment. It may be small in these terms, but it is big in terms of the heart and spirit of its people. Braddon is a coastal, urban and rural electorate, with its population of around 80,000 dispersed between two cities—Devonport and Burnie—and a number of coastal towns including Smithton, Wynyard, Penguin and Ulverstone. In Trivial Pursuit if you are asked what the nickname of the potato is, it is the spud, and it comes from Smithton, Penguin, Ulverstone and Devonport!My electorate also includes parts of the rugged West Coast and the beautiful King Island. I invite you all to visit. The main industries in this very rich and fertile soiled area are vegetable growing and processing, dairying production, forestry, paper production, textiles, carpet making, mining, engineering, fishing and tourism. The people of Braddon are a hardworking people and always have been. They are self-motivated, resourceful and enterprising. They have very strong links to their families and their communities. It was this great sense of community and belonging that attracted me to the North-West when I graduated from university to begin a teaching career at the Don College in Devonport in 1975.The people of my electorate are no different from people in other rural and regional electorates around Australia. They ask that their representatives understand their community—to understand the things that are important to them; the things that make or break them as communities. They are not interested in hearing promises they know cannot be kept. They are realistic enough to know what is achievable.There is a positive trend returning to politics today—a trend I feel was clearly demonstrated at the last federal election whereby people voted for candidates who have been part of their communities, who have strong grassroots affiliations with them, who are about face-to-face contact with their constituents and who are prepared to stand up for them. That was the traditional Labor way and it must continue to be in the future. I count myself as one of these. But, as we all know in regional Australia today, every battle is becoming harder and harder to win. One that we recently lost in my electorate was a campaign to save jobs when an industrial icon, the Burnie pulp mill, faced closure.I raise the issue of the Burnie pulp mill not because I wish to dwell on the past but because it is what has happened in the past that is now shaping the way the community is looking at its future. North-Western Tasmania is a region like so many regional areas across Australia: it is hurting badly. With an unemployment rate amongst the highest in the country, Burnie was dealt another devastating blow by the closure of the pulp mill. Over 200 direct jobs were lost. Some $10 million a year was lost in wages alone. Economic confidence was shattered, and the social fabric of our community took another beating. The former Liberal member for Braddon suggested publicly that the fate of the Burnie mill cost him victory at the last election. More to the point, I believe it was a case of paying for your mistakes. Failing to tune into a community is a mistake—one I will not make.The broader community of regional centres throughout Australia has put all politicians on notice. No longer can our needs and aspirations be paid lip-service. The Burnie pulp mill saga is a classic example of a lack of leadership, and the Howard government must shoulder some of the blame. It must send out a different signal to corporate Australia. It cannot simply sing to the tune of company chiefs and bow to the boardroom mentality of companies like Amcor. I note with interest that the Roy Morgan Research Centre report released last Friday said that big business had replaced unions as the perceived major cause of Australia's unemployment woes. It reported Australian shareholders felt that they were powerless to influence company decisions and saw business as self-serving and more interested in profits than people.The report also found Australians thought unemployment was the worst problem facing the country, that large corporations were the greatest contributors to the problem and shareholders would sacrifice dividends for jobs—I repeat, shareholders would sacrifice dividends for jobs. The North-West Coast of Tasmania knows this scenario only too well. How quick this government is to attack unions for the economic woes of this country. In this very chamber, the member for Wide Bay and, astonishingly, the former member for Braddon blamed the workers of the Burnie pulp mill for the dilemma which faced their industry. The Roy Morgan report clearly repudiates such a philosophy and so too did the people of Braddon on 3 October. There was more swing in Braddon than in the zoo.The federal government must play a much more proactive role in industry development and help nurture strategies that will keep the heart of regional Australia beating. You only have to look at the mountains of woodchips on the Burnie wharf awaiting export. It is a cruel irony that just a stone's throw away is a terminal pulp mill where the hopes of value adding and downstream processing have died a slow and painful death. The alarm bells will not stop ringing until dedicated industry and regional policies are put in place.The State of Our Regions report, recently presented to the Australian Local Government Association by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research, clearly highlights a worrying future for Australia's regions, with growing inequality in employment, income and investment. Again, this report echoes the cry of regions like my own. It calls for the federal government to develop a new and coherent economic agenda for regional Australia. You do not get a plea for a regional development policy if one already exists, and if one did I would have expected it to have taken hold in my electorate by now.The Tasmanian economy has a shrinking industrial base and, because of its geographic isolation and the low level of Commonwealth fiscal support, faces many unique challenges. Federal Labor's Tasmania package, announced prior to the October election, was a sincere attempt to address some of the major concerns. A key component of the package was to establish a regional infrastructure fund. It is critical and indeed reasonable to expect the Commonwealth to give regional centres a leg up in their efforts to attract industry to their areas.The federal government has said all its pre-election promises to Tasmania will be met, including $5 million for infrastructure for proposed magnesite mines in North-West Tasmania—but we are still waiting. The people of Braddon were assured in the last days of the election campaign that the Prime Minister would personally monitor and assist with this venture—so, too, the government's major projects team. Let's hope they have not forgotten where we are. It is heartening, however, to note the Commonwealth's $20 million pledge for the restoration of the historic and exciting ABT Railway on Tasmania's west coast. This appears to have been honoured to date.However, the federal government is still holding back on its commitment to a 1984 agreement which would see Tasmania receive some $170 million in dam compensation funds. And, in typical bully-boy fashion, John Howard refuses to forgive Tasmania's $150 million debt to the Commonwealth unless it agrees to privatise its energy assets. The people of Tasmania made it very clear what they thought of that proposal, and they will continue to make it clear. By comparison, federal Labor's Tasmania package pledged to release Tasmania of the debt, no strings attached.Why should cash-strapped Tasmania be forced to continue to contribute to this so-called black hole, which is now apparently brimming over with surplus funds if we are to believe the Treasurer? The Prime Minister's recent promise of $14.8 million in additional health funding for Tasmania has failed to materialise. Meanwhile, the new Tasmanian government has inherited a deteriorating health system. It is interesting, isn't it, that the Commonwealth, while starving my region and my state of money, has lost none of its appetite for the hard-earned dollar of ordinary Australians? The introduction of an unfair goods and services tax will further penalise Tasmanians.The federal government still wants to sell the remaining two-thirds of Telstra, but we cannot afford to lose what is a guaranteed dividend for the people of Australia. We must continue to fight to keep it in public hands. Labor recognises the importance of telecommunications to all Tasmanians, especially small business. We want the state to be a single untimed call zone, and only last Wed nesday I was pleased to hear Kim Beazley commit the next Labor government to this policy. This can only happen if Telstra is kept in public hands.In the Tasmania package Labor recognised the importance of the Burnie to Smithton Road, and I urge the Howard government to match Labor's $12 million commitment to this project. I promise shadow ministers on my side of the House I will continue to pursue this important policy initiative. The people of Circular Head expect nothing less from us.Under this Liberal government, services and jobs continue to diminish. Take for example the shameful and massive job cuts from Centrelink—jobs and services the North-West Coast can ill afford to lose. It just does not make sense. But that said, I can assure you the communities of the North-West Coast have not lost the desire to get in and have a go—to help ourselves. Let me make it perfectly clear: the people of Braddon are not interested in government handouts. What we need, and I fear may never get from this government, is the framework for a better Australia.So what of our future and the aspirations of our young people? For many young people in my electorate, it is not so much a future slipping away but one of them packing up and walking out. Youth unemployment is a disgrace. It is not a lack of willingness on their part; the simple fact is that jobs are not there nor is the incentive to continue their education. Greater emphasis should be placed on better resourcing our public schools, colleges and tertiary institutions, not cutting funds. The problems facing young people are exacerbated in my electorate by a very low participation rate in higher education. The obstacles for many are just too great. `Why bother?' many ask.Let me give you an example. The small but dynamic Burnie campus of the University of Tasmania offers an excellent postgraduate program in primary industry sciences, working with local industry, the Department of Primary Industry and TAFE. It is an excellent example of regional partnership.However, undergraduate students can study only one year of their courses on campus before they must leave the North-West Coast to complete their studies in Launceston, Hobart or interstate. This is an extra cost of some $10,000 per year on top of HECS, which in itself would be a millstone around the individuals' necks for years.This is a real example of regional need. Young people in Braddon need encouragement to grow in our region, to contribute at all levels to its development and culture and to remain here to work and live. To be able to start and complete undergraduate courses on the North-West Coast would be an achievable, sustainable investment in social and intellectual capital—that is, our future.My call for targeted regional policy is not the result of a handout mentality, contrary to what the former member for Braddon said after the election. It is in the name of a people used to doing things for themselves. It is a call for assistance at a time of crisis so that we can help ourselves. We have proved that we can do it in Braddon, for we have many success stories. We have the skills, the knowledge, the expertise and, most importantly, the people to compete with the best.It is my goal to see a West/North-West Regional Authority established to assist and promote economic development. We must aggressively market our region both within and outside Australia. There is everything to gain by doing business cooperatively, differently, aggressively, but in partnership. It can happen in Braddon only if we share the desire to make it happen.Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people who assisted me on my long journey to this House—in particular, Senator Kay Denman, Colette Chinn, Brenton Best, Michael Tate and all those ALP colleagues who have supported me since 1991.To achieve public office means scrutiny of character and personal qualities. Some of these in me, alas, are perhaps flawed, but others are for the better. I thank my mother and my father, who is with me today, for the core moral and social values that, along with their great love and affection, have shaped my life; my brothers and sister for their personal support; Margaret, Malcolm and Pauline and my long-time friends Kyron and Steve—who are also here with me today—Julie, Vanessa and Shane for showing me what friendship means; my first principal in my first and only college, Tom Bailey, for helping me to aspire; and my past students for keeping me in touch with the future.My campaign team never faltered in its support and hard work. Thank you to Meryl, Gloria, the two Kerrys, Cris, Norm and Kim. John Dowling, George Robertson, my friend Senator Nick Sherry and Paul Bini drove the campaign and my special mate Matt Tidswell made sure that there was a journey in the first place.My wife, Bronwyn, and my two beautiful sons, Julian and William, have supported me at every step along the way. I cannot begin to thank them enough for their love and understanding.The people of Braddon have honoured me with their support, and I will do my best to represent them with energy and integrity. Thirteen-year-old Abby Gardam said in her letter, `Sid, you have what you want; how about giving us a go?' Abby, you are right: I do have what I want, and that is the chance to make a difference, a positive contribution to our community. After all, Mr Deputy Speaker and colleagues, isn't this the real reason why all of us are here in the first place?UNKNOWNOpposition membersOpposition members—Hear, hear!10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Before I call the honourable member for Kalgoorlie, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.15:35:00396Haase, Barry, MPMr HAASE84TKalgoorlieLP11—I thank the House for the consideration extended to me on this the occasion of my first speech. I thank also the people of the Kalgoorlie electorate for the faith they have placed in me. To be elected to represent those people in the 39th Parliament is an honour that I humbly accept and a responsibility I do not take lightly. I consider it a great privilege to be here to represent and serve the people of the electorate of Kalgoorlie.I say `the electorate of Kalgoorlie' to highlight the difference between the very productive and progressive city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and the 2,300,284 square kilometre electorate to which Kalgoorlie gives its name. My electorate is the largest in the world, covering 91 per cent of the state of Western Australia, from the Great Southern Ocean to the Timor Sea and from the Indian Ocean to the state border with the Northern Territory and South Australia. From north to south it is more than 20 degrees of latitude, or 2,430 kilometres and 1,621 kilometres wide at its widest east-west point. This electorate, with an enrolment of 80,000 people, is also the most sparsely populated.The enormous distances and the vast areas are the major factors contributing to the diversity of the electorate. Climatic conditions are so diverse that, when the grain producers of the Southern Cross district recently had their yield expectations slashed by unseasonal frosts, cattle producers in the Kimberley were being hampered by early monsoonal rains. When deep-sea fishing crews are being lashed by winter storms off the coast of Esperance, miners in the Pilbara are utilising precious water for dust eradication programs.However, it is also this contrast that adds great value to our high quality horticultural products. While southern parts are in the grip of winter, producers in Kununurra, Broome and Carnarvon are harvesting premium fruit and vegetables for both southern and Asian markets.In much of the electorate, this climatic contrast is responsible for our ever-increasing popularity with both Australian and overseas tourists. The magnificent cloudless winter days of the Pilbara, Gascoyne and Kimberley encourage visitors to keep coming back, year after year. Travellers will marvel at the vibrant colours of the wild flowers in the Murchison and Gascoyne; the spectacular Karajini National Park in the Hamersley Ranges; and Monkey Mia on Shark Bay, world famous for the opportunity it provides for interaction between humans and regularly visiting dolphins.The town of Denham provides visitors with a base from which to visit Dirk Hartog Island, the site of the first European landing in Australia in 1616. Further north, the waters of Ningaloo Marine Park, off Coral Bay, provide the most accessible and extensive display of living coral in Australia: just stroll into the water from a magnificent beach. The Dampier Archipelago not only is the site of Australia's largest tonnage port and of Woodside Petroleum's hi-tech onshore installation but also provides the best recreational fishing in Australia. One has only to experience it to believe it.Broome, with its multicultural heritage, is already rightfully known as the `Bali of Australia' and, as a setting-out point, allows visitors to discover and explore the rugged Kimberley region first-hand—places like the majestic Bungle Bungles, spectacular Kings Canyon and Prince Regent Falls, Geiki Gorge, Winjana Gorge, Tunnel Creek and the many fascinating sights along the Gibb River Road.If you are lucky enough to fly over the tidal whirlpools and horizontal waterfalls off Derby, you start to realise the enormous power of tidal movement. Derby is already the focus of an extensive study into the viability of constructing a tidal power station. In the near future, given a reasonable level of cooperation between the proponents and all levels of government, we should reap the benefits of this infinitely renewable and non-polluting power source.In the far north, as the Northern Road gateway to the electorate, is Kununurra. With the life-giving resource of Lake Argyle—formed by damming the mighty Ord River—with a capacity approximately 21 times greater than that of Sydney Harbour, Kununurra and its nearby port of Wyndham have a lot more to offer the visitor than crocodile farms and barramundi fishing.If I sound like a tourism promoter, I am unapologetic. These are just a few of the unforgettable locations within my electorate, all of them best enjoyed when the southern populations are shivering in the gloom of winter. Conversely, the coastal ports of Esperance and Kalbarri—with the majestic Bay of Isles and the impressive surf at Red Bluff, respectively—and the spectacular Murchison River gorges are more popular for their cooling sea breezes during the summer months.Whilst I am mentioning tourism, one of the most outstanding proposals amongst many that have my support is the upgrading to all-weather status and promotion of the outback highway linking Winton in Queensland, through Alice Springs and Uluru, to Laverton in my electorate, thus giving direct access to the goldfields and the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. When complete, this transport artery will offer huge benefits, not only for the communities along the way and for tourism, but also for the exploration and mining industry and for strategic planners. Patrick Hill and his committee deserve recognition and support for their untiring efforts in promoting this project. In this climate of cooperation and reconciliation, conferring the status of `Road of National Importance' by this government would be fitting recognition.Perhaps the only facts more remarkable than the size of my electorate are the diversity of its production and its export income earning capacity. In 1997-98, this one electorate contributed one-quarter of Australia's total export income. The minerals industry is the mainstay of the economy, underpinning the performance of a wide range of other industry and service sectors and providing the stimulus for economic growth. The total value of minerals, including petroleum production, is around $16 billion. Add to this the outstanding production of grain, wool, fish, pearls, sheep, cattle and horticultural products and you start to realise the tremendous significance of this area. On average, each member of the total work force earns for Australia approximately $150,000 of export income per annum.The major mineral industries include iron ore in the Pilbara region, gold and nickel in the Yilgarn bloc, diamonds in the Kimberley and the LNG and oil industries of the North West Shelf. More than $4.8 billion is spent annually on exploration and development for minerals and energy. The Kalgoorlie electorate is one of the world's major mineral producing provinces. It is also an important producer of many other minerals, including copper, silver, lead, zinc, tin, tantalite and manganese, together with many non-metallic minerals, including salt, gypsum, limestone, rare earths, garnet, felspar and diatomaceous earth. Our minerals industry has many strengths. These arise from a combination of world-class resources, a skilled work force, innovative work practices, utilisation of leading-edge technologies and a developing framework of support services.I believe the House has a reasonable expectation that I should explain my association with the electorate, the background from which I emerge and the strengths I bring to this parliament. I was born in the electorate 53 years ago in Southern Cross. My father, Frank, owned and worked the Francis Furness Goldmine in Marvel Loch. My great-grandfather, August, was sent to Australia as a young man from Magdeburg on the Elbe, in those days part of the Prussian Empire.In 1905 my grandfather, George Gotlieb, left a small dairy property on the Barwon river in Bareena, part of the Geelong district, to clear by hand a 1,500-acre property at Shackleton in the Bruce Rock district of Western Australia. We moved to Shackleton in 1950 after the death of my grandfather, and I attended primary school there. I was brought up in a well-disciplined family, where politics was not discussed; and my mother, Thora, taught me that necessity was the mother of invention and that charity begins at home.I completed my formal education in Perth at junior level and joined the Royal Australian Navy. My sea duty on HMAS Diamantina took me to many South-East Asian and Indian Ocean ports. After graduating from this university of hard knocks, I joined a catering management company; married my wife, Dallas; purchased a house; took up technical college management courses; joined Rostrum; and became involved with the West Australian Debating League.In 1977 I took leave and spent 12 months working around rural Australia. I worked in all manner of unskilled jobs, including those of deckhand, barman and builder's labourer. Those experiences taught me that most rural Australians have a simple desire for both good seasons and a fair go.In 1978 with my wife, Dallas, and children, Shane and Danielle, I moved to Karratha, some 1,600 kilometres north of Perth, where I worked as a subcontractor in the airconditioning industry. The intended 12-month stay became 20 years. Such is life in the Pilbara. During those 20 years we established a business, raised two children, built two houses, developed a property portfolio, owned and operated a delicatessen and joined many community groups.Those years spent in the Pilbara—travelling great distances, working with construction crews, participating with communities and having the opportunity to associate with pastoral station people, whom I consider to be the absolute salt of the earth, and with battlers old and young who keep trying regardless of seemingly insurmountable obstacles—presented me with experiences which have helped forge my own beliefs: maximum personal freedom with matching responsibility, practical compassion for those in need, commitment to progress, faith in our ability to make the future good and lawful order which guards and upholds these principles.I believe I am qualified to speak on the many problems which need to be addressed in order to make living in the remote areas of this electorate easier, not more difficult. This government has committed itself to Aboriginal reconciliation. Without doubt the most significant obstacle to economic progress in my electorate is the yet unresolved question of native title claims. If we are to effectively embrace true reconciliation, we must first satisfactorily address the question of native title. Parliamentary representatives within the Kalgoorlie electorate must ask themselves whether they serve their party or the people of their electorate.There are concerns about the impact of national competition policy on the ability of rural and regional local government and the small business community to operate efficiently. Are we focusing too much on the economic wellbeing of the nation, and is this agenda being driven by city based decision makers with no real understanding or concern for communities in regional Australia? We must ask the question: are we endeavouring to create healthy communities in the bush, or are we simply looking for economic excellence?In the Pilbara and Goldfields regions especially, the first body blow dealt to the strong communities was the imposition of Labor's fringe benefits tax. This has led to a steady reduction in the population with the introduction of fly-in fly-out arrangements for the work force. A rationalisation of this situation has led, I believe, to the introduction of 12-hour shifts, and this has exacerbated the situation. We now have difficulty in fielding teams for the many sporting activities that once formed the backbone of communities.The satisfactory passage of our proposed new tax legislation through the upper house will see the removal of the fringe benefits tax from accommodation provided by mining companies. This, we all hope, will see a reversal in the fly-in fly-out process. However, the removal of this insidious fringe benefits tax needs to be extended to cover all accommodation provided for employees in remote areas.Communication—or should I say the lack of infrastructure for effective communication—is still causing a major problem in remote areas. Once again there is a strong perception within the electorate that the majority of the policy is being developed by city based technocrats with a lack of understanding of the practical problems in the bush. The best theory in the world often fails to appreciate that, in the vast pastoral area, homesteads exist without the provision of 24-hour power to drive such technology.Much has been said over the years by governments of various persuasions about decentralisation. One of the policies that was designed to ease the additional hardship of living in remote areas was the taxation zone rebate allowance. It is harder and more expensive to live in remote Western Australia than it is to live in cities. It is time that increases in compensation were made to address cost disparity between city and remote area living.The electorate of Kalgoorlie is vast and sparsely populated. It has extremely high mineral wealth and potential for greater achievements. The important commodity missing is people. We need to concentrate on solutions that will put populations into this vastness. The old catchphrase `populate or perish' still has popular usage in the North-West today. We have enormous capacity for supporting a very large population. Like it or not, there is a great lack of stability in the countries to our north. With the density of population existing in those traumatised regions, it is not inconceivable that one day we may be embroiled in disputes requiring very strenuous defence of this region. The simple truth is: if we as a nation do not concentrate our efforts in developing and populating this region, some other power may attempt to do so. One of the most complex and, I believe, most significant issues in the shaping of our future society is the destruction of the family. The cause of breakdown of relationships is an area that I will not attempt to address except to say that in too many cases fly-in fly-out arrangements do not help. It is the aftermath of, and the further unnecessary devastation caused by, decisions of the Family Court that deserve our fullest attention.The Family Court and the controls placed by the Child Support Agency are creating a cohort of second-class citizens. As a result, many people are marginalised. The statistics in my electorate indicate that 3,800 non-custodial parents are affected, but that is not the end of this issue. Many current partners of the non-custodial parents—and the children from the second family for which they are now responsible—are inextricably damned by decisions made by the Family Court. The act that encourages this unfair situation is the Family Law Act of 1975. In the last 23 years, the economic and parenting roles of men and women have irreversibly changed, to the point where this legislation no longer reflects the role models and aspirations of society. The Child Support Agency—supposedly the cheap, easy, flat formula method of child support which was meant to create a process to give satisfactory levels of child support—has created a rigidity that is leading to the destruction of non-custodial parents' lives.Events resulting from family breakdown in the last few months have been horrendous. The abductions, murders and suicides are the obvious symptoms; the not so obvious are the cost of support systems and voluntary unemployment—a pathetic waste of human resources. As a government strongly supporting the integrity of the family, we should all be concerned that non-custodial parents face many onerous and debilitating obstacles. The decisions made by the Family Court often see the custodial parent awarded the family home and the non-custodial parent responsible for paying the bills.Income and asset assessment is undertaken by the Child Support Agency to calculate the level of support payable. This assessment process results in a payment by the non-custodial parent of a percentage of their gross wage of between 18 and 30 per cent. In the majority of cases in my electorate, the tax payable is 47 per cent. The result of this impost is a disposable income that in many cases prevents any reasonable quality of life. If a new partner contributes to the household income of the non-custodial parent, a further assessment by the Child Support Agency will increase the amount payable. Taxing child support payments as income of the recipient and allowing a tax deduction to the non-custodial parent would at least offer some economic justice to this draconian act.To make matters worse, access to children can be thwarted by the custodial parent. Sadly, and too often, an ex-partner will use the children as a tool to further hurt and humiliate. It is in many ways a biased and unhealthy arrangement. By way of solution, many non-custodial parents come to my electorate to make the most of high-income situations in order to meet the prohibitive costs of Child Support Agency rulings. The cycle, however, continues: the more they earn, the more they pay.A 1997 study by Professor Pierre Baume, head of the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, found that 70 per cent of suicides were related to relationship breakdown. With the number of suicides each year in Australia now at an obscene level of 1,810 lives, I am invariably led to conclude that too many of these unnecessary deaths are directly attributable to the original rulings of the Family Court. The strongest evidence indicates one life lost per day.The plight of Aborigines in detention in this country and the number of deaths in custody resulted in a royal commission. What further increases in this tragic figure will be tolerated before a decision is made to hold a royal commission into the often unfair and unjust decisions of the Family Law Court that place in jeopardy the very heart of our society—the Australian family?Before I conclude, there are many people to whom I give my thanks for the hard work and dedication they offered to my campaign: my executive committee; many Liberal Party parliamentarians, both state and federal; the hardworking branch executives and party members; the 450 people that assisted by staffing 99 polling places throughout this huge electorate; the dedicated scrutineers who gave so much of their time during the 14-day count; longstanding loyal friends; and my brother Murray and sister Dianne.Finally, I thank Dallas, my wife of 30 years, and my children Shane and Danielle for their continuous support and great understanding. For the duration of the campaign they spent a great deal of time without support from me. I hope that, in being elected to this position, I can reward these people by bringing hard work and dedication to the position and achieving all that those great friends and supporters expect of me.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Before I call the honourable member for Canning, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to her the usual courtesies.15:55:00401Gerick, Jane, MPMs GERICK83WCanningALP01—Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl, it is rather daunting to stand in this place for the first time to represent the people of Canning. Let me begin by congratulating you and, through you, the Speaker on being elected. I was particularly pleased by the Speaker's comments that he intended to ensure that high standards are achieved in this chamber. I am sure that we are all dismayed by the low regard parliamentarians are held in by many of our constituents. There is no doubt that this is in part due to the behaviour they see televised from this place on a regular basis.I grew up in Wiluna, a small and isolated community in the desert country of the northern goldfields in Western Australia. An old drover who used to bring cattle down the Canning Stock Route told me when I was a child that if you were looking for dead or dying animals you looked for where the eagles were circling and that was the place to go. Let me tell the Prime Minister and his remaining colleagues that the eagles are circling in Canning and in many other parts of Australia over the unpopular and dead policies of the GST and privatisation.I expect we will hear much talk of a mandate over the next few weeks. The electors of Canning have given me a clear and unambiguous mandate to oppose the GST and to halt the spreading tide of privatisation which is depriving my constituents of services and jobs. Mr Deputy Speaker, I can assure you that they will not find me wanting.The federal seat of Canning was created in 1949. I am the third member of the Australian Labor Party to represent this seat since it was created. Previous Australian Labor Party members for Canning include Wendy Fatin and George Gear. They have set a very high standard for me to follow. They have a reputation in the electorate of being hardworking local members who really cared about their communities.During the time they represented Canning, the resources and facilities were increased and improved. These included, to name just a few, during George Gear's time, ensuring that the Amaroo Retirement Village in Gosnells received their first allocation of nursing home beds, the development and massive improvement of the pedestrian mall in Armadale, funding to resurface the oval in Mundijong and the building of the new Armadale Sportsman's Club where I was pleased recently to attend the presentation night for the junior football league. It was great to see so many young people being rewarded for their participation in sport and to see that they so obviously enjoyed being part of a team.Since the election of the federal and state coalition governments, Canning has had a continual reduction of services. These include the closure of the Medicare office in Maddington, the closure of SkillShares, the closure of the Armadale Centrelink office and the downgrading of Centrelink in Pinjarra. This means that people are forced to travel some considerable distances to get the services they need. In the case of Pinjarra, the closest services are in Mandurah, a centre to which there is no linking public transport system available.A local Shire of Murray councillor told me that to the people of Pinjarra a bus is a large vehicle with lots of wheels that always goes somewhere else. Mind you, since the election of Liberal governments it is rare to see a bus at all, especially in the semirural parts of my electorate. During the campaign I met a young married couple. They were both unemployed, and they had two children. The husband, who was receiving unemployment benefits, was engaged in studies to improve his chances of getting a job. Because no training services were available locally he had to travel into the city each day. New rules imposed by the Western Australian government meant that this unemployed person was unable to use his travel concession card, which was costing him and his family, already struggling to make ends meet on unemployment benefits, an extra $50 a fortnight. The government talks about the assistance it gives to genuine job seekers, but in my electorate the reality is that those who are doing their best to find work in the face of the government's disastrous jobs policy find only government obstacles put in their way.It is the duty of all governments to encourage and assist people into work, not to put up barriers. All the government's rhetoric about its concern for families rings hollow to this family and to many like it who are coming to realise that this is a government for the rich, not for them. In Canning, we do not expect more than our fair share, but we are entitled to demand what all Australian citizens have a right to: access to an efficient public health care system; access to education and training, leading to greater opportunities; and access to free assistance in finding employment. For the past eight years I have owned City Business College, which is involved in the training of mature students in programs designed to lead to employment. I know first-hand the problems and frustrations of those struggling to find their places in the work force and in the world. It is tragic dealing with a person who believes that there is no hope for their future. Some time ago I had a young woman of 18, who was classified long-term unemployed, who had been to the college, completed a course and had been working for about three months, come back to the college to thank the staff for their help. She said that she had not believed that someone like her could ever have a job. As a country, we are doing something very wrong if we rob people of belief in themselves and their hope for the future. Dealing with the terrible results of unemployment and the insecurity of those in work who are afraid that they will lose their job is a priority of the Australian Labor Party. We on this side believe that it is vital to give people the skills they need to find work, it is vital to provide an efficient service to help people find work and it is vital to create a society where people do not live in fear of losing their work. Most importantly, we believe it is the responsibility of government to follow economic policies which have as their highest priority the provision of jobs for all of our citizens who want to work.This is not done by making it increasingly difficult to gain access to training and cutting staff numbers at Centrelink offices. Policies which strip our communities of services endanger our social fabric by creating unnecessary stress and hardship for individual Australians and their families. My supporters all rejected the callous and uncaring approach to these issues taken by the Howard government in its first term. Some of them were the so-called `Howard battlers' at the 1996 election. They are still battlers, but they are `Howard's' no more.No-one has a chance of succeeding in politics without those supporters, and a strong support of families, friends and colleagues. My special thanks goes to my mother and to my brother Alan, who are both here today and who have given me unstinting love and support. Without them I would not have the great honour of representing the people of Canning today. My thanks also go to the former members for Armadale, Bob Pearce and Kay Hallahan, and to the current member, Alannah MacTiernan, for their political guidance, encouragement and friendship since I joined the Australian Labor Party. I would also like to thank Senator Peter Cook, Paul Browning, Veronica Jeffery, my campaign team and the many volunteers, especially Len Harvey, who spent many hours working on the campaign. I also need to thank my college staff—Frances Cain, Kasey Evans and Natalie Swain—who kept my business going while I was out on the hustings. I also thank my students who put up with a tutor who was a tad distracted at times. My thanks go also to the state members of parliament and their staffs who worked so hard during the campaign. All of them have helped ensure that the Australian Labor Party won the seat of Canning. The federal seat of Canning is an outer metropolitan-rural seat in Western Australia. It is named after Alfred Canning, who was a surveyor in the state of Western Australia early this century. He was responsible for the rabbit proof fence and the Canning stock route, which ends near Wiluna and traverses the country in which I was born and raised.Growing up in Wiluna taught me from an early age the very best characteristics of what it is to be an Australian, and this played a large part in my decision to join the Australian Labor Party. Seeing my family put into practice the strong belief in a fair go for everyone and helping those in need gave me the example of what I believe it means to be a member of the Australian Labor Party. It is about creating a world where everyone has opportunities for development and advancement. Those who are having difficult times should be helped up, not kept down, or, as is often the case now, pushed beyond their personal and financial resources. In Wiluna everyone had a vital role to play and was conscious that their contribution was necessary to the success of community activities. There was a sense of being needed, belonging and knowing that their contribution counted.One of the major influences on my life was my father, who died when I was in my teens. My father believed that everyone had a duty to help those who needed it but without making a fuss about doing it. Everyone deserved a fair go, and if times were tough then help was given until they were on their feet again. This is the compassion and commitment we need to rebuild the communities which are under pressure today—all the more so with the withdrawal of vital services. Being part of a small country town means that I know that every person and every service is essential. To remove just one service or take away one job has a huge impact on the community. Rural towns need to be built up, not torn down.Last week I was in Pinjarra visiting Bedingfeld Park, which is an aged care facility which desperately needs nursing home beds. While there, I met Mr Easton who told me that it had been a very difficult decision for him to leave his home and to move into Bedingfeld. However, he had made that choice and did so wanting it to be his final move. If nursing home beds are not allocated to Pinjarra, it means that Mr Easton and many others like him face the trauma of having to leave their families and the area where they have spent their lives at the stage of their life where they deserve to be respected and cared for in their local community. We owe Mr Easton and each senior citizen the right to live and to be cared for close to home, for the many years of hard work they spent establishing in our country and, in many cases, fighting to ensure our freedom.The electorate of Canning covers nearly 3,000 square kilometres. It includes both urban and rural areas. There are areas of great beauty and value, including the stramatolites in Lake Clifton which are the best and oldest examples of stramatolites in the world. The heritage country includes some of the finest walk trails, tourism and recreation facilities in the metropolitan area.There are threats to the environment in some areas, particularly the proposed mining of mineral sands in the shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale, where residents are very concerned that if mining goes ahead their lifestyle will be completely destroyed. This is a battle that has gone on for over 10 years and means that residents are always on the alert, feeling under threat, and cannot fully enjoy the charm of where they have chosen to live. There are many industries which provide jobs and benefits to the residents of Canning, including mining in Pinjarra, forestry in Dwellingup, orchards and small to medium light industrial areas in the suburban areas. But the major provider of employment in Canning is small business.As a small business person, I understand the problems that those in small business experience. I believe that many people do not understand the long, hard hours worked, in many cases for little return, by many small business owners. To add to all the natural difficulties, it seemed to me that there was an ever increasing demand for me to spend time complying with new rules and regulations. The thought for most small business owners of having to spend half a day a week preparing paperwork for a GST is unbearable, not to mention that most businesses will have to spend at least $5,000 to get the necessary computer programs to do the paperwork. Understandably, many small businesses remain unconvinced about the benefits of a GST, either to themselves or to the community, and do not trust the government's hell-bent approach in the absence of the provision of comprehensive information about the impact of a GST on their businesses and the community at large.One of the major concerns of the residents of the Armadale region is the proposed privatisation of the Armadale Kelmscott Memorial Hospital. This hospital was built as a memorial to those who served in the First and Second World Wars. The local residents worked to raise the initial money to help purchase the land and have continued to work over the years to improve the services. I recently helped organise a public meeting, which over 1,000 people attended, to oppose the privatisation of the hospital. The overwhelming majority of those present believed that we deserve a publicly owned health service and that it was unreasonable to consider the privatisation of the hospital. I, with the local state member, Alannah MacTiernan, will continue to fight to have a first-class publicly owned hospital that is available to all members of the community.I am very pleased to be part of the Labor team, which has returned so many women to this 39th Parliament. I have been lucky to be part of a generation that has not suffered the discrimination of previous generations of women. My family always expected that with work and dedication we would achieve whatever we wanted. The fact that I was a female was not a consideration. My electorate office team consists of three capable, young, enthusiastic and committed women who will further advance the role of women in politics.I was lucky to be part of a generation that grew up in a time of optimism. I was at school in a time when going to year 12 was taken for granted, followed by further study, which was affordable by all. This is hardly the case today, with governments making further education difficult and costly to obtain for many of our young people. It is hard to see how the community benefits from this apparent desire to return to the times of previous generations when only the children of the wealthy were able to go on to study and receive qualifications which could lead to a career. For my peer group it was taken for granted that at the end of study work would be available, and this would be a job for life.The generations that are now reaching adulthood are faced with problems that did not exist in my youth. We are faced with an ever increasing number of young people who are deciding to take their own lives because the choice to live is too difficult. It must be a priority for the government to put in place education programs to help young people cope with the problems they are facing.I recently went to the Armadale Drug Arm Group, which is a non-profit organisation which helps mainly young people with drug dependency problems, and the Armadale Youth Accommodation Group, which provides emergency accommodation for young people who have nowhere to live. These groups do a marvellous job of providing the services and support that young people need. It is perhaps difficult for those of us who come from strong families to understand that not all people have the certainty of a family support basis, and it is up to a caring government to provide a safety net, if it is needed.While I am very concerned about those Australians who are doing it unnecessarily tough at the moment, I believe Australia is a country which enjoys many advantages—the vision of an Australia where the spirit of a fair go and mateship can be rekindled if the priority of the government is the greatest good for the greatest number, where all people have access to a free education system and where a first-class public health system is not an impossible dream.One of the most enjoyable aspects of being a candidate, and now the member, for the seat of Canning has been the opportunity to meet so many marvellous volunteers and community groups who do so much good work in keeping with a tradition of an Australia that cares—the home help groups in Armadale and Gosnells, which are helping our senior citizens stay in their homes for as long as possible, and the community centres, which provide programs for children and families. Having visited these centres, one cannot help but believe that optimism is not misplaced. If we concentrate on these positive values, we will be helping to build strong and vibrant communities.I appreciate the faith the people of Canning have put in me and the Australian Labor Party. My team and I will work hard to ensure that everyone is fairly represented and to improve the facilities and resources in the area. Over the next three years I look forward to being part of a Beazley team working to improve the conditions of workers and their families in Australia. It is of great concern to those of us on our side to see the government continually trying to take away the working conditions that previous generations of workers had fought so hard to achieve. They seem to believe that workers should have few rights and should be grateful for any work under any conditions. I believe that the last thing we want to see happen in Australia is the development of a class of the working poor. The jobs we create must be real jobs with real wages so that people can meet their responsibilities.In three years time I look forward to being a member of a Beazley government, one which has a great Western Australian as a leader and one which will strive to recreate the climate for a decent society where opportunities are increased rather than diminished. Until then, I will strive to provide the first-class representation that the electors of Canning deserve and to voice in this parliament, the heart of our Australian democracy, the concerns of my people.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—Before I call the honourable member for Moore, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.16:15:00405Washer, Mal, MPDr WASHER84FMooreLP11—Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and may I congratulate you on your election. It is a privilege to stand before this House and represent the electorate of Moore, the third fastest growing region in Australia. Situated in the outer northern metropolitan region of Perth, Moore comprises the southern area known as the City of Joondalup and the northern area designated as the Shire of Wanneroo. Joondalup has a population that is stabilising since most of the residential land has been developed. Wanneroo is the focal point for future residential development with a predicted fivefold increase in population by the year 2026 to approximately 440,000 people.The electorate of Moore covers an area of around 670 square kilometres with the suburbs of Duncraig and Sorrento to the south. The spectacular white beaches of the Indian Ocean border the west, and the northbound Mitchell Freeway and Lake Joondalup create the eastern border. The electorate then branches further east incorporating the horticultural regions of the Wanneroo Shire. The crayfishing town of Two Rocks is on the northern border.The electorate is named after George Fletcher Moore, an Irish immigrant who landed in Western Australia in the town of Fremantle in 1830. He obtained a grant which he called Millendon in the Swan Valley. He was a lawyer in Ireland, but farming in the colony temporarily replaced his interest in the law, and by 1884 he owned 24,000 acres. He was a diarist and explorer, finding grazing and agricultural land near the rural town of Northam, around 100 kilometres east of Perth. George Moore became the colony's first Advocate General in 1834. He demonstrated a sympathetic concern for the Aborigines, learning much of their language and stories. Sadly, after a misunderstanding over absentee pay while visiting his ageing father in Ireland, he resigned, ending a distinguished career in Australia.The great resource of the electorate of Moore is its people. Currently, they are mostly Australian born, with a high percentage of young people and families. The electorate offers home buyers good quality land along the coastal belt with the excellent Mediterranean climate for which Western Australia is famous. We have a highly skilled work force with 15 per cent of the population with degrees and diplomas. The strong population growth in the region requires considerable public expenditure on transport and infrastructure to help promote regional employment self-sufficiency. Currently, the region is in danger of becoming what is known as a dormitory suburb. Only 26 per cent of the population live and work in the region compared to around 40 per cent for the rest of Perth.The lack of jobs within part of the electorate is a serious problem, with the Wanneroo area having nearly a 12 per cent unemployment rate, more than double the rest of the electorate. Youth unemployment in the region of Wanneroo is also significantly higher than the state average. This is partly due to the tyranny of distance and the need for additional transport facilities, presenting a challenge for young people in outlying areas of Moore to travel to work and higher education.Because most of the population of Moore travels out of the electorate to work, a strain is placed on the transport infrastructure, meaning overcrowded trains during peak hour and a freeway that often resembles a slow-moving snake meandering its way to the Perth CBD. It is estimated the cost of annual car travel saved from raising the local employment levels from 26 per cent to 45 per cent could be as high as $25 million by the year 2011 and the saving on rail travel as high as $27 million.The Shire of Wanneroo, one of the two local government areas in the electorate, is among the state's top three agricultural regions in terms of value of production. This emphasises the need to preserve the main market garden areas of Wanneroo and Carabooda. I certainly declare an interest in this region as my family lives and works on a 60-acre property at Carabooda, mainly in the avocado and wine industries. Poultry meat in this region is worth more than $38 million a year and horticulture—that is, vegetables, fruit, flowers, et cetera—is valued at greater than $56 million a year. In fact, such is the intensity of the use of land that the value per hectare in this region in produce is the second highest in WA.Because of the new trend in the use of limestone in the building industry, limestone mining has flourished along a strip a few kilometres from the coast. Two Rocks in the north is based around an active crayfishing industry. Tourism is set to be a major business in the electorate, taking advantage of our exquisite coastline which stretches in pristine condition for many kilometres. New marinas in the future will no doubt mirror the success of existing marinas at Hillarys and Mindarie, which produce valuable tourist dollars.Environmental tourism is becoming more important to the electorate and more marine parks need to be established. I am looking forward to both the Yellagonga and Yanchep national parks being upgraded as they are both fine examples to encourage ecotourism. Hopefully we will establish marine research facilities along the coastline to improve coastal management and engage in effluent research, sea safety and pollution control.Other issues of environmental importance include the protection of the underground aquifer known as the Gnangara Mound, which provides most of the water for the northern suburbs of Perth and irrigates our horticultural regions. Also we will improve the quality of our unique freshwater lake systems with improved environmental management. Over 20 years it is hoped that we will harvest the pine plantations in the north-east region of the electorate, re-establish the region with native flora and fauna, and create an attractive tourist park with recreational areas. Aquaculture and marine biology will be encouraged, particularly in the northern coastal regions, to attract jobs and tourists.To create employment opportunities in Moore we need to build on the strengths of existing local industries. Moore has excellent educational facilities in the region with the Joondalup TAFE, Edith Cowan University and the Curtin University. The police academy will also be located in Moore in the near future. There is a need to coordinate these facilities and seek strong international demand, particularly in Asia, for such tertiary education.As the local federal member I intend to do all I can to attract job creating service industries in health, education and communication. A great example of this is the Royal Automobile Club's call centre, which was built in Joondalup as the organisation recognised this area's potential as a modern and vibrant city. Call centres should be marketed to international companies as the population of the electorate, many of whom speak a second language, are ideal employees.The idea is to make the area of Moore a high-technology and R&D region. The Joondalup Health Campus is currently applying to become a teaching hospital. With its unique combination of public and private sectors and the close proximity to excellent tertiary facilities, the campus is set to become a national leader in health research, education and telemedicine—much of which could be exported to Asia.On a national level, information technology will be one of the largest job growth markets in the next century. Information technology will help promote industries relating to communications, microelectronics and nanotech nology—that is, molecular manufacturing. Computer software, including Internet and network software, will deliver higher skilled IT jobs requiring more graduates in science, mathematics and engineering. The growth in IT manufacturing turnover has been around 12 per cent per year in the 1990s. This century could be viewed as the century of physical sciences and technology. The next will be viewed as the biotechnology century, as our knowledge of biological systems translates into technological advances. Biotechnology will provide Australia with one of the greatest opportunities to really lead the world by example.Our ageing population will demand an increasing share of our health care. People will not only live longer but demand new technologies. We will need to target our treatments to those who will benefit most. Prevention of disease rather than treatment will be a primary goal. Both of these require research into the genetic basis of disease and the susceptibility factors associated with them.Increasing world population, coupled with reduced areas of agricultural land, will place greater pressures on food production. In the 21st century, the countries of Asia will emerge as a potent economic force. Consider the prediction that, on current economic growth rates, the People's Republic of China will have a larger economy than that of the USA by 2020, but land will become a limiting factor as Asia struggles to meet rising food demands.Australia is in a key position to deliver technology not only for our domestic market but also for the international market with new and improved crop varieties. Australia will improve yields and quality with genetically modified grains that will save land and reduce the input of nutrients, water and damaging chemicals, avoiding what is known as the silent spring scenario.Also let us be mindful of the fact that industries in the future will seek more food ingredients rather than raw commodities. While this may not replace commodities in the short to medium term, it is vital that our farmers have the opportunity to participate in the value-added revenue stream that will come from wheat and other crops with unique end use properties.As the world becomes richer, people will focus more on the quality of life. We have the knowledge and the educational facilities to provide for major biotechnology industries, but we lack the associated thriving business community. This, I believe, will have the greatest potential for us all. Australia needs venture capital. This means tax incentives, not grants, and in particular reduced capital gains tax for high-tech companies. We need to return to the 150 per cent R&D tax incentive with syndication incorporating strict policing to ensure they are applied legitimately.There will be a need for freedom to operate. Government institutions should not compete with private enterprise in this field, but cooperate. Partnerships between government and private industries with government assisting in the provision of international patent law information should enable us to license our innovations abroad.Science is an international community and barriers to mobility have to be low. Where necessary, immigration requirements for top quality scientists to enter Australia need to be fast-tracked. Universities and biotech companies need to work in close cooperation for the benefit of training our future scientists and sharing facilities and worthwhile projects. No single country has a monopoly on agricultural innovation and in the field of molecular biology Australia lies in the forefront in several key areas, but we need to encourage Australian scientists to protect their intellectual property. Let us not miss out on this revolution, for if we do we will face a future where foreign multinationals will own the rights to our crops and pharmaceuticals.So much for the vision of the immediate future for Moore. But what about now? In the area of health we still have the problem of long public waiting lists for elective surgery. Also in some regional areas, even in the electorate of Moore, there are inadequate numbers of primary care doctors. The unrealistic expectation that many people have regarding full and universal public medical coverage whilst maintaining low and globally competitive taxation rates is not sustainable.Our greatest hope of maintaining a high quality, user-friendly health system is to ensure that those who can afford to contribute towards the cost of their health are encouraged to do so. This way the public system can more efficiently care for those on lower incomes. Private health insurance membership rates have declined since the introduction of Medicare in 1984 to a current low of 30 per cent. There are two reasons, mainly, why this has occurred. Firstly, there is the cost of premiums and the conundrum of the gap, which can be substantial and is mostly paid for by the patient. Secondly, the shift of insured people to non-subsidised private hospitals has helped to increase the premiums.The government is to be congratulated on planning a 30 per cent rebate on private insurance payments from January next year. The introduction of the Medicare levy surcharge for high income earners was also a welcome move. Now we must address and solve the problem of the gap. The good news is that hospitals have improved their management skills through restructuring and utilising information technology as well as incorporating other related facilities. However, we still face problems in the service areas of casualty and outpatient departments. The advent of endoscopy and minimal invasive surgery has reduced bed stays. More after-care is now being conducted at home by experienced nursing staff, who could also be utilised in primary care.As a medical practitioner for 26 years working in the electorate, there naturally is a higher expectation on me to ensure improvement in this field. Our seniors must be rewarded for the remarkable role they have played in building the Australia we all enjoy today. It is our civic responsibility to ensure that the elderly have the independence and the quality of life they deserve. Too many are lonely and isolated from the communities they live in and too many are neglected when they could offer so much in talent and experience.I would like to see the narrowing of the void between our elderly and our young by promoting programs in the community for both these groups to come together. Some societies, for example Asia, gain major social and educational benefits from this liaison. It is a tragedy that this does not occur enough in Australia. The structure of many of our suburbs has too often allowed our young people to be frustrated and angry and to behave in an antisocial manner, leading to crime, vandalism, graffiti and drug abuse. I am happy to report that many groups in our community are now addressing this problem. There is still, however, room for improved coordination of these groups and the need for more sporting and leisure facilities for young people.The constituents of Moore are growing increasingly concerned with the rising crime rate. They are demanding minimal tolerance to criminal behaviour and no tolerance at all to violent behaviour, particularly against the most vulnerable in our community. There is a definite demand for punishment that fits the crime. Again, as always, prevention is better than punishment and the residents of Moore are becoming more community spirited, with many local groups leading the way. They need all the support we can give them.Lastly, may I compliment the Howard government on its tax package. I wish it its rightful passage through the Senate. Without this government's fiscal responsibility, Australia would be in a much worse position because of the Asian economic meltdown.I also want to take this opportunity to offer my thanks to the people who supported me in the Moore campaign. My thanks go to my wife Nola, children Stewart and Elaine and their spouses Pattie and Craig; my chief of staff Gloria Riley; the President of the Moore Division of the Liberal Party, Greg Sharp; Senator Alan Eggleston and staff; and to all the local state MLAs and MLCs and their wives, especially Tess MacLean and Sue Johnson.My thanks go also to David Ellis, Denise Hanley-Miller, Mary Anglin, Ian Goodenough, Michelle De Boer, Tirzah Bell, Ted Dickenson, John Elkington, Gary MacLean and two very special people, Ted and Mark Warren. For their advice and support I thank those at Menzies House: Peter Wells, Brendan Cooper and the President of the Liberal Party in Western Australia, David Johnston.Of course, you cannot win an election without the tireless volunteers, such as those who doorknocked with me and staffed the polling booths, and I offer them my gratitude. Thanks must go to those in the Moore electorate, many of whom were patients, who gave me this opportunity to be here today. I look forward to working with them over the next few years and I can promise them that I will do all in my power to achieve our goals.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!Debate (on motion by Mr Melham) adjourned.Grievance Debate409Question proposed:That grievances be noted.40916:36:00409Crosio, Janice, MPMrs CROSIO7T4ProspectALP00—Earlier this year I introduced into this House a private member's bill—the Employee Protection (Wage Guarantee) Bill 1998—the sole purpose of which was to protect the entitlements of workers in the event of employer insolvency by requiring employers to take out wage insurance on their employee's behalf.While receiving strong support from my colleagues in the opposition—and not a little furtive support from my fellow members on the other side—my bill, and subsequently the issue of protecting workers' entitlements, was allowed a paltry half an hour's worth of second reading debate before it was consigned to the dustbin of history by the Minister for Workplace Relations and Small Business.However, under pressure to be seen to be doing something about protecting workers' entitlements, the minister referred the issue to a meeting of the Labour Ministers Council in Wellington on 1 May this year. The LMC subsequently passed the buck again, requesting that its advisory board, the Departments of Labour Standing Committee, or DOLAC, consider and prepare a report on the matter.In doing so, the minister effectively poured cold water on one of the most important social reforms still left undone by an Australian government. Who knows when DOLAC will finish its report? Who knows how long the LMC will consider the report before making its recommendations? Who knows how long it will take for the Howard government to act on those recommendations, if ever? The minister has provided none of these answers. No commitments whatsoever have been given. In fact, the Treasurer was heard to say in a radio interview during the election campaign that the problem of protecting workers' entitlements was now completely solved—it was over and done with. To me that sounds like the matter has been well and truly swept under the carpet.Meanwhile the parliament's, the public's and the media's interest in the subject has moved on. Nobody seems very much interested in making sure that Australian workers are protected from being robbed of their legal entitlements when employer insolvency strikes. This is an issue that is too important to let die. I, for one, will not let it, and the Labor opposition certainly agrees with me. The former shadow minister for industrial relations had prepared a bill, the Employment Security Bill, for introduction into this parliament had Labor won the previous election. This bill contained the necessary reforms to make sure, once and for all, that the wage entitlements of workers would never not be paid following insolvency. It would have also compelled companies to be more accountable and legally bound them to live up to their responsibilities to their workers. The coalition took no such policy into the last election. They did not think workers' entitlements, let alone employment security, were worth bothering about.Australian workers, many of whom at this moment could be working for an employer nearing insolvency and subsequently facing the loss of their legal entitlements, are receiving no assistance or encouragement from this government. As for those workers who have already lost their wages and long service leave and redundancy pay due to employer insolvency, they are not receiving any comfort either. The Cobar miners, for example, so disgracefully robbed of over $10 million of their legal wage entitlements by the multinational mining giant Ashanti in January this year, are still waiting for a full settlement of their entitlements. Former miners, the ones who have not been able to leave Cobar and their families to find a job and those who have not yet qualified for welfare benefits, are subsisting on food parcels and charity from the local churches. Some will not qualify for benefits until February 1999. I wonder what sort of Christmas these families will be having.The failure of the current legislation to protect the Cobar miners and other workers in their predicament from unscrupulous employers like Ashanti should be a stinging embarrassment to us all as legislators in this House. For that failure, blame can be levelled at both sides in this House. But only one side now has the capacity to act so that that failure is redressed.Ashanti's reneging on its responsibilities to pay the entitlements of the Cobar miners has not only created havoc, upheaval and severe hardship in the lives of many hundreds of miners and their families; it has ripped and teared at the very heart of Cobar itself. The small businesses of Cobar—a section of the Australian community that was meant to have a champion in the form of this government—have been crippled by this whole affair. Still the government remains deaf to their cries for help and mute as to what it intends to do to stop this carnage happening again in the future.As many members would know, similar stories to Cobar's have been found across Australia over the last 12 months—in Grafton, in Woodlawn near Goulburn, in Stawell, in Rockhampton and in Yeppoon—just as they have been found in previous years all over this country. They will be revisited again unless something is done now. Many members would have experienced businesses in their own electorates—both big and small—becoming insolvent and are aware of the hopelessness felt by employees and their families when they are not even able to access the wages, long service leave and redundancy pay, et cetera that is legally owed to them.Two and a half years ago in my own electorate, a large telecommunications company by the name of Exicom slipped into insolvency, leaving its 680 workers not only out of a job but without $17 million in their legal entitlements. In an area like mine, already suffering from crippling levels of unemployment, this was a devastating blow. Many of these employees had been with Exicom, or the company's previous incarnation, AWA, for over 20 years. Many of them came from non-English speaking backgrounds, had poor levels of education and had little prospect of being able to find further work. For these workers, losing their entitlements was especially cruel.Their long service leave entitlements were to have formed a nest egg for their retirement; it disappeared before their eyes like a puff of smoke. Rudely kicked out of their jobs, they would have sought comfort in the knowledge that, after serving the one company with such faithfulness for so many years, they would receive a generous redundancy payment. Again, they would receive nothing.Insolvency can strike through no fault of an employer. But it is the responsibility of an employer to make sure that if insolvency looms, the entitlements of the employees are protected and set aside. That is the employer's duty and obligation. Exicom betrayed that responsibility. It is because of companies like Exicom and Ashanti that we need legislation from this government that not only protects workers' entitlements but also makes companies more responsible for their actions. We need legislation that makes employers more accountable.As it stands, the only reason that the Australian Securities Commission was able to chase Ashanti and make sure it met the obligations of its junior-company, Cobar Mines Pty Ltd, is that Ashanti sent Cobar mines a `letter of comfort', which was later withdrawn. Without such a letter, the Cobar miners would have had no recourse to the law, no recourse to getting their money back and would be in an even more desperate situation than the one in which they currently find themselves.I am now told that the miners will not receive their majority payment, rumoured at this stage to be around 85c in the dollar, until mid-December or maybe later; they are still getting all the `maybes' in Cobar. For the full payment, the miners and their representatives will have to turn their fight towards Coopers and Lybrand, the accounting giant whose role in this whole sordid affair—which included advising Ashanti on ways that it could avoid meeting its responsibilities to pay the Cobar miners their entitlements—has been equally disgraceful.I know that the new member for Parkes has met with the miners and their representatives and has expressed support for them and their position. I know that he has also expressed to them his support for changes to the legislation that would protect workers' entitlements once and for all. I certainly welcome this news. I would welcome even more the new member for Parkes making it one of the priorities of his first term in office to join me in lobbying the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business for the laws to be changed so that his constituents are never robbed of their entitlements again.But on top of any change in legislation, I think we also need to see a change of attitude in the boardrooms and managerial offices of Australia with regard to insolvency, the employer-employee relationship and the status of workers. I view the trend of employers considering taking `the Cobar option'—of legally manufacturing their own insolvency as a means of shedding their employees and their responsibilities to them—as sickening as I find it un-Australian. It is a regret that any tightening of the legislation is necessary in order to combat employers who continue to view their workers as commodities to be used and abused within the grey areas of the law. Until we rectify this situation, until there are no more Cobars, companies both in and outside Australia will view this country as a place where they can `hang out their shingle' and recklessly carry out their business without responsibility and without heeding the consequences, the most serious being the destruction of many thousands of working Australian lives. This parliament has so far failed to provide the laws necessary to protect the entitlements of the Cobar miners and other Australian workers. The onus is on the current government to see that that failure is not revisited and does not continue. So far, I have seen nothing that makes me confident that it will do anything to effectively address this problem. I hope that members on the government side will join me in doing what they can to prod their ministers and the Prime Minister into action. I, for one, don't want to let the Cobar miners and their families and community to have suffered in vain. I also do not want to see it happen in any other areas around Australia.41216:45:00412Charles, Bob, MPMr CHARLESOT4LaTrobeLP10—Mr Deputy Speaker Jenkins, may I take this, my first, opportunity to congratulate you on your re-election to high office. It is well deserved.My grievance today is with the Australian nation for doing too little to research and develop energy from renewable resources. For a very long time we have known that our use of hydrocarbons which we burn to produce energy—and that is coal, oil and gas—would some day come to an end because they are finite resources. We cannot manufacture them from the air, and once they are gone, they are gone.It is time for us to examine the alternatives, for two very good reasons. The first is that we know the burning of hydrocarbons does affect the atmosphere; whether or not it produces a major greenhouse effect that will devastate the earth, we do know that pumping carbon into the atmosphere is not doing us any good. Secondly, we also know that as these natural resources we now burn begin to run out, begin to dry up, they will become more and more expensive.Basically, in Australia we burn coal in boilers to produce steam that drives turbines to produce electricity. Our secondary production of electricity is from damming our rivers and producing hydro-electricity.Australia has never seriously examined nuclear energy as a source, although we have vast reserves of uranium. Nonetheless, a nuclear alternative for Australia is politically unacceptable. However, there are a number of very acceptable alternative energy sources that Australia could use and on which we should be spending more money for research; we should be doing more to develop these alternative sources of energy. They include solar, solar voltaic, hydro-electricity, wind power, wave power, tidal power and geothermal power.Hydro-electricity generation is substantial and it will continue, but it is unlikely that major new installations will be planned in the future. Solar energy has absolutely huge potential, but the vast areas needed for solar collectors is likely to make this nonpolluting energy source politically and environmentally unacceptable as a complete major replacement for coal, oil and gas—although I can tell you that, during the latest natural gas problem in Victoria, I was delighted to have solar hot-water heating; it was indeed delightful. Wind energy plants have been built, but the power source is somewhat unreliable and unpredictable and, in my view, the towers are visually polluting.Our potential in two of these major areas of renewable resource energy development has been known for a very long time. It was back in 1963 that John Woods, an English engineer, came to Australia and researched the Kimberley. He produced a paper for the Institute of Engineers in which he described Australia's potential to develop tidal energy. That now is some 38 years ago, and we still do not have a tidal energy plant in Australia. I personally find that unacceptable, but I hope that we are on the way to our first plant.Tidal energy is really very simple. You have to have an area of very high tides—on average, over five metres—and narrow inlets or bays which can be dammed; the water flows in behind the dam and then, at low tide, back out again and through turbines; the water turns the turbines, the turbines turn generators and electricity is produced. There is a huge number of areas all through the Kimberley that are particularly suited to development of tidal energy.There are in the world two major installations. One is in France at Rance Bay. That station has been operating now for 30 years, producing 240 megawatts of electric power and with twenty 12-megawatt turbines operating. My understanding is that that station is just now going through a series of maintenance works, bringing those turbines up to scratch again. These facilities generally should have a lifetime of 120 years, with something like a nominal rebuild time for the turbines of 40 years. That means that the capital cost of tidal energy is very expensive but that the operating cost is very low. In 1963 John Woods, the engineer who wrote the paper, predicted that we had enough capacity by several times to power Australia.In November 1991 a Western Australian government committee tabled a report which dealt solely with tidal energy and the potential for hydrogen transmission developed from excess energy produced in the tidal station. That committee recommended that long-term plans be made to harness Kimberley tidal power as one of the range of renewable energy sources that Australia will need to employ to achieve sustainable development and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The very first station, as I have said, was built at Rance Bay on the west coast of France. The second station, of some 20 megawatts, was built at Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia, Canada, and was commissioned in 1984. Both those plants operate continuously. But now a company called Tidal Energy Australia, driven by another ex-Britisher Mr Peter Wood, has formed a company to build hopefully Australia's first tidal power station at Doctors Creek, Derby. The station would be unique in that it would be the second largest station in the world producing 48 megawatts of power with six 8-megawatt turbines. The output will be continuous because there will be two legs to Doctors Creek. The water will flow into one, be held back by gates and then allowed to flow continuously through the turbines into the second bay and then out to the sea. The station would power Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Broome and Western Metals.I understand that the Western Australian government expects to call tenders shortly and have tenders let by the end of January. I commend the government for taking that approach, and I certainly hope that we will see the tidal energy station in operation very shortly after the beginning of the new century.The second area of potential that we have is that of geothermal energy or hot dry rocks. It is essentially all about mining heat. There are two researchers at ANU, Dr Doon Wyborn and Dr Prame Chopra, who have really interested me in this technology. They have done a tremendous amount of research. They are part of a company called Hot Rock Energy Pty Ltd, and they hope to do experimental work near Newcastle in the Hunter Valley to produce steam from water that they pump down a deep well some four to five kilometres deep. They expect they will hit temperatures of 250 degrees celsius. They will bring the water back up again at that elevated temperature, superheat it and use it to run turbines to produce electricity. The potential there is enormous. There is enough potential in that one basin of the Hunter Valley, I am told, to provide three-quarters of New South Wales total power requirements in an absolutely non-polluting manner. Both of these technologies are known. They are proven. We know it will work. It is time for us to get on with it. (Time expired)41316:55:00413Mossfield, Frank, MPMr MOSSFIELDMK6GreenwayALP00—My grievance today goes to the general issue of the privatisation of government assets. The federal government's one-third sale of Telstra during the term of the previous parliament, the debate in New South Wales over the sale of the electricity industry and the Victorian government's decision to privatise its gas industry have all combined to draw public attention to the privatisation debate.Recent exposure of privatised utilities both in Australia and New Zealand has raised public concern about the value to the national interest of the privatisation program. For example, we have seen the failure of the Auckland power supply due to defective maintenance procedures. Whilst not yet priva tised, we have seen how an explosion in a gas plant in Victoria—the cause of which is being investigated by a royal commission—has caused major disruptions to industry and domestic life in that state. We have seen a health scare in New South Wales due to the discovery of giardia and cryptosporidium in the water supply. We have seen the appalling lack of consideration for customer convenience by the Commonwealth Bank in its closure of suburban branches and, only today, quite significant fee increases. We have seen the extraordinary large remuneration packages being awarded to CEOs of privatised companies, banks and BHP.We have seen the reported excesses in travel costs incurred by Telstra executives and Wall Street advisers on an overseas trip to sell Telstra shares. At the same time we have all been exposed to the viewing of considerable job losses occurring in privatised industries and government service departments like Centrelink. The public can see from these examples that the privatisation of government assets guarantees neither reliability of service, continuity of supply, safety for the general public or a fair distribution of the profits created by these utilities.There must be something drastically wrong when governments sell enterprises that the government already owns to find out that the public is worse off in terms of service and reliability. There seems to be an unsustainable allegation that privatisation allows the mums and dads of Australia to share in this country's future, but it tends to be the most financially secure mums and dads who will benefit from dividends and the less fortunate who will pay higher prices to obtain this result. It is unlikely that the working mums and dads with kids to educate and a mortgage to pay will be amongst the major Commonwealth Bank or Telstra shareholders. However, it is not your average mums and dads who control the operation of these vital national assets, but rather the professional directors who sit around the many boardroom tables.It should be noted that the government assets that are being privatised are the same assets that have provided 92-plus per cent of employment opportunities for the Australian public since the Second World War. The mums and dads who started their working life in the transport, banking, telecommunications, electricity, postal, roads and ports industries are now being persuaded to support the sale of these industries and so eliminate the employment opportunities that they enjoyed and their children should now be entitled to enjoy.One effect of privatisation is to trade employment security for the majority of Australians for the financial benefit of a few. To develop the argument relating to the effects of privatisation, I think the issue can be looked at in three separate areas: firstly, the financial return to the government of the sale of Telstra assets; secondly, the sale cost in fees and commissions; and, thirdly, the issue of community service responsibilities.In developing these three arguments, in support of my general debate relating to the privatisation of government assets, I want to use the Telstra sale as my reference point. In doing so, I will quote from a speech by the member for Canberra earlier this year when he said:In the government's static analysis after retiring public debt and taking into account the loss of Telstra dividend the budget would be better off by $2.3 billion.But this fails to take into account the dynamics of Telstra's dividends which since their inception in February 1992 have grown by an average of 15.6%.If dividends were to continue to grow at that rate they would reach the crossover point where dividends were greater than the interest saved on public debt by 2002 and 2003.This means we gain for four or five years then lose forever.This point is using the government's own figures relating to the value of selling a government asset, but in fact it is the best possible outcome that they could get. However, it would be my contention that there would be no underlying positive budget contribution from the sale of Telstra. In fact, independent analysis by Bankers Trust suggests a $500 million cost of the budget in the years 2001 and 2002.The total outcome of the sale of Telstra is that the pattern of the net income effect is positive for the shareholders but declining for the government as the dividend forgone increases while the public debt interest saving is essentially fixed. Professor Fred Argy, in a letter to the Australian Financial Review on 22 July, reaffirmed the argument that gains made from paying off the debt would not compensate for the loss of Telstra's dividend stream.I will now move to another area of comparison and that is the sale costs paid in fees and commissions for the sale of government assets. Not only is the government forgoing a long-term revenue stream for the benefit of the Australian community, but it is committing public money that could be spent for better purposes than to pay senior executives of stockbroking firms, merchant bankers, lawyers and financial advisers for massive sales costs. Two hundred million dollars has already been paid in fees and commissions for the initial public offer.The full privatisation of Telstra is likely to cost the Australian taxpayer up to $800 million in sales fees. When people look at the cuts to public expenditure that the first Howard government has implemented—cuts to child care, to aged care, to public hospitals and employment services—many people will say, `Let's keep these public assets in government hands and direct this sale expenditure to much-needed community services.' While debate continues about the long-term budgetary losses from a privatised Telstra, there is little doubt that investors have made enormous profits. The one-third stake that the government sold for $14.3 billion is now worth $30 billion.These are the cold, hard economic facts about the sale of Telstra. But what about the human effects and the issue of community service responsibilities. Telstra has been in a constant state of lowering its staff numbers. The effect has been a savage cut in services to all consumers, particularly those in rural Australia. These cuts are likely to continue. The Telstra chief executive has advised the government that the cost of subsidising rural telephone subscriptions was $1.8 billion a year. In the Financial Review of 21 October, in an article by Ivor Ries, the comment was made:The $1.8 billion claim was a staggering $1.55 billion more than the government previously estimated of the cost of subsidising rural telephone users.Having just been returned to office on a platform of providing world class telephone services to every town, Hamlet and farm in the back blocks of Australia, this Telstra claim rocked the foundation underlying the government's promise.The Telstra chief executive has raised the incompatibility of shareholders' interests with Telstra's social service obligations.In a speech to the National Press Club, Mr Blount referred to Telstra's growth potential being impeded if it continued to have to provide cross-subsidies such as single price for all local calls, no matter where they were made in Australia, rental subsidies for some phones, Telstra funding of the 000 emergency service and free directory assistance.Under shareholder pressure, and facing the full privatisation of Telstra, are we once more looking at the appalling non-core promise behaviour from the government, with a further deterioration of telecommunications in the bush? The privatisation debate needs to be viewed from a social viewpoint as well as from the economic side of the argument. I strongly urge that based on current trends the evidence suggests that it would be more socially and economically responsible to retain what is left of our government infrastructure than it would be to place these assets on the open market.41517:05:00415Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYDIK6RobertsonLP10—Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, may I congratulate you on your election to the Speaker's Panel and wish you well in that position.This afternoon I want to speak about the dangers of mobile phones. I am not talking about the health risks of mobile phones; I am talking about the financial dangers of mobile phones. Most people would not realise that as part of the service when they hook up to a mobile phone they have access to 0055, 1900 and overseas international calls. This is a problem that affects a lot of people in Australia because Australians love mobile phones.Having had a look at the research that was done by the Parliamentary Library on the growth of mobile phone use in Australia, it was quite extraordinary to see how significantly the Australian mobile phone market has grown over the last two years. There were one million subscribers in March 1994, two million in June 1995 and in October 1997 over five million Australians had a mobile phone. The size of the Australian mobile phone market is estimated to grow to some 6.5 million subscribers by the year 2000, which represents an annual average growth of 13.7 per cent.In 1995, Australia had the fourth highest rate of cellular mobile phone penetration amongst OECD countries. Only Sweden, Norway and Finland showed higher rates of mobile phone ownership. It seems almost everyone in Australia has a mobile phone. As a parent of two young men—teenagers—I have been very pleased that they have had access to mobile phones in the last couple of years. It is also comforting to know that my wife has a mobile phone with her when she is driving late at night. I know that is now the situation in most Australian families. So what I am talking about today does not just affect one or two people, it affects virtually every Australian family.I have chosen to highlight the issue today because a number of very distressing cases have come to my attention. The first one of those received a great deal of publicity in some of the national media. I was contacted by a constituent of mine, Mr Brian Smith, who had a mobile phone which he did not use very much. He was a small businessman and he had the phone in his van. He did not realise for a couple of days that it had been stolen. He went looking for it and found that it had disappeared. When he contacted Telstra—his provider at the time—to get his mail off the voice mail, he discovered that he had a phone bill of $18,495 for which, according to the carrier, he was responsible.Through negotiations we managed to help Mr Smith. The people who had stolen his phone were identified and charged, which meant that responsibility for the cost of those calls could then be transferred to those people who had been charged with stealing his phone. Since that time, I have been contacted by another two constituents from Umina Beach who are in exactly the same situation and now face a phone bill of $6,799.50. They were not aware that their mobile phone had been stolen. I believe it was less than two days before they notified the phone company that it was missing. I have not been successful in convincing the carrier to waive this phone bill.There are many other people who are in the same situation. Most people do not read the fine print when they sign a mobile phone contract, but they are responsible for that mobile phone, responsible for the calls that are made from that mobile phone and have a responsibility to notify the carrier the minute they no longer have control of that phone. Most of us occasionally—quite often frequently—put down our mobile phone and cannot find it again, and it may be 24 hours before we discover where it is. It is quite frightening to think that if someone had picked up that phone and decided to dial 1900 numbers—which are rated at something like $5 per minute—and either left that phone on or used it for an extensive period of time, the owner of that phone could be responsible for a bill of something like $5,000 or $6,000 in a matter of one day.When I was investigating this case on behalf of my constituents at Umina, I spoke to the detectives at Gosford police station. They informed me that they are currently investigating 14 cases of stolen mobile phones—in excess of $2,000 each—all in the Woy Woy peninsula area and involving 1900 and 0055 numbers. So it is not an isolated case.I guess technology has moved faster than the legislators and the insurance companies. We need to do something about it because the lives of these people are being ruined. Small business people and families are being hit with these huge bills. It is not possible to insure against these bills. If someone breaks into your home and steals goods worth $18,000, you can insure against that. Hopefully your insurance company will cover you for it and you will get new goods and get on with your life. But if someone breaks into your home and steals your mobile phone and then racks up $18,000 worth of mobile phone calls, you cannot insure against that. You are responsible for that unless those culprits are caught. It is something that has to be changed.I have written to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston, and he is investigating my concerns. I put to him that surely we could put in place a discussion paper, a code of practice or, if necessary, legislation which would limit the liability of mobile phone owners to perhaps a few hundred dollars. At the moment, liability is totally unlimited. Most people realise that if they have their wallet stolen and their credit card is used, there is a limit to the amount that can be charged on their credit card so that there is not financial ruin.The mobile phone industry has moved quicker than governments and legislators. At the moment, every one of us who has a mobile phone which has access to 1900 or 0055 numbers is risking financial ruin if we misplace our phone and then it is stolen and used to dial those 1900 numbers. In my own area—the peninsula area—it is known, particularly to the younger teenage people in the area, that if they steal a mobile phone they can use it to access these 1900 information lines, which are often sex lines from overseas and are charged, as I said, at about $5 per minute. It seems to be a bit of a game to them and they do not realise that innocent families are then being hit with these huge bills.I urge every single one of the 6½ million people in Australia who own mobile phones, who do not need access to overseas or information calls, to ring their provider and ask for those calls to be barred. It is a simple phone call. I have done it with my family's mobile phones and I encourage everyone else to do the same—to ring up and ask for those numbers to be barred. If you do need to make an overseas call, you can ring your provider, give identification and have the service put back on. I am telling everyone in Australia to get on to their providers.More than that, I encourage the providers to look at the fact that, at the moment, these services are provided without request. When you get a mobile phone, these services are included as part of that connection. Surely it would be safer for the consumer if those services were not included unless they were requested by the consumer. Most of us tend not to use our mobile phones for overseas or information calls and it would be much safer if they were not in the initial contract. I appeal to the providers—and there are a number of them now throughout the Australian community—to look at the possibility of having that service put on the mobile phone on request and not automatically.41717:15:00417O'Connor, Gavan, MPMr O'CONNORWU5CorioALP00—I rise in the parliament today to bring to the attention of the House a matter that has been raised with me by one of my constituents, Mr Rodney Miller of Moolap in the Corio electorate. Rod Miller called me, as his federal member, some time ago. He is an owner-driver of a semitrailer and he asked whether he could make an appointment to raise a matter of serious concern with me. I took the opportunity to visit him at his house on a Saturday, as I recall.I found Rodney Miller to be a proud man with a young family. He was proud of his house and proud of his semitrailer. He had worked hard and long for the economic benefits and position that he currently enjoyed. Trucking was a life that he obviously loved, one that enabled him to realise his dream of owning his home and owning his own truck. It was obvious that trucking was a life that offered him a chance of long-term employment, but he was not a well man when I visited him on that day. He was tired, he was pale and drawn and the story that he told me filled me with great concern. It is a story not only of Rodney Miller but of many truck drivers in this country today. It was a personal story which did not just relate to the personal health of drivers; it raised serious public safety issues as well.Rod Miller was in both physical and emotional pain and he admitted to me that he and his truck were a threat to public safety on our highways. He stated that the heavy truck that he had purchased and which he used to make his living was riddled with structural defects. Not only were its structural deficiencies injurious to his health, but he had the potential to cause fatal accidents on our highways. He complained of acute tiredness at the wheel, exhaustion on the shorter haul runs, acute pain in his kidneys, urinating blood and chronic back problems that translated into numbness in his legs, all through driving his recently purchased truck. I am no expert in this field, but apparently mechanical vibration is acknowledged to be a serious occupational hazard, especially in surface transport. It induces drowsiness and a decrease in performance levels, as well as the matters that I have just raised.Rodney Miller is a responsible citizen. He took his truck off the road at considerable personal cost, simply because he could not operate the truck within the law as it was and he feared not only for his own safety but for the safety of others on the road. He brought an action against the manufacturer of the truck, and I understand that that matter is before the courts as I speak today. I do not propose to make any further comment on that case because I think it is appropriate that we let the legal processes run their course.In the process of gathering evidence of the situation that he found himself in, Rodney Miller came across truckies from all over Australia who were suffering similar problems to himself. He sought expert engineering evidence to substantiate the claims that he was making against the truck manufacturer. Those of course would have to be tested, but a cursory reading of that evidence would suggest that something is seriously wrong with some of the heavy vehicles that are on our roads today. He received an engineering report from McLeod Engineering Services Pty Ltd, computer aided engineering, that had this to say:In conclusion it is clear that the—I will omit the type of truck and just use the word `truck'—. . . and in particular Rod Miller's unit suffers from several serious design deficiencies which make the vehicle entirely unsuited for the purpose for which it was purchased.The serious vibration environment makes it impossible for the driver to sit in it for the periods of time that a truck of this type would be driven for at a stretch without suffering injury caused by vibrations. The vibrations create a requirement for substantial additional maintenance above and beyond what was envisaged when the vehicle was purchased.The report goes on to say:The deficiencies in the suspension and chassis stiffness create serious handling problems as well as seriously reducing the life of the tyres below the tyre life that competitive vehicles show. To summarise the truck is too hard to sit in and drive, to control when it is being driven and it costs far more to own and to maintain than similar vehicles that don't have these problems.That was not the only report that Mr Miller commissioned. Another report which related to a different type of rig from the same manufacturer was prepared by A. Enkelman and Associates Pty Ltd. And once again it dealt with the structural deficiencies in heavy vehicles. That company had this to say:It is the considered opinion of the undersigned that this vehicle is of unmerchantable quality in its present condition as it displays dynamic characteristics which degrades primary safety to unacceptable levels, endangering not only the occupants of this vehicle but other road users.But by far the most damning report on prime mover design deficiencies came from Dr Arnold McLean from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wollongong. In correspondence to the department of transport, he listed a whole series of very technical and detailed deficiencies. I will not read them all to the House. Perhaps I will put them on the public record at some other time. He had this to say:. . . there is no other recourse than to recommend the subject vehicles be declared asUNSAFE, UNROADWORTHY AND BE IMMEDIATELY WITHDRAWN FROM SERVICE.Furthermore, due to imminent failure, consistent with points (i) to (iii) above, all paramount vehicle components are not suitable for spare parts or reuse.I will read points (i) to (iii) into Hansard . They are:(i) the manufacturer's inherent design fault, (ii) generally irreversible strain energy accumulation in paramount prime mover components during operation,(iii) irreversible metal fatigue of paramount prime mover components during operation exacerbated by dynamic loading far in excess of the nominal static loads . . . There is also other material, which I do not have time to present to the House tonight in this grievance debate. As I stand here tonight, Rodney Miller's house is on the market. The bank is moving in on the loan that he secured to buy the truck of his dreams. The family is under serious financial and emotional strain. All of us in this place have interviewed constituents who, due to their emotional state, have walked very fine lines as far as their personal health is concerned. I spoke to the Miller family recently, and I was saddened by the emotional state that I found this family in.This matter has been reported to the Federal Office of Road Safety. Tonight I say this to the Federal Office of Road Safety: I hope that all that can be done has been done to investigate this matter. In my heart of hearts—on what I have been told and how I have been informed—I do not `think all is well in the state of Denmark' as far as this issue is concerned. It is not an issue that relates to one man but to many families across the length and breadth of Australia. The member for Kennedy will attest to that as well. (Time expired)41917:25:00419Barresi, Phil, MPMr BARRESIZJ6DeakinLP10—Given the amount of mail that arrives in my electorate office each day, there are relatively few letters addressing the vital issue of drugs. Perhaps this is because the community at large is, quite understandably, unsure about how we can adequately deal with the scourge of drugs. However, it is an issue that is always with us, affecting many thousands of us directly and all of us in some way or another. The few letters that do come from my constituents about drugs rarely contain advice. They are usually desperate cries for help, emanating from family, from friends and from addicts themselves.So how do we respond, especially when views in the community range from zero tolerance through to full legalisation? While legalising drug use would be largely unacceptable to the community, treating drug users as criminals seemingly has done little to ease the problem. In Victoria, the Kennett government has trialled the Cannabis Cautioning Program with some success. Now it is being introduced state wide and will involve police issuing cautions to low level users who have no previous history of drug use. It is an attempt to educate drug users, rather than prosecute them, to sharpen the focus on harm minimisation.By way of contrast, I note that experts are attributing the sixth successive drop in US annual crime figures to the Zero Tolerance Program, pioneered by Mayor Rudolf Giuliani of New York City, and its adoption by other major cities. Mayor Giuliani wants to arrest all users of marijuana. This approach is at the other end of the spectrum. Both approaches indicate to me that at the very least among governments and community groups there is an acceptance of a real problem which cannot be allowed to defeat us. Federal, state and local governments, churches and many community organisations are all involved, committing ever-increasing funds and resources in an attempt to, as Professor Penington termed it, `turn the tide'.Drug usage no longer occurs only in certain areas. We no longer believe that paying for a private school education will shield our young from temptation. We no longer presume that users of drugs are all society drop-outs or bad kids. Drugs are in every suburb, not just in the inner city, and have permeated every socioeconomic strata. In Melbourne's east, we have seen police blitzes drive out some of the visible drug use in Box Hill, but in reality all they have done is move it to nearby Mitcham. When the police have moved their concentration to Mitcham, the activity has moved along again—a situation which is repeated from suburb to suburb, from one side of Australia to the other.Deakin's leafier suburbs of Ringwood North and Blackburn are similarly not immune. On many occasions I have pulled up the garage door to find syringes littering the laneway at the back of my house. It is of growing con cern to me as I look at my own six- and seven-year-old children and my ability to protect them from the parasitic overtures of schoolyard drug dealers.While drug use is certainly not confined to our young people, it is they who are most vulnerable to the evil schemes of pushers of narcotics. Despite the intense education effort, there are still many who slip through the net and begin to take drugs. The national study on illicit drugs released last week indicated that 13 per cent of our 12-year-olds had used illegal substances. Further, 40 per cent of those aged between 12 and 17 had tried illegal drugs and 55 per cent of all 17-year-olds had used cannabis. These figures would indicate that most Australians who use drugs have had exposure to the scene at a very young age.From discussions with drug users and youth workers, I know there are many reasons why the young use drugs. Whatever the reason, the initial try is usually a result of peer pressure or curiosity. We know that a young person's curiosity is not an easy thing to put a lid on. If drugs are available, there is a certain inevitability that some will not be able to avoid the temptation to try them.Why many continue to use drugs, and progress to harder substances, is a more perplexing question. Feelings of hopelessness and despair, fuelled by a lack of parental support, employment opportunities and growing rates of homelessness are but some of the causes often given. Some of these young people consider themselves to be condemned to a life of misery for themselves and their families, turning to crime to finance their habit.I look forward to the release of the Commonwealth's school drug education strategy soon. The Commonwealth is committing $17.5 million for education purposes as part of its larger $215 million Tough on Drugs program. From the two drug forums I have hosted in Deakin over the past two years, I know that we have some of the finest individuals and organisations working on the problem, with little reward except the considerable satisfaction of knowing that their work will save lives. In Melbourne's east there are over a dozen organisations operating under the banner of the Eastern Alcohol and Drug Association. These organisations offer assessments, referrals, consultation, counselling, community education, withdrawal programs, needle and syringe exchanges, support, therapy and other services for drug users and affected families. These people are perhaps in the best position to judge the types of services we need to offer to stamp out drugs.Reach Out for Kids, better known as ROKs, is one organisation working in partnership with the community to better educate our young people and their parents about drugs and how to deal with them. Based in Nunawading, Reach Out for Kids, under the excellent leadership of their president, Terry McDonald, and the agency coordinator, David Monro, invited me recently to join the committee of management. I am honoured to receive such an invitation and look forward to contributing to their great work.Over 20 years, Reach Out for Kids has aimed to provide a range of integrated services to assist economically, socially and emotionally disadvantaged children, youth and families. They have been extremely supportive of my initiative to bring schools, youth workers, medical practitioners and social welfare organisations together for a regional analysis on drug related issues, with a view to taking part in the Commonwealth's response.At my most recent drug forum on 20 August, I spoke with and received great feedback from many local people working with drug issues. There was agreement on several points: that drug education is vital and best if it begins when children are young; that this education is not the sole responsibility of teachers and, in many ways, parents can better identify problems; that parents require education and training in this respect.Linda Harrington from the Whitehorse Division of General Practice noted that general practitioners were often referring parents to her. She further endorsed the call for education and training and the need to offer a package to parents and general practitioners in order to combat the problem and provide those parents with the necessary skills. We know that poor parenting skills are frequently associated with young people's use of drugs. Parenting courses are a vital part of a response.We also agreed that outside organisations, such as Reach Out for Kids, are a great help to schools because of their professional knowledge. Finally we agreed that the strengthening of the family relationship—an aspect that is often spoken about in this House—is of key importance in winning the battle.Due to these two forums I have held, it is my wish to continue the dialogue with these very worthy organisations and people to establish an advisory committee made up of parents, teachers, young people and youth workers—a committee to keep me abreast of developments and to ensure that the government response meets our local needs. From a personal point of view, I hope to see our education process take root so that fewer young people take that first step into the drug culture.One of the most common criticisms is the length of time that many people have to wait for rehabilitation and detoxification services. Due to a lack of sufficient resources, it seems that community workers are rarely available after hours, that answering machines predominate after dark. This is not to criticise youth and social workers but rather to highlight funding needs. A cry for help from an addict or family must be heard and acted upon immediately. The time between an appeal for help and the arrival of that helping hand is the best ally of those grim reapers known as pushers. (Time expired)42117:35:00421Martin, Stephen, MPMr MARTIN8I4CunninghamALP00—This evening I would like to bring to the attention of the House a very disturbing event which took place just offshore Wollongong, in my electorate, in October. I refer to a raid conducted by 63 personnel of the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Customs Service on the fishing fleets that operate out of Wollongong harbour. The background to this, as I understand it, is as follows: a number of operators of fishing vessels that operate out of Wollongong have for some time now been involved in dispute with AFMA, the Australian Fishing Management Authority, in respect of the amount of fish that they are legally able to trawl for in the waters off Wollongong and further out to sea.Some years ago quotas were set. There has always been an ongoing discussion, whether it be about orange roughy or whatever, as to the scientific basis on which the quotas are set. The fishermen in question have always been prepared to sit down and actively engage in dialogue with representatives of AFMA and people from the then Department of Primary Industries and Energy, now the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Therefore, they found the manner in which this raid took place, and the fact that it took place in October, particularly galling.Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, I am sure you can imagine the anguish that your family would feel if they suddenly found a 63-strong force of people from the AFP and the Australian Customs Service not only descending on the boats with sniffer dogs and all the other forms of investigative material that are available to them but also going to the homes of some of these retailers and fishermen in the Wollongong area and at Warrawong and in other parts of the Illawarra. They forced their way into these people's homes and, I might say, frightened the life out of the families of these fishermen and the retailers of fishing products in the Illawarra, all on the say-so of AFMA.I took this issue up when it was brought to my attention. The cooperation I received at the time from Minister Vanstone's office and the then customs minister Mr Truss was very much appreciated. Staff from both of those offices gave me some advice which I subsequently conveyed to the fishermen in question. The stigma that still surrounds this particular event—the fact that sniffer dogs, normally associated with some form of investigation into illicit narcotic trafficking, were used—has left a lasting impression in the Italian and Greek communities of Wollongong.Regrettably, it is not a good impression. The impression that has been left is that these fishing families who have been in operation in Wollongong and the Illawarra for years and years and years—families like the LaMacchias, the Musumicis and retailers like the Condakis family—have been involved in illicit drug operations. As a consequence, they have been unfairly and unjustly targeted.Madam Acting Deputy Speaker Crosio, you would appreciate that, if you lived in a community like the Illawarra where there are a number of ethnic groups who have chosen to make Wollongong their home and people that belong to those communities socialise together, go to church together and so on, if there is any hint of suspicion about one of their number, then it is something which brings some shame to members of those families under suspicion.My investigations at the time revealed that this particular activity was actually authorised by the Australian Fishing Management Authority. In discussions with both the AFP and the ACS, I was told that it was part of normal ongoing investigations. I was told that there was some concern that the fishing vessels were going out but not coming back with the quantities of fish which would seem to indicate that they were engaged in legitimate fishing activities. It may well have been that the fish were not running on that particular visit out to sea and, as a consequence, naturally, they did come back empty handed or certainly not with the quantities that some might otherwise have expected.I was clearly advised by the ministers' offices collectively that it was not part of any investigation into drug running. I am also informed that Minister Vanstone had not really authorised this particular activity. I would like clarified whether that is the case. I would like clarified and I would like some statement to come from the government as to whether or not there was some implication about drugs and whether the minister's office—in this case, Minister Vanstone's office—had in fact authorised the activity of the Australian Federal Police in this particular search operation. Importantly, what I would like the ministers responsible to examine is whether or not this is part of an ongoing pattern of activity of harassment by AFMA because that organisation lost a couple of court cases to the Wollongong fishermen.It would surprise me, as it surprises my friend the member for Leichhardt on the other side of the table, that a government bureaucracy would in any way want to conduct a vendetta against anybody in this community. But the information provided to me from the fishing co-op, from individual families in the Wollongong area and indeed from people involved in this particular matter has clearly indicated to me that the management plans that had been negotiated, the quotas that had been negotiated, the fact that there was disagreement over the years and the fact that there had been legal cases run against AFMA which AFMA had lost would seem to raise some suspicions that perhaps AFMA was engaged in some sort of vendetta against the fishing families of Wollongong.These are people who have taken their rightful place in the local community over many years. I actually went to school with one of the families, the LaMacchias. That is how long they have been around Wollongong. They have been around that long that they went out in row boats when they first went out fishing. They are genuine families who have participated as part of the general community for a long, long time. But now there is this slur on their reputation. There is this implication that, in some way, they have been using their fishing vessels for some illegal activity involving drug running, as the implication first was put to them, which has certainly been disavowed in conversations with the ministers' offices.It is time that these people at the very least were owed an explanation. They are owed an apology. They are also owed a clarification as to what the basis of this was. Information which I have to hand indicates that this is an issue that goes back even to our time in government. I can remember bringing delegations from Wollongong to see Simon Crean, the member for Hotham, when he was the minister for primary industries to discuss these sorts of issues. I can remember that we actually got to the bottom of many of the problems that the fishing fleet of Wollongong have. It was always going to continue to be an ongoing issue involving scientific evidence about the size and the growth of individual species that were being fished in the waters of the Illawarra and beyond. As the fishermen themselves rightly point out, why would they want to overfish these waters when it is their own livelihood that depends on a real supply being maintained? Why would they want to go out and do this in contravention of their own livelihoods? I am afraid that, as I have said, AFMA have not been able to accept many of these assurances that have been given. I again reiterate that it does strike me as strange that ministers or ministers' offices have given me assurances about why this operation was undertaken—at the behest of AFMA—yet there was no indication of anything illegal as we know. The fact that all of the documents and so on were seized and families' homes were raided does smack of a bit of a vendetta. I reiterate that I would like to see the government and the ministers concerned investigate this issue. I will certainly be asking them to do that again. An apology should be forthcoming. If it is from AFMA, then that is fine. But I think AFMA should get off the backs of those fishermen in the local area, let them get on with making their own livelihoods and stop sullying their reputations.42317:45:00423Causley, Ian, MPMr CAUSLEY4K6PageNP10—I wish to raise in the House an issue of extreme importance to my electorate of Page. That issue relates to the decision last week by the Carr Labor government in New South Wales to declare another round of national parks and wilderness areas over forest areas on the north coast of New South Wales. As you, Madam Deputy Speaker Crosio, would recall, when we were both members of the state parliament this issue raised its head from time to time. In 1984 the Premier of a government you were a member of—the Premier then was Neville Wran—made a decision on this rainforest area which he believed at the time would put to rest the debate between forestry and national parks and wilderness. He said that he was setting aside these areas in New South Wales to ensure that the remainder would be available for the forest industries as an ongoing resource. This debate has never gone away and continues to simmer.The problem we have is that the environmental movement continue to pursue what they believe is the locking up of all native forest areas in Australia—to the detriment, I might say, of the Australian economy. If you look closely at the imports of forest products last year, you will find some $3 billion was accredited to that. Many of these products come from unsound practices in developing countries, particularly clear-felling, sometimes in tropical rainforests. Our exports of chips were worth some $600,000, so the net deficit to Australia was $2.4 billion.In my area and particularly around Grafton, which is the biggest hardwood timber area in New South Wales and Australia, this is of great importance to employment and to the industries that that industry supports. The present round raises the area of national park in New South Wales to 68 per cent of the area available for forestry in that state. It reduces the quota that was available to the timber milling industry from 320,000 cubic metres per year to 140,000 cubic metres per year.The government and some members of the sawmilling fraternity are putting forward the suggestion that this is a good result. I put to you that it is a very poor result as far as Australia, and particularly the workers in a very high unemployment area such as the north coast of New South Wales, is concerned. If you look closely at the loss of quota in that area and the amount of timber that could reasonably be expected to be recovered under that quota, and then multiply out a value-added product to that, you would see that something like $40 million a year in resources—and the wages of people who could be working in that industry—are being lost to New South Wales and Australia.This has been very cleverly orchestrated because, with the announcement by the Keating government of a national forest policy statement, the present government put forward that they would pursue that and continue with that. But you might recall that the Prime Minister also said very clearly that, in those instances where this would have very serious effects on low socioeconomic groups, he would not slavishly stick to the 15 per cent of species pre-1750. `Pre-1750', which is supposedly before Europeans came to this country, is an interesting statement because how do you judge exactly what forest was available at that time?The only records we have are those that are available from the journals of explorers. If you look closely at those, you will find that the forests that we have today are much better than the forests that were available pre European settlement of this country. The reasons for that are very simple. The Aborigines in this country used fire extensively and, because the forests were burnt on a regular basis, practically yearly, the young trees were not able to reproduce like they do today in a very managed environment.I think it was the explorer Oxley going up the Hunter River who commented in his diary that for 20 miles each side of the river there were grasslands. Yet today national parks and wildlife people would suggest to us on computer modelling that, with the soils in those areas and the rainfall, all of these areas were covered in forests. Therefore, the whole process is distorted by these assumptions that are being made by present-day people who do not recall clearly what the forests were in the period pre or even when Europeans first came to this country.The problem we have is that some millers who have been able to access funds from the FISAP process, the forest industry structural adjustment package, have now locked themselves in. Some of them were granted up to $1 million to ostensibly upgrade their equipment, yet they are producing only the same product they were producing before. So this story that we are getting value-added product is a myth. We are producing only the same as we did before, but these people have been granted up to $1 million. The problem is that they have also borrowed money themselves—up to $2 million and $3 million—so they are completely locked into this process. But there are only a few of those.In my particular area I can understand those people who are trying to protect their investment. There are two mills in my area in that situation. On the other side of things, there are about 30 small mills in the area which we call bush mills. Interestingly, they employ more people than the automated mills in the bigger industries. There is a loss of resource to those mills. Even though the mills that have got money from the FISAP process and have been supported by the state government employ large numbers of people, it is the smaller mills outside which employ more people which are completely cut off.The forest industry adjustment process has failed. I know of people who have been forced completely out of the industry without compensation. I know employees who have been made redundant and have not had available to them the retraining or the redeployment that was supposedly available in this process. Those people have just been swept aside. No-one is listening to them, either the employees out of the mills or those people who are mixed up in the harvesting and haulage of the timber to the mills. They have been pushed aside. They have lost their entire investment. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been completely lost without any compensation.I believe that the process in New South Wales has been rushed for political reasons. The science involved has not been explored. The socioeconomic effects of these decisions certainly have not been taken into consideration. There is no doubt in my mind that the New South Wales government, despite what has been said in the press, has been completely manipulated by the extremist environment movement, which is out there crying crocodile tears over the fact that they have not got all of the resource—they have got almost 50 per cent of it but they haven't got all of it—but this is an act that has been put on before, after negotiations have taken place behind closed doors.It is interesting to me that the CMFEU are standing against this position. They believe the same as I do—that the workers and the industry have been sold out, that positions that would have been available to their work ers will no longer be available. They are standing up strongly on this against the Carr government because they think it is an injustice. Added to this is the fact that there are grazing leases involved. These people have had their property rights confiscated in a scandalous way.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—It sounds like native title.4K6Causley, Ian, MPMr CAUSLEY—This is what the Labor Party does. The member for Banks might listen—(Time expired)10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMadam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. J.A. Crosio)—We will debate that at another time. The time for grievances has now expired. The debate is interrupted and I put the question:That grievances be noted.Question resolved in the affirmative.Bills425s178425Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time.Ordered that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Address in Reply425425Debate resumed.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMadam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. J.A. Crosio)—Before I call the honourable member for Capricornia, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to her the usual courtesies.17:57:00425Livermore, Kirsten, MPMs LIVERMORE83ACapricorniaALP01—I rise to speak for the first time in this place with a great sense of responsibility to the people of Capricornia who put me here. I stand here also with a sense of purpose. Capricornia is a long way from Canberra. It is a long way for me to travel just to occupy a seat. I need to use my time here effectively for the people of Capricornia and make every day count. The views and hopes and ideals that I hold and that I hope to advance during my time here are those that I presented to the people of Capricornia during the recent campaign. Those values and beliefs are a product of both my working-class background and my experience of growing up, working and living in a regional area of Australia.Looking back, I guess you could say that I had a very sound education in Labor values and ideals starting at an early age. It was an education based on theory as well as some pretty solid practical experience. In my family it was unavoidable. It was a family in which the Labor Party was as much a part of everyday life as vegemite sandwiches and backyard cricket. In his home town of Ipswich, my father Ian was surrounded by a family of coalminers and railway workers. Similarly, my mother's family had a history of working in the central Queensland gold mines, at places like Mount Morgan and Mount Chalmers. They knew that it was the Australian Labor Party that looks after working people and their families. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of my earliest memories in life is a rally led by that great Labor bloke Tom Burns that I attended with my parents to protest the shameful dismissal of the Whitlam government on the day after my sixth birthday.The reforms of the Whitlam government had a big impact on my working-class family and many others like it. Suddenly, ordinary people could expect things like affordable health care, a university education for their children and, in the case of my parents, a society that would offer the same opportunities to my sisters and me as our male classmates.This has always been the centre of the Labor Party ethos: the idea that there should be a fair go for everyone regardless of birthplace, birth date or birthright. We certainly put those principles to the test in my family. I am pleased to say that the Labor Party passed the test. I was 11 when my father died. My mother found herself with the job of providing emotionally and financially for her three young daughters, the youngest of whom was only six. I have never forgotten the short trip from working class to welfare class, a trip that many Australians have shared for what ever reason. It is a trip that no-one in my family asked for but nonetheless had to endure. The Labor Party passed the test. It is the test that it sets for itself. It espouses the principles of a fair go and equality of opportunity. Thanks to the assistance available to struggling families under the Hawke and Keating governments, my sisters and I never had to let go of the aspirations planted in our minds during Whitlam's time.It was this experience that shaped my views on fairness. It was this lesson of how indiscriminately life can come along and kick you in the guts that brought me in touch with others in the same situation. It was during those difficult years that I made up my mind to work hard so that I would some day be in a position to fight for those same principles that helped my family so much. That decision led me to politics and inevitably to the Australian Labor Party. There was only one party that advocated on behalf of my family. There has only ever been one political organisation that dealt with the issues of fairness and equity. There is only one: the political arm of the labour movement in Australia, the Australian Labor Party.I am a Labor member of parliament for the reasons I have just described. I am the member for Capricornia because Central Queensland is my home and it is the part of Australia that I care about and want to pour my heart, energy and aspirations into. It is an honour and an exciting challenge to represent the electorate of Capricornia in this place. The electorate of Capricornia extends from the beautiful Capricorn Coast and Shoalwater Bay on the Central Queensland coast to the awesome expanse of the outback and towns such as Winton, Muttaburra, Longreach, Barcaldine, Aramac, Jericho and Alpha. It also includes the mining towns of the Bowen Basin, such as Moranbah, Dysart, Tieri, Middlemount, Cappella, Clermont and Glenden and Collinsville, which is a town that has a particularly strong Labor heritage. The major city of my electorate is my home of Rockhampton.Capricornia is indeed an enormous electorate with a spirit to match. It is an electorate full of character as well as its fair share of characters. The electorate of Capricornia has a proud history that belongs to both the traditional owners of our region and to those of us who have made it our home. It is not a history of purely academic interest but a living history, because the products of that history endure today as important symbols and institutions of our country. I am talking of things such as Qantas, which was conceived at a meeting in Winton and launched from a dusty airstrip in Longreach. Waltzing Matilda was written at Dagworth station and first performed at the North Gregory hotel in Winton.Of course there is the Australian Labor Party. The architects of the last redistribution perhaps would not have known the historical significance of the lines they drew. In fact, the boundary of the Capricornia electorate covers Clermont, Barcaldine and Rockhampton. All three centres played a significant role in Labor history. The Ballad of 1891, a long-held hymn of the working class, especially in Queensland, tells it all with lines such as:From Clermont to Barcaldine the shearers' song rang out—the sheds'll be shore union or they won't be shore at all.There is also:To trial at Rockhampton the 14 men were brought. The judge had got his orders—the squatters owned the court. But for every man that was sentenced a 1000 won't forget—where you jail a man for striking it's a rich man's country yet.No doubt some of my colleagues will want to argue this point and claim that the birthplace of our party is Sydney or Melbourne. However, the tree of knowledge in Barcaldine stands as a testament to the claim that the Australian Labor Party was born in Capricornia.There can, however, be no dispute about the statement that Capricornia boasts many wonderful achievements. Wool grown on the backs of our sheep out west and shorn by local shearers such as John Laffin finds itself woven into the highest quality suits. Beef mustered out of the gullies and downs from Winton to Westwood, from Longreach to Lockington and from Aramac to Alton Downs graces the best dining tables in the world and gives my home of Rockhampton its much deserved title of the beef capital of Australia.Coal dug from Capricornia's soil by hardworking coalminers makes our region one of Australia's richest exporters. The Central Queensland University is a progressive and successful institution that provides high quality educational and research facilities to our region and beyond as well as playing a leading role in our community. Great Keppel Island and the towns of the spectacular Capricorn Coast welcome increasing numbers of Australian and international tourists each year. Just up the road is Shoalwater Bay, a training area used by our Australian armed forces and one that regularly hosts exercises with our neighbours, such as the Singaporeans who have spent the last couple of months training there.There is no doubt that our region of Central Queensland has great potential to build on our fine history. I wonder, though, whether this government knows what it is doing to crush the traditional spirit of the people of Capricornia. When I listen to people in the communities around the electorate, I share their feeling that this government has abandoned us in regional Australia. The coalition government apparently sees no role for itself in ensuring that the gains made by our country and the standard of living available to Australians are evenly distributed. The No. 1 issue for us in Capricornia has to be jobs: creating new jobs and providing security for those in work.So what does the Howard government give us? It gives us an industrial relations regime that threatens the wages, conditions and security of workers and cutbacks to the public sector in our region. I spoke before about the history of Capricornia being a living history. There were parts of that history that we thought would never have to be relived: the times in our history when workers were gaoled and denied livelihoods for themselves and their families simply because they were members of a union. It appears that those times are alive and well in Capricornia. Just ask my mate Garry Barnes, the president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in Clermont, one of 16 unionists at the Blair Athol coalmine currently engaged in an unfair dismissal claim against Rio Tinto after losing their jobs shortly after refusing to sign individual contracts.I have stood shoulder to shoulder with miners on picket lines around Capricornia while they struggle against the government's ideological allies, like Rio Tinto and Arco, to protect their jobs and that most basic right of workers, the right to form a union and bargain collectively. I have stood in the smoko rooms at the meatworks in Rocky and listened to the workers there talk about their fears of the future in a workplace where the award has been stripped back to nothing.When the government talks of union members, it seems that it regards them as some kind of breed apart from the rest of society. The government's narrow ideological view of the world does not let it see that union members cannot be cleanly removed from a workplace with some kind of surgical precision without there being residual damage to a community. I am thinking in particular of the mining towns in Capricornia. The union members who are being attacked there are my friends, and I know them to be the local footy coaches, scout leaders and school P&C presidents. They have wives and children. They are the people who spend their pay packets on groceries and Christmas presents at the local businesses. You cannot attack these people without attacking the whole community.It is not only the government's industrial relations policies that are hurting Capricornia. Over the past two years we have also seen the decline of government services in our region. We have seen the Taxation Office close in Rocky and Telstra workers retrenched. When the CES office closed in Longreach, there was nothing there with which to replace it. The people of Capricornia need these services just as much as those living in capital cities need them.It is the regional areas that suffer the most from the government's agenda of downsizing and privatising because the market that is supposed to fill the gaps is not interested in us. We cost too much and eat up profits. We rely on the government taking some responsi bility for keeping our communities functioning and providing services to those who need them.The government is clearly not listening to people in regional areas. If it were listening, it would not have announced two weeks ago that we can expect more job losses at our local Centrelink office. The sick and disabled, the unemployed and the elderly people of Capricornia know exactly what that means for them—a decrease in services. The business people of Capricornia know exactly what it means for them too—fewer pay packets in our towns to keep our local economy ticking over.In Capricornia we have seen the same thing over and over—promises of increased competition and efficiency that amount to nothing but the slashing of jobs and the decline of services. Whether it is the sale of Telstra or the deregulation of Australia Post, the message from my electorate is clear.I have wasted no time in bringing these issues into this chamber because they are the issues that I campaigned on and they are the issues that the people of Capricornia expect me to pursue on their behalf. Wherever I go in the electorate—whether it be the Rocky railway workshops, the Lakes Creek meatworks, the Longreach RSL, the Middlemount Bowls Club or Pat Ogden's Globe Hotel—the people of Capricornia have had a gutful of economic policies that are advocated by people who have never even heard of Alpha or Jericho or St Laurence. The people of Capricornia are not interested in fitting into anyone's economic model; they want to be proud of their local communities and not feel penalised because they do not live in the city.Most of the things that I will say in this place will be spoken on behalf of the people of Capricornia. Right now, though, I would like to say a few words that are mine alone, and they are words that come from the bottom of my heart. I want to pay tribute to the people who gave so much of themselves to get me here. I will never forget or take for granted the support and assistance that I received from local ALP branch members in Capricornia—people like Robert Schwarten and Barry Large and their families; people like Bronco Smith, Marilyn Tynan, Sam Morris, Jim Pearce, Pat Ogden, Stephen Schwarten, Jeff Jones and Mary Therese Brady.It was especially touching for me to have the support of the family of the late George Gray, the member for Capricornia from 1961 to 1967. Thank you to Bray, Linda, Trish, Jeanne, Don and Rick. One branch member, Joan Brady, deserves a special thank you for being there right from the start. Thank you, Joan, for having faith in a 27-year-old woman long before anyone else got quite used to the idea.My local branch members have a dedication to their party and a commitment to their communities that I hope I can live up to. From its inception, the Labor Party has been the political voice of the union movement; I will certainly continue that role as the member for Capricornia. During the campaign my brothers and sisters in the union movement showed that they truly understand the meaning of solidarity. The support from unions—like the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union; the Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union; the Australian Meat Industry Employees Union; the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union; the Queensland Nurses Union; the National Tertiary Education Union; the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union; my old employer, the Community and Public Sector Union; and others—was absolutely rock solid and an important part of Labor's victory in Capricornia. I would also like to pay tribute to the members of Emily's List for their support and motivation throughout my time as a political candidate.It does feel sometimes that the Labor Party has become my family—it has become such a big part of my life—but it can never compare to the wonderful family that has given me so much love and support over the last 29 years of my life. Thank you to my mother, Desley, and my sister Heidi, who is here today, and my little sister Sascha. My grandparents—Richard and Beryl White in Mackay, and Roy and Clara Livermore in Ipswich—also played a big part in giving me the values and motivation to make this journey.Compared with these people, my partner, Craig Brown, is a relative newcomer. But the last 3½ years that he has shared with me have been the most tumultuous and fulfilling of my life: you're my best mate—I couldn't have done it without you, and I wouldn't have wanted to.I finish today with a pledge to work my heart out for the people of my electorate. As the member for Capricornia, I will work with the communities in the electorate to build on our traditional strengths and always be on the lookout for new opportunities for our region. I cannot promise miracles, but I promise hard work, determination and complete honesty of conviction in trying to deliver to the people of Capricornia a secure future.18:15:00429Katter, Bob, Jnr, MPMr KATTERHX4KennedyNP10—The previous speaker, the honourable member for Capricornia, spoke very eloquently and very movingly. It was somewhat distressing that she had not done a little more study—Opposition members interjecting—10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMadam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. J.A. Crosio)—Order! The honourable member for Kennedy has the floor. He will examine his own conscience at a later date.HX4Katter, Bob, Jnr, MPMr KATTER—Yes, that is correct. I appreciate young people having their dreams and their aspirations. I think that is an important thing, but let me say that in Queensland when 23,000 railwaymen stood in the hot sun and handed out how to vote cards for the ALP they believed in that organisation. Within four years of their great party gaining office in the state of Queensland, there were not 23,000 of them; there were 14,000 of them. In the last 10 years of the government of which I was a part—and I take great pride in saying this—we lost 1,000 jobs in the railway. They went from 23,000 to 22,000. In the first four years of Labor 22,000 railwaymen became 13,000. If those little towns are dying at the moment, it is because those services were removed by the Labor government. In fact, the people of western Queensland created the labour movement and what we got for it was the destruction of our own homeland. An interesting analogy can be drawn from the comments of the last speaker. She said that Mr Whitlam was the person who got her into parliament, and that was also true of me because Mr Whitlam got me into parliament. She spoke about the right and the ability to be able to get her way to university. I think there was some merit in what occurred there. In my day I went to university. I went to university because I went home after I finished school and worked 72 hours a week. I worked from nine to five in my father's clothing shop, and then in the evening I worked at our picture theatre six nights a week. I worked very hard and saved up to go away to university.Opposition members interjecting—10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMadam DEPUTY SPEAKER—Order! I can understand and appreciate the exuberance coming from the opposition benches, but I have given the call to the honourable member for Kennedy. He will be heard in silence.HX4Katter, Bob, Jnr, MPMr KATTER—It obviously hurts them, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can understand the pain. As for what we did, every single thing that the previous speaker described was not done by the current government at all. Enterprise bargaining was not introduced by us. Enterprise bargaining, which undermined the right of the worker to collectively bargain, was introduced by Mr Keating. Who was it who flew foreign scabs to strikebreak into this country and gave them fast visas to be able to do it? It was not this government; it was the Keating government. Who removed all the tariffs in this country?Opposition members interjecting—HX4Katter, Bob, Jnr, MPMr KATTER—I am talking about the pilots. Are you saying that this is incorrect? Of course you are not. You agree with it, but you would not be game to say it. The economic rationalists were not on this side of the House. All of that legislation was introduced by those on that side of the House when they were sitting on this side of the House.Let me turn to the removal of services. I can hardly think of a town where there has not been a massive removal of services. I have at times been critical of the Borbidge government in Queensland, but I cannot think of a single service that it removed in my old state electorate of Flinders. Yet in my own home town of Cloncurry there were six services removed.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—You want to bring back Bjelke-Petersen, do you? Are you a `Joh for PM' man?HX4Katter, Bob, Jnr, MPMr KATTER—I will answer your question by saying that we took 1,000 railway jobs away in 10 years; your mob took 10,000 jobs away in 3½ years. You should not have walked into that one, should you?I would like to draw to the attention of this House the suicide rate in this country. From 1971 to 1996 male suicides in this country have doubled, and for young men they have increased by some 300 per cent. Australia is now second only to Russia, which has the highest suicide rate for young men in the entire world. Unemployment in 1971 was 1.7 per cent. Unemployment in Australia today is 7.7 per cent, some 700 per cent higher than it was in 1971. I have some figures on the growth in our gaols in Queensland. I do not have the figures for Australia as a whole. In 1971 there were 1,236 in our gaols. In 1996 there were 3,528 people, an increase of some 300 per cent. Even more amazing is the rise in bankruptcies. In 1971 there were 2,428 bankruptcies. Today in Australia bankruptcies total 24,000.The previous speaker attributed all the ills in this country to the current government. I am afraid that over the last 15 years we have been in government for only 2½ years. If there are a lot of ills in this country, she should take it up with her current leadership, all of whom were on the frontbench during the period when bankruptcies in Australia rose from about 4,500 to some 20,000. The policies that they put in train during those years are still crucifying the country today. It will be some years before the effects of those policies abate.Having looked at those grim statistics and having reflected upon the fact that small business in Australia is almost a vanishing and dying race, I would like to quote but one example. There were 17,000 privately owned service stations in Australia before Mr Keating—the great architect of economic rationalist policy in this place—decided to half-deregulate the service stations. He half-deregulated the service stations, and the net result was that 8,000 family businesses in this country ceased to exist. They went broke and closed their doors.We are talking not only about heartbreak and destruction here but also about an increase in control in the marketplace by the oil companies. From 1984 to the present day, we have seen a rise in the price of petrol paid to the oil companies from 12c a litre in 1984 to around 22c a litre today—almost a doubling of the price paid to the oil companies for petrol. In that same period of time, the price for a barrel of oil has dropped from around $38 to about $15 or $16. So the world price has dropped clean in half and the price in Australia has doubled. Clearly, the cost to the nation of that act of deregulation has been colossal.We look for reasons as to why we have a horrific 300-fold increase in the number of people in our gaols and a 250 per cent increase in the number of young male suicides. The previous speaker, the member for Capricornia, gave a very sensitive and a very good address, but I would ask people in these cases: if you are going to stand up and put forward propositions, back them up. It is not good enough to come in here and just make some bland statements without hard factual evidence to back them up.I have a gold file here with me, and I can give the source document for each of the figures that I am quoting here. The graph on page 28 of the document I have here tells the story on unemployment, unhappiness and sadness in this country. There is a graph showing the growth in unemployment amongst young males from 1966 to 1996, and there is a similar graph for the growth in the suicide rate amongst that same cohort of population from 1966 to 1996. It is a truly remarkable document, because the graphs cannot be separated; they are almost identical. The rise in unemployment amongst young males has been identical to the rise in youth suicides in this country. So, if you are looking for an answer for all of this dreadful unhappiness, look no further than jobs.When people like Mr Whitlam reduced tariff protection by 25 per cent across the board, it cost Australia hundreds of thousands of jobs and burnt out so much opportunity that could have existed in this country. I am not saying that there was not a case for reducing tariffs, and I am not saying that there was not a case for reducing tariffs significantly. But to hit them with a blunt instrument of 25 per cent, and then proceed—in the years of the Hawke-Keating government—to remove all tariffs, was one of the greatest examples of supine trading policy espoused by any country anywhere in the world. I see the honourable member for Dickson grinning. I am sure that she would agree with everything I am saying here, as she has on many occasions.It can well be argued that economic rationalism, and the removal of all of those protections, was a good thing internationally. But, unfortunately, the other countries in the world have not done that. To take the example of one of the industries I represent, the tariff on sugar has been completely removed, and that allows the biggest sugar exporter in the world, the European Community, to send its sugar into Australia with a subsidy equivalent to 193 per cent.We have been given little talks about free trade in this place during the four years that I have been in here and in the 12 years before that, two of which were under Mr Keating. They did not cut much ice with me, as a person who has owned cattle all of my adult life. I was not very convinced, because only 7,000 tonnes of beef are allowed into the European Community—a market of arguably 500 million or 600 million people. One of my neighbours—one person in Australia—would produce 7,000 tonnes a year. A number of people will each produce more than 7,000 tonnes of beef a year. Yet we have played fair game while the other side have played snake and goannas. They must be laughing at us.The previous speaker attributed to this government decisions it had nothing to do with. All of those decisions were taken prior to this government taking office. We could not remove any tariffs, because there were no tariffs left to remove. There was nothing left for us to do. She said that we are grinding the worker down. But enterprise bargaining was introduced by the previous government. If the worker is being ground down as a result of enterprise bargaining, we had nothing to do with that. And she said that any further action taken by us will worsen this situation. But enterprise bargaining is here now. We can do whatever needs to be done, but it will not have much effect, because it already exists.In the seven minutes left, I would like to quickly go through the solutions. We have this horrific suicide rate and we have this terribly high unemployment rate, and I cannot help but make the point to the House that David Kemp, when he was opposition spokesman on employment, quoted the real unemployment figure at around 19 per cent—and he had a breakdown of that figure. I thought that was a very good analysis. The OECD report on employment in Australia gives similar figures. Dr John Langmore, who was a member of parliament for some time—in fact he was chairman of the caucus economics committee of the Labor Party—also quoted a figure of around 19 per cent. John Quiggan, the only economist in Australian history to get the Academy of Science prize, also quoted a figure of 19 per cent.I will tell you how that is arrived at. There were 56,000 people on the CDEP program. These people were taken off the dole and put on a work for the dole scheme in Aboriginal settlements throughout Australia. There were some 200,000 people on Working Nation, and similar schemes have come in. And that is a good thing; I am not criticising them for one moment.Quiggan and Langmore both make the point that TPI pensions in Australia have increased by 400 per cent. This is undoubtedly true, and I suppose there would be very few of us who do not know people with bad backs—but they do a lot of work at home during the week with their bad backs. I do not blame them for that; I just think that there are no jobs out there for them.What I am saying is that the real figures are much higher than the indicative figures that we have before us at all times, and I think that David Kemp's analysis in this parliament deserves some looking at by people on both sides of this House if they want to get a true understanding of the nature of unemployment in this country.There is one thing that this current government has done which has been absolutely magnificent, and it should never be underestimated. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.Leave granted; debate adjourned.Sitting suspended from 6.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.Bills432r637Billsr635Billsr633Billsr636Billsr634BillsBillsBillsBills432Debate resumed from 12 November, on motion by Mr Fahey:That the bill be now read a second time.20:00:00432Smith, Stephen, MPMr STEPHEN SMITH5V5PerthALP00—Labor opposes the full privatisation of Telstra and, as a consequence, opposes the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 and the package of cognate legislation now before the House. We oppose the package because it effects the full privatisation of Telstra. It effects it through a sham inquiry; it effects it through sleight of hand; it effects it through maximum damage to rural and regional Australia—and the National Party should be ashamed that they have sat on their hands since the election, sat on their hands in the joint party room and done nothing to stand up for the interests of rural and regional Australia—and that includes the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Mr Vaile, who is at the table, and some of the new members of the National Party who have now fled the chamber.In particular, this applies to the members for Dawson and Kennedy—who, in the run-up to the last election, made great play of standing up for the interests of rural and regional Australia and made great play of the fact that they did not want to see Telstra fully privatised. I notice that they are on the list of speakers, and so I hope that, when they come and make their contributions, the member for Kennedy and the member for Dawson will create the same impression in this House as they created in their electorates in the run-up to the election: in other words, that they oppose the full privatisation of Telstra and cross the floor on the bill.I assume that, at the joint party meeting at which government members approved this legislation, when National Party members saw the senior Liberal Senator from Tasmania they said, `Dr Watson, I presume', because Senator Watson from Tasmania has been the only member of the coalition since the election—the only member—to say the truth about this package of measures. He said on 8 November in Tasmania that he did not believe that Telstra ought to be fully privatised, and he was reported on the ABC on 8 November as saying that there was majority support in the coalition for limiting further privatisation of Telstra.He said that the government needed to develop more of a social conscience during this term of office, and that there was widespread community concern about the ability of a fully privatised Telstra to maintain its community service obligations to regional and remote areas. I repeat: `widespread community concern' about the ability of a fully privatised Telstra to maintain its community service obligations to regional and remote areas—areas that the National Party purports to represent.On the following day, 9 November, in the Australian Financial Review, Senator Watson's attitude was reported thus:In a further embarrassment to the Government, Senator Watson also cast doubt on whether Telstra would be fully privatised in the foreseeable future. He said his position against a full sale had sufficient support from his government colleagues to ensure it did not go ahead.This is despite Mr Howard being committed to a full sale of Telstra.He was also reported as saying that `he saw no reason to move from the 49 per cent sale of Telstra' and that `this position had enough support among his colleagues to ensure there was no full sale in the foreseeable future.'Well, they all disappeared at the joint party room meeting; they all disappeared. And when the members for Kennedy and Dawson come into this chamber, I hope they stand up for their electorates and stand up for the sorts of comments they made in the run-up to the election.SU5VAILEMr Vaile—Were you at the party room meeting?5V5Smith, Stephen, MPMr STEPHEN SMITH—The point is, Minister, you were there and you did not stand up for rural and regional Australia. You did not stand up for your constituents. You did not stand up for the people that you purport to represent.Labor opposes this package. Labor would not have privatised one-third of Telstra, as the government did in the previous parliament. In the run-up to the 1996 election, we made it clear that we opposed the privatisation of Telstra. In the run-up to the 1998 election, we made it clear that we opposed any further sale beyond the one-third that the government disposed of in the course of the last parliament. So Labor has always been opposed, and remains opposed, to the sale of Telstra, and it will not support the sale of any further portion of Telstra, because primarily we believe that Telstra is a vital part of Australia's community, of our economy and of our regional infrastructure.There are a number of major reasons why it is essential, in our view, for Telstra to remain in public ownership. Firstly, it is a question of national infrastructure, of economic development and jobs. It is clear that Telstra is a very important part of our national infrastructure. It is very important to our economic development and very important to jobs, particularly for rural and regional and remote Australia. And that lies at the heart of our opposition to the package of measures before the House today.The second reason is that of the dividend which Telstra pays to the Commonwealth. Each year, Telstra generates a return, and those moneys are paid directly to benefit the taxpayer. By keeping Telstra in public hands, the Commonwealth will continue to receive these funds—funds which will grow each year into the future. Once you have flogged it off, you will not get that return in the future: you lose the profit stream that you have built up over a number of years. Once you have flogged it off, it has gone forever, and so that dividend which has been built up over many years and which provides important revenue to the Commonwealth for essential services generally but also essential services for rural and regional Australia will be gone.The third reason is the services that Telstra provides to rural and regional and remote Australia: essential—and in many cases, historically, uneconomic—services provided to rural and regional Australia, because Australians and parliaments and governments in the past regarded Telstra, or its predecessor, Telecom—or Telecom's predecessor, the PMG—as being essential because people in rural and regional Australia would rely upon Telstra for their telecommunications services. Telstra is the dominant service provider and, if you keep Telstra in public hands, the government retains the right to ensure that adequate service levels and access to up-to-date technology are delivered to all Australians, irrespective of where they live. This is part of the universal service obligations and the community service obligations.Keeping Telstra in public hands will make sure that, with the move to new technology, we minimise rather than maximise the tyranny of distance, making sure that we do not run the risk of alienating people who live in rural and remote locations in Australia, and that those who live in areas of Australia uneconomic to service have, and continue to have, access to the vital telecommunications services which Telstra has provided.The next reason is the point of market dominance. There is no question that Telstra has significant market dominance in its area. You can probably mount the argument that the only thing worse than a public instrumentality which has market dominance is a private instrumentality which has market dominance.Another reason is that historically the PMG and Telecom, in particular, and then Telstra have done public good works in their research activities. They have invested in long-term R&D. As a fully privatised company, they will not do basic research; they will not do the public good research. Already we have seen, in my view, a decline in that since the one-third privatisation. Another important factor is the significant support over the years which Telecom and Telstra have given to the Australian electronic and telecommunications manufacturing industries. There is a grave risk that that support over the years will decline and disappear if Telstra is fully privatised.The whole focus of the privatisation of Telstra, which is reflected in this package of measures, is that Telstra will move from providing an adequate level of service to the Australian taxpayer to providing a dividend to its shareholders. That is reflected in very substantive terms by the proposed deletion from the Telstra Corporation Act of the capacity of the government of the day to instruct Telstra in accordance with the public interest.So there are a range of general philosophical and practical reasons why we have opposed the privatisation of Telstra from day one. We opposed it in the run-up to the 1996 election, we opposed it in the parliament in this last term and we went to the election committed to opposing any further sale of Telstra.This package of bills effectively fully privatises Telstra by sleight of hand. There is no doubt that in the run-up to the last election the government created the impression, both generally and in the various electorates, that if they were returned to office Telstra would be privatised in a staged way, and they unquestionably created the impression that that staging would be by parliamentary approval. Once passed, this package will effectively achieve the full privatisation of Telstra without further reference to this parliament. If parliament approves these bills, that automatically enables the Commonwealth to dispose of up to 49.9 per cent of Telstra and then, by a sham inquiry, without further reference to the parliament, without further reference to parliamentary review, to tick a box to effect the 100 per cent privatisation of Telstra.It is important to have a look at some of the history. In 1996, when Telstra was in full public ownership, it brought in a profit of $2.2 billion and paid dividends of nearly $1.4 billion to the Commonwealth. That money was used for vital services and infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and nursing homes. As a consequence of the one-third privatisation, one-third of the profits are now directed away from the Commonwealth. Since the privatisation of Telstra, we have seen major restructuring of Telstra—effectively in preparation for full privatisation but also in response to the one-third privatisation—and that has had dramatic consequences for staffing and service levels. Approximately 22,000 employees have been shed and very many of those have been from rural, regional and remote areas.Customer service standards are in decline. That is not an assertion. All you need to do is have a look at the December 1997 quarterly figures reported by the ACA, the Australian Communications Authority, to see the decline in standards which has occurred as a consequence of the one-third privatisation. There has been greater pressure for the imposition of additional charges for a range of services which Telstra provides—for example, directory assistance calls. All of these are reasons for Telstra remaining in public ownership.The bills before us effect the full sale of Telstra. As I have said, if passed, these would allow automatically the sale of 49.9 per cent of Telstra and then effect the full privatisation without further reference to the parliament. Ministers Fahey and Alston in the run-up to the election unquestionably created the impression that this would be a package of legislation to sell up to 49.9 per cent and that the government would then come back to the parliament to effect the remaining sale. I am sure this is the impression they have left with their backbench, particularly the National Party backbenchers—or at least I am sure that is the impression the National Party backbenchers are happy to be left with. So it needs to be understood that if this bill passes the parliament then Telstra is gone. If this bill passes the parliament without further reference to the parliament, 100 per cent of Telstra will be disposed of—it will be gone forever.Senator Alston promised in July when he announced on behalf of the government the so-called `staged disposal' that the staged approach was a consequence of concerns about service standards, particularly in rural, regional and remote Australia. He said:. . . unless and until the independent inquiry certifies that service levels are adequate, there will be no further sell down beyond 49%.It was on the strength of this that National Party members and candidates went out to their constituents and their electorates in the run-up to the 3 October election and effectively articulated that there would be a 49.9 per cent sell-off of Telstra before further activity. The member for Dawson, De-Anne Kelly, in August this year said:People just really want to see Telstra remain in Government hands.. . . . . . . . .The bottom line is people don't want to see more than 49% sold.Given that this legislation effects the full privatisation of Telstra, I hope when the member for Dawson comes into this chamber and speaks and when we divide on this package of measures, which we will, that she holds true to that particular comment and a range of other ones that she made in the run-up to the election and votes against these proposals. I have already drawn attention to the comments that Senator Watson from Tasmania made a few weeks ago. Of course there has been deafening silence from all the other members of the government.I have described the so-called `independent inquiry' on the measures as a `sham inquiry'. The two relevant ministers—the Minister for Finance and Administration, Mr Fahey, and the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston— have always maintained that it was their intention to fully privatise Telstra. The Prime Minister has probably gone furthest of them all. On ABC radio on 27 July, in questioning on the supposed `independent inquiry', he was asked by an ABC reporter, `Is it conceivable that this inquiry would recommend that you don't sell the rest of Telstra and that you won't?' Howard: `No.'So this is not an inquiry in respect of which the government has an open mind. This is not an inquiry in respect of which you can expect to see independent, impartial and objective assessment of these things. This is not an inquiry the results of which will be subject to review or determination at ministerial, cabinet or parliamentary level. In that same interview, the Prime Minister went on to say:Well there's certainly been no flip-flop. I can't believe the description of last week's announcement as being a flip-flop. We are still committed to a sale of one hundred per cent of Telstra.So it will not be an independent inquiry and it will not be a viable, rational or sensible inquiry. If the legislation has effect, it will be a six-month inquiry.Whatever service levels are required—and these are not detailed in the legislation—you will be dealing with two quarters of data. In my view, two quarters of data is an insufficient period of time to establish any sort of realistic statistical trend. It is not enough to get an indication of Telstra's service performance, particularly for the bush. The ABS handles data on the basis that the only suitable basis for policy analysis or advice is data trend over five quarters or 15 months, which is described technically as the five-term Henderson moving averages technique.So you have a massively inferior period of time over which data will be collected and assessed. And in the six-month period when Telstra would know they were under the spotlight, so to speak, it would be very easy for them to load up the respective services and, after the inquiry—after a six-month period—effectively let them all fall by the wayside.So what do we find with respect to the so-called independent inquiry? The government has made it clear from day one that, irrespec tive of what the independent inquiry might say or do, it remains absolutely committed to the full privatisation of Telstra. Secondly, you will not have the period of time during which the data can be properly collected or assessed.On the day of the announcement of the government's so-called staged sell-off—22 July—the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston, made a speech to the New South Wales Farmers Association Annual Conference, in the course of which he said:The next thing the Government will do, in the same Bill, is specify performance criteria, against which Telstra's performance will be judged by an independent inquiry which the Government will establish . . . The criteria which will be contained in the legislation . . . And you look in the legislation and you cannot find it. Having given a commitment, in the strongest possible terms on the day on which the policy was announced, that the bill would specify the performance criteria—that the criteria would be contained in this legislation—when you flick through the legislation you do not find it.The criteria will be effected by regulation. You effect the full privatisation of Telstra by having this bill passed and then having a sham inquiry on criteria not seen by this parliament. You effect the full privatisation of Telstra by a sham inquiry working on the basis of regulations, despite an expressed and absolute commitment by the minister that those criteria would be contained in the legislation. And what do we hear from the National Party—Dr Watson, I presume—nothing; deafening silence. The inquiry is basically a sham. It is a tick the box. It is a rubber stamp. There is no reference back to the parliament, and they seek to slide this through without scrutiny.I found an interesting quotation from the member for Kennedy, Mr Katter, which I am sure he will be only too happy to repeat to the House himself. During July-August, he said:I must say that I thought it was a fairly arrogant statement and it most certainly indicated to me that they are determined not to withdraw in any way, shape or form . . . it seems to me their intention is that there will be some sort of rubber stamp committee to allow them to sell the second half. But I'm not going to go along with that, I can tell you right now.All you need is the words of a member of this parliament, a member of the National Party: a `rubber stamp committee to allow them to sell the second half'. I hope the member for Kennedy comes into the parliament in the course of this week, repeats those comments and votes accordingly when the legislation is the subject of a division.The package of legislation that the government envelopes around the sham inquiry has the government saying, `It will all be okay because we have a whole range of community obligations and consumer protection provisions that we have put in,' the vast bulk of which are status quo ante in any event. The government says it is okay and, `Look, this package is there to protect standards.' But all you need to do is look at the Australian Communications Authority performance monitoring data for the December 1997 quarter, which you find in the March 1998 Performance Monitoring Bulletin from the ACA, to find the decline of services that we have seen since Telstra was privatised by one-third—and don't expect that you would not see a similar or worse decline in services on the basis of a full privatisation.Telstra's performance in the provision of new services in country areas declined by nine per cent to 66 per cent during the quarter ending 31 December 1997. This was a 16 per cent reduction on the quarter ending 31 December 1996. So you have a nine per cent decline following a 16 per cent decline. Telstra's performance in country areas in the number of faults cleared within one day also fell during the December 1997 quarter by seven per cent to 61 per cent, and this was a 13 per cent reduction on the December 1996 quarter. The percentage of faults cleared within two days fell by six per cent to 80 per cent during the December 1997 quarter, and by 10 per cent when compared with the December 1996 quarter.The clearing of faults with payphones in country areas was even worse. The number of faults with public payphones which were cleared within one day fell by 14 per cent to 47 per cent during the December 1997 quarter and 20 per cent when compared with the December 1996 quarter.Telstra explains each of these reductions in service usually in terms of organisational changes or inclement weathers, but even the minister for communications, Senator Alston, was forced to acknowledge that this performance was simply not good enough. So you find in the performance monitoring data of the ACA—the relevant regulatory authority—that there is a whole series of decline in services for country and rural and remote areas on the basis of a one-third privatisation of Telstra.One of the important things that you lose with the package of measures that we find before the House and with the full privatisation of Telstra is the capacity of the government of the day or the minister of the day to intervene and direct Telstra in the national interest. There has been a very interesting history to this provision. The government in the previous parliament introduced its legislation to privatise one-third of Telstra in the Telstra (Dilution of Public Ownership) Bill 1996. It was introduced by the then member for Bass who is no longer with us—Mr Martin interjecting—5V5Smith, Stephen, MPMr STEPHEN SMITH—He is no longer with us, but he is doing well. But I do not think he will pop up on this occasion as the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.Mr Vaile interjecting—5V5Smith, Stephen, MPMr STEPHEN SMITH—He is in Sydney. Just like the National Party members in this parliament, he is not necessarily standing up to the Sydney and Melbourne lawyers at this point in the cycle. On 2 May in his second reading speech the then member for Bass said:The bill repeals the power contained in section 9 of the Telstra Corporation Act 1991 for the minister to give directions to Telstra in the national interest, from the date of sale of the first shares. Retention of the power post part sale would be overly intrusive and incongruous with moving Telstra into a more commercial framework.So at the first opportunity this government sought to delete from the Telstra Corporation Act the power of the government of the day to instruct Telstra. Fortunately, through amendments moved on our behalf in the Senate and accepted ultimately by the government in this chamber, that power was reinstated and remains within the Telstra Corporation Act to this day. This package of measures seeks to abolish it and seeks—again by sleight of hand—to create the impression that it is replaced with a somewhat comparable power. What it is actually replaced with is a very limited power, which is effectively a power on the part of a minister to require Telstra to comply with the law. What you lose is the capacity of the minister of the day to direct Telstra to do things which, in public policy terms, are in the public interest in the positive sense or to require Telstra to do things which are in the public interest in the negative sense by rectifying past wrongs or ill deeds. So the very important capacity on the part of the Commonwealth to influence public policy is thrown out by the full privatisation of Telstra. And make no mistake, the full privatisation of Telstra and the removal of the power of the minister to direct in the public interest will see only one thing occurring: Telstra operating in a fully commercial way without regard to the sorts of historical obligations we have seen to rural, regional and remote Australia and without the sorts of obligations we have seen by way of community service obligations and universal service arrangements.There are a couple of other points I might make in respect of the privatisation process. Under the legislation the privatisation process follows the same framework as the privatisation of one-third of Telstra—I note on the speakers' list that my colleague the member for Melbourne, the shadow minister for finance, is speaking as well; I am sure he will make great play of these points. The privatisation process for one-third of Telstra has been the subject of very ferocious, serious criticisms by the Auditor-General.It is unquestionably the case from the Auditor-General's report that, if you do the calculations, the cost of the sale of one-third of Telstra effectively ran $65 million over budget, and excessive fees were paid to sales managers. The report highlighted a litany of administrative incompetence by the government which has been of direct benefit to sales managers. There is a cursory mention in the explanatory memorandum that these comments will be taken on board. That belied the demeanour and appearance of the Minister for Finance and Administration in question time last week when these things were put to him, where he did his best to effectively put his head in the sand and to ignore the fact that these deficiencies had occurred. There are a number of measures in the legislation package which the government touts as being significant consumer protection or competition measures. But, in the main, these reflect the status quo ante; they are unremarkable and uncontentious. If dealt with in isolation separate from the ownership question, then they might easily be able to be seriously considered and generally agreed to. But because they form part of the veil of sham, of sliding through without effective scrutiny, creating the impression that this is a sale of 49 per cent of Telstra when it affects the full privatisation of Telstra, we are proposing to oppose the package in its entirety en bloc. One of the measures in the Telstra bill itself is the suggestion to require the appointment of two members of the Telstra board who have rural and regional experience. That is the best concession the National Party could get out of the Melbourne and Sydney lawyers in this piece of legislation.The real question here is, in a sense, the social obligations that historically we have seen with Telstra. The government says that a range of social bonuses will apply from the proceeds of the sale of Telstra. In the main, these last either as a one-off, over a period of three years or over a period of five years. After the five-year period is extinguished, what is the government going to do to ensure that uneconomic services continue to regions like the bush? There is no ministerial power to direct in the public interest. The one-off so-called social bonus from the proceeds has gone. It comes to a total of $671 million—not a sum to be sneezed at—but, in 1996, the last year of dividend returned to the government prior to the privatisation of Telstra, we saw a dividend of nearly $1.4 billion paid to the Commonwealth. So in the year before privatisation there was a dividend of $1.4 billion and now we find the so-called social bonus is some $671 million in total. If you spread that over a period of five years, you get an expenditure of about $134 million per year, which is about 10 or 11 per cent of the dividend that I have referred to. Once the social bonus is gone, what is there to hold in place the services to rural, regional and remote Australia? Not a great deal. Senator Harradine from Tasmania has found in recent days the very grave difficulties of trying to make sure that promises, commitments and undertakings given in respect of jobs and services to an area like Tasmania are very hard to keep up to the mark once you unleash the privatisation forces. The capacity on the part of Senator Harradine or any other member of this House or the Senate to influence and affect Telstra will go out of the window with the full privatisation and the removal of the power to direct.In the Australian of 13 November, I noticed a front page story by Mark Westfield entitled `Telstra sale threat' which reads:Telstra's board might try to block the Federal Government's proposed further sale of shares in the carrier if the horse-trading over votes in the Senate threatens to damage the company commercially.Then on page 21 Westfield in a comment piece goes into more detail and makes the point that the board is concerned about community service or universal obligations being placed on it. Nothing better could illustrate the dynamic and the difficulty of trying to keep in place the universal access arrangements and the community service obligations if this package of measures was enacted.When we get down the speakers list to the members for Dawson and Kennedy, I hope we see them standing up and making the same sorts of comments they made to their constituents in the run-up to the last election. I hope they stand up and say, `We do not want to authorise a sale beyond 49 per cent.' I hope we see them cross the floor. This is a package of measures which effects the full privatisation of Telstra. It does it by a sham inquiry. It does it without effective reference to the parliament or review by the parliament. We oppose these measures absolutely. (Time expired)20:30:00439Somlyay, Alex, MPMr SOMLYAYZT4FairfaxLP10—When members of the Labor Party stand up to speak in this debate, I hope they declare whether they took the opportunity to buy Telstra shares when the float was made. It would be very interesting to check the register of members' interests. I have not done so but I am sorely tempted. There are a few matters which in recent times have ignited emotions in regional and rural Australia more than the question of privatisation of Telstra. Let me make the position very clear from this side of the House: the proposed sale was not and is not motivated by ideology. No-one on this side of the House wants to sell Telstra for mere ideological reasons.The Prime Minister announced before the 1996 election, not after the election, that a coalition government would sell one-third of Telstra. We were open and honest about Telstra before the election. We did not make the announcement without a mandate, as Labor did with their plan to sell the Commonwealth Bank. Labor sold the Commonwealth Bank without a mandate. Not a word was said before the 1993 election about Labor's intention to sell the Commonwealth Bank. Labor sold the Commonwealth Bank by stealth. We sought a mandate from the Australian people before we sold one-third of Telstra, a mandate which the people gave us by the strongest acclamation—a resounding victory at the 1996 election.This mandate was supported by the people of regional Australia. In the last parliament, the coalition held 61 seats which were wholly or partially rural or regional, as against the ALP's 11 seats. We had the one-third privatisation of Telstra firmly on the agenda. Although we had a mandate, Labor opposed the sale of Telstra and frustrated the passage of the legislation in the Senate.I said that the coalition, in opposition and in government, were not driven by ideology in proposing to the Australian people that we partially privatise Telstra. Why would anybody sell an income producing asset? Why would an individual want to sell his or her income producing asset? Why would business people propose to sell their assets, especially income producing assets? Why would a government propose to sell an income producing asset? One obvious reason to sell an income producing asset is that you have to—not `want to' but `have to'.What is being lost in this debate is that the government had little choice but to propose to sell Telstra if it were to be judged fiscally responsible. We had to pay off government debt. Remember that that debt was Labor's debt. Successive Hawke and Keating governments accumulated $95 billion of government debt in six or seven years during the 1990s. The stark reality is that Labor's debt had to be paid off. Some of it has been paid off but more remains to be paid off. Therefore, one reason to propose to sell an income producing asset is to retire debt. That point is reached when the cost of servicing that debt becomes unmanageable.When we came to office, public debt interest was running at $9.1 billion. The member for Perth pointed out to the House that the income the government received through the dividend stream from Telstra was $1.4 billion. Debt servicing costs were $9.1 billion. In other words, our capacity to implement our programs—provide hospitals, health and other services—was limited by interest payments of over $9 billion on Labor's debt every year. Before we could spend one cent on social services—welfare, defence, roads—we had to spend $9.1 billion on interest payments on Labor's debt.Another reason to propose to sell an income producing asset is to give yourself the financial capacity to invest in other income producing assets. The government has done a combination of these two things. We proposed before the 1996 election to sell one-third of Telstra because we were forced to address Labor's legacy of debt. We used part of the proceeds to retire a significant amount of that debt. The amount we did not use to pay off Labor's debt we have used for investment in national and regional development through the Federation Fund and the Natural Heritage Fund. Most of that $2 billion investment went into infrastructure and rebuilding rural and regional Australia.After the sale of one-third of Telstra is Australia better off or worse off? Many Australians invested in the share float. Are they better off or worse off? Members on both sides of this House hold Telstra shares, and so they should. Everyone who invested in Telstra shares is better off today, including the employees of Telstra who had the opportunity to invest in the future performance of their employer. Are the people and the hundreds of regional communities that benefited from the excellent works funded from the Natural Heritage Fund and the Federation Fund worse off? I know they are not worse off. I know that local councils and communities are far better off from the investments made from the proceeds of the sale of the initial one-third of Telstra.In the last budget in my previous capacity I tabled a statement on government expenditure in regional Australia which showed an annual expenditure of $3.2 billion on programs which were non-existent under the previous government—that is, $3.2 billion of expenditure in rural and regional Australia that was non-existent under the previous government. That was new expenditure, new programs and new investment creating new employment in the bush. This could not have been possible without the sale of one-third of Telstra. Would Australia have been better off without that quality infrastructure? Of course not. The reality is that without the sale of Telstra the government could not have funded the quality infrastructure so essential to the competitiveness of regional businesses and the quality of life for people living in rural and regional Australia.I have already mentioned the $1 billion Federation Fund, the bulk of which contributes to national infrastructure. There is also a further $250 million through the Regional Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund and the Roads of National Importance program. The $1.25 billion Natural Heritage Trust is the most integrated and far-reaching package of investment in conservation and natural resource management ever introduced in Australia. We sold part of an income producing asset to retire Labor's debt and to invest in a whole range of other income and job producing assets, particularly in regional Australia.Who then are the losers from the privatisation of Telstra? Who is worse off? Through scaremongering and misinformation, Labor has created a sea of unrest about the privatisation of Telstra. The implication of this and the doubt created by those such as One Nation is that people in regional Australia have been scared into believing that a full sale of Telstra would result in a fall in standards of service in the bush. When you look at the investment in the bush from the one-third sale of Telstra, people are far better off, not worse off. You can see where the money went and where the money is going. Interest on debt is down. Communication services in the bush have been boosted as never before.I contrast this with Labor's record. They have opposed the sale of Telstra all the way with ideological passion. But Labor sold Qantas and Labor sold the Commonwealth Bank. What has Australia to show for the sale of these assets? Did Labor sell those income producing assets to pay off debt? The answer is an emphatic no. Debt went up during and after those sales, not down. Did Labor use the proceeds to invest in other income producing assets? The answer is again an emphatic no. In fact, not only did government debt accumulate further but Finance Minister Beazley left this government with a $10.3 billion budget deficit on top.Labor sold Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank, but where did the money go? When we came to office we could not find it. There was no evidence that anyone benefited from Labor's privatisation program because Labor used the money not for investment, not for debt redemption; the proceeds propped up your budget bottom line. You blew the money and Australia has nothing to show for it. Proper economic management by the Howard government, the sale of one-third of Telstra and the responsible use of those proceeds see Australia far better off than in 1996.I do not want to see further potential benefits disappear. The government will sell another 16 per cent of Telstra to keep faith with those in the community who fear full privatisation will mean a lower standard of services. No more will be sold until we are assured beyond doubt by an independent inquiry that standards will not fall. No-one on this side of the House would contemplate sale further than 49 per cent unless we have ironclad guarantees on standards.I urge the people of regional Australia to consider the further benefits which will flow from the passage of these bills. The Prime Minister uses the term `social bonus' to describe benefits that will accrue. But I point out to honourable members that the social bonus is, in reality, an investment in infrastructure, our great regions and the people of those regions.Direct benefits will be an increase in the Natural Heritage Trust by $250 million; rural transaction centres, $70 million over five years; extended access to untimed local calls, $150 million over three years; meeting the telecommunications needs of people in remote and isolated island communities or the Australian Antarctic Territory, $20 million over three years; Internet access for people in rural and regional areas, $36 million over three years; mobile phone coverage along highways, $25 million over three years; and, finally but not least, a television fund to enable improved television reception, extend coverage of SBS television and to support a new media unit to be established within the SBS, $120 million over five years.In summary, as a member who comes from regional Australia—I have a regional electorate—this package of bills provides an enormous opportunity for this parliament to move towards full private ownership of Telstra and to enable the government to enter the next century without a debt problem while at the same time investing in our people and our regions. The bills also give the people of regional Australia—in fact, all Australians—ironclad guarantees on consumer service standards, customer service standards, transparency and many other safeguards. I therefore commend these bills to the House.20:45:00441Tanner, Lindsay, MPMr TANNERYU5MelbourneALP00—Before we give consideration to the sale of the next tranche of Telstra, I want to make some observations about what has happened with the first tranche and then I will turn to some of the specifics associated with this bill, the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 , some of the broader questions of the privatisation of Telstra and also the purported justification for this—the question of Australia's debt.The Auditor-General conducted an inquiry into the sale of the first tranche of Telstra and he had some very interesting findings. He found in an overall sense that there was a $65 million overrun on the budget for the sale—$210 million was the budget for the sale costs and the ultimate cost was $275 million. The Auditor-General found that the global coordinators, the people who organised and managed the sale on behalf of the government, were chosen before a fee arrangement was outlined and that a fee was negotiated with them after the conclusion of that effective tender process. In other words, we had, I suppose, a beauty contest—all the various bidders were there putting forward proposals as to how they would proceed with the sale and what fees they would charge. An outcome was negotiated with a consortium and then, after those people were designated as the successful tenderers who would conduct the sale, negotiations were entered into with them for the price, the fees, that they would be paid in order to do the sale. Hardly surprisingly, the Auditor-General concluded that this was a rather peculiar way to conduct a public sector privatisation; a very peculiar way to choose somebody to be the global coordinator of that privatisation.But the story gets worse; the story gets even more peculiar. We see, for example, that the success benchmarks that were set by the Office of Asset Sales to determine what the success fees would be were actually set below those that in effect were recommended by the 1996 scoping study and below those that were recommended by the March 1997 Office of Asset Sales recommendations. The Auditor-General concluded that this cost the taxpayer somewhere between $5.4 million and $10.3 million. You might think that is small in the context of a privatisation that ultimately yielded in the vicinity of $14 billion, but nonetheless that is still $5 million to $10 million worth of taxpayers' money that this government threw away.But the story does not end there and it gets even more peculiar. Almost $500,000 in success fees was paid to the global coordinators, most of them with respect to shares that they gave away. These people got paid money to give shares away. I would not mind getting a job like that. It is pretty easy money if you are giving shares away. But that is what happened. Four hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars of the success fees related to bonus shares that were given away to Telstra staff members as part of the loyalty program. They got paid $468,000 to give shares away. Another $26,000 of the success fees related to shares that were not sold.So they managed to cop a pretty hefty whack for shares that they gave away and an extra little bonus for shares that never went anywhere that the government still owns. A total of about $500,000 has been paid in success fees, which was clearly unnecessary and—to rub salt into the wound—was actually not obligatory under the contract between the Commonwealth and the global coordinators. According to the Office of Asset Sales, it was simply understood that they would have to pay this money. Five hundred thousand dollars of taxpayers' money later, you have got a situation where these people have been paid to give shares away or paid for not organising the sale of shares.The international roadshow that was undertaken to promote the sale overseas was originally budgeted at $1 million and it ended up costing $3.1 million, $600,000 of which related to limousines, private plane hire and the like. Some of the money that was spent, it was ultimately concluded by the Auditor-General, did not relate to the sale of Telstra. The Auditor-General concluded that this expenditure was `not independently verified through appropriate supporting documentation and an effective audit trail was not maintained'. And the story continues. Five million dollars worth of underwriting fees was paid with respect to shares for which no underwriting was actually required. There is a range of other minor losses: $700,000 lost because no foreign exchange hedging occurred with respect to certain payments to subcontractors which should have occurred. There were delays in processing applications. I have spoken to people who worked in the call centre and the like at the time and they said it was simply chaotic. These delays cost the taxpayer somewhere between $1.2 million and $2 million, according to the Auditor-General.So the first sale—however much it has been touted as a great success for the government—organisationally and in terms of the interests of the taxpayer, was a total fiasco. But the critical issue in all this was that the first sale was massively underpriced. The Auditor-General found that, in spite of the fact that obviously you cannot get these things precisely right—obviously share markets are not easy to predict and hindsight is a wonderful thing—the first tranche sale was massively underpriced.If you want a really good way of seeing this, if you want a really simple way of identifying this, all you have to do is look at the explanatory material for the proposed sale of the second tranche, which is 16.7 per cent, and see that it is estimated that that will yield somewhere between $10 billion and $15 billion. The first tranche was 33 per cent, double that, and what did it yield? Fourteen billion dollars. In other words, we are likely to get the same proceeds for the second tranche of 16½ per cent that we got for the first tranche of 33 per cent.The Auditor-General found that the value of Telstra shares post-sale had increased 160 times the all-ordinaries index increase over that period. It is no wonder that we have seen a spate of articles in the quality media about how the Minister for Finance and Administration is the pin-up boy of the big end of town. He has been throwing money in their direction like a man with no arms. He is having a great time promoting his reputation and making people feel good about privatisation, but ultimately at the expense of the Australian taxpayer and the Australian government.I turn to the question of the second tranche. It is interesting to see that the government has not learned from what has gone on in the sale of the first tranche of Telstra. We see that it is estimated in the explanatory material that roughly 1.5 per cent to two per cent of the proceeds of the sale of the second tranche, or ultimately the balance of Telstra, will be required for sale costs—commissions, fees and the like.It does not take much complicated arithmetic to work out that that is going to amount to somewhere in the vicinity of $800 million to $1.1 billion. So, in other words, we have a billion dollar bonus for bankers in the second sale of Telstra. It is interesting to compare it with the social bonus that we heard talked about earlier tonight, which is estimated to be $671 million. So we have a social bonus, $670 million-odd, dwarfed by the bankers' bonus.From a broader point of view, it is worth querying the logic, the basis, on which these sales are conducted and the fact that they are conducted on a percentage fee basis, which seems out of all proportion to the associated obligations, the risk, the management activities, that the intermediaries who are employed to do it actually undertake. When you are talking about a billion dollars to sell shares in a market that is already established, that is already mature, that is already traded, you really have to question the value for money that the taxpayer is getting out of this. Again, it does not matter if this is only a small percentage of the total. You are talking about $1 billion, some of which could ultimately be used to very good effect for other things.It is abundantly clear that there will be a full sale. We have a fig leaf of an inquiry put there to satisfy some of the elements in the coalition's backbench and to pretend to the electorate at the previous election that the coalition perhaps was not going to sell all of Telstra. It is clear that there will be a full sale. The fact that makes that blindingly obvious is that in this legislation there is no requirement for that issue to come back to parliament. The minister simply decides whether or not there will be another 51 per cent sale, declares that the inquiry has found that it is quite all right to go ahead—maybe with one or two additional sops, a bit more money here, a little extra social bonus there—and it will go ahead.This is another example—it is not the first—of a major privatisation being done by this government without any reference to parliament. We saw it with the Australian National sale, where the legislation that was put through the parliament effectively said, `The ministers are empowered to do whatever they like,' including being empowered to, by decree, repeal an existing act of parliament. Even worse, we saw it with the sale of the Australian National Line. Legislation was presented to the parliament. It went through this House and it went over to the Senate and it sat there. It is still sitting there, but ANL of course has been sold in the meantime.The social bonus adds up, as I said, over a period of five years to $670 million—the odd rural transaction centre, untimed local calls here and there, some money for isolated communities, regional Internet access and the like, all of them good things. But the question that has to be asked about that is: what follows? It will be useful in the short term, it sounds good, and it is very politically effective if you have a few disaffected supporters, disaffected backbenchers, in regional Australia. But there is no overriding vision of the future of telecommunications in this country. There is nothing about content. Content is going to be the future, not only of this industry but ultimately a very big driver of the Australian economy. Yet there is nothing about generating content. Some of the good ideas on that issue that were in Creative Nation, the program initiated by the former Keating government, contrary to promises that were made by John Howard, are being unravelled.There is a range of broader issues that all of us—not only government but the opposition as well—have to address in this debate, a range of very difficult issues. We have now got a hybrid, not courtesy of what we have created—nothing to do with us. Whether we like it or not, we have now got a hybrid. We have got a part publicly owned, part privately owned organisation which is involved in everything from the provision of the most basic telecommunications services, which are essential to ordinary civilised existence in our society, through to a fairly substantial range of entrepreneurial activities. It functions, for example, through Telstra Big Pond as an ISP, an Internet service provider. There are a range of other activities going on through Telstra that clearly are not essential telecommunications services, certainly not at this stage. In the more distant future they may well end up being so. None of us knows precisely how society will evolve.We are going to have to confront the question not of who owns Telstra but of what should Telstra do. What activities, particularly if it remains part public owned, should it be involved in? Ownership is ultimately the best form of regulation. Part ownership, even if it is 67 per cent, more so if it is 51 per cent, clearly is a very limited weapon in pursuing your objectives through ownership. So we have an issue we have to think very carefully about—the future of telecommunications in this country, the future role that Telstra will play, particularly if, as the Labor Party believes it should, it continues to act as a publicly owned provider of a very diverse range of telecommunications services.At first blush it is worth considering the question of structural separation. I think there are some fairly strong arguments as to why that is going to have to happen in some form, regardless of whether Telstra ends up being in part public ownership or fully private ownership. The great difficulty with that, which we will have to wrestle with, is precisely how do you separate it, given that the natural monopoly component of Telstra is changing all the time, the competition with respect to infrastructure and services is blurring the division between the two and technology is changing all the time? So defining things like `a basic telecommunications service' or `an essential service' is becoming increasingly difficult.We will have issues from the other players in the market about the connection between some of Telstra's entrepreneurial activities and its dominance as the primary infrastructure provider, notwithstanding the ACCC regulatory framework. So these are all things that we are going to have to think about, things that will be very important issues in the future of telecommunications in this country. Yet what we are getting at the moment is essentially a fire sale that is driven by politics—driven by ideology, yes, but ultimately driven by politics—driven by the desire to have a nice little bundle of money to throw around from time to time at elections, to throw at some natural constituencies through natural heritage trusts and the like, fix up a few dams here and throw a few bits of money at various things there, not the right things to do by the environment but capable of being portrayed in that way, with no vision whatsoever for the future of communications, which ultimately is going to be the driver of Australia's economic prosperity. This industry more than any other will determine our future economic prosperity. This government has no serious vision about what it is going to do.I would now like to turn to the question of debt. The primary reason that is portrayed for why we should be selling Telstra is that we have an allegedly vast amount of government debt and that if we sell Telstra we will be able to pay off a lot of it. The full sale would, on current market value, realise somewhere in the vicinity of $53 billion. Current net Commonwealth debt is about $83 billion.Mr Hardgrave interjecting—YU5Tanner, Lindsay, MPMr TANNER—You will hear a bit more about that in a minute, if you shut up and listen. If the surplus is maintained and other asset sales continue as proposed, that debt will be significantly lower. But, of course, the dividend that Telstra provides will be lost. Particularly as Telstra is currently earning a fairly low rate of return on capital, given its market capitalisation, that is a very foolish decision on the part of this government. Around the markets at the moment, the suggestion is being made that Telstra really should have a rate of return of somewhere around $6 to $9 billion per annum, which to some degree ignores its recent monopoly and public sector background. Nonetheless, that pressure will continue to build.It is time that we had a bit of rational debate on public sector debt in this country. The reason why the conservatives are opposed to debt has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility, government accounting or anything like that; the reason they are opposed to debt is that they are opposed to government. They are opposed to government intervention, governments doing things and the collective provision of community services. They are opposed to redistribution. One way that these things are funded is through government debt. We hear that $95 billion worth of government debt was left to the incoming government and that from 1990 to 1996 this skyrocketed. They forget what happened before 1990, when it was substantially reduced. They use the period immediately prior to the recession as the benchmark and ignore the fact that substantial deficit budgets were run in the early 1990s, unlike the substantial surplus budgets run in the late 1980s, for obvious countercyclical economic reasons.Let us look at some of the statistics on debt. In 1990, the Commonwealth public debt was down to 4.3 per cent of GDP. As a result of the recession, it went up to 19.5 per cent of GDP, or about $95 billion. But, in the same period, state and local government debt and public sector trading enterprise debt substantially reduced from about 10 per cent of GDP to 4.8 per cent in the case of state and local government debt and, in the case of public sector trading enterprises, from 15.2 per cent to 8.2 per cent of GDP. So the overall total net government debt over that period—that is, across Australia in all levels of government, including government trading enterprises—only increased from 27 per cent of GDP to 35.7 per cent of GDP in 1995-96.The percentage of the Commonwealth budget spent on servicing Commonwealth debt actually went down to 5.7 per cent of the total budget in 1992-93. It crept up again to 7.6 per cent, which is the level it was at a couple of years prior to 1992-93, in 1995-96. These figures are significantly affected by external factors such as the value of the Australian dollar. It depends on which currency the debt is denominated in and the like. It also depends on interest rates. But the overall picture is nothing like the phoney debt crisis that the conservatives have whipped up as an excuse to privatise and to cut government spending.Look at the debt levels across the OECD in 1995 before we left office. Look, for example, at interest payments on government debt as a proportion of the gross domestic product. For Australia, it was 2.3 per cent; UK, three per cent; US, 2.1 per cent; Germany, 3.2 per cent; France, 3.5 per cent; Canada, 5.6 per cent; Italy, 10.1 per cent; the Netherlands, 4.6 per cent; and Sweden, 2.8 per cent—and so it goes on. In other words, when we left office, interest payments on government debt were only fractionally higher as a proportion of GDP than they were in the United States.Debt is a useful tool provided that it is used in moderation. It is also important because it is about having future generations pay for infrastructure that is provided today rather having it paid all by current generations. That is provided you have the capacity to service the debt and it does not take a huge percentage of your budget. It needs to be under control in the same way that if you mortgage a house you need to be able to meet the repayments. It is reasonable.We did not have a debt crisis. We had a cyclical situation which was going to be brought under control regardless of who was returned to government. The economy was continuing to improve because of the measures taken by the former government. So the suggestion that debt is the reason why Telstra has to be sold is completely baseless. We do not want substantial debt in Australia. We have not had substantial debt in Australia. We have been a relatively low government debt country compared with the rest of the OECD and the developed world, and that continues to be the case. The suggestion, which is being put forward by the current government, that we have had this outrageous debt crisis is simply not true. It is not borne out by the figures. (Time expired)21:05:00445Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr HARDGRAVECK6MoretonLP10—The honourable member for Melbourne, in his capacity as the Labor spokesman for finance, has shown a case for the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 and a case against the former government. In his own way, he has given us a codified understanding that the sale of Telstra is a good thing and that the previous government's handling of the economy was a sad thing. Having said all that, I am very concerned that if the particular group opposite should ever happen to find its way back on this side of the chamber and we see that gentleman as finance minister, he will make Kim Beazley look like an absolute genius.I am in favour of the bill before us today. I am in favour of the full sale of Telstra for one very simple reason: it will produce cheaper phone calls for the people in my electorate of Moreton. There is also a bunch of other benefits, which I will go into in a moment. As the member for Melbourne rightly said, this industry is the one where our future prosperity as a nation is hinged. The communications and information technology industry is also one where jobs will be created and are created. So it is important, as this government is showing, to set free the biggest player in the market from the shackles of government ownership. This will let it do what all the other companies involved in the provision of communications in this country are doing. So it is very clearly a bill for the future.Ownership is not important. What is important is to treat all 24 providers of telecommunications in this country in exactly the same way. There has been a lot of talk in the months leading up to this debate about rural and regional Australia. However, it is certainly not the whole story of telecommunications in this country. It is worth noting early in my contribution that the universal service obligation is officially worth $250 million but that Telstra claims it could be worth $1.8 billion. That is money that is redirected from the overall telecommunications industry to directly help rural and regional Australia maintain its contact with the world.The system in the bush may need further improvement. Some say, `Don't do anything about selling Telstra until matters are fixed up in the bush.' But I say that the best prospects for rural and regional Australia come from the sale of Telstra and the competition which will be enhanced by this process. Rural and regional Australia will find, just as will metropolitan Australia, that more providers offering more services and cheaper prices—and this is not just ideology, it is history—will be the great benefits. For rural and regional Australia the difference, of course, is the timetable: services and access to services in the city will be available, but in the bush it will take a little longer.But this government's demand of all service providers—and, in the main, that is Telstra—is to contribute to the concept of universal service for all Australians. This shows this particular government's commitment to communications throughout Australia, even throughout a time when the government no longer owns Telstra. This really does prove the point of this legislation. Ownership is one thing, but the rules and regulations governing overall telecommunications in this country clearly are another. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not thinking of today but trying to hold us back as an international communications and information economy provider.The bill is part of the government's plan for building a stronger Australia. It maintains most of the provisions of the Telstra (Transition to Full Public Ownership) Bill 1998, which was introduced in the 38th Parliament. However, the government has taken on board a number of well-intentioned concerns and, through listening to people, it has produced some significant variations.For instance, Telstra must meet prescribed criteria for service performance for a designated period of at least six months before the Commonwealth can relinquish majority ownership. The evaluation of Telstra's performance in metropolitan, rural and remote areas will be undertaken by an independent inquiry. The inquiry must issue a certificate confirming that Telstra has, in fact, met those prescribed service standards and must provide it to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston.The Telstra Corporation Act is amended by this bill to require Telstra to ensure that at least two of its directors have knowledge of, or experience in, the communications needs of rural areas of Australia. The ministerial power to direct Telstra in section 9 of the Telstra Corporation Act will be retained until the Commonwealth relinquishes its majority interest. This direction power is somewhat inappropriate for a privately owned company. But, following the sale of the majority interest, Telstra will be subject to the sorts of controls and directions that all other telecommunications providers are subject to—appropriate regulatory powers, ministerial direction powers and other legislative powers which protect consumers and competitors. This will complete the proper separation of regulation from ownership of the company.This bill also will ensure that the existing 35 per cent total, and five per cent individual, foreign ownership limits, which were applied in the first tranche of the sale of Telstra, will continue to apply to the proportion of non-Commonwealth shares following the sale of each tranche. That is, the limits will continue to apply, no matter how subsequent share sales are structured. The requirement for Telstra's headquarters, chairman and majority of directors to be Australian will be retained, irrespective of the ownership of Telstra.This bill also makes amendments to the ACCC and industry requirements to improve two safeguards for consumers. Consistent with the government's election commitments—this is a government which tells the electors of its intentions before an election, and fulfils them—this bill contains new provisions requiring the ACCC to provide regular, impartial, public reports on pricing, market share and other competition related data across a range of specified areas.A number of arguments are put. In fact, one that is often put is that Telstra pays a dividend and that we should not sell off a productive asset. The dividend in 1997-98 was $1.2 billion, and that certainly is a lot of money. But the sale of Telstra will also release a lot of money to government to repay debt—debt which the Australian Labor Party clocked up during its 13 years in office.Public debt is shared by every person in this country: it is worth about $10,000 per man, woman and child. It is debt which in 1997-98 cost this nation almost $8.3 billion in interest alone. That is $8.3 billion in debt-interest servicing costs in 1997-98, the same year that Telstra achieved a $1.2 billion dividend. It is not hard to tell which side of the ledger we have to look at. Telstra would need to improve its dividend something like five- or six-fold to meet the bill of interest on debt—a debt principal which will be substantially paid off as a result of this government's intentions.Foreign debt weighs us down and consigns our children to repay what we have spent. Public debt interest of $8.3 billion is over three-quarters of the defence budget and about 1½ times the amount of money that we put aside for veterans in this country. It is obvious to me that repaying debt is a great advantage for today as well as for tomorrow.Then there are those who say that governments should not sell assets. Labor gave asset sales a very bad name. It sold off assets like Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank and more, even after having said before an election that they would not. Yet those particular asset sales did nothing for the benefit of our nation. When Labor sold assets, Labor put that money into today's expenditure; it was a bit like selling the family car to pay for the weekly groceries. But the Howard government has instead used asset sales to retire debt; we have, if you like, sold the family car to repay the home loan.It is interesting to reflect on the contribution by the member for Melbourne that maybe there was too much money spent by this government to process the sale of the first third of Telstra; that, in fact, the percentage of proceeds caught up in the costs associated with the sale was about 1.8 per cent of the total proceeds of $14.3 billion.The Australian Labor Party, when they were in government in 1995, sold Qantas and spent 2.8 per cent—not 1.8 per cent but 2.8 per cent—of the proceeds on the costs associated with that sale. When they sold CSL in 1994 and realised $299 million, they spent 3.1 per cent of that amount on the costs of effecting that sale. Not only could they not use the actual amount of money that was generated from the sale of those assets productively and properly for the benefit of this country, like in the repayment of debt, Labor also spent more money to make the sale happen. So everything that the member for Melbourne has spoken of in his contribution tonight, multiply it for Labor, Madam Deputy Speaker.We delivered on what we said we would do with the first third of Telstra sold. That is, we turned the money into worthwhile projects for today and tomorrow. We are going to do it again with this next stage sale process. In addition, we will again allocate direct benefits paid for, not borrowed against, by the sale of the next part of Telstra. We will not do what Labor did: we will not go into debt. We are going to repay more of Labor's debt. When the proceeds from this next sale reach $671 million—which is the total cost of the social bonus elements—the money will be allocated automatically.For instance, the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Act 1997 is amended by this bill to increase the trust's reserve fund by $250 million. This will build further the funding base for what is already the largest environment fund in Australia's history. This money is used in my own electorate to regenerate Oxley Creek and Norman Creek—both urban waterways that are under pressure. But the Australian Labor Party did nothing about them during their 13 years in office. This money has also helped to finance a pilot sewage treatment project at the Rocklea Treatment Works. Secondary treated sewage will flow through this particular melaleuca forest. Nature will have its way, and cleaner water will therefore flow into the Brisbane River. This particular project has begun with funding under the `Clean Seas and Coastal Waterways' segment of the Natural Heritage Trust Fund, which Senator Robert Hill announced a few months ago in my electorate.I want to see money from the proceeds of the sale of Telstra go to other worthwhile projects in my electorate—for example, other urban waterways like Mimosa Creek, Bulimba Creek, Rocky Water Holes Creek and Stable Swamp Creek. They all flow from or have tributaries which flow from Toohey Forest, which is at the heart of my electorate of Moreton. The Moreton electorate will certainly enjoy great benefits from the regeneration of these waterways. Each flow into the Brisbane River and out into Moreton Bay.While a number of good, committed local people have worked hard to raise with me and others the need for additional funds, proceeds from the sale of the first third of Telstra did not go far enough to meet the full extent of the need in my electorate. But there is already evidence of real and tangible benefit coming from the Natural Heritage Trust Fund, set up as a result of the sale of the first third of Telstra. The potential projects will each be enhanced by the value adding volunteers which will come into the equation. Relatively small amounts of money will go a long way in my electorate and will produce some real results.Funds will also go to other major projects in other parts of Australia. There are major environmental projects and other projects which will enhance and expand our telecommunications possibilities, including $25 million which will provide 100 per cent continuous mobile phone coverage on key major national highways in this country. This is not a fire sale just to refinance Australia's economic position or to repay Labor's debt. It will provide a lot of future benefits, such as repairing our economy. It will also set up a regime which will build a strong, competitive telecommunications industry for our nation—a regime where all competitors will be treated the same.As I said before, there are 24 participants in the marketplace now offering telecommunications services. Each one is having its share of difficulty doing exactly what it wants to do. At the moment Telstra is the 800-pound gorilla in the marketplace, and the other 23 players feel Telstra is protected by government ownership. However, the biggest issue is not ownership. It is access to the network so that players and aspirants can gain access to the system to provide the completion of the business that they are offering people. As a result of Telstra's quite deliberate market domination tactics, Australians are simply not getting the cost savings that they deserve. As a result of this bill, the way that it sets Telstra free and puts everybody on the same basic set of rules, we can start to see some change.It is important that Telstra's privatisation does not further entrench Telstra's market domination, especially in those services that it has and continues to have a virtual monopoly in. In particular, I am speaking about the local call loop—the network infrastructure between local exchange and the 98 per cent of homes and businesses which have a telephone.Privatisation and completing the sale of Telstra will lead to overall public benefit. It is more than just the provision of telephone services. At the heart of the commonsense behind the government's aspirations is the savings to our nation in the provision of services which have become and will continue to become a key part of daily lives. To provide those services at a cheaper cost is good news for all Australians.Consumer protection measures are contained in this bill, as is a restatement of those universal service obligations which we on this side demand must continue. But there is no longer going to be one rule for Telstra and one rule for everyone else. Telstra can no longer enjoy special privileges from public ownership or, for that matter, even some special obligations.To sum up, this bill is part of a legislative package which will clearly separate regulation of the telecommunications industry from the ownership question of Telstra. Put simply, it does not matter who owns the phone company, as long as the rules are well understood and well stated to all people involved in the industry. This is a clear sign to the entire telecommunications industry at its critical growth stage and to the world that the government's eye is on today and tomorrow in every possible way.No-one is really criticising Telstra, because it has played a significant role—a great role—in Australia's development. In its evolving form and logic, Telstra has been at the heart of growth and the opening up of vast areas of Australia. It has been at the heart of infrastructure provision for almost a century. But we are no longer waiting for telegrams in order to find out what is happening to those who are dear to us. We no longer visit our well-off next-door neighbours' homes hoping that we might be able to borrow the phone if we put down a sixpence to cover the cost of the call. We no longer look at Star Trek and think that personal communicators are some futuristic ideal that we may never ever realise.The world has changed; it has evolved. We on this side understand that, and we are not going to hold on to the old arrangements or the old ownerships. Our preselections are not threatened by the Socialist Left unions, the Telstra unions. We are looking at the future benefits for all Australians, be they lower income people, pensioners or the older people in my electorate who want to have cheaper phone calls and the certainty of a range of prospects as far as service provision is concerned, or be they big or middle sized companies or small businesses which are paying too much on a daily, weekly or monthly basis for their telecommunications needs.The world has moved on. Everybody on this side knows that, but those opposite have not quite cottoned on. While we are prepared today to move on and face the challenges of tomorrow with this sort of legislation and to pay off yesterday's debt that those opposite clocked up over 13 years in government, what are we getting from those opposite? Plenty of argument, rhetoric, resistance and old-fashioned nexus to the union movement—all of the things that will hold Australia back.We are going into the 21st century. Those opposite must realise that the year 2000 is only about 14 months away, so we had better get on with the job now and not hold on to the past. The 20th century is just about over. While Telstra has changed and evolved and we have changed and evolved, and we understand that this is the next step, those opposite are resisting the change for ideological reasons; and I have to say that, for a lot of reasons, that is quite pathetic. There are so many benefits and pluses to be gained as a result of passing this bill. I ask those opposite to reconsider their position for the good of all Australians.21:24:00449Snowdon, Warren, MPMr SNOWDONIJ4Northern TerritoryALP00—I am pleased to be able to make a contribution to the debate on the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 this evening, and I do so not only as a member of this parliament but also as a shareholder in Telstra. When the original debate around the privatisation of Telstra was under way, I vociferously opposed the part privatisation then, as I will oppose this bill today.Unfortunately, the member for Moreton and, I think, a majority of people on the government benches have not cottoned on to what this argument is really about. I speak with a bit of knowledge about what it is to live in a remote region in Australia and how important telecommunications infrastructure is for the people who live in those communities.I will give you a bit of personal history. I started working in the north-west of South Australia in a little Aboriginal community called Pipalyatjara in 1978. I worked there on and off for about three years, and I spent a lot of time there. The only means of communicating with the outside world from that small community—which is basically at the junction of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia—was through the Royal Flying Doctor Service schedule on the radio. That meant that conversations about business or private matters were there for everyone who tuned into the Flying Doctor schedule to hear. Privacy was not an issue, because there wasn't any; but, importantly, that schedule was available a couple of times a day. There were no fax machines and no access to computer technology or the Internet. When I was working out of Alice Springs, if someone wanted to deliver a message, it invariably meant a 10-hour drive in the hope that they might see someone to have a meeting, and often, as is the case in these remote communities, the person they wanted to speak to was not there.In 1985, the Labor government, through Telstra, initiated quite a magnificent program for rural and remote areas. The purpose of this rural and remote area program was to provide a basic telephone service to people in the bush through the USO—the universal service obligation. Telstra used a system of microwave bearers—the digital radio concen trator system, or DRCS—and gradually, over a five- or six-year period, the world was opened up to people who lived in regional and remote Australia.I know this to be a fact. Prior to the introduction of this technology, basic though it is, people had no access to telephonic services or fax. All of a sudden, a modern office could be born, and people could actually communicate with one another privately. People who lived on pastoral properties, in Aboriginal communities or in mining camps could talk to their spouses a long way away, check up on the family health and access information from universities and other learning institutions.I argued at the time, and I maintain that this argument holds true today, that the positive externalities of providing that infrastructure far outweigh the capital cost of its provision. The savings that were made through efficiency in servicing those communities and the social and economic outcomes that were delivered by that infrastructure are very hard to measure, but if they were measurable—and they are—they would demonstrate very clearly that the investment in that infrastructure, expensive though it was, paid handsome dividends.We have moved on from 1990 when that infrastructure rollout was all but completed. Remember that this was the period when Aussat was not travelling too well and satellite communications were very expensive. Telstra had difficulty getting customers and the technology was not the best. It basically put all its eggs in one basket by using the DRCS system—a terrestrial system.Unfortunately for Telstra, and unfortunately for the people who live in remote Australia, they have done very little to it since. That, I think, is a real issue here. Whilst people on the other side of this place can argue about the efficiencies that might be gained in the marketplace in Sydney or Melbourne, or up the fringe of the coast, and the cost reductions that can be brought about as a result of competition—and I am an advocate of competition—that cannot be said for the bush.These other organisations are not breaking their necks to deliver services to really remote regions. Let me tell you: they are not. You do not see alternative carriers marching around remote communities offering their wares. There are a number reasons for that, and I will come to those in a moment. The bottom line is that, whilst we have a universal service obligation, which is legislated, and whilst we have a carrier that is majority public owned—to my way of thinking it should have been retained in total public ownership but, nevertheless, it is still majority public owned—we have an influence over that company which we would not have if we were to pursue the objectives of the government, and that means a great deal.I will come in a moment to the debate which has emerged within Telstra and within the telecommunications industry about the universal service obligations and Telstra's obligation as a company that is majority public owned. The statements which were made by the chairman of that company were widely reported in the business press. I have in front of me an extract from the weekend Australian Financial Review of November 7 and 8 in which Telstra Corp Ltd's chairman, David Hoare, basically lambasted the government and the Australian taxpayers, who are the majority shareholders of Telstra, when he said that the company ought to be privatised. The extract states:Mr Hoare also called for the government to sell its remaining two-thirds of the company after the Australian Shareholders' Association queried how the board intended to deal with an apparent conflict of interest relating to Telstra's obligation to the government to provide a national service. "You have highlighted the conflict of interest, where the Government remains the majority shareholder and carries the responsibility for competition policy—that's a very compelling argument for the total privatisation of Telstra."Well, is it? What is that code for? That is code for saying that the commercial interests of the shareholders are more important than the social and political interests of the government. In effect, what they are saying is that they can cut themselves loose from the universal service obligations under this process—that is, at least in terms of the commitment that they currently make. They are thereby saying to those people who live in rural and remote areas in Australia that, although there has been a diminishing service since we went through the part-privatisation, they will get an ever increasing diminishing service as a result of full privatisation. The facts are very clear.I notice the adviser nodding his head, and well he might, because it is very clear that the standard of service for people who live in rural and remote Australia has declined substantially since 1996. Let me quote some figures which have come from the Australian Communications Authority telecommunications performance bulletin. These figures reflect a position where services connected over five different areas have decreased in every one of those areas since the December quarter of 1996.For the December 1996 quarter, the figure for services connected on or before the ACD was 82 per cent. For information, this is the percentage of new services connected on or before the agreed communications date, ACD. This is a date agreed between the customer and Telstra which is acceptable to the customer and realistic in terms of available work force. The figure in December 1996 was 82 per cent and for the June quarter of 1998 the figure was 73 per cent. For faults cleared within one working day, the figures were 74 per cent for December 1996 and 62 per cent for June 1998. For faults cleared within two working days, the figures were 90 per cent in June 1996 and 81 per cent in the June quarter of 1998. For pay phone faults cleared within one working day the figures were 67 per cent in 1996 and 48 per cent in 1998. For pay phone faults cleared within two working days the figures were 84 per cent in 1996 and 68 per cent in June 1998. There has been a massive deterioration in the level of services which have been going to the bush. The only people who have twigged on it on the government side of the House are those in the National Party. They did it before the election and no doubt they will give the government a bit of ginger before this debate is over. It is very clear that the people who will wear the impact of this absurd policy of the government are the people in the bush—the people I care about.Let me go a little further. In the Northern Territory—these figures come from the Performance Monitoring Bulletin, June 1998 quarter—the figures for performance in rural areas are even worse. For rural areas in the Northern Territory, the figure for fault clearances within two working days was 58 per cent, whereas the national average in March of 1998 was 82 per cent. This is effectively handicapping people who need communications systems. Who is responsible? Well one might ask.We have got the universal service obligation but what we have not got is a Telstra management committed to providing these services to people in the bush. What we have got is a debate about the level of this universal service obligation. I note with some interest this debate about what the level of universal service obligation should be. You will recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the government has, I think, put a figure of some $253 million on the cost of the universal service obligation. The Australian Financial Review of Wednesday 21 October makes the comment that there is a discussion in the telecommunications industry as to what the true value of this universal service obligation could be, because of course the higher the figure the greater cost burden there is on Telstra's competitors.The minority shareholders, as has been pointed out by the chairman of Telstra, do not buy competition; they want dividends. That is what they are after—the dividends from their investment, not the policy outcomes that a government should want to achieve by providing this sort of infrastructure in remote and rural Australia.It is interesting that when Bellcorp, a US telecommunications industry consultant, was appointed to devise a model based on what it would cost to deliver telephone services if the entire Telstra rural network was replaced today as required by law, when they inserted Telstra data into the Bellcorp model, it was revealed that roughly 493,000 rural Australian customers were unprofitable and being subsidised.What would be the fate of those customers under the sorts of arrangements which are being proposed by the government? The government says the USO is only worth $253 million. But, if you use this Bellcorp model, the value of the universal service obligation is $1.8 billion. I do not accept necessarily that it is $1.8 billion because I believe there are other mechanisms and approaches to providing this telecommunications infrastructure that Telstra should be looking at, including mixed mode delivery, using a lot more satellite technology and using local closed loops. No problem—that is all open to debate. But what we have got is the board of Telstra trying to backslide out of their obligations by saying they want to sell the place.You may think that this is all just about telephones and the Internet, et cetera, but it is about a lot more than that if you live in the bush. One of the small issues, but one which is very important to people like me, is Reach, the remote area access channel. Television coverage of news stories in remote parts of Australia will be limited under Telstra's plans to cut access to transmission points across the country. Telstra is closing its vast remote area access channel, the Reach network, which enables television stations to send video footage back to newsrooms in capital cities. There were more than 140 Reach sites across Australia. Telstra was to close them by mid-year, but this action was held off, no doubt because of the imminent election.Most of the Reach network has now been closed. Currently there are 31 sites operating, and the final number will be 18, called itinerant Reach sites. All of those 18 to be left are in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, and they exist only because Telstra needs them to service Sky racing. Telstra is publicly saying it is leaving 18 of these units, but the 18 that are left—and the commitment—are merely window dressing because they are not providing a service to people who most need them.There are no itinerant Reach sites left in the Northern Territory, Western Australia or Queensland. Important sites like Kalgoorlie, Alice Springs and Albany are without these services. The ABC and FACTs have been fighting these closures all the way. The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts has been trumpeting alternate technology, but the story being sold does not match the facts. The minister talks up the technology of sending video footage from PC to PC via ISDN phone lines, but the ABC says unequivocally that this technology just does not work. It may do so in a few years, but not now.It would cost the ABC between $60,000 and $200,000 to set up a satellite linking site in a place like Alice Springs, and then they would have to pay $1,000 an hour to use it. In the case of the Katherine flood or some other big ongoing story, the only way to send out stories would be to fly them out. I do not know, but I would have thought it was in the national interest to have these linkages. It is in the public interest to have these linkages so the community can be aware of what is happening in regional and remote Australia. But no, Telstra withdraws.I have a lot of friends who have been made redundant as a result of the management decisions made by Telstra. A lot of those people have gone west. They are no longer employed in the telecommunications industry. The pity of it all is that not only has their expertise gone, especially from remote communities, but the level of service that they provided has also gone. It seems to me that this government has to actually think a lot more about the key public policy issues, about the importance of this infrastructure for remote and regional Australia. Understand that you might have the benefit of this competition up the east coast of New South Wales, Victoria or Queensland but you do not have it in remote and rural Australia.Unfortunately, most people who sit in this place, most people in the federal bureaucracy and most people in Telstra have got absolutely no idea at all about what it is like to live in a regional area of Australia and be without these services. You take them for granted. We are finding that this is becoming a real issue of democracy—the ability of people to communicate with one another; the advantages that one group of people have over another. This has not been thought through by this government—sell off the family silver; do not worry about the services they were providing; accept that the market will prevail and that these services will somehow emerge out of the ether. They will not. History tells us they will not.The obligation on this government is to maintain the majority shareholding of the Australian community in Telstra and not sell any more of it off. This is a very important issue—a fundamental issue—to the future of this nation. It is very easy for those who sit in a catatonic state on the other side to mumble the jargon of the market, but they do not understand or, if they do, they do not care about the impact of their decisions.21:44:00453Gallus, Christine, MPMrs GALLUSCU4HindmarshLP10—One would be forgiven if, wandering into this place, one wondered what actually drove the opposition. Listening to the speech by the member for the Northern Territory today, I wondered what, if I had come here several years ago, I would have heard about the sale of the Commonwealth Bank and why this was good for Australia. If I had come in 10 years prior to that, I would have heard what an icon the Commonwealth Bank was and why—like the debate on Telstra today—to privatise it would be the worst possible crime that could be committed against the people of Australia. But one thing you cannot accuse the Labor Party of is consistency. They are, if nothing else, totally inconsistent.The legislation before us today allows for the sale of a further 16 per cent of Telstra—up to 49 per cent—allowing for an eventual privatisation. The question is: why should we sell Telstra? This is an important question. It is a question that the community deserves an answer to. The answers are simple: we should sell Telstra because it is good for the community; we should sell Telstra because it is good for the economy; we should sell Telstra because it is in the interests of Telstra; and we should sell Telstra because it is good for the future of Australia.First of all, let us turn to the community obligations. As I said, full privatisation can follow only after Telstra has satisfied an independent review that it has fulfilled its community obligations and can go on fulfilling those community obligations. There is no question here of suddenly abdicating responsibility for those community obligations. As regulator, the government can set the param eters, and it is up to Telstra to show that it can fulfil those parameters.I said it was good for the community. The community obligations that this bill puts in place will ensure that Telstra meets its customers' needs in the remote areas, as the member for the Northern Territory indicated. He is interested in the Northern Territory. Other people in this place on this side are desperately interested in what happens in the remote communities for which they are responsible, and these community obligations do meet those needs. Other speakers have listed in detail what these community obligations are and how they affect their particular area. These include greater Internet and mobile access, increased SBS reception and general access to that marvellous technological revolution that the member for the Northern Territory and the member for Moreton have indicated to us in their speeches.A government owned company is not necessarily a good company. I can remember when I returned to this country after living for seven years in Canada. I go back now about 20 years—maybe a little longer. I had lived in Canada for seven years and there as a mother, as a householder, I had a telephone connection. I thought little of it. I accepted it. I paid its bills. It was Bell Telephone and it was a private company.I came back to Australia and settled down as a householder with my three children and my husband and was confronted suddenly with—what were then called—Telecom bills. I was astounded at the difference between Canada and Australia. My bills here were four times the size that they had been in Canada. What is more, the service here was almost non-existent. I was stunned when I asked for my telephone to be connected and was told that I had to wait. This was unheard of in Canada, where this private company went out of its way to provide the best possible service. So let's get away from this whole idea that a public company is somehow a better company than a private company, because it is simply not so.The second way that this legislation will benefit the community is through the Natural Heritage Trust. This way of assisting the community was only brought about by the sale of one-third of Telstra, and look at the good it has done already—the major projects like the Murray-Darling Basin and the other projects in people's electorates. These were badly needed projects because if we have done anything wrong over the years—over the decades—in this country it has been to neglect our environment.The sale of Telstra provides us with some of the funds we need to go back to basics—to start in a small way—to restore the balance so that we can go into the next century with more confidence in an environment that is under repair. Madam Deputy Speaker, I ask you: where would the Labor Party get this kind of money? Would it ignore its environment and turn its back on the funds that are available through the sale of Telstra? Under the next tranche of the sale of Telstra—the extra 16 per cent—there will be an extra $250 million which will go into the environment to assist us in environmental repair. This, together with the community obligations, would be enough to justify further privatisation of Telstra to 100 per cent.However, the real benefits to the Australian taxpayer are the economic effects. It is good for Australia because low debt is good. If there was ever a fundamental economic statement, it has to be that. Australia's gross public debt is not huge at the moment by world standards. It is about $100 billion or 18.3 per cent of GDP. However, that 18.3 per cent of GDP costs us dearly. We are paying over $8 billion. In fact, at the moment, we are paying $9.1 billion in interest on that debt. Just think what we could do each year if we did not have to pay that $9.1 billion to service that debt. What does $9.1 billion buy? It buys a lot of health, a lot of education, a lot of environmental repair.If we sold the entirety of Telstra, it would enable us to retire $40 billion worth of debt. This would reduce the annual interest payments on our debt by $2.4 billion—that is an amazing amount. Remember that I said we are paying $9.1 billion now. All that money is wasted. We can reduce the annual interest payments by $2.4 billion by selling the rest of Telstra. Some people have praised privatisa tion for that very reason: it gives the economy a reduction in gross public debt. I have a quote that was made on 24 August 1994. I shall read you the quote before I tell you who said it:Of course another benefit of privatisation is that it contributes to the Government budget, helping to reduce debt and providing funds for Government programs. The scale of the asset sales process varies from year to year.The Government's commitment to the deficit reduction strategy means that a halt to privatisation would result in a direct cut to government programs.Who said that? It was the present leader of the Labor Party, Kim Beazley, in a speech given at the National Press Club on 24 August 1994. My, how he has changed! In his rebirth, the present Leader of the Opposition is trying to convince us that debt is good. Debt when the Labor Party was in government was bad, but somehow now that they are in opposition debt is good. In a speech made in this place in April this year, the opposition leader, Mr Beazley, addressed this very subject of debt. He raised the situation of Belgium, and he actually praised the Belgium economy. He said it was a very successful economy despite its very high debt to GDP ratio. Here was the Leader of the Opposition saying, `Look at Belgium, successful economy despite its high debt to GDP ratio.' It is somewhat different from what he used to say when he was in government. What is this debt to GDP ratio in Belgium? It is 122 per cent. The Leader of the Opposition gave as an example for Australia to follow a country which has a debt to GDP ratio of 122 per cent. If we had a similar debt to GDP ratio in this country, it would increase our overall debt to $500 billion and our yearly interest payments on that debt at the current bond rate of 5.19 per cent would increase our annual payments from $9.1 billion to $60 billion. To pay off those sorts of annual interest payments, which the Leader of the Opposition seems to be saying is fine by him, we would actually have to raise Australia's taxes by 20 per cent.Mr Griffin interjecting—CU4Gallus, Christine, MPMrs GALLUS—Look up the speech your leader gave in April this year when he said, `Belgium, nothing wrong with having a debt like that.' However, to pay off that debt there would need to be a 20 per cent rise in overall taxes. This is the Leader of the Opposition who tried to scare everybody on a 10 per cent GST but who is very happy with a 20 per cent rise in taxes. Beazley's new model for the Australian economy—Belgium. No wonder Latham is hiding in the back bench. It is scary stuff down there on the Labor front bench. Reducing debt makes good economic sense. Reducing debt enables us to weather the vicissitudes of the global economy. We have just seen what has happened to our neighbours in this region. We have weathered this better than the international community expected and better than I suspect we expected at one stage. One of the fundamentals that has enabled us to do that is the fact that we do not have high debt—the type of high debt that this Labor Party opposition would want to wish on Australia, the sort of debt that it left this government with when it left office and the sort of debt which it would give this country again if it ever again achieves office.Having a low debt to GDP ratio improves our international rating with agencies such as Standard and Poor's, and Moody's. Once that happens with a good international rating, AAA, our ability to borrow money from overseas at good rates improves which encourages overseas investors to come and invest in Australia. To encourage them here, we do not have to raise our interest rates and put a burden on our own businesses. So it is good for Australia in attracting business and investors to this country.It is also good for Telstra. Telstra at the moment is partially privatised and, as such, is a bit of a hybrid in that it looks in two directions. Governments should not be both regulators and shareholders, because the roles are essentially contradictory. Telstra as an Australian company has the right to be treated like any other company. It should not have any further obligations than any of its competitors, neither should it have any special treatment. If it is to be successful, it has to stand alone as an independent company. It is almost impossible to do that when one of its shareholders is the very government that regulated it.Partial privatisation does not really work, which is why after selling 50 per cent of the Commonwealth Bank the Labor Party sold the rest, and after selling 25 per cent of Qantas the Labor Party sold the lot. We are indebted to Tom Burton, who reminded us in the Australian Financial Review of 6 July this year how opposed Mr Beazley was, as finance minister under Keating, to partial privatisation. Mr Burton informs us that Beazley had frequently told everyone that such a mix did not work. Let us understand what we are talking about here. We are talking about the mix of public and private ownership, which is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition is now advocating. He is saying, `One-third of Telstra is already privatised. I did not want it. But now we have it let's stay with it. Don't privatise any more of it.' That is what he is telling us. But, according to Mr Burton, that is not what he thought when he was in government.Mr Burton tells us that it was a distaste for privatisation that led Mr Keating, Mr Willis and the present Leader of the Opposition, Mr Beazley, to sell the remaining 50 per cent of the Commonwealth Bank, despite the solemn promise by Mr Willis 20 months earlier that the government had `no intention whatsoever of further reducing its shareholding'. So there we have it. Once Mr Beazley, the Leader of the Opposition, the rather mercurial Leader of the Opposition, was against partial privatisation, but now he is singing a different tune. It seems that partial privatisation, like boutique beers, is now in, once having been out.Should we be surprised that the Leader of the Opposition has changed his mind about the benefits, the pros and cons, of partial privatisation? I do not think so. If we have a look at the Leader of the Opposition's position, we see that he pirouetted all around the place on all issues on privatisation. He was a member of the Labor cabinet when government assets were sold. Perhaps new members opposite do not realise how much of Australia's assets the Labor cabinet sold— $17.5 billion worth. Their present leader was a member of the cabinet when they were sold. From 1991, he was the finance minister, who helped organise the sale. He helped sell, amongst many other things, the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, Australian Airlines, the Moomba-Sydney pipeline, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation and Aerospace Technologies of Australia. They are just a few. This is the same man who now sees the privatisation of Telstra as something beyond belief, something he cannot even contemplate. Fancy trying to privatise a public company!8K6FITZGIBBONMr Fitzgibbon—You're comparing apples with oranges.CU4Gallus, Christine, MPMrs GALLUS—The member at the table says that I am comparing apples with oranges. It is good to be a Labor Party member. You can draw these fine distinctions. You can say, `It's okay for us to sell the Commonwealth Bank. It's okay for us to sell Qantas. It's okay for us to sell Australian Airlines. But, damn, it's not okay for you to sell Telstra.' That is because the Labor Party is a loving, caring, sharing party and it is okay for a loving, caring, sharing party to sell assets, but it is not okay for the Liberal Party. In this case, what is sauce for the goose is simply not sauce for the gander.Maybe the member at the table has a feeling that his present leader did not have his heart in all those sales back then; that this is really the true Mr Beazley. Perhaps he was a closet socialist all along. Perhaps in cabinet he fought against the sale of the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas and everything else. Perhaps he fell down on his knees and pleaded with his Prime Minister, `Keating, don't do it!' Unfortunately, the opposite is the truth. (Time expired)22:04:00456Edwards, Graham, MPMr EDWARDS83RCowanALP00—I oppose the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 . I oppose it because if it is passed it will lead to the total sale of Telstra and the ultimate loss of Australian ownership of our own telecommunications infrastructure systems and technology. The government has failed, and successive speakers on the government side have failed tonight, to explain to the people of Australia and to explain to this parliament what real long-term benefits this nation will derive from the proposed sale of Telstra. Indeed, anyone who has listened to this debate tonight would have to say that they are disappointed—disappointed because this government has not been able to give us one single compelling reason why we should sell Telstra.You would think that if the sale of Telstra were so good for Australia there would be a dozen reasons the government would be able to give. I have listened to this debate tonight and I have not heard one reason. I certainly would not be and could not be convinced to change my mind about the sale of Telstra from the arguments that I have heard. I am sure that anyone outside of the chamber listening to the debate would feel equally as disappointed as I am.The government has not explained nor justified why it is rushing headlong into the sale of this asset, which once sold will be forever beyond the capacity of the people of Australia to buy back. Indeed, the full monty privatisation philosophy of this Howard government to rush in and divest itself and this country of our national assets has long-term ramifications for our country—ramifications which I am sure some members opposite have not fully considered. If they had, I doubt they would be so keen to support this further demonstration of the Howard government's blind lemming like commitment to economic rationalisation.There is no doubt that Telstra, under this government, has rationalised its operations at the expense of Australian workers and further rationalised its operations at the expense of services to Australians in order to meet this policy of selling an asset that is already Australian owned. It would appear to me that the long-term interests of Australia would be better served with the retained public ownership of Telstra. Surely we are better off to reinvest the existing dividend in subscribers, particularly those in the bush and those who are already the majority shareholders of this national carrier—that is, the Australian taxpayers. I wonder how much Australian ownership of Telstra will remain in this nation in 20 years time or so if this sale goes ahead. Indeed, I wonder just how much of those shares already in the marketplace are owned by major investors, institutions and overseas investors.Of major concern to me is that if this legislation goes through it will result in the loss of general ministerial power to direct Telstra in matters of public interest. I want to give the House an example of how the loss of that power will impact on a number of people who live in my electorate of Cowan in the locality of Landsdale, adjacent to the Perth International Telecommunications Centre at a site known as Gnangara. I might say that this Gnangara site is described by Telstra people as one of the most important international communication sites in Australia.The people I want to talk about live within one kilometre of this Telstra facility. Coincidently, Telstra requires a one kilometre buffer zone around this facility in order to protect the quality of its transmission. Some of the residents to whom I refer have owned this land for many years and now want to sell or subdivide their blocks. However, because they are within the Telstra buffer zone, they will be unable to realise the full value of their land simply because Telstra is using its influence with planning authorities to keep its buffer zone rural while most of the surrounding land has been rezoned urban in tune with the development of housing in Perth's northern suburbs.In short, Telstra is bludging on my constituents. I believe the minister should be able to use his powers of direction to resolve this issue. I am not saying he should be able to go out there and tell Telstra to buy the land, but he should be able to use powers under the existing act to have this matter resolved. He should be directing Telstra to resolve it. Once this legislation passes, if it is passed, that power to direct will be lost forever.To further my argument, I want to refer to an article which appeared in the Sunday Times on 21 September 1997. The quotes I will refer to were comments made by the current President of the Legislative Council in the WA parliament, the Hon. George Cash. The article states: As Telstra prepares to release its $12 billion share float, it is being accused of robbing some Landsdale residents of their retirement income.More than 60 land-owners, most of whom bought rural blocks of between two and four hectares, bought the land believing it would be zoned urban. They claim Telstra has stopped their land appreciating in value.The problem surfaced in 1987 when Telstra upgraded its 20-year-old Overseas Telecommunications base at Gnangara to a satellite earth station, claiming it needed a buffer zone.Senior Liberal MLC for the North Metropolitan Region, George Cash, said Telstra was using standover tactics and causing residents, who are either retired or near retirement, financial hardship.Mr Cash said the failure by Telstra to formally acknowledge the need for a buffer zone and provide full information was sheer arrogance."I am dismayed at the lack of planning which saw Telstra siting such a facility in what was clearly the path of urban growth," he said.It is also interesting to note a letter I have which was written to some solicitors acting for some of my constituents. The letter is signed by the `Regional and General Manager, Western Region' of Telstra. I briefly want to quote that. The letter states:You have stated that your clients' land is "adversely affected" by a one kilometre buffer zone "created" around Telstra's installations. This is not correct. Your clients' land is contained within a rural zoning, and it is that zoning which prevents its subdivision for residential purposes, not the installations Telstra has made on the adjoining land. It is also not correct to say that a buffer zone has been created, the fact is that the zoning that has affected your client's land has simply remained the same. I also find it difficult to see how you can assert that your clients' land is "adversely affected" when it has the same zoning that it had when it was purchased by your clients.What this regional manager is saying is that it is not the buffer zone that is the problem; it is the rural zoning.Having sorted that out, I want to refer now briefly to a Telstra document entitled Perth International Telecommunications Centre: radio frequency interference protection requirements and assessment of impact of man-made noise sources. It is a report prepared by R.O. Abbasi at Telstra International Engineering. The reason I am referring to these matters is that I want to refer back to this power that the minister has to direct, a power which he will lose should this legislation go through. The first part of the report I want to refer to is found on page 6, and it states:It will be shown below that achievement of the cumulative interference objectives for the PITC facilities appears to be closely linked to the retention of a rural zoning within the region defined by the separation contour. Given the existing level of residential development within this region, Telstra now believes that it is essential to retain a rural only zoning within the present buffer zone as any further development within this zone is likely to result in an irreversible degradation in the performance of the facilities.Page 9 of that same report states:To date, Telstra has reviewed several proposals for sub-division of properties with the buffer zone. In some instances where the lots have been well shielded from the radio line of sight of the existing PITC facilities such as to increase the available relative transmission loss to a value equivalent to a separation distance outside the buffer zone, it has been possible to make some concessions. No such flexibility exists for lots within radio line of sight of the PITC as this would quickly compromise the viability of the site. In all cases of development within the present buffer zone, Telstra has requested specific measures such as underground power distribution and avoidance of gas discharge lighting to minimise the cumulative interference impact on the site. Given the findings of this report, Telstra is of the opinion that the opportunity for any further subdivision within the revised buffer zone is extremely limited.I read a couple of minutes ago a letter from Telstra which said that the problem is not the buffer zone or the facility; it is the rural zoning. The last letter I want to quote from Telstra was signed by the same gentleman that I mentioned before and it is written to the Ministry of Planning. It is a rather long letter and I do not intend to go through all of it, but from the section under the heading `The planning status of Gnangara' there are five or six points that I want to convey to the House. The letter reads:1. As stated above Gnangara and the surrounding land have been within a rural zoning for as long as the land has been owned by OTC and Telstra.2. Telstra has previously had an arrangement with the City of Wanneroo so that it was notified of all proposals that had the potential to affect the operations of Gnangara. As proposals were notified to Telstra it would assess their impact upon the operations at Gnangara and comment accordingly. Telstra was entitled to receive this notification and make comments on the proposals as an adjoining land owner—I might say that the adjoining landowners have no such opportunity to make comments about developments within the Telstra facility. The letter continues:3. When assessing proposals for development of land in the area, Telstra has always made every effort to facilitate that development wherever possible, and hence has sometimes not objected to proposals even where they had potential to affect Telstra's operations. It would therefore be unfair to say that Telstra has opposed all development in the area.4. The local residents who have requested the Council to make this Planning Scheme Amendment have alleged that their land is somehow "blighted" by a one kilometre "buffer zone" around the site. This is not in fact the case. There is no buffer zone, the land owned by these residents is simply in a rural zoning, which is an appropriate zoning for that land, and is the zoning that was in place when each of those residents purchased their land.The last point I want to read is No. 6 and it states:6. These residents have no right to expect that their land should be rezoned as a matter of course. Any rezoning that did occur would result in a windfall for these land owners, who purchased their land in its present condition, which would have been reflected in the price they paid.In conclusion he says:It is my hope that once you have considered these factors that you will not see the need to take the rezoning any further.Subsequent to that letter, I have a copy of a letter that was written by the state Secretary to the Western Australian Planning Commission to the Chief Executive Officer of the City of Wanneroo, the local authority where this facility exists. It states:It is advised that the Hon Minister for Planning has withheld consent for the Amendment to be advertised for public inspection for the following reasons:. . . . . . . . .The land is in close proximity to the Telstra Communications Facility and the proposed rezoning would interfere with telecommunication operations from the site which would be contrary to the public interest . . . .I brought this matter forward tonight during this debate because it seems to me that the only way we are going to resolve this issue—and it is an issue that has been going on for many years now—is to convince the minister that he should use his powers to direct Telstra to do just that and get them to resolve the issue. But, for some reason or other, the minister has not done that.I want to see this issue resolved. I want to see it resolved in the interests of both Telstra and my constituents, but particularly my constituents. I am concerned that, if this legislation goes through, that power to direct will be gone forever and how are these sorts of issues ever going to be resolved in the future. We are not just talking about selling a facility that is going to bring in a few bob that people can use in the lead-up to an election for all sorts of pork-barrelling; we are talking about the sale of a facility which is already owned by Australians which, once sold, we cannot buy back and which, once sold, we will have no power, no influence, on how the business or how the operations of that carrier are carried out in the future.I have just given one example tonight of how some ordinary Australian families are being impacted on by Telstra at the moment even though it is in public ownership. How will those people be treated once this facility is sold and once the ownership of this facility goes overseas? Under this government, that is ultimately where the ownership of Telstra is heading if these bills get through the parliament. I simply hope that they do not. I will be doing everything I can to oppose them.22:23:00459Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSONRW5BradfieldLP10—The Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 and the related Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Bill 1998 will enable the Commonwealth to sell 49.9 per cent of its equity interest in Telstra. This will leave the government owning 50.1 per cent. What we are looking at here is effectively three pieces of legislation that are relevant to the sale. One brings together the consumer protection and service standards of the existing Telstra legislation and combines them with the new power of the minister to direct the company to comply with those standards, which is something that is long overdue. The legislation makes clear the government's intention, which is that only 16.6 per cent of Telstra will be sold in the first tranche. The sale of the remaining 50.1 per cent will be conditional upon an independent review of Telstra's service standards. Rural Australians in particular would have an interest in the outcome of such an analysis.Those opposing the privatisation of Telstra should think long and hard about their opposition to these bills. This company is now one-third privatised. About 1.6 million Australians bought into the first float. About 600,000 of them made their first foray into the share market. Ninety-two per cent of Telstra employees invested in the company, which might say something about the opposition of the union movement to this sale. This now leaves the company what could be described as half pregnant, in one sense. The regulator, the Commonwealth government, is also the majority shareholder. Already board tensions suggest that the sooner the government gets right out of its share the better for Telstra, its competitors and, importantly, its customers.The way to deliver improved and more affordable telecommunications services is not through government owned monopolies subject to the meddlesome interference of politicians but through market based competition. As both the regulator and majority shareholder, it could be argued that the government has a conflict of interest. Minimising competition in its crudest sense would potentially increase Telstra's profits. The overall interests of country Australia lie in having a low cost, modern telecommunications service that can ultimately be delivered only by competition in the market, not job creation programs that are designed to appease those coming to terms with painful but inevitable changes in both our country and the world in which we live.Whilst I strongly support the universal service obligation, which is that all Australians must have access to standard telephone services and pay phones, that there be a levy on all phone companies and that there be a customer service guarantee, opponents to these bills should be aware that if they continue to impose costly social objectives on the carriers, including Telstra, both the companies and their customers will ultimately suffer. If social obligations need to be met, as I believe most certainly they must, perhaps it would make more sense for governments to provide them in a transparent way funded by general revenue raising activities. Telstra, like its competitors, is trying to compete with the rest of the world. Those who want to place more lead in its saddlebags in the form of unprofitable obligations beyond what is responsible jeopardise not only shareholder returns but the capacity of the company to grow in an intensely competitive industry. Just look at BHP if you are in any doubt as to the social impact of big companies getting into trouble, whatever the reason might be.The nation building days of government funded and fully government owned infrastructure are all but over. They are the days when it was believed that only government could build and maintain a national telecommunications network. However, service complaints about both the PMG and the government monopoly Telecom were legendary until the introduction of competition in 1992 with the advent of Optus. With one-third of Telstra now sold, we have Australians to whom management must answer. Shareholders have a say in how the company is run and by whom. One argument that is continually put by those opposing the privatisation is that Australians already own Telstra. The fact is that at the moment Australians cannot decide who runs Telstra. They cannot decide how the company is going to be directed. Now at least one-third of the company is owned by Australians who have a very direct interest and a direct input into that process.Another staggering impact of the first one-third privatisation is upon the value of the company itself. When in opposition in 1996 the government first publicly proposed a one-third sale of Telstra, it was valued at around $24 billion. In March this year, when the Prime Minister announced the government's intention to sell the remaining two-thirds, the value of Telstra was estimated at $60 billion. By moving Telstra from public to private ownership, the government created around $40 billion in wealth for us all. Not only is that additional wealth now available; it has materialised in the form of shares. The market clearly values Telstra more highly than the public sector ever did. Today's market prices for Telstra shares value the remaining two-thirds of the company at around $80 to $85 billion. In other words, the 16.6 per cent proposed to be sold in the first tranche through these bills is worth as much as the first one-third of the company privatised.Commonsense would also suggest that delays will create uncertainty in the market and heighten risk. As the market is relatively strong and stable, it makes sense to move sooner rather than later. There are important social dividends to be gained from the further privatisation of Telstra. There is $250 million, for example, for the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia. We are selling telecommunications infrastructure to repair environmental capital upon which we have lived. In that sense, I find it extraordinary that the Greens senator, Senator Brown, who has spent a lot of his life chaining himself to log trucks and bulldozers to protect the environment, seems to now consider that the government owning the phone company is far more important than protecting and repairing Australia's environmentThe second part, totalling $421 million, is comprised of other elements of the social dividend package, which include rural transaction centres. Around $70 million over five years is allocated for them. There will be extended access to untimed local calls worth $150 million over three years. There will be Internet access for people in regional and rural areas worth $36 million over three years. It is noteworthy that 93 per cent of Australians have access to broadband digital services such as ISDN.Debate interrupted.Adjournment46110000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 10.30 p.m., I propose the question:That the House do now adjourn. 46122:30:00461Wilton, Greg, MPMr WILTONYK6IsaacsALP00—The government's activities in the area of superannuation merit both scrutiny and condemnation. As members on both sides would know, the government has introduced a right to choose legislation which gives employers the right to choose the fund for their employees' contribution; that is, it is employer driven. The government is also attempting to legislate to remove superannuation as one of the 20 allowable award matters. Both of these legislative measures have rightly faced opposition in the Senate and from workers across Australia.An award simplification case to be heard by a full bench of the AIRC next Wednesday following an application by the government to stealthfully introduce the employer choice of superannuation fund notion through the award system—in this case, into two key building and construction industry awards—also merits some scrutiny and condemnation. Thinking Australians should be, and I know would be, concerned at this backdoor approach because it is indicative of a contempt of this parliament, particularly of the minor parties in the Senate. Thinking Australians should be concerned because, if the government is successful in its application, workers will lose their entitlements. Before I outline what those lost entitlements entail, I will quote the Prime Minister at a 17 August 1995 doorstop interview. In attempting to defend the coalition from understandable charges that a worker's superannuation entitlements would diminish under a coalition government, he said:I give an absolute guarantee that people will not be worse off superannuation-wise under us. Absolute, full stop, end of story.There is no doubt that superannuation entitlements will diminish if this government's application is successful before the full bench next Wednesday. What underpins this application is the fact that the payment of benefits of a worker will be made yearly—that is, every 28 July—rather than monthly, as in preceding times. This will reduce the compound interest earned by members. The Australian Institute of Actuaries has cited figures from a survey which suggest that a person could be about $16,000 per year worse off—that is, two age pension entitlements per year—as a result of that change alone.Paying benefits yearly and not monthly furthermore makes it difficult for funds such as C+BUS to offer insurance cover which, of course, is contribution based. This change will furthermore result in collection problems. It is likely that there will be added cost associated with debt collection due to the high turnover of employers and a greater number of business bankruptcies. One can cite Woodlawn, Patrick and the Cobar miners to name but three.These award changes that were proposed by the government and will be heard stealthfully before the commission next Wednesday also mean that employees will join several funds as they change jobs. This lack of portability suggests that workers will pay several administration fees, adding to their own personal superannuation costs. The new clause proposed by the government on Wednesday for insertion into these awards excludes any reference to personal contributions made by employees.The existing award clause encourages employers to facilitate the payment of personal contributions. This is especially important because employees need to save 15 per cent per annum over the duration of an average 40-year working lifespan in order to fund an adequate retirement. This is a further manifestation of the fact that this is a government which understands very little about superannuation. What little it understands it does not like. True to form, this is a weak and sneaky act from a weak and sneaky Prime Minister. It is a despicable attempt, furthermore, to bypass the parliament and attack workers' superannuation entitlements. It is a government which stands condemned for its attack on superannuation and certainly workers who, for a short period, this Prime Minister falsely tried to claim as his own.46222:35:00462Gash, Joanna, MPMrs GASHAK6GilmoreLP10—I rise to speak tonight on behalf of the many residents of the Gilmore electorate who are involved in or depend upon the dairy industry for their livelihood. The dairy industry is one of the major business operations in the electorate of Gilmore, employing several hundred people in milk production and catering for thousands of families in New South Wales. Dairy Farmers Co-op in Bomaderry receives milk from more than 120 producers in the local area. The south coast Illawarra farms produce more than 131 million litres of milk annually worth more than $50 million each year. These farmers spend more than $37.4 million each year on expenditures such as goods and services.One thing needs to be made very clear: there is no such thing as a level playing field. We believe that the dairy farmers' plight is simple. They say, `We don't want a level playing field. We want the field tilted in our direction to support Australian businesses.'It interested me to read recently of a study which showed that since 1975 the number of registered dairy farms has declined 53.8 per cent and cow numbers have declined 23.9 per cent. However, average herd sizes have risen from 93 to 139. Davidson's study on the shire of Dungog, a small rural town near Newcastle, told the story of the average dairy farming centre under the changes which have taken place over the past decade or so. Between 1990 and 1995, the number of small herd farms reduced from 21 to six. Medium sized herd farms reduced from 25 to 24 while the larger herd farms increased from 24 to 29. I am sure that this story could be told in many regional areas of New South Wales if similar studies were conducted. Whilst smaller farms have been disappearing, productivity has steadily increased. However, there must be a balance of costs and benefits.In the submissions to the review of the New South Wales Dairy Industry Act 1979, I read that New South Wales government bureaucrats believed that the arrangements up to 1 July 1998 were at a cost of up to $100 million to taxpayers—yet industry representatives believed that those same arrangements benefited the public to the tune of more than $50 million. With the 1 July reforms, the farm gate price has been reduced to 3.3c per litre and vendors' and processors' operations have been deregulated. The immediate results of this have been to make dairy farmers once again tighten their belts—yet the cost of a litre of milk has not dropped the 3.3c supermarkets are saving on the farm gate price. The benefits are not being passed on to the consumers.There has been a lot of talk about the Hilmer report and the benefits of national competition policy. From my own point of view, the Hilmer report should not have been as wholeheartedly embraced as it was. My view is based on what I have seen of how the recommendations of the Hilmer report have impacted on local businesses. While there are great benefits of competition, particularly for consumers and business, this needs once again to be balanced with the needs of local industry. The direct benefits of competition are lower prices for consumers and increased productivity; these work to reduce input costs for other industries and increase employment opportunities for more Australians.Labor took a hardline approach to competition policy, noting that they had not `exempted sectors from the national competition rules'. According to the agreement with the states and territories, each political party is free to determine its own agenda for the reform of legislation that restricts competition.The coalition's priorities are to take a commonsense approach to competition policy, and I am delighted that the government will commission a Productivity Commission inquiry into `the extent to which the benefits of competition are flowing to rural and regional Australia'. This is a major step, and one which I fully endorse. Regional areas and rural industries must receive the benefits of the competition policy if it is to be considered in the national interest.The employment of so many individuals in the dairy industry in my electorate of Gilmore has spin-offs for the rest of the community in terms of service provision and further jobs. Recent action on behalf of community residents to boycott the major supermarkets in favour of the local dairy co-op store for milk is indicative of the level of support for this industry in our local area.The impact of the New South Wales government's decision to deregulate the industry beyond the farm gate without price monitoring has resulted in huge losses for farmers but no benefits for consumers. Threats to the viability of this industry, particularly to the many small family owned farms, are threats to major employment opportunities for many local residents. The impact of unmonitored deregulation as a result of competition policy has been to provide such a threat to the livelihoods of many people as well as to an efficient, important industry in my electorate. I look forward to the outcomes of the Productivity Commission inquiry so that we may be able to answer the question asked by my constituents—that being: what's in it for us?46322:40:00463Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON8K6HunterALP00—I bet the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation, at the table, looks forward to the contribution of the member for Gilmore to the debate which will inevitably flow from the Australian Competition Tribunal's decision on newsagencies.I am here tonight to talk about dying. I am here to inform the House that it is about to become increasingly expensive to die in the Hunter Valley. The minister at the table will jump to the conclusion that I am about to launch an attack on the GST. But no, I am not. The minister jumps to that conclusion because he knows that the effect of the GST will be to increase the average cost of a funeral by some $500. But that is not what I want to talk about tonight.I want to talk about the increasing dominance of the US based firm Services Corporation International in the Australian funeral market. Through its Australian subsidiary, Services Corporation International Australia, SCIA, it is buying up every mortuary, every cremator and every funeral business in its sight. In the Hunter alone, SCIA has already sucked up Beresfield Funerals; White Lady Funerals at Mayfield, Maitland and Charlestown; Parsons Funerals at Belmont; Awaba Funerals; Maitland Funerals; and a number of Simplicity Funeral outlets. Of course, Mr Speaker, none of the names have been changed. SCIA likes to retain the names to give all those in the Hunter and in the wider Australian community the impression that it is business as usual, particularly for those family owned firms.Now SCIA is gunning for Cremations (Newcastle) Holdings Pty Ltd. This purchase will give the Texas based firm ownership of the Hunter Valley's only two cremators—the Beresfield crematorium and the Macquarie Memorial Park crematorium. As the Newcastle Herald's Jeff Corbett has pointed out, more than 70 per cent of funerals in the Hunter Valley end in cremation.SCIA has made the shareholders of Newcastle Cremations `an offer too good to refuse'. Of course, SCIA has indicated to the shareholders that, if they choose to decline the offer, it will have to look at other options—which is simply code for moving against them in some other form. It is not surprising that SCIA is prepared to pay a price for Newcastle Cremations which obviously is high above the market value. The vertical and horizontal arrangements which will stem from the purchase will effectively give the US based firm a licence to print money.Some members will remember the name `Services Corporation International' from the coverage it received some time ago on Channel 9's 60 Minutes program. On that particular program, we saw the manner in which the company or corporation had brought to Australian shores the hardest of selling techniques—and some of the most obscene selling techniques when applied to the funeral industry. The SCIA training manual trains and encourages the employees—which it has so kindly retained following the acquisitions—in the hardest sell approaches, some of which you would only expect from a used car salesman. Many of these employees are now forced to work on a commission basis. Of course, for many years many of them had worked in the industry in a dignified manner and have since taken the option of leaving the industry.It is interesting to note that in a letter to Newcastle Cremations' shareholders SCIA point out that they see great potential for both of the firm's cremators. I am sure they do. Their new vertical and horizontal arrangements will produce a windfall for SCIA. The losers will be the Hunter's funeral services consumers—consumers who at the time of their purchase are at their most vulnerable; consumers who will now be offered all sorts of additional services, monuments, et cetera which they will be told are the appropriate memorial in this day and age as a dedication to their lost loved ones. I wonder what will become of the remaining independent funeral services left in the Hunter. How will they fare in terms of their business relations with the company with all these dominating arrangements? (Time expired)46422:45:00464Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSONRW5BradfieldLP10—I wish to return to the topic of underage boxing. There is a darker side in all human beings that is unleashed by watching two people fight. If you have ever attended a boxing match or you have been in a smoke-filled bar room where they are watching a Sky broadcast of a boxing match, it is just as interesting to watch the impact on spectators as it is participants. This raises the question: does our continued celebration of the sport say something of the kind of society we want to become?Boxing remains a popular sport—not only amongst blokes looking for footy results and race forms in smoke-filled bars; its success also relies heavily upon the promotion of boxing in the childhood years. Whilst amateur boxing has a proud and altruistic history, there is little justification for seeing it continue. Underage boxing by both boys and girls is even less defensible. The risk of acute fatality in the ring at an amateur school and club boxing bout is close to zero. The big health risk for children in boxing is the effect of repeated minor blows which cause cumulative damage to an organ that is irreparable—the brain.Whilst showing no clinical signs at the time of death, autopsies on amateur boxers killed in their twenties confirm high-tech magnetic resonance imaging findings of dramatic brain damage. Knockouts, of course, are a serious problem, but more recent scientific examination of the impact of boxing on the human brain finds that it is the repeated blows over a number of years that ultimately lead to dementia, deafness and a form of Parkinson's disease. About 15 per cent of those who pursue careers in professional boxing will end up with dementia, and there is every indication at the moment that amateur boxers who pursue the sport for a prolonged period of time will certainly suffer a degree of brain damage.Young girls, who have been the subject of controversy in the last week, also risk damage to developing breast tissue, an issue that did not feature too heavily during the debate, if you can call it that. The brain should not be the target in any sport. Accidents and fatalities occur in rugby and soccer, but they do so either by accident or by the breaking of rules. The intention of boxing is to inflict damage on the brain of your opponent until such time that he or she is incapable of continuing. Why the testicles are out of bounds but not the brain is a question that boxing authorities should answer.The argument that boxing gives underprivileged kids a chance in life and keeps them off the streets is not a defence of the sport but an indictment of the sort of society that we are. Many such young people are tethered to a value system that bodes ill for economic success, and worship of boxers worsens the odds and exploits an already overexploited group of people. I would be surprised if those who were arguing in defence of underage boxing—in one case last week we saw 11-year-old girls boxing—had high levels of education. I would be surprised if the parents of children who were participating in this were High Court judges, academics, medical practitioners or others that you would associate with high degrees of socioeconomic background and education. Any scholarly examination of the careers of notable boxers—those one in a thousand who actually make the big time—confirms that success is illusory. There is little difference between what boxing supposedly helps them avoid and the tragic option socially if not physically that the sport represents.We banned cockfighting because it degrades those who watch and societies that allow it to occur. So too children's boxing is incompatible with an enlightened, caring society. No parent has the right to expose a child's brain to injury and to do so knowingly. You are required to be 16 before you can consent to sexual activity or to smoke cigarettes. I fail to see why you should be able to expose your brain to damage under the age of 16. In fact, I think that the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs could do well to conduct a review of the literature, to take submissions from right across Australia and to consider what approach we might take at a national level to control, regulate and hopefully prohibit boxing in children, particularly under the age of 14 if not 16. It goes to the heart of what sort of society we want to be, what sorts of values that we might have and, in particular, it will move us away to some extent from a culture of violence. (Time expired)46522:50:00465Mossfield, Frank, MPMr MOSSFIELDMK6GreenwayALP00—I would like to speak about the changing pattern in home ownership in Australia, as outlined in the report of 1997 entitled Trends in Home Ownership by Judith Yates from the Department of Economics at the University of Sydney. The 1996 census showed that 69 per cent of households in Australia and 67.7 per cent of households in New South Wales were home owners, but there was starting to emerge a decline in the number of householders who were home owners.In 1975 almost 70 per cent of householders under 35 were home owners. By 1994 this had declined to 55 per cent. This changing pattern of home ownership can be put down to a number of social and economic factors. One economic factor that has contributed to a decline in home ownership, according to Dr Yates, is a fall in real household income. Between 1975 and 1995 real household income per household declined from $875 per week to $786 per week, and household income in the lowest income quintile declined from $230 per week to $190 per week. Between 1975 and 1994 there was an increase in the home ownership differential between the lowest and highest income quintile of almost 10 per cent.The major reason for this increased differential was a significant decline in home ownership amongst households in the lowest income quintile. There was also a decline in home purchase rates amongst households in the middle income quintiles.Labour market trends may also be contributing to changing patterns in home ownership. These trends are leading to an increased inequality in earnings in employment, and also to employment insecurity. Some of the labour market trends identified in the Yates report are the decline in full-time employment participation rates and the increase in part-time rates, a marked increase in unemployment—which rises rapidly during a recession and falls off more slowly during the recovery period—and an increase in long-term unemployment. The report argues that the new workplace environment is:. . . moving away from the concern with social protection and the living wage that characterised the first three-quarters of this century and towards direct bargaining at the workplace level. While the evidence is not yet conclusive, many are concerned that the shift to enterprise bargaining will accelerate the trend towards greater earning inequality and lower wages for the most lowly paid and disadvantaged.The Yates report also highlights some changing Australian social factors that may be leading to a decline in home ownership, such as the deferral of marriage and child-raising, increasing divorce and separation, leading to single and sole parent households.In 1975, 83 per cent of women in Australia had married by the time they turned 25, and most men had married soon after that age. By 1994, this had dropped to 42 per cent; likewise, in 1972, about two-thirds of women had had a child by the time they were 25. By 1994, this figure had dropped to just over one-quarter. The report showed that singles and single parents have considerably lower home ownership rates than do couples and couples with children. The conclusion of this report is that housing opportunities, particularly for low income households, are declining. Decisions on home ownership are being deferred as couples save to obtain funds for a deposit on a home.The Yates report concludes that these changing economic, labour market and social trends may be contributing to the emergence of a new generation of public housing renters, particularly among low income people. These people can no longer afford the security provided by home ownership. They do not have the confidence to undertake the long-term commitment associated with home purchases; neither do they have the economic incentives which have in the past encouraged a commitment to finance home ownership. The Yates report concludes:Home ownership is increasingly becoming the domain of those with sufficient wealth to own their homes outright. It has become a luxury for those who face the uncertainties and volatility of a global economy.46622:55:00466Billson, Bruce, MPMr BILLSON1K6DunkleyLP10—On 14 November I had the good fortune of joining with many people from the Frankston community in a project that was sponsored and arranged by the Frankston City Council. The project did not have a very imaginative name. It was called the Frankston Project. But it was actually a bringing together of people with a very deep love for our community and a vested interest in seeing that it goes forward into the future.The idea behind the project was to bring together those opinion leaders and other such people with a contribution to make, for a day-long convention to tease out some of the opportunities that our city could take advantage of into the future. Those in this House or those listening who have not been to the `Dunkley by the Bay' electorate have probably not quite grasped the splendour of the community. But, like many communities, one thing that the Frankston community shares is that there is no place reserved for it into the future, and that to make sure that we get more than our fair share of the prosperity and benefits of living in this country we need to map out a plan to secure those benefits in the longer term.The idea behind the convention was to bring together those community people and people such as the senior executives and mayor from the council, to work with facilitators—Hassell Consulting's Mr Alun Chapman, Jan Bruce and Associates, and others such as Dr Peter Steidl from Emery Vincent Design—to draw out ideas about the future of the city and to try and agree on a vision that we could all work towards collectively into the longer term. Some of the great ideas that came forward largely centred on the bay. Frankston is in the unique situation of being a fairly significant regional centre that is on the waterfront of Port Phillip Bay.One of the things that we learned as we discussed visions for the city is that we really need to reorientate the city towards the waterfront, because it is one of its unique features that we should be taking greater advantage of. The city has turned its back on the waterfront, and many of the themes and ideas that were coming through at this convention were about rebuilding that connection with the Port Phillip coastline in a way that recognises its environmental values but also recognises that it is something special that sets us apart from any other communities.We were talking about ideas; we were hearing about what Bilboa in Spain and Middlesbrough in the UK have done to reinvigorate their cities and not just carve out a reputation in the greater urban area or region that they are part of but also to develop a name and a standing nationally and, in some cases, internationally—because Frankston has all that opportunity ahead of it, but we need to work together to secure it.The day-long seminar drew out many good ideas from many people; but it was also a stretch, because it is all very easy at times to talk about the here and now, but it is quite difficult to imagine what the city could be in 20 years time and then talk about how you actually deliver on that vision. What came out, though, were eight or nine different themes and ideas about how to position the city and then some action plans beneath them to implement that. There is obviously work ahead for the council and the people involved in the Frankston Project, to tease out those ideas and see if we can bring together a shared vision that everybody with a stake in the city can work towards.I particularly enjoyed the opportunity since, during the election campaign, I put out a bit of a vision and a local action plan for the electorate and I called it `Our Dunkley Destiny'. It embraced ideas such as Frankston being what Oakland is to San Francisco: an educational precinct, an area where people come, a place of learning—but a place that has carved out a future for itself. There are other opportunities there about showcasing all the wonderful experiences that are available on the Mornington Peninsula; and my colleague mentioned the Blue Mountains earlier in the day. Well, if you want a really special holiday, come to the Mornington Peninsula and enjoy the wines, the food, the golf courses, the leisure experience.And that led some of us to talking about the city carving out a future as a place of wellbeing, where people can go to renew themselves in 20 years time, when they are working harder and when the minister at the table, the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation, may well have something in front of him in his role; but that is a future that we are working towards.The interesting thing was that, 2½ years ago when I was elected, I thought I would do my bit to remind people that Dunkley is on the bay by referring to it as `Dunkley by the Bay'. When the convention facilitator wrapped up and tried to summarise the thinking, he came up with a very imaginative slogan for the city, and that was `Frankston by the Bay'. I am pleased that some of my work as a local member is starting to rub off on others within the community. I hope a number of the ideas that the community embraced from `Our Dunkley Destiny' also appear prominently in this plan and that we can work towards implementing it in the better interests of our city.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 11 p.m., the debate is interrupted.23:00:00467House adjourned at 11.00 p.m.Notices467The following notices were given:Mrs Bailey to move:That this House:(1) recognises the importance of labelling to both industry and consumers;(2) acknowledges that the label `Product of Australia' is the premium label for Australian goods; and(3) calls on the Government to ensure that there is clear definition and understanding of the `Made in Australia' label by both industry and consumers.Mrs Gallus to move:That this House:(1) strongly condemns the recent grave attacks on the Iranian Baha'i community, including the brutal execution of Mr Ruhullah Rawhani in July in the absence of due legal process, raids on 500 Baha'i homes in an orchestrated nation-wide attempt to prevent Baha'i youth from receiving education, confirmation of death sentences against two Baha'i men and the detention and imprisonment of 16 other Baha'is for practising their faith;(2) calls on the Government of Iran to end its oppression of the Baha'i community, ensure the safety and early release of all those Baha'is imprisoned in Iran, immediately take steps to implement UN resolutions defining steps required of the Iranian Government and calling for the emancipation of the Baha'is and respect the principles of the International Covenants on Human Rights to which Iran is a party; and(3) expresses its deep disappointment that despite the consideration of this matter by both Houses of the Australian Parliament last year, the Iranian Government, far from taking action to remedy the situation, has intensified its persecution of Baha'is.Documents468The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 23 November 1998:Christmas Island Act—Ordinances 1998 Nos. 4, 5, 6.Civil Aviation Act—Civil Aviation Regulations—Exemptions 1998 No. CASA 40.Civil Aviation Orders—Part 82—Amendment 1998 16 November.Part 105—Amendments 1998 27 (2), 31 October, 6, 9, 10 (5), 13 (9) November.Part 107—Amendments 1998 13 (4) November.Cocos (Keeling) Islands Act—Ordinances 1998 Nos. 4, 5, 6.Customs Act—Instruments of approval 1998 Nos. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39.Customs Act and Excise Act—Instrument of approval 1998 No. 50.Defence Act—Determination 1998 No. 38.Export Control Act—Regulations—Statutory Rules 1998 No. 311.Health Insurance Act—Regulations—Statutory Rules 1998 No. 267.Income Tax Assessment Act—Regulations—Statutory Rules 1998 No. 313.Judicial and Statutory Officers (Remuneration and Allowances) Act—Regulations—Statutory Rules 1998 No. 309.Lands Acquisition Act—Statement under section 40.Statement under section 125.National Health Act—Determination 1998 No. HIG9.Public Service Act—Determinations 1998Nos. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, LES 39, LES 40, LES 41, SESROB 78, SESROB 79.Public Works Committee Act—Regulations—Statutory Rules 1998 No. 310.Radiocommunications Act—Instrument—Radiocommunications (Electromagnetic Compatibility) Standard 1998.Remuneration Tribunal Act—Regulations—Statutory Rules 1998 Nos. 307, 308.Sales Tax Assessment Act—Determinations—Addendum No. 2 to STD 96/5, 1998.STD 7.Seat of Government (Administration) Act—Ordinance 1998 National Land (Amendment).Social Security Act—Determinations 1998—Asset-test Exempt Income Stream (Lifetime Income Stream Guidelines), Social Security (Meaning of Seasonal Work), Social Security (Pension Valuation Factor).Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act—Regulations—Statutory Rules 1998 No. 312.Sydney Airport Curfew Act—Dispensations 1998 Nos. 9, 10, 11, 12.Answers to Questions in Writing469The following answers to questions were circulated:469(Question No. 9)9469Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 11 November 1998:(1) How many companies pay company tax in Australia.(2) How many companies referred to in part (1) paid company tax at (a) 30, (b) 25, (c) 20, (d) 15, (e) 10 and (f) 5 cents in the dollar in (i) 1992-93, (ii) 1993-94, (iii) 1994-95, (iv) 1995-96 and (v) 1996-97.469Costello, Peter, MPMr CostelloCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The Assistant Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) For the 1995-96 income year, 222,719 companies paid company tax in Australia.(2) Generally no company would pay company tax at these rates, as the prescribed company tax rate for each year in question is as follows: 1992-93—39 cents in the dollar 1993-94—33 cents in the dollar 1994-95—33 cents in the dollar 1995-96—36 cents in the dollar 1996-97—36 cents in the dollar.The effective rate will vary according to the degree to which the company has access to tax offsets and various concessions available under taxation legislation.Concessions under the taxation legislation that will affect a company's rate of tax include depreciation deductions, inter-corporate dividend rebates, franking credits, foreign source income and credits and research and development expenditure.There are different methods of calculating average tax and each may produce different results, eg, calculation of average tax on accounting profits rather than taxable income or using tax expense provision as against using actual tax paid.The Australian Taxation Office does not keep statistical information relating to the number of companies which pay varying rates of tax.