1998-11-243911REPS47101998-11-24Mr SPEAKER(Mr Neil Andrew) took the chair at 2.00 p.m., and read prayers.Questions Without Notice471471471Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that last week the tax commissioner identified a whole new generation of tax rorts which the tax office has begun to face `over the last year or so'? Can the Prime Minister confirm that the tax commissioner's assessment is that these new rorts, which have emerged under the coalition government, are costing `potentially several billion in tax revenue'?UNKNOWNGovernment membersGovernment members—Oh!PE4Mr BEAZLEY—I am only going by what your commissioner said. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the measures in the tax package will not defeat these new rorts? Will the Prime Minister give a guarantee to introduce simultaneously with his tax package legislation the measures necessary to defeat this new generation of tax rorts identified by Commissioner Carmody?471Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—What I can do is confirm again to the parliament that this government will take all necessary action to stamp out tax avoidance practices. I would remind those who sit opposite that they opposed measures that we introduced in 1997 in order to eliminate tax avoidance practices. You were the people who opposed the clamp down on syndication.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—Loath as I am to raise a point of relevance, there was no qualification in this question; it was a request for information on whether or not the set of tax rorts identified by Commissioner Carmody as new tax rorts were going to be addressed. There was nothing else in the question.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Prime Minister is in order. Any question on tax and tax rorting is almost bound to be treated like the appropriation bills in terms of the area through which it ranges.ZD4Mr HOWARD—Those opposite opposed our attempts to stamp out tax avoidance practices in relation to syndication. You were the people who opposed our attempts to oblige the better off in the community to make a contribution to filling the $10½ billion black hole you left us in March of 1996. You have no credibility on tax avoidance issues. The continued opposition of the Australian Labor Party to the government's taxation plan is further evidence of your lack of credibility on tax avoidance issues.471471St Clair, Stuart, MPMr St CLAIR84BNew EnglandNP10—Could the Treasurer inform the House what the response has been to the first discussion paper issued by the review of business taxation yesterday? Could he also explain why reform of business taxation is important and what the process of the reform will be?471Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—I thank the honourable member for New England for his question. As the honourable member will be aware, this government is engaged in the most comprehensive reform ever of the Australian taxation system. The reform of the Australian taxation system involves not just the indirect tax system, which we propose to modernise and bring into comparison with other international jurisdictions, but also lower income taxes for average families. That is something that the Liberal and National parties stand for—lower income taxes for average income families, with a 30 per cent tax rate for everybody earning up to $50,000. After the government presents its legislation, on which it has a mandate, to implement those changes, the government proposes to move on in relation to reforming Australia's business taxation system.The first paper that was released today by the group that is doing the review of business taxation has received widespread support. The group is chaired by Mr John Ralph. It also has on it Bob Joss from Westpac and Rick Allert. The Australian Chamber of Commerce today said:The review of business taxation discussion paper `A Strong Foundation' is well named.The Business Coalition for Tax Reform said:The review's stated objectives of economic growth, equity and greater simplicity would find widespread support in the business community.The CPA has put out a press release today entitled `Light in the tunnel for small business in business tax review', and that is great news for small business. The National Farmers Federation said that the review was welcome and that:Such a system would replace the current ad hoc conglomeration of legislation and rulings.As part of this government's proposals to make Australia a great business centre and to create economic growth and jobs, we believe it is important to reform the taxation system. One of the things that we can do to reform the taxation system is get rid of Labor's taxes on all bank transactions. The Labor Party wants to tax people every time they put money into a bank account; it is called the bank account debits tax. The Labor Party wants to tax people every time they take money out of a bank account, under the financial institutions duty. I would not stand here and front for banks; but the Labor Party will complain about banks having fees on transactions, yet it taxes every single transaction in and out of a bank account. Why would the Labor Party want to tax people for putting money into a bank account and taking it out again? Why do you want to do that? Why won't you stand with us and abolish taxes on deposits and withdrawals? Why not be part of bringing Australia into the modern business taxation system?We have a situation now in Australia where the Australian Stock Exchange is the second highest capitalised stock exchange in the Asia-Pacific region. We have overtaken Hong Kong. We have overtaken Singapore. We run second to Tokyo. By removing financial taxes, we can make Australia a great centre for financial institutions, a great centre for business and a great centre for jobs. Wouldn't that be a great thing?Why will the Labor Party not stand with us? Why is it wedded to taxing bank transactions? When this government puts in place its great tax reforms—indirect tax, personal income tax, business tax—we will be building Australia for the next century.472472Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is to the Treasurer, and it follows on from his answer. Is the Treasurer aware of the statement of the Assistant Treasurer in the Senate yesterday that financial services will be subject to a GST `where there is a clearly specific fee for service'? Treasurer, do you consider a bank transaction fee a clearly specific fee for service? Will you categorically rule out charging GST on the raft of bank fees and charges that have increased in recent months, or are you planning to hit ordinary Australians with a 10 per cent tax every time they take their money out of banks?472Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—No, we are planning to abolish all of Labor's taxes on taking money out of bank accounts. The Australian Labor Party taxes people under a bank account debit tax every time they take money out of bank accounts. This is the side of politics that proposes to abolish it, and Labor says no. This is the side of politics that proposes to abolish the financial institutions duty. He always rises when the news is bad.DT4CREANMr Crean—Mr Speaker, the question was very specific.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I am sorry, I do not want to interrupt you, but I presume you are raising a point of order.DT4CREANMr Crean—Yes, on relevance, Mr Speaker.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—In that case, you have the call.DT4CREANMr Crean—I have asked the Treasurer whether it is intended that the GST will apply to the fees, the ones that have just gone up. He is not answering that question, just as the Prime Minister avoided answering questions yesterday. You should require the Treasurer to answer.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The honourable member has made his point of order. I do not require direction from the member for Hotham. He is perfectly entitled to raise a point of order. I call the Treasurer to answer the question.CT4Mr COSTELLO—The question was whether they would be taxed for taking money out of bank accounts, and the answer is no. This is the side of politics which is going to abolish Labor's tax on removing money from bank accounts. Isn't that great news? That is great news.DT4CREANMr Crean—I rise on a point of order again, Mr Speaker. The question was: will there be a GST on the fees that banks are charging? That was the question, not what he is trying to reinterpret it to be.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Hotham will resume his seat. I call the Treasurer.UNKNOWNOpposition membersOpposition members—What's your ruling?CT4Mr COSTELLO—After informing the House of that good news, let me make the case as it is also said in the government's tax policy. In relation to financial services, there will be no GST on financial services—they are input taxed.Yesterday the shadow Treasurer said that banks would be getting a windfall—that is, having lower costs under a GST. That is what the shadow Treasurer said yesterday. He said banks would get reduced costs. That is what he said here in the parliament yesterday. He might recall that after saying that he said bank fees were going up and wasn't it a terrible thing because bank fees were going up but bank costs were coming down.Today in a doorstop the Leader of the Opposition said that bank fees were going up and that was because bank costs were going up. But the shadow Treasurer said bank fees were going up and costs were coming down.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is getting ridiculous. If the Treasurer wants to get asked that question, tell him to have someone ask a dorothy dixer. But he should answer the question he was asked. Don't you think that if he thought the GST was not on fees he would say so?10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! The member for Fraser will resume his seat. The Treasurer has been asked a question, which I noted, about the GST on fees for service.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Point of order—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I have not called you. Resume your seat!5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—I am allowed to stand to seek the call.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—You are, but I have not finished what I am saying. The Treasurer was asked a specific question about fee for service on GST. The Treasurer was answering the question, and I am listening to and monitoring his answer.CT4Mr COSTELLO—The answer was that financial services—5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Mr Speaker, the point of order I was raising was exactly that to which you referred in the first half of your ruling—that is, the Treasurer was asked a question with regard to a GST on fees—but he has not referred to it once. He has not referred to that question once, Mr Speaker.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I will not have the member for Fraser dictate the terms. He will resume his seat.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—I am making my point of order to you, Mr Speaker. You ruled effectively on relevance. He has not referred to that once.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—He has in fact made that reference. I have been monitoring the question. You are welcome to check the Hansard . I call the Treasurer.CT4Mr COSTELLO—I state it again: under the government's tax package, financial services are input taxed—that is, there are no taxes on their outputs but there are taxes on their inputs.DT4CREANMr Crean—Mr Speaker—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Before I call the member for Hotham, this is ridiculous. I am waiting for the Treasurer to respond to the question. I will call the member for Hotham if I do not feel that the Treasurer is responding to the question.DT4CREANMr Crean—But, Mr Speaker—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I have not called the member for Hotham. I believe it is quite unreasonable for any minister to be interrupted as frequently as the Treasurer has been interrupted. I am giving the Treasurer a further 30 seconds to respond to that question. If he is not in order, I will take action.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—I raise a point of order with you, Mr Speaker. Standing orders clearly state that a point of order when raised will be dealt with before any other business is proceeded with. The member for Hotham stood then to raise a point of order. The standing orders clearly give him a right to do so, irrespective of the frequency with which it has been raised. I would submit to you respectfully, Mr Speaker, that he ought to be called.3K6CAMERONMr Ross Cameron—Mr Speaker—10000Mr SPEAKER—The member for Parramatta will resume his seat. Let me deal with the point of order raised by the Leader of the Opposition. It is my intention to ensure that the opposition has an opportunity to ask questions and that ministers can respond to them. My observation of what has absurdly grown out of this question is that the Treasurer scarcely opened his mouth before a point of order was raised. For that reason, I intended to allow the Treasurer to answer the question before intervening. That was my response to the desire from the member for Hotham to interrupt what the Treasurer was saying. I now call the member for Parramatta.ZD4HOWARDMr Howard—There's no right under the standing orders.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Reluctant as I am to interrupt, I have called the member for Parramatta, who cannot be heard above the hubbub on my left.3K6CAMERONMr Ross Cameron—Mr Speaker, my point very briefly is that the member for Hotham did not ask just one question, but there were five or six questions of a fairly wide compass. I would have thought any response from the Treasurer would have been in order and relevant to that series of questions.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I will determine whether or not the Treasurer's response is in order, as all former Speakers have done. I call the Treasurer to respond.CT4Mr COSTELLO—I say for the third or fourth time that the treatment under the tax package is well known, I believe. In relation to financial services, they are input taxed—that is, they pay taxes on their inputs and there is no liability on their outputs.DT4CREANMr Crean—Mr Speaker, on a point of order— 10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Treasurer will be seated. The member for Hotham on a further point of order?DT4CREANMr Crean—Yes, and it goes to relevance. Page 96 of their own tax package says:Financial services where there is a readily identifiable fee will be taxable.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—This is not a point of order.DT4CREANMr Crean—That is not what he is saying.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Hotham cannot expect me to entertain a point of order delivered in that manner. The Treasurer has the call.CT4Mr COSTELLO—I will say this for the fifth time for the Australian Labor Party. We did not think you would get upset so quickly, Simon. We thought you would show more good humour than you are showing.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Treasurer will respond to the question.CT4Mr COSTELLO—Financial services will be input taxed and there will be no taxes on outputs. The shadow Treasurer yesterday said that would result in bank costs falling by $1.6 billion, I think he said; but then he was countermanded by his leader today, who asserted they would go up by $800 million. So this morning they are going up by $800 million; yesterday they were coming down by $1.6 billion. It is a bad old day when the Leader of the Opposition is shown up by the member for Hotham.474474Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLEKV5HinklerNP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Can the minister outline to the House recent progress which has been made in the reform process on the Australian waterfront? Secondly, what are the benefits of a more efficient and reliable waterfront for electorates like mine—namely, the seat of Hinkler?474Anderson, John, MPMr ANDERSON4K4GwydirNPTransport and Regional Services10—I thank the honourable member for his question. We are now seeing very real, lasting and quality reform on the Australian waterfront and that reform is in the national interest. When it comes to electorates like the one the honourable member repre sents—that is, export oriented electorates—the fact is that efficient ports and waterfronts are just like efficient tax systems. If they help exports, they help facilitate the creation of jobs. Therefore, no-one can deny that waterfront reform is very much in the national interest.We have seen some truly remarkable and admirable figures in recent times—for example, those provided by Patrick chief Chris Corrigan for East Swanson Dock in Melbourne. With a cut in its work force of 50 per cent, Patrick's is moving 20 per cent more containers than last year: work force down 50 per cent, movement of containers up 20 per cent. The average crane rate is now 26 containers lifted per hour, in excess of the national average put down in the guidelines by the previous minister who had responsibility in this area. It is very interesting to note that Mr Coombs, quoted in the Drury report, said at the time that the benchmark of 25 set by the government could never—I repeat, never—be achieved in a country the size of Australia.Mr Tanner interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Melbourne!4K4Mr ANDERSON—In fact, not only has that been exceeded, rates of up to 35 container movements per hour have now been achieved in Melbourne, a truly remarkable result.YU5TANNERMr Tanner—On one ship.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Melbourne!4K4Mr ANDERSON—Those opposite plainly want to justify such things as the 150-minute truck turnaround times that we recently saw in Sydney when the MUA wanted to hold things up a bit, contrasted with the 20-minute truck turnaround times—as fast as anywhere in the world—we are now seeing at Swanson. All of this moved Alan Kohler of the Australian Financial Review to say:It is hard to overstate the significance of the revolution that has occurred following the `loss' by Patrick Stevedores in the Federal and High Courts this year. Other Australian businesses must wish they could lose like that. These results are plainly a vindication of the government's stance on waterfront reform, not to mention the courage and determination of Minister Reith. At the same time as they are a vindication of what we have pursued, they are an indictment of Labor's opposition to reform and to achieve more jobs as a result of an improved export performance.Mr Tanner interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Melbourne!4K4Mr ANDERSON—You opposed us all the way and you plainly still want—Mr Tanner interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I do not intend to continue to warn the member for Melbourne.4K4Mr ANDERSON—He plainly wants to continue to side with those who want to hold back job opportunities for Australians. We have to act now to lock in the gains and to ensure that they are achieved at every container port in Australia and by companies other than Patrick. The government is backing this reform program with a $250 million package for redundancies administered through the Maritime Industry Finance Company. Any stevedore wanting to access these funds must have submitted its reform plans to the government by 31 December. We will not be backing off the pace of reform. The challenge for employers and unions alike is to match or better Patrick's levels of performance.Distinguished Visitors475475Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark, His Excellency Mr Neils Helveg Petersen, and his party. We welcome them to the House.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!Questions Without Notice475475475Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is again to the Treasurer. Are you aware that the Assistant Treasurer in the Senate yesterday said, `Financial services in general are input taxed, except where there is clearly a specific fee for service, and the apportionment between those areas can be done in a reasonably straightforward manner'? Doesn't page 96 of this document, which is falling apart in my hands, say, `Other financial services where there is a readily identifiable fee or charge will be taxable?' Will you now categorically rule out charging a GST on the raft of bank fees and charges that have been increasing unchecked over recent months?9V5PYNEMr Pyne—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. Under standing order 146, a question fully answered cannot be renewed, and I would put it to you that the member for Hotham has asked this question twice and was fully answered the first time.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I thank the member for Sturt.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—You're in the bad books!10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Banks will find himself in even badder books shortly. I thank the member for Sturt for his intervention. I am aware of standing order 146. I considered ruling that question out of order, but I felt it would be appropriate to allow the member for Hotham to ask it once again and for the Treasurer to respond.476Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The first point is that I have learnt in my life to never take the word of the member of the Hotham on anything, whether it be what Senator Kemp said yesterday or otherwise.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Try reading the Hansard !Mr Crean interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! The member for Hotham has asked his question.CT4Mr COSTELLO—I think there must have been instructions in the Labor Party caucus to the Labor front bench to lift their game. `Rev it up a bit today,' your leader said, `do better, you had a bad day yesterday.' I repeat again what I said that financial services are input taxed.DT4CREANMr Crean—Except where there's a fee.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! The Treasurer has the call.CT4Mr COSTELLO—I come to page 96 which makes it quite clear that where banks are delivering other services like investment advice, where they charge a fee for those services—as the policy makes clear—then the tax applies to the delivery of that service like it would from a normal investment adviser or like it would in relation to insurance or other non-financial services which are delivered by banks in competition with other areas where the GST applies. In regard to tax policies that are falling apart in hands, the Labor Party had two policies before the election.DT4CREANMr Crean—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance: is he ruling out these fees? That is the question, Mr Speaker.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Hotham will resume his seat. I noted the question for obvious reasons. The Treasurer is responding.CT4Mr COSTELLO—I again say that the financial services will not be taxed in any respect whatsoever. I make it clear that they are input taxed. I say it for the sixth time. As for tax policies that fall apart in hands, before the election the Labor Party had two: one was to put a capital gains tax on everything you owned before 1985, and the other was to increase the tariff on the four-wheel drive. We know one of those policies has fallen apart. Where is the second?476476Brough, Mal, MPMr BROUGH2K6LongmanLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business. Would the minister inform the House of the findings of the Yellow Pages Small Business Index which was released today? What does the survey indicate about the level of support from the small business community for the pro small business policies which this government has been implementing?476Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPWorkplace Relations and Small Business10—I thank the member for Longman. The latest Yellow Pages Small Business Index is out today. It covers August, September and October. The House will be pleased to hear that there are some good results in this latest survey. There has been a lift in small business confidence over the past three months. Perceptions of the economy are very positive. Sales growth strengthened for the second successive quarter. Job growth was the strongest for two years. Sixty per cent expect an increase in profits over the next 12 months, 62 per cent expect an increase in sales over the next 12 months and 24 per cent expect an increase in the work force over the next 12 months. They are positive figures. They are a testament to the good management of the Australian economy, and the excellent leadership provided by the Prime Minister.It is also no surprise that the small business community want tax reform. They want tax reform, including a GST, and they want us to keep it simple so that it is easy to administer. That is exactly what this government is doing. We are determined to see a modern, good tax system for the small business community.Let me conclude on this note that, whilst the figures are good, as the minister responsible for small business I am also aware that there are small businesses out there today—even today—who still have on them the scars of Labor's recession, Labor's high interest rates of 22 per cent, and the legacy of the $10.5 billion deficit that we inherited back in 1996. But I say to those small businesses: these figures ought to give you some encouragement; on top of that, this government supports what you are doing; and, furthermore, as a government we are going to continue the process of reform because small business is so important and can create so many more jobs in the future.Small business have done a good job creating jobs in the last couple of years, in the time that we have been in, and we intend to go further. That is why we want to change the unfair dismissal law to give small business encouragement. That is why we want small business to continue to employ young people. That is why tomorrow we will introduce legislation to preserve the jobs of young people, particularly young people in small business. This survey does report that many small business proprietors—more than 60 per cent—were pleased with the election of the coalition government, with the main reasons being: they have better policies; we need a GST; we need tax reform; they are better economic managers; and, lastly, we dislike the Labor Party.477477Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is directed to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, yesterday you refused to explain your government's inaction over rising bank fees.ZD4HOWARDMr Howard—Ha, ha!DT4Mr CREAN—They laugh at this, Mr Speaker—a 33 per cent increase and they laugh.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Hotham will proceed with his question.DT4Mr CREAN—Given the Commonwealth Bank's announcement on fee increases yesterday, bringing it largely into line with other major banks, and given industry predictions that this will flow on to other financial institutions, will you now concede that `red hot competition' is simply not enough to prevent banks charging high fees for simple transactions? Will you now direct the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to formally monitor bank fees and charges?477Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—The reason why I laughed at the question asked by the member for Hotham was his use of the word `inaction'. I happen to have in my hand a press statement that was issued by the then Treasurer and member for Gellibrand, Mr Ralph Willis. Its title is dramatic. It says, `Labor to monitor fees and charges on retail transaction accounts'. It begins:A Labor Government will write to the Chairperson of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) requesting the Commission to formally monitor fees and charges on bank retail transaction accounts.What is the date of this press release? It is 26 February 1996. What was the date of the election in 1996? As we all remember with pleasure, it was 2 March 1996. In other words, you had 13 years to do something about this and this is another thing you were going to do in the 14th year.It gets even better. My research has also turned up an extract from the weekly Senate Hansard of 31 March 1995. The then Senator Kernot, now the member for Dickson, addressed a question to the minister representing the Treasurer. The thrust of that question was a complaint about the failure of the then Labor government to do anything about what she regarded as `unacceptable practices' within the banking sector.If members of the Labor Party were really serious about reducing the cost of bank transactions for the average Australian battler, they would support the removal of $2½ billion of bank charges on Australian consumers which now exist via the financial institutions duty and the bank account debits tax. Every day they oppose the removal of those duties they are imposing a further impost on the battlers of Australia.They have no credibility on this issue. They did nothing about it in government and by their refusal to support our tax reform package from opposition they are condemning the Australian consumer to an additional $2½ billion every year on their normal bank transactions.478478Vale, Danna, MPMrs VALEVK6HughesLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Is the minister aware of comments about the fairness of the government's 30 per cent rebate for people with private health insurance? Can the minister inform the House of any precedents for providing a government benefit irrespective of the income of the recipients?478Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4ChisholmLPHealth and Aged Care10—I thank the honourable member for her question. There have certainly been some curious comments made, particularly by the member for Jagajaga, about the government's proposed private health insurance rebate. She has made comments such as, `The rebate subsidy is a simple subsidy to private health insurance funds,' `High income people are going to get the best out of it,' or `Labor supported and continued to support targeted private health insurance that currently exists.' Let me take these one by one.Firstly, giving subsidies to the private health insurance funds is just simply wrong. This is a subsidy to individuals who take out private health insurance. It will be paid through the tax system. It will be a rebate that will go to low income people as well. It will also be able to be paid as a direct and transparent reduction in an individual's premium. So, far from being a subsidy to private health insurance funds, it is a subsidy to individuals.Mr Beazley interjecting—8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—I am glad you learnt something, Kim. You obviously know nothing else about health. The second point I want to make is about the member for Jagajaga's comment that Labor supported and continued to support the targeted private health insurance rebate that currently exists. This is in spite of the Labor Party calling the rebate a `dud', a `waste of money' and an `abject failure'. I would love to see what Labor would call it if it were actually opposed to it. The fact is that Graham Richardson was absolutely right about this: Labor does not like private health insurance and it is taking an ideological and illogical opposition to it.The third point I would like to comment on is the issue that high income earners are the ones who will benefit most from this. This morning on radio the shadow minister for health actually told us who she thought high income earners were: they were people earning over $70,000 a year. I will make several points on that.Mr McMullan interjecting—8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—Read the transcript and you will find out what your own shadow minister said. The first point is that they would be people who are earning less than two times average weekly earnings. Average weekly earnings for a dual income family are $74,500. So the shadow minister's idea of a high income earner is a dual income family on average weekly earnings.The second point I would make is that, between 1986 and 1995, if you look at those who have dropped out of private health insurance and you take it by income quintiles, lower income earners have actually remained quite stable in their coverage of private health insurance. It is the top three quintiles that have actually dropped their private health insurance far more than anybody else.The third point I would make about high income earners is the precedent. It is rapidly becoming a state aid debate for the 1990s. Labor are very happy for a millionaire's son or daughter to attend a poor Catholic school and get exactly the same subsidy as everyone else but they are not happy for that to apply to private health insurance. Labor are happy for the medical expenses rebate to apply to someone on a high income and take a 20 per cent rebate for expenses over $1,500, regardless of income. This rebate is used by higher income people. I might make the point, because the Leader of the Opposition is talking to himself again, that when we tried to make this rebate fairer Labor opposed it in the House of Representatives and the Senate.The final point I would make is who could forget Labor's gift to the millionaire business people of Australia, and that was open-ended, non-means tested deduction of personal superannuation contributions. Millionaires in Australia were squirreling away tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' assisted funds, given to them by Paul Keating and Kim Beazley. When we tried to make that fairer in the 1996 budget, the Labor Party attempted to block it.What the Labor Party are saying and what they have to come to grips with is this: they are effectively saying that if you are a high income earner you can privatise your health risk. If you are a high income earner, it is fine to self-insure. It is fine to get a 20 per cent rebate through the tax system and there is no incentive for you to get out there and do the right thing and actually contribute to a community rated process. That is not just the politics of envy. It is not just illogical and ideological, as Graham Richardson said. It is just plain stupid.479479Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Is the minister aware that about $675 million of annual private health insurance premiums are paid for insurance coverage for dental services? Under the proposed 30 per cent rebate that means dental costs will attract a subsidy of about $200 million a year to holders of ancillary insurance policies. How can this be justified after the government abolished the Commonwealth Dental Health Scheme for low income earners in the 1996 budget at a cost of half this amount?479Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4ChisholmLPHealth and Aged Care10—Unlike the opposition, we have actually worked out what is a Commonwealth responsibility and what is a state responsibility.Opposition members interjecting—8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—I have to say I get no pleasure whatsoever in abolishing the Commonwealth dental scheme. If we had not been left a $10 billion deficit by an incompetent finance minister, maybe we could have kept it.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! The minister can scarcely be heard above the nonsense that is emanating from the benches on my left. I call the minister and call for silence.8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—It is just the Leader of the Opposition talking to himself again, Mr Speaker.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The minister will go straight to the answer.8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—The simple point about our assistance to ancillary cover is that extras are a risk-graded product. They help all Australians. They help low income earners and high income earners. They relate to the private sector. They are our direct responsibility. Unlike you who did nothing about it, we are doing something about it.479479Snowdon, Warren, MPMr SNOWDONIJ4Northern TerritoryALP00—My question is directed to the Minister for Defence. Has the board of the MSBS Military Superannuation Scheme imposed a negative exit rate on members' benefits as from 28 September 1998? Have personnel who left the armed forces in the last few weeks suffered significant financial losses because of the government's failure to provide them with adequate information and advice? What action will the minister take to ensure that this disastrous situation does not happen again?479Moore, John, MPMr MOOREEI4RyanLPDefence10—I am not aware of the details and will find out.Mr Bevis interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! Is the member for Brisbane aware that he has caught the eye of the Speaker?480480Washer, Mal, MPDr WASHER84FMooreLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Can the minister outline to the House any action the government is taking to limit abuse of Australia's immigration program?480Ruddock, Philip, MPMr RUDDOCK0J4BerowraLPImmigration and Multicultural Affairs; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Reconciliation10—I thank the honourable member for Moore for his question and for his interest in the integrity of the immigration program. I would like to take the opportunity today to inform the House of some changes I am intending to make in relation to the migration regulations dealing with what has been known as the special need relative provisions. From 1 December the regulations will prescribe a new category of carer. There are reasons for this and I want to inform the House of those reasons.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—On a point of order, Mr Speaker: it goes to the standing order provisions in relation to policy announcements. This seems to me to be a straight policy announcement. It should be a ministerial statement and we can debate it.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I find it extraordinary that, when the Leader of the Opposition raises a point of order, everyone on my left feels an obligation to comment on how the Speaker should deal with it. I issue a general warning to all of those on my left. You all understand what that means.The Leader of the Opposition has raised a valid point of order. I am listening to the minister and I will require him to resume his seat if I believe he is making a policy announcement. I am prepared to hear him out. He has scarcely had an opportunity thus far to spend as much time answering the question as was spent asking it.0J4Mr RUDDOCK—The regulations have been made. They are to come into effect and I am giving the House information about the changes that have been given effect to. I think it is important information to assist honourable members. I know that there is considerable interest in the integrity of the immigration program. In relation to the special need relative provisions, which were intended to operate to assist those people who wanted a relative in Australia on a continuing basis of permanent and long-term need where there were no services available to assist them in Australia, I thought honourable members would be interested to know the extensions that have been given by the courts to the way in which those particular provisions would be interpreted.We saw in one case before the Federal Court of Australia involving the Fuduche family that it was decided that a serious circumstance can cover any compassionate situation such as homesickness. In the Federal Court case of Chan, it was found that working aged parents could be considered to be a special need relative of their Australian child. We have had the Immigration Review Tribunal giving wider ambit to it. We have seen that in the way in which it has now decided to look at assessing the quality of a relationship between Australian relatives and their children. We have a situation in which a man's special bond with his sister was seen as a basis upon which this particular category would be used, even though there were outreach services available to the family.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I refer you to Mr Speaker Sinclair's ruling when he said:If ministers seek to make a long detailed answer, particularly read from a brief provided by a departmental officer, it would be far better if they were given by way of ministerial statement. I would suggest also that long answers are inappropriate and do not enhance the procedures of this place.I think that was an excellent ruling, which I hope you can enforce.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—In the case of the point of order raised by the member for Fraser, I would point out that the minister has been responding to the question for two minutes and 34 seconds—hardly a lengthy response. I have been listening to determine whether or not it is a policy announcement and I do not believe it is.0J4Mr RUDDOCK—The only other example I want to give of the way tribunals have dealt with this matter is that they have now looked at people's need for child care as a factor for special need relatives. Members would know that this is a capped category and the widening demand for general family reunion, for which it is being used, has meant that those people who have a genuine and really special need on the basis of serious illness or some psychological requirement are being denied an opportunity to be able to access Australia. It is for this reason that I have made these changes which are very important changes to ensure that the new carer provisions require people to demonstrate objectively before Australian health services officials that they have a requirement. It will be a requirement that will be judged against the impairment tables that are used for other purposes. It will be an objective test that can be clearly used and it will clearly prevent this, I have to say, exaggerated special need category, which the courts developed and which has destroyed the integrity of an important part of our immigration program.481481Andren, Peter, MPMr ANDRENKL6CalareIND00—My question is to the Prime Minister and it relates to the parliamentary superannuation scheme. Prime Minister, do you support a review of this scheme, particularly relating to payouts before minimum age 55 as applies to the rest of the community? Would such a review address payouts to members convicted of a criminal offence?481Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—I thank the member for Calare for the question. I am aware that there is from time to time debate about the adequacy of parliamentary remuneration. There is also debate from time to time about the believed generosity of the parliamentary superannuation scheme. I have been asked this question on a number of occasions in the past. If the parliamentary superannuation scheme in isolation is compared with some other schemes in the community, it is more generous. It is also fair to say that the contributions made by members of parliament are on average higher contributions than those made in the corporate sector and higher contributions than those made in the general community.It is also fair to say that, by community standards, we in this place are highly paid whether we are ministers, opposition leaders or members of parliament. If you look at average community wages, we are highly paid. Some of us—I think most of us—work very hard for our money, and that applies to members on both sides of the parliament. If you compare the responsibilities of a senior minister—say, the federal Treasurer—with those of a chief executive of a bank, it would have to be said that the federal Treasurer is, relatively speaking, very under-remunerated—that would apply to the present federal Treasurer and it certainly would have applied to most of his predecessors.This is a serious question. It is terribly easy to joke about it. I know that the member for Calare has asked the question in a very serious fashion. I am trying to give it the respect that it deserves because it does raise a great deal of public interest. We have to accept in this place that you will never have, in the eyes of members of parliament compared with those people whom they believe have equivalent levels of responsibility in the private sector, a sort of comparative wage justice. I do not think that is ever going to happen. All of us know that when we come into it.Most people come into parliament for reasons unrelated to financial reward. Most people come into parliament because they have a genuine commitment to serve their community and a genuine commitment to live out the ideals of their political party. There is also the case of the honourable member for Calare, whom I congratulate for the second time at having been elected to this place as what I call a genuine Independent; that is, a person who stood as an Independent, not a person who stood under the banner of a political party and then became an Independent after he or she was elected.I never close my mind to reviews of superannuation, be it parliamentary or otherwise. The idea of having a common date is one of the changes that people have pressed from time to time upon the government. I do not rule out the possibility of that being looked at. If you were going to do that, you would have to consider whether it would relate to people who in the future become members or whether it would relate to people who are currently members. There is an argument that if you make changes like that you make them on an entirely prospective basis.I do not think there is any answer that I as Prime Minister or anybody in this parliament can give to a question like that which will properly satisfy the feeling in the community that, in some areas, we are entitled to privileges that other sections of the community are not. We do have privileges that other people do not have. From time to time, when they are abused we are all ashamed and we all feel very sorry.The question of whether somebody who has been convicted of a criminal offence should lose their entitlement to superannuation is something that ought to be examined if there is any review. That is a fair question. But, in examining it, we ought to look at what happens in other sections of the community so that there is a fair treatment. The problem with this superannuation is that, compared with superannuation in other areas, it is generous. But it is equally fair to say that, when you look at their levels of responsibility, the levels of remuneration of senior people in this place are way below those paid to people such as chief executives of companies and chief executives of banks.My conclusion out of all this is that you will never really solve the problem. I say to those who have recently joined this place—I say this to people on both sides—that if you imagine you will solve the anomalies of all this within a short space of time, you will not. We are, relatively speaking, better paid than we were 25 years ago; there is no doubt about that. The most important thing for us to do is to remember that, compared with the great bulk of Australians, members of parliament are well paid. Our responsibility, whether we belong to the government, the opposition or to no particular party, is to work hard to serve the people that we are elected to represent and to not overly concern ourselves with questions of remuneration.482482Nugent, Peter, MPMr NUGENTUT4AstonLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Can the minister inform the House of Australia's contribution to APEC this year and the key outcomes that were achieved at the 1998 meeting?482Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the honourable member for Aston for his question. I recognise his enduring interest in international relations issues as a member of the joint house committee and the chairman of the coalition committee on foreign affairs. Despite the well publicised disappointment at the APEC meeting on trade liberalisation on what is called early voluntary sectoral liberalisation, it is worth remembering that the APEC meeting did produce some important outcomes. We wanted APEC to focus very much on the regional economic crisis. We prepared the ground on a number of different fronts over quite some period of time.The leaders at the meeting, at which the Prime Minister ably represented Australia, did agree on a number of Australian proposals. The first was to reaffirm the commitment to APEC's free trade and investment goals of free trade and investment markets by 2010 and 2020. The second was to adopt national policies to promote economic growth. The third was to endorse best practice international codes in transparency and financial sector management. The fourth was to endorse a future role for the G22, of which Australia is a member, in pursuing initiatives to strengthen the international financial system. The fifth was to establish a working group on private sector involvement in crisis management, which Australia has offered to chair.I said earlier that there was disappointment about the failure to reach agreement on early voluntary sectoral liberalisation at APEC. That particular initiative has now been transferred to the World Trade Organisation. We very much hope, as do other APEC members, that agreement can be reached in the WTO over the next year. By next year's APEC meeting, there will be a good deal to report in progress in those areas.There were a number of other low profile outcomes of the APEC meeting that are, in our view, of very real value. First of all, the individual action plans that the countries put forward at APEC were extremely promising. They were significant, to say the least. In particular, I mention the individual action plans of China, Indonesia and Korea, countries that made very important new liberalisation initiatives. It is also worth mentioning that there was agreement on an APEC blueprint for action on electronic commerce. That is a dynamic response to a very important part of the global economy. It is important to note here in the House of Representatives of Australia that Australia co-chaired the task force which produced the blueprint.We also at APEC accelerated regional cooperation on the critical year 2000 computer bug problem. There will be a regional crisis planning conference held early next year. Finally, we secured APEC-wide endorsement for an important Australian initiative to improve community understanding of the benefits of open markets. There is no doubt, as all members of this House know, that there is a lot of community opposition to trade liberalisation and the opening of markets. Yet, of course, there is an overwhelming economic case for it. It is important that the APEC members communicate much more effectively than they have done so far the benefits of trade liberalisation and the benefits of the work of APEC to the broader communities in their own states.We look forward to taking APEC further forward next year under New Zealand's chairmanship. But this year's meeting—which has had, I think it is fair to say, a fairly average press, not only here in Australia, but also in other countries—did achieve a good deal. Some of the achievements may not be very high profile achievements, they may not excite people greatly. But they are important to the overall evolution of an economic and financial environment of the region.The last point I would make is that nobody should ever underestimate the political importance of the leaders meeting—of getting leaders from now 21 economies together, in an environment which is relatively informal, to talk about a whole range of different issues of regional and global importance. You cannot underestimate the importance of that. We look forward to another successful leaders meeting in New Zealand next year.483483O'Connor, Gavan, MPMr O'CONNORWU5CorioALP00—My question is addressed to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Does the minister support the abolition of taxation averaging for farmers, which is worth $180 million per year, as proposed for consideration in the discussion paper released yesterday by the review of business taxation? Isn't it the case that, since most farmers generally make a loss, they would therefore not benefit from a lower business tax rate? Will the minister rule out the government abolishing this longstanding assistance to farmers?483Vaile, Mark, MPMr VAILESU5LyneNPAgriculture, Fisheries and Forestry10—I thank the member for Corio for his question. The first point I would like to make is that, if the member for Corio and the Australian Labor Party were serious about supporting farmers, they would support the government's tax reform package that we have got up in the Senate—and you would get your colleagues in the Senate to put it through.We took the tax reform package to the people of Australia so that they could vote on it. They voted on it. It just so happens that we are sitting on this side of the House, and you are sitting on that side of the House. That is the response from the people of Australia about tax reform.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. It is very hard for this answer about the election outcome to be relevant to a report which was released yesterday.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Fraser makes a valid point of order, and I ask the minister to bring his answer to the question of tax averaging.SU5Mr VAILE—The question was about tax averaging, Mr Speaker, but the question also was about the tax reform process. We have undertaken an open assessment in conjunction with the private sector on the circumstances with regard to business tax, which include the farm sector. We have done that in an open and transparent way, which is something that the Labor Party never did. But we are not going to undertake any measures that are going to be detrimental to the farm communi ty—and that includes the measure that the question was just asked about.I go back to the point I was making. This is part of an overall package, and everybody in Australia knows it. Everybody in Australia knows that this is part of an overall review of the Australian taxation system. It is about making our taxation system much better focused for the future of this country. It is about underpinning or providing a much better foundation for the productive primary industries in this country. We are about doing that; the Labor Party are opposing it. They opposed all the way the measures that we undertook to fix up the Australian economy.QI4PRICEMr Price—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The question was about tax averaging, which is a very specific question; it was not about the gamut of tax reform.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Chifley is making a point of order about relevance, one would presume.QI4PRICEMr Price—Yes, standing order 44.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I understood that the minister was winding his answer up, and I would invite him to do so.SU5Mr VAILE—Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thought I had indicated that we were going to rule it out. We are not going to implement any measures that will be detrimental to the farming community. What we are going to do is implement changes to the taxation system that will be beneficial to the rural sector, absolutely beneficial to the rural sector—and it is the Labor Party in the Senate that is standing in the way.484484Causley, Ian, MPMr CAUSLEY4K6PageNP10—My question is directed to the Minister for Forestry and Conservation. Can the minister inform the House whether the Carr government in New South Wales completed the required studies before announcing a plethora of new national parks? Were accurate scientific studies, as required under the national forestry policy statement, completed? What socioeconomic studies were undertaken before the Carr government decided to reduce timber quotas from 320,000 cubic metres to 140,000 cubic metres on the north coast of New South Wales in the electorate of Page?JK6McCLELLANDMr McClelland—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The question is clearly out of order. The minister cannot speak on behalf of the Carr government.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I will rule on the point of order. I do not believe that the question asked specifically for a statement about Carr government policy but, in fact, asked the minister what he would do about a joint agreement.484Tuckey, Wilson, MPMr TUCKEYSJ4O'ConnorLPForestry and Conservation; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister10—Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a very important question for the Australian forestry industry per se, for the Australian forests, more particularly, for the forests of New South Wales and, most particularly, for the people who, the member for Page understands, need his support as a member of parliament.A considerable time ago, the Regional Forest Agreement system was put in place. In fact, there was a memorandum of understanding with New South Wales that to conclude those agreements in an appropriate way would cause the Commonwealth government to make contributions of up to $60 million to assist New South Wales where it was necessary to compensate people who lost their employment and who lost their businesses in the cause of restructuring the forestry industry to meet sustainable development.The fundamentals of the RFA process are good science, good science in the area of the ecology of industry needs and, most importantly, the social effect of any changes—in other words, people's right to a living and people's right to remain in small country towns. In every other state these processes continue with the cooperation of state governments of various political persuasions. But, with an election coming on in New South Wales, Mr Carr and his colleagues decided to put politics above good policy, politics above proper protection of the forest. They have unilaterally gone ahead and announced a series of legislation which is now in the House and will probably pass through the House.To date the federal government has spent about $19 million assisting New South Wales in doing proper science, but New South Wales did not want that information. New South Wales has no assistance from the Commonwealth, including our scientific assessment. More particularly, it has no assistance from the Commonwealth, including the social effects of that area. That is pretty cruel to the people of those districts. The Regional Forest Agreement process allows for public contributions—the calling of public opinion. In other parts of Australia—for instance, in Western Australia—that resulted in 30,000 submissions.RH4KERRMr Kerr—All against it!SJ4Mr TUCKEY—Mr Carr and his colleagues have shrugged off that process. The member for Denison, who I think represents some part of Tasmanian forestry, thinks that is a big joke. It is a joke to refuse to consult with people. That is outrageous. The reality is that the New South Wales government had every reason to follow the process of the RFA, to get assistance from the Commonwealth in the form of proper scientific assessments and to get assistance from the Commonwealth financially, which will now become a burden on the New South Wales taxpayer if the Carr government bother to pay. They probably will not. They will let individuals lose work, and they will let individuals lose their businesses because they will not have assistance. It is a very sad situation in New South Wales. It is one that can only be criticised because the Commonwealth has been excluded from helping. It is not a case of staking out turf. Deals have been done, and those deals cannot be sustained.RH4KERRMr Kerr—Come on, Tarzan, tell us what you'll do!10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! Under standing order 304A, I require the member for Denison to take leave of the House. There was a general warning issued on the other side.The honourable member for Denison thereupon withdrew from the chamber—485485Evans, Martyn, MPMr MARTYN EVANSN36BonythonALP00—My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources. In the light of the response from the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, will the minister now rule out the proposal raised in the discussion paper released yesterday by the review of business taxation that the specific accelerated capital allowances available to the mining sector be abolished? Is the minister aware of the effect that abolition of these allowances would have on the mining sector and on regional Australia, including the impact on the level of mineral exploration, new mine development and the number of job losses that could be expected?485Moore, John, MPMr MOOREEI4RyanLPDefence10—I am well aware of the report that came out yesterday by the committee chaired by Mr John Ralph. The committee was set up to examine all business taxation in Australia. I have said on many occasions in my previous occupation as minister for industry that I would hope all areas of business and resources would take every opportunity to give their views to this committee. It is a most important committee, and they are there to canvass all the relevant areas of taxation that go right across the board. There are conflicts in it, and I am quite sure the committee will come back with a very sensible recommendation.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I would remind members on my left that a general warning has been issued, and I do not intend to keep reminding them.485485Lieberman, Lou, MPMr LIEBERMANXU5IndiLP10—My question is directed to the Treasurer. Will the government's tax reform proposals benefit our farmers and their exports? Would the Treasurer outline what those benefits might be?485Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—I thank the honourable member for Indi for his question and for his interest in Australia's farmers. The answer is that the government's tax reform will benefit Australian farmers.LS4FERGUSONMr Martin Ferguson—How?CT4Mr COSTELLO—Well, let me tell you.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Treasurer might respond to the question of the member for Indi, not other questions loosely scattered from the frontbench.CT4Mr COSTELLO—The first thing that our indirect tax changes do is they take every dollar of tax, including all embedded taxes, off exports. That is a $4.5 billion lift to Australia's export industries. At a time when Australia has consistently had pressure on its current account and its balance of payments, what a wonderful idea to take taxes off Australian exports. That can be done under a new indirect tax system.But that is not the only benefit that the tax reform which Labor opposes will give to Australia's farmers. The tax reform which Labor opposes will also cut the cost of transport to rural and regional Australia. This is a great idea: to reduce the diesel excise from 43c to 18c so that trucking business will be substantially cheaper, and people in rural and regional Australia will be able to get cheaper goods in and cheaper goods out. That is a great thing for rural and regional Australia. In addition to that, the government's changes will also abolish a whole raft of financial taxes that farmers and other exporters pay—for example, financial institutions duty. Labor loves to tax money going in. As I have said before, there are no taxes on financial outputs—none whatsoever.DT4CREANMr Crean—No GST?CT4Mr COSTELLO—No GST on fees in relation to financial outputs. There are no taxes on financial outputs and, better, the government taxes of financial institutions duty and bank accounts debits taxes are abolished—Labor's taxes. In addition to that, Labor's stamp duties and taxes in relation to conveyancing land and businesses are going to be abolished. In relation to shares and other securities to make Australia a great financial centre, those taxes are going to be abolished.And, best of all for people that are on average incomes, income tax is going to be cut to 30 per cent for 81 per cent of Australians. Isn't that great? A 30 per cent tax rate for 81 per cent of Australians. We want to say to people who Labor wants to tax at 47 cents in the dollar: `We will bring your taxes down to 30 cents in the dollar.' Won't that be a wonderful thing for families?That is put in the context of an overall economic plan for Australia—a plan to build our export industry, to help rural and regional Australia to develop a financial centre, to give home buyers an opportunity, to keep interest rates low. Can I say on behalf of the government—and I hope this would be shared by the Labor Party too—we think low interest rates are great for home buyers. It is good economic policy that gives low interest rates to home buyers who suffered so dreadfully under the Beazley-Keating 18 per cent home mortgage interest rates. To have six per cent interest rates, I think, is going to be a great thing.Of course too—and I point this out to home buyers—once you abolish the stamp duty on mortgages, people will be able to swap mortgages without any deterioration in the cost. There will be no stamp duty, so you will be able to shop around for the lowest mortgage provider. This is going to give a lot more competition in relation to the home mortgage industry as well. So, for rural and regional Australia, great benefits on the income tax side, on the export side, on the transport side, on the financial institutions side. This is a plan for the next century, a new tax system. Let's all Australians get behind the government's proposal.ZD4HOWARDMr Howard—Mr Speaker, on that quite uplifting note, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper .Auditor-General's Reports486486486Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—I present the Auditor-General's audit report No. 15 for 1998-99 entitled Performance audit—Postal Operations—Australian Customs Service .Ordered that the report be printed.Documents486486Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPWorkplace Relations and Small Business10—Papers are tabled as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the papers will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings and Hansard .The schedule read as follows—Australian Institute of Marine Science Act—Australian Institute of Marine Science—Report for 1997-98. Australian National Railways Commission Act—Australian National Railways Commission (Australian National)—Report for 1997-98.Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Act—Nuclear Safety Bureau—Report—NSB.QRM 42, 1 January to 31 March 1998.Australian Rail Track Corporation Limited—Statement of corporate intent, August 1998.Australian Sports Commission Act—Australian Sports Commission—Report for 1997-98.Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act—Bundanon Trust—Report for 1997-98.Export Finance and Insurance Corporation—Report for 1997-98.Medibank Private—Report for 1997-98.Statement of corporate intent—1998-99 to 2000-01.National Registration Authority for Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals—Report for 1997-98.Crimes Act—Controlled operations—2nd report, for 1997-98.Finance—Advance to the Minister for Finance—Statements for—August, September, and October 1998.Supporting applications of issues from the Advance during—August, September, and October 1998.Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee—Report for 1997-98.Governor-General Act—Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General—Report for 1997-98.Health Insurance Commission Act—Health Insurance Commission—Report for 1997-98.National Health Act—Private Health Insurance Administration Council—Reports on the operations of the registered health benefits organisations for 1997-98.Productivity Commission Act—Productivity Commission—Report for 1997-98.Public Service Act—Department of Workplace Relations and Small Business—Report for 1997-98—Erratum.Royal Australian Mint—Report for 1997-98.Rural Adjustment Act—Rural Adjustment Scheme Advisory Council—Report, including a report on the Rural Adjustment Scheme, for 1997-98.Seafarers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act—Seafarers Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Authority—Report for 1997-98. Superannuation (Resolution of Complaints) Act—Superannuation Complaints Tribunal—Report for 1997-98.Motion (by Mr Reith) proposed:That the House take note of the following papers:Australian Institute of Marine Science Act—Australian Institute of Marine Science—Report for 1997-98.Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Act—Nuclear Safety Bureau—Report—NSB.QRM 42, 1 January to 31 March 1998.Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act—Medibank Private—Report for 1997-98.Statement of corporate intent—1998-99 to 2000-01.Crimes Act—Controlled operations—2nd report, for 1997-98.Health Insurance Commission Act—Health Insurance Commission—Report for 1997-98.National Health Act—Private Health Insurance Administration Council—Reports on the operations of the registered health benefits organisations for 1997-98.Productivity Commission Act—Productivity Commission—Report for 1997-98.Public Service Act—Royal Australian Mint—Report for 1997-98.Debate (on motion by Mr McMullan) adjourned.Miscellaneous48748715:18:00487Truss, Warren, MPMr TRUSSGT4Wide BayNPCommunity Services10—Mr Speaker, I seek leave to add to an answer that I gave yesterday.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—You could seek leave, but in fact it is normally done by the indulgence of the chair, and indulgence is granted.GT4Truss, Warren, MPMr TRUSS—Thank you. Yesterday, the honourable member for Lilley asked me a question about a nine-year-old child, Andrew Ramsey, and the eligibility of his family for the carers payment. Andrew Ramsey's case is indeed a tragic one. He meets some of the criteria under the medical assessments for eligibility for the carers payment but not sufficient for him to qualify. His family sought a review of the initial Centrelink decision to decline the carers payment, and that review upheld the initial finding. If the family choose, they can of course exercise appeal rights through the Social Security Appeals Tribunal.He also asked about the cost of the carers payment initiative. It is, in fact, in this financial year estimated to be about $1.5 million, and that figure will rise in subsequent years. Frankly, I am surprised that the honourable member for Lilley would raise this issue, that the Labor Party would criticise the government's initiative in extending the carers payment to children, because under Labor these payments were not available.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! The minister has exceeded the indulgence granted. Has the minister concluded his addition to the answer?GT4Truss, Warren, MPMr TRUSS—Mr Speaker, I was responding to the comments in the early part of the honourable member for Lilley's question in which he was critical of this initiative, and I am pointing out that 600 Australian families are receiving a carers benefit which would not have been available under Labor.2V5SWANMr Swan—Mr Speaker, I seek to ask a supplementary question. It is an extraordinary circumstance. I know you have ruled it out normally, but the minister has come back in different circumstances.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Lilley will resume his seat.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—He may like to know anything, but until he resumes his seat he will not discover that it is not possible to ask a supplementary question when question time has concluded.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—To my knowledge, the member for Lilley has not at any stage asked for any indulgence. He called and requested a supplementary question. You have had the opportunity to respond to this. If you wish to raise this matter with me in my office, you can do so, but I am not granting further indulgence at this point.Matters of Public Importance48848810000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER— I have received a letter from the honourable member for Hotham proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:The government's failure to adequately safeguard bank consumers against excessive service fee increases.I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—15:22:00488Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—Not only have we seen the Prime Minister avoiding any commitment to do anything about the banks putting up their fees, particularly evidenced by the Commonwealth Bank's one-third increase to bring it basically in line with what other banks are doing, but we have now got today the spectacle of the Treasurer taking all day to skirt around the issue of whether a GST will apply to these fees or not. What we have got to understand about this is that it is a government that does not care, a government that is not prepared to protect the public interest and a government that wants to laugh at these issues and avoid scrutiny.This is a Prime Minister who said he was going to be new in his approach in this new parliament, but he is the same old Prime Minister—avoiding scrutiny, refusing to answer. Now we have the Treasurer apparently making decisions on the run in relation to his tax package. No wonder we need an inquiry in the other place—this is a government that will hide and avoid scrutiny on every aspect of this tax package because it knows it cannot be made to be fair. That is the challenge that we have thrown down to the government: demonstrate how you can make the GST fair. Subject yourselves to the scrutiny. You would not do it during the election campaign and, by the look of things, you are not prepared to do it in this chamber. The other thing we say is that this GST is a bad tax for the economy and it is a bad tax for jobs.I come to the question of the bank fees. Labor believes that the latest round of bank fee hikes demands that the government institute formal monitoring of bank fees and charges. This should be undertaken by the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission and then, if necessary, there should be full price surveillance. Had we won the election that is what we would have done. The public deserves better from this government.The Treasurer told the public back in 1996 that red-hot competition—his words—would drive fees down. This is a Treasurer for whom you have to get the thermometer out every now and then. When he is talking about the current account deficit he is expressing cold anger; when he is talking about his policies for banks, it is red-hot competition. But all we are getting from this government is a lukewarm response: total indifference. This is what the Treasurer said:. . . in relation to fees as well, this government takes the view that red-hot competition is the best way of having continual surveillance of financial institutions . . . Some surveillance! Did you see the ad in the paper yesterday from the Commonwealth Bank? The latest advertised fee increase by that bank involves a 33⅓ per cent increase in certain fees, and even a 100 per cent increase in one of the fees. Who in the community has had that sort of increase—over the last 10 years, let alone in the last 12 months? Where is the justification for this? Where is the public interest on the part of the government, because if the government does not protect the public interest, who does? Clearly it is not coming from the banks in terms of their approach to bank fees and charges.The simple fact is that it now costs $2 each time you take your money out. For pensioners, two withdrawals a week cancels out the government's GST compensation. Remember the $4 a week that they say they are going to give them? Remember that? It is cancelled out by two withdrawals by pensioners in a week. But it is not just the Commonwealth Bank. Others have put up their fees as well, and the industry commentators predict a further flow-on to the smaller financial institutions.One needs only to go to page 2 of the Sydney Morning Herald today to see the diagram that shows bank fees on selected accounts. The Commonwealth Bank, the National Australia Bank and Westpac all have $2 fees for over-the-counter withdrawals. Some competition! Then, for the monthly account keeping fee, the ANZ, the National Australia Bank and Westpac all have the same amount of $4. I will tell you what: red-hot it is; competition it is not. This is a government that said red-hot competition would drive these fees down.Mr Hockey interjecting—DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—This is not the first time we have had a massive fee hike by the banks. In the last three years, total annual bank fees collected by the four major banks have increased by almost $1 billion to $3½ billion. That is a 40 per cent increase in fees—before this new one—over the last three years. What sort of a game do we have going on here, Minister? Is this the government that is really looking after the interests of pensioners, schoolchildren with bank accounts and low income earners who have to pay $2 every time they withdraw money? Is this the government that installed the automatic bank tellers, at the cost of thousands of jobs in the banking industry, saying that this would reduce costs? Now we find that the charges on the automatic teller machines have gone up by 33⅓ per cent. Where is the justification for this increase? That is the question we want answered.Yesterday the government refused to answer that question on two occasions when it was directed to the Prime Minister; in fact, on more occasions than that because we took a number of points of order to try to get him to address the question. But he is refusing to act today. Having had the opportunity to see the concern in the community at the impact of these bank fees and charges, he is still there like King Canute, believing that all he has to do is to roll up in this place and these problems will go away. This is a Prime Minister with his hands off the lever. This is a Prime Minister who does not care. As I said, if the public interest is not being protected by the government, who is protecting it?We believe there is legitimate capacity for the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission to do the surveillance of these banks.DK6HOCKEYMr Hockey—Why didn't you do it?DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—This is a commitment that this government should now undertake. It cannot hide behind the question of what we would have done, because the minister knows what we would have done. Our policy was to introduce monitoring and surveillance—and I will produce a copy of that for you, Minister, if you want it. That is certainly what we would have been doing in the current circumstances. But will this government do it? Let's wait and see. I think the pressure is going to be persisted with by us and by others in the community to make sure you discharge your obligations to the Australian public and to make sure that they are not being ripped off.The government has an argument about the GST getting rid of FIDs and BADs—the two state taxes that are levied—but what have we got in their place?Mr Hawker interjecting—DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—No, what they have got is you substituting this in its place. This is a government that is pretending, on the one hand, to give money back to consumers, only to allow it to be taken from them again.Mr Hawker interjecting—DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—I say to the member for Wannon who is gesticulating with the `getting up' mannerism, that that is exactly what is happening to bank fees under your policy—a one-third increase. No-one can justify that. Pensioners, schoolchildren, low income earners—these are the people that you are allowing to be slugged. What is the point of getting rid of the financial institutions taxes if the banks can charge by way of increased fees? What is the point of that? This is the government that wants the community to believe in the mirrors approach to policy. They get out there and trumpet the fact that they are getting rid of two of these state bank taxes, but at the same time they are allowing the banks in this community to put up fees without justification and without scrutiny. And now we learn today of the possibility of a GST going on top of the fee, because the Treasurer has refused to rule that out categorically.Mr Hockey interjecting—DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—If you want to rule it out, you do it. But understand what your document says, Minister:Other financial services . . . where there is a readily identifiable fee or charge, will be taxable.Mr Hockey interjecting—DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—Oh. That is a set of words that I do not see appearing here on page 96. Is this policy on the run again, Minister?10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! Could I encourage the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to address his remarks through the chair and not to encourage the minister to interject.DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—All right, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would be interested to know what his functions actually entail.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—He will have a go in a minute; it is your go now.DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—I know. Well he might be able to tell us what his functions entail, because he has been minister for—what is it?XW4KERNOTMs Kernot—MPIs.DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—Minister for MPIs, minister for covering up for the Treasurer, the dog scurrying out of the parliament, refusing to participate in this MPI. I had a look at the web site pages. The Treasurer and the Assistant Treasurer have carved up their little patch of activities, but when it comes to the web site page for the minister sitting at the table, nothing appears.DK6HOCKEYMr Hockey—That's right.DT4Crean, Simon, MPMr CREAN—`That's right,' he says. He has been given no functions, except to come in here and cover up for the Treasurer. I would be interested to see what sort of a brief he has got here today.But it is not only the document at page 96 that suggests that these fees will be GST taxed; it is also the statement in the other chamber by the Assistant Treasurer who said yesterday that, where the fee is clearly identifiable, it will be taxed. This is the conflict that we have got between this chamber and that chamber. Is it any wonder that we need an inquiry?Did you see how long it took the Treasurer to give his answer today? I think he got close to saying something about it—and I will be very interested to read the Hansard on this—in answer to an interjection during the last question of the day on the farming community and the impact for them. This is a person who will disclose nothing about this tax package; it is like pulling teeth. He believes that the less that is known about it, the more chance it has got of getting through. Well, we are going to subject it to scrutiny, because we believe the public deserves it.Today we are also asking the government to do something about these bank fees and charges, the hikes that have been occurring in advance of the GST coming in, wiping out all the gains of the abolition of the FIDs and the BADs. We want to know that the public interest test is being met. We want to know that the government's claim that people will be better off actually will be discharged. How will the Australian public—including Australian pensioners—be better off if, having got rid of the taxes that the government claims will be abolished, they only find higher fees and fees which escalate every time they are put up, not just by the amount that the banks decide to put them up without any scrutiny but also because they have got a 10 per cent GST applying to them? This is what the government is trying to foist on this public. Every time we put this government under scrutiny, every time we test them, every time we go after them, the package starts to unravel. That is the reason we need better scrutiny, because we will not get it in this House.It is suggested that we will not get the taxation legislation into this House until next Wednesday. We still have not seen the Vos report, which is supposed to be looking at this question of financial institutions and the impact of their taxes. That report has now been in the government's hands for almost two weeks, yet it is not public. We are supposed to be debating this issue in the parliament next week—and I presume we will be sitting for the third week to get through it.How can the public have confidence in a government that hides? What have they got to hide? That is the real question in this debate. They will not do anything in terms of the bank charges and they want to use subterfuge, trickery, to get their GST package up. We will make sure they are subjected to that scrutiny. We want to demonstrate that this tax is unfair, and that this is just another chapter in the book as to why the tax is fair. What they say they are giving with one hand, they are taking double with the other. It is a proposition that the government should respond to. (Time expired)15:37:00491Hockey, Joe, MPMr HOCKEYDK6North SydneyLPFinancial Services and Regulation10—What an opportunity the shadow Treasurer has presented us with today to provide to the House and the Australian people some evidence of the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party in relation to their calls for independent monitoring of bank fees. It is not me who is going to stand before the House and make statements about the hypocrisy of the Labor Party; I will leave it to one of their own. In the Senate on 31 May, 1995 Senator Peter Cook was asked the following question without notice:. . . what measures will the government take to ensure that banks fulfil their community service obligations by reforming practices your government—that is, the Labor government—has been carping about for five years, inquiring into for five years and also doing nothing about for five years?That question was from the member who is now leaving the House, the member for Dickson, who at the time was the Leader of the Democrats and was asking the Australian Labor Party why they had not done anything about monitoring bank fees. On 11 July 1995, the then Treasurer, Mr Ralph Willis, put out a press release with the following statement:The Government agrees . . . on the need to supply better information to consumers so they can make the right choices about banking products that suit them. To spur this process, I will direct the new Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to formally monitor and regularly report on the financial services industry in relation to retail transaction accounts for a period of three years.That was 11 July 1995. Nothing happened in the rest of July. Nothing happened in August. Nothing happened in September, October, November, December, January and February until we got to 26 February 1996—four days before the federal election. Four days before the federal election, Ralph Willis put out another press release: `Labor to monitor fees and charges on retail transaction accounts'. It states:A Labor Government will write to the Chairperson—they are going to write to the chairperson—of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission . . . requesting the Commission to formally monitor fees and charges on bank retail transaction accounts.The Labor Party stands condemned by its own words, and they were the words of Ralph Willis four days before the 1996 election. It said, `Yes, we're holier than thou. After 13 years we're going to do something about monitoring bank fees but we're going to do it in our 14th year, our 15th year or perhaps our 16th year. We are going to do something about the formal monitoring of bank fees.'There is a simple choice here: do you want lower interest rates, do you want competition in the provision of financial services or do you want to go the way of the old system, the Labor system—the system where interest rates got up to 17 per cent on home loans? What was that doing to the battlers in Lindsay, the battlers in Townsville, the battlers in Wannon or the battlers in various parts of Australia—in mortgage belt territory?What were 17 per cent housing loan rates doing to them? They were slowly squeezing the life out of Australians—hardworking average Australians who wanted to own their own home, to believe in the Australian dream. The 17 per cent housing interest rates under the Labor Party were killing that dream. It soon became a nightmare. The average housing loan rate under the Labor Party was 12.78 per cent. Under the coalition, it has been a clear five per cent less.So we have gone from 17 per cent housing interest rates—they are not overdrafts for business, they are not small business accounts; they are housing interest rates—down to the current 6.7 per cent. The trade-off has been that people are starting to pay for some of the services that they are demanding of the bank, and the trade-off has resulted in the fact that today more than 50 per cent of all transactions occur outside a bank branch. That is a very important statistic.When the shadow Treasurer was talking particularly about the CBA's fee increases yesterday, he failed to say that the Commonwealth Bank actually decreased the fees on EFTPOS transactions. So the Commonwealth Bank is actually decreasing the fees where people are moving to, where demand is increasing. He did not talk about fee decreases in any way. I was listening very carefully. He simply talked about what he thought everyone around him wanted to hear.According to the ABA, over the last four years EFTPOS transactions in the Australian financial system have increased from 43,950 to 218,300—nearly a fivefold increase. The number of bank branch visitations has fallen from 6,747 to 5,615. There has been an increase in the number of transactions at ATMs, and there has been an enormous increase because giroPost, access through Australia Post, was not around in 1994—some 2,720 transactions.Thirty per cent of all Australians over 18 use phone banking today compared to four years ago. It is not that long ago that all Australians were subsidising average banking practices. They were subsidising an old banking system. We want a new banking system. Australians want a new progressive world-class financial system, and they are getting it. In some ways, we all pay a price for a new world-class banking system, and that price is lower interest rates.It means there is more money there for people to reinvest in business, there is more money there for people to buy homes, there is more money there to create jobs and to create wealth in Australia. And the best way to create wealth in Australia is to invest in Australian wealth. When the cost of money is around 17 per cent, people are not going to buy into Australian wealth creation, and that affects jobs.We all know the history of the ALP on jobs—high unemployment, driving Australia into recession. Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl, you remember and I remember, we all remember, when Paul Keating drove Australia into recession by high interest rates in order to slow the economy down. We had the recession we had to have. We will never forget it. The Australian people will never forget that because the net effect of that was that he was using monetary policy as a lever to squeeze the Australian dream of owning your own home. The interest rates were at 17 per cent.There was a huge cost. The cost was that lots of honest, hardworking Australians had to sell their homes because they could not afford the interest rates. They were crippled. They were literally crippled in seats such as Hughes. The member for Hughes knows about it. In parts of the well-known mortgage belts—in western Sydney, southern Sydney, outside of Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and all of the major regional centres—the Australian dream was compromised by high interest rates. That came about because they were subsidising an old banking system.It is not often that I seek to quote journalists as an authoritative source, but in this case I will quote Terry McCrann, who has obviously taken a position in relation to this issue that is worthy of mention. It is not entirely consistent certainly with his colleagues, but it is a thoughtful one. In today's Daily Telegraph, Terry McCrann says:In simple terms, anyone who wants to walk into their local bank and offer to pay nine per cent on their home loan to get totally fee free banking would be welcomed with open arms.Somehow I think you could fit the queue in a phone box.He goes on to say:Ask yourself this simple question: would you sincerely prefer to be paying an extra $2,000 or $3,000 a year on your home mortgage instead of the various bank fees?For that is the simple and utterly inescapable choice, unless some miracle person is going to invent costless banking. Ben Chifley tried costless banking. He tried to nationalise it. The Soviet Union tried costless banking. It obviously did not work. Communist and pseudo-socialist countries around the world have all tried costless banking. It does not work.This is further evidence of the fact that the Australian Labor Party do not know where they stand on a particular issue. Their inconsistencies are obvious. The most impressive part about all of their inconsistencies is that we are on to them. In these sorts of situations, we heard their inconsistent approach to taxation reform, their inconsistent analysis of the impact of our new tax system—our fair tax system—on financial services. On 2GB today, we heard the shadow Treasurer say:Under the government's tax package if it gets through the banking and financial services sector we'll get another windfall of $1.6 billion, Graham.So this morning the shadow Treasurer was on radio saying that the financial services sector under the new tax system will be ahead $1.6 billion. Earlier this morning—obviously in a room far away—the Leader of the Opposition at a doorstop said:. . . they must also be looking down the track and seeing the effect of the GST arrangements on their arrangements, on their earnings, where they reckon they stand to lose about $800 million.On the one hand the shadow Treasurer is talking about the banks being $1.6 billion better off, and on the other hand the Leader of the Opposition is saying they are $800 million worse off. On my calculations, there is a $2.4 billion black hole. The best part about it is that they are improving. They are getting closer to the mark. It was $10.3 billion; now it is $2.4 billion. Hopefully, if they are in opposition for another three years, they will get us into a surplus.Mr Crean interjecting—DK6Hockey, Joe, MPMr HOCKEY—I welcome that opportunity to discuss the application of bank fees and the application of the taxation regime to financial services because if there is any self-evident statement it is this: with the abolition of financial institutions duty, with the abolition of bank account debits tax, Australian consumers are going to be better off because when they use their bank accounts they are not paying taxes, and that is pretty important.Most Australians would not be aware of just how iniquitous the financial institutions duty and bank account debits tax are. Most Australians who have a single bank account with a cheque book attached would not be aware that they pay bank account debits tax on every withdrawal from that bank account. So when they use their card for EFTPOS or they go to the ATM, they pay bank account debits tax. When they put money into their account, they pay FID.Under our new taxation system, under our proposal, those taxes are abolished. It is further evidence of our commitment to give us a cleaner, fairer financial services industry, where money flows are more liquid and where we have the opportunity to get the full benefit of user pays. We are trying to set up a financial system for the 21st century. The Labor Party wants one for the 19th century. We are not prepared to compromise on our goal. We are not prepared to compromise on our ambition. We will not change our commitment. (Time expired)15:52:00494Emerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON83VRankinALP00—We have just heard from the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation a complete and utter total defence of the banks' behaviour yesterday. The banks will probably be very happy with that behaviour and that performance of the minister, but I say to the pensioners of Australia and to the low income earners of Australia that yesterday's decision by the Commonwealth Bank to impose a $2 fee on all over-the-counter withdrawals is a disgrace.Let us have a look at this Commonwealth Bank fee. It is $2 per transaction and it is against the backdrop of a profit last year of $1.25 billion. There is no need for the Commonwealth Bank to apply that iniquitous new charge. The Commonwealth Bank is not alone of course: the ANZ is charging a fee of $2.50 for such transactions and the National Australia Bank is charging a fee of $2. So they are all in the same cart. That is why we on the Labor side say that monitoring is required by the ACCC.We have just had the minister discussing the $800 million and the $1,600 million. In the government's own tax policy it says:In sum, the costs facing the banking and financial services industries are expected to fall by some $1.6 billion a year despite this sector being input taxed under the GST.The fact is that the banks simply do not believe that. In fact, Mr Cox from the Commonwealth Bank believes that the input taxing of bank services will cost them an extra $800 million. The banking hypocrisy in this situation is quite breathtaking. Let us remember that banks are key members of the Business Council of Australia. The President of the Business Council of Australia, Mr Stan Wallis, said on 27 May:The GST holds out the prospect of significant reductions in the indirect tax burden currently borne by business.He is saying that the GST will shift the burden of taxation off the shoulders of business—including banks—and high income earners, and on to the shoulders of low income earners and pensioners. On that very point, Inside Canberra on 29 May 1998 stated:For sheer hypocrisy it is hard to beat the banks which are key members of the Business Council. The banks, while urging everyone else to pay a GST, not only want the GST to remove State financial institutions taxes, but are also lobbying to dodge the GST by being given zero-rated status.So the banks wanted to be free of a GST. It seems, from the Assistant Treasurer's comments yesterday, that he is the only person on the other side of the parliament who has the same tax document that the shadow Treasurer and I have, because this is what the document says about the treatment of financial services:Some financial services are structured in a way that makes it extremely difficult to subject them to a GST. The international experience has been that it is difficult to identify and measure the value added of many financial services on a transaction by transaction basis. However, there is no reason why private consumption of financial services should be tax-free. In principle, all financial services should be taxed in the same way that other goods and services are treated.The government will input tax some financial services in line with current international practice. For example, a bank will pay GST on a computer bought for use in managing credit card accounts. The bank will not be entitled to an input tax credit for tax paid on the computer. However, no tax will be payable on the credit card charges of the bank.Then it makes this important point:The precise range of services that would be taxed or input-taxed would be determined in consultation with industry.Exports of financial services will be GST-free in line with the treatment of other exports.Finally, it says:Other financial services, such as investment advice, where there is a readily identifiable fee or charge, will be taxable.That means they will be subject to a GST. That is why today the shadow Treasurer asked the Treasurer on several occasions a simple question. The question was in response to the Assistant Treasurer's statement yesterday that where there is a clearly specific fee for service then the GST will apply. The shadow Treasurer asked the Treasurer whether he would categorically rule out charging a GST on the raft of bank fees and charges that have increased in recent months. We could not get a clear answer on that.We asked and asked, and we sought support to have the Treasurer answer the question. He may or may not have answered the question by way of interjection right towards the end. I saw him scurrying towards his notes and then scurrying towards his advisers. He is backsliding on the issue and we need a definite answer on this very important question.The Prime Minister talks about the whole issue of red-hot competition. What is the experience of red-hot competition? Just as the Commonwealth Bank has been able to impose a $2 fee for over-the-counter withdrawals just before Christmas, so too will it pass on to customers the GST on the inputs, not only the computers but also cleaning, electricity, repair work and maintenance and all of the other services that apply to a bank.We still do not have a clear answer as to whether they will apply to bank account fees and charges. We need to be clear about whether the banks will pass these on, and that is why we need an inquiry in the Senate. We had this backsliding today and we have to get answers to this. The pensioners and the low income earners of Australia need to know these answers.Pensioners do not want to go to a hole in the wall. They do not like electronic banking and telephone banking. They say there has been a big increase—what, from one to 10 people? There are plenty of pensioners in my electorate and they hate it. They are intimidated by it. Now they will have to pay even higher charges because of the GST, and they are getting absolutely no protection from the government. Pensioners and low income earners are already badly undercompensated for the GST.I refer here to a study by the Melbourne Institute. The Melbourne Institute adjusted the general price level for the true price effects of the GST and it came up with a result of 2.44 per cent compared with the government's figure of 1.9 per cent. It adjusts for different spending patterns for different types of households, because low income earners spend more on food, housing, fuel, power and so on. It also adjusts for different saving rates. What is the result of the institute's analysis? The result is a shortfall in compensation required for low income groups ranging from $2 to $17 a week. The Melbourne Institute study says:It appears that the government assumptions clearly underestimate the compensation required for low income groups and, in particular, for families with children.And:. . . government markedly under-adjusts for households with low incomes.That assumes that all of the indirect tax reductions are passed through to consumers. We know that is not the case. I have actually done a bit of analysis: if 75 per cent, which is a high percentage, passes through to consumers, and if you also take into account the likelihood of states being able to continue to levy stamp duties on commercial conveyancing, then the compensation required by low income earners and pensioners rises by an estimated 50 per cent.The government is offering no protection for low income earners. It is offering no protection for pensioners from these iniquitous bank fee charges, and it is offering no protection from the certainty that bank charges will rise as a result of so-called input taxing—taxing all the things that they use as inputs into their services. The government is standing idly by while the banks are increasing fees and preparing to apply this new tax.Pensioners of Australia are getting whacked by nursing home fee increases, the abolition of the Commonwealth's involvement in the free dental health system, and the dismantling of the public hospital system and Medicare by stealth. They are now going to be whacked by an iniquitous GST. I put it to this House that the pensioners of Australia deserve some decency, respect and peace of mind.16:02:00496Hawker, David, MPMr HAWKER8H4WannonLP10—Listening to the two speakers from the opposition on this matter of public importance, one thing came through very clear: they obviously were not listening very closely at question time. The Treasurer made it very clear exactly what the situation will be with regard to transaction fees. I would have thought that if they could not listen they have a problem; it is not the Treasurer's problem and it is certainly not the problem of the consumers of Australia, who are going to benefit by the tax reform this government will bring in. They obviously did not listen to the benefits that will come about, as the Prime Minister outlined—and I will come back to this—by removing some of the taxes on banks, like the FID tax and the BAD tax.What we find from listening to the last speaker is that he is not very serious about this. He seemed more interested in talking about tax reform than he was about the matter of public importance. I do not think the member for Hotham was all that serious about it either. What we find from listening to the opposition is that they failed to give a balanced picture, they failed to give credit to the achievements of this government, and again they highlighted why Labor failed so dismally at yet another election. One of the questions that did cross my mind as I was listening to question time and to the first speaker on the MPI was how much longer the caucus is going to put up with the member for Hotham hogging question time and the MPI debates.The problem that the Labor Party has is that, first of all, they do not listen when they ask a question. The Treasurer's answers made it very clear where transaction fees were going to be placed in respect of tax reform. He also made it very clear about some of the government's achievements. Rather than quoting the Treasurer, I would like to add some extra firepower to talking about the government's achievements when it comes to banking. I think the government has a very fine record on this. I refer all honourable members to the Semi-Annual Statement on Monetary Policy put out by the Reserve Bank earlier this month. If we turn to the section on interest rates, I think it shows some incredible achievements by this government since it came to power. At page 35, under the heading `Intermediaries' interest rates', the report points out:. . . since mid 1996 . . . rates for a wide range of variable-rate loans have fallen by more than the cash rate.This is what `red hot competition' is all about. It is not just about seeing interest rates coming down; it is about seeing interest rates in a number of areas coming down by more than the cash rates—in other words, competition is working and consumers are benefiting, and it is working very much for the benefit of the economy as well. The report goes on:Since mid 1996, the predominant interest rate on standard-variable housing loans has fallen by 3.8 percentage points, or 1.3 percentage points more than the cash rate. The average overall rate paid on small business variable-rate loans has fallen by 3.6 percentage points, or 1.1 percentage points more than the cash rate since mid 1996.It adds the observation that these are the lowest rates for about 30 years. That is what this government has achieved when we talk about looking after consumers. That is what we have done in banking. These are real tangible results. I would have thought that if the opposition were serious it would at least have had the decency to give some credit for these achievements, instead of coming in with this mealy-mouthed motion, which clearly misrepresents so many of the facts. The report goes on to point out that interest rates have in fact fallen more than the deposit rates and so on. That is what competition is about. That is what the benefits are for consumers.When we look at the government's achievements we cannot help but look at the failure of the opposition in their role as opposition in this nation. I can do no better than turn to the member for Werriwa and some of the comments he made in his book, which I think sum up the problems that the opposition are facing now as they try desperately to cast around to work out what their real role is. In one section he points out:Labor has no way back to the past, back to the slogans and certainties of an Australia now past: national economic controls, tariff walls, state paternalism and White Australia.These are the sorts of things I think the member for Hotham, in many ways, would like to chase after. The member for Werriwa goes on with some other interesting quotes. He says:There is something frightfully immoral about those in public life who know full well that the past is undeliverable yet because the electorate sometimes seeks shelter from insecurity by reviving impressions of how society used to be, they still proceed to throw back to the policies of the past and hold out false hope for the way in which nostalgia might somehow resolve the problems of the present.I would really like to know why so many members of the opposition seem to shun the member for Werriwa. He puts it in such a clear, insightful way. Are they embarrassed about their own policy failings? Are they embarrassed about the fact that they no longer have direction as to where they are going? As we saw with their ditching of an election promise about the capital gains tax, it only took two weeks. As the Treasurer pointed out, you wonder how much longer their other election promise about additional tariffs on four-wheel drives is going to last. And we could go on. As the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation pointed out, there are also the comments of the former Treasurer, Ralph Willis, when he said how they were going to take all this action on bank charges and yet never got around to it after 13 years.There are many things we could say about this motion. One of them is that the Labor Party has come here trying to do its usual raking up and misrepresentation of the facts, and trying to misrepresent the real picture. Instead, it could be looking at the achievements of the government when it comes to the benefits of competition in banking and the interest rates, and the achievements of the government generally in terms of economic management which has helped bring inflation down. That in itself has brought tremendous benefits for consumers of banking products.We also notice in this motion that the opposition has failed to look at some of the details about bank charges, particularly the concessional rates that are available for customers like pensioners and students who do not pay these fees. It is very convenient for the member for Hotham to come in here and focus on part of the story, but, if he is going to be fair dinkum and expect people to respect his point of view, then he ought to also give a balanced picture and tell the full story.Clearly, when you look at some of these fees, you find that not only are there concessional rates but also one of the other benefits that comes from competition is that consumers have a choice. One of those choices is credit unions. I happened to talk to the Advantage Credit Union today to find out some of the special offers they have for customers. Subject to certain fairly straightforward minimum requirements, they have fee-free services for up to five cash withdrawals a month from a branch, up to 20 cheques per month and there are no fees when using EFTPOS. These are the sorts of things the member for Hotham ought to have at least had the decency to acknowledge when he came in here to put this matter of public importance. He clearly has misled, in many ways, those who are listening to this debate and would certainly try to choose to mislead pensioners, as the second speaker also tried very hard to do.When we talk about bringing some balance into this debate, we should also acknowledge some of the comments the Prime Minister made in answer to a question earlier today when he said that getting rid of the financial institutions duty and the bank accounts debits tax would save $2½ billion—that would have a very positive impact for consumers.This inconsistency of the opposition is just another reinforcement of the failure of the Labor Party. The inconsistency and the failure have shown that, just as they have difficulties with their policy, so they have difficulties when it comes to a debate like this because they really do not know which way they are going on this issue, just as they do not know where they are going on other issues. The opposition have failed miserably to give credit to the incredible achievements of this government that have led to great benefits for consumers, particularly for consumers of financial services. (Time expired)10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—The time for this discussion has concluded.Miscellaneous49810000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—I advise the House that the Deputy Speaker has fixed Wednesday, 25 November 1998, at 10 a.m., as the time for the next meeting of the Main Committee, unless an alternative day or hour is fixed.Miscellaneous498Motion (by Mr Ronaldson)—by leave—agreed to:That the following bills be referred to the Main Committee for consideration: Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 1998 1998 Budget Measures Legislation Amendment (Social Security and Veterans' Entitlements) Bill 1998 Telecommunications Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1998 Data-matching Program (Assistance and Tax) Amendment Bill 1998 (No. 2) Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Bill 1998 Telecommunications (Universal Service Levy) Amendment Bill 1998 Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Bill 1998 NRS Levy Imposition Amendment Bill 1998 Tariff Proposals49816:14:00498Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLP10—I move:Customs tariff proposals Nos 6 to 10 (1998).Customs tariff proposals Nos 6 to 10 (1998), which I have just tabled, contain alterations to the Customs Tariff Act 1995. When the last parliament was prorogued on 31 August 1998, the alterations now contained in customs tariff proposal Nos 6 to 8 had been introduced into the House, but had not been incorporated into the Customs Tariff Act by that time. This has meant that the proposals have lapsed and require reintroduction.Customs tariff proposal No. 6 (1998), which is operative from 1 July 1998, gives effect to the government's commitment to remove tariffs on inputs to the manufacture of information industries equipment. This was announced in the `Investing for Growth' industry statement of 8 December 1997.Most fully assembled information industries equipment is imported duty free. However, many inputs used in local production of the same equipment attract either a five per cent tariff or a three per cent rate under a tariff concession order. Following consultation with industry, we have taken action on two fronts. The central element of the government's approach is an acceleration of duty reductions already scheduled under the Information Technology Agreement. With the exception of a small range of finished goods, the government has brought forward by 18 months the tariff reductions to which Australia is committed under that agreement. A zero rate of duty has operated since 1 July 1998.The second element of the approach has been the creation of a new schedule 4 item in the customs tariff for those inputs not covered by the Information Technology Agreement. This allows the duty-free entry for other inputs that are currently the subject of a tariff concession order. The new item covers inputs to the manufacture of information industries equipment. This equipment is defined in terms of a series of tariff subheadings listed in by-laws written to the new item. Inputs to manufacture are defined as being goods that are an integral part of the manufacturing process for this equipment. The definition also includes goods that are incorporated into the equipment or consumed during the manufacture of the equipment, as well as certain capital equipment utilised in the manufacturing process.Australian information technology manufacturers will benefit from duty-free access to key inputs which will strengthen their competitive position. The cost to government is estimated at $80 million over the 18 months to the year 2000, and this should translate into reduced costs for industry and lower prices for consumers.Customs tariff proposal No. 7 (1998) implements a reduction of 2.6c per litre in the duty on aviation gasoline, avgas, operative from 25 May 1998. This reduction is the second instalment in a series of three Airservices Australia pricing reforms and removes the element of the avgas duty relating to the provision of en route services. The first instalment was delivered in 1997 with the introduction of location specific charges for rescue and firefighting services.Customs tariff proposal No. 8 (1998) accords a further reduction of 13.092c per litre in the customs rate of duty on avgas with effect from 1 July 1998. This reduction is the third instalment of Airservices Australia's pricing reforms and removes the remaining element of avgas duty directed to the authority in conjunction with the introduction of location specific pricing for terminal navigational services.This package of reforms delivers significant savings in operational costs to the general aviation sector and implements the government's commitment to a fair and equitable system for recovering the costs of providing air traffic services to the aviation industry. The reductions in fuel costs will mean real benefits to private pilots and small airline operators and will help some regional and charter airlines keep downward pressure on airfares, benefiting the travelling public.Customs tariff proposal No. 9 (1998) formally places before parliament, as required by law, proposed reductions in customs duty on medical and scientific equipment of tariff headings 9011 to 9033 of the customs tariff. The alterations were notified in special Commonwealth Gazette No. S405 of 17 August 1998 and came into effect on 1 September.My colleague the former Minister for Industry, Science and Tourism announced on 24 July 1998 the government's decisions on tariffs and other matters relating to the medical and scientific equipment industries. These decisions follow government consideration of Industry Commission report No. 56 on these industries. The government accepted the general thrust of the commission's recommendations and its decisions were also taken in conjunction with other recent initiatives, particularly those announced in the `Investing for Growth' industry statement, which provides support for technology based industries.In respect of tariffs, the Industry Commission noted that the bulk, around 85 per cent, of medical and scientific equipment was entered under headings 9011 to 9033 of the customs tariff. About 75 per cent of medical and scientific equipment entering Australia attracts a free rate of duty. The remaining goods are subject to a nominal tariff of five per cent. However, most of the goods are entered using the tariff concession system at a rate of duty of three per cent. As these goods do not compete with locally manufactured goods, there is little justification to retain these nominal tariffs.The government's decision to reduce tariffs on goods of headings 9011 to 9033 does not include goods which are included in the passenger motor vehicle manufacturing plan such as speed indicators and revolution counters, which also fall to these headings. In accordance with the government's policy of simplifying the customs tariff, the opportunity has been taken to combine, where possible, those tariff subheadings which have the same rate of duty from 1 September 1998.The two alterations contained in customs tariff proposal (No. 10) 1998 are also new and will come into effect on 1 January 1999. Each of these alterations are technical changes and have no effect on existing rates of duty. The first alteration creates a new tariff subheading to allow a free rate of duty for shoulder pads used in clothing. The second change amalgamates two tariff subheadings which will have a free rate of duty from 1 January. Summaries of the alterations contained in these proposals have been prepared and are being circulated for the information of honourable members. I commend the proposals to the House.Debate (on motion by Mr Kelvin Thomson) adjourned.Committees500500500500Nehl, Garry, MPMr NEHLAE4CowperNP10—In accordance with sessional order 28D(b), on behalf of the Selection Committee, I present a report on the proposed general principles relating to the selection of private members business.The report read as follows—The Selection Committee submits its report to the House on the proposed general principles relating to the selection of private Members' business, and recommends its adoption.In accordance with standing order 28D(b) the Selection Committee has resolved that the general principles be as follows:Proposed general principles relating to the selection of private Members' businessIn formulating the priority to be given to items of private Members' business the Selection Committee shall have regard to:the importance of the subject; the current level of interest in the subject; the extent of the current discussion on the subject both in the parliament and elsewhere; the extent to which the subject comes within the responsibility of the Commonwealth Parliament; the probability of the subject being brought before the House by other means within a reasonable time; and whether the subject is the same, or substantially the same, as another item of business which has been debated or on which the House has already made a decision in the same period of sittings and, if so, whether new circumstances exist.The committee shall accord priority to private Members' business: with regard to the numbers of Members affiliated with each party in the House;in a way which ensures that a particular Member or the Members who comprise the Opposition Executive do not predominate as the movers of the items selected; andin a way which seeks to ensure balance is achieved over each period of sittings.When a private Member has the responsibility for the carriage of a bill transmitted from the Senate for concurrence, the bill shall be accorded priority following the question for the second reading being put to the House in the same way as a private Member's bill originating in the House is accorded priority by standing order 104A.Priority shall not be accorded to any item of private Members' business if the matter should be dealt with by the House in another, more appropriate, form of proceeding.The general principles set out above shall be observed by the Selection Committee but nothing in the general principles shall be taken to prevent the Selection Committee departing from those general principles in order to meet circumstances, which, in its opinion, are unusual or special.Motion (by Mrs Sullivan)—by leave—agreed to:That the proposed general principles relating to the selection of private members business reported to the House by the Selection Committee this day be adopted.500500500Nehl, Garry, MPMr NEHLAE4CowperNP10—I present the report of the Selection Committee relating to the consideration of committee and delegation reports and private members business on Monday, 30 November 1998. The report will be printed in today's Hansard and the items accorded priority for debate will be published in the Notice Paper for the next sitting.The report read as follows—Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation reportsand private Members' business on Monday, 30 November 1998Pursuant to standing order 28D, the Selection Committee has determined the order of precedence and times to be allotted for consideration of committee and delegation reports and private Members' business on Monday, 30 November 1998. The order of precedence and the allotments of time determined by the Committee are shown in the list.COMMITTEE AND DELEGATION REPORTSPresentation and statements1 AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION TO THE 19th ASEAN INTER-PARLIAMENTARY ORGANISATION (AIPO) CONFERENCE, KUALA LUMPUR: Report of Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the 19th ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Organisation (AIPO) Conference, Kuala Lumpur, August 1998.The Committee determined that statements on the report may be made—all statements to be made within a total time of 10 minutes.Speech time limits—Each Member—5 minutes.PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESSOrder of precedenceNotices1Mr Martin to move:That this Parliament calls for the referral of an inquiry into the Australian insurance industry to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Financial Institutions and Public Administration and the issues to be considered to include:(a) the moral and legal responsibility of insurance companies to honour policies in respect of storm damage and flood;(b) necessary legislative change to ensure pedantic definitional arguments are not used by companies to negate payments to policy holders;(c) the examination of the legislative base in the provision of flood insurance in the USA and UK and its potential relevance to Australia;(d) the ways in which insurance companies approached the interpretation of storm and flood damage in recent disasters in Wollongong, Katherine, Coffs Harbour and Townsville; and existing Commonwealth and State or Territory government legislative support mechanisms to assist areas and victims affected by such disasters and whether changes are necessary to ensure rapid and effective relief.Time allotted—private Members' business time prior to 1.45 p.m.Speech time limits—Mover of motion—10 minutes.First Government Member speaking—10 minutes.Next 2 Members speaking—10 minutes each.Other Members—5 minutes each. The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.2Mrs 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.Time allotted—30 minutes.Speech time limits—Mover of motion—10 minutes.First Opposition Member speaking—10 minutes.Other Members—5 minutes each.The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.3 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.Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time.Speech time limits—Mover of motion—10 minutes.First Opposition Member speaking—10 minutes. Other Members—5 minutes each.The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.502502Motion (by Mrs Sullivan)—by leave—agreed to:That Mr Andrews be discharged from attendance on the Selection Committee and that, in his place, Mrs Gash be appointed a member of the committee.Address in Reply502502Debate resumed from 23 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.16:25:00502Katter, Bob, Jnr, MPMr KATTERHX4KennedyNP10—I want to add to what I was saying the other day. I remind the House that I tabled a graph of male suicides in Australia and noted how absolutely identical in every way that graph is to the rise in unemployment in a particular cohort of the population between 1966 and 1994. As well as touching upon that problem, a recent edition of the National Geographic touches upon population. The international map it has produced shows that only one or two countries in the world have a lower birth rate than Australia and have races vanishing at a greater rate than Australia. An article in the Weekend Australian by Professor Richard Blandy—not Blainey, I emphasise—states:Australia's population would peak at around 19 million in the early 2020s and then shrink quite rapidly. In fact, it would shrink by about one-third every 25 years or so to perhaps five or six million by the year 2100. If net migration averaged 70,000 per year—at present it is only 40,000 annually—Australia's population would reach 26 million in about 2050 before shrinking to maybe 13 or 14 million by the year 2100. On the figures produced by National Geographic , Australia's population at this time next century would be 14 million only from what it is now. So it is not very edifying for us to belong to a vanishing race.Where that is most relevant to the electorate I represent is shown on this map of the other Australia, the unpopulated lucky country. This diagrammatic map looks very much like a map of Australia, but it is the inland of Australia. About 82 per cent of Australia's landmass contains 74 per cent of Australia's water but only 3.3 per cent of Australia's population. Yet you can drive, ride a horse or walk, if you like, from Blackall or Barcaldine for 1,500 kilometres all the way to Normanton or Burketown and 200 to 300 kilometres either side of you there are rolling flat blacksoil plains as good as any soil that exists on our planet. It is capable of producing massive wealth.This area, the Gulf country and its periphery, has 127 million megalitres of water whereas the Murray-Darling system, which produces 40 per cent of Australia's agriculture, has only 22 million megalitres of water. We have six or seven times the amount of water and we have two or three times the amount of farmland, yet there are 30,000 or 40,000 farms in the Murray-Darling and we have just five farms in the Gulf and periphery. Our nearest neighbour is Indonesia. Half of its people are going to bed hungry of an evening, yet we are sitting on these giant, vast resources and doing absolutely nothing with them. We have a very big moral case to answer. If Australia is a vanishing race in any event, that is not a very happy outlook.Australians are not having children. It is a sad fact that we are so lacking in love for children that we are simply not having any. But one has to look at the economics of having a family. If you are a single income family with two kids, your average weekly earnings amount to $34,000 per year and your tax is $8,200. Your income per head is $6,500. If you are a double income family with two kids, it is $13,000. If you are a double income unit with no kids, a DINK, it is $26,000. The question becomes: do you want for your children an average income of $6,000 per year or an income of $26,000 per year?There are many other issues that I would love to canvass, but time is running short on me. I will emphasise the issue of water in Australia. In the last 15 years in this continent, we have not built one dam. I conclude by referring to an extract of a statement by Ernie Bridge, the President of the Watering Australia Foundation. The statement, which was prepared by him and me, as the director of Watering Australia Foundation, states:Our country's great rivers should on their journey to the sea pay a small tribute to those people living along their banks.(Time expired)10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—Before I call the honourable member for Melbourne Ports, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.16:30:00503Danby, Michael, MPMr DANBYWF6Melbourne PortsALP01—May I begin by congratulating the member for Wakefield on his nonpartisan election to this chamber, and also to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Jenkins.My presence here today, indeed my existence, is an accident of history. My grandfathers fought on opposite sides during the Great War. If either had been more successful at their deadly craft, one side of my family might not have existed. Fate intervened. Both returned safely from the Western Front to their respective homelands of Germany and Australia. History intervened again to see their children, my dear parents, meet and marry in St Kilda after World War II. Before I return to the odyssey that took me all the way from my parents' home at 117 Brighton Road, Elwood, to my electoral office at 117 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, and to this great debating chamber of our nation, let me reflect on the great Labor tradition in Melbourne Ports, the constituency I have the honour to represent into the new century, Australia's second century as a nation.Melbourne Ports has existed since the election of the first federal parliament. Our first Labor representative was Jim Matthews, a South Melbourne tailor, elected in 1906. Matthews held the seat until 1931. Melbourne Ports, based on our docks and factories, was one of the safest Labor seats in the country; in fact, on four occasions, the candidates were elected unopposed.In 1931 Matthews retired and was succeeded by Ted Holloway. Originally a bootmaker, Holloway had been a leader in the struggle against conscription during the First World War and later, during the twenties, President of the Melbourne Trades Hall. At the 1929 election, when conservative Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce had tried to abolish the arbitration system, Holloway defeated Bruce in his safe seat of Flinders—one of the great upsets in Australian electoral history. So recent history was not the first time that people from Melbourne Ports, the site of Webb and East Swanson Dock, have taught grand political lessons to conservatives from the electorate of Flinders.Holloway, who later transferred into Melbourne Ports, was a minister in the Scullin Labor government. His grandson came to our campaign rooms, like many hundreds of local people, to volunteer assistance in helping make Kim Beazley Prime Minister.Ted Holloway retired in 1951, and the new member was Frank Crean, the father of our Deputy Leader, the member for Hotham. Frank was one of the first Labor members with formal training in economics, and he rapidly became Labor's spokesman on economic matters. In 1972 Frank Crean became Treasurer in the Whitlam Labor government. He served as Minister for Overseas Trade and later became Deputy Prime Minister, a post he held until the government was dismissed by Sir John Kerr on 11 November 1975.Frank Crean retired in 1977 and now, though 82, he is still a well-known figure around our community. I often see him at the fresh food markets around Melbourne Ports. He continues to do the Labor Party great service; in the recent election he did two shifts handing out the Labor ticket at his usual post at the Middle Park Primary School.Frank was succeeded as member for Melbourne Ports by my predecessor, Clyde Holding. Clyde had been a state member since 1962, and he was Leader of the Opposition from 1967 to 1977. Holding became Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Hawke government. He succeeded in returning Uluru to Aboriginal ownership. Clyde has great empathy with the Aboriginal people, including the local Wurrundjeri or Bunerong language people. It is an empathy I intend to continue.Throughout this time Melbourne Ports has changed dramatically. Over the past 30 years factory employment has migrated to the outer suburbs, property values have risen and areas like South Melbourne, Albert Park and Elwood have filled with university educated professionals. It is the centre of a thriving information technology and multimedia industry.Melbourne Ports has also attracted many immigrants, especially from Asia and Eastern Europe. There has been a long established Jewish presence in East St Kilda and Caulfield. St Kilda has also become the centre of Melbourne's gay and lesbian community—perhaps because, as long as I can remember, it has always had a tolerance of diversity.Melbourne Ports also has the largest concentration of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Doorknocking Westbury Street, East St Kilda, is like visiting a street in Moscow. Perhaps I attended the most unusual election meeting during the recent campaign. It was held by the Soviet War Veterans League—men and women, some of whom fought from Stalingrad to Berlin. These heroes have legitimate concerns about inequitable allocation of veteran entitlements, and I intend to take them up in this House.It is also the home of a substantial Greek community with its wonderful soccer team and stadium, the mighty South Melbourne Hellas. The result is one of Australia's most socially diverse and cosmopolitan electorates, extending from working-class Port Melbourne through to middle-class Caulfield and taking in the entertainment area of St Kilda and the new residential developments in Southbank.Despite the decline in its traditional working-class base over the years, the Labor Party has held the loyalty of Melbourne Ports voters. All in all, Melbourne Ports is a community where some people are struggling to make their next million but many are struggling to make their next meal. Around the corner from my office, the Sacred Heart Mission every lunchtime serves over 500 people in a soup kitchen.With all this difference, we are a community of tolerance, a community united by certain values. We value the strengths and contributions of the rainbow of cultural groups and backgrounds in our community. We understand how that diversity not only strengthens the social fabric but also gives us competitive advantage in a world of immense opportunity for Australian companies exporting both goods and services.Our result at the election in Melbourne Ports, my first election, was satisfying. Despite some further unfavourable demographic changes, we essentially maintained Labor's previous support. Particularly pleasing was the fact that in my electorate One Nation did not have a single poll worker at a single booth at any time on election day. With more than two-thirds of their donkey vote flowing directly on to me—hardly their favourite candidate—it is my contention that in no other seat did they record a lower real vote.This reflected the mood in our electorate. In the pre-election period we collected signatures of nearly 10,000 locals who petitioned the Prime Minister to take a stronger stand against the intolerance of One Nation. As Rabbi Joseph Gutnick, a local, told the Melbourne Age:I do not in any way believe the Prime Minister is a racist. But he has mishandled it. He wasn't strong enough. We have to go to a higher platform when it comes to deciding the future of Australia facing the year 2000.And now of all people, I sit next to the new member for Oxley—and he is a far more agreeable member than the previous one.Let me turn to Labor's magnificent local team, which organised dozens of functions between the preselection and the election and street stalls every weekend for a year. We had many people on the frontbench who came to assist the campaign. Many thanks for the positive impact on the electorate made by the Leader of the Opposition; the Deputy Leader of the Opposition; Senators Faulkner and Ray; the members for Holt, Canberra, Dobell, Werriwa and Kingsford-Smith; former Prime Minister Bob Hawke; and New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, all of whom participated in the year-long Melbourne Ports campaign.For my relative equilibrium, I want to thank my dear partner, with her delightful Portuguese surname, Amanda Mendes Da Costa, my beloved children, Byron and Laura, and my brother Simon and his family. To the three musketeers, Andrew Hockley, Henry Pinskier and Andrew Landeryou, you answered every call from a frenetic candidate. So did my good friend Luisa Bazzani, who, if all is going according to schedule, may actually be in `Labor' at the moment! Good luck, Luisa. I also thank Ari Suss, Tova Tron, Debra Heatley, Tony Butler, Melissa Scott and Adam Carr who staffed our electoral office. Thank you also to Zoran Kovacic, Nathan Shafir, Marcia Pinskier, Phil Zajac, Bill Richards—who is here in the gallery—Ann Furness, Bunna Walsh and many, many others who made an invaluable contribution.Labor throws up many wonderful political dynasties, such as the Creans locally, but I was blessed during the election period with Bill Landeryou, who descended as Tennyson described `like a wolf on the fold'. He soon whipped our enthusiasts into a tightly organised machine. There are three other Labor figures who have responsibility for Labor's new chapter in Melbourne Ports. Barry Cohen, a distinguished former member of this House, has always been available to me. His good humour, wise counsel and fatherly interests have sustained me. My mentor, the first woman Speaker of this House, Joan Child, has nurtured me since she oversaw my political apprenticeship as a candidate for Goldstein in 1990 following her retirement. Finally, to Mary Easson, the former member for Lowe, my first President of Young Labor, and her husband, Michael, I thank you for your great faith in me, particularly during the last few wilderness years.I also want to thank my supporters at AIJAC, where I was the editor of the Australia-Israel Review for a number of years. At AIP, as it was then called, I spent a great deal of time researching and writing about the ugly face of Australian politics—extremism. If Jeff Kennett had promised to chase One Nation down every burrow, in those days he would have probably found me there already. I learnt that the bright light of scrutiny almost always was enough to challenge extremism. Facts, logic and evidence were the weapons we used, and we managed to win many of these debates. We helped inform the national debate about the Middle East in Australia, and we stood up for democracy in that region.It is appropriate that I also thank that fine organisation the Shop Assistants Union, where I worked for a number of years. I felt privileged to have worked there; I still do. Under the leadership of Michael Donovan and Joe de Bruyn, the SDA is one of the fastest growing unions in the nation. It deals professionally with employers, works tirelessly through its members and employs some of the most talented people in industrial relations today.In Melbourne Ports, while we question what globalisation means for us, we understand its basic premise that national borders ought not restrict unnecessarily the free flow of goods and services, people and ideas, and capital and growth around the world. Fortress Australia is a dying if not dead notion. Forthright Australia should be the description we give ourselves as a nation—forthright enough to compete not just in sport but also in information technology, as many of our bright young companies in Melbourne Ports do today; forthright enough to achieve true and formal independence from the United Kingdom; forthright enough in the world to never shy away from defending human rights.We need a government forthright enough to stand up to those in the community who seek to exploit those who are threatened by the changes in our economy; a government forthright enough never to sell its soul to racist wedge politics. We need a government that understands that training and education can provide a springboard for export success for industry. The answer is government playing its legitimate role as the provider of necessary infrastructure for Australian companies to use to assist them to grow.On this side of the chamber we understand full well that it is our mission to further a high wage, high growth economy. The old industries of the past that relied on tariffs can no longer deliver sustainable high wages for Australian workers, but the ingenuity of Australians, the talent of our young people and the quality of our universities have enabled us not just to see but to actually create a real prospect of radically reinventing our country's economy.I note with concern the words of the newly elected member for Barker, an adherent of Friedman and Hayek, who said that his ideological commitment was to freedom of choice and that we ought never to force a citizen to do anything in that citizen's interest as long as it did not harm anyone else. That innocuous sounding statement is the intellectual cloak to cover the Liberal Party's new pursuit of voluntary voting. That is their dream. It is a dangerous and divisive dream. It says to those often excluded from decision making, `You can't make a difference. You're too destitute to concern yourself with politics. Leave it to us.'Our road traffic laws, by contrast, provide for the compulsion to wear a seatbelt. It is true that driving around without a seatbelt and crashing your skull through the windscreen does not harm anyone, but does that mean that we should not as a community be concerned about it? Does it mean that the community does not pay for it? The idea of voluntary voting is an equally unAustralian ideologically driven idea. It would diminish a key part of our citizenship. It would remove one of the responsibilities that we each owe each other as citizens. It would send a message to the young, the poor, the disenfranchised, the excluded and the unemployed, `You are not important enough to vote. Voting is for the educated and propertied elite.'In my home state of Victoria we have a state government that is too clever by half. It has allowed gambling to run amok. It has ignored the consequences of doing so. It points to the Melbourne Aquatic Centre in Albert Park and other worthy monuments. Those facilities are excellent, but the despera tion of tens of thousands of Victorians has paid for them. It is too high a price. There have been too many suicides, too many bankruptcies and too many marriage break-ups caused by gambling. I congratulate the Treasurer, the member for Higgins, for establishing a national inquiry into the effects of gambling. Whether or not it was motivated by attempts to score points off the chief spruiker of casinos, the Premier of Victoria, matters not. As the member for Sydney said:We do a great disservice to the people we represent if we assume that they are looking for easy answers or glib pronouncements. We have to be prepared to rethink our own assumptions; to see merit in our opponents where it exists.Labor is a compassionate party. We abhor social Darwinism—except perhaps in preselections. In surviving the long process from preselection to election, my major disappointment is that my father, Fred, did not live to see this day. He and my late mother, Margaret, would have been proud to see me here. My father passed away on the eve of the preselection.What a positive reflection on Australia and the Labor Party that just one generation after he came to this country as a refugee from Nazism, his son could win a seat in federal parliament. All his life I saw by his bedside pictures of his murdered parents, Bruno and Margarethe Danziger. Both perished in that paradigm of evil established under the swastika. My grandfather, a decorated World War I veteran, died in KZ Theresienstadt and my grandmother in Auschwitz. Placing their names in the record of a great democratic institution like this is proof that Hitler's daemonic plan did not succeed.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!WF6Danby, Michael, MPMr DANBY—On behalf of my family and other families with similar backgrounds, I express our gratitude that here in tolerant Australia the doctrine of a fair go lives on and every person is judged by the content of their character. Given my family experience, I have a lifelong loathing of the two evil empires this century brought forth, whose infamy is their epitaph. But the Cold War is now over. The welcome destruction of communism, like Nazism before it, has ended the polarisation of the world.Not an end of ideology nor an end of history but a new international future opens with the new millennium. It is not coincidental that peace has broken out in South Africa, Ireland and the Middle East. This was never clearer than in the brave handshake we saw in the Rose Garden in Washington some years ago. In a past life, when I edited a small newsletter on the Middle East, I had the great honour of introducing Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin at an international conference.I do not have the military record of Graeme Edwards, the member for Cowan. My military experience is restricted to a couple of years in the Reserve Officer School at Puckapunyal. But I do know that Rabin's handshake with Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, took even more courage than his years as a general ever demanded. His tragic assassination only underscored the necessity of his deed of peace.Reflecting on my upbringing, it is as though the boundaries of Melbourne Ports were within my mind. My mother, an Australian Hairdresser of the Year in 1950, was a volunteer at Citizen Welfare in St Kilda and worked with the former member for Lalor to get a library in St Kilda. I can remember attending my first football match at the Junction Oval in Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, when St Kilda still played there. I remember shopping in Acland Street with my mother in the early 1960s when it was like the lower East Side of New York in the 1920s. As a pupil at Elwood Central, I lost my first footy in the canal just up from where the 1920s gangster Squizzy Taylor had an escape tunnel to Glenhuntly Road.As I reflect on my childhood, I cannot help but think how life seemed easier and people a little friendlier back then. I cannot imagine when I was growing up that any government would have closed the only social security office in our local community that desperately needs such services. I cannot imagine even Sir Robert Menzies talking about `efficiency dividends' and prioritising ideology over the demonstrated needs of the Australian people.I will not recite Mr Emerson's—the member for Rankin—seven pillars of wisdom for the creation of a just society. However, describing the creation of the Australian equivalent of LBJ's Great Society, he argued that we had:. . . a government obsessed with ideology of unfettered markets and totally apathetic to the appalling social consequences of their free market dogma. They seek market solutions with heartless human consequences.And that:We should not be continually obliged to justify socially responsible policies in terms of the budget bottom line.When speaking about the recent fate of the Gingrich Republicans, Stephen Dorrell in the Spectator had a warning for the current coalition government. He said:We seemed to have forgotten that although the hubbub of the marketplace provides the essential heartbeat of a successful society, most of us prefer to live in quieter neighbourhoods.He also said:We need to trade in an open market, but we want to live in a community.In Melbourne Ports we live in such a community. I hope I will always do credit to that place, to my family, to my friends, to my heritage and to my other family—the ALP.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—Before I call the honourable member for Cook, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.16:50:00507Baird, Bruce, MPMr BAIRDMP6CookLP11—I am delighted to be able to make my first speech in this House—a House with such a strong tradition and one which provides national leadership for this great country of Australia.I am proud to be representing the electorate of Cook, which must be amongst the most beautiful in Australia, surrounded as it is by the Pacific Ocean and by the waterways of Botany Bay, Port Hacking and the Georges River. It also includes Kurnell, which is the birthplace of modern Australia. It was at this point, of course—as we all know—that Captain James Cook came ashore and it is after him that the seat is named.At this point, I would like to thank those people who assisted me so much in getting to this position. Firstly, I would like to thank the people of Cook who voted for me. Secondly, I thank those who were part of the Cook federal electorate conference for their support, and I see a number of them here today. I really appreciate their support. I thank the Liberal Party for again expressing their support for my continuing role in public life. I am looking forward to working with the Prime Minister and contributing to the vision for the reform of the taxation system and the further successful growth of the Australian economy.I would also like to indicate my appreciation to Danna Vale, my federal colleague closest to me, who had such a great victory in the last election and to my state colleagues, Malcolm Kerr and Lorna Stone—the member for Cronulla and the member for Sutherland—who are here today. I thank the Mayor of Sutherland Shire, Kevin Schreiber, and the councillors and all of those others in Cook who helped so much. I would also like to thank those in the tourism industry who gave their blessing for me to go into the federal parliament. I would like to thank those who are represented here and some of the very senior people in industry I see in the gallery.Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Judith, and my children Michael and his wife, Kerryn, and Julia and Stephen, most of whom are here today. I have the honour of having a daughter in the Press Gallery. It must be one of the few occasions that we have someone in the Press Gallery who is actually watching their father give a maiden speech—and she works for the Herald.There is no doubt that every future member for Cook will be judged by the pastoral care and local involvement of one of the former members for Cook, Don Dobie, who was the member for some 25 years. He was much loved in the electorate and his passing away in 1997 was a great loss to the Liberal Party and the Cook electorate.It is well known that I am here today as a result of a hard fought Liberal Party preselection. The Liberal Party is governed by an open democratic constitution which gives every member the right to contest a preselection, in contrast to the head office directives from Sussex Street in the Labor Party. It is my view that, if you are going to enter a contest, you should run to win and I do not apologise for that. It is nonetheless the case that I had a productive working relationship with Stephen Mutch during our shared period in the New South Wales parliament and I wish him and his family all the best for the future, as I know do many residents in the electorate of Cook.A lot of people have asked me why, at this stage in my life, I have decided to re-enter the political fray when I already had an interesting and well-paid job and previously had the opportunity to serve in the New South Wales government as a minister. The answer is simple: I believe that I have a contribution to make in the nation's public life. I continue to feel passionately about Australia's future, and I believe that there is no arena which provides a greater opportunity for a positive influence than the national parliament.My parents came to Cronulla from the inner city of Sydney in 1946, buying two acres of land at Gunnamatta Bay. In those days, Cronulla was little more than a country town and the Sutherland shire was very sparsely populated, quite different from the modern community it now is.My parents were the proprietors of a shoe store in Cronulla, and it was that experience which convinced me of the need to provide real incentives to small business. It was our neighbour Joe Munro, the Liberal member for Cronulla, who did much to establish the community of Cronulla with his fight for a rail line to be built from Sutherland to Cronulla. It was the establishment of the rail line and latterly the building of the Captain Cook Bridge which did much to remove the isolation of the shire and establish the shape of the Sutherland shire for the future. Rather ironically, when I moved again in Cronulla, I moved alongside a former Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, who contacted me after I won preselection to say that, if they had to have a conservative in Cook, he was very glad that I was the candidate.The electorate of Cook is surrounded by waterways and is often described as a peninsula. It encompasses the suburbs of Cronulla, Woolooware, Gymea, Miranda, Kirrawee and other areas that adjoin Botany Bay, such as Taren Point, Sylvania, Sylvania Waters and the newer suburbs, such as Kareela. It is a community which has a strong focus on the surf clubs and community groups, and the beach culture of Cronulla as well as the waterways offer an ideal venue for the various boats and boating activities in the shire.One of the features of the electorate is the number of sporting and community groups in the shire, which Don Dobie so well served during his 25 years as a member. Cronulla, as members would know, is the home of the Sharks football team. Those driving into Cronulla will see the sign `Go, you Sharkies. Go'. There is every type of sport available within the shire. In fact, it boasts of having the highest number of netball teams of any local government area in Australia.Members are entitled to ask on this occasion what are the values and issues about which I feel passionately. I have always been uncomfortable with rigid, ideological labels or factional pigeonholes. Nonetheless, there are things that matter to me. I have benefited greatly from the contribution of caring and gifted people in my life and it is my resolution to draw the best out of others. Politics should be about maximising the great resource of human potential. I have also had the privilege of travelling and working extensively overseas. It is true that, unless a country is economically competitive internationally, it cannot survive. I see no conflict between a market dominated environment and concerns with other people. Finally, while I support strongly man's belief in rationality, I also value highly the ability to have compassion. These are the three key issues which motivate me in seeking public life.In terms of local issues, there is no doubt that one of the highest on the agenda is the question of pollution at Cronulla Beach. Of all the beaches in the Sydney suburban area, Cronulla rates the highest in terms of the level of pollution. There are also problems in terms of the Towra Point Wetlands, the area in which birds come to nest and forage en route from Japan and Siberia. There has been much erosion of the waterways because of the construction of the third runway, through the displacement of the bird population and the wave action eroding Towra Point.The oyster leases which were in the Georges River in my childhood have all but disappeared. The sandhills at Kurnell have in many places been obliterated, which shows that a careless sandmining operation and careless mining can result in the erosion of the ecology in an area.As well as environmental issues, there are human issues that impact on all of us. One of them is youth suicide. In the lead-up to the election, five minutes before we were about to hand out pamphlets at Woolooware Station, a 19-year-old youth threw himself in front of a train. I think it highlighted for me what has been going on within the Sutherland shire. An average of two young people a week have committed suicide in that area. It has amongst the highest rate of youth suicide of any area in Australia and is amongst the highest rate in the world.The figures for last year show that there were 2,000 deaths from suicide. What is of concern is the age group of 15 to 24 because, in the last 20 years, the percentage of young people who commit suicide has doubled. The rate is horrific and we have amongst the highest level in the world. The balance between the optimism that we normally have and the hopelessness and despair that our young people experience is often a significant problem. It is the role of parliamentarians to provide that optimism in their life and to provide hope for the future. The government's grant of $31 million for special studies into this area is important and we will see that much of it is directed towards research in this area.In terms of the airport, aircraft noise remains important. Fifty-five per cent of all aircraft go over the Kurnell Peninsula. There are various solutions proposed by people: some for acquisition, others for compensation, others for noise insulation and others who simply want the planes to go in other directions. But there are also within the Cook electorate many people who are employed at the airport and whose jobs depend on it—flight crews, ground staff, et cetera.There is no doubt that tourism is an important part of our economy. I had the privilege of being the head of Tourism Council Australia, Australia's peak tourism body, and I am very glad to see the tourism people here today.Tourism remains the largest provider of jobs in the country, with some 650,000 direct jobs and 350,000 indirect jobs. It is also the second largest provider of foreign exchange earnings in the country, providing $16 billion in 1997. It was second only to mining, and provided larger amounts than iron ore, sugar, wheat, wool or meat. Because of that, many in the tourism industry believe that it should be taken more seriously by governments around Australia.International travel has slowed and the expected forecast is that the number of international visitors to this country will drop by five per cent to eight per cent this year, a lot of that being due to the downturn in the South-East Asian economies. The government's provision of $50 million for the promotion of Australia as an international tourist destination has helped in addressing this downturn.Visa reform is also high on the agenda. Australia remains one of the few places in the Western world where visitors from most countries need a visa for a short-term visit. New Zealand exempts 32 countries from this requirement. The Japanese need visas to travel to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Australia. That is seen as being an impediment to travel to Australia.Domestic travel represents 75 per cent of the total tourism market and is worth over $40 billion, but that is declining. This year it is expected to decline by almost one per cent and the forecast for the next 10 years is a decline of the same rate. We have seen a shift, a change, in the way in which people have holidays. The way in which our parents had holidays—putting the mattress on top of the FJ—has changed. People are simply having short breaks, they are using their frequent flyer points. Family structures have changed. People are going offshore at a significant rate, with there being an eight per cent increase in offshore travel this year. People are going off to Phuket, to Bali. This means that jobs are exported overseas. I was very pleased to see that Minister Andrew Thomson allocated $8.5 million for a domestic tourism campaign. We want to see more of that for the domestic tourism industry.One of the secondary benefits of tourism is that it makes us look globally in terms of where our competition is. It is the people in Cairns who compete with those in Bali and Hawaii and the tour operators in Australia who compete with those in New Zealand. This global aspect is important. This applies in a number of areas, including taxation, where we need to make sure that we are competitive on a global basis. The government's taxation reforms, including the GST, will be significant in making us internationally competitive. Regulatory and industrial relations reform is also important.It is because of the need to think globally that I support Australia's foreign aid program, including the Youth Ambassador for Development Program. The role of government covers more than tax cuts and welfare handouts. We must look beyond ourselves. Those who say that charity begins at home also must learn that if we are going to teach people what it means to be generous spirited and concerned about others it also begins at home.One of the great events that I was involved in was the Olympic bid. The Olympic Games is the world's largest sporting and cultural event. As Minister for Sydney's 2000 Olympic Games Bid, I had a great experience in an interesting process, along with the Minister for Finance, John Fahey.I was appalled on hearing half an hour ago that Rod McGeoch had resigned from SOCOG, because he made such a major contribution to the Olympic bid. Without him, we would not have got the Games. Now, because of political manoeuvring, he has been forced to resign. I regret that, because he made an outstanding contribution. I also think it is appalling that, as I heard today, the commitments that we gave to the Aboriginal community during the Olympic Games bid have been dishonoured by the current state government. That should be put back on the agenda.We would hope that we would experience the same types of benefit that Atlanta did following their hosting of the Olympic Games—a doubling of convention visitors, a one-third increase in international visitors, and becoming the No. 1 growth city in the USA. We would hope that such benefits would apply across Australia, because it is Australia's Games, not Sydney's Games, or Michael Knight's Games; it belongs to the people of Australia.An issue which will concern us all over the next 12 months will be that of the republic. It is a matter of public record that I am known as being a republican. I salute the Prime Minister in his approach in establishing a referendum, even though we might disagree on the outcome. He has created a framework in which all Australians can have their say on this issue, and the will of the people will prevail.My views on this issue were influenced by my time as a Trade Commissioner in Germany, where I found people were constantly asking why we had the Queen in the UK who lived 12,000 kilometres away. But the importance of becoming a republic was crystallised for me during the Olympic bid. We often found ourselves in one corner of a restaurant lobbying for Sydney, while in the other corner the daughter of the Australian Head of State, Princess Anne, lobbied IOC officials for Manchester. This is meant as no disrespect for the monarchy, or the royal family. In the final analysis, Princess Anne voted for us after Manchester went out. This experience shows that where our interests no longer overlap, we have to establish our own national identity.I also wish to speak about reconciliation. It is important at the start of the new millennium that we establish true reconciliation with the indigenous population of Australia. I further acknowledge and endorse the renewed priority given by the Prime Minister to reconciliation. Someone who taught me much about reconciliation was Aboriginal Pastor Bill Bird, who ran a soup kitchen in Redfern for the disadvantaged. I heard him speak one night—the member for Parramatta was there as well—on what it was like growing up as an Aboriginal boy in a rural town in Queensland. The prejudice, the bitterness and the hurt inflicted impacted upon me as to the difficulties for Aborigines in our community. But with enormous grace, it was Bill who said that it wasn't until he learned to forgive that his life turned around.During the 2000 Olympic Games bid, I travelled to Narooma on the south coast of New South Wales to meet with the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council to outline the reasons why Aboriginal support for the 2000 Olympic Games would be so important if we were to have a successful bid. I want to place on record my appreciation for the unanimous support of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, and I applaud the decision to commence the Olympic Torch Relay in Uluru. I say how disappointed I am that the agreements that were given at that time to assist the Aboriginal community with merchandising during the Games and with establishing a centre at the Olympic site have been totally disregarded by the New South Wales Right, who have simply ignored the requests of the local community, which gave their support for the Games in that process.It was some six months later that Pastor Bill Bird organised an Aboriginal show of support for the 2000 Olympic Games bid. Over 700 Aborigines came to La Perouse for the day of support. We came together—Liberal and Labor, indigenous and European Australians—in the spirit of reconciliation and unity in our bid for the Olympic Games. The theme for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games bid was `Share the spirit', and we certainly did on that day.We stood holding hands while Aboriginal elders and pastors from around Australia prayed for the bid. The climax of the day was the parachutists jumping out of a light plane with the Aboriginal flag and the Olympic bid flag. Without a doubt, for me, this was the highlight of the games bid.There is no doubt that, in terms of my own position, I have come a long way from the boy who stood with his bare feet in the sand dunes in Kurnell. The issues for me remain the same and remain significantly important—the importance of every individual, their own integrity, their own human spirit. Much has happened in the Australian community as we have seen various forces pursuing the right to debate. Finger pointing, which has occurred around the nation, must be terminated. We must learn what it is to be a community and come together at this significant time, at the start of the next millennium. It is important that we do this.We must also pursue on a continuing basis the economic development of this country. There is nothing wrong with working in a free market environment to lift the standard of living of those in this country, to contract out, to privatise, to shift the wealth in this country to the disadvantaged and the poor and to provide the jobs in this country.We also need the continued high priority for compassion in what we do. Government is simply not just about taxation reform, even though it is a very significant and important aspect for everyone in this parliament. It is important for everyone in Australia to lift our overall standard of living. Government is also about human rights. It is about compassion, dignity and recognising the rights of others. It is recognising what we are as Australians as we search to establish our identity.Much has been said about that search for identity as people from across the country try to work out what we are. There is no better time than now with the events that will be facing us over the next few years—the coming Olympic Games, the coming new millennium, the celebration of the centenary of Federation—for us to come together. Now is the time for us as a parliament to provide that leadership in the key areas that we believe in.I would like to thank those members of parliament who have come here today. I would like to thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to express these views in my first speech.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hawker)—Before I call the honourable member for Bendigo, I remind the House that this is the honourable member's first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.17:10:00512Gibbons, Steve, MPMr GIBBONS83XBendigoALP01—Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Hawker. Please accept my congratulations on your appointment to the Speaker's Panel and those of your colleagues. Being elected to the federal parliament is one of, if not, the highest honours that anyone can receive from their community. The electors of Bendigo have demonstrated a great confidence in me, and I intend to justify that confidence.I would like to take this opportunity to thank my campaign team, in particular Leigh Svendson, Jacinta Allan, Peter Stevenson, Bob Cameron MLA, David and Helen Kennedy, Lorna Erwin, Bill Murray, Margaret Lewis, Len Peacock, Marty Stradbrook, John McQuilten and Elaine Walsh, as well as the many hundreds of members and volunteers, all of whom played an important part in winning Bendigo for Labor. It would be nice if I were able to think that they could not have achieved this victory without me, because I know that I could not have achieved it without them.To my wife Diane, my mother Jasmine, my sisters Karen and Jane and my brother Dale: I express my sincere thanks for their support and encouragement. I also acknowledge the important influence of my late father, Jim Gibbons, the only left leaning `used car dealer' I have ever known. He would be extremely proud if he were alive today.I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, and the Labor team. They waged a great campaign, resulting in many new MPs being elected on this side of the House. I am proud to be among them, and I look forward to working with them over the coming years. I would also like to take this opportunity to wish my immediate predecessor, Bruce Reid, and his family a long, happy and healthy retirement.I stand in this House with a diverse background. I have worked as a carer for disabled people. I have been, I am proud to say, a trade union official and have started and operated a successful small business. I have worked for three state Labor leaders and served as chairman of directors, vice-chairman and treasurer at the Bendigo hospital, which is the major referral centre for the Bendigo region. The hospital then had an annual budget of around $40 million per year and a staff of 700.My first job was as an apprentice motor mechanic and later a storeman in the automotive parts industry. I spent 15 years as a semiprofessional musician playing in and around Bendigo and regional Victoria. I believe this varied background will equip me to represent the people of Bendigo and its surrounding communities very effectively.I come into this place as the 15th federal member for Bendigo since Federation. There have been 6½ Labor MPs and 6½ conservative MPs for Bendigo since 1901—the two remaining halves coming in the form of one William Morris Hughes, that legendary ratter, who held the seat of Bendigo from 1917 to 1922. He obviously could not make up his mind whether he was a conservative or a Labor man. So you can see that, to that extent, I am in somewhat dubious company. But there have been many fine representatives of Bendigo from both sides of the House, and I would like to acknowledge some of them from our side of politics today.For example, Percy Clarey held Bendigo for Labor from 1949 to 1960 and was a former President of the ACTU. Noel Beaton succeeded him in 1960 and retired in 1969, when my good friend David Kennedy was elected in a by-election and was then re-elected in the general election later that year. John Brumby was the next Labor MP for Bendigo, and he held the seat from 1983 to 1990. He will, no doubt, be the next Premier of Victoria, and I can think of no-one better equipped, more hardworking or more dedicated to occupy that office. If I can be as effective a member for Bendigo as those I have just mentioned, I am sure the electors of Bendigo will be well satisfied.Bendigo is fast becoming the privatisation capital of Australia as conservative governments continue to implement the economic rationalist dogmas that are devastating regional Australia. In the years since the Kennett government and the Howard government took office, the Bendigo district has lost over 1,600 full-time public sector jobs as a result of privatisation, preparation for privatisation and public sector cuts.These massive job losses have been imposed on areas including health, education, the SEC or Powercorp, the Gas and Fuel Corporation, Coliban Water, Telstra, the Veterinary Laboratory, the Australian Taxation Office, VicRoads, local government agencies, the Bendigo Railway Workshops, Australian Defence Industries, the Army Topographic Survey Establishment, La Trobe University (Bendigo), the Family Court, the Department of Social Security and Centrelink. It is not surprising, therefore, that we have official unemployment figures for the electorate in the order of 11 per cent. I believe the true figures are in fact much higher. Even heavier, of course, is the level of youth unemployment in the Bendigo region.There are answers to tackling the unemployment problem, but if we are to begin to turn the tide we have to scrap the economic rationalist principles that I believe are largely to blame for the present levels. Governments at federal and state level must also accept that regions like Bendigo need to have a strong government infrastructure base as a foundation for their economic future. We must have appropriately funded government agencies including health, education and local government institutions. These continue to be major providers of employment in Bendigo, Castlemaine, Heathcote and Maryborough and were formerly the lifeblood of smaller towns like Wedderburn, Elmore, Maldon, Dunolly, Bridgewater and Inglewood.Telstra alone has shed close to 300 full-time jobs from the Bendigo district over the past 2½ years, resulting in the loss of some $12 million per year from the Bendigo district's economy. This has had a devastating impact on our small businesses and has contributed to the large number of empty shops and offices throughout the city of Bendigo in particular. What is most disturbing is that the latest round of Telstra job losses comes from the Bendigo Fault Centre, with the remaining 52 jobs being relocated to Launceston, Tasmania. The service is still being provided, but only from Launceston. So Launceston gains Telstra's entire Southern Regional Fault Service Centre, with over 100 jobs, entirely at Bendigo's expense.When central Victorians were asked to indicate their preference for a communications carrier, between Telstra and Optus, a massive 96 per cent voted to stay with Telstra. I wonder what would happen now if that ballot was repeated. The people would undoubtedly desert Telstra in large numbers in favour of their competitors—and no wonder.The federal government has the capacity and indeed the responsibility to review its policy of arms-length involvement in not only Telstra but every aspect of government services so that regions like Bendigo not only maintain current employment levels and government agencies but begin to increase employment levels by developing new services into the future. We can then set about attracting appropriate private sector industries to our region, especially in the information technology and telecommunications areas which the Bendigo region is well placed to provide.The changes will at least signal our commitment to address the terrible inequities that are changing the face of regional Australia. Once we were a country where the ideal was that all should have enough to live with dignity; we had jobs and we had a good social security safety net. Now, with record unemployment, we are becoming a land where those who are comfortable and secure are in danger of living in fear of those who have lost all hope.Our small town communities are being devastated by the economic policies of conservative governments. I refer in particular to the Victorian state government's plans to impose a new sewerage scheme on people who cannot afford it and who do not need or want it. For a lot of people in small towns around Bendigo this was a major issue in the federal election. They wanted to send a clear signal to the coalition parties in Victoria that they are tired of having conservative governments impose their ideas against the will of the majority of the people.The costs involve headworks charges of some $1,950 plus anything up to $3,000 per household for internal plumbing. This is far in excess of what most residents in these towns can afford. For pensioners, unemployed and others on low incomes these costs are absolutely ruinous. I congratulate the North Central Waste Water Alliance for its energetic campaign and, in particular, I congratulate John Olsen, Alister Gray and the others who have been leading figures in standing up for their communities against the uncaring attitude of remote and big governments.In contrast to the Victorian government, we have the New South Wales government providing the same service for its smaller communities by funding 75 per cent of the headworks costs out of state government funds with local government picking up the remaining 25 per cent and in most cases not passing these costs on to their residents. The contrast is staggering. On the one hand, we have the Victorian government riding roughshod over its people and imposing its privatisation mania in spite of public opposition. On the other hand, we have the New South Wales Labor government listening to its people and governing in accordance with its wishes. I will continue to support the Waste Water Alliance in their campaign for a fair deal. Small towns in the Bendigo electorate sent a very clear message to the conservative parties in the October election and it must be heeded.The coalition's economic policies are also having a devastating effect on the Australian Defence Industries plant in Bendigo. This industry is a major component of Bendigo's economy, with a current employment level of around 360 jobs. The massive scaling back of 150 jobs by the coalition in the pre-privatisation process has stripped away much needed personnel expertise, which will be lost to the region forever. We do not know what number of jobs will be retained with privatisation or even if the plant will in fact survive into the future.The performance of the coalition has been especially disgraceful considering that the current Prime Minister aimed to lead the public to believe in the 1996 election campaign that ADI Bendigo would not be privatised. Another example of broken promises to Bendigo is the failure to deliver the $2 million promised to the Bendigo Art Gallery for redevelopment. In the 1996 election in Bendigo the coalition promised to contribute the $2 million. They broke that promise as soon as the election was out of the way. In fact, until a few weeks before the October election this year, they even denied they ever made the commitment. Then, suddenly, with the election on the way, they announced that they would pay the $2 million. The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston, then claimed that the cheque was `as good as in the mail'. I can just see the headline: `Coalition keep promise they never made'.Also under threat alongside ADI is Bendigo's Army Topographical Survey Establishment, which is scheduled to have its building sold out from under it. This is a magnificent historic building and property called `Fortuna', which is a major part of Bendigo's history and heritage. This property will also face the auctioneer's hammer under the coalition's program of unloading large numbers of Defence properties across Australia. Another 150 jobs are therefore placed at risk.I will now deal with the GST and its effect on the people of the Bendigo federal electorate. Labor secured a swing of around 4.6 per cent in Bendigo. This was the second largest swing in the marginal federal seats in Victoria, and the largest swing in regional Victoria. Labor in Bendigo campaigned vigorously against the GST. There was widespread concern over the far-reaching effects of the GST, especially among pensioners, the unemployed and low income earners. Small businesses also were constantly expressing their fears and worries over the burden the GST would cause to them as unpaid tax collectors.In Maryborough, which relies heavily on its book printing industry, the GST will increase its cost of inputs by a massive 4.5 per cent. This comes on top of the coalition's scrapping of the printing industry's book bounty. This latter move has increased the industry's costs by some four per cent and threatens the future viability of the industry and the security of about 600 jobs. Is it any wonder that people are deserting the coalition when it has no industry policy and no regional development policy other than increasing the costs of production and destroying jobs with the GST?The Bendigo electorate and regional Australia need a genuine industry policy and a genuine regional development policy to ensure the future of our existing industries and to add to economic growth and jobs growth. Regional Australia desperately needs the vision and policies of the kind that were spelled out during the election campaign by the Labor team.Another issue of widespread concern has been the move to establish a casino in Bendigo. This proposal emerged early in August and received the enthusiastic encouragement of the Victorian state government. It is noteworthy that the state government's support for the proposal came after the federal coalition had announced an inquiry into the effects of gaming throughout Australia. No doubt honourable members are only too well aware of the community concern that has arisen in Victoria since the establishment of Crown Casino and the development of the casino culture, especially with its close links with the Victorian state government. It is therefore hardly surprising that there has been extensive concern expressed in Bendigo over the casino proposal and the state government's backing for it.A nation is measured by the way it cares for its elderly citizens. Older Australians are entitled to security and peace of mind, and the past 2½ years have been anything but comforting to our elderly. I refer to the disruptive and unfair scheme of nursing home fees introduced by the coalition government. The scheme has caused enormous heartache and distress for senior citizens, and this anxiety was experienced by many in the Bendigo electorate. To add to this, the state coalition government plans to privatise some 60 nursing home beds in Bendigo, beds which are now very capably administered by the Bendigo Health Care Group. The Bendigo Health Care Group has been debarred from tendering for its own beds, despite the fact that it would prefer to submit a tender.I have lived in Bendigo for the past 43 years and have spent all my working life in Bendigo. I can think of no better place to live. It is a great city and a great community, and I want to see it flourish and prosper. I want a sound future for the rural communities and the cities and towns of the electorate.I noticed in the window of the Government Whip's Office a poster which states `Ballarat—the greatest Victorian city'. I have some bad news for the honourable member for Ballarat: that poster is wrong. Bendigo offers a richer history, although similar to Ballarat. The Australian constitution was in fact drafted in Bendigo by Sir John Quick, who was the first MHR for Bendigo. In more recent times Bendigo has enjoyed a faster growth rate than has its sister city. Bendigo holds the Challenge Cup, which is a basketball competition between the two cities, I remind the honourable member.Bendigo's regional daily newspaper beat all comers in the tabloid section for the Asian Pacific region, in only its second edition after becoming a tabloid. Bendigo's local TV news service consistently outrates the Ballarat service per head of population. Bendigo has its own banking group, which has pioneered the community banking concept as a result of the major banks closing some 1,132 small branches throughout Australia. This excellent service allows small towns to establish their own bank branch, with the Bendigo Bank providing the infrastructure and support, and the bank and the community share all of the revenue. This innovative service was designed and implemented in Bendigo, and now the ANZ Bank and the Bank of Melbourne are considering implementing a similar service.I could go on for some time speaking on the merits of Bendigo in relation to its sister city but I will not, except to say finally that Bendigo enjoys a far more attractive climate than does Ballarat. In fact, I recently had the pleasure of being in that city when it actually stopped raining, but that was only because it hailed.I have focused in my speech today on local issues, because my election campaign was very much a local campaign which concentrated on the matters that have been uppermost in the minds of the local people. Each of these issues was, of course, a reflection of nationwide and state-wide issues. The voters in the Bendigo electorate showed convincingly that government must come back to the people and put the needs of ordinary citizens before the narrow economic ideology that has driven the conservative parties.I believe that Labor is the only party with the intellectual capacity to establish and implement policies that benefit all Australians, irrespective of their economic circumstance. Labor is the only party capable of governing with the required compassion for those who are unable, for a variety of reasons, to fend for themselves. Bendigo's vote for Labor is indeed heartening, and I look forward to working in partnership with the electorate I have been elected to represent, and to helping achieve Labor's victory at the next election. It is only after a major change in ideology that we will realise our true goals of seeing each and every Australian function at their full potential.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.Bills516r640516Debate resumed from 12 November, on motion by Dr Wooldridge:That the bill be now read a second time.17:29:00516Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00—The three health insurance bills are intended to implement the government's election policy to give a 30 per cent rebate to all people with private health insurance, regardless of their financial situation. It is bad health policy. As a government handout it has, of course, populist appeal, which is why the government promoted it so shamelessly as part of their bid for re-election. But the proposed 30 per cent rebate has nothing to offer the people of Australia or our health system.This is a real fork in the road for health in Australia. The Howard government wants to turn back the clock and shift the health system back to the 1960s. This government wants to pour massive subsidies into private health insurance and reduce public hospitals to a safety net. That is not what Medicare is all about.At the last election, the Labor Party opposed this proposal for a number of reasons. First, it will break the government's commitment not to tamper with Medicare by redirecting scarce health funds away from our public hospitals. Secondly, this measure fails on economic grounds. It gives no signals to increase the efficiency of the private or public health sectors. It provides an open-ended subsidy of 30 per cent of whatever the insurance companies decide to charge. The amount of health dollars spent on this measure will continue to rise along with uncontrolled private hospital and medical fees. The government has not provided the figures, but the money will inevitably come out of the health budget.Thirdly, this measure fails on social grounds. The proposed 30 per cent rebate is very expensive and poorly targeted; it favours those who are already well provided for. Fourthly, it fails to address the real problems that are deterring people with private health insurance—the multiple bills and the hidden extra costs that leave private patients with huge out-of-pocket expenses.The next problem is that the rebate will not achieve its declared but unspecified goal of substantially increasing the proportion of people with private health insurance. The government has provided no evidence to support its assertion that this subsidising of private health insurance will take the pressure off public hospitals. The government does not expect one extra person to take out private health insurance, so for $1,500 million we will not see any reduction in hospital waiting lists.Last, but by no means least importantly, the government has produced no justification for the extension of this measure to cover all ancillary health insurance. This will cost around $375 million at the same time this government has scrapped the Commonwealth dental scheme for low income people for a saving of just over $100 million. Therefore, I move:That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "the Bill be withdrawn and redrafted to provide for:(1) increased funding for the public hospital system;(2) measures to promote efficiency in private hospitals and control costs; and(3) measures to make health insurance more attractive by providing private patients a single hospital bill and insurance to cover the cost of hospital and medical services so that patients don't face large out-of-pocket costs."At the start of my remarks I want to highlight the absolute failure of this government to introduce any hard evidence that its proposal will achieve the objectives that it set. The minister's second reading speech was full of assertions and unsubstantiated claims by various industry bodies, but it had few facts and was backed by no government research at all. In fact, the only evidence the minister was able to quote was an opinion poll. The high point of this opinion poll was that 67 per cent of people thought the government should do more to assist people with private health insurance.The action that people are looking for is not some sort of untargeted handout that will mainly benefit those who are already well off. It is time the government actually tackled the hard issues about why private health insurance itself is suffering a chronic illness. At a crude level, the opinion poll question boiled down to: would you like the government to give you an extra $600? The only surprising thing is that about a third of people said no.It is not hard to see why so many people suspect this government's motives when it comes to health. The Australian public is very well aware of the government's agenda to undermine Medicare. My office has certainly been receiving a steady stream of correspondence from people who want the Labor Party to make sure that Medicare is not weakened. For example, the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association of New South Wales wrote to express their opposition to the government's measure by saying:As older people many of us have lived through a period when there was a two tier health system and we saw the introduction of Medicare as an end to this iniquitous situation. We have supported Medicare since its introduction and will fight to ensure that it is not reduced to the role of `safety net for people who are unable to afford private health insurance'.The Labor Party believes that Medicare is the cornerstone for equitable health care in Australia. It is undeniable that the vast majority of Australians support the retention of Medicare as the universal system for accessing health services. I want to quote from Stephen Leeder, the Dean of Medicine at Sydney University, who recently wrote an article in a new consumer health magazine. He rejects the view that Medicare was ever intended to be a safety net, which is where the government wants to take it, and describes as a myth the view that the private sector takes pressure off the public hospitals. He goes on to say:The private system is carrying the weight of need unmet in the public system. This means—and this is the important point—more people are using it than would be the case if the public system were adequate. As cost control is one of the huge challenges of contemporary health care worldwide it is indeed paradoxical that the current Federal Government justifies its transfer of funds from the capped public system to the uncapped private system.In other words, the government is encouraging inefficiency and, in its haste to assist the private sector, failing to take complementary action to ensure that it has incentives to control its costs. The extent of public support for Medicare is well known, and most recently the Health Insurance Commission survey indicated that 88 per cent of Australians support Medicare. Against its own ideological preferences, the Howard government again went to an election with—this is what they called it—an absolute commitment to retain Medicare.However, it is clear that some within the Liberal Party will do all they can to undermine Medicare, and this rebate is just the mechanism to achieve it. The Prime Minister just this weekend quite wrongly suggested that Medicare would, in some way, come under pressure if this rebate is not passed. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is only if this legislation is passed that funds will flow into private health funds, leaving the public health system abandoned.The current crisis in public hospitals is due to the severe health funding cutbacks made by both the Howard government and their conservative state colleagues, none more so than in my own state of Victoria, over the last few years. The solution lies with the restoration of this funding and it is vital that scarce health funds not be wasted on an ineffective scheme. The minister is fond of quoting the recently concluded Medicare agreements and claims that these will result in substantial new funding. I would be the first to welcome a genuine injection of real growth in funds. However, the new agreement does insufficient to compensate the states for inflation, population growth and the impact of the $200 million a year cut from hospital budgets in the Howard government's first term.Nothing can conceal from the public the underfunded state of our public hospitals. The new Medicare agreements do not go far enough to solve the problems that are so evident in our hospitals. Without concerted action by this government, we will continue to see growing waiting lists and declining standards of care because of past budget cutbacks and the flow-on effects for health financing of the rebate we are currently debating.The need for fundamental reform to health financing was strongly endorsed just this week in the Financial Review editorial. It concluded that the rebate would not make a difference to the proportion of people with insurance. The editorial states:The proposed rebate seems more calculated to elicit the gratitude of voters than a serious attempt to fix the problem.A big part of the money will go initially to people who are already insured—goodness knows what that will do for the system—rather than to the health sector, which makes the rebate a relatively inefficient and inequitable means of subsidising private health care. Eventually like any subsidy it will be shared with suppliers as private hospitals, specialists and health funds put up their charges.The Financial Review has given a damning indictment of the government's policy. Any serious examination of the economic impact of this rebate must conclude that it will be ineffective. In the absence of any action on pricing and increasing the efficiency of the industry, the rebate will turn out to be a cruel hoax to those with private health insurance.The role for government is to ensure that the public have access to high quality public hospitals providing a reliable range of services. There is certainly a role for an efficient private hospitals industry to supplement the public network. What would this government say if the car industry asked it to pay consumers 30 per cent of the cost of buying a car because some people could not afford the more expensive model or the home insurance industry asked for a 30 per cent reduction in premiums because of their contribution to maintaining housing in Australia? These are all ridiculous propositions, yet this government takes entirely seriously the proposal that private health insurance should be subsidised simply because people offering it have been unable to contain the costs or offer products that the public find attractive.The health insurance rebate being offered by this government is a regressive measure, and not simply because it is not means tested. The rebate will provide a windfall gain for high income households who already have private health insurance. The payment of over $1,500 million—that is, $1.5 billion—in additional subsidies will almost entirely go to those people who already have private health insurance, the majority of whom are in higher income groups. Those on low and middle incomes will receive a smaller benefit because they are already receiving a rebate under the existing targeted Private Health Insurance Incentives Scheme.Not surprisingly, low income people also choose the lower cost policies with an excess and a less extensive range of benefits. Because the government's scheme is based on a percentage rebate of the total cost, this will doubly disadvantage low income people. The government's policy is the more you spend, the more the government will give you. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics survey on private health insurance was published in May this year. It shows a direct correlation between income and private health insurance coverage. Twenty-two per cent of those earning less than $20,000, 60 per cent of those earning between $50,000 and $60,000 and no less than 72 per cent of those earning more than $70,000 have private health insurance.The minister referred to 700,000 people covered by insurance with incomes of less than $20,000. These people represent about one in five in that group. This group of people on very low incomes already get assistance through the existing Private Health Insurance Incentives Scheme. They will not gain very much at all from the proposal before us today, particularly if they have low cost insurance. The other 80 per cent in this income group do not have any health insurance. They will get nothing at all from the proposal being presented by this government and they depend entirely on our public hospitals.A typical low income family with a no-frills private hospital policy would be paying somewhere between $1,000 and maybe up to $1,800, depending on which state they live in and whether or not they take a policy with an excess. At present, they would receive the $350 flat rebate under the existing private health insurance scheme. The same benefit is available to any middle income family earning up to $70,000 a year plus $3,000 for every child. In other words, those with the more expensive policies in those income brackets will receive up to an extra $250. But, at the other end of the scale, those who are earning very low incomes, those who are on very low cost policies, could find themselves receiving no additional subsidy at all.A high income family, by contrast, with blue-ribbon excess-free cover in Victoria, which is the highest cost state in the country, could be paying as much as $3,160 including super extras. This family will receive $948 through the government's generosity—of course, that is taxpayers' money. Is it any wonder that the government deliberately omitted to include the effect of this measure in the family cameos it attached to the tax package and so flagrantly promoted at public expense prior to the last election? If the public had been aware of how skewed this proposal was towards wealthier families, it would have seen through the government's advertising. In an attempt to convince the public of the merits of this scheme, a crisis has been generated in our private health insurance industry. This has been driven by a range of factors that have little to do with the welfare of patients.The fact that participation rates in private health insurance have declined since the introduction of Medicare is hardly surprising. Medicare, after all, provides the guarantee of a hospital bed—this is what it is supposed to do—when people need it. That is what Medicare is all about and the public, as I said before, strongly support it. The decline in the rate of private health insurance is not mirrored by a decline in the use of private hospitals. The facts are that private hospital bed days have increased by 1.6 per cent in the year to March 1998 and private hospitals are returning good profits for their owners. There is no crisis in private hospitals, but there is a major crisis in our public hospitals and this is what the government should be acting to solve.A recent report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that private hospitals, not public hospitals, were the fastest growing area of health expenditure between 1989 and 1996. Just recently we have seen an Australian Stock Exchange report which also reported that the private health sector is `likely to provide excellent exposure to long-term growth in the Australian market'. So whatever the concerns within the insurance industry, the private hospital sector is doing very well.What is it then that needs to be done in the insurance sector? It is there that we need to address government policy and government action. The measures before us do not address the real reasons why people are not finding private health insurance a good deal. The private health insurance companies must solve the cost spiral that is not only in the base cost of private health insurance but just as importantly in the gaps that people have to face.I have here an example of a young man who had to have three operations—two on his hand and one on his knee. He has got full private hospital insurance with sports extras, so you can see that he goes for somewhat risky activities. The point, nevertheless, is that he paid about $1,500 a year for this top table medical and hospital insurance and he faced as a result of these three operations out-of-pocket costs on top of the price of his health insurance of $1,500. There were out-of-pocket costs for the hospital, for the surgeon, for the anaesthetist, for the radiologist and so on. That young man had to pay $1,500 for those operations.Some companies, like National Mutual Health Insurance in Victoria and in South Australia, are taking steps to solve these problems by negotiating with hospitals and doctors for the delivery of a complete health service to their patients. These are the reforms that the minister should be pursuing, not an untargeted handout to those who are already insured. Until the minister tackles the real underlying problems—the problems that this young man faced; $1,500 of out-of-pocket costs when he had operations in a private hospital—then we will continue to be treating the symptoms facing the private health industry and not the disease. This young man has since left private health insurance because he could not see the point of paying for health insurance that went nowhere near covering the costs that he confronted in hospital.The government has not provided any information whatsoever—none whatsoever—to demonstrate that the measure we are debating today, this massive health insurance rebate, will do anything to increase the number of people taking out private health insurance. There is also no detail on the extent to which waiting lists in public hospitals will be reduced as a result of spending $1.5 billion a year—each year—on these private health insurance subsidies. There is nothing whatsoever to justify these massive expenditures.The Howard government in the last term introduced two measures to provide what they said would be a long-term solution to declining private health insurance. The first was the Private Health Insurance Incentives Scheme, which, as I have said, provides assistance to low and middle income people with private health insurance. The second penalises high income people who do not take out health insurance. When this government introduced the incentives scheme they said that it would increase the participation rate in private health insurance to 40 per cent. Instead, the rate has dropped a further 1.3 per cent. This time the minister has avoided making any statement about what he expects to happen, hinting that he would be happy just to keep the current membership. We know that he has costed the scheme on the basis of only the existing members, but if the forecast of the Australian Private Hospitals Association was realised, the participation rate in private health insurance would rise to a miraculous 45 per cent of the population. You might ask on what basis has this forecast been made. It is being made on the basis of another opinion poll.There is no prospect that the participation rate in private health insurance will jump this much. But if it did, it would cost the taxpayer another $750 million a year. That is on top of the $1,500. So we would be spending $2,250 million on private health insurance subsidies—a huge amount of money by anybody's judgment. It is inevitable, if this were to happen, that the extra funds required would be taken out of the health budget. That would mean it would be taken out of public hospitals. So instead of relieving the pressure on public hospitals, this rebate—if the Private Hospitals Association is anything to go by—would bring a new round of funding cutbacks and a reduction in public hospital beds.A further dimension that the government has failed to consider is the continuing rapid increase in premiums charged by insurance companies. This is exactly the reason the previous incentive scheme failed to increase participation. The benefit for low and middle income recipients has been largely wiped out because the insurance companies took the opportunity, once they had a bit of a subsidy, to massively boost their premiums. This proposal makes the same mistake again as it contains absolutely no safeguards to prevent the price rises that will inevitably happen. The minister has already conceded that prices must rise next March, but he cannot tell us by how much. The truth is that, without fundamental surgery, private health insurance costs will keep rising.I have released figures to show that, if the present trend of an average eight per cent increase in premiums continues, the benefit for families in the current targeted private health insurance scheme will be wiped out in just two years. Again, it is the high income people with insurance who will be the lucky ones. It will take five years of premium rises to wipe out their benefits. Again, it highlights the inherent bias of the design of this rebate.Another particularly objectionable part of this bill is what is being done with ancillary services. The debate over ancillary services has absolutely nothing to do with the split between public and private hospitals. Once again, just like with the other part of this rebate, the government has advanced no arguments whatsoever as to why this proposal should be extended to ancillary costs. It has not separately identified the cost to do so.Let us look at a couple of important facts. In 1997-98, the private health insurance organisations paid out $1.1 million in claims for nearly 30 million ancillary services. That is fully a quarter of all payments from health insurance. Another $3,400 million is paid out for hospital related expenses and $530 million is spent on administrative costs within the funds. My other colleagues will go to the issue about the costs of administration. These services cover a range of ancillary services, such as dentistry, physiotherapy and so on.The contributors taking insurance for ancillary services paid close to $1.2 million in premiums for these benefits. Bear in mind, as I have just alluded to, that over 12 per cent of these premiums are swallowed up by administrative expenses. Under the government's proposal, the recipients of this rebate will receive a reduction of 30 per cent of the cost of insurance, and that will cost the government $375 million. This even includes the 1.4 million Australians who take out ancillary insurance alone, not including hospital insurance.What is the justification for this? Why, for example, are some people to be given the benefit of a 30 per cent reduction in the cost of covering their dental bills when on the other hand this government took the most callous measure of the last parliament when it abolished the Commonwealth dental scheme, which provided support for the dental needs of pensioners who otherwise could not afford proper dental treatment? It saved the government $100 million, taking away a vital health service. But this government has been quick to put in its place a 30 per cent rebate for people with private health insurance so that the cost of their dental care will go down. It is inequitable in the extreme.If this bill does scrape through the Senate, the minister must stand accountable for having imposed it on the Australian health system. The Prime Minister said during the election campaign that he expected his policy to lead to a big jump in the number of people with insurance within 12 months. The health minister has studiously avoided making any such commitments other than holding the line with the existing number of people with health insurance. This fact is evident from the costings, as I said before.The real proponents of the measure, of course—the private hospitals and the insurers—have not been so guarded. Their claim is that the participation rate will jump to 45 per cent. The minister has been reported as saying that that is close to his estimates. So unless the minister comes into the House and says what he expects the participation rate in private health insurance is likely to be, the Labor Party will certainly be holding him to the target of 40 to 45 per cent, which, I gather, is what he expects it to raise to.The other claimed objective of this proposal is to reduce the pressure on public hospitals. The Prime Minister has given his commitment to retain Medicare in its entirety. Therefore, the second target that this minister must achieve with this 30 per cent rebate, particularly when it runs over budget, is that there will not be a new round of cuts from our public hospitals.Another statement the minister is stuck with is his claim during the election that this measure plus the new Medicare agreement will see an end to waiting lists in public hospitals. So these are the targets that the opposition will be holding the government to account for if it succeeds in introducing this very bad health policy: participation rates in health insurance up to 45 per cent in 12 months; no cuts to Medicare funding if this rebate scheme runs over budget; and an end to waiting lists in public hospitals. They are the promises that this government has attached to this rebate. The government will stand condemned when it inevitably fails to achieve them.WU5O'CONNORMr O'Connor—I second the amendment.18:00:00522Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAYHK6HerbertLP10—I am privileged to be able to respond to the shadow minister for health this evening, and I relish the opportunity. Before speaking to the Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 1998 , I will address the amendment that has been presented to us tonight—and I must say that I am very surprised to see the tone of its particulars.The first paragraph suggests that there should be `increased funding for the public hospital system'. Perhaps the shadow minister has not noticed that the current government has voted a record amount of money into the public system in the next five years—a 19.2 per cent increase over the next five years; a total, in all, of some $31.34 billion into the public health system.The second paragraph relates to `measures to promote efficiency in private hospitals and control costs'. If I were a member of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy who run private hospital systems around this country, I would be deeply offended and insulted by this particular paragraph. Do we really think that Sister Brenda Grant at the Mater Hospital in Townsville does not do everything within her power to control costs in her hospital? Do we really think that Dr Peter Carson at the Park Haven Private Hospital in Townsville does not do everything he can to control costs in his hospital? I think it is just disgraceful of the Labor Party to suggest that these very well-run private hospitals do not do everything they can to control their costs.In relation to the third paragraph relating to measures to make health insurance more attractive by providing private patients a single hospital bill and insurance to cover the so-called gap, I can speak with experience on that particular matter. Only 12 months ago, after having had a circular saw run down my chest, I had open-heart surgery. That was a $25,000 operation under private health insurance, and it cost me an additional $100.I do know that there are hospitals where there are some problems. But the member for Jagajaga has not suggested what the real solution is. I can tell her what it is. The real solution in relation to these gap problems is the ability of Medicare to deal with the payments that it makes to the various professions that operate in hospitals. I can tell the member for Jagajaga that at the moment an anaesthetist gets more money for a 19-minute angiogram than a cardiac surgeon gets for a four- to eight-hour open-heart operation. That is wrong, and it needs be fixed. Similarly, ophthalmologists get $1,100 to remove a cataract. However, these days, times having moved on, with the latest technology they can now do 10 a morning in their rooms without having to go to a hospital. They are the sorts of things that we have to tidy up.Mr Deputy Speaker, it is hard to fix a hole in the wall of a flood levee when water is pouring through. But, if you do not try, the problem only gets worse and worse until the flood walls collapse altogether. In relation to private health insurance and private health care, the government is trying. Former Labor health minister Senator Graham Richardson certainly recognised the need to do this when he described the public health insurance problem in different terms. Back in 1993, the former Labor minister argued for the need to put a floor under those people who were dropping out of private health insurance. But, regardless of how you choose to look at the problem, unless you try to do something to fix it, it will still remain—and why can't the opposition acknowledge that doing nothing is simply not an option in relation to private health insurance?In this debate I have been very disappointed with the contribution of the shadow minister. In my view, her approach has simply been crass populist politics, without regard to substantial solutions. In what she has said tonight, there is not a hint about what might be good public policy. In terms of health care our country deserves—indeed, all the people in this country deserve—a better approach to public policy in health than we have seen from the opposition.Last week I read that a 79-year-old man was twice denied treatment in Sydney public hospitals for a heart condition because he was considered too old. How could that happen? I think that is an indictment on our health system at this stage.Opposition member interjecting—HK6Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAY—I will answer the question on how it could happen: because of pressure on public hospitals due to the decline in private health cover. Your policy seems to be to jack up—Mr O'Connor interjecting—HK6Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAY—We have record funding at this stage.Mr O'Connor interjecting—HK6Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAY—I think I have the call, Member for Corio. We cannot keep jacking up the load on the public health system and assume that it will cope. I, for one, will support the government in relation to what it is looking at doing.But look at the numbers. In 1972, 80 per cent of Australia's population was privately insured, and only 2½ million Australians relied on the public system. Now in 1998, only 30 per cent are insured, and we have 13 million people depending on the public system. What is the solution? There are perhaps three solutions that we could look at. One is to encourage increasing membership in the private health insurance system; secondly, we could, if we chose, means test entry into the public system except in emergencies; and, thirdly, we could increase taxes to fund the public system.The government chooses the first course; the Labor Party seems to be choosing the third course. What that really means is that the Labor Party supports the course whereby all Australians pay higher taxes to impose upon Australians a single system rather than the dual system that has worked so well for this country. On the other hand, the government basically supports tax cuts with a strong public system and a strong private system. What is wrong with that?I have already said that the facts of the matter are that the government has provided a 19.2 per cent real increase over five years to public hospitals, a record amount of money in the next five years. But it is interesting to see what is being provided now in the private health system. I can tell you that in the private system, one-third of total health funding comes from health funds and from individuals. One in three operations are done in the private sector. Premiums paid by the private sector into private health insurance make a larger contribution to our overall health bill than the Medicare levy: private health insurance premiums amount to $4.5 billion, and the Medicare levy raises $3.6 billion.I would be interested to know where the shadow minister thinks the premiums paid to private health insurers go. I do not know whether she understands that, of the 40 funds that currently offer private health insurance, only two operate for profit. All of the others are not-for-profit funds. So where does the money that has contributed to private health funds go? It goes into satisfying our health bill in this country. A government rebate ultimately ends up as more money in the health system in this country.Yet for some reason the Labor Party want to block this legislation. They want to hurt 700,000 people whose incomes are less than $20,000. The figures that the member for Jagajaga quoted earlier in her speech were wrong. She gave some information about how lower income people might not have any advantage at all. I can tell her that a pensioner couple aged 65 or older paying a premium of $1,578 a year currently receive a benefit of $200. Under the proposed rebate, they will receive a benefit of $473. So they will be $273 better off.The shadow minister of all people should know that so many pensioners struggle to maintain their private health insurance. Next to anything else they keep their private health insurance, because at their time of life they think that is the single most important thing that they need to do. It is very hard for them to keep up those payments. I can tell you that in my electorate, and in electorates around Australia, the pensioners will warmly welcome the government's initiative that is being presented here tonight.The other side of this situation is that, by white-anting the private health system, the Labor Party puts 180,000 jobs at risk. I do not think that is acceptable. It is certainly something that I would not support. In relation to the ALP's obstruction in the face of what is demonstrated as the wish and the will of the Australian people, there is ample research that indicates that two-thirds of Australians support government help for private health insurance—two-thirds of Australians. How can the Labor Party be so out of touch as to oppose a measure that helps private health insurance?Mr O'Connor interjecting—HK6Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAY—Yes, but we want the rich to be in private health insurance. Your shadow minister gave the figures earlier. Your shadow minister said that after the rebate they will contribute $2,000 to the health bill of this country. We want the rich contributing the money, because it is money that the government does not have to contribute. Do you not understand that? How can you not see that that is better for the country?Two-thirds of Australians support government assistance to private health insurance. In the average electorate there are 39,000 adults and children currently covered. I can tell you that, if the Labor Party dare block this bill in the Senate, they will bring public anger down upon them, because the public of Australia are very supportive of this particular measure. You do not help the public system by letting the private system bleed to death. Why do you not understand that? Why do you not understand that we have a good private system, we have a good public system, and they should run in tandem? It certainly will not help the public system by forcing many more people onto that system.The other problem is that the ALP policy—and I want to make this very clear to the House tonight—would see Australia end up with a two-class system. If we were to proceed down the track which the Labor Party is suggesting and block this measure, we would see, as the Minister for Health and Aged Care alluded to in the House earlier this afternoon, the very rich people still with private health insurance and everybody else in the public system. We would have a two-class elitist system. Having a two-class system is the sort of thing which would normally be vigorously opposed by the Labor Party. Yet what is being suggested tonight supports that particular situation.Let us look at the very latest ALP position. The shadow minister was interviewed on Meet the Press on Sunday, and I took note of that particular interview. This is what she said:Where is the problem in our health system at the moment—that's the question the health minister should ask—it's the crisis in the public health system.Never mind the facts. The shadow minister must not have seen what the AMA said. This is what the AMA had to say:If you don't arrest the slide in the private health system, the public system won't be able to cope and there will be a crisis.Why can the shadow minister not recognise that? Having cried that there would be a crisis in the public system, the shadow minister went on to say:What we want to make sure of is we will still have the majority of people able to go to our public hospitals, get the excellent care they currently do by outstanding doctors.So we have a crisis one minute and excellent care the next. That is what the shadow minister is saying. She says that we have a crisis and then she says that there is excellent care in our public hospitals. You cannot have it both ways. Again, we see the two-class agenda that is apparent. The shadow minister is calling for the majority of people to be in public care. I ask the member for Corio: why do you want a two-class system? I would not have thought that was the Labor Party's position. But that is what you will end up with if you go down this track.The ALP do not have a consistent policy on health. Look at what happened with the private insurance subsidy. The Labor Party in this House vehemently opposed it. Now they support it. Will it be the same with the legislation that is before the House tonight? It should be. I am sceptical, though, because I do not think the ALP yet know their policy on health. Why do I say that? On Meet the Press the shadow minister said to all Australians:The job I have before me is to work out a way that we can put Medicare on a long term financial secure footing.Here she is debating health policy and she has not yet worked out a way to put Medicare on a long-term financial secure footing. How can you have a policy when you have not got one at this stage?As an aside, on that program the shadow minister spoke on the GST, and she said that Panadol and aspirin will attract GST. Get your facts right, shadow minister—they will not. Anything on the PBS does not attract GST, and Panadol and aspirin are both on the PBS. The choice is clear. The Labor Party want to impose more tax—to increase yet again the Medicare levy. They want to pull more money out of the pockets of Australians to support an elite two-class system, which will put an enormous strain on the public health system. The government want to give tax rebates to encourage two strong systems of public and private health provision. I believe that the ALP and the Democrats would be significantly irresponsible if they were to continue to seek to block this bill.There are 30,265 insured people in Townsville and Thuringowa who will suffer if Labor and the Democrats have their way and if they conspire to block this bill in the Senate. There are 30,265 insured people, many of them pensioners, in the twin cities of Townsville and Thuringowa who will face continued rises in the cost of their premiums if the government is prevented from doing something to stop the decline in the number of people with private health insurance in Australia. How will Labor explain to those 30,265 people with private health coverage in Herbert that they deliberately blocked a measure that would have reduced the cost of their premiums by 30 per cent? If the bill does not get through the Senate, Townsville will see an exodus from the private health insurance sector of those people who are barely managing to keep up with the cost of private health insurance.We need to protect the private health insurance system. We need to understand that two-thirds of Australians want that protection. We need to understand that the money that goes to private health insurance does not go into the pockets of big business; it goes into the cost of health care in this country. The 30 per cent rebate is actually an additional contribution from the government to the cost of health care—a very significant additional contribution. It does not go into the pockets of the people who have private health insurance; it goes towards meeting the cost of our health bill.I am strongly supportive of this, and that is why I was pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the shadow minister. I certainly support this legislation.18:18:00526Lawrence, Carmen, MPDr LAWRENCEXS4FremantleALP00—I am very pleased to support the shadow minister in opposing the Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 1998 , and I support her amendment. I think we first need to look at the government's attitude to health policy generally and particularly to Medicare. They are pretty nostalgic about their health care; they keep revisiting the same elements of policy. You need not go very far back to find John Howard calling Medicare `Medimess' and talking about `Mediqueues'. He said that Medicare was one of the great disasters of the Hawke government—he called it `Labor's millstone'—and that it had failed the great majority of Australians. When he was asked:So you will pull it—meaning Medicare—right apart?Mr Howard replied:. . . we will pull it right apart.That is what they are about, and that is precisely what they are doing with these private health insurance rebates. They have also been nostalgic about these rebates for a long time. They had them 20 years ago. They wanted them in Fightback, they wanted them for the 1993 election and then they rolled up into a small ball and tried to hide them. They reappeared during their last term in government and now we have the mother and father of all rebates in this proposal.This is a second and even more extravagant attempt, despite the conspicuous failure of their previous attempt, to use targeted incentives and penalties to increase private health insurance rates. But now we have real open slather. Last time it was somewhat more modest and somewhat more targeted. Apart from the government's clear ideological obsession with private medicine and private health insurance as opposed to the public system funded by us all through tax, they are also ill-informed or wilfully blind to what is really going on in the current health system. If you read the minister's second reading speech, you would wonder where you were. What is the position of private health in the Australian health system?Let us look at health services expenditure in this country. The most recent figures, from 1996-97, show that health services make up about 8.5 per cent of GDP in this country, and there has been little change in nearly a decade. Australia is in the middle range by international standards. The UK is at the bottom with 6.6 per cent and the United States is climbing steadily at 14.2 per cent. Who has the biggest private health sector? The United States. Who has the smallest one? The United Kingdom. Australia is roughly in the middle—at equilibrium; in balance.The Commonwealth at this time funds about 45.5 per cent of health services, state and local governments fund 23.2 per cent, and private expenditure funds 31.1 per cent. I think it is worth pointing out that only a third of the 31 per cent funded by private expenditure comes from private health insurance. In other words, private health insurance contributes approximately 11.4 per cent of total recurrent health expenditure. I think we in this House need to know, if we are to debate this sensibly, that of the $14.5 billion spent on acute care in hospitals, 18 per cent was funded through benefits from private health insurance—and most of that in private hospitals.I think it is of some note that 30 per cent of the separations of people in hospitals in 1996-97 were for patients who had hospital insurance. So they contribute 18 per cent of the funds but 30 per cent of the separations. It says something about the rate of use, I think. That is despite the relatively high income profile of those with such insurance, suggesting that they might be expected to have lower usage rates, not higher ones.Looking at private hospital use generally, 69 per cent of those people who were admitted and discharged from private hospitals have health insurance. The rest were funded through compensation and by private individuals, and it is clear from a great range of evidence that they have less serious cases than the public sector. Despite increases in the availability of emergency and intensive care facilities, the case mix is less complex. The majority of separations are so-called surgical procedures.`Australia's Health 1998', the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare document, reports that the most common disease or injury diagnoses in public hospitals were asthma—amongst children principally—and ischaemic heart disease, including heart attacks. In private hospitals, the most common were cataracts and diseases of the oesophagus, principally tonsillectomies. Of the procedures carried out in public hospitals, cancer therapeutic procedures predominated and, in private hospitals, endoscopies—investigative procedures. So private and public hospitals are very different beasts still.Despite declines in the proportion of the population with private health insurance—and the shadow minister indicated this too—admissions to private hospitals have been increasing at a faster rate than those of public hospitals. Where is the pressure on the public hospital system coming from? It is not from declines in the private sector. Between 1991-92 and 1995-96, there was a 22 per cent increase in separations from the public hospital system and a 30 per cent increase from the private sector. In the last year alone, the increase was seven per cent in the private sector compared to two per cent in the public. So it is growing faster proportionately.This point rather undermines the claims that the minister makes about increased pressure on public hospitals, most of which clearly come from funding growing slower than demand as a result of budget cuts by this government and other conservative regimes around the country. Indeed, the publication I mentioned earlier, `Australia's Health 1998', concludes:There has been a slight shift from the use of public acute to private sector hospitals during the five-year period.There has been a movement of patients from one to the other. The direction of effect is the reverse of the one that the minister is trying to underline. This view is reinforced by the fact that growth in expenditure between 1989-90 and 1993-94 was 6.6 per cent in private hospitals as opposed to 2.3 per cent in public hospitals—a ratio, I would have to say, which has further deteriorated since the Howard budgets.It is also worth nothing that the costs per occupied bed day are greater in the private sector. I will say that again: it costs more for the same operation in the private sector. It costs more to have a patient in a hospital in the private sector. So why would you want to transfer people from the public to the private sector? It is going to cost us more. The total health bill will accelerate. Estimates by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which are the most recent ones we have, in 1991-92 show that the per day estimates are $475 per day compared to $453 per day in public hospitals, and by all accounts that difference has accelerated.The other thing that as former health minister I was well aware of but never said much about publicly because I was concerned about alarming people, was that adverse events, as measured by a very significant report undertaken for the health department—that is, infections, surgical and pharmaceutical errors and the like—are just as likely to occur in the private sector. It is about the same rate in both sectors. This is a very surprising result given that public hospitals deal with the older patients, the sicker patients and have a much more complex case load. In fact, you would expect those rates of adverse events to be lower. They are not. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. It is because private hospitals do not have as many medical staff. They do not have the backup in private hospitals.The minister has said to us that there are lots of reasons why we should support the present legislation: firstly, that there is going to be a cut in the cost of private health insurance because of these 30 per cent rebates; and, secondly, that it will increase the number of people holding private health insurance and therefore that will take the pressure of the public hospital system and restore what he called several times in his speech the `balance' or `equilibrium' in the health system.I want to examine each of these arguments in turn and some of the spurious claims that he has made along the way. Take the first one: that it is going to cut the cost of private health insurance by 30 per cent—I think that is what he said at various points. I have to say that that is not necessarily so. It assumes, first of all, that health insurance premiums will not rise. There is nothing to prevent that. Although in relative terms the rebate will always be 30 per cent of whatever the premium is, if the premium is going through the roof, the absolute cost to the consumer is going to be a lot higher, and there is nothing to prevent that happening. There are no caps. There are no agreements with the medical profession or with the private hospitals about their costs. What would prevent them reaching into the government's open-ended rebate pool for additional income and profit? Nothing; absolutely nothing.While there might appear to be no justification for such behaviour, it is economically rational and certainly has plenty of precedence, including their most recent experiment. If you want a recent example, the last round of rebates were entirely consumed by increases in premiums, much of it before they were even implemented. Why did those premiums keep increasing despite rebates being introduced and what would stop it happening again? These are important questions. We have a few answers because the government commissioned the Industry Commission to have a look at precisely this question. It indicated in its report that premiums are cost driven by members' usage of services and the prices charged by medical professionals and hospitals—unexceptional, you might say.What they found was that premiums have risen at rates well above inflation in recent years and faster than health specific indices. Average hospital insurance premiums increased by approximately 9.8 per cent per annum between 1989-90 and 1995-96 and continued at that rate—a total of 75 per cent over that period, while the CPI increased by 18.7 per cent. This left a real increase in premiums over and above CPI of 46 per cent. That was what the Industry Commission found.One of the major determinants of premium increases is the increase in the number of privately insured patients being treated in private hospitals, which are more expensive. They used to be in the public hospitals. They are now in the private hospitals at about 2½ times the cost. This accounted for 27 per cent of the rise. You can expect more of that, although there are not too many left in the public system.Other pressures on price include increased utilisation, especially of same-day facilities, increased medical gap payments and health fund management expenses. These are, incidentally, three times greater than for Medicare—nearly 13 per cent as opposed to four per cent for Medicare. However—and I want to underline this and will probably have to return to it after the break—the most significant factor underlying premium increases, according to the Industry Commission, was the increase in private hospital bed day subsidies, which contributed about 40 per cent to the rises in the actual costs of treating patients. Hospital admissions made up 13 per cent of those; changes in average length of stay, about 20 per cent; and changes in insurance cover about seven per cent. These in turn were shown to be driven by changes in clinical practice and an increasing use of high cost equipment and procedures. They are matters to which I will return for the balance of my speech.Sitting suspended from 6.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.XS4Lawrence, Carmen, MPDr LAWRENCE—Before the break I was pointing out that the Industry Commission report, which was commissioned by the Howard government to look at the question of why health insurance premiums kept increasing, indicated that premiums were cost driven by members' usage of services and the prices charged by medical professionals and hospitals. In particular it emphasised that the most significant factor underlying premium increases was the increase in private hospital bed-day subsidies. These in turn are driven by changes in clinical practice and increasing use of high cost equipment and procedures. As many have pointed out, it is in this area that health funds have been demonstrating a `pass through' attitude, as Richard Scotton describes it, rather than a strong bargaining approach. They are price takers. To quote him:Funds have tended to accept benefit/fee levels and utilisation rates so as to cover outgoings and management costs and the accumulation of reserves.As indicated in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Bulletin No. 12, the hospital and medical services CPI, which measures such costs—to consumers—has risen much faster than other health services price indices.If I can translate this and put it a bit bluntly, as journalist Mike Steketee did in an article in the Australian, the real victims of any drops in health insurance are not the patients but the doctors—and he might have added private hospitals—through a potential loss of income. As he said, for doctors, it is much more lucrative to treat private than public patients—there is a lot of evidence on this point—and this may explain why many doctors are so vocal, as are the private hospitals, in their concerns about any falls in private health insurance.One of the other arguments the minister has put forward to urge us to support this bill is that the drop in price will increase the number of those holding private health insurance. Again, the government cannot be too confident of any effect of this kind because its cost estimates for these rebates appear to be based on the assumption that there will be no increase in the current numbers privately insured. Economists will tell you that, all things being equal, a fall in the price of insurance should encourage more people to purchase it. But the crucial and unanswered question is the size of the elasticity of demand for insurance, and we simply do not know the answer to that question.The government has provided no evidence or modelling for this claim that the number of those privately insured will increase, despite the fact that the Industry Commission report and others like it clearly indicate that `estimating . . . effects on membership with any degree of precision is not possible'. I underline `is not possible'. They go on to say that this is because there is no reliable Australian information about the responsiveness of consumers to the price of private health insurance and the fact that most existing assessments relate to relatively small changes in price where they do exist in other countries. Most of the available assessment relates to premium increases rather than decreases, and the effects may not be symmetrical. Indeed, the commission was unable to provide any firm estimates of its own for the effects of the last failed package, nor would they endorse the health department's own estimates, which rather extravagantly claimed a net increase on the projected decline of 5.2 per cent. The reality is—the commission was wise to desist—that insurance rates continue to fall, the rate now standing at 30.3 per cent.The commission report also questioned whether any increases in the take-up and retention rates and the consequent cost shifting from the public to the private sector would exceed the $600 million per annum cost of the package. They concluded that there were unlikely to be budgetary savings and that the `net budgetary cost of increases could be quite large'. Even if there are increases, these are likely to be one-off `in the sense that increases in premiums in future years are likely to adversely affect fund membership'. Furthermore, changes may simply result in more older policy holders, which will place further pressure on the funds and accelerate adverse selection.The minister and the Prime Minister also go on to claim that the promised increases in the number of people in private health insurance will, as they put it, take the pressure off the public health system. It is certainly not true with continuing budget cuts and no extra funding for growth and technology. And it appears not to recognise that for some operations, procedures and illnesses there are no alternatives to the public system. If you have a major accident, you do not go to a private hospital. It also ignores the fact that for complex, expensive procedures with prolonged stays, many with private health insurance will, as they do now, according to Russell Schneider and others, seek admission as public patients to avoid the huge out-of-pocket costs that we all know about. The government has no agreement with the medical profession to cap these costs, so they will go on and accelerate.Another argument that has been put is that the changes are supposed to restore the balance, the equilibrium, in the health system—whatever that means. This assumes, I guess, that there has been some decline in the size or use of the private health system. This is simply not so, as I demonstrated earlier in my speech. Percentage shares have been relatively stable, indeed increasing, with rates of increase higher in the private sector. Perhaps the minister might mean that the total health bill for the community will be lower, but this is not likely since costs per occupied bed day are higher in the public sector. Every bed you transfer is more expensive.There is also a greater likelihood, as I indicated earlier, of unnecessary procedures being carried out and unnecessary investigations, for which the government meets the majority of the cost. Studies in the United States have clearly shown that doctors prescribe more services under private than government health insurance plans. In fact, some studies show that increasing rates of private health insurance are a major cause of rapid escalation in health expenditure. Look at the United States of America if you want an example.It is of interest that the minister does not claim anywhere that I have heard that there will be any savings from the alleged reduction in pressure on the public hospitals. This is because he cannot with any credibility make that claim. In fact, it is a very costly policy which will dramatically increase the health bill without any commensurate improvement in the quality of services or access for the majority of the population who do not have private health insurance. It does not, in the words of the Industry Commission, meet the test of allocative efficiency. That is, it does not answer the question: is shifting the balance beneficial? It probably is not. It is almost certainly more costly.The extent of this impost is not possible to ascertain because, disgracefully in my opinion, this government has not made public its assumptions, if it has made any, about the number of people it believes will take up private health insurance, how many of those who have it now or who will take it up will purchase more expensive products, what the rate of increase in private health insurance premiums is likely to be—and it is certain to occur. How many clients and of what type will now be treated in private rather than public hospitals? Will they be sicker? What savings, if any, will this create? There is no information on any of these subjects. Without this information, it is impossible to judge what the cost to the government and the community will be.This is a poorly conceived, recycled and partisan coalition policy which is, in my view, inequitable since the majority of those with private health insurance are high income earners and 70 per cent of the population will be called on to subsidise the health care of the majority. It is financially irresponsible since it will increase the total cost of health care to the community and to the government without any improvement in the quality of care.It will almost certainly increase the amount of unnecessary medicine practised in this country and further drain competent medical practitioners from the public sector. Those on low and middle incomes who are seduced into the system will find that out-of-pocket costs and rising premium costs will cause them severe financial difficulty. I have much pleasure in opposing this piece of legislation and supporting the shadow minister's amendment.20:09:00530Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr HARDGRAVECK6MoretonLP10—The member for Fremantle was the failed health minister in the failing and dying days of the Hawke-Keating era here in Australia. It seems to me that she has proved again in her contribution tonight on the Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 1998 exactly why `failure' was writ large as far as that particular era in Australia's political history is concerned.The member for Fremantle might be well reminded that there are 59,229 constituents in her own electorate who have private health insurance, yet tonight she is prepared to argue that over 80 per cent of her constituents have got it wrong. If the member for Fremantle had stayed to listen to this coherent argument that I am putting here tonight, she would have learned that the proposed 30 per cent rebate that this government is offering to people in her electorate and all across Australia would be of huge benefit to individuals and her electorate as a whole.In fact, it is worth noting that her margin of 7,737 votes is considerably smaller than the 59,229 constituents who have private health insurance in the electorate of Fremantle. It strikes me as fairly typical, quite frankly, of that member and her party that they would turn away from their constituents and the fact that their constituents have voted with their feet on the issue of private health insurance. It is a complete betrayal of the interests of her constituents. Quite frankly, it is a complete betrayal of the interests of so many Australians who bother to do something about helping themselves and helping this nation meet the cost of health.Private health insurance is not the domain of rich people. I do not think the member for Fremantle, for instance, would say that her electorate is your typical leafy suburb, rich electorate, yet a great majority of her constituents have taken out private health insurance. Perhaps they themselves have voted on her performance as the health minister in the previous Keating government and her effect on public health in this country by taking out private health insurance in such heavy numbers.It is worth noting that the private hospital sector in this country plays a strong complementary role to public hospitals, that you need both systems working well. There are current ly 1.7 million separations, representing one-third of the total Australian hospital separations each year, and they count for half of all surgical separations. That is the private hospital sector. If the decline in private health cover continues—the one the previous government did nothing about but the one this government has a comprehensive and coherent plan about—governments will have to provide an additional 25,000 hospital beds in the public system. In dollar terms, that is about $3 billion a year. So much for the nonsense from the member for Fremantle.She says that money would be better spent on the public system, but in saying that she is turning her back on those who are willing to make a contribution, if you like, just as those who send their children off to the poorest of Catholic parish schools are making a contribution, subsidising those who use the public system of education. People who use the private system of health are subsidising the public system to a great extent in this nation. They need to be encouraged, not discouraged.The AMA have surveyed on the question and they found that, on the question of, `I would definitely take out private health insurance if the cost was 30 per cent cheaper,' one-third of the uninsured population—which equates to about 23 per cent of the total population—strongly agree with the statement. If intentions were translated into action, private health insurance coverage in this country would rise in response to this rebate that we are debating tonight from the current 30.6 per cent to around 54 per cent. I think I may have euthanased the member for Fremantle's argument here tonight.I have 32,659 reasons to support this bill, and I know that that number will grow. Each of those reasons is a constituent in my electorate who subscribes to private health insurance—that is 39 per cent of the people in my electorate, and we will make it up over 50 per cent, I am sure, as a result of this rebate. I have letters coming into my office daily, weekly and monthly begging for government assistance, government signs, on the question of private health insurance. Those letters are not coming from the well-to-do; they are coming mainly from those older Australians who have had that sense of responsibility that this government is trying to reignite and encourage—older Australians, pensioners, self-funded retirees, people who want the dignity of being able to have a say in their choice of doctor and hospital.To prove my point even more, 13,492 people in my electorate receive the incentive payment under the current scheme, and that is 15 per cent of my electorate. Yet this morning the member for Jagajaga suggested that private health insurance is for the rich. What does the member for Jagajaga suspect is rich? According to her interview on Melbourne's 3AW this morning, in answer to Neil Mitchell's question, `What is a high income?' she said, `Over $70,000 per family, per year.'I remind the House that the average weekly earnings for a male in this country is $40,747 per annum. The average weekly earnings for a female is $34,002 per annum. If you add that all together—and that seems awfully like $75,000 or thereabouts in a two-income household, in a male-female spouse two-income household—by definition of the member for Jagajaga, representing the Australian Labor Party, that is a rich household. Average weekly earners are now rich, according to the Australian Labor Party. This certainly goes to prove just how out of touch they are.I want to reflect on the benefits that will come not just to my own electorate but also to those electorates adjacent to mine. The member for Brisbane might be well reminded that when he votes on this particular piece of legislation he will be voting against 33 per cent of his electorate: 28,273 people in the electorate of Brisbane have private health insurance. The member for Griffith might also be reminded that he too will be voting against 39 per cent of his electorate: 33,409 people in Griffith have private health insurance. The member for Rankin also might be reminded about 28 per cent of his electorate: that is, 21,439 people.Those electorates are all adjacent to my electorate of Moreton. It just goes to show that across the southern suburbs of Brisbane a lot of people are going to benefit, and a lot more people are going to take up the government's offer of a rebate of 30 per cent if they bother to help themselves—and help the nation, as a result—with regard to private health insurance.In fact, the Prime Minister rightly pointed out in question time yesterday that no fewer than 700,000 Australians earning less than $20,000 a year have private health insurance. The notion which the member for Jagajaga and those opposite are suggesting, that health insurance is a millionaire's lot, is absolute nonsense. I support 100 per cent—not 30 per cent, but 100 per cent—the words of the Prime Minister yesterday, when he said: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—even more so when you consider that, if you erode the prospects of private health insurance, you are going to put greater pressure on the public system. The Australian Labor Party are trying to say in their counterargument to this proposition—that has been resoundingly supported in my electorate and right across this country in the most recent election—`Go and stand in a queue.' They want you to go and stand in a queue, and they are prepared to make that queue longer by retarding the effective work of the private hospital system.I know self-funded retirees in my electorate and I have in the past called them the new poor, because they had had a pretty dreadful time until this government came on the scene and started to give them so much of the dignity that they deserved, by its treatment of access to pharmaceuticals, tax benefits and other such things that the Australian Labor Party had ignored for 13 years. The Association of Independent Retirees has endorsed the 30 per cent rebate that this government has put forward.The association's national president, Maureen Kingston OAM, has called on the Senate non-government parties to pass the rebate without delay. This is meant to start in a little over a month's time yet here we have those opposite doing everything they can to slow it down—not for any better policy outcomes criteria, just simply rude, horrible politics. Isn't that pathetic. In fact, Maureen Kingston has said more than 800,000 people over 65, many of them self-funded retirees, are privately insured.I know the Brisbane South branch of the Association of Independent Retirees meets at QEII stadium each month. They are a fine bunch of Australians who have done their best to provide for their retirement years. One of the things they keep raising with me is the question of private health insurance. They have been dogmatic in their approach in demanding that something constructive be done about encouraging those who are in the system to stay in the system. But, while the government is willing to do something about it, those opposite are not. I think that is very sad, but then again it is something we on this side of the House have become very used to.The health insurance industry has looked very closely at what the government's 30 per cent rebate will mean as far as the cost of private health insurance is concerned. The good news is that the retail cost of private health insurance, as far as the effect on each subscriber is concerned, will go back to 1985-86 levels. This is turning the actual cost of private health insurance back a good dozen or more years in terms of total cost—in fact, it is undoing so much of the increased cost effect of the previous government's policy.Russell Schneider from the insurance industry said that in 1985-86 the average cost per contributor was 2.7 per cent of average weekly earnings, as compared with 3.8 per cent today. With a rebate in place, the average cost will fall to 2.6 per cent of average weekly earnings. That is terrific news for people in my electorate of Moreton. It is important that those opposite understand that the more they maintain this negativity, the more they reconfirm in people's minds all the reasons why they rejected the Australian Labor Party so resoundingly at the most recent election.Labor's ideological hatred of the private health insurance question and the private health insurance sector is illogical. It is stupid and also destructive, because we need both the private and the public sector working hand in hand, with the private sector taking the pressure off the public sector and the public sector being there for those who really need it, those who cannot afford private health insurance no matter what their income. It is worth reflecting upon the fact that if I were to do a straw poll of those opposite and ask them to put their hand up to nominate if they had private health insurance, none would be game to—and you would start to wonder why.I acknowledge that the Leader of the Opposition has put his hand up. I think that is tremendous, sir, that you have; and I would invite you to show some leadership and get your party to pass the proposition before us tonight. I look forward to a rethink. Obviously, if the Leader of the Opposition had heard my earlier comments about the electorate of Fremantle, a seat that his father held for so many years after the Second World War, he would have noted that 59,000 plus people in that particular electorate hold private health insurance.It is worth noting the words of Graham Richardson, a man who has shown that he is not afraid to tell it like it is and get away with it. He has been a long critic of the Australian Labor Party's attitude to private health insurance. He reflected on the fact that Mr Keating, the previous Prime Minister, did not like aspects of the package and did not pay private health insurance. He did not seem to like very much the idea of the Medicare levy surcharge. As Graham Richardson also said on 2GB just a couple of days ago:I think part of the problem is that ideology gets in the road and it does on issues that have anything to do with Medicare. The Labor Party sometimes doesn't act too sensibly.Further, former Senator Richardson said:I wish Labor would stop this silly notion that it doesn't matter if private health care collapses, because I tell you what, we are within five years of a complete collapse of private health care, a complete collapse.That is what those opposite are presiding over. I think it is more than a little passing strange that the Leader of the Opposition will insure his family and himself—and quite rightly so—yet will not show the sort of leadership this nation and people in my electorate desperately need on the question of private health insurance and rein in some of the matters that have been brought up by his colleagues on the front bench. The member for Jagajaga, the shadow health minister, in a 1991 report entitled Health services in Australia published by the National Health Strategy which she chaired, said:Increased funding to public hospitals is also likely to lead to a change in the 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 reduce revenue from private patients. The result may be a return to the situation that existed prior to the provision of extra resources.I guess that the member for Jagajaga can say one thing in 1991 and offer something else in 1998. That tends to be the lot of those opposite—do one thing, prescribe one thing, in government, but when in opposition just go for the big spoil and the big political game playing.It is, I think, outrageous and quite ignorant of the truth of the matter. People in my electorate of Moreton, for instance, want this government's proposal on private health insurance passed without delay. They want to know that in a little over five weeks from now they will be able to subscribe to private health insurance in the full knowledge that they have access to government assistance in the form of a rebate. They want to know that the government is going to encourage them to provide something towards the cost of health insurance, of the cost of health. They want to know that those who are prepared to put some money down on the table to provide something for themselves, to seek some freedom of choice—choice of doctor, choice of hospital, choice of service—are in fact going to be encouraged and rewarded by this government rather than retarded in every which way, which is, it seems, the plan, the proposal, of those opposite.It disturbs me as we come to the end of the 20th century, as we face the next millennium, that we are having this sort of ideological class based political debate being thrown at us by those opposite. I think it is incredibly sad that those opposite choose to paint those who have shown responsibility, who have offered themselves as contributors towards the total health care costs in this country, as being the rich. Those who are on average weekly wages, those who are a two-income, average weekly wage household, are by definition of the member for Jagajaga `rich'. They are the households earning over $70,000; they are rich, according to the member for Jagajaga.Those people opposite are turning their back on reality. Those people opposite are turning their back on people in my electorate. Those people opposite are turning their back on people in their own electorates on the question of this private health insurance rebate. We always know that those opposite are prepared to oppose, but people in Australia tonight are wondering very clearly what it is the Australian Labor Party really stands for, apart from the big negative.20:26:00534Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—I suppose I have been invited to declare a personal interest in this by the previous speaker, so I will. I am privately insured to the eyeballs. My family is insured. I have always been insured. My wife's family is privately insured. Her brother and his family are privately insured. My mother and father are privately insured. I think my sister is privately insured, and so is my brother. We are all privately insured.Out of the lot of us, I find myself in the most heavily insured of all the deciles where these measurements are taken. The most heavily insured decile occurs in the $70,000-plus range. That is the most heavily insured. More than 70 per cent of people on my income are privately insured. Of those who are not privately insured, the numbers who would take up insurance on any grounds are going to be heavily compromised by the fact that some are so wealthy that they do not bother. They will simply go wherever they feel like going when they get ill and they will pay for the lot. They may pay for it here or they may pay for it elsewhere. You can put in all the tax incentives you like, they will not privately insure. They cannot be bothered privately insuring.But all the rest of us in this high income bracket now are privately insured. I do not receive one red cent of rebate in order to be privately insured, and if this bill fails to pass I will still go on being privately insured without the assistance of $600 a year in order to do so. So just get that into your skull. I have no personal prejudice against private health insurance whatsoever. What I have a deep personal prejudice against is bad policy. That is what I have a prejudice against—very bad policy. And what we are dealing with here today is a piece of very bad policy.What you have always got to watch out for in the Liberal Party is this: when the Liberal Party say that they are in there for the battlers, when the Liberal Party are in there accusing the other side of being ideological, what you know is taking place is a case of pure projection in psychological terms. When they are in there accusing the Labor Party of being ideological, you can bet your bottom dollar they are. When they say that they are out there for the battler, you know that what they are doing is dragging the battlers down on top of themselves. You often see that in war movies: the fellow is in a position which is about to be overrun, he grabs a corpse from outside the trench and drags it down on top of himself so he is not seen. That is exactly what this government does. Whenever they say they are out there for the battlers, you can absolutely guarantee that they are using ordinary, not very well-off Australians as a protection for some piece of policy chicanery. You know, as night follows day, that that is exactly what is happening, and you can see it here.SJ4TUCKEYMr Tuckey—I rise on a point of order. The issue goes to the legislation before the House and the matter of relevance, which the Leader of the Opposition reminds us of continually. I have not heard him say one word about the bill yet.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hawker)—I call the Leader of the Opposition, and I am sure he is coming to the bill.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEY—I am talking about the bill. You can see that this is exceptionally bad public policy. In Western Australia they discovered this little problem with this policy when they first brought it in place: when they decided to shift from the $450 rebate to the 30 per cent rebate they suddenly discovered that the battlers lost money. The battlers actually lost money because $450 was less than 30 per cent of the cost of some of the private health insurance operations in Western Australia. They would find that in a number of other states as well. The government found themselves with even less of a smokescreen in that set of circumstances than they have now sought to give themselves. They did at least have the decency to restore the $450 rebate to the battling Western Australians.With this policy, at the very best, a battler would pick up $150. I, the Prime Minister, Mr Tuckey and others would pick up at least $600. If you are insured like, I bet your bottom dollar, the Prime Minister, Mr Tuckey and the others are, you could go as high as $1,000. That in itself you could justify if you were achieving anything with it. Just contemplate and understand this: what is being done here with this piece of public policy is reinforcing failure. They were the ones who declared the $450 rebate was for the battlers and middle income Australia. They were the ones who set the $70,000 limit. That is what they said. They were not going around saying that this was only for the poor. They said that this was for middle Australia, that it picked up all Australian families. That is what they said about the $70,000 limit then. `Oh, no, we wouldn't put it up to the $70,000 plus, the people we are charging the surcharge on their superannuation. They are rich. We wouldn't do that,' said the government.No, the $450 rebate was for ordinary, middle Australia. At the very best, those who are now receiving the $450 rebate will get an extra $150. That $70,000 cut-off was okay for them then, but it is not okay for them now, even though those above $70,000—any of them who are going to take it up—are virtually all insured now. This is chasing after money from people who are doing what you want them to do anyway. That is the first reason why this is exceptionally bad policy. It is not necessary. It is also based on a premise that is simply false: that there is one set of Australians in the private sector and one set of Australians in the public sector. There are not. We are all in the public sector.This is not a safety net issue. Medicare is not a safety net issue; it is an issue which covers all of us. We have universal health care. What does universal health care mean? It means all of us. So if one of us gets into a critical condition, if Kerry Packer, I or any of the battlers to whom you refer fall down on the street, we will be picked up and whipped into intensive care in a public hospital. That happens for all of us, and so it should. That is what a universal health care system is supposed to do.The problem that we have with this particular government is that it argues that there are two separate systems, as opposed to one, and then coming in as an overlay on that is a private health component. I have no objection to a private health overlay coming in, but you have to get the balance right in the policies that you lay down. You have to ask yourself this question: if you have a policy that did not work at $450, why with no changes is it going to work at $600 to $1,000 for everybody? If it did not work at $450, why is it going to work at that?Is there any effort made to cap any of the medical expenses associated with this? Is there a scheme here associated with an effort to encourage those who are now setting up—and there are very few of them—agreements whereby you go into private hospitals and come out of those hospitals without a bill, instead of a massive bill, which is a massive disincentive for anyone to join a private health care system, as I have occasion to know from direct personal experience? Is there anything in this bill that will do that? No, there is nothing. Is there a reward or an incentive here for the private health system to say that you can sign up agreements which mean that you exit a private hospital without those massive bills, which would be a fabulous incentive, I might say, to people who take up private health insurance? No, there is not. It is simply adding more funds.If you want evidence as to why this will fail, look at the budget calculations. The AMA and some of the private hospitals out there and the government are saying, `We will be able to hit 45 per cent on this.' It is like they were going to hit 40 per cent with the $450 rebate. You will remember that. They were going to go to 40 per cent with the $450 rebate. Now they think they will get 45 per cent with this $600 plus rebate for the higher income groups—$150 extra for the low income groups. `We are going to get to 45 per cent on the strength of this.' If you are going to get to 45 per cent on the strength of this, why don't your budget assessments show it? What your budget assessments show is the $1.5 billion, which you are going to spend on this, is so you can mark time. What a brilliant piece of public policy—$1.5 billion to mark time, $1.5 billion to keep 30 per cent in the private health care system, $1.5 billion to reinforce failure.If there was a bit of initiative here, if there was a bit of commonsense, a bit of noggin being applied to this, we might have some respect for it. If there was an actual effort being made to encourage, by some sort of financial incentive, these outfits to go out there and to get themselves the sorts of agreements which might make private health insurance continue to be attractive to people like me and the average Australian, you might have a bit of respect for it. But it is not there; there is nothing there. It is simply taking the policy you had before, removing the means test associated with that policy and then giving high income earners—who are virtually all insured in terms of those who are likely to take out insurance—a Christmas cheerio or, in this case, a New Year cheerio. Really!What shower did you lot come down in? We are talking about $1.5 billion per annum of Commonwealth assets to reinforce failure. What an extraordinary thing for you to be doing. We oppose bad policy wherever we see it. That is why we are opposing this piece of bad policy. But let us juxtapose it against what could be done with $1.5 billion into the system which supports all of us—the wealthy, the well off in this community, the Prime Minister and all the rest of Australia. What could be done with that?I know the states gild the lily. I would not assume for one minute that every particular bid the states put in are the bids that they need. I have had experience in dealing with the states before. But let us just assume for once that they are not gilding the lily and you gave them absolutely everything that they asked for for public hospitals—everything that they said would deal with those chronic waiting lists, everything that they said would reopen the wards, everything that they said would reopen the regional hospitals, everything that they said that meant that the elderly, who might not have urgent needs in a public hospital, could get treatment. Suppose you gave them everything that they asked for and made them maintain their effort while they did it, what would it cost you? It would cost you $720 million per annum, less than half the $1.5 billion.CK6HARDGRAVEMr Hardgrave—Are they your figures?PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEY—No, they are Kennett's, they are Carr's, they are Court's and they are Borbidge's, since he was the person who put it up last. You may well be ignorant of this, Gary, but that was their bid to the federal government earlier this year before the election. That is the optimal gilding of the lily by the states on what would be required to fix the public hospital system for the battlers, for the middle Australians, for the families, for the kids, for the reasonably well off, for the moderately well off, for the nearly very well off to the very well off to the millionaires. It would fix it for all of them for half price.In good public policy terms, you usually accept a bargain when you see it and you get on with it. That is what you usually do. That is what is being presented here. For half this money you could fix the problem. What is your argument for not doing it? What is your argument—in fact, the one argument you make—for this boondoggle you are proposing in the private health care system? You say that you are doing this so that you relieve pressure on the public hospitals.CK6HARDGRAVEMr Hardgrave—That's right.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEY—You are going to relieve pressure on the public hospitals by leaving it at 30 per cent, are you, Gary? That is your calculation. These are your figures, mate. It does not matter what our propaganda might say. If you succeed and you go to 45 per cent—and I guarantee that if those 45 per cent are in real life threatening trouble they will end up in the public hospital; that is where they will be—30 per cent, 37 per cent, 60 per cent or one per cent, that is exactly where they are going to end up. If you actually achieve your level, it is not $1.5 billion a year. Do you know what it is? It is $2.25 billion.CK6HARDGRAVEMr Hardgrave—Are they your figures?PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEY—Those are your figures again. We are just using your figures. To do what you say you will do, to achieve what you think might be achieved—and you would not in fact achieve it, but let us assume you could—for spending $700 million you get at least as much effect as you do for spending $2.25 billion. I would have said, even in your innumerate group over there, that sooner or later it would have penetrated your scones that you had gone down the wrong track. I really must say that this is an extraordinarily bad piece of public policy.Where is all the brave new world that was going to be associated with this? We heard the health minister out there on the traps talking about the things he wanted to do with private health care. There was all that gap insurance stuff out there. There was all that encouragement out there for arrangements between doctors and hospitals to ensure that nobody got to pay extra bills. There was all that out there to improve the private hospitals' capacity to do more and more of a more serious nature. Where is there in this $1.5 billion package one piece of incentive to do anything about this? Where is it?CK6HARDGRAVEMr Hardgrave—That's all been done.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEY—There is nothing here in this package. This is the grandfather of last parliament's rebate. This is taking last year's policy failure and writing it on a broader canvas. This is making certain that those who did not pick up a quid out of last year's basic failure actually pick it up now so people like me can feel good wandering around with an extra 600 bucks in their back pocket. Actually, in my case, because I am insured to the eyeballs, it will probably be more. In the case of most other members of this parliament, who are probably insured to the eyeballs as well, it will probably be a great deal more than that. In all of that you would find yourself in a situation where you had exactly the same problem, because that is your calculation. You are asking us on this side of the House with all your moral unction to spend $1.5 billion to march in the same spot.We would rather spend $700 million to advance, if you do not mind very much. We would like to spend $700 million to make sure that those wards got reopened. We would like to spend $700 million so that we could get that public dental system working again properly. We would like to spend $700 million so the elderly who are now being kept out of public hospitals could get into public hospitals. We would like to spend $700 million so the essential equipment that needs to be in intensive care and in other areas of hospital activity is purchased. We would like to spend that $700 million so we have enough nurses and doctors in hospitals and that they are properly remunerated so there is a satisfactory career for them. We would like to spend, if you do not mind awfully, something like 40 per cent of what you want to spend on actually achieving an outcome, as opposed to spending all of what you intend to spend on complete failure.This is what you call good policy. It is good policy to get down there and actually produce an outcome in the public hospitals, to actually get a situation where you can achieve all the forms of care that you need because you know darn well that the public hospital system serves all of us—all of us who are privately insured and all of us who are not. We all know—and we will all get into extremes at some time—that the public hospital system will protect us in so far as any hospital system can.But the public hospital system cannot do its job at the moment because it is in crisis. It is in crisis. You are saying we should spend $1.5 billion to leave it exactly where it is now. That is a piece of bad policy that simply we are not going to be in. If you want to know the reasons why we are voting against it: we vote against stupidity wherever we see it.20:46:00538Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOUHM5KooyongLP10—I was deeply touched to hear the Leader of the Opposition's comments about the depth of his commitment to private health insurance. I seem to remember when Paul Keating was Prime Minister that there were remarkably few resounding declarations of commitment from the Labor side or participation in public health insurance, and I sat here for a little while over those years.There was some talk about good public policy. Given the complexity of government today, any initiative which manages to combine good public policy with public popularity is noteworthy. This bill—the Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 1998 —does provide an uncapped, across-the-board rebate of 30 per cent for all Australians to take out private health insurance and it is very noteworthy.It is good policy because it addresses fundamental weaknesses in Australia's private health care system positively, strongly and fairly, and by so doing it does underpin the public system. This is what narks the opposition. It is popular because it provides direct benefits to individuals where they are generally considered to be both deserved and required. This is the sort of measure that I have been advocating for a number of years.Australia's health care system ranks amongst the very best in the world because high-quality publicly funded and operated hospitals are supplemented by an extensive private hospital network and a quality private health insurance system. However, today this system is under threat. For almost 15 years, private health insurance membership levels have been falling. In 1984, 50 per cent of Australians had private health cover; today coverage is just over 30 per cent.The initial exodus from the private health funds consisted primarily of younger and healthier fund members. Their exit from the funds left the funds with a smaller number of generally higher risk members. The contribution base shrank, but the obligations of the funds did not. This set off a degenerative cycle of declining membership and increasing premiums which has proven to be highly resilient.BV5ADAMSMr Adams—Market forces.HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—No; 13 years of Labor. The implications of this for the private side of Australia's health care system are reasonably straightforward and quite stark.Mr Adams interjecting—HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—I will come to that, wait. The continued viability of the private health funds is at risk. Figures from the Private Health Insurance Administration Council indicate that, over the last few years, significant increases in benefits payable combined with essentially static contributions have driven the funds into a net loss position. In turn, this has placed structural pressure on public hospitals that derive a preponderant share of their revenue from private health funds.As the private funds' profitability has been squeezed, so too have private hospitals. The funds have not substantially increased rebates to the private hospitals even though the costs in the private health care sector have been increasing at between two per cent and four per cent over recent years. The funds have also focused their business on a narrowing circle of private hospitals. Overall bed utilisation in the sector has declined. In the face of these pressures, some private hospitals have closed and more are in danger of closing.This is the reality of private health care today and, given this reality, the government's rebate, which is designed to support and enhance membership in the funds, is a good policy no matter which way you look at it. It will help to maintain and support an important part of Australia's health care system, a part which fundamentally underpins the system's ability to supplement the operation of public hospitals and to deliver high-quality health services to all Australians. It will help to keep viable an important industry, which directly and indirectly employs well over 100,000 Australians, and it will help to ensure that the billions of dollars of private expenditure on health care in Australia continue thereby improving the system's ability to generate quality outputs.It is also integral—and this is something that the opposition resolutely refused to face—to the continued successful operation of Medicare. This government supports absolutely Australia's Medicare system, which provides universal access to public hospital facilities and helps to subsidise people's medical costs both in and out of hospitals. But this government does recognise that Medicare cannot stand alone. It must be supplemented by a strong and viable private health insurance system.This view is not one that belongs just to the government; it has received the support of sensible—and I emphasise `sensible'—Labor ministers. Neal Blewett, who introduced Medicare back in 1984, consistently maintained:Medicare's continued success and high popularity is dependent upon the maintenance of a strong, viable private health care system.Former Senator Richardson, when he was the health minister, was of a similar view. Now that he is Mr Richardson, he has gone on record affirming the significance of private health cover. He has also gone on record affirming Labor's ideological blindness to the issue.HH4JENKINSMr Jenkins—Is it public cover in the health care system or private cover?HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—It is private cover.HH4JENKINSMr Jenkins—Private cover or private health care?HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—Okay. I will quote him:Medicare was always intended to coexist with the private health care system, not to replace it. Initial estimates of the cost of Medicare assumed that at least 40 per cent of Australians would maintain their private cover.Are you satisfied?HH4JENKINSMr Jenkins—Blewett said that.HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—No. That was Richardson.HH4JENKINSMr Jenkins—You quoted Blewett.HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—Yes:. . . strong, viable private health care system.So Blewett was right and Richo was wrong. I am sorry. The commonsense of this position springs from the fact that people with private health insurance are in the first instance likely to use private hospital facilities if they require hospital treatment, relieving some of the physical pressures on the public hospital system. In the second instance, they are likely to opt to be treated as private patients in a public hospital, thereby relieving the financial burden on the public system. In this context, it needs to be remembered that the funds make a financial contribution of around $400 million per year to public hospitals.The flip side of this is that if fund members were to relinquish their cover, the impact on the public system would be significant. The current Australian health care agreements put a price tag of about $83 million per annum on a one per cent fall in private insurance. Currently, the funds cover six million bed days per year, with 4.5 million in private hospitals. It would cost conservatively the public purse in the order of $3 billion to cover that utilisation. That is why this government wants to encourage people to maintain and take out private health insurance. This is not a new position. It was a position that drove a number of the policy initiatives implemented in the first term of office of the Howard government. It included the private health insurance incentives scheme and the Medicare levy surcharge.What is crystal clear is that we need to do more. I believe that the government's 30 per cent rebate does what is required; it provides an attractive and effective incentive scheme. Commonsense dictates that it will generate significant improvements in Australia's health care delivery arrangements. Those people who have kept their private health insurance will receive some welcome benefit. Unlike the existing private health insurance incentive scheme, it will not be eaten up by premium rises. It is 30 per cent of whatever is spent on private health cover.I believe that the scheme will halt the vicious cycle of increasing premiums and declining membership which has so unbalanced Australia's health care system. Contrary to what the opposition incessantly says, the rebate is equitable. Unlike straight tax deductibility schemes, it will be paid at the flat rate of 30 per cent of expenditure on private health cover regardless of a person's income level or income tax obligations. This means that lower income earners will get the benefit even if they do not pay any tax. On this point, it is important to register that around 700,000 Australians with private health insurance have incomes of less than $20,000 per year.The opposition has made quite a bit of noise about the fact that the rebate is not means tested. This fails to take into account the fact that, in order to meet its needs, the rebate has to provide relief to those currently in private health insurance and attract others into the system. The commonsense nature of this initiative, its fairness and its direct benefit to those who have struggled with the spiralling cost of private health insurance, has seen it receive the overwhelming support of the Australian public both at the election and in recent public opinion polls, which indicate public support for the measure running at almost 70 per cent.It is important to note that there has been some speculation about the magnitude of the possible increase in private health insurance membership in response to the rebate. Some have observed that the rebate will bring the cost of private health insurance back to the same percentage of average weekly earnings as in 1985. If the public responds now as it did then, membership levels could exceed 45 per cent of the population. The difficulty I have with these projections is that more is involved than just simple economics. The Productivity Commission's conception of human behaviour is strictly limited to economic rational behaviour. It has admitted as much in its report on the private health insurance industry. Not to put too fine a point on it, when the Productivity Commission hears the word `culture', it reaches for its gun. The commission said:It is possible that some of the differences . . . between the propensity to insure at different ages represents generational rather than lifecycle events.Thus the fact that 50 year olds have higher insurance than 20 year olds may reflect the fact that the group of people born in 1946 have a different predilection for insurance than those born in 1976, not just that 50 year olds in general have higher insurance rates than 20 year olds. This point is important, because what is involved is a culture of private health insurance. I am afraid there is a very real possibility that the Labor Party's neglect and damage to private health insurance over a 13-year period may have substantially eroded this culture. The bottom line is that the option of doing nothing is not viable. The reality is that private health insurance is not just a matter of culture; it is also a matter of economics. The fact is that high premiums are eroding fund membership. If we are to guarantee the provision of high quality health service to all Australians into the next century, we need to rebuild private health insurance. That will not happen in the absence of a measure of this sort.The Labor Party has indicated quite strenuously over the last few hours that it will oppose this measure, but I am still unsure about why they are doing it. The more they strenuously object, the more I wonder whether they have found themselves in a box canyon on this.Mr Lee interjecting—HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—No, wait—let us have a look at the arguments. They are probably distilled by the position of the member for Jagajaga. All of these positions were actually reiterated today. On 22 October the member for Jagajaga was reported as having said that the government should scrap the rebate because the government could not guarantee that it would boost private health insurance coverage. That is argument number one which has been heard a number of times today.The other argument, which has also been heard a number of times today, is that, when confronted by the possible number of people who could be attracted into the scheme, the Labor Party says something to the effect of, `Oh, the fact that so many people might be attracted exposes the government's true agenda, and that is massive amounts of money for private health care if every one of these people gets $600 or more a year—that is billions of extra dollars for private health care which can't go to Medicare.' So we are in this anomalous position that, on the one hand, the Labor Party opposes the rebate because it will not boost private health insurance and, on the other hand, because it will.Mr Jenkins interjecting—HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—No, I have to say on targets that the Labor Party is no stranger to untenable positions on this issue. Throughout its 13 years in government, while asserting constantly that a strong and viable private health insurance system was important, Labor systematically and continuously undermined the system. Labor scrapped tax rebates for private health insurance, phased out the $100 million government annual subsidy to the reinsurance pool, removed the private hospital bed day subsidy and reduced the proportion of the schedule fee paid by Medicare from 85 to 75 per cent. There is an explanation for this. I think the explanation is that while Labor did and does believe that a certain level of private health insurance coverage is important, it thinks there are enough people in the Australian community who will hold on to their insurance no matter what the cost. This reveals a great deal of the cynicism that Labor has on this issue. But the cynicism is really disclosed when we take a closer look at who actually stayed in and who dropped out of private health insurance during Labor's time in office. The Productivity Commission's report on the private health insurance industry had a look at the socioeconomic profile of those who stayed and those who went. They found that fund membership was more common amongst higher income groups, and the Leader of the Opposition spoke at some length about this—what a surprise!But what is really surprising is the finding that private health insurance membership amongst the lowest 20 per cent of income earners remained virtually unchanged across the whole period from 1983 to 1992, while the membership of all other deciles declined. In other words, and I will put it bluntly, those lower income Australians who had private health insurance absorbed the full hurt of the Labor Party's attack on insurance. While they were absorbing the pain, people in middle and upper income groups left the private health insurance system in droves to become pri marily dependent upon the publicly funded and fully subsidised public hospital system.The Labor Party stands there and talks about equity. On this particular issue, the Labor Party is absolutely bankrupt. Their policies in government were dysfunctional and inequitable, their position in opposition is contradictory and untenable and their alternative is completely unworkable.Labor's health policy is to do nothing about private health insurance and to put money into public hospitals. There are two points to make in response to this. The first is that the government is already putting substantial amounts of money into the public hospital system—more than $3.5 billion in additional funding over the next five years. The second is that putting money into public hospitals in the absence of other policy measures will not stop the fall in private health insurance membership and, indeed, may hasten it without improving the overall position. This is the burden of the 1991 issues paper prepared for the National Health Strategy presided over by the member for Jagajaga. You know the quote, you have a look at it, because that is what your current shadow minister said when she was in a reasonably detached position—or that is what her report said.There is one other point that I would like to make and I say this in good sentiment: while the Labor Party's cynicism, neglect and damage to the private health insurance system may have been possible when it was in government, it is simply not tenable for them in opposition. It is not tenable for a Labor opposition to stand in the way of a measure which a newly elected coalition government has promised to deliver, when the government has the will, the funds and the determination to implement this measure, and the measure is—I am sorry to say this—politically and publicly popular.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—Oh!HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—Last week I said during the address-in-reply debate that the public will punish Labor if it frustrates or tries to frustrate—4T4MELHAMMr Melham—Not good policy.HM5Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOU—No, it is great policy but it squares two circles—it is great and it is popular. I said that the public will punish Labor, but I did not realise just how vulnerable Labor was to punishment until I saw the figures on the incidence of private health insurance membership in Labor's marginal seats. A quick reading of these figures indicates that in Labor's 10 most marginal seats which Labor holds by an average margin of 1.12—Bass, Dickson, Kingston, Northern Territory, McMillan, Stirling, Paterson, Chisholm, Griffith and Swan—about 38,000 voters have left private health insurance. If an average of 470 voters in these seats changed their vote from Labor, then you have lost 10 seats. I do not believe the individuals who the Labor Party deprives of uncapped, un-means tested contribution to their private heath insurance will forgive you. (Time expired)21:07:00542Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—I might pick up on a few comments made by the member for Kooyong tonight. He basically claims that this legislation is good public policy. The reason why his argument is flawed is that he has not understood that, whether or not people have private health insurance, when they are really sick they turn up at their local public hospital or they are taken to their local public hospital by an ambulance. Two-thirds of Australians rely completely on the public hospital system and the one-third of Australians who have private health insurance also rely on the public system if they are really sick. That is what you have never understood.Where tonight is the real crisis in the Australian health care system? The real crisis in the Australian health care system is in public hospitals—it is in public hospitals where this government has implemented federal funding cuts which have meant that waiting times have increased.GT4TRUSSMr Truss—Rubbish!MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—The member opposite interjects and says `rubbish'. You go to public hospitals in New South Wales that have been hit by this federal government's arbitrary cuts in federal funding for that state's public hospitals. Just go back and read what Health Minister Horan of the Queensland National Party government had to say about this federal government's inadequate Medicare offer. Just go back and look at what Victorian Premier Kennett said about the federal government's offer. Ask Dean Brown, the South Australian Minister for Health, who said that he was forced to sign the health care agreement but that it was still inadequate to meet South Australia's needs for funding that state's public health system—Dean Brown, the same state Minister for Health who said that they were suffering Third World conditions in the South Australian public hospital system because the Howard Liberal government was not prepared to put the funding needed into the public hospital system.So, at a time when the public hospital system is in dire need, we have this government rolling up legislation into this parliament to spend an extra $1.2 billion or more a year on private health insurance subsidies. And, even if we accept the government's arguments, we are entitled to ask: what is the likelihood that this $1.2 billion additional subsidy for private health insurance will work?It is usually pretty popular to give money away to people; I accept that point. But the point that those opposite have to sustain is that it is good policy. The Minister for Health and Aged Care let the cat out of the bag yesterday when, in response to a question from the member for Jagajaga, he made this remark: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.That is what this is all about; this is a tax cut, a handout to people whom this government wants to target. It is all about tax cuts. It is not about fixing up the crisis in health. It is not about fixing up the crisis in public hospitals. It is a handout to people living in a number of electorates, including the constituents of the member for Kooyong.HM5GEORGIOUMr Georgiou—It's not true.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—This is a rebate that, basically, is being offered to battlers; it is giving battlers something that you know they cannot afford. Government members interjecting—10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Mossfield)—Order! I ask members on both sides to direct their remarks through the chair.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—Mr Deputy Speaker, the claim is being made that this rebate is being offered to everyone. But you know as well as I do that this is a rebate being offered to battlers for something they cannot afford; and it is a handout to wealthy people for something they already have.If you look at the member for Kooyong's figures, more than 70 per cent of people on more than $70,000 a year in your electorate already have private health insurance. Giving those people an extra $600 a year in a tax break does not actually increase dramatically the number of wealthy people who have private health insurance in your electorate; you are giving them a handout for something they already have. Yet, for the battlers who live in my electorate and that of the member for Banks, those families cannot afford $2,000 a year to insure their members.GT4TRUSSMr Truss—They voted for it.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—They voted 49 per cent or less for your proposal; and voted 51 per cent or more for Labor's plan to put public hospitals as our first priority.Government members interjecting—10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Mossfield)—Order! The House will come to order.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—They voted 51 per cent two-party preferred for an increase in the Medicare levy on high income earners to raise the extra money to fix up the crisis in public hospitals.But anyway, Mr Deputy Speaker, let us just accept their argument that in some way we can fix the crisis in public hospitals by increasing the level of private health insurance; for the sake of argument, let us just assume that bogus argument. The problem they have is that we have tried this experiment. In the last parliament, two years ago, we were here saying that, if only we spent $500 million a year in health insurance tax rebates, we would increase the level of private health insurance and that would take the pressure off public hospitals. That is what those opposite said. With $500 million a year, they promised us lower premiums and increased membership, and that it would take the pressure off public hospitals.What did we see? Health insurance premiums did not go down; they went through the roof. Health fund membership did not increase by 3.7 per cent, as promised by the minister for health in the documents that he signed and lodged with the parliament with the 1996 budget papers—it did not go up by 3.7 per cent. We are now at a record low of 30.3 per cent of Australians having private health insurance; and the pressure on public hospitals has increased. So all three promises—lower premiums, an increase in fund membership and pressure being taken off public hospitals—were broken with the experiment of spending $500 million a year on health fund rebates.So, having failed with their $500 million rebate, what is their answer? An election approaches and they are desperate to put forward some policy, any policy, on health insurance—`What can we do? Well, the $500 million didn't work; let's multiply it by three; let's increase it to $1,500 million a year in health fund rebates.' This is what Prime Minister Howard says: `We guarantee that it will reduce your premiums, it will increase fund membership and it will take the pressure off public hospitals.'The problem is that that ignores the experience that Australia has had over the last two years. When you introduced your last rebate, Jeff Kennett gave it a year and he saw that it had no effect whatsoever; Jeff Kennett said that your last rebate was `money down the drain'. Richard Court, Premier of Western Australia—no friend of the Labor Party—said that it was a dud. The AMA said that the money should have been spent directly on patient care rather than in rebates. Even your own Productivity Commission inquiry did an analysis on your plan.Mr Georgiou interjecting—MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—Yes, you were quoting the Productivity Commission; you should have looked at page 88. Page 88 explains that, even if the government had been successful in raising the level of private health insurance by 3.7 per cent—which is what the minister for health promised in those documents that he signed in the 1996 budget papers—the Productivity Commission found that the total annual savings for the public health system was $240 million but that you would have to spend $560 million. So you would have to spend $560 million to get a $240 million saving or, in other words, you would lose more than $320 million. So the Productivity Commission found that it was an inefficient way to increase private health insurance, assuming you got an increase of 3.7 per cent—and we did not get an increase. We had a straight line decline. Sure it was declining under Labor—and it declined under you.The big difference is that under Labor we were not wasting $500 million a year on a rebate that flopped. It is a straight line under us. It is a straight line under you, but the difference is that you have wasted $500 million a year. Your solution is to triple that. Let us get the straight line going even lower, with a tripling of the amount of money we are wasting on that rebate. You would think that after using this amount of money on these rebates and their having failed to take the pressure off public hospitals they would have learnt. Spend the money directly on patient care. Spend the money directly on public hospitals to reduce waiting times, to help people get the care they need in the public system. Even if you had spent the money on public and private hospital treatment you could have made a difference, instead of wasting this money giving tax concessions to people who already have private health insurance.If they had spent the same amount of money, this extra $1.2 billion, in picking a million Australians at random and giving them free private health insurance, at least there would have been an increase in the coverage of private health insurance. That is the problem that this government have. They have so little confidence in this proposal that they are not prepared to tell us what increase in private health insurance membership this will generate. In the last parliament at least they predicted that, if they spent $500 million a year, they would get an increase of 3.7 per cent. But they have had their fingers burnt on that one. It was not a 3.7 per cent increase; it was almost a 3.7 per cent decrease.Having been burnt in the last parliament, we have the health funds running around saying, `We might get an increase of up to 40 per cent.' We have the Prime Minister saying, `I'm pretty confident there will be an increase of some sort.' But the health minister, who was the one burnt in the last parliament, is saying, `I am pretty confident we can stem the rate of decline in private health insurance.' We are going to spend $1.5 billion a year to try to stem the decline in private health insurance. If we had used the same amount of money, we could have made such a difference. We could have paid for so many operations in both public and private hospitals. We could have done something about the crisis in the Australian health care system—those excessive waiting lists throughout the health care system.The point we want to make is that this rebate is unfair in the way it is structured. The reason it is unfair in the way it is structured is that there are a lot of battlers out there who are now getting $450 a year as their private health insurance rebate. Those people get only an extra $150 because of the new scheme. Let me give an example. A family living in Berkeley Vale in my electorate paying $2,000 a year for private health insurance now get $450 as a tax rebate. Under your new scheme, under the new proposal which the member for Kooyong describes as good policy, that family will get an extra $150. They will go from the current $450 to $600.HM5GEORGIOUMr Georgiou—And you're sneering at that!MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—What I am saying is that they get only $150. If you have private health insurance—and I do have private health insurance—we will go from zero, because under the current means test we are not entitled to the rebate, to $600. You and I will get a benefit of $600, whereas the battlers in Berkeley Vale will get only an extra $150. The lower your income, the less benefit you get from this measure. If you are on the Prime Minister's salary, you will get the full whack, the full $600 or $750 depending on how expensive your private health insurance is.That is what we say is essentially unfair in this measure. People who are on high incomes get the biggest benefit under this proposal. The member for Kooyong was trying to justify that by saying that, during the years when private health insurance was declining, the high income earners were the people who left. His argument therefore flows that we have to give the biggest benefit to the high income earners, which is exactly what this proposal is designed to do. It will give $150 to the battlers in Berkeley Vale and $600 to the people who are not battling in Kooyong. That is the first point to make.On the 7.30 Report tonight I heard the Minister for Health and Aged Care claiming—and I thought I had heard a lot—that people who are richer are actually healthier. So it is better to have a scheme that gives bigger rebates to rich people to get them back into private health insurance because they are healthier. Bad luck if you are a battler. They do not actually want you joining health insurance because you might be sick. Health insurance is not about helping sick people; it is about helping healthy rich people get a tax rebate under this mob. That is the point to make.The area that this government has not been prepared to address is gaps. Despite the claims of the minister for health that gaps are not a big issue for members of private health insurance funds, let me tell you that gaps are as big an issue as health fund premiums. Until the medical profession and the health funds are prepared to sit down and negotiate contracts for more hospitals and more doctors, people will continue to leave private health insurance. That straight line will continue until the medical profession and the health insurance funds are prepared to grasp the nettle and solve that problem.The Lawrence legislation has allowed that for a number of years. The AMA has been conducting a campaign I think since the member of the Bradfield was the head of the AMA. The member for Bradfield is the next person to speak in this debate. I would encourage him to tell us whether he agrees with the Minister for Health and Aged Care that the AMA should be encouraged to sign more contracts with their health funds or whether he subscribes to AMA official policy that this is American style health management. We would like him to declare where he stands on this issue. One of the few areas where I have agreed with the current Minister for Health and Aged Care is that of welcoming the contracts that have been signed at a number of hospitals in Melbourne and, most recently, at Brisbane Waters Private Hospital in the neighbouring electorate of Robertson.The great problem is that the AMA has fought a rearguard action to discourage and pressure doctors not to sign these contracts with health funds. Frankly, I think the health funds have not been prepared to sit down and talk turkey with the doctors to work out a way to have zero gaps. At the end of the day, if the medical profession is not prepared to work out a sensible working arrangement to set reasonable fees for their medical services and private hospitals, private health insurance will keep declining. If they do not solve this problem, the biggest losers will probably be the doctors because patients will vote with their feet. They might have been members of a health fund for decades but, when they finally go into a private hospital or a public hospital and use their private health insurance and are treated as private patients and receive all those bills, they make the decision—often very reluctantly—to leave their private health insurance fund because of the gaps. The gaps are a big issue. We need to apply some shock therapy to the health funds and the AMA to get them to wake up to themselves and work out these contracts, because the gaps are as big an issue as the health fund premiums.In the months leading up to the election campaign, we had all these leaks that the government was actually going to do something about gaps. Remember all those stories? I am sure the member for Bradfield was not the source of the leaks to the Sydney Morning Herald day after day which said, `Stay tuned; there is a big initiative coming to fix up the gaps' or the leak to the Australian saying that the gap package would be released any day—it was all set to go; all they had to do was dot the i's and cross the t's. We kept waiting for this new initiative on gaps to arrive. It was too hard. This package that was all set to go was scrapped. We do not know whether it was scrapped due to the influence of the member for Bradfield—who we know is a very influential member in the government backbenches—or whether it was a result of the Prime Minister pulling the pin on the minister for health's package. We know that the Prime Minister is the one who loves these tax rebates on health insurance; that was his policy. So, if the health minister put together the package on gaps, maybe that was the reason the Prime Minister pulled the rug out from under the health minister's gap package. But, whoever pulled the rug out, we never saw the package on gaps.If we had seen the package on gaps, my bet is that it was not going to force the doctors and the health funds to face up to their responsibilities and save patients those massive out-of-pocket gap payments. It was going to be up to the ordinary battlers—the ordinary taxpayers—to reach into their pockets and give more money to surgeons who are on very high incomes. That is how the government proposed to fix up the gaps—not to force the funds and the doctors to sign contracts and reach agreement on a fair remuneration for a service provided in a private hospital.I would like to challenge the member for Bradfield to declare where he stands on contracts. I would like to challenge him to write a letter to Australian Medicine and Australian Doctor and tell doctors that they should wake up to themselves and sign contracts with all those health funds. That is the way to guarantee that private health insurance again becomes attractive to people who have left over the years. And that does not require a massive taxpayer subsidy at a time when public hospitals are in crisis. It requires doctors and health insurance funds to face up to their responsibilities instead of expecting Australian taxpayers to fork out another billion dollars a year in subsidies for private health insurance.Taxpayers are expected to fork out another billion dollars a year at a time when this government says it cannot afford $100 million to restore the Commonwealth Dental Health Program. There are pensioners out there who cannot chew meat and have to eat mince and drink soups because they have to wait more than a year for basic preventive dental care. The government and the minister for health say they cannot find $100 million a year to put back into dental care, yet they are prepared to put 10 times that amount into subsidies for private health insurance. They are prepared to give the Prime Minister and other people on high incomes $700 a year but they are not prepared to put a measly $100 million a year into restoring the Commonwealth Dental Health Program.We say that is not good enough. It does not recognise the fact that two-thirds of Australians rely completely on the public hospital system. Even the one-third of Australians who have private health insurance rely on the public hospital system when they are really sick. The public hospital system should have the first call on any spare dollars in health today. That is where the crisis is and that is where the money should go: directly into patient care rather than into more failed subsidies for a scheme which you all know is bound to fail.21:26:00547Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSONRW5BradfieldLP10—I have heard a lot of emotion, and I have also heard some valid points made on both sides of the House this evening, but I would like to bring some sanity back to the debate.To understand why the government of Australia would want to provide some financial assistance for people to maintain or return to private health insurance, we need to firstly put it into historical perspective. I remind the House of a quote that I gave during the address-in-reply in the last sitting week, from the German physicist and philosopher Bernhard Philberth. In his book, Revelation, he said:Progress leads to chaos if it is not anchored in tradition. Tradition becomes rigid if it does not prepare the way for progress. But a perverted traditionalism and a misguided progressivism propel each other toward a deadly excess, hardly leaving any ground between them.I think one of the pleasing things that happened in the health debate over the last three years is that, in a sense, the Berlin Wall in health has come down. At least we now have the Australian Labor Party believing that support of the private health care sector, and private health insurance in particular, is something that they ought to pursue, although the policy objectives that either side would take are vastly different.The member for Dobell has effectively told the 12,758 people in his electorate who struggle to maintain their private health insurance that he is going to oppose and vote against a 30 per cent rebate on their premium. The Australian health care system has evolved from powerful egalitarian principles, the vehicle for which has been a strong health insurance ethic. And the deep mistrust of socialism which dominated our political landscape from the mid-1930s up until the end of the Vietnam War has played a critical role in colouring health policy. It also enabled the medical profession, amongst others, to resist attempts to nationalise Australia's health care system.Since the arrival of Australia's universal health insurance system in 1983—Medicare—which introduced free doctor visits and hospital services, the number of Australians subscribing to private health insurance has declined from 65.8 per cent to 30.3 per cent at the end of the September quarter 1998, as measured by the Private Health Insurance Administration Council. That means 315 people a day left private health insurance in the three months to the end of the September quarter this year. But most of the decline occurred during the 13 years of Labor governments when—against all that is sane if not fair—800 people a day left private health insurance, because all the political and financial assistance provided to the industry and its frequently vulnerable clients was withdrawn. Worse still, each one per cent decline in private health insurance coverage adds at least another $83 million in cost to the states to deliver publicly funded hospital services.In 1986 the previous Labor government withdrew private bed day subsidies—$235 million in 1996 dollars. In 1987 they required the private health insurance funds to cover one-quarter of the Medicare benefits schedule fee—$215 million in 1996 dollars. Between 1983 and 1988 they withdrew their contribution to the reinsurance pool, which helps cover the risk of insuring older people over the age of 65. That added another $220 million to the costs of private health insurance. Prostheses were forced onto basic tables and then the Medicare agreements, which were signed late in 1992, forced the privately insured patients from public to private hospitals—so much so that nine per cent of public hospital revenue in 1991 came from the privately insured; now it is just under three per cent. By the third quarter of 1992, 59 per cent of privately insured bed days were in private hospitals. By the third quarter of 1995, it had increased to 72 per cent, effectively adding 20 per cent to the cost of hospital insurance. The private funds still put $400 million a year into public hospitals, and all of that adds up to about $1.3 billion in 1998 terms.The government through this bill is providing a 30 per cent private health insurance rebate to the person who takes the money out of his or her pocket to look after themselves and their families. The $1.3 billion is equivalent to the amount of money that was systematically withdrawn over 13 years by the previous Labor government to assist affordability into the private hospital sector. Brian Howe, when he was the health minister and Deputy Prime Minister in April 1992, said:Private health insurance makes an insignificant contribution to health financing.Today, private health insurance funds $4½ billion in health services. In contrast, the Medicare levy raises $3.6 billion, as it did in 1992. In October 1992, again representing the Labor government as the health minister, Mr Brian Howe said to me, `If you want to change anything this government is doing, you'll have to change the government.' In other words: `We are not the slightest bit interested in hearing any kind of suggestion which improves affordability for private health insurance.'Then in early March 1993 from the Royal Adelaide Hospital—reported at the time to be worth something like $5 million—the then Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Keating, told Australians that they did not need private health insurance, that Medicare could cater for all of their needs—remarks not dissimilar to those made by the Leader of the Opposition this evening. I serviced a public housing estate for nine years—three generations of welfare dependency and 13 per cent employment. On the same day as Mr Keating made that statement, a woman who was working as a volunteer cleaner in the office of a then minister of the Labor government said to me, `I go without food to pay for it.'Like an arsonist returning to the fire, the Labor Party is now saying that it wants to cut off a 30 per cent rebate to people who are struggling to maintain access to the private sector. Today there are 800,000 people over the age of 65 who have private health insurance—700,000 earning less than $20,000 a year, and how do you think they survive? There are two million people earning less than $30,000 a year who still have private health insurance.Another Labor representative, the member for Fremantle, told me in late March 1994 when she was the health minister that people were wasting their money having private health insurance—`They ought to do what I do.' When I inquired, as the President of the Australian Medical Association, what that was, she said that she had been in hospital a couple of times in the last couple of years and she had paid cash.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—That's all right; what's wrong with that?RW5Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSON—I admire that, I think that is admirable, but what I do not admire is hypocrisy—telling poor people to do one thing and then denying them the choice that we, on the incomes that we have, take for granted. That is what gets in my craw.You go back and have a look at the press clippings over Christmas 1995 and look at the luminaries that booked into one of the most prestigious private hospitals in the country—the Keatings, the Whitlams, the Wrans. I admire them for using the private hospital sector, but then the same people sit on the back of the social justice truck and tell my patients who were pensioners who had spent 40 years living in a private housing flat, `Oh, no, you can't afford choice for the private sector; the public system is wonderful.' At 3 o'clock in the morning they wake up with a hemiparesis—a partial stroke—so you send them to the public hospital and they spend seven hours there and get sent home. They know damn well that if they have private health insurance they can get into hospital when they need to.As Graham Richardson quite rightly identified, the problem that the Labor Party has is ideology. On 20 November this year, on Radio 2GB, he said:I think part of the problem is that ideology gets in the road and it does on issues that have anything to do with Medicare. The Labor Party sometimes doesn't act too sensibly.Mr Richardson went on to say:There is an ideological bent there.The current shadow minister for health, the member for Jagajaga, was reported in The Health Activist Network: Exploiting Health by Robert Browning—which will give you some insight into what kind of ideology drives policy that opposes a 30 per cent rebate. It said:Mrs Macklin was also an activist in the political economy movement, helping to develop and promote the tactic of industrial democracy.As a speaker at the 1983 Marx Centenary Conference, Macklin declared:What does the dismantling of capitalism and the building of socialism involve? It is all too clear that spontaneous uprising is not around the corner. Planned insurrection is only a dream in some people's heads. We are talking about transformation . . . the essence of this is that it is a strategy for a war of position, where we can gradually make incisive interventions into the sovereignty of capital.They are the people who are making Labor Party policy today, who are opposing this 30 per cent rebate to provide assistance to low income people to maintain their private health insurance. While all this is going on, take a look at the list of Labor luminaries who regularly book themselves into prestigious private hospitals. Tell the battlers that they should do one thing, but then do something else yourself. Graham Richardson, Labor health minister from March 1993 to March 1994, floated the idea of a Medicare levy surcharge on high income earners who did not take out private health insurance. The basic idea is that if you earn a significant income and you do not look after yourself, you ought to kick the Medicare tin a bit harder. In other words, you pay your Medicare levy, but if you do not look after yourself, you can put some more into public hospital provision. That was opposed by the Labor Party at the time. Paul Keating would not have a bar of it. Graham Richardson, in an interview with John Laws on 21 October 1997, said:Paul Keating didn't like some aspects of the package. Given that he was a person who was on a high income and did not pay private health insurance, he didn't seem to like that very much.Private hospitals will continue to grow if private health insurance collapses, and the member for Jagajaga and the Leader of the Opposition were quite right in making that point. If private health insurance goes down the gurgler, that is not the end of private hospitals, but the mix of patients is going to change. If you go into a private hospital today, you will find a person on an income of $200,000 a year in a bed next to somebody who lives in a public housing flat and who is having a hip replacement. The person on the low fixed income is there on the back of a health insurance ethic. They are struggling to maintain their private health insurance, and this is going to help them do it.I turn to the point that was made by the member for Dobell about wanting to keep higher income earners in private health insurance. Those who are thinkers on the Labor side know, as many of us know, that income is a very important determinant of health. The more income people have available to them, the more healthy they are. The more high income people—like the member for Fremantle—we can keep in private health insurance, the more money will be available to cross-subsidise high risk individuals. People buy private health insurance not only to have their doctor of choice, not only so they can have their veins done when it suits them or so they can have a painful hip replaced in three weeks time instead of three years time, but also so that they know there is a bed there when they need it.I certainly would not like to be in the shoes of the member for Kingston, on a margin of 382 votes, with 38,580 privately insured people in his electorate who will miss out on this rebate because he votes against it. Despite my best efforts, I am on a margin of 36,800, but there is no way I would like to go back to Bradfield and tell those in my electorate with private health insurance that I voted against a 30 per cent rebate on their premiums. What about poor Allan Griffin in Bruce? He has never worried anybody, and I do not think he ever will; but with a margin of 5,271, he has got to front the 34,733 privately insured voters in his electorate and explain why he voted against them getting up to $750 a year back on their premium.Also in relation to high income earners, the point ought to be made that, thanks to Howard government policy, high income earners who do not take out private health insurance, unlike lower and middle income earners, have applied to them a Medicare surcharge—which Graham Richardson, as one of the more sensible health ministers of the Labor government, proposed. So whilst you may argue that there is an inequity, which I do not accept, in high income earners also getting a 30 per cent rebate, keep in mind that high income earners are also subject to a Medicare surcharge. They have a penalty applied to them. In other words, they have got to kick the Medicare tin a bit harder if they do not take out private health insurance.The other problem we have got is that, with premiums running at between $2,000 and $2,500 a year, a person on $100,000 or $150,000 a year is in grave risk, from a political point of view, of saying, `I think I will just pay cash. If I can get in and out of a private hospital for under $4,000 for 85 per cent of separations, I might as well pay cash.' It makes a heck of a lot more sense to give them an incentive to stay in it, keeping in mind that they have already paid their taxes and their Medicare levy; they have already made their contribution to looking after those in society that have neither power nor influence. It makes sense to give them some encouragement to maintain their private health insurance.The largest rate of decline in membership of private health insurance has been in the top three income quintiles, which again confirms the view that this measure has to apply to all Australians irrespective of their income. There may be some of you who have forgotten what it is like to budget on $200 a week for food and the other basic necessities of life. I know the member for the Northern Territory has not forgotten; I excuse him from this. If someone is going to give you back $600 or $700 a year, that means a hell of a lot more to you than it does to someone earning $100,000 a year. In other words, if there is equity in this, there are people for whom that is an enormous amount of money. I do not have the figures in front of me, but I think that over 20,000 people in the electorate of the member for the Northern Territory have got private health insurance.Mr Hardgrave interjecting—RW5Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSON—It is 34,000 Northern Territorians. I think the member for the Northern Territory is on a very thin margin. Imagine going back to the Northern Territory and saying, `I voted against this.'Mr Hardgrave interjecting—RW5Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSON—Is it 518? Well, it is going to be a very interesting campaign. I would also be the first to accept that what is popular is not always right, but this is a case where good policy also meets with what is popular and good politics.The Labor Party have continually also criticised the Private Health Insurance Incentive Scheme, but they then said that they would promise to keep it; that had they won government, they would have kept it. As we also know, that scheme slowed the rate of decline. We have had taunts from the other side about what level of private health insurance coverage we think this might achieve. Only a fool would put a figure on it.I can tell you with absolute certainty what will happen if this goes down: the rate of private health insurance will continue to fall. People will continue to jump out of Jaguars into queues where there are people on quadripods who are on fixed low incomes. I can tell you one fact of life: people with influence and income always find their way through the system. There is not a system known to man that is not immune to that sort of thing. The more that we can do to reduce the length of the queues, the more we can provide to people who are most in need of government funded services.In relation to spending the 30 per cent rebate on private health insurance, some people have said we should spend it on those who do not have it. The 1997-98 Medicare rebates for private medical services were $850 million—13.4 per cent of all non-public hospital Medicare rebates, which were $6.3 billion. In 1987-88—that is, 10 years ago—it was 16.1 per cent of the total. In 1996-97, 93 per cent of combined Commonwealth, state and territory government spending on acute care was provided to public hospitals. Those public hospitals provided 50 per cent of the operations, 70 per cent of admissions and 75 per cent of bed days nationally. The private sector received less than seven per cent of acute care.Following the introduction of this, the private sector will receive just over 10 per cent of public sector support for providing those sorts of services. The one thing that the Leader of the Opposition needs to do urgently is apologise to the people who run public hospitals. What he said tonight is a slur upon them. He also reflects his ignorance of what private hospitals do.The casemix in private hospitals has changed enormously in the last five and certainly 10 years. If you have a myocardial infarction today, if you have a stroke, if you suffer major trauma, you are just as likely to go to a private hospital as a public hospital. Every person who goes to the Epworth or the Sydney Adventist Hospital with an acute serious injury or illness is one less person lining up at one of the public hospitals against people who otherwise have no choice. For the sake of the health care system, for the sake of the poor people that we all represent, support this piece of legislation, otherwise the most vulnerable people in the community will suffer as a result of your intransigence. (Time expired)21:46:00551Snowdon, Warren, MPMr SNOWDONIJ4Northern TerritoryALP00—I am proud to have stood at the last election for the Labor Party and won arguing against this particular policy, which is contained in the Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 1998 . I was very interested in Comrade Nelson's contribution. I was interested for a number of reasons, one of which goes to the last points he made when he was talking about people with acute medical problems going to private hospitals because of the acuteness of their illness.I wonder if he could explain this to me: why has the Darwin Private Hospital all but failed? Could he explain to me why the emergency department of the Darwin Private Hospital has been closed down? Could he explain to me why the Northern Territory government, in an effort to boost up the private hospital system in the Northern Territory, has announced a decision—and today a bill was introduced into the parliament—to privatise the management of the Northern Territory's public hospital system, not just one hospital but all of them? Does he know why it has done it? We know that the Darwin Private Hospital has failed. It is an absolute abysmal failure.I have to profess and declare my interests. I am a private health insurer. I have lived in Alice Springs for the last 14 years and, due to my own idiocy, contributed to the private health insurance industry for at least the last 25—and I have not received one dollar out of that system in terms of hospital access. We are told that there is a market in private health somewhere out there. Why is it that only 25 per cent of the Northern Territory's population are privately insured? If there is such a market, if private health insurance provides such an attraction to people, why is it that only 25 per cent of the Northern Territory's population are privately insured?I just want to go to a couple of points about the nature of the private hospital in the Northern Territory and then go to a couple of points which were made by our leader here this evening about what I would do with $1.5 billion. I know the member for Bradfield has a great interest in Aboriginal health. I know what I would do if I had $1.5 billion. I would throw the $720 million into the public hospital system and I would spend the other $700 million on primary health care. I would spend a large proportion of it on Aboriginal communities.Fifty per cent of the bed days in the Northern Territory public hospitals are occupied by Aboriginal people. I would imagine—I do not know—that there would be very few, if any, Aboriginal people with private health insurance. A number may have it, but not many— certainly none who live outside of Darwin and, I imagine, very few who live inside Darwin.This afternoon we again heard the Leader of the Opposition articulate very clearly those people who hold private health insurance in this place and who will benefit from a rebate as a result of the government's decisions if they are passed through this parliament. I am one of those people, at least in getting something back from the God knows how many tens of thousands of dollars I have contributed to the private health insurance industry over the years.But, frankly, if you asked the population of the Northern Territory what they would rather do—whether they would rather have this rebate or have an efficient public hospital system—they would say unanimously that they want an efficient public hospital system because they know that, if they go to the private hospital, they will be wheeled through the passageway into the public hospital since that is where they will get their treatment. Not only do they have to go there to get their treatment but the private hospital is also now borrowing doctors from the public hospital.This is a forlorn approach by the now Northern Territory government under Minister Burke. He made a contribution today in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly which was rather illuminating. Talk about ideology! These guys are flat out ideologically driven. I notice the member for Eden- Monaro knows all about it. He knows how ideologically driven these people are and how busy they are shovelling money into the pockets of the private sector. This is just another example.The Accident and Emergency Services section has been a longstanding joke. It has never worked and is all but closed down. Burke himself, the minister, gave the private hospital a blast for its poor management; yet, as we speak, the Northern Territory government are proposing to privatise the Northern Territory hospital system. They say that they are not; but that is in effect what they are doing. In the process, what they are attempting to achieve is to move the public hospital system into the hands of private enterprise.I do not know what the altruism behind it is. They would argue that it is to provide a better public hospital system. They say that they need about $120 million per year in addition to the current investment in public hospitals in the Northern Territory in order to make them work more efficiently. I am a bit uncertain as to how they expect to get this out of privatising the place, seeing that only 25 per cent of the population is privately insured. Perhaps you can tell me. The logic escapes me.I want to give you an example of some of the incidents which reflect poorly on the way in which this subject has been debated in this parliament. I am not opposed to private health insurance. As I say, I happen to be one person in this parliament—another of the people on the Labor side of this parliament—who has held private health insurance for a long time. Like the Leader of the Opposition, I have paid a great deal of money for it.An honourable member interjecting—IJ4Snowdon, Warren, MPMr SNOWDON—Well, you may not. But I am deadset opposed to the bill. I am deadset opposed to it on the basis not only of equity grounds but of the efficiency of the allocation of public resources. As the Leader of the Opposition said this evening, this is very bad public policy—very bad public policy indeed.I note that when I was talking about the Northern Territory government—and this encapsulates the argument, in a sense, about the nature of the private health insurance industry, especially as it relates to Northern and remote Australia—not only was the minister for health in the Northern Territory espousing his concerns some one month ago about the management of the private hospital in the Northern Territory but he is now also espousing the benefits of private health care. He said in interviews on ABC Radio on 15 October, `I am a great believer in the private hospital system, particularly in the Territory where the privates have the capacity to capture money that the public system can't capture, and that is health insurance funds money.'Who in the Northern Territory is going to contribute who does not already contribute? I ask you that question. Who is going to contribute who does not already contribute? The fact of the matter is that, if they cannot make one private hospital work, how the hell are they going to make what amounts to two different private hospitals pairing with two minor hospitals in regional Northern Territory work? They propose to pair the Darwin public hospital with the Nhulunbuy public hospital and the Katherine public hospital and sell them off to a private sector management team, and to do the same for the Tennant Creek hospital and the Alice Springs hospital. How are they going to get any efficiencies out of that process, apart from shifting the cost burden in the community and ensuring that somehow or other they get backdoor payments for public health? But they will not, in fact, because it will fail.I want to record in the debate this afternoon a contribution which was made by the Northern Territory minister for health, if I can find it. I will come back to it in a moment. He has made very clear in that contribution that he is fixated with the idea of having a private health system in the Northern Territory at the expense of the public health system. Not only is that illogical but it shows that they have not really comprehended what in fact they should be doing in terms of administration of public health in Northern Australia.This is why, when we are looking at the priorities of the government, we have to ask ourselves how they can see equity and effi ciency in the way in which they are proposing to administer this measure. It has already been amply demonstrated—by, among others, the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow health spokesman—how inefficient and inequitable this particular exercise is going to be. We know already that there is no evidence to substantiate the claim that giving this rebate to people who are already in the private health system is going to increase the membership of the private health sector. It is not.The government's own figures, as the Leader of the Opposition demonstrated amply this evening, demonstrate that even they do not believe it will. They are proposing to provide $1.5 billion as the cost of this exercise. That will see a marginal, if any, increase in the membership of private health insurance funds; it will not change the problem. It will just put money into the pockets of people who are already getting private health insurance. It will not improve the situation in relation to public hospitals. The only way you will improve the situation in the public hospitals is to invest money in them and to put that $720 million—half of the $1.5 billion—into the public hospital system.As I say, in the case of the Northern Territory I would then isolate the health problems in the community. What are the fundamental problems? I might indicate, in relation to that, that they are well known and are to do largely with the Aboriginal community. We know already that the life expectancy of Aboriginal Australians is 20 years less than that of non-Aboriginal Australians. The life expectancy of Aboriginal people is considerably worse than it is for other comparable indigenous populations—the native peoples of the United States and Canada, or the Maoris of Aotearoa. It is substantially less.Aboriginal boys born today have only a 45 per cent chance of reaching the age of 65. Aboriginal girls have a 54 per cent chance of reaching the age of 65. Age standardised death rates for Aboriginal males are 2.8 times those for non-Aboriginal males. Age standardised death rates for Aboriginal females are 3.3 times those for non-Aboriginal females. Aboriginal people suffer from certain health conditions at a much higher rate than do non-Aboriginal people. For example, Aboriginal people have diabetes at a rate that is 12 to 17 times higher than the rate for the non-Aboriginal population. The figure for Aboriginal renal disease is 17.4 times the rate for non-Aboriginals. Note that, of the 64 current clients of the Alice Springs Renal Dialysis Unit, 63 are Aboriginal people.We know that in relation to health funding, despite the greater burden of death and illness that Aboriginal people bear and contradicting popular misconception, huge amounts of money are not being thrown at the problem. In 1995-96, 2.19 per cent of all Australian recurrent health expenditure was on Aboriginal people. That is only eight per cent higher per capita than other Australians, despite the vastly greater burden of illness. A disproportionate amount of this money is spent on expensive end-stage hospital or similar care. Across Australia, 55 per cent of health expenditure on Aboriginal people is for hospital care. This amounts to about $1,218 per Aboriginal person per year spent on hospital care. This is twice the expenditure on non-Aboriginal people in hospitals—$604 a year.On the other hand, for every dollar that non-Aboriginal Australians access through Medicare, Aboriginal Australians receive 27c. For every dollar that non-Aboriginal people get from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, PBS, for essential drugs, Aboriginal people get 22c. The Commonwealth health department funds the Aboriginal primary health care service to a level that goes some way to compensating for the lack of Aboriginal access to MBS and PBS funds. However, the level of primary health care expenditure for Aboriginal people is still approximately $100 less per person per year than the national average of $600 per year.In addition, this expenditure on primary health care has to be seen in the context of the vastly greater Aboriginal need, as demonstrated by the mortality and morbidity statistics that I have already mentioned. Measured against need, expenditure on Aboriginal health is clearly inadequate. The clearest way to address this inequity is to ensure Aboriginal access to the large, mainstream funding sources of MBS and PBS. It is also by coming to terms with the basic problem—keeping people out of hospitals.If you are going to spend $1.5 billion, spend it where it is most needed. Spend $720-odd million on the public health system and then spend the other $720-odd million preventing people getting there. Start to talk turkey. I do not think this government is fair dinkum about health. It is certainly not fair dinkum about Aboriginal health. If it were, the Minister for Health and Aged Care would come into this place and say, `We have made a mistake. Our priorities should not be the ones we are now advocating.'It is very clear that the people who are bearing the burden of these decisions by the government are those most disadvantaged in the community—the poorest in the community, the people most in need, the people who have most to express in terms of their concern about the nature of the public health system; the public health system that this government will not support. What they have to do is very simple: they have to change their decisions. They have to understand that going down this route of putting money primarily in the pockets of the most wealthy in our community is not going to fix the problem. They have to do what the Labor Party has been advocating—that is, properly fund the public health system, properly fund public hospitals.I want to finish on the issue of the private hospital system in the Northern Territory. A report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare concluded that the daily cost of a bed in a private hospital is more than the rate in a public hospital. Experience in America and elsewhere shows that the market base health care costs more. Millions of dollars are wasted in executive salaries, profits for shareholders and in costs of regulation.In the context of the Northern Territory, one other group of people who will suffer from this approach of the Northern Territory government are those people employed in the public hospital system currently. It is very clear what will happen to them. They will be moved into the private sector, many of them will lose their jobs and their wages and conditions will suffer. These people are not rich. In the course of the recent election campaign I had the opportunity to visit the Katherine hospital. I spoke to the day workers at the Katherine hospital. Their average incomes were $22,000 a year. These are people with families. How are these people going to benefit, firstly, from the proposal by the Commonwealth and, secondly, from the proposal by the Northern Territory government, in league with the Commonwealth, to privatise their public hospitals—the Katherine public hospital.How are they going to benefit? They already suffer the highest cost of living of anywhere in Australia. If the government want a decision that will help public health in this country and prevent people going to hospital, therefore nullifying the need to put all the money into the public hospital system or, for that matter, the private hospital system, they would do a simple thing like—I invite the minister, who is not here, to think about it—immediately convince cabinet to come up with the $800,000 to $900,000 they will need to fund the use of avgas in remote Aboriginal communities as a substitute for petrol. That is what they would do. That would do more for health in Aboriginal communities than this decision.In the decade between 1981 and 1991, at least 70 young people died as a result of petrol sniffing in the top end of the Northern Territory. One way of preventing petrol sniffing was to substitute the stuff they were sniffing. Change it—pull out the petrol and put in avgas. What have we seen? In July this year this government took the tax off avgas so that light aircraft would find it cheaper to fly around the bush, which is welcome, and then they imposed a 45.2c excise, the current excise on petrol fuel, on avgas when it is used as a substitute for petrol in remote Aboriginal communities.Do you know what you pay for a litre of petrol in some of these communities? Two dollars. These are the poorest people in Australia. The government are not concerned about public health, because if they were they would take the decision. They would say tomorrow that they would remove the excise from avgas when it is used as a mechanism by Aboriginal people in remote communities to prevent the community having access to petrol, which they would sniff, and therefore prevent a health problem emerging. But they are not smart enough. All they think about is changing the private health care system to the extent of ensuring that you and I benefit, not the poorest in the community, not those most in need.22:07:00555Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLEKV5HinklerNP10—I pose a very simple question to the House tonight: what do we want? Do we want to go down the American path where the rich have health care and the poor have none? Do we want to go with the British system where virtually everyone, except the very rich, pays the same and there is no choice; or do we want to maintain the Australian system, the parallel system, that has served this country very well for many years and had its best manifestation in Queensland, I might add, until it was gutted by the Whitlam government? Under this system, people could have a very simple choice of privately insured health care with nearly all full cover and gap cover or they could have a free hospital system. With the Whitlam era, because Queensland had to fall into line with the rest of the states, that excellent system which could have been the model for the whole of Australia was lost.I was interested to see the Leader of the Opposition in the House tonight. I think he must have been very concerned. It was the greatest bit of huff and bluff I have ever heard in my life. A lot of what he said tonight was palpable nonsense. I can demonstrate it was palpable nonsense, and you do not need to be an economist or a Sherlock Holmes to do so. He seemed to be absolutely obsessed, as were a lot of the opposition speakers tonight, with the fact that those people earning over $50,000 for a single or $100,000 for a couple will receive the $600 private health insurance rebate, or, if you like, they will go from zero to $600. You say, `Dreadful, dreadful. Those people at the top end of the scale are going to get more.' Yet, as I go around my electorate, I get a lot of Labor voters coming to me and saying—4T4MELHAMMr Melham—There's a lot more Labor voters after the last election.KV5Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLE—There were not enough to get me.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—They are going to do you slowly.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! I will do it rapidly, member for Banks, if you do not watch your step.KV5Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLE—A lot of Labor voters came to see me and, in all their naivety, they said to me, `Let's just have tax deductibility.' They said that with all honesty, naivety and sincerity. That means that anything paid on health insurance would become a tax deduction. That is precisely what we have done with this new tax reform scheme. That is precisely what we have done. What we have said is that 81 per cent of the population who earn between $20,000 and $50,000 will receive a 30 per cent rebate, the same as their tax rate. That is tax deductibility. But, better still, those earning less than $20,000 will still get the full rebate. Even pensioners who may not have any income at all other than their pension will still get the 30 per cent rebate. That is an extraordinary thing—that 81 per cent of the population will get tax deductibility or better.The people you are so obsessed about, those earning over $50,000, will not get tax deductibility. They will get a flat 30 per cent. They will not get 40 per cent if they are between $50,000 and $75,000. They will not get 47c tax deductibility if they are above $75,000. They will be pegged to 30 per cent. So, in that respect, there is a great deal of equity involved. That is the first thing. As for the Labor voters who come to me and ask for tax deductibility, I can tell them in all sincerity that that is virtually what is happening.The Leader of the Opposition made a big play tonight by saying that for about $700 million we could do everything the states want. I said that was palpable nonsense, and I still say it is palpable nonsense. Let us have a look at the big picture. Let me show the big picture. What does health cost? What is the total cost of health in Australia? It costs the Commonwealth $22 billion a year, or it costs the Commonwealth, the state, local government and the private industry $42 billion altogether.Let us say we went to a fully socialistic system where that was going to be covered by a user-pays levy. Do you know what it would have to be? Do you know what the Medicare levy would have to be? It would have to be 19 per cent. If people say, `Oh, come on, Neville, you're a bit over the top there, you're taking an extreme case,' I will accept that that is an extreme case. But let us take public health. What would it cost to fully cover public health? It would cost five times the current Medicare levy. It would cost about 7½ per cent. Those are the sorts of odds.When the Labor Party was in government, and I am sure the Labor Party did this with great sincerity, they said, `Well, we'll have this 1¼ per cent levy because that will say to the public this is a reflection of what your health is costing. You will tend to be a little less profligate if you have to pay for your health.' But you got it wrong. It had the exact reverse effect. It created a false expectation that people were actually paying for their health care when in point of fact they were not paying one-fifth of the cost of the public health system—not one fifth. So is it any wonder that people now have a false expectation?The weakness in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition is this: he says that for $700 million we can fix all ills in all the states. Let me tell you just how silly that is. We have it on good authority from any number of economists that, for every one percentage point of people who drop out of private health insurance, the cost to the Commonwealth is $83 million. I am sure that is not disputed, even by the opposition. Therefore, if we take eight per cent of people out of private health insurance—and it is quite conceivable if you people are back in power or, alternatively, if you block this in the Senate it is possible that eight per cent of people could fall out over the next couple of years—and times that by $83 million, there is the $700 million that the Leader of the Opposition says we will need to fix all ills.Mr Jenkins interjecting—KV5Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLE—That was his figure—$700 million. You were saying that it was going to cost us $1.5 billion. The figure, by the way, is nearer to $1.2 billion. But let us even take the very worst case scenario of $1.5 billion. If about 14 per cent or 15 per cent more people drop out of health insurance, that will be gobbled up. And where do you go then? So, if you wanted to take the very worst case scenario, in three or four years time private health insurance drops from 30 per cent to about 15 per cent of health insurance and the $1.5 billion—twice the estimate of the Leader of the Opposition—is gobbled up. We would have only 15 per cent of Australians paying for their health care—we would have eaten up the $1.5 billion and Australia would then be in a worse position than it is today.Anyone who cannot see that must be either bigoted or a fool because it is quite clear. You do not have to be Sherlock Holmes. Go back to when the Labor Party came to power in 1983. What was it? Sixty-one per cent or 62 per cent of the population had private health insurance, nearly two-thirds of the population. When you left office, it was down to about one-third, about 31 per cent or 32 per cent—perhaps 33 per cent, to be on the generous side. One-third was left.DH4HOLLISMr Hollis—Why?KV5Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLE—Why? Because you cut subsidies, you cut out the intermediate wards in hospitals and you cut out bed subsidies. Is it any wonder that the cost of health insurance went up? So in your 13 years of power we went from having two-thirds of the population privately insured to one-third of the population. Who did you think was going to pay for the other third? Was it going to be the 1¼ per cent or the 1½ per cent levy, because that is raising only 20 per cent of it? The funding from taxation, the funding to revenue, was barely six per cent to cover the 33 per cent that went to the public system. Little wonder that Australia was getting further and further behind.You have shown a very poor perception of the needs of elderly people. The former shadow minister, who is now the opposition health spokesman, Jenny Macklin, pilloried us in the previous parliament about nursing homes.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—Hear, hear!KV5Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLE—Well, she did. It was quite unjustified, but she did it anyhow. You have this confected concern about the aged. I spend a lot of time in nursing homes. I spend a lot of time with the elderly; I go to a lot of respite centres. I have got very close to elderly people—self-funded retirees and all those groups. The one thing even people in nursing homes, who really do not need private health insurance anymore except in the really extreme cases when they might have to go to hospital for a broken hip or some sort of unusual operation, really want is the comfort, the assurance and the security of private health insurance.Self-funded retirees—the people looking after themselves, the people who are not going to be a burden on the social security system—say, `At least let us look after our own health. At least give us the ability to look after our own health.' Would you, if you were in power, give them that? No, you would deprive them of it. I see some of these people paying anywhere from $1,500 to $2,100 a year and you would deprive them of that 30 per cent? You will really vote that down in the Senate? God help you if you do.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Order! The chair would be grateful if the honourable member for Hinkler would address his remarks to the chair and not address the opposition directly.KV5Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLE—I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am very passionate about aged people. Those who do not take proper care of their concerns earn my ire, so if I have strayed please forgive me.Mr Melham interjecting—10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—I do not need the help of the member for Banks either.KV5Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLE—I have also lived in a provincial city and I have seen how Labor really performs when it is given the reins of power. I spent 15 years on a hospital board under both coalition and Labor administrations. I remember when I was leaving that hospital board after some years we developed a plan in Bundaberg for a four-storey ward block, which was going to contain a laundry, which was desperately needed in the hospital, operating theatres, a central sterilising unit and several wards.The block was on the drawing boards and approved at the time when Labor came to power in 1989. When they went out of power in 1995, 6½ years later, not a thing had been done. It had been shelved. Every time the Labor health minister came to Bundaberg and there was some outcry or upset in the community about the fact that this hospital had not been commenced, he would placate the community by offering yet a bigger hospital. So it grew from under $10 million to $18.1 million to $25 million to $30 million, but the hospital was never built. In 6½ years nothing happened. As soon as the National-Liberal Party coalition got back in, the hospital got under way. The sad thing is that a Labor minister will have to open it. It is tragic.Those sorts of things went begging in provincial cities, because Labor had the same sort of socialist ideology that you have been preaching here tonight—the ideology of envy. You are so obsessed with stopping people at the top end of the scale regardless of what benefit that might have to people at the bottom end of the earning scale. You are so obsessed with wanting to get to that group up there that you cannot see the public benefit down the other end.They had exactly the same problem. So they set up across Queensland these marvellous regional health centres based on New South Wales. It was going to be the great be-all and end-all of health care in Queensland. It was going to reduce the size of the health bureaucracy in Brisbane. What did we get? I think it got up to 400 people in these regional centres, but with no reduction in the number of people in Brisbane. So we were then loaded up with these regional health centres and a big burgeoning bureaucracy in Brisbane when all the time that money was desperately needed in the hospitals.I remember saying one night to a friend of mine, `How are things at your hospital?' She was a senior sister at the hospital. She said, `Things are very good for me. They've really pumped some money into upper middle management.' I said, `That's good.' She said, `Yes, it's good for me. We had one director of nursing and two assistants and now we have one director of nursing and three deputy deputy directors. Then we have various supervisors.' I said, `Come on, how many people have we got in the wards? How many people do we have beside the beds of the sick people?' She said, `Oh, there's been no increase there.' That was the sort of pattern. They were so obsessed with this mantra of regional health care that they could not see the basic needs of people in beds in hospitals.I suggest to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the opposition has missed the point again. Rather than see some people who earn more than $50,000 get the $600 rebate, they would rather penalise the whole system. I repeat that the Leader of the Opposition said tonight in his speech that $700 million would fix up the ills of all the public health systems in the states. I repeat what I said earlier: for every one per cent drop in private health insurance, the public purse suffers to the extent of $83 million. Multiply $83 million by eight and you get roughly $700 million. So as soon as private health insurance cover drops another eight per cent, the proposition of the Leader of the Opposition, put to this House an hour or two ago tonight, becomes totally negated.We are proposing to return Australia to a parallel system of health care, where people who can afford it or people who want to make the effort to afford it can be subsidised into looking after their own health care. It defies reason that the opposition cannot see how every person who looks after their own health care makes the queue for surgery in a public hospital or for a bed in a public hospital that much shorter. It defies description.I will sum up tonight by saying that I support the government's legislation totally. I think it will be a good thing for the private health system. I think it will be a good thing for Australians who wish to be independent in their health care. Above all, I think it will relieve the strain on the public health system.Debate (on motion by Mr Jenkins) adjourned. Adjournment559Motion (by Mrs Stone) proposed:That the House do now adjourn.55922:26:00559Hollis, Colin, MPMr HOLLISDH4ThrosbyALP00—Fifteen November 1938 is a significant date in the social, political and industrial history of Australia. It was the date that the Delfram docked at No. 4 jetty in Port Kembla to load pig iron for Kobi in Japan. The labour movement, especially the then Waterside Workers Federation, had been tipped off from Melbourne. Under the leadership of Ted Roach, its members refused to load the pig iron. They had loaded just enough so that the ship would not be able to leave.Why did the Illawarra workers take this action? It was not for better pay—and we know that the pay packets were not all that great. Nor was it for conditions. It was a political point. It was for human rights. Japan was engaged in a particularly nasty and vicious war against China. Although Australia could not export iron ore, it could export pig iron. The workers of the Illawarra knew that the pig iron would be used to rain down death by the Japanese on the people of China and, eventually, Australians.This day was celebrated at Port Kembla on Sunday, 15 November. Indeed, it was a celebration, for it portrayed what the labour movement in the Illawarra has always stood for: the dignity and rights of people, be they in China, Indonesia, Vietnam or South Africa. The labour movement, especially the maritime unions and the coal mining unions of the Illawarra, have a proud and progressive record. Even more reason for celebration was that three stalwarts from the dispute of 60 years ago—Norm Gamble, popularly known as `Sunshine', Alan Hetherington and Ray Elliott—joined us on that Sunday. Also joining us was the new ambassador for the People's Republic of China, His Excellency Mr Zhou Wen Zhong. I am delighted that one of his first functions in Australia was this one. I thank him for the honour he did us. His predecessor, His Excellency Mr Hua Jundho, joined us in February when we honoured Sunshine, Ray and Alan at a dinner. We, the labour movement of the Illawarra, intend to have a sculpture placed on land opposite No. 4 jetty. The land was given to us by the Port Kembla Port Corporation.We have learned much from the Delfram dispute, but how far have we progressed, I sometimes ask. Even today the minister for transport made an ill-informed attack on waterside workers, the same as the Attorney-General in the conservative Lyons government, Menzies, attacked the workers. But like the Delfram he is recorded in history with the name Pig Iron Bob.Back in 1938, on the eve of World War II, the wharfies faced up to a conservative Lyons government and also to a conservative business establishment. Today, what has changed? We have a conservative Howard government and a conservative business establishment putting profit before people. In 1938, BHP with blood on its hands put profit before human lives—nothing much has changed. BHP was earning huge profits from the export of pig iron to Japan. Menzies tried to bring in scab labour, as the conservatives opposite tried to bring in scab labour this last year.In 1938, Sunshine, Alan and Ray, along with their comrades, stood up against the government and business to defeat appeasement and the prospect of the implication of more death and destruction upon the people of China by an aggressive Japan. They also knew that eventually this pig iron would rain down on Australian forces. They were determined it would not be returned in a shower of unexploded metal. Blood was the price to be paid for pig iron, a price not acceptable to Sunshine, Ray, Alan and their comrades.There is a well-established bond of friendship between the people of the Illawarra, especially the working people and the trade union movement, and the people of the People's Republic of China. The sculpture will be a lasting symbol of this friendship. It will also emphasise the Labor principles of fairness, justice, community, human rights and dignity throughout the world.55922:31:00559Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYDIK6RobertsonLP10—Tonight I briefly want to commend to the House a very important government initiative that was held on the Central Coast in my electorate last Thursday, 19 November. It was the Central Coast Online Australia Regional Summit. This summit is one of a number that are being held around Australia at the instigation of the federal government. It was a very exciting and well attended summit.I had the honour of opening that summit last Thursday. There were over 150 small business people from all over the Central Coast who attended that one-day seminar. It gave an opportunity for small business to look at the business potential of the Internet, e-commerce and the potential that is there for small businesses. A lot of small businesses, particularly in regional areas, do not realise the advantages that are available to them through marketing on the Internet.The Internet is one of the new electronic media that is exploding all over the world. Every single day there are literally hundreds more Australians in their homes and in their businesses linking to the Internet which provides them with ready access to a wealth of information. What that does is open up whole new business opportunities for small businesses that may not have been able to normally compete with larger companies. Particularly in regional areas, because of the tyranny of distance and because of the competitive nature of larger companies, many of these small businesses could not compete effectively on tendering processes for orders.But, with the Internet, if a small business person has, say, a hat shop in one of their regional towns and their market takes in that regional town, that is the limit of their market. This was an example that was raised at the summit. One woman was very concerned that people were now starting to order directly on the Internet. This meant that they did not need to come into her shop, and her business was falling. Once she was shown the opportunities, instead of having a small market around a regional town, this small business lady had market opportunities all around Australia because she could then market on the Internet, order directly from the suppliers and have that order delivered into someone's home. People would say, `Yes, you can do that from all over the world.'But one of the advantages is that people like to know the businesses they deal with. They like to have confidence in the businesses they deal with. That is one of the advantages that you can have if you are a locally based company on the Internet. People are still concerned and are a bit loath to order products from overseas from companies that they have never heard of before—they are not sure of whether the order is going to get through; in fact, they may be concerned about giving their credit card number over the Internet—whereas if they are dealing with an established company in a region that they know—a company they may be aware of, somebody that they can contact in the event of problems—it gives them credibility and it gives them a market advantage.As I said, this regional summit was well attended by about 150 people. Many of the comments I had from the small business people involved were that it was one of the best conferences, one of the best summits, that they have ever attended. It is good to see that the government is coming to terms with and grasping the opportunities of the Internet and of e-commerce and allowing businesses to take advantage of them.This Central Coast Online Australia Regional Summit was organised by the Central Coast Regional Development Corporation. I think it was only the third one of these summits that have been held throughout Australia. I have to commend the Central Coast Regional Development Corporation for the excellent way they organised it. In particular I thank Kim Schofield-Kelly, Wendy Grimston, Vanessa Steer and their chief executive officer, Eve Robinson, for the excellent job they did.In the few seconds that I have left, I would like to congratulate my neighbours, Paul and Kate Turner, on the arrival of a healthy, bouncy baby boy today. Mother and baby are doing well, and I think father will recover shortly. 56122:36:00561Ferguson, Laurie, MPMr LAURIE FERGUSON8T4ReidALP00—Tonight I wish to speak about the negative exit rate imposed on superannuation benefits for members of the Military Benefits Superannuation and Benefits Scheme, otherwise known as the MSBS fund. I first raised this matter in a media release on 29 October. It was further covered in question time today by my colleague the member for the Northern Territory. Unfortunately, the Minister for Defence has completely failed to respond satisfactorily to the situation. He is pursuing the policies that he pursued in a previous department—claiming a lack of knowledge in all fields.The fund came into existence in 1 October 1991. It is open to all new entrants to the ADF from that date and to members of the old DFRDB scheme who elected before 1 July 1992 to transfer to it. There are some 38,000 contributors, and ComSuper administers it. The Minister for Defence Industry, Science and Personnel appoints a board of five trustees, two of whom must be serving ADF personnel. The negative exit rate affects the benefit that is payable when a contributor leaves the ADF, voluntarily or otherwise. It is payable as a lump sum and consists of the member's accumulated contributions plus interest.Member benefits are affected by the investment earnings of the fund in two ways. Firstly, the balance in all members' accounts is adjusted by the fund's annual crediting rate. This is determined at the end of the financial year and is based on the fund's investment return, less fees, charges and administrative costs. Since the fund was established, the annual crediting rate has varied from 5.4 per cent to 20 per cent, and for 1997-98 it was 8.7 per cent. Secondly, an exit rate is credited to the accounts of members who are leaving the fund. It is essentially an interim crediting rate for the elapsed period of the current financial year.In January 1998 the board altered its policy on exit rates, with effect from 1 July. Under the new policy the rate is set monthly and:. . . accurately reflects the member's share of actual investment performance for the period from 1 July to the date of exit.The board notes that:. . . the new policy opens the possibility of a negative exit rate being set, especially in the early part of the financial year.According to the Army newspaper, the fund generated a return of minus 3.6 per cent on its investments for the first two months of the current financial year. In passing, I readily concede that many other superannuation funds, particularly in the private sector, would have experienced similar negative returns recently. However, Commonwealth public sector funds would generally have other protections in place, such as a reserve account, to avoid the need to actually reduce the balance in members' accounts.The serious effect of the negative exit rate can be best appreciated by the following actual example. Peter Szorenyi left the RAAF on 11 October, after almost 22 years service. As at 30 June 1998, his member balance was $133,084. Prior to finishing up, he approached ComSuper for an estimate of what his likely member benefit would be if he left on 11 October. On 9 September he was given a written estimate—a written estimate—of $136,721. In the event, because a negative exit rate was—unbeknown and unadvised to him—applied from 28 September, his actual member benefit was $126,151, a reduction of $6,933 compared with that of 30 June, and $10,569 less compared with the written estimate he had received from ComSuper four weeks earlier.Mr Szorenyi was given no advance warning that a negative exit rate applied from 28 September 1998, thus depriving him of the opportunity to preserve his member benefit in the fund until it again generated a positive exit rate. This is one of the main issues I have been highlighting as shadow minister—the government's complete failure to provide serving military personnel with adequate information and advice about the matter.As well as the member benefit funded by their contributions, the fund provides retirement, resignation and invalidity benefits that are employer funded. These are basically unfunded because, apart from the standard superannuation guarantee charge, the Commonwealth does not pay employer contributions into the fund each year. Retiring members' employer funded benefits are largely paid from consolidated revenue when they become due.The fund's most recent annual report makes a very interesting comment on the motivation behind its investment strategy. On page 4, amongst other reasons justifying its strategy, the following comment appears:. . . the Board is also mindful of the fact that, given the defined benefit structure of the Scheme, sustained high Fund performance acts to reduce the unfunded liabilities of the employer.This is a totally wrong priority. The Commonwealth should not utilise members' savings to rectify the Commonwealth's funding liability as an employer. The Minister for Finance and Administration, Mr Fahey, is paid to address such matters. Treasurer Costello constantly tells us about the coalition's alleged expertise on matters of economic management. Yet the government has apparently developed no proper strategy to address the unfunded liability question. This unfunded liability is a question for the employer to address—not serving military personnel.I also note that, unlike other Commonwealth schemes, the fund does not have a reserve account. All investment earnings—after tax, fees and expenses—are distributed to members' accounts. Whilst this maximises returns to members in good years, it leaves the fund exposed if its investments generate negative returns. (Time expired)56222:41:00562Katter, Bob, Jnr, MPMr KATTERHX4KennedyNP10—I would like to continue the speech I was giving this morning. This government deserves enormous praise for two of its decisions: (1) to continue with a free float of the Australian dollar—no, not to continue but to change from a dirty float, under Keating, to a free float—and (2) to go to a regime of low interest rates.This is of enormous importance to people who live outside of Australia's big cities and who man our export industries, particularly the agricultural industries. Agricultural debt is $800 million and, since our interest rates dropped from about 22 per cent to about 10 per cent, there has been a saving for the agricultural sector in the order of some $200 million a year. So this government has provided us with an extra $200 million a year.Far more important still: whilst the last government abolished all tariff protections that existed in this country, removed all tariff protection—and there may be some on our side of the House who agreed with those decisions of course—the current government, by allowing the dollar to fall, has effectively put in place a 30 per cent tariff regime to protect and help those industries in Australia.I am speaking particularly of industries like the great sugar industry—an industry which I have the privilege to represent in this place. As I need say over and over again, our sugar industry competes in the international market against the world's biggest exporter, the European Community, which enjoys subsidy tariff levels of 193 per cent—and that 30 per cent is very, very important to us indeed.Moving on, I come to three of the better intellects whom this country has produced, particularly in the field of economics since the Second World War—and in order of priority maybe. William Wentworth, I think one of the better intellects to have gone through this place, most certainly since the war, has advocated primage very strongly—and he believes in it so strongly that he recently came out of retirement to contest an election. If we are seeking to raise taxation, the best possible way to do so is to tax people who want to buy a Canon camera produced in Japan, or a Volvo motor car produced in Europe. Let them pay to the tune of some 15 per cent extra for that product if they do not want to buy an Australian produced product.B.A. Santamaria, the head of the National Civic Council, in his columns in the Australian newspaper, continuously hammered exactly the same point on primage. Also, there is Tom Fitzgerald, connected with the best of the ABC annual talks that are given—most certainly the best that I have ever heard were his Boyer lectures—who for some 17 years was the economics head of the Sydney Morning Herald. He also advocated exactly the same position. I do not think it is possible for those three people to be totally wrong. They have made the point that this is GATT neutral, and I think their arguments most certainly stand up.It has been said that government cannot help Australian industries. I was very much in the inner leadership team of a government once upon a time, and I found out that we could help people magnificently. In government contracts alone, one-quarter of the cars that are purchased in this country today are purchased through government contracts. Simply allocating those contracts to an Australian manufacturer is of immense importance. Noam Chomsky in the United States constantly makes the point that the American military industrial machine provides enormous markets for industrialists in America and provides a subsidy for them in the export market. Chalmers Johnson has written a wonderful book, MITI and the Japanese Miracle, the quintessential book on the Japanese economy. The Japanese economy is easily the most successful economy in the world, and we keep getting told that it should keep in step with the rest of the world with economic rationalism.This country that defies and refuses to go along with economic rationalism last year had a $136,000 million current account surplus. To put that in perspective, we also live in Asia, and our current account deficit for this year will be $30,000 million in all probability. You tell me which economy is operating splendidly and which is not. The United States economy has a $106,000 million current account deficit. The average income for a Japanese person is $36,000, the average income for an American is $27,000, and Australia is languishing and falling through the floor with an average income of about $20,000. So you tell me which is the success story and which is not the success story. (Time expired)56322:46:00563Emerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON83VRankinALP00—Before I address the matter that I had planned to talk about tonight, I would like to extend my sympathies to the member for Bowman, Mr Con Sciacca, and his family. His mother passed away recently, and the funeral was today. I am sure my sentiments are shared by all members of this House.I want to speak tonight on a subject that I addressed in my maiden speech, and that is child abuse. In my first speech I talked of the cycle of abuse and pointed out that 70 per cent of prisoners in Australian gaols were abused as children. I said in that speech that Australia seemed to be able to find hundreds of millions of dollars for roads and dams, but when ministers sought a few million dollars for their departments of family services the cries of fiscal restraint echoed down the corridors of the treasuries of Australia.Tonight I would like to expand a little on the problem of child abuse in Australia and to advise the House of a number of shocking statistics. The number of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect in Australia in the most recent year for which statistics are available was 29,833, and in Queensland alone it was 4,662. The percentage change in the number of substantiated victims in Queensland over the last three years has been 27 per cent, 28 per cent and 16 per cent.Some 88 per cent of abused children are harmed by someone they know and trust, and 71 per cent of abused children are harmed by their natural parent. In Queensland during 1995-96 the types of substantiated abuse were 35 per cent physical abuse, 40 per cent neglect abuse, 19 per cent emotional abuse and six per cent sexual abuse. It is estimated that 80 to 85 per cent of women in Australian prisons have been victims of incest or other forms of abuse. Finally, the odds of future delinquency, adult criminality and arrest for violent crime increase by about 40 per cent for people abused or neglected as children. That is why I talk of the cycle of abuse.We have a massive problem of child abuse in this country. The children of Australia who suffer from this abuse suffer in silence, and they will continue to suffer in silence unless society moves to protect them and governments provide the resources to help struggling families cope. One approach is quite simple, and that is to lock up those who commit child abuse and throw away the key. Our gaols would be even fuller, and I do not think because of the cycle of abuse that that would have much of an effect at all. The other is to break the cycle of abuse through early intervention programs and providing jobs and job security.I am pleased to advise the House that in Queensland the new Minister for Families, Youth and Community Care, Anna Bligh, and the Minister for Health, Wendy Edmond, are implementing well-funded programs to address the problem of child abuse. Those programs include early intervention programs to help struggling parents cope. One such program is Positive Parenting, where people go out into the community and assist the families that are at risk of being involved in child abuse. In discussions with the executive director of the Abused Child Trust, it has become clear to us that we do not have a proper picture of the risk factors in identifying the localities likely to have an especially high incidence of child abuse. Without that work, it is very difficult to target the available resources to address the problem.I would like to commend organisations such as the Abused Child Trust, Australians Against Child Abuse and the Kids First Foundation for the voluntary work they do. I would ask members of this parliament to take an active interest in this issue of child abuse and its prevention. I would also ask them to lobby very hard governments of all persuasions and at all levels for extra financial and human resources to deal with this terrible social problem.56422:51:00564Elson, Kay, MPMrs ELSON6K6FordeLP10—I would like to place on record tonight my thanks to the Beaudesert Shire Council for sponsoring a historic event that took place in my electorate on Saturday, 14 November. Some 700 people attended this event to celebrate the first white settlers to the district and to unveil the plaques dedicated to two great pioneering men, Henry Franklin and Hugh Mahoney. Henry Franklin Family Park was named in honour of the pioneering family of Henry Franklin, his wife, Jane, and their six children in recognition of the major contributions they made to the community and to local government over a very long period of time. This plaque was unveiled by Henry's and James' great-grandchildren, Evelyn Schultz and Gwen Smith, to perpetuate the name of the pioneering family who arrived on the creek at Fenwyke, Boyland in 1870. Mary Hart and Cyril Mahoney unveiled the plaque in the Hugh Mahoney Reserve on the grave site of Hugh Mahoney, who first settled here at `Corburg' in 1867, having sailed into Moreton Bay on the ship America on 10 June 1853.Our pioneering families were very special people. After all, they were the first people with the good taste and foresight to recognise the wonderful place that Beaudesert shire is to live. They forged our local towns and communities, often in the face of great adversity and hardship. I commend the Beaudesert Shire Council for their ongoing programs of recognising our pioneering families and individuals. I am a strong believer in ensuring our local history is passed on to future generations. History is part of what continues to bind us as a community. It is a great lesson for our schoolchildren. It develops an appreciation of our heritage, culture and environment. We can learn about a way of life very different to that which we enjoy today but from which we have borrowed and gained enormously.I consider it a very special privilege to represent this unique part of Queensland. I think we are lucky to have the benefits of the convenience of modern living but we also have a close-knit community bond and a more relaxed rural lifestyle. That is a unique combination—something we must work towards preserving and something I am sure our forefathers would have wanted for us when they first settled their farms, roads, local schools and community facilities.Others on the day talked about the strength and tenacity of both Hugh Mahoney and Henry Franklin. They were men who stood out at a time when there were many who were bravely determined to create opportunities for their families and build strong local communities. It is very fitting that the Beaudesert Council installed these plaques as lasting memories of their contributions. Now is a good time to reflect on how fortunate we are today and to remember the debt of gratitude we owe to these pioneering men and women.Of course, the best and most fitting tribute we can make to their memory—especially for those of us in public office—is to continue to work hard to make our local area an even better place to live, to build on the community ties that bind us and to preserve our lifestyle and unique environment and ensure that today's families have access to the community facilities and services they deserve.I would also like to place on record and acknowledge the tremendous work contributed by Councillor Garth Carey, who initiated the dedication to the Mahoney and Franklin families, and also Sheila Ventz, Public Relations Manager of the Beaudesert Shire Council, whose organising ability added to the success of the day. I thank Stuart Franklin, who spent many years researching the family history, for giving us the opportunity to share in his forebears proud history. The same gratitude must be extended to our local historian, Joyce Libke, who researched both families and gave an extensive report on both the Mahoney and Franklin families. To Mary Hart, Cyril Mahoney, Don Franklin, Ray Mahoney, Fred Franklin, Hazel Hart, Daisy Musch, Harvey Mahoney, Evelyn Shultz and Gwenda Smith—thank you sincerely for the part you played in making this a very special day for the 700 people who gathered to celebrate a very special time in history. Don Franklin's closing remarks stated that his ancestors would have been tickled pink to see this permanent footprint that indicates that the Franklin family passed this way.56522:55:00565Melham, Daryl, MPMr MELHAM4T4BanksALP00—Today in the Federal Court in Western Australia Justice Lee gave a decision in the case of Ben Ward & Ors on behalf of the Miriuwung Gajerrong people, which was an application for the determination of native title in respect of land and waters in the north of Western Australia. The main part of the claim area is in the north-east of the state in the area known as the east Kimberley. It was pleasing to note that in total the claim area was approximately 7,900 square kilometres. The land in the claim area was vacant crown land, reserved crown land, crown land in a pastoral lease granted to the Aboriginal Lands Trust (Glen Hill) and several small areas of freehold land. Waters in the claim area included waters situated within the intertidal zone on the east side of the Cambridge Gulf.Justice Lee gave a 154-page judgment. I welcome the judgment. The summary of the judgment is at page 148. The conclusions expressed by the judge are summarised as follows:The first applicants as representatives of the Miriuwung and Gajerrong people . . . have established that native title existed in respect of part of the claim area . . . at the time sovereignty was asserted over that land by the Crown and that the holders of native title at that time included ancestors of the members of the community. The community, as a group of Aboriginal people, observes and acknowledges traditional laws, customs and practices, and has maintained connection with the land as far as practicable according to those traditional laws, customs and practices.Except to the extent that native title has been extinguished in parts of the determination area, native title has continued and is held by the community in respect of the determination area.The second applicants have not established that in respect of the Territory area of the determination area, native title in that land is held by the "estate groups " of the Miriuwung community known as "Dumbral ", "Nyawanyawam " and "Binjen ", or by the second applicants as representatives of those "estate groups ". The native title that exists in the determination area is a communal title held collectively by the members of the community.In respect of that part of the claim area described as Boorroonoong (Lacrosse Island), the third applicants have established that they hold native title concurrently with the community in respect of that area of land.I do not want to go into the other parts of the judgment, but it is an acknowledgment that native title has survived. The sky will not fall in, everyone's title is safe, but what it does confirm is the position the Labor Party has always taken since the first decision of the High Court in Mabo No. 2 and the subsequent decision of Wik. These cases are now working their way through the High Court and the Federal Court and, hopefully, a lot more sanity will prevail than that which prevailed even only a short time ago.This parliament has passed an act. There are now a number of states that are passing their acts. There is a lot of water still under the bridge in relation to this. I think there will be a requirement for the federal parliament to revisit this area, but I hope it can be done with cross-party support now that the hysteria has been taken out of the situation. I do not believe this government's amended legislation is a panacea. I think there are going to be some procedural matters that will be required to be revisited by this parliament. We now have an act at a federal level that is three times the size of the original act, we have to wade through a series of state acts, we now have this judgment, and there are other judgments in the pipeline—the Yorta Yorta in Victoria.I hope and believe the climate has changed. I look forward to working with the government in a constructive way to ensure that the property rights of indigenous Australians are protected, that they are appropriately acknowledged and recognised and that there is no unnecessary extinguishment. This judgment by Justice Lee in the Federal Court has vindicated the position of the federal Labor Party and the respective state Labor Parties, and that was to abide by the principles of the High Court in Mabo and Wik.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 11 p.m., the debate is interrupted.23:00:00566House adjourned at 11.00 p.m.Notices566The following notices were given:Mr Albanese to present a bill for an act to amend the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, and for related purposes.Mr Andren to move—That this House:(1) notes the discrepancies and contradictions in expert assessments of Australia's optimum population;(2) recognises the damage caused to the nation's social fabric by ill-informed and emotive comments on the nation's immigration program;(3) notes that population growth is ultimately a product of fertility rates and levels of net immigration, while acknowledging that Australia has a limited carrying capacity, both ecologically and economically;(4) notes that without a population policy Australia risks a continuation of the divisive scapegoating of minority ethnic groups; and(5) calls for the convening of a national population forum to consider and propose a population policy for Australia and the social and concrete infrastructure required to sustain that population.Mr Williams to present a bill for an act to amend the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995.Mr Ruddock to present a bill for an act to amend the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976.Mr Entsch to present a bill for an act to repeal the Petroleum Retail Marketing Franchise Act 1980 and the Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act 1980, and for related purposes.Documents566The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 24 November 1998:Bounty (Books) Act—Return for 1997-98.Bounty (Computers) Act—Return for 1997-98.Bounty (Machine Tools and Robots) Act—Return for 1997-98.Bounty (Ships) Act—Return for 1997-98.