1999-06-013913REPS563901999-06-01Mr SPEAKER(Mr Neil Andrew) took the chair at 2.00 p.m., and read prayers.Questions Without Notice563956395639Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is directed to the Treasurer. Treasurer, last night you ridiculed the Democrats' GST food amendments in relation to John Howard's 25th anniversary cake by saying:Cakes being a mixture of flour, eggs and other ingredients baked in an oven or otherwise cooked and including pancakes and muffins attract a 10 per cent GST.Treasurer, isn't this the very definition of a cake which you have agreed with the Australian Democrats? Can you explain why the Prime Minister's cake would attract a GST but under your new definition the cake made without eggs or flour would be untaxed? Isn't this just going to be a nightmare on Baker Street?5639Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The definition as read out is the definition which has been put forward by the Australian Democrats and has been agreed with the government in relation to those matters. The thing I find quite surprising, however, is that the Australian Labor Party apparently is now not interested in definitions and yet its own tax system has definitions like the following: the kitchen sink, taxable at 12 per cent. The Labor Party has definitions of moveable toilet pans.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I will rule on the Leader of the Opposition's matter of relevance.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—I have not raised it yet, Mr Speaker.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—You said you had a matter of relevance and I was about to rule on it.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—I have not raised the relevance. I am raising a point of order and I wanted to ask a question about relevance. The relevance of the question was to try to ascertain whether there would be a GST attached to a cake made without eggs or flour, and he is talking about anything but.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. I am quite able to determine whether or not an answer is relevant to a question.MG4LEEMr Lee—Keep him in order.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Dobell! I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that it was difficult to draw any measure of relevance between the kitchen sink and the comment made about the cake.CT4Mr COSTELLO—As I said, the definition was the definition that was put forward by the Australian Democrats and agreed with the government. I find it passing strange that a party which exults in definitions should now be worried about them. Under Labor's tax system, moveable toilet pans are defined and taxed, as are seats and covers for moveable toilet pans and goods ordinarily used for toilet pans—which proves how hypocritical they are.56395639Gambaro, Teresa, MPMs GAMBARO9K6PetrieLP10—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer inform the House of today's balance of payments results, and are they consistent with the budget forecast?5639Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—Today's balance of payments for the March quarter show a current account deficit of $8.9 billion—around six per cent of GDP, as I forecast yesterday. Of course, it is substantially better than the worst current accounts on record, which were: in 1985-86 at 6.5 per cent of GDP, in 1989-90 at 6.6 per cent of GDP and in 1994-95 at 6.6 per cent of GDP. As forecast yesterday, touching six per cent of GDP in this quarter is consistent with the budget forecast of 5½ per cent throughout the year, and indeed the forecast would imply a similar amount in the June quarter with the current account deficit abating somewhat in the next financial year as the export situation picks up. The trade deficit is principally a result of exports which have been static, principally as a result of low prices amongst our trading partners, while the domestic economy has remained strong. As a result imports have risen.Today's current account deficit also shows foreign debt stabilising at around 41 per cent of GDP, and the measure of the cost of servicing net foreign debt at 9.6 per cent is the lowest since September 1984. Notwithstanding that, of course there is no room for complacency in relation to the current account deficit. The current account deficit is high for reasons associated with the external downturn, over which Australia has no control, but it underscores the importance of running a strong economic policy and maintaining confidence in the Australian economy. That has been aided of course by the low inflation and low interest rate policies of the government. For example, when the 1985-86 current account deficit blew out under Labor to 6.5 per cent of GDP, inflation was over nine per cent and variable mortgage interest rates were at 13.5 per cent. Obviously that was placing grave pressure on the Australian economy.In 1989-90 when the deficit blew out to 6.6 per cent of GDP under Labor, inflation was at 8.6 per cent and home variable mortgage interest rates at 17 per cent. In 1994-95, when the current account deficit blew out to 6.6 per cent, inflation was at 3.9 per cent and home mortgage interest rates at 10.5 per cent. Obviously, if you have a situation as we do now, with inflation at 1.2 per cent, home variable mortgage rates at 6.5 per cent and a budget in surplus, you are in a much stronger position to cope with a current account deficit. Nonetheless, this illustrates the importance of good strong economic policy. Just as it was this government's economic policy three years ago to put the budget in surplus—fought all the way by Labor—that strengthened our economy at the time that we most needed it, so too it is the economic reforms of today which will strengthen our economy for the challenges of tomorrow. Those are the reforms which the government intends to put in place.56405640Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, now that you have adopted Meg Lees' cake definition as part of your GST, will you also be accepting the national bread recipe that she announced on 3AW today? Treasurer, are you engaged in tax reform or writing a cookbook?Honourable members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—When the House has come to order I will allow the question, but it had a measure of irony that puts it almost outside the standing orders, and I indicate that that level of irony will not be entertained in future.5640Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—As has been made clear by the government's historic agreement with the Australian Democrats, in relation to the definitions of food as put forward by the Australian Democrats, the government agrees with the design principles and has offered to consult with the Australian Democrats to improve them should they so wish. There was a level of irony in that question. Irons, of course, are taxable by the Australian Labor Party at 22 per cent—one of the Australian Labor Party's hidden taxes which will be swept away by this government—just as the Australian Labor Party taxes moveable toilet seats at 12 per cent, and toothpaste but not toothbrushes under the modern Australian Labor Party system which is followed by the countries of Botswana and Swaziland and the economic genii of the Labor Party frontbench.56405640Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr HARDGRAVECK6MoretonLP10—My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister outline to the House the benefits to pensioners and self-funded retirees—particularly in my electorate of Moreton—of the extensive compensation arrangements in the revised tax package?5640Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—One of the many things that the Labor Party is against is a real increase of two per cent in the pension for the retired people of Australia, because one of the important compensation elements in the government's tax package is a real increase in the pension of two per cent, over and above any GST effects. The situation remains that pensions will be increased by four per cent up-front on 1 July 2000. However, the compensation will be revised to provide a two per cent real increase in pensions rather than the 1½ per cent under the original proposal. We will do this by paying the full four per cent on top of the existing legislative requirement to maintain pensions at no less than 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings. And I take the opportunity of reminding the House that it was the coalition government that first legislated to provide that pensions would always be at least 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings.In addition, I am very pleased to say to the self-funded retired people of Australia that the supplementary savings bonus, originally provided for people 60 years and over, will now be available to self-funded retirees at the age of 55. That means that self-funded retirees over 55 on 1 July will receive a savings bonus of up to $2,000. The Labor Party, by voting against this plan, is not only going to oppose a two per cent real increase in the pension but also going to oppose a payment to self-funded retirees 55 years and over of $2,000 by way of a savings supplement on 1 July 2000.I finish my answer to the honourable member for Moreton by reminding him and reminding the parliament that the overriding reason why the government has decided to reform the taxation system is that it will deliver major economic benefits to the entire Australian nation. All the debate about the impact of the package on this or that section of the community, important though it is, is subsidiary to the national economic benefit. The national economic benefit of this plan is undeniable. Australia will be a stronger country; Australia will be a richer country; Australia will generate more jobs; Australia will export better; Australians will receive more incentive through the taxation system. We will sweep away an old-fashioned unworkable taxation system and we will replace it with a taxation system that will give to 80 per cent of Australian taxpayers a level of incentive that they have never enjoyed under any previous Australian government.The commitment of all members of the government to this plan is based upon our commitment to the national economic benefit. It is for the sake of Australia's aggregate economic benefit that we make this reform, and it is because of that that we are determined to implement in full the agreement concluded between the Treasurer and me and the Australian Democrats last Friday.56415641Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is again to the Treasurer. Treasurer, doesn't the Democrats' GST—CU4GALLUSMrs Gallus—On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I draw your attention to the member for Kingston, who is not only reading the paper but, very unsubtly, is trying to hold it up to show the rest of the House. I believe that is against the standing orders.4I4McLEAYMr Leo McLeay—What's in it?Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Members on my left will exercise some sense of deference to the parliament. The member for Kingston was well aware of the fact that he was defying the standing orders and in fact caught my eye just as the member for Hindmarsh made the point of order. That sort of behaviour will not be tolerated, as everyone in the chamber knows.DT4Mr CREAN—My question is again to the Treasurer. Treasurer, doesn't the Democrats' GST list state that GST is payable on fully prepared, ready to eat meals, except where they `require mixing to make them fit for eating'? Can the Treasurer explain how this rule applies to this salad pack, which is made up of a bag of lettuce requiring tossing—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Deputy Leader of the Opposition knows that it is not necessary to illustrate the point.DT4Mr CREAN—Oh, I think it is. Can the Treasurer explain how this rule applies to that salad pack, which is made up of a bag of lettuce requiring tossing with prepacked salad dressing, bacon pieces and croutons? Treasurer, is this a GST-free vegetable product? Is it a fully prepared meal on which GST is payable? Or does the tossing required meet the mixing test, thereby making it GST free?5T4BRERETONMr Brereton—Who's the tosser now?5641Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—They do amuse us there in the opposition. As long as they are amused in opposition, we are happy—making their little phone calls to Meg, trying to break up the deal, an irrelevant political party ringing up complaining about `Dr Pergola'.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—Mr Speaker—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition makes a point on relevance. I presume the Treasurer is coming to the answer.CT4Mr COSTELLO—The one thing we can say about the Democrat proposal—UNKNOWNOpposition membersOpposition members—Yours! Yours!CT4Mr COSTELLO—No. I am sorry, you asked me, as your question will show, about a Democrat proposal. That was your question. The one thing you can say about the Democrats is that they are much more economically responsible than the Labor Party. Talk about fairies at the bottom of the garden! These are gnomes and wizards running around the bottom of the garden.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—On a point of order, Mr Speaker—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! Has the Treasurer concluded his answer?CT4Mr COSTELLO—No, Mr Speaker.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Treasurer will resume his seat. It was a perfectly legitimate inquiry from the chair.PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—The point of order as to relevance goes to this, Mr Speaker. The Treasurer was asked a set of questions about the application of a tax for which he is responsible, despite his efforts at buck passing. There is no room in the question that has been asked for a generalised rant from a chap who is just spending another $3 billion of the surplus on this mad exercise.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.CT4Mr COSTELLO—The question I was asked was patently a stunt, with a prop. We answer it in the spirit in which it was given. This gnome on steroids here is running around making all of these points.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Treasurer will come to the answer.CT4Mr COSTELLO—The one thing you can say about this system is that it is much simpler than the Australian Labor Party's system of taxes of 12, 22, 32, 41, 45 and 47 per cent.DT4CREANMr Crean—If the system is so much simpler, tell us whether it is taxed?Mr Tuckey interjecting—Mr Kerr interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Denison and the Minister for Forestry and Conservation are both warned.Mr Leo McLeay interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Watson is also warned. There is no way that the behaviour of the House in the last five minutes or so has reflected any credit on any member of the parliament. This sort of behaviour will not be tolerated by the chair and should not be tolerated by the chair under the standing orders. Under the standing orders, every member is entitled to be heard without interruption.56425642Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSONXT4BallaratLP10—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer advise the House of the cuts in income tax that Australians will receive as a result of the revised plans for a new tax system? In particular, can the Treasurer detail how low and middle income families will benefit?5642Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The government plans to introduce the largest income tax cut in Australia's history. Let the record show that the Australian Labor Party opposes income tax cuts for middle Australia. The Australian Labor Party huffs and it puffs, but the truth of the matter is that the Australian Labor Party has two objectives: the first is to retain the outdated wholesale sales tax, which has multiple rates and classifications—something that it never advertises—and the second is to deny middle Australia income tax cuts. Under the government's plan, middle Australia—everybody earning up to $50,000—will pay a marginal tax rate no higher than 30 per cent.When the national wage case came out recently, I heard the Leader of the Opposition remark that a $12 increase would be clawed back by tax and the withdrawal of family allowances. The truth of the matter is that under the current tax system, Labor's tax system, a $12 a week increase on an income of $510 per week, which is what was awarded by the national wage case, would mean that a single income family with dependent children would lose 50 per cent of the $12 under the clawback of family allowance—because for each additional dollar under Labor rules you lose 50c of family allowance—and 35.5 per cent under Labor's marginal tax rate of 34c.Under the Labor Party tax system, the national wage increase, which awarded a $12 per week increase up to an annual income of $26,590, would leave a single income family with dependent children net gaining, out of that $12, $1.74. That is the Labor Party tax system. Under the government's tax system, which Labor opposes, because we increase the test for family allowance and change the taper rates, the $12 leads to no loss of family allowance and the top marginal rate of the middle income earner is 31.5 per cent, which is a 30 per cent tax rate plus the 1.5 per cent Medicare levy. Under the coalition's tax plan, the $12 a week increase for somebody on an income of $510 per week would lead to a take-home pay, out of that $12, of $8.22 compared to Labor's $1.74—a difference of $6.48.No wonder the Labor Party is going to such great lengths to try to cover up what its real objectives in relation to tax are. Why is it that the Labor Party is so desperately ringing up the Democrats to try to prevent the Democrats from voting tax reform through the Senate? If the Australian Labor Party thought tax reform was such a bad idea, why would it be ringing up the Democrats asking them not to put it through the Senate? Because the Australian Labor Party knows that, once middle income earners see the difference between Labor Party tax and family allowance differences and what would occur under a new tax system, they would wonder why they had been robbed blind by Labor for so long. That is the truth of the matter. Under the tax changes which this government wants to put in place—greater family allowances and reductions in income tax cuts—it is no wonder it is fighting so hard ringing up those Democrat offices because the last thing it wants is for that to go through and for the Australian public to realise how much Labor was steal ing from them and how much better things can get under tax reform.56435643Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is again directed to the Treasurer. Has the Treasurer seen the comments by Senator Lees this morning on the Daybreak program that a whole cooked chicken at Woolworths will be taxed the same as a whole cooked chicken at Red Rooster? Does the Treasurer agree with this tax ruling by the Leader of the Australian Democrats and does he also agree with her ruling that the GST will apply to cut-up chicken pieces? Will this apply to cold cut-up chicken pieces like raw drumsticks, wings and breasts and, if so, why aren't cut-up steak pieces such as diced veal taxable, or are they?5643Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—Of course I have seen the comments of the Leader of the Australian Democrats and the principles that they have put forward in their amendments. As the government has said, we are prepared to consult in relation to them within the principles that have been laid down, and if we can be of assistance in drawing the legislation we will. The thing that constantly amazes me is how the Australian Labor Party has suddenly discovered an interest in classifications. The Australian Labor Party was in office for 13 years and operated a system where chocolate-coated peanuts were taxable—PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Treasurer will resume his seat. On a matter of relevance, if that is what the Leader of Opposition is raising, I have been listening very closely to the Treasurer and there is nothing that he has said thus far that is irrelevant to the question. The Leader of the Opposition does not have a point of order on relevance. I will hear the Leader of the Opposition—PE4BEAZLEYMr Beazley—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on your ruling. The standing orders clearly state that when somebody stands to move or raise a point of order they shall be listened to.Honourable members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. It is not difficult for the occupier of the chair to determine whether or not an answer is relevant to a question. In this instance, the Treasurer had said nothing that could not be deemed to be relevant to the question. I will listen carefully to the Treasurer's answer, and I call him again.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—On the point of order, Mr Speaker: with regard to that ruling, are you saying that page 204 of the House of Representatives Practice is wrong? It states that a point of order takes precedence and that, after the question of order has been stated to the Speaker, the Speaker shall give a ruling. Are you saying that no longer applies, that you do not have to hear the point of order before you rule on it?10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. As Hansard will clearly show, I asked the Leader of the Opposition whether he was raising a matter of relevance, and he indicated that that was his intent. I listened very closely to the Treasurer's answer because I had anticipated this sort of point of order, and there was no way, as Hansard will show, that any statement made by the Treasurer thus far has been in any way other than relevant to the question, and I have so ruled.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Mr Speaker, you are missing the point. I don't want to dissent from your ruling because we are having too much fun asking questions, but I do want to pursue one point with regard to—Honourable members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—When the House has come to order, I will hear the Manager of Opposition Business.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Mr Speaker, does your ruling imply that stating the standing order under which you wish to speak is the same as outlining your point of order? In my view, neither the standing orders nor House of Representatives Practice nor logic would suggest that that is an appropriate ruling.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I have ruled. I call the Treasurer. CT4Mr COSTELLO—I was making the point that, under differential rates of indirect tax, you have multitudes of classifications—a point that never seems to have worried the Australian Labor Party in the past. They were quite happy to preside over a system where chocolate-coated peanuts were taxable and chocolate-coated frozen bananas were exempt.DT4CREANMr Crean—What's this got to do with chooks?CT4Mr COSTELLO—`What's this got to do with chooks?' he says.DT4CREANMr Crean—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. Given that the Treasurer himself has asked the question of himself, `What's it got to do with chooks?' why doesn't he answer the question?10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. Before I call the Treasurer, let me point out that the question asked for a comparison between various cuts of meat, and the Treasurer was making the point that, in a range of classifications and in a range of options, there is a range of ways in which various taxes apply. In that sense he was entirely relevant, and I call him.CT4Mr COSTELLO—I am talking about classifications. The member for Hotham yells rhetorically, `What's this got to do with chooks?' What it has got to do with chooks is this: apparently the Labor Party thinks that if you put a chocolate-coated peanut on your chook it should be taxable, but if you put a chocolate frozen banana on your chook it should not be.I want to make one other point. Previously, I was talking about irons and I may have inadvertently told the House that an iron was taxable under Labor at 22 per cent. An iron is taxable only at 12 per cent under Labor. Unfortunately, their system is so complicated that even I was forced to make a mistake in explaining it.56445644Forrest, John, MPMr FORRESTNV5MalleeNP10—My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. Would the minister explain to the House what benefits will flow to Australian exporters, especially those from the Mallee electorate, as a result of the government's reforms to reduce the tax burden currently imposed upon them?5645Fischer, Tim, MPMr TIM FISCHERDG4FarrerNPTrade; Deputy Prime Minister10—Let me begin by thanking the member for Mallee for his question. I want to pay tribute to the can-do attitude of the Leader of the Democrats who, unlike the Labor Party, recognised in tax reform the benefit for the national interest, for Australian exporters and for the future economic wherewithal of this country. The government continues to deliver the goods for those exporters in a tough trading environment. Now, more than ever, with many of our trading partners still in recession, Australian exporters need a boost along, and this is what the tax package will provide. Exports will be GST free in the most important economic reform for our exporters in over 15 years. There is no such thing as a level playing field. This package tilts the playing field in favour of jobs, additional exports and billions of dollars in cost reductions for agriculture, mining, manufacturing and service exports with the removal of the wholesale sales tax and the other improvements it contains. It is a win-win-win situation: exporters, consumers, the environment and, above all, families, with a $12 billion tax cut. It is time to give a bit of extra detail.Opposition members interjecting—DG4Mr TIM FISCHER—I am pleased to inform coalition members, because I know they are interested, even if you are not, that the complete removal of diesel fuel excise from the operation of rail is a huge breakthrough for our exporters. For Queensland, there is $35 million of benefits; for New South Wales, $45 million of benefits; for Victoria, $21 million of benefits to VicRail; for Tasmania and South Australia combined, $9 million of benefits; and for Western Australia, for Westrail, $15 million of benefits.XW4KERNOTMs Kernot—If it was such a good idea, why didn't you think of it?DG4Mr TIM FISCHER—Interstate, $40 million. The total for rail—Ms Kernot interjecting—DG4Mr TIM FISCHER—Oh, so the shadow minister for regional services—XW4KERNOTMs Kernot—This is not your idea.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Dickson!DG4Mr TIM FISCHER—is opposed—XW4KERNOTMs Kernot—No, no.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Dickson!DG4Mr TIM FISCHER—Is opposed to the abolition—XW4KERNOTMs Kernot—I support it.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Dickson!DG4Mr TIM FISCHER—Opposed to the abolition of diesel fuel excise on rail. You are a disgrace to your shadow portfolio.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Deputy Prime Minister will resume his seat.DG4Mr TIM FISCHER—It is difficult to be a disgrace to your shadow portfolio, but you are.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Deputy Prime Minister will resume his seat. Both the member for Dickson and the Deputy Prime Minister have chosen to ignore the chair. I ask them to exercise more constraint.Ms Kernot interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Dickson is warned.DG4Mr TIM FISCHER—The total figure for rail is $165 million—long overdue, a very big boost. An additional $30 million for the road bridges that John Anderson and others have helped secure will also help. The other arrangements stay in place, but there will also be $60 million a year to help states convert diesel power generation systems to renewable energy systems in remote Australia, where it counts, where we have the interests of people at heart. King Canute over here can object to all of this, but we are getting on with the job of delivery. When the history book is written about this period, it will be recorded that there was a splash of colour from the opposition for a fortnight, while the government got on and delivered for our exporters.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—When he gets some support from his colleagues through their silence, I will call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.56465646Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, on Sunday you said you wanted a set of broad principles on food rather than a detailed list. Have you seen the comments of Senator Lees this morning in which she insists on a detailed list? Have you agreed yet on this detailed list, and when will it be made public?5646Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The legislation will be made public after it has been drawn and agreed with the Australian Democrats. The agreement between the government and the Australian Democrats, which has been set out and put in writing, reads as follows:The precise definition . . . will be finalised after consultation with the Australian Democrats, to ensure that it meets the design principles . . . The design principles have been put out. The principles that the Australian Democrats sought from the government, and the government agreed to, were that the tax would apply to takeaways and that the tax would apply, as it currently does, to things like confectionery, biscuits, taxable beverages and ice-creams. I know the Australian Labor Party picks up on all of these definitions and refers to their complexity, but these are things currently defined in the wholesale sales tax act. So, if they are critical of the complexity, they are critical of their own system. That is a point I keep coming back to.Another point I keep coming back to is that one of the advantages of getting rid of Labor's discredited wholesale sales tax is that it has rates of 12, 22, 32, 37, 41 and 45 per cent. You would be getting rid of five rates, so even if you were to apply it to the existing definition with one rate it is a reduction in complexity to one-fifth. Then you would apply it on a broad base and get rid of many of the ridiculous definitions that Labor insists on. Here is the Labor Party in its bill defining moveable toilet pans. That is the kind of tax system it defends. The Labor Party gets up here at the dispatch box and wants to go into definitions, but the definitions the Labor Party is insisting on are the most complicated definitions imaginable. As I said earlier, the design principles are there. The government will be releasing the legislation after it has gone through the process, in accordance with the agreement.56465646Hull, Kay, MPMrs HULL83ORiverinaNP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Minister, can you outline what measures the government will put in place to benefit the transport industry in the Riverina and across Australia under the coalition's new tax system?Opposition members interjecting—5646Anderson, John, MPMr ANDERSON4K4GwydirNPTransport and Regional Services10—The answer to the latter question is no, I am not, but let me move to the former, the one of substance that was put before me. It is worth recalling, as rural and regional Australians do, that the team opposite have something that could loosely be called form in relation to tax reform. You would do well to look at what they have done as opposed to what they say in relation to tax reform and go back to the time before the 1993 election when we were told consistently that there was no need for a GST, that they could implement tax cuts and avoid the need for any new taxes. But we found out afterwards, to the great cost of rural and regional Australians, that not only could those opposite not deliver on their proposed tax cuts, not only did they have to raise wholesale sales taxes and fuel taxes—both of which fall disproportionately heavily on rural and regional Australians—but they still could not balance the books. We went on running up our national debt to the extraordinary cost, again, of people in rural and regional areas because of the impact that it had on everything from inflation through to interest rates.We are pursuing tax reform that by any definition, by any understanding of the needs of rural and regional Australia, is desperately needed. It is worth recapping the things that have been said here. Our proposals slash over $1 billion from transport costs in this country. They reduce the level of excise on rail by $160 million a year of real value to exporters such as the grains industry. All businesses say it will reduce the sales tax on the purchase of their transport equipment and on the parts and so forth that go to maintaining it. There is a whole range of other benefits that have been well recognised.I notice that the trucking industry have made the observation that rural and regional communities will receive a very real benefit. They congratulate the Howard government on its diesel excise announcements. They go on to say that we have been able to deliver a positive outcome in relation to reducing Australia's transport costs and point out that 80 per cent of Australia's merchandise exports emanate from regional Australia and that these reforms will make a very real difference in that area. It is worth contemplating that, if you live in central or western Queensland and you operate a grazing exercise, fully a third of your operating costs are made up of transport costs. This slashes the cost of transport. As the NFF has said, it absolutely slashes unfair tax on distance, which has affected rural Australia so much for so long.That we have been able to achieve this at the same time as we lock in very desirable environmental outcomes I think is something that we can be very proud of and that ought to be supported. Greg Bourne from BP Australia said that the measures contained in the package represent the most comprehensive emissions reduction package announced in Australia, that it is a bold but necessary step for Australia to take and that good policy produces excellent economic outcomes and very sound environmental outcomes. This is something that the Labor Party was never able to achieve in 13 years of government. It is about time that we saw an end to the carping and a willingness to engage in constructive policy debate.56475647Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question again is to the Treasurer. In your last answer, Treasurer, you repeated that your GST legislation will ensure takeaway food products will be taxable. Today Senator Lees said a takeaway chicken is not taxable. Treasurer, who is right? And why won't you come clean and explain precisely what food is in and what is out under this dog's breakfast of a new tax?5647Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—Mr Speaker, as I—Mr Cox interjecting—10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I warn the member for Kingston.CT4Mr COSTELLO—I know Labor tax dog food at 22 per cent. Apparently they are now concerned about classification problems, but the Labor Party have been blithely taxing dog food at 22 per cent for a long period of time. But, as I have said on a number of occasions, the principle that the government has agreed to with the Australian Democrats is that food for human consumption, as a general principle, will be GST free. Of course GST free means that you get back all embedded taxes. And I make this point: under Labor's wholesale sales tax system, there is no food that is WST free—none whatsoever. You have embedded WST in all food. Over 13 years the Australian Labor Party never made anything WST free.And then there are carve-outs—much the same as the carve-outs that operate under the Labor Party's WST system—in relation to confectionery, snack products, ice-creams, biscuits and taxable beverages. The objective in relation to that is quite plain. The Australian Democrats would not pass the government's tax reform plan unless food was GST free. The government took the view that 85 per cent of tax reform was better than zero tax reform. But I make this point: what are the Labor Party fighting for when they fight against tax reform? You are fighting for classifications, you are fighting for an indirect tax which has rates of zero, 12, 22, 32, 37, 41, 45. The Labor Party are the kings of classification and, like yesterday, to stand here and say, `Oh, not all trucks are getting diesel fuel rebates,' when the Labor Party policy is no trucks should get a diesel fuel rebate, and to stand here today and say, `Oh, look at these classification problems,' when the Labor Party wants to keep classifications, I have seen hypocrisy in my time—5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Mr Speaker, I was raising a question of relevance to say he has lost the plot altogether, but it does seem like he has finished his answer.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. Has the Treasurer concluded his answer?CT4Mr COSTELLO—Yes.56485648Charles, Bob, MPMr CHARLESOT4LaTrobeLP10—My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs. What are the benefits for education arising from the government's taxation reform package? How will this package overcome unnecessary costs arising from the current taxation system?5648Kemp, Dr David, MPDr KEMPBT4GoldsteinLPEducation, Training and Youth Affairs; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service10—I thank the member for La Trobe for his question and for his longstanding dedication to improving educational opportunity for young Australians. The tax reform package that the government is introducing is going to deliver benefits to the whole Australian community. But one of its very great benefits will be that it will make education more affordable to Australia's families, and it is quite clear that the Labor Party does not want this to happen. Under the government's tax reform package, tuition of course will generally be GST free. There will be no GST on school fees. Of course, any school that incurs costs, and every school is incurring costs at the moment—4T4MELHAMMr Melham—What about cookbooks?10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! The chair has no choice but to warn the member for Banks. He is well aware of the fact that he has stepped well outside the standing orders.BT4Dr KEMP—The Labor Party supports a tax system which imposes a 22 per cent tax on many of the items that families have to pay for in the course of mounting their children's education. Amongst these are computers, one of the most expensive items, taxed by the Labor Party at 22 per cent wholesale sales tax. That will come down significantly. The price of computers will be down significantly under the government's tax reform package. Of course, benefits to students will be increased by the tax reform package. The youth allowance, the assistance for isolated children, the Australian postgraduate awards and other income support for students will go up four per cent. The Labor Party does not want this benefit to flow through to students.The Labor Party also opposes of course the biggest income tax reduction for Australian families in Australia's history. The average family sending its children to school will be some $40 to $50 per week better off as a result of this package after any price effect from the goods and services tax. So what this package is about is making education more affordable. The actual delivery of education through schools will be some $720 million less over three years than it is under the current arrangements, the arrangements which the Labor Party supports. So what the government has put forward is a tax package which is in Australia's national interest. It is in the interests of Australian families, and the great thing that distinguishes the Australian Democrats from the Australian Labor Party is that they have been prepared to put the national interest first.56485648Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister seen a statement by Kentucky Fried Chicken Chief Executive Bob Nilsen that your deal with the Democrats will cost 2,700 jobs? Does he recall endorsing in the parliament the views of the Managing Director of McDonald's, Charlie Bell, saying, `The last thing you should ever do is have an approach to the GST whereby some food is exempted and some food is included. The message coming from McDonald's on the GST is: don't go down the Democrat path and exempt food and try to include takeaway meals'? Didn't Charlie Bell also say that 21,000 jobs would be lost if you went down this path? Prime Minister, if Charlie Bell was right then, why is he wrong now? How many young people will lose their jobs because of the deal you have done to save yours?5648Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—I am glad the Leader of the Opposition asked me about Charlie Bell because I have had a conversation with Charlie Bell about this particular proposal and he certainly did not tell me that they were going to lose 21,000 jobs. I say in response to the Leader of the Opposition that once again he has failed the challenge of national leadership on an important issue of national interest. We saw it from the beginning of question time yesterday: there was no attempt by the Leader of the Opposition to seize the moment and get a decent debate about taxation reform. All the Leader of the Opposition could do was to try to niggle away at the periphery instead of advancing a decent argument for an alternative tax reform scheme.5I4McMULLANMr McMullan—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The appropriate time for this point is the MPI this afternoon when the Prime Minister can come and debate if he wishes.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The question was a wide-ranging one quoting a number of sources and the Prime Minister is entirely in order.ZD4Mr HOWARD—Having responded to the very point the Leader of the Opposition made about McDonald's, I now turn to the generic issue of taxation reform. The Leader of the Opposition has now had more than three years to devise a decent alternative taxation policy, but the Leader of the Opposition has been left absolutely stranded in the grandstand of Australian political contest regarding taxation policy. The Australian Democrats have effectively replaced the Labor Party as the real opposition in Australia. The Australian Democrats have enhanced their position. The Australian Democrats have significantly enhanced their position.It was open to the Australian Labor Party to play a constructive role in the taxation debate in this country, but the Labor Party has failed to do it. The Labor Party has essentially huffed and puffed and said no. The Labor Party has not adopted an alternative policy. The Labor Party has failed the national interest test. We advanced taxation reform at the last election in the national interest. We fought for tax reform in difficult circumstances because we believed that tax reform would strengthen the Australian economy. We continue to fight for taxation reform and we have entered into an arrangement with the Australian Democrats to pass our plan with amendments meeting the concerns they have, recognising that if you are to compromise to get something through the parliament you cannot get everything you originally set out to do.The difference between the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Australian Democrats and the Australian Labor Party on this issue is that we have been prepared to do something for the national interest whereas the Australian Labor Party has simply stood there and endeavoured at every single turn to niggle away at the periphery, to micro-analyse something, but all the while to ignore the national interest.You may get a few cheap laughs at question time, but out there the Australian public are saying that you are failing the test of an alternative government. Out there the Australian public are saying, `Can't we, on an important issue, have a meeting of minds between the political leadership of the nation?' The reaction I have had since last Friday is that the Australian public applaud the fact that the leader of the government and the Australian Democrats are prepared to get together to sink their differences in the national interest. I say to those who sit opposite: you can have your penn'orth of fun at question time, but when the true significance of this debate sinks in, when the Australian people reflect and realise that you have been into negativity, point scoring and niggling away but you have failed to present an alternative plan, the lasting judgment of you will be totally negative and totally condemnatory.56495649Nugent, Peter, MPMr NUGENTUT4AstonLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Community Services. Minister, what measures will the government take to ensure that self-funded retirees will benefit from Australia's new tax system?5649Truss, Warren, MPMr TRUSSGT4Wide BayNPCommunity Services10—I thank the honourable member for Aston for his question and for his interest in self-funded retirees, a group in our society who always felt left out during the 13 years under Labor because Labor never cared about those people who put aside and often went without during their working careers so that they could fund their own retirement. Under this government, self-funded retirees have enjoyed considerable benefits and they will also share in the social bonus that comes from this tax reform package. Self-funded retirees will also benefit from tax reform.As the Prime Minister mentioned earlier, there is a new supplementary bonus for self-funded retirees as a part of the system. This will mean up to $2,000 per person to match dollar for dollar the income that they receive from their savings and investments. In addition, the government will ease the assets and the income tests for eligibility for the age pension. That means that couples with incomes up to $48,000 will become eligible for a part pension for the first time. That is a very significant benefit for, we estimate, around 45,000 extra self-funded retirees.On Friday the government announced that the bonus would be extended to people aged 55 years and over. Treasury estimates that this measure could benefit up to 200,000 extra self-funded retirees. Those are very real extra benefits available for the self-funded retired population in Australia. These benefits will phase out at incomes around $30,000 a year, but by that level these people will be enjoying the new income tax cuts, over $12 billion worth of income tax cuts which will be shared also by self-funded retirees. In addition to the extension of the seniors health card to self-funded retirees, many self-funded retirees will benefit from the 30 per cent subsidy on health insurance premiums, the new fund concessions for long-term memberships and a whole raft of measures to ensure that self-funded retirees are no longer the forgotten people. They are important beneficiaries of these new taxation measures, the new taxation reform for all Australians.56505650McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMULLAN5I4CanberraALP00—My question is to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Minister, will you confirm that the regional diesel fuel rebate will be available for truck operations in Queanbeyan but not in Canberra? What will be the situation in the many instances such as today where 10-tonne trucks based in Fyshwick are making single delivery runs dropping off goods in both Canberra and Queanbeyan? Will the diesel fuel rebate be claimable for all of that journey, for none of that journey or for only part of the journey; if so, for which part?5650Anderson, John, MPMr ANDERSON4K4GwydirNPTransport and Regional Services10—The first point that has to be established, of course, is that at the moment none of them get any benefit from any rebate at all. We have in place the remains of a taxation regime which sees us in one of the biggest continents in the world with an economy dependent on exports taxing transport fuels at amongst the highest rates in the world. We want to fix that. The first point I would make is that you could not find a comparable nation with comparable land mass to this one that taxes its transport fuels the way we do. For those transport operators who operate exclusively in regional and rural areas, of whom there are a huge number, this will not be an issue. That is point 1. Point 2 is that for those trucks over 20 tonnes loaded weight this will not be an issue either. Point 3 is that those that are over 4.5 tonnes loaded weight in rural and regional areas will be able to claim the rebate.I assume that this is a serious question, and I would like to make some observations about the way we are going in meeting the spirit of the arrangement that we have entered into with the Democrats. Firstly, `regional' would be defined as excluding all mainland capital cities except for Darwin and the large conurbations of Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong, Melbourne-Geelong and the Gold Coast-Brisbane-Sunshine Coast regions. We are now giving careful consideration to the development of a scheme that delivers the objectives that we have negotiated with the Democrats. Arrangements for claiming diesel fuel credits will be finally determined after consultations, as I said yesterday, with industry and with the Democrats, with the objectives of simplifying record keeping, particularly for low volume operators, while limiting the scope for abuse.It has to be said that overwhelmingly we are talking about a set of arrangements that delivers huge benefits that you apparently are not prepared to entertain for rural and regional Australia in particular and the broader economy in general.56515651Somlyay, Alex, MPMr SOMLYAYZT4FairfaxLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, can you inform the House of the premium increases sought by registered health funds? Why are premiums rising and what will those increases mean for health fund members?5651Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4ChisholmLPHealth and Aged Care10—I thank the honourable member for his question. No-one who makes the effort to have private health cover likes premium increases, but for 42 out of 44 health funds in Australia there has not been a premium increase since 1 March last year—a 15-month period that is unprecedented in recent times. Of the 44 funds in Australia, two increased their premiums earlier this year. That leaves 42. Of those 42, eight have decided not to have a premium increase this year and 34 will. Those 34 funds are having an average premium increase from today of 4.8 per cent. That is one of the lowest increases for at least the last five years. The honourable member asked why premiums are going up.Mr Tanner interjecting—8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—That also ties in to the interjection of the member for Melbourne, who might learn why premiums are going up. There are a number of things driving it. The first is new technology, the second is an ageing of the population, the third is community expectations and the fourth is a continuing shift from the treatment of private patients in public hospitals to private patients in private hospitals. Clearly the opposition has no understanding of the rate at which something like coronary artery stents are moving and how something like this affects prices.To put it all in some perspective, this country's biggest fund is having its premiums go up just under two per cent, 1.98 per cent, and half of fund members in Australia will pay four per cent or less by way of increase. If people are not happy with the increases in their funds, I suggest that they shop around and find one that is cheaper.56515651Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer recall his cold anger on behalf of the Australian people at the May 1995 current account deficit when he quoted it in dollar values? In light of today's figures, don't you now have the trifecta: the worst ever current account deficit, the worst ever foreign debt and the worst ever international trade deficit? Why are you preoccupied with a tax package that you consider a joke, that is cutting massively into the surplus and that makes the task of turning the current account around that much harder?5651Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—We get asked a question about the current account deficit at 3.07 p.m. He has all these little mickey mouse props which he stands up here with, his little pasta and his plastic, and we get onto the real issues of the Australian economy at 3.07—if I may say so, long after the question has already been answered. I will add one thing to my previous answer in relation to the current account deficit: the current account deficit will obviously be improved by boosting Australian exports. What more could you do for Australian exports than take $4.5 billion of taxes off them?Which political party says it wants a tax system which puts $4.5 billion of taxes on Australian exporters? The Australian Labor Party. What a shameful thing to do. The Australian Labor Party sits down here and says, `We're worried about the current account deficit—and, by the way, we would like to keep a tax system which puts $4.5 billion of taxes on our exports.' The Australian Labor Party will sit down here and say, `We're worried about diesel fuel for on road—but, by the way, we would like to keep 43c a litre.' The Australian Labor Party will sit down here and say, `We're worried about classifications—but we want an indirect tax system with nought, 12, 22, 32, 37, 41, and 45 per cent.' There have been some bad oppositions in this country, there have been some shockers, but this lot takes the cake!56515651Billson, Bruce, MPMr BILLSON1K6DunkleyLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. In its first term, the Howard government introduced a number of outstanding initiatives to promote the renewable energy industry. What initia tives will the government be introducing through the revised tax package to build on its previous achievements?5652Vaile, Mark, MPMr VAILESU5LyneNPAgriculture, Fisheries and Forestry10—I thank the honourable member for Dunkley for his question and acknowledge his interest in things environmental. Certainly, our government has good credentials in the environmental arena since being elected, with a number of significant and well-funded initiatives with regard to the environment. In the Prime Minister's statement in 1997, `Safeguarding the Future', he announced the establishment of the Australian Greenhouse Office—the first initiative of its kind in the world, with funding of $180 million to address the effects of climate change. The Greenhouse Office administers a number of programs to facilitate the expansion of the renewable energy industry and to promote the use of renewable energy.In the package which was put together by the government and the Democrats at the end of last week there was an agreement that will provide for further significant expansion of the renewable energy industry. For the first time ever in this country, a national scheme will be introduced to assist householders who install photovoltaic rooftop systems, with a grant of up to 50 per cent of the total cost to up to $5½ thousand per household. It is expected that at least 5,000 systems will be installed, saving 6½ thousand tonnes of CO2 per year. The Commonwealth will also introduce an investment program to the equivalent of the net effect of the GST on purchases of green power to assist the further commercialisation of that industry. The Commonwealth will also be providing financial assistance to the states to cross-subsidise remote power costs for domestic users by providing up to 50 per cent of the capital value of renewable remote area power systems.This program has enormous potential to replace existing diesel power plants and to further facilitate the expansion of this most important industry. The significance of the agreement that was established between this government and the Australian Democrats last week should be underlined. It will not only ensure that Australia has a modern taxation system for the new century but strengthen our environmental credentials well into the future.56525652Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister seen calls from the Premiers of South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania for an emergency Premiers Conference on his GST deal with the Democrats? Does he agree with the Victorian Premier that the agreement with the states is `dead in the water'? Given that yesterday you failed to rule out a Premiers Conference to sort out this mess, will it be convened before the Senate sits to consider the new legislation?5652Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—The situation is that the heads of the treasuries of the various states and territories are meeting Mr Evans, the head of the Commonwealth Treasury, in Canberra today. At this stage I do not believe that a Premiers Conference is necessary. In the discussions I have had with premiers to date, I have indicated that, but of course the Commonwealth will keep the need for it under review. Quite frankly, I do not think at this stage a meeting of premiers is necessary because—and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the opportunity to read from the document that was put out last Friday—as indicated in the agreement:In the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Reform of Commonwealth-State Financial Relations , the Commonwealth agreed to provide financial assistance to the States to cover any temporary shortfall in their budgets resulting from the implementation of tax reform. As a result of the proposed changes to the tax reform package, the Commonwealth will provide increased assistance to balance State and Territory budgets in the transitional years.The states are still major winners out of tax reform and, as my colleague the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out, the removal of the excise on diesel used in rail alone will deliver enormous benefits to state budgets. It will also deliver enormous benefits to the wheat growers of Australia. On this side of the House I have a large number of members who represent wheat growing electorates. We act to deliver benefits to the farmers of Australia.When my colleagues and I campaigned in the last election for the national interest and when we argued that we ought to have tax reform in the national interest, one of the principal elements of that argument for the national interest was an historic reform of the architecture of Commonwealth-state relations to give the states of Australia access to a growth tax. That goal was achieved in the tax plan. That goal remains undiminished by the agreement that was made last Friday.Just as the members of the Australian Labor Party are voting against a two per cent real increase for pensioners, if they vote against the revised plan the members of the Australian Labor Party are voting to deny to the states of Australia over the years ahead the resources to provide more for government schools, the resources to provide more for public hospitals, the resources to provide more for police services and the resources to provide more for roads. As I said last Thursday before the agreement was made, one of the strangest elements of this debate has been the criticism of tax reform by the welfare sector. Those in the welfare sector who condemn the government's plan are condemning a plan that will give a capacity to the states of Australia to provide welfare like none other that has been provided in the past, and that is another reason why this is a good deal for the states and another reason why it is in the national interest of Australia that this plan go through.56535653Cadman, Alan, MPMr CADMANSD4MitchellLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business. Minister, can you inform the House of the benefits flowing from the government's new tax system for the thousands of small businesses which form—Opposition members interjecting—SD4Mr CADMAN—They are there; the benefits are there—the backbone of the Australian economy?10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The member for Mitchell has the call and may repeat the question.SD4Mr CADMAN—Thank you. Can you inform the House of the benefits flowing from the government's new tax system for the thousands of small businesses which form the backbone of the Australian economy?8K6FITZGIBBONMr Fitzgibbon—You sold them out.5653Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPWorkplace Relations and Small Business10—A strong economy is very important for the small business sector.8K6FITZGIBBONMr Fitzgibbon—What about food in the GST?WI4Mr REITH—A weak economy sees thousands of small businesses go broke, which they did when Labor was running the Australian economy. When our small businesses go broke, the disadvantaged, the unemployed, are the first people to bear the disadvantage of a mismanaged Australian economy.8K6FITZGIBBONMr Fitzgibbon—The other Peter was much better.WI4Mr REITH—That is why a policy which reforms the tax system, being in the national interest, is also of course in the interest of the small business community.8K6FITZGIBBONMr Fitzgibbon—Too late! You've been rolled.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I warn the member for Hunter. He is persistently ignoring the chair. The member for Hunter is warned. The minister may continue.WI4Mr REITH—The fact is that a strong economy, therefore strong small business, is in the national interest. That is why for years and years the small business community have said, `It is time we had some genuine tax reform,' to fix up the tax system that they had under Labor. If you look at the package for small business, it reduces the tax burden on our business community, particularly on small businesses. That gives them a chance to grow and to prosper. It improves the cash flow for small business to ensure they are in a better financial position. We are getting rid of the wholesale sales tax, which is a massive burden on the small business community. You do not believe me?ET4BEVISMr Bevis—No, we don't.WI4Mr REITH—You ought to believe me, because you once supported a GST. Your hypocrisy is there for all to see. In the Sydney Morning Herald on the weekend it said:"The GST is also a very, very big [good] thing from a small business's point of view," Mr Waddingham, who owns a paint shop, said."We have a lot of products with a 22 per cent wholesale sales tax, and these are going to come down in price—that's about 40 per cent of the goods we sell."8K6FITZGIBBONMr Fitzgibbon—That's not what Rod Bastian said.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The minister will resume his seat. The member for Hunter will excuse himself from the House under the provisions of standing order 304A, and should have done so some time ago.The honourable member for Hunter thereupon withdrew from the chamber.WI4Mr REITH—We also take the opportunity to take five systems of tax collection and bring them down to the one simpler system, the pay-as-you-go system—something the small business community again has called for for years. We are going to reduce income tax, the biggest income tax cut in Australia's history—not only good for small business but good for their customers; therefore, good for the economy as a whole. For all those small businesses out in rural and regional Australia: at long last a bit of relief for that area in respect of transport costs. We are finally turning back the tide to give those small businesses the fair deal that their counterparts in the city areas have. The losers in this whole debate are not the small business community; they are the Labor Party. That is why we see this campaign. As the Sydney Morning Herald said only yesterday—this is the reality:The significant loser from the GST deal is the Labor Party, specifically its leader, Mr Beazley. For three years Labor has ditched the great economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating governments for a leftist populism that is associated with its prize recruit, Mrs Cheryl Kernot. The adamantine refusal to do anything else but launch attack after attack on the GST has led Labor into a dry policy gully. Mr Beazley now has to do the hard work of restoring the policy integrity of Labor or face the possibility that the few dissident Young Turks in the parliamentary party might usurp his position.In conclusion, this is very good for small business. I also say that it is a great testament to the Prime Minister and his leadership. It is a great testament, because he has long sup ported the small business community, and in securing major reform we have introduced a reform which will be better for the small business community and the country as a whole.ZD4HOWARDMr Howard—Mr Speaker, on that note I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper .Auditor-General's Reports565456545654Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—I present the following Auditor-General's audit report for 1998-99—No. 40—Performance audit—The Pharmaceutical Industry Investment Program—Assessment of applicants—Department of Industry, Science and Resources ; No. 41—Performance audit—General service vehicle fleet—Department of Defence ; No. 42—Performance audit—The establishment and operation of Green Corps—Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs ; and, No. 44—Performance audit—Naval Aviation Force—Department of Defence.Motion (by Mr Reith) agreed to:That the reports be printed.Documents56545654Reith, 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 .Matters of Public Importance5654565410000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER— I have received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:The failure of the Howard-Democrat tax deal to provide for efficiency, fairness and certainty in the tax system.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—15:23:005655Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—The opportunity presented by an MPI is that the opposition actually gets a chance to put in detail its argument for a set of propositions which counters the tendency of this government to mislead us as to its position, the arguments for its policies and the outcomes of its policies.Let me start with the tax reform performance of the previous Labor government, which has come under some attention here—particularly with the claim being put forward that, at least in the income tax area, this is the biggest change for the benefit of the ordinary taxpayer. Let me deal first with the reforms that were put in place in the 1980s. They massively broadened the base, and they were changes opposed by our political opponents. Through fringe benefits arrangements and capital gains, people were hugely avoiding tax—at the expense of the PAYE taxpayer, whose tax obligations were scooped up. As a result of that, the following changes were made in the income tax area: seven successive reductions in the personal income tax rates, with a total difference, comparing our tax rates and John Howard's, of $30 billion a year. Recollect that and compare it with the $12 billion that is being swapped for the GST here. It was $30 billion in seven successive changes. The bottom rate was lowered, from 30 cents in the dollar under John Howard to 20 cents. Compare that 20 cents to 17 cents; that 30 cents to 20 cents; and, when you go over the top rate, it is 60 cents down to 47 cents—a bit of incentive was applied in that area as well. It was $30 billion worth of tax breaks.There are very few who remember that now, but what that taxation system produced in the circumstances that we now confront was not a broken tax system but a massive surplus. If this GST package were not being produced with its total take from the tax system of a surplus of some $7 billion, the Treasurer would have the opportunity to have something like $20 billion in surplus to provide some real tax reform, some real change that might help create the knowledge based society that we need to be. There would be genuine tax breaks for business that is investing in research and development, genuine tax breaks for business that is investing in the development of new products—not constrained and hedged about by a set of bribes offered for their GST which is now producing an outcome, as far as the fiscal management of this government is concerned, against which his own Treasury secretary is warning and against which the Treasurer himself warned when he appeared before the Press Club recently to discuss the impact of this budget.In terms of the fiscal management of this country, the tax package which has been arrived at is a piece of crass irresponsibility. The point is that the Treasurer actually knows that himself; that is why he has been sitting there for the last two days with his teeth so clenched in question time that we think his jaw will break. He is being made the patsy, not any longer for tax reform but for tax change. We unquestionably have before us in the government's package tax change; what we do not have is tax reform. Every single economic journalist—none of them sympathetic to Labor—who inserts an argument about the economy into his analysis of politics has belled the cat on this proposal. Let me quote Ross Gittins. His headline is `A botched job, and it's not over yet'. He says this:The amended tax package is a dog's breakfast. It's the triumph of shoddy politics over sound economics—a failure of leadership on the part of John Howard and a failure of nerve on the part of the Democrats.Then there is Terry McCrann, who spends most of his time in his columns having a go at me. What does he say about this:John Howard and Peter Costello have made a huge mistake in abandoning real tax reform in their mindless pursuit of a GST.Interesting. He continues:A GST and tax reform are not synonymous. In fact, the GST that we now have is the very antithesis of tax reform.He goes on:They have come up with a spectacularly disastrous trifecta of bad taxes, bad economic policy and just awful politics. Howard and Costello will pay the price for looking a gift horse called Harradine in the mouth. He gave them an out, to abandon what was bad policy and even dumber politics and they did not take it.Allan Wood wrote this:By exempting "basic" foods, the package has become an administrative mess. We have ended up with a GST that will give rise to a myriad of problems. It will cost jobs, distort spending and investment decisions, and is a highly inefficient way to address equity concerns.Tim Colebatch wrote:The Democrats have been on the outer for so long ignored and derided by major parties that when they were finally invited into the tent and offered some of the things they have spent years fighting for they were quickly won over. Once again the experienced player with a lousy hand outfoxed the new chum with aces in her hand.I loved an article by Alan Kohler a while ago which finally made the statement that really the heavy work on tax reform was done by the Labor Party in the 1980s. That is the heavy work on tax reform—supposedly to produce a broke system—that produced for this government twice the size of the surplus that they have declared in their budget if only they chose to take it and not go down the ridiculous road that they have chosen to take this country down. Whatever might be said about the wholesale sales tax system, whatever might be said about complexities associated with it, it has this advantage in terms of the complexities that are now before us: there are 70,000 taxation points associated with it, but the vast number of people in the retail industry who confront the consequences of it embedded in the price of their goods do so without massive bureaucratic impositions upon them.Instead, those same folk who do not have that bureaucratic imbroglio now, under the existing tax system, will become the tax agents themselves—1.5 million of them. A substantial proportion of that 1.5 million will have to work out whether the chook is hot or cold, whether the chook has got its wings off or its wings on. They are going to have to work out whether the meat is diced or not. They are going to have to work out whether there is a satchel with the salad when they sell it. They are going to have to work out whether or not the Australian people like the Democrats' standard loaf, and if there is any variation in the Democrats' standard loaf they will find themselves instantly taxable.I go into Brumby's Bakery and on the shelf in front of me is the Vienna white and a Brumby's concoction that has across the top of it a glazing of cheese. The white is not taxable, the one with a glazing of cheese is taxable. Spare a thought for the poor farmer—the fellow who is producing the milk, producing the raw material for all the food products—and for the people who are acquiring the product in the first instance from him. When they go through their tax arrangements, what calculations do they have to make about where this is going to end up? Is this going to end up in a GST taxable operation or is it going to end up in a pure food operation? How is the separation going to occur? The Treasurer says it is not beyond the wit of man to devise the particular list that he is going to consult. Indeed, it is probably, at the end of the day, not beyond the wit of man. But it will probably be beyond the capacities of many very hard-pressed people in small business who are going to have to make decisions about it.Over the course of the last two months I have detected a sea change on this issue, and the sea change is not Labor Party supporters coming to me, as Labor Party supporters have since the year dot, saying, `Don't impose on the ordinary battling Australians the totality of the tax burden with this goods and services tax.' The people who have been talking to me never vote Labor, and did not vote Labor at the last election. They are preponderantly the small business people of this nation, 20 per cent of whom do vote Labor, 20 per cent of whom vote for third parties and 60 per cent of whom vote for the Liberal-National parties. They have their reward and they know it. Their reward is to be Peter Costello's tax collectors—and Peter Costello's tax collectors mired in confusion.I say to those opposite: you make a big point of your changes on diesel fuel. In order to put them in place you have to wreck your surplus by providing an inducement to the Democrats to support your having created pollution in the one area and taking it away in the other. This is responsible fiscal management from the Treasurer—you give out a particular tax benefit but in order to distribute that tax benefit you have to spend even more money to bribe the people to support you. And what do you create? This is going to be an extraordinary story. Not only are you going to have your massive new number of tax collectors going out there penetrating the small business books to try and work out whether or not they have correctly classified the chickens that they are selling; you are going to have to go and work out whether the truck started in Queanbeyan or ended in Queanbeyan, or whether the truck was inside an as yet ill-defined conurbation when it started off. What if it goes out and goes to an area that is classified `out', comes back in and goes out again? What are the mechanisms that are going to determine this?One thing you can absolutely guarantee with the changes that you have made with the goods and services tax and the changes that you have made on fuel excise is that you are going to confront a situation where massive tax evasion is encouraged. The point about the tax reforms that we were putting in place was simplicity and unavoidability, so that you actually got at the people who were avoiding tax. What you are putting into the heart of the taxation system in this country is a massive encouragement of avoidance and evasion—and you will get it. The black economy in Canada grew by $US5.7 billion. Something like one in three VATable transactions in the United Kingdom are avoided. The total black economy in Europe—which is now trying to get out of the goods and services tax at the same time that we are trying to get in—based on avoidance of goods and services taxes is the size of British GDP; the whole lot, not just a proportion of it.What this unfortunate Treasurer understands is this: he has got bad fiscal policy out of this. A tax package which already encroaches far too far on the surplus has at least another $3 billion hole punched in the surplus to put it in place. He was warned by his Treasury Secretary before this deal. His Treasury Secretary—not me—said to him, `The surpluses arrived at by the Labor government in the late eighties were bigger than the surpluses that you are reporting here.' Your Treasury Secretary said that. But changes in international conditions meant that they were eroded massively when an international recession was confronted. What he was warning you, Sport, was this: you encroach on your surplus any more and you will render the budgetary position of the Commonwealth highly vulnerable should there be any form of international downturn.But, above all, the Treasurer understands this. In one year from now, as distraught small business is confronted by his 4,000 new tax inspectors with a confusion of definitions, with a confusion in the prices of their fuel, who will be to blame? It will not, oddly enough, be John Howard. It will be him. They would have been furious with a goods and services tax at the best of times. They will be apoplectic about the goods and services tax and the fuel tax arrangements that they now confront, as they have one bureaucrat after another intruding into their operations: `Just there to be in partnership with you, boys.' This is a dog's breakfast. It is not tax reform. (Time expired)15:38:005657Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—In 15 minutes, did we hear one policy suggestion from the Australian Labor Party? After four years in opposition, has the Leader of the Opposition been able to announce one policy on indirect tax? Has he been able to enunciate one policy in relation to income tax? Has he come up with one idea on family allowance? Has he come up with one idea on Commonwealth-state relations? Has he come up with any memorable policy in four years of holding the office of Leader of the Opposition? I have been here for 10 years and I have seen as leaders of the opposition Andrew Peacock, John Howard and John Hewson, every one of whom thought it was their duty when they came to this dispatch box to enunciate a policy. They thought that it was the duty of a leader of an opposition to walk to that dispatch box and say, `Well, I am against such and such and what I would do, if I were given the great office of Prime Minister of Australia, is this.'The eerie silence over four years of no policy thought, no position, no enunciation, no intellectual curiosity, no curiosity at all about the tax system tells us either that this is a leader of the opposition who has been thrust into an office that he does not understand or that this is a leader of the opposition who can only hold his party together by opposing. I think millions of Australians will say, `Why is it that the Australian Labor Party has no ideas?' Can you think—and, Mr Deputy Speaker Jenkins, you would be one of these—the Australian Labor Party used to pride itself on being a party of ideas? It would have been unthinkable for the greats like Curtin and Chifley to have instructed their troops on their duty to ring Australian Democrat officers and ask Australian Democrat officers not to pass legislation. Can you think that a Curtin, a Chifley or a Whitlam—somebody who had some pride in their office and pride in their party—would say that the duty of their party was to ring a minor balance-of-power party in the Senate, under false names, to plead with them to not pass tax reform?I made the point in question time today: if the Australian Labor Party thought that tax reform was such a bad idea and that the government truly was going to suffer from reforming the tax system, would they not be passing it through? Would the Australian Labor Party not say—and I can remember saying it in opposition on many issues—`This is such a bad policy that we will pass it through and we will let the government live with it'? We used to do that all the time. We also used to respect the mandates of elected governments. But would the Australian Labor Party, if it really believed that, be ringing under nom de plumes to Australian Democrat officers pretending to be Australian Democrats and saying to them, `We are Australian Democrats. Don't pass this bill, don't pass this legislation, otherwise we will resign from the party'?What sort of a political performance is that? A real Labor leader—a Chifley, a Curtin or a Whitlam—would be standing at this dispatch box now outlining a vision for the country. They would be content to go out into the marketplace of ideas and put their vision through and have it settled in the electorate and come back to the parliament and have the parliament recognise the people's will. We are seeing something which is outside my experience. It is a party which has a permanent oppositionist mentality. There is now no thinking on Labor's part as to what would actually be in the national interest, what it would actually like the landscape to be if it ever came to office. I think there is now an understanding in the Labor Party that, because office looks so very far away, the Labor Party cannot bring itself to think about what could possibly be in its interests as a government and cannot bring itself to actually think about what it could do in the national interest.I often wondered about this point during the 1996 election when Mr Beazley was the Minister for Finance. I often wondered during that election why it was he made the statement, `We are in a position where we have made no plans to increase taxes. Why would we? We are operating in surplus and our projections are for surpluses in the future.' I have often wondered: was that deliberately dishonest or was it ignorance? Why would somebody who was presiding over a budget then $10 billion in deficit say in the lead-up to a March 1996 election that the budget was then in surplus? I have often thought about that and I have come to the conclusion that there is a very deep economic ignorance on the part of the Leader of the Opposition. I give him the benefit of the doubt: when he said that he may well have believed his statement, but there is I believe a very deep economic ignorance on the part of the Leader of the Opposition. He can stand here and he can say he is opposed to tax reform because it is eating into the surplus. Would he know what a surplus was?The Leader of the Opposition was the Minister for Finance in Australia and he presided over two budgets. One of the budgets had a deficit of $13 billion and the other had a deficit of $10 billion. In two years he presided over a cumulative budget deficit of $23 billion. In two years he rang up 25 per cent of Commonwealth debt. Mr Speaker, if you have credentials like that, would you stand up and make wild claims in this place that this government—which took a budget from a $10 billion deficit and put it into surplus—is being fiscally irresponsible? One of the claims he made—I think he made it in his speech—was that, if it were not for the tax policy, the budget would be in surplus by $20 billion. The net cost of the tax policy is $5 billion. If he made that claim, and that is how I heard it, it just shows that he does not understand the dimensions of a Commonwealth budget, nor does he understand the dimensions of the taxation system. Sure he can stand here and huff and puff, and speak in loud words—DT4CREANMr Crean—And blow the house down.CT4Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLO—He can engage in threats—and so too the Deputy Leader of the Opposition can do all of those things, making threats across the table as he is doing at the moment—but you will never get a policy. Does Labor have a tax scale? Labor is very good at voting down new tax scales, including a tax scale which would give people on average earnings the top marginal income tax rate of 30 per cent. We know what they are against. Do we know what they are for? Does Labor have an indirect tax policy? Does Labor ever walk to this dispatch box and say, `We support wholesale sales tax. We'll tell you why we support a 12 per cent rate, why goods at 12 per cent should not be at 22 per cent, why an iron should be at 12 per cent, why a toilet seat should be at 22 per cent. We will tell you the logic of our position'?Does the Labor Party walk to the dispatch box and say, `What's more, we'll tell you why a toilet seat should be at 22 per cent and a video at 32 per cent. We'll tell you why it is a good design for a tax system to have rates of 12, 22, 32, 35, 41 and 47 per cent'? Does the Labor Party walk to the dispatch box and say, `We'll tell you why we are opposed to removing financial institutions duty'? Does the Labor Party walk to the dispatch box and say, `We'll tell you why we think you could keep a stamp duty on share transactions'?We know what the Labor Party is against; the Labor Party is against everything. What we do not know is whether it is for anything. We know the Labor Party is against increases in family allowance because it is voting against them. We know that the Labor Party does not believe that there should be increased assistance for single income families and that there should not be increased assistance for families with children. We know what it is against. Do we know what it is for? We know the Labor Party is against a change in Commonwealth-state tax treatment. We know that it is opposing a growth tax for the states, but do we know what it is for?Mr Crean interjecting—CT4Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLO—Mr Speaker, we get these sorts of interjections—negative. Have you ever heard a policy come from the mouth of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition? Why would somebody go into public life—and I have asked myself this too—when they merely oppose everything. It is an interesting question for an opposition. Normally an opposition wants to get into government to change things. This opposition wants to get into government to keep things as they are. It is an extraordinary reversal. This opposition wants to come to office so that it can keep things the way they are currently. An opposition normally has a program. It normally wants to be elected to change things. Yet we have seen in this country in our time that all of the reform policy, all of the thinking, all of the development now lies with the coalition. This is where the coalition leads and the Labor Party reacts.I said yesterday that the Australian Labor Party is Australia's reactionary party, a party that wants to come to office to stop change, a party that expresses itself in negatives. I put a question rhetorically to the Leader of the Opposition as he scurried out of the chamber. I said, `Have you enunciated a policy?' and he said, `Yes, our policy is to oppose the GST.' Do you see how Labor defines itself? It defines itself in negatives. That is because they lack leadership and ideas, and because the disunity is so great the only way they can hold things together is by opposing everything.A few of the matters that the Leader of the Opposition raised strayed greatly from the facts. Here is the Labor Party saying, `We did a great job when we were running tax. Look at our record.' Okay, let us look at your record. In the 1993 budget, the Labor Party, after promising it was opposed to indirect tax rises, raised the wholesale sales tax take by $1.2 billion. It ran into an election saying that it was opposed to tax rises, got elected and put up wholesale sales taxes by $1.2 billion and then it took away all of the income tax cuts, which it put into l-a-w, which took away $3.5 billion.`Let's look at that record,' he says. What was that record? The record was to promise before the election no rises in indirect taxes, to get elected and put all indirect taxes up two per cent and put $1.3 billion on the taxpayers of Australia without compensation. What was that record? Their record was, before the election, to say to the people of Australia, `Here are your new tax scales. They are in l-a-w,' and this is the bill, the Taxation Legislation Amendment Act 1992. They ran to an election with that in law and then afterwards abolished those tax cuts at a cost of $3.5 billion. They have selective memory to stand at the dispatch box and say, `Judge us on our record.' We say yes, we will. We will judge you on your record all right, your record of deceit in the 1993 election.The second proposition put by the Leader of the Opposition was that Labor was committed to putting in place simplicity. This is the party that brought you the wholesale sales tax at 0, 12, 22, 32—I cannot even remember all the rates—45, 37, 41. This is the party that has got a bill which is thick with definitions on its indirect taxes. This is a party which has one rate for maps, one rate for geographical, topographical and astronomical globes. It has got a rate for goods ordinarily used for sealing moveable toilet pans. It has got a rate for moveable toilet seats. It has got a rate for the kitchen sink. Then Mr Beazley says, `Oh, one of our great simplicities was the fringe benefits tax.'It would have been instructive, I believe, for the trade union officials that make up Labor's shadow cabinet to have engaged in business. Labor proposes that it introduced simplicity with the fringe benefits tax, which is probably the most complicated tax yet invented by man. These claims are, of course, false. They are as false as the claims that somehow Labor is now committed to a surplus; they are as false as the claims that the Labor Party has the national interest at heart; they are as false as the Labor Party's claims that it is a credible opposition; and they are as false as the Labor Party's claims to office. This is an opposition which is right about one thing: it is the worst in Australian history. (Time expired)15:53:005660Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—For the first time since this government was re-elected this Treasurer has been forced to come into the House and defend a dog's breakfast of a tax. He has not responded to one matter of public importance on the economy in the whole time he has been here, but he is in here defending this dog of a tax that is now a dog's breakfast and has now got the dogs barking—and bark they might because it is starting to unravel. Within three days of this great agreement being struck between the government and the Democrats we are now hearing Meg Lees publicly repenting on that which she privately signed up to on Friday night—publicly repenting over the last 48 hours—because this man dudded her. This man has sucked her into agreeing to an unpopular tax that simply cannot be made fair.The trouble with this government is not just its policies; it is that you cannot trust it. This is a government whose word cannot be believed. If anyone wants any indication of that, ask Senator Harradine, who was dudded in relation to the youth allowance, and ask the Democrats, who were dudded in relation to the industrial relations legislation. That which they signed up to was not honoured in its action by the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business when he sent the dogs and the balaclavas in at midnight to sack an entire work force simply because they belonged to a union. That was in direct breach of its own legislation negotiated with the Democrats, and this government breached it in the action. How can you trust this government? The simple truth is that you cannot.What we have seen over the last 72 hours is the Treasurer sneering in his duplicity to undermine this tax. We saw him on the Sunday program Meet the Press where he was asked about the complexities in this tax system and, instead of trying to address them, he said, `Go and ask the Democrats. Don't ask us; ask the Democrats.' We saw him in the parliament yesterday sneeringly refer to the chook clause, which of course has got this government in such a mess in terms of the publicity attaching to this tax. And we saw last night this great funny man—the funny man who was recognising 25 years in parliament of the person whose job he is after—sneering about the Democrats' definition of a cake contained in amendments which, at one stage in question time today, he told us he had signed up to.What we have is a Treasurer working behind the scenes to undermine the agreement that was entered into last Friday. The Prime Minister is desperate to keep it up because, unless he does, his job is on the line, but there is no problem for the Treasurer if that outcome occurs. This is something that the Treasurer would dearly savour. This is something that the Treasurer would cut the Prime Minister loose around because this Treasurer is not committed to anything except his own future. This is a person of no principles, no integrity, no sincerity and, certainly, no policy competence.There should be no vote on this agreement in the Senate until at least two things happen: first, we see the details of what is in the agreement—in particular in relation to what food is in or out—and, second, we need to have another Premiers Conference to ensure that there is again agreement about the Commonwealth-state relations that were supposed to have been such a central point of the earlier tax package. If the government is not prepared to come clean in terms of the detail of its proposals or to strike a new deal with the state governments about what their share is into the future there should be no vote on this package in the Senate. It is incumbent upon the government to ensure that this detail is made available so that when that legislation is brought in—whenever it is brought in—we are voting on all the facts.It is not just Labor that argues that what we need is transparency in terms of the details. In relation to the negotiations that Senator Harradine was involved in with the government—the compensation package that he rejected; the speech that resulted in him saying `I cannot'—Senator Lees herself said:I think all reasonable Australians, including Senator Harradine, would expect this package to be dealt with above the negotiating table and not below it.Spot-on! That is precisely what we demand in terms of this package, negotiated in secret and so riddled with flaws, as we have been ensuring comes out over the last couple of days.This is a nightmare on Main Street, to use the Treasurer's own term. Today we had the Treasurer admitting that he agrees with the definition of cake that is going to be included—you know, this is going to be the simple new package. The definition of food, from the Senate record, starts off saying it is GST free, unless it is a bakery product. And what is a bakery product? A bakery product has to contain a mixture of flour and eggs. What if it does not? It is out; it is GST free. It goes on to talk about what bread is, because bread is GST free. But Senator Lees went on national radio this morning—at least in Victoria, which has now got national prominence—to argue that we need to put a national definition of bread, a recipe for bread, into the tax legislation. This government is not engaged in tax reform; it is writing a cookbook, and it is a joke to suggest that people can make up their minds when they go into a bakery shop as to whether the bread complies with the national recipe. In another bakery shop, they have to determine whether a cake has eggs or flour in it.What sort of nonsense is this? It is the nonsense that this government is going to foist on this nation in its blind determination to get up a tax that no-one wants. This is not tax reform. The government is after the cooks, it is after the chooks and it is after the books, but it won't chase the crooks! It will do nothing in terms of tax avoidance and ensuring that people pay their fair share. It is struggling over the definitions of which chook is in and which chook is out, what condition that chook is in, if it is in, and what it is in if it is out. We have got the Democrats selling out on their principle to ensure books are taxfree, and they are in the process of writing a cookbook, not framing tax reform.The simple truth of the matter is that this is an unfair tax and it cannot be made fair. It is now being turned into a nightmare compliance of a tax, and there will be thousands of small business people around the country who will throw up their hands in horror—in relation to not only the food definitions but also the diesels. We are going to see the spectacle of the tax inspectors that this government is spending another $60 million on out of the recrafted package being equipped with two essential items—a thermometer in one hand for the chickens and a dipstick in the other hand for the diesel—to determine whether or not the exemption applies and to determine whether the chook is in or the chook is out. This is a nightmare on Main Street, a nightmare on Baker Street and a nightmare on Highway 1. It is a nonsense of a tax.Let me say this: for the Treasurer who argues that Labor has not put forward an alternative, I would suggest that he and his colleagues read the speech that I made at the National Press Club a fortnight ago. In that speech I not only demonstrated why we do not need a GST but also argued that we should be able to get tax reform without a GST—tax reform that is fair to families, tax reform that gives back the amount of bracket creep, tax reform that makes our businesses more competitive, tax reform that would ensure that people pay their fair share of tax. That is Labor's alternative, but we will fight to the wire to defeat this tax because it is a tax against jobs, it is an unfair tax and it is a tax that this country does not need. We support tax reform but we support it without the GST. (Time expired)16:03:005662Nairn, Gary, MPMr NAIRNOK6Eden-MonaroLP10—It is certainly my pleasure to support the Treasurer in opposing this ridiculous so-called matter of public importance raised by the opposition. I note that in their matter of public importance they talk about efficiency, fairness and certainty in a taxation system, and they are applying that comment to the new tax system introduced by the government. I guess they must be comparing it with something, and we heard some ramblings by the Leader of the Opposition—who I thought was going to have a coronary at one stage—about something that he did when he was in government. So it is very fair for me to compare the new tax system proposed by the government with the existing tax system.When you look at efficiency, fairness and certainty, there really is no comparison. Let us take efficiency first of all. I got a definition of `efficiency' out of the dictionary: `Productive, with minimum waste or effort.' Compare the current wholesale sales tax system with the proposed goods and services tax system with regard to efficiency. The wholesale sales tax system, as we heard the Treasurer say today, now has rates of zero, 12 per cent, 22 per cent, 32 per cent, 37 per cent, 41 per cent and 45 per cent. It does not sound very efficient to me, compared with a system that will have only a 10 per cent GST, with some things being exempt. There is a big difference in efficiency. What sort of efficiency is there in a system which has some baby products, like nappy wipes, baby baths, cleaning sponges and baby's bottles, taxed at 12 per cent—something that the Labor Party constantly tries to hide—but then if you buy a teething ring, nappy wash, steriliser, baby oil, soap lotion, bath wash, petroleum jelly, lanolin, infant strawberry milk powder, cot mobiles, infant pacifiers or other baby products, you pay 22 per cent tax.That lot over there talk about battlers and people trying to get a start. Young married couples are a very big part of this economy, and they ramble on about 10 per cent GST on various things when their system has a 22 per cent sales tax on those sorts of baby products and a 12 per cent tax on just about everything else.Let us go to sport and leisure. We have often heard the lot on the other side rabbiting on about how people will not do sport anymore because of a 10 per cent GST. How efficient is a system that has a 32 per cent sales tax on things like binoculars, which are used in many sports, but things like camping gear, tents, tarpaulins, ropes, travel wear, handbags, baskets, tourist maps, wallets, leather goods, key rings and pools are taxed at 22 per cent? How efficient is a system where a lot of things that are all very similar are taxed at 32 per cent or 22 per cent or 12 per cent or not taxed at all. Some things are taxed at one rate and then taxed at a different rate if they are used for another purpose. On efficiency alone, when you make any comparison between the current system and the system proposed, the MPI is thrown out.I have one other example in the efficiency area, and it is something I know a bit about. We heard the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition rabbiting on about small business, but not a single one of them has been near a business in their life, and thank God they have not. Look what they have done to the economy of Australia—they would kill any small business. If you look along the frontbench, you will see a political hack, a union member, a political hack, a union member. That is their background. They have never been anywhere near business.Let me tell you about the use of the wholesale sales tax in my business, the surveying and mapping business. It is unfortunate that a few of those from the other side are not here to learn something. When you produce a map, you take an aerial photograph. You then develop that aerial photograph and you produce a print and a transparency. You then put that through a process called photogrammetry, and that introduces an individual to the process. When that individual maps off the stereo-image of the two aerial photographs they pass that into a computer. From there, it goes through a printing process and is then put out as the final product.During that process you have to charge a different rate of wholesale sales tax on the photographic paper. There is no tax on the taking of the aerial photograph, but there is a different sales tax rate for the printing process of the aerial photographs. There is no sales tax on the work done by the photogrammetrist, but there is another rate for when the map is printed. All through this process you have to keep track of all of the times and the costs, et cetera, apply a different rate to different parts and come up with an end price. And they talk about complexity. There are many small businesses who know very well the complexities and the stupidity of the current wholesale sales tax.Let us move to fairness. A definition of fairness is just, unbiased and equitable. What is fair in a system where you get a $12 per week rise but you end up with less than two bucks in your pocket? What is fair in a system where if you are earning $26,000 per year—in a family with one income and dependants—and the boss says to you, `You have done a great job, we're going to give you a big rise to a new position and you are going to be earning $33,000 a year,' you and your family end up being $1,000 per year worse off? How fair is that system? Where is the incentive to improve yourself? That is the system we have currently got. That is a system that the Labor Party wants to stick with. Compare that to the system that we are introducing where 80 per cent of taxpayers will pay a maximum marginal rate of 30c.There will be a real incentive for people to work that extra hour of overtime. There will be a real incentive for people to work harder and better, and to get a promotion, to earn more because they will not be taxed, and they will not lose benefits and other things that will make them worse off. What is fair in a system, as the Treasurer pointed out earlier, that taxes toothpaste at 22 per cent and the toothbrush at nothing? Probably those on the other side would say, `That is all right; people might be doing it tough so they can actually get by without the toothpaste.' I have done that when I have been surveying in the bush and camping out in the bush and I have run out of toothpaste. I then got a bit of soap and put that on the toothbrush. Those opposite would say, `If you are a battler you might be able to do that.' Sorry, soap is taxed at 22 per cent. It does not make any difference. That is the sort of fair system that that lot over there had.What was fair when in 1993 they said, `No new taxes and no increase in taxes,' but then up went wholesale sales tax from 10 to 12 per cent, 20 to 22 and 30 to 32? What was fair about that? What did you give the pensioners at that time? Absolutely nothing, not a single cent. There was no compensation at all for the increase in wholesale sales tax on those myriad things. Compare that to our system where we will be overcompensating. Pensioners will be getting a two per cent increase in real terms. That was not done right through the 13 years of Labor.The other word in this MPI is certainty. The only certainty about the ALP is that they have no tax plan at all; they support an inefficient and unfair system. The ALP are embarrassed that the Democrats have done what they thought they would not do. They are embarrassed because they have been taken out of the game. They took themselves out of the game, in fact. They are left as the negative, whingeing, whining, irrelevant party in federal politics. They spent 13 years in government wrecking the economy, constantly overspending, throwing one million people on the scrap heap and doing nothing. Now they want to oppose everything. They tried to stop us getting the budget into surplus but they failed. They tried to stop us reforming workplace relations but they failed, and now they are trying to stop tax reform. They are the inefficient unfair opposition and the only certainty is that they will stay in opposition for a long time.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Andrews)—Order! The time for this debate has expired.Miscellaneous566410000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Andrews)—I advise the House that the Acting Deputy Speaker has fixed Wednesday, 2 June 1999, at 9.40 a.m., as the time for the next meeting of the Main Committee, unless an alternative day or hour is fixed.Miscellaneous5664Motion (by Mr Ronaldson)—by leave—agreed to:That the following bills be referred to the Main Committee for consideration: Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1999 Taxation Laws Amendment (CPI Indexation) Bill 1999 Taxation Laws Amendment (Demutualisation of Non-insurance Mutual Entities) Bill 1999 Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 6) 1999 Criminal Code Amendment (Bribery of Foreign Public Officials) Bill 1999 Damage by Aircraft Bill 1999 Committees5664566456645664Jenkins, Harry, MPMr JENKINSHH4ScullinALP00—I present the report of the Selection Committee relating to the consideration of committee and delegation reports and private members business on Monday, 7 June 1999. 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 reports and private Members' business on Monday, 7 June 1999Pursuant to standing order 331, 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, 7 June 1999. The order of precedence and the allotments of time determined by the Committee are shown in the list.COMMITTEE AND DELEGATION REPORTSPresentation and statements1 TREATIES—JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE: 21st Report.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 precedenceOrders of the day1SUPERANNUATION (ENTITLEMENTS OF SAME SEX COUPLES) BILL 1998 (Mr Albanese ): Second reading (from 7 December 1998) .Time allotted—15 minutes for mover or until mover has completed his speech, whichever occurs first. The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.2EMPLOYEE PROTECTION (WAGE GUARANTEE) BILL 1999 (Mrs Crosio ): Second reading (from 8 March 1999 ).Time allotted—15 minutes for mover or until mover has completed her speech, whichever occurs first.The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.Notices1Mr Cadman to move:That the House:(1) endorses the continuing protection of the law to prevent discrimination in the workplace;(2) acknowledges the disproportionate impact of unfair dismissal laws on the confidence of small business employers to employ additional people to their workforce;(3) condemns the continuation of unfair dismissal laws for businesses employing fewer than fifteen people; and(4) calls on the Senate to reverse its opposition to the removal of unfair dismissal laws.Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 1.45 p.m.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.2Mr 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. Time allotted—30 minutes.Speech time limits—Mover of motion—10 minutes.Other Members—10 minutes each.The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.3Mr Hardgrave to move:That this House acknowledges the strong and vital contribution made to the values which underpin Australian society by Irish immigrants and their descendants.Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time.Speech time limits—Each Member—5 minutes.The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.Bills5665r8075665Debate resumed from 31 May, on motion by Mr Costello:That the bill be now read a second time.16:17:005665Entsch, Warren, MPMr ENTSCH7K6LeichhardtLP10—It gives me great pride to rise this afternoon to speak in the House on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1999-2000 , on our coalition government's fourth budget and on the benefits it has for the people of Far North Queensland, particularly for my electorate of Leichhardt. On coming into this House in 1996, we were faced with a Commonwealth government debt of almost $90,000 million, which meant in effect that, before we could offer a cent to deal with social issues in this country, we had to repay $9,000 million of interest payments alone every year—and that was without the payment of one cent in debt reduction. What we have achieved in four budgets is something that I can proudly say I played a small part in achieving.In spite of the accusations from the other side of being mean-spirited, we have taken a very responsible approach to dealing with this massive debt. We have, from the outset, made a commitment to our children that we will not be burdening them with the excesses of our generation and we have embarked on a program of government debt reduction which, in my view, is unprecedented in this country. Unlike some of our political predecessors, we have not conceded to populist policies that might well have given us a longer term in government but would certainly have led to a much longer period in the economic wilderness or, in the worst case, to economic ruin for all future generations of Australians. Everything that we have committed ourselves to in our past four budgets has been from moneys available from our tax base. We have met all of our interest payments in full, funded every government program and initiative in full without raising income tax or wholesale sales tax for the entire tenure of our government, and we have reduced government debt. All of this was achieved without borrowing a single cent.Let me, for one moment, dwell on some of our economic achievements which, quite frankly, are unprecedented and certainly make me proud to stand in this House as a member of the Howard coalition government. We have the lowest personal and business interest rates for the last 30 years and the lowest sustained inflation rate for over 30 years. We will have, with this budget, reduced government debt by some $24,000 million since 1996. And we have reduced unemployment to 7.4 per cent—the lowest in almost a decade—and this rate is continuing to fall with record numbers of new jobs being created.This may well sound like blowing my own trumpet, but these achievements have been recognised by all credible economic institutions and analysts. I should remind the members of this House that this has been achieved in spite of the greatest-ever economic crisis to hit the region of South-East Asia. So great has been the recognition of our economic management that Standard and Poor's recently upgraded our credit rating to AAA plus. This recent budget of course goes further. If we are able to continue down the same track, we will have achieved what no government has achieved since Federation. By the year 2003 we are poised to deliver a budget that will, for the first time since 1901, ensure that the Commonwealth of Australia will be absolutely and totally debt free. The significance of this achievement must never be underestimated. It will mean that every dollar we take in taxes can be spent on the Australian people, whether it be on health education, social services or much-needed additional resources to rebuild our flagging national infrastructure. This is almost impossible for the average Australian to comprehend, given their long-term slavery to interest rates, but it is very much a reality.If I achieve nothing else in parliament but the payment in full of the debt of my political predecessors, I will have achieved way beyond my expectations. I will, in effect, be handing down the finances of this magnificent country to my children and my children's children knowing that we have paid our way and that they can start with a clean slate. There are some economic Einsteins on the other side who are demanding that we spend the budget surplus. They and the Australian public need to be reminded that this money has already been squandered by our predecessors in an effort to buy the Australian voters at any cost. All we are doing is repaying the debt of Labor's past excesses, so we really do not have any choice. Sometimes someone has to make the hard decisions and accept responsibility to pay the bills, and that is exactly what we are doing.Dealing with the specifics of the budget and being the parochial individual that I am, I will focus on my own electorate, Leichhardt. The $10 million allocated for the upgrading of the Cairns southern access road was certainly good news. This funding will enable the Portsmith Road to be upgraded to four lanes and will relieve chronic congestion experienced on a daily basis during peak-hour traffic. This announcement was personally very satisfying for me as I have been pursuing these funds with vigour for the last couple of years.The first step was achieved when the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, John Anderson, earlier this year signed-off on the declaration that Portsmith Road become part of the roads of national importance, thereby bringing it under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth. Portsmith Road provides an alternative route into the Cairns CBD and currently carries up to 20,000 vehicles per day. I know that all those using this road will be thankful for this upgrade as they will travel on it in and out of the city much more quickly and safely once it is completed.The Queensland transport minister, Mr Steve Bredhauer, has predictably been critical of the fact that the funding is to be spread over an 18-month period. While I would certainly have preferred to see the upgrade sooner rather than later, at least I know we are dealing with real money rather than deceptions. Mr Bredhauer should be reminded of his deathly silence in 1996 when, on attaining government, we discovered the $21 million committed by Mr Bredhauer's factional colleague for the commencement of the Edmondton bypass was in fact an illusion with absolutely no funds set aside in forward estimates. This meant that we had to totally fund the project ourselves despite facing a $10,500 billion dollar deficit that his colleagues guaranteed did not exist.I am also very pleased to see the ongoing commitment to black spot road funding with a further $109 million announced in this budget. Cairns and the region have been very successful in the past in accessing black spot money to remedy some of our major trouble spots, including some extremely dangerous intersections in the Cairns city area, some very dangerous curves on the Kuranda range, some dangerous sections of the Captain Cook Highway—some resealing was carried out and some safety barriers installed—and a section of the Bloomfield Road near the Wujal Wujal community. All this has been achieved by working in partnership with local authorities and in particular the Cairns City Council and the Mayor, Tom Pyne. I am confident we can achieve even more with black spot funding in future.Another great initiative was the establishment of the Australian Taxation Office shopfronts in regional centres including Cairns. I see this as a major step forward in re-establishing a tax office presence in Cairns after our tax office was removed by stealth by our predecessors in a decision made in 1995 and deliberately concealed until after the 1996 election.The Minister for Sport and Tourism, Jackie Kelly, announced $8 million worth of regional tourism initiatives when she was recently in Cairns. I am very pleased to see that in this budget this commitment has been doubled to $16 million over the next three years. Far North Queensland is renowned worldwide for the diversity and quality of its ecotourism experiences, from the pristine rainforest to the Great Barrier Reef to the unique savanna and outback region.One organisation that has benefited from this initiative has been our Savanna Guides. Savanna Guides was established as a non-profit company by the Gulf Local Authorities Development Association and it draws individuals from local communities in outback northern Australia, giving them the opportunity to be accredited to strict standards of operation and to abide by professional codes of conduct, thereby resulting in high quality tourism products being available across northern Australia, cooperatively marketed using the network's human and financial resources. This organisation has enjoyed astounding success and has proved to be an effective way of ensuring that individuals living in remote communities have, for the first time in a really long time, the opportunity of finding rewarding careers in the tourism industry based in those communities without having to relocate themselves and their families to the cities or metropolitan areas.One of the first success stories was the tourist operation at the Lava Tubes near Mount Surprise, run by Gerry Collins and his family. Recently we have seen the Tricontinental Mine Site at Mount Mulligan and the Mareeba Wetlands become part of the Savanna Guides network. Quality ecotourism is a catchcry of the tourism industry. Savanna Guides is a leader in this field. The federal funding they have received in this package is recognition of their magnificent work. I can see them, without doubt, becoming a tourism icon well into the future.I would urge other tourism operators in those remote areas of my electorate wanting to develop tourism ideas to follow the lead of another proactive group led by Ian Prewitt of Weipa, the West Cape York Tourism Associa tion, and apply through the regional tourism initiative for funding support.Another great winner in my electorate was the James Cook University, with the extra 450 places promised in the October election fully funded in this budget. This, coupled with the funding of the new medical school established at JCU's Townsville campus with 60 places initially being made available—of which 15 places are being set aside for remote bush kids and five places for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island kids—will go a long way in providing valuable and desperately needed doctors in remote areas of my electorate where small communities are constantly faced with the uncertainty and problems associated with the high turnover of medical staff. It will also ensure that we will have more highly qualified Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders returning to their communities to provide primary health care to their own people.Health was another big winner in this budget, particularly in regional Australia with $40.8 million dollars being committed for 30 new health centres for regional areas across Australia. These centres will include medical services, palliative care, women's medical services, children's services and many other necessary health services. A further $2 million from the budget will go towards providing extra beds for aged people in these regional health centres.In another great initiative, the women living in remote areas of Cape York will for the first time have access to female medical practitioners, with $8.2 million being allocated to initiate a scheme of fly-in, fly-out female practitioners to assist women in rural and remote communities with any medical problems. This is something that is very much welcomed by the women in the remoter parts of my electorate, who certainly live in some of the most inaccessible areas of Australia. It is something they have been hoping to achieve for a long time, and I think it will go a long way to encouraging these women to focus primarily on their own health rather than just that of their families.Another $19 million has been set aside to establish a further 600 additional Easyclaim facilities in remote and regional areas, giving individuals and families direct access to rebates rather than their enduring waiting periods of up to a month. These types of facilities have already been established in my electorate, in Kuranda and Mossman, and have proved to be an outstanding success. I welcome the extension of the scheme.The announcement of the Lifetime Health Cover scheme, linking premiums directly to the age a person starts private health cover will, I am sure, go a long way to enticing people back into private health cover. The 12-month grace period will give everybody the opportunity of joining without penalties and the cut-off age of 65 will certainly go towards protecting older Australians. This, coupled with the 30 per cent rebate, should provide much needed incentives to encourage greater participation in private health insurance funds.While we often get caught up with the `big ticket' budget items such as health and education, it is easy to overlook some other positive initiatives. One which I am particularly pleased to see announced is the $15 million to be spent over the next three years on marriage and relationship education and support networks for men. It is no secret that men in our community are less comfortable than women in accessing existing family relationship support services. By offering services designed specifically to help men, the government hopes to be able to open the lines of communication and help partners relate better to one another. At this point I would like to acknowledge the wonderful work of the Cairns Child Support Advocacy Agency, with a special mention for Rob Weekes and the wonderful Sue Meehan, who has given countless hours to supporting men in need in the Cairns region. It is organisations such as this that I believe need to be in the forefront of receiving government support so that they can carry on their valuable community work.The allocation of $20 million towards the new headquarters for our own 51st Far North Queensland Regiment and a permanent base for the two naval hydrographic ships recently built by NQEA in Cairns is great news for our area. This is a positive indication that at last Cairns is seeing a greater financial commitment from the federal government towards broadening our economic base through the provision of increased Commonwealth services.The budget also committed a further $1 million to the Torres Strait Regional Authority to assist in expediting native title determinations in the Torres Strait. This is one of the final hurdles to fulfilling the federal government's commitment to giving full recognition of the separate culture, plus greater autonomy to the Torres Strait people by the year 2000. This is a commitment that was made by the Prime Minister when he visited the Torres Strait a couple of years ago.The appropriation of $5 million, to be matched by a corresponding amount from the Queensland government, as part of the infrastructure catch-up program will also go a long way to providing additional, much needed housing in the Torres Strait region. An additional $79 million for indigenous primary health care and the extension of the very successful Army-ATSIC Community Assistance Program was warmly welcomed in my electorate. In fact, we have an application in at the moment through this Army program to actually get an airstrip built on Duaun Island in the Torres Strait. It is one of the only islands left in the Torres Strait that has room that does not have an airstrip on it. As a consequence, the people there can access services only by fairly extended dinghy rides in sometimes very treacherous seas. This may well afford them the opportunity of being able to get their own airstrip, and that is something that I know Margaret Mau, the chairman there, has been pushing for very hard.On the broader picture, the doubling of the very successful Work for the Dole programs to 50,000 places, and the additional incentive payments of $1,000 to employers to progress new apprentices to higher skills in trades will, I am sure, see an ongoing decline in the level of unemployment.Finally, the historic commitment of an additional $614 million over six years for health and medical research is unprecedented for any government. I believe that it will ensure that Australia will remain at the forefront of medical research, science and biotechnology. Given the focus on this area of science now, I was pleased to see that our government has afforded it the priority that it rightfully deserves. This $614 million doubles the current commitment. We have already gained recognition for the quality of our science and the quality of our researchers, and I think this will mean not only that it will continue to be recognised as up there with the best, but also that the Australian public will be able to continue to safely reap the benefits of all the cutting edge technology.Leichhardt has done well in this budget, as has the rest of the nation. I again say that I am proud to be part of a government that has adopted such a responsible attitude to the management of our great nation. I commend the bill to the House.16:37:005669Ferguson, Martin, MPMr MARTIN FERGUSONLS4BatmanALP00—In addressing the second reading debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1999-2000 , one gets an opportunity to comment on the budget. I personally believe that a budget is exceptionally important for a government. A budget is a chance to take stock of the nation, a chance to set out priorities and outline a plan to achieve them. That is in essence the nature of the debate before the chair this afternoon. However, in taking stock of the Australian nation in 1999, the most pressing economic and social blight on the landscape is the chronically high level of unemployment that has plagued us for a quarter of a century. It has been a challenge to all of us. With over 700,000 Australians officially unemployed, many more underemployed and many more who have left the work force due to a lack of opportunity, the labour market today should rank highly among our government's priorities—or so you would think.Before we even look at the solutions that a budget should be providing, we need to understand what is at the heart of the problem. We need to look at what is constraining the security, the opportunities and the hopes of so many Australians. That takes me to the context in which the budget was set. I refer in passing to the fact that the past three decades in Australia—and, I suggest, internationally—have seen economic and social change on a massive scale. Gender attitudes and roles have changed dramatically. Our past notions of family and marriage—as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker—are being redefined. We are being challenged to address questions of cultural identity and technology is changing the way we interact.Political discourse of the past few years suggests that we have not been entirely successful in meeting the challenges posed by such changes. In this context of broad social change, the labour market has also unfortunately changed—for the better for some but, unfortunately, for the worse for others. We have seen increased female participation in the work force, increasing male joblessness, a shift from full-time to part-time and casual employment, widening wage dispersion despite the best endeavours of all in the community to reduce it in some instances and, last but not least, stubbornly high unemployment. The work force is more marginalised and less secure than ever before. That is the truth of the matter.In 1999, the work force in Australia is more marginalised and less secure than ever. It is a challenge to all of us to try to build a sense of security back into the lives of Australian workers and their families. Many of those working part time want to work longer and many of those working full time want to work less. That is the nature of the debate. Members of this House need to try to come to terms with that debate. The literature is quite clear on what is driving these trends: increasing competition in the economy. This competition, like many of the social changes I mentioned, can represent real progress for our society. However, while new challenges bring new opportunities for many of us, for some they bring new fears and more insecurity.We know the world is changing and we know that it will continue to change, so let us think about how we can deal with change—as individuals, as communities and as governments. One option—and it is not an option that I support—is to have faith that unmanaged change will ultimately benefit us all. It never has in the past and it never will in the future. We are naive if we believe that this will deliver fulfilling lives. It never has and it never will. Moving forward together requires a commitment. It requires us to develop strategies, both preventions and cures, to deal with change to make more people secure. It is not so much change itself that breeds insecurity but the feeling that we are helpless in the face of change. Security depends not only on the scale of change but also on our personal adaptability and our family and social support networks. That raises the debate about the role of government.On that score, I suggest to the House that the Howard government has failed, partly because it has failed to provide the reskilling opportunities people need to adapt in a dynamic labour market but also because policy makers have neglected the support mechanisms that people rely on. For those interested in human welfare it must be a grave concern that, at a time of major change, government is not expanding family and community support mechanisms. The assumption—and it is a wrong assumption—that everyone can look after themselves is a dangerous assumption for the individuals concerned, for the community and for our society as a whole. For example, just ask the 200,000 long-term unemployed, their families and their communities about the assumption that we can all look after ourselves without any support from the community or any sense of decency or any involvement from governments.It is simply not enough for the government to encourage people to lower their expectations. As we move towards a new century, the government should not expect people to lower their expectations. It should not expect that those facing perpetual change in their lives should lower their expectations on an ongoing basis. Australia is better than that. It is a great nation. It is a dynamic nation that ought to be encouraging people to pursue opportunities and to raise their expectations. It is in this context that we must measure this budget. How does it improve the ability of the economy and individual Australians within it to adapt?Let us go to the issue of the budget. I suggest to the House this afternoon that the government's priorities are clear. It is a job destroying budget based on a job destroying tax—and that is becoming more and more evident as we delve into the fine detail of the so-called Howard-Democrat tax package of last Friday. It is going to be a job destroying tax because of those changes in the years ahead. Let us talk about the issue of jobs. Let us talk about the fact that 200,000 Australians have been unemployed for 12 months or more. Let us talk about the fact that over 700,000 Australians are officially registered as unemployed today.I would have thought that there would have been a major endeavour by any decent government in the face of those facts to create some decent training and job opportunities in this budget. But, by way of comparison, on the issue of a new tax, I find when I go into the small print of the budget papers that this budget actually dedicates more funding to the installation of computers for the Taxation Office to implement a GST than to new employment initiatives. That is what the budget does. It spends more on computers to implement a new GST—a job destroying tax package—than it does on employment initiatives aimed at getting those Australians who want to raise their expectations and to pursue incentives to actually get back to work and to create a better opportunity for them, for their families, for their communities and for Australia as a nation.The budget reveals the true extent of this government's ambition. They are, unfortunately, content with a rate of 7.5 per cent unemployment in June of next year, not this year. In fact, the Treasurer's five per cent unemployment target very quickly became a thing of the past. I go to the comments of the Australian Financial Review, because I believe Paul Cleary summed it up very neatly when he said:The Howard government has not presented a strategy for reducing unemployment to five per cent, and only hints in the budget papers at possible solutions.Paul Cleary is right. The Australian community deserved better than what is before the House this afternoon. But, given this government's policy failure on job creation, you might think that they would want to give it a higher priority. The fact is that in 39 months they have created barely one-third of the number of full-time jobs Labor created in its last 39 months. The fact is that after three years there are more people who are long-term unemployed today than when the government began to slash the comprehensive jobs programs that existed prior to its election in March of 1996.ANZ Bank Chief Economist Saul Eslake is spot-on when he says that even the recent fall in unemployment has been driven by falling participation, not by more jobs. That is, we have an unemployment rate that can only come down on the back of despair, not hope. Men and women who are unemployed are giving up any hope of finding a job, because they have no faith in this government and no faith in the budget strategy that is before the House this afternoon. They are the facts—not rhetoric, but the facts. The facts speak loud and clear. Unemployment is of crisis proportions in Australia today. The budget strategy should have been about getting Australia back to work. You would think that these facts would weigh heavily on the government's mind—weigh heavily on the mind of the Prime Minister, weigh heavily on the mind of the Treasurer.I dare suggest that I would have thought better of the Democrats. In seeking to rejig the GST tax package, where is their so-called commitment to Australia's unemployed and doing better in respect of training opportunities that get them back to work? The Democrats, with the support of the Prime Minister and Treasurer, not only failed on the tax front but also failed on the unemployment front. Rather than using the budget as an opportunity to take stock, rather than using the budget to set out the government's priorities, rather than using the budget to face up to the nation's major economic and social problems, all we have is another wasted opportunity. That is what it is—yet another wasted opportunity from a budget point of view. Not content with slashing labour market assistance in the past, the government has reduced the number of people that will have access to intensive assistance under the Job Network. We all know the teething problems that the Job Network has experienced over the last 20 months.But it gets worse. Intensive assistance has already fallen from 399,000 commencements in 1994-95 to 325,000 in 1998-99. Now it is projected to fall further, to 300,000 places in 1999-2000. What do they offer in return? More Work for the Dole. Work for the Dole is being massively expanded, despite, I might say, the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs's report—a recent evaluation—released just last week. That evaluation defies everything the Minister for Employment Services has been saying. According to the evaluation, and it is very interesting reading, employment—and I stress this—is not an objective of Work for the Dole. That is what they tell us. I would have thought that any program that this government pursued, from the point of view of the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs or the Minister for Employment Services, would have had as its central objective getting people back to work. But the report on Work for the Dole says that employment is not an objective.Further, according to the evaluation, Work for the Dole adds nothing to participants' self-esteem. Perhaps the minister should think twice before calling them `job snobs'. But, more importantly, according to the evaluation, Work for the Dole compares unfavourably to past programs, such as wage subsidies and job clubs—programs this government slashed on the basis of blind ideology. Work for the Dole has in some ways been a flop. It is time to turn it into a real labour market program with the accredited training that employers demand and the unemployed need. The expansion of Work for the Dole for school leavers has clearly not been thought through, nor has the more recent expansion.The budget also introduced the rural and regional apprenticeship scheme. But again they short-changed rural Australia. They short-changed rural and regional Australia by $40 million. They promised $90 million and delivered $50 million. This is the Treasurer that—I might remind the House—introduced the so-called charter of budget honesty. He has some explaining to do to regional Austral ia when it comes to budget honesty about the rural and regional apprenticeship scheme.The budget did have one redeeming feature on employment. It was an announcement that received the support of this side of the House. It goes to the revitalisation of Labor's indigenous employment initiatives—the same ones this government wiped out three years ago. Of course, there were three years, unfortunately, of wasted opportunities, but they have almost restored direct funding to 1996 levels. Unsurprisingly, indirect funding remains barely half of what Labor provided, but you cannot expect too much from this government. At least they acknowledged, after three years of denial, that Labor's approach worked.This budget has confirmed what we know of the Howard government agenda: make life harder for the unemployed. It is easy to cut wages, cut welfare and cut labour market assistance. Remember this agenda? It was the Prime Minister a few years back, one John Howard, who said, `That is the way forward.' It is also the agenda that produced the massive increase in poverty in New Zealand, which has a GST, and it is back again. So, if you want to make life harder for workers and you want to make life harder for the unemployed, who are you in it for? We all know the answer to that one. Remember the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, in Perth, not that long ago, saying:Never forget the history of politics—never forget which side we're on—we're on the side of making profits.The point this government cannot understand is that there are alternatives which do not leave people behind. If we choose to, we can move forward together, but that requires a commitment. Everyone else in the community, even business, is prepared to make that commitment, but not this government.The government do not understand that policy must be fair as well as efficient. If they understood fairness, they would address the work incentives issue through in-work benefits rather than making life harder for the unemployed; they would reward work rather than punishing the victims. If they understood fairness, they would expand the demand for labour through wage subsidies rather than suggesting cuts to wages of the lowly paid. Wages are not just a cost of employing; they are also a source of livelihood. If they understood fairness, they would provide the unemployed with real work experience and accredited training rather than an inefficient Work for the Dole program. If they understood fairness, they would protect workers against the vagaries of unscrupulous employers rather than conspiring with some of those employers. If they understood fairness, they would provide Australians of all ages with education and training opportunities rather than continuing to cut investments in our nation's human capital—even taxing books. If they understood fairness, they would have a plan for balancing regional development and mobility rather than simply telling those in depressed areas to move. If they understood fairness, they would realise that growing insecurity demands more attention to family and social support networks, not less. And, ultimately, if they understood fairness, they would focus on building up our economic and social capital rather than cutting it down.So, when we look at this budget, let us not forget what it should have been all about. Let us not forget what the nation's real economic and social priorities are. The opportunity to take stock, to set the nation's priorities and to outline a plan has been wasted. At the end of the day, this is a budget that lacks commitment—to the unemployed, to fairness and to the nation's future. We have a government resigned to failure on jobs.But, more than that, this is a budget based on a confusing, job destroying tax. This tax does a demolition job on jobs. The Democrats have sold out—on jobs, on fairness, on what their membership and the public expect of them, and on what the voters expected of them at the last election. Prior to the election, and again just two weeks ago, the Democrats laid out what they were demanding on jobs. They said they would replace $2.5 billion of petrol and diesel cuts with cuts to payroll tax. They said they would exempt inbound tourism from a GST. They said they would introduce a rebate for first home buyers. They said they would reduce the maximum taper rate on unemployment benefits from 70 per cent to 50 per cent. The Howard-Lees tax package, the GST, is no substitute for a plan to address the nation's real economic and social priorities. `The rich get richer and the poor get nothing,' is no longer just the catchcry of the Liberals; it is also, unfortunately, the catchcry of the Democrats. There is one thing that needs to be understood about this deal before the House this afternoon—both the budget and the GST. It is where the Democrats now stand in the shifting political landscape—on that side of the House. (Time expired)16:57:005673Worth, Trish, MPMs WORTH8V5AdelaideLP10—It is just over three years since the coalition won government in an environment of economic chaos and stagnant job growth, with Australia having reached a level of 11 per cent unemployment in the early 1990s, a burgeoning government debt approaching $100 billion and a budget deficit of over $10 billion. Australia was living beyond its means and the men and women of this country were paying for it through higher unemployment, increased taxes and rising inflation and interest rates.In states like South Australia, Labor's legacy of debt at the federal level was compounded by the mismanagement of state finances—a mess which we are still paying for dearly. The State Bank disaster continues to drain precious financial resources away from schools and hospitals to servicing a debt we still owe to foreign financial interests.If Labor had been returned to power in 1996, that situation would have gone from bad to worse, given that the Asian economic crisis was just around the corner. Without the sound economic management of this government, led by the Prime Minister and Treasurer, investors would have deserted Australia, as they did throughout Asia. The flow-on effect of employment and growth would have snowballed and Australia would be now amongst those countries in deep long-term depression. As the Economist said in March:Last year Australia was one of the world's fastest growing economies . . . Australia is famous as the `lucky country' but its economic resilience owes more to policy than to serendipity.Since 1996, the coalition has stabilised the Australian economy and more than secured it against recession. The coalition government has not borrowed a single cent and is now reducing the debt accumulated by Labor without increasing taxes. The government's budget surplus and asset sale program will repay over $20 billion in net debt in 1999-2000. It is worth noting that, without the further sale of Telstra, it would take 45 years of running budget surpluses to pay off Labor's debt.In the context of the economic downturn in the Asian region, the Wall Street Journal has referred to Australia's `miracle economy'. We are growing at a faster rate than almost any other country, including the United States. We have record low inflation and interest rates and, as announced by the Treasurer on budget night, we are running a budget surplus of $5.4 billion. Unemployment remains stubborn, but trends are downward.But urgent reform to the tax system is also required so that every Australian can enjoy the benefits of this stronger economy. The introduction of a 10 per cent goods and services tax will be accompanied by the biggest income tax cuts in history so that people can keep more of what they earn. The current tax system taxes earnings and savings whereas the government's proposed tax package would tax consumption and reward earnings and savings.While only being a spectator to the negotiations between government ministers, the Prime Minister and the Democrats, I have been impressed by South Australia's Senator Meg Lees. She has conducted herself well and has seen the urgent need for tax reform. The Labor Party has foolishly dealt itself out of the debate, and under an outdated duo of Beazley and Crean are in danger of becoming irrelevant in the modern political scene being constructed by this progressive coalition government. Under the negotiated package, tax reform will keep basic food and S2 medicines GST free and will also deliver the promised income tax cuts, although those cuts will now be less for those earning more than $60,000 per year. Australia stands poised for regional economic leadership when the Senate allows the coalition government's tax package to pass into law. Australia has a real opportunity to become a sustainable economic powerhouse and the government is committed to playing a leadership role in the reform process. What is really important is that when Australia succeeds in achieving sustained economic growth individual Australians reap the benefits.The Howard government is also dedicated to tackling tough social issues that confront the Australian community. Until now, the drug menace has continued to grow without a sustained national effort to stem the tide. Increased drug usage across our community has contributed to growing crime rates and social delinquency and has adversely affected the health of some of our young people. Statistics show a worrying increase in drug use by school students: 55 per cent of 17-year-olds have tried cannabis at least once, and yet this is the first government to develop a national strategy to help combat this national problem. The government has now committed over $500 million to the Tough on Drugs campaign, which includes important initiatives in law enforcement, border control, improving treatment for drug users and drug education in schools. It is the biggest commitment ever by an Australian government to the war on drugs.As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, I am pleased to be directly involved in one very important aspect of these efforts: educating our young people and school communities to the harm of drugs and assisting in the development of an appropriate national response to drug use in our schools. Last week, I released the National Schools Drug Education Strategy with the Chair of the National Advisory Committee on School Drug Education, Ms Karyn Hart. The release took place at Croydon High School in my electorate, a school I have visited on several occasions—most recently to speak at the induction ceremony for the Student Representative Council.The strategy is about being tough on drugs but caring for kids, their families and the broader school community. Our young people are precious, and governments and communities have a responsibility to provide a safe learning and growing environment with appropriate professional counselling and treatment when needed. This strategy is about discouraging a new generation of drug users. Education can be effective early intervention. The sooner we can educate our youth to the dangers of drug misuse, the better off we are as a society. While schools cannot be held singularly responsible for keeping students safe from unsanctioned drugs, this environment is vital to the wellbeing of young people and so inevitably schools have an important role to play. The potential for disruption to families, academic performance, physical development and social integration into the world of adult life is most apparent during teenage years. In the case of the 14 per cent of 17-year-olds who have tried hallucinogens or the four per cent who have tried Ecstasy or opiates, the repercussions can be even more serious and life-threatening. The dangers of tobacco and the responsible use of other legal drugs like alcohol, especially when motor cars are involved, must also be taught to our young people.Schools will not be alone in tackling the drug issue. They can work in partnerships with health and other relevant professionals to ensure a comprehensive approach to education. This is already happening, and I acknowledge the community education program currently being developed by the Department of Health and Aged Care.I draw the attention of colleagues to the first two principles of the drug education in schools strategy. They are, firstly, that drug education is best taught in the context of the school health curriculum and, secondly, that drug education in schools should be conducted by the teacher of the health curriculum. This is an important emphasis, and in the consultation process the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners advised in the following terms:. That emphasis on links into local areas should include Divisions of General Practice representation from the outset.. How will such education campaigns incorporate prescription medicines and the legitimacy of administration during school hours? In the past administration of prescribed medicines to school students has been poorly managed by schools and staff therefore any program development should address this issue and emphasise the importance of prescribed medicines for individual students and the relevant roles/responsibilities in achieving this.Thirdly, they argued:. There should be "Links to other programs and projects such as youth suicide and adolescent mental health issues".The development of the national protocols agreed to at the 9 April COAG meeting, along with the National Schools Drug Education Strategy, will provide preventative education programs and strategies for early intervention and will assist the development of appropriate responses to drug related incidents. It will send a clear and consistent message that illicit drugs have absolutely no place in schools.This is a difficult and complex issue that will not simply go away. I commend the Prime Minister for tackling an issue that he could otherwise have left to the states and territories to handle in a piecemeal manner. He has chosen to play a leadership role and has recognised as a national problem the use of unsanctioned drugs by school age young people and has sought a national solution.It must be remembered, however, that the majority of young people already say no to drugs or give up experimental and casual use without direct government or community help. When armed with the facts and supported to resist peer pressure and the short-term temptation of drug use, the majority of young people are capable of making healthy lifestyle choices.It is inevitable that some young people find it difficult to cope with the expectations of today's more demanding and competitive society. Some young people also have the pressures of modern life compounded by abuse in family relationships, drug dependence or lack of education and training to find employment.These young people have also benefited from the budget, with the $60 million contribution of the Job Placement, Employment and Training program, or JPET. This program helps young people remove the barriers to getting stable accommodation, finding work, accessing training or re-entering the education system. JPET typically assists young people aged 15 to 21 who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, are ex offenders, or who are or who have been wards of the state or refugees. The JPET program is unique because it provides a number of flexible, integrated services that meet a range of needs of young people at risk. These include housing, family problems, lack of self-esteem, lack of income support, substance abuse, sexual or other abuse, and other barriers to employment, education and training. In some cases the needs of the young people are even more basic, including everyday skills such as doing the shopping, maintaining a budget and the little things that we take for granted but are essential for a stable lifestyle and the ability to hold down steady employment.In talking to youth and social workers, those involved with helping homeless or drug dependent young people, and providers themselves, I find the JPET program has widespread support and enthusiasm. The provision of this extra funding means that the JPET will now continue at least until 2003 and provide the necessary security to providers to put into place longer-term strategies, and will allow follow-up monitoring of their clients. There are numbers of success stories where JPET clients have gone on to find and hold rewarding employment with career potential, enrolment in training courses and placement in job training.Another exciting initiative for young people by the coalition is the Green Corps program. `A life-changing experience' is how the Green Corps was described in a recent independent evaluation. Having visited three states and met with seven teams of hardworking and committed volunteers who are making the most out of their time with the Green Corps, I can appreciate the validity of this claim. The coalition went to the 1996 election with the promise to provide young Australians with the opportunity to play a part in protecting and restoring our environment while enhancing their employment skills through quality training, work experience and personal devel opment. The impressive results achieved in the first three years of the program clearly demonstrate that the Green Corps has met its brief. Around 90 per cent of the young people surveyed indicated their satisfaction with the skills development and training aspects of the program, with participants shown to be more likely to secure their place in unsubsidised employment or education and training courses after their term with Green Corps than before their acceptance into the program. These sentiments have been echoed by many of the participants that I have spoken with since taking up carriage of this portfolio.The participants are not the only beneficiaries of this program. Whole communities have had their eyes opened to the need to restore and protect our fragile natural resources, with the Green Corps having delivered some spectacular outcomes for the environment. The decision to continue the funding of the Green Corps by almost $90 million over four years has been welcomed throughout the youth and training sector. I again commend the Prime Minister for his commitment to this program.I would now like to focus on some issues which are particularly relevant to my constituents in Adelaide. I could not let this opportunity go by without again making reference to the ongoing problems on the island of Cyprus. In recent months the attention of the world has focused on the Balkans, the plight of the Albanians and the capture of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. It should not be forgotten that many Cypriots have also experienced dispossession and separation from their homeland. This year, 1999, marks the 25th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, but a demilitarisation and peaceful settlement on Cyprus leading to compensation for the many Cypriots treated unfairly by the invasion still seems far away. I trust that all parliamentarians around the world will keep the plight of the Greek Cypriots in mind when they are considering the future of other dispossessed communities.I was pleased by the recent visit to Adelaide by the Prime Minister and members of cabinet, and the community lunch where the Prime Minister spoke to many community and charitable organisations present about the need for partnerships between government and the community sectors. The Prime Minister emphasised that governments could not go it alone in solving community problems like drugs and homelessness. I am grateful for the time that he and cabinet colleagues took in speaking directly with those working with the less fortunate members of the Adelaide community as well as other community, professional, sporting and business leaders.Once again, I refer to the progress of the Rail Reform Transition Program in Adelaide. I remind the House that this $20 million program was established by this government in a previous budget to address the long-term job losses in areas affected by AN job losses. In June 1997, I told this House that Labor's 13 years of mismanagement of Australian National had cost 7,000 jobs. Updating those figures, in November 1997 there were 2,095 AN workers remaining in South Australia and 1,276 in the north-western suburbs of Adelaide. Under the new owners of what was Australian National, the number of workers in South Australia has dropped to 695, with 435 in the Adelaide region. However, the new owners are making a profit, the drain on the taxpayers has gone and all former AN workers received their full packages. With the assistance of the transition program, 1,011 direct jobs and 501 indirect jobs have been created. In Adelaide the transition program has created 617 direct and 100 indirect jobs thus far.It gave me great pleasure to be part of the opening of Glen Ewin's new production plant. It showcased the very best of South Australia and what can be achieved. It also provides an excellent example of just what direction companies in this state should be taking in the next century. Glen Ewin is simultaneously reducing imports, increasing exports and expanding facilities. The Commonwealth has provided $460,000 through the Rail Reform Transition Program to contribute to the purchase and installation of the jam-pasta processing plant at the new factory.I was also pleased to see almost half a million dollars from the Rail Reform Transition Program going to a local Adelaide high technology biopharmaceutical company, Gropep. With its links to Adelaide University and the Women's and Children's Hospital, this company will employ over 350 people and also put South Australia on the international map for health service delivery.I was determined, when the Rail Reform Transition Program was first established in 1997 to provide assistance to those regions affected by the sale of Australia National, that the focus should be on supporting industries with real futures. Companies like Glen Ewin and Gropep and others have shown they can compete confidently in the market and provide long-term security. They are excellent examples of what the Rail Reform Transition Program is all about.Jobs also come from sport, and I was delighted to be there last Wednesday night when the Governor, Sir Eric Neal, turned on the lights at the Kilburn Sports and Community Club oval. Eighty thousand dollars had assisted the club with this venture. The local pride, particularly expressed by Mr Phil Martin who had driven the whole exercise, made me feel that every bit of the effort was worth while.I would like to congratulate students from Goodwood Primary School for providing an excellent example of how a community approach can produce real answers to local problems. Years 5 and 6 students at Goodwood Primary School saw that the playgroup parents at a nearby community centre were so busy supervising their children that they had little time to get to know each other. The students decided a cafe and child-minding service was the answer. Parents now chat over muffins and coffee while the students look after their children. The money raised through the service has been donated to help care for a golden lion tamarin monkey and a boa constrictor at the Adelaide zoo and also to help the dolphins in the Port River. I recently awarded the students an Enterprising Communities Award, which is part of an initiative by this government to promote youth enterprise at the community level.The Vietnam Veterans Association in South Australia is also to be congratulated for developing a youth exchange program between Vietnam and South Australia. I was delighted to hand over a cheque for $3,500 from the Commonwealth to help cover the costs of this program.Given the few opportunities I have to speak with my new responsibilities, I would like to take this opportunity to again thank the people of Adelaide for returning me for another term. It was a difficult campaign with the opposition running on fear, criticism and inaccuracies. I look forward to the challenges ahead. (Time expired)17:17:005678Crosio, Janice, MPMrs CROSIO7T4ProspectALP00—I am pleased the member for Adelaide preceded me in this debate because, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, I am sure she will appreciate some of the points that I have to make here today on the budget papers. The Prime Minister has called this budget his education budget. The Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs says, `Schools, universities and training providers are a priority investment for the government.' Unfortunately, in the words of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee, both these claims are `sadly overstated'.The Howard government's commitment to education in this budget is a facade. It is like walking onto a cowboy-western movie set. From the outside you can see what appears to be the saloon, the bank and the sheriff's office, but walk through one of the doors and there is no actual building there, there are no foundations; it is just beams of wood holding up paper-thin shopfronts. Take the supports away and the whole lot blows away up Main Street with all the other tumbleweeds.Over the last three years, the Howard government has shown no understanding of the importance of education, training and research and development for this country's fixture. On the contrary, it has brought forward initiative after initiative that has vandalised the previous government's efforts—$2.7 billion worth of education vandalism to be exact—and undone much of the good work that was carried out during the 13 years of Labor stewardship before this government took office. It would be too much to hope that it had stumbled upon enlightenment right now with this budget.Instead, after being dragged kicking and screaming to the point of actually developing a substantial and comprehensive commitment to education, it has once again dropped the ball. The government wants to appear to be doing something. It wants to appear to be supporting education, universities and research and development. It wants to appear to understand the importance of providing adequate funding for these activities but has delivered only a facade of understanding, a facade of support and a facade of action. No strong system of education, no skilled and highly trained work force can be built on a facade of good planning and foresight.Why should we be surprised? I ask myself that repeatedly. The Liberal Party has a shocking track record on education policy. This is the party that went to the 1993 election—we all remember that one—committed to shifting resources to wealthy private schools and to introducing vouchers and up-front fees for vocational education and undergraduate courses. This is the party that, since 1996, has cut university funding by nearly $1 billion and abolished 21,000 student places. The coalition government has increased HECS charges by 125 per cent and slashed student income support by over $500 million. It has cut TAFE funding by $240 million. It has cut $130 million directly from government schools and a further $400 million indirectly due to a reduction in grants to the states. Compared to the money the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have already cut out of education, the amount being returned in this budget is laughable.Commonwealth investment in education, training and research rose in Labor's last five years from 2.3 per cent of GDP to three per cent in 1995-96. Through John Howard's last four budgets, this figure has now collapsed to 2.53 per cent and will shrink even more. Thanks to this budget, which we are now debating, it will go to 2.36 per cent in 2000-01; that is, the same figure which Labor began improving upon in 1991. In other words, come 2001, in Commonwealth funding for education, training and research Australia will have gone backwards 10 years. There is not one extra dollar contained in this budget for university teaching or for growth funding for TAFE.This budget also oversees the continued decline in overall research spending. Universities, the cradle of Australian research and development, have once again been left out in the cold. As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out in his speech in reply to the budget:This budget celebrates an outcome which delivers $800 million a year less in direct Commonwealth higher education funding than in Labor's last year in office.Compare the Howard government's track record on education to the initiatives followed by the Hawke and Keating governments. In 1983, after eight years of conservative government, only three in 10 young people completed secondary school. When Labor left office in 1996 that figure had risen to over eight in 10—almost nine—and 40 per cent of these young people, the majority of them women, went on to higher education. Through our reforms to the higher education system and the introduction of HECS we were able to dramatically expand university places. Over 600,000 people were enrolled in higher education in 1996-97 compared to 325,000 in the mid-1980s—a 60 per cent increase.Between 1985 and 1996, under prime ministers Hawke and Keating, the number of university places created in Australia equalled the creation of 18 tertiary learning centres the size of Sydney University. Labor's great strides in education during the 1980s and 1990s were based on solid planning and projections of this country's needs over the coming decades. We had the Karmel and Kangan reports, for example, to chart our course in the future. What report, what review, what intellectual process has been carried out on which this current government has based its so-called education budget? None—there has been absolutely nothing. Australia sails off to face the demands and challenges of the 21st century with no maps, no compass and no plan for how we need to structure and fund our education system over the next 10 or 20 years—and that is as frightening as it is appalling. That lack of planning and foresight runs throughout these budget initiatives on education.One of the most disturbing aspects concerns the allocation of funds to private as compared to public schools. The Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister for education have already said that we support the government in its budget measures aimed at improving the lot of private schools—it is a positive step. As the Leader of the Opposition has noted, it was his father, Kim Beazley Sr, who first saw the need for government to provide funding assistance to the private school sector. He did so in order that all school children in Australia would have equal access to quality education. However, increased funding to private schools must also occur in tandem with a fair and balanced increase in funding to the public school sector. Letting one flourish while the other withers on the vine is a recipe for disaster. And yet, with this budget, you have a government that seems bent on doing just that—bent on resurrecting inequalities between the private and public school sectors and bent on reigniting that very bitter and divisive debate over adequate funding for private and public education in Australia.As we all know, this budget allocates an extra $210 a year on average for every child in the private school sector—an admirable move—but at the same time it is allocating less than $10 a year to the 70 per cent of our kids in public schools. That is not balanced funding. The Prime Minister argues that state governments have the responsibility for funding public education while, traditionally, the Commonwealth supports the private school sector. What an absolutely specious argument that is. The Commonwealth has always played a role in funding public education. Even if we entertain the Prime Minister's argument for a moment, is he seriously suggesting that the states do not also make substantial and ongoing financial contributions to private schools? Of course they do.The agenda that the Howard government is slowly putting together in regard to public education goes hand in hand with its plans for a GST. It is becoming clear that the Prime Minister now wants to hand responsibility for providing public school education entirely to the states. The states, which will not have the financial means of taking on such a responsibility, will then be forced to approach the Commonwealth to ask for an increase in the GST rate in order to shoulder that extra burden. At the very least, the Commonwealth must continue to play a role in supporting public education in this country because the Prime Minister's colleagues in various state governments around Australia have already shown us how incapable they are at managing public education. One only has to take a look at the decimation that has occurred in this sector in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia over the last few years.The Commonwealth must continue to remain involved with public education in this country for the sake of fairness, consistency and social cohesion. If the Prime Minister walks away from public schools he is walking from these core values. As for the government triumphing over its funding of research and development in this budget, let us remember a few important facts. Over the last three years the Howard government has done nothing but cut funding for science and scientific research. The CSIRO, university based research institutions, Cooperative Research Centres and the Australian Research Council grants have all experienced real funding cuts. Funding to public hospitals, which includes funds that would have gone into health research in these institutions, has also been reduced. Let us also not forget that, while Prime Minister John Howard is spending $600 million on medical research over six years, he is wasting $6 billion of taxpayer's money over four years on a private health insurance initiative that has already proven itself to be nothing but a major lemon. Even adding up all the initiatives related to research contained in this budget, government spending on science and innovation in 1999-2000 is still far below that spent in Labor's last year in government.The truth is that, even with the money allocated in this budget, the coalition has not reached the levels of funding that they inherited from Labor in 1996. It was then 0.8 per cent of GDP; it is now 0.65 per cent. Another constituency gravely let down by the Howard government in this budget is needy students. The announcement of the Higher Education Equity Merit Scholarship Scheme in 1996 was one of the few bright spots in the coalition's horror budget of that year. Designed to help underprivileged young people into university, the coalition has undone its good work and axed the program in this budget. Many commentators have spoken about how this will hurt our needy kids in rural areas—and this is true—but it will also affect young people in outlying suburban electorates like mine.The University of Western Sydney currently has 146 students enrolled—taken from metropolitan electorates like mine in Prospect—who directly owe their places at that university to the Higher Education Equity Merit Scholarship Scheme. How many more young people from Western Sydney will miss out now that the Treasurer has scrapped the scheme because he feels it was poorly targeted? I ask him and I ask the government: if it was poorly targeted then surely, with a so-called surplus of $5.4 billion, the Treasurer and the minister for education could have afforded to design a scheme that replaces it and which does the job more effectively. But no, the program disappears, with nothing in this budget to replace it.When the 7.30 Report asked the Treasurer on budget night why the scheme had been axed, he replied, `It's just one of those things.' In other words: tough luck. Yet Prime Minister Howard can find over $700,000 to spend on renovations to the Lodge and Kirribilli House—following questions I put on the Notice Paper—and that is enough money to pay for 200 of these scholarships for our clever, needy kids who come from electorates like mine in Western Sydney.Just as this budget fails in regard to education, it also fails to do something about unemployment. Despite his recent murmurings about achieving a target of five per cent unemployment, and despite a hefty $5.4 billion surplus, the Treasurer has not put forward a single initiative or spending proposal in this budget that would bring our current unemployment rate of 7.5 per cent down one iota. It is no use members on the other side pointing to this budget's spending of $35 million on extending Work for the Dole. They know that 75 per cent of this money for the next four years comes from axing the funding to the Job Network scheme.As the Australian newspaper noted, this juggling act is in essence `robbing one group of unemployed to force another 25,000 people on the dole to plant trees'. In fact, the Treasurer spends more money in this budget on buying new computers for the Australian Taxation Office so it can cope with the intricacies of the GST than he provides in new spending on labour market programs. If that was not enough, he then announces 2,000 more jobs will be axed from the Commonwealth public sector. If the Treasurer's sloppy and uncaring attitude to unemployment does not floor you, then the attitude of the Minister for Employment Services will. According to the member for Warringah, if you are long-term unemployed, then apparently you are nothing more than a `job snob'. It is nice to see the depth of understanding that exists in the government in regard to combating unemployment.I chose to focus my comments tonight on this budget's failure to address the future of our education system, the future of our research and development industries and the current stagnating level of unemployment because without a quality education system today the young people of Western Sydney—the young people of my electorate of Prospect—will be left behind in the job race tomorrow. Without improvements to our education system now, and without planning for the future, this government are in danger of condemning a generation of young Western Sydney residents to the dole queue and robbing our community and this country of their imagination, their intellect and their energy. Without these improvements to education and without the necessary planning, the Australia of the future is in danger of inheriting a work force without the skills and knowledge not only to find the jobs of the 21st century but to keep those jobs and to meet the demands that will be imposed upon them. Labor's great strides in education reform in the 1980s and 1990s were felt primarily in electorates like mine. The extra five kids out of 10 who finished year 12 by 1996 came from the acres of red roofs, bitumen and nature strips found in areas like Western Sydney. They came from struggling families trying to provide the best education for their kids on a wage that barely reached $25,000 a year. I guarantee you that the kids of the future who will miss out on quality education, training and job opportunities because of the Howard government's negligence will come from electorates like mine.Labor's past achievements in education, training and research and development either are under threat from the coalition or already stand vandalised, compromised and perverted. With this in mind, I ask the government members to remember one thing: the one great tonic to help a nation's population adapt to change, to empower them and to breed confidence in themselves and in their families in the face of that change is to give them access to an education system that is second to none.Change in the 21st century will occur more rapidly and have more impact than any we have experienced in the past 20 years. If our education system is allowed to run down further and if it is not funded properly, not only will we lose our competitiveness in the world and our ability to create wealth and jobs but our people are guaranteed to be less equipped to adapt to the massive social and industrial changes the 21st century will surely bring upon us. Failure to prepare Australians to face the onslaught of that change and its effects will be a severe abrogation of this government's duty. Looking at what has gone in this area over the last three years, and looking at the budget that has been brought down by this government and which we are debating now, I truly have genuine concerns whether the duty of care and the obligation that this government have to the nation and to the people who make up this nation are being met. We know it is not. We have seen what has now happened with the changes to the GST and we see what is going to occur with a parcel put together to save—as indicated in question time today—the Prime Minister's job. To put another 20-odd thousand people out of employment is really what this government is about. It is not about fairness, it is not about equity and it is certainly not about equality. I believe that the government have to rethink where they are going in education if we are going to stand up proudly and say as a nation that we can look after and provide for the generations of young Australians who are going to be the leaders of tomorrow. The government are sadly lacking in what they have done in the budget. I say to them: you will be condemned in the future for it, and I do not believe that this budget is a fair budget in any shape or form.17:37:005682Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAYHK6HerbertLP10—I would like to use the time available to me this afternoon to speak about two subjects—one is community standards and the other is regional development. I want to raise an issue in relation to violence in the community but, in doing so, I point firstly to an issue that is before all of us at the moment—the government's intention to try to protect families and children from material that is on the Internet. Our offices are being subjected to a torrent of email at the moment, which has caused some problems in Parliament House, as no doubt members know. To those who are saying that we should leave the Internet alone, I put it this way: as a matter of principle, it is worth doing. It may not be possible to achieve what the government wants to achieve but sometimes the government has just got to support what is right, and this is right. We do not give up on matters like drugs—although that sometimes seems a hopeless situation—and neither should we give up on trying to make the Internet a safer place to use.I use that to lead into the question of the amount of violence that is continually thrown at us through movies, through television, through computer games and through the Internet. There is no doubt that we are being desensitised to the kind of material that is there day in, day out and hour in, hour out on our television screens, our movie screens and our computer screens. As I move about the community, I talk to people about this issue. There is universal feedback from the community that they would like the government, as a matter of principle, to take a stand on this issue, to say that our community standards are falling, and that we are accepting—just out of being desensitised—matters that some years ago we would never have accepted, that would have shocked the community.We are seeing correlations between the amount of violence on our television screens and what is happening in the schoolyard, for example. I say that not only in terms of what has happened on the American scene but also in terms of what is happening in Australian schoolyards. Let us say you have a football team and they are talking about the game. What you will find is that the 10- and 11-year-old members of that team, instead of saying `That was a solid tackle', will say, `We smashed him into the ground' or `We killed him' or something like that. The language is just going in the wrong direction.People in my community say to me that they would support the government if it were to introduce mechanisms to control the amount of violence that occurs on our screens. On the other side of the argument, our civil libertarians would say that we should not be involved in that, that the government should not be trying to censor what we see. I would say to those people that our community standards are slipping. We are no longer the decent Australia that we used to be. I think it is the responsibility of government to be addressing a problem such as this and I call on the government to take some action in this regard.I now move on to regional development and the particular problems that I see in Northern Australia. The first problem I would like to refer to this evening is electronic bandwidth. Currently, all Australian universities are connected to the AARNet system which, incidentally, originated the Internet in Australia. The metropolitan universities are connected at very high speed but universities in central and northern Queensland, for example, have to suffer a tremendous bandwidth restriction. If you are in Brisbane you can connect at a speed of about 45 megabits per second but if you are in Central or Northern Queens land you have to be satisfied with a connection speed of only two megabits per second. That is a bottleneck that restricts how our universities in northern Australia can continue to perform.The use of electronic communication, e-commerce and so on is expanding at an extraordinary rate in this country today. Yet, in Northern Australia, we are being restricted by this bottleneck. Of course, you can always buy more space from Telstra but the university that I represent, James Cook, is faced with a bill of $850,000 a year just to increase its bandwidth. That is absolutely beyond the university's budget. So the academics and students at James Cook University of North Queensland are being restricted in what they can do with electronic communication. So is business. What we are finding is that the businesses that are now widely using the Internet and e-commerce are moving south because they cannot get the speeds that they need to do their business on the net. I think that is another area that we certainly should be looking at as a government to improve the facilities in Northern Australia.I would also like to put the proposition that northern Australia's development is being impeded by the fact that business knowledge is being kept in the Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney areas and that knowledge controllers are not interested in transferring that business knowledge to Australia's regions. Regions are being isolated from information on potential growth partnerships, strategies and opportunities within Australia and indeed globally. Video technology communication that exists at the moment is not being utilised and major events delivering strategic business information are not being relayed to the regions. My vision for a regional Australia is to have access to valuable business knowledge which is generated within Australia and imported and to be an active participant in the exchange of valuable business knowledge within the Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney areas. There is no doubt that we should not be precluded from having access to that information.Today as we speak, business people located in that triangle are regularly exposed to situations where information is shared on other business experiences and strategic business opportunities both within Australia and globally. But regional businesses are not part of that plan. I am calling tonight to see an improvement in the use of that technology. I thank Dr Debbie Kuchler in Townsville for her contribution to that point.I also draw the House's attention to the proposal to establish a marine precinct of world-class significance in Townsville. In the budget brought down on 11 May, a significant amount of money was provided to the Australian Institute of Marine Science that could help it become part of a new marine precinct for my city. My vision is to see the Australian Institute of Marine Science co-located with institutions such as the CSIRO, the biotechnology cluster at James Cook University and the Queensland government and having inputs from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. That would bring together what I saw recently in North Ryde in Sydney with the CSIRO's facility there. They have been proactive in linking all sorts of other businesses and government agencies into a cluster at North Ryde. They share information and knowledge and are doing good things for Australia.We have the capability in Townsville with James Cook, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and AIMS to link with the CSIRO and the Queensland state government to produce a world-class marine precinct. It is my view and goal to make sure that we do everything we can as a government to bring that idea to fruition. Certainly Townsville would benefit. Marine science and Australia would also benefit. It is an entirely appropriate matter to address.Another matter that concerns me is the road infrastructure in Northern Australia. I have some criticism of the government in this regard. Currently, in the outyears there has not been enough money, in my view, to maintain the national highway. That is very concerning. The federal government is responsible for the national highway. If we are not providing sufficient money for the maintenance of the national highway, the government should be concerned about that.The road infrastructure in Australia is vital. Currently, the north, where I come from, depends on the artery that goes right up the coast. My city, which is only halfway up the coast of Queensland, is further north of Brisbane than Canberra is south of Brisbane. That kind of puts the distances into perspective. From Townsville, you have another perhaps 1,100 kilometres to go before you get to the top of Queensland. There is an extensive road network in Queensland and an extensive network on the national highway, yet we are not providing enough funding to maintain the highway.I also do not believe that we are providing enough funding to do the capital works that are needed to upgrade the highway as the traffic volumes grow. There is a patch north of Townsville between Bluewater Creek and Leichhardt Creek which is in an appalling condition. Fortunately, some money has been found in the budget to address that this year. However, it should have been addressed two or three years ago.XW4KERNOTMs Kernot—And increase the limits for trucks.HK6Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAY—Yes. We need to be able to maintain the Bruce Highway at a respectable standard, and for reasons other than road transport. The highway is being significantly used with the tourism industry. Fifty-five per cent of visitors who come to North Queensland arrive by road. They arrive in all manner of vehicles, as would you probably understand. Of course, North Queensland also relies on road freight movements. A huge tonnage moves up and down the coast every day. We need to make sure that that movement is reliable.It was very concerning when a two-kilometre stretch of the national highway was cut north of Townsville for more than four days in the 1998 floods. How is it that we could have a national highway cut for four days and basically the lifeline to North Queensland severed?I will now come closer to home in Townsville and talk about two other projects which I think are vital for my particular region. We are establishing a new level 6 hospital in Townsville. It will be as good as any hospital in Australia. It is being built adjacent to James Cook University. Construction on it has started, and it will replace the existing Townsville general hospital. It is being co-located with the new medical school. For the first time this year, James Cook established a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree as well. So there is a medical focus.The road network is not sufficient to handle that location. We should be very seriously looking at a new cross-river bridge from the university into the suburb of Condon. It would be ideal for ensuring that that hospital, centrally located in Townsville, is serviced from all the suburbs of Townsville. But a problem is that in order to get it federally funded it has to have the required priority from the state government. Currently, that priority is not there. The state government, including the state transport minister, Steve Bredhauer, says that it has it on the list. It does have it on the list, but the project does not have priority compared with others. The state government has a responsibility to provide some of the money for that road link because the development of the state general hospital has caused the need to have that road in place.I think it would be entirely sensible that the state government contribute some money towards that road, but they need to give it priority so that I can then lobby the federal transport minister to make sure that we provide the required federal funding for that project. It would certainly be magic to get that up.Another road project I would like to touch on—and you can see that I have a significant focus on the importance of highways as you do in your electorate, Madam Deputy Speaker—is the new eastern port access to Townsville. Currently the access to the Townsville port, which is the third largest port in Queensland and exports all the mineral products from the north-west minerals province—the largest minerals province in the world, incidentally—is through the suburbs of Townsville. If we do not provide a new port access road through the suburb of Railway Estate there will be one truck every 15 seconds, 24 hours a day going down Boundary Street, the current port access road. I believe that is entirely unacceptable for the residents there.We need to have the vision as a community to look ahead and be proactive. Instead of waiting for that demand to arrive, which we know will happen, we should be proactive and provide the new port access corridor. That port access corridor would service the new industry precinct of Stuart, where currently Korea's largest investment outside Korea is being made in the Sun Metals Corporation zinc refinery. It is $½ billion investment which is proposed to be producing zinc metal before the end of the year. That project can be serviced, the copper refineries can be serviced, the meat works that are out there can be serviced, and so on.The corridor could also carry other utilities, such as electricity and gas, but we need to be proactive—to declare such a corridor a road of national importance, to get the thing funded, to get it built—and the development will come. The Townsville port certainly has been going in that direction and the port authority have found that if they are proactive in their business dealings they can attract the business to the port and Townsville does very well.The port access road would need to go through country which some people feel should be preserved. The North Queensland Conservation Council have said very definitely that they do not want to see any access. I have said to the North Queensland Conservation Council that my preferred option is to allow a corridor through that particular land. Currently the land is of little environmental value. The port authority owns a large amount of land on that side of the river and perhaps the port authority should consider not developing that land commercially as is intended and only have the corridor go through the land. We might then have a win-win for the environment, as expressed by the NQCC, and also for the port of Townsville. The government can be proactive in declaring this access road a road of national importance for the benefit of Townsville and indeed for the benefit of the whole north-west minerals province region.In conclusion, I am very pleased with the way Townsville is performing at the moment. Our unemployment is plunging. Since I was elected it has continued to fall month after month. It has been a magnificent effort on behalf of business, industry and employers of the Townsville region. Townsville is literally the boom city of Australia at the moment. It is a great place to invest and a terrific place in winter.17:57:005685Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—The week before the budget was delivered by the Treasurer, the Prime Minister went on 3AW. He was asked by Neil Mitchell to write the headline for the budget. He was asked by Neil Mitchell:Okay, the budget next week—if you were to sum it up, you write the headline for us, what sort of budget will it be?The Prime Minister answered:I think very much a budget about the education future of this country. I think you'll find quite a bit in it about education.He went on to say:I'm not going to talk about individual things. You asked me to try and give it some kind of theme.This is the Prime Minister speaking one week before the budget. He said:I think it will be a theme that will be very good for education and what I might call the future intellectual capital of this country.When the Prime Minister of Australia says that he is going to deliver an education budget, when he says that he is going to deliver a budget that is about investing in the future of Australia's intellectual capital, then a lot of hopes are raised. A lot of people will think that maybe the government has learnt from the mistakes of its first four budgets when it made massive cuts to investment in education in Australia. But when the budget was unveiled, it was very different.First of all, we had a budget that went nowhere near filling in the $2.7 billion hole the Howard government has made with education cuts since it was elected in 1996. Yes, there was some additional funding in areas that I will detail tonight, but we cannot ignore the fact that, over the four years that the member for Bennelong has been the Prime Minister of Australia, we have had massive strip mining—like a massive open-cut coalmine—where the government has been in there digging away $2.7 billion. That is the massive education hole—that open-cut coal mine—that has been dug by this government over four years. They then come along with a little divot bucket like you get at the golf course and they pour a little extra money into the massive open-cut coalmine and try to pretend that this in some way is an education budget.In fact, for education this budget is short- sighted, unbalanced and unfair. It is shortsighted because despite the welcome modest medical research incentives in the budget, the Commonwealth's investment in research and innovation will be lower in 1999-2000 than it was in Labor's last year and dramatically lower as a proportion of gross domestic product, falling from 0.78 per cent in 1995-96 to only 0.63 per cent in 1999-2000. That is why it is short-sighted.This so-called education budget is unbalanced because the schools initiatives in the budget deliver a very unbalanced package. It delivers an extra $210 a year on average to students in private schools but less than $10 a year on average to the 70 per cent of children in public education. That is why it is unbalanced.This so-called education budget is unfair because it scraps the government's own university merit based equity scholarships. The Prime Minister brings down what he says is an education budget and in that education budget the government abolishes the merit based equity scholarships for university students. How can we create a clever country when the government scraps a scheme that helps the cleverest kids from rural areas and from low income families to actually afford to go to university? I know my colleague the member for Dickson has received a great deal of feedback in regional areas from parents who believe this is such a mean, miserly cut in federal government expenditure. The scheme was only $10 million a year. It funded 1,000 scholarships for students from low income families and from rural and isolated communities. It meant that a thousand new students every year were able to have a better chance to afford to go to university. It is such a small amount of money compared to the total funding in the Commonwealth's budget that it is hard to understand how this Prime Minister could have signed off on this.XW4KERNOTMs Kernot—It is symbolic of their priorities.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—As the member for Dickson interjects, it is symbolic of the priorities of this Prime Minister and this education minister. It makes you wonder whether the current Minister for Transport and Regional Services made any comment at all when this particular cut was being determined in the various decision making processes of the government. If the rumours are to be believed, this was actually a proposal put forward by the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Only under this Prime Minister and only under Dr Kemp, the member for Goldstein, the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, would we have the education minister proposing to abolish a scheme that is as worthy as this. Only in Australia under Dr Kemp would we have the education minister proposing to abolish merit based equity scholarships for universities. It is a real tragedy.Madam Deputy Speaker, you may well ask how we can actually call this an education budget when there is less money for university teaching. How can it be an education budget when there is no relief for students from the massive HECS debts that have driven down applications from university students by five per cent? How can it be an education budget when there is no growth funding for TAFE? And how can it be an education budget if kids in government schools get 21 times less than students in private schools?My real worry is that the Prime Minister might think this is an education budget. The Prime Minister might not have deliberately tried to mislead us when he went on Neil Mitchell's program on 3AW. This is a budget in which you abolished merit based equity scholarships for university students, a budget in which for the fourth year in a row you actually cut the operating grants for universities for teaching and research, a budget in which there is no growth funding for TAFE and a budget in which you provide inadequate funding for public schools across Australia. Yet our Prime Minister might actually think that this is an education budget, and that is my gravest concern.I would like to turn to the funding for schools. The government has introduced a new scheme to determine how much funding should go to non-government schools. Using the jargon that the education bureaucrats have drawn up over the years, it is a switch from what was called the ERI index to a new socioeconomic status index, SES index, that is based on data that is produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics after various census collections. Basically it is a switch from looking at how much money a school has at its disposal, how much money it raises from school fees and how much money it has raised over the years through bequests. Under the new scheme, the SES model, it switches to a scheme that looks at a number of indicators of socioeconomic status for the census collection districts where a random sample of the parents live. So, if a school has parents who live in a wealthy area, then, using the Bureau of Statistics data, it is claimed that we will get a fair measure of how wealthy that particular school will be. It is argued that this will be a fairer measure of need, and the Labor Party has made it clear that, if it can be demonstrated that this is a fairer way to measure the need of non-government schools, we are willing to give it our support.Of course, it was during the Whitlam years that the father of the current Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley Sr, one of Australia's greatest ministers for education, introduced the radical reforms in federal funding for non-government schools that lanced the boil of sectarian debate in federal funding for non-government schools. That was when under Prime Minister Whitlam and under education minister Kim Beazley Sr we introduced that needs basis of federal funding for non-government schools.0J4RUDDOCKMr Ruddock—Menzies had been active much earlier than that.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—The member interjects and says that Menzies had been active, and there is no doubt at all that Robert Menzies knew how to use science grants and library grants to try to divide the Labor Party from some of its supporters. But the big difference was that when Whitlam as Prime Minister and Kim Beazley Sr as education minister massively increased the federal funding for non-government schools it was targeted at the needier schools. That was the nature of the radical reforms of Whitlam and Beazley. It was targeted towards the needier schools because we knew that you could not equate the poor local Catholic school with Kings. There is no way you can actually make sure that federal funding is being spent in an efficient way if you do not have a fair measure of need, which is what it is argued the new SES measure should do.We have a real concern that, having provided a switch from ERI to SES in the budget, the government has also dramatically increased the average federal funding for non-government schools. In fact, as I have outlined, it is an average increase in this budget of $210 per child per year for non-government school students right across the country. What we say is that, if you are going to dramatically increase funding for non-government schools, you also have to balance that by providing some extra federal funding for public education, for the 70 per cent of students in government schools. If you look at one particular category, the wealthiest private primary schools, those that are currently in category 1 under the ERI category system, they are going to be at least $72 per child per year better off. The wealthiest private primary schools get an increase of at least $72 per child, but the average for the 70 per cent of kids at government schools right across the country is only $10 per child per year.Clearly we should ask whether this was the fairest way to allocate additional funding to our schools. We hope our questions can be answered when the government is prepared to provide the opposition with detailed breakdowns of what the switch to SES will mean for a large number of schools. We acknowledge that a number of needy private schools will receive additional funding through the new changes, and we welcome that, but we also argue that that should be balanced by additional federal funding for the 70 per cent of children at government schools across the country.At the same time as the government is dramatically increasing funding for non-government schools, the member for Goldstein, Dr Kemp, is maintaining his ideological right-wing agenda which not only seeks to refuse to provide extra funding for government schools but actually cuts the federal funding that public schools are entitled to across the country. Through the enrolment benchmark adjustments, this minister is taking $20 million away from state schools across the country this year because of the amendments the government made in its first few years in office.The EBA means that, even though public schools in Australia had 9,000 more students last year, they lost $20 million of the funding to which they were entitled. It is not just the Labor Party that says that the EBA should be scrapped. Even the non-government school organisations know how unfair the EBA is. It is driven by this government's ideological obsession with wanting to undermine any public organisation or public institution in this country. The EBA should be scrapped—and the sooner it happens the better.There are a number of other measures for schools. We welcome the continuation of the early literacy program. We welcome the extension of the literacy programs to the middle years. However, we make the point that, despite the fact that this minister uses literacy as a fig leaf to cover the naked reality of massive cuts elsewhere in his portfolio, we welcome those changes. We also welcome continuation of the NALSAS program—a good program that was started by the minister's Labor predecessors. We welcome the funding for professional development for teachers, but it has been delayed by three years. This program was promised by the coalition in its 1996 policy, but it has not been delivered until now.Unfortunately, there has been a disgraceful delay in putting funds for the drug education program in schools to work. This program was first announced in November 1997 and nothing has happened in any schools. The only thing we know so far is that our Prime Minister wants to expel immediately any child who uses marijuana in a school anywhere in Australia. We are still getting newspaper reports of disagreements amongst those people who are to decide how the school drug education program funding is to be spent. We hope those arguments and disputes are resolved quickly.Perhaps the lowest point in the budget was the decision of the minister to abolish merit based equity scholarships. I have already made the point that it is a very tiny sum of money by the standards of the Commonwealth budget—$10 million a year for the 1,000 new students who are eligible for the program. These scholarships were the crumbs that fell off the table when the budget cuts were made in 1996. Education was singled out for massive funding cuts in the first Howard budget: $800 million was taken away from the university operating grants, the HECS burden for university students was increased by $1.1 billion, TAFE funding was cut by $167 million, $128 million was ripped out of government schools and student assistance was cut by $½ million.The only thing that fell off the table was the measly $10 million a year for the merit based equity scholarships for university students. Three years later, the government has decided to take back the crumbs that students were given in the 1996 budget. That was the alleged compensation for all the other cuts that were made in funding for universities. That is a warning to all the people out there listening to the debate about the GST. You are promised extra compensation somewhere else, but we have seen in higher education that the crumbs of compensation which were offered in 1996 disappeared in 1999. How long will the crumbs of compensation for the GST last? The students who benefited from the merit based equity scholarships program were 1,127 from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, 375 from rural or isolated areas, 199 indigenous Australians, 188 from non-English speaking backgrounds, 149 students with a disability and 109 women studying in non-traditional areas.One of our main concerns is that, if you go through the budget figures and look at how much Australia is currently spending on education, research and training, you will see that we are actually going backwards. At this stage, I seek leave to incorporate a table in Hansard. I will explain to the House how the figures in that table were calculated.0J4RUDDOCKMr Ruddock—Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that the member for Dobell is seeking leave for incorporation of a table that has not been prepared independently by the Parliamentary Library. I gather that it is his own work. However, on the basis that he is going to try to explain the efficacy of it, I am happy for it to be incorporated.Leave granted.The table read as follows—MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr LEE—I thank the minister for his almost generous comments—and I have even got this table on a floppy disk so the IT literate members of the government can study it in that form as well. The education figures in the graph include not just funding for higher education, vocational education, schools and student assistance but also research funding through university operating grants. The graph for training includes entry level and skills training and labour market assistance, and the graph for research includes major scientific research agency funding—defence and civil—as well as health and medical research, CRC, support for business innovation, tax concessions and ARC grants.Basically this graph shows that the total investment that our country makes in education, training and research has actually gone backwards. People may well argue that we did not spend enough in the former Labor government years in this area—and I will accept that criticism—but at least we got the Commonwealth's investment in education, training and research up to three per cent of gross domestic product. In this budget we have fallen back already to 2.5 per cent, and we are heading for 2.3 in the forward estimates. So it is quite clear that if we want Australia to have the high value, high wage jobs of the future we have to do more in research. We have to spend more in training our best young people to give them the best chance, the best start in life.We have to help people develop the intellectual property that will earn Australia royalty payments and licence fees for years to come. God knows, we are going to have to pay a lot of licence fees and royalty payments to other countries to look at their movies, to use their medical devices, to use their computer software. If we do not invest in our own intellectual property, then we will have a massive balance of payments deficit on intellectual property. That is why it is so important that we do more in education and more in research.That is why under Kim Beazley the Labor Party has made it clear we do intend to do more for education. We do need to lift the amount we are investing in schools, TAFEs and universities. We need to do more to encourage our postgraduate research students. We need to try to make it easier, not harder, for young people to afford to get the best education, the education that they deserve. For all of those reasons, we believe that this in no way could be described as an education budget. In no way could this be considered to be a budget that lifts our national effort in education, training and research. For that reason, we believe that this is a budget that is woefully inadequate for the needs of Australia at this time. (Time expired)18:17:005690Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSONXT4BallaratLP10—It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1999-2000 . Can I just say at the start that it is absolutely fascinating to hear the lines parroted by the Labor Party not just after this budget but after the last budget and after the budget before that. They are still continuing the 14th year defence: `If we had had one more year, we would have solved all of these problems.' The simple fact is that the Labor Party had 13 years to do something about it. The shadow minister at the table, Ms Kernot, has said quite publicly in the past that they did a rotten job in those 13 years, and she is absolutely right. But they were going to do it in the 14th year—always `We were going to do it if we had stayed there a bit longer.'So let us have a look at this budget and put it into a historical context and put it into the present context. There is absolutely no doubt that this budget marked a high point not only for this government but, more importantly, for the Australian people. In 1996 we had to bring down a tough budget. I do not think there is one person on this side of the House who would have done that had we not been forced to do so. It is not easy for governments to bring down tough budgets, but we did because we had to. In some respects, the proof is in the pudding.But I think the more interesting point is that it was the absolutely woeful financial inadequacy of the former Labor government that forced our hand in 1996. We on this side of the House—and I suspect the great bulk of the Australian people—are sick and tired of this chattering we get from the Labor Party in relation to the way we are running the country and the way they apparently had done so. This is the party who in the five years running up to the 1996 election had put a $70 billion financial millstone around the necks of this country and our kids and grandkids—$70 billion, $70,000 million. The now Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, was responsible as Minister for Finance for about $23 billion of that—$23,000 million.Those opposite prattle on about budget surpluses. They would not know one if it bit them on the backside. Never in government—not once in government—did they concern themselves, especially in the last five years, about any financial or fiscal responsibility. It was not an issue for them. This budget delivers $5.4 billion of budget surplus. This government makes absolutely no apologies at all for our desire to make this nation debt free. This country should be run the same way that the people who we represent are forced to run their own household budget. The Australian people know that if they overspend their budget they have got to get it from somewhere. They know if they borrow it they have to repay it. The Australian people who are listening tonight know they have a responsibility to run their own household budget—as you do, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I do, as the minister and the shadow minister at the table are required to—and government should be no different.This debt—the Labor Party debt which we are moving to pay back—is $8,000 million a year. That is the legacy the Labor Party left the Australian people, not some sort of nebulous concept of debt. This is real bucks—$8,000 million a year this country has got to pay off Labor Party debt before we start spending a cracker. That is their legacy. We have committed ourselves to surplus budgets, we have committed ourselves to financial and fiscal responsibility, and this budget delivers it.I want to turn now to the sale of the next tranche of Telstra. This has in it two important aspects. One is further debt reduction. I would be somewhat surprised if the shadow minister at the table did not very much welcome the expenditure associated with the sale of the first tranche. We had a $2.5 billion Natural Heritage Trust input; we had the Regional Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund, Networking the Nation; and, in my electorate today, a $150,000 announcement about providing the towns of Daylesford and Ballan with the opportunity to go into the next millennium with the same opportunities enjoyed by their metropolitan colleagues.They are the ones who deserve a social bonus out of this sale, and it is being delivered. It has been a long time coming, because for 13 years the party that had no representation in the bush left the bush for dead—absolutely left it for dead. We are going to retire more debt if the second tranche goes through, more of that debt which is a millstone around this country's neck, and we are going to put even more money into regional telecommunications and providing a social bonus to all Australians.It is probably fair to say that fiscal responsibility may not be as exciting to some people as Keating's republic or his interest in overseas architecture or his antiques or some of his other pursuits, but I can tell you now, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is appreciated by the people that we represent in this House—Australian families, Australian exporters, small business people and first home buyers. The standard variable mortgage rate is at levels not seen in this country since 1970. But what do we get from the spoilers of Australian politics? What do we get from the inept, irresponsible and now totally irrelevant Labor Party in relation to what drives this country? What are we seeing come out of the mouth of the now Leader of the Opposition in relation to his vision for Australia?84BST CLAIRMr St Clair—Nothing.XT4Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSON—Absolutely nothing—zip, not a thing. He is bereft of ideas and, as was said during the MPI today, he is about holding together a party that is just about to break apart. He has not got time to think about policy. The interesting part is that the Labor Party had the opportunity to participate in the tax debate. The Australian people know two things. The first is that tax reform was about 30 years overdue. The Australian people supported tax reform. They supported this government that is implementing tax reform. The second is that there was a unique opportunity in this country—taken up by one person; abrogated by another person—to participate in the tax debate. The person who participated was Senator Lees and the person who abrogated was the opposition leader, Kim Beazley.UNKNOWNGovernment memberGovernment member—What is his name?XT4Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSON—Kim Beazley, the former finance minister, the man of great debt—he had the opportunity. One person took it up; one person will get rewarded for that. The other person, I think, will slip into political oblivion, taking his party with him. I think it is very sad that the Labor Party gave up on that opportunity. If their behaviour in the last two days is any indication of where they are going, then they will slip further and further behind.Ms Kernot interjecting—XT4Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSON—I am a little surprised, I must admit—perhaps I am not surprised, but it is extraordinary—that the shadow minister at the table, who purports to have some understanding of regional Australia—she tells us she does, but I would be very doubtful about that—has been interjecting across the table about a tax package that pulls about $4.5 billion—$4,500 million—out of the cost of exports. What an extraordinary approach from the shadow minister to a tax package that supports the people she is apparently meant to be convincing should support her party. She has got a snowflake in hell's chance of convincing them of that while she continues to run around this country attacking a tax reform package that is finally going to deliver to regional and rural Australia benefits that have been missing, because we have not had the common sense in this country to address the greatest cost impediment to our exporters, and that is the taxation system.It is quite extraordinary that you would attack a policy that starts ripping that cost disincentive and that cost impact out of the Australian export system, which will enable us to start competing with the rest of the world on a far more even keel. As the Deputy Prime Minister said today, `There is no level playing field when it comes to taxation around the world,' and we have been wearing that now for 30 or 40 years. It is about time we took the tax monkey off their backs.As examples in my own electorate—the electorate of Ballarat, which I very proudly represent—of the people who are exporting and employing, I will give a couple of household names off the top of my head—Mars and McCain. These are two very big companies employing Ballarat people. They are big exporters who are desperately trying to compete with the rest of the world. Look at the farming community—the agricultural sector in my electorate—they are all exporters, all spending money, all supporting the local community. They have been asking for two generations for tax reform and we have delivered it. We have taken the bull by the horns. We have acknowledged the problems and have had the intestinal fortitude to go to the people with that plan.The Labor Party will use the next two weeks to continue their spoiling role. The people of my electorate needed tax reform and my colleague on my right needed tax reform—desperately needed it. But we need it for more than one reason. We need it because we are talking about jobs. We are talking about providing our exporters with reduced costs. It will make them more competitive. That will lead to greater demand. That will lead to greater production and that will lead to greater employment. It is as simple as that. Why are the Labor Party running away from that? Why won't they support sensible policy which will drive this country into the future?Sitting suspended from 6.31 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.XT4Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSON—In the time left to me there are still a number of matters that I want to raise this evening. Before the dinner break I was talking about the Labor Party, their irrelevance to the present debate and the fact that the Australian people were looking for leadership—and that is exactly what they received. The simple fact is that the Labor Party want to retain the present system that we have; a system which will not deliver tax cuts, a system that they want to see continued, a system that does not have any compensation. I echo the words of some of my colleagues who raised in the House this afternoon the l-a-w law tax cuts and the increase in sales tax after 1993 with no compensation at all. It is absolutely imperative that the House is again advised that under the plan announced last Friday by those who participated in the debate—the coalition parties and the Australian Democrats, to the exclusion of the Australian Labor Party whose presence now is really quite irrelevant—middle Australia gets a very generous tax cut, and 80 per cent of all Australian taxpayers will, after 1 July next year, pay a marginal rate of income tax of no more than 30 per cent. This is the group of people who have been carrying the can in this country. They are the ones who have had no flexibility with wages. They have had bracket creep. There has been total disincentive. They have seen people able to avoid taxes. But the PAYE earner is the one who has been stuck in a system that does not reward incentive and has caught them in a virtual poverty trap. This government is about rewarding incentive, rewarding initiative. I think it is quite obscene that PAYE income earners have been stuck in a system which totally disregards any reward for incentive and indeed has, I think, caused enormous problems for a large number of Australian families. As one commentator put it after last Friday: Labor gambled, and they lost. I think that really sums it up. Labor gambled and they lost, and they are now totally irrelevant.There are a number of initiatives in this budget that are good for regional Australia generally and specifically for my own electorate: a multipurpose facility for the Department of Defence and some $4 million in defence capital expenditure, which is good for the region, good for local economic growth and good for jobs, and warmly received by the people of the Ballarat electorate. We have made changes to the youth allowance which will benefit many families in rural areas. We have considerably increased funding to non-government schools, and we have improved literacy programs. We have increased allocations for rural health. There are to be 30 new regional health centres, and $4.1 million will be allocated over four years for support services in regional Australia for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. There will be more Medicare Easyclaim facilities, and $43 million to keep GPs in rural and regional Australia—absolutely pivotal.In the time left to me I want to address another matter: jobs. I want to mention the absolute hypocrisy of the Labor Party with their crocodile tears over jobs. I refer to the regional forest agreements. This RFA process is backed up by the Labor Party's own national forest policy statement in the early nineties. The legislation in the House at the moment is about implementing the Labor Party's policy on forests. These RFAs—which will provide certainty for industry, certainty for environmental groups—are being put at risk by the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition and those who sit behind him. It is fair to say that historically the union movement has not necessarily been terribly close to the coalition parties, but I want to quote Mr Michael O'Connor, who is the National Assistant Secretary of the CFMEU's Forestry Division. In referring to the Leader of the Opposition's casting away of the RFA process, his total turnaround in relation to the whole process, Mr O'Connor said:Beazley's comments were a betrayal of tens of thousands of workers throughout Australia employed in the Forest and Forest products industry.Beazley has torn up National ALP policy and has deceived workers, their families and communities in regional Australia . . .He has been described as `opportunistic' by Mr O'Connor. This is a union leader who is attacking the opposition leader on his attitude to employment in regional and rural Australia. He is absolutely spot-on. The opposition leader needs to take that on board and stop crying crocodile tears for workers. The CFMEU has told him in no uncertain terms that he has deceived workers. The workers in the forestry industry will not be deceived by the coalition. We have made them a very firm promise that we will support the RFA process, we will support their jobs and we will support the continuation of the forest industry.20:06:005693Bevis, Arch, MPMr BEVISET4BrisbaneALP00—These appropriation bills dealing with the budget for this year provide members with an opportunity to canvass a very broad range of issues. It is not surprising, listening to the debate thus far—and no doubt it will be the same as the debate continues—that a good deal of discussion has focused on the GST. In fact, the GST package overshadowed this budget even before this budget was presented to the parliament. It certainly managed to wipe the budget from the pages of the media within 48 hours of the budget's delivery. This is a budget which sank without trace literally hours after its delivery in the parliament. It is a budget that has been built on fancy rhetoric without substance, and it is a budget which quite deceptively plays with mirrors in the way in which it fails to deliver on those things which it claims to be about.Let me turn first to some of those things with respect to the big picture of the budget. Budget surpluses in this country are a pretty rare thing. Not many governments in this country of either political persuasion have actually delivered budget surpluses. This budget does. But if we want to be somewhat objective about it, we discover that the budget surplus of this government, the budget before us, is in fact not one on a grand scale. The budget papers tell us that the surplus will amount to 0.8 of one per cent. In fact the longest run of budget surpluses this parliament has seen, in the records I have been able to find anywhere in this place, were the four successive budget surpluses of the Keating-Hawke years. If you have a look at those budget surpluses, they were actually much larger than the budget surplus we have before us now. For example, in 1998-89, the Labor government recorded a budget surplus of 1.8 per cent of GDP, more than double the surplus that is before this parliament today. In the following year 1989-90, the same Labor government produced a budget surplus of 1.7 per cent of GDP, again more than double the size of the budget surplus that this government wants to crow about.That point has not been lost on some of the commentators. Terry McCrann, who is not known for his support of the Labor side of politics but is credited with some economic skills, has identified that as well. In his column in the Weekend Australian immediately following the budget he said this:It's sobering to be reminded, as the Budget papers do, that an earlier world champion treasurer had four successive Budget surpluses. And surpluses considerably bigger than the two rather tiny ones his successor has had so far.The question of budget surpluses and the government's claims that they have somehow turned around the budgetary situation need to be put into some perspective. The simple fact of life is that budget surpluses are fairly unremarkable so far as budget surpluses go. The budget surplus has actually been arrived at not through any careful management of the economy. It has been arrived at by increasing the government take out of the community. The simple, inescapable fact is that total revenue that this government is drawing out of Australian pockets is greater this year than at any time for more than a decade. Twenty-five per cent of GDP is going to government revenue this year. That is higher than at any time since 1988-89. This surplus has been funded by the government dipping its hands further into the pockets of ordinary Australians.To put that into some perspective in dollars, if you take the last Labor budget in 1995-96, you discover that this year the federal government will take $34 billion more in total revenue than the Labor budget of 1995-96. One of the ways that that has been achieved is by bracket creep. Bracket creep is something that is often referred to, but it is something the government would like to pretend does not exist anymore. It does, and again Terry McCrann said this only today in the Herald Sun:John Howard is dead wrong. Bracket creep is going to get worse under his new tax scales.Mind you, this is Terry McCrann talking about the new you-beaut superimproved GST package with the Democrat involvement, and he said bracket creep is going to get worse under these new tax scales. He went on to say:Even worse, it is going to hit hardest those very "battlers" taking home between $330 and $730 or so a week.So the news for ordinary Australians is not good out of this. One of the things that ordinary Australians expect from a government is to do something to generate jobs, to provide job security and to see the unemployment rate fall. What is this government's aim for unemployment in this budget? Buried amongst the documents you discover that the government's aim for unemployment is to do nothing. The government projection in their own budget papers is to maintain unemployment at 7½ per cent this year and next year. There is not even a plan in the budget papers to reduce it by 0.1 of one per cent. Not at all. For the next two years Australians can look forward to a government that has flown the white flag in the fight against unemployment.One of the other interesting things about the budget and the way that the papers have been crafted—and it goes to the comments I made before about the way they have played with mirrors in all of this—is that the budget papers, as they always do, provide projections on things like unemployment and what the government project the inflation rate to be. In fact the budget papers have made that calculation without including the GST in it. You have to ask yourself: why would they do that? Buried in the document at page 1-11, it says:The impact on prices of the tax reforms under A New Tax System is not included in the projections.They would have us believe that there are not going to be any inflationary effects from the GST—which we know is untrue. In fact, Treasury and the government acknowledge that there will be inflationary pressures from the GST. The argument is how big it will be. But for the purposes of the budget they do not even include it in their projections—a fundamental part of any budget which has been undermined by this government's game with mirrors.I would like to say a few things about some of the specific areas of policy that are covered in the budget and were given some prominence. Before the budget was released, the Prime Minister made great play that it was going to be a budget for education and for research. Frankly, I applaud efforts to focus increased resources on education. It is a critically important area for society and for our future. It is a matter of deep regret that the budget did not live up to it. The government simply did not deliver on that promise.Worse than that, though, the budget is failing not only to deliver on the rhetoric; this government seems to want to re-ignite the divisive and destructive debate on state aid that so wrecked our nation for decades. This budget proposes to give public schools $10 extra per student each year. On the other hand, it proposes to give private schools an extra $210 per year per student. There is no shred of decency, there is no principle that the government can identify that justifies that totally distorted and divisive policy. The only basis upon which the government can claim to want to provide private schools with an extra $200 per student over and above what they are going to give for kids in state schools is blind ideology. It is their old school tie. Look along their front bench and have a look at the old school tie and the alma mater; they have delivered big time. But it is a very dangerous road that the government is proposing to take us down.Some people in the government have said, `Oh, but that's nonsense because you know that most of the money that goes to state schools comes from state governments.' Apart from the consideration that they have cut the grants to states anyway, the comparison that I am referring to is the additional funds. We are talking about the extra money in this budget: $10 for kids in state schools, $210 for kids in private schools. To give that some perspective, in 1996, public schools received from the Commonwealth 72c for every dollar that was spent in the private sector; that is, for every dollar that the federal government gave to a private school, it gave 72c per pupil to a state school. Today, as a result of this budget, public schools will receive only 57c.One of the more amazing things in the education field was the government's penny-pinching attitude to an equitable scholarship scheme for tertiary students. There was a really quite small scheme that provided a few million dollars a year to help kids from poor areas and, amazingly, from rural areas—why the National Party decided to put their hand up for this is amazing—who would not otherwise get access to universities because of financial problems. This budget scraps that program. This budget attacks the very heart of equity in the tertiary system.One of the other areas that the government crowed about beforehand was that this was going to be a budget for research. Everybody in this parliament will get up and make a speech about how important it is to be a creative nation, how important it is for our future to invest in R&D and things of that kind. In the build-up to this budget, as part of their public relations spin, the government tried to tell Australians that they were going to provide funds for research. A lot of papers swallowed that. They thought that that was exactly what had occurred, but the cat has been belled on this. The Weekend Australian immediately following the budget reported that the chief of the CSIRO, Malcolm McIntosh, had written to his staff saying:Our appropriation funding base for the 2001 to 2002-03 triennium will be maintained at the current level . . .That is, no increase at all. The article went on to say how the scientists were disappointed to find out that there would be only the minor allocation of $17½ million over two years for biotechnology. But the real crunch comes after that. That $17½ million is not for research; it is to establish a four-member ministerial council. They are going to use the $17½ million for a quango. That is their idea of helping research. They have just established a $17½ million quango for themselves and their mates and tried to con the scientific community into thinking that they got a good deal out of it.Not surprisingly, within two days of the budget coming down, their chief scientist, the fellow who heads up the CSIRO, was telling his staff, `We got dudded.' That is exactly the position that research and development has been in as a result of the government's policies. The game of mirrors that was cynically played in the delivery of this budget will come home to roost with this government.There is one aspect of the budget which I want to mention briefly, particularly given my portfolio responsibilities, and that is what the budget projects for wages. I am sure Australian workers would be interested to know what the government thinks their future wage horizon is. Page 2-22 of the budget papers says:A slight moderation in wages growth generally is expected in 1999-2000.What does that jargon mean? That jargon means to the average worker in Australia that this government expects their wage increase this coming year to be less than it was last year. That simply is what it means. Workers of Australia can expect a smaller increase next year than they got last year. But one of the telling things in the document is the comment it makes in concluding that paragraph. It says;This outlook incorporates the contribution to wages growth flowing from the recent Australian Industrial Relations Commission safety net decision. That is a decision which this government opposed. This government said that the employers of Australia could not afford to pay more than $8 a week to the lowest paid workers of Australia. In the end, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission decided to pay them $12. We had ACCI and other employer groups running around saying that the sky was going to fall in, that jobs would be lost everywhere. What does Treasury say about it? What do the budget papers say about it? The budget papers say even after that increase, which was 50 per cent higher than what Peter Reith and this government said the workers should have, they expect wages growth to be smaller next year than it was last year. The duplicity of that position has been at the expense of ordinary Australian workers.This is a budget strategy that has been underwritten by the GST package and by the planned 100 per cent sale of Telstra. You have to say that neither of those things look too promising at the moment. We await budget mark II, following GST package mark II, but there is no doubt that a number of the projections contained in the budget papers are going to need serious revision as a result of the changes to the GST that have already been announced. I might say that that is only the principles of the GST; we have not actually seen the final document. It has not taken too long for the government to recant on some of that either. The ABC Internet news for yesterday included this interesting little gem:. . . the Government's Senate leader Robert Hill has acknowledged that future Government's could scrap the exemption for food.Within a week of actually signing this document, we now have the Leader of the Government in the Senate saying, `We might have said that food is exempt from the GST this year, but there is no guarantee about next year or the year after.' So we have Robert Hill, one of the senior government figures, reneging on the agreement before the ink is even dry. If the Democrats are dumb enough to go down that path after being dudded already by the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, I guess they deserve what they are going to get at the polls, and make no mistake, they are going to get a backlash at the polls.The whole question of the GST package has now come into focus as a result of Senator Harradine's decision and the Democrats' deal with this government. I again quote from Terry McCrann in the Weekend Australian after the budget on the decision of Senator Harradine:The best outcome for Australia is that the Government's tax package should now fall over.Remember this is Terry McCrann—he is not a friend of our side of politics, but the best outcome as far as he was concerned was for the whole lot to fall over. He went on:We do not `need' the tax package and the GST, in the sense of without it we would all be ruined.He made an interesting comparison in talking about the way in which the Australian economy has weathered the Asian currency crisis. I will quickly comment on that. Members of the government in their more honest, private moments will acknowledge that the principal reason Australia has done so well during the last 18 months of turmoil in Asia is that, during the years before, we restructured our financial system, opened our economy and exchange rate, and had a transparent financial system in which the world economy had confidence. That was the fundamental thing that underpinned it. The fact that this government has managed to be in office for a few years and not make a mess of it to undermine that advantage has not produced the final result. The simple fact is that your own ministers in private, with journalists and others, will acknowledge that those reforms in the Keating years provided the foundations for us to weather the Asian currency crisis. Terry McCrann made this observation:Yet I, for one, keep coming back to this niggling point that the two countries which have been the most economically successful in recent times are the two without a GST: Australia and the US.When the Treasurer hops up and wants to talk about Botswana and other places, he conveniently wants to ignore the United States. As Terry McCrann knows, but unfortunately some members in the House do not, the United States does not have a goods and services tax.XJ6ANTHONYMr Anthony—Every state does.ET4Bevis, Arch, MPMr BEVIS—That is not true. You should check your facts and if you do not believe our definition have a look at the OECD definition. Terry McCrann also made the observation about the GST, after saying that the government should scrap the package altogether:You make a $10 T-shirt, you pay a $1 GST. You develop a $100 IT product, you pay $10. Do we really want to encourage the making of T-shirts over IT?This is a stupid tax. It is a stupid tax package. When we come to debate those bills in detail, I am going to relish the opportunity to go through them more fully than this debate allows but, given that the GST has totally overshadowed this appalling budget, some comment needed to be made about it. This is a poor budget, it is a hollow budget, it has failed to deliver to Australians and it does not present any vision—it is totally the victim of the GST mantra that this government have now locked themselves into and, as they have locked themselves into that, they will sink with it. (Time expired)20:26:005697Anthony, Larry, MPMr ANTHONYXJ6RichmondNP10—I, too, would like to speak on the appropriation bills. The coalition government's first budget since the 1998 election in October delivers on the commitments I and the coalition made to Richmond voters during the campaign. Importantly, the 1999-2000 budget will produce a surplus of $5.4 billion, which is the best way of securing a strong economy and Australia's future as we enter a new century. An interesting point to make on this budget, like all the budgets the coalition has delivered since we won office in 1996, is that there has been no increase in wholesale sales tax or personal income tax—indeed, there has been no borrowing by the government since it was elected. This is a remarkable story considering that all previous governments since Federation have issued bonds or gone out to the market seeking money to fund programs.The principal thrust of this government and this budget is to continue to repay the debt that was created by the Labor Party which left us a legacy of nearly $100 billion in Commonwealth borrowings. It is hoped that by 2000-01, in terms of the net debt of the GDP we inherited, we will have repaid at least $20 billion in 1999-2000 alone—the largest single year reduction ever. Importantly, this budget—delivered after an election—is not only responsible and fair but also does not have the usual hard measures contained in the first budgets brought down by newly elected governments. The reason for this change is that many of these tough decisions were made in 1996 and 1997 to ensure that Australia was on a sound economic footing, which helped fireproof the economy from the severe Asian downturn that impacted on our northern trading partners.This budget is interesting because there is a major focus not just on the economic side but on the social dimensions to our community, in particular the areas of health, education and the targeting of social problems such as drugs, homelessness and suicide, which regrettably is prevalent on the North Coast of New South Wales. The 1999-2000 budget—which is the last for this century—sets the benchmark for a new tax system which will take effect on 1 July 2000. I would like to acknowledge the Democrats' pragmatic negotiating ability in that they have joined with the government to ensure that 85 to 90 per cent of the commitment that we made at the last election will be honoured and will greatly benefit all Australians, which is quite unlike the policies of the Labor Party to block everything and be a spoiler. In particular, and I certainly agree with the honourable member at the dispatch box, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources, the substantial tax reductions—80 per cent of Australians will pay no more than a 30 per cent marginal tax rate—will allow us to give incentives for people to work and to save. There has been a streamlining of the complicated wholesale sales tax regime and the many other forms and rates of taxes—12, 22, 32, 46, 47 per cent, to name a few. They will be abolished and replaced by a standard 10 per cent GST.There will be massive savings in transport costs for regional Australia, particularly with the reduction in diesel fuel. This will mean a 23c per litre reduction for trucks above 20 tonnes. I would also like to acknowledge the enhanced environmental package that has been put together by the Democrats and the government which is of great benefit not just to urban Australia but to regional Australia as well.The amendments made to the new tax system will enhance the wellbeing of people on the North Coast. The demographics show there are many low income earners on the North Coast, and they will now not pay GST on basic foods, which are exempt from the tax. I believe this, along with concessions for natural medicines—which is a flourishing industry on the North Coast—will reduce costs for many people, particularly older Australians and those receiving government benefits. We have a very high proportion of older Australians in our region, and the budget delivers substantial extra funds to health, particularly in the areas of respite and aged care. We also have a high proportion of young families on the North Coast, and the budget commits an extra $870 million over four years to education, including money for literacy and numeracy programs and schemes to improve teaching standards.Southern Cross University should also benefit through the real increases in funding for medical research and biotechnology, which will assist with their natural medicine research and the cellulose valley project. I do hope that once this tax reform package gets through the Senate we can start tackling some major areas of reform, including those recommended by the Ralph committee but particularly in relation to capital gains tax, which is absolutely crucial for the IT industry, for biotechnology, and for most of my rural colleagues, particularly those in the National Party.This is also a budget for jobs. Funding for apprenticeships and traineeships has increased to assist small business. The doubling of Work for the Dole places to 50,000 is also very welcome on the North Coast, where the scheme has proved hugely popular. This is along with the additional $1,000 given towards increasing traineeships and apprenticeships in skill shortage areas, which takes it up to $5,000 per annum. I would like to encourage John Montgomery to continue to pursue his desire to have a Work for the Dole project operating in the Ocean Shores/Brunswick Heads/New Brighton area, which I know he has been pursuing for many years. There is extra money to help families and the homeless, and for preventative strategies for the tragedy of youth suicide. Above all, this is a responsible budget for our children.The budget has been welcomed by national and local media alike. An editorial titled `Budget for a New Century' in the Tweed Daily News said:For most Australians, last night's Federal Budget will have hit the bullseye . . . the Government is to be congratulated on its economic performance.I must admit this is unusual, coming from the editor. The Gold Coast Bulletin said:The bottom line of the Budget . . . is something that will be welcomed. It showed that the government money management is back on track.The Daily Telegraph said:The Budget was a platform on which to base policy for a debut decade for the next century, a launching pad for rising growth and employment in stable conditions.The paper also urged the Senate to pass the government's tax package, which is critical. The Sydney Morning Herald —the Fairfax Press, not known to be overly friendly towards the coalition government—front page headline reads, `Costello Hits the Bullseye'. The paper also described the budget as `fair and reasonable'.Barely a week after the budget I had the pleasure of welcoming the Minister for Aged Care to my electorate. The purpose of her visit was to explain aged care budget measures to many older Australians in the electorate of Richmond. And I would certainly like to welcome all my parliamentary colleagues who have just arrived to hear this speech in which I will be talking a lot about my local area. The minister's visit was a huge success thanks to the enthusiastic support of older Australians, North Coast aged care providers and the skills of my staff, Vicki Everingham and Jennifer Brinsmead. I would like to thank Don Morgan for organising a meeting between the minister and residents of the mobile home and permanent caravan parks in Tweed Heads.Don Morgan is a legend in the Tweed. He is variously known as the de facto mayor, the king of pensioners and the Tweed Heads aged care champion. I know Don has expressed concerns about the effects the tax package may have on pensioners around Australia, and I would like to take this opportunity to reassure him that I have identified at least 14 measures of great benefit to this section of the community. We have a very high percentage of older persons and pensioners on the North Coast. I do endorse the comments made by the member for Farrer, who happens to be in the chamber at the moment.The 14 measures are as follows: first, pensions will rise by four per cent on 1 July 2000, including frozen rate pensions that do not normally increase, in addition to the normal increase that would be paid due to CPI or MTAWE increases. Any increase in the CPI will be offset by an additional two per cent rather than the 1.5 per cent previously announced. Second, a supplementary savings bonus will now apply to self-funded retirees with income from savings from age 55 rather than pensionable age—worth up to $2,000 per person or $4,000 per couple. Third, an aged persons savings bonus will be payable to eligible Australians over the age of 60 earning income from savings—worth up to $1,000 per person or $2,000 per couple.Fourth, taper rates will be reduced from 50 cents in the dollar to 40 cents in the dollar for pensioners in receipt of additional income over the income threshold. Fifth, the threshold for assets and income will increase by 2.5 per cent. Sixth, the maximum aged pensioner/low income aged person tax rebate will increase by $250 per year for single pensioners and $175 per year for couples. This means that a single pensioner/low income aged person will not pay tax until they earn in excess of $14,500 a year or $24,500 for a couple—very significant. Seventh, nursing home charges and rents in housing commission estates will not increase as a result of the four per cent base level increase in pensions. Private rents are not controlled by the government, so this measure may not totally flow on, but I do call upon particularly proprietors of mobile home parks to show restraint.Eight, basic food—GST free. Nine, S2 medicines—GST free. Ten, public health goods—sunscreens, folate products, et cetera—GST free. Eleven, naturopathy, acupuncture and herbalist services, where provided by qualified personnel—GST free. Twelve, a 30 per cent rebate on private health insurance—a massive savings. Thirteen, abolition of FID from 1 July 2001. Fourteen, introduction of refundable franking credits on shares held in a person's own name. Don, these are significant changes and benefits to pensioners. Our thoughts are also with Don's wife, Nancy Morgan, who is convalescing after recent surgery. I am sure members of this House will join me in wishing Nancy a speedy recovery.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!UNKNOWNAnthony, Larry, MPMr ANTHONY—Thank you, Members. A meeting also took place in the Tweed Broadwater Manufactured Home Park, and I thank them for their kind hospitality. The minister and I also met with aged care providers at Greenhills-on-Tweed Reception Lounge. Greenhills is a lovely venue for meetings and I thank the management and staff there, particularly Paul Irwin and Michael Hoare. I thank them also for the services they have given to the Murwillumbah Apex Club over the years and wish Brian Meldrum well on his 40th birthday changeover night coming up shortly. The aged care providers took time out of their busy schedule to come and see the minister and I would like to acknowledge them.The meeting was so well attended I cannot mention everybody today, but I would like to recognise the following people: Jenny Armstrong of Tweed Nursing Centre; Paul Norris and Fred Jones of Ballina Ex-Services and Community Care; Bernadette Lee of Elouera Nursing Home; Lyn Norris of Kingshaven Hostel; Susan Burgess and Arthur Williams of St Andrews Nursing Home; Dianne Weekes of Moran Health Care Group; Bob McGrath of Maranoa Retirement Village Hostel; Muriel Lewis and David Neuss of Pinehaven Nursing Home; Sue Beck, Shirley Nelson and others of Feros Village; Sandra Griffin of Amaroo Nursing Home; Max Ferguson and Don Halliday from the Alstonville Adventist Retirement Village; Ruth Henderson of the Far North Coast Respite Centre; and Carol Bell of Greenhills Lodge. I thank the members of the House for acknowledging all those people and indulging me. A final mention should go to Ivan Mackay from Wommin Bay Hostel. He has brought the aged care sector on the North Coast together so that—to coin a phrase—united they stand. He also managed to make Bronwyn Bishop blush when he gave the vote of thanks. I understand that in itself is a very special achievement.The final leg of the minister's visit was to Greenhills Lodge. We were welcomed by United Protestant Association Regional Manager Ken Maslin, the hostel's Deputy Director, Sandra Langdon, and Carol Bell, who was the registered duty nurse on that day. I also note that for aged care there has been an increase of over $228 million over four years for primary care for people with chronic illnesses and $210 million over four years for hearing services.On the subject of congratulations, I make mention of the Tweed Valley Woodcraft Association whose members include Michael Borton, Frank Rowe, Trevor Richens, Harry Lesleighter and Barry Wyton. Michael Borton has just won a Churchill Fellowship. This will allow him to undertake a three-month tour of the world's most respected museums and galleries. He will learn more about his passion from master craftsmen in America, England and France. Good luck to you, Michael.There is a far more important day, Mr Deputy Prime Minister, than budget day for the people of Richmond, and I am very glad that you are here to hear this, and that is Mother's Day. I would love to mention all the mothers in my electorate by name but, clearly, it presents some difficulty, so I will just mention one. Mrs Leanne Parmenter of Alstonville won the Barnados Australian Mother of the Year Award. Mrs Parmenter is the eldest child of 11. She left school at 14 to take care of her 10 siblings. She has four children of her own. Mrs Parmenter is renowned in the Alstonville area as a foster mother and she has fostered over 500 chil dren. She was nominated by her foster child Shannon. Congratulations, Leanne Parmenter.The community spirit is clearly alive and well in my electorate. In this respect, I salute the outgoing President and Secretary of the Fingal Head Progress Association Greg and Pam Carroll. Greg and Pam moved to the North Coast to retire after Greg's successful career with the Royal Australian Air Force. They have been running the Progress Association and also helping in the dune care area. I acknowledge Greg's passionate efforts with aircraft noise and flight paths and all the other AEC members along with Reg Payne, Ray Tate, Trevor Stephenson and Jim Boydle and my AEC representative, Bill Pinkstone.I would also like to mention the Southern Cross University. It is a very important part of our region. That importance is set to grow after this government's honoured election promise to build a high-tech campus on the Tweed, which will produce over $8 million in revenue for that area. Another good decision by the university was the award last week of an honorary fellowship to George Hanna. I congratulate George Hanna on his excellent work. Bob Whittle, also from the Murwillumbah area, has just celebrated his 85th birthday and Tweed Shire Council has given him a great present. Murwillumbah airfield will be renamed the Bob Whittle Airfield. Bob is one of four surviving Australian air aces. He shot down 11 enemy aircraft in the Middle East and South Pacific during the last war. Perhaps we need Bob over in Kosovo. It was Bob and his wife Frankie Whittle's commitment to local aviation that has brought him this deserved honour. He has been flying from Murwillumbah since the early 1920s and was still flying solo at the age of 72.The budget contains many more measures to support families and relationships in the form of the Relate Program. Relate is helping many Australian couples. There is one couple in my electorate who do not need any help from the government to stay together and that is Ivor and Audrey Blanch of Norton Street in Ballina celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary on 20 May this year. They live near Reverend Filer, a very fine minister. This achievement is one that we should all be envious of. I wish Mr and Mrs Blanch more anniversary celebrations to come. We are fast approaching the Centenary of Federation. The government is proposing a new tax system for a new century. Margaret Hall of Crowley Street, also in Ballina, has been around since well before Federation and for over a century. Mrs Hall celebrated her 104th birthday on 6 May. Congratulations and many returns, Margaret.Many members of this House may not have heard of Lennox Head, a beautiful coastal village between Ballina and Byron Bay in my electorate. I suggest the member for Riverina comes and visits us there. Lennox Head is set to gain wide recognition with its appearance on 70,000 Telstra phone cards. The picture on the phone card features pelicans on Lennox Beach. The photograph was taken by Lennox Head postmistress, Delia Gibbon. This is fitting reward for Delia who was devastated when her post office burned down last year. Congratulations, Delia Gibbon.The electorate I represent has a very high rate of unemployment. The future to reducing that unemployment is the service sector, particularly tourism. That is why the North Coast Tourism Awards are so important in my electorate. The Tour and Transport Operators Award went to the Tweed River Catch-a-Crab Cruise. Congratulations to Lee and Robert Eyre. I certainly encourage all members of the House to walk up Mount Warning along with the member for Deakin, who did struggle up that mountain.We pride ourselves on being original in my electorate. It was no surprise that Judy Rimmer and Ralph Kraemer again won the award for Unique Accommodation for their extraordinary Crystal Creek Rainforest Retreat near Murwillumbah. The Macadamia Castle in Knockrow won the award for the most significant regional attraction. Congratulations to the owners, Jerome Henderson and Jeanne Martin, and their wonderful staff. Taylor's guest house in Ewingsdale won the award for Hosted Accommodation for the second year running. They were also finalists in the upcoming New South Wales tourism awards for the second year in a row. The way they are going they are going to need a new mantelpiece. Congratulations to the owners, Michael de Laurence and Ross Skinner.Newalls Apartments in Lennox Head won the award for Superior Accommodation. Well done to the owner operators, Ian and Gwen Newall. Ian specifically asked me to mention that his name is spelt with an `a' not an `e' like the former Labor member for Richmond. The Tweed and Coolangatta Tourism Inc or TACTIC have clearly put their troubles behind them. They won the Tourism Associations Award. Congratulations to Gervaise Griffith and the people of TACTIC. The Midginbil Hill Country Resort achieved an Award of Distinction. Congratulations to John Flower and his staff for their achievement. Twin Towns Services Club—one of the largest RSLs in Australia and one of the biggest employers in the Tweed—also received an Award of Distinction. Well done to all at Twin Towns. A further Award of Distinction went to Tweed Billabong Holiday Park, run by Andrew Tribe. Wollumbin Palms received an encouragement award and I congratulate Margaret and Roger Earland.Finally, this budget sets the platform for a sound financial situation and a secure, responsible budget for the next century combined with the hybrid tax reform package, which has the support of the Australian Democrats. It sets a strong foundation for encouraging growth, incentives for work and savings and a fairer system for this and future generations. For the North Coast the challenge will be to ensure that these opportunities can be grasped by locals, be they in Tweed Heads, Murwillumbah, the Byron shire or the Ballina region, to create jobs and to improve prosperity for all Australians.20:46:005702Wilton, Greg, MPMr WILTONYK6IsaacsALP00—Is it any wonder that the member for Richmond barely mentioned the budget in his 20-minute dissertation? It is indeed a most revealing document and one about which I am sure he is quite ashamed. It is quite easy to name half the constituents in your electorate when you can avoid so easily talking about the substantive issues revealed in this budget. This budget reveals the contempt in which this government holds Mr Howard's so-called battlers and ordinary wage earning Austral ians. It is no doubt a budget for those who can afford to pay private school fees, ever-spiralling health insurance premiums or, more specifically perhaps, the gap between the health costs and the actual rebate.This is also a budget for medium to high income earners who stand to receive significant income tax cuts from an inequitable and regressive system based on a GST. In fact, this is a budget handed down by a cabinet so horribly out of touch with ordinary Australians that the Prime Minister thinks health insurance premiums can be accommodated in the family budget by having families visit one less country on their next overseas trip. That is an absolutely disgraceful comment.Speaking of disgraceful comments, the Minister for Health and Aged Care refers to elderly citizens in no uncertain terms as losers. The Minister for Employment Services believes that people who spend 12 years at school and hope for something better than a part-time job plucking chickens or, if they are in Leichhardt, peeling pineapples are `job snobs'. This budget is certainly not about funding and providing services for the community, notably in the areas of education and health.The analogy of running a government much like a private enterprise right down to producing a surplus or profit at the bottom line has been taken right to the extreme. A commitment to this approach totally ignores what the community has come to expect from government and, indeed, has come to expect as a result of the standards Labor set when it was in government, given that we took it upon ourselves to believe that we were operating within a society, not just an economy.Constituents in my electorate of Isaacs have asked me what the budget surplus means for them. I have to tell them that it means not very much. They ask me whether the surplus is a good thing. I say that it is a good thing but not when it comes at the expense of failing to fulfil the government's civic obligations to the Australian electorate. There is no doubt that anyone can produce a budget surplus by simply cutting back and sweeping aside government services.This government often talks about a mandate to introduce this and a mandate to sell that. But what better an obligation, commitment or contract than to satisfy the requirements reasonably expected by the Australian people as part of responsible government. This government is consumed and obsessed by the introduction of a goods and services tax. It is ironic that Mr Howard's policy to never, ever introduce a GST is now effectively the only policy his government has.As a representative of the people of Isaacs, I have a number of significant concerns arising out of this budget. A significant portion of Isaacs falls within the city of Casey. The city of Casey happens to be in the top two or three fastest growing municipalities in Victoria. Indeed, it is the third fastest nationally. Currently, 40 to 50 families move into the city of Casey each week. This places considerable pressure on the already overtaxed council resources.What does this budget do? It intends to do nothing more than to finally and completely sever the federal-local government partnership which we have known and come to respect over 25 years. This budget totally abolishes the Local Government Development Program, leaving a two-year funding plan—referred to as the Local Government Incentive Program—to assist with the administration costs of a GST. After two years, there will be no further federal funding to local government.Where does this leave cities such as Casey and Banyule, which is in the electorate of my colleague the member for Jagajaga? It leaves them with the burden of being the federal government's tax collector and forced to raise rates to maintain a level of local service that the community has come to expect. Is it a cunning tactic? Perhaps it is. It is more likely a very cynical and shifty one. It allows the federal government the luxury of not getting their hands dirty in the sometimes grimy world of community service delivery with limited resources. It permits an arms-length approach by government to tax collection. Meanwhile the residents of the city of Casey and, indeed, Isaacs proper continue to suffer.Another concern I have with this budget involves the undeniably blinkered decision making processes that dictate which areas are to be starved of funds and which areas are to be increased. Take, for example, education. The budget allocates $210 per head to students in private schools. On the other hand, it proposes somewhere around less than $10 per head to students in government schools.The budget abolishes, as we all know, merit scholarships for poor and rural based university students. It totally ignores preschool and child-care funding. In my electorate of Isaacs the local Merinda Park preschool is starved of funds and is therefore currently relying on volunteers to remain open. We may all well recall the Prime Minister's launching of his party's child-care policy in the 1996 campaign and that infamous photograph of him at a tea party with a group of young kids. That tea party was conducted around the corner from the Merinda Park preschool. I have no doubt that many of the kids in that same photograph now attend that school which is so starved of funds. There is no doubt that this is an incredibly and appallingly myopic approach to education policy. Obviously this government needs to be reminded that the best and brightest do not necessarily come from the wealthy families who can afford to send their kids to private schools and go on to pay for their university education, nor does education policy begin at primary level and end at secondary.I would also like to raise the quite bizarre issue of health funding initiatives in this budget which indicate to me that there is definitely a health policy vacuum within this government. Firstly, this government is intent on propping up private health insurance providers even though their efforts at luring back private insurees via premium rebates have yielded to date what can only be described as fairly unremarkable results. It confounds me somewhat that in four budgets the government has failed to address the gap between private rebates and actual costs incurred and continues to ignore the continuing lack of choice in private health coverage.What do they do then, right out of left field, surprising us all? The government decides to spend $8 million on flying female GPs into remote rural areas. That in itself is not a bad thing, but why not spend that money encouraging GPs of all genders—indeed of both genders—into regional areas all over Australia?PG6MACKLINMs Macklin—There are only two!YK6Wilton, Greg, MPMr WILTON—Indeed, there are only two. This is an area where there is a chronic shortage of professionals and the government does elect to treat it in a small-minded and piecemeal manner. Again this government's funding is targeting the few and ignoring the many. Meanwhile, in the real world, the public health system, which services the majority of Australians, is left to haemorrhage almost uncontrollably.On the issue of unemployment in Isaacs, the rate there on the whole is slightly higher than or equal to the national average. Hence, as in many electorates, policy initiatives in this part of the world have a significant impact. However, there will be no movement on this front as a result of any so-called initiatives put forward in this budget. Not only does this government fail to meet its own targets on unemployment but it makes no attempt to acknowledge, let alone counteract, the predicted job losses brought on by the imposition of a GST. But, in my view, those members on the government front bench and in cabinet do not care about the unemployed. They have no real view of what it is like to be long-term unemployed and to battle Centrelink day in and day out. It is a case of out of sight, out of mind as far as they are concerned.For instance, the Minister for Employment Services boasts an unemployment rate of a mere 2.4 per cent in his electorate, the Prime Minister about 3.8 per cent and the Treasurer about 4.9 per cent, so they would hardly have, if at all, constituents popping into their offices to complain about the poor service from their local Job Network provider, a framework in which the difficult to place and those desperately in need of services and support to even have a chance of applying for a job are grossly and inadequately underserviced.A number of these agencies have closed down since the national launch just over a year ago and one of those serviced the residents of Isaacs. While other providers remain in the area, this particular agency serviced the region most affected by difficult to place clients. It was lack of government support and consultation that resulted in the imposition of unobtainable targets required to stay afloat which forced this agency in the electorate of Isaacs to close recently. Those who suffer most are the so-called `clients', that is, those unemployed trying to get off Jobstart and scrape together a reasonable income, hopefully from a job with a future. I believe, as we all do on this side of the House, that those people would take exception to being referred to as `job snobs'.One thing is for certain and that is that there are no jobs in a GST. In fact, the move to save John Howard's own job is going to cost thousands of young Victorians their jobs. The chief of Kentucky Fried Chicken said recently that 3,000 jobs will go in that chain of stores alone—a chain of stores which clearly has the resources and wherewithal to cope with the imposition of a GST. One can only wonder what will happen in the thousands of smaller businesses nationwide that cannot similarly cope with such an imposition.In my opening comments I made mention of the fact that this was a budget for medium to high income earners, who stand to receive significant tax cuts as a result of the inequitable and regressive tax system based around the GST. I wish to take some limited time to expand on that theme, in particular the alleged fairness of a GST. There is nothing fair about this tax package for low income earners, or pensioners for that matter. The Democrats settled for half the increase for pensioners that Senator Harradine rejected. This increase was five per cent and a higher index subsequently to male average weekly earnings. To their shame, the Democrats accepted a four per cent increase and no subsequent indexation to male average weekly earnings. There is no doubt that both pensioners and low wage earners are being beaten around the head by this government in its tax package. The significant gains in pay rates, for example, are enjoyed by those on around $60,000, who receive a handsome tax cut of $3,222. That is effectively a pay rise of some 7.8 per cent. However, an income earner on $20,000 a year receives a tax cut of a mere $240, or 2.2 per cent.Despite the exemption on food, the GST remains highly regressive. Importantly, this package is unfair simply because it will ensure that lower and middle income earners will pay a greater share of the nation's tax burden while upper middle income earners pay significantly less as a relative portion of that burden. A similar story of capacity to pay and sharing the burden exists when the regressivity of the new tax system is applied to the notion of bracket creep. Tim Colebatch reported in last Saturday's Melbourne Age that upper middle income earners will still receive $25 a week more than they needed to catch up bracket creep since the last tax cuts in 1993. However, low income earners—true to this government's form—receive up to $3 less. That is further evidence of the regressivity of this tax system.On several occasions in this place I have asserted the view—shared by many members, I am sure, on both sides of the House—that the most serious issue confronting our economy is the current account deficit. In the first three quarters of this financial year, it has already blown out to exceed the $23 billion level reached during the full 1997-98 financial year. Foreign debt is currently 26 per cent higher than when the coalition was first elected in 1996 when it last drove its debt truck around the country. The Treasurer was recently in Hong Kong where he was talking up in a market forum the fact that our current account was only 5¼ or 5½ per cent of GDP, only to return home and be whacked around the head with a banana republic type level of some six per cent of GDP. Our current level of growth of four per cent of GDP cannot be maintained. It must slow if our current account problems are to be addressed. Of greater concern is the fact that the introduction of a GST next year will boost demand because the ties on fiscal policy will be loosened. One can only ask to what levels our trade deficit will decline then when those ties are loosened. There is no doubt that a fiscal easing now is the last thing that our trade figures need.On several occasions in this place I have expressed concern that the ratio of household savings to household disposable income continues to plummet. This government has done nothing to boost national savings, either by extending existing superannuation guarantee level arrangements or by a stimulatory approach to demand management as required. This government has failed to learn from earlier episodes, and its three-week-old budget strategy is seemingly in tatters. The budget forecasts are redundant, and have been made so by compromises over the tax package. Worse, the lack of a national agenda for improving national savings smacks of nothing but complacency.One thing for certain is that the opposition is not complacent in its approach to tax reform. People have a right to look to us for ideas, and I believe we have them. Labor proposes real tax reform without a GST and continues to support government proposals to ensure that people pay their fair share of tax, excluding the insidious GST. Labor would implement fairer tax cuts and deliver much needed tax credit arrangements. We would reinstate R&D arrangements and encourage investment in fledgling and emerging new industries. I believe that our election promises would have made less of an impact on the budget surplus than would the government's, and to that end we would have spent less and achieved more—all without what I believe to be an insidious GST, a tax that has been rejected by our side of politics and will no doubt in the short and long term be similarly rejected by the Australian electorate. (Time expired)21:06:005705Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSONRW5BradfieldLP10—I must say, as I rise, as many of my colleagues have, to speak in an empty chamber, that I wonder whether we are putting the taxpayers' hard-earned resources to good use. I just wonder whether we ought to be moving on to other things.It is a great privilege to be able to speak to this year's budget, for a number of reasons. The first is that this budget represents a change to accrual accounting, something that has not received much discussion in the debate. Accrual accounting in the budget this year will include superannuation expenses and cash accounting, which includes public debt interest recorded as interest paid in this year. Under accrual accounting, allowance is going to be made for interest accrued but not actually paid. Finally, tax revenue is recognised when it is supposed to be paid rather than when it is actually paid. I think some credit should go to Treasury officials and, indeed, the Treasurer and his staff for undertaking what has been an extremely onerous task.The budget this year forecast revenues of $162.8 billion, which represents 26.3 per cent of the nation's GDP, and expenditure at $157 billion will be 25.3 per cent of GDP. The recent tribute dinner for former Prime Minister Mr Whitlam reminded me that, in the year before Mr Whitlam came to government, total government outlays were just on 20 per cent of GDP. Within a year of taking government, Mr Whitlam and his Treasurer managed to take it to almost 27 per cent of total outlays. Notwithstanding the criticisms that the Howard government has taken over the last three years in consolidating the finances of the country and returning the budget from a $10.3 billion deficit to a $5.4 billion surplus this year, with the reduction in government outlays that were necessary, we are still at relatively high levels of expenditure as a proportion of GDP.The $5.4 billion surplus which was forecast—and which to some extent will be adjusted in the context of the recent negotiations on the tax package—represents 0.9 per cent of GDP. This is no mean feat. In fact, up until the 1995-96 budget, this country ran on an average of a 1.4 per cent of GDP deficit for almost 30 years. We now have a sustained generational change in attitudes towards fiscal management in this country, due largely to the responsibility of the Howard-Fischer government.Despite what is going on in our region, we have been growing at around four to 4½ per cent, annualised to 4.7 per cent as of the end of the March quarter, but growth is predicted to fall to three per cent. Unemployment will hopefully fall but, being conservative, we are estimating that it will stay at 7½ per cent. Inflation—which is critical to many things, not the least of which are interest rates for people on middle incomes who are struggling with mortgages—is forecast to remain at an average of two per cent.Apart from the intransigence of the Australian Labor Party, the two biggest threats to the finances of this country are what happens with Wall Street and the current account deficit. Even with the figures that were released today, it is still quite reasonable to expect that the current account should not run at any more than 5½ per cent annualised for the year of GDP. There was criticism in question time today of the latest trade figures and the current account, but it needs to be remembered that at various stages the previous Hawke and Keating Labor governments ran current accounts up to 6½ per cent of GDP and that, in that climate, the government was running a deficit, not a surplus.There are two significant things that I particularly want to draw attention to in the budget, apart from the overall macro-economic performance of the government. Firstly, funding has been made available for health and medical research. Some $614 million extra over the next six years represents the most substantial investment in the future of this nation that I think we have undertaken since we have been in government, apart from the tax package. We are moving into what is the third major revolution in as many centuries. The first was the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The second was the information and communications revolution in this century. The third is the mapping of the nematode late last year, which provides the basis—once we have finished mapping the human genome—for understanding humanity itself. We have made a substantial investment in what will be the New World, and certainly in terms of our nation's economic development.The second critically important initiative is lifetime community rating, or Lifetime Health Cover as it is known in the budget. To introduce into private health insurance the concept of people paying a lower premium depending on the age at which they go into private health insurance, and exempting from that those who are currently over the age of 65, is one of the most significant structural reforms in the private health insurance sector for well over two decades. The 30 per cent private health insurance rebate is critically important. Whatever political points are made in relation to recent private health insurance premium increases, whatever the premium is, it is 30 per cent cheaper because of this government's political and financial commitment to the affordability of private insurance. If we are going to have a sustainable private health care sector in the long term, the Lifetime Health Cover initiative is as welcome as it is necessary.In dealing with the budget specifically, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the comments made in the editorial of the Australian of 12 May 1999:The Budget is a good one. It continues the Government's commitment to fiscal responsibility while providing a series of measures targeting its priority areas of health, education and training, mutual obligation, research and development, and the social and economic infrastructure of regional and rural areas.. . . . . . . . .Mr Costello has been fiscally conservative and rightly so. The fiscal balance for 1999-2000 is expected to be in surplus by a healthy $5.4 billion . . . Over time, the general government sector makes no call on national savings and, therefore, does not add to the current account deficit.. . . . . . . . .. . . this Budget builds on three years of prudent economics and should deliver good growth and the benefits to all Australians that come from good economics. Australia now has decent growth, low inflation and low interest rates and this delivered in the teeth of an international storm in the shape of the Asian economic crisis—the like of which would once have knocked our economy to the floor . . . taken together, are all the measures demonised in some quarters as "economic rationalism". Rationalism is certainly more effective than its opposite.On that point, I think our country is now reaping the benefits of sound fiscal economic management by this government not just over the last three years but also in excess of a decade of taking very difficult decisions in relation to necessary economic reform and things in Australian society which some people have found to be particularly painful.We are currently going through the debate about taxation reform. One of the things that I find distressing about the time I have spent in federal parliament is that it does not matter what the government says, the opposition feels it has a duty to automatically oppose every single thing the government does; and it does not matter what the members of the ALP suggest, the other side of the House—my side—seems to automatically denigrate what they are saying, irrespective of the merits of what is being proposed. Perhaps some of us might be able to do something to try to change that during the time that we are here.In terms of Australia's taxation system, I think we are seeing an almost facile argument going on at the moment about whether a GST applies to nuts that have got shells around them or to chocolate-coated bananas—as is currently the case in relation to sales tax—or to chicken pieces or to chickens whole or to chickens cold. One of the responsibilities I think we all have is to rise above our own self-interest and our own concern and to start to actually think about why in the first place would the government want to embark on a program like this. It is not out of any sense of ideological masochism, a desire to suffer losses in the polls or anything of the sort. The problems that we face as Australians, whatever our politics, are these. Firstly, we currently tax everything we are supposed to encourage. We tax productivity, we tax employment and we tax savings. In fact, the budget papers forecast private household savings as a proportion of disposable income over the next year to drop from three per cent to just over one per cent. The member for Isaacs, quite rightly, was bemoaning that. It is something about which I think we all ought to be concerned.But changing the tax base is one part—not the only solution but one part—of addressing that and, indeed, other problems. Our revenue raising in this country concentrates predominantly on income, both personal and corporate, in addition to wholesale sales tax on three principal goods: durables, motor vehicles and beer, all of which represent a diminishing share of household expenditure as it shifts across to services. As we know, about 70 per cent of the Australian economy is services based and is largely untaxed.The problems that we as Australians face are these. The first is that in 1954, as you would know, you had to be earning 19 times the average wage to hit the top marginal tax rate. At the moment you only have to be at 1.35 times average weekly earnings to be paying the top marginal rate. If we do not do anything, as is really proposed by the opposition, in seven years the average wage earner in this country will be paying 47 cents in the dollar—the top marginal rate. The Income Tax Assessment Act in 1936 was 120 pages; it is now 3,300 pages. It doubled in size over the last seven years alone. In fact, David Koch, the well-known economic commentator, told me that the average tax agent has to read 25 pages a day of new tax law, rulings and interpretations just to keep up with changes in Australia's tax laws. An entire parasitic industry currently exists to legitimately enable higher income earners, self-employed and well-advised people to minimise their tax liability.The third point is that, as Tony Blair told the Trade Unions Congress in September 1997, at the time of the Second World War there were 100 segmented markets throughout the world. We are now coalescing essentially into three major trading blocs. Our country, a relatively small country in terms of population, is increasingly reliant on export markets to improve and certainly to maintain our standard of living. Yet Australia's manufacturers have to pay wholesale sales tax, payroll tax, business transaction taxes and other input costs, and then they try to compete in international markets against competitors who face no such imposts.Only Australia, Botswana, Ghana, Jordan, Pakistan, Solomon Islands and Swaziland apply wholesale sales tax without some kind of broad based indirect tax. Australia currently has seven different rates of wholesale sales tax. As we well know, under the current system we have a wholesale sales tax on biscuits and orange juice but not on crayfish and caviar. A company that tries to operate across Australia has to pay 42 state and federal taxes before they meet any industry specific taxes whatsoever. Taxes paid by businesses depend on the type of structure under which the business operates—whether it is a company, a trust or some other arrangement. The energy of businesses is frequently being invested in complex structures to minimise tax.Perhaps the most pressing argument in support of what the government is trying to do is the pressing nature of Australia's collapsing age dependency ratios. Those in the House who have empty lives and managed to read the Retirement Incomes Modelling Task Force report for the National Commission of Audit that we published in July 1996 would have found that in 1993 we had 5.3 Australians between the ages of 15 and 64 for every person over the age of 64 and under the age of 15. It is called an age dependency ratio. It is estimated that by the year 2031 that ratio will be 2.6 to 1. That means that proportionally we will have half as many people working and people paying taxes to support those who are either too young or too old to actually be in the work force.To put that in other terms, the National Commission of Audit estimated that over the next 40 years we will need to spend 10 per cent more of the nation's entire productivity on the health and welfare costs of ageing just to maintain the current level of services. This is above and beyond that required for real growth. For those who expressed an interest in today's current account figures, that represents in 1996 dollars, if you include pensions, $38 billion, which is more than the relative drain on the Australian economy during the banana republic crisis of 1985.The other issue that we have is the cash economy. I do not know about anybody else, but when I went through the election campaign in October of last year I found that the people who expressed the most concern about the GST tended to come from businesses that are frequently accused of operating largely in the cash economy. Nobody knows just how big the cash economy—or the black economy—is in Australia, but the Australian Taxation Office estimated that in 1995-96 there was between $3 billion and $15 billion of lost revenues. No-one would foolishly suggest that a GST would eliminate the cash economy, but as a multistage tax it would certainly make some inroads into it.We have heard a lot of debate, particularly today and in the last couple of days, about income disparity in Australia. In fact, I feel there is every reason to believe that we are living in a society that is essentially failing in many ways, and one of them is the growing disparity between those who are extremely poor and those who are extremely wealthy. But in 1996, David Johnson and his colleagues from the Melbourne Centre for Economic and Social Research published figures on who was actually spending money on indirect taxes under the current system in Australia. In 1984, the bottom 10 per cent of income earning households in Australia spent 14.2 per cent of their disposable income on indirect taxes; by 1995, it was 22.6 per cent. In contrast, the wealthiest 10 per cent—many of whom I am privileged to represent—were spending 6.3 per cent of their disposable income in 1984 on indirect taxes but, by 1995, that proportion had dropped to 5.7 per cent.Further to that, the wealthiest 25 per cent spend twice as much on services as the poorest 25 per cent—on hotels, airlines, personal care and things like that. The member for Isaacs spoke about education in the budget. You might like to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in 1996 when the Howard government took office only 15 per cent of those in higher education came from the bottom 25 per cent of income earning households in the country. In other words, the battlers who were looking for footy results in the Daily Telegraph are the ones who were financing education for many students from higher income areas like the one that I am, as I say, privileged to represent.The other problem that we face—which is why we are even embarking on trying to change the tax system—for those who might have even more empty lives, is the electronic task force report from the Commonwealth Law Enforcement Board published in March 1997. It found that a business may operate in any country without establishing a branch; that the digitisation of commerce basically blurs the distinction between what is a good and what is a service; that digital transactions are huge and, while it is very difficult to carry a suitcase around with a million dollars in cash in it, it is very easy to move it electronically; and that techniques for deception are outstripping those for verification, and encryption is limiting surveillance by the Australian Taxation Office and its authorities.Another problem we have is a shrinking tax base. We are taxing durables, motor vehicles, beer, tobacco, excise; and we are also taxing income, as we painfully know, in a low inflation environment and governments are not benefiting as they have in the past from bracket creep. I spent a lot of my working life before I came into parliament actually servicing low income people, and the other problem you have got is that if a single income family earning $24,570 a year at the moment gets a wage increase to $33,150, they actually lose $6,435 in benefits and another $4,900 in tax. In other words, they are $24 a week worse off. That means that you earn an extra $165 a week but you are $24 a week worse off. And then we wonder why some people say, `Why should I bother to earn more money? Why should I get a job? Why should I get off welfare?' We have got to develop a tax system which enables this country to compete with the rest of the world, which gives incentives to people to work, which simplifies the system—particularly for families and for the administration of businesses—and, most importantly, which broadens the tax base in this country so that 20 years from now we can finance essential social infrastructure. (Time expired)21:26:005709Kernot, Cheryl, MPMs KERNOTXW4DicksonALP00—Despite all the grandstanding, all the rhetoric and all the talk we have heard since the budget about the way the coalition cares for regional Australia, the reality is that with the exception of health the coalition has failed to deliver a genuinely broad package of assistance to Australians living in rural and regional areas.You do not have to look too far in the papers to understand the emphasis that this government chooses to place on rural and regional areas—because the emphasis is not concerned with regional development. Very deliberately, over the past few years, this government has shifted the emphasis away from development and towards regional services. In most cases it is not even new services but the restoration of services which have already been cut. Services are critically important, but the emphasis on this shift is really important as well. It is a shift away from investment in regional infrastructure. It is a shift away from significant Commonwealth commitment to regional development policy. It is a shift away from any strategy designed to reduce regional inequality—and there is a lot of inequality, both within and between regions, in this country at the moment. But most of all, I think this budget provides convincing proof that the Howard government does not have a long-term strategy for rebuilding—with an emphasis on `rebuilding'—regional Australia. The rhetoric that we have heard since the budget does not match the record. When Minister Anderson and Deputy Prime Minister Fischer get up in here and say, `Regional Australia has never had it so good,' I think it pays us to remember that this is the same government that previously told us that there was no clear rationale or constitutional basis for Commonwealth involvement in regional development. It pays to remember that this is the same government that abolished the department of regional development, that scrapped regional development programs, that cut ABC services and job programs in regional Australia, that axed Labor's infrastructure bonds program for regional infrastructure, and that closed regional CES and Medicare offices.It also pays to remember that this is the same government that cut $2 billion from education funding in 1996 and restored a mere $150 million of that funding in this budget; the same government that is offering families in this budget a fraction of the youth allowance it took away from them in previous budgets; and the same government that has had a direct impact on the lives of Australians living in rural and regional areas by cutting services over previous years. To stand up here and pretend that it is a big deal to be restoring services is a bit ingenuous, but that is, nevertheless, what the government has been doing.The coalition pretends that the funding we are getting these days in rural and regional Australia is some sort of bonus, for which everybody who lives there should be extremely thankful. But even if it were the case that cuts had not been made, and even if we were starting at some sort of coalition year zero, an analysis of this budget shows that there is still not a lot for which regional Australia can be thankful.There are very few genuinely new measures listed in the Transport and Regional Services portfolio for the coming financial year. More than 60 per cent of the new funding measures are road projects and, while they are of course welcome projects, what that shows is that despite the window-dressing, despite the bluster, it is more of the same old programs and the same projects. There is not much that is new, not much that is innovative and not much that is truly constructive for regional Australia in the budget. Virtually all of Minister Anderson's budget statements refer to `ongoing programs announced in previous budgets'. Where are the programs to boost economic growth in regional centres? Where are the programs to help rural towns cope with major structural change? We have the announcement of a mill here and a cruise ship terminal there, but where are the programs that fund regional infrastructure across the nation beyond roads? Where are the programs designed to attract private sector investment in regional industry and infrastructure? Where are the programs designed to reduce inequality between regions and inequality between the cities and rural Australia? They are not in this budget.Leaving aside regional development for a moment, when it comes to regional services what is in this budget is some extraordinarily insignificant funding, given the extent of problems in regional Australia, for specific regional services programs administered by the department and, beyond that, a regional services strategy that is almost entirely dependent on the sale of Telstra. We cannot emphasise that point enough because the extent of the coalition government's great commitment to regional Australia is that if the further sale of Telstra does not proceed then neither does $250 million from the Natural Heritage Trust Fund, $120 million from the Regional Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund for communications on remote islands, $150 million to provide untimed local calls to very remote phone users, $36 million to extend Internet access at local call rates to 100 per cent of the population and $70 million for the much vaunted rural transaction centres.There you have very symbolically the idea of the coalition's rural and regional services policy. It is a big bit of blackmail: `You can have these much needed services and, yes, they are much needed, but you can only have them if you let us sell off more of Telstra.' I think any person who talks to those who live in regional and rural Australia would have a very clear view that those Australians do not want Telstra sold, so it is really offensive to say to them, `Here's a social bonus for you. If you're really good and let us sell Telstra, you can have this bonus.' Even the president of the NFF said quite recently that the government should deliver these programs, these services, irrespective of the sale of Telstra. He knows, as regional and rural Australians know, that services are not something that you get as a bonus; they are core services, they are crucial services, they are services that regional Australia needs to develop and grow and they are services that should be provided from core funding in the budget.In relation to telecommunications in regional Australia, many organisations in those areas are saying, `Yes, a lot of these smaller projects funded through the Networking the Nation Program are very positive and very welcome.' But there is a big question mark over the coalition's failure to recognise the importance and the urgency of making a much greater investment than they have been willing to make so far in regional telecommunications infrastructure. If there is one thing that can open up the potential of the regions of our nation it is decently funded access to varied telecommunications infrastructure.I think the same case of disappointment and failure to recognise importance and urgency can be put for the coalition government's ongoing failure to invest in rail infrastructure. Australia urgently needs reinvestment in rail; not at the expense of road funding—which is obviously very important to the growth of rural and regional areas—but something additional, something that offers viable transport alternatives or something which offers part of an ongoing complementary transport system. There are two significant areas where this government is failing to deliver. The first is on the issue of national leadership and the second is on the issue of investment in maintaining and upgrading the interstate track. Last month Minister Anderson walked away from the establishment of a national land transport commission. That action represented a very significant failure of leadership in national rail policy.Just yesterday we saw the release of the Smorgon rail projects task force report that tells the government very clearly what is a major barrier to improving private sector investment in rail. This government tells us all the time that the answer is private sector investment. This report tells this government that what is stopping that private sector investment is the lack of an integrated national transport strategy. Recommendation 1 from this report is that the Commonwealth should take the lead in developing an economically driven national transport strategy. Recommendation 3 from this report is that the Commonwealth should establish and fund a national rail authority. There is absolutely nothing like that in this particular budget. The Smorgon task force says another major barrier to private sector investment in rail is the substandard national track. It says that the $250 million already committed by the Commonwealth—and we have seen this announced and re-announced too—should be brought forward for completion by December 2000 rather than by June 2002. This report recommends additional funding of $470 million for investment by June 2000 to `bring the national track to a standard where it can provide a competitive and sustainable alternative to road transport.'This is not the only report we have had that calls for this sort of leadership and investment. We have also had Tracking Australia, the Neville report, which was widely acclaimed. It is well known in this parliament that that report makes similar sorts of recommendations. But we cannot look to this budget for any additional commitment to the interstate track. A mere $55 million will be spent this coming financial year. That is a very long way from the sort of investment and the sort of leadership required to build a competitive and sustainable national rail industry.Despite the Deputy Prime Minister's outburst in question time today appropriating ownership of the extension of the diesel fuel rebate to rail, the truth of the matter is that this was something that was forced on this government. It was not a good idea originating from this government, but suddenly this government is quite happy to appropriate ownership and crow about it. But that one action does not remove the fundamental question that needs to be asked, which is: when are this government and this minister going to take a serious interest in rail and when are they going to get serious about national land transport strategy?Labor is happy to acknowledge some of the positives in this budget, although they do not actually come out of the Transport and Regional Services portfolio, which is an interesting reflection on the focus of this portfolio. We acknowledge that the regional health initiatives are positive. They may end up being outweighed over the longer term by the coalition's continuing neglect of public hospitals, but Dr Wooldridge does deserve some credit for delivering on what I know have been long-time concerns of his in this area. Similarly, the restoration of funding for indigenous employment to pre-1996 levels is also welcome although, as Labor has already noted, this is simply a reversal of previous coalition cuts and what cannot be restored is three years of wasted opportunity. That is so true of so many of the cuts that have been made in previous budgets by this government.Unfortunately these positives are pretty sparse and they are concerned with regional services, not with regional development. And then they are more concerned with restoring services already cut rather than substantial new services. I need to go to this distinction again. It is important because investment in regional development is ultimately the key to reducing regional inequality, to generating regional growth and to building successful regional communities. Instead of that commitment, we have seen bluster and talk and rhetoric and very little action from this government. We have had the bush summit announcement and just last week we had the announcement of the Regional Forums Australia Program. That will finish with a state of the nation report in March 2001. A very convenient delay, isn't it? Two more years of waiting for action. Two more years of not being willing to invest. Two more years of bluster and rhetoric and trying to convince everybody that we are listening because we are looking for solutions.How many more inquiries, reports and committees on regional Australia's problems do we need to have? How much talking do we have to do before we take action? How many forums, summits and talkfests are we going to subject people in regional Australia to before we own up honestly about a lot of the solutions? They are known. They have been identified by those who live in regional Australia. These people know the strengths of their areas. They know what they want. They want a bit of leadership. They want governments to stop talking and start acting. It is Labor's view that the government must adopt a targeted and strategic interventionist role if it is to truly reverse the decline of the past decade.Governments have to do things. I see Mr Neville here. They have to spend money on what you said in Tracking Australia, Mr Neville. They have to provide adequate infrastructure, to foster investment and jobs. They have to deliver responsive government services. They have to encourage the development of more diversified regional economies. Governments have to invest in specific packages targeted at specific regions, not ad hoc decisions—a mill here or some little present down the line there. This is not a coherent regional development policy. Governments have to develop practical initiatives that restore a focus on the development part of regional development.Sadly, this government has not been serious about the need for the role of the national government in providing leadership in this area. The revitalisation of Australia's regions—not maintaining the status quo—the regeneration and the rebuilding of Australia's regions, which have borne much of the brunt of economic and structural change that has happened in this country over the past decade, needs vision, leadership, partnership, strategy and action. I regret to say that that combination of elements is missing from this budget.21:43:005713Bartlett, Kerry, MPMr BARTLETT0K6MacquarieLP10—I am amazed at the feigned concern of the member for Dickson for rural and regional Australia. What did Labor do in their 13 years? They engaged in long-term neglect of rural and regional infrastructure. They adopted high interest rate policies which saw rates reach 25 per cent and sent many farmers and rural and regional service provider businesses to the wall. They gave us a recession which created widespread unemployment in the bush and caused enormous hardship for many rural and regional families. They raised wholesale sales taxes across the board by two per cent with no compensation for families in the bush. Now they want to retain a crippling high excise duty on diesel and oppose the government's tax reforms which would reduce costs to farmers, reduce costs in the bush and reduce costs to exporters by some $4.5 million and bring massive relief to the bush.This budget continues the sound management of the Howard government. It is part of an ongoing program which has begun to address many of the failings of the former government, a program which has put Australia well and truly back on the path of economic recovery. This budget delivers a surplus of $5.4 billion in the year 1999-2000, with ongoing surpluses beyond that. It follows the expected budget surplus of $3.1 billion for the current financial year. Compare this with the $10.3 billion deficit which Labor left us. This budget is a further step in repaying Labor's debt, debt which had more than quadrupled from $20 billion to $97 billion in Labor's last five years, debt which doubled from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of GDP in Labor's last five years. By the end of this financial year, we will already have paid off $24 billion of Labor's legacy of debt and by the end of next financial year another $20 billion; that is, we are beginning to repair the damage created by Labor and the legacy of debt which they left behind.The second thing this budget does is that, along with the ongoing program over the last three years, it allows sustainable and steady economic growth—over four per cent a year for the last two years and an estimated 4½ per cent for the current financial year. This is sustainable growth. It is not growth which is built on a house of cards. It is not growth which is built on credit or heavy government spending. It defies the bleating of Labor for the last three years. This is growth built on low interest rates and on solid business investment, not growth built on big taxes, big budget deficits and pie in the sky that we had for years under Labor and was unsustainable. This growth has been the fastest in the region and has occurred at a time when many of the economies in the world and many of our trading partners have been in recession. Compare this with Labor's dismal performance at a time when the rest of the economies in our region were booming.The third thing this budget does is that it strengthens our position internationally. Along with the sound budgets of the last three years, it has continued to strengthen our position and insulate us against the Asian fallout. If we had been adopting Labor style deficits for the last three years, we would have been hit for six by what has happened in our region. The markets would have sold the Australian dollar down the drain, interest rates would have risen, growth would have slowed down and there would have been a rapid rise in unemployment. This was the recipe for disaster that Labor would have had us follow, a recipe that would have led to massive unemployment.The second benefit of the sound, responsible management of this government we saw just last week in the upgrading of our international credit rating by Standard and Poor's. In upgrading our credit rating to AA plus, Standard and Poor's gave the main reason as the reduction in the public debt burden caused by budget surpluses and federal and state privatisation. That is, the sound fiscal position which this government has put this country in has enabled upgrading of our credit rating, which reduces our international borrowing costs. It is a reversal of two downgradings that we saw under Labor in 1986 and 1989. Again, the coalition is repairing the damage of 13 years of Labor government.What does all this mean? It means a future for our kids. It means economic security. It means that the economic fundamentals are sound, leading to sustainable growth, jobs growth and opportunities for our children. It means that they will not be left with a growing legacy of debt, but we are managing to repay a lot of that debt. It also means that taxpayers' scarce money is no longer wasted in servicing government debt. In 1996 when Labor left office, $9 billion a year of taxpayers' money was being washed down the drain to service their extravagance of previous years. By getting debt under control, we save taxpayers that burden and taxpayers' funds can then be used for essential services—for schools, for roads, for health and for other services that we need—not in servicing Labor's debt.It is worth reminding ourselves that nearly all of these measures—this program of responsible management which has put Australia back on its feet—have been opposed by Labor over the past three years. They have voted against responsible management, they have voted against getting Australia back on its feet and they have voted against giving our kids a future. If Labor had their way, we would still be running massive deficits, interest rates would be much higher than they are, debt would be growing and we would be experiencing slow growth and rising unemployment. Don't just take our word for the strength of the Australian economy at the moment and the benefits of the sound fiscal position that this budget and previous budgets have put us in. Let me mention a couple of independent comments the day after the budget. The Australian Financial Review said:There is no doubt that Mr Costello has left the government accounts at the end of this century in much better order than most people would have expected only a few years ago. The surplus building of the past two years puts Australia in a strong position to weather the sudden downturn in Asian Economies.The Australian said:The budget is a good one. It continues the Government's commitment to fiscal responsibility . . . This budget builds on three years of prudent economics and should deliver good growth and the benefits to all Australians that come from good economics.The Sydney Morning Herald described the budget as `responsible and fair' and said:Above all, it is a triumph of a determined focus on economic policy. Mr Costello and the government deserve full credit for steering the economy through the recent turbulence in the region. By now, another government might well have closed down the economy.In other words, if we had Labor in government, they would have closed down the economy in the face of present external difficulties and Australia would be in recession. The Daily Telegraph said:The Budget was a platform on which to base policy for the debut decade of the next century, a launching pad for rising growth and employment in stable economic conditions.There are similar endorsements from the business world. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said:This is a budget which will maintain Australia's economic momentum and continue the process of fiscal consolidation and repair. This is a budget which is directed to ensuring that Australia continues to prosper in spite of the severe economic downturn which has affected so many of our trading partners in Asia.The National Farmers Federation said:The Government should be congratulated on its economic management over the last three years.The Commonwealth Bank said:The 1999/2000 Budget is a further step along the path of fiscal consolidation. The Government's fiscal settings have made an important contribution towards restoring the Australian economy from the worst of the Asian financial crisis. The budget is a good stepping off point leading into the new millennium.In addition to the sound overall macro-economic settings of the budget, I will focus on two or three specific measures in the budget that will bring great improvements to sectors of the Australian community. These measures are based on affordable spending and not on the Labor Bankcard. Firstly, in the area of health, there have been a number of new initiatives, but these build on improvements that we have seen over the past year or two, such as the extension of the seniors health card, the 30 per cent rebate in private health insurance, the veterans gold card and others. The coalition's commitment to health is clear. Last year, it spent $18.6 billion on health—$2 billion more than Labor did in its last year. Furthermore, the five-year Medicare agreement signed last year means a real increase of 17.6 per cent in funding for public hospitals over the next five years.The new initiatives are many, including the introduction of Lifetime Health Cover for private health insurance; that is, an incentive to take out private health insurance at an earlier age. This initiative is fair, takes the pressure off premium rises and raises membership, thereby reducing the pressure on the public hospital system. Other health measures include an expanded Medicare Easyclaim system with $19 million to establish another 600 facilities in rural and remote areas; $300 million over four years as part of the government's Tough on Drugs strategy; $14 million to assist people with chronic disease to access support programs; $9.2 million over three years for asthma sufferers; increased funding for support services for women with breast cancer; $40.8 million to establish 30 regional health centres; an extra $614 million over the next six years for medical research; and an additional $79 million over four years for primary health care services for indigenous Australians.The budget also included a number of initiatives to help the aged, including an extra $209 million over four years for hearing programs for pensioners, part pensioners and veterans, an initiative which will help an additional 67,000 elderly people a year; $82 million over four years to further boost respite services for carers, particularly for carers of people with dementia; an extra $110 million over four years for enhanced primary care for older Australians; $41 million over four years to provide easier access to community care services; and a number of other measures. These new initiatives have also been welcomed by objective comment. The President of the Australian Medical Association, David Brand, for instance, said:Overall the Government has shown a solid and commendable commitment to health. The introduction of lifetime health cover, combined with a 30% rebate, means that there has never been a better time for Australians to take out private health insurance . . . The Government also deserves praise for its commitment to medical research, general practice, indigenous health, hepatitis C initiative, youth health and aged care.The National Health and Medical Research Council said:The bottom line is better health care for all Australians . . . I am confident that this work will contribute to further improvements in health care that will benefit all Australians.The Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes stated:This Budget . . . represents a sea change in attitude and commitment by an Australian Government towards medical research and to enhancing Australia's well deserved international reputation for excellence and leadership in these fields. The government and in particular Dr Wooldridge, are to be congratulated on the planning capability and the very real funding increases which will flow from tonight's announcement.The Australian Catholic Health Care Association commented on the aged care initiatives in this budget:The 8 funding areas covering $185 million of new money over the next 4 years towards enhancing the quality of life for older Australians is a welcome sign that the Government is putting its money where its mouth is.The President of Aged Care Australia, John Ireland, said:The 1999 Budget is heading in the right direction in its policy initiatives and funding for older Australians. The Government has recognised the needs of older Australians and those who provide aged and community care, especially in rural and remote areas.The Association of Independent Retirees said:The Association Members and, indeed, all older Australians, will welcome the Health and Aged Care initiatives in the 1999/2000 Budget.The Australian Nursing Homes and Extended Care Association said:ANHECA believes the Government has put in place a number of initiatives that will enhance the quality of life for older Australians.I could go on and on, but the health care initiatives contained in this budget are the best we have seen for many years and they have been widely welcomed by the community, by those involved in health care and by those involved in care of the aged.The second area I would like to point to is education and training. This budget confirms the coalition government's commitment to education—to enhancing the opportunities of our young people. It commits over $11 billion a year in funding for education and training. This is an increase of $870 million over the next four years. Schools are the big winners. It includes an extra $131 million to raise literacy and numeracy standards, bringing the total to $869 million over the next four years; $77.7 million on a quality teacher program to update teacher skills; and an extra $20 million on anti-drug education programs.The introduction of a fairer funding system for non-government schools will help the poorer struggling schools. It includes the fulfilment of a commitment to increased funding levels for poorer Catholic schools. The important thing is that the increased funding for non-government schools has not come at the expense of the public system, despite what the opposition would tell us and despite what the Teachers Federation would try to claim. This government has increased funding for both systems—for the non-government system and for the public school system. In fact, in 1999 the coalition government will spend $298 million more on government schools than was spent in Labor's last year.The coalition government is strongly committed to school education and to giving our children the best possible start in life. It is committed to quality, it is committed to supporting the choice of parents and it is committed to equity. The government has again quite rightly received strong praise for its ongoing support of education and training.The initiatives in education and training extend to other areas. The budget commits $1.6 billion for vocational training and education, and it includes $354 million in 1999-2000 for new apprenticeships. Under this government, apprenticeships and traineeships have reached an all-time high of 206,400 last year. Compare this with the decline under Labor that saw traineeships and apprenticeships drop to their lowest level in 30 years. This budget commits another $90 million for Green Corps programs, providing another 6,800 places. This is a very successful program which has provided excellent training opportunities for young people as well as delivering tangible and lasting improvements to local environments.The budget contains many other positive initiatives for families. There are initiatives that will help families under stress, initiatives that will help homeless young people and initiatives that will reinforce the low interest rate policy that this government has operated—a policy which has meant savings of over $300 a month to average home buyers in this country. The other great source of relief for families is the initiatives that will come with the new tax package—a tax package that will bring significant income tax cuts to average families. These income tax cuts will mean that 80 per cent of Australians will be on marginal tax rates of 30 per cent or less.Another initiative in this budget that I warmly welcome is the commitment of $195 million to upgrade the national highway system and for roads of national importance. Of that, $100 million over the next five years is the fulfilment of a commitment made to the people in my electorate—a commitment to spend $20 million a year to upgrade the Great Western Highway. Further funding for tourism development programs to promote domestic tourism will also be a bonus for businesses in my electorate.This budget is responsible, it is fair, it delivers on our promises and it helps secure the future for our children. The next step of reform that is so urgently needed is reform of the taxation system, and this is a commitment that this government is determined to deliver on. If we are going to build on the reforms that we have managed to achieve with over the past three years, we need to continue with tax reform. This budget has laid the basis. It has provided a sound, stable economic structure which will put us in a stable fiscal position and enable us to go forward with tax reform that will remove the inefficient and inequitable wholesale sales tax system, remove the imposts of $4.5 billion a year that are hitting our exporters, provide tax concessions and significant tax cuts for Australian business, provide significant tax cuts for low and middle income earners, and provide incentives for Australian families. This budget is a great step forward for the Australian economy and for the Australian community.22:03:005717Roxon, Nicola, MPMs ROXON83KGellibrandALP00—In speaking tonight on the Howard government's fourth budget, I intend to look at the government's failure in two fundamental areas: unemployment and our straining legal system. Both areas have been totally neglected by this budget, yet they are of vital importance to my electorate, where the unemployment rate continues at the unacceptably high level of around 12 per cent and where most low and average income families could never hope to access the legal system, no matter how drastic their circumstances, as the cost makes it simply impossible.I will start with the issue of unemployment. We heard in the Treasurer's budget speech a great pride in the production of a surplus—a significant surplus which, as we all know, the government intends to squander on paying for an unworkable, unfair and unneeded tax system. A surplus was achieved by drastic and damaging cuts to good government and the provision of services. But surely a major if not key measure of government success is not just a surplus but a government's record on employment growth and reducing unemployment. On this measure, it is now clear that the Howard government has failed. When we compare the government's record over the last three years—as the members opposite encourage me to do—with Labor's last three years in government, its failure is even more obvious.Mr Lloyd interjecting—83KRoxon, Nicola, MPMs ROXON—I will go to the detail in a moment, for the benefit of the member opposite. The most staggering aspect of this failure is that the Howard government does not choose to use its surplus to try to assist those unemployed and disadvantaged who have suffered as a result of the government's slash and burn budgetary measures. Instead, we see Work for the Dole programs increased as a substitute for proper long-term job creation programs, and we see incentives for businesses to employ apprentices with guidelines that are so unclear that businesses in my electorate of Gellibrand do not even know if they are eligible for such assistance or not.Let us look at the recent history. In the last three financial years for which Labor was responsible, employment increased by 1.9 per cent, four per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively, providing a total increase of 8.8 per cent over the three-year period. The average rate of unemployment in those three years fell from 11 per cent to 8.4 per cent, despite a rise in the participation rate, which added 156,000 people to the labour force and made it that much more difficult to reduce the level of unemployment.In comparison, in the first three years of the Howard government, it is now clear that employment growth has been vastly less than it was under Labor. Growth of 1.1 per cent and 1.4 per cent in 1996-97 and 1997-98 and an estimated 2¼ per cent in 1998-99 means that employment growth for the first three financial years of the Howard government is only 4.8 per cent; that is—in case the member opposite who has been interjecting cannot add up those sums in his head—four per cent less growth than the 8.8 per cent of Labor's last three years. The Howard government's failure to match Labor's rate of employment growth means that employment increased in Australia by 330,000 fewer jobs than would have been the case if Labor's employment growth had been maintained. Because the Howard govern ment has failed so dramatically on the employment front, unemployment has declined only slightly, from 8.4 per cent in Labor's last year to an estimated 7¾ per cent for 1998-99. This is despite the declining participation rate, which has reduced the labour force by over 50,000 people.The full measure of this government's failure on employment is that, if it had been able to match Labor and create those extra 330,000 jobs, the unemployment rate for 1998-99 would not have been the forecast 7¾ per cent but 4.2 per cent and the actual number of unemployed would have been around 400,000. I can assure members that this would have been much better news for my electorate and the 7,000 people who are unemployed in the electorate of Gellibrand than the introduction of a job destroying GST.Let me turn now to the law. I particularly want to spend some time on the government's lack of interest in our legal system and the impact of its budgetary decisions on how that system works for most of the community. The Treasurer said in his budget speech that he wants the budget to `set us up to enter the next century, be a world leader in standards, be prosperous, free and with all the potential of a dynamic young nation.' But does the Treasurer, who has admirable ambitions—at least on this occasion—see fit to introduce measures that would ensure that we are a strong democracy, that our legal system protects our freedoms and rights and that people are entitled to world's best practice democracy? No, there is nothing in the budget that assists in this way.What is the Treasurer's greatest reform challenge outlined in his budget speech? As we know, it is an obsessive and singular quest for reform of the Australian taxation system—an obsessive and singular quest that has fallen apart around his feet as the days and weeks of negotiations continue. Is there more money for legal aid? Is there more money for Federal Court or Family Court judges? Does the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission receive adequate funding to undertake its duty? No, no and no. The budget is an opportunity for the government to set out a vision, an example for us, a direction, something that is beyond mere tax reform.It is clear that this budget is a missed opportunity for the Attorney-General. The budget shows a total leadership void in addressing the important legal issues that face our community. In fact, this Attorney-General is building himself quite a reputation—not a reputation for leadership or innovation but a reputation for disinterest in access to justice, a disregard for an adequately resourced legal system, a distrust of human rights and an absolute determination to silence the critics of his government. As the chief legal officer in this nation, he has a surprising lack of appreciation of the concept of independence of the judiciary and statutory bodies and its importance in our democracy.I intend to use three examples only—the attack on the human rights commission and its independence, the review of community legal centres that has occurred in Victoria and the drastic legal aid cuts. These three examples must be seen in the context of actions that the government has already taken since its election in 1996. We all know of the drastic shortage of Family Court judges, delays in appointing replacements, out of control and lengthy litigation and starving the court of vital resources. The creation of a federal magistracy with 15 new appointments will just be a drop in the ocean in dealing with these problems. Another example is the government's petulant restriction on the Environmental Defenders Office participating in litigation.We have seen the government consistently trying to stifle debate by threatening independent bodies such as the ABC and the Law Reform Commission. The open and sustained attack on the ABC was at its peak during the waterfront dispute where a desperate government's only way of defending the indefensible was to attack the ABC. We have also seen the Attorney's failure to defend the judiciary, including our highest court, in the face of ill-informed criticism—a role of defender that has been played by all attorneys prior to this one. We have seen the government condone and at times even fan the flames of disrespect for the judiciary when it has made a decision that they do not agree with.In my home state of Victoria the situation is worsened by a state government, the Kennett government, that has shown equal disregard for the independence of the judiciary and statutory tribunals. Examples are the removal of the independence of the DPP, the blatant undermining of the independence of the Auditor-General, the sacking of the Accident Compensation Tribunal members, the removal of the Equal Opportunity Commissioner and a price hike in the right to make freedom of information requests, just to name a few. The recent trend to include a clause in funding contracts with community organisations, which prevents criticism or even public comment on Mr Kennett's regime, goes a step further—the penalty for breaching this clause is, of course, a loss of their funding.I turn now to my first example, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The commission's role is to be altered in many ways by legislation that has been proposed by this Attorney-General. Currently, part of HREOC's role involves its right to intervene in proceedings before other courts and tribunals in cases where human rights issues are involved. Under the existing legislation, the commissioners have the power to intervene in any court proceedings. This does not give them the right to do so, it simply gives them the power to seek to do so. The court then determines the appropriateness of the commission's intervention and whether it will be of assistance in determining the case.Intervention is not at all common—in fact, it has only been used about 17 times in 11 years. However, it is an important part of the commission's work. By its nature, it is not dependent on or driven by individual complaints, it is a broader approach which allows the commission to raise points of concern that affect a larger number of people. Unfortunately for the citizens of Australia, the capacity of the commission to promote these broader community interests and educate the community, as is its role, has been drastically restricted by successive budgetary decisions of this government, and this budget is no exception.Instead of increasing funding to enable HREOC to perform better, the government has sought to raise a new hurdle to its efficiency by requiring it to seek the Attorney-General's permission to intervene in court proceedings. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is a statutory body. It has its own functions and powers. A number of those functions often bring it into direct conflict with government policy and public administration. To fulfil its functions and powers properly, it needs to have the confidence to approach its duties with vigour, without fear or favour and certainly without any consideration of government policy or approval. Why would the government doubt the commission's capacity to judge whether a matter involves human rights issues? Why would the Attorney believe that he has more expertise than the commission in dealing with these matters? What is it that the government is trying to control by demanding that HREOC get the Attorney-General's permission before it can act?The commission has an extremely important role to play in scrutinising Australia's compliance with its international obligations. In so doing, its role is to critically assess what any government, not just this current government, is doing to comply with such obligations. If a government is neglecting its obligations, will its Attorney happily consent to a process which may ultimately embarrass the government? Is this government running scared because of its poor reception in a number of international fora? Its policies, after all, have been criticised far and wide from the ILO to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.How far have we come from the proud days when Australia took a leading role as one of the world's oldest democracies to a system which has resulted in such international embarrassment? Is this what the Treasurer means when he talks about setting world standards in his budget speech? Does he mean the speed with which we can go from a pacesetter to being named by the United Nations committees for our neglect of human rights? The clear agenda of this government in the legal portfolio is to silence its critics. The real reason for the budget cuts to HREOC and for the changes to the commission's power of intervention is the government's control of any potential criticism. By ensuring that the Attorney's permission is required before intervening, its intention is that embarrassment can be minimised.We see the same malicious approach in the government's handling of a review of community legal centres in Victoria. This joint federal-state review has amongst its recommendations a recommendation that specific funding must be sought for any public interest or law reform case that is to be run. These centres, as many members would know, have spoken out and been actively involved in a number of significant public interest cases and matters of great importance, including fatal police shootings, the use of capsicum spray, free speech matters and issues relating to the privatisation of prisons.How can we be confident that a government would freely approve funding on a case by case basis for the good of the community on a matter which may highlight its own inadequacy on a particular issue? These legal centres provide an enormous amount of work to a number of people who otherwise could not afford legal services, and they do so at an extremely low cost to the public. For those members who are not aware of it, I will draw to their attention one important fact: the budget for community legal centres in Victoria is tiny. The total core government funding from the Commonwealth and state Attorney-General's departments is only $5 million for 19 centres across all Victoria.In 1996-97, for that amount of money, community legal centres helped more than 50,000 Victorians and made more than 70,000 client contacts. They are able to achieve so much on such a small amount of money because of a huge network of community volunteers. But in the budget do we see a recognition of the good work that these community centres do? No. Again, the reward for this work, for a government that does not like criticism, is to seek to silence the centres, to force amalgamations and restrict funding for anything other than direct case work, which is work that the government can be confident will not highlight its ineptitude.From these examples, we can see that a pattern is emerging. That pattern is about controlling independent organisations, silencing criticisms, hiding mistakes and governing without being accountable or responsible. The federal and state governments have a vested interest in attacking these community legal centres because these centres have been outspoken advocates on behalf of their communities on issues that these governments love to ignore. This is not the sort of approach and leadership that we want from the Attorney. We deserve more in an open and democratic country such as Australia.Beyond silencing its critics, if the government's review is adopted and acted upon, many people will be denied legal services either because the policy of regionalisation will probably mean one of rationalisation and closures—in my electorate, that will probably require an hour's train ride from Footscray to Werribee—or because of a proposed new means test allowing only health care cardholders to access the services. Unfortunately, given the costs of our current legal system, many of us could not afford to run a small court case, even if we were on a reasonable and steady income.Finally, let us look at the example of legal aid. Since the Howard government was elected in 1996, the cuts to legal aid have been devastating. Access to legal aid in Australia has been greatly reduced due to direct cuts of $230 million and over $400 million, if you include the cuts to the human rights commission as well. These cuts have drastically reduced the amount of support available for our family law matters, affecting many people in tragic situations of ever spiralling conflict.There has been some excellent research done recently in this area, with the results published in a report entitled Trial by legal aid. It includes some harrowing examples of women's difficulties in accessing legal aid, even when they have been victims of domestic violence. But is there anything in the budget to deal with this crisis in legal aid? No, there is not. Under this government, we have seen massive cuts to legal aid contribute significantly to the rapidly growing divide in the community between those who have enough money to buy access to justice and those who do not.The budget pays lip-service to enhancing an equitable and accessible system of federal law and justice, including the provision of additional counselling and mediation services, some support for rural and regional areas, a federal magistracy and a new court in Adelaide. But this is not enough. It is not enough when regional areas have already lost their courts, judges and counselling service. Ask the people of Launceston and Bendigo whether this budget will even put them back into the position they were in before this government was first elected in 1996. Playing catch-up does not deal with the crisis in our legal system. The tragedies will continue. These budget measures are too limited. Their assumptions are wrong.Tampering around the edges of rural disadvantage ignores our general crisis in legal aid. It ignores growing urban disadvantage and dislocation caused by a lack of services and a delay in the provision of those services. It ignores the fact that women across the country cannot get legal aid for small property matters even if the determination of that case is the only way to ensure their capacity to survive and house and feed their children.We know that the government are soon to negotiate new legal aid funding agreements with the states, so they have the opportunity to ameliorate some of the problems that are occurring. I urge the Attorney to spend more of his time on these pressing issues than on working out ways to silence legitimate community groups, which in fact often bring this disadvantage to our attention in the first place.This is an issue that I am passionate about. It was a matter that I dealt with at some length in my first speech. A person's right to legal assistance and access to justice irrespective of income and circumstance strikes at the core of a person's citizenship rights in this country. An entitlement should not just be to equality before the law but a fair chance to get there to start with. In a vibrant democracy, there should be not only the right to access justice but also the right to criticise the government.I will conclude by quoting Steve Bracks, the new leader of the state opposition in Victoria. His words provide a warning to the Attorney-General:Democracy is not just about elections. It is bigger and more important than a vote every few years. It is about participation—in government—in debate—in the justice system . . .Democracy is an accumulated culture. It accumulates principally through law and access to the courts. And it accumulates through community organisations that mount campaigns—that agitate for change—that speak for those who otherwise might not be heard.And the democratic culture accumulates through the social activism of ordinary people—community groups—churches and the scrutiny of the media.We like to believe that our democratic culture is immune from temporary moods of governments.But our democracy will be affected by the mood of this government unless the Attorney-General urgently heeds these warnings. The Attorney-General must increase legal aid funding, he must remove the clause requiring his approval for the human rights commission to intervene in court proceedings and he must allow community legal centres to operate as just that with adequate funding.Our democratic culture and the people, organisations and institutions that feed and build that culture are indeed bigger and more important than this government. They will last well past the life of this government, but if starved of funds, neglected and abused, equality for our citizens cannot be a reality and democracy cannot flourish.Mr Sciacca interjecting—22:23:005721Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLP10—I thank my colleague on the opposition side for his favourable interjection. As we approach the end of this century we stand on the cusp of a new era in economic reform. The historic agreement on tax reform announced by the Prime Minister and Leader of the Australian Democrats last week finally brings about the real and meaningful tax reform for which the government obtained a mandate in the Octo ber 1998 general election. The sound economic principles upon which the coalition government has based its budget means that all Australians will benefit.Let us look at some of the achievements of this government. In its third consecutive budget we have brought in a surplus and this time it was announced to be $5.4 billion. As a government we have stood by our election promises. We have reformed Commonwealth and state financial arrangements in a way that guarantees income for the states from the Commonwealth. Most importantly, we are about to introduce a new tax system as we enter the 21st century.This new tax system will replace a system which is outdated and which has been manipulated and stretched to breaking point. It is unfair, inequitable and irrational. At the present time only the Labor Party could possibly support the current WST, which sees taxes levied at six different irrational and inconsistent rates. By opposing tax reform the Labor Party has proven it is against tax cuts, against cheaper transport costs for rural and regional Australia and opposed to anything even remotely resembling reform. The ALP has proven itself to be the troglodyte of Australian politics.The speech I have just heard from the honourable member for Gellibrand would be one of the most appalling speeches I have heard since I was first elected to this place. Her false criticisms of a very effective Attorney-General are something which all Australians would reject. The Attorney-General is a very effective minister; he has looked after his portfolio and his area of governmental responsibility very well. He is a caring and compassionate person and when I continue my speech in the adjournment debate tomorrow I will certainly be having more to say on those comments which the member for Gellibrand falsely made about the Attorney-General. I wonder whether the member for Gellibrand, who is a new member, had the decency to contact the Attorney-General in accordance with the ethics of this place to say that she intended to mount such an unwarranted attack on his policies of administration as the Attorney-General of Australia. Honourable members would be aware that this year the government has moved to accrual budgeting. The transition to accrual budgeting will deliver on our commitment to bring to the Australian people the highest level of accountability and transparency in the area of government finance. This reform builds on the government's charter of budget honesty legislation which was initially implemented in March 1996. We all remember the charade prior to the 1996 election when the then Minister for Finance, the now Leader of the Opposition, claimed the budget was in surplus. On election to office, we discovered that in fact there was a $10.3 billion debt. The Australian community is the clear beneficiary of these reforms. Australian taxpayers receive good government and the economic management to which they are entitled. The accrual framework spells out the government's outputs and outcomes framework. The community benefits from this reform as the ojectives of government policy and the means by which these objectives will be achieved are clearly articulated.The Commonwealth under this coalition government has embraced, and continues to embrace, a more businesslike approach to the way it manages the economy and our national finances. Public sector accounting reform is high on the government's agenda and the move to accrual budgeting is part of that ongoing process. As well as managing the implementation of accrual budgeting, the Department of Finance and Administration is embracing change that is designed to put the Australian public sector well ahead into the 21st century. These changes have received the full support of the Minister for Finance and Administration and represent his own and the government's total commitment to achieving better government and better public sector management. Departmental initiatives include the outsourcing of government activities such as information technology and Commonwealth property management; promoting the practice of competitive tendering and contracting out services among other government agencies—this remains a clear objective for the department in the year 1999-2000—and promoting public sector accounting reform generally throughout the Commonwealth. The Department of Finance and Administration has been playing its role in the government as far as bringing about these very important reforms in the area of public management.The member for Melbourne in his speech on the appropriation bills also made some absolutely incorrect and inaccurate remarks with respect to the government's budget. The member for Melbourne claimed that this was a budget of deceit. The reality is that this is indeed a budget which brings about transparency, accountability and openness. The government has taken into account the full and true cost of delivering services to the Australian people and this represents, for the first time ever, a whole of government approach to budgeting.The greatest deceit was Labor's shameful $10.3 thousand million deficit which they hid from the Australian people before the 1996 election. The Australian people have had an absolute gutful of the way the Labor Party have acted in office over the years, the way they have been guilty of creative accounting, the way they were prepared to flog off assets having gone to the people saying that they would not do so and then, instead of using the proceeds of those sales for the purposes of retiring debt, they used those moneys for recurrent expenditure. The Labor Party have a hide to come into this place and claim the Australian people are being deceived, and I look forward to continuing this contribution tomorrow when the House resumes.Debate interrupted.Adjournment572310000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 10.30 p.m., I propose the question:That the House do now adjourn.572322:30:005723Wilton, Greg, MPMr WILTONYK6IsaacsALP00—The issue of prescribed waste, better known as toxic waste, is a very hot topic in Victoria at present. With the imminent closure of the Tullamarine site and Werribee no longer an option, all eyes are now on the Lyndhurst landfill site in my electorate of Isaacs. Presently the site receives 75 per cent putrescible waste and 25 per cent prescribed waste. The operators are now seeking to increase this ratio to 50 per cent of each. Of course, I oppose this increase. I stand here today not as another nimby, or not in my backyard, protester but as someone concerned for the health and wellbeing of the people of Isaacs, their children and their children's children, and indeed for those in other communities in Victoria that will inevitably become immersed in this issue when the Victorian state government's myopic toxic waste roadshow eventually rolls into their neighbourhood.You see, the problem with the disposal of toxic waste in holes in the earth, be they well lined with clay or otherwise, is that they inevitably leak. This is a fact agreed by all sides of the toxic waste divide. This material, known as leachate, finds its way into the groundwater, with obvious detrimental effects on the community over an extended period of time. At present the frustration experienced by those opposed to present methods of toxic waste disposal stems from the total absence of a long-term or alternative strategy by both state and federal governments alike. Government attitudes such as those in the United States have contributed to the enormous cost borne by taxpayers to try and undo the ongoing environmental damage caused by leaking landfill.One of the main reasons why landfill is favoured over and above other methods of waste disposal is that it is comparatively cheap. In fact, it is so cheap to dispose of toxic waste in Victoria that other states truck their waste in; and why wouldn't they? The builders of Victoria's Citylink managed to dump acid sulphate soil in Braeside, in Isaacs, adjacent to the Mordialloc Creek and near a specially set-aside wetland area. They did this for virtually nothing. They just told the landowners that it was clean landfill, when in fact Melbourne University tests confirmed that the leachate from this soil was equivalent in strength to battery acid.Herein lies the key to both persuading and encouraging industry to devise alternative methods of disposal and/or reduce the production of toxic by-products. We should closely regulate it and charge more to dump it, and also develop a more sophisticated disposal method than just putting it in the ground and covering it over. In countries such as Germany, landfill is a more costly method of waste disposal, and as a result it is less favoured by industry. There are no surprises there really. But the lessons to be learnt from abroad are no greater than to actually develop a strategy for waste disposal to prevent MPs like me rising in parliament every few months to oppose and deplore the prospect of toxic waste being dumped in their electorates.While I commend the efforts of the people of Lalor in preventing the Werribee dump, the problem has merely been moved elsewhere, possibly to Isaacs. I do not profess to have all the answers but I do believe that governments—particularly the Victorian government—need to adopt a long-term view of the increasing amounts of prescribed waste being produced and requiring disposal. First and foremost, there needs to be a national policy implemented which establishes a definitive protocol for disposal and production of prescribed waste. This would incorporate sensible and safe measures, such as the location of dump sites several kilometres away from pre-existing and proposed residential areas and the development of waste repositories which will not leak into the environment.Finally, any ensuing government policy initiatives need to seriously consider implementing financial incentives for industry to reduce waste production. This would allow sites such as the one at Lyndhurst to eventually wind back their prescribed waste to putrescible waste ratio, rather than seeking to increase it and subjecting the environment and the neighbouring community to unnecessary risk.572422:35:005724Gash, Joanna, MPMrs GASHAK6GilmoreLP10—In this world of fashion and glossy magazines where, to quote a popular band, the Disposable Heroes of Hipophrocy, from earlier this decade, `having straight teeth in your mouth is more important than the words that come out of it', our young people may often feel there is no way they can live up to the expectations of society around them. In regional communities such as those in my electorate of Gilmore, our young people face increasing pressures not only to find a job and have a career but to get ahead in life and have a fast car and a big boat. It is no longer enough just to succeed; you have to look it as well.That is why I am delighted that real young local people from my electorate have been used in promotional material in our latest initiative to combat youth unemployment. I have previously spoken in the House regarding the work done by the Shoalhaven Area Consultative Committee. Shoalhaven Earning a Living Scheme, a model for Work for the Dole, is just one example. I am delighted to be able to advise the House of the latest initiative in assisting local youth in their search for employment—an initiative that has been wholeheartedly supported by this government. Gilmore's unemployment level, whilst dropping along with the national unemployment level, is still far too high.In 1997 I was fortunate to be part of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training which looked at youth employment throughout regional and metropolitan Australia. One of the most striking messages to come through that inquiry was that many young people, particularly in regional Australia, did not know about job opportunities in their own home towns. If you are a young person in a regional town, moving to the city for work has always seemed to be the number one option offered to you by friends, family, school peers and the wider community. Whilst we all want young people to stay in regional areas, there seems to be little acceptance within those communities of the fact that it is really possible. The message that there are no jobs here, no future here, is consistently reinforced by our own community's negativity. It has the most detrimental effect on our youth and the future of our regional towns.According to the committee report, few businesses anywhere think that imparting information to young people is integral to their recruitment strategies. The report says:Business needs to take a long term view. Industries and firms should be cultivating the interests of young people from early high school onwards and trying to establish ways to ease their transition into employment. I could not agree more. That is why I commend and congratulate the Shoalhaven ACC—and, in particular, Fiona Phillips—on the production of the brochure Your Future—Working in the Shoalhaven: a Guide to Training and Employment Opportunities in Your Local Area . Having supported this initiative from the start, I was honoured to launch the brochure in Nowra recently.Too often, local students feel that there are few employment opportunities for them in the Shoalhaven. As any local business or Job Network member will tell you, this is not the case. The Shoalhaven creates more than 700 jobs each year. The Working in the Shoalhaven brochure provides just the information young people need to get access to industry, to assistance to find jobs, to further education and training opportunities in the local region and to general information about working in our area. Copies of the brochure are now being distributed to years 10, 11 and 12 in local high schools. Unlike most brochures, all the input is from locals, right down to the promotional photos which feature local young people. That brochure shows young people and the wider community at large that we accept young people for who they are and not for what they look like, and that we are doing something to help them locally right here in the Shoalhaven.I urge all members to encourage their ACCs or local committees to consider following the example set by the Shoalhaven ACC and to look at ways to help young people identify work opportunities in their local areas. We all know that school leavers have a greater chance of finding work in their home town, where they already have a network and where they can continue to have the support of family and friends when starting out in their working life. We need to encourage young people to remain in our rural and regional areas so that we have experienced future leaders who care for and have a personal attachment to the towns that they live in.572522:39:005725Morris, Allan, MPMr ALLAN MORRISFI4NewcastleALP00—We are living through one of those defining moments in Australian politics. Not many of those moments occur in one political lifetime but the members of the House and the Senate should take careful note in the weeks ahead that they are living through a defining moment. I have spent some time in Europe in recent weeks. I spent time in four countries with four different VATs in four different forms—including the famous Irish model. Let me tell you, it is a dog of a tax. Not one European parliamentarian will defend it. They all walk away from it. There is no doubt that part of the reason for the lack of economic growth in Europe is the weight of that tax on the economy. It is infamous for avoidance rather than for its success. In fact, the governments collect with one hand and give out with the other. The whole point of it seems to be quite lost.The GST would be farcical if it were not so tragic. It is a fiasco. The impact and effect this will have on this country in the years ahead is almost unimaginable. Since Friday afternoon, the number of people who have spoken to me about it—both consumers and small business people—has not surprised me. I am sure that people are speaking to members of the government as well. I wish a few of them would start talking about that.As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out today, the people who are coming to us the most are the small business people who have suddenly stopped to think about what it will mean for them. They all had this view about the hidden taxes which they did not know about because most of them do not collect them. Only 70,000 people are involved in collecting the wholesale sales tax. It raises about $9 billion. We are now going to have 1.3 million to 1.5 million people collecting less than $30 billion—three times the money and almost 20 times the number of people. The cost per dollar collected goes up by a factor of five or six. That is the reality that they are starting to realise.Another thing that they had not thought through—and they are starting to think about it but it is not very obvious—is gross profit. Any business requires a certain amount of money. When they do their mark-up, their percentages, they apply it to the tax included price. In other words, they buy the goods, the tax is included and they mark it up 50 per cent, 70 per cent or whatever it may be on the tax included price. If you take away the wholesale sales tax and reduce that level, the mark-up is on a smaller value. In turn, that means that their gross profit drops unless they increase their mark-up.What is the government going to do? It is going to stop profiteering. The government is going to stop them increasing their mark-up, which will mean that their gross profit will go down. It will soon sink in that, particularly for people with the 32 per cent wholesale sales tax, their gross profit will fall but their wages will not and their rent and other costs will not—it effectively comes out of their pockets and out of their bottom line. Unless they increase the mark-up on their buying price, including tax, they are going to go broke. That is now sinking in. On the other hand, if they try to increase their mark-up they will be accused of profiteering, which the government is going to outlaw with very heavy penalties.The figures which the Treasurer presents to us almost hourly apply to the wholesale price. For most goods, the price of those taxed at 12 per cent will go up, those at 22 per cent will stay the same, and the only ones that may reduce their price are the ones at 32 per cent. We all know that the idea that somehow there is going to be a drop in the cost of a whole raft of goods is a nonsense. It is a dog of a tax. As the shadow Treasurer said this afternoon, it catches the cooks, it catches the chooks, it catches the books, but it does not catch the crooks—it does not in Europe and it will not here.572622:44:005726Hull, Kay, MPMrs HULL83ORiverinaNP10—I rise in the House this evening to speak of a university that I am very proud of. It is the Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. This university is the largest employer in the city of Wagga Wagga. It injects around $99 million directly into the community each year and many millions indirectly. It plays a crucial role in regional and economic development and provides access to social and cultural components that would be totally unavailable to the Riverina without its existence. The benefits of having Charles Sturt University in our city cannot be quantified. It has grown and developed to the highest level, being named university of the year in 1997. It gained this achievement despite underfunding over a period of years by successive governments. It has been undermined, as have any additional contributions that could have been made by this university to the community.A very important part of the success of Charles Sturt University is the Rivcoll Union. Rivcoll Union has a very unfortunate name; it has the word `union' involved in it. But in fact it is no more and no less than a student support service that provides countless essential services to the students that study with CSU. Some of these include a free bus service for the 11 kilometres from the university into the city, coffee shops, canteens and the Rivcoll Shoppe, the entertainment of live bands, trivia nights and theatre. It sponsors 35 sports that allow integration of students with the local communities. It provides sports equipment, vacuum cleaners, whipper snippers, videos—all free of charge. These services all enhance the life of a student on and off the campus at Wagga Wagga and provide peace of mind for parents who are unable to afford to purchase all of these lifestyle additions for their children whilst they are attending university. Student discounts are organised by the Rivcoll Union at many Wagga Wagga businesses. The Rivcoll Union provides all students with personal insurance cover and legal aid. All of these services and many, many more are instrumental in attracting students into our region to undertake their studies.This great university has now been caught up in a policy that surely must be targeted at metropolitan universities. It is surely not targeted at our regional university. This policy will drastically impact on regional universities. If compulsory student support service fees are abolished, the student support services will rapidly decline, simply because no allowance has ever been made for the tyrannies of distance, the limited infrastructure and the lack of tradition of business investment in rural and regional areas.No government—now or before—has ever recognised the fundamental role that rural universities play in rural communities, both economically and socially. They address the needs that are particularly relevant to a rural environment. This is not a criticism of our government. I applaud our government for the initiatives that it undertakes. I do not object to voluntary student unionism. In fact, I support students having the choice in joining a union. However, the component of union fees in the entire student support equation is minimal and, indeed, is refunded to any objector at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. Nobody is forced to pay a union fee. If you are a conscientious objector, you have your fee refunded.All that I ask is that our regional universities are able to apply a student support services fee without jeopardising their funding from the Commonwealth, and that in fact the component of union fees be legislated as voluntary without impacting on the support service. I urge the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs to consider this position. Our regional universities must not be forced into being seen as second-rate facilities that will see even more of our rural youth forced into metropolitan cities, causing further rural population decline.572722:49:005727Murphy, John, MPMr MURPHY83DLoweALP00—I rise tonight to speak about the plight of Tamils in the war-torn country of Sri Lanka. The Tamil community constitutes one of the most significant cultural entities in my electorate of Lowe. It is widely acknowledged that the Lowe electorate is the Tamil `capital' of Australia. On 4 August 1998, the Sri Lankan government extended its state of emergency to the whole of the country. This measure was in force in the capital Colombo and in the north and east of Sri Lanka, where separatists belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been waging a bloody struggle for independence.Today, the civilian Tamil population continues to be a target of military operations by the Sri Lankan armed forces. As a consequence, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention are continuing to occur regularly within the Sri Lankan army-occupied regions of the Tamil homeland. There are more than 825,000 displaced Tamil civilians living under appalling conditions that include acute shortages of water, food and medicine. In the northern Vanni region of the Tamil homeland there is an embargo of essential food and medicine in violation of humanitarian law.At the present time we are hearing so much about the horror of war in Kosovo. Why are we not hearing about Sri Lanka's war? Because it is a hidden war due to the strong ties between the Singhalese dominated Sri Lankan government and the major Western powers. Both scenarios depict a racially dominated military oppressing an ethnic minority. Both have resulted in massive displacements, sightings of mass graves and evidence of genocide. Both situations have resulted in two of the gravest disasters and crimes against humanity. Multiple massacres have occurred in townships in the east and north of Sri Lanka. An attempted democratic mandate proved by a 70 per cent vote by Tamils to separate from Sri Lanka in 1977 has been systematically denied.I have the greatest respect for the Tamil community. They are perhaps one of the best organised ethnic communities in Australia. Since I was elected to this House in 1998 I have received representations from several Tamil organisations and individuals. These and other associations form an international network of Tamil community organisations seeking a peaceful solution to the ongoing bloodshed in Sri Lanka. What then is the solution to the 15-year civil war in Sri Lanka? In fulfilment of this drive towards a peaceful solution, the Tamil community is asking for a withdrawal of security forces from the occupied Tamil homeland, a lifting of the embargo on essential food and medicine and a political solution to the conflict with the Tamil people that would enable the Tamil people to choose their own political and national status.The Tamil people call on Australia to assist them in their appeal for negotiations to take place under the auspices of a neutral third party acceptable to the Sri Lankan govern ment and the Tamil leadership under the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. I strongly urge this parliament to support the independence of the Tamil people from the state of Sri Lanka. It is foolishness for us to ignore this 15-year bloody conflict that sees no end in sight because the Tamil and Singhalese people cannot peacefully coexist under one government. Our immediate regional history has shown that Sri Lanka is one clear example where the demographic reality requires a separation of states.The alternative to this course of action is for Australia to participate in the grave destabilising influence of Sri Lanka melting down into a further 15 years of protracted civil war that may threaten to further destabilise our immediate region. Like Kosovo, a political and peaceful solution to the conflict can be achieved only in the absence of ongoing armed conflict. The Tamil people cannot negotiate under the auspices of military oppression.I call on the Australian government to take urgent action to press the Sri Lankan government to (1) withdraw its security forces from the occupied Tamil homeland; (2) lift the embargo of essential food and medicine; (3) seek a political solution to the conflict with the Tamil people that would enable them to choose their own political and national status; and (4) recognise the Tamil right to self-determination as stipulated in article 1 of the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states:All people have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.I call for negotiations to take place and to be overseen by a third party acceptable to the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil leadership, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Australia has an obligation to play a role in bringing about a lasting and plausible peace for Sri Lanka and the achievement of a peaceful Tamil homeland—a dream shared by the million Tamils worldwide.572822:54:005728Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSONRW5BradfieldLP10—The Sydney Morning Herald on 4 March this year reported a story in which the lives of two men were saved. These two people might have seemed little more than members of the army of filth, scum and low-life—as they are described—who frequent the drug trade, but they are human beings. They are someone's sons, someone's brothers, and possibly even someone's fathers. One of them, Scott, had decided to inject heroin after a night on the grog. The other fellow, Deiter, had been clean for six months but supplemented his holiday in Australia with a hit. Both were saved by ambulance officers who had been called by a third heroin user who had not overdosed with them in the grimy alleyway behind the Wayside Chapel.At the moment, in this country, one young Australian dies from a heroin overdose every 10 hours. Between April and September last year, ambulances were called to a non-fatal heroin overdose in metropolitan Sydney, the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains on average every hour. The recent New South Wales drug summit recommended, amongst other things, the establishment of medically supervised injecting rooms in hot spots throughout New South Wales. Some people, I think with some justification, suggest that this might send the wrong signals to young people.A man called Tony Trimingham lost his son, Damien Trimingham, who died of a heroin overdose in the stairwell of a Kings Cross tenement in March 1997. The boy, when he was found dead, still had a needle and syringe in his arm. For the rest of his life, Tony Trimingham will ask himself the question, `Had my son injected heroin in a safe injecting room, and had one been available, might he still be alive?' Clearly also the question to be asked is, `Had he not taken heroin at all, would he still be alive?' But the further question that perhaps we as legislators need to ask ourselves is, `Do we wish to predicate drug policy on the world the way we wish it to be or, indeed, the reality with which we are faced?'Two-thirds of the heroin overdose deaths in New South Wales last year occurred within a two-kilometre radius of Kings Cross and a four-kilometre radius of Cabramatta. In Cabramatta, some two-thirds of those deaths were in open spaces; in Kings Cross 37 per cent, I think, were within open spaces. Safe injecting rooms—or safer injecting rooms might perhaps be a better way to put it—operate in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The Swiss have had no deaths in their medically supervised injecting rooms. In Frankfurt, where these places have operated for over a decade, heroin overdose deaths have plummeted from 147 in 1991 to 22 in 1997. Whereas ambulances were dealing with 15 drug related emergencies every day, now they are called to two a week. Think about that the next time you have to wait two hours for emergency care for an elderly parent or someone that you are trying to get help for. Car break-ins dropped 30 per cent and robberies by 20 per cent.The Wayside Chapel engaged in an episode of civil disobedience prior to the drug summit and, whilst breaking of the law can never be condoned, I think it is more an indictment of us and our policy paralysis that these people have chosen to become part of the problem instead of the solution. The Wayside Chapel really needs to be a refuge from this sort of stuff, not a part of it. But, in adopting the recommendation of the drug summit, if Mr Carr and the New South Wales parliament choose to do so, as I believe they should, I think that medically supervised injecting rooms should be conducted only in communities where the communities themselves wish them to be conducted. I think it is wrong of the Premier to suggest that non-government organisations ought to run these things. I think the government ought to have the courage, and it certainly has the resources, to run a trial itself.I think they should be properly and scientifically and rigorously monitored and supervised. At the end of a six- or 12-month period we ought to be in a position to assess the health, social and legal consequences of running a medically supervised injecting room. I would suggest that firstly Kings Cross, and certainly Cabramatta, despite what the local council has said, are obvious places where an injecting room ought to be conducted. These things, if they are to be run, really ought to occur in the context of a national and comprehensive drug policy program which I believe we currently have under the banner of Tough on Drugs. As nauseating as I find the concept of medically supervised injected rooms, I believe that they are well worth trialling to see if they reduce deaths and certainly to see if they reduce the harm that affects the rest of the community. (Time expired)Question resolved in the affirmative.22:59:005729House adjourned at 10.59 p.m.Notices5729The following notices were given:Mr Bevis to present a bill for an act to amend the Workplace Relations Act 1996 to ensure that leave for participation in activities as a member of the Australian Defence Force Reserves be one of the matters which can be taken to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission for conciliation or arbitration.Mr Price to move—That the following amendment to the standing orders be adopted for the remainder of this session:Questions from citizens148A(1) A Member may give notice of a question in terms proposed by a person who lives in the Member's electorate.(2) Notice of a question given under this standing order may show the name of the person who has proposed the question.(3) A Member may not give more than 25 notices of questions under this sessional order in a calendar year.(4) Nothing in this standing order may be taken to mean that a Member must give notice of a question proposed to the Member by a person who lives in the Member's electorate.Mr Anderson to present a bill for an act to amend the Stevedoring Levy (Collection) Act 1998.Mr Anderson to present a bill for an act to amend the Aviation Fuel Revenues (Special Appropriation) Act 1988, and for related purposes.Miss Jackie Kelly to present a bill for an act to amend the Australian Sports Commission Act 1989, and for related purposes.Dr Wooldridge to present a bill for an act to amend the National Health Act 1953.Dr Wooldridge to present a bill for an act to amend the Health Insurance Act 1973, and for related purposes.Answers to Questions in Writing5731The following answers to questions were circulated:5731(Question No. 442)4425731McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClellandJK6BartonALP00 asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, upon notice, on 17 February 1999:(1) Further to the answer to question No.153 (Hansard , 8 February 1999, page 2119) why has the Government not commissioned an independent study to provide an objective report on the viability of the long term operating targets regarding various flight paths over Sydney.(2) Has the Government commissioned an independent study of the safety repercussions of the long term operating plan; if so, (a) which organisation undertook the study, (b) over what period was the study conducted, (c) what were the findings of the study and (d) has a Government agency or instrumentality commented on the adequacy of the study; if so, what were the comments.5731Anderson, John, MPMr Anderson4K4GwydirNPTransport and Regional Services10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) SABRE Decision Technologies, an independent consulting group based in the United States, was engaged in 1996 during the development of the Long Term Operating Plan to estimate the capacity of the various runway modes. There would be little benefit in repeating this work at the present time.(2) The Ministerial Direction on the Long Term Operating Plan (LTOP) issued to Airservices in July 1997 specified that an independent safety review should be undertaken by an independent third party with international expertise.(a) Praxis Critical Systems Plc of the UK was engaged by Airservices Australia.(b) Praxis' review of the LTOP changes was carried out in several stages between July 1997 and August 1998.(c) Airservices Australia advises that the principal conclusions of the Praxis review were (i) that the safety management process is consistent with international best practice but recommended that some clarifications be made to the safety management documentation and that future safety cases more explicitly address transitional issues. (ii) the safety process has delivered a safety case that provides adequate argument for the safety of the LTOP procedural changes.(d) Airservices Australia advises that the Praxis review referred to in (b) above was not subject to any formal comment by a Government safety agency or instrumentality.5731(Question No. 473)4735731Latham, Mark, MPMr LathamK26WerriwaALP00 asked the Minister for Finance and Administration, upon notice, on 9 March 1999:(1) Has his attention been drawn to research indicating the way in which social capital, including social trust, reciprocity and cooperation, has a positive impact on economic growth and social wellbeing.(2) In the development of accrual budgeting systems for the 1999-2000 Budget, what consideration has been given to (a) including social capital objectives and indicators among the outcome and output measures for Commonwealth agencies, (b) including social capital objectives and indicators as Third Party outputs and (c) the performance measurement of social capital indicators.5731Fahey, John, MPMr FaheyHQ5MacarthurLPFinance and Administration10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) I am aware that research has been conducted into the way in which social capital has an impact on economic growth and social wellbeing.(2) Outcomes are the results, impacts or consequences of actions by the Commonwealth Government on the Australian community. They reflect government objectives and priorities for improving the economic growth of the nation and the social wellbeing of all Australians.Outputs are the goods and services which achieve outcomes. Third party outputs are goods or services delivered by entities outside the Commonwealth Government's general government sector. In effect these are goods or services funded wholly or in part by government which are provided to the Australian community through a third party such as a private sector organisation, community organisation or a state government agency.Measurable performance against the achievement of outcomes is a mandatory component of the new framework. Performance measurement of outputs for both government and third parties is on the basis of price, quantity, quality and contribution to outcome.Planned performance in contributing to the achievement of outcomes will be publicly available through the Portfolio Budget Statements presented to Parliament at the time of the Budget. Actual performance will be reported in annual reports.5732(Question No. 485)4855732Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Assistant Treasurer, upon notice, on 10 March 1999:(1) Has the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) agreed to fund at $500 000 per annum a Centre for Excellence in Tax Compliance at the Australian National University (ANU) without giving other universities and research groups an opportunity to bid for the centre; if so, (a) is this consistent with the Government's commitment to competition including the supply of services to government, (b) why is the ATO not performing the work to be done by the centre and (c) will the position of head of the centre be advertised; if so, will the appointment process be conducted completely independently without Government involvement.(2) Does the ATO need to outsource its research; if so, is it required to follow an open tendering process.5732Costello, Peter, MPMr CostelloCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The Assistant Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) No.(2) All procurement decisions are considered in the light of the Australian Public Service's policy on Competitive Tendering and Contracting.5732(Question No. 492)4925732McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClellandJK6BartonALP00 asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, upon notice, on 11 March 1999:Are restrictions placed on the length of time that aircraft engineers may be required to work; if not, will he investigate the safety consequences of the absence of a restriction.5732Anderson, John, MPMr Anderson4K4GwydirNPTransport and Regional Services10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has provided the following response. There are no restrictions placed on the length of time aircraft engineers may be required to work. International discussions have taken place on this subject, but CASA is not aware of any firm and enforceable aviation legislation being in place overseas.While CASA monitors maintenance organisation compliance under a system of periodic surveillance, maintenance organisations and operators are better able to monitor the performance of their staff and workloads associated with planned and unplanned maintenance.This monitoring includes not only compliance with maintenance requirements contained in aviation safety legislation and related maintenance control manuals, but also the provision of adequately trained personnel for given workload situations.CASA is presently developing advisory material on the subject of human factors in maintenance. It will highlight normal human limitations (including fatigue, sickness etc) and the impact they can have on performance.Also, a Notice of Proposed Rule Making will shortly be published for industry comment that will include a proposal to prohibit maintenance personnel from undertaking certain tasks if suffering from fatigue, illness, injury or if they are under the influence of alcohol, drugs or any other substance to the extent that their ability to carry out the task is impaired.There is little scope available for CASA to ensure, in real time, that adequate numbers are available at any one time to prevent fatigue due to extended work time agreed between employers and employees. Operators and organisations have obligations to consider their responsibilities with regard to quality and maintenance control, together with their obligations under State law as it applies to employee work cover arrangements.5732(Question No. 493)4935732Hollis, Colin, MPMr HollisDH4ThrosbyALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for Justice and Customs, upon notice, on 11 March 1999:Is the Minister able to say when surveillance cameras were installed at the Port of Kembla; if so, (a) how long have the cameras been in operation, (b) how many cameras have ceased operation and why and (c) where are the cameras now located.5732Williams, Daryl, MPMr Williams7V5TangneyLPAttorney-General10—The Minister for Justice and Customs has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:A Customs surveillance camera was installed at the port of Port Kembla in February 1997. In relation to: (a) the camera was in operation for about four months;(b) the camera was removed in June 1997 because it had been reported as unserviceable; and(c) the camera used in Port Kembla in 1997 is one of a pool of cameras held by the New South Wales Regional Office of Customs. Some of the cameras are located at particular port areas, while others are transported and installed in response to operational requirements.As part of its National Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Waterfront Project, Customs plans to install permanent cameras at Port Kembla by September 1999, enabling 24 hour surveillance of that port.Introduction of the national CCTV network extends Customs operational and intelligence capability at seaports both during and after hours. Cameras delivering real time video from remote wharves to the local Customs House are being installed at over 30 ports around Australia. These cameras will also be capable of being controlled and monitored remotely from the regional headquarters in each state and from the 24 hour National Monitoring Centre to be located in Melbourne. Each port will have sophisticated monitoring and recording capability including state of the art video motion detection technology. The system is being installed progressively from now until fully operational in all selected ports by June 2000.5733(Question No. 497)4975733Price, Roger, MPMr PriceQI4ChifleyALP00 asked the Attorney-General, upon notice, on 22 March 1999:(1) Has he announced proposals to establish a federal magistracy, if so, (a) what are the benefits and (b) does the proposal include magistrates serving under the jurisdiction of the Family Court of Australia; if so, how many.(2) Do magistrates serve under the Family Court of Western Australia.(3) Has his attention been drawn to research which establishes that (a) greater client satisfaction is obtained by appearing before magistrates in the Family Court of Western Australia and (b) less than 5 per cent of matters proceed to the Family Court of Western Australia.(4) Have comparisons been made between the Family Court of Australia and the Family Court of Western Australia on (a) the time it takes each court to handle matters and (b) the expenditure on legal representation by parties before each court; if so, what are the details.5733Williams, Daryl, MPMr Williams7V5TangneyLPAttorney-General10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) Yes.(a) The establishment of the Federal Magistrates Service is the most efficient way of handling the increasing workload of less complex matters in the Federal and Family Courts. The Service will be a separate court established under Chapter III of the Constitution and will have a range of jurisdiction under federal law, including family law.The Federal Magistrates Service will have very close links with the existing federal courts, will share many of those courts' facilities and as far as possible use existing infrastructure. This will avoid duplications of service and ensure that the best use will be made of the available resources.The Service will adopt rules, forms and practices that are user friendly, facilitate access by unrepresented litigants and minimise technicalities and delay. This will reduce litigants' costs and the length of time involved in resolving disputes.The Service will encourage the use of non-judicial dispute resolution mechanisms and will have strong links with counselling, mediation and arbitration providers currently operating within the Family Court and in the community.(b) No.(2) Yes.(3) No. I would appreciate it if Mr Price would provide me with details of that research.(4) (a) The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), Audit Report No. 33 1996-97, The Administration of the Family Court of Australia compares the performance of the Family Court of Australia (FCA) and the Family Court of Western Australia (FCWA) against the Family Court of Australia's Case Management Guidelines. In some cases the FCA results were better than the FCWA (ancillary applications, registrars conferences) in other cases the FCWA results were better than the FCA (dissolutions, short matters, long matters).(b) I am not aware of comparisons on the expenditure of legal representation by parties before the FCA and the FCWA.5733(Question No. 500)5005733Andren, Peter, MPMr AndrenKL6CalareIND00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for Family and Community Services, upon notice, on 22 March 1999:(1) Is it a fact that the Minister's Department includes disability compensation pensions paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs for war related disease or injury as income under the means test for the age pension; if so, why.(2) Before the general election in 1998, did the Government undertake to change the way the disability pension paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs was treated under the social security means test; if so, when will it implement the change.(3) What would be the annual cost to the Commonwealth of exempting the disability pension paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs from the social security means test.(4) How many of Centrelink's (a) aged pension recipients and (b) other clients receive a disability pension paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs.5734Truss, Warren, MPMr TrussGT4Wide BayNPCommunity Services10—The Minister for Family and Community Services has provided the following answer to the honourable member's questions:(1) Disability pensions, paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs, are currently subject to means testing for social security payments. This is consistent with the broad definition of income in the Social Security Act 1991, helping to ensure that payments are targeted to those most in need and with the least resources for their own support. The means testing of disability pensions for social security payments has been the longstanding policy of successive Governments and has not changed from the treatment under previous Labor Governments.(2) No.(3) Around $19 million a year. These costs are in respect of about 15,700 age pensioners who would get a rate increase or become eligible for age pension and about 2,000 other social security customers who would get a rate increase or become eligible for payment. Additional aged care outlays would cost around $1 million. There would also be additional administration costs for Centrelink and the Departments of Family and Community Services (FaCS) and Veterans' Affairs (DVA).(4) There are currently about 36,400 age pensioners and 3,900 other customers who receive a DVA disability pension and a social security payment (including spouses of disability pensioners).5734(Question No. 502)5025734Andren, Peter, MPMr AndrenKL6CalareIND00 asked the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, upon notice, on 22 March 1999:(1) Is it a fact that his Department exempts disability compensation pensions arising from war related disease or injury from the income test applying to the service pension; if so, why.(2) How many clients of his Department receive a disability pension as compensation for war related diseases or injuries but do not qualify for a service pension because of the nature of their war service.5734Scott, Bruce, MPMr Bruce ScottYT4MaranoaNPVeterans' Affairs; Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) Yes. Disability pensions have not been regarded as income for the purposes of the income test applying to service pensions since 1982. This is in recognition of the stresses faced by those veterans who incurred danger from hostile forces of the enemy. The exemption of disability pensions from the income test was introduced in stages, beginning with a 25% exemption in 1973, increased to 50% in 1975, to 60% in 1981, and to 100% in 1982.(2) The number of disability pensioners who do not qualify for service pension is not known and cannot be ascertained because not all disability pensioners apply for service pensions. However, approximately 73,000 veterans who are in receipt of disability pension do not receive service pension, either because they are not eligible or because they have not applied.5734(Question No. 528)5285734Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, upon notice, on 24 March 1999:Has (a) the Minister, (b) his or her predecessors or (c) the Department or an agency for which the Minister holds, or his or her predecessors held, portfolio responsibility, engaged Australasian Research Strategies, related companies or organisations or Mr Mark Textor to undertake research since 2 March 1996; if so, in each case, (i) what was the nature of the research, (ii) what was its purpose, (iii) what was its cost, (iv) was the outcome of the research supplied to a non-government organisation, individual or political party and (v) will the Minister release the outcome of the research.5734Vaile, Mark, MPMr VaileSU5LyneNPAgriculture, Fisheries and Forestry10—The Minister for the Environment and Heritage has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(a) No.(b) No.(c) Yes. (i-v)Nature of Research (i)Purpose (ii)Cost (iii)Was outcome of research supplied to a non government organisation, individual or political party (iv)Will the Minister release the outcome of the research (v)Natural Heritage Trust research—February 1998Research to test a range of issues and materials relating to the environment and the Natural Heritage Trust$7,541NoNoNatural Heritage Trust—June/ July 1998Research into Natural Heritage Trust public information campaign$77,000NoNoNatural Heritage Trust—August 1998Additional qualitative market research for NHT TV advertising campaign and additional associated costs of June research$11,404NoNoNatural Heritage Trust—August 1998Natural Heritage Trust Public Information Campaign—Tracking Research, August 1998$30,000NoNo5735(Question No. 564)5645735Kerr, Duncan, MPMr KerrRH4DenisonALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for Justice and Customs, upon notice, on 30 March 1999:(1) What documentation is required to be completed for customs purposes by an importer of items which are exempt from duty and tax to enable them to be released.(2) Is the Australian Customs Service (ACS) required to seize and hold exempt items; if so, (a) why, (b) what is the average time the items are held before being released, (c) is the ACS required to provide the importer with reasons for holding the items and an estimate of the time before release and (d) are costs or charges imposed on the importer; if so, (i) what costs or charges and (ii) why are they imposed.(3) Is the Minister able to say whether a development in recent months is the explanation for the ACS seizing and holding new metallic badges imported from countries such as the UK, the USA and Germany for sale to collectors of militaria.(4) Is it a fact that quarantine inspection services have been ordered, at the importer's expense, in connection with the case referred to in part (3); if so, why.5735Williams, Daryl, MPMr Williams7V5TangneyLPAttorney-General10—The Minister for Justice and Customs has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) The value of the imported goods determines what documentation is required.A formal entry is required for goods, irrespective of whether they are exempt duty and sales tax, if the goods are imported by the postal system and have a value over $1000 or, if the goods are imported by air or sea cargo, and have a value over $250. A formal entry can be lodged using the Customs COMPILE computer system or by completing a manual (documentary) entry.No documentation is required for goods that are exempt from duty and sales tax if the goods are imported by the postal system with a value under $1000, or if the goods are imported by air or sea cargo with a value under $250.(2) (a) Customs will not release goods if insufficient information has been supplied to enable an assessment of whether duty and/or sales tax is payable. Similarly, Customs will not release goods if the requirements of various controls relating to import prohibitions and restrictions have not been complied with.(b) Data is not maintained as a matter of course on the time before goods are released. The time for goods to be released will normally depend on when sufficient information is available for Customs to be satisfied that all outstanding matters have been dealt with.(c) Customs will normally indicate what additional information is required to permit clearance of the goods.(d) Yes, charges are imposed under the Import Processing Charges Act 1997 for goods that are required to be formally entered. (i) These charges are:ItemChargeImport Entry via sea(lodged electronically)$29.65 plus $0.20 per line after line 10Manual Import Entry via sea$51.40 plus $1.00 per line after the first lineImport Entry via air or post(lodged electronically)$22.80 plus $0.20 per line after line 10Manual Import Entry via air or post$44.55 plus $1.00 per line after the first lineImport Entry ex-warehouse(lodged electronically)$5.00 plus $0.20 per line after line 10Import Entry ex-warehouse(lodged manually)$26.75 plus $0.80 per line after the first line(ii) Sections 71AA and 71AB of the Customs Act 1901 establishes that liability to pay these charges lies with the owner of the goods.(3) There has been no change in recent months to the way in which Customs treats the goods listed.(4) This question should be addressed to the Minister responsible for the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.5736(Question No. 568)5685736Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for Family and Community Services, upon notice, on 30 March 1999:Further to the answer to question No 476 (Hansard , 30 March 1999, page 3963), concerning the international social security agreement between Australia and New Zealand:(1) When did the agreement first come into operation(2) What are the terms of reference of the Prime Minister's Taskforce to address the Social Security Agreement, when will it report and when will the burden on the Australian taxpayer caused by the imbalance in pension payments under the agreement be rectified.(3) For each financial year since the agreement came into operation, what has been the imbalance between the two countries for each benefit paid under the agreement. 5736Truss, Warren, MPMr TrussGT4Wide BayNPCommunity Services10—The Minister for Family and Community Services has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) The present Social Security Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of New Zealand was signed on 19 July 1994 by Mr Peter Baldwin, then Minister for Social Security, on behalf of the Australian Government and Mr Peter Gresham on behalf of the New Zealand Government. The Agreement came into effect from 1 January 1995.(2) The Joint Prime Ministerial Taskforce on Australia New Zealand Bilateral Economic Relations was established by the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand. Its task is to provide advice on a range of bilateral issues including the present Social Security Agreement. The release of any joint report of the Joint Taskforce and possible responses to recommendations by the Joint Taskforce will be a matter for consideration by the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand and relevant Ministers.(3) The data required to respond to this part of the question is not readily available and is presently being extracted from Centrelink administrative data. The data will be forwarded to the honourable Member as soon as it becomes available.5737(Question No. 596)5965737McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClellandJK6BartonALP00 asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, upon notice, on 11 May 1999:(1) Further to the answer to question 448 (Hansard , 11 May 1999, page 4188), what are the "over the water" modes, other than Mode 4, which were used for approximately 5.2 percent of the non-curfew operating hours at Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport.(2) Would a variation between Mode 4 and Mode 2 increase the total aircraft movements over the water; if so, why has the variation in modes not been made.5737Anderson, John, MPMr Anderson4K4GwydirNPTransport and Regional Services10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) The other "over the water" modes referred to in my response to question 448 were operations involving departures to the south from the main north-south runway and arrivals from the south onto the main north-south runway which primarily took place just before the start of and just after the end of the 11pm to 6am curfew period.(2) No. Under Mode 2 all arrivals from the south would directly overfly the Kurnell Village and departures would be likely to overfly residential areas, in particular the Sutherland Shire.5737(Question No. 606)6065737McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClellandJK6BartonALP00 asked the Minister representing the Special Minister of State, upon notice, on 12 May 1999:(1) Is the Minister able to say what are the length of the terms of office for members of the national parliaments elected in other English speaking countries.(2) When were the current terms set for members of the State and Territory legislatures in Australia.5738Fahey, John, MPMr FaheyHQ5MacarthurLPFinance and Administration10—The Special Minister of State has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) and (2) These matters do not fall within my Ministerial responsibilities.5738(Question No. 610)6105738Price, Roger, MPMr PriceQI4ChifleyALP00 asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, upon notice, on 12 May 1999:(1) When did the Commonwealth organise and fund urban flood mitigation.(2) What sum was allocated for each flood mitigation project in southwest and western Sydney in each year since the inception of funding.(3) What was the total cost of each project referred to in part (2).(4) Is the Minister able to say what is the unmet demand and estimated cost for flood mitigation in Greater Western Sydney.5738Anderson, John, MPMr Anderson4K4GwydirNPTransport and Regional Services10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) Urban flood mitigation was funded under a number of programs established by previous governments. Consequently the information is not readily available to my Department.(2) Refer to answer (1).(3) Refer to answer (1).(4) No.