1999-09-203914REPS990501999-09-20Mr SPEAKER(Mr Neil Andrew) took the chair at 12.30 p.m., and read prayers.Delegation Reports990599059905Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—I have pleasure in tabling the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the seventh annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum. The Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum, or APPF as it is more commonly known, held its seventh annual meeting in Lima, Peru from 11 to 14 January this year. I had the privilege of leading a delegation from the parliament. The other delegation members were the President of the Senate, Senator the Hon. Margaret Reid, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Simon Crean MP, and the Chief National Party Whip, Mr John Forrest MP. I must at the outset compliment all delegation members for their bipartisanship, cohesion and professionalism. There can be no doubt that the team made a positive impact on the conference and on Asia-Australian relations.The APPF was formally established at its first annual meeting in Tokyo in January 1993, following earlier preparatory meetings in 1991 held in Singapore and Canberra. It comprises 26 member countries from the Asia-Pacific region. The APPF has five objectives, which are concerned with providing national parliamentarians of the Asia-Pacific region with the opportunity, firstly, to identify and discuss matters of common concern and interest; secondly, to deepen their understanding of the policy concerns, interests and experiences of the countries of the region; thirdly, to examine the critical political, social and cultural developments resulting from economic growth and integration; fourthly, to encourage and promote regional cooperation at all levels on matters of common concern to the region; and, finally, to fulfil the duties national parliamentarians have to further in their respective countries a sense of regional cohesion, understanding and cooperation. While the APPF is a relatively young interparliamentary body, it provides a valuable means for the sharing of ideas and the resolution of issues of mutual concern in the Asia-Pacific region. It also complements activities in the region conducted under the umbrella of APEC which will, of course, be of particular significance following events in East Timor over recent weeks. Members of the Australian delegation to the seventh annual meeting participated widely and fully in plenary sessions and led discussions on two key subjects: nuclear non-proliferation and international terrorism. Resolutions submitted on these subjects were submitted by the Australian delegation, debated and agreed to by the forum.The Congress of Peru hosted the seventh annual meeting. Facilities and arrangements were of the highest standard and matched by the hospitality extended to all delegation members and accompanying persons. I place on record our appreciation of the chairman of the seventh annual meeting, Mr Oswaldo Sandoval, for his leadership, hospitality and friendship. I also record our gratitude for the ongoing leadership provided by the President of the APPF, former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. In Lima, Mr Nakasone was unanimously re-elected president for a further three-year term.The seventh annual meeting was of particular relevance to the Australian delegation because, in the second week of January 2000, the Australian parliament will host the eighth annual meeting here in Parliament House. This is the first time that Australia will have hosted the annual meeting, although a preliminary APPF planning meeting was held in Canberra in December 1991 under the chairmanship of the then Speaker, the now Chief Opposition Whip, the member for Watson. Senator Reid and I will host the January meeting in our capacities as joint presidents of the national group of the APPF, and I will chair the plenary sessions.While January is usually a quiet time of year in Australia, I would encourage members to consider attending the eighth annual meeting. It will provide a unique opportunity to discuss regional concerns with fellow parlia mentarians from 26 APPF member countries. Although the final agenda is still to be confirmed, East Timor will clearly be a major concern, and I would anticipate healthy discussion both in the plenary consideration of regional security concerns and, equally importantly, in a sense, in the informal networking discussions at the margins throughout the conference. The President and I will shortly be writing to whips, seeking nominations for the Australian delegation to the eighth annual meeting. APPF rules permit the host country to be represented by a delegation of up to 10 members, and other members will be welcome as observers.En route to Peru, I chaired the meeting of the Standing Committee of Commonwealth Speakers and Presiding Officers held in Ottawa, Canada from 6 to 8 January. Speakers from Canada, Ghana, India, Nauru, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom also attended the meeting. The committee undertook consideration of rule changes as delegated to it by the full conference in Trinidad and Tobago. It decided the venue for future meetings of the standing committee in 2001 and the full conference in 2002. The committee also decided agenda items and tentative dates for the 15th full conference to be held in Australia preliminary to the APPF meeting in January next year.I would like to conclude my remarks by thanking the staff who assisted the Australian delegation to the seventh APPF annual meeting: Rajan Venkataraman, an officer of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade based in Santiago, Chile, who was of great assistance, particularly in the finalisation of amendments submitted by Australia on nuclear non-proliferation and international terrorism; Mr Trevor Rowe, who was delegation secretary and is now leading the secretariat managing the eighth annual meeting; and Mr Peter Gibson, my senior adviser, who assisted me and played a key role in the drafting of the meeting's joint communique. I commend the delegation's report to the House.12:38:009906Forrest, John, MPMr FORRESTNV5MalleeNP10—Mr Speaker, I wholeheartedly endorse your remarks. It was a very humbling experience and a privilege to participate in the forum with you and Mr Crean, the member for Hotham. Over the last few weeks, as we have all wrestled with what is happening to a near neighbour, I have been thinking a lot about the discussions we had with our South-East Asian parliamentary colleagues. I am mindful of a resolution that we considered at the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum on a culture of peace. It was submitted by the Peruvian delegation—which had some very difficult problems with some of their northern neighbours—the Indonesian delegation and the Thai delegation. The resolution stated:. . . Urge the governments of the Asia Pacific region to take measures aimed to promote the pacific solution of their conflicts, thus rejecting all forms of violence. . . The resolution continued:. . . Call on all the organizations, governmental and non-governmental, public and private associations, and groups interested in promoting a change in social values and attitude towards peace, to support all the efforts intended to prevent the emergence of armed conflicts, or their worsening, by encouraging the fulfillment of the agreements reached at peace talks.Having established some personal relationships with not only members of the Indonesian delegation but also many other delegation members, I am mindful of the importance of participating in these kinds of forums, specifically in a region which is of vital interest—South-East Asia, although this forum includes all the parliaments in the Pacific rim. Two members of the Mongolian delegation reminded me that the then trade minister, the Hon. Tim Fischer, had even made his presence felt in Mongolia. They referred to `the man who always runs from place to place'. Those two Mongolian delegation members have been conducting email contact with me ever since, and I think that is for the good of both our nations. It is part of the building of goodwill and understanding that we can share with various mutual interests.Mr Speaker, there is one element of the forum that you did not refer to. What left a very strong impression on me was the enormous effort that Mr Sandoval made in allowing technology to be available to all members of delegations. I remember making use of that technology and not making one single phone call to my office during the week we were there. I approved an advertisement for the placement of a staff member in my office and correspondence without the need for verbal contact which, with the 15-hour time difference, was very difficult. I was so impressed that I wanted to make sure the remarks from the Australian delegation were recorded in the discussion on technology. This is one of the things that we need to use, and not just within Australia, to bridge the gap created by the tyranny of distance. It is certainly a tool by which we can communicate readily with those nations whose daylight hours are the opposite from our own.I would like to add my appreciation to Rajan Venkataraman from the Australian embassy in Santiago in Chile. He came all the way to Peru to give us support because at that stage there were no embassy facilities in Peru. He was a particularly knowledgeable Australian and a great asset for us to have in a very important region of the world in terms of market access. I was very appreciative of the opportunities he took to assist me in promoting the export effort of commodities and industries in my electorate.Mr Speaker, I conclude my remarks by thanking you for your company and your leadership of the delegation, which was an inspiration. I am particularly mindful of the responsibility that is now upon you to ensure that, when we host the delegation in January, all delegates return to their respective countries as impressed as we were with the seventh annual meeting.Committees99079907990712:44:009907Lieberman, Lou, MPMr LIEBERMANXU5IndiLP10—On behalf of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, I present a video recording explaining the committee's report Unlocking the future: The report on the review of the Reeves report on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 .It gives me great pleasure to table for the first time a video of the report of the committee inquiry into the Reeves review of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. As members will recall, the report of the inquiry, entitled Unlocking the future, was tabled on 30 August. The video outlines the committee's inquiry process and the major recommendations contained in the report. This is the first time that the committee has produced a video to complement one of its reports.The video is primarily intended for Aboriginal people for whom English is a second language and who may have found the committee's written report difficult to read. However, the video also has a wider audience, as it explains the inquiry processes and committee procedures. As such, it will be a useful educational tool and, I hope, give more Australians an insight into the valuable work of the committees of this parliament. Once again, I wish to thank my colleagues on the committee for their support during the inquiry. I would also like to thank the committee's consultant, Kathryn Wells, the committee secretariat and others who helped with the video production.9907990712:45:009907Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYDIK6RobertsonLP10—On behalf of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Resources, I present the committee's report entitled The effect of certain public policy changes on Australia's R&D , together with the minutes of proceedings.Ordered that the report be printed.IK6Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYD—Our report examines the effects on R&D of certain public policy changes during the past decade. The inquiry was prompted by concerns that competition policy, privatisation and outsourcing might have had an adverse effect on the amount, the type and the relevance of R&D conducted in Australia. Australia has benefited greatly from these economic changes. However, that process has had some negative consequences for R&D. In particular, there has been a loss of responsibility for some long-term and `public good' R&D activities which, while not always commercially viable, are clearly in the national interest.We recommend a national `stocktake' to quantify any substantial loss of these longer term and public good R&D activities. Those activities should then be transferred to government research agencies or imposed on the new service providers and funded by governments as a community service obligation. Which of these solutions is best should be determined on a case by case basis.Another potential effect of competition policy could be the loss of the `critical mass' needed to undertake R&D. The smaller, disaggregated agencies often have less capacity than their predecessors to invest in R&D programs. In response, we recommend that the National Innovation Summit, which is to be held in February 2000, examine a system of sector-wide R&D brokers. Those brokers would purchase R&D from existing agencies on behalf of the sectors affected by public policy change. We also recommend that funding for the very successful Cooperative Research Centre Program be maintained, at least at current levels.There has been speculation that outsourcing of public sector functions led to some major infrastructure failures during the course of the inquiry; for example, the water crisis in Sydney in July 1998. While our report does not conclude that any such failures were caused by outsourcing, we were told that many government agencies now have limited in-house technical expertise. Often they do not know the right questions to ask of external experts. Our report stresses to all Australian governments the need to retain sufficient in-house R&D expertise to make informed decisions when contracting out services. We recommend that the Commonwealth raise this matter with the states. We also recommend that the Innovation Summit examine processes which could be followed when outsourcing to provide greater protection of public good benefits and to encourage innovation.Concern was expressed to the committee about the effects of outsourcing on health research. Research facilities which used to be available through the public hospital system are being withdrawn or are only available at high cost. We recommend that governments make explicit financial provision for clinical research when outsourcing hospital services.On the question of employment, we were told that reduced employment in the public sector has meant the loss of training opportunities for scientists and engineers. Also, new research jobs are increasingly offered on a casual or short-term basis, reflecting the shorter time frames for many R&D projects. We agree with the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee that data should be collected on the change in employment patterns resulting from public policy changes.While our inquiry focused on these fairly specific issues, the broader R&D policy debate was reflected in the evidence. The reduction of the R&D tax concession from 150 to 125 per cent in 1996 was raised frequently during the course of the inquiry. Our report notes the government's belief that a percentage of R&D spending can be attributed to the R&D syndication scheme, which had become a mechanism for avoiding tax rather than an effective means of commercialising R&D. That said, the decline in business spending on R&D, from an already low base, does concern the committee. We recommend that an appropriate response be determined when the government formulates its response to the Ralph review, or as part of the Innovation Summit deliberations. The summit should also evaluate the balance between the generally available tax concession and targeted grants, such as those provided through the R&D START Program.Limited access to venture capital is an acknowledged problem for Australia's small, innovative firms. Our report notes the introduction in 1997 of the Innovation Investment Fund. The IIF is designed to encourage the growth of early stage technology based companies and to create a self-sustaining venture capital industry to support those companies. As such, the IIF is potentially very valuable. We recommend that the performance to date of the IIF—and measures which could complement it—be examined at the Innovation Summit.The need for capital gains tax reform was widely acknowledged during the inquiry. Private investors in Australian high-tech start-ups can lose nearly half of their return in capital gains tax. In contrast, the US pension funds—which are the largest single source of venture capital in the world—are exempt from capital gains tax on their investments in the US, as well as in other countries such as England and Israel. Our current tax regime therefore acts as a deterrent to investing in Australia. Reform of capital gains tax will be a welcome outcome of the government's review of business taxation.Our report notes a range of issues concerning R&D and the university sector, including concerns expressed by the academic community about funding levels. We recommend that the government discuss research infrastructure funding with the universities, and that this be examined at the Innovation Summit. Much could be done to improve awareness of R&D and innovation amongst Australia's managers and financiers. As one step towards this, we recommend that innovation courses be developed for use in management training.I would like to thank my predecessor, the Hon. Geoff Prosser, the Deputy Chair, Mr Allan Morris, and our fellow committee members for their assistance. I thank the members of the previous committee, who gathered most of the evidence. The committee also thanks those people who made submissions and appeared as witnesses at public hearings. I also thank all of the committee secretariat staff, in particular Mr Paul McMahon and Mr Russell Chafer, for their valuable assistance. As is often noted, Australia's long-term prosperity will depend on our capacity for innovation, of which R&D is a key driver. The committee urges the government to consider our recommendations in the lead-up to the National Innovation Summit.12:53:009909Morris, Allan, MPMr ALLAN MORRISFI4NewcastleALP00—It is with pleasure that I join the member for Robertson in speaking to this report, entitled The effect of certain public policy changes on Australia's R&D . The inquiry by the Committee on Industry, Sci ence and Resources was initiated in the previous parliament and renewed in the current parliament. In the meantime the committee membership turned over almost completely, except for me—so I am the only member of the committee who was present at both the taking of evidence and the finalisation of the report. That made life extremely difficult in terms of continuity, but this is one of the unfortunate incidents that occur with changes of the parliament.I want to make it clear that the new members of the committee are vitally interested in R&D and are deeply concerned at where it is going. However, they were not able to question the witnesses and to go through all the processes which are so critical. Therefore, because of the time it has taken and the variation in membership, the report suffers to some degree. However, the report is bipartisan. It has been agreed to by all members of the committee. That indicates that our committee system can work, despite all of those handicaps. That is one of the facts of life. It is, therefore, important to pay tribute to the committee secretariat, particularly Russell Chafer and Paul McMahon and the others who helped during that period.It is clear from this inquiry over the two or more years it has been running that there is a general malaise in the business community about R&D. Keeping in mind this report and its terms of reference, it is essentially about business R&D in the light of changes to competition policy, to outsourcing and to a number of other issues. So the inquiry was not into R&D per se in the very broadest sense; it was targeted particularly to the impacts of those various issues. It is in that context that the report is so pertinent.There has clearly been a decline in R&D. The Bureau of Statistics figures that came out not long ago highlight that that decline is continuing and, projecting forward, that it will go down further. There are a number of reasons for that. There is no doubt that the business community and the research community, almost to a person, believe that that is significantly contributed to by the cut in tax incentives from 150 to 125 per cent. While that 125 per cent appears to be a viable figure, there are substantial costs involved in obtaining it. People were saying to the committee that by the time they take into account all the additional costs they are actually worse off. In other words, they do not get the full 100 per cent reduction on the costs that are fully incurred. That is a lesson.The report states that there is a strong perception in the business community that the R&D tax write-offs are responsible and that confidence will not be restored unless that policy is reversed. That perception is so powerful that it colours virtually every discussion you have. Whomever you talk to in this field, the 150 per cent to 125 per cent cut in taxation support colours every conversation. That is a very bad and a very strong influence.Another critical factor is that with competition policy and outsourcing and various other issues, whereas previously public interest and organisational benefit were linked together, their separation—with the private interests involved in outsourced companies providing services and doing activities—means that R&D is no longer relevant. Many of those companies are overseas and they bring in their overseas expertise. There has been a direct importation into Australia of expertise and research from offshore by companies, particularly in power generation and other areas, because of that outsourcing.Another point made by the committee is the need for better statistics. The recommendations cover very strongly the need to ensure that statistical data is maintained, particularly from outsourced companies and private sector companies now operating what were once public assets. The lack of harmonisation of data is a key issue. We also raised the question about the public good being taken into account. I recommend the report to the parliament. (Time expired)IK6LLOYDMr Lloyd—I move:That the House take note of the report.I seek leave to continue my remarks later.Leave granted.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—In accordance with standing order 102B, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.Bills9910r9189910Bill presented by Mr Albanese.12:59:009910Albanese, Anthony, MPMr ALBANESER36GrayndlerALP00—I am very pleased to present the Aviation Noise Ombudsman Bill 1999 today calling for the establishment of an Australian Aviation Noise Ombudsman. For the first time in Australian history, the Aviation Noise Ombudsman Bill 1999 provides communities suffering from aircraft noise with an independent umpire to arbitrate their complaints. Any changes to aircraft routes over populated areas will have to be examined by the Aviation Noise Ombudsman. The Aviation Noise Ombudsman will ensure that community complaints regarding excessive aircraft noise, breaches of the cap and the curfew which are in operation at several airports and incidents of fuel dumping and venting are heard without bias and judged fairly on the merits of the case. An arm's length approach is what is needed, rather than the existing situation of complaining to the body which is itself responsible for those breaches.People's complaints will go to an independent body which can and will investigate breaches on behalf of those residents. The ombudsman would remove the financial and political interests that have been at play when solving the problems of breaches of curfew, changes to flight paths, fuel dumping and other issues associated with the operation of airports.My bill is modelled on similar legislation which has been in operation in the United States for three years. A former US Aviation Noise Ombudsman, Mr William Albee, will be visiting Australia in November this year in order to address the Australian Mayoral Aviation Conference, and I encourage all my parliamentary colleagues to take advantage of this unique opportunity to seize the moment and take action with regard to aviation noise and its impact on the community.If the parliament supports the Aviation Noise Ombudsman Bill it will be a victory for the hundreds and thousands of Australians who live under the flight paths of Australia's airports. My electorate of Grayndler is badly affected by Sydney airport. In consultation with the community, we went through a lengthy process of developing a long-term operating plan which would share the noise. Yet what we had last week was the announcement at a meeting of the Sydney Airport Community Forum that the government was prepared to bat on and introduce a precision radar monitoring system which will lead to a `blank page', as the head of Sydney Airport Corporation put it, with regard to flight paths related to Sydney airport, regardless of the fact that the community has rejected such a move and regardless of the fact that the minister has failed to take action on that.As well, we see the farcical situation being promoted whereby the solution to Sydney airport needs, it is being said, will see regional airlines being moved to Bankstown. If the government takes a lesson from the debacle in Victoria on Saturday, it is that regional areas cannot continue to be ignored and treated with contempt by this contemptuous government which has a National Party minister as the Minister for Transport and Regional Services and who has refused to support this bill up till now.But this is a national issue. That is why I am very pleased that my bill has been seconded by the member for Lilley, Wayne Swan, whose electorate is badly affected by aircraft noise from Brisbane airport. This bill has the support of members such as Kim Wilkie, the member for Swan, and Stephen Smith, the member for Perth, who have raised the issues of aircraft noise impacting adversely on the residents around Perth airport. At Adelaide airport as well airport noise is a major issue. As you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl, aircraft noise is adversely affecting the residents around Coffs Harbour airport as well.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Not much.R36Albanese, Anthony, MPMr ALBANESE—The Deputy Speaker says no.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Not much.R36Albanese, Anthony, MPMr ALBANESE—Not much. But I can assure him that the residents around Coffs Harbour think it certainly is, as do the residents around Coolangatta airport. I have called upon the member for Richmond to come out and support this bill and convince his National Party colleague, the minister, to take action.This is a national issue. It is an issue which must be got right for those people living in the firing line, those who live with the noise of planes roaring overhead after the curfew and with the smell of unburnt fuel which is being dumped over their homes, gardens and schools. The increase in population around these airports in Australia means that the government must take action. We do need an independent umpire. We do need a genuine complaints unit which will enable people to get proper justice and have their complaints heard. (Time expired)Bill read a first time.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—In accordance with standing order 104A, the second reading will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Private Members' Business9911991113:04:009911Irwin, Julia, MPMrs IRWIN83ZFowlerALP00—I move:That this House:(1) notes the failure of the Howard Government's Tough on Drugs Strategy, in particular, that after two years there has been: (a) an increase in drug use, with the average age of first users decreasing; (b) no significant decline in the amount of illicit drugs entering Australia, even after a number of high profile "busts"; (c) inadequate funding for community-based programs in those areas of greatest need, particularly the south-west of Sydney; and (d) a lack of evidence that zero tolerance policies have achieved anything other than making the illicit drug trade the world's fastest growing industry; and(2) calls on the Government to take a more effective and creative approach to stemming the social tragedy being caused by the increasing use of heroin and other dangerous, addictive and illicit drugs.It is now two years since the Prime Minister vetoed the proposed heroin trial in the ACT—almost two years since he proposed his response to the drug problem, his Tough on Drugs policy. It is time to review the progress of the Prime Minister's policy. It is time to check the scoreboard to see how his policy is working—not to look at how much has been spent or allocated but to look at the outcomes, the results, of his policy. What are the results in real human terms? Well, we are at the end of the second session of play and the Prime Minister still has no runs on the board.Let us look at some of the main points of his strategy. What about attacking the drug barons? Just how many Mr Bigs of the drug trade have this government put behind bars? Few, if any. While the government crows about the seizure of illicit drugs in several well-publicised busts, drugs appear on the streets in increasing quantities at lower and lower prices. It is now cheaper to get stoned than it is to get drunk. As for the Mr Bigs, seven out of 10 drug arrests involve users. Dealing for many is the only way they can afford to maintain their habit. With such a highly motivated sales force to peddle their wares for them, the Mr Bigs can safely hide well away from their street dealers. They have a great sales incentive scheme: get another young person hooked and you will have a customer for life.What has the Tough on Drugs policy done to break this vicious circle? Absolutely nothing. In fact the news is getting worse. Marijuana use by 14- to 19-year-olds has increased from 28 per cent in 1995 to 34 per cent in 1998, with the average age of first time users of marijuana and heroin showing an alarming trend to younger ages. Where does this leave the Prime Minister's zero tolerance education campaign? The few school students caught or confessing to using marijuana face expulsion from schools. They can rightly feel victimised when you consider that more than one in three of their friends have done the same thing but have gotten away with it. Where is the moral leadership here? The $14 million education campaign announced in the government's Tough on Drugs policy is clearly not working. The only lesson children are learning from this policy is, `Don't get caught and never confess to using drugs.'When it comes to rehabilitation, we see a mixed result. The Tough on Drugs policy has provided research funding for trials of drug based detoxification and rehabilitation. But what has happened since? Despite very encouraging results from naltrexone, the government has backed away from including this treatment in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Naltrexone treatment is beyond the reach of many drug users. They are denied this highly effective treatment because of its cost. But the government does not count costs of crime and broken families that go hand in hand with illicit drug use and it does not count the deaths.When it comes to rehabilitation, you have to wonder what the government's priorities are. Out of $50 million in grants, all we have seen in south-western Sydney—one of the worst areas for illicit drug use—is $76,000. This really shows the Tough on Drugs policy for what it is: window dressing. I and many others in south-western Sydney keenly await the next round of funding. We want to see if this government is prepared to put funding where it is desperately needed. Or will it turn out like the last round when the Minister for Health and Aged Care's own electorate scored over $1 million in funding.Then there is the government's Australian National Council on Drugs. According to the Prime Minister:The new Council will ensure that the expert voice of non-government organisations and individuals working in the drug field reaches all levels of government and influences policy.All we seem to have is a council which tells the Prime Minister what he wants to hear—the same old approach which ignores the fact that up to 20 young Australians die each week from illicit drug use. The Prime Minister and this government have a closed mind on drug policy. They are at pains to find the smallest flaw in creative European approaches to treatment for illicit drug users while ignoring the total failure of the zero tolerance policies they support. In short, zero tolerance means zero results. That is the progress score that this government gets for its Tough on Drugs policy. (Time expired)10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! Is the motion seconded?13:09:009913McLeay, Leo, MPMr LEO McLEAY4I4WatsonALP00—I second the motion. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the government's Tough on Drugs strategy is not succeeding. Almost every day, there are media reports of drug related crimes, including arrests of dealers, pushers and importers and reports of robberies, burglaries, murders and overdoses. The list goes on. Look at Victoria, for instance. There was a record high of heroin related deaths for the first eight months of this year—200 people died, compared with 187 for the first eight months of 1998 and a low 90 for the same period in 1997.You would think it would be obvious by now that treating the drug addicted as criminals is not the way to alleviate the problem. But there are still those who cannot differentiate between those who profit from the misery of others and those who are in the grip of an addiction. One term that is often bandied about by those discussing the so-called war on drugs and how best to deal with it is `zero tolerance'. The trouble is that everybody who uses that term has a different idea of what it means. It sounds pretty good: `Let's not stand for any nonsense. Let's get stuck into anyone who breaks the rules,' et cetera. But what does it mean in practice? This theory has its philosophical origins in the US. The theory is that, just as a broken window is a sign that nobody cares and leads to more property damage, minor incivilities such as begging, vandalism, public drunkenness and graffiti, if unchecked and uncontrolled, produce an atmosphere in a community in which more serious crime will flourish. Over time, individuals may feel that they can get away with minor offences, and this leads them to commit more serious offences. Thus—taking drugs as an example—if you are not tough on minor offenders they will become more serious offenders.The most frequently quoted zero tolerance policing is the New York experience, where aggressive order maintenance is, for many, its main characteristic. But the situation is not that simple. Behind the slogan of zero tolerance, there are other policies and strategies in place in New York. Lower incidences of crime in recent years are not just a result of zero tolerance policing but of a diversity of causes including sustained economic growth and the changing nature of the drug market in that period.You cannot just lift a slogan from the US and expect it to apply in Australia. But in Sydney the slogan is being used by politicians and others as if it is a desirable and workable method of policing in the Australian situation. We have to ask ourselves, `Does it work?' If recent experience is any guide, I do not think it does. Look at the reports of brutal crimes that we continue to hear about, the drug hauls and overdoses. Even in the face of aggressive policing, those involved in criminal activities associated with drugs are prepared to continue their lives of crime. Jailing addicts does not solve the problem; it just removes them from one side of the equation to the other. Instead of being in the community as users, they are locked up for a while. In fact, with heroin use the evidence is that most people, if they survive, tend to come off the drug after 10 to 12 years when their life circumstances change and they actually want to come off the drug. So we need to help them survive. Drug addiction is like legal addictions such as alcohol and tobacco. You only get off the drug if you want to get off the drug. You cannot force the addicted if they do not really want to stop using. Jailing them certainly does not stop them wanting to use or, indeed, using it if they can get supplied while in jail.Recently there has been a lot of discussion about safe injecting rooms. For the zero tolerance proponents to refuse to allow safe injecting places is a classic case of a head in the sand attitude. Drug addicts exist. We may not like that fact, but it is a fact. The point is that intravenous drug use happens, often unsafely. Surely, if we can provide a safe environment for users it is better than having them die—because that is what will happen: they will die. Sooner or later they will die. At least if addicts come to a safe place we have some chance of monitoring their intake and providing them with assistance. We have a chance of offering help to stop, but if we send them underground there is no chance of helping them.Of course, that all costs money. But, quite apart from a lack of funding for effective programs, under the current government it is harder to get those programs through. In addressing the issue of drug abuse, we need courage and compassion. As one youth consultant has described it:Drug use is the anaesthetic to the young addict's poverty of hope.It is a symptom and not the cause of youth pain. Politicians and policy makers need to be willing to learn and understand. We need to see more of the attitude of the Sisters of Charity, about compassion. (Time expired)13:14:009914Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr NELSONRW5BradfieldLP10—The drug debate is rarely a sane pursuit and I would not describe the discussion we are having here as really a debate. In fact, it is a facile, superficial and politically charged discussion about one of the most complex issues that faces humankind. Shortly before his death in 1968, Robert Kennedy reminded us of the words of the Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, who said: `In our sleep pain that cannot forget falls, drop by drop, upon the heart and in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of god.'Wisdom was not a word that sprang to mind when I read the motion that is on the Notice Paper. The motion and the way in which it is worded misunderstands the nature of the drug problem and what might reasonably be done about it. How do we measure success or failure? Do we measure it in terms of the number of people that are using drugs and the number of people who die from the use and misuse of drugs? And there are the disease rates. For example, if we look at the contraction of hepatitis C in the state of New South Wales, we might reasonably say we are starting to turn the corner. Do we look at the prevalence of drug use, as the member for Fowler intimated? Do we look at the types of drugs that are being used or at the age and socioeconomic profiles of those who are using them and perhaps are dying from their use?The motion suggests that in some way the Prime Minister and the government have failed after two years of the Tough on Drugs strategy and policy. That misunderstands two things. The first is that this is a bit like foreign aid. We are going to spend nearly $1.6 billion on foreign aid, but poverty will continue and people will continue to die. We do not say that we have failed and therefore we should abandon the program.The second point that ought to be made in relation to that is that Tough on Drugs was announced late in 1997 and the first tranche of money started to flow early last year. The second tranche, of course, is embedded in the 1999-2000 budget. The figures which I presume that the member for Fowler was referring to are based on the national household drugs strategy survey which was conducted late in 1998 under the auspices of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. If I wanted to politicise this debate, I would suggest that those figures actually reflect a decade or perhaps even 20 years of the drug policy which preceded the conduct of the survey.If we really want to have a look at what the government is actually doing, we will see that the government has announced a $500 million package over four years which is titled Tough on Drugs. That might not be everybody's preferred title but, to put that into context, when I was President of the Australian Medical Association I had the most enormously difficult job of trying to convince the then Labor government to put on cigarette packets the health warnings that we now see. By the way, cigarettes are killing 54 Australians a day and illicit drugs are currently killing one every 10 hours, not that that in any way excuses it or diminishes the importance of the issue.Under Tough on Drugs we have a number of strategies. One is more police, more sniffer dogs and strategic task forces and those things that have police working with international policing agencies. But we also have prevention, education and community based initiatives. For the first time individual communi ties actually have resources that they can access to put together antidrug strategies that they think are appropriate to their area: detoxification and rehabilitation programs and research. Also, of course, under Tough on Drugs we are continuing methadone maintenance and needle exchange programs, not things with which all members of the House feel uncomfortable.Tough on Drugs can mean lots of things to lots of people, depending on where they are coming from. As the CEO of the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, David Crosby, who is no flag waver for the government, remarked after the last round of funding:I find it quite moving to look through the list of programs that are to receive funding under this initiative, programs for Aboriginal people, young people, people who suffer mental illness and women with children. Many of these people currently don't have access to appropriate drug treatment programs. Now at least they will have a chance to change.The real debate we ought to be having is: what is it that is breeding a sense of despondent disillusionment amongst young people in the present and a sense of forlorn hopelessness in terms of the future? If we are going to have a debate about drug use, we have to go, despite our economic indices of which we are so proud, to what is driving an unprecedented level of drug use in our community. I say to the member for Fowler: if you are really concerned about drug use, fight that $100 million hotel complex in Liverpool. (Time expired)13:19:009915Draper, Trish, MPMrs DRAPER0L6MakinLP10—There is a great deal that the government is doing and there is a great deal that individuals can do to combat the problem of illicit drugs through the Tough on Drugs program. It is important to appreciate that the community and parents also have to take responsibility for the drug problem and for their children.Members may be interested to know that in my electorate of Makin the local community has done a great deal of work to involve the police, service clubs, schools, local governments and state and federal community agencies with the government's Tough on Drugs program. Through 1997 and 1998, in cooperation with the local police, I have sponsored information evenings for parents of school age children to discuss the illicit drug problem. Also, in cooperation with Senator the Hon. Nick Minchin, I organised a Tough on Drugs competition for students to design a drug education project which could be integrated with existing school initiatives within the health curriculum. In other words, as a federal member of parliament I was interested in the viewpoints of our youth and what strategies they might employ to effectively communicate, to work collaboratively with and to educate people on the dangers of drug abuse and misuse.The winning entry, from Salisbury East High School, was a board game called `Choices' in which players were rewarded for knowledge about the dangers associated with illicit drug use and were presented with hypothetical situations from which they could select a range of responses. These are some of the ways in which a member of parliament can work to promote a positive and proactive message on combating the drug problem within their local electorate. While these are the strategies that I employed, I am aware that there may be other ideas which could work even better in specific electorates.I turn to the subject of what the government is able to do about illicit drugs. This is a matter to which the government has given a very high priority. This motion refers to there being no significant decline in the amount of illicit drugs entering Australia, even after a number of what it refers to as `high profile busts'. The members opposite must surely be aware that this is not the way in which this kind of thing works. The success that we have had in recent times will take time to have an effect on the ground. Any single bust will not significantly decrease the amount of drugs available on the streets. However, over time and with more of this kind of success, a message will be sent to the drug dealers and the drug barons that Australia is not as safe a place as it used to be for their dreadful business.Perhaps even more important than these operations are the rehabilitation and education aspects of our Tough on Drugs program. Arising out of the Council of Australian Governments meeting earlier this year, the federal government is providing resources to support the states in setting up drug courts and similar arrangements whereby people who are brought before the courts on drug related offences will be given the option of entering a rehabilitation program rather than serving time for their offences. This is a very important and constructive way of helping people to break the cycle of drug dependency and crime—two things which we know have gone very closely hand in hand in the past. In our ongoing battles to make inroads into our crime problem and our drug problem, this kind of circuit breaker will prove to be a very powerful tool.The government is also instituting a National Schools Drug Education Strategy. In May of this year that strategy was released, after being submitted to the government in March. In the interim period we had the meeting of the Council of Australian Governments, which I have already referred to, in which $220 million in extra funding for the Tough on Drugs program was added to what had already been allocated, bringing the total federal government resources devoted to the Tough on Drugs program to over half a billion dollars. The goal of the National Schools Drug Education Strategy focuses on the prevention of drug use through enhanced educational programs and strong educational outcomes. This will be complemented by the initiatives announced by the Council of Australian Governments which focus on early intervention and referral. It is the first time we have had a national, coordinated approach to drug education in our schools, and it will form an important part of our Tough on Drugs strategy. In the short time that I have had available, I hope that I have been able to outline some of the positive initiatives that the government has undertaken in response to this very important issue.13:24:009916Roxon, Nicola, MPMs ROXON83KGellibrandALP00—I rise today to support the motion on a drugs strategy from my colleague the member for Fowler and to add a Victorian perspective to the motion, which is focused on a problem which, whilst based in New South Wales, is actually a nationwide problem. The use of illicit drugs, particularly in my electorate in the inner western suburbs of Melbourne, is becoming more and more visible rather than less visible. The sight of people injecting in car parks and quiet areas around my electorate, particularly in the CBD of Footscray, is common and is becoming an increasing problem for businesses and the community. I must add here that, although Gellibrand and Footscray is one of the hot spots, if you like, for heroin use, and certainly for the very public heroin use, it is actually one of a number of areas across Melbourne's suburbs that are suffering a similar problem. We have seen over time that the government's Tough on Drugs strategy has not been delivering results for the people who have found themselves in the unfortunate situation of being attracted to and using addictive drugs.Gellibrand also has a number of other problems which may be related to this higher drug use. It is one of the areas of highest unemployment in metropolitan Melbourne, it has the most poorly resourced schools and it has some of the lowest educational levels as well as some of the lowest income levels across Melbourne.We need a creative response to this desperate problem. People are still dying from overdoses and the Tough on Drugs strategy has not been able to stem the tide of overdose deaths. In Victoria, heroin related deaths in 1993 were 59 for the whole year; in 1998 we had 268 deaths. This is something that we cannot just turn a blind eye to. I have stood in this parliament previously and pleaded with both the Kennett and Howard governments to take urgent action on this issue. We need to be looking at harm minimisation policies. We cannot simply say that our preference is for there to be zero drug use. Whilst we all in this House could agree with that, we do not, I think, accept that it is an immediate reality.A group of local traders in my area of Footscray have begun some action to clean up the Footscray area to get rid of heroin users and activities which they see as having a very negative effect on their business. I do understand their frustration, but unfortunately this group has concentrated its efforts on getting rid of the local needle exchange program, which is one of the few programs which is actually providing health and safety advice, clean needles and some support. For some of the users using that needle exchange, it is the only contact and access point that they have potentially with counsellors and it is an entrance point for them into detox programs. We are finding, particularly with the Kennett government's refusal to address this issue, that those people who approach the needle exchange for assistance, for extra counselling or for access to detox and rehab are being refused that.What we need is a progressive and creative approach to the drug problem. Labor went to Saturday's state election in Victoria with a policy to consult with the community about the establishment of five safe injecting rooms for heroin users and with a comprehensive policy on how to deal with this issue compassionately. As the member for Bradfield on the other side of this House has said, we need to deal with issues of prevention and education in a compassionate and thoughtful way. Unfortunately, Jeff Kennett's proposals were to ignore the issue and to stick with the Howard government's view of zero tolerance.83ZIRWINMrs Irwin—That's right, and look what has happened to Kennett.83KRoxon, Nicola, MPMs ROXON—And look what has happened to Kennett, as my colleague says. We have seen the results of trying to turn a blind eye to a problem which is a massive community problem. The community has said to Jeff Kennett in Victoria—and it is something that John Howard, our Prime Minister, should heed as well—that you cannot turn a blind eye to these serious problems. It is not sufficient to say, `Politically it is unattractive and we will not deal with these complex issues, we will not offer some suitable, sensible and compassionate answers to a problem that we are all struggling with.'Labor's policy in Victoria is to look at five proposed safe injecting rooms, one that would probably be in my electorate in Footscray, the others in Springvale, St Kilda, the city and Collingwood. These would need community consultation and approval before they were introduced, and they obviously need to be in existence in a number of places so that one area does not become a honey pot, as people often put it, for drug users.Labor's approach to illicit drug use and this motion are a compassionate and sensible approach about trying to deal with an intricate problem. It is not just a problem for young people, although they are often the most visible and the most vulnerable and are often on the streets. We cannot just educate kids in our schools. It is often the people who are out of schools who are the ones who are attracted to drug use, and we need to be providing support through a variety of methods, including safe injecting rooms, if that can help save lives. (Time expired)13:29:009917Andrews, Kevin, MPMr ANDREWSHK5MenziesLP10—Since coming to power in 1996, the Howard government has been distinguished not just by its good economic housekeeping, which has thus far enabled us to weather the economic meltdown in Asia; it has also shown an old-fashioned concern with moral values. It has shown this in the strong standards taken to limit the ownership and accessibility of high-powered automatic firearms in the community in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre. It has shown this in doing what the Prime Minister, John Howard, has called the `right thing' by taking the leadership on East Timor in the international community. For, contrary to what Margaret Thatcher once said, there is indeed a society and we have to work hard to nurture it.Licit and illicit drug taking undermines society in the most palpable and fundamental of ways. The economic and social costs of drug taking are enormous. It is estimated by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare that in 1997 there were over 22,000 drug related deaths and more than a quarter of a million hospital episodes. The licit drugs—tobacco and alcohol—accounted for over 96 per cent of the drug related deaths and hospitalisations. The estimated direct health care costs of drug dependence and harmful use in Australia in 1992 were $1 billion—$833 million for tobacco, $145 million for alcohol and $43 million for illicit drugs. The economic cost associated with the prevention and treatment of drug related illness, loss of productivity in the workplace, property crime, theft, accidents and law enforcement activity has been estimated to be in excess of $18 billion. Almost 67 per cent of this is attributable to tobacco use, 24 per cent to alcohol use and about nine per cent to illicit drug use.The 1993 national drug strategy replaced the Labor government's national campaign against drug abuse as a result of evaluations suggesting that there was need for improved strategic direction and closer cooperation between agencies responsible for law enforcement and health. The basis of the strategy is to minimise the harmful effects of drugs and drug use in Australian society. In 1997 Professor Eric Single from the University of Toronto and Professor Rohl from the Australian Institute of Police Management evaluated the national drug strategy. Their report, released in July 1997, concluded that Australia's national drug strategy is recognised as one of the most progressive and respected drug strategies in the world.Contrary to what the mover of this motion would put in here, Mr Deputy Speaker, and contrary to the suggestions made by the member for Gellibrand, who spoke before me in this debate, the Tough on Drugs strategy is not and never has been a zero tolerance policy comparable to the policing strategy used to clean up New York and also evidenced in the `two strikes and you're out' policing policy in the Northern Territory. It is a total misnomer to call it a `zero tolerance' policy. This would suggest that criminal penalties rather than education, treatment and rehabilitation are the guiding force of the policy. The only areas where the drug strategy is asserting that there should be no tolerance is in the encouragement of drug taking in schools and in the dealing in drugs.I quote the federal health minister, who said in February of this year:I have talked about zero tolerance in schools, I have talked about zero tolerance to people who are dealing and profiting from drugs, but our approach to people who use drugs has always been one of tolerance. And if you have a look at the practicality of what we have funded, what we have done, what we have done in my portfolio in the last two years, it is a highly tolerant approach, one that is based on treatment, rehabilitation, education and where appropriate, the reduction or minimization of harm.The Howard government's Tough on Drugs strategy is to quote the Chief Executive of the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, who said it was, `the first time any government in Australia has made such a significant financial commitment to reducing the level of drug related harm in Australia.' No-one in this debate, no-one in this place, can pretend that there are quick fixes to this problem. The Howard government has demonstrated on this issue, as on others, that it can assume a leadership role. The national drug strategy has four years to run its course. In the meantime, the government is showing its commitment and resolve to reducing the harm being done to individuals and to society as a whole by drug taking, both licit and illicit. It should be commended for that. The opposition offers no credible fixes, only cheap shots. (Time expired)13:34:009918Griffin, Alan, MPMr GRIFFINVU5BruceALP00—Rather than being tough on drugs, the Prime Minister's strategy seems to have been tough on everything but: tough on addicts, tough on their families and carers and tough on those communities that, with minimal funding, are trying to find solutions to this national crisis. I was recently speaking to a leading drug and alcohol researcher about the current situation, and lost count of the number of state, Commonwealth, state-Commonwealth, private, public, charity, statutory and non-statutory bodies and committees referred to as currently advising the Prime Minister and his Minister for Health and Aged Care. Given the confusion that this variety of advice and numerous agendas must create, it is little wonder that the simplistic strategy of zero tolerance has dominated drug policy.The opposition has made clear in its illicit drug strategy that the diverse views on tackling drug problems, together with the diverse needs of drug users, their families and their communities, require the establishment of a national coordination unit. Drug policy must be formed as a result of consensus and partnerships amongst all groups, organisations and individuals who are touched by illicit drug use. One of the major challenges facing drug policy makers is the diversity of needs and treatment approaches required to help addicts. Meeting this challenge requires creativity and bravery and is by no means impossible. Just 20 years ago, a person suffering from depression had few treatment choices. Now they have access to a wide range of medical and non-medical treatments, and support can be tailored to meet their variety of symptoms, backgrounds and quality of life requirements. Why, then, are our addicts, who often suffer from mental illness, left with so few choices? Why is this government's policy so one-dimensional?When a Boeing 747 carrying 300 passengers crashes, it is a tragedy that makes the front pages of the newspapers and requires immediate investigation and action to prevent further tragedies. So far this year, more than 600 Australians have died from heroin overdoses alone—that is equivalent to two full 747s, yet where are the front pages and where are the inquiries?No-one would argue that preventing the supply of illicit drugs in Australia is crucial to the success of any drug policy, but it is only one piece of a very complex puzzle. Such a strategy must be supported by demand reduction and, most importantly, by harm reduction. The major aim of any policy must be to keep addicts alive long enough for them to choose to detoxify or until a cure to their addiction is found.People with experience in HIV treatment will tell you that they have had to experiment with many types of medical and non-medical treatments and counselling to get to the point that we are at now. Addicts deserve to have access to as many medical and non-medical treatment options as possible and, as unsavoury as they may be to the conservative elements of our society, those treatments may well include trials of safe injecting rooms and the supply of other pharmaceutical drugs which are also addictive.My colleagues have already pointed out that the last two years of the government's policy has resulted in an increase in drug use and in drug related deaths, and there has been no significant decline in the amount of illicit drugs entering Australia. The government's Tough on Drugs stance has been strong on rhetoric but short on delivery. The effort that went in to promoting the announcement of funds for new treatment programs has not been followed up with effort to get those programs working. There is very little information available about the state of play, but I understand that many of these projects are still in the pipeline, waiting for the resources and the people to get the service under way. A particular problem has been the lack of trained staff to run a properly structured program.There are no guidelines and accreditation standards. Rehabilitation is a difficult task, and there are many lessons to be learned from the successes and failures of the past. It is not good enough for the government to say, `Here's some money; that's the end of our responsibility.' The Prime Minister's promise was that an additional 300,000 drug addicts would be able to access treatment as a result of these grants. There is little evidence that this target is realistic or that the government has taken the right steps towards achieving it. To date, the single achievement of this strategy has been to validate the failure of the zero tolerance policy we adopted from the US. But all is not lost—perhaps other countries will take note and will not repeat this mistake at the expense of the most vulnerable members of our society.13:39:009919St Clair, Stuart, MPMr St CLAIR84BNew EnglandNP10—It has been interesting to listen to both sides of the debate on this most important issue. It comes to my mind that, over many years, we have developed a society that rewards failure instead of success. The drug problem in Australia has not turned up overnight; it has been coming for quite some period of time. It was here for the 13 years that the Labor Party was in government.The Tough on Drugs program is an integrated three-pronged approach which has already allocated $295 million to tackling the drug problem in Australia head on. The first $170 million was set aside to provide law enforcement agencies with the extra resources they need to protect our borders—a huge task when you consider the size of our nation and its water border. These include improved analysis and examination facilities at all airports, and particularly at Sydney airport; greater coastal surveillance of the Torres Strait by increasing our night and marine surveillance and helicopter flying hours; purchase of three new vessels for the Customs Service, which needs proper and appropriate vessels to intercept these drug importers; state-of-the-art mobile X-ray units to search trucks and transporters on our national highways—there is no doubt in my mind that the influence of illicit drugs in the transport industry is well and truly to the fore; and, better communication and use of information technology communication between law enforcement agencies.Secondly, more funds have been provided to educate young people and the wider community about the extreme dangers of drugs. Drugs have no place in the lives of our young people. We must continue to communicate and to talk to our young people about the dangers of drugs, as I do with my four children, most of whom have grown up. It is a continual topic, one that needs to be reinforced every day in the home. I repeat: drugs have no place in the lives of our young people. Around $44 million has been devoted to school and community drug education strategies.Educating children and the wider community about drugs is a vital part of the Tough on Drugs strategy. It involves sending a strong message to the community that drugs will not be tolerated on school premises, and we have seen results from that. We have also read some of the policies and attitudes of some schools towards drugs and drug taking. At the same time, we need to ensure that those children who need help and support receive it. The federal government will provide additional resources to increase the capacity of schools and school communities to respond to illicit drug use, and it will develop national protocols to help school communities cope with drug use and possession.Thirdly, while it is up to all of us to be tough on drugs, we must help the victims of drugs. This government is well on the way towards establishing a national drug treatment network across our cities and rural centres, with the allocation of almost $77 million to bring treatment and support within the reach of those who need it and to fund and to disseminate research into drug addiction. The first part of funding was announced in November 1997. Has this program been working? The motion states that there has been `no significant decline in the amount of illicit drugs'. It is interesting to note that, with the proper resources this government has given to patrolling our borders, federal agencies have seized 565 kg of heroin in seven months, which is five times the average of 113 kg seized in each full year between 1990 and 1996 under the Labor government. (Time expired)10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being almost 1.45 p.m., the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 101. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Statements by Members992099209920Gerick, Jane, MPMs GERICK83WCanningALP00—Today I want to pay tribute to the life of John Wright, who lived in Armadale in my electorate. John died just a few weeks before he was to celebrate his 90th birthday. John was a long-time member of the Australian Labor Party and had been a member of the Labour Party in England. He was someone who lived by his philosophy and quietly went about achieving the ideals he held. For those of us who were members of the Armadale branch, he offered us encouragement, advice and assistance. We all miss him very much.At the last branch meeting he attended three years ago, he was still highlighting the success of miners in his home town in England who had saved their workplace. He never stopped caring about politics and was passionate about the environment. When I saw him just a few weeks before he died, he gave me a list of books I should read so that I would be an effective representative.John's great pride was his family, and we were told constantly of their achievements. They can feel great pride in the way they cared for him until the end. My sympathy goes to his family, and I am pleased that I had the opportunity to know him over the past eight years. We admire the standards he set for us to follow.99219921Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSONXT4BallaratLP10—Today I would like to pass on my congratulations to four successful people: Geoff Howard, Karen Overington, Diane Hadden-Tregear and John McQuilten who represented the Australian Labor Party in my area. I would like to pass on my commiserations to David Clark, Helen Bath, Judy Verlin, Barry Trainor, Rob Knowles and Steve Elder who were unsuccessful candidates.I would in particular like to talk about the spouses of members in marginal seats. They are the ones who carry the can for their partners. They are the ones who live the good times and the hard times, they are the ones who are always there, and they are under pressure equal to that of their partners. There are winners and losers in elections, but I would hope that people might spare a thought for the partners of both losing sitting members and losing candidates. They invest an enormous amount of themselves in their partner and the party they represent. On this day, after a fairly diabolical outcome for the coalition in Victoria over the weekend, there are people who deserve a thought to be spared for them, because they are going through considerable pain today.The people have spoken. We have a fantastic democratic process in this country where the people ultimately decide whether we are here or not, but I do today spare a thought for the partners of those men and women who stood for election over the weekend.99219921Zahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA84HMcMillanALP00—Today I want to raise on behalf of the people of Bunyip in my constituency of McMillan the issue of the railway crossing at the intersection of Hope Street and Longwarry/Nar Nar Goon Road. I want to express my utter disgust at the lack of attention which this has received from the Kennett government, because it is a very serious matter.On Friday 18 June—just seven days after I had written to the Minister for Transport, Robin Cooper, regarding this matter—a train and a car collided at the intersection which I mentioned. The 29-year-old woman in the car was very lucky to escape with her life. If I could quote briefly from an article which appeared in the Pakenham Gazette I could perhaps express to the parliament how the people of that community feel. The story, by Emily Broadbent, says:Bunyip residents have repeated an urgent call for boom gates to be installed at the Hope Street level crossing after a train and car collided there last Friday morning.The train was travelling at more than 100 kmh at the point of impact.That is a lot of weight and a lot of speed. Understandably, people there are very concerned.The response I received from the Minister for Transport was utterly uncaring and I found it very disappointing. (Time expired)99219921May, Margaret, MPMs MAY83BMcPhersonLP10—I rise to speak on behalf of constituents in the federal electorate of McPherson who are affected by television black spots. With the sale of a further 16.6 per cent of Telstra, the coalition government will allocate $120 million over five years to establish a television fund. Among projects to be addressed by this fund are TV black spots. I am hopeful of seeing some money from this fund directed, as a priority, to McPherson to fix affected areas.Residents in my electorate have been plagued by this problem for too long. According to data collected by residents, more than 4,500 households in my electorate are affected by poor or no reception of free-to-air television signals. By far the most significant problems are in the areas of Mudgeeraba, Bonogin, Canterbury Downs, Worongary and Tallebudgera Valley. This is largely due to hilly terrain which makes the existing translator facilities ineffective.I have been inundated with telephone calls and letters following the release of an issues paper discussing the policy and implementation associated with the television fund. During discussions with residents, many said they had resorted to installing expensive antennas in trees, erecting satellite dishes on roofs, and paying for cable TV connections to have access to what others enjoy for free.The Gold Coast is the sixth largest city in Australia and one of the nation's fastest growing cities. I believe my constituents are entitled to enjoy free-to-air television like the majority of Australians.99229922Crosio, Janice, MPMrs CROSIO7T4ProspectALP00—On Saturday, 11 September, local government elections occurred in New South Wales, and I am here today to commend the wonderful effort made by the Labor teams in Western Sydney and congratulate them on that effort. In Fairfield City Council, for the first time in 12 years, we have got 10 councillors elected out of 15. In Holroyd City, in another part of my electorate of Prospect, we have seen, for the first time in history, six Labor councillors elected out of 12. I want to say to that wonderful team—Bob Watkins, Wendy Roberts, Lou Costa, Lilly Stepanovich, Nick Lalich, Dennis Huynh, Chris Bowen, Albert Mooshi, Anwar Khoshaba and Del Bennett—of Fairfield that we have great hopes and trust that our city will move forward under your stewardship. To our Holroyd councillors—Ken Morrisey, Josie Moncrieff, Vanessa McNeill, Peter Herlinger, Mal Tulloch and Peter Monaghan—you have done an excellent job and I know that you will work hard to make sure Holroyd also has a great future.This is certainly newsworthy and, as one would recognise from what happened right throughout Western Sydney with local government elections, it was absolutely overwhelming. The credit must go to the hardworking teams that worked behind the candidates. I congratulate them all for a wonderful effort, and I know that they will forever keep going forward. To all of them: congratulations on a job well done.99229922St Clair, Stuart, MPMr St CLAIR84BNew EnglandNP10—I rise today to pay tribute to a truly great Australian, Mr Selby Verdon Dean DCM, OAM, from the tiny town of Tingha in my electorate of New England. Selby Dean has just retired after 16 years as a councillor on the Guyra Shire Council. I had the honour of serving with him for 11 of those years during which time he was elected to many positions, including that of deputy mayor.As I said, Selby Dean is a truly great Australian, a person who has made a huge contribution to this nation. His war service saw him in action in the Middle East through to New Guinea. He rose from private to lieutenant and was awarded the DCM in Crete. He worked for the North West County Council as a linesman from 1946, retiring in 1980. He was appointed as a councillor for the county council from 1987 to 1995, bringing with him the great knowledge that comes from being a practical worker, making him a constructive member of the boardroom. He was heavily involved in the scouting movement and in Legacy. He was instrumental in forming the Tingha Golf Club and is the patron. Selby has been a long-term member of the Tingha RSL and was made a life member in 1992. He is a life member of the Tingha Sport and Recreation Club and the bowling club and is patron of the Tingha Tigers Football Club.Selby Dean has always looked after the interests of the working man in a practical way. He is a longstanding member of the Labor Party and has been a candidate for the federal seat of New England. I am proud to call Selby my friend. I am honoured to know him, and I believe that the world has been made better because Selby Verdon Dean DCM, OAM is in it.99229922Sidebottom, Peter, MPMr SIDEBOTTOM849BraddonALP00—I would like to recognise two major achievements associated with my electorate on the north west coast of beautiful Tasmania. The first is Smithton Primary School's recent National Literacy Award to the value of $10,000. This award recognised outstanding achievements in the provision of literacy programs and outcomes. Smithton Primary School's success at the national level is a tribute to the school's positive emphasis on literacy and numeracy programs, yet mixed with a diverse program of social sciences, the arts, health and recreation. This diversity of educational opportunity and emphasis on public education is also duplicated throughout the primary education system in my electorate, and I acknowledge the highly professional, dedicated teaching contribution of its many fine teachers.The second achievement is the bronze medal won by the Tasmanian under 16 touch football side at the recent national championships held at Gosford, New South Wales. This was Tassie's first ever medal and its first finals series. Tasmania beat the Northern Territory three tries to two, finishing behind powerhouses Queensland and New South Wales. Tassie scored against every side in the competition, which is testimony to its quality tactics and plays.Eight members of this successful side came from the north west coast, including all-Australian representative Mark Holloway from Devonport, who also won the championships encouragement award. Mark at 15 years of age is already a member of the state men's senior team—a very notable achievement. Ben Dick from Wesley Vale, Jonathan Tibbits from Ulverstone, Sam Reid from Squeeking Point and David Ritchie from Devonport were also members. More parochially, from my own village of Forth there were three locals—twins Kester Takayama and Jeremy O'Wheel and Matthew Whittle. (Time expired)99239923Bailey, Fran, MPMs BAILEYJT4McEwanLP10—I would like to report to the parliament today that yesterday the member for Bendigo as co-patron and I as patron of the Puckapunyal Safe Haven received just over 600 East Timorese evacuees. They left Darwin at 3 o'clock yesterday morning. They arrived very tired. They were mainly women and children, many very young children. Many of the children were exhibiting signs of illness. Some of the children had problems like diarrhoea.But the thing that was most rewarding in meeting them was that it was so evident that they are such a very gentle people. Those of us who were privileged to be there to welcome them to Puckapunyal Safe Haven were able to reassure them that they were going to be provided with a safe environment in which to live and that, like children everywhere, within a week or so of good nutritional food and of getting the medical services they need they will respond very quickly. It was a very stark reminder of the troubles that they have left behind in their home towns. We are going to provide them with a very safe environment. (Time expired)99239923Wilton, Greg, MPMr WILTONYK6IsaacsALP00—My family and I were privileged to attend a production by a fine Christian school—St Josephs Primary in Chelsea—of its fantastic gold rush musical `Grab that Gold'. Over 130 students from grades 5 and 6 participated in what could only be described as a beautifully costumed and choreographed extravaganza. Every performer presented their lines perfectly and the dancing was indeed superb. My family thoroughly enjoyed the occasion, as did the entire audience which packed the St Josephs school hall.Principal Christine Ash, her teaching staff, particularly the director, Mary Lucas, and all the parents who sewed costumes, painted sets and sold tickets are to be congratulated for their efforts. That so many people could be so genuinely entertained and that all the children gained immeasurably in self-confidence, made this production a highly successful one and a tribute to the entire St Josephs school community.99239923Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE9V5SturtLP10—Today I wish to congratulate the students in my electorate who were successful in achieving Australian Students Prizes as part of the federal government's program of certificates and $2,000 grants for students who achieve these prizes. It is particularly noteworthy because 33 certificates were granted in South Australia and 14 of those were granted to my electorate. So there must be something in the water in my area of metropolitan Adelaide to produce so consistently such brilliant students.I would like to particularly congratulate Robert Bryant, Mark Cheung, Sonya Diakiw, Justin Ghan, Shareen Gill, Dennis Lim, Yik Lim, Hilary Martin, Nicholas Pembshaw, Carl and Erik Procko, Pouria Rezaian, Emma Smith and Skye Turner. They should feel very pleased with their performances. I was happy to have them to a small function in my office about three weeks ago to present them with their certificates, and they were all delighted to note that Sturt is producing these sorts of people who can win Australian Students Prizes consistently. I am grateful to the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Dr Kemp, whose department is responsible for the Australian Students Prizes which note the excellence in study of young people as part of the federal government's program of recognising excellence where it exists and ensuring that students are aiming for something that makes them feel hard at work and that they are achieving success in this country.99249924Gillard, Julia, MPMs GILLARD83LLalorALP00—I rise to offer my congratulations to the campaign team for the state seat of Werribee where, amongst other extraordinary results for Labor in the Victorian state election at the weekend, we achieved the highest swing to Labor throughout the state—a swing of 11.1 per cent. My congratulations go to Mary Gillett, the member for Werribee, Fiona Richardson, Henry Barlow, Peter Hawkins and Michael Prager.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 2 p.m., in accordance with standing order 106A, the time for members' statements has concluded.Ministerial Arrangements992414:00:009924Anderson, John, MPMr ANDERSON4K4GwydirNPDeputy Prime Minister10—I advise the House that the Prime Minister, accompanied by the Minister for Defence, the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister for defence and the Leader of the Australian Democrats, together with the members for Herbert and the Northern Territory, are in Darwin this afternoon to farewell Australian troops participating in the International Force East Timor under the command of Major General Peter Cosgrove. Accordingly, I will be answering questions on the Prime Minister's behalf. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, the Hon. Bruce Scott, will be answering questions for the Minister for Defence. The Minister for Sport and Tourism will answer questions for the Minister for Defence in his capacity representing the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources.Questions Without Notice992499249924Brereton, Laurie, MPMr BRERETON5T4Kingsford-SmithALP00—My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Are you aware of the assessment by the International Red Cross that East Timor has basically been destroyed, that several hundred thousand East Timorese are internally displaced, and that a further 200,000 have fled or been forcibly removed to West Timor and neighbouring islands? Are these figures consistent with Australia's own assessment?4G4DOWNERMr Downer—Can you repeat the figures?5T4Mr BRERETON—Several hundred thousand East Timorese have been internally displaced and a further 200,000 have fled or been forcibly removed to West Timor and neighbouring islands. Minister, are these figures consistent with Australia's own assessment? What is the government's estimate of the number of East Timorese who have died in the 21 days since the 30 August ballot? If the government has not made an estimate, what other estimates have been made?9924Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the honourable member for his question. It is difficult to know the number of internally displaced people both in East Timor itself and in West Timor—and remember there are some others who in the very early days straight after the ballot were shipped beyond the island of Timor altogether, some apparently to Irian Jaya; some to, one might say ironically, to Ambon; and some to other parts of Indonesia. It is clearly very difficult to know what the figures are. We were having a discussion in my office not half an hour ago about these numbers and trying to estimate the number of internally displaced people in West Timor. The figures range from as high as 270,000, which is a figure that has been produced by the Indonesia military, by TNI. There are some NGOs, though, who think that TNI has done some double counting and the figure may be nearer to 150,000, but it is very hard to say.Whilst we are obviously endeavouring to assess the number of internally displaced people in East Timor and from East Timor, it is extremely hard to get an accurate figure. I think that for both East Timor and West Timor 200,000 would probably be too low and 300,000 might be reasonably closer to the mark. Obviously, we will keep monitoring that. We are happy to provide information to the House as it comes forward to us.We will get more information both on that and on the second part of the honourable member's question—the number of people who have died—more readily once the international force is established. We really have no numbers on the number of people who have died. There are some who say between 10,000 and 20,000. There are others who say that the numbers are in the hundreds. I do not think it would be right for me to speculate. I can only say to the House that I do not know. I think we could assume the numbers would be pretty high.99259925Elson, Kay, MPMrs ELSON6K6FordeLP10—My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Can the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House on the current status of the deployment of a multinational force led by Australia to East Timor?9925Anderson, John, MPMr ANDERSON4K4GwydirNPDeputy Prime Minister10—I thank the honourable member for her question. I know that she, like all members of this House and indeed all Australians at this time and over recent weeks, has been and is disturbed by the devastating violence that has been visited upon the people of East Timor since the announcement of the result of the ballot on their future, which was just over two weeks ago. It was this violence and the threat that it posed not only to the lives and property of East Timorese but to their future aspirations so clearly expressed in that ballot on 30 August that impelled the government to work energetically for the creation of a multinational force under the United Nations auspices to be deployed there as early as possible.This morning the first of around 2,000 Australian troops landed in East Timor as part of that multinational force, constituted under a United Nations resolution, to restore peace and security there, to protect the United Nations mission and enable it to carry out its functions, and to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance. As I have mentioned, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Democrats have been in Darwin today farewelling some of those troops.The constitution and deployment of this force, INTERFET, has been accomplished extraordinarily quickly thanks to the leadership of Australia demonstrated by the personal intervention of the Prime Minister at the highest levels of government around the world. I should also mention the untiring, around-the-clock efforts of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Defence, not to mention officers of their departments and the skill and preparedness of the Australian defence forces.We are pleased that a large number of other countries, including a number from our own region, will be participating in this force. That demonstrates the level and strength of broad international interest and concern in this issue of East Timor. Last night—as I think most people will know, as most people will have watched and listened to him—the Prime Minister addressed the nation on this deployment of Australian armed forces abroad. He underlined that the government has taken the solemn decision to contribute to this force not only because it is the right thing to do but because it is in Australia's national interest. As he explained, instability of the kind that we have witnessed over recent weeks in a territory so close to Australia could have serious consequences for us in the long run.Let me repeat that this operation is dangerous and that there could be casualties. However, let us also remember that our forces are well trained and we have every confidence—and we should have every confidence—in their ability to do the job. As the Prime Minister said last night, they go with our goodwill and our total support, and we say with him, `Godspeed and a safe return home.'99269926Brereton, Laurie, MPMr BRERETON5T4Kingsford-SmithALP00—My question is again to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Minister, you will perhaps recall the words of the recently departed military commander in Dili, Colonel Suratman, on the 30 May Sunday program when he said:If the pro-independents do win, it won't just be the Government of Indonesia that has to deal with what follows. The UN and Australia are also going to have to solve the problem. And well if this does happen then there'll be no winners, everything is going to be destroyed. East Timor won't exist as it does now. It'll be much worse than 23 years ago.How did the government regard this statement and the many similar threats by pro-integrationist militia leaders?9926Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the honourable member for his question. I was aware of the statement. Of course, I have been aware of an enormous amount of material over some months now about the situation in East Timor. This statement, along with less inflammatory and sometimes as inflammatory statements, was a characteristic of the whole evolution of the East Timor question, not just in the context of the outcome of the ballot. It was always our view that the process leading up to the ballot would be very difficult and that the security environment would be hard to control. It was also our view at that time—and, I suspect, for longer than that—that the most dangerous period in this process would be the period immediately after the announcement of the result of the ballot. Of course, that turned out to be true.There were many different assessments of what would happen in that period—from the assessments that we thought were unrealistically optimistic to assessments that were extremely bad. The one the honourable member quotes is at the outer extremity of the negative assessments that were made. That is why we took the view that, given it was going to be the most difficult period, it was the period where the United Nations would have to make a maximum effort. We worked very hard to see, in the confines within which the international community had to operate, a significant increase in United Nations civilian police and military liaison personnel. I can assure the House that an enormous amount of effort was put in just in getting the Indonesians to agree to that, which they did. In the end, you have to make on-balance judgments about what will happen.I think it is fair to say that the international community, on balance, thought that the situation would be pretty bad after the announcement of the result, but I do not think the international community quite expected—and Kofi Annan has made this point in the last week or two—the rampant destruction that took place during that period. I do not think the international community, in the end, concluded that people could ever behave that badly. In light of that, and given what did happen, the international community responded—I have to take the opportunity to make this point—with what would have to be pretty close to record speed to get a resolution through the Security Council and to get a multinational force, known now as INTERFET, onto the ground. I would say, off the top of my head, that doing that in just over two weeks—I could be corrected here—would pretty much break a world record.99269926Nugent, Peter, MPMr NUGENTUT4AstonLP10—My question is also addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Can the Minister for Foreign Affairs inform the House of the diplomatic measures taken by the government to help bring about the deployment today of the multinational force in East Timor? What are the aims of the force?9926Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the honourable member for Aston for his question. I very much appreciate the interest that he has taken on this issue since the announcement of the change in the government's policy on East Timor and the evolution of this issue more generally this year. In the face of the appalling violence that I was just talking about in answer to a question from the member for Kingsford-Smith, Australia did marshall all of its diplomatic resources to enable a multinational force to be deployed in East Timor as soon as possible. As I just said, I think history will judge that that was achieved in the shortest time ever. The Prime Minister spoke repeatedly to Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, and to other world leaders. I think it is worth making the point that we happened to be fortunate in that APEC was scheduled to meet and we were able to use the APEC meeting to very good effect in marshalling that international support for a force and, more to the point, in getting the international community to put increasing pressure on Indonesia to allow in that force.I left to go to New York on Monday of last week and I did so both to secure Australia's leadership of this force, which we saw as important if the force were to be truly effective because we had already in place the troops to do that, and to do what I could to help ensure the passage of a strong and robust United Nations Security Council resolution, which turned out to be resolution 1264. This is an important and strong resolution. I do not think honourable members should have any illusions—and I am sure they do not—about how difficult it is to get robust resolutions out of the Security Council. To provide a chapter 7 authority, which is sometimes colloquially described as a `peace enforcement authority', was a great achievement. I should say that particular credit should go to the British government, which did the bulk of the drafting of this resolution and which was enormously cooperative with us through that process. Also, the United States and a number of other countries were very helpful.This resolution gives the multinational force or INTERFET, as it will become known, the authority to restore peace and security in East Timor, to support UNAMET activities and also to facilitate humanitarian assistance. In time, INTERFET will be replaced by a fully-fledged United Nations peacekeeping operation. Our expectation is that that will take between two and three months—probably nearer three than two, if the assembling of such types of operations in the past is any guide—and that will be after the ratification of the ballot by the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly, the MPR.Australia has played, and is playing, the leading role in INTERFET, but once the United Nations peacekeeping operation is put into place the international security presence will take on a different character. The role that Australia will play at that stage is not determined yet. We have officers from the Department of Defence, both military and civilian, in New York at the moment discussing with the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations the shape of such a peacekeeping force and Australia's role in it. Obviously, we will have more to say about that as things go on.I conclude by making the point here that the multinational force, INTERFET, does genuinely need to be a multinational force. It is led by Australia and Australia has been the driving force behind it. But I have particularly appreciated the support of our regional partners in their participation in this force—clearly New Zealand, but let me pay particular tribute to the Thais. Their foreign minister and their Prime Minister have been stalwart supporters of this exercise. A Thai major general has taken on the position of the deputy commander of INTERFET. Thailand has been strong and unwavering. So too have other ASEAN countries—the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia. We have enjoyed very strong cooperation from those ASEAN countries, as well as from some of the North Asian countries—Korea, interestingly enough China, and Japan which, whilst it will not deploy peacekeepers, has indicated that it will provide very strong financial support for INTERFET.99279927Brereton, Laurie, MPMr BRERETON5T4Kingsford-SmithALP00—My question is again to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Does the government accept the pro-integrationist militias in East Timor have not only included a significant number of Indonesian military personnel but in fact been effectively controlled by the TNI?9927Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the honourable member for his question. We have of course spoken about this publicly on many occasions, obviously with a degree of appropriate diplomatic caution. We have made the point that there are clearly links between members of the TNI and the militias, and that is not a matter that is debated any longer even by the TNI itself or by the Indonesian government. That has been a matter of very deep concern for us all along. I do not have very much to add to what I have said publicly on many occasions in answer to that question, which is a big issue. It does lead to a debate about whether the withdrawal of TNI would lead to the dispersal and disappearance of the militias. That remains to be seen, but we hope in any case, with the insertion of the multinational force and with the move towards the United Nations taking over control of East Timor, that we will see the rather rapid dissolution of the militias. Whether or not that will happen I am afraid remains to be seen.99289928Cadman, Alan, MPMr CADMANSD4MitchellLP10—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. What steps has the government taken to build on the historic tax reforms endorsed at the last election? What consultation has occurred on business tax reform?9928Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—I thank the honourable member for his question. I can indicate that we have been kicking goals on business taxation all weekend, unlike a certain football team, the name of which the Acting Leader of the Opposition interposes. It was a fine performance from the Essendon football club throughout the year, although unfortunately they lost on the weekend. I congratulate them for a fine year.Prior to the election last year, when the government announced that it would reform the indirect and personal income tax system, Commonwealth-state relations and family allowances, we indicated that in addition we would seek to reform business taxation in this country. The government appointed three leading Australian businessmen—Mr John Ralph, Mr Rick Allott and Mr Bob Joss—to review the business taxation system and to make recommendations on its simplification and improvement and on how it could be reformed to enhance economic objectives.The report has been with the government since, I believe, the end of July, for most of August and for the first part of September. The government has given the report very serious consideration. The commission received 370 submissions, conducted 42 focus group meetings, held 16 public seminars, gave 51 presentations and met with 151 organisations and individuals. They listened to what business had to say and in many cases actually road tested reform proposals. The government has completed its consideration in relation to the Ralph report and expects to be in a position to make an initial response and release the report tomorrow.From the government's point of view, we have to look at this tax reform, like all tax reform, from an overall perspective. Just as reforming the indirect tax system had huge national benefits and had to be looked at as a whole, so too reforming the business taxation system should be focused on national benefits rather than individual industries. We have to make sure that we have a business taxation system which will enhance economic objectives, which is robust and which still makes a contribution to the revenue to fund those social services which we all hold dear.It is important that Australia continue the momentum for tax reform. We have begun the great historic tax reform on the indirect and personal income tax front, to complete it in relation to business tax, to simplify it, to get lower rates and to harmonise to economic objectives—objectives which will set this country up well for the future and which will make a major contribution to its economic benefits.99289928Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question to the Deputy Prime Minister concerns United Nations Security Council resolution 1264 of 15 September. Why does the United Nations Security Council resolution not include explicit provisions requiring the withdrawal of all Indonesian military personnel and the disarmament and disbandment of the militias?9928Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—The simple answer to that question is that the members of the Security Council, particularly those who were proactive in assembling this resolution and countries supporting them, such as Australia, wanted the resolution to get through the Security Council and get through fast. If the Security Council resolution had required a renegotiation of the 5 May tripartite agreement between Indonesia, Portugal and the United Nations, it would be my judgment—I am sure it would be the judgment of those lead members of the Security Council who did the work on the resolution—that the resolution would have had no chance whatsoever of getting through. I don't think there is any doubt that a number of countries on the Security Council would have vigorously opposed the renegotiation of the 5 May agreement, obviously—particularly if Indonesia had opposed it, which I think we can take as a given.But it is a fair question in the sense that it does raise the issue of whether it is realistic for TNI to remain in place while the multinational force is going in. I thought there might be a question about that. It might interest the House to know that today General Wiranto, the Indonesian Minister for Defence and the chief of their defence force, said that after they—they being the multinational force, INTERFET—have entered East Timor TNI troops will be pulled out in stages and will hand over the responsibility for maintaining security in East Timor to the multinational force.It is also worth drawing the House's attention to the fact that Foreign Minister Alatas said on 15 September—so it was last week—that TNI would have no active combat role and that overall responsibility for maintaining security would be passed to INTERFET. So we do have indications that there is already and will continue to be a fairly rapid draw-down in TNI numbers. That is the answer to the question.99299929Bailey, Fran, MPMs BAILEYJT4McEwanLP10—I direct my question to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Can the minister detail to the House what the government is doing to assist the East Timorese evacuees who arrived in Australia last week, including the 600 who are now being provided with a safe haven at Puckapunyal in my electorate?9929Ruddock, Philip, MPMr RUDDOCK0J4BerowraLPImmigration and Multicultural Affairs; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Reconciliation10—I thank the honourable member for McEwen for her question. Obviously, in relation to the tragedy that has occurred in East Timor, Australia has wanted to respond appropriately, generously and compassionately. Last week we evacuated, in addition to UNAMET staff and their families and some locally engaged staff of UNAMET, a total of some 1,850 East Timorese people to Australia. These evacuees have been provided with initial care and health assessments in Darwin. They have been granted what is now becoming known as a safe haven visa. It is, in fact, a temporary entry humanitarian permit. That will be for three months. It is capable of being extended and it is subject to the provisions that were enacted to enable us to provide sanctuary for the people from Kosovo.In that sense, it is a new form of visa arrangement. We have some 1,500 of the evacuees being offered places in three safe havens around Australia, including Puckapunyal in the member's electorate, Leeuwin in Western Australia, and East Hills. Each of these centres has previously been used to accommodate people from Kosovo. At this stage I think some 2,100 people have returned and we have indications from about another thousand that they intend to go back before the end of October. That has enabled us to utilise the premises that have previously been used to house Kosovos in Australia.We have been undertaking medical screening and processing in Darwin. As that has been completed we are progressively moving people to the longer term and secure accommodation in the safe haven centres. There will be 604 East Timorese at Puckapunyal. They went in on 18 and 19 September. Approximately 400 will go to Leeuwin. That will be on 24 September. The remainder will go to East Hills at the end of the month.The East Timorese will have access to the same range of services that we provided to those from Kosovo. That includes basic necessities such as health care, food and education. It also ensures that they get professional torture and trauma counselling and language services and a weekly allowance of $27 for adults and $10 for children. It was important, I think, to make that provision on exactly the same basis. There have been some suggestions from time to time that people from Europe, from some parts of the world, are treated differently from people from other parts of the world. The measures are being implemented in exactly the same way.I am grateful for the cooperation that the Commonwealth is receiving from state government agencies and non-government agencies in delivering effective care, particularly the large number of volunteers, around the Catholic Church in particular, who want to assist with the East Timorese community. Obviously they are welcome to stay in the broader community if they wish, but the provision that we are making will be within the safe havens themselves. People are free to move in and out.There is one other matter which the House might wish to know about. Members may have seen reports that one of the people that we evacuated had connections with the paramilitary organisations in East Timor. When that was established, he did not receive a safe haven visa. He was formally refused immigration clearance. He was placed in immigration detention until his removal could be arranged and that removal took place last Friday, 17 September.Distinguished Visitors99309930Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—Order! This may be an opportune moment for me to indicate to the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the former Prime Minister of France and now President of the National Assembly of France, Mr Laurent Fabius. Mr Fabius is accompanied by members of the French National Assembly, by the French Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Mr Girard, and by the Australian Ambassador to France, His Excellency Mr Spender. On behalf of the House I extend to you, sir, and to all of your party a very warm welcome.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!Questions Without Notice993099309930Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is again to the Deputy Prime Minister. It arises from the statement of the Minister for Defence last Friday that, despite cross-over between the Indonesian military and the militia, the Australian government has been assured that TNI will cooperate with the International Force for East Timor. Can you reassure the House that exchanges of informa tion and liaison between INTERFET and the Indonesian military will not compromise the safety of operations by the international force and expose our troops to ambush or attack from the militias?9930Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the Acting Leader of the Opposition for his question. Clearly, the relationship between the multinational force and TNI needs to be as good a working relationship as can be put together. I gather that Major General Cosgrove was very satisfied with the discussions he had with the TNI leader yesterday in Dili. Of course, we would not want there to be any exchange of information which would in any way jeopardise the safety of our troops.99309930Vale, Danna, MPMrs VALEVK6HughesLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence. Can the minister inform the House as to what benefits the Australian personnel who are participating in the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in East Timor will be entitled?9930Scott, Bruce, MPMr BRUCE SCOTTYT4MaranoaNPVeterans' Affairs; Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence10—I thank the member for Hughes for her question. I am aware that some members of the Defence Force who are residents of her electorate will in fact be going to East Timor. The question gives me the opportunity—and I am sure that all members of the House are interested—to outline what allowances and also what coverage our force in East Timor will receive. Personnel who are deployed in East Timor will receive a tax-free salary and allowances during their service as part of the multinational peace enforcement operation. In addition to their usual allowances and benefits, troops will receive a set of tax-free allowances which are related to the deployment which will total $125 per day. These include deployment and field allowances as well as a new East Timor peace enforcement allowance of $40 a day.ADF personnel who are deployed in East Timor are covered by the Commonwealth Veterans' Entitlements Act and the Military Compensation Scheme. I know that all mem bers of the House, and in fact all Australians, I am sure, will pray that all of those who are deployed to East Timor will return safely, unharmed. These two entitlements, the VEA and the Military Compensation Scheme, provide compensation coverage to personnel and families in the event of injury or death of a service man or woman whilst they are serving in East Timor. The Veterans' Entitlements Act coverage will also entitle these personnel to service pensions.Deployed personnel will be entitled, on deployment, to additional leave of 1½ days per month of service, additional home loan assistance, the waiving of the five-year qualifying period and an increase in the maximum period of the loan's subsidy to 20 years. There will also be available pre-embarkation leave or reunion leave with a partner where it is practical before deployment.This package of allowances and entitlements is designed to be as comprehensive as possible, to provide support for our Defence Force personnel and also to offer some comfort, I think, for their families because this is, as the Prime Minister has said, an operation that does have dangers. I know that each and every one of us will want to see the safe return of all those who are deployed, but it is important to have on the public record the set of allowances and the coverage under the Veterans' Entitlements Act and Military Compensation Scheme should anything happen to our Defence Force personnel whilst in East Timor.99319931Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is again to the Deputy Prime Minister. It arises from the many declarations by militia leaders this year that they intended to partition East Timor in the event of a pro-independence vote. Have the actions of the Indonesian military and militia been consistent with this declared strategy, and does the INTERFET mandate require the international force to ensure the territorial integrity of a free East Timor?9931Anderson, John, MPMr ANDERSON4K4GwydirNPDeputy Prime Minister10—I think I will confine myself to some general remarks to the effect that, plainly, what was to take place after that poll just a little over two weeks ago, in terms of its extent, in terms of its ugly nature and of the violence that was attended to it, could not have been reasonably foreseen by anyone. That is not to say that we were not prepared for some uncertainty, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs has made quite plain. But I do not believe that anybody could reasonably have been expected to have foreseen precisely what has unfolded or to have fully anticipated the relationship, as we now increasingly understand it, that has emerged between the TNI and the militias.In terms of the actions taken by the government, I believe that we have responded quickly and appropriately. At every point in time we have sought to ensure that our response—and the international response—has been appropriate. I am not quite certain where the opposition is seeking to lead with this matter, but I believe that the mandate that we have successfully negotiated, which reflects great credit on the Prime Minister, is an appropriate one. It is, under the circumstances, what the Australian people would have expected us to have sought in that it confers upon the international force the powers and the rights that it needs to address the situation.99319931Southcott, Andrew, MPDr SOUTHCOTTTK6BoothbyLP10—My question is directed to the Minister for Community Services. Can the minister inform the House of recent changes to pension rates as a result of the latest consumer price index and male total average weekly earnings figures?9931Anthony, Larry, MPMr ANTHONYXJ6RichmondNPCommunity Services10—I thank the member for Boothby for his question. This is a very significant day because today the single rate of pension will be increased by $5.10 a fortnight and the partner rate of pension will increase by $4.30 a fortnight for each partner. This specifically comes about because of the legislation that we put in over two years ago to link pensions not only to CPI, as they had been, but also to male total average weekly earnings. For single pensioners, the increase is made up of $1.10 a fortnight in line with the CPI increase and another $4 a fortnight to meet the government's commitment to benchmark the single rate at 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings. For partner couples, the increase is 90c each a fortnight in line with the CPI and $3.40 each a fortnight to meet the government's male total average weekly earnings commitment. What we are doing here is ensuring that pensioners are protected. Not only have we produced a low inflation environment but also we are linking pensions to salaries and wages.In addition, next year there will be a four per cent increase, which will be compensation to pensioners due to the tax package we are putting into place. The four per cent supplement will not form part of the pension, ensuring that the 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings is calibrated in it.Distinguished Visitors99329932Mr SPEAKERMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—Before I call the Leader of the Opposition, I have also noticed in the gallery the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Canberra, Professor Patel, and I extend a welcome to him.UNKNOWNHonourable membersHonourable members—Hear, hear!Questions Without Notice993299329932Crean, Simon, MPMr CREANDT4HothamALP00—My question is again to the Deputy Prime Minister. Are you aware that up to 6½ thousand US military personnel including foot soldiers will be in Australia over coming weeks to participate in exercise Crocodile 99? On what date did the government first formally seek the United States' participation in the International Force for East Timor? Did the government at any time seek the commitment of US combat troops? If so, when and how many?9932Anderson, John, MPMr ANDERSON4K4GwydirNPDeputy Prime Minister10—Under the circumstances I think the Minister for Foreign Affairs may be able to give a more detailed and appropriate response to that question.9932Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I cannot say off the top of my head precisely what moment of what day the Prime Minister made the point to President Clinton that we wanted support for INTERFET from the United States or precisely the details. But I can say to the House that we made it perfectly clear that we wanted the support of the United States administration and obviously of the United States military. The point, though, to make here about combat troops or logistic support or whatever it might be is that we wanted appropriate support. And what is the definition of `appropriate support'? `Appropriate support' is defined by the military, and after discussions at the military to military level, at the diplomatic level and between President Clinton and the Prime Minister the conclusion is that the type of support that the United States is providing at the moment is appropriate support. It is the sort of support that our military are looking for. We have not been saying to each individual country, `We want this,' or `We want that,' or `We want something else,' but we have been making the point to them that we would like some support.In concluding my answer, since the President of the Assemblee Nationale is here today, can I make the point that we particularly appreciate the support of France, and it is yet another illustration of the closeness of Franco-Australian relations. I spoke with Ambassador Dominique Girard in my office a couple of weeks ago. There have been good communications with the French government in Paris as well between Ambassador John Spender and French authorities. We appreciate the presence of the French delegation led by the former Prime Minister and the President of the Assemblee Nationale. We use it as an opportunity to say to France, `Thank you.'99329932St Clair, Stuart, MPMr St CLAIR84BNew EnglandNP10—My question is to the Minister for the Arts and the Centenary of Federation. Will the minister inform the House of how the coalition is expanding the range of communications services to regional Australia? How will the $1 billion social bonus from the further sale of Telstra build on the tremendous progress made by the $1.4 billion from the sale of the first tranche? Is the minister aware of any alternate policy proposals? What would be the impact if these were implemented?9932McGauran, Peter, MPMr McGAURANXH4GippslandNPArts and the Centenary of Federation10—I thank the honourable member for his question and his tireless efforts on behalf of his electorate to pursue this issue of extending telecommunications infrastructure. There are indeed very significant benefits for rural and regional Australia arising from the sale of Telstra, which the Labor Party opposes. The Labor Party opposed the $1 billion from the sale of the first tranche of Telstra for the Natural Heritage Trust Fund. That meant that they opposed the $250 million from the first tranche sale of Telstra for networking Australia—the regional telecommunications infrastructure fund. That means that, from the second tranche of the sale, they also oppose the $250 million extra for Networking the Nation, which builds the basic and necessary infrastructure for telecommunications in rural and regional Australia. It means that, from the second tranche of the sale of Telstra, the Labor Party opposes $150 million provided for untimed local calls in remote Australia, $150 million to extend SBS and to eradicate television black spots, $36 million to provide local Internet points of presence, $20 million to improve telecommunications to remote island communities, $70 million to build additional rural networks, $45 million for local government projects, $28 million to extend mobile phone coverage along major highways and $70 million to establish rural transaction centres.So there is no doubt at all that the 49.9 per cent sale of Telstra has materially benefited rural and regional Australia, all of which were opposed by the Labor Party. Indeed, the member for Fraser recently reiterated Labor's long-term opposition to the highly successful regional telecommunications infrastructure fund. So where would you find that more than $1.5 billion that we have spent directly on rural and regional Australia?During the last election campaign, Labor vowed to freeze Networking the Nation and spend the rest of the money—redirect it into general expenditure. In summary, Networking the Nation is an essential program for rural communities. It provides those concrete benefits. The coalition will continue it. The Labor Party will oppose it and abolish it and put nothing in its place.99339933Brereton, Laurie, MPMr BRERETON5T4Kingsford-SmithALP00—My question is again to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It concerns UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson's proposal for an international commission of inquiry into East Timor atrocities. Can the House be assured that the government will lend every support to the proposed commission of inquiry, including the provision of relevant information held by Australian intelligence concerning the Indonesian military, police and militias and their chain of command?9933Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I thank the honourable member for his question. It is the convention of Australian governments—and probably has been since 1901—not to discuss intelligence matters, but I can say that Mary Robinson intends to remain in contact with the Indonesian authorities on the issue of the establishment of an international commission of inquiry into human rights violations in East Timor. She will take the initiative in launching such an international commission if needed. So she is still discussing this matter with the Indonesian authorities. This is entirely consistent with the government's view that allegations of human rights violations should be investigated through a coordinated, UN-wide response based on the Security Council resolution which, as honourable members may recall, in its first operative paragraph, I think, condemns and calls for the immediate end of all acts of violence in East Timor and demands that those responsible be brought to justice.Pending the outcome of Mrs Robinson's discussions with the Indonesians and of other work in the United Nations, our immediate priorities remain the improvement of the security situation in East Timor through INTERFET and to ensure that humanitarian assistance is brought to the population of East Timor. Consistent with established principles on the handling of intelligence material, the government will cooperate as fully as possible with any UN investigation into human rights violations in East Timor and do whatever is appropriate to ensure that those who are responsible are brought to justice.99339933Gambaro, Teresa, MPMs GAMBARO9K6PetrieLP10—My question is to the Minister for Employment Services. How will the government's Return to Work program complement Job Network in assisting people to get back into the work force?9934Abbott, Tony MPMr ABBOTTEZ5WarringahLPEmployment Services10—I thank the member for Petrie for her excellent question and for her support for Job Network. The government recently called for tenders for the Return to Work program. This is a $24 million program to help some 8,000 job seekers a year over the next four years. The Return to Work program supplements programs available under Job Network. It is available to any job seeker, including job seekers not on unemployment benefits, who has spent the past two years caring for children or other dependent family members. Obviously, this program is pitched towards women who want to re-enter the work force after a period as full-time mothers. Under the Return to Work program, these job seekers will receive career counselling. They will receive job search skills and IT familiarisation and access to training.As I said, the Return to Work program complements Job Network, which is consistently putting 50 per cent more eligible job seekers into work than the old CES. Behind every statistic there is a human story. I recently received a letter from a Job Network member on the Central Coast about a job seeker who had been on the dole for 17 years. I quote from this letter:On a daily basis he regaled us with stories of how he had been able to stay hidden within the system, telling us that for a full eight-year period he managed to live his life on the dole with no direct accountability to the CES.After participating in the intensive assistance program, his attitude changed. He has had one short-term job already and I am told that he is on the verge of getting another one. Not all interventions are as successful as this, but it shows what can be done under Job Network. The Australian people are this country's greatest asset and the government is determined to ensure that they do not get trapped inside the welfare system.99349934Brereton, Laurie, MPMr BRERETON5T4Kingsford-SmithALP00—My question is again to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It arises from the Prime Minister's statement last Thursday that there has been no failure in Australian intelligence on East Timor. Minister, do you recall the Defence Intelligence Organisation assessment of 4 March this year that the Indonesian military were clearly protecting and, in some cases, operating with the militias and that the Indonesian military could control such groups but had chosen not to do so? Do you recall DIO's report that no vigorous action to rein in ABRI had been noted, implying that General Wiranto is at least turning a blind eye, that further violence is certain and that Dili will be the focus? Minister, in the light of all that has happened in East Timor, would you not agree that the DIO 4 March assessment was highly prescient?9934Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—I would not want to comment on one report that the honourable member happened to get hold of and then flaunted around the media a bit. I do not think you should do that sort of thing, by the way. Secondary disclosure, when you were in government, was going to be made a criminal offence. Remember that? This particular report was one assessment by a DIO analyst. That is of course one assessment; there were dozens and dozens of assessments. But I said in answer to an earlier question today that obviously the role of some elements of TNI in working with the militias was a matter of very great concern to us, and we expressed that—as diplomatically as we could of course—publicly. Obviously this was a matter taken up by us, I can say without being too indiscreet by the Americans and by a number of other governments but particularly by our two governments, on many occasions with the Indonesians. Obviously it was a matter of great concern.You read out a reference to General Wiranto. This has been a great debate here in Australia: what did General Wiranto know and what didn't he know. It has been impossible to be conclusive about precisely who knew what, when, how and why. Intelligence assessments are such that you can very seldom be conclusively sure of these things, but I think the conclusion one can draw, which we would have drawn then and is a view we have held for a very long time, is that there are at least some elements of TNI that were working with the militias, and that was a matter of very great concern to us. That explained why we made so many strong representations to the Indonesians over such a long period of time, and also why we worked very closely with people like the Americans, encouraging them, as if they needed any encouragement—I am sure they would have done it off their own bat in any case—to make appropriate representations as well.99359935Thompson, Cameron, MPMr CAMERON THOMPSON84CBlairLP10—My question is to the Minister for Finance and Administration. Minister, when will it be possible for Australians to invest in the Telstra 2 share offer? What should prospective investors do if they want to participate in the offer?9935Fahey, John, MPMr FAHEYHQ5MacarthurLPFinance and Administration10—I am pleased to inform the honourable member for Blair, and in fact all members of the House, that Australia's largest ever share offer opened today and that Australians who want to invest in the Telstra 2 offer can now apply for their shares. A couple of weeks ago I announced that the minimum application would be 150 shares and that retail investors would be paying $4.50 per share as a first instalment. That represented a discount of 25c for the first instalment. It means that Australians can take a stake in Telstra for as little as $675, meeting the government's commitment to make Telstra 2 shares available for all Australians affordable and accessible.The second instalment will be determined by the price of Telstra shares in the week prior to listing on 18 October next, and they will be discounted by at least 15c per share. Payments of the second instalment will not be due until November next year, that is, after the Sydney Olympics. This means that retail investors will get a discount of 40c per share as well as the benefits of paying by two instalments over one year. Already more than three million Australians have pre-registered, and they will receive, or have already at this stage received, their public offer document, which contains a personalised application form.It is not too late to join in. Anyone who has not pre-registered may still acquire an application for shares and a prospectus by ringing the telephone information line for Telstra, by obtaining that information through the Telstra web site or by picking up a prospectus and application at any Commonwealth Bank branch. That form must be accompanied, when they apply for shares, by a cheque for the first instalment, although you can pay using the electronic banking system known as B-Pay. This option makes it very simple to participate in this offer.The government hopes that many Australians, including first-time investors, will participate in the Telstra 2 share offer and become owners of one of our largest and most dynamic companies. They will also help make Australia one of the greatest share owning nations in the world.99359935Brereton, Laurie, MPMr BRERETON5T4Kingsford-SmithALP00—My question is again to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It relates to the Prime Minister's post Bali summit declaration that `there has been a quantum shift in the Indonesian government's control of the military in East Timor'. Minister, is it not the case that following that statement Australian intelligence revised their assessments and removed any conflict with the government's acceptance of assurances that Indonesia would maintain peace and order in East Timor? Did not a further Defence intelligence assessment of 30 April go as far as to state that the Indonesian military were exerting a moderating influence in East Timor and that their presence decreased the likelihood of widespread and serious conflict? Minister, what underpinned such a significant change in intelligence assessments?9935Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPForeign Affairs10—Can I begin by saying that you should not read out intelligence assessments. When you were in government you said that secondary disclosure should be a criminal offence and you wanted to put people responsible for secondary disclosures in jail.4T4MELHAMMr Melham—This is parliament; that is not a criminal offence.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! The member for Banks.4G4Mr DOWNER—If you thought it was such a serious matter, why when you were in government did you think it should be a criminal offence and now you think it is something that can be used for a debate? I make that as a first point, because that is a serious point you need to think about.The second point I would make is that I do not comment on individual intelligence assessments. You quote one which professes to hold one view and you quote another that professes to hold another view. I think I could probably stray into saying this to the House: if you read the number of intelligence assessments that I read and no doubt the Prime Minister reads and the Minister for Defence and others read—83REDWARDSMr Edwards—And understand.4G4Mr DOWNER—Somebody grazing back up there would never get to read an intelligence assessment unless Laurie leaked it.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—The minister will come to the question.4G4Mr DOWNER—If you read a large number of intelligence assessments, this illustrates the point. There obviously are a variety of views in those intelligence assessments. What was the Prime Minister referring to? He was referring to the commitments that were made by President Habibie at the Bali summit. Obviously, as Prime Minister, he is not a commentator on everything that is happening in the world but, as Prime Minister, he was articulating the assurances that had been given to him and to the Australian government by the Indonesian government at the Bali summit.Needless to say, this exercise exposes a point that I have often tried to make to people: that you get all sorts of assessments with all sorts of views in them. You do not just get a single stream of assessment all of the time; you get a lot of different views expressed over a period of time. But, at the end of the day, our firm conclusion is that there were certainly links between some elements of the TNI and the militias. That was a consistent view we held. The details of those links—how far up the chain they went and that sort of thing—are very hard to assess. I am certainly not wanting—and I never have wanted—to get into public specu lation on what those links are. I do not think that is right. But we have made the point that there have been links between elements of the TNI and the militias on many occasions. Obviously, the honourable member has made that point as well. That has been a matter of concern here in Australia—to us, to the opposition, to the media and to NGOs. It has been of widespread concern throughout the international community.99369936Hull, Kay, MPMrs HULL83ORiverinaNP10—My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. What is the government doing to improve the consultation process with women in rural, regional and remote Australia that will help secure a better future for people living in my electorate of Riverina and in rural communities in general?9936Anderson, John, MPMr ANDERSON4K4GwydirNPDeputy Prime Minister10—I thank the honourable member for her question and acknowledge her very real interest in rural and regional Australia. Last week I announced the membership of the Regional Women's Advisory Council. There will be nine members and each state and the Northern Territory will be represented. Those members all have expertise in the key issues facing rural and regional Australians. There is no doubt that they can play a lead role in improving communications between the government and rural communities. I think it is fair to say that rural women are particularly strong in the area of coping with change. There is a lot of change in rural and regional Australia—some of it we might prefer to go away, but it is not going to. Wherever possible, we have to be able to turn the challenge of change into opportunity.The inaugural chair of the committee is Kathy McGowan from Victoria. The council will be charged with the responsibility of advising on matters of importance to rural and regional Australia. The issues themselves will be defined not only by the council through consultation but also through research and the expertise of individual council members. I see it facilitating leadership, business development and the participation of women in decision making. It carries further forward the process of engaging women in rural, regional and remote areas of Australia in decision making through mechanisms such as the Regional and Rural Women's Unit in my department, a roundtable I held here that quite a few women on this side of the parliament attended recently and such events as a rural women's workshop held at AgQuip in Gunnedah very recently.This council will be invited to attend the regional Australia summit to be held here at the end of October. They will be covering such important themes as communications, infrastructure, health, community, lifestyle, wellbeing and what have you. I want to say that I believe that these nine women, carefully chosen, with great expertise and a great deal to contribute, will help bring a new dimension to the coordination and delivery of the many programs that this government has put together and is now seeking to deliver for the benefit of rural and regional Australians.Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.993710001CLERK ASSISTANTThe Clerk—Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate ministers:9937692BV5Adams Dick MPTo the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of electors of Lyons points out to the House our desire to see community pharmacists retain their unique position in Australia's health system.We trust and respect our local pharmacists and are opposed to any moves to allow supermarkets to compete against them. We believe that the community benefits from pharmacies being owned by pharmacists.Your petitioners therefore pray that the House heeds our wishes and allows our local pharmacy to continue to play a vital role in our health care.Mr AdamsBV5Mr Adams(from 692 citizens)99371983UCox David MPTo the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:Considering that: (1) 30 per cent of Australians seek alternative medical treatments each year;(2) the Government intends to proceed with its Goods and Service Tax (GST)(3) this tax will be paid by persons seeing alternative medicine practitioners but not when seeing medical practitioners.Therefore, your Petitioners request that Australians retain a choice of medical treatment and ensure that:(1) all services provided by alternative medicine practitioners, as currently recognised in Schedule 1 of the Therapeutic Goods Regulations, be GST-free; and(2) all medicines listed on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, and all medicines mixed extemporaneously by practitioner, be GST-free.Mr Cox83UMr Cox(from 19 citizens)993722483UCox David MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain electors of the Division of Kingston draws to the attention of the House their concern about the affect the proposed Goods and Services Tax may have on pensioner tenants of the South Australian Housing Trust as many residents on pensions would be severely disadvantaged when their State Government considers the compensation as increased income and increases their rent.Your petitioners therefore request the House to give consideration to preserving the compensation provisions in the GST legislation by ensuring that the compensation is made exempt from rent increases under the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement.Mr Cox83UMr Cox(from 224 citizens)99379683UCox David MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain electors of the Division of Kingston draws to the attention of the House their concern about the affect the proposed Goods and Services Tax may have on monthly maintenance charges paid by residents of retirement villages as many residents on single pensions would be severely disadvantaged by the GST being added to maintenance charges.Your petitioners therefore request the House to give consideration to exempting such monthly maintenance charges from the GST, or to making concessions that will alleviate the impact of any increases. Mr Cox83UMr Cox(from 96 citizens)993859DT4Crean Simon MPTo the Speaker and the Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled:Whereas the 1998 Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne carried without dissent the following Motion:`That this Synod regrets the Government's adoption of procedures for certain people seeking political asylum in Australia which exclude them from all public income support while withholding permission to work, thereby creating a group of beggars dependent on the Churches and charities for food and the necessities of life;and calls upon the Federal government to review such procedures immediately and remove all practices which are manifestly inhumane and in some cases in contravention of our national obligations as a signatory of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.'We, therefore, the individual undersigned Members of Christ Church Anglican Church, Dingley, Victoria 3172, petition the House of Representatives in support of the abovementioned Motion.And we, as in duty bound will ever pray &c.Mr CreanDT4Mr Crean(from 59 citizens)993876VU5Griffin Alan MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.The undersigned citizens and residents of Australia call on you to:. Label all Genetically Engineered foods that may be approved for sale;. Ensure pies contain meat and jam contains fruit;. Make food labels reflect the true nature of the contents;. Ensure that the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA)—the food safety watchdog—is adequately resourced to protect our food.And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.Mr GriffinVU5Mr Griffin(from 76 citizens)99384283NHall Jill MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament.The undersigned citizens and residents of Australia call on you to:. Label all Genetically Engineered foods that may be approved for sale;. Ensure pies contain meat and jam contains fruit; . Make food labels reflect the true nature of the contents;. Ensure that the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA)—the food safety watchdog—is adequately resourced to protect our food.Ms Hall83NMs Hall(from 42 citizens)993836483NHall Jill MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the friendly and professional service provided by the staff of the Australian Tax Office and Child Support Agency in the provision of facilities to pay tax and child support payments at the Tax Office and the provision of a freely available face to face service to answer taxation and child support inquiries.We draw to the attention of the House the intention of the Australian Tax Office to cease providing these services in the Newcastle Tax Office.We request the House to ensure that the Tax Office's proposed cuts do not proceed and that all existing services to the community will be maintained.Ms Hall83NMs Hall(from 364 citizens)993852FI4Morris Allan MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:The petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the friendly and professional service provided by the staff of the Australian Tax Office and Child Support Agency in the provision of facilities to pay tax and child support payments at the Tax Office and the provision of a freely available face to face service to answer taxation and child support inquiries.We draw to the attention of the House the intention of the Australian Tax Office to cease providing these services in the Newcastle Tax Office.We request the House to ensure that the Tax Office's proposed cuts do not proceed and that all existing services to the community will be maintained.Mr Allan MorrisFI4Mr Allan Morris(from 52 citizens)99387783MPlibersek Tanya MPTo the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of the Government of Australia.The petition of we, the undersigned citizens of Australia, draws attention to the House that there is widespread community support for the Australian Government to help ensure a safe and fair consultation in East Timor on 8 August 1999 by:. supporting a UN-sponsored peace enforcement mission to be sent to East Timor. urging Indonesia to immediately disarm and disband paramilitary groups in East Timor, and. urging the Indonesian Armed Forces to conduct a staged withdrawal from East Timor.We also ask on the Australian Government to:. withdraw recognition of Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor pending the completion of a free and fair UN supervised act of self determination. suspend military aid and training to the Indonesian Armed Forces, and. suspend Australian aid, and lobby against further IMF funding to the Indonesian government, until it stops its military violence in East Timor.Ms Plibersek83MMs Plibersek(from 77 citizens)9939735V5Smith Stephen MPTo the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled:The Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia points out to the House:That we, the undersigned, object to the mining of uranium at Jabiluka, in World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park. Uranium mining and nuclear energy are damaging to the environment for hundreds of thousands of years, and we believe that these industries are unethical and not in the national interest, nor in the interest of the global community.The Jabiluka site is being developed against the wishes of the Mirrar people, the traditional owners of the land. We support them in their opposition to the Jabiluka Mine.Our petitioners therefore request the House of Representatives to call on the Federal Government to:Act responsibly. Stop Jabiluka Uranium Mine. Save Kakadu.Mr Stephen Smith5V5Mr Stephen Smith(from 73 citizens)Petitions received.Private Members' Business9939993915:06:009939Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE9V5SturtLP10—I move:That this House:(1) reaffirms the fundamental principles of human rights that must be practised by the entire international community; (2) condemns the false arrest and imprisonment of thirteen Iranian Jews on spurious espionage charges; and(3) calls upon Iranian authorities to immediately release the falsely imprisoned Iranian Jews.The events unfolding on Australia's doorstep in East Timor are a tragic demonstration of the complexities of foreign policy—Mr Tim Fischer interjecting—9V5Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE—I will be getting to the issue of the Iranian Jews momentarily, Member for Farrer. Australia's leadership in the South-East Asian region is reinforced by the government's decision that Australia will head a multinational peacekeeping force into the troubled territory.The reasons for sending a peacekeeping force are twofold. Firstly, continued instability in our own region could pose serious long-term consequences for Australia; and, secondly, Australians have been outraged by the atrocities committed against the East Timorese. These crimes violate our innate sense of basic human rights. Human rights in Australia are often discussed in philosophical terms. A clear and accepted definition does not exist, but it is widely accepted that the minimum basic human rights include freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association.The essence of basic human rights is that people are free to choose their own way of life, subject to the rights of others and protecting people against exploitation. In Australia these rights are embodied in the social contract that exists between each individual and government. Beyond Australia these basic rights are observed to varying degrees. In some countries there appear to be no attempts to protect the basic rights of their citizens or minority groups. It is the responsibility of all free democracies to ensure that basic human rights are observed throughout the international community. At present there are serious concerns about human rights in countries such as Sudan, Cambodia and Iran. Today I wish to talk on Iran.Approximately two years ago Mohammed Khatami was elected as President of Iran. Khatami's elevation initiated cautious optimism among international observers that this was the beginning of a new era in Iranian foreign policy. To encourage this process, the Clinton administration earlier this year eased some of the economic sanctions on Iran, particularly the sale of food and medical supplies. Whether Khatami is genuinely committed to rapprochement with the West is uncertain, but what is certain is that there is significant resistance to rapprochement from some Iranian officials.Recent developments in Iran confirm this worrying trend. It includes honouring the assassin who claimed the life of moderate Arab leader, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Another moderate Arab leader and former supporter of Khatami's, the former mayor of Teheran, has been imprisoned for two years on charges of corruption. A former culture ministry official will be put on trial for allowing publication of a banned moderate newspaper. The heads of an Iranian newsagency and a daily newspaper were also recently arrested. More recently, there has been mounting evidence of the persecution of some of Iran's 27,000 Jews.Officially, the Iranian policy is that all its citizens enjoy equal rights but, according to the Executive Director of the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, Dr Colin Rubenstein, Jewish schools and the teaching of Hebrew are frequently banned in Iran. Forms of independent communal expression have been prohibited following the closure of a Jewish newspaper after it criticised the Iranian government for banning and appropriating Jewish schools. Dr Rubenstein also believes that the treatment of other religious minorities in Iran warrants greater attention and protest from the world community.More recently, international concerns about the treatment of the Jewish minority in Iran have been fuelled by the apparently false arrest around 21 March this year of 13 Iranian Jews on spurious espionage charges. The 13 men lived in Jewish communities in the cities of Shiraz and Isfahan. French Jewish leaders have indicated that one of those arrested is a Chief Rabbi. Reports also suggest that most of the others were either religious students or employed as religious teachers at the local Jewish school. One of those arrested is 16 years old; another is more than 90.Despite the arrests in March, Iranian officials waited three months before officially confirming the charges against the 13 religious teachers and students. More disturbingly, there has been no official explanation or details of the grounds on which the men have been charged. The detained prisoners have been denied bail, legal representation and family visits. Iran's mission at the United Nations in June ambiguously indicated that the number of alleged spies may exceed 13 and could include Moslems. There is speculation from Israeli sources that a total of 22 Jews have been arrested on espionage charges. Unfortunately, Iranian officials have been very economical with details.Iran's reluctance to be open and transparent about these arrests only adds to the mounting suspicion in the international community that these espionage charges are baseless. Former Israeli foreign minister Ariel Sharon made it clear that none of the arrested men were involved in espionage activities with Israel. President Bill Clinton's Middle East affairs adviser, Bruce Rydell, has reputedly said that the administration is `very worried' by the events and has indicated that the claims are absolutely baseless.French Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine, has also expressed his outrage at the arrest of the 13 religious teachers and students. Iran's actions in charging the 13 religious teachers and students have been condemned by France, Britain, Germany and Japan. To the best of my knowledge, Iranian authorities have not produced any documentation that implicates these 13 religious teachers and students in any crime. The only allusion to evidence has been a statement from Iran's daily newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami, which claims the 13 religious teachers and students were posing as traders but were secretly working for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.It all sounds suspiciously like the same sort of `justice' that CARE Australia workers Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace, and their colleague Branko Jelen, received in Belgrade. Few of us could forget the forced confession by Steve Pratt, which was videotaped and broadcast around the world in an attempt to manipulate national and international opinion.I have very real concerns that the 13 religious teachers and students are being used by Iranian fundamentalist officials in a similar way. There is enough evidence to suggest that there is a strong push from some Iranian officials to spoil President Khatami's attempts to improve relations between Iran and the West, particularly the United States. The concern is that these same officials have engineered the spurious espionage charges to create an obstacle to the rapprochement process.This theme is reflected in the Iranian daily newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami, which has been a strong critic of President Khatami's rapprochement overtures. Some say the false arrests have been put up by fundamentalists as a road block to improving relations with the United States. The newspaper's position has been unequivocal. I quote from the newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami:The support shown by Washington for the spies proves that America is still our number one enemy, and that it seizes the opportunity to strike any blow to this nation. This is a good lesson for those who favour establishing ties with America. The ugly face of America and the Jewish state will be more exposed when our intelligence officials provide the public with more information on the affair.There is every reason to believe that this is another attempt by fundamentalists to discredit President Khatami's attempts at improving relations with the United States and Israel. If the 13 religious teachers and students are convicted of espionage they face execution. This would not only be a gross violation of human rights and natural justice but it would set the rapprochement process back, possibly by decades, and would continue Iran's diplomatic estrangement from the West. Already there is a push to bring under question Iranian loans on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But Iran can avoid these types of consequences by immediately releasing all the falsely imprisoned men, whether they be Jewish or Muslim or whether they be 13 or 22 in number.Australia joins the international chorus in encouraging Iran to pursue this outcome. I am delighted that a number of members will be speaking in this debate this afternoon and sharing my concern, as I have expressed it today. I hope they will join me in condemning Iran for the false imprisonment of the 13 Jewish students and teachers and in calling on Iran to free them forthwith or face the continued anger of the world community at their failure to recognise basic human rights. I thank the House.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Is the motion seconded?HM5GEORGIOUMr Georgiou—I second the motion.15:16:009941Ripoll, Bernie, MPMr RIPOLL83EOxleyALP00—For Jews all over the world, today marks the holiest day of their calendar, known as Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. Jews here and around the world will be in their synagogues and will abstain from food and drink. This explains the absence of my colleague the member for Melbourne Ports.There are 13 Jews in Iran who will not be observing this holy day or any other holy day in the Jewish calendar, because they have been imprisoned on ridiculous, trumped-up charges of espionage activities. In March this year, unofficial reports began to surface that a number of prominent members of the Iranian Jewish community had been arrested. Spies in Iran are usually sentenced to death. When details came to light in June, it was confirmed that the 13 arrested included community leaders, a rabbi, a 16-year-old boy, a butcher and a cemetery worker—hardly individuals who would be linked to acts of espionage.Since the Iranian revolution, Iran has tried and executed 17 Iranian Jews for espionage, including two in 1997. At first, Jewish community leaders in the US and Europe sought the release of the 13 through diplomatic channels. However, this attempt quickly failed and the 13 were charged with spying for the United States and for Israel.Professor Gerald Steinberg, from the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, a regular columnist for the Jerusalem Post, said:The arrests have nothing to do with spying and everything to do with anti-semitism and the use of Jews as scapegoats. After a show trial by a kanga roo court, they were given long sentences, some may not emerge alive.The Iranian decision to move against the Jewish community is additional evidence that their claims to respect the human rights of all citizens, including Jews, Christians and members of the Baha'i faith, are nothing more than propaganda.The Iranian Jewish community is more than 2,500 years old and its recorded history dates back to the fifth century BCE. This ancient minority is estimated to number between 25,000 and 30,000. The majority of the community lives in Teheran. Separate Jewish schools were closed and appropriated by the Iranian government in 1991, but Jewish religious studies are provided for Jewish students in the Islamic schools and are taught by rabbis and members of the community. However, Iranian Jews are not permitted to teach the Hebrew language and are required to adhere to Iran's Islamic dress code.These arrests, with such a fundamental abuse of human rights, have rightly not been accepted by almost every country around the world. Latest reports from the United States suggest that civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson, who has negotiated freedom for captured American servicemen held by foreign governments, is trying to arrange, through Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations, a visit to Iran to help release the 13 Jews. In Paris, the French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, said that the charges of spying against the 13 Jews were fabricated as part of an internal struggle among Iran's leadership. He added that Paris is seeking to mobilise other European nations in the case.Here in Australia, members of parliament, the Jewish community and the general public were quick to respond to the news of the 13 arrests. The Jewish community's elected representative body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, immediately registered its abhorrence to the charges, as did other major Jewish community groups. Protests against the Iranian government were held in both Sydney and Melbourne, and members of parliament quickly responded with the signing of a petition calling for the 13 to be immediately released. Let us not underestimate how significant an event it was when my parliamentary colleague the member for Melbourne Ports drafted and passed through this House a petition calling for the release of these innocent Jewish individuals. The petition was signed by all Labor members of the House, including the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister for foreign affairs. Most members of the coalition signed too.In conclusion, the arrest of the 13 Jews may highlight the need for the Australian government to review its relationship with the Iranian regime. We all had high hopes that the new Khatami regime would be a sign of moderation and openness towards the rest of the world. Among other things, our close trade ties suggest Australia may be able to influence Iranian government policy.People of all backgrounds and faiths regret that these 13 hapless individuals seem to be pawns in some power play between the hardline ayatollahs and President Khatami. I believe we need to encourage Australian exports and business opportunities for our farmers, but, as East Timor reminds us, let us not do this at the expense of innocent human life overseas. The government in Iran should understand that this disgraceful anti-Jewish show trial will damage its reputation far and wide, including its reputation with countries like Australia which have a reputation for coherence and religious diversity. The 13 Iranian Jews should be and must be released now.15:21:009942Georgiou, Petro, MPMr GEORGIOUHM5KooyongLP10—I wish to support this motion which raises serious issues for the government of Iran. In March of this year 13 Iranian Jews living in Teheran, Isfahan and Shiraz were arrested by the Iranian government. In June, the Director-General of the Iranian Intelligence Service stated that the individuals were alleged to be spies who had `played a vital role in the espionage network' and had conducted alleged espionage activities on behalf of Israel and the United States. Both the USA and Israel have strenuously denied that these persons are in any way associated with intelligence activities on the part of either country. Indeed, both countries claim that they have absolutely no relationship with the individuals in question. To date, the government of Iran has furnished no evidence to support the allegations levelled at the 13 detainees. Of the detainees, one is only 16 years old and a number are rabbis and religious teachers. The Iranian foreign ministry has announced that the matter will go to trial according to Islamic law and the individuals currently in detention will face the death penalty.The chief of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, has also announced that, `This is a case of espionage which has nothing to do with human rights.' The problem for the government of Iran is that this has everything to do with human rights. It is intolerable that religious minorities in any part of the world continue to be singled out in this day and age for persecution and harassment. It is intolerable that the government of Iran, while on the one hand seeking international acceptance, is continuing to perpetuate this persecution of 13 of its Jewish citizens. Iran's actions have met with widespread condemnation from the international community. The French foreign minister has described the charges as fabricated. The United States Senate and House of Representatives have both passed resolutions condemning the arrests. The Australian government has made a number of representations to the Iranian government over our concerns about the fate of the 13 Jewish detainees.I am aware that, in Australia, the Jewish community has been deeply concerned by these arrests in Iran. For many, it is a vivid recollection of the practice employed by the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union who frequently interned Jews on political grounds without any justification. Since 1979 at least 17 Iranian Jews have been executed on trumped up charges and many more have been imprisoned. During a recent rally in Melbourne, Dr Colin Rubenstein, a leader of the Australian Jewish community, said:The Iranian government's official `tolerance' of its Jewish minority has in fact amounted to systematic intolerance and discrimination which can only be seen as an attempt to stamp out over the long run Iran's 2,500 year old Jewish community. The lives of Jews in Iran are dominated by the fear of indiscriminate imprisonment and torture. There is some suggestion from Teheran that this is an internal matter and is of no concern to the international community. I think that we have all grown tired of hearing the endless excuse from those who trade in tyranny that their human rights abuses are internal matters. The rights of all citizens are matters of global concern. The abrogation of those rights is a matter of global concern. The US Assistant Secretary of State, Martin Indyk, recently said:. . . statements by President Khatami in support of human rights and the rule of law deserve acknowledgment and support. At the same time, we are concerned at the gap that often remains between words and deeds.Nations that seek international support for financial, diplomatic and technological gain but ignore international opinion when found to be engaged in human rights abuses are nations that must feel the full condemnation of the international community.We have seen too often that the appeasement of tyranny brings with it an invitation for greater tyranny. It is time for the government of Iran to meet its responsibilities. It is time for the government of Iran to release the falsely imprisoned Iranian Jews. I commend the motion to the House.15:26:009943Ferguson, Laurie, MPMr LAURIE FERGUSON8T4ReidALP00—I join the previous speakers and the mover of the motion in supporting this motion. As many other speakers have indicated, this is probably part of a power play between President Khatami, who was overwhelmingly elected by the Iranian people, and the hardliners amongst the Iranian religious theocracy and those who essentially use religion to protect their vested interests that they have accrued over the last decade or so. It is sad to say that, whilst we are emphasising the obvious use of the Jewish minority of 25,000 to 27,000 for internal political struggle purposes, it is not isolated in this treatment by the Iranian regime. This parliament has dealt with a number of resolutions concerning the very extreme persecution of the Baha'is. The government of Iran has been active in suppressing the oil workers in the country. It has also involved itself in persecuting its Turkman minority. In news reports last week, there were indications that, rather than the government prosecuting religious based thugs who assaulted a number of university students who were seeking wider democracy in Iran and who were supporting President Khatami, the actual victims are essentially going to be tried and, in some cases, it appears that the administration will be seeking the death penalty for those students. Those newspaper reports last week indicated that the judicial elements on the conservative side of Iranian politics were possibly using that attempt—a very extreme measure—to prosecute the students as an attempt to further embarrass Khatami and force aside any moves towards reform.So this is part of a broader agenda by conservative elements in the country. It is not in any manner evidence of some kind of Zionist plot against the Iranian regime. It has even been speculated that the factual basis as to why these people are being tried—if there was in fact a factual basis at all—was more to do with their possible use of email, which is illegal, and their attempt to possibly convert other people to Judaism. That is probably the best defence the regime could have. But in all likelihood it is essentially part of a two-pronged policy of persecution of the Jewish minority—and we heard earlier from speakers that their schools have been closed and they have been forced to adhere to Islamic dress codes—and an attempt to utilise it for political purposes.It is deplorable that the response of the Iranian regime, indicated by a foreign ministry spokesperson last week, was:There have been irresponsible statements by certain uninformed and prejudiced circles.And Ayatollah Yazdi said that the people involved in this—the 13 members of the Jewish faith—`may be sentenced to death not once but several times,' in an obvious prejudgment of the circumstances.The regime in Iran, under Khatami, has essentially tried to gain a degree of international respectability. The President has made visits to Europe and to a number of Middle Eastern countries as a first sign of an attempt by Iran to rehabilitate itself in the Western world, but it is clear that the efforts of the President are being seriously resisted. There have been continuing human rights violations. I will quickly summarise from the Amnesty International 1999 annual report on Iran:Hundreds of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, were held. Some were detained without charge or trial; others continued to serve long prison sentences imposed after unfair trials. Reports of torture and ill-treatment continued to be received and judicial punishments of flogging and stoning continued to be imposed. Reports suggested that possible "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions had occurred.We all know that, in recent months, there has been a revelation that the interior ministry of the country itself has supposedly rogue elements that have eliminated a number of secular opponents of the current regime.I commend the motion. The persecution and the arrest of these people is a matter that the Western world must drive home with the Iranian authorities.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.994415:31:009944Gash, Joanna, MPMrs GASHAK6GilmoreLP10—I move:That the House:(1) recognises the very high risk of homelessness amongst young people in several areas of regional Australia;(2) recognises that this is a problem amongst young people in regions such as Gilmore and Macquarie;(3) welcomes the federal Government's specific commitment of over $45 million towards reducing that risk and providing appropriate accommodation services; and(4) calls on governments at all levels to cooperate with one another to identify, fund and implement programs of assistance for our young people.Homelessness is a fact of life, particularly in Gilmore. I am here today to talk about homelessness because not many people want to recognise it and no-one really wants to talk about it. We tend to put our heads in the sand and say that it does not exist, or that kids are being given too many rights, or they have homes but they just do not want to go to them and to take up their responsibilities. A young person without a home, and without all that is implied with the word `home', is a person at risk, so this issue is not strictly about houses.I want to cover five broad areas today. The first is the experience of the Ulladulla Youth Centre, which identified the need and acknowledged that it does exist. The Milton-Ulladulla Community Resources Centre won resources from the Shoalhaven City Council and set up a youth centre, initially in an old fibro garage and later in a very cheap council house. It was only then, once a regular presence had been established and word got around that the workers there could be trusted, did the size of the client population become evident. Within a year, 13 long-term homeless young people, aged 11 to 15, had made themselves known to the service, whilst many more had passed through with some accommodation crisis.There is not one crisis bed in Ulladulla of any sort, so they slept at friends' places, in trees, in caves or broke into holiday houses. Several of the young people had been left behind when their caregiver took up with someone new who did not get on with that child. They moved interstate whilst these children were at school and simply just left them behind. Nothing was done because it was too hard and there was no use if they did not want the kids anyway. No-one believed the youth centre. Even when the young people decided to go public, people said, `It can't be true.'Point 2 is that the recommendations of the Prime Minister's youth homelessness task force are excellent. The task force investigated the range of innovative interventions possible at every stage of family development to see if services could better resource families. The focus was on ways of improving the support available for young people in the early stages of homelessness, or at the risk of becoming homeless, and their relationships with their families. The emphasis was to be on early intervention initiatives aimed at reconciliation with family members.Point 3 is that again I want to emphasise the difficulty of being part of a large region like the Illawarra. On the basis of the pilot program's recommendation, the federal government then prioritised those areas most in need of services. Kiama and Shoalhaven, both part of my electorate of Gilmore, were ranked number two in New South Wales, along with Wollongong and Shellharbour. Accordingly, tenders have been called for an agency to provide these services to the Illawarra as a whole. It is highly unlikely that a small township can put in a bid for a tender that large. This means that, by default, the cities that win the tenders—in this case Wollongong—have also been given the pilot program. The service is then based in that city, and the services to other localities are contracted out to local agencies or simply not provided. The local agencies, if they take up an opportunity to subcontract, receive the minimum resources to provide the service, all the cream having been sucked off by the brokering agency. This often involves long hours of travel to meetings where the smaller agencies hold no sway, know nobody and profit least.Is this regional tendering really a best practice example of client-driven service or is it yet another example of departmental efficiency-driven service? Logistically, it is too difficult, costly and time consuming to provide services over a large area and to a large number of service points, which is precisely why the department itself does not want to service the smaller areas. However, if the department with all its resources cannot do this, what on earth makes it think that a small, underfunded service—mainly run by volunteers—can do it? The decision defies logic. Just within each of these three regions of Gilmore, there are similar difficulties with service between the various towns. Indeed, it is not for the want of innovative programs that services do not extend here.Point 4, to name but one program, Millie's RaveRatz is not just a flophouse but a place with a pathway. One resident, Millie Kellett, has developed a wonderful concept that is about to bear fruit. This concept involves a family of animals, RaveRatz, around whom a syndicated comic strip revolves. The funds generated from this strip, and its spin-off commercial enterprises, will go to establishing small and appropriate forms of accommodation for each of the stages of homelessness intervention. Millie, who is working with Father Chris Riley from YOTS and other worthy and high profile `can-do' sponsors, has a vision of Ratz business that will fund further services deemed necessary by the young people themselves while also creating jobs and business opportunities. For example, when there are few jobs to be had or vacancies require skills other than those available, how does a young person gain a rite of passage to create that job? The Work for the Dole program provides such avenues.I repeat what I started with: Gilmore has no accommodation for the homeless, yet we have the second highest incidence of young people with nowhere to go. (Time expired)10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Is the motion seconded?0K6BARTLETTMr Bartlett—I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.15:37:009946Livermore, Kirsten, MPMs LIVERMORE83ACapricorniaALP00—I congratulate the honourable member for Gilmore on bringing forward this motion and, in doing so, raising the serious issue of youth homelessness. Too many young people find themselves without a safe home to go to. I can only imagine the feelings of insecurity and desolation that young people in that situation have to deal with. That is a tragedy for those individuals and a sign of a wider failure on the part of communities and governments. Clearly, the government has a responsibility to help and protect young homeless people at their moment of crisis, as they are amongst the most disadvantaged in our community. Beyond that there is a responsibility for the government to provide young people with the support they need to escape homelessness and the long-term damage it can do to them. This motion recognises that responsibility on the part of government and invites us to focus on this government's response to the increasing numbers of young homeless people.Nobody would stand here and say that there is a simple solution to the problem of homelessness. Each young person left home or was forced out of home for a different and very personal reason. Each young person has a different experience of being homeless and the key to turning the corner and finding a way out of homelessness will be different for each person. Addressing homelessness is always going to be a big ask, but understanding it would be a good start. Sadly, the government appears to have fallen at this first hurdle. All the government had to do was to learn from the findings of its homelessness task force. That report highlighted the importance of the relationship between early intervention programs and other support programs for young people in the areas of supported accommodation, education and employment. You do not have an answer to youth homelessness unless it involves all of those areas in a coordinated way. The government's focus on youth homelessness is better than nothing, but it is too narrow and inadequately funded to be truly effective.When I talk to the youth workers in my local community, the message is very clear. Ultimately, addressing homelessness is not just about providing a bed and a feed for young people. As one of our local workers said to me, `Sure that keeps the young people alive but it doesn't give them a life to go on with.' Ideally, it is about recognising the young person not as a person without a home but, first and foremost, as a person without hope and working from there. The emotional needs of young homeless people are just as important, if not more important, than the physical needs.The youth workers in Rocky understand this, but they are not in a position to provide the sort of assistance that young people are crying out for due to the inadequate funding this government provides to the community sector. The $60 million allocated to the Youth Homelessness Early Intervention Program that the government is so proud of went to only a small number of programs around Australia. Meanwhile, the youth workers in Rocky are doing their utmost to help the young people accessing their services but knowing all the while that they are really only meeting their most basic physical needs.In the meantime, the issues that led to homelessness remain unresolved and usually worsen. The young people frequently rely on drugs to mask their pain. Before long, the options that could have been open to them with immediate and appropriate intervention by youth workers and crisis services start to close off. Youth workers know all this, but in Rocky the lack of funding does not allow them to address it however much they would like to. This is not an exaggeration. I have been on the management committee of our local youth shelter for almost three years and I have sat through meeting after meeting when we have discussed the absolute necessity of having extra workers to provide the sort of case management that young people accessing our service so desperately need if they are to rebuild their relationships and their future.This is what young people in crisis in Rocky can expect when they find themselves homeless: they can go to the youth shelter, called Jack's House, in Rockhampton and get a bed for the night and some food. There is a staff member present each night to provide support for young people but, because of the lack of funding, the shelter shuts during the day. We do not have the money to employ a worker to run programs or support young people at the shelter during the day. The workers can easily identify the kind of help the young people need—whether it is intensive personal and family counselling or just the basics like budgeting—but it is just not possible to provide that on the funding we presently receive. It is quite clear that, to achieve results for young people at the shelter, they need individual case management, but to do that we would need a minimum of two staff on at all times. We cannot do that with our present finances. Luckily, we can refer many of our young residents to another local service called Youthtrek—a service funded under the government's JPET Program. It is quite clear, from what the workers at Youthtrek tell me, that the fact that their clients go back to a shelter without additional support is very counterproductive in their progress.While I congratulate the member for Gilmore on raising this issue, unfortunately—from what I see in my own local communi ty—her motion does not go far enough. The government will not solve homelessness unless it is prepared to properly fund all communities to address the causes and long-term implications of homelessness. Basically, it has to do what its own task force urged a year ago—that is, to provide funding at appropriate levels to allow adequate national coverage. That call came a year ago. The young people of central Queensland are still waiting. They need that help straightaway.15:42:009947Bartlett, Kerry, MPMr BARTLETT0K6MacquarieLP10—Youth homelessness is certainly not a new phenomenon in this or in any other country. But the fact that we have so many—an estimated 20,000 young people—without a home is a sad commentary on our society. It is a reflection, I believe, of several things, especially the breakdown of our families, a lack of communication within families, more and more dysfunctional families and rising divorce and separation rates. The same issues that impact on our nuclear families also impact on the extended family and on other social institutions which used to come to the rescue in the event of a crisis within the primary care network.For each of these 20,000-odd young people who are homeless there is a long story, in many cases, of distress, interruption to study and work, a greater incidence of ill-health and susceptibility to violence, prostitution, crime and despair. The young people in my electorate—the electorate of Macquarie—are not immune from these problems. The same factors that affect young people everywhere, the same factors that put stress on our families, also affect families in my electorate. In the Blue Mountains we have supported accommodation services provided by Open House, yet Open House is badly in need of more resources. In the last year it had 146 referrals from welfare workers, yet it was able to place only 25 young people—that is, the other 121 had to be turned away; they could not be helped.In the Hawkesbury area, again we have insufficient resources. We have two groups providing accommodation. There are five short-term places at Fairview for 14- to 18-year-olds and five medium-term places at the Hayshed for 12- to 18-year-olds. This is not nearly enough. In addition to this, there is a great need for special services for other young people. For instance, there is no accommodation in the whole Hawkesbury region for teenage single mums. These young people are forced, tragically, to move on and to move further away from their support networks of friends.There is a need for governments at all levels to do more to help our homeless young people. The federal government—this government—has seen this as a high priority. Early in 1996 it established a youth homelessness task force to look at the problems and to fund some pilot programs based on early intervention, focused on family relations and strengthening the family unit. It has made a commitment of $60 million over the next four years to establish centres to provide early intervention services. One of these pilot programs, the Nepean family integration project—auspiced by the Nepean Youth Accommodation Service in my neighbouring electorate, the electorate of Lindsay—is about to expand to assist families also in the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains areas.Its approach is that prevention is better than cure. Its approach is one of early intervention to assist young people and to help families at risk before homelessness becomes a problem. It works with Centrelink to identify the needs of families and to provide access to support services. It assists schools to identify behavioural indicators of young people in crisis, young people at risk, and to provide counselling services for those young people in conjunction with their families. It provides family mediation services for young people at risk and their families, aimed at reconciliation and, hopefully, the prevention of the irretrievable breakdown that leads to young people leaving home. It also works at encouraging those who have left home to be reconciled to their families, to tackle the underlying causes and to restore their relationship with their families.The good news is that reports from the Nepean family integration project, reports from schools in the area and from community youth workers are that this pilot project is having a positive impact. Young people who were at risk seem to be able to work with their families, work through their problems and to stay at home. I look forward to seeing this very valuable project extended to schools in the Hawkesbury and in the Blue Mountains.Early intervention is a key to tackling the problems of youth homelessness. The government is making an increased commitment to early intervention. We need to see the states also making progress in early intervention and supported accommodation programs for those who have, for whatever reason, been forced to leave home. The real challenge for us as a community, the real challenge for us as a society, is to address the underlying causes which create homelessness, to work at strengthening our families, to reduce the incidence of family breakdown, divorce, separation and the financial stresses that our families face and to increase the levels of commitment so our families stay together. (Time expired)15:47:009948O'Byrne, MichelleMs O'BYRNE84SBassALP00—I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue, in particular, in relation to my own regional community of Bass. The risk of homelessness amongst young people in Northern Tasmania is on the increase. Decreasing employment opportunities and changes to federal government policies such as the common youth allowance have significantly contributed to this increase. The policies implemented by the Howard government have done nothing to address the problem.So what services are currently offered to young homeless people in Northern Tasmania and what are the current service provision deficiencies in Northern Tasmania? Put quite simply, there is a lack of federal funding. Currently there are 14 units available between the four crisis accommodation facilities operating in Bass, Karinya—a young women's shelter—Fusion, Anglicare and the Northern Youth Shelter for young men, all of which can refer clients to the units which are managed by Anglicare. All of these facilities are based in the wider Launceston area.But young people who are homeless require more than simply a roof over their heads. Outreach services are limited and underfunded where provided. Outreach services, as we know, are vital in order for young people to be able to work towards a long-term resolution of their homelessness. The Northern Youth Shelter in Launceston, for example, is not funded to provide outreach services. According to the manager of the shelter, this inadequacy results in young men staying at the shelter for longer than they should as `specialised housing arrangements' with the department require an assurance that these outreach services will be provided. And rightly so. Not to provide basic outreach services to these young people would set them up to fail. So the cycle of homelessness would recommence, with the young person again requiring to access the shelter.The federal government must provide financial assistance to shelters to provide this ongoing assistance to enable young homeless people to move out of shelters into their own homes. It is better for the individuals and a better way to manage homelessness in a more holistic and productive manner. Organisations funded to provide services to young homeless people are desperately underfunded, with a heavy reliance being placed on the goodwill of workers in these organisations to work far beyond the measures required by their employment.Not only are outreach services required to assist young people to move beyond homelessness, but physical improvements are required to modernise and improve the living conditions in the Northern Youth Shelter. Shelters must be relatively pleasant to live in if they are going to be successful in reducing the numbers of young people who are living on our streets. There must be some acknowledgment that these young people require more than just a house; they require ongoing support.Fusion in Launceston have funding as an organisation to house young people in units, but these young people need more than just a house and the funds are simply not available to make these places more comfortable and able to be lived in. For example, one of the units I visited recently was without such simple things as curtains.Young people in regional areas such as Northern Tasmania are at greater risk of homelessness due to the decreasing opportunities in their regional communities. Reduced access to education and training opportunities is another reason for increased homelessness. Targeted programs aimed at those at risk of homelessness have been cut by the Howard government. For example, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre ran a successful program which provided young Aborigines at risk of homelessness with an opportunity to increase their employment skills.As a community we need to develop intervention programs, identifying young people in the community who are at risk of becoming homeless and providing opportunities to prevent them from becoming homeless. The federal government must also support educational opportunities in regional Tasmania. Hostels in northern Tasmania once used by rural northern Tasmanians are struggling due to a lack of federal support. The federal government must intervene and offer support to these hostels in order to enable rural students equitable access to years 11 and 12. In Tasmania we have the lowest retention rates in Australia, behind the Northern Territory. We must actively support education as a realistic and achievable option.Educational opportunities and equitable access for our young people to education will drastically impact upon the high incidence of youth homelessness. Another crucial issue is knowledge of the existence of services and their level of accessibility. I acknowledge the federal government's specific commitment to reducing that risk and providing appropriate accommodation services for young people. However, I must profess some concern at the process. Since December 1998 Senator Newman has announced the Youth Homelessness Early Intervention Program no less than four times. Young people need real policy—not just lip-service. Action, and not just words, is required.At the Bass Youth Conference young people who participated asserted that they were sick and tired of hearing what politicians want to do, without seeing any action. They clearly said that they want options. Quite frankly, the repeated announcement of a national program boasting delivery of $1.30 per young person per day is a sign of how desperate the federal government has become to find good news stories in the youth portfolio.I too support the call on governments at all levels to cooperate with one another to identify, fund and implement programs of assistance. We all need to consult with young people to ascertain what services they want to address youth homelessness. The federal government must also implement a program designed to work with young people, in particular those who are at Ashley Children's Detention Centre. This is a facility used for young offenders and sometimes neglected children statewide. Any program must take place prior to them coming out so that the young people can clearly identify options.In particular, there is a specific need for the government to assist in the provision of outreach services to young people with special needs. This issue came to my notice recently when a young profoundly deaf person who was homeless in my electorate was not able to access an outreach service at all. States desperately require Commonwealth funding to provide outreach and specialised services for young people in these sorts of situations.In conclusion, young homeless people require an extension of existing services through federal funding for the provision of outreach services. (Time expired)15:52:009950Vale, Danna, MPMrs VALEVK6HughesLP10—I strongly commend this motion. When I first rose in this place, I spoke of the important family bonds that most of us enjoy and hold sacred. As I said, families tell us who we are and let us dream about what we can become. Sadly, thousands of Australian children are not growing up with that sense of self and opportunity to fulfil their potential. I am speaking of those who, for many reasons, find themselves alienated from their families and are homeless.Homelessness is like a silent disease in our community. Most of us return to our comfortable homes each evening, largely unaware of the thousands of our fellow Australians who have no home in which they can take shelter or comfort. For decades, the issue of homelessness was overlooked by the Labor government, passed off as a state matter. I acknowledge that, for the most part, the problem does fall under the jurisdiction of state governments. But the care and welfare of our children is not something that can be bound by jurisdiction. They are the inherent responsibility of each of us as legislators, as parents and as compassionate human beings. Labor's approach in office was characteristically big on rhetoric and short on practical achievement. Who could ever forget Bob Hawke's grand promise that by 1990 no Australian child would live in poverty?In stark contrast to the hollow rhetoric of Labor, I am very proud of the fact that, within weeks of our election to government in 1996, John Howard established the Prime Ministerial Youth Homeless Taskforce. He did not pretend that there would be a simple solution, but in his own stoic and determined way he set about laying the groundwork for a long-term improvement in our homeless problem. The task force was made up of representatives from community organisations working at the coalface of this problem: the Salvation Army, the Society of St Vincent de Paul, the Wesley Mission and Anglicare.Twenty-six pilot projects were established around Australia, aimed at trialling a range of early intervention and family reconciliation strategies. These pilots proved so successful that in this year's budget we have provided an unprecedented $60 million over the next four years for the establishment of youth homelessness early intervention programs. Working on the commonsense approach that prevention is better than cure, the early intervention program is aimed at resolving family difficulties and ensuring that young people at risk of becoming homeless, as well as their families, are offered mediation and counselling to resolve their differences. In the pilot program more than two-thirds of the families involved were reconciled, and even in cases where young people had already left home more than one-third returned home to live with one or both of their parents.It is fitting that the final report of the Prime Ministerial Youth Homeless Taskforce is entitled Putting families in the picture. For years, there has been a tendency to focus only on the individual rather than taking a whole of family approach. I am heartened that the focus is shifting.In addition to early intervention, we have allocated an extra $25 million for the prevention of domestic violence, which is identified as the main cause of youth homelessness. Further, the Howard government is ensuring real assistance for those who are currently homeless. As this motion outlines, we have allocated increased funding for the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program. An evaluation of this program released in April this year found that it can lay claim to being a world-class innovative program for homeless people. The report concludes that its main strength is that it is nationally coordinated and operates in a joint pool of Commonwealth-state resources.This motion calls on all governments to work together to address homelessness, as do recommendations 4, 10, 16, 17 and 18 of the report Putting families in the picture. Quite simply, it makes sense to do so, and I certainly welcome the Howard government's commitment in this regard. As I said at the outset, there are no simple solutions. Youth homelessness is a symptom of family breakdown, financial pressures, unemployment and lack of opportunity. These are fundamentals that the Howard government is working very hard to address, and we have made gains in reducing financial pressure on families by lowering interest rates and by creating more jobs, with our youth unemployment now at its lowest level in more than a decade.Importantly, we have given the opportunity for long-term unemployed people to contribute to our community and gain valuable work skills through a Work for the Dole program. The simple fact is that things just will not change overnight. We must strive for long-term solutions to youth homelessness while at the same time providing resources to help make a difference right now. The Howard government will continue to do exactly that as long as there are still young people who have no place to call home.15:57:009951Zahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA84HMcMillanALP00—I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I say at the outset that this is a very serious issue that we are discussing in the House today. It is important to place this issue in context. The people who work for the Central Gippsland Accommodation and Support Service, CGASS, spoke to me about this issue last week and advised me that they have children as young as 10 and 11 years old presenting as being homeless for their service. Ten and 11 years old—that is grade 4 and grade 5. These children are not even out of primary school, and they are homeless.There are a lot of problems relating to youth homelessness which are not about much apart from parenting skills. Those parents who have children who are at risk of homelessness would recognise that a lot of the problem relates to that situation. They recognise that the problems lie with parenting skills, and they want to go about getting some support in teaching them how to be better parents and how to better care for their children. Unfortunately, when these parents find themselves deficient in one part of parenting and put their hand up and say, `We would like to get a little bit of help; we would like to get a little bit of support from government in making ourselves a better family,' there are not the services available to assist them in that regard. Unfortunately, whilst there are a lot of good families who want to make themselves better families and become better parents, and obviously reduce the risk of their children becoming homeless, there are not the services available to them to assist them in that regard.We need to be sensitive as well to the types of programs that we offer to families who are going about the business of improving their parenting skills. We need to be sensitive in not calling any of the programs that we offer to those people `Struggling parents programs', `Bad parents programs' or any of those things. We need to be sensitive that there is often—unfortunately—a great deal of embarrassment that people feel in accessing these types of services. We need to be sensitive to that. It is just as important to recognise that it is not just kids from working-class backgrounds who suffer from homelessness. It occurs in families from all walks of life. For my own part, I have to confess that I never thought that this would be an issue which would affect middle-class families, but the people in the field advise me that there is just as great a likelihood of children from middle-class backgrounds getting themselves involved in homelessness as there is for children from other walks of life.Unquestionably, the Howard government's changes to the common youth allowance have made homelessness worse in Australia. Young adults living at home now regularly have to ask parents for money in order to get the basics of life, simply because they are no longer eligible for the common youth allowance. So we are sending these people a mixed message. On the one hand, we are preaching to them that they need to take responsibility for themselves whilst, on the other hand, we are telling them that they need to be dependent on mum and dad to get a few dollars each week. This represents a serious contradiction and is something which the Howard government needs to face up to if we are to move forward at all on this issue.When talking about youth homelessness, people regularly refer to refuges. I want to make the point that refuges are not appropriate for all young people, simply because young people tend not to be street smart enough to be able to make their way through in a refuge. By placing them in a refuge we can often be placing them at risk. Young people need to be given the option of being housed with families. This is an important point to make because this is about involving the community in dealing with some of these issues, making the community a part of the solution.I want to mention briefly the experience I had at Warragul only last week where a forum was called to discuss homelessness and other serious issues affecting the community there. A woman who lives on a farm there mentioned how much benefit she got from having homeless children come and spend time with her family every Christmas. This was not only something which those homeless people got benefit from but also something which her children got benefit from. It improved their understanding and empathy with young homeless people. In looking for solutions to youth homelessness, we need to be serious about engaging with the community and making them very much a part of the solution.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Personal Explanations995216:02:009952Nehl, Garry, MPMr NEHLAE4CowperNP10—Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?AE4Nehl, Garry, MPMr NEHL—I do.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Please proceed.AE4Nehl, Garry, MPMr NEHL—Today in question time in the other place Senator Chris Schacht asked a question of Senator Alston regarding me and my comments regarding a visit to Tibet last week. I will not take the time of the House to read the whole of the Hansard of that, but there are five specific instances where he has misrepresented me. The first:. . . does the government agree—with me, that is—that the current Chinese rule is better for the Tibetan people than any alternative?Never at any time did I make that statement or that claim. I said that things in Tibet now are better than when I visited it in 1992. The second point is that he referred to:. . . Mr Nehl's view that the only role the Chinese army plays in Tibet is to protect the borders . . . I never inferred that that was the only role. I tried to draw to the attention of people who were not aware that Tibet has borders with five countries, including two nuclear powers, and that the protection of their borders was a significant role for the Chinese army. The third point was:. . . Mr Nehl has admitted that he did not speak to any Tibetan people on his visit . . . I spoke to many Tibetan people. They were, of course, members of the TAR government or their agencies—schoolteachers and the like. I do not speak Tibetan. I do not speak Chinese. The option of wandering off and chatting with ordinary Tibetans was unfortunately not available to me. The fourth point was:. . . he only saw what his Chinese hosts wanted him to see . . . That is incorrect. I set the itinerary for my visit to Tibet. We went where I wanted to go. The fifth and final point is that he asked:Will the government take Mr Nehl's report on Tibet seriously or will it be filed under `tourist snow job'?The report I submit will be a serious, fair and objective report, not a snow job.Grievance Debate9953Question proposed:That grievances be noted.995316:04:009953Horne, Bob, MPMr HORNEUU5PatersonALP00—I wish to speak about a grievance today. My grievance is with the government that went to the people of Australia just one year ago with a promise that under the new tax system no-one would be worse off and, `We'll look after small business.' In the past year I have listened to the concerns of many small business people who are terrified of what the changes in the tax laws will do to them. But today I want to talk about a specific industry that is facing major problems, an uncertain future, an industry which is a regional industry and would employ in the order of 1,000 people directly, and many more indirectly, on the North Coast of New South Wales. That industry is the oyster industry, and it is being hounded by an unfair tax system. Anyone who knows anything about this industry knows only too well how oyster farmers are continually battling the elements, the environment, disease in their oysters and the community perception of whether it is safe to eat oysters or not.I am sure many members can recall the disaster that befell Wallis Lakes in the north of my electorate of Paterson only three years ago that prevented any oysters being harvested or sold from that area for over 12 months. This is an industry that has a history of boom and bust. Those conditions are almost always beyond the control of the grower—be it the cost of purification, inundation by the Pacific or Gigas species or contamination by polluted run-off. Now we can add a new dimension to the problems faced by the oyster growers. And that new problem is the Australian Taxation Office.The reason is that the oyster farmers are being asked to change their method of valuing their stock. In other words, they are being treated like retailers who buy in stock and retail it for profit, where the stock is a real, tangible asset with a definitive value. The oyster industry is far from that scenario. The Oyster Farmers Association have argued that oysters should be excluded in the same way as vegetables, fruit, timber, et cetera because of the impact on those industries of section 70-10 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.As I have already pointed out, the variables facing the oyster farmer make it a precarious industry. The fact that there are three-year-old oysters on racks ready to harvest in six months time does not mean that a single oyster will necessarily be harvested. A `kill' can wipe out virtually an entire oyster crop in 24 hours. Essentially, my grievance is that theorists in the Australian Taxation Office are treating the oyster industry in a purely economic rationalist way with no account for the realistic problems that this industry faces. They are asking the oyster farmers to place a value on their unrealised asset—the asset of oysters on racks that if harvested will be of value but may be completely lost due to natural phenomena. That value, however it can be counted, will be regarded as income in the opening year.For the past two years, the Oyster Farmers Association of New South Wales have repeatedly called on the Australian Taxation Office to give them a realistic consideration. So far, their calls have fallen on deaf ears. They have asked that their oyster crop has an opening value rather than a zero value. This would considerably reduce the paper or virtual income in that first year. That means they would pay tax only on the change in value of their stock. Over the first financial year, that would give them some relief. It would not allow the entire value of all stock at the end of the first year to be taxable. That in itself is a horrific thought. A number of oyster farmers have told me that if this form of accounting comes in they will be forced to leave the industry.I call on the Treasurer and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry as a matter of urgency to inject some commonsense into this equation and to assure the oyster farmers that they can go on accounting for their crop in the traditional way. They deserve recognition and respect as a responsible group of people who employ large numbers of people in regional Australia, both directly and indirectly. Of course, they face another tax problem related directly to the way they are treated by the GST.In conclusion, let me say that the oyster industry is a vibrant industry. It is a responsible industry that historically has faced enormous hurdles to allow it to survive. How ironic it would be, at a time it is at its most technologically advanced stage, using best practice and producing an excellent product, if it was killed off because of the intransigence of a hungry tax office that is all too anxious to classify industries so that the government's return is maximised through the tax system, rather than to allow an industry to be treated in a manner that will allow it to flourish and maximise its purpose in regional Australia as an employer.995416:11:009954Elson, Kay, MPMrs ELSON6K6FordeLP10—I want to take this opportunity today to send our most heartfelt concern, safe wishes and hope to everyone affected by the tragedy in East Timor in the past two weeks. Many honourable members come into this chamber during grievance debates to talk about the wrongs that we believe should be put right. There can be no greater wrong than the horrific and systematic acts of violence that have been wrought on the people of East Timor in the wake of their historic and overwhelming vote for independence. While we are still unaware of the exact extent of the loss of life and property destruction, we can be assured from all reports that it is of mass proportions. To see the innocent families that have been torn asunder, the homes that have been ruined and the fear on the faces of the refugees that we have welcomed to Darwin could not possibly fail to stir the deepest emotions of compassion and sympathy.I share the anger and outrage of many local residents who have contacted my office to express their concerns and support for the East Timorese. I share their frustration and that of the Prime Minister that it has taken some time to ensure that international forces, headed by Australia, could rightly and properly go to the aid of East Timor. I know that were it not for the determined efforts of the Prime Minister we would still be waiting for action. The Prime Minister has been tenacious in gathering worldwide support for the international forces. He has been insistent on America's involvement and UN support for our troops. And well he should. It is to his credit that the international forces have gone to East Timor with the support of the elected Indonesian government. To do otherwise would have been to invite even greater danger to our young soldiers and to jeopardise our own security in this region.I find it very ironic that the same people who screamed loudly in the first few days that something—anything—must be done and advocated just sending our forces straightaway are now critical that our relationship with Indonesia has been set back. I ask them: just how much worse would it have been if we had sent armed troops without Indonesia's agreement? Without UN and international support, exactly what sort of situation would we have been sending our troops into? I am deeply disappointed that many members on the opposite side, including the Leader of the Opposition, have sought to make political mileage out of this tragedy. It is all very well to say that something must be done, but it takes a lot more courage and guts to actually come up with a solution. This has not been a simple solution by any stretch of the imagination. It has required diplomacy, negotiations and understanding. I am appalled that the opposition leader, particularly as he is a former Minister for Defence and should know much better, has yet again taken the easy route of opposition—complaint and criticism—instead of supporting the government's international efforts.But I guess we have come to expect that and I do not want to take up any more time today on Labor's stance, nor on their total inaction during the 13 years that they were in government. I want to focus on the many people who have been deeply affected by this tragedy. I refer naturally to the East Timorese—those who have lost loved ones, those who have been forced out of their homes into West Timor, those who have sought safety in the hills and have faced all sorts of difficulties, and the thousands whom we have welcomed into Darwin and who are now settling in safe havens throughout the nation. I say to the East Timorese: the Australian people are deeply sympathetic. We understand your desire for independence and democracy. We believe in your fundamental right to safety. We are angered that you have been forced out of your homes and we have pledged ourselves to helping you in any way we can.Of course, the East Timorese have been the most horribly and directly affected by the events of the past few weeks. I would also like to acknowledge the brave efforts of the many Australian and UN workers who were assisting in the election in East Timor. They faced a very dangerous situation and will no doubt bear the emotional scars of their experiences for many years to come.There is a very special group of people to whom I especially want to pay tribute today: our service men and women, some of whom are already in East Timor while others are poised to go as part of the international force. Recently I had the pleasure, thanks to Colonel Rainer, of sharing a very relaxed lunch with General Cosgrove. I could not think of a more capable service personnel member to lead this international peace corps. He and his service men and women have our utmost respect, support and safe wishes. Their families, who are waiting here in Australia for their safe return, are also in our thoughts and prayers. As a mother of eight, I can only imagine how frightening it must be for the families of these brave men and women.Personally, I am extremely proud to represent the service men and women who are based at the Canungra Land Warfare Centre in my electorate. I understand that a number of these local service personnel have been called to assist in East Timor and I send them all the very best of wishes on behalf of all local residents as well as a grateful nation. Last Friday I was pleased to meet with Commandant Bowen, as I regularly do to keep in touch with issues of concern to my local service community. At that discussion I had the pleasure of meeting Major Jock Fraser, who is currently based at Canungra. Major Fraser's son, Lachlan, is Townsville based and has been called on to be part of the international force in East Timor. As Major Fraser spoke of his son, I could see the very genuine concern that I am sure every parent of these service men and women is feeling at this time.To Lachlan Fraser, who has either just arrived or is about to leave for East Timor, I want to send very special wishes for a happy birthday because today Lachlan turns 21. It is a coming of age no parent would wish for their child. Happy Birthday, Lachlan. Your family is incredibly proud of you. I am sure your mates will help you celebrate in some way today.For me, having shared seven 21st birthdays with my children and looking forward to my youngest daughter's next year, that really underscores the reality of Australia's involvement in assisting our neighbours in East Timor. We are sending our young men and women into an unexpected, unpredictable and dangerous situation. I do not question for one minute that we should. We have a leadership role to play and a moral duty to protect the innocent people of East Timor from the atrocities being carried out by the militia.But we should be under no illusions that this is a simple task. It never has been from the beginning, and the decision to commit Australian men and women to any conflict is not one that we should ever take lightly. I believe that the Prime Minister has shown tremendous judgment and wisdom in his handling of this situation to ensure that the Australian-led force could get to East Timor as soon as possible under the safest conditions and—as the Minister for Foreign Affairs said in this House today—in record time.As I said at the outset, during the grievance debate in this place we often talk about wrongs that must be righted. Today I am acutely aware that, while I am talking about the wrongs committed in East Timor, thousands of young Australians are physically there risking their lives to right those wrongs. Every Australian wishes them well. We all share the hope that the situation in East Timor can be resolved quickly and in peace so that the East Timorese can begin to rebuild their lives in peace and our Australian service men and women can return home safely.995616:20:009956Rudd, Kevin, MPMr RUDD83TGriffithALP00—The current crisis in East Timor has brought into stark relief a parallel crisis in the international broadcasting capacity of this nation. I refer to the emasculation of Radio Australia which has occurred during the four years of the Howard Government, an emasculation for which we the Australian nation are now paying dearly. In summary, what the Howard government has done over these four years is as follows. It has closed the Darwin/Cox Peninsula transmitters, thereby denying Australia a capacity to broadcast either in English or in Indonesian to central and western Indonesia, as well as to broader South-East Asia. It has halved the operating budget of Radio Australia. It has more than halved the number of foreign language staff working for Radio Australia from 144 down to 68. It has halved the number of Indonesian language staff working for Radio Australia from 16 down to eight. Most critically, it has effectively halved the length of daily programming in the Indonesian language being broadcast; that is, broadcast to those parts of Indonesia which are still capable of actually hearing the transmission.In effect, what we have managed to do is silence our voice in Asia at a time when we are facing arguably this nation's greatest crisis in Asia since 1945. It is extraordinary that those opposite, who pride themselves in the traditions of conservatism and the preservation of national institutions, should have found it so easy to take the broadaxe to Radio Australia, which has been servicing this nation and the region of which we are part since 1939. We now find ourselves standing not only naked but in effect silent in terms of our national capacity to project our message across Indonesia and broader listening audiences in the neighbouring ASEAN states of South-East Asia.Whereas there is still a signal capable of being heard in Timor and in eastern Indonesia, the reality is that, after 60 years of operation, nearly 90 per cent of Indonesia's population cannot hear our signal. We cannot be heard in Jakarta. We cannot be heard across Java. We cannot be heard in Sumatra. So at a time when there is paramount importance attached to our ability to project our national views on recent developments in East Timor to the rest of the Indonesian nation we have woken up to discover that we have cut our own throat.We cannot rely upon the bulk of the local Indonesian media to carry a textured or even detailed message about recent developments in East Timor. Certainly the Indonesian media, while being much more liberal than under the New Order regime, cannot be expected to explain to their audience what precisely occurred in East Timor after the 30 August ballot, the precise degree of TNI complicity in militia activities in East Timor, the unfolding humanitarian disaster in West Timor and why Australia, in conjunction with the international community, has found it absolutely essential to participate in a multinational force to stabilise East Timor. The bottom line is that, while some of the quality journals in Jakarta may give some exposure to the Australian perspective on these issues, the bulk of the Indonesian media will not. Nationalism in any country has as its first casualty objectivity—particularly objectivity as it relates to the activities of another nation state. Moreover, we have a continued requirement to communicate with the Indonesian elite, many of whom have traditionally been staunch Radio Australia listeners.Radio Australia estimated in its submission to the Mansfield review of the ABC that in Indonesia alone it had a regular listening audience of two million. Of course, a regular listening audience of two million is considerably in excess of the broadcast reach of the then Radio Australia and the occasional listeners who tuned into its services. At the time of the Mansfield review, and in a happier period of the Australia-Indonesia relationship, the Jakarta Post of 11 February 1997 stated:Why do so many Indonesians tune to Radio Australia? One obvious reason is that Radio Australia's reception is good in many areas of Indonesia. . . . Another, and perhaps more significant reason, however, is that Radio Australia, in many cases, satisfy Indonesia's need for non-partisan and accurate information.Not only have we cut off our capacity to communicate with Indonesian elites and the broad population, I wonder whether Senator Alston and Mr Downer have worked out just how we propose communicating effectively with the thousands of Australian expatriates across Indonesia if the current crisis in our bilateral relationship deteriorates further. If such deterioration occurs and it becomes necessary to evacuate Australian nationals, we need a capacity to get the message out rapidly. The response may be that we could perhaps rely upon Australian Television International. Well, after the government's hatchet job on ATI, you would not exactly hold your breath.I suppose the second line of defence would be to resort to CNN and the BBC World Service. However, these are not agencies of the Australian government and they do not have as their first responsibility the execution of Australian government policy—even when that policy extends to the consular protection of Australian nationals. Furthermore, there are Australians resident across Indonesia who do not necessarily have access to international television services and whose only effective form of communication is short-wave radio broadcasts. So, once again, will Australians working on mining and exploration services in some of the more remote parts of Indonesia have to rely on the philanthropy of the BBC and VOA? From a consular interest alone, the Howard government has landed the nation and its nationals abroad in an unacceptable set of circumstances.The previous capacity of Radio Australia's Cox Peninsula transmitters was impressive indeed. One of the great ironies was that the Cox Peninsula facility was constructed as a direct response by the Menzies government to the problems that emerged in the Australia-Indonesia relationship following `konfrontasi'. It was damaged by Cyclone Tracy in 1974, rebuilt in 1981 and modernised in 1993 at a total cost of $50 million. What we had at Cox were three powerful 250-kilowatt transmitters which represented the largest broadcasting station in Australia, as well as representing a global facility of first-class standards. The three transmitters at Cox enabled Radio Australia to broadcast for 24 hours across five different frequencies across all of Indonesia, all of mainland South-East Asia and a large part of the Indian subcontinent, as well as southern and coastal China.When the Howard government decided to close it down as a consequence of the Mansfield review, it decided to have Radio Australia rely instead on its lower grade transmitters located at Shepparton in Victoria and Branson in Queensland. These transmitters are designed to broadcast to eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and parts of the south-west Pacific. The bottom line is that, at best, we now have one third of our previous geographical reach. In response to the current crisis, I am advised that Radio Australia has been authorised to purchase an additional one hour of broadcasting time per day in Indonesian from an international commercial transmitter located in—wait for it—Taiwan. This bandaid approach to what has become a strategic problem for this nation is monstrously inadequate.The Mansfield review of the ABC, whose recommendations the Howard government accepted, made its recommendations on the future of Radio Australia without taking into account the foreign policy dimensions of Radio Australia's operations. That is not my retrospective gloss on what occurred during that review; this was the subsequent admission of Mr Mansfield himself. My question is: what on earth was the Minister for Foreign Affairs doing at that time when such an extraordinary recommendation about the future of this 60-year-old institution was being made? The faint-hearted submission from the minister's department to the Mansfield review simply bleated about the possibility that Radio Australia may no longer be as effective as it once was.But the icing on the cake of the government's culpable negligence in this matter was Senator Alston's statement not only that Radio Australia was expendable but also that the short-wave broadcast technology in which it specialised had become obsolete. This was a most remarkable statement, given that every other significant international broadcaster—the BBC, Voice of America, Radio Netherlands, Radio Japan and Deutsche Welle—is increasing, not decreasing, its expenditure on short-wave broadcast capacity. It may be that in the developed world short wave is being supplanted by other communications technologies, but in developing Asia it certainly is not. Within Indonesia itself, short wave is not regarded as anything exotic in terms of getting news from overseas; it is regarded as the normal means by which you access a large number of domestic radio broadcasts.The government, in justifying its emasculation of Radio Australia, often talks about the possible use of other new technologies and methodologies to get Radio Australia's message out to the region. Reference is made to satellite technology, transmission lease and hire, program sales and retransmission and the Internet. Of course, all these are part of the future of international communications strategy, but none possess the capacity of short-wave transmission now in developing Asia. We have had a number of parliamentary committees look at this. A joint parliamentary committee recommended on a bipartisan basis that the Cox Peninsula transmitters be reopened for Radio Australia and that its programming budget be restored. The Cox facility has been idle now for two years for Radio Australia. Cox is now subject to expressions of interest from those interested around the world in a lease of its facilities. It will then go out to tender.My call today to the government is simply this: learn from the mistakes that have been committed in the past on this matter, address the exigencies which now arise as a result of the East Timor crisis, cancel this process of selling or leasing out Cox to the highest bidder and restore the budget of Radio Australia so that we can have a capacity once again to provide services to the region and to Australian nationals within it. (Time expired)995816:30:009958Entsch, Warren, MPMr ENTSCH7K6LeichhardtLP10—I rise this afternoon in the grievance debate to highlight certain issues regarding Queensland Health that are of particular concern to me and my electorate of Leichhardt. These issues are numerous but, given that I am limited to 10 minutes, I will go through only four or five that at the moment are particularly pressing and which I think we should be made aware of.The first relates to a problem associated with the recent allocation or appointment of a third doctor to the Cooktown Hospital. That appointment was carried out under a federal government initiative which was implemented last year. Under that initiative, doctors in rural and remote areas were allowed to bulkbill indigenous patients, with the rebates then being paid directly to the local district health service to be used to support an additional doctor. That was an outstanding success in the Cooktown district which not only incorporates the Gowangardie community but also has the Wujal Wujal and Hopevale communities close by plus the farming community of Lakeland Downs and Rossville and other small communities. The appointment of a third doctor meant that for the first time a doctor was able to be sent out to these communities and, as a consequence, access to medical practitioners increased dramatically. There is no question that, as a direct result of that increase, a significant improvement was had with regard to a number of serious health issues.However, in January this year the third doctor decided to leave Cooktown and Queensland Health, in its wisdom, decided not to replace her. Her contract expired on 30 April, so from January to April there was no third doctor there—and, of course, the community paid the penalty for that. At that point in time, Queensland Health decided that it would not appoint a third doctor. The reason it gave at that stage was the suggestion that the federal government had withdrawn the program. That was blatantly dishonest, which we proved very, very quickly. Pauline Gray from the Health Action Group of Cooktown fought a very valiant campaign in having that position of doctor reinstated with the full support of the local community. After we had proved the inaccuracy of its suggestion, Queensland Health then came back and basically said that there was an additional cost there that it could not afford; that the Medicare rebates were not covering its costs. But, with community support, eventually on 25 May Queensland Health relented and, as a consequence, that position of third doctor was retained.However, we are now fighting a similar battle in Weipa where two of the three doctors are leaving. Queensland Health has decided that it cannot afford to fully replace those two doctors and it will be replacing two doctors with one. Weipa is a community of several thousand.Mr Deputy Speaker, you would be aware of the problems we have in Aboriginal communities like Napranum and Mapoon of large Aboriginal populations with serious health problems. Queensland Health is removing the private service completely and the area will have only two instead of three doctors. There is a hospital in Weipa where there are about 16 patients at any given time and there is all the after-hours work plus, as I said, several thousand people in the area, plus tourists and everything else. It is an absolutely impossible situation and it is little wonder that doctors just cannot cope with staying in the area. But Queensland Health has decided it will not fund that position.I am pleased to see that a campaign has now been orchestrated by the local communi ty in Weipa. Joanne McDermid is organising it, and we have a petition with some 400 concerned residents having signed up so far. We are hoping that commonsense will prevail and we will be able to reinstate the third doctor into the Weipa community. It is something that is absolutely desperately needed, and I would encourage very strongly Queensland Health to give some serious consideration to doing it sooner rather than later.While we are talking about Weipa, I would also suggest that Queensland Health start working a little harder to have installed a dialysis unit funding was approved for probably two years ago. Queensland Health is still playing politics and trying to sort out the logistics of it. In the meantime the Weipa community is still waiting for that $1 million dialysis machine all because Queensland Health cannot sort out issues or is not prepared to come to the table and finalise negotiations. I think that two years is a long time for any community to wait for something as important as dialysis.We all know how important problems associated with renal failure are in Aboriginal communities. At this point in time, people from the West Cape York communities have to travel to Cairns. In effect, the only way they can travel back to their communities is in a coffin. They have no support. There are no facilities in Weipa to undertake dialysis at the moment. As a consequence, these people, once they are unfortunate enough to contract this illness, are being condemned forever to being away from their communities. Given that the money has been available for two years, it is about time that Queensland Health got around to resolving this issue to make sure that these people can stay within their communities.Another issue too with regard to Queensland Health: on 10 September I had a very distressing phone call from a Mrs Bonetti from Mossman. She had just travelled down from Mossman to Cairns for her husband to be admitted for a prostate operation. He had been waiting for some three months and had had the operation cancelled twice before. Being a shift worker at the Mossman mill, he made arrangements to change shifts to come down and have the operation. He had psyched himself up for it. He was very concerned about the long-term ramifications of this condition, whether or not it was likely to be malignant. He had been wearing a catheter and a bag for some three months or more. When he arrived at the hospital to check in for surgery, basically he was told that it had been cancelled, that they had no record of him there and that he would have to leave and come back at some other stage.He was very distressed and so was his wife. They were almost frantic in trying to deal with this issue, given that twice before he had been booked in, he had gone down and on both occasions he had been told to go away and to come back again. Clearly, there are serious problems there with regard to waiting lists and surgery bookings, and I ask Queensland Health to take into consideration the impact this has on families like the Bonettis. It is unreasonable for them to travel that sort of distance with an expectation and then to be turned away at the last moment. I ask that the issue be dealt with very quickly.In the few minutes that I have left, I want to raise another issue relating to that area concerning the Mossman nursing home. For about nine years now the Mossman community has been trying to establish a nursing home. The President of the Mossman Nursing Home Committee, Marj Norris, and the secretary, Shirley Vico, have been tireless fighters, as was the late Bob Gray before his recent demise. His memory has been carried on by his wonderful wife, Joan, in trying to achieve this.Earlier this year I was able to get a commitment from the federal Minister for Aged Care, Bronwyn Bishop, for some 15 high-care places, worth about $400,000. It is going to take a little time, but they are trying to open up a wing that has been refurbished in the Mossman hospital. Unfortunately neither the minister, Wendy Edmonds, nor the local state member, Steve Bredhauer, have taken the time to have a look at this—they have discarded it out of hand, suggesting that it is totally inappropriate.I call on both Mr Bredhauer and Wendy Edmonds to take the time to have a look at the facility. It would be an excellent short-term facility that would prevent people from being taken out of their community and relocated to Cairns and areas further south while a more appropriate facility is being built. I encourage them to take the time to have a look at it so the money can stay within the community and, more importantly, so that older Australians who desperately want to stay in the community can do so.996016:40:009960Hoare, Kelly, MPMs HOARE83YCharltonALP00—I rise to speak today about Aboriginal reconciliation. The steps towards reconciliation in our communities and in our country can take many and varied forms. In my electorate there is an Aboriginal students' hostel named Kirinari. Kirinari comes from the Awabakal language and means `place of learning'. Kirinari is a very important facility for Aboriginal boys attending high school. With accommodation for 14 students, it draws students from all over New South Wales, generally from very isolated communities. They attend Cardiff High School and interact with the local community through students from a variety of backgrounds.There are currently seven students living at Kirinari. They range in ages and attend grades 7 to 10 at high school. Mal and Noelene Honess are the house parents at Kirinari, and they have been living there for 5½ years. It is funded under the Aboriginal Hostels Program and is a project of the Aboriginal Children's Advancement Society. But, as we consistently find with many Commonwealth government funded organisations which provide real and ongoing benefits to our community, such as schools and hospitals, Kirinari receives only enough funding to survive. The hardworking houseparents and the commitment of those young men to successfully continue and complete their schooling is the main reason for its continued successful operation.On Friday afternoon I attended a cleansing ceremony at Kirinari to mark the beginning of the construction of a `SHED'. The first sod was turned by two year 10 students, Joshua Gristwood and Paul Gordon. The Kirinari SHED should be completed by the start of the school year in 2000.Let me go back to the beginning. Early in 1996, the Hon. Bob Brown, the former member for Charlton, was alerted to the fact that the boys at Kirinari had nowhere to exercise or to participate in handcraft or woodwork activities for school projects. Kirinari is a delightful place. It is set amongst bush at Garden Suburb and built on the land of the Awabakal people, who are the original owners and custodians of that land. As well as the accommodation there are communal living and meal areas. There is also a half-size basketball court which is in high demand. These students are avid sportsmen and are regularly appraised by the Knights for their League prowess.There is no covered indoor area available for the activities previously mentioned. In November 1996 Bob Brown launched the Kirinari SHED Appeal, with the slogan `every boy needs a SHED'. The acronym `SHED' stands for Student Handcraft and Exercise Den. The appeal committee was comprised of Bob Brown; Trevor Swann, the Principal of Cardiff High School; Warren Smiles of the Newcastle Knights; Brian Suters of Suters Architects; Barry Grainger, representing Stronachs builders; and Frank Gorrel from the Aboriginal Children's Advancement Society was the treasurer. Alby Lamond, from Herd, designed the SHED. The appeal was launched formally on 2 November 1996 at an open day at Kirinari. I was pleased to be involved in those earlier times, and I am also pleased to continue that support now as the federal member.The appeal kicked off with some very generous donations and `in kind' support. As it progressed, we wrote to many local national and multinational corporations for financial contributions. Although I will not name any of the organisations we approached—and I know many of them do have their own donating provisions—I was extremely disappointed and alarmed that none of them could donate a few thousand dollars to help these young boys in my electorate with their education. The Prime Minister had better take note in regard to his social coalition policy because there will be many Australian people and communities absolutely devastated if the wealthiest in the country cannot support those who this government is deserting. I appeal now to any businesses, large or small, to contact me so that they can make a donation towards this extremely worthy cause. Such a generous gesture on their part would be a positive contribution to the reconciliation process. Please contact me; we do need your assistance to complete the SHED.During the appeal, we were promised a one-off grant from Aboriginal Hostels Australia of $50,000 if we raised as much privately. However, by mid 1997 we still had only our original small contributions, which were being steadily eaten away by various costs. We then had the news that a lady named Ruby Ellen Binns, who had passed away in 1986, had bequeathed her estate to an Aboriginal organisation which was no longer in existence and that Kirinari, along with two other Aboriginal groups, would be submitted to the state attorney-general as a possible recipient for those funds. At this stage, I want to thank and acknowledge Helen Richards from the New South Wales aboriginal affairs department for keeping us fully informed and up to date regarding any possible avenues for funding.In early 1998, we were advised by the state attorney-general that he had approved nearly $75,000 from Ruby Ellen Binns's estate to be allocated to the Kirinari SHED project. On Saturday 23 May 1998, the Hon. Richard Face MP, state member for Charlestown, presented a cheque for $72,369.21 to Bob as the chair of the appeal committee. At this time, Aboriginal Hostels pledged its $50,000 toward the project.None of us in the SHED project at Kirinari have any idea who Ruby Ellen Binns was. I take this opportunity to appeal to anyone who may have known this remarkable woman, or who may have had some contact with her or her family, to call me. It is vital that we know more about the woman who, in 1986, left around a quarter of a million dollars of her estate for the advancement of Aboriginal people. The organisation which she originally named in her will was disbanded in 1979; this means that she made the original bequest prior to 1979. This was a period when Aboriginal children were still being forcibly removed from their families and communities, they were still living in substandard housing without adequate hygiene or running water, and many of the children did not even attend school. It had been only 10 years since Aboriginal adults were given the right to vote, and they had only recently had their rights to their land recognised with the Northern Territory Land Rights Act. Yet here was a woman—who at some stage was living with her sister, a Mrs Elliott, in Birdwood Street, Lambton in the inner suburbs of Newcastle—who wanted to do what she could for Aboriginal people. But no-one seems to know of her. Ruby did not leave this money for public recognition or someone would know of her.We do know that Ruby was born on 18 January 1901, and her birth name was Jarrett. She died on 10 April 1986. We also know that she owned some real estate at Yerrinbool, near Moss Vale. Ruby was living at the Betheden Nursing Home in Cardiff when she passed away. Other than those very few details, we know little about her, and further inquiries have not been enlightening. If anybody listening today has ever been acquainted with Ruby or has any information about her, I would be very pleased to hear from you. I particularly want to ensure that the name of Ruby Ellen Binns and the contribution she made for the good of the community are recognised and preserved.I particularly want to do this this year, as we as a nation are progressing towards true reconciliation with our indigenous people. During these times when a national consultative process is occurring to produce a document of reconciliation, it is necessary that, as a part of the process, these meaningful gestures from Ruby and many others are recognised and their value acknowledged.In the short time I have left, I want to talk about a contribution being made by many of my constituents to the draft reconciliation document. The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, in the process of public consultation, had no plans to hold any forums in the Lake Macquarie and Newcastle areas. I have therefore organised a forum to discuss the draft document, and I am pleased that my colleague, Mr Daryl Melham, the shadow minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs and the shadow minister for reconciliation, has agreed to facilitate the forum.I am extremely pleased that I have so far received acceptances from about 50 representatives from organisations, including schools, ex-service associations, Aboriginal land councils, local government, the United Nations Association, religious organisations, child-care centres, neighbourhood centres, youth groups, trade unions and ALP branches. I look forward to the forum and the contribution that we will make to the continuing process of reconciliation in our community.996216:49:009962Vale, Danna, MPMrs VALEVK6HughesLP10—In my last grievance speech, I brought before this House the problem of the increasing use of illicit drugs amongst our young people. I do not believe that there is another problem facing the nation today as alarming to parents as the increasing use of illicit drugs. Not only does the use of illicit substances cause death, suicide, mental and physical illness, depression and misery to countless thousands; it also impacts upon families and the wider community in the most tragic way.I want to record my congratulations to the Prime Minister and this government for the serious and continuous commitment it makes to the young people of this nation through the government's innovative Tough on Drugs strategy. This commitment is reflected in the $516 million allocated over the next four years to important health related drug strategies. However, confusion surrounds the policies with which all governments, with the exception of the Northern Territory government, have addressed the illicit drug issue since 1985. I am encouraged that our Prime Minister now uses terms like `prevention' and `early intervention'. This leads me to believe that there is a significant change at executive level in how our government will progress this issue in future.For the past 15 years, governments have had a drug policy called `harm minimisation'. This policy begins with the premise that all children will experiment with drugs, so society should teach them how to do it with safety, minimising the harm they will experience. This policy includes initiatives like the methadone program, needle distribution, heroin trials, so-called `safe shooting galleries' and safe use education in our schools. Thankfully, our government has recently introduced a total prevention and early intervention program in our schools as part of its Tough on Drugs strategy.The harm minimisation policy is not aimed at reducing drug use at all. It does not seek to encourage young people to live drug-free lives. It sends a message to our young people that drugs can be okay, as long as you use them responsibly. As the parents in my electorate are well aware, this is a load of dangerous codswallop, and I think it is about time we faced up to the glaring fact that the harm minimisation strategy of the past 15 years has failed. In the face of the increasing use of illicit drugs in Australia, there is no other conclusion. For the past 15 years, there have been many bureaucrats and health professionals in our government agencies who are paid a lot of money to make sure that we get it right.It is high time we asked for some new options and had a fresh look at other strategies, especially a look at the strategies in those countries which have a successful track record of decreasing drug use amongst their populations. We do not have to look too far. I refer to the successful and effective anti-tobacco campaign which markedly reduced consumption here in Australia. We all clearly understand that there is no safe way to smoke tobacco, and the messages to the Australian public sent by this campaign were strong and clear on this point.However, despite the successful `no' campaign against tobacco, there are still intransigent people in key positions in government health departments who continue to peddle the outrageous idea that people can take drugs safely. But the vast majority of parents across Australia understand that there is no safe way for their children to use illicit drugs, and want the government to implement policies which will help their children lead drug free lives. I refer to policies which encourage prevention and, like tobacco, total abstinence in the first instance—policies which tell kids `Just don't start.' This aspect of the Tough on Drugs strategy has been warmly welcomed.In my last speech on this subject, I raised the issue of bias in the media in favour of the harm minimisation perspective. The media bias against those who argue in favour of a policy of harm prevention and demand reduction through total abstinence has not greatly improved. Again, because I think it is so important that the parents of Australia are aware, I repeat the extract from the speech by Mr Bill Stronach, the then Executive Director of the Alcohol and Drug Foundation of Victoria, to the International Conference on Drug Policy Reform in Washington in 1992 when he said:The harm caused by illicit drugs is minuscule compared to legal drugs.But if one takes into account the depression, mental illness and suicide as well as other related deaths due to illicit drugs, there is a very wide debilitating and tragic impact upon the broader Australian community through illicit drug use. Leading authorities on this subject directly attribute the use of illicit drugs with depression, mental illness and suicide, and I refer the House to the work of Dr John Anderson of the Neuroscience Psychological Services at Westmead in Sydney.In his address in 1992, Mr Stronach referred to the current drug policy, stating:. . . We have employed journalists not to churn out press releases but to get in there as subversives and work with their colleagues in the mainstream press.I personally find the word `subversives' used in the context of illicit drugs alarming. That was in 1992, yet any observation of our media outlets indicates that the practice continues unabated.Concerned citizens who may have tried over time to have anti-harm minimisation views published or broadcast are all too familiar with the wall of rejection the foundation subversives have successfully erected. What can easily be identified as drug sympathetic stories and harm minimisation reports easily outnumber the anti-drug reports, especially the total prevention articles. In view of Mr Stronach's own words, which suggest that something sinister is operating within our media, it is difficult to explain this in any other way. The statement that the foundation has employed journalists to work as subversives in the mainstream press must surely break the ethics of journalism. It certainly is as equally alarming as the alleged unethical arrangements between the Australian Banking Association and a certain prominent radio station.As a direct result over the past eight years or so, it appears that the parents of Australia have been subject to a `goebbelisation' of drug policy. There certainly has been little honest and open debate that has sought to properly inform parents. As this matter is one which is of great concern to Australian parents and the future generations of Australians, it is now time—and it is my intention—to ask the minister to refer this matter to the relevant parliamentary standing committee for an in-depth public inquiry.The hard facts stare us in the face. Australia is now reported as having the worst statistics for illicit drug use in the world. Since the only official government policy operating over the last 15 years has been that of harm minimisation, it can clearly be seen that this policy is at fault. It is just not working. It is a failure.It is time to look to those strategies that have been tried and found successful by countries which have reduced the number of users amongst their citizens. Those countries include the United States of America, where the latest surveys reveal that prevention and demand reduction strategies are continuing to bring down the levels of illicit drug use. The United Kingdom and Sweden are two other nations with enviable track records in successfully reducing the use of illicit drugs. In Sweden, illicit drug use by 16- to 29-year-olds is down to nine per cent. In Australia, this group's use is at 52 per cent. Why are we not following such successful track records with proven positive results? Why is it that it is our own children whom we are failing?It seems to me that, besides subversives in the media, there also exist certain interest groups in the health bureaucracies and the health profession who are intransigent and do not wish to change the manner in which our governments approach this problem. There are the `Sir Humphreys' who have closed ranks, protecting their own patch, their own funding allocations and even their own careers. Take the methadone program for instance. This program was initiated in the 1960s, yet try to find out exactly how much it costs the Australian taxpayer to implement and try to find out whether or not it is really effective. Even the Commonwealth Audit Office could not determine its cost-effectiveness because of the way the funding for methadone distribution is delivered by the federal government to the states. This situation is intolerable in a democracy, especially on a subject as serious as this. Such information should be available and transparent and able to be objectively compared with other programs so that people can be assured that government is delivering the best possible solution.We know that methadone, which is a synthetic opioid, is now known to be addictive. We also know that it has killed people and that there are many deaths attributed to methadone—not only patient deaths but also babies and small children. It is high time we asked some serious questions about the success rate of the methadone program and asked about other alternatives. I have come to the sad conclusion that, despite the anecdotal stories of death and addiction caused by methadone, the health authorities continue to defend the program with vigour and determination to the point of attacking any alternative solutions like naltrexone and despite naltrexone's reported 67 per cent success rate across the nation.It is high time for a public inquiry into the methadone program. We cannot close our eyes to the deaths, addictions and abject misery caused by this synthetic opioid which flows so freely under government programs. Failing this, we will all be left with the disturbing conclusion—like the mother who has come to me after the loss of her son to methadone—that, for some people in key positions within our health industry, there is just no money in a reformed drug addict.996516:59:009965Ellis, Annette, MPMs ELLIS5K6NamadgiALP00—Much has been and will be said about the crisis in East Timor, and rightly so for it is of deep concern to us not only because East Timor is within our region—a close neighbour—but also because to see what has happened there, particularly in recent times, is of concern to any fair-minded observer. The planning leading up to that historic vote on 30 August included the establishment of the UNAMET mission in East Timor. I would like to talk about that, particularly the role taken by members of the Australian Federal Police in that mission.Fifty AFP members of the first contingent began training for deployment to East Timor in late May, with detachment commander Tony Curtis in command at that time. Many of the officers concerned came from the ACT—in fact, 17 came from the ACT, 13 came from AFP headquarters in the ACT and another 30 came from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Their duties were to advise the Indonesian police in the performance of their duties in the run-up to the ballot and to escort ballot boxes to counting areas after the vote.In mid-June, former AFP General Manager Alan Mills was selected by the United Nations to head the civilian police contingent. The first 15 members were deployed to East Timor as part of the anticipated 270-strong contingent, which included personnel from police services in Ireland, Britain, New Zealand and Spain. By early July, the final AFP group was deployed to East Timor, with 50 members now positioned across all regions of the island for an anticipated three-month mission.Of course, we now all know only too well what eventuated following the 30 August ballot. Sadly, one locally engaged staff member was stabbed by militia members during escort duties of ballot boxes and, despite the best first aid efforts of two AFP officers who were endangered by ongoing gunfire into their residence, that staff member died. We all saw the news footage—especially when the threats to the civilians became so serious that hundreds, in fact thousands, of them stormed the fence of the UNAMET compound, fleeing the militia attacks. It was not until I had the recent opportunity to speak to one of those returning AFP officers that I began to comprehend exactly what happened in the dimension of one who experienced that horror.Emotionally, the AFP members have been through a great deal. They were, in some cases, in East Timor for three months. In that time they were able to develop relationships with the East Timorese within a community policing role. I know of one member who began English language classes for the local people. I understand that up to 40 adults and children attended—he did not mind who they were. In the one room he taught both pro-autonomy and pro-independence supporters—he even had a retired TNI man there as well. It was this sort of approach which helped bring together the differing factions at that community level. In the weeks before the escalation of extreme violence, much was done by the AFP members to encourage the confidence of the local people in the upcoming ballot. A great deal of faith and belief in themselves and their future occurred during this time.When the situation deteriorated to the point where withdrawals began, it was very difficult for these members to leave East Timor and to leave these local people, whom they had gotten to know so well. I have been told that, within half an hour of the announcement of the ballot result, gunfire could be heard and they knew that the worst had begun. Some members of the AFP UNAMET contingent stayed on in the UNAMET compound, as we know, until the very last. In fact, I understand that five volunteered on 10 September and by 13 September, four of them—plus Mr Mills—were still there. They were able to, and they wanted to, work to ensure the safety of those left in the compound, hoping their presence would deter the attackers outside. I have heard of at least one member suffering from malaria, and I know that appropriate counsel ling is taking place to assist in emerging from these experiences.As a police officer in Australia, if you see or know of something happening that is wrong and against the law, you can intervene—you have been trained to do that. In the case of the contingent to East Timor, the police saw many things happen—from the unlawful to the inhumane and terrible—yet, despite their training, they could not in the overwhelming majority of instances do anything but protect those who were still in their care.This afternoon gives me the opportunity to recognise and pay tribute to the role played by members of the AFP in East Timor. Obviously, I have a very strong personal interest as so many of those people actually came from this territory. I know the ongoing debate will bring to the surface much more information than that to which I refer today, and I will welcome those developments. A full and proper debate on the East Timor crisis must occur. In the meantime, I know all members of this House will join me in recognising the uniqueness of the UNAMET and AFP roles in East Timor. I truly believe that we are only just beginning to understand what these representatives of ours have done in East Timor on our behalf.Last week I had the great pleasure of representing our leader at Government House, handing out honours and bravery awards. It would not surprise me at all to know that, at some stage in the future, some members of this AFP contingent may emerge in that forum or in many other forums around the country. There is absolutely no doubt. The footage on the news services is one thing and we all agree in this place—across all political divides—that what we saw was pretty horrendous. After speaking to at least one returned member, I am of the view that we need to hear more and we need to fully understand exactly what these people did. I agree—as I think the AFP members agree—that to be armed in those circumstances would have given us a much more unacceptable outcome. There is no question about that. But when you hear of the outright attacks on these people by the militia, it is pretty hard to understand— and I am thankful that we do not have to—why we have no casualties in this group. However, as I said, at least one locally engaged person unfortunately did die at the hands of a militia attack.I repeat again that the role of the AFP members in representing us in their work in East Timor must be—and would be—thanked and applauded by everyone, across all political divides in this place. I look forward to having the opportunity of listening to, and talking further with, some of those returned members of the AFP in the very near future.996617:07:009966Kelly, De-Anne, MPMrs DE-ANNE KELLYFK6DawsonNP10—Today, as Australian forces land on East Timor, our best wishes and prayers are with these brave men and women and with their families and friends. As the Prime Minister has said, there is a risk of casualties as the situation is fraught with danger. But, equally, these young men and women are highly trained professionals who go to East Timor knowing that they have our overwhelming support and the comfort of also knowing that they are part of a United Nations peacekeeping force. We should all be encouraged by the statement by the commander of the international force, Major-General Peter Cosgrove, that he received first-class cooperation from the Indonesian military on East Timor during a three-hour meeting with them in Dili on Sunday.As Chairman of the Australia-Indonesia Parliamentary Group of the International Parliamentary Union, I wrote to the Indonesian Ambassador, His Excellency Mr S. Wiryono, on 9 September. In that letter I wrote:You should be assured that there has always been an enduring respect and supportive interest for Indonesia in Australia. This is no better illustrated than by the fact that 45 Members and Senators from all political parties have voluntarily joined the Parliamentary Group I have the honour of chairing.My letter continued:As close neighbours, our two nations have had a generally good and close relationship and, again as close neighbours, we have come to regard Indonesia as a friend who shares our fundamental beliefs in the need for regional peace and co-operation.I wrote:Against this solid background over half a century, the reaction of Australians to the East Timor crisis has gone beyond dismay to deep concern and distress. I cannot stress enough to you how deeply the crisis has impacted on Australians. There is a real feeling of bewilderment that East Timor has descended into chaos and that, despite the public assurances and efforts of your Government, the violence and lawlessness continues.I urged the ambassador to convey the view of Australians that the security and freedom of the people of East Timor should be fostered and respected, given that they had overwhelmingly made their choice about their future, and added:The statesmanlike approach taken by the Indonesian Government in facilitating the Timorese poll was rightly admired and it must be of concern to your Government as it is to our people that such a distressing outcome has unfolded.The ambassador kindly and promptly replied to me the next day—10 September—and wrote that he could understand my concern. He wrote:Your concerns will be duly conveyed to my Government in Jakarta. Indeed, we appreciate very much the manner in which you have expressed your concerns, without inciting ill will and not framed in an inflammatory style. This is the kind of attitude which I consider to be very helpful.Significantly, the ambassador did not seek to deny what he described as `the worsening situation in East Timor'. Also very significantly, he wrote:I appreciate your assurances that there has been an enduring respect and supportive interest for Indonesia in Australia. Indeed, our two countries are destined to be neighbours, and what providence has arranged we shouldn't let drift asunder.This point made by the ambassador is of fundamental importance and should never be forgotten, especially now when the relationship between Indonesia and Australia is undeniably under significant stress. It seems to me that the more extreme of the protesters have forgotten the simple fact of geography and the need to have a broader historical perspective. There have been some in Australia, no doubt motivated by the distressing television coverage, who demanded that Australia immediately send troops into East Timor without any invitation from Indonesia. It is to his credit that Alexander Downer has very calmly and with commonsense refuted any such action, which would obviously be seen in a very hostile light by our Indonesian neighbours.To be a good neighbour, one must at least work to understand the historical and cultural factors that influence how our neighbours think and how they view the world. While this means that our Indonesian neighbours must appreciate our deep concern for human rights, it also means that we must appreciate that they were genuinely surprised by the referendum result in East Timor. Indonesia, rightly or wrongly, saw itself as a stabilising influence there, having spent some $US750 million, or about $US120 million a year, according to its government. There was a widespread view in Indonesia that East Timor was `a brother to the Indonesian people'. When I consider Indonesian media reports, there is no doubt that the Indonesians have felt that their national integrity is at stake and that they are being shamed before the international community. In saying that, I do not for one moment make any apologies or excuses for the appalling tragedy in East Timor.Our government has provided a measured response to the crisis over the past several months and the Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs are to be congratulated on their resolve and their determination. There has been criticism that the Prime Minister should not have negotiated with President Habibie because he was president in name only, without any real power and without any real future. That raises the question: with whom should an Australian prime minister discuss any issue of mutual concern between our country and Indonesia if not the President of Indonesia? There has been criticism that our intelligence was poor, yet even the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said as recently as 10 September:Nobody in his wildest dreams thought that what we were witnessing could have happened.The fact is that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs spent months discussing the issue at the very highest levels, including with President Clinton, and warning that a concerted international response was needed. What needs to be understood, if we are to both ensure a just outcome in East Timor and rebuild our relationship with Indonesia, is the history and nature of Indonesia itself and, specifically, the role of the military there. Indonesia was born after a painful struggle against colonial masters; the freedom fighters who achieved that victory were hailed as heroes and the traditions of the modern Indonesian military grew from that. It would be both insulting and patronising to make subjective judgments about the nature of Indonesian society and the role of its military exclusively from the perspective of our Western tradition.More recently, Indonesia has undergone enormous changes. It was hit by the devastating economic crisis, which impacted with crushing effect on the country. Also at this time there has been a steady movement towards a more open and democratic government after the fall of President Suharto. In November, the Indonesian parliament will decide who is to be the next president. The events in East Timor will undeniably have a significant effect upon that result. It is important that whoever is elected president does not have any false impression that the people of Australia regard Indonesia with distrust or suspicion.The Indonesian ambassador made an important point in a speech he gave on 20 August last to the Australia-Indonesia Business Council in Sydney. He said:In the educational field from 1998, and for the first time, there were more Indonesians studying in Australia than from any other Asian country. Ninety-five per cent of these were private students. There may well come the day when a majority of Indonesian's new band of leaders in government, in the bureaucracy and in business had received at least part of their formal education in Australia.He also made the point that there are now more Australians visiting Indonesia than any other country, apart from New Zealand.The long-term effect of this level of contact cannot be underestimated. It is to everybody's eventual best interests that such contact is fostered and encouraged so that the deeply unhappy circumstances surrounding the current situation are rectified. As I said earlier, the Prime Minister and the government have responded to this crisis with resolve and determination. There has been a significant redefinition of our relationship not just with Indonesia but also with the United States. We all hope and pray that the forces in East Timor, will all return safe and well. Australia has a dual aim: to work constructively for peace in East Timor with genuine reconciliation of East Timor and Indonesia, and to work steadily and thoughtfully to strengthen our valued relationship with Indonesia in the mutual interests of our two peoples.996817:16:009968Jenkins, Harry, MPMr JENKINSHH4ScullinALP00—On a day on which, for many Victorians, the working week starts with a little glint of sunshine which did not exist last week, firstly I want to grieve over the actions of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, Senator Ron Boswell, who, in the week before the calling of the Victorian state election, came down to open the portion of the Western Ring Road between Edgars Road and the Hume Highway. The good senator was well within his rights to be involved in the opening ceremony because, in fact, that portion of the ring-road had attracted federal government funding.As the local member, I was a bit disappointed that the courtesy was not shown of extending me an invitation to that event. Having said that, there are much wider issues that need to be addressed. Having had a go at the good senator, I hope that he looks at these issues. The reason that there was federal funding for that portion of the road was that that part of the ring-road connects with a potential route for the Hume Highway deviation. The suggestion is that there should be a Hume Highway deviation just past Craigieburn down to the Western Ring Road.Regrettably, this portion of the proposed road is quite controversial because a number of environmental matters need to be taken into account. On other occasions, I have mentioned the need to have these potential routes properly analysed and the subject of an environmental impact statement. A number of species are covered by the Endangered Species Protection Act, such as the plains wanderer and the striped legless lizard. Also, there are a range of native kangaroo grasses on the plains that will be traversed by this road.The state government—I am not sure whether it is staying or departing; all Victorians are in this quandary at the moment—the Kennett government, vacillated over decisions to do with this road. That has led to further complications in the local road structures in the southern portions of the city of Whittlesea, which have been exacerbated by the opening of the Western Ring Road because the Western Ring Road now only has an interchange with Edgars Road. For traffic which used to travel along Mahoneys Road and would then go into High Street, there is not an interchange of the ring-road with High Street at Thomastown. Therefore, traffic that might be proceeding along the ring-road—it would go onto Edgars Road in order to proceed north—now has to use what is basically a residential road, Kingsway Drive in Lalor, in order to make its way across to High Street to proceed north along to Epping.The difficulty is that VicRoads have suggested that they did not believe there would be any increase in the amount of traffic that would be using the Edgars Road, Kingsway Drive route. That defies any logic. The point is that traffic that is proceeding along the ring-road will not be using High Street but will be using Edgars Road and will end up going along what is most definitely just a residential road that could not properly carry the traffic it had before the opening of the ring-road.The other issue which is of very great importance and needs addressing by either the federal government and the state government or both is the fact that the potential re-routing of the Hume Highway crosses Cooper Street. In its rush to try to gain brownie points in the run-up to the election, the state government announced that it was going to fund the widening of Cooper Street. It claimed that it could not go into the planning stage of widening that road because its intersection with a potential Hume freeway was unknown. I think this is a tragic furphy. The Cooper Street issue was a very big issue. It was one of the reasons why Andre Haermeyer was able to not only retain but gain a substantial and significant swing to him in the seat of Yan Yean. He had been targeted by Jeffrey `Glib' Kennett as one of the marginals that Jeff thought he could win.Andre has been maintaining that the road needs to be widened and it needs to be widened now. For VicRoads and for the state government administration to suggest that there are reasons why they cannot get down and do the proper planning is completely erroneous. They should get down and cooperate with the local government unit, the City of Whittlesea, which is quite willing to make sure that they do the right thing, to ensure that the widening of the road takes place. If a Bracks government is put in place, I am sure that they will make this a priority. If the Kennett government continues, this will be a local test of whether Jeffrey `Glib' Kennett actually has any humility and understands the message he was given on Saturday.Whilst there are still the two options, it is a bit difficult to know what conclusion we can come to. This was just one of those local issues that the previous state government ignored. It ignored other local issues such as hospital conditions and the way in which the Northern Hospital has been put in place, something which I have regaled the Minister for Veterans' Affairs about because it was part of a deal to do with the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre. The situation of the northern suburbs hospitals is quite problematic, but hopefully it might be rectified by the result that we had in Victoria on Saturday.I hope that VicRoads will take the responsibilities that they have to ensure that Cooper Street, which has had a number of fatalities, will be improved, that they will not blame others for their inability to do the proper planning and that they will proceed with haste to ensure that that road is widened. I believe that the parliamentary secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister might do the right thing and take an interest in this, as a local issue. He cannot say that he is not aware of that part of Melbourne. He visited in the week before the announcement of the election to be part of the PR machine that was the opening of the ring-road. I hope that we see cooperation between the spheres of government to ensure that this important project goes ahead. As I have said, the City of Whittlesea is quite willing to do whatever is required of it. We need some willingness on behalf of a state government and also, because this potentially might be part of the national highway network, some willingness by the federal government to be involved in the appropriate planning to ensure that they put in place this important local project.Mr Deputy Speaker, I know that in your capacity as the member for Menzies you might not agree, but the result on Saturday was certainly a very pleasing result. It was perhaps a little unexpected by some that the Victorian people would take a wake-up to what has been happening over the last few years, but they have certainly done so and have well and truly given a good message to the coalition parties in the state of Victoria.10000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Andrews)—As the time for the grievance debate has expired, the debate is interrupted. I put the question:That grievances be noted.Question resolved in the affirmative.Bills9970Messages from the Governor-General reported informing the House of assent to the following bills: A New Tax System (Commonwealth-State Financial Arrangements) Bill 1999 A New Tax System (Commonwealth-State Financial Arrangements—Consequential Provisions) Bill 1999 Customs Tariff Amendment Bill (No. 1) 1999 Customs Amendment (Temporary Importation) Bill 1999 Commonwealth Grants Commission Amendment Bill 1999 Bills9970The following bill was returned from the Senate without amendment or request: Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Youth Employment) Bill 1999 Bills9970r6469970Bill returned from the Senate with amendments.Ordered that the amendments be taken into consideration at the next sitting.Bills9970r8969970Debate resumed from 2 September, on motion by Mr Slipper:That the bill be now read a second time.upon which Mr Kelvin Thomson moved by way of amendment:That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:"the House condemns the Government for:(1) its continuing attack on superannuation, this time to do it yourself superannuation funds;(2) the uncertainty, confusion and cost this legislation will force on small businesses which operate a superannuation fund;(3) imposing on businesses a destructive superannuation policy which is unsupported by evidence that it will achieve a positive outcome for retirees; and(4) poor administration and policy reversals resulting in the delay of some 15 months in introducing this legislation".17:27:009970Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON8K6HunterALP00—I rise in support of the amendment put forward by the member for Wills. The Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 4) 1999 is an important one for small business. It is important in terms of business investment strategies and retirement income security. All these super changes, including the GST, the Ralph review on business taxation, changes to fringe benefits tax and the introduction of the pay-as-you-go remittal system, are all combining to create an atmosphere of uncertainty hitherto not experienced by the small business sector. The bill that we are debating now in this place and the government's mismanage ment of the issues it deals with are significantly adding to that uncertainty.I can predict that some members of the government side will challenge me on my contention that small business at the moment is facing new levels of insecurity. They do not need to take my word for it; they need only turn to the latest Yellow Pages small business survey, which indicated that 74 per cent of the 1,200 small firms surveyed are worried about the complexity and the paperwork burden associated with the government's ANTS package. Forty per cent believe they will be worse off under the GST. These findings are in line with the findings of my own survey, which I recently conducted across nine electorates with a small business sample similar to the size of the Yellow Pages survey.We are getting a consistent message here that, despite the Howard government's pre-election promise to cut the paperwork burden for small business—indeed, the promise was by 50 per cent—that commitment was a farce. It is an uncontestable fact that the paperwork alone associated with the GST will add three to four hours a week to the time small business people spend moving paper. According to the government's own Bell report, small firms on average already spend 16 hours a week on paperwork compliance and other administrative activities. Of these 16 hours, they found that four are devoted to government paperwork. With respect to the GST alone—not taking into account the bill we are discussing today, the FBT changes and all those others I mentioned earlier—the government wants to now double that to around eight hours a week.I began by talking about new levels of uncertainty in the small business sector. Apart from the GST, you could not get a better example of government mismanagement contributing to those levels of uncertainty than the one we see with respect to the do-it-yourself superannuation changes that this bill deals with.It is worth having a look at the chronology of events. The saga began with the 1998 budget, when the government announced its plans to effectively do in excluded funds by restricting to five per cent fund assets which can be invested in associated entities or involving associated parties. This in itself would have brought to an end the time-honoured practice of lease-back arrangements. Retrospective operation and the requirement that all funds comply with the new five per cent rule by June 2001 would have forced divestiture and, in doing so, would have generated serious capital gains liabilities. But, worse than that, that retrospective action would have forced parties to renege on lease contracts, and that would have generated significant financial penalties for breach of contract, some of them very serious indeed.Just two weeks after the 1998 budget, we saw a backflip from the government—thankfully—in the form of an announcement that the legislation would be grandfathered. Then, in March and April of this year, the government released the exposure drafts for this bill and for Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 3) 1999 .The country's 180,000 do-it-yourself super funds and the small business people who operate them have been living with this uncertainty now for much more than 12 months, and the uncertainty continues. That uncertainty has caused the operators of small firms worry, concern, time and money. That concern has been voiced by the CPA organisations and highlighted in media reports, a number of which I highlighted when I spoke to the precursor to this bill, the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 3). That bill established a new category of excluded funds, to be known as self-managed funds. The funds must have fewer than five members, each member must be a trustee and all must be in a family or business relationship.The opposition does not have any great difficulties with those propositions, but the real sting is in this bill—rather than bill No. 3, which was the precursor—which we will be opposing in the absence of further Senate consideration. This bill seeks to address a very small, isolated problem, some abuse of the system, by taking a hammer to what is effectively only a peanut. By amending the coverage of the in-house assets rules so that they include investments in loans to and lease arrangements with a related party, the government has changed the very nature of small business do-it-yourself schemes.The five per cent cap on fund assets which are invested in associated parties really is going to change the nature of these operations. In the 1996-97 year the return on investments for these excluded funds on average was about 11 per cent. I know there are a few big funds around the place that would like to be able to boast that sort of success. Their investment strategies are conservative but they are producing results.What the government wants to do is mainstream do-it-yourself superannuation, to the detriment of those funds and those small business operators who rely upon them both for their investment strategies and for their retirement incomes. This will impact on small business operators in a number of ways. First, it will drag down the return on investments, and there is little doubt about that. Second, it will remove investment flexibility and choice. Third, it will restrict the ability to invest in real property, which in turn is used to accommodate the business concerned. We note the legislation's positive move to allow 100 per cent of the fund's assets to be invested in real property, but this is of no assistance to the firm that does not have sufficient money in the fund to invest in the property concerned.In other words, if a motor mechanic in the electorate of the minister sitting at the table, the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, is interested in using his super as a vehicle to invest in a new workshop, and the workshop is valued at around $200,000 and there is only $70,000 in the fund, he is unable to make the investment he had in mind. That not only has implications for him, his firm and his family or his partners but also has implications for investment in infrastructure, particularly in rural and regional Australia, where this vehicle is very common indeed. This is an undermining of infrastructure investment in rural and regional communities in particular.Superannuation is a very important area of government policy, not only in terms of retirement incomes but also in terms of how it addresses savings problems in this country and how that flows on to other issues such as the current account. Labor is proud of its tradition in encouraging a greater investment in superannuation. The opposition recognise that there are some problems with small funds—do-it-yourself funds. We recognise there is some exploitation taking place, and some strategies have probably been delivering lower returns than they may have if that sort of exploitation was not going on. But this is a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. These are not large problems—not large enough to put into effect legislation that is going to curtail investment in the sector, as this will certainly do.As I began, I said that this is just one issue that is combining with many others to impact on the small business sector. Opposition can be very frustrating, and it is fair to say that you have few victories, but they do come along. The government's backflip on the wine equalisation tax recently was a very good example where the government picked up on Labor's amendments for the cellar door exemption. That was a very important amendment for the tourism sector, especially for the small business part of the tourism sector.Tomorrow we will have the presentation of a very important document—the result of the deliberations of the Ralph Review of Business Taxation. The opposition wants to participate in this debate. This debate has very wide implications for both the small business and the tourism sector, two areas for which I speak on behalf of the opposition in this place. Both of those sectors are very diverse. Some parts of both sectors are very small and some parts are very large. Some parts of those sectors are capital intensive and some parts of those sectors are very labour intensive. As an overview, you would have to say that both sectors are increasingly becoming service based sectors. So you would think that any shift in the taxation system towards supporting the services sector would be healthy for both small business and tourism.Again, both sectors rely very heavily on accelerated depreciation, so there is going to be a very fine balance there. The government has the benefit of the modelling we require to get this balance right. But I say to the government—as I am saying we want to do on this particular bill with respect to sending it to a Senate committee so we can further investigate the ramifications and implications of these changes—we want to be in this debate. We, too, want a tax system in this country which is good for small business. We want a tax system in this country which is internationally competitive and we want a tax system in this country which attracts investment. That investment will also flow into the small business and tourism sectors.These sectors are very important to this economy. I say again that we have a deep seated interest in these sectors, particularly what I call the `new' small business sector—the growing services based sector in the small business world. We want to participate in that debate. We want to participate in this bill before the House now. We think that the government has not properly thought through the implications of the superannuation amendments it has presented to the House on this occasion. That is why we want to send it off to a Senate committee so we can hear from other industry leaders and other people who are going to be affected and determine whether or not there would be a positive or negative impact overall as a result of its adoption. On that basis, I commend the amendment of the member for Wills to the House.17:42:009973Nairn, Gary, MPMr NAIRNOK6Eden-MonaroLP10—The main reason the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 4) 1999 came about stems from the basic philosophy that superannuation funds are generally not permitted to borrow in their own right. This was designed to reduce the risk to retirement income from superannuation funds gearing their assets. If you have a superannuation system where, when people ultimately want to retire and use those funds or recoup those funds for their retirement, there is nothing left because those funds have been able to be invested in a risky situation, then it is not much of a superannuation fund. You then find many people coming back to the government or the public purse to assist them in their retirement. That was the general thrust of superannuation from the beginning.Over a period of time, accountants and others have looked at innovative ways in which they can operate self-managed small funds, in many respects to help small businesses invest. But at the same time some practices have been allowed to occur which have substantially increased the risk of those superannuation funds. That was the reason for the changes to the regulation of `excluded funds' that were announced in the budget in 1998-99. They mainly related to introducing a category of `self-managed funds' which will replace `excluded funds', with the new name reflecting the investment management of the fund. A self-managed fund would be one, for instance, with fewer than five members as with excluded funds, et cetera.When those announcements were made in the budget, there were aspects of that of concern to some people, me included. I will come back to that. Some of the background to the changes was that a survey of excluded funds found that 20 per cent were investing in unit trusts controlled by the members and 13 per cent were leasing or renting assets to associated parties. Effectively, companies were setting up unit trusts as a structure and they were being used to circumvent the rule that prevents borrowing by a superannuation fund. An example of how this was being done would be a business, which could be some sort of corporate structure or a trust or a partnership, that put, say, $50,000 into a superannuation fund. That superannuation fund would then use that money to buy units in a unit trust. The unit trust would then buy a property worth, say, $200,000. The business would pay rent to the unit trust. That rent was usually structured such that it would meet the repayments of the $150,000 that the unit trust had borrowed. At the end of the year, if the business found that it had some spare cash, it could then use that money to put into its superannuation fund, buy some more units and pay off part of that capital. That was effectively the way it was set up for a number of small businesses.In that simplified form, that worked quite well. Unfortunately, as with so many things, things get abused, and I think the real spirit of what was intended went beyond that, hence some of the changes that were announced. The Labor Party complain when they think that you have not consulted with all sorts of different people throughout the community, but in this particular instance a lot of consultation went on—firstly, between the Treasurer, the Assistant Treasurer and other members of the government and then with people in the community—about getting this aspect right. That is the reason why there were some changes and why it took some time for this legislation to get in. Our friends opposite complain about that, yet we were having proper consultation to make sure we got it right.I was proud to be one of the people that went to see the Treasurer and the Assistant Treasurer about some of these matters and to provide them with examples of existing funds and the potential effects of this legislation on them. That is why we got grandfathering for existing funds. That is a good thing, that is where consultation works, and no-one should complain about that. We are getting the legislation more correct as a result.Further to the consultation that occurred, I will read the comments of one of my constituents who actually helped me to look at some of these matters. That person is Jan Ryan, who works in Cooma for Michael Boyce and Co., accountants who work very closely with quite a number of small businesses, particularly in the farming sector. When the original stuff came out, she said that they could see some concerns with the sorts of funds that they had assisted in putting together. She said:In our extensive experience in the superannuation area, the arrangement of a Super Fund owning a related unit trust (holding rural property) was often the only way to entice farmers into superannuation. There is an inherent suspicion of superannuation by farmers (in particular) and this arrangement allowed them to hold in their Funds a tangible asset which they understood and controlled. Commercial rates of return were paid on the use of the property by the operating entity. In view of the massive problems evolving in Australia in regard to intergenerational transfer of farms, this arrangement provided an excellent opportunity for farmers to make plans for retirement using superannuation—something that had not happened previously. In fact, it is our experience that many farmers would not even consider superannuation prior to this opportunity. That was a concern for me and that is why we were able to get some of the changes made, and the grandfathering as well, to assist in those particular circumstances. The grandfathering means that the existing funds will have quite substantial time to continue those arrangements.Other matters have been introduced which will be of great assistance for small businesses investing in property. I refer in particular to being able to extend the business rural property exemption for excluded funds from 40 per cent to 100 per cent; that is, a superannuation fund with fewer than five members will be able to invest up to 100 per cent of its assets in business premises that are leased to members or the employer sponsor of the fund. I think that is a very positive outcome that has resulted from this.Throughout the debate that has occurred so far the opposition have made merry of their feelings that aspects of these changes are going against small business, as if that is the most major thing that small business will consider. At least I can speak with some authority in that regard, having kept a small business with 20-odd employees going during the heyday of a Labor government when interest rates went well over 20 per cent. The highest we got to was 21.75 or 21.95—I cannot recall which now—on a very sizeable overdraft and there were similar, if not higher, interest rates on the leasing of vehicles within our company.I can tell you that those sorts of things mean far more to small business than anything else when it comes down to the bottom line. We can play around, talk and nitpick about the processes of various aspects of superannuation funds until the cows come home, but at the end of the day the thing that affects small business by far and away the most are those sorts of things—the high interest rates which we lived through in the late eighties and early nineties. They were damn hard times, I can tell you. Something that I will never forget in my life is the negotiation I constantly had with the bank to keep that business going and to keep all those people employed. I am proud to say that every single one of them remained. We may not have paid ourselves for many weeks but the employees remained. They were certainly the tough things, so interest is much more important than the various other aspects that are often raised by our friends opposite.I was not going to speak at great length on this bill because others have covered all the technical aspects and I would be only repeating them. I can stress only that I certainly did have some concerns. I understood the reasons why we were introducing these measures—to overcome some of the abuse of what seemed to be a legitimate use of the law, and I think that is an aspect that parliament has to deal with. It is all about integrity of superannuation and also about limiting the risk of superannuation, which has to be paramount at the end of the day. At the same time I want to make sure that we are continuing to encourage small businesses to be involved in superannuation and to invest in their premises, particularly in rural and regional areas where businesses are doing much more investing than anybody else. We must continue to encourage them to do that.Lack of capital continues to be a problem in that respect, and if we can structure things in such a way that superannuation can be utilised I think that is very good. Investments via that superannuation can help to overcome that lack of capital. I also will watch very closely how these new measures do work in that respect, because I would not like to see a limitation occurring out of the detail of some of these things. Often they are only worked out after some time, but the early indications since the announcement in the budget last year were that these sorts of structures are continuing to be used and developed. It has not stopped these types of structures overnight, as some people thought it would. As I say, I will continue to watch that and its effect on small businesses and their investment in superannuation, particularly in the rural and regional towns of my electorate.17:53:009975Albanese, Anthony, MPMr ALBANESER36GrayndlerALP00—This bill, the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 4) 1999 , proposes a number of restrictions on investment rules for superannuation funds which will have a particular impact on self-managed or do-it-yourself superannuation funds. The government claimed in the 1998 budget that this measure would not cost any revenue. It also claimed that it would not bring any savings. If this is so, the question is: why is this measure necessary?We have been led to believe that this bill is based on the findings of a survey conducted in 1997 by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, yet APRA has refused to reveal the methodology for choosing the funds that participated in the survey. This survey involved only 1,000 of the over 180,000 registered do-it-yourself funds in Australia. How can we be expected to believe that the findings of this survey have any validity? If the methodology was valid, APRA should release the details of the methodology.The government itself has demonstrated enormous uncertainty over these reforms. They were first announced in a different form in the 1998 budget. Then on 28 May 1998 the Treasurer announced that the government had already changed its mind. In April 1999 the government announced even more changes. But even then, one year after the first announcement, the government still was not sure about exactly what to do. On 11 August 1999, when this bill was introduced into the House, it was revealed that the government had changed its proposal yet again. Despite this lengthy process of policy backflips, the bill still lacks the support of many of the people it will most affect. It is still opposed by many small business owners in do-it-yourself funds and by accountants who administer these funds. In summary, this is a lengthy and complicated bill that proposes a number of changes that are simply unnecessary, yet the government continues to ignore issues on which the superannuation industry agrees there is a need for reform.One of the areas in which there is agreement from the superannuation industry, let alone the contributors to the superannuation industry products, is the issue of the removal of discrimination against people in same sex relationships. My greatest concern about this bill is that it shows just how wrong the government's priorities are. Why prioritise the highly questionable reforms proposed in this bill over reforms which are desperately needed to prevent the hardship and heartache suffered by Australians in same sex relationships who are now denied access to superannuation benefits? As I have reminded the House on many occasions, current superannuation legislation denies the existence of same sex relationships. This prevents partners from accessing death benefits or sharing retirement benefits. The government has consistently supported the continuation of this disincentive to contribute to superannuation. Why would people in same sex relationships make personal contributions when superannuation legislation discriminates against them and treats them as second-class citizens? The government's message to people in same sex relationships is clear: minimise your investment in superannuation and get your money out as soon as you can.I first raised the issue of equal rights to superannuation for same sex couples in this House during an adjournment speech on 10 December 1996. When the government failed to take action, on 22 June 1998, in the previous parliament, I introduced a private member's bill to give same sex couples the same rights to superannuation benefits as heterosexual couples. Following the October 1998 election, I reintroduced the bill, the Superannuation (Entitlements of Same Sex Couples) Bill, on 7 December 1998 after the proroguing of parliament and that election. Since then I have raised this issue on three further occasions, including in the second reading speech for that bill, which we brought on to ensure that the legislation did not lapse off the Notice Paper. I note from today's Notice Paper that, unless it is debated in the next three sitting Mondays, it will lapse again, so once again it will require action just to keep it on the Notice Paper.The government has had a number of opportunities to implement reform and to correct this situation. In February this House considered the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 1998, which contained changes which allow superannuation funds to amend their rules to accept binding death benefits nominations from contributors. That bill was all about giving effect to the wishes of superannuation contributors. This was the perfect opportunity to correct discrimination against same sex couples, yet the government failed to act. As I said in my speech in the debate on that bill, some same sex couples may be able to slip through a loophole as a result of that bill, but it did nothing to address the very clear legal discrimination that continues to exist.The issue of equal rights for same sex couples should not be an issue of party politics; it is a human rights issue. This was made very clear by Human Rights Commissioner Sidoti when examining the effect of Commonwealth superannuation legislation on equality of opportunity in employment. Commissioner Sidoti's inquiry addressed the Superannuation Act 1976, the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Act 1973, the Superannuation Act 1990 and the Military Superannuation and Benefits Act 1991. He found:In denying to surviving same sex partners of superannuation fund members an entitlement to benefit, these acts contravene the prohibitions on sexual preference discrimination in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Labour Organisation Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention (ILO III), both of which are scheduled to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986.I have supported equal rights for same sex couples as an issue of basic fairness. I have always thought that the Australian ethos was to give everybody a fair go. But this issue is no longer just about fairness and equality; it is now clear that it is about our human rights obligations in the international arena. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is one of the major international human rights documents. With the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, it forms the International Bill of Rights.I would remind members of the House that not so long ago Australia was embarrassed on the international stage when Nick Toonen was forced to go to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations to highlight the fact that Tasmanian anti-sodomy laws breached the ICCPR. Do we have to wait for Australia to be embarrassed yet again on the world stage before the government takes the very simple step of giving same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples?It is interesting that later on tonight we will be debating the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1999 . The government, in this piece of legislation, seeks to dilute the powers and influence of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission—quite an extraordinary situation to be occurring in 1999. The way in which the report by HREOC was tabled in this parliament—on a Thursday, with no statement from the minister, no comment from the government whatsoever—shows the embarrassment that the government has for presiding over what is lawful discrimination in today's society.I would remind the House also that my moving of the private members bill was not my preferred approach. In April 1998, I wrote to the Prime Minister asking for his support. On 25 May 1998, a response came from the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr Chris Miles, the former member for Braddon. He is no longer here, along with a number of his other colleagues from the hardline-Right moralising Lyons Forum of which the member for Warringah is a proud member.XW4KERNOTMs Kernot—Few in number.R36Albanese, Anthony, MPMr ALBANESE—They are fewer in number because the world has moved on. I would remind the House that the then member for Braddon, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, wrote back to me stating:The government is not inclined to amend the superannuation and taxation legislation at this time to recognise same sex partners as dependants and spouses for the purpose of superannuation death benefits.What a slap in the face for people who are affected by the discriminatory state of the current laws. People in same sex relationships face devastating consequences when a person dies. On top of the death of a loved one, the surviving partner may face severe financial hardship. To be told that the government `is not inclined' to show any sympathy is extra ordinarily insulting to a significant section of the population.However, the government is not only failing to act on existing legislation but also actually extending the discrimination. The Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 3) 1999 , which has been before the Senate, proposes a number of changes to do-it-yourself superannuation funds. As it stands, that bill will remove from small funds members who are not related. This will have the effect of preventing same sex couples from setting up do-it-yourself funds. It will also mean that same sex couples who currently belong to do-it-yourself funds will be forced out, and they will be forced to pay capital gains tax and possibly stamp duty on the funds which are transferred. The government is not content with preventing people in same sex relationships from accessing benefits; it now also wants to tax them on the basis of their sexual preference.In maintaining such an intransigent stance on the issue of same sex rights, the federal Liberal and National parties are fast falling behind their party colleagues at a state level. The New South Wales coalition did not oppose comprehensive changes to de facto relationships moved this year by the Carr Labor government. These changes affected numerous areas of the law including inheritance, stamp duty, guardianship, property division, bail, and accident compensation. But, far from opposing these very necessary reforms, a number of coalition members from both the Liberal and the National parties spoke in favour of the government's bill. Coalition governments had previously supported recognition of same sex relationships in relation to inheritance in Victoria and the ACT. Yet this government continues to dig its heels in and fall further and further behind community values and international norms.In the bill before us this afternoon, the government has yet again proposed a definition of `relative' that excludes people in same sex relationships. There is no clear justification for the changes proposed in this bill. Existing legislation requires superannuation fund trustees to invest funds prudently for the purposes of retirement income. What there is agreement on across the chamber is that superannuation is vitally important not just for individuals but for the nation's savings. When we speak about the importance of superannuation in terms of the savings for the nation—which are remarkably low—the Treasurer and all those interested in the economic future of this country recognise that one of the major problems with Australia is our low level of savings. In spite of this, with this legislation and the failure of the government to act the message is, `Superannuation is important and savings are important, but we can afford to exclude a section of society,' which is a view that can only be regarded as narrow-minded.The information we have suggests that do-it-yourself funds currently produce higher returns than other superannuation funds, and that discrimination is being entrenched. It has to be put on the record that it is not just across the political spectrum of New South Wales that reform has occurred. The current Minister for Financial Services and Regulation, Joe Hockey, agreed publicly to second my private member's bill in order to promote the reform process. A number of other members opposite, including the member for Bradfield, have indicated their support for an enlightened level playing field view.Reform and equality require people not to agree with someone else's lifestyle but to agree that they have a right to determine their own lifestyle. I would have thought that those people who purport to support the great free market would say that there needs to be a level playing field from those people who contribute to superannuation funds—that there should not be a different outcome depending upon one's sexual preference. Instead of focusing on the very real problem faced by Australians in same sex relationships, the government is devoting its attention to a series of inadequate reforms, which is why the member for Wills, the shadow Assistant Treasurer, has moved amendments to this legislation. I hope that the government wakes up and catches up before we face yet another round of condemnation by the United Nations about discriminatory practices here in Australia.I put the government and the Assistant Treasurer, Senator Kemp, on notice that unless the government takes action by either adopting my private member's bill or by choosing to amend its own legislation, as it could do at any time through one of these superannuation legislation amendment bills—we are up to No. 4—then I will be moving an amendment to the next appropriate piece of superannuation legislation, along the lines of my private member's bill, to remove discrimination. There will then have to be a vote by the government, the opposition and the one Independent, the member for Calare, on where they stand on this issue.The government has the opportunity to fix the discrimination and to get the credit for fixing it. That would be the easy option for the government. The hard option for the government would be to face a vote on where they stand on this issue and to be dragged kicking and screaming to necessary reform—which the overwhelming majority of people in this House with a conscience vote would clearly support—or, due to the personal views of the Prime Minister and one or two others on the opposite side, vote to entrench discrimination again in 1999. I call upon the government to do the right thing—follow what the coalition members in the New South Wales government have done and support the necessary reform.18:13:009978Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLP10—At the outset I would like to thank all participants in the debate on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 4) 1999 . It will not come as a surprise that we do not accept or support the opposition's second reading amendment.The opposition's assertion that this government is continually attacking superannuation is unequivocally wrong. Since this government came into power, superannuation has continued to grow. Superannuation assets are now around $387 billion—around double the level of five years ago—and they exceed the level originally predicted to be reached by June 2000 by the retirement income modelling unit of Treasury. Superannuation contri butions have also continued to grow, with the strongest growth coming from member contributions, including voluntary contributions. The government has initiated numerous reforms to improve and strengthen the superannuation system, including improved preservation arrangements, the introduction of the rebate for spouse contributions, the introduction of retirement savings accounts, better arrangements for splitting superannuation in the case of marital breakdown, and choice of fund.With respect to the new investment rules, the truth is that excluded funds have continued to grow—that is, funds with fewer than five members. In March 1999 there were 182,000 excluded funds, up from 170,000 in June 1998. During this time, assets in excluded funds have increased from $42 billion to $50 billion. The government welcomes the growth of these funds.One particular initiative the government has undertaken for small business owners with do-it-yourself funds in this bill is to increase from 40 per cent to 100 per cent the percentage of assets that small superannuation funds can use to acquire business real property from members or employer sponsors. Business real property will be able to be leased to members or to employer sponsors. The government has received widespread support for this initiative; in fact, I wish to refer to a number of positive comments that have been made. The superannuation spokesman for the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants, Mr Murray Wyatt, said that the government has listened to the complaints from the sector. He said:There are still some technical issues which need to be addressed, but it is very much a step in the right direction.Mr Ross Stephens, a superannuation director at KPMG, said:. . . this would help many small businesses by providing them with an additional source of capital.Ms Sarah Birkensleigh, a partner responsible for superannuation consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said:. . . the proposed change was a boost for small family owned businesses.Ms Philipa Smith, CEO of ASFA, said:The Government is to be congratulated for responding to the concerns of the superannuation industry on the investment rules . . . The new rules announced by Senator Kemp represent significant and welcome changes.The Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business said:The new arrangements reflect this Government's willingness to listen and respond to the concerns of the small business sector.I know that all members of this place would adopt the comments made by the honourable minister I quoted.In 1993, the then Labor government proposed no exception at all for real business property from the acquisition of assets rule, and it was the coalition that helped small business by moving the amendment for the 40 per cent exception. This government has not only supported do-it-yourself funds using 40 per cent of fund assets to purchase real business property but it has extended this to 100 per cent to assist small business owners.The honourable member for Wills, in his contribution earlier, indicated that the opposition does not support DIY funds using 100 per cent of their assets to acquire small business property, on the basis that it seems fraught with danger. The government's view is that it will be a matter for fund trustees as to whether or not they will use business real property exceptions.The other requirements of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 will continue to apply, including the requirement that fund trustees formulate an investment strategy which takes into account a range of factors, including the risks and returns of investments. Subject to the general requirements of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, a superannuation fund trustee can already invest 100 per cent of fund assets in a single asset other than in-house assets or assets acquired from a member. The new investment rules ensure that this flexibility also applies to business real property such as a shop or office used for a member's business.The underlying objectives of the investment rules imposed on superannuation funds are longstanding. It was the former Labor govern ment that restricted borrowing by superannuation funds in the 1987 regulations and then again in 1993 in the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993. Not only is the opposition opposing helping small business, through its approach to the business real property exemption they are opposing preserving the integrity of the very rules they put in place. All that this bill does is to make sure that these rules cannot be avoided.The honourable member for Wills was wrong in stating that there is no supporting evidence for the new investment rules. In 1997, the then superannuation regulator, the Insurance and Superannuation Commission, undertook a survey of excluded funds. The survey provided evidence that a proportion of superannuation funds were investing in related trusts, and it appeared that a significant proportion of these trusts were geared. Submissions received on the new investment rules clearly confirm that a number of superannuation funds were borrowing. Borrowing, by its nature, increases the scope for losses, and that is why these longstanding principles are in place.In his speech, the honourable member for Eden-Monaro addressed Labor's claims that these changes are unfair on small business. He recalled vividly the disastrous effect that Labor's high interest rates policy had on his own small business. He emphasised the paramount concern of protecting the integrity of superannuation and the purpose for which superannuation exists. He stressed that this legislation will encourage small businesses which operate a superannuation fund.The member for Hunter claimed that funds should be allowed to invest in geared trusts. I just want to place on the record that superannuation funds are restricted from borrowing in order to limit risk. We must always remember the purpose of superannuation. That has always been an element of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act. The member for Hunter suggested that the bill will reduce the rate of return for small funds. The facts are quite to the contrary. The member for Hunter should note that small funds will still be able to invest in a wide range of investments, and these will remain a matter for fund trustees. The in-house asset rules will apply only to transactions with related trusts and other related entities. It is appropriate that investment in these assets be limited.The member for Hunter suggested that the legislation will reduce investment in rural and regional Australia and harm small business. That is a complete and total nonsense. Superannuation funds will still be able to invest in regional Australia and small business, and the bill addresses only transactions in related trusts and other related entities. As you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker, there are special concessions for small funds investing in business real property.The member for Groom, in his very capable speech, highlighted Labor's policy failures in the area of superannuation, and he emphasised the extensive consultation which the government has gone through in developing the legislation being presented here today.The honourable member for Grayndler, who spoke a moment ago, focused very much on the question of superannuation entitlements of same sex couples. It is an issue with which he has been associated for some time and it is an issue which I do not intend to address at length in my summing up. I have been concentrating on the specific provisions of this particular bill. He did, however, suggest that the government was unsure about what to do with superannuation resulting in delays in bringing this particular legislation forward. The honourable member for Grayndler ought to take cognisance of the fact that this government is a consulting government. We have spoken widely with members of the business community and others. We have given careful consideration to issues which were raised following the original announcement of the new investment rules. Following those consultations, we have made a number of changes, particularly to provide more generous transitional arrangements. The consultative period has been very beneficial because the changes which have been made are changes which were in keeping with many of the submissions that were put to us.There are long-term benefits from ensuring that superannuation savings are invested prudently and preserved for retirement income purposes, including savings to age pension outlays in the longer term. I want to rebut the claim made by the honourable member for Wills that the legislation will lead to uncertainty, confusion and costs on small business which operate superannuation funds, on the basis that the majority of funds will not be affected by these new measures as they are already complying with the spirit of the existing rules. All this bill does is maintain the integrity of those rules. To assist funds which had arrangements in place prior to 12 May 1998 there are generous transitional arrangements. Not only are existing investments grandfathered under the new rules, but special arrangements have been put in place for a range of circumstances, including where interposed entities have outstanding debt.In conclusion, the investment rules are fair and reasonable and serve to further the objectives of retirement income policy in this nation; that is, to reduce risks to superannuation savings and ensure that superannuation is preserved for retirement income. These rules are needed to preserve the integrity of the superannuation rules. At this point in time, I would like to foreshadow a technical government amendment to be moved in the consideration in detail stage. I commend the bill to the chamber. Question put: That the words proposed to be omitted (Mr Kelvin Thomson's amendment) stand part of the question.18:29:00The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker—Hon. D.H. Adams)73Abbott, A. J. Anderson, J. D.Andrews, K. J. Anthony, L. J.Bailey, F. E. Baird, B. G.Barresi, P. A. Bartlett, K. J.Billson, B. F. Bishop, B. K.Bishop, J. I. Cadman, A. G.Cameron, R. A. Causley, I. R.Charles, R. E. Costello, P. H.Downer, A. J. G. Draper, P.Elson, K. S. Entsch, W. G.Fahey, J. J. Fischer, T. A.Forrest, J. A.* Gallus, C. A.Gambaro, T. Gash, J.Georgiou, P. Haase, B. W.Hawker, D. P. M. Hockey, J. B.Hull, K. E. Jull, D. F.Katter, R. C. Kelly, J. M.Kemp, D. A. Lawler, A. J.Lieberman, L. S. Lindsay, P. J.Lloyd, J. E.Macfarlane, I. E.May, M. A. McArthur, F. S.*McGauran, P. J. Moylan, J. E.Nairn, G. R. Nehl, G. B.Nelson, B. J. Neville, P. C.Nugent, P. E. Pyne, C. M.Reith, P. K. Ronaldson, M. J. C.Ruddock, P. M. Schultz, A. J.Scott, B. C. Secker, P. D.Slipper, P. N. Somlyay, A. M.Southcott, A. J. St Clair, S. R.Stone, S. N. Sullivan, K. J.Thompson, C. P. Thomson, A. P.Truss, W. E. Tuckey, C. W.Vaile, M. A. J. Vale, D. S.Wakelin, B. H. Washer, M. J.Williams, D. R. Wooldridge, M. R. L.Worth, P. M.57Albanese, A. Bevis, A. R.Brereton, L. J. Cox, D.Crean, S. F. Crosio, J. A.Edwards, G. J. Ellis, A. L.Emerson, C. Evans, M. J.Ferguson, L. D. T. Ferguson, M. J.Fitzgibbon, J. A. Gerick, J.Gibbons, S. W. Gillard, J. E.Griffin, A. P. Hall, J. G.Hatton, M. J. Hoare, K. J.Hollis, C. Horne, R.Irwin, J. Jenkins, H. A.Kernot, C. Kerr, D. J. C.Latham, M. W. Lawrence, C. M.Livermore, K. F. Macklin, J. L.Martin, S. P. McClelland, R. B.McLeay, L. B. McMullan, R. F.Melham, D. Morris, A. A.Mossfield, F. W. Murphy, J. P.O'Byrne, M. A. O'Connor, G. M.O'Keefe, N. P. Plibersek, T.Quick, H. V. Ripoll, B. F.Roxon, N. L. Rudd, K. M.Sawford, R. W.* Sciacca, C. A.Sercombe, R. C. G.* Sidebottom, P. S.Smith, S. F. Swan, W. M.Tanner, L. J. Theophanous, A. C.Thomson, K. J. Wilton, G. S.Zahra, C. J.Brough, M. T. Wilkie, K.Howard, J. W. Beazley, K. C.Hardgrave, G. D. Snowdon, W. E.Prosser, G. D. Evans, G. J.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the affirmative.Original question resolved in the affirmative.Bill read a second time.9982Bill—by leave—taken as a whole.Amendments (by Mr Slipper)—by leave—proposed:(1) Schedule 1, page 3, after line 13, after item 1, insert:1A Subsection 10(1)Insert: excluded instalment trust , of a superannuation fund, means a trust: (a) that arises because the trustee or investment manager of the superannuation fund makes an investment under which a listed security (within the meaning of subsection 66(5)) (the underlying security ) is held in trust until the purchase price of the underlying security is fully paid; and (b) where the underlying security, and property derived from the underlying security, is the only trust property; and (c) where an investment in the underlying security held in trust would not be an in-house asset of the superannuation fund.(2) Schedule 1, item 6, page 4 (line 13), at the end of the definition of related trust , add ", other than an excluded instalment trust of the fund".18:35:009982Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr KELVIN THOMSONUK6WillsALP00—The government are proposing to move into the consideration in detail stage now. We would expect that the debate should be held at 8 o'clock rather than proceeding now so that we have the opportunity to consider the amendments which they are moving.18:35:009982Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLP10—Mr Deputy Speaker, I am happy for that to occur at 8 o'clock, but the amendments have indeed been circulated and the opposition have had the opportunity of looking at them. But between now and 8 o'clock they will have extra time, and that is fine.Sitting suspended from 6.36 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.20:00:009982Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLP10—On behalf of the government, I am particularly pleased to move these two procedural amendments. Prior to the House getting up for dinner at 6.30 p.m., the opposition expressed a view that it had not been given notice of these two amendments. I would like to place on the record that notice was in fact given on 31 August, and the Assistant Treasurer issued a media release dated 1 September. I would be happy to table that particular media release.In his media release, the Assistant Treasurer pointed out that concerns had been expressed that, under the new investment rules contained in the Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 4) 1999 , a definition of a related trust could have the unintended effect of applying to shares held under a trust arrangement as part of an instalment receipt, such as those used in the first sale of Telstra shares or similar arrangements.To address these concerns, the government will make sure that the definition of `related trust' will not include a trust that arises because the trustee of the fund makes an investment under which a listed security is held in trust until the purchase price of the security is paid and where the underlying security, and the property derived from the underlying security, is the only property of the trust. This exception from the definition of a `related trust' will not apply if an investment in the underlying security would be an in-house asset of the fund.We are particularly pleased to ensure that these amendments are made to the legislation. They are non-controversial—I do not expect the opposition to oppose them. Notice was in fact given on 31 August, and the Assistant Treasurer confirmed that fact in a media release dated 1 September. I commend the amendments to the House.20:02:009983Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr KELVIN THOMSONUK6WillsALP00—The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration is correct in relation to the matter of notice and the matter of the amendment being non-controversial. The point that I would make on this matter is that it does represent the third occasion on which the government has amended its proposals in this area since they were announced in the 1998 budget. After they were announced in the 1998 budget, we saw a great deal of concern expressed by the do-it-yourself superannuation funds concerning the matter of retrospectivity and, indeed, it seemed that it could have catastrophic effects were it to be applied on a retrospective basis. So then we had the first set of changes made by the government after representations made by the do-it-yourself funds and then, later on, after a period of apparent discussion and consultation, we had a second round of changes announced to the do-it-yourself investment rules. Now, following some funds having the opportunity to look at the draft legislation, we have the government coming up with a third set of changes or proposals.I believe that this indicates that the government was very ill-advised in simply making the budget announcements that it did back in 1998 without consultation with the industry and small business. The fact that it has now made three sets of changes but still, in our view, has not got it right—and is still in a situation where there is strong opposition to these proposals from those who will be affected by them—reflects a government which is not prepared to consult in the area of superannuation. It is altogether far too prone to make these `budget night special' announcements that adversely affect people involved in the area of superannuation and, of course, superannuation is something which impacts on us all. Our retirement income is an area which requires some certainty—it requires a knowledge on the part of people that the government is not going to change the rules half way through.It is a matter of concern that this government has made many changes to superannuation, including the ones that are before the House now, without consultation with the industry. The case is that these amendments come before us because the government has been required to make some changes in the light of consultation in the wake of the release of its draft legislation. I express my concern about the government's lack of consultation but, as I indicated at the outset, the opposition has no concern about or is not proposing to oppose these amendments.20:05:009983Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLP10—The government, of course, rejects the suggestions made by the honourable member for Wills. We did put our superannuation legislation out there in the community. We did consult widely with business and with people involved in the superannuation area, and the amendments currently before the chamber are amendments which have resulted from the discussions we have had. So, far from being a government which does not consult, we are a government which is very proud to consult, and we are very pleased that the amendments and the legislation before the chamber in fact reflect that process of consultation. I thank both sides of the House for their support of these particular amendments, and I am pleased to present the supplementary explanatory memorandum.Amendments agreed to.Bill, as amended, agreed to.9983Bill (on motion by Mr Slipper)—by leave—read a third time.Miscellaneous998310000DEPUTY SPEAKERMr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Andrews)—I advise the House that the Deputy Speaker has fixed Wednesday, 22 September 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.Miscellaneous9983Motion (by Mr Ronaldson)—by leave—agreed to:(1) the following Bills be referred to the Main Committee for further consideration: Customs Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1999; and Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment Bill 1999;(2) the following order of the day, government business, be referred to the Main Committee for debate: Communications, Transport and Microeconomic Reform—Standing Committee—Report on Australian Maritime Safety Authority annual report for 1996-97—Government response—Motion to take note of paper: Resumption of debate; and(3) the following orders of the day, committee and delegation reports, be referred to the Main Committee for debate: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs—Standing Committee—Review of Reeves Report on Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act—Motion to take note of paper: Resumption of debate.Bills9984r9059984Debate resumed from 25 August, on motion by Mr Entsch:That the bill be now read a second time.20:09:009984Kerr, Duncan, MPMr KERRRH4DenisonALP00—I suspect that if I have to speak for 20 minutes on this legislation I will be stretching my renowned capacity for debate. The opposition supports the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Border Interception) Bill 1999 . It is intended to amend the Sydney 2000 Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 1996 and the Trade Marks Act 1995. Those pieces of legislation together demonstrate an intention to protect the Olympics from ambush marketing and, of course, to protect the interests of legitimate sponsors and those who are committing substantial funding towards the success of the Sydney Olympics. It would undercut the effectiveness of that protection if goods were able to be brought into this country and were to go on the market in a way which undermined those entitlements and rights.Ambush marketing is the unauthorised association of businesses with the marketing of the events. The organising committee relies on the legal protections it has to the images, the five rings and the various other designs that are associated with the Olympics, so that it can license the use of those signs and images and raise funds through appropriate fees and sponsorships. The act already prohibits people from taking commercial advantage of unlicensed production of such goods and the Sydney 2000 Games Act and the Trade Marks Act contain border interception customs measures to protect the games and the rights of those trade mark owners.However, there is a discrepancy between the seizure power of Customs and its obligation to notify the designated owner of the seized goods under the border interception provisions of both acts. Goods will only infringe those acts if the goods are used in the course of trade or for commercial purposes. What this does is close off a small loophole that dealt with goods coming into the country, low-value shipments, which would not have been caught by the provisions as they were first designed. The opposition is quite relaxed about these provisions. The amendments will not apply to goods imported for personal use. They do not apply to goods which are imported by a single individual, but they do prevent somebody sending a series of small packages into Australia under the designated amount, which would otherwise undermine the legitimate interests of the Olympics committee in respect of the rights that are vested in it under the existing legislation.The opposition is very happy to support this legislation. Its only general comment is that the willingness of the government to enact a comprehensive framework for copyright protection for the Olympics—and, one would hope, to supply, through Customs and the Australian Federal Police, an appropriate regime of policing—might be contrasted more largely with the position that applies to intellectual property at large. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews, that you are Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on which I serve, and one of our inquiries presently is about the enforcement regimes for intellectual property. Whilst obviously our recommendations have yet to be discussed, I think it is quite generally the case that there have been some concerns expressed through the evidence about both the adequacy of the legal regime and the adequacy of resources available through the Australian Federal Police and other enforcement agencies to protect intellectual property rights.We are very happy to endorse this legislation, which really is a belt and braces approach in respect of the Olympics. We have a rolls-royce scheme where every loophole is closed and I imagine every enforcement devised is brought to bear to ensure that the IOC is not offended by unlicensed sales and the availability of unlicensed product in Australia in the course of the Olympics—and the community I think would generally accept that that goes with the territory of holding such an event—but nonetheless when you go to the larger field of protection of intellectual property, not only do we not have a belt and braces regime but many people are inquiring whether we actually have the trousers. I think there is some real sense among those who are engaged in the creation of intellectual property that we are really not adequately able to protect the interests of those who are making their income through the production of ideas, creative processes and the licensing of product.In the long run that will be very much against the idea that the Australian Labor Party wish to develop in respect of the creative industries where we actually see them as being a driving force not just for Australian cultural identity but also for the economic advantage of the nation at large. I do not suspect that the government would wish it otherwise, but I can only speak for this side of the House. We would say, whatever the intentions of government, that it is plain there have been sound deficiencies allowed to emerge in the regime and protection that is available.We are particularly concerned with the enforcement regime because over the past four or five years there has been a significant reduction in reports which I have had made to me regarding the capacity of the Australian Federal Police and other investigative agencies to seriously address breaches of intellec tual property law. That is not to say that the law is completely adequate. In fact, the evidence we are hearing shows that there are many areas where we could make recommendations for improvement to the law. Even if the law were to be improved, unless there is a will, a commitment and adequate resources on the enforcement side to match that legislative framework, then it is likely that the outcomes which the parliament would seek to achieve would not be obtained.I am very concerned because I have had reports that, except in a very limited range of cases, in the vast majority of matters where those who make complaints about breaches of copyright laws, unlicensed products being brought into Australia and the like, the standard response of the Australian Federal Police has been to write a letter indicating that, although they recognise that it may involve an allegation of a breach of a Commonwealth law, they have to make resource and priority decisions and that, regrettably, they are not able to pursue an investigation. I am afraid that has become far too prevalent.That is very much the standard response now in relation to allegations of quite serious breaches of intellectual property laws, laws which require public enforcement not merely private enforcement. It reflects two things: firstly, a general run-down in the resourcing of the Australian Federal Police; and, secondly, even within the resourcing of the Australian Federal Police, inadequate recognition by the government in its working through of agendas with the agency as to how important it is to provide a framework regime in Australia where those who make their livings from the creative side of the production of intellectual product—and that does not just include artists and music production; it includes a whole range of those who are engaged in design work and work associated with labels on products and a range of other activities where essentially either the copyright law or trademark law provides protection—are not able to have adequate protection through law enforcement.I know that our committee is struggling with those issues. I look forward to a report which identifies ways in which the legislative framework can be strengthened. Also, one would hope that we are able to canvass the issue of the adequacy of the resources that are given over to investigative agencies to pursue these matters. Perhaps it is a little like the way domestic violence was regarded some 15 or so years ago, when essentially it was seen as a private dispute. We now look back on the assessment and say, `How could it be so that our law enforcement agencies regarded domestic violence as essentially something which never warranted the enforcement side of the law to intervene, except where grave harm was occasioned to one party?' The consequence of that was that many women and some men lived lives of quiet terror. We slowly recognised that there was a requirement for law enforcement to become much more engaged in that area.It is a very different environment, but the protection of intellectual property is an area where we need to make the same kind of larger mind-set shift of seeing this as not merely a dispute between two commercially interested parties but also a matter in which the nation has a significant interest. If we are going to provide a framework where those who provide services, those who are engaged in creative activity, those who are engaged in the production of software, those who are engaged in the production of film, television and music and those who are engaged in the production of manufactured goods which are associated with trademarks and packaging have confidence that in future their legitimate commercial interests are going to be adequately protected, they have to be aware that criminal infringements of their copyright will be the subject of some investigation.It is true that there will always be minor infringements and the like, and you cannot expect the Australian Federal Police or any other law enforcement agency to pursue every issue that comes before it. But significant breaches of copyright law which go entirely uninvestigated in the first place and then unpunished by criminal law, notwithstanding what the statutes say, really send a very wrong message. Whilst I do not want in any way to downplay what I think should be the primary responsibility of those who profit from such enterprises, they themselves must at least take some share of the responsibility of ensuring that their interests are not taken advantage of. They can hardly complain to us if they make no effort in that regard. On the other hand, if they turn to us and say, `We are putting forward matters to show that there have been breaches of the criminal law,' and then they find that the consistent response of the government is that there are no resources available to pursue it and that we will not elevate this as an issue of any priority, they are entitled to look at our regime and say, `You're not really taking copyright law seriously. You're not taking the economic interests that we have in relation to this intellectual property seriously. You're going through a process akin to a charade.'We are very much aware of the intensity of feeling with the organisation of the Olympics. One of the conditions of holding the Olympics is that we provide a very strict regime of protection for these marks and indicia. Of course, the reason for that is that the Olympics makes the money that turns the whole show on around licensing arrangements which allow only the authorised licensee of those marks to associate themselves with the games as an event.We well understand that these things have a very significant commercial value and that they are not trivial in their consequences. This bill is not addressing the very high end of town, where companies are associated with multimillion dollar sponsorship packages and the like; it is actually addressing quite low order breaches which are potentially available. The only goods that would come in under these small packages of limited value are probably T-shirts or something of that kind. We understand that even that is unacceptable, and we are obviously prepared to pass this legislation through the federal parliament to make the strictest and most comprehensive framework of intellectual property law that Australia has ever had. I am certain that we would then back it up as far as we could with the resources available to us with enforcement measures. That would be expected of us.I think that we have to show the same willingness in the larger environment, again accepting that not every breach will be the subject of investigation or prosecution. The present circumstance, where it is the most extraordinary event only that is pursued and the vast majority of complaints of breaches of intellectual rights that are made to law enforcement authorities are simply dismissed with a standard form letter, appears to me to be very unsatisfactory. The truth is that, as many of the breaches are undertaken by people who have set up regimes which are really shams in their own right, the exercise of civil remedies does not usually provide an adequate measure of recompense to those who seek its protection. I guess that the committee will be coming to the parliament with a series of recommendations which I hope, together with enforcement enhancement, will go towards an improved outcome. I understand that today the government announced what it asserted to be an extra $115 million for the Australian Federal Police. Stripped back, a very significant component of that—I think in the order of $50 million—is going to be obtained essentially through internal cost reduction measures within the Australian Federal Police. So, although an announcement is made of an additional $115 million, essentially there is only $65 million in new money over three years.That may well be at least some start to enable the Australian Federal Police to overcome some of the difficulties it has had. It has not only faced resourcing issues which have limited its capacity to work in this field but also lost some of its most experienced and capable staff in a whole range of areas relating to computer crime. Of course, you would appreciate that when an organisation like the AFP loses some of its most experienced and capable investigators they are very hard to replace. Even though there has been some recruitment at the bottom, the loss of experienced staff at the top has been associated with considerable uncertainty as to the funding base of the Australian Federal Police. Its morale has been reduced. It has responsibility for the whole area of Commonwealth law enforcement, but the menu of matters that it actually pursues in terms of the priorities that it is funded to be able to address has been reducing all the time. That does of course flow through into areas such as this where there has been a real falling off of willingness to take this issue up, notwithstanding its importance to our national economy as a significant area of AFP enterprise. I indicated at the outset that it would be a struggle to speak for 20 minutes. I managed my 20 minutes, but I think it will be a struggle to make the 30.Mr Anthony interjecting—UK6THOMSONMr Kelvin Thomson—He's up to it.RH4Kerr, Duncan, MPMr KERR—Both the minister and the shadow minister at the table, the Minister for Community Services and the member for Wills respectively, have complimented me by expressing confidence in my powers of persuasion, but I think I have reached the point at which I have indicated our approach in relation to this matter. In association with you, Mr Deputy Chairman Andrews, in the work of our committee, I hope we will be able to say some more flattering things rather than critical things about the government's response to copyright law enforcement in due course.20:30:009987May, Margaret, MPMs MAY83BMcPhersonLP10—Next year Australians will share the dreams of our Olympians and Paralympians and invite the rest of the world to `Share the spirit'. The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games will be the largest peacetime event in Australian history. Two weeks after the Olympic flame is extinguished, the sporting prowess will continue at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games. At both events our athletes will test speed, strength and steely determination.Behind the sporting achievements and smashing of world records is a commercial aspect. The lifeblood of the Olympics is corporate sponsorship, and the ability of the Olympic and Paralympic organising committees to attract sponsors depends to a large extent on the exclusivity of the licensed indicia and images. The Sydney 2000 Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 1996 protects official sponsors of the Sydney Olympic and Paralympic games from ambush or parasitic marketing practices by commercial rivals. The legislation also empowers the Australian Customs Service to seize goods suspected of contravening the legislation. According to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee, ambush or parasitic marketing can be defined as the unauthorised association by business of their names, brands, products or services with a sports event or competition through any one or more or a wide range of marketing activities—unauthorised in the sense that the controller of the commercial rights in such events, usually the relevant governing body, has neither sanctioned nor licensed the association itself or through its commercial agents.In other words, corporations using ambush marketing are trying to reap a commercial benefit by associating themselves with a particular event without paying the price. In a submission by the government of New South Wales and the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee on ambush marketing in 1995, examples were given of how these campaigns have been run in the past. An example raised at this committee investigation was that during the Seoul summer games in 1998 a T-shirt manufacturer designed a logo dubbed `Body and Soul' in honour of the summer games. During the 1994 Lillehammer winter games, Wendy's hamburger chain, a rival sponsor to McDonald's, paid for air time during the telecast to promote itself by using spoofs of winter sports while carefully avoiding mention of the Olympics.To protect official sponsors from these sorts of incidents, the Sydney 2000 Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 1996, also known as the Sydney 2000 Games Act, set up a licensing scheme restricting the use for commercial purposes of a range of words, phrases and images. The scheme effectively blocks an unlicensed company from using words, phrases or images to suggest a sponsorship arrangement with the games or other support for them. The list includes `Games City'; `Millennium Games'; `Sydney Games'; `Sydney 2000'; any combination of the word `games' and `2000'; `Olympiad'; `Olympic'; `share the spirit'; `summer games'; `Team Millennium'; any combination of the words `27th' and `Olympic' or `games'; the use of the word `Olympian' or `Olympic' with `gold', `silver' or `bronze'; and the use of any visual or oral representation representing a connection with the Olympic or Paralympic Games.The Sydney 2000 Games Act contains numerous exceptions, allowing for the continued operation of rights and liabilities under the Trade Marks Act 1995 and the provision of factual information, criticism and review of the games such as in newspapers, magazines and broadcasts. The exemption for factual information is a vital distinction between the Sydney 2000 Games Act and an earlier act, the Australian Bicentennial Authority Act 1980. It tried to limit the use of a wide range of words in the run-up to the 1988 bicentennial year, such as `1788', `1988' and `88' in conjunction with `Sydney' or `Melbourne'. In Davis v. Bicentennial Authority, the High Court ruled that the net had been too wide, pointing out that the use of `Family Law Conference Melbourne 1988' would have infringed the legislative scheme. The court said that the legislation allowed the authority to regulate the use of common expressions and made unauthorised use a criminal offence.In his second reading speech, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources, the Hon. Warren Entsch, made a pertinent point that the Sydney 2000 Games Act does not affect the community's fundamental right to freedom of expression. He said:This is particularly the case in relation to words that have passed into common language. It must therefore be emphasised that restrictions on the use of games indicia and images apply only to unlicensed commercial use of the protected indicia and images.The second reading speech of the original bill made it very clear that the Sydney 2000 Games Act is not intended to limit the reasonable needs of sporting bodies to (a) raise money and (b) promote their athletes in the lead-up to the Olympics and Paralympics. Nevertheless, the government still recommends that these bodies negotiate memorandums of understanding with games organisers as a safeguard if they intend to use the protected words, symbols or images.At the Sydney 2000 Olympics Australia is showcasing our best assets. The Sydney Olympic Games will cost more than $2 billion to stage. Commercial sponsorship is crucial. It is expected to provide a large chunk of that figure—$840 million. According to recent estimates reported in the Australian Financial Review, it was reported in August 1999 that approximately $700 million had been raised in sponsorship. Sponsorship is the largest revenue stream, behind only television rights, which account for approximately $1 billion. Principal international Olympic sponsors pay about $US40 million per category for exclusive rights. Obviously all sponsors will want to make sure they are going to get their money's worth before they sign up.In addition, New South Wales has agreed to make up any shortfall in SOCOG's funding. This means that if sponsorship targets are not met it is likely that the citizens of New South Wales will pay. It is crucial to have in place the safeguards embedded in this legislation to ensure sponsorship targets are met and Australians do not lose out. The amendments proposed in this bill will empower the CEO of Customs to identify the owner of imported goods that seek to ambush the Sydney 2000 Olympics or Paralympics marketing and those goods which carry infringing trademarks, whether or not the goods are required to be entered under section 68 of the Customs Act 1901. This is a crucial issue we are discussing. As the period before the games is reasonably short, the CEO is likely to see an increasing number of imported goods that seek to ambush the games marketing.The amendments currently before the House address a discrepancy between the seizure powers of the CEO and the CEO's obligation to notify the designated owner of seized goods under the border interception provisions of the Sydney 2000 Games Act and the Trade Marks Act. In some cases, goods that are entered and are worth less than $1,000 consigned by post or $250 consigned by other means do not have a designated owner. Effectively, the CEO cannot seize the goods as there is no designated owner to identify. This discrepancy undermines the intent of the border interception provisions of the Sydney 2000 Games Act and the Trade Marks Act. The bill currently before the House will amend both acts so that the definition of designated owner will be more appropriate. It will seek to restore the original objective of the acts to allow the CEO to seize all imported goods that seek to ambush the games marketing and goods that bear infringing trademarks, whether or not the goods are required to be entered. The effect of the proposed amendment is to empower Customs to determine that a person is the owner of goods, thereby enabling them to seize all imported goods that are subject to a notice of objection and seek to ambush games marketing.As the parliamentary secretary pointed out in the second reading speech, the amendments set out in this bill are intended to apply only to goods that are used for commercial aspects, not to goods which are imported for personal use. As my colleague the Hon. Warren Entsch stated during his second reading speech:The Olympic and Paralympic Games next year are events of great national significance.He continued by saying:These events provide unique opportunities to demonstrate to the world this country's skills, talents, environment and achievements.As the host country, we are obliged to provide adequate protection for sponsors under the terms of the contract between the host city, Sydney, the Australian Olympic Committee and SOCOG. This bill enhances the protection available to SOCOG and the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee against imported goods that seek to ambush their marketing activities and deprive organisers of funds necessary to host the games. I commend this bill to the House.20:41:009989Bishop, Julie, MPMs JULIE BISHOP83PCurtinLP10—Almost six years ago to the day, on 23 September 1993, Sydney was elected by the International Olympic Committee to be the host city to stage the games of the 27th Olympiad in the year 2000. Also on that day, almost six years ago, the City of Sydney and the Australian Olympic Committee signed the host city contract with the IOC. The IOC, of course, is the international body established under Swiss law to guard and retain all the rights relating to the Olympic Games throughout the world and is the supreme authority for the Olympic movement. The host city contract sets out in considerable detail the IOC requirements for the staging of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. In addition to the host city contract, the Olympic Charter and the endorsement contracts provide the governing rules and requirements for staging the 2000 Olympics.The past six years have seen enormous activity within Australia in preparation for the staging of the games. The New South Wales and federal governments are directly providing substantial funds. In fact, the federal government is making a major contribution to the games. It is apparent that the success of the games means much more to Australia than just hosting the Olympics in the city of Sydney. Of course it means ensuring that Australian athletes can compete in the premier international sporting event in front of a home crowd and it means that Australians will have the opportunity to experience once more the Olympic Games in their own country. But it also means an enormous boost to the Australian economy, particularly from tourism. The games will provide unparalleled opportunities to Australian businesses.The federal government has moved quickly in supporting the games, including providing cash grants and funding for the Sydney Olympic venues as well as federal funding for the preparation of our athletes. In fact, the federal government is assisting with the staging of the Olympic Games in a wide range of areas including drug testing, security, immigration, customs and quarantine, health care, communications, international air transport and promotions and the like. Likewise, the federal government has provided financial assistance for the Paralympic Games and will continue to support both games over the next 12 months and beyond to ensure that all Australians share the benefits and the opportunities that will be created by hosting one of the world's great sporting events.One area where the Commonwealth government acted quickly, upon the election of Sydney as the host city, was in the area of legislative protection of the Sydney Olympic Games words, symbols and other indicia. The Sydney 2000 Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act was passed in 1996. It was designed to protect the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games revenue from being undermined by the unauthorised use of the games indicia and images by corporate competitors of the official games sponsors. SOCOG has already raised something in the order of $700 million from official sponsorships to finance the games; so we can see the magnitude of the effort here and why it is so necessary to protect that revenue. The ability of the games organisers to achieve such targets will depend, to a large extent, on the degree of exclusivity of the indicia and images. The protection of this revenue source is of course of paramount importance to the success of the games.The legislation before the House this evening—the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Border Interception) Bill 1999—seeks to extend the scope of the legislative protection for games organisers which has already been provided in the Sydney 2000 Games act as well as in the corresponding provisions of the Trade Marks Act 1995. Before turning to the specific amendments, perhaps I should take this opportunity to reflect on the importance of the games and thus the intention and impact of the Sydney 2000 Games Act and of the provisions of the Trade Marks Act, both of which are to be amended with the passage of this bill.The Olympic Games have the capacity to make an extraordinary impact upon not only New South Wales and its economy but Australia as a whole. There have been various reports as to the precise financial impact in terms of contribution to the national GDP, including an often quoted study of the economic impact of the Sydney 2000 Olympics Games by KPMG Peat Marwick released in 1993 as part of Sydney's bid for the 2000 Games. Whatever the actual details, there is no doubt that the 2000 Olympics will add billions of dollars over time to the economy. Who can judge what impact the images of Sydney and of Australia, as portrayed to billions of people in the worldwide television audience, will have next year and for many years beyond the games? There is also no doubt that the games will lead to significant job creation with additional employment throughout Australia, although concentrating on New South Wales and Sydney.There have been estimates as to the number of tourists who will visit Australia before, during and after the games, and we are all speculating on the positive impact on the current account from the increased tourism exports. Admittedly, we have evidence from past Olympic Games upon which to base any modelling. Huge losses were suffered at Montreal in 1976 but by 1984 the Los Angeles Games had turned a profit. We have had the more recent experience of the Atlanta 1996 Games where the windfall that many business operators anticipated did not eventuate, although, making the appropriate adjustments, it seems that a rough estimate of the total impact of the games was about $US4 billion for Georgia, with about $3 billion of that impact occurring in the year of the games in 1996. Obviously the post-Olympic impact is still being assessed and recorded.So we in Australia must be focused on determining that the economic activity associated with the games is of the highest possible order, given the past debates and the degree of uncertainty that exists as to the size of the direct Olympic impacts and the estimate of the flow-on impacts. It is against this background that we appreciate the importance of a focus on the regulation of the use for commercial purposes of the indicia and images associated with the Sydney and Paralympic Games. I acknowledge the gracious acceptance by the member for Denison of the significance of this legislative regime, notwithstanding the minor nature of these particular amendments. He did manage to fill his 10 minutes rather eloquently.The Sydney 2000 Games Act walks a very fine line between protecting the legitimate private interests of investors in the Sydney 2000 Games, the interests of traders who already use Olympic indicia and images, and the right of free speech. Its purpose was to eliminate what is termed ambush marketing, although that is not a term which is used in the act. Put simply, this means the unauthor ised association of businesses with the marketing of an event, such as the Sydney Games, without paying for the marketing rights—so free riding.It seems that the competitors of official sponsors of major sporting events engage mostly in these activities. In essence, ambush marketing can be effective in creating the perception that the so-called free rider is in fact the official sponsor or an official sponsor. It can have the effect of dissuading official sponsors from continuing their association with the games and can also undermine the value of marketing rights. There have been a number of well-known ambush marketing examples, including the Nike-Reebok sneakers war in Barcelona. Perhaps an even better known example was during the 1992 Winter Games where Visa had paid millions of dollars to be the official sponsor in the credit card category and had advertised that the Olympics `only take Visa', although I think their ads went so far as to say, `If you are going to the Olympics, the ticket collectors do not take Amex.' Amex hit back. American Express is reported to have counted with corrective advertisements, including one they used in France which said `Remember—to visit Spain you do not need a Visa'. Market research suggested that this sort of advertising was effective. While Visa was recognised as the official sponsor by 55 per cent of respondents, American Express was thought to be the official credit card provider by some 30 per cent.I should point out that Amex defended its approach and justified its advertising as not a form of ambush marketing but a defence of its brand name. That may well be the case. But there are sufficient concerns with the misuse of Olympic words and symbols to suggest moves to protect authorised and licensed users against ambush marketing and to ensure that official sponsorship revenue for the games not be at risk. The Sydney 2000 Games Act lists the rights, indicia and images specified in the act with the organising committees and enables the organising committees to use and to license others to use the indicia and images identified in the act, but for commercial purposes.Judging by the Atlanta Games experience, the protection provided by the Sydney 2000 Games Act should not be undervalued. It seems that in preparation for the Atlanta Games the relevant authorities in the United States, including the United States Olympic Committee, wrote to some 40,000 establishments throughout the United States warning them that they were illegally using the Olympic name or trademark. So the focus of the principal act is a financial one. It is to protect the interests of commercial sponsors of the Olympics Games and thereby to ensure the financial viability of the games.In broad terms, the act provides protection to indicia and images which encompass words and expressions associated with the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Indicia and images are taken to be applied to goods and services in the very wide circumstances set out in section 10 of that act. An importer of offending goods is deemed to be the person who has applied the indicia or images to the offending goods and it is the use for commercial purposes that is prohibited by the act. The relevant games insignia and images can be used for commercial purposes only by SOCOG, SPOC and a licensed user under section 12.Most importantly for the purposes of the bill before the House, SOCOG, SPOC—SPOC being not St Peter's Old Collegians but the Sydney Paralympics Organising Committee—and licensed users have the right to object to the importation of goods that have applied to them the Sydney 2000 Games indicia or images and that a person is identified as the owner of the goods. So both the Sydney 2000 Games Act and the Trademarks Act have extensive provisions dealing with imported goods which contravene the Sydney Games Act. SOCOG, SPOC and licensed users have the right to object to the importation of goods that have applied to them Sydney 2000 Games images. A person must be identified as the owner of the goods under the Customs Act and be not authorised by or licensed under the act to use the goods for commercial purposes. The Chief Executive Officer of Customs is given the power to seize offending goods, which can then be forfeited or released. These sections interact with the injunctions power under section 43.The main remedies under the act for SOCOG, SPOC and the licensed users are in fact injunctions, corrective advertisements and damages. There is an interesting position in relation to remedies in that, pursuant to section 37, a person having a sufficient interest may be joined as a respondent in an injunction application in relation to seized goods. This may cover cases where the person designated as owner for the purposes of the act is not the real owner in terms of who was intended to deal with the imported goods on arrival in Australia. Wholesalers, distributors and retailers may be deemed to have a sufficient interest to be joined to any proceedings. The court is given power to order that goods be forfeited to the Crown or released to the owner, and to award a compensation in the event that the court decided that the injunction should not be granted.It is in this area that the bill before the House seeks to address amendments. Specifically, a discrepancy is seen to exist between the seizure powers of the CEO of Customs and his obligation to notify the designated owner of seized goods under the border interception provisions of the two acts. The protection afforded by the border interception provisions in both acts is not automatic. In both acts, before any action may be taken, the CEO of Customs must have received a notice objecting to the importation of goods which are presumably seeking to ambush the games marketing or goods infringing a registered trademark.At present, section 29 of the Games Act defines `designated owner' as the person identified as the owner of the goods on the import entry made in relation to the goods under section 68 of the Customs Act. Section 68 of the Customs Act excludes several types of goods from the general requirement to be entered, including goods consigned by post worth less than $1,000 or goods worth less than $250 consigned by other means. Goods which are not entered do not have a designated owner, and as such under the current legislative regime Customs cannot seize them because there is no designated owner to notify. The proposed amendments seek to empower Customs to determine that a person is the owner of goods, thereby enabling Customs to seize all imported goods that are subject to a notice of objection and thus seeking to ambush games marketing.Specifically, the amendment which allows the CEO or an officer of Customs to determine that a person is the designated owner of goods states that the definition of the owner includes `any person being or holding himself out to be the owner, importer, exporter, consignee, agent, or person possessed of, or beneficially interested in, or having any control of, or power of disposition of the goods'. It is very wide. Therefore, where no-one is identified as the owner of the goods on the import entry, the designated owner can be so determined by Customs in accordance with that amendment.There is no doubt that Customs has already seized a significant number of consignments under the border interception provisions, and it is likely to encounter an increasing number of these consignments in the next 12 months in the countdown to the games. Although the amendments are directed to goods consigned by post worth less than $1,000 or goods worth less than $250 consigned by other means, that is, goods that do not have to be entered under section 68 of the Customs Act, considerable numbers of such consignments could occur and could, in a slow but insidious way, undermine the intent of the border interception provisions of the act.While it will be difficult to determine the scale of economic losses which could result from illegal conduct under the Sydney 2000 Games Act or the Trademarks Act, there is no doubt that infringement of intellectual property rights can have enormous economic consequences. We have seen that, both here and overseas. Counterfeiting and piracy alone have been estimated to cost Australian industries around $400 million a year—and this is not related to the Sydney 2000 Games. At a global level, the International Trade Commission estimates that infringement of intellectual property rights is costing at least $US60 billion a year in lost sales, and these figures are on the rise worldwide. It is important, against that background, to ensure that we give the greatest level of protection for the Sydney Games and its all-important sponsorship. I commend this bill to the House.20:58:009993Entsch, Warren, MPMr ENTSCH7K6LeichhardtLP10—in reply—In summing up the second reading debate on the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Border Interception) Bill 1999 , I thank all members for their contributions. In particular I would like to acknowledge and thank the member for Denison, who spoke in support of the bill and its aim to protect the Sydney Olympics and Paralympics from ambush marketing, as well as the issues of enforcing intellectual property more generally. The member for McPherson highlighted the ability of ambush marketing to undermine commercial sponsorship of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and Paralympics and the importance of the Sydney 2000 Games Act in protecting the games revenue.The member for Curtin, whose contribution I acknowledge, spoke of the impact of the Sydney 2000 Games on the Australian economy—a very significant impact at that—and the assistance given by the federal government to the games, and the importance of the Sydney 2000 Games Act in protecting games revenue from ambush marketing. The member for Curtin also went into some detail on the various remedial actions that are available to owners of intellectual property and the additional empowerment of the CEO of Customs which is very important as part of this legislation.The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Border Interception) Bill will improve the protection available to the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee against imported goods that seek to ambush their marketing activities. The bill will also improve the protection available to owners of registered trade marks against imported goods that bear infringing trade marks.The benefits resulting from passage of this bill will help ensure the integrity of the border interception provisions of both the Sydney 2000 Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 1996 and the Trade Marks Act 1995. Passage of this bill will give trademark owners greater protection from imported counterfeited goods which, in turn, will give consumers increased certainty as to the trade origin of the goods they are buying. In particular, passage of this bill will also aid the games organising committees in their efforts to raise, from sponsorship and licences, the revenue necessary to conduct the games.This is not an insignificant issue. As I mentioned in the second reading speech, one of the critical factors in making the games an outstanding success is the ability of the games organising committees to raise the funds necessary to host the games. In its 1998 annual report, the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games estimated that it needed to raise in the vicinity of $800 million from official sponsorships and licensing fees to meet its budget for the games. The ability of the games organising committees to attract sponsors depends to a large extent on the exclusivity of the licensed indicia and images. If the parliament had not enacted the Sydney 2000 Games Act to protect the games organising committees against ambush marketing, the official sponsorship revenue for the games may well have been at risk.Nevertheless, despite our best efforts, counterfeiters and manufacturers of bogus goods are becoming more and more sophisticated in their operations. Most counterfeiters now have the means available to reproduce goods so closely resembling the original articles that it is almost impossible for the average consumer to tell them apart. Furthermore, those who seek to ambush market the games are continually trying to find ways to circumvent the legislation in order to achieve their objective. I am confident that in most cases they will fail. However, if it were not for this bill, it is likely that the more sophisticated ambush marketeer would import large numbers of small consignments of bogus games goods in order to circumvent the border interception provisions of the Sydney 2000 Games Act.In this regard, I am pleased that there is broad support for this bill, especially in this final year leading up to the games. As with the passage of the Sydney 2000 Games Act, the passage of this bill will send a clear message to those who seek to ambush the Sydney 2000 Games that the Australian people will not accept such unethical behaviour. I commend the bill to the House.Question resolved in the affirmative.Bill read a second time.9994Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.Bill (on motion by Mr Entsch) read a third time.Bills9994r7339994Debate resumed from 25 March on motion by Mr Williams:That the bill be now read a second time.21:05:009994Theophanous, Andrew, MPDr THEOPHANOUSQJ4CalwellALP00—We are debating at this late hour a very important bill: the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1999 . I have to say that it is with great sadness that we come into this House to debate this bill because, basically, it represents the emasculation of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. We can see this from the very nature of its basic clauses, even as described by the Parliamentary Library. The library talks about the fact that this bill is intended to restructure the new commission by abolishing—I repeat abolishing—the five specific commissioners responsible for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice, human rights, disability, race and sex discrimination and replacing them with three deputy presidents. Whereas previously we have had those important distinct areas of human rights with a commissioner for each, we now will have only three so-called deputy presidents who will each have a massive workload. Just let me go through what the three areas will be.One area will comprise human rights and disability discrimination. Disability discrimination is one of the biggest areas of the human rights commission, yet it is to be lumped together with all general human rights issues. This means that one person will be responsible for issues both of human rights and of disability discrimination—a very difficult task to put together.The second one will be racial discrimination and social justice. I assume that the social justice area is that which previously existed with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission, but racial discrimination is a separate category from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice issues. They are interrelated in a sense, but the racial discrimination category applied to all ethnicities, all races and all peoples, whereas the social justice category was specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In that sense we are again putting under one head discrete responsibilities which were important in identifying and strengthening weaknesses in the area of human rights in our society.The category of sex discrimination and equal opportunity is closer to the one that existed before, but for many months the government failed to appoint a sex discrimination commissioner—there was a vacuum in the commission for a long time while we waited for the government to do something in this area of human rights. These changes to the commission will be serious changes. They reflect the government's obsession with downgrading the commission and its activities. The game is given away by the fact that a clause in this bill will create a requirement for the Attorney-General to grant approval before the commission can seek leave to intervene in a court proceeding relating to human rights and discrimination. The commission will have to seek the approval of the Attorney-General before it can do this.This bill is about trying to reduce the powers of the commission when it intervenes in cases concerning human rights issues which have a political nature or which the government has interpreted as having a political nature. Obviously one cannot differentiate the issue of human rights from the general flow of politics in a society.The backward steps that are being taken in this bill are a reflection of what has been happening in this country in the last few years. In the 1980s and the early 1990s we developed a proud record in terms of Australia's active support and participation in human rights issues. In the last few years we have been moving away from that to the point where we are criticised in international circles for our human rights record—and rightfully so in certain cases—and we are becoming more blase about human rights abuses.Indeed, it can be argued that we now criticise human rights breaches in other countries but we believe that somehow these things do not happen here—that we do not have those sorts of problems in Australia. Although our record is good compared with many other countries, the claim that we are the best country in the world in terms of human rights is not correct. We could be doing better. In some areas our treatment of human rights is unacceptable.I want to mention a couple of the areas which I have had something to do with in recent times. The first one is refugee policy and the way we treat refugees who come into this country. The refugee issue has gained a new focus as a result of what has been happening in East Timor, but one of the things that people have not focused on is that, for a very long time, we refused to recognise as refugees the Timorese people who came to Australia following the Timor crisis. We refused to extend to them the hand of friendship even though in geographical terms Timor is in our backyard. It is a major responsibility for us, yet for many years when people came here from East Timor we said, `You can't claim refugee status because the former power was Portugal. You should go off to Portugal rather than to Australia to claim any kind of refugee status.' In relation to East Timorese refugees that was a mistaken policy. It is a policy which has taken us a long time to rethink.It is only because of the very recent events that we are thinking that we might have made a mistake in relation to this matter. Our hypocrisy on this issue was breathtaking because, on the one hand we said that we did not recognise Portugal as having legitimate rights in East Timor because we recognised the annexation by Indonesia, but on the other hand we said that refugees coming from East Timor were Portugal's responsibility—that we had no responsibility in the matter. That is just one example.When talking about refugee policy, we can go beyond the Timor issue and mention the following fact: we now have a law in this country which does not even give immigration officials discretion—according to a statement made to me just today by the enforcement section of Immigration—in dealing with people who arrive by boat or by aeroplane without papers. It might be possible to argue that people who are escaping from a terrible regime are more likely not to have papers than to have them. But the current position is that when people arrive without papers, especially when they arrive at an airport, we immediately put them in detention. This detention is a form of imprisonment, because these people remain in detention for a long time—for many months and sometimes for years—while we go through the process of refugee determination. We do not even give our officers discretion to say whether a person could perhaps live with relatives or friends in the community, participate in community affairs or even work while a determination is being made about their future. Many other countries do not do this, at least for the majority of people who arrive. So it is false to think that we have the most progressive policy in these matters. We should at least be giving immigration officers discretion to make a determination as to whether a person would be better off in the community until their refugee status is determined.The situation is even worse than this, because we also have an insidious regulation in the immigration system—which I have referred to in a motion before the parliament—and that is Migration Series Instruments 244. This regulation permits immigration officers to determine that a person in a detention centre is a threat to others in the centre, and it permits them to take that person to a state prison without charges. Think what this means. A person arriving in Australia claiming refugee status can be put in a detention centre and then, if an immigration officer or an official of a detention centre considers that person to be a nuisance, for whatever reason, they can be moved into a state prison without being charged with a crime. This has actually happened in the case of six or seven persons in the Maribyrnong Detention Centre in Melbourne. I have raised this matter in this parliament, with the Ombudsman and with the human rights commission.People living in the centre made many complaints to Amnesty International and to other organisations about conditions in the centre. There was a rebellion and six persons who were part of a general disturbance were taken from the centre to the state prison. This event occurred nearly seven weeks ago. It was not played up by the media in Australia because the media do not focus on human rights issues in Australia. They are very good at focusing on human rights issues overseas, but they do not focus on human rights issues in Australia.These persons are still in the prison. They have not been charged with any offence, and they are treated as if they are criminals. This is a situation which is unacceptable in a civilised society. It is a situation which is contrary to the spirit of the Westminster system under which a person is not put into prison for any long period of time unless they are charged with an offence. As I have said, these persons have not been charged with offences.This particular regulation has been condemned by a number of bodies, including the Refugee Council of Australia, the human rights commission and others. No person should be transferred from a detention centre, which is bad enough, to a prison, unless they are charged with some crime. I have taken a bit of time to refer to this specific issue because it is an example of why we need a strong human rights commission.I now want to refer to a slightly more general matter. It concerns the fact that the Race Discrimination Commissioner will now have many other responsibilities. This comes at a time when the number of complaints to the commission based on racial prejudice and ethnic prejudice in this country have dramati cally increased. Of course we know that this is partly due to the development of the Hanson phenomenon and the rise of One Nation—with their very unacceptable philosophy which attacked multiculturalism, attacked people on a racial basis and discriminated based on race. While they were the extreme element, unfortunately, because of the publicity they received and because of the attitude of the mainstream media to these issues, we now have the feeling that people can go around and effectively use forms of racial discrimination and get away with it. Even though we have laws against it, the laws are not being sufficiently enforced. Many people are treating the laws as a joke.As you know, there was a debate some years ago as to whether there would be criminal sanctions in this area of racial discrimination, and the parliament decided not to proceed on that path. We have only the civil sanctions and, of course, the role of the commission in negotiation. But this is not good enough. It is not good enough because of the fact that discrimination is on the rise. Discrimination against people because of their racial and ethnic background is on the rise, and it needs to be countered.This is where the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, the Attorney-General and other ministers have a special responsibility to this parliament and to this society. They have a special responsibility to fight this. They have a special responsibility to speak out on this. One of their responsibilities is to ensure that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has sufficient resources to do its job in this particular area. I have been talking to people at the human rights commission, and they are concerned about the reduction in resources. They are concerned that there has been an increase in complaints but no increase in resources to deal with those complaints. They are concerned about the restructuring which the government has gone in for and the consequences of that restructuring in terms of the capacity of the commission to do its job.If we are going to be a society which can be proud of its human rights record, rhetoric will not be enough. What will be needed in this matter will be action in certain individual cases and it will also require action at the level of policy determinations. I am concerned that more and more of our policies in the immigration area, in the social justice areas and in the area of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs are allowing a situation in which human rights are insufficiently protected. If we look at, for example, the area of indigenous social justice, we find that little has been done. We even have the phenomenon that, 10 years after the reports and the recommendations, Aboriginal deaths in custody remain a shame on this country and continue. We had the reports and the recommendations and nothing was done about it. This bill needs to be revised. (Time expired)21:25:009997Plibersek, Tanya, MPMs PLIBERSEK83MSydneyALP00—The Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1999 is about two things. It is about reducing the resources of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and it is about reducing its powers. This bill makes substantial changes to the structure of the commission. I intend to address a number of those specific changes which I consider to be particularly problematic, but I want to briefly look at the history of this government's action in this area. It is a very grim history.Cuts to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission are par for the course with this government. The record is one of consistently undermining human rights and of attacking those who speak up about human rights. This government has distinguished itself by attracting the attention of the United Nations on numerous issues, including Jabiluka and native title. For a developed, democratic country—the way we like to see ourselves—this is certainly very worrying. Indeed, the United Nations has directly criticised the bill that we are discussing tonight.To make matters worse, this government has the temerity to dismiss the United Nations criticism as biased rather than face its own failure in key areas of human rights protection. In the face of our support for the UNrun ballot in East Timor, this is, I think, particularly ironic. We are saying to the international community that the United Nations is a body that is to be respected and supported, yet when we are criticised ourselves by the United Nations we turn around and say, `No, we don't really support the United Nations; they've got it wrong on this one.' If the United Nations is to play an international role, countries like Australia must certainly take criticisms made by that body seriously.It should come as no surprise that the government has attacked the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The most apparent way that the government has attacked the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is through consistent cuts in funding to HREOC. The government has reduced funding for the commission from $21.6 million in 1995-96 to $12.3 million in 1998-99 and to an average of only $10.6 million over each of the three out years. Once completed, these cuts will mean that, in real terms, the budget of the commission has been cut by an average of $13 million per year or 55 per cent. They are massive cuts and obviously have an effect on the commission's ability to do its work. In total, over the six years of Howard government budgets, the government will spend a staggering $57 million less in real terms on the commission than if 1995-96 funding levels had been maintained. That is an awfully large cut.Despite the fact that the cuts announced by this government were not meant to take full effect until July 1998, the commission were forced for budgetary reasons to implement the cuts earlier than they had expected because there was no ancillary funding granted to meet the inevitable costs of redundancy packages. This means that the commission have been forced to sack approximately one-third of their 180 staff. As a result, they are now spending half a million dollars a year of their dramatically reduced budget paying for empty office space in their Castlereagh Street offices, not through any choice of their own or any mismanagement but because of the dramatic budget costs faced by them.The government has also substantially eroded the legal aid system which exists, ideally, to allow people access to justice. This has had particular effect on the enforcement of human rights. The Commonwealth-state legal aid agreements, which came into effect on 1 July 1997, contain the following guideline with respect to funding of equal opportunity and discrimination cases. It reads:The Commission may grant assistance for equal opportunity/discrimination cases where there are strong prospects of substantial benefit being gained not only by the applicant but also by the public or any section of the public.That means that applicants for legal aid funding need to prove that they have strong prospects of success, that those prospects are directed towards the attainment of substantial benefit and that not only the individual bringing the complaint will benefit, but that the wider community or group will also benefit. So they need to prove their case before they have the opportunity of proving their case. This is unfortunate, since one of the problems of discrimination is that it is usually the poorest and weakest members of the community who are faced with it, and they are the people least likely to be able to argue for this sort of benefit in the first instance.In light of these dramatic cuts to funding and changes to legal aid, it is perfectly understandable that people are suspicious of these so-called reforms to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The first change, renaming the commission—from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to the Human Rights and Responsibilities Commission—is a particularly shallow and useless change. It reflects the adoption of current trendy terminology in this area, and it certainly does not make any difference at all to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's ability to do its work. In fact, the commission itself has suggested a simplification of its name simply to the Human Rights Commission. If there were going to be a name change, surely that would be the much more sensible one.The inclusion of the term `responsibilities' is not unexpected from a government that is obsessed with winding back rights and entitlements and consistently tells people that they are not entitled to any of the things that we have come to expect from the civilised soci ety that we live in. The Women's Electoral Lobby expressed it well in their submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee when they said that the name change:. . . could lead to assumptions that claims of human rights violations are made by those who are irresponsible, rather than those who are suffering disadvantage. This could lead to a situation where people feel they are unable or unwelcome to use this legislation.The first change—the renaming of the commission—seems to me to be a particularly ridiculous move on the part of the government.The abolition of specialised commissioners is perhaps even more serious than this. The bill proposes to eliminate the specialist commissioners. Until now, the human rights commission has operated with six commissioners—one for each of the following areas: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice, human rights, privacy, race discrimination, sex discrimination and disability discrimination. The bill proposes to eliminate these, replacing them with three deputy presidents who will be responsible for social justice and race, sex discrimination and equal opportunity and human rights and disability. The Privacy Commissioner will remain a specialist function.Given the cuts to funding already implemented, it is difficult to see how a reduction of personnel will improve the delivery of social justice at all. It is also difficult to see how reducing the number of commissioners to three will make any significant cost saving if the presumption is that their workload is not going to decrease; it will just be a matter of who is going to be doing which jobs. There were, in contrast, important reasons that specialist commissioners were instituted in the first place. Discrimination in our community is often the result of ignorance. For this reason, the specialist positions were designed to provide an opportunity to put in place people who, through their life experience, may have significant experience in an area of discrimination and would be able to bring that experience to bear in assisting our society to put prejudice and discrimination behind us.To deprive these groups which are subject to discrimination of the limited resources that they now have in order to comply with the narrow understanding the government has of equality ignores both the problems particular groups face and the benefits that specialist service can provide. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner is currently required to have `significant experience of community life of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders'. It makes sense to have someone with such experience actually fulfilling the role designated for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner. It is no longer required of the deputy president responsible for social justice issues to have such experience. In fact, the title of the position makes no reference to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and I think this is of significant concern in itself because, once again, we are contributing to the disappearance of this group from public life.I know, as well, that people from disability groups have had very serious concerns about the abolition of a specialist disability commissioner. From my discussions with disability groups, I understand they are particularly concerned that disability issues are frequently swept under the carpet and not treated as serious issues of discrimination; and that there is a high level of acceptance of people living with disabilities facing the sort of inconvenience that people living without disabilities would never tolerate in their everyday lives. These groups have said to me in the strongest terms that they object wholeheartedly on this change.The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination has called upon this government to `address as a matter of utmost urgency' the committee's concerns about the proposed changes to the overall structure of the Australian human rights commission, but most particularly it has expressed concern about the abolition of specialist commissioners. The government's response to this United Nations criticism has been embarrassing in the extreme, particularly now that we are engaged in a process of supporting the role of the United Nations in East Timor. To say that the United Nations has the right to comment about Indonesia but has no ability to judge the domestic situation in Australia with any objectivity is embarrassing in the extreme.The government has suggested that many of these changes are about refocusing the work of the commission onto education. I support education in this area—I think it is absolutely vital—but I would say that a successfully prosecuted discrimination case is a pretty good way of teaching a lesson not just to the people involved but everyone observing the case. It is a little difficult to expect the human rights commission to not only refocus on education, given the massive budget cuts it has received, but also meet its statutory requirements to conciliate, as it has in the past. The area that is most likely to suffer is the research that the commission does. I am sure that many members read the pregnancy discrimination report that was released recently. This is the sort of work that is vital in this area but, without continued funding, it is impossible for it to continue.The bill removes much of the power of the commission to redress actual cases of discrimination. In that sense, all the talk about a refocus on education is absolutely useless. If the powers of the commission are reduced, the message that sends is that this government is not interested in discrimination; it is not serious about discrimination. There is no stronger message than that of removing the funding of an organisation or changing it and weakening its structure. In their submission to the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights stated:. . . to the extent that the HREOCA is the only legislation in Australia which contains a direct remedy for a breach of human rights . . . contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights . . . it is in our view essential that this function not be watered down any further.It is well and good to embark on education programs—and the commission should be adequately funded to do this—but education can only go so far when there are people suffering real and terrible discrimination right now. I mentioned earlier the commission's recent report on discrimination faced by pregnant women. This report highlighted the extent of ongoing discrimination against women due to pregnancy or the anticipation of pregnancy. Women reported being denied employment, training and promotion, along with decreased security of employment generally. Yes, it is important to educate employers and employees about the rights of pregnant women, but it is also critical that those individuals facing the immediate effects of that discrimination have some remedy available to them.The current Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act, the Disability Discrimination Act, the Racial Discrimination Act and the Sex Discrimination Act all provide the commission with the power to seek a court's leave to intervene in court proceedings that involve relevant human rights and discrimination issues—to act as a friend of the court. This bill proposes that intervention by the commission in court hearings must have the leave of the Attorney-General. This leads to serious problems. Unfortunately, I do not think I will have time to address them all today.I conclude by saying that this legislation—because it reduces the powers and resources of the commission—will have very serious effects on the continued seeking of an end to discrimination in Australia. It is in line with the government's attacks on the powers of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission—obviously the government does not like the independent umpires in this area—and it follows continued attacks on legal aid and the ability of people to take action to defend their rights. It is to our discredit, to our national shame, I think, that in an area like this we have attracted the unfavourable attention of the United Nations and we just ignore that and say it is not important, that those rules count for other people but they do not count for us. I would like to see this legislation significantly altered or, even better, defeated.21:43:0010000Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00—Since its inception in 1986, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has been charged with overseeing laws designed to ensure fairness and equity for all Australians. These include overseeing the Racial Discrimination Act, the Sex Discrimination Act, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act, the Privacy Act and the Disability Discrimination Act. Aspects of the Native Title Act also fall under the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission umbrella. The current government, however, is intent on implementing an agenda which would undermine Australians' access to justice in the face of discrimination.The Australian Labor Party rejects all three of the changes the government is proposing in the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1999 which we are debating tonight. These changes involve renaming the commission the Human Rights and Responsibilities Commission; restructuring the commission, by replacing five specialist commissioners with three deputy presidents charged with mixed roles and—from my point of view this is the most serious change—requiring the commission to seek the approval of the Attorney-General before intervening in court proceedings related to human rights and discrimination. The first of these changes, which other people have spoken about, involves tampering—I have to say unnecessarily—with the name of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission by renaming it the Human Rights and Responsibilities Commission.Since European settlement, one of the things Australians have been proud of has been our struggles for fair play, whether it has been over workers' rights, women's rights or, most recently, indigenous rights. And now, not only does the Howard government want to tamper with the legislation that protects these rights, but, by removing the words `equal opportunity' from the commission's name, it plans to sweep from public consciousness the very concept of equal opportunity. On the subject of responsibilities, not long ago a newspaper editorial in the Age said:To those familiar with the Government's tense relationship with the Commission . . . the new emphasis (on responsibilities) sounds like an attempt to pull the Commission's teeth.The second issue is where the government plans to abolish the five commissioners for human rights, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice, disability, race and sex discrimination, and replace them with three deputy presidents. The Prime Minister and the Attorney-General have ignored public outcry on this issue—both national objections and international objections and I understand even from within the Liberal Party as well—to maintain the current structure. It should be noted that the sixth current commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner, will be transferred from the auspices of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission following the passage of the Privacy Act.That this government is watering down its commitment to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is demonstrated by the way the commission has been treated. Others have already spoken about the budget cuts and I will not go over those. We need to look at the history since this government came to power. The commission's presidency was vacant for seven months before the current president was installed. The Human Rights Commissioner is currently doubling up as the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, and that position has remained unfilled since December 1997. For 18 months, those Australians with disabilities who are seeking redress for discrimination have been denied access to a commissioner who is a specialist in this field. That is not in any way a criticism of Chris Sidoti, the Human Rights Commissioner, who had doubled as the Disability Discrimination Commissioner; rather, it is a reflection of the lack of commitment given the commission by this government.Another example is the Sex Discrimination Commissioner's chair remaining unoccupied for 11 months following the resignation of the previous commissioner in February 1997. It was not filled until March 1998 and the delay in this appointment prompted the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women to publicly express its concern.Australians depend on the specialist knowledge of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's five commissioners, experts in their field who have been responsible for keeping an eye on employers and governments to ensure fair treatment for everyone. The Prime Minister and the Attorney-General would just dismantle the current structure and compromise the commission's effectiveness by blurring the roles of the proposed deputy presidents. Instead of specific commissioners for human rights, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice, disability, race and sex discrimination, this government is asking us to accept just three deputy presidents with those roles all rolled in together. It is a bid to meddle with the role of commissioners. The government is also proposing that complaints, currently forwarded to the relevant commissioner, should instead be channelled through the president. This is in accordance with the Attorney-General's aims which would change the new deputy presidents' roles to public education and advocacy, effectively wiping out the current commissioners' ability to pursue claims independently.The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, in a report following an inquiry into this bill, recommended that the government not tamper with the structure of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Despite the fact that three of the six senators on this committee were government representatives, the Attorney-General is pushing ahead with this change. The principal architect of the Sex Discrimination Act, Chris Ronalds, said:We will end up with a . . . weak and powerless organisation that doesn't have the depth of knowledge to develop specific campaigns. No-one will have any expertise because they will all be broad generalists.The abolition of the Sex Discrimination Commissioner has caused deep concern throughout the community and we also need to concentrate on what will happen with the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. That will be wiped out completely, leaving the nation's indigenous people with a deputy president charged with blanket responsibility for racial discrimination and social justice. In the wake of groundbreaking reports such as those on the stolen generation and deaths in custody, we all know so well that indigenous Australians face discrimination far and beyond that faced by most other Australians. It is unbelievable that the Attorney-General should be so threatened by the concept of a specialist advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice that, in the face of these devastating inquiries, he would abolish this commissioner.From my point of view, the third and most critical aspect of this bill is the Attorney-General's attempt to install himself as the gatekeeper of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The Attorney-General is asking us to accept that the commission should seek his approval before intervening in court proceedings that involve issues of human rights or discrimination. This particular amendment, more than any other, threatens the independence of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and presents a conflict of interest for the Attorney-General. The amendment has prompted concern from a number of highly respected individuals and organisations, including Amnesty International and the Chief Justice of the Family Court, Alastair Nicholson, who said:The possibility for the opportunity—or perception—of interference with the Commission should be prevented rather than legislated. This is particularly so when no apparent benefit flows from introducing the requirement of approval.The Director of Research at the Australian National University's Centre for International and Public Law, Professor Hilary Charlesworth, and her colleague stated in their submission:. . . it cannot be assumed that the Commonwealth government inevitably acts in accordance with human rights principles and because the very nature of human rights arguments often calls governmental actions into question, the grant of a veto to the Attorney-General over the ability of the Commission to intervene in a case effectively undermines the full protection of human rights in Australia.In recent times, we have witnessed the Hindmarsh Island bridge case, the Teoh case and the B&B Family Law case. In all of these circumstances, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission made submissions that were fundamentally different from submissions made by the government of the day. Herein lies the importance of an independent watchdog for the rights of all Australians.Last year's New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission pay equity inquiry, an important landmark in the case for redressing the wage gap between men and women, is another case in point. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's input into the inquiry was very important. It argued that pay inequity is a fundamental denial of women's rights to equality, that the role of the antidiscrimination board in relation to the industrial relations system should be fostered and developed, that equality should be considered in mainstream industrial relations resolution processes, that pay equity principles should be developed in accordance with international human rights principles and that current legislative mechanisms which deal with individual complaints are insufficient and inadequate for addressing pay inequities which result from—and this is the important bit—systemic, structural and collective inequality.Given the controversial nature of this government's industrial relations legislation, it is unlikely that the Attorney-General would give the commission leave to appear before such an inquiry in the future, but it is essential that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission be able to maintain its independence and have the freedom to decide without fear or favour the appropriate time and place for intervention on behalf of the people of Australia. That the government would seek to increase the power of the Attorney-General in this manner flies in the face of the Paris principles to which Australia is a signatory. These principles set out an international minimum standard for human rights institutions, and independence from government is at their core.It will be highly embarrassing for Australia, particularly in the current circumstances we find ourselves in—and I have no doubt the following speaker, the member for the Northern Territory, will talk about human rights in this regard—because Australia, up until now, has led the world in setting an example and working closely with Third World nations in particular in the formulation of world's best practice for human rights. That the current Attorney-General's nose is out of joint over recent High Court cases where he found himself at odds with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission seems, as a result, undisputed, but his argument is extremely weak. He said:The bill . . . will enable me to ensure that every intervention by the new commission is in the best interests of the Australian community as a whole.The only way to ensure that the interests of the Australian community as a whole are protected is to ensure that the Attorney-General stays out of the process. There is no evidence that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has ever abused its power. Indeed, the commission has intervened in court proceedings just 18 times in 11 years and has never been rebuked by a court. The former head of the Office of the Status of Women, Kathy Townsend, said that what surprised her about this government—and this was during its first term—was that it did not see the issues of discrimination, whether based on gender, race or disability, as being systemic. As a result of his refusal to acknowledge ingrained disadvantage, the Prime Minister has set about downgrading a world-class Australian social institution, first by cutting the supply of money needed to effectively run the commission and then by tampering with hard won and highly respected legislation. The fact is that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is respected worldwide, not only for its integrity and commitment to human rights but also for its independence from government. This bill seeks to destroy that independence.It is just over 50 years since the United Nations signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is just 14 years since the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission took centre stage in protecting those rights for all Australians. It has taken just four years for this government to place them in jeopardy. It was of course a previous Labor government that established the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and we certainly will not be a party to dismantling it.21:58:0010004Snowdon, Warren, MPMr SNOWDONIJ4Northern TerritoryALP00—I am pleased to participate in the debate on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1999 this evening because, as my colleague the member for Jagajaga has just pointed out, there are some significant issues in relation to human rights which confront us as a community and as a nation and which we need to be concerned about and aware of when we are discussing this piece of legislation. You would be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, of the difficulties to our near north being confronted by the people of East Timor and the obvious abuse of very fundamental human and civil rights that has happened in that part of the world over recent weeks. We will have a debate about this in some detail tomorrow, but it is worth pointing out that those human rights abuses are continuing. Whilst we have an Australian led peace enforcement operation in the first instance in East Timor, significant abuses of human rights are now being chronicled, particularly in West Timor but also in other parts of Indonesia.There are now confirmed consistent reports of people being summarily executed, and in one particular case there is now direct evidence from a variety of sources confirming that on a ferry between Dili and Kupang 35 people were executed by militia. Of course, we need to be concerned about the veracity of these reports, but the consistency and the variety of sources make it demonstrably clear to the world that there is a great deal of evidence now about dramatic abuses of human rights. We now have a number of eyewitness accounts of bodies mounted up in the main police station in Dili. We have confirmed reports of militia going around West Timor with lists of people who are to be targeted. We know that the militia in West Timor are covering all entry and exit points of that part of Indonesia to identify these people. We know that there has been a dramatic attempt particularly to persecute members of religious orders, especially those of the Catholic Church.These things are happening currently, and what they demonstrate to us is the importance of we people here in Australia recognising our responsibilities to our citizens for human rights. We should not let what is happening to our near north, in East Timor, and West Timor in particular, cloud our view about our obligations to our own community. But at the same time we need to recognise the case of East Timor and the recent atrocities that have occurred and continue to occur. It is now evident that in this pogrom the pro-independence supporters—the 78.5 per cent of the East Timor community who voted to oppose integration with Indonesia—have been the subject of a well-orchestrated, planned military-controlled attack upon their basic rights and that many lives have been lost.These reports of what is happening in our near north should make us very concerned about the proposals within this legislation to downgrade the status of human rights in this country. It is not that we can compare at all the abuse of human rights in East Timor or West Timor, and currently in other parts of Indonesia, with what is being proposed in this piece of legislation, but it is important that we acknowledge that the legislation before us reduces quite dramatically, in ways which should be of concern to all Australians, the status of human rights within our legal and administrative frameworks.Previous speakers have referred to the purposes of this bill, which are to rename the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission the Human Rights and Responsibilities Commission; to restructure the new commission by abolishing the five specific commissioners—responsible for matters dealing with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, social justice, human rights, disability, racial and sex discrimination—and replace these commissioners with three deputy presidents with responsibility for human rights and disability discrimination, racial discrimination and social justice, and sex discrimination and equal opportunity; and to create a requirement that the Attorney-General must grant approval before the commission can seek leave of a court to intervene in a court proceeding related to human rights and discrimination.I want to concentrate particularly on the issue of the impact of this legislation in terms of racial discrimination. I want to do that for the reason, among other things, that my electorate, as you would be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, is the Northern Territory, where 30 per cent, or thereabouts, of the electors are Aboriginal people and feel particularly close to issues relating to human rights. It is worth commenting that recently we had the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in February 1999. In their report, they canvassed the issues involved in this piece of legislation. They pointed out that the bill proposes that the deputy presidents will exercise an amicus curiae role, subject to the leave of the Attorney-General and the court to proceed where they think orders sought may affect to a significant extent the human rights of persons not party in proceedings which have significant implications for the administration of the relevant legislation and proceedings that involve special circumstances that satisfy them it would be in the public interest to assist the court as amicus curiae.I do not have to tell you what this means. The proposal that the exercise of an amicus curiae role by the deputy presidents will be subject to the leave of the Attorney will give rise to significant conflicts of interest. In many cases in which human rights issues arise and are the subject of complaints, the federal government is the respondent. It must be a matter for the Federal Court, and not the Attorney-General, to decide whether to allow HREOC a role in human rights proceedings before it.I would have thought that that argument was an eminently sensible one, yet the fact of that argument has forced the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission to submit it in a report to the United Nations about the way in which this government is dealing with the issues relating to human rights in this country. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, when ATSIC submit, as they have done, that this proposal seriously threatens the role of HREOC as an independent human rights watchdog, they are absolutely correct. It also undermines the principle of the separation of powers, in that a political decision will precede the exercise of judicial discretion.I would have thought that is a very fundamental issue. Yet for some reason or other—something that I do not comprehend and certainly do not understand—this government seems imbued with the idea that somehow or other by these changes it is improving the capacity of people to have redress in relation to human rights issues. If you take this amicus curiae role and the decision to get rid of the Racial Discrimination Commissioner, I think you can see how the government is seeking to control an agenda here which it believes it has had no control over.Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to take you to the first report, of 1993, of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission, which was delivered to the then government by its first commissioner, Mick Dodson. He notes in his report, on page 2:There must necessarily exist a certain structural tension between the performance of my functions and the Commonwealth Government.Knowing, as you do, Mr Deputy Speaker, the importance of these issues to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and the fact that Aboriginal people have a legitimate desire to see issues to do with the abuse of human rights properly addressed in this country, as we have seen in the context of the report of the Social Justice Commissioner and also in the report on the stolen generation, I would have thought that they see some remedies that can be delivered to, in their case, indigenous Australians in relation to human rights by having a human rights commissioner who is independent of government and can seek to take actions to court. Here we have a proposal which will handicap the capacity of an independent body to take decisions which are independent of the government. There is no doubt, as then Commissioner Dodson said, that there will always be a vigorous debate concerning social justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. At that time, when he was referring to the fact of the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission, he said:It was proof of a determination to provide an agency which will genuinely assist in the fuller exercise of human rights by Australia's indigenous peoples and to accept well-founded criticism. We are seeing here an exercise which is a sort of dumb and dumber exercise, trying to gag those people who would be critical and stop those people who otherwise, on the advice of an independent body, would want to take matters to the courts.The other issue which Mr Dodson reflected upon, in what I think was a fairly prophetic report in 1993, was the belief that there was a great need for the position of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner. He argued then—and I think it stands scrutiny now—that such a mandatory requirement would be amply justified as a special measure for the purposes of article 1, paragraph 4 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and section 8(1) of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. He further went on to talk about the importance, in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, of having an indigenous person, and someone who was seen as identifying with and understanding issues relating to indigenous Australians, represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander interests in this context. It is important. He made the point then, saying:It is of critical importance, if I am to genuinely fulfil my commission, that I accurately reflect the experience and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout Australia.To this end he said:I will not only consult, as I am obliged to, with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, but will also consult with community organisations and individual communities as much as possible.Mr Deputy Speaker, if you see where he was coming from when he wrote those remarks then and where we are today, you can see that what we are doing is effectively removing the capacity in this case of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission—because it no longer exists—to perform the roles that arguably it should be performing under what I would see as our international obligations. I note also, again in the context of ATSIC's report to the United Nations, that it made a number of very strong criticisms of the government's attitude towards the issue of self-determination. I think it is worth reporting on this to the House, because in August of last year our Minister for Foreign Affairs was reported to have confirmed that Australia would urge the UN to abandon the term `self-determination' for indigenous peoples and replace it with concepts of self-management or self-empowerment. He said:We don't want to see a separate country created for indigenous Australians. We will be arguing that it might be better to use the term self-management rather than leaving the impression that we are prepared to have a separate indigenous state.I say to the foreign minister and the government that they should have some regard for the reports of this parliament. There was a report to this parliament which was brought down in August 1989 which had the unanimous support of the people on the committee. It was the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. The title of the report was A chance for the future and in this unanimously adopted report the issue of self-determination was addressed. It said at paragraph 1.9:Self-determination means Aboriginal people having the authority, resources and capacity to control the future of their own communities within the legal structure common to all Australians. If self-determination is implemented in this form, then important but subsidiary objectives which have become incorporated into the self-determination approach—such as retention of cultural identity, community management and improved economic and social status—will be achieved as a result.That, I would have thought, would have been an eminently sensible approach to the issue of self-determination for indigenous Australians, one which does not imply that we would have a separate country created for indigenous people. There was no need to go down this road of trying to denude the language of the word `self-determination' in relation to the rights of indigenous Australians because it is amply qualified in this report, given to this parliament in 1989, as to what in fact self-determination should mean to us as Australians. I reiterate that the report was adopted unanimously.I say to the government: if you are serious about human rights, you will reconsider your position in relation to this bill. You will ensure that the rights of people, which we would argue should be prescribed by our international obligations, are properly represented here in the parliament. We should not do anything that would diminish the human rights of any Australian wherever they might be, whether they are indigenous Australians, women or disabled people. No matter who they are, it is extremely important, as we contemplate the future of our nation as we go into the next millennium, to maintain the strongest possible standards for human rights. I do not believe that the legislation before us tonight contributes in any way to that end.Debate (on motion by Mr Ronaldson) adjourned.Business1000722:18:0010007Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPWorkplace Relations and Small Business10—by leave—I move:That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the routine of business for Tuesday, 21 September 1999 be as follows, unless otherwise ordered:1. A motion to be moved by the Prime Minister relating to East Timor, and debate ensuing with speech time limits being as follows:Prime Minister—Not specified;Leader of the Opposition—Not specified;Next 8 Members speaking—20 minutes each;Other Members—10 minutes each.2. Orders of the day, government business.I thank the opposition for agreeing to give me leave to move this motion so that tomorrow the parliament can focus on developments in East Timor and the contribution that Australia is making to the international peacekeeping force which is now moving into East Timor.These are exceptional circumstances and we believe that in these exceptional circumstances it is appropriate that a full day be set aside for members of the House to express their views on the issues, to express their good wishes and concerns, and to ensure that our troops appreciate that our thoughts are with them at this time. The Prime Minister will move a motion to that effect. It is proposed that there be no speech time limits on his contribution nor on the contribution of the Leader of the Opposition. For the next eight members it would be 20 minutes each and then 10 minutes each for all other members of the House. We believe that this provides a reasonable opportunity for members to make a contribution.Of course it does mean, as we are proposing, that there be no question time tomorrow. This is made all the more important because we needed to await the return of the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister today from Darwin. We were not able to have the full day today; therefore, it is on tomorrow. Tomorrow the House does not sit until 2 o'clock so we lose a little bit of time. We are keen to make sure that as many members as possible have the opportunity to speak and we believe, given the importance of the issue, that it is appropriate in this exceptional circumstance to put aside question time tomorrow.We have had question time today and there have been many questions put by the opposition to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and others, so there has already been some opportunity for question time as provided today. I should also say that it is in keeping with past precedents that question time be put aside. If we look back over the record, we see that on some occasions it has been put aside and on other occasions it has not been. I suppose it is again dependent on the particular circumstances on those occasions. But, just to put matters into context, there was a sitting on 21 January 1991 on the involvement of Australia in the conflict with Iraq. It was admittedly a two-day special sitting, but we note from the record that there was no question time on that occasion.Perhaps as good a parallel were the circumstances surrounding Australia's involvement in Somalia. That was perhaps a better one because it was a normal scheduled sitting day, as tomorrow will be otherwise. On that particular occasion there was no question time. Just for the interest of members, on that occasion the then Leader of the House was none other than Mr Beazley, the current Leader of the Opposition. He referred to the fact that `there is no time for the normal practice of question time', so we are following precedent that the Labor Party themselves set when they were in government.I do not need to add more than that, other than to say that on one of those occasions Mr Wal Fife was the Manager of Opposition Business and he did not require a division either.8I4MARTINMr Martin—He was a gentleman.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr REITH—He was a gentleman. Whilst he expressed his point of view, he did not see that there was any need to do other than express his point of view and did not put the House to the unnecessary time and inconvenience to some members of holding a division.I appreciate the partial cooperation that we have had from the opposition to set this motion in place tonight. By setting this motion in place tonight, it does mean that when the House convenes tomorrow at 2 o'clock we can go immediately to the motion. I think that is in keeping with the eagerness, which sentiment I am sure will be expressed tomorrow, of members to focus on the main issues rather than on the procedures for the debate. I therefore commend the motion to the House.22:24:0010008McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMULLAN5I4CanberraALP00—The opposition of course agrees that it is very appropriate that the parliament should give a considerable amount of time, and we are quite satisfied with the arrangement that it should be the full day, to debate the situation in East Timor and to give what will undoubtedly be our unqualified bipartisan support to those Australian men and women serving in the International Force in East Timor. We agree that it is more appropriate that this motion be dealt with now than at the opening of business tomorrow and that the arrangements for speakers as scheduled are in accordance with normal processes. They are acceptable and will facilitate a large number of members speaking, although not everybody who wishes to, but there is nothing we can do about that. One day accommodates only so many speeches, even under the arrangements put forward.As the Leader of the House knows, because I advised him in advance, the opposition will be moving an amendment that the following words be inserted before paragraph 1: `1A Questions without notice'. This is an unsurprising proposal to everybody, because the opposition is of the view that there should be questions without notice. As the Leader of the House said, the precedents in this matter are mixed. When the Desert Shield commitment was made—the closest analogous situation in the period of 11 years in which I have been in the parliament—it was an ordinary sitting day. At 2 p.m. there was question time. Immediately after question time the Prime Minister moved a motion, and for the rest of the day the House debated it. When there have been special sessions, there has been no question time. We requested a special sitting of the parliament. Had it been called, we would not have argued for question time. We think that, if there is a special sitting of the parliament, it ought to be for the purpose for which it was convened and there should not be question time.WI4REITHMr Reith—Somalia was not a precedent.5I4McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMULLAN—I accept that the precedents are mixed. I am not seeking at all to cut across that point. You acknowledge it and I acknowledge it. There are precedents on both sides. There is, however, an unprecedented circumstance in that we are making this commitment with everybody's support that we should do so but with many people's criticism of the circumstances that led to it. There was a comment from Greg Sheridan, for example, that the deepening tragedy of East Timor represents the greatest catastrophe in the history of Australian foreign policy. Tomorrow is the time to debate the merits of that view, but it is quite clear that it means there are many legitimate questions to be asked. There were 10 questions asked today and there are ample questions to be asked that would fill every question time for several weeks. So if tomorrow the opportunity for question time arises it will be appropriate and will enhance the debate, because it will provide some information that people can draw on in the course of the debate.Everybody wants to provide bipartisan support and best wishes to the troops. That is not a question in any contention. The question is: why is it that the government does not want to have question time tomorrow? What is the case for not using that hour for that important part of the process of parliamentary accountability? Therefore I will move the amendment which I have proposed. It is straightforward. It is the normal expected representation from opposition to say, `This is a matter above all others about which questions should be able to be asked.' We seek to be able to ask them and will pursue that request. I move:That the following words be inserted before paragraph 1: "1A Questions without notice".10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Is the amendment seconded?4I4McLEAYMr Leo McLeay—I second the amendment.Question put:That the amendment (Mr McMullan's ) be agreed to.22:33:00The House divided. (Mr Speaker—Mr Neil Andrew)59Adams, D. G. H. Albanese, A.Bevis, A. R. Brereton, L. J.Cox, D. Crean, S. F.Crosio, J. A. Edwards, G. J.Ellis, A. L. Emerson, C.Evans, M. J. Ferguson, L. D. T.Ferguson, M. J. Fitzgibbon, J. A.Gerick, J. Gibbons, S. W.Gillard, J. E. Griffin, A. P.Hall, J. G. Hatton, M. J.Hoare, K. J. Hollis, C.Horne, R. Irwin, J.Jenkins, H. A. Kernot, C.Kerr, D. J. C. Latham, M. W.Lawrence, C. M. Livermore, K. F.Macklin, J. L. Martin, S. P.McClelland, R. B. McFarlane, J. S.McLeay, L. B. McMullan, R. F.Melham, D. Morris, A. A.Mossfield, F. W. Murphy, J. P.O'Byrne, M. A. O'Connor, G. M.O'Keefe, N. P. Plibersek, T.Price, L. R. Quick, H. V.Ripoll, B. F. Roxon, N. L.Rudd, K. M. Sawford, R. W. *Sciacca, C. A. Sercombe, R. C. G. *Sidebottom, P. S. Smith, S. F.Snowdon, W. E. Tanner, L. J.Theophanous, A. C. Thomson, K. J.Zahra, C. J.72Abbott, A. J. Anderson, J. D.Andrews, K. J. Anthony, L. J.Bailey, F. E. Baird, B. G.Barresi, P. A. Bartlett, K. J.Billson, B. F. Bishop, B. K.Bishop, J. I. Cadman, A. G.Cameron, R. A. Causley, I. R.Charles, R. E. Draper, P.Elson, K. S. Entsch, W. G.Fahey, J. J. Fischer, T. A.Forrest, J. A. * Gallus, C. A.Gambaro, T. Gash, J.Georgiou, P. Haase, B. W.Hawker, D. P. M. Hockey, J. B.Hull, K. E. Jull, D. F.Katter, R. C. Kelly, D. M.Kelly, J. M. Kemp, D. A.Lawler, A. J. Lieberman, L. S.Lindsay, P. J. Lloyd, J. E.Macfarlane, I. E. May, M. A.McArthur, F. S. *McGauran, P. J.Moylan, J. E. Nairn, G. R.Nehl, G. B. Nelson, B. J.Neville, P. C. Nugent, P. E.Pyne, C. M. Reith, P. K.Ronaldson, M. J. C. Ruddock, P. M.Schultz, A. J. Scott, B. C.Secker, P. D. Slipper, P. N.Somlyay, A. M. Southcott, A. J.St Clair, S. R.Stone, S. N.Sullivan, K. J. Thompson, C. P.Thomson, A. P. Truss, W. E.Tuckey, C. W. Vaile, M. A. J.Vale, D. S. Wakelin, B. H.Washer, M. J. Williams, D. R.Wooldridge, M. R. L. Worth, P. M.Question so resolved in the negative.Original question resolved in the affirmative.Adjournment1000910000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being past 10.30 p.m., I propose the question:That the House do now adjourn.1000922:39:0010009Ellis, Annette, MPMs ELLIS5K6NamadgiALP00—I had the privilege last week of being involved in the opening of a marvellous project here in Canberra to raise funds for a number of charities. A local builder, Mr David O'Keeffe of Madison Homes, had a dream of constructing a house which could then be auctioned off for charity. Not a unique idea in itself but, be cause of his vision and determination, David O'Keeffe turned his dream into a unique project. Over some time, during a period in which the building industry in Canberra was suffering low activity, David managed to convince a large number of other businesses to donate their time, expertise and services to enhance the possible return on the house. David believed that, if he could maximise the amount of materials through donation, much more money could then be handed to the charities.In all, 62 local companies and businesses involved themselves in one way or another. The house has now been completed, and I had the privilege of opening it last week. It has been independently valued at around $250,000, and it is expected that, with a sale at that figure or above, a sum of more than $170,000 will be left for distribution to the successful charities. That in itself demonstrates the enormous donations that this project received from these 62 companies and businesses.Money raised in excess of the amounts applied for will be placed in a trust and used for future charity requirements. Whilst he is not planning another similar project immediately, I would not be at all surprised to see, with a little encouragement, a biannual or triannual project in the future.The successful charities who will benefit from this wonderful project are the Smith Family—Learning for Life Student Assistance Program; Koomarri—All Season Gardens Maintenance Program; Australian Red Cross—Roadhouse Youth Service Program; the Spastic Centre—the David Hart walker, which I know many members here have heard about; Camp Quality—reunion weekend; the Richmond Fellowship—Adolescent Sexual Assault Counselling Program; and Open Family—Canberra Streetworker Program. These are all very worthwhile projects, with an effect that will reach far into our community.But that was not enough—the ideas kept flowing. A new web site—charityspot.com—was developed, and it was also launched last week. Charities can register to use this site for their fundraising, and it is also being used as a bid site for this special house. Last week, one of the largest single bids on the Internet in Australia was made for this house, with a bid of $220,000. My congratulations go to everyone concerned with charityspot.com.The auction of this house will take place on 16 October, and I know that everyone concerned is more than confident of a great return on the investment of the people who devoted so much to the project. This is truly a great example of a community getting together and producing a project and outcome which will benefit those needing some support and assistance within their own community.To everyone concerned I offer my heartiest congratulations. On behalf of the charities and the many people who will benefit, our thanks go to them all. To David O'Keeffe and his vision: I do not think he ever quite realised what he would be able to achieve but, with the help of these 62 companies and businesses, he has been able to achieve it. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard the list of 62 businesses and companies which assisted in this project.3E4SULLIVANMrs Sullivan—I imagine so, but the normal courtesy is to show it to someone before seeking leave to have it incorporated.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—I was not aware that the member for Moncrieff had not seen it. Subject to it meeting the guidelines, the member for Moncrieff has indicated that she is happy to accede to that request.Leave granted.The list read as follows—Madison Homes—Project Management & ConceptACT Government—Fees for land & development approvalHarcourt Hill Estate—provision of land at discounted valueHill & Rummery—Legal services including conveyancing once house is soldO'Connor McNamara—Setting up of trust and accounting servicesMarketing That Works—Marketing consultancy serviceTreeTops Nursery—Landscape designFAW—Sourcing & provision of hardware materials Riv-O-land—Design of one bathroom & sourcing materialsGainsborough—All locks & door furnitureBlue Circle—Provision of cement for bricklaying & general worksSouthern Plumbing—Plumbing materialJ Cobb—ExcavationsGriffith Connections—PlumbingGeorge Kambouris—ConcretingOptimum Bricklaying—Brick & block layingS McNever—SurveyingJ Gioffre—Private certifierSellick Consultants Pty Ltd—EngineeringBHP Reinforcing—Reinforcement/SteelPioneer Building Products—Bricks & roof tilesJames Hardie—WindowsCanberra Sand & Gravel—Sand & GravelKennards Hire Pty Ltd—Hire EquipmentApps Plant Hire—Bobcat servicesP & B Alley—ExcavationsG & L Plumbing—DrainageCanberra Hire Pty Ltd—W/C hirePacific Waste Management—Rubbish removalNovelli Tapware—Taps & bathroom accessoriesIntegrated Pest ManagementSystems Pty Ltd—Pest ControlPrime Industries—Smeg AppliancesBrivis—Ducted gas heatingWelana Pty Ltd—Dusted gas heating installationM Design—Design Ensuite & sourcing of materialsACT Frames & Trusses—Manufacture of frames & trussesIndependent Real Estate—Auction of the houseBORAL Timber—Timber for frames, trusses & flooringInternet Solutions Australia—Website & online auctionGSR GyprockParbury Building ProductsMasterman KitchensNew Age Architecture—PlansCITEA—Carpentry workWR Engineering—Fixing fascia & guttersTrueform—Fold materialBHP—Supply of fascia & guttersAGL Gas—Gas connectionScreenmakers—Signage WIN TV—TVStegbar—Shower screens/robes/mirrorsAndre Herzog—Steel beams & lintelsBill McKenzie Electrical—Electrical servicesHPM IndustrialsProfessional Plaster LiningGeoff Knobel BuildersCanberra City RemovalsS.A.K.L. ConcretingHeaven & Earth LandscapingHannson IrrigationYarralumia NurseryColliers Jardine5K6Ellis, Annette, MPMs ELLIS—I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your guidance. I thank the House.1001122:43:0010011Barresi, Phil, MPMr BARRESIZJ6DeakinLP10—In this International Year of Older Persons the coalition government has sponsored the Commonwealth Seniors Recognition Awards, which allow our local community to say thanks to some of society's tireless volunteers. It is only fitting that we recognise the continuing contribution made by our more seasoned veterans. Many of them have been performing good works for 50 years or more and need little encouragement to continue in the same vein. Rewarding those in the community who have done significant good for others perhaps sends a message to others that the ageing process need not necessarily involve winding down, that there are always jobs that can be done and that there is always a need for more volunteers to perform that work.In the city of Maroondah, which is in the electorate of Deakin, the mayor of the city said at the presentation that the expense to the city of employing people at a base rate of $8 per hour to perform duties currently carried out by volunteers would be around $28 million per annum. I am not sure of the scientific basis of the study, but it is significant nonetheless. Volunteerism has benefits other than saving money. You cannot put a value on one person doing a good favour for another. You cannot measure the joy of receiving or the satisfaction that is derived from giving. Last week it was my pleasure to host a function for 21 people who have not let age or setbacks or other commitments stand in the way of service to others. Each award winner eminently fulfilled the criteria set down by these awards. They are outstanding role models for our community, they have made significant contributions to the wellbeing of people, they present a positive image of ageing and they are quiet achievers working for the community.People came to our ceremony in Deakin from as far afield as Darwin and Sydney to witness the presentation of these awards—such is the regard in which these recipients are held. The 20 certificates are but a token of our thanks to our community volunteers, who represent, I am sure, many thousands of others who are doing a little bit, or perhaps a lot, to make life better for someone else.Altruism is the glue that binds our society together. Without it, we would become a society of totally selfish interests, and our national fabric would be destroyed. It is often the single factor identified by many members of parliament for entering politics. To hear of the deeds of these very special Australians and of their lifelong service to their community, free of reward or recognition, would humble any federal or state member of parliament who, after all, is paid.The 21 people who received an award are: Ian Aitken, Bill Barker, Margaret Barnard, William Kitch and Beryl Wilshusen of Blackburn; Audrey Bialecki, John Cotter and Leo Hortin of Mitcham; Col Couper of Vermont; Walter Fowler of Nunawading; Shirley Gilbert and Lin and Paul Paice of Blackburn South; Sally Glanville of Forest Hill; Gwyneth Gray of Blackburn North; Betty Hawkins and Gwen Horman of Ringwood East; Kon Kontossis of Burwood East; Jack Simmons of Ringwood; Jean Smith of Ringwood North; and Frank Sullivan of Wantirna. Their service to the community was and is wide ranging—from being the backbone of bowling and football clubs, assisting in church services and school affairs through to fundraising for charities, driving cars, running a football team for young men with an intellectual disability, organising school bus routes, mending sleep ing blankets for the homeless, delivering meals and repairing property for the scouts.For most of the awardees, their service encompasses a number of different activities. Time does not permit me to go into their achievements individually, but it can surely be said that they have been contributors. I thank them for their splendid achievements and hope that each has many fruitful years ahead of them.I am grateful to the selection committee, who had the impossible task of assigning point values to the contributions of those who were nominated. Thank you to David McKittrick, Kaele Way, Maureen Naylor, Peter Gurr, Anita Hinton and Maf de Felice for their wisdom. After much deliberation, the committee had to identify Deakin's representative for the national Seniors Recognition Award. The panel decided on Mr Bill Barker, who has been working for others since the early days of World War II and continues to do so today in many capacities. I know he is humbled by his selection ahead of the other Deakin awardees, as indeed I was humbled at the magnitude of the service of these great Australians.1001222:47:0010012Murphy, John, MPMr MURPHY83DLoweALP00—It is with shock that I must report to this House tonight the failure of the Minister for Transport and Regional Services to subject the precision radar monitor system to proper environmental assessment under the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974.People in my electorate of Lowe, in suburbs like Drummoyne, Haberfield, Five Dock, Concord, Burwood, Croydon and Strathfield, have lost patience with the minister and Airservices Australia. I wrote to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services on 18 August 1999 and said:. . . The introduction of the PRM, together with its so-called environmental assessment before the full implementation of the Long Term Operating Plan (LTOP) is complete, fails to assess the absolute impact of the PRM on the LTOP.I also said:I have attached a now dated list of proposals subject to environmental impact assessment under the said act. You will see that the vast majority of these proposals went through to gazettal. Suffice to say, environmental assessment under the Act does not equate to adjudication of a proposals viability, or its merits. The public have come to understand the significant shortcomings of environmental assessment under this Act in its failing to accommodate the public interest.I affirm and continue in solidarity with the entire representative body of SACF in opposing totally the introduction of the PRM. I call for the immediate withdrawal of your PRM proposal to the Minister for the Environment under the provisions of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act.I received a reply on 7 September 1999, not from the minister but from his principal adviser, which said:I have noted your comments and your views on the timing of the introduction of the PRM from the north. These will be taken into account in any decision on PRM's implementation following the environmental assessment of the proposal.The principal adviser went on to say:I am advised that Air Services Australia will be making a presentation on this issue to the next meeting of the Sydney Airport Community Forum (SACF) which is due to be held on 14 September 1999. I am sure you will avail yourself of this opportunity to become involved in the consultation process on the process on the proposal and to put forward your views on what matters you believe should be covered in the environmental assessment.Trying to get answers for the people of my electorate of Lowe from the Minister for Transport and Regional Services or Airservices Australia is like talking to a brick wall. It is hopeless.I stress again that, on this issue, I speak for the entire Sydney Airport Community Forum which unanimously supported my motion on 28 May 1999 calling for no PRM for Sydney Airport. This unanimous vote has been systematically ignored by the minister and Airservices Australia. This is a case of the public interest being utterly ignored in favour of the privative interests of Sydney Airport Corporation and Airservices Australia. This is no longer government but dictatorship.I am compelled to repeat the demands made to the minister, given the fact that he has persistently ignored most representations made to him by SACF. The high-profile and eminent airport lobbyist, Ms Janette Barros, wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald last Saturday:The Government has promised that it won't approve the full introduction of the precision radar monitor (PRM) at Sydney Airport `unless it passed an environmental impact study.' Sounds good on the surface, but, given that no projects have ever been knocked on the head as a result of a Federal environmental impact statement, the Government's promise would appear to be an empty one.Thanks to a recent spate of unsatisfactory EISs (for example, third runway and Badgery's Creek) it has become clear that EISs are designed not to help a minister decide whether a project should go ahead or not, but so that a Minister can decide whether or not to `mitigate' negative environmental impacts which occur after the project is approved and commissioned. It may be legal but it isn't ethical or honest.Janette Barros is right. In my opinion, communications between the minister's office and the SACF have irretrievably broken down. Neither the minister nor Airservices Australia has the slightest intention of paying any regard to anyone's representations. It is as if SACF does not exist. Even the government's chairman of SACF, the member for Bradfield, Dr Brendan Nelson, is treated with contempt. He is doing a great job on SACF and spoke well in this House recently for the residents of Sydney about the dishonesty of Airservices Australia.The minister and Airservices Australia are a law unto themselves. Until they are brought into line, they will continue to act contrary to the interests of the broader community. For this reason, I fully endorse the private member's bill moved this afternoon in this House by my parliamentary colleague, the member for Grayndler, Anthony Albanese, for the creation and appointment of an Aviation Noise Ombudsman. We have reached a point where, clearly, the contempt of Airservices Australia and the minister for the public interest are unassailable. They act as a `from Caesar to Caesar' regime of no accountability. Hence, it is entirely timely and appropriate to establish an Aviation Noise Ombudsman, as proposed by Mr Albanese, with executive review powers to independently oversee—free from political interference—Airservices Australia and the minister. Without this, an absolute mockery is made of the public interest in relation to the noise and environmental risks associated with air traffic movements to and from Kingsford Smith airport.1001422:52:0010014Billson, Bruce, MPMr BILLSON1K6DunkleyLP10—Exponential growth in technology and what it is capable of doing, insights into genetic composition, biotech advancement and global yet instantaneous communications that facilitate the transfer of ideas and resources are the contemporary conditions creating a whole world of opportunities and new possibilities. We are educating a generation that is going to be dropped into this dynamic world of delicious and satisfying choices. How do we give the young people of today and tomorrow the knowledge to sift through those options and the capacity to pick out a pathway for their future lives? The prep school kids who start next year will be entering the work force in the years 2012 to 2016 and will be likely to have three or four careers and more than a dozen jobs over their working life.The Howard government has tackled the disadvantage created by poor literacy and numeracy and has opened up new opportunities for skilled and talented people who may not be academically gifted. But what need we do to advantage our kids? We know that there are no `reserved for our kids' slogans and signs on opportunities. What will give our kids a head start in the work force of the future and in this global economy? The answer is the embrace of the concepts of key competencies or workplace know-how through our secondary education and beyond into our broader economy.Key competencies are those core and transportable skills that enable us to successfully bring together all we learn. What we accumulate through training, what we gain through education and the knowledge we get from our life experiences all combine into enabling capacities for our careers and our future. In the Australian context, these competencies are collecting, analysing and organising information, communicating ideas and information, planning and organising activi ties, working with others and in teams, using mathematical ideas and techniques, solving problems and the use of technology.It is my heartfelt belief that key competencies will be the one thing that will give our young people the edge because they are about capacity building. Key competencies can be taught and learned, assessed and reported in a manner entirely complementary to the general educational purpose, existing curriculum, teaching methods and approaches to assessment. They provide what employers seek for performance orientated workplaces and what workers in these workplaces display.Key competencies should not be viewed as an event, but about tooling up and continuous personal development. We want young people to develop their competencies over time, well beyond their schooling years. They are the bedrock of multiskilling and lifelong learning. Geoff Masters from the Australian Council for Educational Research believes that assessment sends a strong message that something is valued and important. For key competencies, the evaluation focus should be on a student's capacity to apply the tools rather than where they might be on a specific key competency continuum.A reasonable assessment framework is whether the tools of key competencies have been embedded in the student so that they can work at, independently develop and communicate their progress. Do they know how key competencies are relevant in the context of a changing world and workplace and how key competencies sit alongside the hard skills of, say, an engineering degree or a technical qualification? Can the student demonstrate an awareness of self, the capacity to reflect and embrace opportunities for growth and recognise progress and what needs to be done to feed lifelong learning?As a matter of policy we should set as our goal that all students by the end of their secondary education will need to be able to demonstrate the capacity to apply the concepts of key competencies, not on excelling at the individual competencies or attaining a certain specific level, but the ability to activate the tools. The teaching of key competencies should be about supporting competency development and progression to grow as an individual, to update and refine their portfolio, to enter new evidence and to select and convey relevant information in a way that best responds to the needs and interests of the intended audience. Enterprise contacts can be involved in this process by providing input and advice on the development of portfolios, evidentiary expectations and how to communicate this information in a business friendly manner and at interview.I continue to work with the National Industry Education Forum to advance these ideas via an innovative project using sport to illustrate the concepts, to attract interest and to involve the private sector. I call on all governments of the Commonwealth to get behind this workplace know-how initiative. The encouragement of the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs and his interest in my continuing campaign for key competencies is appreciated.1001522:57:0010015Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON8K6HunterALP00—Most members in this place, but certainly New South Wales members, will be aware that on Saturday, 11 September local government elections were held in New South Wales. I am delighted to be able to report that my friends and colleagues in the Labor Party in the Cessnock local government area took out nine of the 12 seats on Cessnock council and our Labor candidate, my good friend John Clarence, was elected Mayor by popular vote. I congratulate them all.The greatest delight for all in the Labor Party was the election of 19-year-old Kurri Kurri university student Elizabeth Martin—surely one of the youngest people ever to be elected to local government in New South Wales but almost certainly the youngest female to be elected to local government in New South Wales. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate her and wish her the best. I know she will do a sterling job as a local councillor along with her running mate Darren Riley, a new councillor—himself not all that old, I have to say, and certainly younger than me. My congratulations also go to new councillors Katie Brassil and Bob Pynsent and, in other local government areas, to re-elected and elected councillors John Douglas, Robyn Tozer and Malcolm Ogg in Muswellbrook, Dave Wood in Singleton and Warren Cook and Stephen Watson in Scone. It is disappointing that, during the course of the Cessnock local government election, the issue of the heavy vehicle traffic through the CBD once again raised its head. This was an issue for which the former federal Labor government had a solution. The solution was known as the Kurri Kurri corridor—a road bypass extending the F3 freeway north to Branxton. It was a $220 million project—very expensive indeed, but one which would have brought very many benefits both to the Cessnock and Maitland LGAs and the Upper Hunter in terms of economic benefits.Unfortunately, in its first budget in 1996, the Howard government cut some $620 million out of the National Highway Project. The former Labor government was spending only about $840 million each year. That gives you some idea of the enormity of that cut. Of course, that road project has stalled since those budget cuts. Unfortunately, in the current budgetary climate, it is not likely to gain funding in the near future. This causes a hell of a dilemma for the people of Cessnock who are also fighting for a simple bypass of the town. But the state government finds itself in a catch-22 because if the Kurri Kurri corridor was constructed it would be inefficient to proceed.10000SPEAKERMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 11 p.m., the House stands adjourned.House adjourned at 11.00 p.m.Notices10015The following notices were given:Mrs Elson to move:That the House:(1) acknowledges the financial sacrifice made by parents, one of whom choses to care for their children full-time, rather than return to paid employment;(2) recognises the social and community value of this full-time care, including the reduced burden on Government expenditure; (3) notes the social pressure on many of today's women with young children to remain in paid employment; and(4) welcomes the Government's ongoing commitment to provide real choice for parents by easing the financial pressure on Australian families by (a) continuing low interest rates, (b) the new, fairer tax system and (c) specifically, recognising the value of full-time care by more than doubling of the tax free threshold for single income families with a child under 5 years of age.Dr Nelson to move:That this House:(1) notes Tuesday 12th October is the day of Six Billion People;(2) notes uncontrollable population expansion will lead to increasing pressure on the world leading to serious environmental and social problems;(3) while respecting cultural sensibilities, calls for a realistic approach to family planning, including access to information on family planning; and(4) stresses the issues of population and development are interconnected.Mrs Elson to move:That the House:(1) recognises the widespread community support for the Government's "Work for the dole" program;(2) acknowledges the vital role played by the hundreds of community groups and local organisations throughout the nation that conduct local work for the dole projects;(3) recognises the social value and community contribution of the work carried out by participants; and(4) welcomes the Government's commitment to expanding Work for the dole, as outlined in the 1999-2000 Budget initiative to double the number of Work for the dole places to 50 000 next year—providing hope, experience and opportunity for more young Australian jobseekers.Mr Nehl to move:That this House acknowledges that the people of Tibet have seen significant beneficial changes in their standard of living during the 1990's.Answers to Questions in Writing10017The following answers to questions were circulated:10017(Question No. 695)69510017Bevis, Arch, MPMr BevisET4BrisbaneALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, upon notice, on 7 June 1999:Has a Department or agency for which the Minister has portfolio responsibility entered a contract with or made a grant or payment to an organisation registered under subparagraph (a) 188(1)(a) or (b) 188(1)(b) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996; if so, in each case, (i) which organisation, (ii) what sum was received and (iii) in what State or Territory is the organisation located.10017Vaile, Mark, MPMr VaileSU5LyneNPTrade10—The Minister for the Environment and Heritage has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:No.10017(Question No. 726)72610017Ellis, Annette, MPMs Ellis5K6NamadgiALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for Justice and Customs, upon notice, on 9 June 1999:(1) Are members of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) being offered fixed term appointments (FTA).(2) How many FTAs did the AFP Commissioner offer in 1995.(3) What do the AFP's policy and guidelines state shall be the criteria for FTA renewals.(4) Are FTAs being made to individual AFP members at position or salary levels lower than that which the individual AFP members currently occupy; if so, does this (a) comply with the original intentions of the introduction of the fixed term employment provisions for AFP members and (b) amount to constructive dismissal of the officers concerned.(5) What compensation will the members referred to in part (4) receive.(6) Will their other lawful entitlements be affected. (7) Were 1995 FTAs offered at a lower position or salary level.10017Williams, Daryl, MPMr Williams7V5TangneyLPAttorney-General10—The Minister for Justice and Customs has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) Yes.(2) Approximately 1200 members' FTAs were scheduled for renewal in 1995. Of these some 1140 FTAs were renewed and 60 members chose not to proceed into a new FTA.(3) The AFP's policy and guidelines on FTA renewal were issued in 1994. The guidelines state that renewal is not guaranteed, that discretion lies with the AFP Commissioner or delegate and that unless an express decision is made to reappoint, the member is taken to be retired from the end of their current appointment term. Further, the guidelines state that a further appointment may not necessarily be to the same position, rank or level. These principles, together with the procedures under which reappointment elections are determined, are publicly accessible to all members of the AFP.(4) Yes(a) Yes.(b) No.(5) FTA employment replaced permanent tenure for all members of the AFP. In return for loss of tenure all members are entitled to be paid an adjustment payment (AFPAS) at the conclusion of their service with the AFP. For members who satisfactorily complete their agreed term(s) of appointment and who either choose not to enter a new FTA or are not reappointed, this payment amounts to 12½ per cent of base salary (including any higher duties) paid to the member during the period(s) of their FTA(s). AFPAS payments attract the concessional tax rates applying to Eligible Termination Payments (ETPs).(6) Payments for accrued and unused leave entitlements on separation from the AFP are assessed on the basis of a member's final salary on separation. Superannuation and Cessation Payment entitlements are based on superannuation salary, which in the case of salary reductions, may be preserved at a higher level than actual salary.(7) No. 10018(Question No. 728)72810018Burke, Anna, MPMs Burke83SChisholmALP00 asked the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 9 June 1999:(1) On how many occasions since 1990 have public servants within his Department appealed to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for alleged discrimination in their employment.(2) Is it a fact that trainee public servants have no appeal rights against decisions affecting their permanency.(3) Since 1990 how many trainee public servants assigned to his Department have not been accepted for permanent positions within the Department.(4) How does his Department's record of appointing trainee public servants to permanent positions compare with that of other Department's.10018Scott, Bruce, MPMr Bruce ScottYT4MaranoaNPVeterans' Affairs; Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) 34(2) A person recruited to a training office will in most circumstances be appointed on probation unless they are already an officer of the Australian Public Service whose appointment has been confirmed. Confirmation of appointment is then dependent on satisfactory completion of the training and meeting the criteria for confirmation of appointment set down in section 47 of the Public Service Act 1922.If a decision is made to terminate the appointment, there is no right of appeal under the Public Service Act 1922. That is, action cannot be taken under that Act to have the decision reversed. However, there are ways in which a trainee who is a probationer can have a decision to terminate their employment examined. These include:(a) Seek a review of the process involved in reaching the decision under the grievance provisions of Part III of the Public Service Act. This review might conclude in certain instances that the process leading to the decision to end the employment was flawed, but it cannot result in a reversal of the decision.(b) Apply to the Federal Court under the provisions of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 for a review. This is a judicial review not a merits review. The Court can set aside the decision and refer the matter back to the Department.(c) In certain circumstances the trainee may apply to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission for relief in respect to the termination of employment under the provisions of the Workplace Relations Act 1996. The Commission may order reinstatement of the trainee.(3) The only trainee public servants not accepted for permanent positions within the Department of Defence were the National Training Wage trainees for which there was no provision in legislation allowing their direct appointment upon completion of training.(4) The Department of Defence does not have access to the records of other Commonwealth Agencies. As a result, it is unable to make such a comparison. Information on the records of other Agencies would need to be sought from the Agencies concerned.10018(Question No. 761)76110018Ferguson, Laurie, MPMr Laurie Ferguson8T4ReidALP00 asked the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, upon notice, on 21 June 1999:(1) Further to the answers to questions Nos. 426 (Hansard , 23 March 1999, page 4145) and 546 (Hansard , 11 May 1999, page 5119), in 1997-98, how many visitors from (a) Argentina, (b) the People's Republic of China, (c) Lebanon, (d) Taiwan, (e) Turkey, (f) the United Arab Emirates and (g) Vietnam remained in Australia on a new visa issued through refugee/humanitarian processes.(2) What was the nature of the visa categories for the persons from each country referred to in part (1) who made a legal departure on a new visa.10018Ruddock, Philip, MPMr Ruddock0J4BerowraLPImmigration and Multicultural Affairs; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Reconciliation10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1)—(2) The information sought is set out in the table below. All applications and visa grants shown relate to class 866 Protection Visas.ONSHORE REFUGEE/HUMANITARIAN VISASCountry of CitizenshipProtection visa application lodged in 1997-98 (1)Protection Visa applicants departing lawfully in 1997-98 (1)Protection Visa grants in 1997-98Protection Visa grants in 1997-98 who have departed as at August 1999 (2)Argentina4000China, Peoples Republic of1105495639Lebanon12965293Taiwan552700Turkey1056433United Arab Emirates1020Vietnam5010192Total144960315617Explanatory Notes:(1) `Application' and `grant' figures are not from the same cohort, as some visas granted in 1997-98 will have been in relation to applications lodged in the previous year. Similarly, some 1997-98 applications will not have been determined until 1998-99.(2) All departed on their protection visas.10019(Question No. 763)76310019McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClellandJK6BartonALP00 asked the Minister for Finance and Administration, upon notice, on 21 June 1999:(1) What sum was raised from the partial privatisation of Telstra.(2) How has the sum referred to in part (1) been allocated.10019Fahey, John, MPMr FaheyHQ5MacarthurLPFinance and Administration10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) The total sum raised from the partial privatisation (1st Tranche) of Telstra was $14.2 billion .(2) When the Government announced the sale of one third of Telstra, we signalled our intent to use the proceeds to retire Government debt and to use $1.149 billion to create the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Reserve. The creation of the Trust was formally announced as a Budget Measure in the 1997-98 Budget.Since receiving $14.2 billion by way of sale proceeds in two instalments, the Government has used the funds to retire debt with more than $16 billion of debt being repaid in 1997-98 alone*.As stated, $1.149 billion has been appropriated to the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Reserve with $402.6 million being drawn from the Trust as at 30 June 1999.(* source—consolidated financial statements to 30 June 1998 General Govt Sector figure)10019(Question No. 791)79110019Danby, Michael, MPMr DanbyWF6Melbourne PortsALP00 asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 9 August 1999:(1) Has his attention been drawn to claims that in recent years individuals and companies may have been wrongly granted plant breeder's rights.(2) Has his attention also been drawn to claims involving the granting of plant breeder's rights for Australian native species.(3) Is it a fact that (a) plant breeder's rights were granted for a variety of waratah called `Cardinal' in 1994 and (b) the variety was known to exist in 1955 and was recognised as a variety of common knowledge before the enactment of the Plant Variety Rights Act 1987; if so, will the grant be revoked.(4) Will he investigate whether plant breeder's rights are being granted wrongly and examine the role of the Plant Breeder's Rights Office and the Plant Breeder's Rights Act 1994 itself.10019Truss, Warren, MPMr TrussGT4Wide BayNPAgriculture, Fisheries and Forestry10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) No.(2) No.(3) (a) Plant variety rights were granted to `Cardinal' under the Plant Variety Rights Act 1987 (the PVR Act) as the result of an application lodged in 1994.(b) `Cardinal' may have been recognised as a distinctive form of waratah before the enactment of the PVR Act. However, neither the recognition of its distinctiveness or the publication of its description in 1988 automatically disqualifies it from protection.There are legislative mechanisms to appeal the granting of rights and I understand that a formal request for revocation of the registration of `Cardinal' has been made. This request is being considered in accordance with the PVR Act. Therefore it is not possible at this time to advise whether the grant of rights will be revoked or not.(4) There is general acknowledgment that the Plant Breeder's Rights Act 1994 (the PBR Act) is operating effectively although, like all regulatory systems, it is subject to periodic refinement.Australia's PBR Act is administered in conformity with the international standards established under the Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). The PBR Act specifically includes formal mechanisms to object to a grant of rights where there is evidence to show that the variety does not meet the statutory requirements. There are legitimate objections to the granting of rights under the PBR Act in only about 1% of all applications.The PBR Act also establishes an industry committee to advise me on the operation of the PBR Act. I have no cause as a consequence of the committee's advice, or from proven objections, to institute a review of the role of the Plant Breeder's Rights Office or the PBR Act itself.10020(Question No. 824)82410020Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, upon notice, on 9 August 1999:(1) Has the Government consulted with the States about ratification of ILO Convention 173, Part 111, Protection of Workers Claims by a Guarantee Institution; if so, what consultation has been undertaken.(2) Will the Government use the external affairs power of the Constitution to enact legislation to give effect to a wage earner protection fund, based on ILO Convention 173, Part 111, Protection of Workers Claims by a Guarantee Institution. 10020Reith, Peter, MPMr ReithWI4FlindersLPWorkplace Relations and Small Business10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) Consultations occurred with the State and Territory Governments concerning ILO Convention No 173 in relation to the ratification process in 1993-94. The then Labor government was only in a position to accept Part II of the Convention. No consultations in relation to Part III were undertaken. Australian law in 1993-94 would not have enabled such ratification of Part III.(2) The Government is taking action not taken by previous Labor governments to extend the protection afforded to employee entitlements in the event of employer insolvency. Legislation relating to the Oakdale and Merrywood miners situation is already in the Parliament. In addition, the Government is examining the establishment of a national safety net scheme to deal with the issues more generally and has issued a discussion paper for comment. Proposals to amend the Corporations law have also been announced. The Government does not need to use the external affairs power to achieve these objectives.10020(Question No. 825)82510020Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, upon notice, on 9 August 1999:Further to question No. 577 (Hansard , 9 August 1999, page 6322), did Australia, at the June 1999 International Labour Conference, vote in favour of a new Convention and Recommendation on the worst forms of child labour; if so, will the Government pursue the early ratification of the Convention.10020Reith, Peter, MPMr ReithWI4FlindersLPWorkplace Relations and Small Business10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:At the June 1999 International Labour Conference, all four Australian delegates (ie, two government, one employer and one worker) voted in favour of the adoption of a new Convention and Recommendation on the worst forms of child labour.The question of ratification of the new Convention will be considered within the established framework for consultation and cooperation between the Commonwealth, States and Territories. Consultations will commence after the official text of the Convention is received from the ILO (expected September 1999). In accordance with normal practice, the views of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Council of Trade Unions will be sought as will the views of the State and Territory Governments.10021(Question No. 826)82610021Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, upon notice, on 9 August 1999:(1) Further to his answer to question No. 678 (Hansard , 9 August 1999, page 6338), concerning the Government's indigenous employment policy, has the Government continued to fund the operations of indigenous employment managers with the ACTU; if not, why not.(2) Has the Government had discussions with representatives of ACCI concerning the possibility of extending the placement of indigenous employment managers with ACCI beyond the expiration of the current contract in December 1999.(3) Will the Government continue to place indigenous employment managers with employer or union organisations.(4) Is he able to say whether indigenous employment managers placed with ACCI to assist in creating employment opportunities for indigenous people devote time to recruiting members to ACCI; if so, is this an appropriate use of taxpayer funds; if not, will he ensure that the practice ceases.10021Reith, Peter, MPMr ReithWI4FlindersLPWorkplace Relations and Small Business10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) No. The arrangement with the ACTU was part of a national agreement incorporating eight employees operating as Aboriginal Employment Development Officers (AEDOs) with ACTU affiliates in the States and the Northern Territory and the funding of a National Coordinator position in the Trade Union Training Authority (TUTA). I am advised that an independent evaluation of these arrangements in 1996 identified a number of problems with the implementation of the project and its cost effectiveness. These included an inability to clearly identify employment outcomes, problems with the relationship between the AEDO network and agencies like the Commonwealth Employment Service, and with the supervision of AEDOs by ACTU affiliates. At the same time a restructure of TUTA meant that a nationally coordinated strategy was not appropriate. State Managers of my Department were asked to consider local agreements based on the value of the previous agreement in terms of job outcomes. With the exception of the contract with the Queensland Trades and Labour Council, the Department's State Managers chose not to proceed with local agreements. The contract with the Queensland Trades and Labour Council was extended until 30 June 1997 and finalised at that time.(2) The current contract with the ACCI is due to expire on 31 December 1999. The ACCI has approached my Department to discuss the possibility of a further agreement but no commitment has been made at this stage by either party.(3) Proposals would be considered on a case by case basis.(4) The ACCI has advised that its network of Indigenous Employment Managers funded by my Department does not promote membership of the ACCI or its affiliated chambers and associations.10021(Question No. 829)82910021Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, upon notice, on 9 August 1999:Does his Department have evidence that Australia's visa regime and visitor visa policy is having a negative impact on the number of persons seeking to visit Australia; if so, does detailed information exist to show the extent to which visas are a motivating factor in a traveller's decision on which travel destination is selected.10021Ruddock, Philip, MPMr Ruddock0J4BerowraLPImmigration and Multicultural Affairs; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Reconciliation10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:No evidence has been provided to my Department that Australia's visa regime and visitor visa policy is having a negative impact on the number of persons seeking to visit Australia. The 1996 report by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration inquiry into Australia's Visa System for Visitors states that " claims from the tourism industry were not supported by concrete evidence. The committee requested but was not presented with any detailed information to show the extent to which visas are a motivating factor in a traveller's decision as to which travel destination is selected." This situation remains unchanged.Although the numbers of visitor visas issued during 1998 fell from 3.08m in 1997 to 2.90m in 1998 (an overall fall of 175,000 or 5.7%), There is no evidence that Australia's visa regime or visitor policy has been the cause of this reduction in numbers.Of our top 20 source countries for visitors in 1998, eight had fewer visas issued in 1998 than in 1997. Of these eight countries, four (Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Sweden) are existing Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) countries, where my Department does not impose an application charge and most visitor visas are issued electronically at the same time as the client purchases their airline ticket. From these countries we experienced a reduction of 230,000 visitor visas in 1998.From the four countries that were non-ETA countries at the time, (Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand) we experienced a reduction of 84,000 visitor visas in 1998.Seven of the eight countries are in the Asian region and in all these cases the fall in the number of visas issued commenced in late 1997. This was at the start of the economic downturn in the region and over 6 months before the introduction of the visa charge for non-ETA countries.In most non-ETA countries, our tourism destination competitors also require visas for entry and charge a visa fee that is either on a par with, or higher than, Australia's. Their approach to processing visitor visa applications out of high risk countries is also broadly similar to Australia's.10022(Question No. 830)83010022Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, upon notice, on 9 August 1999:(1) Does his Department's approach to processing visitor visa applications vary from country to country; if so, why.(2) Does departmental data suggest that nationals of some countries have a greater propensity to apply under the Migration Regulations for an extended stay in Australia than do nationals of other countries.(3) Is there a view in his Department that visitors from some countries deliberately seek to mislead departmental officers into granting a visitor visa and then seek to change status on-shore.(4) Is there evidence that persons from a particular country who apply on-shore to change their status pursue the protection visa stream; if so, what is the (a) success rate and (b) average cost to the Department of processing those applications.(5) Are there major differences in the health and character checks undertaken by his Department between applications for visitor visas and applications for permanent residence.10022Ruddock, Philip, MPMr Ruddock0J4BerowraLPImmigration and Multicultural Affairs; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Reconciliation10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:(1) The legal criteria that must be met before a visitor visa to enter Australia can be granted are the same for all nationalities. The approach to processing visitor visa applications does vary from country to country. Objective, statistical data collected on all visitor arrivals shows that persons with certain characteristics relating to nationality, gender and age have a greater propensity to overstay the period of stay authorised or apply for a further visa. This information is relevant feedback to decision-makers at overseas posts and is used along with the information provided by clients in decisions on visitor visa applications.(2) Data does suggest that nationals of some countries have a greater propensity to apply under the Migration Regulations for an extended stay in Australia than do nationals of other countries. In 1997/98, 1.8% of all people who arrived in Australia on a visitor visa subsequently lodged another visa application. For some countries within the top 50 source countries of visitors to Australia, this rate was as high as 20%, for other countries it was as low as 0.1%. This rate does not include those who remain in Australia unlawfully beyond the validity of their visa.(3) In order to obtain a visitor visa, applicants are required to present evidence to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs decision-makers that they have every intention of departing Australia before the expiry of their visitor visa. In recognition of the fact that people's circumstances do change, the Migration Regulations do have provisions to allow visitors to seek an extension of their stay after arrival or to change status to permanent residence. However, when data shows that visitors from certain countries use these provisions at a rate up to 10 times the global average, then decision-makers must question the veracity of the evidence presented regarding an intention to make a genuine visit.Also relevant is the extent to which applicants from some countries present fraudulent documentation and false claims. The examples of fraudulent documentation decision-makers have observed range from simple "whiting- out of names" through to extremely sophisticated use of photographic technology.(4) Evidence suggests that persons from a number of countries pursue the protection visa route when applying on-shore to change their status. Protection visa applications from 190 countries were processed in 1998/99.(a) The ten largest source countries for protection visas (with primary approval rates in brackets) were Indonesia (0.12%), China (0.73%), Sri Lanka (17.63%), Philippines (0%), Iraq (76.75%), India (0.54%), Republic of Korea (0%), Malaysia (0%), Thailand (1.1%) and Iran (35.75%).(b) The average approval rate for all protection visa primary applications in 1998/99 was 13.7%. The average cost to my Department of processing protection visa applications is estimated to be $2529 per application in 1999/2000. This processing cost is for applicants who remain in the community during processing and does not include other associated costs such as detention, legal aid, asylum seekers assistance, representations and requests for Ministerial intervention.(5) Yes, there are differences in the health and character checks undertaken by my Department between applications for visitor visas and applications for permanent residence. The health requirement for short-term visitors is generally met by a self-declaration that they do not suffer from any communicable diseases. This is a risk management approach that assumes because visitors will be in Australia for only a short period of time, the risks to public health can be managed. However, for persons coming to Australia on a long-term or permanent basis or who will be engaged in an activity of special significance for health, such as visiting a hospital or a school, we undertake extensive health testing overseas before a visa is granted. This enables my Department to ensure that any relevant disease is treated off-shore and, once the disease is stabilised, that the person undertakes to report to health authorities on arrival in Australia.Character checking for visitors is based essentially on the Movement Alert List (MAL) and self-declaration. For persons applying for permanent residence, more extensive penal and other checks are undertaken, based on the countries of residence of the applicant over the last 10 years.10023(Question No. 841)84110023Mossfield, Frank, MPMr MossfieldMK6GreenwayALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 11 August 1999:(1) Does Telstra have an arrangement with a Melbourne-based company, United Customer Management Solutions Pty Ltd (UCMS), for UCMS to communicate with Telstra customers on financial matters, including the provision of refunds on UCMS cheques.(2) What is the basis of the financial arrangements between Telstra and UCMS.(3) Does Telstra pay a fee to UCMS to handle Telstra business with customers; if so why.(4) Are privacy provisions in place to protect Telstra customers from a breach of their rights to privacy in their relationship with their provider; if so, what.(5) Does UCMS provide full details of the origins of cheque refunds sent to customers in order to avoid confusion over what might appear to be a windfall cheque from an unknown source, if not, why not.(6) Does UCMS provide telephone contact numbers on documents sent to Telstra customers to enable customers to follow-up inquiries; if not, why not.10023McGauran, Peter, MPMr McGauranXH4GippslandNPArts and the Centenary of Federation10—The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) Pursuant to the Service Provider Agreement, UCMS provides services, including billing and credit management services, to certain specified Telstra mobile service customers. In some circumstances, these services may require UCMS to issue refunds to customers.(2) UCMS is paid a fee for the services it provides. The fee is calculated by reference to amounts received by Telstra from the customers to whom UCMS provides services.(3) UCMS provides, under contract to Telstra, various customer management services to certain specified Telstra customers. In accordance with normal commercial practice, UCMS is paid a fee by Telstra for providing these services.(4) The treatment of personal information of Telstra customers (including customers to whom UCMS is contracted to provide services) is subject to the provisions of Part 13 of the Telecommunications Act, Telstra's Privacy Protection Policy and, to the extent that it is applicable, the Privacy Act. Telstra takes its obligations in relation to privacy of customer information extremely seriously and has adopted comprehensive policies and procedures to ensure compliance.UCMS is subject to both statutory and contractual obligations to Telstra requiring it to respect the privacy of customer information.Customers to whom UCMS provides services have consented to the provision of those services and may, if they wish, withdraw that consent and request that the relevant services be provided directly by Telstra.(5) UCMS is obliged to provide the relevant services to Telstra customers in an efficient and professional manner. Detailed procedures in relation to, for example, the payment of refunds are a matter for UCMS to determine. However, Telstra would expect that refund cheques provided by UCMS to Telstra customers to whom UCMS provides services, will be accompanied by explanatory material and Telstra understands that this is the case.(6) Again, UCMS is obliged to provide the relevant services to Telstra customers in an efficient and professional manner. Telstra would expect that material sent to Telstra customers to whom UCMS provides services will include a UCMS customer inquiries telephone number and Telstra understands that this is the case.