2000-10-053917REPS2085902000-10-05—————Mr SPEAKER (Mr Neil Andrew) took the chair at 9.30 a.m., and read prayers.Bills20859R116220859Bill presented by Mr Truss, and read a first time.2085909:31:0020859Truss, Warren, MPMr TRUSSGT4Wide BayNPMinister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry10—I move:That the bill be now read a second time.The purpose of this bill and the accompanying Repeals and Consequential Provisions Bill is to create a new horticultural services company.The new company will be formed when the assets, liabilities and staff of the existing Australian Horticultural Corporation (AHC) and the Horticultural Research and Development Corporation (HRDC) are transferred to the new company. A trust is also to be established to hold the reserves of the Australian Dried Fruits Board, which is to be abolished under the legislation.The formation of the new company has strong industry support and is the culmination of over two years of hard work by the industry in partnership with the government.The proposal for the new company began with the green paper in February 1999, when the Horticultural Industry Alliance Steering Committee examined the options for a new corporate framework for horticulture service delivery. The aim is to deliver better industry ownership and involvement in marketing and research and development for the horticulture industries and to allow the synergies between marketing and research and development programs to be fully exploited by the industry.Following widespread consultation with industry, a white paper was prepared recommending a new blueprint for industry service delivery involving the establishment of a single company operating under Corporations Law to replace the AHC and the HRDC. It was estimated that moving to a single horticulture services company would provide approximately $0.5 million annual savings in administration when the company is fully operational.The industry, supported by the government, considered in detail how the company might best be set up and run, given the current 25 levy paying sectors and voluntary contributors to the existing corporations and the possibility this number might expand under company operations.The model embraced by industry, and supported by the government in this legislation, involves industry representative bodies owning the company through its membership and providing for individuals or other bodies to contribute funds for marketing and research and development. Each industry body or others contributing funds to the company, through the statutory levies or by voluntary contributions, will hold voting rights in the company in proportion to the level of funds they contribute.Funds of approximately $2 million are to be held in a dried fruits trust which will be accessible to the dried fruits industry for marketing programs.Levy payers will have the opportunity to consider the investment plans developed by an industry advisory committee at an annual levy payers meeting. The company will then arrange the most cost-effective delivery of these marketing and/or research and development plans.The company will receive the assets, liabilities and staff of the two existing corporations. Net assets to be transferred are valued at $20 million and primarily comprise industry moneys held on behalf of the horticulture industry sectors for marketing and research and development programs.In order to provide for continuity of programs and staffing from the AHC and the HRDC, all staff and their entitlements are being transferred to the new company.The role of the company will be to provide marketing and research and development services to industry and to administer export control powers currently held by the AHC. The government will continue to match research and development funds provided by the horticulture industries up to 0.5 per cent of the gross value of production, as applies to other rural industries. In 1998-99, the government matching for horticulture research and development was $15.2 million. The legislation provides for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to declare the company to be the industry services body and the export control body, if certain conditions are met. These conditions include the requirement that the company be limited by guarantee, have an appropriate constitution that recognises the industry and public accountability role of the company and that the company has signed a deed of agreement with the government to fulfil these industry and public accountability requirements.If the company changes its constitution in a manner considered unacceptable to the government, becomes insolvent, or fails to comply with the legislation or the deed of agreement, the legislation provides for the government to retain the right to declare another body as the industry services body or the export control body or to retransfer the assets and liabilities to another suitable body.These safeguards have been provided in the legislation to ensure the company delivers what the industry and the government expect of it.The government will also allow the new company to administer export control powers in a specific market, for a specific product, where it can be shown that the arrangement is beneficial to both the industry and the nation.The most notable current use of export control powers relates to the export of oranges to the USA, where Australian growers have been able to earn price premiums from the export of quality fruit that meets the USA import quarantine requirements. Since 1991, when the trade began, exports to the USA have grown to over $40 million per annum.The company will be able to issue export licences and continue to use the current export control powers for a further two years, where these have already been approved by the AHC.After two years, the further use of export control powers will require a new five-step process to be followed by industry and the company.This involves preparation of a case by the industry, extensive consultation with industry and final approval of the export control by the Secretary to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (AFFA). This new five-step process also includes the preparation of a regulation impact statement by AFFA to ensure the proposed use of the powers complies with national competition principles.The company's ongoing use of the powers will be subject to conditions set out in the deed of agreement and to Administrative Appeal Tribunal review to ensure exporters are fully informed of the use of export control powers.The new company arrangements are expected to deliver significant benefits to the horticulture industries. These include:· design and delivery of research and development and marketing services would be integrated into one company, to allow the provision of `market driven' research and development programs,· afford industries the flexibility to determine the arrangements that best address their individual circumstances,· generate streamlined and focussed industry programs that have the capacity to realise synergies between research and development and marketing,· harness the expertise of other members of the horticultural supply chain, where appropriate,· and promote commercial innovation at the farm business level through providing programs that complement the activities of individual growers.The bill is strongly supported by the horticulture industry, which is to be commended for its efforts in bringing this initiative to fruition—in partnership with the government.About 28 separate horticulture industries are party to this agreement. It represents the beginning of a new era for the industry. I compliment the leaders of the industry for their foresight, and also Senator Judith Troeth, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, for the way in which they have worked through the complex issues which have culminated in this legislation being brought before the House today. I present the explanatory memorandum. Debate (on motion by Dr Lawrence) adjourned.Bills20861R116120861Bill presented by Mr Truss, and read a first time.2086109:40:0020861Truss, Warren, MPMr TRUSSGT4Wide BayNPMinister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry10—I move:That the bill be now read a second time.This bill accompanies the Horticulture Marketing and Research and Development Services Bill 2000.The purpose of this bill is to provide for:· the transfer of assets, liabilities and staff of the two existing corporations, the Australian Horticultural Corporation (AHC) and the Horticultural Research and Development Corporation (HRDC), to the new horticulture services company· to protect existing staff entitlements in the transfer· the flow of statutory levy and matching R&D funds to the new company· the transition period for the use of export control powers of the AHC· provide for a trust to hold Australian dried fruit industry reserves· completion arrangements for final annual reports of the two corporations· the regulation making powers under the act· repeal and consequential provisions for other acts, including abolishing the AHC, the HRDC and the Australian Dried Fruits Board.These arrangements are necessary to establish the new company and provide for the legislative arrangements to apply in the future.The act also provides for the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to declare the transfer day for the new company and for notice of this to be published in the Gazette within 14 days.The AHC and HRDC are required to assist the establishment of the new company and the act provides for the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to issue written directions to this effect as needed.All assets, liabilities and staff are to be transferred to the new company, with the exception of an amount of $2 million of dried fruits industry reserves, which is to be held in a dried fruits trust for future industry marketing programs.These reserves have been built up over many years and the dried fruits industry have requested that a trust be established to allow for industry control of these reserves in the future.The transfer of assets to the new company are to be exempt from stamp duty and other state taxes in order to preserve industry funds.The bill also provides for the repeal of the AHC Act and the HRDC Act and the consequential amendments to other acts as a consequence of this. I present the explanatory memorandum.Debate (on motion by Dr Lawrence) adjourned.Committees20861208612086110000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I have received advice from the Chief Government Whip that he has nominated Mr Schultz to be a member of the parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority in place of Mr Somlyay.Motion (by Mr McGauran)—by leave—agreed to:That Mr Somlyay be discharged from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority and that, in his place, Mr Schultz be appointed a member of the committee. Bills20862R110720862Debate resumed from 4 October, on motion by Mr Reith:That the bill be now read a second time.09:45:0020862McClelland, Robert, MPMr McCLELLANDJK6BartonALP00—To add to my comments from yesterday evening, the thrust of what I said then was how disappointing and how disconcerting I think it is for fair-minded Australians that we have replaced a system of rational consideration of industrial matters on the basis of equity and fairness by an impartial adjudicator with a law of the jungle situation where parties to an industrial relationship are being compelled to determine outcomes on the basis of sheer might—either economic might or industrial might. Logic and reason that have been the history of Australian industrial relations for the last 100 years have been dismantled by this government. That really is a tragedy and completely short-sighted because there will be many instances where it will not be the employer that has the economic might over employees but, in the short-term future and in the long-term future, employees will be in industries that have the upper hand because of labour shortages or pressures of deadlines, whatever they might be. So having outcomes determined on the basis of those practices of intimidation either because of economic strength or because of sheer, brute, industrial might is equally reprehensible to fair-minded Australians. What is concerning is that this whole process of Australian workplace agreements is unquestionably being used as a counter-negotiating tactic by employers to reduce collective negotiation. Logic says that a worker, particularly in a situation where that worker does not have special skills or qualifications, will be at a significant disadvantage to an employer in a negotiating situation. There is no doubt that history has proven time and again that the only way that workers in those vulnerable positions are able to retain or indeed improve their conditions is through collective action. We have seen recent examples being reported. For instance, in a recent decision of Justice Ryan in the Federal Court involving the Burnie Port Corporation in Tasmania, he found:... it is clear that the corporation was concerned to render the [enterprise bargaining agreement] inapplicable to port operatives and cold-store operators in order to bring down the wages and working conditions of the corporation's employees in those classifications.In other words, the corporation was insisting that new employees sign Australian workplace agreements rather than rely on a form of collective agreement that had applied to one employee whose employment application it rejected. As I mentioned last night, in an ongoing dispute between the Commonwealth Bank and the Finance Sector Union, in the Federal Court just last week Justice Finkelstein made similar findings, at least in the context of an application for an interim injunction against the bank. Justice Finkelstein said in the course of the case:It would be wrong for me to do otherwise than to find a sufficiently arguable case that the bank sought to coerce the union to enter into new enterprise bargaining agreements to replace those whose nominal expiry had passed. And the means by which the bank hoped to bring this about was to induce its employees to leave the union by offering them Australian Workplace Agreements.This has been happening in Australia in the last couple of months—indeed in the last week. The significance of Australian workplace agreements is, firstly, that they are being used to undermine the collective bargaining process and, secondly, that they are being used as a means of driving down terms and conditions of employment. It is a matter of great regret in this country that instead of talking about how we can enhance productivity through greater communication between employers and their employees, and indeed encourage employee participation in decision making, we are looking at a situation where employers are being compelled as part of competing with each other to try to drive down terms and conditions of employment. Indeed, often those pressures to drive down terms and conditions are being motivated more on the basis of rumour than fact because Australian workplace agreements are by legislation secret documents, so there is fear or apprehension building within industries where one competitor says, `Well, my competitor has just entered into Australian workplace agreements', and the rumour as to what conditions have been cut forces them to try and up the ante or, more precisely, further reduce terms and conditions. Australians are people of commonsense. They are aware of the inequality inherent in the employment relationship in terms of bargaining power, especially if they do not have special skills or qualifications. It is not as if we do not have experience to look at. What this government is proposing is not all that new. We saw similar legislation in Queensland under the Bjelke-Petersen government. We saw similar legislation in New South Wales under the Greiner government. The Australian people know that such catchcries as `mutual consent' and `employee choice' are a lie. They know the reality of an individual worker going into the boardroom, sitting down at the table, more likely than not to confront the general manager, the personnel officer and an accountant, yet they are expected to enter into a genuine negotiation. Ordinary Australians know that it is a farce. Hence the reason that there needs to be accountability. If we are going to have Australian workplace agreements, there needs to be an impartial, fair and indeed thorough process to vet those agreements to ensure that workers are not being exploited by the inequality inherent in that relationship. Any fair-minded person must recognise that inequality. This is where we are concerned about the government's amendments. The government is proposing to apply a $68,000 cap, after which there is no consideration of the no disadvantage test at all. That is an arbitrary figure, and $68,000—and that includes superannuation and other bonuses—is not an inordinate amount of money for ordinary Australian working families. Indeed, if only one party is working, that would be the bare minimum to sustain a mortgage in one of the capital cities these days. The procedures to allow AWAs to operate even before being approved by the Employment Advocate is a recipe for exploitation. Moreover, it is going to increase the pressure on the Employment Advocate to approve agreements by the mere fact that evidence will be given to him that the agreements are already up and running and the consequences of him then subsequently rejecting those would mean that there would be a claim for arrears of wages.The fact that the role of the Employment Advocate has been enhanced so that the Employment Advocate will be given a greater role in determining the no disadvantage test has been acknowledged by representatives of the department as a further diminution in the powers of the independent umpire, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. That is of concern. The fact that the approval process will enable the Employment Advocate to cut corners is also of concern. The fact that AWAs, if this legislation is approved, will override collective agreements is of great concern. Perhaps one of the most concerning aspects of this bill is the fact that the Employment Advocate will virtually have the discretion as to whether he will permit continuity of terms and conditions of employment in situations of contracting out, outsourcing or transmission of business. If there can be anything more concerning to the security of employment of ordinary Australian workers, it is that prospect, if not the prospect of losing their jobs. There is no doubt that this legislation, if approved, will enable employers to significantly undermine and undercut the terms and conditions of employment of ordinary Australian workers and their families. We oppose the government's legislation. 09:55:0020863Gillard, Julia, MPMs GILLARD83LLalorALP00—This has been a broad ranging debate in which all aspects of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Australian Workplace Agreements Procedures) Bill 2000 have been canvassed. I intend in my contribution to focus on two aspects of the bill. The first is the change that this bill makes to the role and responsibilities of the Employment Advocate and the second is the change that this bill makes to the transmission of business provision relating to Australian workplace agreements, and that is contained in section 170VDD of this bill. Firstly, to assess the role and responsibilities of the Employment Advocate, I think we need to go back to first principles and have a look at what the Employment Advocate does as opposed to what the Australian Industrial Relations Commission does—in particular, how the Employment Advocate functions as opposed to how the commission functions. When we have a look at that I think the differences are clear. The commission is an independent arbitral tribunal, an independent umpire, to which appointments are made from those with industrial relations expertise. They may have gained that expertise by working for employer organisations. They may have gained it from working for trade unions. They may have gained it from being involved in the legal profession in relation to industrial relations or they may be human resource professionals. The commission accords natural justice in its proceedings and acts in what could be loosely termed a judicial manner. Parties with an interest in proceedings get to appear and put their case. The proceedings are generally public, and decisions are publicly available and capable of appeal. Contrast the independent umpire with the Employment Advocate. The Employment Advocate is one person appointed by the government. If that person has an employer bias, there is no ability to balance that with other appointments. Equally, if that person had a trade union bias, there would be no ability to balance that with other appointments. The work of the Employment Advocate is not open and it is not transparent. You cannot just go and watch the Employment Advocate making decisions in the way that you can wander around the various commissions in Australia—Nauru House in Melbourne—and sit in and watch commission proceedings. You simply cannot do that with the Employment Advocate. The Employment Advocate does not have these open proceedings and you cannot see justice, if you like, being seen to be done in relation to the workings of the Employment Advocate.Indeed, I think the Office of the Employment Advocate can be described as a highly secretive outfit. I have had a look on their web site and some of the protocols by which they work would do a secret service organisation proud. I am not sure what they use for training videos in the Office of the Employment Advocate. One has a suspicion that they might use old James Bond movies. When you look on the web site of the Employment Advocate under a curiously headed section entitled `Research', it makes very clear to all of us just how secretive this organisation is. If you want to go to the Employment Advocate and have a look at Australian workplace agreements and you want to do that for a research purpose, these are the terms and conditions put in front of you. The web site says:Researchers can apply to the Employment Advocate for access copies of approved AWAs for research. So they are not going to show you presumably all of the AWAs; they might show you some of them. It goes on:To be eligible for access to the AWAs, researchers have had to demonstrate their bona fides and academic credentials, and satisfy probity and security requirements. So presumably someone goes and gets your ASIO file and makes sure that you have never had any contact with a left-wing organisation or something like that. You might fail the security test if you have. It goes on:All researchers who are authorised are subject to confidentiality restrictions and penalties similar to those applying to the Employment Advocate's staff. Researchers are not permitted to contact the AWA parties.One wonders how one would research the question of duress applied to workers to sign AWAs without being able to contact the parties, but then perhaps the Employment Advocate and this government do not want matters like that investigated. It goes on:The Employment Advocate has determined that unions and employer associations are not suitable researchers under this program.So every trade union official and everybody who works for an employer organisation must be a security risk or must not satisfy the Employment Advocate's view of probity. I am sure there are people working in employer associations and trade unions all over Australia who would be a little surprised that that judgment has been made about them, but the Employment Advocate apparently knows, without speaking to any of them, that they are not suitable researchers under this program. It goes on: Importantly, only approved AWAs are available under the access program. Correspondence between AWA parties and the Employment Advocate, and documents showing the Employment Advocate's assessment of AWAs and the reasons for decision will not be accessible under this program.As we would be well aware, the essence of the commission's proceedings is that it publicly makes available its reasons for decision. You can go and watch decisions being made. The reasons for decisions are published. You can pull them off the web, and you can get them in hard copy from the commission. Not so with the Employment Advocate—absolutely not. You must not have them. The Employment Advocate really seem to think they are a branch of MI5 rather than anything else. It seems to me axiomatic, having had a look at how they function, that we would not want the Employment Advocate to supplant any of the functions of the commission. You simply would not want to do that. You would not want to substitute secrecy for transparency. Yet that is precisely what this bill does in relation to Australian workplace agreements. In section 170VCB of this bill, we find the Employment Advocate is made the ultimate decision maker in relation to whether or not an Australian workplace agreement passes the no disadvantage test—that is, that the agreement does not make the worker worse off. Currently, the ultimate arbiter of no disadvantage is the commission. This bill simply supplants that with the Employment Advocate. It is very clear that parliament should not sanction this move to secrecy. Government members are constantly telling us publicly and privately that they do want fairness in our workplaces. One wonders why they come in here and vote for the minister's legislation if that is their view, but somehow they manage to reconcile those things in their minds. Why should they be believed if they sanction this change? If you do not want workers disadvantaged, why would you sanction a process that hides from public view decisions about whether or not they are disadvantaged? I would challenge the minister, when he responds in this debate, to explain why secrecy should be preferred.I now return to the other issue I mentioned at the outset, which is section 170VDD of this bill which deals with the transmission of business in relation to Australian workplace agreements. The issue of transmission of business has always been an important one in industrial relations. Because of the limited constitutional power of the Commonwealth in relation to industrial relations, when awards and agreements are made they are binding upon the parties to them, not upon employers generally. So from the earliest days of our industrial law, it was recognised that there was a real risk that an employer who became party to an award or agreement and who was unhappy about it could seek to avoid their obligations by transmitting their business to a new company which was not party to that award or agreement. To avoid this problem, our industrial law since 1914 has provided that an award is binding on the parties to the award and their successors, assignees or transmittees—that is, it is binding on the parties to the award and on people who have transmitted to them, assigned to them or succeeded to them part of the business of the employer bound by the award. That took away the ability of an employer who was bound by an award but unhappy about it to transfer their business to, say, a new corporation to try to avoid their award obligations. You could not do that any more. In the current act, this issue is dealt with in subsection 149(1) in relation to awards, subsection 170MB(1) and 170MB(2) in relation to certified agreements and subsection 170VS(1) in relation to AWAs. This bill introduces a major change to the current law in relation to the transmission of AWAs to a new employer in that it empowers the Employment Advocate to make an order that a new employer is not bound by the AWA or is bound by the AWA but only to the extent specified in the order. This bill contemplates a situation where an employer sells his business and the employees of that business worked under AWAs. The employees go across to the new employer and they do the same work in the same workplace using the same equipment, but they do not do it any more under the same terms and conditions because the AWA which they had negotiated with their previous employer does not transfer across. So it really is contemplating a situation where there could be a diminution in conditions even from an AWA. We know AWAs do not generally offer generous conditions to workers because of the circumstances in which they are negotiated, but workers could lose even the benefit of an AWA in a transfer because the Employment Advocate makes an order to that effect. Let us be clear about this: that decision would be made by the Employment Advocate in secret and shielded from public view. It would not be an open commission proceeding. The workers would get no right of appearance, though the legislation tells us that they are able to make submissions. Throughout industrial relations legislation, a right to appear is usually specified using the terminology `right to appear'. Given that the terminology here is that they have the ability to make submissions, one would think that probably means written submissions. No explanation is given in the legislation as to what would happen to workers who may have language or literacy problems which would prevent them from making a written submission. So this is a major change in relation to transmission of business. It was largely unexplained in the minister's second reading speech, and I think the minister should come into the House and detail why it is appropriate. If it were appropriate to give a body the power to order that an AWA not be transmitted from the original employer to a new employer, one would wonder why that body was not the commission. Yet again we see a move to secrecy, a move to doing things behind closed doors.I have raised this transmission of business issue because I am concerned that this change is really the thin end of the wedge of what is going to be a general Howard government assault on transmission of business provisions. I had a look at a very recent ministerial discussion paper, which was released by Minister Reith on 26 September. It is entitled Transmission of business and workplace relations issues—discussion paper and is available with a media release, which includes very nice photographs of the minister and his colleagues. When one looks through this, one sees that the purpose of this ministerial discussion paper is really to circumvent a number of recent judicial decisions about transmission of business. Those judicial decisions have been made in circumstances where an employer has decided to outsource part of its work, and the workers who have been doing the work for the employer are transferred to the contractor. They end up doing the same work, basically in the same circumstances, but the only difference is that they are paid less and get worse conditions.Indeed, in many of these outsourcing examples, the saving that the employer experiences through outsourcing is not gained through any grand new efficiencies or magic new management culture; the saving actually occurs wholly and solely because the wages and conditions of the workers involved are downgraded. Unions have taken legal action about those matters in a variety of circumstances and the courts have agreed with the unions that, if workers are subject to awards or certified agreements and that kind of movement of work—the outsourcing of work—happens, the workers should get the same terms and conditions for doing the same work. How outrageous is that—getting the same terms and conditions for doing the same work, so you will get paid the same on Tuesday as you got paid on Monday, though the identity of your employer has changed? There is nothing very outrageous in that, but of course this minister cannot stand a union victory, and consequently this ministerial discussion paper is the first shot across the bows to change the law so that workers can be outsourced and have their pay and conditions attacked in the process. When you read through this ministerial discussion paper, it posits a number of fairly fanciful examples about outsourcing issues and then raises the alleged problems to employers when this outsourcing occurs. I thought that, if this is going to be an issue that this government is going to make a move on, it might be important for members in this place not to look at the fanciful examples but to perhaps understand a real example. The real example that I am intending to raise involves the City of Greater Dandenong and the Australian Services Union, of which I am proud to be a member. This is a classic outsourcing example. In late 1997, the City of Greater Dandenong decided to outsource its home and community care services through a competitive tendering process. As we are all aware, HACC services are provided to the aged and include specialist care provided to people with disabilities. The service employed 73 staff—the majority of them were women working part time. The decision to outsource this work led to the formation of a committee to develop an in-house bid—that is, the workers who were doing the work wanted to bid so they could keep doing their own jobs. They were told at various management meetings—all of which were minuted—that they would need to reduce their working conditions to retain the work. The reductions the council sought included reductions in relation to travel time, out of hours and weekend penalty rates, and public holiday rates. The women involved—part-time workers most of them—argued that they could not afford to reduce their income; fair enough, one would think. The outcome was the in-house bid being based on the existing award EBA conditions of employment. At its February 1999 meeting, which was taped on both audio and video, the council considered the tenders for the HACC work and resolved to outsource it to Silver Circle. The difference between the in-house and Silver Circle's bid was $1.56 million over three years. Of course, those savings were predicated on the people working for Silver Circle not getting the same terms and conditions. The mayor from one of the councils at the meeting openly criticised the workers involved for not being willing to reduce their terms and conditions. The Australian Services Union took action on behalf of those workers—firstly, under the freedom of association provisions in the Workplace Relations Act, claiming that these employees had been discriminated against for a prohibited reason; that is, they had been discriminated against, because they were entitled to the benefit of an industrial instrument or an order of an industrial body. They also claimed that, in this case, there was a transmission of business—that is, these home care workers were doing work, looking after the elderly and the disabled in their own homes; then the work was outsourced and Silver Circle performed that work; many of the workers went over to Silver Circle, so they were performing the same work, in the same circumstances and going to the same client homes; the only difference was they were getting paid less. They argued that, in that circumstance, the award and EBA to which they were entitled when they worked for the council should follow them to the transmitted business—that is, to Silver Circle.That case was pursued by the Australian Services Union, and it became clear to Silver Circle that it did not even have an arguable defence to the transmission of business issue, and nor should it. Consequently, it settled that matter with the union in September 1999, and that was because Silver Circle knew that the union would be able to clearly substantiate that the carers were performing exactly the same functions with the same clients. However, the case actually went to decision in relation to the freedom of association point. I think this is a very important decision and one which heralds a victory for workers around Australia in these circumstances. On 4 September, Judge Madgwick handed down a decision which was a victory for these home care workers. In that decision, it was substantiated that it is illegal for employers to encourage or coerce workers into reducing their working conditions in a competitive environment. An employer cannot threaten to outsource the services of those workers if they fail to agree to any reduction and cannot be seen to publicly criticise workers for not reducing their working conditions. That is a major victory for workers around Australia who are put under the hammer by employers, told that their jobs will be outsourced and that they will lose them unless they accept lesser terms and conditions. One option for the City of Greater Dandenong is to appeal this decision to the High Court. One would hope that the City of Greater Dandenong acts genuinely in the interests of its ratepayers and does not waste its money in doing that.Can I conclude by saying that I think this is a very important decision, a major victory, and that all congratulations should go to the Australian Services Union in pursuing this matter: to Joan Price, the organiser who was involved; to the shop steward, Wendy Phillips; to Glenda Mathews, one of the workers there who organised social functions; and to each and every one of the HACC workers who stuck by each other and were extremely supportive of each other. Congratulations should also go to the legal team involved, which included Mordy Bromberg as counsel and Josh Bornstein and Kim Parker of Maurice, Blackburn, Cashman, industrial solicitors on behalf of trade unions. To conclude, this legislation we have before us ought to be rejected. It ought to be rejected for all of the reasons put in this debate and, in my contribution, it ought to be rejected because of the change it makes to the role of the Employment Advocate and the transmission of business provisions. (Time expired)10:15:0020868Martin, Stephen, MPDr MARTIN8I4CunninghamALP00—It is a great opportunity that we have in this place today to consider the Workplace Relations Amendment (Australian Workplace Agreements Procedures) Bill 2000, if only for the fact that it gives us an opportunity to put on the public record the concerns which we in the Australian Labor Party, as the genuine representatives of working men and women in Australia, have about the direction in which Mr Reith, Mr Howard and the Liberal government of this country want to take the conditions and terms of employment of the ordinary, decent, hardworking men and women who make up this country of ours. Part of this package of legislation being introduced by the government today in this piecemeal fashion comes after the withdrawal of last year's More Jobs Better Pay bill and, as has been indicated by speakers on this side of the House, we will be opposing this legislation. This in fact is part of a trilogy of broken promises delivered by the Prime Minister and the coalition government since they came into office. The first was that there would never ever be a GST; the second broken promise was that petrol prices would not rise under a GST; and the third, and most critical in terms of this legislation today, is that no worker would be worse off under the industrial relations climate created by the government.Quite clearly that last proposition is an absolute nonsense. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I represent the great industrial heartland that is Wollongong—the Illawarra. If Peter Reith or the Prime Minister cared to come down and talk to some of my constituents who were former employees of Joy Manufacturing or were former employees of BHP, either in its steel division or its coal division, or came down and talked to a range of other former heavy industrial employees, I think they would get a completely different picture of how well my constituents viewed the industrial relations reforms being put forward by the government. I am sure they would hear from those constituents their absolute joy—unbridled joy, unbounded joy—at the fact that Australia's senior executives are being given multimillion dollar payouts and that senior executives are being given share bonuses that, when tallied up, run into many millions of dollars. I am sure that they would share in the, as I said, unbridled joy of my constituents that that is happening.My constituents run around all the time saying, `Isn't it great that the bosses of the banks and the senior employee organisations of this country are getting such great rewards.' They themselves know that their personal circumstances, however, have not necessarily reflected that great joy that these other people have been able to get for themselves. A lot of that can in fact be traced back to the fact that since 1996 there has been a concerted effort to undercut the terms of employment, the conditions of employment and indeed the real wages and living standards of ordinary Australians in this country.This legislation typifies those sorts of concerns because it is about, effectively, a process of implementation, through AWAs—that is, Australian workplace agreements—which will see those standards, those conditions of employment, continuously undercut. Let me just touch on a few of these. Firstly this legislation seeks to grant the Employment Advocate greater powers at the expense of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. We know, we remember well, that John Howard's proudest boast was that he would come from the front and stab the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in the stomach. He wanted to get rid of it. He did not want to have an independent arbiter, an independent umpire, out there that would be able to sit in judgment in disputes between employers and employees. Rather, what we saw created was this Employment Advocate who can simply tick off on any of these AWAs. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission's powers to arbitrate in many of these disputes therefore has simply been gutted and for no other reason than some ideological bent against the trade union movement in favour of one party over the other. The fact is that in any dispute—it does not matter whether you are talking about a fight at home in family circumstances or whatever—it takes two to tango. Any dispute has two people or two groups of individuals, or two groups generally, that are fighting each other for a particular reason. In the case of industrial relations it is often about terms and conditions of employment. What we are talking about here are things like taking away some of those hard fought for and realistic sorts of things which employees at the workplace would like to retain. But with changes in technology, changes in work practices and so on, realistically, some of those things have to go. As a consequence, if there was an opportunity to sit down in a spirit of compromise, in a spirit of an ability to reach an agreement which would see benefits for the employee and the employer, then clearly that has to be a better set of circumstances. But we do not see that any longer. What we see is the power shift that has taken place because of changes which this government and this minister continue to push forward. And this is yet again another example of where that power shift would take place. It would clearly tip the balance away from workers and their ability to be able to negotiate an appropriate outcome for themselves.My colleague the member for Lalor a moment ago talked about the fact that people who are doing equal jobs, doing the same work, are able to be coerced into taking agreements which are different. How stupid is that? Here we have, in this day and age, people who are skilling themselves—going through tertiary institutions or taking training courses and so on to skill themselves—so that they can continue to play a useful role in the workplace, as we know our economy is changing. Yet what we are being told is that this minister and this government would like to see people who have equal skills, who are doing the same job, not being recompensed equally. There is an inversion taking place there, as I said, and a change and a shift in the power relationship that an employee can have.The bill proposes also the removal of the requirements to offer identical AWAs to comparable employees. Consequently, we believe that that is unfair. We believe that it certainly does not meet the Prime Minister's commitment that no worker would be worse off under any of these industrial relations changes that this government would bring into place. We can all recall the 1996 election campaign where the Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition, said, `Trust me on all of this stuff. We'll never, ever introduce a GST. Trust me on that. Trust me if you're a worker. Don't worry, you're not going to be worse off; you'll be okay under us. We're not going to change the circumstances. We are not going to change having collective certified agreements which offer opportunities for like workers to be recompensed in like ways. Everything's okay.' Yet here we see examples of where that clearly is not the case.The bill will also remove the limited immunity available in respect of industrial action taken in support of a claim for an AWA. So, once again, we see this ideological bent, saying that ordinary folk cannot go and legitimately and legally try to protect their own terms and conditions of employment in some way. How often in this place—it is almost on a daily basis—does the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business come in here with the same sorts of tactics that we saw him support in the Patrick dispute with the dogs, the balaclavas and the thugs on the waterfront, expressing the view that anybody who is in a union is somehow a second-class citizen and any worker who wants to stand up for themselves in any way whatsoever should be subjected—and rightly so—to brow beating and basically be told, `This is the job: take it or you're gone.' If the minister thinks I am joking about this or stretching the truth, he should come to certain electorates and talk to the people there. Mr Deputy Speaker Jenkins, you, coming from the electorate which you so ably represent, appreciate these sorts of views. The minister should come and talk to some of the people in the member for Gilmore's electorate, for example, at the defence base. He should go and talk to the employees of Serco. Go and talk to them at Albatross and just see what is happening as a result of the outsourcing program being pursued by this government. Employees suddenly find a private employer coming into Albatross and the company Serco Australia is given the responsibility for providing all sorts of services on the base, and it then decides to start the recruiting process. What it does is say, `This is the AWA that we are going to offer you, an individual contract. This is it.' Down in a place like Nowra, where unemployment is still unacceptably high, the people who presently work on the base and who are being asked to take one of these new AWAs are finding that the terms and conditions being offered are not as good as they once had. They are thinking, `Well, maybe I shouldn't do this; maybe I should hold out a bit.' But Serco says, `You've got a once in a lifetime opportunity to take this now, or out the door you go because somebody else is waiting in line.' There are hundreds of other people in that area who are taking such AWAs.I am not singling out Serco as an example of this. But Serco in the particular case down in the Shoalhaven typifies a company which has embraced the industrial relations legislation which this government has put through—and if that is the law that is its right to do so. What it demonstrates clearly is that in a circumstance such as that—where, through outsourcing and changed relationships on a defence base like HMAS Albatross, we are finding the terms and conditions of workers being varied—they are worse off.I point again to a few other examples within my own constituency. I mentioned Joy Manufacturing earlier. Joy Manufacturing, multinational company that it is, has a number of different outlets operating throughout the Illawarra. It is in manufacturing. It is in mining machinery. It is in a range of other things. There has been a massive industrial campaign within the Illawarra that has raged for a number of months now stemming from the fact that that company locked its workers out. It wanted to have changed circumstances for the terms and conditions of those employees, so what did it do? It locked them out so that ordinary hardworking men and women of that company could no longer access their place of employment. We had police. We had the trade union movement, represented by the newly reformed South Coast Labour Council doing a sensational job in mobilising support for those workers. We had peaceful demonstrations, peaceful rallies but, nevertheless, people making a point about Joy Manufacturing.Regrettably, we have not seen too much of a breakthrough on any of this. We have not seen those workers feeling that they are `comfortable and relaxed'—in the Prime Minister's language. We have not seen those workers thinking, `Well, aren't I much better off now because I'm locked outside the gate and I'm not getting anything.' What we have not seen—under this legislation that this government proposes and in fact has enacted—is any way in which these workers feel that they are better off, as the Prime Minister promised.What we have also seen in my area, though, is what I consider to be model industrial relations in operation, and that is at the Port Kembla coal loader. I would suggest that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business have a look at that model of how things work. I think the Port Kembla coal loader is a model for what should operate around Australia. A few years back, the Port Kembla coal loader had anything but an outstanding track record. Strikes were the order of the day. Why? Because we had a whole bunch of unions that had coverage on all sorts of different aspects of the way in which the coal loader operated. We saw that those unions sat down and recognised that in all of the cross-border disputes—which arose because somebody from one union perhaps went and did the job of somebody else and that union then walked out—they had to rethink their position to sustain the employability of the majority of people at that coal loader in difficult economic times for the Australian coal industry. At the same time, the management understood that they had to rethink their position as well. What we have now seen is a reduction in the number of unions—I forget the exact number of unions, but there were multiple unions—to two unions that have the coverage of the work force on the coal loader. In difficult circumstances, they had to oversee redundancies as well. So here you had a mainstay industry for the Illawarra and for Australia in the coal industry, a coal loader which needed to facilitate exports so that Australia benefited from the export dollars being earned, and a union work force and a management group coming together to sustain those jobs and to sustain that industry. As I said, the result was improved management practice, because the management understood that they needed to change. They no longer wanted to see an adversarial role all the time. They no longer saw themselves as one part in a running industrial relations dispute. They understood that there was a need to sit down with the workers and actually work through some of these issues. The unions understood that that was a problem for them. They understood there were too many unions. They understood that, in these disputes which broke out, the need was there for rationalisation, and that occurred. They understood also that they had to sit down and be prepared in circumstances to look at terms and conditions and to come up with things which were good for the company, and they have done so. It has been difficult, as I say, because people have actually lost jobs as a result of it, but the industry is sustained now and they sit down around the boardroom table together working as they should be for the profitability of the company concerned and for the terms and conditions of employment of the work force at that coal loader. I would commend that. I have taken my friend and colleague the shadow minister for industrial relations, the member for Brisbane, down to Wollongong. He has been on-site and spoken with the folk there. His intention is to come back, because he sees that as an excellent example and a model for how industrial relations might work in this country. I commend it to him.I also think that, when you look back to this legislation and look at some of the other provisions that are in here, you can again see why we in the Labor Party have some genuine concerns about it. There will be a removal of the limited immunity available in respect of industrial action, which I spoke about a moment ago. The legislation will allow AWAs to be made undercutting a collective certified agreement, even while the loader is in operation. If there is one aspect of this which, I have to say, grates with most genuine workers in the community, it is that. What this means is that, if there is a collective certified agreement that has been negotiated between employer and employee at the present moment in good faith and giving good returns for both sides, under the bill that the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business is proposing, AWAs—that is, individual agreements—can be made that can undercut that. So an employer can come in, because the law will allow him to do so if this legislation goes through, and undercut the collective agreement that is already there. For that, read `downgrade the conditions and the terms of employment'—and, I suspect, the wages—of those workers who signed up to that collective agreement.If there is one aspect of this legislation which is a major negative for a region like my own and a city like my own, which has a proud industrial relations history, it is that. That stands out as being a major negative and sends a signal of danger to the workers that there is an opportunity here for their conditions to be undercut. It is again a continuance of the breaking of the pledge of the Prime Minister that no worker would be worse off. There are many other issues that this legislation contains that the Labor Party have considerable disagreement with. I might just say that this is not an ideological thing. This is not Labor versus capital. This is not that at all. What this is about is protecting the terms and conditions of ordinary working men and women in this country. This is about saying to all of those people, `We believe that you need a fair go.' We are saying that this legislation does not do that. We think this legislation tips the balance too far in one direction, and that is unfair. There is need for change, but I think people in the work force understand that. I am not necessarily sure that too many in management these days believe that is the case. We have to find that balance. This legislation does not do so. This legislation is flawed; it is flawed for a whole variety of reasons. As a consequence, it will be opposed by the Labor Party. 10:35:0020872Snowdon, Warren, MPMr SNOWDONIJ4Northern TerritoryALP00—I am pleased to be able to make a contribution to the debate on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Australian Workplace Agreements Procedures) Bill 2000 and support totally the words of my friend the member for Cunningham and those of my other colleagues in relation to this bill. We in the Labor Party will not be supporting it. I am sure it is no surprise to Minister Reith that in any event we have to ask: what is the purpose of the exercise? It is very clear to me that those sensible Australians, those thinking people, will say that this legislation has as its purpose division. It is not fair. It is not equitable. It does not provide Australians who most need the support of an independent arbiter with the support of an independent arbiter. What it does is take away their right to collectively bargain and be in a situation where they share common working conditions with people who do similar work in similar environments.We in the Labor Party have indicated that we plan to abolish AWAs. We do not support them, and it is interesting in the context of this debate that the people who will be most disadvantaged by this push to in effect take away the safety net from many working Australians, to take away the protections that are provided for in awards and to take away the protection that is available for having someone advocate on their behalf are, not surprisingly, those people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, women, workers juggling work, family and social obligations, young people and—importantly, from my point of view—those people who live in remote and rural areas. Generally speaking, despite the efforts which are being made by unions to provide the support and protection that these workers need, it is a very expensive exercise and a very difficult exercise to maintain coverage across a range of awards in widely dispersed areas of Australia where the populations themselves are scattered and where location is a disadvantage not only for those people seeking to service their members—the unions—but for all the people who live in those areas.It should come as no surprise that, if you were to pursue the objectives that are outlined in the legislation that this government wishes to impose upon the community, you would be leaving these workers in a particularly disadvantaged position. Whilst it might be difficult with awards for unions to service their members in these regions, the fact that they have awards provides them with a platform upon which they can build. If you take away—as the government intends to—the comfort that is provided by a common approach to working conditions for these workers across regional Australia, then you are exposing these people to a position where they are virtually defenceless.It is no surprise when you look at the work being done as a result of changes which have been made in Queensland that when the Queensland government—that is, the Beattie government—changed the way in which the Queensland workplace agreements were to operate to ensure greater protection for the interests of working people the Queensland workplace agreements became far less attractive to employers. In Queensland, the state commission is required to ensure that Queensland workplace agreements are not contrary to the public interest, and when it considers the public interest it may consider the relative bargaining power and the particular circumstances and needs of low paid workers, women, young people, outworkers, apprentices and trainees. As a consequence, the Queensland workplace agreements are now far more transparent, open and fair and, when negotiated, they are far more responsive to the public interest.The statistics speak for themselves. Under the Borbidge government, an average of 282 new Queensland workplace agreements were agreed per quarter. Under the Beattie government, that number has dropped to 16—in other words, as the Leader of the Opposition said in this place, the fairer the Queensland workplace agreements are, the less attractive they are to employers. The point is that AWAs are not only not attractive but not even cost effective. We need to understand that even the person charged with oversighting AWAs, the Employment Advocate, has admitted that the low take-up rate of AWAs could be due to the high transition costs. We estimate that an AWA costs on average around $500. That in itself is quite expensive, compared with the $22 that we believe it costs for each worker covered under collective agreements covered by the Industrial Relations Commission. I take my comments back to those people who live in the bush, who are subject to negotiating one on one with an employer. Bear in mind that, generally speaking, wages and working conditions in the bush are less attractive in any event than they are in the major urban areas. It also needs to be borne in mind that particularly—and certainly in my electorate—those workers who live in regional areas, remote communities, face far higher costs than their counterparts who live in major urban areas. So on the one hand they get less money, by and large, and on the other it costs them more to live. Yet now we have a proposition which effectively says that these workers should be denied the basic protections which are in place in the collective agreements which are covered by the Industrial Relations Commission and that they should expose themselves to the whims of employers—who, as we know now, are less inclined to adopt AWAs when the process for achieving them becomes more transparent and fairer.We are being told now that these workers should not worry about collective agreements or the fact that the government is intent on nobbling the independent umpire, the Industrial Relations Commission, or the fact that they will have no-one to advocate on their behalf or the fact that they may have English as a second or third language or the fact that they may have only achieved a schooling of year 8 or 9. We are being told they should not worry about these things; they should feel confident under those circumstances to sit down and negotiate one on one with their employer on their terms and conditions. It is so ludicrous it is laughable, if that in the end is what is being proposed by this government in industrial relations. I note that when the Senate had an opportunity to look at this legislation and previously the bill of 1999 Labor senators made it very clear what they thought of these proposals. Indeed, they made it very clear what they thought of the intentions of the government towards the Industrial Relations Commission. In fact, on page 159 of the November 1999 report of the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education Legislation Committee entitled Consideration of the provisions of Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (More Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 1999 Labor senators recommended, in relation to the Industrial Relations Commission, amendments to the act:to provide a greater role for the AIRC in prevention and settlement of industrial disputes and to act in the interests of fairness and in the national interest;to provide the Commission with the power to arbitrate on all employment related matters in order to ensure that employees have the protection of effective awards which provide fair and relevant terms and conditions of employment; anddiscretion to be provided to the Commission to arbitrate in cases where negotiations to conclude an agreement have failed within a reasonable period.It comes as no surprise to see that the government has clearly rejected outright the propositions put forward by my Labor Senate colleagues. It becomes more interesting, however, when you look at the position of the government on these issues as evidenced by the information which came forward by dint of the inquiries of the senators. From the evidence, what it is proposing has become clear. I quote from evidence given by Ms Lyn Tacy, who is deputy secretary of the department. When asked a question by Senator Carr as to whether or not the procedures bill that we are talking about today would in fact be proposing a reduction in the role and powers of the commission, she responded: Yes, it is making the OEA responsible for all elements of the testing of AWAs.As the Labor Party members of the Senate committee have said, the issue of public confidence in the Office of the Employment Advocate was canvassed in the 1999 minority report. No new evidence has been put to the committee to refute the conclusion of the Labor senators then:Overall Labor Senators were not persuaded that the OEA has not undertaken its role in an unbiased manner. In any event, lack of public confidence in the impartiality of the OEA would be enough to dissuade employees from attempting to seek redress through this office. I ask you to contemplate what is happening here. We have a proposal, very clearly put, to diminish the powers of the Industrial Relations Commission, transfer them as they are, in whatever form, to the Office of the Employment Advocate and provide the Employment Advocate, perceived as being the employers' advocate as opposed to the Employment Advocate, with the responsibility to oversight AWAs. What thinking person, what employee, what worker in any part of Australia could truly have confidence in the fairness of that situation? This is not someone who is independent of government in the same way as an industrial relations commissioner is. It is easy to see that any objective test that you would like to apply to whether or not this person would be independent would not be passed. I go back to the position of thinking about workers who live in rural and remote Australia. They do not have the local access that workers who live in Sydney or Melbourne might have to union officials. In most cases they do not have open access to third parties—legal advisers and others providing them with advice on the sorts of agreements that might be placed in front of them by a potential employer—that people who live in Sydney, Melbourne or other major urban centres might have. But under this legislation they will be compelled effectively to like it or lump it.The protection that is provided through collective bargaining and the registration of awards through the Industrial Relations Commission, which traverses geographical boundaries and has some consideration of locational disadvantage, will not exist. These people will be at the absolute mercy of the employer. That is the fact of it. Whilst we will hear the minister come in here and berate us, as he does continually, on the efficacy of the arrangements which he is proposing to put in place and the fairness of them, by any objective measure they are unfair. By any objective measure they will disadvantage Australian workers. By any objective measure they are not good for this community. I am proud that the Labor Party has taken the position that it has. I am proud that the Labor Party has taken the view that we will oppose this legislation, because it is not fair, it is not equitable. Indeed, in my view it is most damaging.10:54:0020874Murphy, John, MPMr MURPHY83DLoweALP00—I rise this morning to oppose the Workplace Relations Amendment (Australian Workplace Agreements Procedures) Bill 2000, which is yet another attempt by the Howard government to strip away the rights of workers and deny the role of trade unions in the bargaining process. The amendments in this bill are essentially the same as schedule 9 in the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (More Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 1999, which the opposition and the Democrats had the good sense to oppose last year. According to the Bills Digest, this bill contains amendments that seek to:provide for AWAs to take effect on the date of signing or, if later, the date specified in the AWA as the commencing day ...permit employees to sign AWAs at any time after receiving a copy of the information statement prepared by the Employment Advocate and an explanation of the effect of the agreement ...There is presently a condition where existing employees must be given a copy of the agreement at least 14 days prior to signing the agreement and new employees must be given a copy at least five days in advance of signing the agreement. The proposed amendments eliminate the requirement that comparable employees be offered identical AWAs. This is one of the most unfair and indecent parts of this bill. This will enable employers to discriminate against employees. Ultimately, it will create inherently unequal pay for equal jobs in the workplace. The Bills Digest goes on to point out that the proposed amendments would: Permit an employee party to an AWA that provides for remuneration of $68,000 per year or less to withdraw consent within a cooling-off period ...In the bill there are also amendments to the provisions which obstruct awards that had been made under section 170MX(3) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 dealing with the relationship between AWAs and certified agreements and awards. Basically, as the shadow minister for industrial relations said in this House yesterday, these are awards the Australian Industrial Relations Commission has arbitrated, and where the AIRC as a result of a dispute has determined there is no chance of an agreement it sets an award. The bill also allows the removal of limited immunity available in respect of industrial action taken in support of a claim for an AWA. This effectively prohibits an employee from accessing protected industrial action during the term of the AWA, and is therefore inequitable.Finally, the proposed amendments are supposed to simplify the approvals process by: one, blending the existing assessment of filing requirements and approval requirements into an amalgamated one-step approval process by the Employment Advocate; two, removing the requirement that the EA refer AWAs to the AIRC where there is a concern that the AWA does not pass the no disadvantage test—the no disadvantage test is where the AWA is compared to the relevant existing award; the Employment Advocate would apply the no disadvantage test in all cases; and, three, providing a more streamlined process for AWAs that provide rates of remuneration greater than $68,000 per year.I would like to record that the government's so-called simplification of workplace relations legislation will further abuse and erode the rights of ordinary Australian workers, those who have only their labour to sell, and increase the power of the wealthy employers who are driven by greed, avarice and the need to make profits at all costs. The original reforms worked to reduce the power of an employee or a trade union to take industrial action or seek review where review could be necessary. This simplification of the AWA process will see a further reduction in the already limited review process, because the current role of the AIRC to look at the no disadvantage test in AWAs will be taken on by the Employment Advocate. Once again, the public interest has been slaughtered.This bill allows the government, for no reason except ideology, to diminish the already reduced role of the AIRC, the proven umpire between employers and employees. That is a disgrace. Let us look at the statistics pertaining to AWAs. A report titled `Agreement making in Australia under the Workplace Relations Act 1998 and 1999' states the refusal rate of AWAs was in 1998 only two per cent and in 1999 less than one per cent. Few AWAs, as you know, are ever challenged.I note that the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business has just come into the chamber to wind up the debate on this bill. He thinks providing cooling-off periods is an adequate way of fully protecting employee interests. The minister is dead wrong. Employee interests will never be protected while the minister continues to pursue legislation which strips away awards, bashes unions and at all times prefers employer interests over employee interests. As my colleague the shadow minister for industrial relations, Arch Bevis, said yesterday in the House, the AWA process gives the employer an enormous amount of power, a free kick even, particularly when you remove unions, collective agreements and the independent umpire and when the employee is left to negotiate wages and conditions with their boss. I also note with serious concern that the current legislation permits AWAs to incorporate civility and faithfulness, and special employee obligations into contracts. Equally disturbing is that AWAs incorporate oppressive or remedial provisions which allow employers to take disciplinary action against employees.I would like to ask the minister, as he is sitting at the table, what safeguards are provided to ensure that employees are not subjected to these unfair provisions in their AWAs or placed under duress to sign such unfair AWAs? WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—You should read the act.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—I have read the act, Minister.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—It is obvious that you haven't.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—I have. What guarantees can I give my constituents in Lowe that awards and rights currently in existence will not be further eroded? Obviously none.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—The only guarantee you will get is that you will send around a union secretary.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—The minister can interject as much as he likes, but the minister is only interested in looking after those who have the capital and the means of production and exchange. He is not interested in those who have only their labour to sell, who are the people that we are here to represent in this parliament.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—That is the language of the ideologue.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—The minister will not intervene, and the member for Lowe will ignore—83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—I will address my comments through the chair, Mr Deputy Speaker—I take your point—but, if the minister wants to have a crack at me, I emphasise that we are elected to this House to look after the ordinary people. We are not here to look after the rich and powerful and those who, as I said, have the capital and means of production and exchange; we are here to look after those who have only their labour to sell. You know that, Minister, very well.WI4Reith, Peter, MP83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—I am not; I am here to represent those ordinary people, and you are just creating insecurity.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—You are here just to represent union leaders.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—No. Minister, you have a record of just bashing the unions.10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Order! I have to say that the minister is not helping the House and I again ask the member for Lowe to address his remarks through the chair and to ignore any other intervention.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—I am doing my best, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the minister is being provocative. I will respond to interjections because, if they are going to be recorded in Hansard, I want my contribution to be recorded in Hansard also.10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Respond by all means, but do it through the chair.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, with legislation like this there is no security for my constituents and their families, from Drummoyne to Homebush West and from Rhodes to Strathfield South and Enfield, to ensure that they will not be placed at a disadvantage in the bargaining process of AWAs. Minister Reith knows the truth of the matter, which is that these AWAs are in practice barely an `agreement' in the literal sense of the word. More often than not these agreements are of the type where, if the employee does not agree, if they will not sign the agreement, they have no job. Minister, is that fair? Plainly, it is signing under coercion. Coercion and duress are practices we should never encourage or endorse in a democratic society.I believe the minister is opportunistically using this bill to remove the collective bargaining system from existence, a system which is fair and decent for all Australian workers—all in the name of flexibility. The minister believes he has the hit the ball firmly into the employers' court. However, according to a report in the Australian on 7 June 2000:... AWAs are not particularly user-friendly for employers.... ... ...The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has complained ... that the bureaucracy associated with AWAs is “onerous”, “convoluted” and “cumbersome”.In short, the AWA reality is that they are expensive, complicated, unfair and unreviewable agreements shown in many cases to be less favourable in pay and conditions than collective agreements.Why would anyone in their right mind promote this process to employers as fair, flexible and straightforward when that clearly is not the case? It is also deceptive for the minister to continue claiming that the Workplace Relations Act gives employees an increased chance of better pay and conditions. Quite plainly this is ludicrous. I am very pleased to see that the shadow minister for industrial relations has come into the chamber too. Let us hope that in another 15 months he is sitting where the minister is sitting now. The member for Cunningham, when he was speaking a little earlier this morning, asked why the government is not sitting down in the spirit of cooperation with regard to its own position, the unions' position and the ordinary workers. Quite plainly the government does not want to do this because, as the member for Cunningham so succinctly put it, it is only promoting the power shift from the ordinary workers to the employers. A moment ago the member for the Northern Territory exposed what the government is all about in terms of the Employment Advocate—it is becoming the employer advocate. Quite obviously that is unacceptable. Years ago the Prime Minister promised that under the new regime of workplace relations no workers would be better off.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—Worse off.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—Sorry, would be worse off. Thank you, Minister. Quite plainly that is not the case, because those who come through the doors of my office in Burwood are certainly not better off. They are worried about job security for themselves and their families. When they are slugged with another broken promise, particularly in relation to fairness in workplace relations, they are very concerned about that. And they have been slugged with a GST.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—Are you against the GST?83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—We are, because it is a regressive tax. You know that, Minister.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—Are you going to roll it back?83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—Yes, we are going to make it fairer. That is what roll-back is all about.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—How are you going to make it fairer?83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—You were not listening in question time over the last couple of days when reference was made to the enormous amount of revenue that your government is deriving from the increases in world oil prices.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—That's got nothing to do with the GST.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—It has got a lot to do with it because it is a form of revenue for the government. You are absolutely awash with money, all at the expense of the taxpayer.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER—I can assure the member for Lowe that the chair is not awash with money. Again, he should direct his remarks only to the chair.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—I accept that, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am being provoked by the minister sitting at the table.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr Reith—Talk about roll-back.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—I will talk about roll-back. The Treasurer was in here during question time yesterday and the day before talking about roll-back and saying that he has not heard the opposition use the term `roll-back'. We are using the term `roll-back' quite a lot, Minister. Roll-back is all about making the taxation system fairer. It would be a lot fairer if you handed back the revenue that you are deriving from the increases in world oil prices to ordinary people, because fuel prices affect everyone. It is scandalous. Roll-back is all about making taxation fairer. How can a 10 per cent flat rate of tax be fair? Quite obviously it is not. This government is a government of broken promises, not only in respect of GST but in many other areas. The government comes in here and talks about looking after ordinary people, but it is interested only in looking after those who are well off, not the ones who are suffering. This government is offering no security. To get back to this legislation, look at what Jeff Kennett did to AWAs in Victoria. The people voiced their opinions at the last Victorian election by getting rid of the then Premier of Victoria. This legislation is all about removing the safety net. A lot of people in my electorate of Lowe come from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Approximately 40 per cent of the people who live in my electorate were not born in Australia. They are disadvantaged by this legislation and the watering down of the awards. Obviously the awards which have been fought for by our forebears for over 100 years to give reasonable security to ordinary families will evaporate under your regime. The Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business comes in here with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and they tell us how the world economy is going and talk about the national interest. I cannot see that anything in the national interest is trickling down to the people who come through the doors of my electorate office in Burwood in my electorate of Lowe. As far as the government is concerned, the national interest seems to be all about promoting a climate for big business to make record profits and the closing of banks. The government's understanding of the national interest is that it is all about looking after and promoting big business. They do not understand that it is about public interest—looking after the ordinary person. The government is quite heartless in pursuing this workplace relations regime just to erode the security of families. WI4Reith, Peter, MP83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—I have not lost it, Minister. Your Prime Minister made it quite plain that he was going to look after the battlers. Every day we read in the papers about `John Howard's battlers'. About the only thing the Prime Minister has done is create more battlers. You know that. Your legislation before the House today is making a contribution to that situation because it will create more battlers. You are not looking after ordinary people, and that is why I am speaking about the legislation. All the people who fought for very many years for the conditions and pay appropriate to the labour of ordinary workers would be turning in their graves today if they were contemplating this legislation going through the parliament. The situation will change in another 12 or 15 months when we have a federal election. When I go around my electorate of Lowe and talk about workplace relations, I can see that people are looking for leadership from a Prime Minister who has a heart, who is decent and who has compassion. Quite plainly, the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Kim Beazley, fulfils those criteria magnificently.WI4Reith, Peter, MPGT4Truss, Warren, MP83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—You and the other minister at the table, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, are laughing now, but I am very confident that when the federal election is called—most likely in the next 12 to 15 months—the people of Australia will vote for Kim Beazley; they will not vote for John Howard. Maybe the minister is cynical enough to think that that is an opportunity for him to sit in that chair. People want a Prime Minister who will govern for everybody, not just for the rich and powerful.WI4Reith, Peter, MP83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—That is true: he is looking after the interests of Mr Packer with free-to-air television. What other industry in Australia has legislation to protect it? What other proprietor with the wealth of Mr Packer is so protected? No-one else is allowed to get into the market for fear that if we have greater media diversity we will get broader opinions and views other than those in the interests of the government. Finally, it would be un-Australian to support this legislation, which breeds discrimination. In government Labor will abolish AWAs and work to implement a system which is fair and just. I oppose the bill, Minister—in fact, I condemn it.11:14:0020878Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPMinister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business10—in replyI thank all members for their contributions. I must say we have not heard anything new. In fact, we have not heard anything of substance from the opposition in particular, exemplified by the fact that the last speaker strayed on to media policy to conclude his remarks. However, his remarks were rather typical, I have to say, of much of the rhetoric from the Labor Party on workplace relations issues. For example, he said that people in his electorate are coming in and are concerned about job security, and he then related this to the reforms the government has introduced. There are statistics available on levels of job security in the Australian economy, and those figures have been kept for many years. The latest set of figures reveals that the levels of job security as perceived by employees are pretty much what they were about 20 years ago. There was a significant increase in the concerns that people had about job security, and that big increase was in the early 1990s when, as a result of the recession that we had to have, instituted by the previous Labor government, many people lost their jobs and understandably the levels of job insecurity were very high indeed. The member opposite also repeated the claims of Labor members, both frontbench and backbench, that the government's policy obsession was with the interests of employers. It is a claim of course not backed up by any facts. Rather, the facts demonstrate the preoccupation that this government has with ensuring that we have a system that ensures that employees are better off. The official statistics reveal the substance of what I am saying. The official statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics demonstrate that in the 13 years that the Labor Party were in office wages for low income people actually declined. The purchasing value of the wages of low income people was five per cent lower at the end of Labor's 13 years than it was at the start. In contrast, real wages for low income people in the time that this government has been in office have increased by nine per cent. That is a claim based not only on official statistics from the ABS; the ACTU, in a policy document they issued last year, said that one of the best things about the Australian economy today is the fact that low income people have enjoyed significant increases in real wages—which demonstrates that the Labor Party are full of rhetoric. When they were in office they did nothing for low income people; in fact, low income people were significantly worse off. The hypocrisy of these people is incredible. Not only have wages gone up in the time that this government has been in office, but, furthermore, more people have had a job. It is no good saying, `We in the Labor Party are concerned about employees,' when so many people are in fact thrown onto the scrap heap of unemployment. And when did we have the highest level of unemployment in the last 50 or 60 years? It was when the Labor Party were running this country and when Kim Beazley, the now Leader of the Opposition, was employment minister. He gave Australia the highest unemployment we have had since the great recession. It is incredible hypocrisy for the Labor Party to claim to be pro-employee. When they were in office the people who suffered the most were the people least able to look after their own interests, the people most vulnerable to the chaotic pro-union leadership policies of the previous government.It is a fact that on the front bench of the Labor Party today half of those people are former trade union officials. We have two former ACTU presidents. These people are in here not on behalf of workers but are in here on behalf of union bosses. It is just as bad in the Senate. Of the last 20 senators on the Labor side to come into the Senate, 17 of them are former trade union hacks—put in here not to look after workers but as a reward or as a factional deal for the interests of a few trade union bosses. Don't you tell us about looking after workers. No-one could have done more to disadvantage workers than did the previous Labor government, and no-one has done more in the interests of workers than has this government.8I4Martin, Stephen, MPET4Bevis, Arch, MPWI4Reith, Peter, MPMr REITH—It was a most timely and appropriate interjection for the shadow minister to recall a headline in the Daily Telegraph not so long ago which, if I may say so myself, described me as the workers' friend.ET4Bevis, Arch, MPMr Bevis—You can't even say it with a straight face.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr REITH—I will tell you why they said that. This just goes to show the hypocrisy of those opposite. The last speaker in this debate talked about the concerns that people have about job security. There is no better example of the concerns that people have about job security than when they lose their job. So this government for the first time introduced a scheme, the Employee Entitlement Support Scheme, to provide financial support to workers in their hour of greatest need.GT4Truss, Warren, MPMr Truss—And have the state Labor governments backed you?WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr REITH—Not only have the state Labor governments not supported us but, furthermore, the federal Labor Party have been encouraging the state Labor parties to oppose this scheme. You talk about job security and yet, on the significant extension of the safety net to provide people with security, you are publicly opposed to what we are doing for workers. That must be a source of private shame. But the fact is you do not have what it takes to stand up here and support a policy that helps workers. I do pay tribute to and acknowledge the labour movement in South Australia which is at least prepared to stand up and say, `Well, we may not agree with the details of this scheme but at least we support the federal government for being prepared to support workers.' The honourable member sitting opposite and the two frontbenchers here have never been prepared to actually give support to a scheme that helps workers when they most need it. I think that is a disgrace. I must say I am surprised by the overwhelming negativity of the opposition. They cannot support it because we introduced it. Quite frankly, that is pathetic and, quite frankly, it is typical of the way you people operate. The other point that the previous member made—and again this is a classic situation of hypocrisy from the Labor Party—was that the government is going to remove the protections of the umpire for workers. One of the protections for workers has been established by this government through the Office of the Employment Advocate. It is there to protect basic rights of workers. Yet the Labor Party's policy is to abolish the Office of the Employment Advocate. How can you stand there with a straight face and say that you are concerned about removing the umpire when it is your policy to abolish an office that was established not only to approve AWAs but also to provide support to employees on the very issues you raise? You talked about discrimination. We improved the discrimination elements of the Workplace Relations Act. You ought to read these things. If you want to be a serious contributor, you ought to read what we did. We actually improved the protections for people in respect of discriminatory behaviour and in respect of coercion. There are very strong laws against coercion. In fact, the Office of the Employment Advocate has taken action against employers on behalf of employees under those sorts of provisions. We are very happy to have a debate about these issues, but you ought to at least understand what we have done and what we are attempting to do, and you ought to look through the rhetoric and understand where the interests of workers are.The one thing I did agree with the opposition on during this debate was their claim that the amendments proposed in this bill would increase the scope that there is in the system for making AWAs. That is absolutely true. That is our intention. The amendments would make AWAs more widely accessible, easier to make and more flexible. We do see increased scope for individual agreement making in a modern Australian economy as desirable, and we are not alone in coming to that conclusion. There are literally thousands—tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands—of employees who likewise like to have a choice of industrial instruments that they use for settling terms and conditions in their employment. It is no good you saying in one breath, `We don't like these particular proposals,' when in the next breath your real policy is just to abolish the choice altogether. Don't you understand that there is a basic inconsistency in that? You are not in favour of any individual agreements. Your view is that people should not have a right to an individual agreement. ET4Bevis, Arch, MPMr Bevis—You're just making it up as you go, Pete. WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr REITH—Well, there is a pathetic interjection. It is based on the claim that you can have a common law individual agreement. That is what it is, is it not? ET4Bevis, Arch, MPMr Bevis—Well, that's what most people are on now. WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr REITH—Thank you very much. I do actually understand your argument. I make it my business to understand what you people are saying. What you are saying is that common law agreements are okay. But what you do not go on to say is that there will always be a second-class agreement and inferior to a collective agreement. In other words, if a union boss can coerce an employer into a collective agreement then, as far as you are concerned, the individual has no choice, no say whatsoever, in the terms and conditions of their employment. Thirty or 40 years ago when everybody was in the union maybe you had an argument for such a system. But today there are a lot of people who are not in unions. We have protected the right of people to be in unions. If you want to be in a union you are more than entitled to be. In fact, we have increased the protections for people against employers where those people want to be members of a union. We believe if you want to be a member of a union in this country you are more than entitled to do so, and we have bumped up the protections to that right. Our objection, and our point of contest with the Labor Party, is that if you do not want to be a member of a union you should not be forced to be a member of a union. That is the point of debate in this country. The fact is that this is a modern economy, and in a modern economy we see that many people are better educated and better informed. We have a more diverse economy. We hope over time there will be more opportunities for people. In that more diverse economy, within businesses employees want to have a greater say over the arrangements under which they work. To have the choice of an individual agreement simply provides people with that greater range of opportunities. That is all it does. It is just a range of choices. I find it quite bizarre that the Labor Party's policy, in a society that is becoming more diverse, where people are better educated and have more demands, not just in their work experience but in their family experiences, to have arrangements that suit them personally—and I do not reject that concept—is to prevent people having that choice. It is simply an untenable policy position that you have today. In fact, it is not just untenable on the basis of what I put to you; at the last election your policy was to have AWAs. So you yourselves were saying only two years ago, `We should have AWAs.' You are going to neuter them, et cetera, but I will not go to the technicalities of it. You yourselves were saying that we should have AWAs. If they were okay two years ago, why is it your policy to abolish them today? The last member got up and said, `Our policy is to abolish AWAs.' Would you like to explain why it is that before the last election you were saying, `Our policy is to keep AWAs'? What has so changed in the world that something you were in favour of before you are now against? There is actually a quite reasonable explanation or should I say an understandable reason: that is, the Right and the Left and the trade union movement at the beginning of the year decided that they did not want to have AWAs. That is the only reason and it has not been denied. That is what has happened. Let us look at what is happening in the real world. I say that a lot of individuals may want to have this choice, and that statement is backed up by the facts. The take-up rate of AWAs is a clear indication that Australian employees are embracing individual agreement making. In the first 12 months of the legislation, 11,000 AWAs were approved. By 1999, approvals were averaging approximately 3,000 a month. Now they are running at 4,500 a month. Overall, as at 31 July 2000, over 118,000 AWAs had been approved. Instead of debating the merits of individual agreement making and the rights which employees should have to make these choices, the opposition just use the debate to have a go personally at the Employment Advocate. Instead of playing the ball, they just play the man. You do not actually have anything substantial to say, so what do you do? You just go on to personalities to attack the advocate.Even with the processing requirements for AWAs which presently apply, the Employment Advocate is able to report an efficient and effective conduct of its statutory responsibilities under the act. For the financial year to June 2000, filing procedures for AWAs were completed within three working days in 98 per cent of cases, and approval procedures were completed within 20 days in 92 per cent of cases. Our latest information shows that the commission takes an average of 27 days to approve a 170LJ certified agreement and around 30 days to approve an agreement made under section 170LK. The opposition spokesman does not even want to call AWAs agreements. He just says that they are documents, as if employees were not capable of understanding, pursuing or settling formal agreements about what is in their own interests. I think that is just a patronising insult to employees. What you are saying is that there are no employees out there who have the capability of actually entering into an agreement to suit their own circumstances. That is patently nonsense. 0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr Slipper—It's demeaning.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr REITH—It is demeaning. It is patronising. It is what the union leaders want to hear, but I can tell you that it is not what rank and file workers want to hear, including a lot of union members. To add insult to injury, the opposition continue to advise the parliament that individuals should not even be allowed to make this choice. The opposition spokesman said, `A Labor government, after the next election, will abolish AWAs.' How do they explain the fact that only two years ago they were actually in favour of retaining AWAs? There is no explanation. It is just the same old union heavies telling the Labor Party and Mr Beazley, who is a weak leader, what their policies should be. This is the same opposition spokesman who said in May of this year that pattern bargaining should be allowed because the Labor Party believed in parties having a choice in agreement making. That is in your press release. That is what you said. You said people should have choice. ET4Bevis, Arch, MPMr Bevis—Get the quote.WI4Reith, Peter, MPMr REITH—I have the quote. You said people should have choice in agreement making, yet here you are confirming that in fact they get no choice because you are not going to allow them a choice of an AWA. Not only is it incredible hypocrisy, but you don't seem to understand that this whole idea that the union leadership will run everything through a collective agreement operated 30 or 40 years ago when Australia had a closed economy, when we did not have the information age and when we did not have quite the same standard of education that we have today. That is in the past. This country has to move forward. We cannot now go back to a one size fits all mentality that might have been here in the 1960s and 1970s. Australia has to move on. We have the capacity to do so and we have got to have a modern industrial relations system.The Labor Party's policy is to tear up contracts that people have entered into. Their policy is to remove people's choice and to tear up these contracts. I think that is an absolute disgrace. People enter into AWAs and they do so willingly. They do so because it is in their own best interests. You have people on $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000 a year who are enjoying the benefits of an AWA, and because the union bosses do not like it, the Labor Party say to workers, `No choice when Labor's in.' Who will suffer as a result of that? The very people you claim to represent. We think workers ought to have a choice. They ought to have a modern system that suits them and that boosts productivity. If you boost productivity, you have higher wages, and we have proved that because wages are up under us. It is good for the country and more people have a job. That is why people should support this bill.Question put:That the bill be now read a second time.11:38:00The House divided. (Madam Deputy Speaker—Mrs J. Gash) 72Abbott, A.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.Brough, M.T.Cadman, A.G.Cameron, R.A.Causley, I.R.Charles, R.E.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.Georgiou, P.Haase, B.W.Hardgrave, G.D.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, S *McGauran, P.J.Moore, J.C.Moylan, J. E.Nairn, G. R.Nehl, G. B.Nelson, B.J.Neville, P.C.Nugent, P.E.Prosser, G.D.Pyne, C.Reith, P.K.Ronaldson, M.J.C.Schultz, A.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.M.Thompson, C.P.Thomson, A.P.Truss, W.E.Tuckey, C.W.Vale, D.S.Wakelin, B.H.Washer, M.J.Williams, D.R.Wooldridge, M.R.L.Worth, P.M.65Adams, D.G.H.Albanese, A.N.Andren, P.J.Bevis, A.R.Brereton, L.J.Burke, A.E.Byrne, A.M.Corcoran, A.K.Cox, D.A.Crean, S.F.Crosio, J.A.Danby, M.Edwards, G.J.Ellis, A.L.Emerson, C.A.Evans, M.J.Ferguson, L.D.T.Ferguson, M.J.Fitzgibbon, J.A.Gerick, J.F.Gibbons, S.W.Gillard, J.E.Griffin, A.P.Hall, J.G.Hatton, M.J.Hoare, K.J.Horne, R.Irwin, J.Jenkins, H.A.Kernot, C.Kerr, D.J.C.Latham, M.W.Lawrence, C.M.Lee, M.J.Livermore, K.F.Macklin, J.L.Martin, S.P.McClelland, R.B.McFarlane, J.S.McLeay, L.B.McMullan, R.F.Melham, D.Mossfield, F.W.Murphy, J. P.O'Byrne, M.A.O'Connor, G.M.O'Keefe, N.P.Plibersek, T.Price, L.R.S.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.Swan, W.M.Tanner, L.Theophanous, A.C.Thomson, K.J.Wilkie, K.Zahra, C.J.Howard, J.W.Beazley, K.C.Ruddock, P.M.Hollis, C.Vaile, M.A.J.Morris, A.A.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the affirmative.Bill read a second time.20883Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.Bill (on motion by Mr Reith) read a third time.Bills20883R112020883Debate resumed from 28 June, on motion by Dr Kemp:That the bill be now read a second time.11:44:0020883Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000 is intended to replace the Indigenous Education (Supplementary Assistance) Act 1989 from next year. This bill will provide continuing funding for the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program, IESIP, from 1 January 2001 to 30 June 2005, covering both recurrent and specific project funding, as well as the away from base element of Abstudy.The bill seeks to implement the 1999-2000 budget initiative which announced a new national indigenous literacy and numeracy strategy. Under the strategy launched in March this year, the government claims the funding will be performance based, with priority given to a focus on literacy, numeracy and school attendance. At the launch of this program, the Prime Minister incorrectly claimed that additional funding was being provided for indigenous literacy. He said:Today's strategy ... represents a firm commitment of resources from the federal government, as well as a commitment to better direct existing resources going towards indigenous programs ...Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the Prime Minister seems to have had little idea about what is actually going on in the education portfolio. In fact, at the very same launch that the Prime Minister was claiming that this strategy represented a firm commitment of resources from the federal government, we also had the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs stating the following—and I quote from the minister for education's speech at the launch of that strategy:$27 million from the pool of funding available for indigenous students will be provided specifically to support this strategy for literacy and numeracy.So in other words, we have the Prime Minister claiming that there was an increase in resources going to indigenous literacy and at the same launch the minister for education making it clear that this is simply an allocation of existing funds. When this matter was raised with the Prime Minister in the House, we had the Prime Minister stating that he stood by the statements he had made. In doing so, he misled the House. When this issue was raised with the Prime Minister, he gave me an assurance that he would investigate the matter, and I am glad I am not holding my breath because I have still not heard back from the Prime Minister for the obvious reason that, in fact, he understands that he misled the House in stating that new funds were being directed towards indigenous literacy in the new national strategy when, in fact, the minister for education has simply reallocated the existing pool of funding.There are many people on that side of the House who would, I am sure, be quite keen for the Prime Minister to show a keener interest in education matters because the current minister for education—frustrated, temporarily, in his pursuit of university deregulation—is extremely busy elsewhere in his portfolio, cooking up plans to make more and more decisions behind closed doors and giving himself more unfettered power. As an example, this bill does not reproduce the table of per capita amounts payable to different types of education providers—preschools, schools and vocational education institutions—which is included in the current act. This appears to give the minister absolute discretion in the distribution of funding between different levels of education and between government and non-government providers. I will return to the subject of funding shortly.In terms of the agreements to be made with education providers, while the current act gives the minister the power to set conditions not specified in the legislation, it indicates that the main conditions dealing with payments relate to the acquittal of the amount and monitoring, evaluation and reports on the education program—no penalties are specified. By contrast, the new legislation says that funds are recoverable if a condition of an agreement is breached. Neither the bill nor the explanatory memorandum spells out what the conditions might be, but the minister's letter of 8 June this year to state and territory education ministers regarding the new IESIP arrangements says:Accountability and reporting arrangements for IESIP will be strengthened for the 2001-04 quadrennium. An enhanced set of IESIP performance indicators was agreed at the March MCEETYA meeting. The indicators will form part of the forthcoming negotiations on IESIP indigenous education agreements ...I understand that performance targets also will be set as part of those agreements. While even the states grants legislation currently before the parliament that provides funding to government and non-government schools across the country sets out a series of steps to be taken in the event of school authorities not meeting performance targets, this bill simply says that if one or more of the conditions of an agreement is breached, then the money is recoverable by the Commonwealth. I do not think that the minister would ever intend to apply the same onerous criteria to some of the category 1 schools that he seems to be so keen to give massive funding increases to.This bill also states that the Commonwealth may recover the amount as a debt through the courts. I actually think that this is a fairly extraordinary provision to be placed in this bill, especially given that this bill is making grants for education. I would be grateful if, in the response to the second reading debate, the minister could clarify the government's intentions in this area. I would in particular like him to explain how he intends to deal with situations where providers may in good faith have tried to meet required performance targets but nevertheless have failed to do so.The Labor Party will be strongly opposed to the use of the powers spelt out in the bill to recover moneys already paid and already expended by education authorities, except in the most extreme circumstances. Our preference would be, and we would certainly hope, that in the first instance the government would adopt a more constructive approach to addressing any concerns it may have about an education provider failing to meet performance requirements. In particular, we would hope that education providers would be warned that future funding was at risk if they did not meet particular performance indicators. I suspect that the government would have difficulty trying to recover money in court if it had not given a warning before action was initiated in court to recover money already spent on educating indigenous students. I would like to return now to the issue of funding. I mentioned earlier the discretion given by this bill to the allocation of funding by the minister. It was with great concern therefore that the opposition found that this year's budget papers showed that only 45.7 per cent of IESIP funds was being directed to government providers. That was down from 56.7 per cent in the 1998-99 budget, and we raised this matter with the office of the minister for education. In a letter dated 7 September, the minister advised me that a so-called technical error had occurred and that Budget Paper No. 3 was incorrect, which is quite an admission from a minister who seems to specialise in making statistics say anything he wants. But we are pleased that the government has admitted that there is a technical error in Budget Paper No. 3. I understand that the technical error flowed from the fact that Abstudy away from base funding, which has now been incorporated with IESIP, had been incorrectly included with funding for non-government education providers. I am pleased that this situation has now been clarified because of the opposition's questions and that the split between the government and the non-government sectors appears much more stable. Rather than funding for indigenous education by government providers falling from 56.7 per cent to 45.7 per cent, in fact it rises from 56.7 per cent to 64 per cent. That certainly eases our concerns. I note, however, that the attachment to the minister's letter to me on this issue is careful to state that, according to the minister, the sector split is `indicative only'. This again highlights the minister's much wider discretion under this bill, certainly compared to the current act, in the allocation of funds. As to how the money might be spent and what sort of agreement providers will need to sign, we have noted that the National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Strategy focuses heavily on literacy, numeracy and school attendance. In addition, the minister's letter to states and territories, to which I referred earlier, says the following:The changes to be introduced for the 2001-04 quadrennium are significant ...In this context, I wonder to what extent providers will need to shift their focus away from cultural issues onto the more basic ones of literacy and numeracy. No-one is disputing that improvements need to be made. Only 32 per cent of indigenous students stayed to commence year 12 in 1998 compared with around 73 per cent of non-indigenous students.Data presented by the minister for education at a gathering last year in Alice Springs shows that there have been some improvements in the last several years. The number of indigenous people participating in education increased from 1.8 per cent of total students in 1986 to 2.5 per cent in 1996. The number of indigenous people with an educational qualification increased from 10.6 per cent in 1991 to 13.6 per cent in 1996. There was a 28.3 per cent increase in indigenous school enrolments between 1991 and 1996, and a further 10.3 per cent increase to 1998. Vocational education enrolments by indigenous students almost doubled between 1994 and 1998. Also, indigenous students represented 1.3 per cent of higher education enrolments in 1998 compared with just 0.3 per cent in 1981. We have a great distance still to travel before indigenous Australians can hope to have educational opportunities that come near those available to non-indigenous Australians.At this point I would like to highlight a report that was commissioned by, and recently provided to, the Northern Territory government. It is a report that was prepared by former Labor senator for the Northern Territory Bob Collins. Bob Collins and the members of his support staff did a great deal of work in seeking to investigate the problems in indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Highlighted in the Collins report are a few things that I wish to refer to today. It found that just six per cent of year 3 and only four per cent of year 5 indigenous students in non-urban Territory schools achieved national reading benchmarks in 1998. This compared with 54 per cent and 36 per cent respectively for their indigenous counterparts in urban schools. For non-indigenous urban students, the rates were 82 per cent and 78 per cent. So there is a massive difference, especially for indigenous kids going to school and living outside urban areas in the Territory. The Collins report in particular highlighted the massive difficulty of poor attendance by indigenous students at Territory schools. It said: Poor attendance at school for whatever reason remains the most significant direct cause of poor learning.It also highlighted the enormous difficulty that students face because of the high turnover of teachers in non-urban Territory schools.For whatever reason, we can only hope that the Northern Territory will pick up and implement as soon as possible the very sensible recommendations that came from the Collins report. In many ways, we can never ensure that students will develop a strong foundation, especially in literacy and numeracy at school, unless they attend school and immerse themselves in their training every day. Having had the privilege of visiting some non-urban schools in the Northern Territory in my capacity as federal shadow minister for education, I know that some of those schools have very dedicated staff. They have people with enormous commitment to trying to ensure that the indigenous students have a better start in life through a decent education. Those people face an enormous task in trying to ensure that kids in those schools have a fair opportunity to build up literacy and numeracy skills. I know that many of the communities rely on the staff in those schools to ensure that their kids have a decent educational foundation. But addressing student attendance and trying to reduce the massive turnover of staff in non-urban schools right across the country is very important.Several of those communities have also highlighted the importance of a bilingual education in ensuring that their culture remains strong and that the students not only develop a good foundation in English but also have a good foundation in their first language and a good foundation in the traditional cultural practices of their community. The Northern Territory some time ago was looking at winding back its commitment to bilingual education programs, and I note that at several stages the federal minister for education was giving his support to the Northern Territory government's decision to do so. I am pleased that the Northern Territory government to date seems to have had second thoughts about that decision. Certainly within those communities there is very strong support for the maintenance of the bilingual education programs to ensure that their culture remains strong. Some of those communities were represented in the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games. Any of us who had the chance to see those communities participating in the `awakening' segment at the Olympic Games would understand the enormous importance they place on ensuring that their culture is communicated in a strong way to their kids.What we are suggesting is that there is still an enormous task ahead of us in indigenous education, whether it is in ensuring that kids have a chance to get a basic foundation in literacy or numeracy or whether it is in ensuring that as many indigenous students as possible complete year 12 and have a chance to study at TAFE or university. We still have great lengths to go before non-indigenous Australians will even begin to approach the opportunities that are there for them. What we need is greater cooperation and an intensified effort in implementing programs that are demonstrating success in indigenous education across the country. While the government has made much of its National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, which was launched by the Prime Minister in March, we also have the minister claiming that this strategy was quite a historic leap. We certainly hope that it continues to lift the educational outcomes of indigenous Australians and that it does fulfil the ambitious claims made by the government about it. But we are concerned that, if the minister for education has his way, none of us will be able to tell. There is no provision in this bill for parliamentary scrutiny of ministerial decisions in relation to expenditure, agreements or performance information. The opposition will be circulating an amendment in a few minutes that seeks to deal with these issues. At the end of my speech, I will be moving a second reading amendment that deals with some of these issues as well. I would like to take this opportunity to ask the minister once again to explain why he felt justified in reducing Abstudy payments, especially to older indigenous students. The government has never made public the findings of its review of Abstudy, on which it apparently based the changes, announced in December 1998. I cannot see any reason why the public should not have access to the review of Abstudy, which the government has used to justify the dramatic changes it has made. Those changes involved aligning many Abstudy payments with those made to non-indigenous students under the youth allowance. The minister claimed that the alignment was justified except in cases where `special provision needs to be made to cater effectively for the particular disadvantages faced by many indigenous students'. Students aged 21 and over were the biggest losers under the Abstudy changes brought in by the Howard government, with some payments dropping by around $65 a fortnight. The minister has never explained why these students do not qualify for his special provision, given that, while the proportion of indigenous people with a formal qualification rose to 13.6 per cent, as I mentioned, the comparative figure for the general population was much higher—34.4 per cent.A report was prepared for ATSIC by Ms Wendy Brabham and Associate Professor John Henry from the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin University dealing with the very Abstudy changes which came into effect some time ago. That report found that the changes would significantly disadvantage indigenous TAFE and university students who are aged 21 and older, are independent, are single or with a partner and are with or without children, of whom there were 9,950 in 1998. They also found that it would significantly disadvantage TAFE and university students who are getting either a sole parent or a disability support pension. There were 4,810 such students in this group in 1998. An important point about the ATSIC report findings is that it is mature age students who make up almost 80 per cent of the indigenous TAFE and university student population. The report quotes research over the last 30 years indicating that many indigenous people of mature age with community and family responsibilities return to education and training. These are the very people who are being hurt by the cuts to Abstudy payments, and there is a great deal of information to suggest that the cuts are already having a significant impact.I will return to the bill before the House. The minister needs to explain why, if the government is serious about its stated aims for improvements in education outcomes for indigenous students, it seeks to pursue these aims behind closed doors. Why does this bill seek to reduce the information available to the public about what the government is doing in funding indigenous education? Why is this bill such a bare bones effort, with all the meat hidden from view? Where are the guidelines which will operate under this legislation? My office asked that the guidelines, at least in draft form, be provided before this bill was debated. We have not seen them yet, and I doubt that we will see them before the government rams this through both houses of the parliament. It seems this minister does not know the meaning of cooperation, openness, transparency or accountability. If there is one area where we do need cooperation, openness, transparency and accountability, it is in indigenous education in Australia. For this reason, I now move the opposition's second reading amendment:That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the Bill a second reading, the House (1) notes the major disparity between the educational outcomes for indigenous Australians and the general population;(2) calls for a renewed commitment from governments and education providers to address this disparity; and(3) condemns the Government for:(a) misleading the public by wrongly claiming the National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Strategy contained additional funding; and (b) providing incorrect funding figures for indigenous education in the Budget Papers.”.10000Gash, Joanna (Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER)Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs Gash)—Is the amendment seconded?83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr Emerson—I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.12:06:0020888Thompson, Cameron, MPMr CAMERON THOMPSON84CBlairLP10—I rise to speak on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000. This is a very difficult issue to address, the powers of political correctness being what they are, because dealing with the nitty-gritty of the indigenous education problems that exist in Australia involves a very frank discussion about what motivates people, what can benefit communities and what can hold them back. I was very pleased to hear what the opposition spokesman had to say in focusing to some extent on the problems of remote communities. The problems of remote communities are many times worse and more difficult to overcome than those of the Aboriginal communities that are better served in the larger, more populated areas of Australia. I commend the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000 and also note that it provides funding for the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program which will total $591 million over the four years between 2001 and 2004.I would like to ambitiously turn to some of the problems that exist in remote communities. I anticipate that some difficult questions will arise in this debate but I shall proceed. In his speech, the opposition education spokesman referred to the findings of Bob Collins and his report commissioned by the Northern Territory government. I would like to endorse that. I do believe that Bob Collins has a very close understanding of the needs of remote communities, but he was not the first to identify the problems. I know that because I had a major role in preparing an earlier report, which was completed by the former Northern Territory Minister for Education Tom Harris in 1990. That report went into the needs of remote Aboriginal communities very carefully. I was working on Minister Harris's staff and the minister visited every single Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, sat down with them, discussed with them their concerns and discussed with them what they wanted in Aboriginal education. I had the great privilege of being involved in that process, so I do have some insight into the comments that were made at the time, the very genuine concerns that those people felt in relation to their future and their concerns that in many ways the people whose job it was to meet those needs—the bureaucrats and the politicians—were not getting down to the grassroots level that they needed to get to.You could go back even further. Back in the seventies, there was a report by a Japanese academic, Matsuri Shimpo, and Matsuri Shimpo uncovered many of the same things that Bob Collins locked into. So there is an absolute tower of material highlighting the way we need to address the problems of Aboriginal communities. Unfortunately, those genuine efforts to get to the needs of the people are constantly being frustrated and do not always fit in with the requirements of bureaucracies, so it remains a frustrating and difficult effort. Also, sadly, it is a process that is prone to gross political misrepresentation. There are no Aboriginal people from remote communities in the House today or sitting in the galleries or anywhere about here, and even when we do see Aboriginal representatives here they are not always without political pretensions and they are not the people to whom these services need to be directed—to whom these services absolutely, vitally, must be directed.I will return to some of the figures that the opposition spokesman quoted. I think he said that six per cent of year 3 students in remote schools made the nationally accepted education benchmark in 1998 while 53 per cent in urban schools made the same level. So there is a severe problem in the remote communities and we do have an obligation to get out there and do something about it. But there is political static, there is political misrepresentation, there is inertia within the bureaucracies and there is an incapacity to communicate with the Aboriginal people in remote areas and to maintain that communication at the level that is needed.I turn to some of the problems that exist in remote communities. The first problem—and this was referred to by the opposition spokesman—is attendance. Everything spins off this, because without attendance there is no schooling. I will tell you how bad the attendance problem in remote communities is. When I worked on that report with the Northern Territory education minister, we visited a community with 300 children. Sure, there was a school there, built to accommodate 300 children. It was a big edifice with rooms and seats for 300 children. There were 300 children running around the community ready to be educated but, on any given day, only 30 children were attending that school, and every day it was a different 30. With that level of chronic failure to attend school, with that low level of interest in school, how can you ever complete a successful education program? Clearly, you cannot, and it is not something that a bureaucracy can act upon to address. Will it be required that truant officers be sent into these communities? That is not going to work, and this is the fundamental problem. Questions were raised when we visited these communities of whether teachers should be asked to go and round up their kids before school. People would know that in many places around Australia schools are running breakfast programs, hoping to entice the kids to school by offering them breakfast. That is a very difficult thing. The opposition spokesman talked about the value of bilingual education programs. For the information of members, a bilingual education program is supposed to work in the following way. Children who speak their own language are supposed to begin their school life learning in their own home language but, under a bilingual education program, they are supposed to transfer to a fully English program by the time they reach the end of the primary level, at the end of year 7. They are supposed to start off in their own language and then gradually transfer into English so that they are then ready to go on to high school and to the levels of education that other Australians rightfully expect—and Aboriginal people certainly expect access to that.But imagine the problems you have with that concept when you throw in the difficulty of attendance. If people are not attending school, how are they ever going to transit from their home language into that language of English so that they can then go on into the outer, wider world, the community, and achieve their dreams? They can only achieve those dreams through education and through a program of opening up to the world, understanding it and making their own decisions based on information that they receive, that they accept and that they can make value judgments on. A bilingual education program is a wonderful idea if you have the attendance to back it up—that is the guts of the Northern Territory government's grave reservations about this program. If you continue to apply a bilingual education program before you have good attendance in communities, you are putting the cart before the horse. You are setting yourself up to fail; it is not going to work. The Northern Territory government has taken that concern on board and is endeavouring to deal with it. I suppose you could say, `Okay, let's find communities where there is good attendance and then implement a bilingual education program.' I think that is a great idea, but the problem is this: this problem of attendance does not exist in some communities because they are in some way uninformed; it is something that can be here today and gone tomorrow: you might have a year of good attendance and then you might have 10 years of no attendance. There really is a problem with a lack of understanding about the value of education and the need for attendance before that can occur.One of the problems behind all of this is that the children in these communities are like children anywhere: they want to have fun; they want to enjoy their lives. Honestly, many of these children are living in places—and I am talking about those in the top end of the Northern Territory—that really are quite idyllic. If you want to go and catch a fish, you can catch one now. If you want to catch a turtle, you can catch one of them too. As a child you can have a heck of a good lifestyle in these places. Of course, it is different in some of the other areas that we are talking about—remote Aboriginal communities. For example, places in the Western Desert are a different story altogether, but for a moment let us look at the northern part of Arnhem Land. Honestly, if I were a child there and someone said, `Okay, you can go out fishing all day and you can enjoy yourself, or you can go to school,' I would say, `Where is school going to get me?' `Okay, that is going to mean that you leave all this fishing and your traditional way of life here behind and go out into the wider world to seek out a job.' Of course, that does not necessarily appeal to someone from that sort of an area and we really have to work harder to make sure that it does. Let us move on from attendance and look at literacy and numeracy. I am pleased that the minister has made attendance, literacy and numeracy important goals within this legislation, because without those basic building blocks you cannot go anywhere. You need to have the basics of literacy to be able to proceed. The Commonwealth government is making this a goal not only for remote Aboriginal communities but for all over Australia, because it was not that long ago that there were reports that 30 per cent of Australians had literacy and numeracy problems. When 30 per cent of Australians are having difficulties reading or writing, imagine the situation in a remote community.Let us also look at the structure of the education system that we offer in these areas. It is important that these Aboriginal people have access to the same standards of or opportunities in education that every other person has. I think one of the great things about living in a democracy should be that, no matter where you are or from where you start out in life, you can aspire to be whatever you want. You can be a spaceman, an astronaut, if you want to and if you study hard and you commit yourself. Unfortunately, one of the great temptations in this whole process is for people to set up special deals, little special schooling operations, that are in fact dead ends that do not articulate back into the mainstream. If we set up a breakfast program and all kinds of other programs that bring people in but we do not really do education but do cultural things and we do not focus on the need to be able to read or write and on the need to then be able to follow on with further learning—if all we are doing is operating a kind of caring and sharing cultural enterprise that involves people and it turns out to be a dead end in educational terms, something that does not lead anywhere—what are we doing? We are not providing the access to the world that education must provide. So we have to be practical: we have to provide education courses that will carry those people forward and will offer them the opportunity to go on if that is what they want. We have to have institutions that do not have walls. You cannot have an institution that is only for Aborigines, because if you do that you are making a special case out of those people and it does not articulate. It needs to articulate into other areas of learning so that people then have the opportunity to realise the dreams that they hold.The member also spoke about the difficulty of remote communities. That cuts two ways. There is the problem of attracting teachers to those remote communities and there is the problem, particularly at higher school levels, of taking people out of those communities and taking them to high schools or universities somewhere else—for example, a good institution like Batchelor College in the Northern Territory. It has a very appropriate system, but it is still difficult to bring people out of those remote communities and to take them there for that learning.When we talk, firstly, about taking teachers into these communities, I can tell you that sometimes it is not idyllic coming to these places. There are times when some of these communities can, to an outsider arriving there to teach, feel like a war zone where they can be in fear of their lives. So, how much do you pay people? What do you do to entice them to these communities to teach, to open up this great opportunity in education to people, if that is what happens when they get there? I am not going to pick out particular communities, because it comes and goes. You can have a serious problem in one community this year and none at all next year. A lot of it is in the dynamics of the people involved: the people leading the community, the people who are the teachers, the people supporting them in the education department, the students, everybody else who is there. But if there is that risk, why would you go there, particularly with the levels of pay offered? They are higher, they do offer enticements—but, heck, it would have to be very good. We need to put value on this, because this is one of the key points. Another issue is that there are also problems in fitting in the local leadership in the community. I remember some communities when we were looking at these problems, when we were involved in producing that report with Tom Harris. There were, for example, occasions in some communities where the school council we set up to try to empower the local community to support their school actually wound up being perceived by the community council as a threat to its sovereignty and control over the local community. In that case I recall the main issue was alcohol, because the community council, which was basically male dominated, was very keen to operate a wet canteen in that community. Then up sprang the school council, which was dominated by women—and I can tell you that in many cases the prime driving force supporting their children in schooling are the women in these communities; it varies, but that is largely a generalisation that I would hold to. Because they were opposing a wet canteen those people were perceived as the threat, and there was a ruction, there was an explosive division in that community over that whole question. All of these are serious and very difficult problems.There are also problems with traditional customs themselves. Some of these communities are divided into what are called skin groups and so on. There are traditional customs, if you go back to the old times, that say that this skin group would not sit in the same shade as people from that skin group. What happens when the kids then are being expected to go into the same classroom? Or if, under the enlightened sorts of programs we have, there are local trained teachers from that community and teachers are from one group, what happens with the people from the other group? Are they expected to push their traditional custom aside and appear in the classroom with this person from the other group?I am not saying that in any way we should throw it all away and forget it because of this problem; we have got to persist. But these are the reasons why we are not making progress. We sometimes hear bald generalisations. The member opposite did say that bilingual education programs are good. That may be true, but we have to put them in the context in which they exist. We have to be prepared to support them where they are effective, and where they are not effective we should not indulge people by just running those programs regardless. (Time expired)12:26:0020891McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMULLAN5I4FraserALP00—I rise to support the remarks made by my colleague the shadow minister for education, the member for Dobell, and the amendment which he has moved. The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000 is designed to provide continued funding for the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program from 1 January 2001. It is also designed to implement the government's new National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Strategy. The bill sets down a broad range of objectives, and this was reflected in the remarks made by the preceding speaker and comments made by the minister in introducing the bill and in discussion around it: that funding for this strategy will be performance based with priority given to a focus on literacy, numeracy and school attendance. There are many other objectives set down in the bill, and they are quite broad and comprehensive, but the focus seems to be narrowing more and more to these three goals.No-one can dispute that the goals of literacy, numeracy and school attendance are important. They are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the advancement of the education of indigenous children and adults in the Australian community. If they become too narrow a focus then we will lose some of the balance needed to advance comprehensively across a range of educational objectives. This is why I am so concerned about the point raised by the member for Dobell, and reflected in his amendment, that an extremely worrying difference between this bill and the bill which it replaces is that it lacks vital information enabling the parliament to monitor the conditions and distribution of money to education providers. It neither reproduces the table of per capita amounts payable to different types of education providers—preschools, schools, vocational education; such a table is included in the current act—nor sets out the conditions which will attach to agreements made with education providers. Certainly I believe one of those two is required, and that is what the shadow minister has set down quite specifically in his second reading amendment and what is covered in the committee stage amendments, of which he has given notice. Part 1 of the amendment refers to: (a) the failure of the Government to provide accurate details of proposed funding under this Bill; and(b) the declining level of public and Parliamentary accountability ...Those go to my first concern, and they are stated quite distinctly. The second part of the member for Dobell's amendment to the second reading calls on the government to clarify the details of the distribution and release draft guidelines. I want to emphasise particularly (c) and (d) of part 2 of the amendment, which call on the government to:(c) commit to a regular, detailed report to Parliament in relation to Commonwealth indigenous education expenditure; and(d) demonstrate a genuine commitment to improving educational outcomes for indigenous Australians by providing information in an open and transparent manner.Here we have a bill which appears to give the minister unfettered discretion in the distribution of funding between different levels of education and between government and non-government providers and in no way allows for the parliament to have regular access to a detailed assessment of how that discretion is being exercised—and we must have that. It is a prerequisite not just for some esoteric point of parliamentary reporting requirement and nicety but so that the concerns this money may not be appropriately distributed can be checked. It is inherent in a democratic process that people should have information to assess whether funding is being distributed appropriately. Of course simply providing the information does not mean that we will all agree. We may get a set of data from the minister that says, `This is how it is done,' and the majority of the members in the House might agree with that or the opposition might not or some of the Independents might not or one or two members might have an alternative view. But it will then be an informed debate, and that is the apprehension we have, which is reflected in the amendment.There is a related worrying concern that the bill gives the minister power to recover money if so far unspecified conditions or an unspecified condition of an agreement are breached. Ultimately the Commonwealth has to have that power. If we enter into an agreement for people to perform certain functions in return for money from the Commonwealth and those functions are not performed, the Commonwealth has to have the capacity to reclaim that money. But what is the framework within which that recovery might be made? More particularly—and this is my other, more general concern—this bill, this lack of framework and the circumstances under which recoveries might be made appears not to recognise reality on the ground in indigenous communities. This sort of out-of-touch approach is one of the things that causes me concern, and about which I want to take a little bit of time.I would like the minister to explain how he intends to deal with situations where providers who take every care to meet the required performance targets have nevertheless failed to do so for reasons beyond their control. What I mean by that is not again some generalised concern about accountability—although that is fundamental—but that when you have problems in literacy, numeracy or attendance in a community it often is not a product of an inadequacy in the education service provider—if we strip away the jargon—in the school; it often and more usually reflects a profound problem in the community that is leading to that outcome. This is most easily seen when you deal with the issue of attendance. I contend that when you see data throwing up attendance problems in schools in a particular community or communities it is more likely to be a red light flashing saying, `Here is a community with serious problems to which the government should give special attention and perhaps apply extra resources to meet those serious problems leading to this outcome,' rather than suggesting that the failure to achieve the attendance requirements means the funding for the school should be stripped away. Attendance is very important. I have been to communities in the past, and also during the brief period in which I have been shadow minister responsible for indigenous affairs, and spoken to principals of schools. I have a particular principal in mind—a very concerned, committed principal—and when I asked, `What is the biggest problem in this school?' her concern was attendance. She was concerned about the implications for her school of the requirements of this legislation. But it was clear from the discussion—I do not want to pretend to be an expert about the school; there may be some changes that should be made there and that is for others to judge—that the principal drivers of the attendance problem were buried deep in the broader social and economic issues confronting the community and not in the school itself.That is why the Labor Party strongly prefer that, rather than taking this punitive approach, we take a more constructive approach to addressing the particular education needs of indigenous people. I think ultimately the Commonwealth has to have the capacity to say, `You entered into an agreement with us and you are not fulfilling that agreement, so you should return the money.' We must have that because we are the custodians of the taxpayers' money. But it is not a good place to start, although it is a place in which we must ultimately be prepared to finish. I do not in any way wish to argue that numeracy, literacy and attendance are not urgent—that they are not pressing issues in some indigenous communities—nor would I argue that it is not a matter of urgency to see improvements made in indigenous education. Threatening the funding of education providers with as yet unknown guidelines does not attract itself to me as being the preferred way to getting results that go to the broader objectives, because literacy, numeracy and attendance are not the goal; they are the signposts towards the goal.The goal is—I will put it more generally, and the bill, in its statement of objects, seeks to reflect this—to enhance the outcomes for young indigenous Australians from the education system to allow them to make more choices about their lives and about their employment, and to allow them to make more choices culturally and about the way in which their community operates—to empower them. It seems to me that there is a serious danger, and it is not unique to this bill, of our setting signposts along the way towards a general social goal and our aiming for the signposts instead of for the goal. Those things which are measurable could become the goals themselves and interfere with the broader achievement of profoundly important social objectives. It appears from the contents of this bill, and from the comments which have been made about it, that funding will be tied to essentially numerical outcomes—attendance, numeracy and literacy. That runs the risk, if it is applied as it appears on the face of it, of our not taking into account the appropriateness of the education or the quality of the outcomes. If we cannot see the guidelines, we cannot be reassured that that is not the case on the face of it. It does appear to be a serious cause of concern. As I have said, problems in achieving benchmarks in numeracy, literacy and attendance are not necessarily the fault of the school; they are often symptomatic of problems and disadvantage in the community. This is not a unique circumstance to indigenous communities, but it is especially true there. This was pointed out this year by the independent review of indigenous education in the Northern Territory and by the national inquiry into rural and remote education. Both reports referred to the broader causes of indigenous disadvantage in education: for example, the way in which poor health contributes to educational disadvantage, and the strong links between poverty, ill health and low education attendance.There are other problems that we need to address and focus on. I want, in the time available, to deal with them briefly and then put them in a broader context in relation to funding. For example, in many indigenous communities there is no access to secondary schooling. It is estimated that half the indigenous secondary school age students in the Northern Territory are in non-graded programs taught at community education centres by primary trained teachers. There are problems with high turnover of staff and understaffing, there are problems with lack of housing and there are problems with lack of professional development and training and lack of appropriate cross-cultural training for teachers. These things can result—even with the best will in the world of individual teachers, who are usually well motivated; that is why they go to these areas—in poor educational outcomes for indigenous students. There are also things which are not so evident at first glance: the lack of appropriate available or affordable transport and communications infrastructure can disadvantage the educational outcomes of indigenous students. Many remote communities do not have easy access to transport to get their children to school, let alone the advantages of computers or IT to breach the distance and disadvantage barriers should they get to school. Given these formidable barriers to indigenous students participating effectively in the education system, this bill seems a rather simplistic response to the application of funds available for indigenous education. As I have said, this bill ignores the reality of life on the ground for indigenous communities. It is out of touch. I have had calls in recent days asking that I express concern about the way in which ministers of this government are out of touch with the community on the profound issue of reconciliation. Callers are concerned about the attitude of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, who is, I think, in his comments in international media, reflecting views that are entirely inappropriate for a minister responsible for reconciliation. This is a democracy—he can hold any view he likes—but if he wishes to advance the cause of reconciliation this advocacy is a profound setback.Similarly, I am concerned about what the package of education measures which the parliament is considering now—of which this is a part—says about the priorities of this government for education. We have before the parliament at the moment a related proposition to this bill which says that, in round figures, $50 million extra will go to the 62 schools which used to be categorised as category 1 schools because they are considered to be the wealthiest schools in this country. There is a serious debate, which my colleague the member for Dobell is pursuing effectively and forthrightly, about whether the new classification properly measures which are the most advantaged schools. That debate will continue to be pursued. Let me, for the moment, put that to one side and assume that we all know that the Kings School and Geelong Grammar—those sorts of schools—are amongst the 62 wealthiest in the country. The government has a package of measures before it which will give to 62 schools an extra $50 million. Who could argue that Australian social, economic and educational objectives would be better achieved by giving $50 million to those 62 category 1 schools than by identifying 62 high need schools in the most disadvantaged communities, and the most disadvantaged students in this country, and saying, `We can apply that $50 million to those people so that the most serious educational disadvantage in this country, the education problem that is contributing most starkly to the problem of economic and social disadvantage, can be addressed'? If you put to any Australian how $50 million targeted specifically at schools could better serve the national interest—would we give it to the 62 most advantaged schools in this country or the 62 most disadvantaged schools in this country?—who would argue that the government has got its priorities wrong? This is what goes to the heart of my concern about this bill ignoring the realities of life in this country, particularly on the ground for indigenous communities.I am concerned about the matter raised by the member for Calwell regarding the impact on indigenous languages and cultures of this bill if the priorities are reflected too narrowly and tightly around some of the objectives, although the objectives of the bill do say some positive things about indigenous culture. I hope that is reflected in the guidelines, but it has not been reflected in the rhetoric surrounding them. I am also concerned that the bill and the guidelines may not pursue the objective of improving local community involvement and indigenous organisational involvement in educational policies and priorities. I am not sure why it is that the minister in a letter to state education ministers has promised to assess the contributions of state and territory indigenous education consultative bodies to indigenous educational policy. I hope this is not another move to marginalise that contribution. My concerns with this bill are that it misses the point, that it lacks a broader vision, that it reflects distorted priorities and that it points at the signposts about educational disadvantage but not the destination. I support the amendment proposed by my colleague the member for Dobell. 12:46:0020895Vale, Danna, MPMrs VALEVK6HughesLP10—It seems to me that almost every week on Australian television screens the government sustains a bitter attack on its policies towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. We live in a democracy and people are entitled to their views and to put their case. I simply want to say that the bill that is before the House now, the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000, reflects in part the truth about the government's policies towards the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. The truth is this: in this financial year, 2000-01, the Howard coalition government will spend a record $2.3 billion on indigenous specific initiatives. To that amount can be added state and territory expenditure, mining royalties, land councils, universities and other sundry bodies which contribute another $800 million towards indigenous specific spending, giving a total of over $3 billion this year.Of course, that does not include other spending on indigenous people from non-indigenous specific sources. Over the past 15 years or thereabouts, indigenous specific spending has totalled about $20 billion. Of the 390,000 Australians who identify themselves as indigenous, only 230,000 rely on government support. In comparable dollar terms, in 1970 the Commonwealth spent $60 million on indigenous programs. In 1980 it grew sixfold to $350 million. By 1990 it was $950 million, and in 2000-01 it is now $2.3 billion. This bill is the means to provide the government's indigenous targeted education program for the 2001-04 quadrennium, and it will provide the authority to appropriate some $591 million in grants to indigenous education providers over that quadrennium. It is also the truth that there is more to indigenous wellbeing than issues that deal with land rights, which is a subject that has occupied so much public attention. I recognise that for cultural, spiritual, historic and symbolic reasons land is important. But we should not expect too much from simply restoring land ownership. Land is not a panacea to the social and economic challenges facing indigenous communities. Similar social problems exist throughout the Aboriginal community whether they be in communities where land has been restored or where land has never been taken or where people have been irrevocably alienated from their traditional country. But the need for education, particularly basic literacy and numeracy, is universal. When I was very young, my father once said to me that education is the only salvation for being born a woman. But, as an adult, I believe that education is the only salvation for everyone. The South African leader Nelson Mandela who recently visited Australia once said, `There are two ways to break out of poverty. The first is by formal education and the second is by the worker acquiring a greater skill at his work and thus higher wages.' Here in Australia the courageous Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson has said, `The most important and powerful resource that an individual can have is education. Education is the resource which can most mobilise and empower an individual and a society.'When it comes to the deeds of the government and not the words of its opponents, the government delivers. And it does not just deliver to the squeaky wheel: it is committed to delivering to the bottom end of the Aboriginal community, many of whom are still waiting to see more of a trickle down of the $20 billion spent over the past 15 years. During the parliamentary winter recess I was privileged to visit many Aboriginal communities and discovered that the Aboriginal people who are never heard in the public domain often hold very different views about their situation and needs from the people who are regular commentators on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. This bill deals with education, and it is one of four key areas of targeted assistance. The others are health, housing and employment. Indigenous specific spending across all four areas is now higher than it has ever been. To say this does not mean that there is not much more to be done, but the fact remains that there have been major improvements in indigenous education outcomes. For example, the proportion of indigenous adults who have never attended school has fallen from 14 per cent in the mid-1970s to three per cent today. The proportion of indigenous children who complete secondary schooling has increased fourfold since the mid-1970s, from 8.6 per cent to 33 per cent. The proportion of indigenous Australians with post-secondary school qualifications has doubled in the last decade, and indigenous higher education enrolments have tripled over the same period.I was privileged to have been able to visit an excellent Aboriginal community when I recently visited the Northern Territory, and that was the Daly River community. I was grateful to the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Mr Denis Burke, for facilitating my visit and for introducing me to one of the most magnificent women I think I have ever met. Her name is Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann. Miriam-Rose is the elder of the Daly River community. She holds a masters degree in education and is the principal of the Daly River School. She is a gifted artist and, amongst other works, the stations of the cross in the community church were painted by her. She is not only a brilliant role model for her people but as well she is a brilliant role model for the rest of us and a living example of the benefits of education. One of the policies that will stand to the lasting credit of this government and the present minister is the determination to tackle the problem of literacy and numeracy. This policy applies to both indigenous and non-indigenous communities, to child and adult, to employed and unemployed. I am sure that all members are aware of the old saying: you can give a man a fish and it will feed him for a day, but if you teach a man how to fish he can feed himself for a lifetime. Teaching literacy and numeracy is like being taught how to fish. One of the keys to this is school attendance, and if children do not attend school they will not benefit from the teaching that is available. When I was in the Territory I witnessed one very successful method of encouraging indigenous children to attend school. In a community that had a swimming pool, the policy was `no school, no pool', which seemed to work exceptionally well. Strategies to address poor attendance rates among indigenous youth, along with other issues, like those raised by the Learning lessons report that followed the Collins review, were the basis for the initiatives announced by the Prime Minister earlier this year as part of the $27 million National Indigenous English Literacy and Numeracy Strategy. It is a cooperative effort by local communities, parents, schools and federal, state and territory governments. This strategy seeks to increase parent and community participation, enhance performance and outcomes monitoring, address poor hearing and other health issues, lift school attendance rates, improve teaching training and use more responsive classroom teaching methods. This will help to facilitate the development of national reports in key areas such as attendance rates, literacy and numeracy levels, retention rates and indigenous employment.Illiteracy and innumeracy impact on so many areas. They immediately narrow down employment opportunities. Unfortunately, for indigenous youth aged between 15 and 19 the unemployment rate is around 36 per cent. Overall, the unemployment rate for indigenous Australians is around 38 per cent. This is five times the rate of the general population. Without the community development employment projects that figure would blow out to 56 per cent. In 1980, the unemployment rate was 43 per cent. Despite two decades and billions of dollars of expenditure, the employment rates have not significantly improved. Illiteracy and innumeracy limit the information that a person receives, including information about basic life skills, and it leads to frustration. It affects self-esteem and narrows the options available to people. All of these are some of the contributing factors to family violence. Since 1990, indigenous deaths from family violence have been almost 30 per cent higher nationally than indigenous deaths in custody for the same period about which we hear so much. Indigenous children are five to eight times more likely than other children to be subject to abuse and neglect. Education is also one of the escape routes from welfarism. Sit down money or money for nothing has been a destructive curse amongst indigenous people over the past 20 to 30 years. This has led the government to try to distinguish between measures that perpetuate welfare dependency and those that genuinely alleviate long-term disadvantage and inequality. Two years ago, the minister released a discussion paper entitled Removing the welfare shackles. The government's efforts are now being supported by a growing number of indigenous leaders because, like all Australians, indigenous people prefer work to welfare. Until there are real improvements in education, together with employment and economic participation, dependence on the `sweet lolly' of welfare will continue. To help eliminate the welfare need, all Australians must have equitable access to education, and that is what this bill will help to do.There are a lot of exciting good news stories in indigenous education; it is not all doom and gloom. But it is a struggle at times for local community leaders, and I have been humbled by the courage of many ordinary indigenous Australians whom I have seen battling against the odds to change things at the base of the pyramid. These are the people we should be listening to. As I mentioned earlier, during the winter recess I was able to visit the Northern Territory and travel widely to meet and visit many indigenous Australians. At Alice Springs I was able to visit the Irrkerlantye Learning Centre. The centre advocates an intergenerational approach to education through a holistic model of community development. It began as an educational alternative for Aboriginal students in Alice Springs considered to be most at risk. These students are considered to be at risk for a number of reasons, including a high level of substance abuse, violence surrounding them, their involvement in the juvenile justice system and the dysfunctional and antisocial behaviour they often display. They are considered not likely to complete an accepted level of schooling. This centre offers support for Arrernte family members between the ages of 11 and 60—and, yes, I said the ages of 11 and 60. Youth suicide has been an issue for many of these families, and many family members pass away, mainly due to renal disease. The family nature of the program evolved because grandmothers and staff felt inadequate about the impact they were having on the lives and behaviour of youth accessing the program when the focus was solely on youth and education. It was realised that the family situation of many of the young people created a variety of social problems that interfered with participation and attendance in education. As a result, many displayed dysfunctional behaviour. It was found to be almost impossible to engage students in accredited lock-step mainstream educational programs or to assist individuals and families to be more functional within the original approach. So the intergenerational and community development model was devised to enable staff and family members to have more effective tools to get to the heart of student and family issues and the difficulties they suffer by working with the whole family.Through the thoughtful guidance of Sister Helen Parer and Nicole Traves, the program helps a participating family to set goals and plan a pathway to improved lifestyles and work with links to other agencies. Through employment on the program, families take a day-to-day active role in and responsibility for the learning process, which can include accredited and non-accredited courses aimed at the young people. It provides a positive role model for teenagers, and it allows parents to be in closer contact with their children in a constructive and purposeful learning environment. The learning programs and work activities provide the students and parents with an immediate positive option for the day, which reduces the incidence of substance abuse and other antisocial behaviour among adults and youth in the community. As a result, whole families have a plan and a focus to work towards, and this motivates individuals to engage actively in processes that can improve their lives. The reason I refer to Irrkerlantye is that it highlights some of the problems that indigenous education faces and the need for targeted assistance. Many of the youth and adults who attend the Irrkerlantye centre simply do not access mainstream schools or courses or work for reasons that I will now just briefly touch upon. Many of these youth have limited literacy and language skills. Their reading and writing ages are five or more years below the level they should be. This simply prevents them from engaging with the mainstream curriculum at their appropriate age level in mainstream classes. Almost all at the Irrkerlantye centre come from economic situations that prevent them from attending school every day. Many of the young people know that if they do not get their hands on some cash during school hours they will be hungry for the rest of the week. Many school days are spent down the street chasing family members for money. The level of substance abuse that surrounds them and their overcrowded living conditions work against the disciplined habits like attending school. Evenings can be noisy and disturbed by drunken behaviour of others, and attending school the next morning is certainly not a priority.As a result of their living conditions, many students arrive at school tired, angry, sad, hungry, sick and despondent. Many are undernourished and lack energy and concentration. Many have medical conditions such as sores and boils that need attention, and these factors have to be dealt with before students can engage in any meaningful learning. Many of the students at Irrkerlantye have been substance abusers. Some have been heavily involved in sniffing substances such as glue and spray paint. Others have been regular consumers of alcohol or marihuana. Their erratic behaviour often has a very disruptive effect on students wanting to engage in an academic program, and it places great pressures upon staff. In short, there are a number of indigenous youths who are a long way from engaging in mainstream educational programs without a major support system to assist them with their academic learning needs and their health and family issues. I know that what I have just described is probably a worst case scenario, but the factors that apply at Irrkerlantye are to a greater or lesser extent widespread throughout Australia in indigenous communities and in many places are endemic to indigenous education. It concerns me that, despite approximately $3 billion that will be pumped into indigenous specific programs this year from the government and non-government sources, staff at indigenous educational institutions like Irrkerlantye will still have to spend most of their time trying to secure funding for the next three to 12 months. Despite this, they are the other face of indigenous affairs. This is the courageous face that gets on with providing and developing programs that work. This is the courageous face that delivers tangible benefits to people at the bottom of the indigenous pyramid. This is the courageous face that represents the bottom-up delivery approach rather than the United Nations committee top-down approach to indigenous affairs.Personally, I would like to see more direct funding from the federal government to organisations like Irrkerlantye, because this is a bottom-up approach and it does assist indigenous people themselves in planning their futures on a holistic family intergenerational basis. It is different, but it actually empowers these people and it works, and I urge the government to commit greater funding to its support. I believe that we have turned the corner on indigenous affairs because the government is addressing the hard problems at the bottom end of indigenous communities, and the uncomfortable truth is beginning to emerge that hand-ups are better than handouts. This bill is about giving people a hand-up through the sustaining asset of education. I support the bill and commend it to the House.13:02:0020898Snowdon, Warren, MPMr SNOWDONIJ4Northern TerritoryALP00—I am pleased to be able to address my remarks to the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000 which applies to the indigenous education strategic initiatives program—IESIP. It seeks to implement the new national indigenous literacy and numeracy strategy but is not, and I emphasise not, providing additional funds. I do not want to go into the other features of the legislation because they have been canvassed by others. Basically I do not want to repeat what others have said. I do want to make some comments about the contributions that have been made by my colleagues from the other side of the House. I must say that, while I welcome tourists into the Northern Territory who visit Aboriginal communities, I, as the member for the Northern Territory, having been elected first in 1987, have a great deal more experience and understanding of these issues than the collective wisdom of the whole of the other side of this parliament. While I invite them to visit regularly, I hope they come back with a slightly different impression from the one that has been exhibited here in this House today. I am left to wonder when I hear the remarks of the member for Hughes that lead us to believe that across the indigenous community in northern Australia alcohol is a problem and substance abuse is a problem. Of course, that is not the case.It is certainly true that substance abuse is a problem for some people in some communities. It is certainly true that alcohol is a problem for some people in some communities. What ought to be understood is that alcohol consumption rates among Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory are less than alcohol consumption rates among non-Aboriginal people.Let us be very clear about it. Let us not paint a canvas, one which we have seen painted by the member for Hughes and before her the member for Blair, that blames the victims. That is essentially what has happened here. I for one reject the notion absolutely. I will not stand in this place and hear the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory insulted in the way they have been by members of the government. I am pleased that the member for Hughes has at least come away from Alice Springs understanding that you need to have special targeted programs for indigenous students. I am pleased with the program she looked at because it is appropriate to that group of people and is very successful. But I also heard her make an assertion about land ownership in her contribution. I have to say to the member for Hughes: you need to get your head around the relationship between land and education. I know it is difficult. It is difficult for me and it is difficult for most non-indigenous Australians. But what I suggest you do, if you want to see how land and culture are fundamental to successful educational outcomes, is visit Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land; and that not only you visit Yirrkala and look at the community education centre in that community but you talk to the Laynhapuy Homeland Schools and see how they have melded the curriculum so that land and culture are the basis of the curriculum. They bind the curriculum together and, as a result, what we have got is one of the most successful educational opportunities for indigenous Australians in remote areas.When the member for Blair gets up here and trots out rubbish about travelling around the Northern Territory with Tom Harris—I remember Tom Harris—I say to the government that they should remember that the CLP government has been in power in the Northern Territory since 1978; that Tom Harris was a minister in the Northern Territory government responsible for education, and the member for Blair worked for him—and that the educational outcomes for indigenous students in the Northern Territory have been abysmal.There are a number of reasons for that, not the least of which is the way they have robbed the till. We are seeing IESIP funds being made available. There are a number of issues—I will come back to the till in a moment—but let me just say this: this bill, of itself, offers inadequate protection for students in their communities if the provider, in this case the Northern Territory Education Department, does not deliver and funding is withdrawn because there is no alternative provider for most communities. Does this mean the community school should be penalised if the system fails to deliver? If that happens, then where do the kids go? What safeguard is there against failures by the system to deal with the real educational needs of indigenous people?The answer to question No. 3 is that there is perennial failure because there is no attempt to really understand the needs of indigenous people. In the case of the Northern Territory, when we talk about the allocation of resources, what we know is that historically when IESIP funds have been made available to the Northern Territory government, they have pilfered 46.1 per cent of the total funds for their own purposes, notionally administrative costs. The rate of on-costs for other states and territories varies between four per cent and 18 per cent. That is highway robbery. They they have substituted this money. There has been massive substitution of money which has been given to improve Aboriginal education outcomes. That money is taken historically by the Northern Territory government's treasury and used for other purposes, maybe for education, but massive substitution takes place as a result. Who is responsible for that? I say to the member for Blair that the people responsible for that were the minister he was working for, Tom Harris, and successive CLP governments. It has been very difficult, I have to say—and I had experience of this when we were in government—to make the Northern Territory government accountable for the funds it receives from the Commonwealth. That is why I am attracted to the proposition of the member for Hughes in respect of direct funding of community based organisations. I agree. Not only do I agree with that, but I agree also that what we should be doing is developing regional agreements with groups of Aboriginal communities about funding for education. Then we should be putting the proposition, perhaps, that once we reach an agreement on outcomes, we fund them directly and not through the Northern Territory government—allow them to make some choices about who delivers educational opportunities in the Northern Territory. The bottom line is, of course, Mr Deputy Speaker—you need to know this—that the Northern Territory government gets 80 per cent of its budget resources from Commonwealth outlays. It gets 80 per cent, in large part, because of the Grants Commission formula which says that, based on need, the Northern Territory on a per capita basis should receive around 4½ times that of the average per capita distribution across Australia. The reason for that distribution is to take account of the special needs of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, distance, geography and a whole range of other issues. But it is not translated on the ground in terms of funding going to Aboriginal education. The people responsible for this are those in the Northern Territory government. They are making these decisions.I am sure the member for Hughes would not want to be associated with the member for Blair's contribution, because if she reads it, she will discover a contribution which was patronising and demeaning. Instead of accepting the failure of the system to provide appropriate resources in an appropriate way to Aboriginal communities across Australia, particularly in the Northern Territory, he sought to blame the victim. He disparaged cultural programs. He talked about special deals. I say to him and to every member of this House that what is required to deliver better educational outcomes is a better understanding of the needs of indigenous Australians and that, when ministers come to the table, they accept, despite what the member for Hughes says about the massive allocation of Commonwealth resources into indigenous affairs in this country, that those resources are substantially inadequate to meet current needs. But as the member for Fraser said in his contribution, if we want to improve educational outcomes, we have to improve many other opportunities. For example, education relies on decent health outcomes. That requires a massive improvement in environmental health.The member for Hughes talked about overcrowding in housing. It is a reality across northern Australia. It is not uncommon to have 18, 19, or 20 people in a three-bedroom house. It is not uncommon for them to have an inadequate water supply. It is not uncommon—these are the poorest Australians—for them to be living on incomes of $180 a week, which is about what they receive from CDP. It is not uncommon. These are poor people.There are massive health problems with many indigenous Aboriginal students in the Northern Territory when they attend school. One of the basic problems is hearing. Otitis media is endemic in Aboriginal schools. But does the education system seek to properly accommodate those deficiencies? It is not successful. It has not done it. A range of initiatives could be taken to improve educational outcomes for indigenous students, but we have to understand that the government—in this case the minister—needs to rethink the way in which he is dealing with these issues. It is absolutely 100 per cent correct to say that you cannot get a job unless you have a decent education. In the years I have spent travelling around the bush in the Northern Territory, sitting down in the dirt having a chat with people, I have not met one Aboriginal person who does not want their child to have a job. I have not met one Aboriginal person who does not want their child to have a decent education. But almost to a person they are frustrated by the inability of governments to recognise the need and to provide the appropriate programs that will give successful outcomes.Bob Collins in his report made clear the percentage of Northern Territory students achieving national reading benchmarks in 1988. For indigenous students in year 3 in urban schools it was 54 per cent; and in year 5, 36 per cent. For indigenous students in year 3 in non-urban schools, it was six per cent and in year 5 it was four per cent. For non-indigenous students in urban schools the figure was 82 per cent. Compare it. An outcome of 82 per cent for non-indigenous students in urban schools as against six per cent for indigenous students in non-urban schools. That is a national disgrace. On top of that, even if we had students who could read at their chronological age levels in the equivalent of year 7 or year 8, I cannot think of one Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory—and remember some have 2,000 people or more—that has a high school. It raises very serious questions about the ability of government to come to terms with its responsibilities at a state and at a federal level. What is clear—what is abundantly clear—is that the way to deal with this issue is not, as the member for Fraser said, by giving $52 million to category 1 private schools around this country at the expense of public education. The answer to this is to shift the distribution of funds so they address the needs of those most in need. In this instance it is very clear—those most in need in Australia are indigenous students, particularly those living in remote communities. There are insufficient resources being addressed to the problem and there is insufficient understanding of the cultural aspirations and needs of indigenous Australians and the circumstances in which they live. There are strategies which could be adopted, but they require acceptance of local priorities. They require the acceptance that Aboriginal mothers and fathers share a common objective when it comes to education outcomes. It requires accepting that they, like every other Australian, want educational and job opportunities for their children. It requires acceptance of the need to spend additional resources for communications infrastructure, road infrastructure, housing infrastructure and health infrastructure to improve educational outcomes. That means a rethinking of the way in which we deal with indigenous education. I said before that one mechanism for dealing with this is to develop a system of regional agreements—contracts, if you like—between those people providing the funds and services and those people receiving the services. And this should be done on the basis of agreed objectives and agreed outcomes. However, they should be aware that, for example, in the case of the Northern Territory, Arnhem Land was recently 27 teachers short in the public education system. This meant kids going without school. The reason they were short was insufficient housing for the teachers. Whose responsibility is that? That responsibility lies fairly and squarely with the Northern Territory government.Unless you are fair dinkum and unless you are prepared to do things differently, and unless you are prepared to sit down and provide the resources that are clearly required to achieve the sorts of outcomes you want and the community wants, you will not be successful. I say, Mr Deputy Speaker, that this should be one of the key national priorities. This should be at the centre of any development of public policy in this nation: improving the lot of indigenous Australians. Today, hopefully, the Prime Minister might actually get up in this parliament and say something meaningful about indigenous Australians instead of listening to what is coming out of the mouth of the minister who is responsible for reconciliation. Perhaps he might start by thanking indigenous Australians for their performance recently at the Olympic Games and for they way in which they have helped bind this nation—no thanks to the government. What the government needs to do now is rethink its strategy for Aboriginal education. This is not good enough.13:22:0020902Emerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON83VRankinALP00—It is important to gain an understanding of the progress or lack of progress over the last couple of decades in Australia in terms of Aboriginal education. On that point, the number of people assisted by Abstudy, which is a program to help Aboriginal people pursue post-secondary studies, rose from just 115 in 1969 to more than 24,000 in 1987, and the number assisted by ABSEC, which is a program to ensure that Aboriginal people have the opportunity to gain the necessary secondary school education to take advantage of Abstudy, rose from to 19,621 in 1973 to 26,183 in 1987. Those results caused the then minister for Aboriginal affairs, Mr Gerry Hand, to claim, and I quote:Abstudy and related Commonwealth initiatives are generally recognised as the means by which so many Aborigines have been able to undertake higher education studies.But if we look at trends from that time onwards, the picture becomes more ambiguous. Some indicators since the mid- to late eighties suggest there have been improvements, and others suggest there has been a deterioration. In fact, in a 1998 paper devoted to the question of whether or not school retention and participation improved for indigenous students, two researchers, Michael Long and Tracey Frigo, analysed a set of measures and found:The answers to the question vary by State and measure. There are indication of both absolute and relative improvement in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory ... [but] ... any improvement in retention and participation has not been sufficiently strong to be detected by all the measures used in this report.They concluded:Despite the evidence of positive outcomes from individual programs for indigenous students in terms of engagement in learning and personal development, and despite government funding support for schools and individuals, school retention and participation for indigenous youth has not improved markedly in recent years in Australia.Similarly, R.G. Schwab found in a 1999 analysis that it was difficult to quantify national retention rates prior to 1994, but nevertheless concluded that:While there have no doubt been real improvements since 1989, it is important to note that indigenous apparent retention rates declined between 1994 and 1996 before beginning to recover and climb in 1997; they have yet to return to 1994 levels. This pattern appears more akin to recovery from a stall and decline than a trend to improvement.We need to ascertain where we are now. What is the result of a period of apparent improvement and then a period of apparent stagnation? I am able to report on that because, for the latest years for which statistics are available, the school drop-out rate before year 10 for indigenous Australians is 25 per cent and for non-indigenous Australians it is two per cent. So we have 25 per cent of indigenous Australians dropping out of school before year 10 and only two per cent of non-indigenous Australians.In relation to year 12 retention rates, the proportion of indigenous Australians who completed year 12 is 30 per cent, compared with a percentage for non-indigenous Australians of up around 75 per cent. So there are huge gaps here between the educational attainment of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.Let us look at participation in education—school and post-school—in the 18 to 20 age bracket. The participation rate for indigenous Australians is approximately 31 per cent, and for non-indigenous Australians 58 per cent. The percentage of the population aged 15 and above with post-school qualifications, firstly for university degrees, is indigenous Australians, 2.2 per cent, and non-indigenous Australians, 11.2 per cent; diplomas, indigenous Australians 3.2 per cent, non-indigenous Australians 13.5 per cent; and trade qualifications, indigenous Australians 5.2 per cent and non-indigenous Australians 11.4 per cent. This latest information paints a clear picture of very real disadvantage suffered by indigenous Australians in terms of education attainment. So we have to do something about it and this legislation seeks to do something about it. How successful it will be we may not in fact know, because of the lack of accountability measures in the legislation. It does appear to give the minister huge discretion in deciding where money will go in terms of boosting literacy and numeracy for indigenous Australians. Previous speakers from the Labor side have expressed grave concern, and the second reading amendment goes to that very issue—that is, the lack of accountability.I agree that performance based provision of funding is a good idea in principle, but what does performance actually amount to? How is it defined? Well, it is going to be defined in agreements reached between the minister and relevant education providers, but there are no guidelines for that. So this parliament is being asked to approve legislation which gives the minister very great discretion in setting the terms of those agreements and, disturbingly, the minister can withdraw funds if he judges the performance of particular schools as being not up to scratch. Hopefully that would be against objectively established criteria, but we need to be assured of that.One issue to which other speakers have referred is the issue of attendance. It would seem to make sense that if attendance is low, and much lower than set out in an agreement, there is a real problem. But to deal with that problem by just withdrawing the funding may not be the appropriate solution. There could be more fundamental reasons for the low attendance than simply blaming a school for it and then withdrawing the funding and punishing the local communities accordingly.My concern is that the lack of accountability here may give real expression to the minister's ideology in relation to education funding in general. I want to see this funding allocated on objective bases not on ideological bases. I do not think we have any assurances that that would be the case because this minister must be arguably the most ideological minister in the government ranks. He has particular obsessions and he gives effect to them through legislation. He would be very pleased for this legislation to be passed because it gives him such wide discretion in giving effect to his ideology in terms of preference for funding for non-government schools over government schools and, indeed, in terms of preference for funding wealthy non-government schools over needy non-government schools.That is what is happening with legislation that has already been debated in this parliament. That is what has been revealed by the shadow education minister. My great concern is that the expression of that ideology in that particular piece of legislation, the schools funding legislation, will be carried over into this particular legislation where he has very, very wide discretion indeed.In understanding some of the reasons why Aboriginal young people might have such relatively low retention rates in schools, I draw attention to a table that has been provided by the department and which recently came to my attention. I think it is quite important. In terms of year 12 completions, if we look at the distinction between students in urban, rural and remote areas, it turns out that in urban areas 67 per cent of students complete year 12. So two-thirds of students complete year 12 in urban areas, but in remote areas it is only 54 per cent, just over half. It seems obvious that remoteness itself is a source of disadvantage in terms of educational outcomes. Secondly—and this should not come as any real surprise either—if we look at the same year 12 completion rates, this time by socioeconomic status, a table provided by the department reveals that of those students from areas of low socioeconomic status only 56 per cent completed year 12 in 1996, whereas of those students of high socioeconomic status 77 per cent completed year 12. By both indicators, remoteness and socioeconomic status—for which basically read `wealth'—year 12 retention rates are much lower in remote and low socioeconomic areas, that is, disadvantaged areas. Aboriginal people tend to be in remote areas and/or in low socioeconomic areas, so these would be contributing factors themselves plus there would be other factors obviously contributing to the low outcomes for indigenous Australians. We need to understand those as a guide to working out what are the best policy responses.I want to raise a couple of possibilities here. The member for the Northern Territory has just spoken about the virtues of regional agreements and, I think, that sort of approach may well have a lot of merit because we can then look at the particular circumstances of indigenous children in that region and come up with an agreement that makes sense for that region, is tailor-made for that region. This sounds to me to be very similar to Labor's proposal for education priority zones. I think that that model of education priority zones, which has been adapted from the UK model under the Blair Labour government, may have some merit in addressing the problems of indigenous education in this country.Other speakers, including the member for the Northern Territory, have identified a very important contributing factor to relatively low education attainment for Aboriginal Australians; that is, nutrition and health generally. Labor has been advocating for some time, through the shadow community services minister and other ministers, the concept of early intervention; that is, getting in very early, even in the preschool years and identifying what problems are likely to lead to children not achieving a really good educationproblems that may stem from the home environment and other contributing factors, such as nutrition, and dealing with those through home visiting programs, parenting programs and so on.In that context I refer to the Headstart program in the United States, which has been running now for at least a couple of decades. In terms of the evaluation of the Headstart program there are differing results for different programs because it is funded centrally or nationally, but it is implemented at a state level and different programs are implemented by different states. Some of them have proved very successful; some of them have proved less successful or even unsuccessful. It seems to me that we can draw from the experience of the Headstart program in the United States and from the various evaluations that have been done and pick out the best features, because they are designed to directly address social disadvantage and make sure that kids get to school with the right opportunity to progress through school successfully.In many of the Headstart programs nutrition is a really important component because, again—as the member for the Northern Territory said—children who have poor nutrition obviously find it pretty hard to perform well at school when there are other things on their mind—the fact that they just do not feel very well or that they feel hungry.I would like to see this parliament embrace the concept of the Headstart program. I see great similarities between that and the concept of education priority zones and the member for the Northern Territory's concept of regional agreements. Surely as a parliament we can, in a spirit of bipartisanship, work out the best programs for indigenous Australians, for Australians located in remote areas and for Australians in disadvantaged areas in which many indigenous Australians are located. That is what I would like to contribute by way of this debate. There are models and successful programs nationally and, particularly, internationally, and we should take the opportunity as a parliament to examine those programs and to pick out the best. We can then draw from the best experiences and ensure to the greatest possible extent that we do not make the mistakes that have been made in other countries.Perhaps I could finish on a somewhat philosophical note. In my view what this country needs to face is a task of redistribution. In the old days it used to be the case that people of the Left philosophy argued for the redistribution of income. In a progressive philosophy the most important thing was that income should be redistributed. I still happen to agree with that. But the best of redistributing income is to redistribute opportunities. What we really should be focusing on is the redistribution of opportunity, because opportunity in Australia continues to be concentrated in already advantaged and privileged areas, and in disadvantaged areas there is a lack of opportunity. What goes to the heart of providing opportunity is a decent education. I would certainly like to see all members of this parliament embrace the notion of redistributing opportunities so that we have equality of opportunity. I have never been an advocate of equality of income. I do not believe all Australians should have the same income. There are a lot of choices they make but there are a lot of choices people in disadvantaged areas do not get to make. In many disadvantaged areas they do not get the opportunity. That is what we should be doing as a nation: ensuring that opportunity is distributed equally, so that every child in this country has the same opportunity irrespective of whether they are indigenous or non-indigenous and irrespective of the wealth of their parents. That is the philosophy that I think both the coalition and the Labor Party should be able to embrace. Unfortunately we are not at that point. I believe that the coalition, particularly through this minister, has a different philosophy. But there are many good people in the coalition and I at least call on those to start thinking in terms of the task of redistributing opportunity in this country. 13:41:0020905Theophanous, Dr Andrew, MPDr THEOPHANOUSQJ4CalwellIND00—This is a very important piece of legislation. It is very important especially today and especially in the circumstances in which we find ourselves because it deals with indigenous education. Most of the speakers have said that indigenous education is a key issue when we are talking about the future of the indigenous people and their role in Australian society and the whole process of reconciliation. If you read the fine words of the minister in presenting the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000, you would think, `Well, there are some very good objectives and intentions in this bill,' and one might say, `Why not wholly support it?'The problem is that, when one gets to the specifics of what is actually going to be delivered through this bill, there are many shortcomings in the way in which it has been formulated to this point. We need to bring a background to this matter and the background is that the government has promised a lot in this area of indigenous affairs, including education, and delivered little.One of the areas which is most significant is the whole question of maintaining the culture and traditions of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That is the most important matter if you are looking at education for this group of people, at helping them to maintain the culture and traditions which give them an identity, which make them what they are and which allow them to continue to contribute to the rich manifold of multicultural Australia. I asked a question earlier this year of the minister for Aboriginal affairs. It was a three-part question and it had to do with what the government is doing to ensure that we do in fact maintain Aboriginal cultural traditions. The third part of the question was: `Does the government have programs to educate indigenous children about the cultural traditions of their Aboriginal backgrounds? If so, what are the details?' That is the question I asked the minister. I am sure the whole nation would be amazed to read this answer from the minister:ATSIC has no specific programs to educate indigenous children about the cultural traditions of their Aboriginal backgrounds.No specific programs. So in answer to a question about what we are doing to educate Aboriginal children about their own backgrounds in our education program, the government freely admits that it has no programs. This is an outrage and it is because of this outrage that it is essential, if this bill is to mean anything, that it actually have some teeth and some substance, that it actually require the teaching of Aboriginal culture, Aboriginal tradition and Aboriginal languages for those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. It is for this reason that I am moving an amendment in the committee stage to try to ensure that.I am also going to support the Labor Party's amendments, which also seek to ensure that the government specifies in this chamber the guidelines which it is going to seek in this rubric of Aboriginal education, because if the government is not going to include culture, tradition, heritage and Aboriginal languages, then it is failing in its responsibility and it is failing in the objectives which it promulgated at the beginning of the bill. It has been asked by a number of members: where are the guidelines that the minister intends to put into place when he negotiates agreements with the state governments about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education? Where are those guidelines? We do not have them, nor have we got any indication from the minister what requirements he is going to have in relation to this matter. You might say, `Well, why should the minister make requirements?', but this bill does make requirements. This bill says that there will be requirements in literacy, numeracy and school attendance. We do not have any problem with that, but the problem is the failure to have any requirement in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and traditions for the children. Why do I say this? This is important. We have all had to face, as a nation, the pain of the stolen generation saga, which involved Aboriginal children being taken from their mothers at a very early age and being brought up in the so-called Western tradition—completely away from their Aboriginal cultural traditions. The government is asked to apologise for this act. Never mind the human act of separating mothers from children—that itself is tragic—but what about the cultural act; the act of separating them from their culture so that they no longer are able to understand or have connections with their cultural traditions? What about that? Do we not have a responsibility not merely to say sorry but to restore the damage?Unfortunately the minister for reconciliation has been criticised—it is not unfortunate that he has been criticised, but what is unfortunate are the comments he made. When he was asked about this question, he said in Le Monde newspaper:At the time, the decision to remove part-Aboriginal children from their families was made because it was considered that their mothers could not offer them the desirable educational opportunities. Many of these children in fact received a much better education than a lot of other Aboriginal children.A much better education according to whom, Minister? A much better education so that they forgot about their Aboriginal heritage and background? Is this what he meant? The minister has been condemned today throughout the media and everywhere because this comment, together with other comments that he has made about Aboriginal civilisation and Aboriginal culture, reflect the idea that Western society is far superior to Aboriginal culture and tradition. After all, they did not even have the wheel and, therefore, because they did not have the wheel in their technology, their culture does not have anything to offer. What sort of an absurd statement is that? Has the minister studied the richness of Aboriginal culture and tradition? Has he studied the philosophy, the belief systems, the views of society, the views of human beings, the views of the environment which the Aboriginal people had in their cultural traditions? No, he has not done that.He has not done that or, if he has, he has not taken the message. The message is that we could learn a lot from the values and belief systems of the Aboriginal people, especially about respecting each other as human beings, especially about how to organise society, especially about believing in the spiritual side of life, not thinking that the only thing in life is material goods. All those things are in Aboriginal culture and tradition. The minister has done nothing to promote this with his comments. In fact, his comments are disgraceful. He ought to come into this chamber and apologise for those comments and apologise for his concept of Aboriginal culture and tradition. How can there be reconciliation if the view is that we are the far superior culture and `You lot over there, well, never mind'? Is this the attitude? Is that going to lead to reconciliation?In just the last few days we saw how the world appreciated the richness and the symbolism of Aboriginal culture when we saw the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games. So we have the minister making the opposite point. I am afraid that if this bill goes through without amendment, we will not be able to achieve some of the intentions expressed by the minister in relation to Aboriginal tradition and culture. This parliament needs assurances in the bill that we are going to be able to achieve those goals. It is for that reason that I will move an amendment requiring curriculums under the legislation to contain a minimum 20 per cent Aboriginal or indigenous programs in general. It is a very low level, but at least it is a minimum to start teaching Aboriginal culture, heritage and tradition in the curriculums under this act. This is the view which is supported by Aboriginal leaders. I want to read from a letter I received today from the chairman of ATSIC, Mr Geoff Clark. He says:Dear Dr TheophanousI understand that you are to propose amendments to the government's Bill, the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000.While I look forward to seeing the details of the amendments when they are tabled I would like to provide some comments on your proposal.Firstly, I must comment that ATSIC does have a role of advising the government and the Ministers on legislation affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and will continue to provide as much positive input in that role to the government, whenever legislation is in formulation.Secondly, ATSIC already has broad policy and strategic objectives which indicate our strong support for the inclusion of indigenous cultural and heritage education for our people. For example, the ATSIC Corporate Plan states, inter alia:ATSIC will aim to be well placed to protect our existing land, sea and cultural heritage rights, as well as extend the formal recognition of these rights;ATSIC will ensure indigenous people are aware of and can exercise their rights, by funding education awareness campaigns on rights for indigenous peoples;ATSIC will promote the recognition of the right to use and be educated in indigenous languages in Australia.Thirdly, I note that the UN Human Rights Committee, in its recent examination of Australia's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights asked the Australian representatives how Australian law guarantees the continuation of indigenous culture and livelihood for the future—a question which unfortunately was not, and cannot be, given a positive response.Given my preceding comments, I would like to add my own view that the proposed Bill will be insufficient if it does not carry provisions for the education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our own languages, of our own social Responsibilities and of our distinct indigenous cultural heritage. These are surely the fundamental components of our identity as Indigenous Peoples.You may take from these comments that I am in support of your intention to strengthen the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000 by including quantifiable targets for the education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people regarding our own cultural heritage.I look forward to following the progress of your amendments during the parliamentary debate and I will ensure that ATSIC remains available to advise the government, the parliament and members of the parliament on this most important policy issue.Yours sincerelyGeoff Clark5 Oct 2000These comments from Mr Clark reflect the great importance which ATSIC puts on Aboriginal education and for education to be targeted in, as he says, `our own languages, our own social responsibilities and our distinct indigenous cultural heritage.' This is what the chairman of ATSIC says. It is very important that this bill not go through merely as a vague bill, but that it have specific targets and specific rules and guidelines for indigenous education. It is important that it deal not merely with matters such as literacy and numeracy, which it ought, but also this dramatically important issue of helping Aboriginal people maintain their identity and culture by ensuring that the children are taught in the schools about these traditions. As Mr Clark says, `These are surely the fundamental components of our identity as indigenous peoples.'I believe members should support an amendment which I will move in the committee stage to ensure that these guidelines are in force in the area of indigenous education. But I also want to say that if the government does not show some more goodwill in relation to this matter, this will be a further example of the government's behaviour in recent times in relation to indigenous affairs. As I said before, the attitude which the minister for reconciliation has shown in relation to Aboriginal culture and civilisation must be repudiated by the Prime Minister, by this parliament and by the minister himself in apologising to this House. This is a necessary step for us to get back on track the process of reconciliation. But another important step is to support amendments to this bill which will put into place guidelines and targets in relation to the protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage through the use of the education system to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are actually taught about these cultural traditions and about their heritage. I have spoken on a number of occasions in this House about the richness of indigenous culture. Having some philosophical background, I have studied the philosophy and belief systems of the Aboriginal people. I can say that this is a very rich cultural tradition which needs to be strongly supported by this parliament. In fact, we should have in this bill and in general education bills a requirement to teach the whole Australian nation about our Aboriginal community, about the value and richness of Aboriginal culture and about the way in which they have been able to teach us certain fundamental values about humanity, spirituality, respecting one another and the way in which we should live our lives in society. These things in Aboriginal culture ought to be respected. I support the Labor Party amendment.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 2 p.m., the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 101A, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour this day.Ministerial Arrangements2090814:00:0020908Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—I inform the House that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services will be absent from question time today due to ill health. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry will answer questions on his behalf.Questions Without Notice209082090814:01:0020908Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—My question without notice is addressed to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister recall his letter to me which I received this morning in which he admitted misleading 3AW listeners about the size of the funding increases for his list of 67 wealthy schools? Prime Minister, can you explain why extremely wealthy schools, like the King's School, Melbourne Grammar and Geelong College, which are currently category 1 schools, are not even on your wealthy schools list?20908Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—Obviously, with a question like that, I would have to go and look at the list before I gave a specific answer. But the basis of the question of course is to continue the mythology of the Labor Party attack on the government—that is, that in some way the policies of this government are designed to help the wealthy schools of this country. The policies of this government are designed to promote choice. I wonder whether the Labor Party continues to oppose the opening of schools like the Thomas Hassall Anglican College in Hoxton Park in the western suburbs of Sydney where, I am advised, the fees for a primary school student are $2,200 a year and for a secondary school student $2,600 a year. There are many working families in Australia who are willing to make the sacrifice to send their children to schools with that fee structure but have no hope of being able to afford to send their children to schools that have a higher fee structure. It is schools like the Thomas Hassall Anglican College in Hoxton Park that are exemplars of the new schools policy which you voted against.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—Mr Speaker, I was going to raise a point of relevance, but has the Prime Minister concluded?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Has the Prime Minister concluded his answer?ZD4Mr HOWARD—I have finished. 2090814:03:0020908Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr HARDGRAVECK6MoretonLP10—I have a question for the Minister for Finance and Administration. Would the minister inform the House of the government's approach to the privatisation of Telstra? Is he aware of any alternative policies in this area? 20909Fahey, John, MPMr FAHEYHQ5MacarthurLPMinister for Finance and Administration10—I am grateful to the honourable member for Moreton for asking me that question because it gives me an opportunity to state very clearly the approach that the government has taken in relation to the sale of Telstra. The government has been totally honest and up front in respect of the sale of Telstra. Before the 1996 election, we indicated quite clearly to the Australian public that we would sell one-third of Telstra, and we did. Before the 1998 election, we indicated quite clearly to the Australian public that we would not sell more than 49 per cent of Telstra until such time as an independent inquiry reported on the adequacy of service levels, and we have kept that commitment as well. On that basis, I noted with some interest statements made by Labor over the past several months. I note that on 18 April last the Leader of the Opposition promised: No Labor government presided over by me will continue the privatisation of Telstra, full stop. I also noted the documents flying out of the Labor Party national conference held in July in Hobart. Those documents stated:Labor opposes the sale of Telstra and will not sell any further portion of the company. I did not believe that, and I do not believe that the Australian people should believe it any longer either, because we know that the Leader of the Opposition is the man who privatised Qantas, the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and the Commonwealth Bank. He would sell Telstra in a minute. If we once had suspicions about this, we no longer do because this has been confirmed. Labor is hatching a secret plan to privatise Telstra, and that plan is revealed in the 8 September edition of Telco Weekly. This is a publication issued by that pre-eminent investment house Macquarie Bank, and it states clearly that Labor is actively considering the break-up and privatisation of Telstra. Let me quote from the Macquarie report:The ALP is considering such a break-up for Telstra. Our discussions with senior members of the Opposition has indicated that a split between Telstra's network and its retail businesses is an option being considered by the ALP.It goes on:It has been mooted that the government could 100% own the network business. The retail business could then be either fully or partially privatised.The report states further:... such an idea was discussed by the previous ALP government when Paul Keating was Prime Minister.So the whistle has been blown on Labor. The whistle has been blown on the Leader of the Opposition. They are representing to the Australian people that they are opposed to the sale of Telstra—to `any further portion' of Telstra were the words of the Leader of the Opposition—but at the same time they have been holding clandestine meetings with investment bankers on how to break up and sell off the company.I think it is time that the Leader of the Opposition confirmed to the Australian people what the true position of Labor is. I call on the Leader of the Opposition to come clean on the details of any plans to break up and sell off Telstra, to come clean on why unnamed senior members of the opposition are discussing with investment banks the break-up of Telstra, and to disclose which senior members of the opposition have discussed the break-up of Telstra with Macquarie Bank. There is some degree of continuity in those words in that particular report of a certain author who sits on the front bench of the opposition. Some particular theme runs through that. I ask the Leader of the Opposition to come clean. I do not expect an answer from the Leader of the Opposition. He has a convenient memory about his attendances at meetings where the sell-off or break-up of Telstra is discussed. We see here a grubby, politically expedient approach by the opposition on the sale of Telstra, and that of course is something that the Australian people deserve the truth on, just as they deserve the truth on roll-back, and we never hear about that. It is time that the Leader of the Opposition told the Australian people what he really will do if he ever gets the opportunity in government. It is the old story: say one thing when you are in opposition, but, if you ever get a chance at government, in one minute you will be flogging off Telstra, as that report proves. I table Telco Weekly. 2091014:08:0020910Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—Mr Speaker, I seek leave to answer the questions that were put to me. Government members interjecting—PE4Mr BEAZLEY—What? I am not to be given leave to answer the questions that you put to me. You must have such a strength of belief in10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will come to his question.PE4Mr BEAZLEY—Oh, well, I will avail myself of—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will come to his question.PE4Mr BEAZLEY—But, Mr Speaker, when you are asked a series of questions and the government do not have the guts to listen to the answers, what credibility do you give them? Since I am gagged on that front, my question is to the Prime Minister.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will not reflect on the chair; he will come to his question.PE4Mr BEAZLEY—My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that the King's School in Parramatta, which is not even on the Prime Minister's list of 67 wealthy schools, is a category 1 school which charges $11,595 a year in fees? Are you also aware that the King's School advertises the following facilities: 15 cricket fields, five basketball courts, 12 tennis courts, 13 rugby fields, three soccer fields, a 50-metre swimming pool, a gym, a boat shed, two climbing walls and an indoor rifle range? Prime Minister, do you really believe it is fair to increase public funding to the King's School by $1.4 million a year when other schools with greater needs receive no increases at all?20910Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his attempt—I think at his great political cost—to polarise this debate within the Australian community. The debate is about freedom of choice for parents, not the creation of an envy driven society, which is precisely the attempt which is being made. The Leader of the Opposition rails about need. I think the Leader of the Opposition should try to justify a policy approach by his party that would deny to working families in the western suburbs of Sydney the opportunity of sending their children to an independent school of their choice, which is what our policy is about. Our policy is about expanding options for parents. Our policy is not about aggregating comparisons of schools; rather, it is about expanding choice for Australian parents. I am very proud of the fact that Australian parents now have a lot more choice than they had under the policies of the former government. The reality is that, no matter what policy you have, there will always be a capacity by some parents in this country to send their children to schools like the school referred to by the Leader of the Opposition. That is a choice which is exercised by parents throughout Australia. That has always been there and it will always be there irrespective of the schools policy.The new element that this government has introduced, the new area of choice that we have introduced, is that we have created an opportunity for working families to exercise the option of choice. It is under this government that the option for working families to send their children to independent schools has been expanded. Schools like the Anglican school at Hoxton Park, with fees of $2,600 a year, would not have been possible under the policies of the Labor Party, and it was only the coalition, with the help of Senator Harradine, that brought about a change in the policy.We have in this country an education system that increasingly is enabling people to exercise choice. It is based upon a strong government school system, and it is a government school system with which I am personally very familiar—just as familiar with, or more familiar with, than are many who sit opposite and who choose to pretend that they are the sole defenders of the government school system in this country. We need a strong government school system. The government school system has made an outstanding contribution to this country, and it has produced outstanding people in all walks of Australian life. But what this government has additionally done—and what the Labor Party hates because the teacher unions hate it—is to provide choice to those people who want to send their children to non-government schools. Labor wants a school system permanently set in the model of an elite group of GPS schools in the government system, the Catholic systemic system and nothing else. This government wants to preserve and strengthen those three existing elements, but to introduce a new area of choice. It is no surprise that the fastest growing area, as I understand it, in the area of education is not at the very top, not the so-called elite schools, but this new group of independent schools, which reflects the growing desire of aspirational Australia to exercise educational options—the growing desire of aspirational Australia to exercise education options which we are catering for, which are providing people with more choice and which is a policy which I believe is to the long-term benefit of the Australian community. 2091114:15:0020911Barresi, Phillip, MPMr BARRESIZJ6DeakinLP10—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer inform the House what effect the privatisation of Telstra would have on the Commonwealth's debt position? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative policies in this area?20911Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—I thank the honourable member for Deakin for his question. I think it is well known that the government believes that Telstra, the telecommunications company, would be suited for private share ownership by the millions of Australians who want to invest in the stock market. With the proceeds of that, what this government does is pay off debt—free Australia from the Labor debt which would have otherwise chained us for generations. Just as Labor ran up $80 billion of debt in its last five budgets, so the coalition has paid off already $43 billion—and, by the end of this financial year, $50 billion—of the $80 billion Labor debt. That is freeing young people in the future from the effects of Labor wanton mismanagement.There has been a lot of talk in the community recently about Australia's future as a new economy in the area of IT and telecommunications. I cannot help but observe that the Labor Party, which would have you believe that it understands the new economy, as evidence of its commitment to the economy comes out with its first central key plank: the nationalisation of the phone company. You can imagine how this is received in the investment houses of New York when the Labor Party would walk in and say, `And just to illustrate how committed we are to a new economy, what we believe in is nationalisation in the telephone industry'—a complete contradiction of terms. I have hitherto actually thought that maybe the Labor Party did believe in the continued nationalisation of the telephone company. But I was rather taken with what has just been revealed to the House by the Minister for Finance and Administration in the Telco Weekly which he read out—and it bears reading again; it is very revealing. It says this:Our discussions with senior members of the Opposition has indicated that a split between Telstra's network and its retail business is an option being considered by the ALP. It has been mooted that the government could 100% own the network business. The retail business could then be either fully or partially privatised.Macquarie make this comment—I think it is a good comment:The current state of the polls indicates that the views of the ALP should be considered by investors.In other words, the ALP ought to come clean to investors on what it would do if it got into government. There are people who are making financial decisions at the moment. It goes on to say:Note that such an idea was discussed by the previous ALP government when Paul Keating was Prime Minister.It begs the question: who was the senior member of the opposition who met with Macquarie Bank? Who was the senior member of the opposition who met with Macquarie Bank? If the Leader of the Opposition wants to deny this, perhaps he could deny that a senior member of the opposition ever met with Macquarie Bank. I happen to believe that the senior member of the opposition who met with Macquarie Bank could almost be within arm's reach of the Leader of the Opposition right at this moment. If he wants to say that the Labor Party would never privatise Telstra, could he please explain why senior members of the opposition are going around investment houses talking about its break-up? We could launch another inquiry. You know we are having this inquiry into the frontbencher who said that Aboriginal affairs was like a toilet cleaner on the Titanic. We are still awaiting the results of that inquiry. We could add to that inquiry another inquiry where the Leader of the Opposition could go and inquire as to who was down talking to Macquarie Bank. He would probably show all of the energy that he is showing in his attempts to try to get to who the shadow minister was who made the comment about the Titanic.But this is the last piece in the puzzle of something that has been worrying me for quite some time. I said to the House yesterday that there is a clipping, which I hold close to my chest on a regular basis, from the Financial Review of 14 August 2000 in which Labor pledged bigger budget surpluses—as I have said, `BS Crean, bigger surplus Crean.' In that we had the famous `Simply Simon' interview. The `Simply Simon' interview read as follows:At the same time—This is speaking of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition:he is also grappling with contradictory elements—DT4Crean, Simon, MPCT4Mr COSTELLO—Listen to this! DT4Crean, Simon, MPCT4Mr COSTELLO—He is yelling as loud as he can; they are both yelling as loudly as they can to try to drown this out. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Deputy Leader of the Opposition!CT4Mr COSTELLO—I have never known somebody who wanted to drown out his own words. All I am doing is quoting you and you are yelling at the top of your voice to drown out yourself. The words were the following—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Treasurer will address his remarks through the chair.CT4Mr COSTELLO—Mr Speaker, he is yelling still at full pelt and people who are watching this may not know that the deputy leader is trying to drown out himself. He said this:... At the same time he is also grappling with contradictory elements of Labor policy such as those relating to the sale of Telstra and GST. He goes off the record quite often to express a personal view.I bet he goes off the record to express a personal view on Telstra. If he really believed that Telstra never would be broken up and never would be privatised, why would he go off the record? He would presumably just say on the record, `Telstra will never be privatised and Telstra will never be broken up.' Why would you go off the record when you were grappling with Labor's contradictory position on Telstra? There may be some Labor Party backbenchers who actually believe—when they hear the Leader of the Opposition say that he does not intend to privatise Telstra—that that is what would happen if he ever got elected. But those of us who have been here remember him saying over and over again that the Commonwealth Bank would never be privatised. We also remember that, on the eve of the 1995-96 budget, without telling the caucus, the decision was announced in that budget to privatise the Commonwealth Bank. Do you know who was informed before the Labor Party? We were informed, Mr Speaker. The Labor Party came to us to get our support to privatise the Commonwealth Bank—which it had pledged never to do—over the opposition of its own Labor backbench.We have seen it before. We know what happens. There is no logical explanation for a frontbencher to be in Macquarie Bank making these inquiries. There is no logical reason for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to go off the record with his private views in relation to Telstra, except for one thing, and that is we know they did it in the past and they will do it again.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—Mr Speaker, I seek leave to address the questions that have been put to me by the finance minister and the Treasurer.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition has been in the chamber long enough to know that my tradition is not to have people heard until they are recognised. The Leader of the Opposition. PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—I seek leave to answer the questions of the finance minister and the Treasurer to set their minds at rest.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—If the Leader of the Opposition has a question he will—PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley— Do I have leave? They can give leave, Mr Speaker.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The indication has already been given by the chair that leave is not granted, as was indicated to me.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—They do not have the guts.2091314:25:0020913Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—My question is addressed to the Prime Minister and it refers to the Prime Minister's claims that his new school funding system was designed to benefit low fee private schools in Western Sydney. Prime Minister, is it correct that the King's School in Parramatta, with its sporting fields, swimming pool and indoor rifle range, gets an extra $1,351 per pupil per year under your new funding system? Prime Minister, is it also correct that the Thomas Hassall Anglican College at Hoxton Park, which you have referred to, gets only an extra $458 per pupil per year under your new funding system? Prime Minister, if you say you are so committed to low fee private schools in Western Sydney, why does your new funding system give the King's School three times the increase that it gives to Thomas Hassel Anglican College, the sort of school you claim to care about?20913Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—The Thomas Hassall Anglican College has in fact been opened after the changes to the new schools policy—which you opposed.2091314:27:0020913Macfarlane, Ian, MPMr IAN MACFARLANEWN6GroomLP10—My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, what have been the economic benefits for Australia flowing from the privatisation of government business enterprises? Prime Minister, are you aware of alternative approaches to the approach currently being followed by the government?20913Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—Can I say in reply to the member for Groom that, in a word, the economic benefits flowing from the government's policy of privatisation have been `immense'. That is why the coalition parties not only since being in government but also when in opposition have been absolutely up-front in their support for policies of privatisation.One of the ironies of this whole debate about privatisation and one of the things that underlines the utter hypocrisy particularly of the Leader of the Opposition on this issue is that, when the Labor Party in government sought against its election commitments and in repudiation of its election commitments to privatise government business undertakings, it would not have been able to do so without the cooperation of the then coalition in opposition. I certainly remember conversations I had with the now Leader of the Opposition when he was Minister for Finance on the eve of a budget when he sought the support of the coalition in opposition in relation to the privatisation of one of the government business undertakings. Without our support, that would never have materialised.But the advantages of privatisation are significant. Privatisation of Telstra, the continuation of the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank and other privatisations carried out by the coalition government have greatly facilitated the reduction of the debt run up by the Leader of the Opposition when he was Minister for Finance. We have taken about $43 billion out of the $80 billion of debt or more that we inherited in 1996. As a result, this country now has probably the lowest, if not one of the lowest, government debt to GDP ratios of any country in the world. We have reduced it from a level of 20 per cent of GDP to a figure of 8½ per cent of GDP. That has greatly strengthened the economy, and it is one of the reasons why privatisation is an extremely good policy.We have also seen massive spending initiatives made possible by the privatisation of Telstra. We had the Natural Heritage Trust, worth $1.25 billion. We had Networking the Nation, worth $250 million. Out of the Telstra social bonus, we have had $1 billion—that was out of the sale of the second tranche of Telstra. That has provided untimed local calls in extended zones—$150 million. The extension of SBS in TV black spots to $120 million. Rural transaction centres—$70 million. Local government fund—$45 million. Expanded mobile phone coverage on major highways—$25 million. Tele-communications for remote and isolated islands—$20 million. And connecting Tasmanian schools—$15 million. All of those initiatives were opposed by the Labor Party, yet it does not stop Labor premiers like Jim Bacon turning up at the launch of telecommunications initiatives in Tasmania and seeking to share the limelight with the federal government. Labor say, `We will vote against it; we think it is absolutely terrible policy,' but when it comes to actually announcing an initiative which has been won for the people of Tasmania by the coalition and Senator Harradine and opposed by the Democrats and the Australian Labor Party Jim Bacon waltzes along and says, `Don't leave me out, John. Make sure I am on the platform. Let me share the limelight in the announcement.' Steve Bracks does exactly the same thing, and Bob Carr does exactly the same thing. It is therefore no surprise to me to learn that a senior member of the Labor Party frontbench, who I think might be studying his brief at the moment in relation to the next question, should have been talking to Macquarie Bank about Labor plans for privatisation. Everybody around this building knows that, if Labor win the next election, they will find a reason to ditch their opposition of the sale of Telstra. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that, just as they did it with the Commonwealth Bank, just as they did it with Qantas, just as they did it in relation to Australian Airlines, they will do it in relation to Telstra. They have done it before; they will do it again. If it is possible to have one policy in opposition and a completely different one in government, you can be absolutely certain that that is exactly what the Australian Labor Party are going to do. They are total, rolled gold hypocrites on this issue, and the Australian public knows it.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—Mr Speaker, if I cannot get—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will come to his question.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—Mr Speaker, can I have leave to make a bet?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition is dealing flippantly with question time.2091414:33:0020914Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—My question without notice is again to the Prime Minister. I ask the Prime Minister again: is it correct that the King's School in Parramatta, with its sporting fields, swimming pool and indoor rifle range, gets an extra $1,351 per pupil per year under your new funding system? Is it also correct that the Tyndale Christian School at Blacktown gets only an extra $144 per pupil per year? Prime Minister, if you say you are so committed to low fee private schools in Western Sydney, why does your new funding system give the King's School nine times the increase it gives to Tyndale Christian School?20914Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—As always with these, I will check the figures. It may well be that the base grants, the point from which you are starting before you add the additional amount, explain those differences. I think you will find out that they probably do, but as always I will have those figures checked, and if there is anything further I should inform the House of I will. As the member for Dobell has asked me a question about the government's new funding approach for schools, let me take him through the details of it. Let him be reminded that the state grants funding for schools bill contains the highest ever level of funding for government schools. A record $8.6 billion in Commonwealth funds will be spent on government schools, and that is an increase of 18 per cent on 1997. In this current year alone, total direct Commonwealth funding to government schools is $2 billion, and this is $402 million more than in Labor's last year of office. That is an increase of 26 per cent.The new SES policy, which we have introduced, is much fairer than the old ERI system. It is very much based on a school's capacity to pay. Under that policy, the 63 schools serving the neediest communities will receive an average increase—and I invite the member for Dobell to listen to this—of $207 per student next year, rising to $966 by the year 2004. This is five times the increase flowing to the 67 schools serving the wealthiest communities, who will receive $43 extra per student next year and $198 by the year 2004. Schools serving lower SES communities—that is, the schools with SES scores of 100 or less—and the Catholic systemic schools will receive over 79 per cent of government funding, while the 67 schools serving the wealthiest communities will receive only 2.3 per cent of Commonwealth funding. SES funded schools serving the very wealthiest communities receive per student 13.7 per cent of the total cost of educating a child at a government school. This compares with schools serving the neediest communities, which will now receive up to 70 per cent of the cost of educating a child at a government school. This maximum has been increased from the present 56 per cent obtained in earlier years for primary students and 62.4 per cent for secondary students—in other words, one of the elements has been to increase for the neediest non-government schools the percentage of the cost of educating a child at a government school being paid to those needy schools. In the face of that, any claim by the Labor Party that our policy discriminates against the neediest schools is absolute nonsense. Over the next four years, total funding for Catholic schools will be $8.15 billion. This is an increase of something like 40 per cent over the last four years. It is therefore barely surprising that, on 23 August, a media release from the National Catholic Education Commission, which speaks for the generality of Catholic systemic schools throughout Australia, had this to say:The Senate should pass the State Grants Bill 2000 intact, the Deputy Chairperson of the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC), Rev. Tom Doyle said today.Reverend Doyle said the commission:Supports the proposed State Grants legislation;Endorses the Commonwealth Government's application of the principle of need in making grants to Catholic systemically funded schools andAccepts the Commonwealth's decision in its determination of the present levels of funding to Australian schools.The media release continued:The Bill has the support of the NCEC and the State and Territory Catholic Education Commissions as it recognises that the allocation of funds is based upon need.When it comes to a determination of whether the government's policy is based on need or not, I would rather believe the Deputy Chairperson of the National Catholic Education Commission than the member for Dobell.2091514:39:0020915Nehl, Garry, MPMr NEHLAE4CowperNP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Can the minister advise the House about the equity and fairness of the government's new funding system for non-government schools? How does the government's funding compare with alternative approaches?20915Kemp, Dr David, MPDr KEMPBT4GoldsteinLPMinister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service10—I thank the honourable member for Cowper for his question. As the Prime Minister has just outlined, the government's funding reforms for non-government schools deliver the greatest benefits to families on lower incomes at lower socioeconomic levels, and the vast bulk of the funding under the new arrangements goes to schools serving lower income families. The Labor Party continue to persist in misrepresenting the policy by selecting distorted figures to create a false impression about the impact of the policy. For example, they quote total figures of funding going to schools or increases without, as the Prime Minister said, looking at what the starting point was or what the total per capita funding is. For example, the King's School, being a former category 1 school, did not receive any funding increase for 15 years under Labor and is being funded at 31 per cent of the cost of educating a child at a government school.Opposition members interjecting—BT4Dr KEMP—We will get to your hypocrisy in a moment, but just listen to the facts of the situation. The Thomas Hassall Anglican College is funded at 56 per cent of the cost of sending a child to a government school—in other words, at almost twice the level that a family sending a child to the King's School will get. Families sending children to the Tyndale Christian School will be receiving over 50 per cent of the cost of educating a child at a government school and, therefore, much higher per capita grants. That is why parents using the schools serving the neediest communities are much better off as a result of our policy. Still Labor say 30 per cent for a family sending a child to a government school, the King's School, is too much. Whatever we are giving in per capita terms to the schools that are category 1 schools is too much is what you are sayingthat you are going to reduce that amount. PE4Beazley, Kim, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will cease his cross-table exchange. The minister will address his remarks through the chair.BT4Dr KEMP—Labor are claiming that we are overfunding the schools serving the wealthiest communities. We can illustrate their absolute hypocrisy, because we are in a position to determine whose funding system provides more funding for schools serving the wealthiest communities. We are in a position to compare Labor's ERI system and the funding it delivers to schools serving the wealthiest communities with the SES funding system, the system we are introducing. We can do this very clearly because about half of the 67 schools serving the wealthiest communities—that is, 32—will have their funding maintained at the levels Labor paid those schools. We judged it to be fair not to go around reducing schools' funding levels—the funding levels that they have relied upon. So, essentially, half of these 67 schools serving the wealthiest communities are funded at Labor's levels and half are funded at our levels. What do Labor deliver to these schools? On average, Labor fund these schools at 29 per cent of the cost of sending a child to a government school.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—Are they category 1 schools?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition will have an opportunity to ask questions.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPBT4Dr KEMP—The Leader of the Opposition insists on placing Labor in a position where they support a funding system which is rejected by every element of the non-government sector. Everyone who will be subject to the new funding system rejects Labor's funding system, and it does the Leader of the Opposition and Labor no good at all to keep insisting that the totally false, corrupt system that they use should be applied. The system that we are applying gives a fair measure of funding.Labor funds these schools serving wealthy communities on average at 29 per cent of the cost of sending a child to a government school. The government system funds its schools, under the new system, at a level of 20 per cent. In other words, Labor funds the schools serving the wealthiest communities at a level 50 per cent higher than under the government's funding system. The party that delivered higher per capita funding to schools in the wealthy communities was the Labor Party under its funding system. Let us just put that into per capita terms. Those funded under Labor's funding system, those schools serving wealthy communities, receive $3,031 per student per head whereas under the government system schools receive $2,025 per student in 2004. In other words, Labor provides 50 per cent more funding to the schools serving the wealthiest communities in Australia under its system than we provide under ours.So let us have an end to the utter hypocrisy and the selective statistics that the Labor Party put up. They have been completely caught out trying to play the divisive class warfare card by attacking a very select group of schools without in any way acknowledging that their funding system delivered more funding to schools serving wealthier communities than ours. There could be no clearer demonstration that the system the government is putting in place is a much fairer funding system than has existed in the past. That is why it has the support of the entire non-government sector.2091714:46:0020917Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—My question is again to the Prime Minister. I ask whether he recalls during his recent visit to Melbourne Grammar that he said about his new funding formula:This is designed to provide more resources in a more accurate way to those communities in the independent sector that are more deserving of assistance.Does the Prime Minister recall his earlier answer and his claim that the schools serving the 63 neediest communities will get an average increase of $966 per year per pupil under his new schools policy? Prime Minister, why are you giving an extra $1,351 per year per pupil to the King's School, 30 per cent more than the schools you claim serve the 63 neediest communities in Australia?20917Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—It appears that the member for Dobell is incapable of understanding a very, very simple explanation, because it is self-evident, from the answer that was given by the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs—and this is an important issue—that it is not only the amount of the increase but also the current funding level that is important. I do not have in front of me the details of the funding level of Melbourne Grammar, the school to which the member for Dobell referred, but can I again remind the member for Dobell, in relation to the comparison he has sought to make between the King's School, the Thomas Hassall Anglican College and the Tyndale Christian School, that the Thomas Hassall Anglican College will, in the year 2004, receive $3,507 per primary student and $4,593 per secondary student. This is more than $2,000 per student higher than the funding that will be received by the King's School.What that means, of course, is that, even after these increases have been taken into account, under our policy we are funding children at schools like Thomas Hassall—which I use as an example of the sort of school for which we want to provide more opportunity and choice for parents to send their children to—at $2,000 a student more. The same point can be made in relation to the comparison with the Tyndale school, because those two schools were being funded under the present policy at a much higher level because their need is assessed as much greater. It is therefore quite misleading and incomplete, deliberately so, on the part of the opposition to say that the only thing that matters is a comparison of the increases. What matters is the ultimate outcome of the present funding plus the increase at the same point of time. If you do that, you find that under our policy students attending schools like the Thomas Hassall Anglican College and the Tyndale Christian School will get far more support from the government than students attending the King's School. You can spend the whole of question time talking about swimming pools and all these other envy symbols that the Labor Party seeks to drag into this debate, but nothing can alter the fact that we are, under our policy, giving far more support to the low fee independent schools than to schools like King's School. And no amount of deliberate distortion of the fact by the member for Dobell will alter that fact.2091714:50:0020917Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYDIK6RobertsonLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Is the minister aware of any recent announcements concerning health policy? Would the minister outline to the House how these policy announcements will impact on Australia's health system?84GWilkie, Kim, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Swan!20917Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—I thank the member for Robertson for his question and interest in this area. I am aware, of course, of the Labor Party's recent announcement on the 30 per cent rebate, but other people could be forgiven for not being aware of it. It was announced on the same day that Cathy Freeman won the 400-metres gold medal. The Leader of the Opposition has given four doorstops since and has not mentioned it once. On radio 2GB last Friday, in spite of being given the opportunity to talk about health policy, he chose not to mention it. It has not appeared on the Labor Party's web site, and we have not had a press release on it.It is interesting to look at the hypocrisy of the Labor Party on this because, by their own standards, the government has been criticised in the past by the shadow minister for health for secrecy in certain decisions. In a press release on 8 September 2000, we were accused of `secrecy' surrounding a Health Insurance Commission appointment, for the simple reason that we had not gazetted it and had not put out a press release. Well, of course, we do not need to gazette under the Health Insurance Commission Act, so that is incorrect as usual. So that means we are being secret when we do not put out a press release! Here we have the Labor Party with the biggest single spending decision they have made in the last two years in opposition too ashamed to talk about it, too ashamed to put out a press release about it and trying to hide it on the busiest news day in the last two years. I can understand why the Labor Party is embarrassed about this backflip, because it is not just the shadow minister for health but also members of the Labor backbench who have been talking about these issues. It was interesting that the member for Swan should interject earlier on this—on my best estimates, over 54 per cent of the adult population in his electorate is covered by private health insurance. He is on the public record as saying:There would be little doubt that in recent months this government has passed one of the most offensive pieces of legislation seen in this nation. I am referring to the so-called health reform package ...We will be reminding his constituents of his views on their 30 per cent rebate. The member for Sydney—and you can always trust the Left on these issues—with over 65 per cent of her electorate covered by private health insurance, has said that the government being prepared to spend $1.5 billion of taxpayers' money to increase private health insurance cover was `hardly money well spent.' But perhaps the best is the member for Paterson, with over 45 per cent of his electorate covered by private health insurance, saying:We are seeing one of the greatest bits of waste that this country has ever had presented to it by an irresponsible government.Such waste, such irresponsibility, that the Labor Party has picked it up lock, stock and barrel. The simple fact is that the shadow minister has been completely rolled on this. The Labor Party has no credibility. They did not want it, they did not invent it, they did not support it and they will get rid of it if they ever get the chance.2091814:54:0020918Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that the King's School in Parramatta, which has 15 sports fields, five basketball courts, a 50-metre swimming pool and an indoor rifle range, gets an extra $1.4 million a year under his new funding system? Are you also aware that a neighbouring school, Parramatta High School, which has no fields, no basketball courts, no swimming pool and no rifle range is, as a government school, the recipient of an average increase of only $4,000 a year? Prime Minister, which school do you believe has the greater need for $1 million to improve its facilities?20918Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—I am not personally aware of the facilities at all of these different schools. My capacity to find out about those comparative facilities would be no greater or no less than the capacity of quite a number of people who sit behind the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition asked me about need. The bottom line about the approach of this government to need is to be found in the end result of the application of the policy, and the end result is that schools like the King's School—ET4Bevis, Arch, MPMr Bevis—They need more! They need a lot more!ZD4Mr HOWARD—get far less funding under our policy than do the more needy schools in the community. It is as simple as that. You can try to generate envy about basketball arenas; you can try to generate envy about swimming pools; you can play that silly old Labor game, but at the end of the day you are, on this issue—WU5O'Connor, Gavan, MPMr O'Connor—Those kids would like a field to play on.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Corio and the member for Brisbane!ZD4Mr HOWARD—Just as the Labor Party was behind the eight ball in the early 1960s, when the Menzies government provided a historic breakthrough that delivered justice to the Catholics of Australia by state aid, in the early 21st century you are once again behind the eight ball in relation to the provision of choice in education. A growing number of Australians want more choice. Your envy games are not impressive to them, and your envy games will not prevent this government delivering choice to not only the better off people in the Australian community but also working-class families. You did not know that in the early 1960s and now, 40 years on, you still do not understand the dynamic of this debate. PE4Beazley, Kim, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition is aware that he is, as leaders of the opposition always have been, granted a great deal of licence by the occupier of the chair, but he—K26Latham, Mark, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Werriwa is warned! The Leader of the Opposition is also aware that he is much too frequent an interjector across the table. The level of interjection cannot continue to be tolerated.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—I accept your admonition, Mr Speaker, but I am frequently responding to matters that are thrown across the table at me.Honourable members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I do not expect to have to rise in order to get order from members on my right or my left. I know the Leader of the Opposition well enough to know that he would not and does not challenge what has been said by the chair, but I would point out to him that I am in the principal place in this chamber to tell who is interjecting most frequently.2091914:59:0020919Gash, Joanna, MPMrs GASHAK6GilmoreLP10—My question is to addressed to the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business. Minister, would you inform the House of the progress that is being made in the creation of jobs for indigenous Australians and how this is being achieved? Is the minister aware of any alternatives to this policy and what stance others are adopting in relation to indigenous policy?20919Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPMinister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business10—I thank the member for Gilmore for her question. I know she is genuinely interested in this issue and it is very important that all members of the House take a genuine interest in trying to improve job opportunities for indigenous Australians. The government does work tirelessly right across the broad range of issues—the Minister for Health and Aged Care in the health area, the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs in his area and me in the employment area. In the employment area we have a new policy, which we unveiled last year. We have put more resources into that policy and introduced some innovative programs. I must say we are pleased to see the positive response to various elements of it. We have, I think, 35 CEOs of some of Australia's largest companies committed to doing more for indigenous employment and we have the Structured Training and Employment Program.The Voluntary Service Foundation is a new proposal from the government trying to link the desire of Australians in the broader community to help indigenous communities with their particular skills. We are hoping to see real progress being made in that area. We have also moved to widen the National Indigenous Cadetship Scheme. I say to any employer who would be prepared to do more: if you could provide a helping hand to a young person in a university, give them a holiday job but also say to them, `If you are good at the holiday job, we will find you a job in our company at the end of your studies.' That to me is real encouragement for young people to find themselves meaningful employment.There is no question that we have a very significant problem. I was in Arnhem Land only in the last week or so and I pay tribute to Yirrkala Business Enterprises, who have worked very hard to improve opportunities. They work as subcontractors to Nabalco and a lot of jobs are provided. We are keen to build on the good work that has been done and to see more done in the future. I was pleased that there was a positive response to the discussions I had there. I must say, however, that when you hear in some places only 20 per cent of the kids are attending school it just reinforces the point that we still have a lot more to do to improve job opportunities. I am pleased to announce to the House today that the government have approved eight projects worth over $800,000 to provide jobs under STEP—the Structured Training and Employment Program—for indigenous people throughout the country, with projects from Penrith Lakes in Sydney and Ti Tree in the Northern Territory to Brisbane in Queensland. I think we have had bipartisan support on aspects of this policy; I appreciate that. I must say, however, that I was concerned that the new shadow minister for Aboriginal affairs in some of the first public comments that he made on this issue, rather than dealing with the substance of the issues, decided to play the man. He has been attacking the credibility of the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Reconciliation. The minister for reconciliation, both in government and in opposition, has been more committed to this issue than many other people in the House. When you go to Arnhem Land and see the extent of disadvantage and when you are confronted by the enormity of the task which we, as a parliament, still have before us to improve the employment opportunities of Aboriginal people, I must say it is disappointing that, rather than adopting a constructive approach, the opposition just revert to playing a game based on personalities and put the substantial issues to one side.This is a hard enough challenge for all of us without people attacking on a personal basis a person whose reputation stands very high in this parliament—on both sides of the parliament, I might say. It is a bit rich when a member of the frontbench on the other side says privately that none of them want to take the Aboriginal affairs job because it is like the toilet cleaner's job on the Titanic, and that person still sits on the front bench. He is known to the Leader of the Opposition, who has his shadow minister out attacking somebody with a reputation like the minister for reconciliation. I say to the Leader of the Opposition genuinely: you should say to your shadow minister, `Why don't you stick to the substantial issues?' There is enough disadvantage in this country without the distractions and the nonsense of personal attacks. You ought to play the ball and stop playing the man.2092015:05:0020920Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—My question without notice is addressed to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, do you stand by your statement in the House yesterday that:This new policy of the government is a win, win, win again for every section of the Australian community.Is the Prime Minister aware that, while the King's School in Parramatta gets an extra $1,351 per pupil per year, Our Lady of Mercy College—a low-fee Catholic school also in Parramatta, which has no playing fields of its own—gets no real increase at all? Prime Minister, while we can understand why this is a win for the King's School, can you explain to the House how this is a win, win, win for the parents who send their children to Our Lady of Mercy College in Parramatta?20920Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—The reason for that, as I understand the present funding arrangement, is those parents have already won, won, won.Honourable members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Jagajaga! The member for Braddon!WU5O'Connor, Gavan, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Corio is warned!2092015:06:0020920Gambaro, Teresa, MPMs GAMBARO9K6PetrieLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs. The minister would be aware that around one million Australian students are educated in the non-government school sector. Would the minister advise the House of the level of support within this sector for the reform of non-government school funding? Is the minister aware of alternative approaches to school funding?20920Kemp, Dr David, MPDr KEMPBT4GoldsteinLPMinister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service10—I thank the honourable member for her question. Despite the Labor Party's suggestion that there is some interest in the position it is putting forward, it remains totally isolated from every representative group for the non-government sector. The Catholic Education Commission has made very clear that it wants the Labor Party to pass this legislation as soon as possible. Terry Chapman, the Executive Director of the New South Wales Association of Independent Schools, said: The new system is fairer, more transparent than the old. We welcome it as a vast improvement on the old system and as an important step along the road to equity in Australian school funding.A particularly interesting comment came from Phillip O'Carroll, the co-founder of the Fitzroy Community School in working class Fitzroy in Melbourne, who said:The new scheme widens access to lower income parents.He went on to say:The old funding system forces the disadvantaged together and maintains a class system.The principal of the Creek Street Christian College in Bendigo said:As a community we believe we have battled long enough under the existing inequitable funding method and firmly hold the view that the SES funding method is more transparent and fairer.Dr Peter Tannock, the Chairman of the National Catholic Education Commission, said:It will give them—Catholic schools and systems such as the one mentioned in the last question—real increases in resources and a secure, long-term funding base. It will also help many Catholic schools to cope with cost pressures which are pushing up fees to levels which make it very difficult for families on low and moderate incomes.The headmaster of Camberwell Grammar School said:The SES model will mean that the amount of government assistance provided to Camberwell Grammar will reflect the financial capacity of our parents to pay school fees. We shall, as a result, be more accessible to families whose economic circumstances would otherwise make it difficult for them to choose this school for their children.The government's new funding arrangements mean significant increases for needy schools in electorates across Australia. I will just mention the electorate of Brand, the electorate of the Leader of the Opposition. The Hope Christian College will benefit by another $175 a year, Living Waters Lutheran College by $495 a year, Maranatha Christian College by $880 a year, Rockingham Family School by $1,011 a year and Tranby College by $997 per year.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPBT4Dr KEMP—The Leader of the Opposition should answer the question that all these schools are now asking him: are you going to take that extra money away from them or are you going to support the new, fairer funding system that the government is putting in place?2092115:11:0020921Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Prime Minister. Do you stand by your minister when he said in an article he published in the Age:Schools that will benefit will be the needier schools and those that have been underfunded in the past.If so, is the King's School benefiting by an extra $1.4 million a year because you believe it is needy or because you believe it was underfunded in the past while it was building its boat shed, swimming pool and indoor rifle range?20921Howard, John, MPMr HOWARDZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—I do not have in front of me—Opposition members interjecting—ZD4Mr HOWARD—Of course I don't! I do not have in front of me the article to which the Leader of the Opposition refers, but I say that, as far as the statements made by the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs and his general stewardship of these particular responsibilities are concerned, he has my total respect and support, because the minister for education has presided over the introduction of a new policy for all the schools of Australia that has won very widespread support. I have to keep bringing the Leader of the Opposition back to the reality that those who speak for the independent system of Australia—both those who speak for the Catholic systemic system and those who speak for the generality of other independent schools—all applaud the approach that is being taken. In other words, people who know— Opposition members interjecting—ZD4Mr HOWARD—When Father Doyle spoke he was not speaking for King's, he was not speaking for St Ignatius College, Riverview; he was speaking for the poor systemic Catholic schools of Australia. As their spokesman, he said to Labor, `You pass this bill.' He would not have said that if this bill unfairly treated the Catholic systemic schools of Australia, because that is his brief. Surely the Labor Party understands that the National Catholic Education Commission, chaired by Peter Tannock, is the body that speaks for the thousands of Catholic systemic schools in Australia. They applaud the funding policies of this government, just as 40 years ago they applauded the breakthrough by the Menzies government which ended the discrimination against the Catholic school system.Once again, Labor is out of touch with what the independent sector is saying, Labor is out of touch with aspirational Australia and Labor is wrong to base this on some kind of very short-sighted envy politics which I believe will be rejected by the great majority of Australians, including many traditional Labor voters, who want the option, which they have had in the past, of sending their children to independent schools. They want more incentive, they want more assistance, they want greater choice. We are giving it to them; you are not. You are out of touch; we are in tune with the aspirations of Australia.2092215:14:0020922Fischer, Tim, MPMr TIM FISCHERDG4FarrerNP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister inform the House on progress being made by the Indonesian authorities to disarm the militias in west Timor and enable those refugees who so wish to to return to East Timor? What is the government's reaction to the communal violence that has occurred there and in some other areas of Indonesia in recent months?20922Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPMinister for Foreign Affairs10—Can I thank the honourable member for Farrer for his question. I think all members of the House know that he has a great interest in Indonesia and also in East Timor. Indeed, the House may be interested to know that the member for Farrer's book on East Timor has sold over 5,000 copies so far. I believe copies are still available. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Minister for Foreign Affairs may be drifting a little from the question.PE4Beazley, Kim, MP4G4Mr DOWNER—They are uncharitable remarks, by the way, from the Leader of the Opposition. The government welcomes the news that Eurico Guterres, who is one of the most prominent and notorious of the militia leaders in East Timor, was arrested in Jakarta yesterday and apparently will be charged with weapons offences in the very near future. The Australian government has been particularly concerned about the activities of Mr Guterres, and I made public our concerns I think on 7 September. So in the whole context of the Indonesian government moving to disband the militias in west Timor, as they have committed themselves to doing, this is a promising development. There is no doubt, though, in terms of collecting weapons from the militias in west Timor there is a long way to go. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Indonesian authorities said on 1 October that they had collected a substantial number of automatic guns—some 85—17 grenades and about 1,000 homemade weapons. Other ministers in Indonesia gave different figures on 1 October, and the Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security, Bambang Yudhoyono, reported the seizure under the voluntary phase of 63 military style guns, 40 grenades and 1,103 home-made weapons, so those figures are not entirely consistent.I make the point that the Australian government, along with the rest of the international community, remains very concerned about the number of weapons that are available to militias in west Timor, and of course from our perspective the risk it puts our own peacekeepers and other personnel—and obviously other members of the international community—in East Timor to. Nevertheless I had a discussion with the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Dr Alwi Shihab, during the course of today. In the course of that discussion I congratulated him on Indonesia's decision to arrest Eurico Guterres but I also reiterated the view of the Australian government, and I am sure of the Australian community as a whole, that we do hope that this campaign to collect weapons from the militias will be successful and that it is important to Indonesia's international standing that it be successful. The voluntary phase of the collection of the weapons is now complete and the Indonesian authorities have extended, I think until around the middle of October, the sweep by TNI and the police, POLRI, through west Timor to try to collect weapons. It is important that this process is successful, and we urge the Indonesians, as I did Dr Shihab in my discussions with him today, to ensure that it is indeed successful. The honourable member also asked about instability and problems in other parts of Indonesia. I draw the honourable member's attention to the fact that, according to Indonesian statistics, since January 1999 around 2,500 people have died in the Malukus in communal violence, that something like 500,000 people have been injured and wounded in that violence and that 400,000 people have become displaced persons. So we remain in this country, as I know they are in other countries, very concerned about the situation in the Malukus. As a result, today the government has announced a commitment of a further $1 million of emergency relief to the Malukus which will be distributed through a French based non-government organisation called Action contre la Faim. We are very concerned, and I think it is appropriate that here in this country we should do everything we possibly can to provide assistance to these humanitarian crises in Indonesia.2092315:19:0020923Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Do you recall that on 9 February 1999, when the shadow minister for health asked you her very first questions about allegations of an MRI scam, you answered:Concerning investigation, I do not feel I should interfere with that in any way. ... That is being adequately followed up by the HIC and I see no reason to do anything further.Do you recall yesterday, when the same shadow minister asked you about allegations of Medicare fraud in Western Australia, that you answered:I can see no evidence or reason at the moment that I should have an inquiry, for the simple reason that I believe the Health Insurance Commission to be adequately looking into the matter.Are you going to persist again in this serial alibi or will you act now to establish an inquiry into these serious allegations and save us all a year of your dissembling attempts to avoid any responsibility by blaming everyone but yourself?20923Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—I thank the honourable member for his question. It saves me adding to an answer after question time. I do remember the comment in 1999, and it was accurate. I believe the Health Insurance Commission with regard to MRI undertook the most thorough investigation ever. With respect to the case in Western Australia, I did in fact check with the Health Insurance Commission and there has been contact between the Western Australian offices of the Health Insurance Commission and the WA health department, and also contact between the Health Insurance Commission here in Canberra and the WA Health Commissioner. We do not even have a final report. We have no capacity to investigate state public hospitals ourselves because we cannot match data between Commonwealth agencies and state agencies. So we simply cannot be expected to have an investigation until the WA government has completed its own investigation. With regard to whether or not I should be personally involved, let me use Western Australia as an illustration. In 1992 the Commonwealth attempted to get states involved in looking at issues of cost shifting, particularly with respect to public hospitals. Victoria was enthusiastic to proceed. South Australia and New South Wales came on board. Western Australia pointedly refused to become involved with the Commonwealth in any investigation of cost shifting in public hospitals. Who was the Premier of Western Australia when Western Australia actively stopped the Commonwealth taking action that could have prevented this happening in the first place? The member for Fremantle, Carmen Lawrence, was Premier and Treasurer at the time. Further, the legislation under which this would happen was introduced in 1994. The Health Legislation (Powers of Investigation) Amendment Bill 1994, introduced in June 1994, specifically precludes the Commonwealth minister in any way becoming involved. So who was health minister in June 1994 when legislation was passed, stopping the health minister becoming involved? The member for Fremantle, Carmen Lawrence. So we have gross hypocrisy on the Labor Party's part. Your own frontbencher stopped the Commonwealth looking at Western Australia. Your own legislation when you were on the front bench stopped the Commonwealth becoming involved. Around 8,000 to 10,000 allegations are made to the Health Insurance Commission each year. If you take even the small investigations, there are up to 1,000 a year. In the last term of the Labor government, you could expect 25,000 to 30,000 allegations and 2,000 to 3,000 investigations. On how many occasions between 1993 and 1996 did the Labor Party health minister, either Graham Richardson or the member for Fremantle, become involved? Not one. Complete hypocrisy! Caught out—you do not understand the area.2092415:24:0020924Hawker, David, MPMr HAWKER8H4WannonLP10—My question is also to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Could he advise the House how the federal government is working with regional communities, including in my electorate of Wannon, to ensure that Australians living in regional areas have better access to health care services?20924Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—I thank the honourable member for his question. Probably the best example of this is the Regional Health Services Program, which has been funded over the last two budgets under the Howard government. We have put aside $110 million for implementing this new program over the next four years, and we hope it will benefit around 120 communities. This is a major investment in the future health and wellbeing of people in rural and regional Australia. Already 40 communities have been identified for action under the program, and we have received expressions of interest from another 100 communities. This program is about working with local communities, particularly small rural communities, to try to discover what they actually need by way of primary health care and to develop and fund their needs. Importantly, this funding is for the long term. While we do fund things on a four-yearly basis, this is a long-term program and the funding that each of these communities gets is ongoing funding. In the planning process stage we have communities such as Woorabinda in the member for Maranoa's electorate and the Eyre Peninsula in the member for Grey's electorate that are going through this first stage of planning their long-term needs. It is basically about asking the local community what they need and working with them to achieve that end, but that is a difficult approach that takes some time. And often communities have some difficulty finding the time or expertise to develop their proposals, which is where local members become important and the role of the local MP in this is therefore critical. The member for Wannon in asking this question can take some pride that Cobden and surrounding regions, which serve around 4,500 people, have recently benefited from $110,000 a year of funding, which Cobden have said they will use towards podiatry, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and a range of youth programs, particularly parenting programs and student counselling. This is what the people of Cobden themselves need and what has been delivered. Another example is the member for Gippsland, the Minister for the Arts and the Centenary of Federation, who has told me that over the weekend he will be visiting communities in the Gippsland electorate specifically to discuss this program and how they might benefit. I propose to write to all MPs on both sides of the House in the near future to advise them on how they can work with their local communities to access this funding, which is a great innovation for small rural communities. 2092415:27:0020924Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00—My question is also to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Rather than buck-passing to other people, we might get a bit of responsibility— 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Jagajaga will come to her question or resume her seat. PG6Ms MACKLIN—Minister, are you aware of the provisions of section 130(3) of the Health Insurance Act, which gives the Commonwealth minister power to authorise disclosure of information in order to protect the public interest? In view of the serious allegations concerning fraud against Medicare in Western Australia, will you now provide approval to the Western Australian authorities to check their records against the Health Insurance Commission records to detect whether doctors have bulk-billed Medicare for patients that they have treated as state funded public patients? Will you seek authority from the Western Australian Minister for Health, Mr Day, to access state hospital patient records so that the Health Insurance Commission investigators can detect fraud against Medicare? And, if not, why not?20925Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—Unlike the shadow minister, I will actually wait until I have all the facts; that means waiting until the Western Australian department's report is complete, which is utterly proper. I would put to her: between 1990 and 1993, when she was an adviser to the then minister for health, how many times did he become involved in investigations of the Health Insurance Commission? I think she will find not once. The fact is that the Commonwealth on many occasions over the last 10 years has found this sort of irregularity. We have recovered moneys in the past. This is nothing unusual. This is a beat-up by the Labor Party who are being hypocritical in the extreme when I am constrained by their own legislation and when the situation could have been prevented if the then WA Premier, Carmen Lawrence, had cooperated with the Commonwealth in 1992. 2092515:29:0020925Moylan, Judi, MPMrs MOYLAN4V5PearceLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Sport and Tourism. In the wake of the hugely successful Olympic Games, can the minister inform the House what the government has done to support the Paralympic Games, which will commence in less than two weeks?20925Kelly, Jackie, MPMiss JACKIE KELLYGK6LindsayLPMinister for Sport and Tourism and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Sydney 2000 Games10—This morning I joined the Prime Minister, the member for Richmond and the member for Farrer, who is the Mayor of the Paralympic Village, at a delightful ceremony with the Ngunnawal people who lit the flame in a very Australian manner. They lit a wonderful cauldron just on sunrise, and the Prime Minister transferred the flame to the first torchbearer, who was none other than David Hall, the APC Athlete of the Year and quite a tennis ace. Following that delightful ceremony and after the various dignitaries had spoken, I then went out to the Australian Institute of Sport, where Hamish McDonald, one of the AIS scholarship holders, was a torchbearer into the institute. The institute has been supporting scholarships for athletes with disabilities since 1989 and is quite the leading edge centre for training athletes with a disability.The federal government has done far more than this in terms of supporting our athletes. There has been $35 million to underwrite the actual staging of the event, as well as $6.5 million in team preparation. It is going to be one of the best prepared teams that we have ever sent to a Paralympic Games. In addition to that, we provided $1 million for the entry fees, registrations and uniforms of Australian team members. All the way along our Pollie Pedal route this year from Canberra to Sydney, which the members for Warringah, Parramatta, Werriwa and Cunningham were involved in, we had a wonderfully warm reception from the various schools, community groups and councils. We normally raise about $20,000 from our Pollie Pedal, but on that occasion the community came forward and raised $60,000. That was a spontaneous reaction to the Paralympics.I know our Paralympians have the best wishes of all of our community. We saw Louise Sauvage in the demonstration event at the Olympics just last week win the 800-metre race. We certainly will be out in force to support all our Paralympians in the coming weeks. We wish all of our athletes the best and congratulate the volunteers who again will be coming out in force to support the Paralympics, as well as the 1.4 million Australian volunteers who every weekend get out there with our kids on the various sporting tracks and fields right around Australia. ZD4Howard, John, MPMr Howard—Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.Questions Without Notice209262092615:33:0020926Downer, Alexander, MPMr DOWNER4G4MayoLPMinister for Foreign Affairs10—Mr Speaker, I wish to add to an answer. Just very briefly and for the record, in the answer I gave to a question on, amongst other things, the level of violence in the Malukus, I said that the Indonesian estimates were that 2,500 people had been killed. I did say around 500,000 had been injured; I meant to say 5,000. The House may be interested to know that in terms of property destruction something like 18,000 houses and 1,000 public buildings have been destroyed. I think that gives the House some sense of the dimension of the tragedy that has occurred there.2092615:33:0020926Tuckey, Wilson, MPMr TUCKEYSJ4O'ConnorLPMinister for Forestry and Conservation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister10—Yesterday, I made mention in this House of jobs that have been lost in the North Ipswich sawmill. At the time, I was unable to advise the House of the number of those workers who resided in the electorate of Oxley. I have obtained information in that regard, and there are two matters worthy of consideration. Firstly, the sawmill itself is in the centre of Ipswich and is immediately alongside the Bremer River, which forms in that part of Ipswich the boundary between the Blair and Oxley electorates. Furthermore, the management of the mill has advised me that approximately 50 per cent of the people retrenched reside in the electorate of Oxley. It is apparently the view of the opposition that, if something is geographically located a few hundred metres outside the boundary of an electorate, the member is absolved from having a duty of care.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The minister has added to the answer and will resume his seat. Privilege2092615:35:0020926SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—On 3 October the honourable member for Kingsford-Smith raised as a matter of privilege the execution of a search warrant on the home of his adviser on 16 September. As I informed the House, the matter had been raised by the Leader of the Opposition in a letter to me on 18 September and was the subject of further correspondence. I table the correspondence. As I understand it, there are two aspects to the complaint. The first was that in effect the warrant appears to authorise what the member described as a documentary `fishing expedition' in relation to issues he had pursued in the course of his parliamentary duties. The second aspect was that the offence was exacerbated when, in the course of the search, AFP and Defence officials had unfettered access to a range of material, including confidential material relating to the member's performance of his duties as a member and as a shadow minister.On the first point, the honourable member informed the House of earlier events in relation to the search for documents allegedly disclosed without authorisation. He argued that the search warrant was a further attempt to obtain materials sought earlier. I am not in a position to make a judgment as to that matter. I have been provided with a copy of the warrant in question. As I understand it, the warrant was issued under the Crimes Act and authorised the executing officer to enter a private residence and search for and seize evidential material relating to possible offences under the Crimes Act. On the information available to me, I can see no evidence that the warrant authorised or purported to authorise the search for or seizure of material forming part of proceedings in parliament or that the warrant authorised an impermissible inquiry into parliamentary proceedings. I present a copy of the warrant.The second aspect was that, in the execution of the warrant, the officers had unfettered access to material relating to the honourable member's duties as a member and as a shadow minister. I accept the honourable member's word that the material was of a sensitive and confidential nature and related to his parliamentary work and was seen by the officers. I can understand his concerns on this point. In order to allow precedence to a motion, however, I have to be satisfied that a prima facie case of breach of privilege has been made out. The additional information provided by the Leader of the Opposition and the honourable member for Kingsford-Smith has given me a more complete understanding of just what has happened in this matter, and of the opposition's concerns. It is not difficult to accept that investigations of this kind would have had an impact on the performance of a member's parliamentary and shadow ministry duties. The material before me does not, however, constitute prima facie evidence of a breach. I have not seen evidence that the warrant was issued or obtained improperly, or that it involved impermissible inquiry into `proceedings in parliament'. Accepting that the execution of the warrant did indeed cause interference in the member's performance of his duties, the crucial test is whether such interference was improper, as required by section 4 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act.In reaching a conclusion on this matter, I have had the benefit of the October 1995 report of the Standing Committee on Privileges—then chaired by the member for Port Adelaide, Mr Sawford—into the execution of a search warrant on the electorate office of a member, Mr E.H. Cameron. That report concluded that there was interference with Mr Cameron's free performance of his duties as a member following on from the execution of the search warrant. However, the committee concluded that the interference should not be regarded as improper interference for the purposes of section 4 of the Privileges Act. Of course, Mr Cameron was a member of parliament, and incidental contact with records in his electorate office could be demonstrated to be closely connected with his parliamentary and constituency duties.In the matter currently under consideration, the contact with any papers or electronic records, whether or not incidental, occurred at the home of an officer. I accept the honourable member's point that his adviser, like many people who work for members, performed much of his parliamentary work at home. However, in the light of the Sawford committee's conclusion in respect of a member's electorate office, I feel that a similar conclusion is warranted in respect of the home records of an adviser. As the report of the Committee of Privileges is a report from a previous parliament, I present a copy of the report for the information of honourable members.The information before me does not establish that there was a relevant impropriety in the execution of the warrant. It was apparently executed within the period and within the hours authorised by the warrant. I have not seen evidence that the officers were doing other than acting in accordance with the authority granted to them in the investigation of possible offences. The warrant was issued in connection with investigations under the Crimes Act and, without intending to convey any inference in any way in connection with the current matter, parliamentary privilege would not normally be seen as a device to interfere with the administration of criminal justice. For the reasons outlined I am not able to allow precedence to a motion on the matter. The honourable member may of course wish to contact the Committee of Privileges directly on the matter in connection with its current inquiry into members' records.Miscellaneous209272092715:41:0020927Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALPLeader of the Opposition00—I move :That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition moving forthwith:That the House expresses its deep concern at the search by federal agents and security officers of the home of Dr Philip Dorling, adviser to the Hon. L. J. Brereton MP, on Saturday, 16 September; and that the same matter be referred by the House to the Standing Committee of Privileges, in the following terms:Whether a breach of privilege was committed in connection with the execution of a search warrant on the home of Dr Philip Dorling, adviser to the Hon. L. J. Brereton MP, on Saturday, 16 September.Mr Speaker, these are most serious matters and, whilst of course it would not be appropriate for us to reveal conversations which have occurred between your office, my office, the clerks and others on this matter—I accept that you have taken this issue seriously, and I do not want any criticism that I might make of the judgment that you have arrived at to indicate in any way, shape or form that I have a view that you have not applied yourself to this matter diligently, bear us ill will or in any other way have sought to frustrate us—nevertheless, I do profoundly believe that your judgment on this matter is wrong. There are new issues here which have not been before a privileges committee before, and it might have been a very appropriate thing for the Committee of Privileges to have had an opportunity to look at them. In the remarks you have just made, you said that it was not possible for you to make a judgment about a relationship between an earlier request that went to you about an ability to access Mr Brereton's parliamentary office and records—records that were dealing with these sorts of matters—and the search warrant that was executed on Mr Brereton's staffer's home. That may well be difficult for you to make in your own mind, but I think we can draw a logical inference from the two. They were both related to the same investigation. It was an investigation set in train by the government, which is referred to in the first part of my motion, to cover up a serious political embarrassment. We are not dealing here with administrative issues relating to a member of parliament's duties; we are not dealing here with an issue related to a member of parliament who may have committed a criminal act in relation to the use of allowances or some other matter—the sorts of issues which, from time to time, have led the Federal Police and other police organisations to seek access to members' records and members' facilities.What we are dealing with here is a member of parliament in this place performing his duty to hold the government accountable in an area of serious public policy. What we have in regard to that is serious embarrassment by this government in relation to what it was doing during the first part of last year. This is an effort to nobble sincerely honest people who took personal risk with their own lives to protect the people of East Timor and who were reporting honestly to the Australian government which was reporting dishonestly to everyone else. That is what is at stake here. I can remember the look on our Prime Minister's face—that white, wheyfaced look when he finally saw Timor spiral out of control before he was rescued by the Americans and then later by the Australian military. He had no idea what to do. The refusal to acknowledge the build-up of terror in Timor, reported frequently and regularly to the Australian government, produced a situation where ultimately the whole show in Timor fell apart, people's property was burnt, people were murdered—and everything that occurred was predicted not once, not twice, but many, many times by Australians risking their lives serving in the area.There are several targets in relation to this investigation. There is my shadow frontbench spokesperson—he is one. There are the journalists who were associated with the reportage of it—that is two. And there are of course the Australian public who are there to be confused. But the major target is the messenger. The major target is those who brought bad tidings and ultimately arrived at a position where their consciences would not leave them in a situation, or those who heard their message, where they would leave this stuff unproduced.This is a very serious matter. A very serious matter has occurred and the government is understandably embarrassed about it. The government would like that element of the record suppressed. It would like to take every other element of the record from the period after the Americans resolved the issue diplomatically as the only record that stands in its involvement in these sorry matters in the course of last year. So the agents of the government have been turned loose to do its work for it.Mr Speaker, when the first stage of this process began and they sought access to the types of records that they had access to in Dr Philip Dorling's house, you said appropriately then that you would not permit them to seek those materials in the precincts of the parliament—a perfectly appropriate response. There may be many reasons why you chose to do that, but one of them surely must have been your concern for the situation of a member of parliament doing his duty and the possibility that materials that he had in his hands that went beyond any aspect of the investigation could be compromised by that type of invasion of these premises. So what was not capable of being achieved by the front door was sought to be achieved by the backdoor. Instead of going for the parliamentary office of the opposition shadow spokesperson, the government decided instead to go for the position of the staffer of the opposition spokesperson on foreign affairs. I say that advisedly. I use the expression `government' rather than `Federal Police' because, despite the confusion that existed at the time that raid occurred, we have since found out that the government was fully briefed on this matter—fully briefed on these matters prior to those raids occurring. `Fully briefed' means fully responsible. So it is the government, not the Federal Police, that is fully responsible for this situation. The search was unprecedented. Apart from the general political background, which is the classic sort of situation that the privileges power associated with this chamber is supposed to protect, there are some very specific elements of this case which indicate that it would be very useful to this House and very useful to this parliament to have an understanding of what exactly it was—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition has the call and he is entitled to the same sort of restraint from the Leader of the House as I expected him to exercise earlier in the day.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEY—These issues go to areas which have not yet been investigated and this House would benefit very much from their being investigated by the Privileges Committee. The search was unprecedented insofar as it involved an extensive search of both the physical and electronic records held by the senior adviser to a member of parliament who is also a shadow minister. It was not limited to a particular document and involved a fishing expedition across the totality of the records held at the employee's home. It exposed a range of opposition documents, including speech materials, reports which are confidential to us, to the shadow cabinet, and the preparation of questions for question time. All those things you could conceivably think of as being in the possession of a member of parliament's office and in his electronic retention systems were there and exposed to view and notes taken on them. Due to the capacity of modern home computers, a very wide range and substantial volume of documents is always likely to be there.So what we have here is a situation where the character of a particular intervention has caused a compromise of the totality of a member of parliament's position in the performance of his functions as a member of parliament—that which is supposed to trigger action by the Privileges Committee. It would seem to me at the very least that there are issues here which have not been covered by previous Privileges Committee reports. In the highly sensitive circumstances in which this has been dealt with, an effort to politically cover up and now a search of a type which has not in these circumstances been conducted before, I do believe that it warrants reference to the committee.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Is the motion seconded? 15:51:0020929Brereton, Laurie, MPMr BRERETON5T4Kingsford-SmithALP00—Mr Speaker, I second the motion and say that this matter should go to the Privileges Committee.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Kingsford-Smith will resume his seat. The member for Kingsford-Smith has been asked to resume his seat.5T4Brereton, Laurie, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Kingsford-Smith is defying the chair.Motion (by Mr Reith) put:That the question be now put.15:57:00The House divided. (Mr Speaker—Mr Neil Andrew) 74Abbott, A.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.Brough, M.T.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.Hardgrave, G.D.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, S *McGauran, P.J.Moore, J.C.Moylan, J. E.Nairn, G. R.Nehl, G. B.Nelson, B.J.Neville, P.C.Nugent, P.E.Prosser, G.D.Pyne, C.Reith, P.K.Ronaldson, M.J.C.Schultz, A.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.M.Thompson, C.P.Thomson, A.P.Truss, W.E.Tuckey, C.W.Vale, D.S.Wakelin, B.H.Washer, M.J.Williams, D.R.Wooldridge, M.R.L.Worth, P.M.66Adams, D.G.H.Albanese, A.N.Andren, P.J.Beazley, K.C.Bevis, A.R.Brereton, L.J.Burke, A.E.Byrne, A.M.Corcoran, A.K.Cox, D.A.Crean, S.F.Crosio, J.A.Danby, M.Ellis, A.L.Emerson, C.A.Evans, M.J.Ferguson, L.D.T.Ferguson, M.J.Fitzgibbon, J.A.Gerick, J.F.Gibbons, S.W.Gillard, J.E.Griffin, A.P.Hall, J.G.Hatton, M.J.Hoare, K.J.Horne, R.Irwin, J.Jenkins, H.A.Kernot, C.Kerr, D.J.C.Latham, M.W.Lawrence, C.M.Lee, M.J.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.S.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.Swan, W.M.Tanner, L.Theophanous, A.C.Thomson, K.J.Wilkie, K.Zahra, C.J.Ruddock, P.M.Hollis, C.Vaile, M.A.J.Edwards, G.J.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the affirmative.Original question put:That the motion (Mr Beazley's) be agreed to.16:02:00The House divided. (Mr Speaker—Mr Neil Andrew) 66Adams, D.G.H.Albanese, A.N.Andren, P.J.Beazley, K.C.Bevis, A.R.Brereton, L.J.Burke, A.E.Byrne, A.M.Corcoran, A.K.Cox, D.A.Crean, S.F.Crosio, J.A.Danby, M.Ellis, A.L.Emerson, C.A.Evans, M.J.Ferguson, L.D.T.Ferguson, M.J.Fitzgibbon, J.A.Gerick, J.F.Gibbons, S.W.Gillard, J.E.Griffin, A.P.Hall, J.G.Hatton, M.J.Hoare, K.J.Horne, R.Irwin, J.Jenkins, H.A.Kernot, C.Kerr, D.J.C.Latham, M.W.Lawrence, C.M.Lee, M.J.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.S.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.Swan, W.M.Tanner, L.Theophanous, A.C.Thomson, K.J.Wilkie, K.Zahra, C.J.74Abbott, A.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.Brough, M.T.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.Hardgrave, G.D.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, S *McGauran, P.J.Moore, J.C.Moylan, J. E.Nairn, G. R.Nehl, G. B.Nelson, B.J.Neville, P.C.Nugent, P.E.Prosser, G.D.Pyne, C.Reith, P.K.Ronaldson, M.J.C.Schultz, A.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.M.Thompson, C.P.Thomson, A.P.Truss, W.E.Tuckey, C.W.Vale, D.S.Wakelin, B.H.Washer, M.J.Williams, D.R.Wooldridge, M.R.L.Worth, P.M.Hollis, C.Ruddock, P.M.Edwards, G.J.Vaile, M.A.J.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the negative.Privilege2093116:07:0020931SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—On 3 October, the honourable member for Denison raised a matter of privilege in respect of a Mr Sievers. Mr Sievers had appeared before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade in November last year and, on 15 February, the member for Denison had raised as a matter of privilege whether Mr Sievers had been subject to improper interference in connection with his involvement with the committee. In my response to the initial complaint, I informed the House that the joint committee had itself pursued media reports which had raised the possibility that Mr Sievers had been subject to improper interference. I presented copies of documents on the matter, including a letter received by the joint committee from the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police. While I did not find that a prima facie case had been made out, I said that if further evidence came to light I would be happy to consider it.The honourable member has now informed the House of further developments, including Mr Sievers's resignation from the AFP and his reported statement that he had resigned in protest at the `use of the police for political advantage'. I present a copy of the transcript that the honourable member's office has provided of a television program concerning Mr Sievers. The honourable member rightly stressed the threat to our system if witnesses were to be in fear of the consequences in terms of employment of appearing before committees. Nevertheless, while the honourable member for Denison did provide more information concerning Mr Sievers, he did not as far as I could see present new information concerning any issue of privilege. Accordingly, the position remains as outlined in my statement of 15 March and in the correspondence presented to the House. To pick up the point raised by the honourable member for Chifley, if the joint committee wishes to present further evidence on this matter, I will be happy to consider it.16:09:0020931Kerr, Duncan, MPMr KERRRH4DenisonALP00—Mr Speaker, might I indicate that this is not a matter which can proceed now by way of a motion of precedence, but I will give reflection to those additional comments that you have made, I will consult with my colleagues who are on the committee and it may be a matter that we return to on notice in later proceedings before the House.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I thank the member for Denison. That is entirely in accord with what I would expect to happen.Personal Explanations2093116:09:0020931Mr BEAZLEY,MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALPLeader of the Opposition00—Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Does the Leader of the Opposition claim to have been misrepresented?PE4Mr BEAZLEY,MPMr BEAZLEY—I certainly do.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Please proceed.PE4Mr BEAZLEY,MPMr BEAZLEY—Mr Speaker, you will recollect that during question time three ministers, including the Prime Minister, at various stages and in various shapes and forms suggested that I or the frontbench of the Labor Party was considering the privatisation of Telstra—either outright or by stealth—through structural separation. I deny that absolutely. The Labor Party is not giving consideration to any of those matters. The Labor Party rejected the proposition of structural separation back in 1991, and it was an obvious attempt by the government to escape accountability. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition has indicated where he was personally misrepresented and will now resume his seat.16:10:0020932Mr RIPOLL,MPMr RIPOLL83EOxleyALP00—Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?83EMr RIPOLL,MPMr RIPOLL—Most grievously.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Please proceed.83EMr RIPOLL,MPMr RIPOLL—Yesterday, the Minister for Forestry and Conservation was asked a dorothy dixer by the member for Blair about the timber industry. In his answer, he claimed that the North Ipswich sawmill—which is actually a Boral Hancock mill—was retrenching 37 workers.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Oxley must come to the point on which he was personally misrepresented.83EMr RIPOLL,MPMr RIPOLL—I am. I have confirmed that that is not true. The minister claimed that the mill was actually in North Ipswich and that I had not made any representations to him. For the record, I would like to clear up the matter of the mill at North Ipswich. It is actually not a mill.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—No. The member for Oxley, if he wishes to indicate where he has been misrepresented, must address that matter, and no more precision is needed about the location of the mill.83EMr RIPOLL,MPMr RIPOLL—The so-called mill in North Ipswich is actually not in my electorate of Oxley but in the Liberal electorate of Blair. I am always happy to represent people on both sides of any electorate, but there is no reason why I would write to the minister. He obviously cannot read or understand an electoral map. He got it wrong.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Oxley will resume his seat. He has had his opportunity to indicate his point of misrepresentation. I call the honourable member for Lilley.SJ4Tuckey, Wilson, MPMr Tuckey—Go and have a look at the map!Honourable members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Order! The honourable member for Lilley has the call and is at least entitled to the normal courtesies by his own colleagues. Does the member for Lilley claim to have been misrepresented?16:12:0020932Mr SWAN,MPMr SWAN2V5LilleyALP00—Mr Speaker, I do and I wish to make a personal explanation.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Please proceed.2V5Mr SWAN,MPMr SWAN—Yesterday, the Minister for Community Services said that, despite my claim in the parliament, he was advised by Centrelink, the Australian Taxation Office and the Department of Veterans' Affairs that there is no record of a claim for the aged persons savings bonus for the person I named in the parliament. Yet again, he has his facts wrong. On 23 August, the Australian Taxation Office wrote to Mrs Beech, Mr Beech's widow, in these terms: `We regret that we are therefore unable to process the claim you lodged for Mr James Beech.' The minister is clearly wrong. He will say and do anything to hide his government's mean punishment of the elderly.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Lilley will resume his seat. He has indicated where he had been misrepresented.16:13:0020932Mr KELVIN THOMSON,MPMr KELVIN THOMSONUK6WillsALP00—Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?UK6Mr KELVIN THOMSON,MPMr KELVIN THOMSON—Yes.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Please proceed.UK6Mr KELVIN THOMSON,MPMr KELVIN THOMSON—In the adjournment debate last night, the member for McEwen complained that I was criticising her `for being prepared to speak out on an issue of great concern to my electorate—that is, the cost of petrol'. That is a serious misrepresentation. In fact, if you read the Hansard, you will see I was criticising her for not being prepared to speak out on an issue of great concern to her electorate. Questions to the Speaker209332093316:14:0020933Latham, Mark, MPMr LATHAMK26WerriwaALP00—I have two questions to you, Mr Speaker. Are you planning to get back to the House with a report on the quality of ministerial answers in the Notice Paper? It is bad enough that ministers do not answer the questions in question time.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Werriwa was going to ask a question to me and not expand on it.K26Mr LATHAM—I am asking a question to you, if you will let me finish it. The question is: are you planning to get back to the House?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I have heard the question and I am about to respond.K26Mr LATHAM—I am glad to hear that.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Werriwa will resume his seat. The member for Werriwa has a choice. Either he can apologise to the chair for his reflection on it and the matter will be dealt with or I will move rapidly to papers.K26Mr LATHAM—Just to assist me, what was the reflection?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Werriwa made—K26Mr LATHAM—What was my reflection on you? Can you assist me?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Werriwa, when I sought to respond to his question, said words to the effect of, `Well, I am glad to hear it,' or some other similar reflection on the chair.K26Mr LATHAM—Well, I am. I am happy to—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Werriwa will resume his seat.Documents2093320933Reith, Peter (Leader of the House)Mr REITHWI4FlindersLPLeader of the House10—Papers are tabled as—Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the House has the call.K26Latham, Mark, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Werriwa is warned!WI4Reith, Peter (Leader of the House)Mr REITH—Papers are tabled as listed on the schedule circulated to honourable members earlier today. Details of the papers will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. Motion (by Mr Reith) proposed:That the House take note of the following paper:Aboriginal Land Commissioner Report for the year ended 30 June 2000.Debate (on motion by Dr Martin) adjourned.Matters of Public Importance209332093310000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I have received a letter from the honourable member for Dobell proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:The widespread community concern about the Howard government's new school funding policy.I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—16:16:0020933Lee, Michael, MPMr LEEMG4DobellALP00—Yesterday the Prime Minister misled this House when he reaffirmed the incorrect and false statement that he had made on radio 3AW last Friday. The Prime Minister did not have the courage to come into this House this morning, and he did not have the courage to get up at the start of question time today, to admit that he had misled the House. Yesterday I said the reason the Prime Minister had misled the listeners of 3AW—the reason the Prime Minister had misled this House yesterday—was that he was lost in a fog of mistruths and falsehoods generated by the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Today the Prime Minister is lost in a thicker fog. Today the Prime Minister fell off a cliff called Thomas Hassall Anglican College, a cliff of his own creation, when he came into this House to try to use that example to justify the changes this government is making in funding for non-government schools. Having been lost in the fog yesterday, having navigated his way into the thicker fog and having fallen off the first cliff called Thomas Hassall Anglican College, he then fell off an even higher second cliff when he referred to the measly $966 increase for the schools serving the 63 neediest communities in Australia. We will explain in this debate this afternoon why this Prime Minister either does not understand his own government's new funding system for private schools or has deliberately misled the listeners of 3AW and this House. That is the choice—either he does not understand it or he has deliberately misled this House. We know that the Prime Minister recently visited Melbourne Grammar. When he visited it to open some new facility at that category 1 private school, he said that under his new private school funding system the Howard government would provide more resources to those `that are more deserving of assistance'. Last Thursday we had the figures released to let us determine how this government is going to allocate funding under its new schools funding system. What we learnt concerned category 1 schools, the wealthier schools in Australia. Let us use King's School as an example. King's will get an increase of $1.4 million a year when this scheme comes fully into operation. So, under the Prime Minister's definition, the people in the communities that are served by the King's School are deserving of assistance valued at $1.4 million a year. If you divide that by the number of students at King's, you find that the government is increasing funding to the King's School by $1,351 for each pupil each year. That is how the government assesses their need for assistance. The Prime Minister sought to use his support for new Anglican schools, like Thomas Hassall Anglican College, to justify the increases that the government is providing for other non-government schools. But when you look at the figures for Thomas Hassall Anglican College you see they do not get $1,351 per year per pupil which the King's School—a category 1 school—is getting; they get only $458 per pupil per year. So King's, according to the Prime Minister's words, is three times more deserving of assistance than his own example, the low fee Anglican college out at Hoxton Park. Let us have a look at Tyndale Christian School, which is out at Blacktown. Tyndale Christian School gets an increase of only $144 per pupil per year. According to the Prime Minister's definition, the King's School is nine times more deserving of assistance than a low fee Christian school like Tyndale.If you are a parent who sends your daughter to Our Lady of Mercy College at Parramatta or to any other of the 1,500 Catholic systemic schools in the country, you get no real increase in your funding under this new system. The Prime Minister's response to that was, `Well, the parents who send their children to the Catholic schools have won, won, won in the past.' They do not need to win, win, win like the King's School, according to the Prime Minister. I challenge the Prime Minister to go to OLMC at Parramatta and ask the parents whether they think that they are less deserving than the parents who send their children to the King's School. At OLMC Parramatta they certainly do not have some of the facilities that King's School has; they certainly do not have some of the facilities that we mentioned earlier today. King's has 15 cricket fields, five basketball courts, 12 tennis courts, 13 rugby fields, three soccer fields, a 50-metre swimming pool, a gym, a boatshed, two climbing walls and an indoor rifle range. It has all those facilities, but the Prime Minister says, `This is one of the schools that deserves one of the largest increases in the country.'This is an outrage! When the Prime Minister himself admits that the schools serving the 63 neediest communities in Australia only get an increase of $933 a year per pupil and King's gets $1,351 per pupil per year, it is an outrage. It is an outrage that this government says that King's is more deserving than the schools that you say are the 63 most needy schools in the country. The very schools that you say are the neediest only get $933 per pupil per year, and King's gets a $1,351 per pupil per year increase under the changes. It is even worse if you look at the comparison between King's and a government high school like Parramatta. Parramatta High, a neighbouring high school, has none of these facilities. Parramatta High School has to use the sporting fields at Parramatta Park. Parramatta High School could do with some extra money. Parramatta High School could do with a federal government that supports public education. Parramatta High School deserves more than the $4,000 per year that government schools on average will receive across the country.This government is delivering average increases of $911,000 a year for the 62 wealthy category 1 schools. The 1,500 Catholic systemic schools get an average increase of $60,000 a year. Government high schools and government primary schools across the country on average only get $4,000 a year after cost indexation. It is $911,000 for the wealthiest category 1 schools; 60,000 for the Catholic schools; and only 4,000 measly dollars on average to public schools across the country, which look after 70 per cent of the kids attending schools.We are not against schools like King's. We actually know that they do get good performance. Many of the students who go to King's get excellent results. What we are against is a government that says they are more deserving of funding increases than needy non-government schools, than government schools—primary and high schools—that have got much greater need than King's. That is our point. We are not against the category 1 schools; we are against a government that says that category 1 schools have got greater need than decent low fee Catholic and Christian schools and government schools across the country. That is the outrage, and that is what we are going to hold this government accountable for. The Prime Minister misled this House yesterday and reaffirmed his statements on 3AW. It is quite clear that this Prime Minister does not have the courage to come into this House and admit it.Let us make three simple points about what Labor's view is on this system of new funding for schools. First of all, Labor supports extra funding for needy non-government schools. Second, Labor supports a matching increase in funding for government schools. Third, Labor believes that the extra funding for non-government schools has to be allocated on a needs basis—the needs basis system that was introduced by Prime Minister Whitlam and education minister Kim Beazley Sr, unlike the Menzies government's science block and library grants that were not allocated on a need basis.The need basis is and should remain a crucial part of allocating the extra funding for non-government schools. That is the reason why we have been so critical of this minister's ideological campaign to not only give modest funding increases to low fee Christian schools but also wrap up with that a massive avalanche of extra funding for the 62 category 1 schools. Only Dr Kemp, only the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, would think that the highest priority in education today is to deliver an increase of $56 million a year to the category 1 schools. Only Dr Kemp, only the minister for education, would think that part of that highest priority is to give an extra $1.4 million a year to the King's School. Labor is going to ensure that this debate takes place and that the public understands what this government is trying to do.The point we make is that a month ago when this debate started we put out our estimate of what the impact of the changes would be. We said that we thought the 62 category 1 schools would get an increase of about $50 million a year and that on average the increases would be about $820,000 a year for each school. That was our estimate. The minister panned our estimate and said that we had misled people. Figures came out—they are on the Internet, available today—and, if you add up the 62 category 1 schools, what is the funding increase? We said it was about $50 million a year; the exact figure is $56.5 million a year going to the 62 category 1 schools, an average increase of not $820,000 a year, as we estimated it, but $911,000 a year. So we have been very responsible and conservative in the estimates that we have made.What this minister does is part of the fog of misrepresentation and half-truths that come out of his mouth. It is no wonder the Prime Minister gets lost in his fog of misrepresentation. Part of the fog is he does not talk about the 62 category 1 schools; he talks about the 67 schools serving the wealthiest communities. The reason he does that is that he does not want to talk about the 62 category 1 schools; he only wants to talk about the 67 schools that are at the top of his SES listing. That is part of his trick, because under his definition of the 67 wealthiest schools the King's School is not wealthy and that is why it deserves an increase of $1.4 million a year. It is quite clear who is misleading whom. The point we make about funding for schools across the country is that there are real needs in schools. There are needs in many of our government schools. There are kids who cannot read and write properly. There are kids who are weak in numeracy at government schools. There are kids who are not up to standards in many of the low fee non-government schools as well. We say they are the schools that should have the first priority in any funding that is available. They are the schools that should be getting the money—not the King's School, not Melbourne Grammar, not Geelong College; those are the schools that can actually lift their literacy and numeracy performance with some extra resources.Money is not everything, but at poor government schools and at poor private schools extra money means you can employ extra remedial literacy teachers. At poor government and poor private schools extra money means you can invest more money in training up your teachers, in giving them some professional development. With extra money you can do things like fund our education priority zones that we announced earlier this year. With extra money we can make sure that in areas of low incomes, in areas of educational disadvantage, we can give those kids a decent start in life. That is the Labor priority.This minister's priority is not to put money into the schools that need help. This minister's priority is not providing extra remedial literacy teachers in poor government and poor private schools. This minister's priority is to give an extra $1.4 million a year to schools like King's, with fantastic facilities already, which are getting excellent results with many of their students. We say that our aim should be that every child at every school should be striving to achieve the same sorts of results as we see at the category 1 schools. The first step along that path is to ensure that those poor government and poor private schools get a decent level of resources.This minister claimed yesterday that we need to look at the objective evidence of the schools that have real needs. He claims that his new funding system uses the objective evidence to determine which schools need extra money. His system of objective evidence delivers massive funding increases—$56.5 million extra to the wealthy category 1 schools. We say that we are not opposed to extra funding for needy government and non-government schools; we are not opposed to the extra funding going to any school except those in category 1. It is the category 1 schools that we say are the outrage. It is the massive increase of $911,000 per year per school to those category 1 schools that we intend to make the centre of this debate. We are going to hold this minister accountable for the fact that, while there are deserved increases for some of the needy non-government schools, there is the outrage of a massive increase to those category 1 schools. We are determined to ensure that the Prime Minister comes out of the fog. No matter how many broken legs he may have after falling off those cliffs, we are going to hold the Prime Minister accountable every day by pointing out to him how unfair these funding increases are to those category 1 schools, and we are determined that this minister will be held accountable for his outrages. (Time expired)16:31:0020936Kemp, Dr David, MPDr KEMPBT4GoldsteinLPMinister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service10—This is the MPI you have when you have the Australian Education Union riding very hard on your back. You have to offer them something and they love a bit of the politics of envy and the class-war rhetoric. The Labor Party are in a huge bind on this because the leader of the Labor Party and the member for Dobell have stated publicly that they intend to pass the government's legislation. The Democrats have said exactly the same thing. Of course the Australian Education Union are furious with the Labor Party over this. So before they pass the legislation the Labor Party have got to kick up a song and dance to tell Shazza, Denis Fitzgerald and all the others associated with the Australian Education Union that they are really serious—that they are really on their side. They know that unless they can get this message across the AEU will not contribute to the next election campaign, and they are deeply dependent on funding from the Australian Education Union for their election campaign. So no distortion is too great, no misrepresentation is too extreme. The AEU love to stir up a bit of division in the community. They love the class-war rhetoric and really welcome the attack on a school like King's, the parents of whom will be getting only 30 per cent of the cost of funding a child at a government school under this policy compared to the much higher funding for government schools. The Australian Education Union love this kind of rhetoric. The member for Dobell has to please them, and he has to please some of the ideologues on the Labor Party backbench because he has the shadow of the member for Werriwa looming over him. The difference between them is that the member for Werriwa can actually understand some of the issues involved here, whereas the member for Dobell does not understand the issues or else is deliberately misrepresenting the issues. We are seeing here a pathetic attempt to suggest that there is something unfair about the government's new funding system for non-government schools. Just think about this: the Labor Party says this is unfair when every element of the non-government school sector, every representative voice in the non-government school sector, says this is fair. This is the most absurd MPI topic this House has seen for a long time—concerning `widespread community concern'! The community concern extends just beyond the backbench of the Labor Party into the ranks of the officials of the Australian Education Union, and that is about the limit of it.The community concern I find is the concern of every element of the non-government sector about the Labor Party's activities. Let me just go through them. I have here a series of statements from every element in the non-government sector. They put on the record their concern, and their concern is with the Labor Party. As Fergus Thompson, the Executive Director of the National Council of Independent Schools Association, said on 28 August:Any delay by the Senate in passing the schools funding legislation will cause serious problems for independent schools ... There is no reason to delay passage of the legislation. The SES funding system has been trialed. It has proved workable. This debate has gone on for years. It is now urgent for many schools. All school sectors depend on the legislation and all sectors would welcome its passage by the parliament without delay.On 4 September he also said:The families of the 300,000-plus students at independent schools around the nation will be seriously hurt by delays to reforming legislation that will means-test Commonwealth funding of non-government schools.In a media release on 29 September the Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales said:We urge Senators to pass the Bill without delay because all schools and parents need to know the funding levels as soon as possible to enable proper budgeting for next year.In a media release on 29 September the Australian Parents Council said:The States Grants legislation puts in place Commonwealth funding for Australian school students for 2001-2004. It should be passed without further delay so that all schools can adequately plan for 2001.On 28 August, Mr Leo Dunn, OAM, President of the Australian Parents Council, said:The Bill guarantees security of Commonwealth funding for non-government schools and students during the phasing in of the new funding mechanism. Commonwealth funding legislation for school education runs out at the end of this year. Legislation is necessary to ensure that Commonwealth funds flow for school education from 1 January 2001.The Rev. Tom Doyle, the Deputy Chair of the National Catholic Education Commission, in a recent media release, on 22 August, said: The Senate should pass the State Grants Bill 2000 intact.That covers the entire non-government sector. The Christian controlled Parents Schools have issued a statement saying:The Government is to be congratulated. Low income Australian parents and their families have been given a real chance to exercise genuine choice in the education of their children.Dr Peter Tannock has said:It will give them—Catholic schools and systems—real increases in resources, and a secure, long-term funding base. ... It will also help many Catholic schools to cope with cost pressures which are pushing up fees to levels which make it very difficult for families on low and moderate incomes.As Peter Crimmins, the Executive Officer of the Australian Association of Christian Schools, said:Choice in schooling is now a reality for working class Australian families.So the Labor Party has been abandoned by absolutely everybody who is affected by the new system. We have got the pathetic sight of the member for Dobell marching up and down here saying, `It's not fair to low income Catholic schools, it's not fair to low income independent schools, and it would be fairer if we changed it,' and yet all those who represent those schools say it is fair. Who should they believe? Should they believe the member for Dobell, the spokesman for the education policy that the member for Werriwa walked away from because it is so bad, or should they believe the people who represent them? The fact is the Labor Party stands alone with the Australian Education Union, opposing on its old class war grounds, its old left-wing ideology, legislation to give schools fair funding.The fact is that we have put in place for the first time a fair measure against which the funding of schools can be determined. That fair measure is never better illustrated than by this fact: when you look at the schools which are servicing the wealthiest communities in Australia, according to the SES system—the system supported by every expert in Australia as fairer, and supported by all the school systems as fairer—when you look at the schools that are funded by this system, you find that the schools serving the wealthiest communities are funded at a lower level under our system than the level at which they were funded under Labor's system. About half the 67 schools serving the wealthiest communities will be funded at Labor's level, because we have agreed to maintain past levels of funding, and half will be funded at our level under our new system. The schools that are funded under Labor's system get 50 per cent more funding per student than the schools funded under our system. Why is that? It is because Labor's system was so absurdly corrupted by Labor's political manipulation over the years to gratify its base, without any regard to fairness, without any regard to justice.MG4Lee, Michael, MPBT4Kemp, Dr David, MPDr KEMP—I can tell the member for Dobell that it is a base that is shrinking all the time, and every time the member for Dobell opens his mouth it shrinks further. He and the member for Werriwa together have attacked virtually everybody in the non-government sector, and they are trying to mislead everybody in the government sector, but fortunately people can see through them. The reason we get these high funding levels for these wealthy schools from Labor's system is because Labor's system did not pay any real attention to equity, and that is why it has been abandoned by everybody in the non-government sector. Nobody supports it except the member for Dobell.3J4Sawford, Rod, MPBT4Kemp, Dr David, MPDr KEMP—The Catholics do not support it either. The Catholics have made very clear to us that they support the new legislation. The member for Dobell has now put the Labor Party in the most extraordinary situation, because he is saying that parents who receive 30 per cent, 35 per cent or 25 per cent of the cost of education at a government school for their child are overfunded—they are being overpaid by the government. They would get much more support for their children if they sent their child to the local government school; they would get 100 per cent of the cost of educating a child at a government school. They are only going to get about 35 per cent. So a school like King's School is saving the taxpayer—the parent at that school—millions of dollars. That money that they save the taxpayer is available for government schools, and that is why these schools are deserving of the funding that they get under this new system because it is a new, fair system. But Labor is going to cut their funding. Let us be quite clear, so that the message goes out to all the parents at these schools, that Labor is going to cut their funding because they are overfunded; according to Labor, it is unfair that they get even 30 per cent of the cost of educating a child at a government school. This new funding system that we have introduced is going to produce, finally and at last, a funding system which has credibility with those who are subject to it. The Labor Party not only is going to cut funding to these schools but also is going to reintroduce the new schools policy—the infamous new schools policy.3J4Sawford, Rod, MPBT4Kemp, Dr David, MPDr KEMP—There we are; it is confirmed by the member for Port Adelaide. The member for Port Adelaide has confirmed the fact—let Hansard record this—that the Labor Party intends to reintroduce the new schools policy.That policy was designed by the unions to prevent new low fee schools opening up because people in the Labor Party think that the best way to protect public education is to stop parents on low incomes having a choice. He has no idea about proper reform of the public education system; he has nothing to do with proper reporting to parents. During their 13 years in office Labor did nothing to raise literacy standards. They left 30 per cent of young Australians unable to read and write properly. They do not believe in more autonomy for school principals and for parents. They do everything possible to bias parents against the public school system by making sure that it remains under the centralised bureaucratic controls that can be influenced by union officials. They do not really care about public education. They do not care about students in need. That is why, when they were in office, they did not do anything about the most important social justice issue in education—literacy. They do not really care about the need in schools. And they say the new system is unfair. The new system funds the schools serving the wealthiest communities at about 13.7 per cent of the cost of educating a child at a government school. It funds every student at a government school at 100 per cent. It funds the schools serving the neediest communities in the non-government sector at 70 per cent. That is a funding system that is based on need and on a recognition of need; not on need as I judge it or as the member for Dobell judges it. It is a funding system based on need and recognised in an objective and transparent way. (Time expired)16:46:0020939Crosio, Janice, MPMrs CROSIO7T4ProspectALP00—I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is typical of what we on this side have come to expect from the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, but never have I heard a minister take so long to say so little. When he talks about credibility, I know he can spell it, but I ask, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, does he really know what it means? His Prime Minister certainly does not know what credibility means because again in this House today at question time we had the Prime Minister talking about choice. What about considering priorities when we are spending taxpayers' money? I would like to put to the Prime Minister some facts that he needs to appreciate and understand. His minister does not understand or appreciate them. The fact is that schools like the King's School are already providing a high standard of education for their students without the extra funding that Dr Kemp's bill will give them. Fact, Minister: schools such as these already dominate entry to the elite faculties of our universities. Fact, Minister: these students have little chance of leaving school with poor literacy and numeracy skills. Fact, Minister: few of the students when they exit this school will go onto the dole queues. Public policy commonsense dictates that additional education dollars should go to the schools that need to improve the most. If Australia is going to become a knowledge nation we need to raise the standard from the bottom to the top and not provide already high performing schools with added extras to give some students even more advantages than they already have. Last week the Prime Minister admitted that non-government schools receiving extra funding from the SES system were not obliged to spend the money on lowering fees. This one point totally undermines the rationale for the funding given by the minister for education that the new system will make private schools more affordable for parents and give them choice. There is that wonderful word: `choice'. At most, as the Prime Minister admits—even if the minister will not—it means that fees will now not go up, perhaps, at the same rate. I fail to see how slowing the rate of increase of elite private school fees will create extra choice for battling Australian families who want a better education for their children. By the Prime Minister's own admission—and thus this government's admission—the millions extra received by our wealthier schools will not significantly change the social and economic status of their intake. Instead, it will give these schools an even greater advantage over poorer schools than they have now by giving them extra money for extras such as heated swimming pools, high-tech music centres and overseas excursions. The Prime Minister also claimed that this new funding system will make it easier for our battling working-class families who work long hours to pay school fees to send their children to private schools. Through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I might say that perhaps the Prime Minister is more out of touch than I gave him credit for. The average working-class families that I represent who are paying off mortgages and running two cars are working two jobs now to be able to afford to send their kids to state schools with all the additional on-costs associated with doing that—excursions, uniforms, books, lunches, et cetera. The fact is that the coalition is not interested in improving the standard of education for all Australians. They are interested in their ideological mission to set up a contestable market for schooling to eventually marginalise the state school system. Also, when this minister talks about his new funding scheme, he completely ignores the wealth that the more able schools can generate. I am talking about their school fees, their fundraising activities, their private donations, et cetera. I will give you an example. A high school in my electorate has a cake stall on election day to raise funds while the King's School on the same day has an art auction. Are we comparing apples with apples? I think not. As a parent who had twin daughters go to OLMC in Parramatta, which is within cooee distance of the King's School, I am insulted—along with a lot of my constituents—to think that that school will get not one penny of this funding. It does not have the playing fields and the tremendous surrounding grounds that the King's School has. Why are you disadvantaging this particular school? There are no answers, Minister. Through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I ask the minister again: why can't he answer these questions? If you want to have a lesson in politics, we can look today at the Australian Financial Review where Minister Kemp expresses his unfailing belief in his policy achievements, casting his detractors in the role of union red-raggers and labelling Labor's policy approach as nothing more than empty rhetoric. You are certainly wrong, Minister. You have alienated every reasonable thinking educationalist who believes in quality and equity in education around this nation. More and more attention is now being given to those issues by parents, and you are vulnerable, Minister. The more you try to disguise the truth about your SES model, the more you are being disbelieved. We now know in fact that 39 of the 62 category 1 schools which will share in the extra $50 million a year have annual fees in excess of $10,000.The minister can filibuster in this House as much as he likes, but it will not disguise the fact that his new system will not apply to the vast majority of non-government schools, and I have given examples of those. Catholic parish schools in my electorate as well as the 1,600 around Australia will not be part of this new system. Where is your choice, Minister? This is what you want to throw back at us. A third of non-government sector schools, 750 schools, will be funded—only a third. And this is called by this coalition government `fairness with choice'. Seventy per cent of Australian children are educated in government schools, something the PM and this minister choose to overlook. Parents within communities around Australia are now waiting for answers to a number of questions. Perhaps, Minister, I had better remind you of what those questions are. Will the schools fortunate enough to receive funding give a guarantee to you and this government not to increase fees over the next four years? If, as the minister claims, the wealthiest schools will receive no more than 25 per cent of funding but his department is saying 27.5 per cent, who is right—you, Minister, or the department? Is it a fact that only one-third of private schools will be funded under this new system? Minister, how much of taxpayers' money is being spent? Minister, can you not concede that you are on a crusade to abolish government schools? Why, Minister, are you hell-bent on forcing students from government schools to non-government schools? Minister, will the states lose federal funding if the public schools' share of the education market falls? Minister, you can come clean. Confession, we are told, is good for the soul. The minister would like us to forget the ERC meetings of 3 and 4 June 1991, the minutes of which state:It was agreed that Dr Kemp would report back to the Committee on:* non-government schools—whether additional expenditure could be offset by reductions in grants to government schools and in untied grants;* government schools—administrative savings in devolving responsibility to the States;We all remember that leaked document. In that same article I referred to in the Financial Review today the minister very gloatingly said:When the submission fell into the hands of the ALP—there are still dark mutterings the document was leaked by one of Kemp's ministerial colleagues—the Government was forced to hastily backtrack. While claiming the Cabinet submission is now only a “historical document”, he stretches credibility by suggesting the Government is actually moving ahead with a great deal of the controversial blueprint. “We are now implementing a number of those options, the absolutely key options,”Minister, how can you justify ripping $60 million out of needy government schools and giving the richest 62 schools across Australia an extra $50 million a year? Again, an article in the Australian of 25 August states:Education Minister David Kemp wants us to believe his planned changes to funding non-government education aim to give low-income families greater access to the schools of their choice. That is what he wants us to think. This is the editorial in the Australian, not my words, not the union red raggers. The editorial in the Australian of 25 August states:He wants us to think the neediest school communities will benefit ... The plan even uses a socio-economic status index. One problem is—Minister, it does not work—it is flawed ... Another problem is that a school's funding cannot be cut, even if the SES says it should be. And just as the old system of categorising a school's need based on its perceived wealth was faulty, so is the new one for ignoring a school's assets and access to donations altogether. If time would permit me, I would say a lot more. The article goes on:While all parents must have choices for their children's education, a core group will always choose private—preferring the old boys' and old girls' networks, religion, philosophy or teaching methods. But the public system can and does deliver great students from great schools. The editorial also reminded the minister that his `system gives disproportionately more money to well-off schools and makes them more attractive'. This is not the union movement, Minister; this is the editorial of the Australian, a paper I believe you read succinctly from cover to cover. Maybe you want to ask them if they understand the word `credibility'. Maybe they are not credible, or maybe it is you, Minister, who is not credible. If you do not want to understand that, did you read the Canberra Times yesterday? It said: The Federal Government's philosophical commitment to private schooling has never been more evident than in its new Socio-Economic Status funding model. ... ... ... ...The Government talks about “choice”, but what it would really prefer is for every parent to “choose” private schooling. The minister and the Prime Minister said today that parents have won, won, won. Minister and Prime Minister, I want to know when, when, when? (Time expired)16:56:0020942Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr HARDGRAVECK6MoretonLP10—About this time on most days of a parliamentary sitting week we have a debate called MPI, but I suspect from this day forward standing orders should be altered to reflect the fact that it should not be called `matter of public importance' but `matter of union importance' because there is a rotation through the various unions to which various members opposite have a certain amount of attachment and their expectations of funding after the next election. These various unions manage, on a very regular cyclical basis, to present their argument of the day, and their particular puppet on a string gets up here and proposes a motion which is then debated by the parliament for about 50 minutes. Today it is the turn of the Australian Education Union and their key operative, the member for Dobell.What is completely misunderstood by the member for Prospect and the member for Dobell, and all others opposite who seemed so engrossed in what the member for Prospect especially had to say, is that this is a government that has in fact increased funding to government schools. We have provided funding of $2 billion to government schools this year. That is $402 million more for this year than was the case in Labor's last year in office. This government will provide funding to government schools of $1.4 billion more over the next four years, and it is not even a core responsibility of the Commonwealth government to fund government schools. In Queensland we call them state schools, and they are aptly named: they are the responsibility of the state government. Yet the Commonwealth, prepared to ensure that we get good outcomes from the public education system, gives additional funding to boost the state government's efforts in this regard. I know that at schools in my own electorate we have seen direct capital funding going into major projects such as manual arts blocks and teaching blocks, and we see ongoing recurrent assistance to other schools in the non-government sector. So I am more than satisfied by this minister's complete commitment to the funding of schools, the funding of the education outcome—not simply the system but the outcome of the system that we expect for our students, our children and the future of our nation. The literacy and numeracy focus this minister has brought to his job is heralded all around this country. I know that in visits he has undertaken to my own electorate he has been well received by teaching professionals, those in the government and non-government sector, students, parents and academic professionals at the university because of that commitment and because of his understanding of the issues. I do not believe for a moment that the record should be allowed to continue uncorrected in this `matter of union importance' debate that is taking place today. We should not allow the Australian Labor Party to get up the suggestion that funding to government schools has been cut, because it has been enhanced by this government and deliberately so.What I am really concerned about is this envy driven society approach that the Australian Labor Party seem to be embarking upon yet again. We saw it for 13 years, and if they ever get back into office we will see them split the Australian society. It is a disgrace that during question time today the opposition saw fit to try to create false impressions based on a system of funding that is gone and is being replaced by a system that is more realistic and has the capacity to ensure funding goes where it is needed. They were trying to create the impression that the old system remains, and they were using that as the basis of their argument that some kind of class warfare has been created between a wealthy school and a non-wealthy school in the suburb of Parramatta in Sydney. I have to say that this sort of splitting of Australia and this divisionist kind of politics is just not good enough for anybody pretending to be an alternative government in this country. I am concerned that we have in waiting an opposition that, if in government, would take funding away from schools that are offering education services to students and try to prop up the public school system again. That is certainly their claim and it seems to be some kind of payback to the Education Union. I said a few weeks ago that it seemed to me that everything involving education would have to be checked in a future Labor government by the Australian Education Union. Under Labor, we would see a mega bureaucracy, with more funding going into education only for it to be soaked up by the bureaucracy they would create around their union mates and jobs for their friends. Have we ever seen this before under the Labor Party? Of course we have. As a product of the public state school system—Runcorn State School and MacGregor State High School in my own electorate—I am also a strong defender of the rights of parents to exercise choice. If those parents back their choice, and they have to, by paying additional money into the cost of educating their child, which they do, they do so based on their ability to afford that particular choice. They are backed completely by this government in the exercise of that choice, and the system then is backing this government for offering and financing that choice. The member for Port Adelaide offered an interjection that was not noted by Hansard that suggested that any money that goes from the Commonwealth into non-government schools is robbing the overall education budget of other possibilities. The fact is that every parent who exercises their choice to send their child to a non-government school and pays for that privilege of choice is subsidising the overall education cost in this country. It is a simple fact. They are affording an additional amount of money into the education scheme which releases money out of the overall education budget back into the state school system. So every parent who is taking up their choice of sending a child to a non-government school—no matter what level parents believe they are able to subsidise the education cost of their child, be it sending them to the poorest of parish schools, like St Brendan's at Moorooka in my electorate, or the most prestigious of schools that exist in the city of Brisbane, like Churchie, Brisbane Grammar School or whatever—is making a great contribution to the overall cost of education in Australia.So it is extraordinary in the extreme to think that the Australian Labor Party would come in here today and try to create some sort of classless warfare circumstance to defend a system that for 15 years never worked. The whole ERI system was broken virtually from day one. It achieved poor results as far as targeting the needs of those in the non-government sector was concerned. It somehow or other seemed to miss some of the wealthiest schools in so far as ensuring that there was equity compared to some that needed more. It managed to ensure that poor schools in my area did not get the level of funding they are now getting as a result of this government's direct approach of assisting them. I think it is parlous in the extreme.Another matter I should raise in connection with this debate is the Southside Education Centre at Tarragindi, which Minister Kemp visited a few months ago. The Southside Education Centre was begun by the Baptist Church, the Bindari centre, and it takes care of about 30 young ladies who are rejects of the Queensland state school system, kids who have been through all sorts of deeply personal traumas that I shall not go into in this place. As a result of the state school system not taking up these people as well as it might, the Baptist Church has done the right thing and is providing education for people who did not just slip through the cracks but went under the path and were essentially swept away and not wanted. This school is now receiving direct funding from this government to the tune of $4,904 per student, which is 60 per cent of the cost of sending those kids off to the state school system. More to the point, we now have kids in those sorts of places getting education which they were not getting before. That in itself proves how wrong the Australian Labor Party are to suggest this government, this minister and this particular system we want the Senate to pass will not meet the needs of the very needy. These girls typify the very needy in society. They typify the direct focus and the very personal and deliberate approach of this minister in getting the right result out of education funding in this country. I know the parents of that school appreciate this minister's own determination and this government's approach in this matter. The Australian Labor Party should stand condemned for their divisionist approach, for their misleading approach, for plucking figures out of the air in this debate today and for the approach they have taken throughout. (Time expired)10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! The discussion is concluded.Bills20944R113220944Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy presented.Ordered that the bill be taken into consideration forthwith.Bill agreed to.20944Bill (on motion by Dr Stone)—by leave—read a third time.Bills20944The following bills were returned from the Senate without amendment or request:Petroleum Excise Amendment (Measures to Address Evasion) Bill 2000Criminal Code Amendment (United Nations and Associated Personnel) Bill 2000Bills20944R112020944Debate resumed.17:09:0020944Ferguson, Martin, MPMr MARTIN FERGUSONLS4BatmanALP00—The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000 replaces the Indigenous Education (Supplementary Assistance) Act 1989 from next year. The bill provides continuing funding for the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program from 2001 to mid-2005, covering both recurrent and specific project funding as well as the away from home element of Abstudy. In speaking to the bill, I would also like to speak in support of the amendment moved by the member for Dobell and shadow minister for education to the motion for the second reading.The bill, as the House will be aware, seeks to implement the 1999-2000 budget initiative, which announced the new National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Strategy. Under that strategy, launched in March this year, funding will be performance based, with priority given to a focus on literacy, numeracy and school attendance. At the launch of this program the Prime Minister, as is so often the case, suggested that additional funding was being provided for indigenous literacy. Unlike the current act, the bill does not set out the conditions that will attach to agreements made with education providers. And, unlike the current act, the bill gives the minister the power to recover payments if any conditional agreement is breached.In speaking to the bill, I suggest to the House that our education system must respect the unique history of indigenous Australians. We are all aware that there is a cultural element to indigenous education that makes it different. This has implications for how we define our goals and measure our success. I am concerned at how the government intends to recognise this. For that reason I think it is appropriate that, in responding to this debate, the minister should give more detail on his intentions in this respect.The bill also does not reproduce the table of per capita amounts payable to different types of education providers—be they preschools, schools and vocational educational institutions—which is included in the current act. I ask the minister today: does he give absolute discretion in the distribution of funding between different levels of education and between government and non-government providers? I think that is also a question that he should answer in responding to this debate. The budget papers show a shift in the allocation of Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program funding away from government providers. The 1998-99 forward estimates allocated 56.65 per cent of funding to the government sector. This year's budget unfortunately shows a decline of 45.71 per cent. This does not seem to have been caused by any shift in enrolments. There has been virtually no change in the government sector's share of either school or VET enrolments of indigenous students over the last four years, with government providers enrolling around 88 per cent of indigenous school students and 86 per cent of indigenous VET students. This bill provides the bulk of Commonwealth supplementary funding for indigenous education from 1 January 2001. It is therefore important for the House to note in the debate about indigenous education the clear size of the challenge and the struggle ahead of us on the indigenous education front. For those reasons I refer to the fact that fewer than 50 per cent of indigenous students remain at school to year 11 compared with over 85 per cent of non-indigenous students and fewer than 31 per cent remain to year 12 compared with over 72 per cent of non-indigenous students. Among 15- to 19-year-olds, indigenous Australians are a third less likely than other Australians to be attending school and less than half as likely to be attending a tertiary institution. When you consider that those with a degree or skilled vocational qualification, as you and I know, are about four times as likely to have a full-time job as a person who left school at age 15 or younger, these numbers I refer to say important things about the distance we still have to travel in indigenous education and, in thinking about indigenous education, employability. The facts tell us that we are not providing pathways for all young indigenous people—pathways from early childhood, through primary and secondary school and on to employment and/or further study. We need to focus particular attention on the key educational institutions and transitions, whilst also recognising the impact that families, schools and community environments often have on educational prospects. There is more and more evidence emerging about what works in indigenous education. We as a community can no longer claim that we do not know how to do it. We can no longer continue to put the problem aside, and we can no longer claim that it is simply too hard.What we are about is trying to learn from our past mistakes and also trying to learn from some of our more recent successes. In doing so, I refer to the development of a school culture, support for school attendance and the development of literacy skills early which provide a strong foundation for successful secondary school experience. The literature suggests a number of reasons why the school drop-out rate is so high for indigenous youth. These include a lack of relevant courses, a lack of culturally appropriate curriculum and low literacy levels that are first apparent at primary school—back to basics. If we want to improve the chances of our young indigenous people staying at school, then we have a fair idea of how to go about it. But this takes resources because it means getting behind those communities that are trying to develop the new approaches.Over many years I have had an opportunity to visit communities in various states and territories of Australia. I am also pleased to note that as a result of my more recent appointment as shadow minister for regional development I have had an opportunity to visit a number of communities that are actually making gains when it comes to improving indigenous education outcomes. For example, I refer to an after school centre in Karratha where the schoolkids from Roebourne study in a nurturing, secure environment. The outcomes achieved through that program are quite remarkable and I welcome the fact that this program will soon spread to other areas. Roebourne and the school centre at Karratha prove that it can be done, but it takes leadership and resources at all levels of the community, including at a Commonwealth government level.I believe that the reality for many indigenous youth is that they are participating in vocational education courses requiring low skill levels. While improvements in the level and quality of participation in further education requires improvements in schooling outcomes, we should also be looking at how to expand pathways within the VET sector. These pathways should be aimed at developing work related skills—because I think they are critical to employability—from prevocational and preparatory courses through to higher level vocational outcomes. And, wherever possible, there should be a work based component because we know from experience that that actually works.Again, as we all know, getting these pathways right is not easy. It requires commitment and a willingness to actually try new things. When you talk to mining companies in the Pilbara about how they are going, you again see that dedication can get you somewhere. I recently therefore spent some time with Hamersley Iron looking at how their indigenous training programs are working. As the minister clearly indicated today from his own experience on the indigenous education and training front—and I know he has also been there to look first-hand at the Hamersley experience—we have some prime examples now which clearly demonstrate how it can be done. We should be taking that experience beyond Hamersley and the Pilbara to assist in other difficult areas of indigenous education. I therefore also want to refer briefly this afternoon to another important pathway on which I believe we have much work to do. It relates to opportunities for indigenous people to be trained in providing the growing service needs of their communities. If anything, it is about taking employment and training back into local communities. We know as a community that there will be growth in the demand for health, education, welfare and community development services, but we do not yet have in place a strategy to ensure that indigenous Australians build local capacities to provide these services in their own communities. Some attempts, I think it is fair to say, have been made in indigenous health, but the approach surely has broader application than indigenous health. Our training framework has been slow to adapt to the needs of indigenous people and indigenous communities. Community work apprenticeship options need to be pursued more vigorously in cooperation with indigenous communities.Moving on, we should not forget the barriers facing those indigenous students who have successfully completed year 12. We are all aware that achieving a year 12 qualification is, for indigenous people, something to be exceptionally proud of. Indeed, it is something we are all exceptionally proud of with respect to our own children. We therefore have a responsibility to ensure that those indigenous children who actually achieve year 12 have the opportunity to further develop their potential for employment or further education.The literature emphasises the multiple disadvantages experienced by indigenous youth, including low educational attainment, issues of speaking English as a second language or dialect, and how English literacy levels count. When young indigenous people manage to overcome these barriers we should express as a community our pride in them. Their families and their communities are entitled to celebrate their achievements in the same way in which we celebrated Cathy Freeman's achievement on the sporting field last week. We need role models in indigenous education in the same way as we need indigenous achievers on the sporting field. It is up to government to recognise and promote those who achieve in indigenous education equally with those from the indigenous community who achieve on our sporting fields. I simply suggest to the House this afternoon that more has to be done when it comes to recognition and promotion in expressing our pride in the achievements of our indigenous people in the education field.There have been changes in the Australian labour market in recent decades that have made life more difficult for young indigenous people who do not find work. Employed indigenous youth are often concentrated, unfortunately, at the lower end of the labour market in part-time, low paid and insecure employment. They often still suffer from discrimination in employment practices. Geographic isolation also contributes to the disadvantage experienced by indigenous youth. In places that lack employment opportunities, CDEP offers a valuable source of employment for indigenous people. Concerns have been raised in some quarters that indigenous youth may move into CDEP in preference to completing secondary school. But the more important concern with CDEP is the difficulty in accessing accredited training modules. We as a community need to be more serious about developing CDEP as a pathway, not merely as something to do—as has all too often become the end result of CDEP in some communities.However, I am also going to suggest to the House today that the most successful CDEP projects have access to training, and there are also innovative approaches that use the pathway from CDEP to get from community based employment to private sector employment. Unfortunately, in doing so, I need to also point out that the Howard government has not yet fully grasped the potential of this approachand it shows no sign of doing so, which is more unfortunate. One disturbing finding from the research is that, even when educational attainment was the same for a non-indigenous person and an indigenous person in a similar geographic location, employment opportunities for indigenous youth were poorer. We know that educational outcomes are affected by family, school and community environment. Getting families and communities behind the learning experience is critical to improving indigenous education outcomes. We know this, but where is the policy framework which reflects this challenge?Clearly there is evidence of positive outcomes from programs for indigenous students in terms of engagement in learning, workplaces and communities. The challenge we have is to apply those lessons more broadly—to actually take and extend them from those successful communities to other communities that have the same challenges.But, as we are also aware, overcoming disadvantage in indigenous education requires a commitment. Skills and capabilities are the future for all Australians—not just some Australians. For indigenous Australians, they also offer something very important: recognition. For indigenous Australians, skills improve the chance to progress their own lives, the lives of their families and the quality of life in their communities. At the same time, we have to face up to our other obligations. Indigenous Australians often lack access to basic health care and housing, and many live in conditions that many of us would only describe as `abject poverty'. We cannot deny that these environmental factors affect the learning experiences of our indigenous kids.With this bill, the government has once again unfortunately chosen to mislead the public on the level of funding for indigenous literacy. Consistent with its broad philosophy, the government has shifted indigenous education funding away from students in government schools. We have many challenges, and I hope that the amount of time this House has spent debating indigenous issues in recent times will be reflected in future budget allocations. I look forward to the day when the Howard government's budgetary commitment to indigenous Australians comes near to matching some of its claimed concern. That is not the case with this bill, and I suspect it will not be the case in the future.But this is just not about funding; it is about a commitment to develop new policy solutions. As I have travelled around Australia, I have observed that there are communities developing their own local solutions in the areas of indigenous education and employment; there are committed people working hard to improve the appalling situation we face. But what they feel they are lacking is a federal government that is prepared to back them; they lack a federal government that is prepared to be on their side. That is the feeling of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians alike. As a result of this debate, I hope not only that we consider the issue of indigenous education in the form it is in the current bill before the House but also that we actually take on board some of the success stories that have been referred to by both sides of the House in this debate—and that we work out how they can become more the order of the day rather than the exception to the rule when it comes to indigenous education.Debate (on motion by Ms Worth) adjourned.Adjournment20947Motion (by Dr Stone) proposed:That the House do now adjourn.2094717:27:0020947Quick, Harry, MPMr QUICKAV5FranklinALP00—On the evening of Tuesday, 12 September 2000, my daughter and several of her friends, along with hundreds of others, gathered outside Crown Casino in Melbourne to peacefully demonstrate against the World Economic Forum meeting. The atmosphere among protesters was positive and non-violent. Into this peaceful scene at around 8 p.m. came riot police, armed with extra-long batons and wearing helmets and visors. They outnumbered protesters by two to one. The riot police charged the protesters, without warning or provocation. At no time during the many hours my daughter spent at the World Economic Forum protest did she see anyone throw objects at police or behave violently towards them. The police still charged. The officers—the overwhelming majority without identification—launched themselves at the crowd and began to relentlessly beat and punch the protesters with fists and batons, aiming for their heads and faces. Mounted officers then attacked from behind, forcing protesters forward into the line of police who were armed with batons. Protesters who were forced to the ground were trampled by horses, police and other protesters. Police lashed out at everyone in their path, beating many violently. Many protesters were trapped in the crush caused by the police, and attempts to escape were met with further violence. Police hit retreating protesters with batons. One friend of my daughter was hit repeatedly across his back and legs as he tried to escape the violence. Another was hit in the head by police trying to break up the protest and consequently suffered headaches and dizziness for days afterwards. Police were merciless and brutal in their treatment of the peaceful protesters. More frighteningly, the majority of officers who perpetrated this violence were not wearing identification.At the end of this charge, more than 30 demonstrators were hospitalised, and countless others suffered minor injuries as a result of the police baton charge. These injuries were not necessarily physical. Fortunately, my daughter was not assaulted—only manhandled by police—but she has been scarred by the experience, even now becoming upset when watching television footage of the charge. She is haunted by the sound of the boots of the riot police marching down to attack her. The shock of seeing one human being—an Australian—mercilessly beating another was a very depressing, disheartening and distressing experience for her. Any respect for the Victoria Police and its members has vanished.Not only is it the police that we have lost faith in but Steve Bracks, the Victorian Premier, described protesters as `fascists' and `un-Australian' and said they `deserve everything they got'. Is this a Labor Premier? Do he and I really share the same ideals? I am ashamed of him, and I am not alone. I condemn Bracks's endorsement of the police violence against protesters at the WEF. For Bracks to be uttering the same word—`un-Australian'—as Richard Court is a damning indictment of the Victorian Premier. Is this what ALP supporters in Victoria have fought so long for: the replacement of Jeff Kennett with `Jeff' Bracks?Bracks praised police for an `absolutely outstanding' job on 12 September. What part did he find outstanding? The unannounced baton charge? The failure of police to wear identification? The inability of protestors to identify police and hold them accountable for their actions? The response to alleged individual acts of violence by protestors with violence against the demonstration as a whole? Police were entitled to enforce the law by making arrests using only reasonable force, and they were duty-bound to use minimum force only. However, on 12 September, police were aiming not to arrest but rather to overcome through overwhelming force. As police attacked, my daughter heard them shout repeatedly to protestors, `You're going to get hurt. You're going to get hurt.' In contrast, protestors chanted, `No violence, no violence.'The role of the police force in our society is primarily to bring people before the courts so they can be judged and punished. Police have no right to dish out punishment themselves. Given that the Victorian Premier has endorsed violence against demonstrators, what are the implications for people's rights in Victoria? Will union members and workers be safe from police brutality the next time they are on a picket line? A citizen who is engaged in civil disobedience is a citizen nonetheless, and he or she is entitled to the protection of the law. Demonstrators outside the WEF had the right to protest and congregate in a public place without the fear of being beaten up. Importantly, they also had the right to be able to identify those police who assaulted them. In a democratic society, it is crucial that police, as an arm of government, are accountable. The behaviour of Steve Bracks and the Victorian parliamentary Labor Party over the last month has been a disgrace. The Victorian government must now fully support the independent inquiry into the police violence against protestors and return to the principles of democracy and accountability that got it elected last year. As protesters chanted throughout the three-day protest, `The whole world is watching.' 2094917:32:0020949Bishop, Julie, MPMs JULIE BISHOP83PCurtinLP10—Let me cast a rather different light on the rose-coloured view the member for Franklin has of the activities of those protestors. As our nation basks in the afterglow of the Sydney Olympic Games, we can reflect quite rightly on the profile that Australia and Australians have been able to present to a worldwide audience. Not just in the sporting sphere, where the extraordinary feats of our athletes were applauded, but in other spheres, there will be other images etched into the minds of the international community, those of an idyllic country filled with friendly people with a positive, progressive outlook, a sophisticated approach to technology and a healthy, growing economy—a country of enormous potential. It was an unparalleled opportunity to showcase contemporary Australia to the world as a modern, exciting and socially cohesive nation. Yet only a matter of days before Australia stepped on to the world stage, just days before the pageantry and magic of the opening ceremony of what were to be the best games ever, the international community was treated to an ugly, strident view of Australia in the form of the protests at the 2000 Asian Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum held in Melbourne.Yes, we live in a democracy. We have democratic rights to freedom of expression and with those the right to protest and the right to congregate. But, when the tactics of the S11 and its assorted constituency, comprising the S11 alliance, led to the detention of the elected political leader of a state, the Premier of Western Australia, and in the democratic federation of this country he is held hostage while protestors wreck his vehicle, then such protestors forfeit their right to protest. I must say, even though the member for Franklin has left the chamber, their actions must be and have been condemned by all right-thinking members of the community, and I add my voice to that condemnation. Physical confrontations, the use of violence and the deliberate tactic of preventing delegates and the media from attending the summit were simply deplorable behaviour. Those claiming the right to free speech deliberately prevented others from exercising the same right. While these protesters say that they will continue their antiglobalisation, antitrade, pro-environment cause, however misguided and mistaken they are in much of what they stand for—AV5Quick, Harry, MPMr Quick—They are not mistaken.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Franklin has been heard in silence and will extend the same courtesy.83PBishop, Julie, MPMs JULIE BISHOP—They should acknowledge that only peaceful protests will win any credibility in this country. I say that they are misguided in their attacks on the WEF, for since its formation as a meeting of European CEOs in 1971 the World Economic Forum has increasingly integrated political, economic, social and environmental issues into its activities. The mere convening of its meetings in various countries over the past two decades has heralded substantial benefits to the economic reform policies of such countries: to China after the Beijing symposium in 1979, to India in 1985, to central and eastern European countries, to the former USSR, and to Latin America in 1995, heralding its entry into the world economy when the first Mercosur economic summit was held in Sao Paulo. The basic philosophy of the World Economic Forum is that the greatest challenges facing humankind in the next century can be met only through the joint efforts of governments and business, and the meetings are the best opportunity for a truly global representation of business, governments, media, academia and civil society—people who are committed to improving the state of the world—to come together to discuss key political, economic and social issues. What the protestors refuse to see is that globalisation is not a barrier to equality; it is a necessity. Entrepreneurship and capitalism can be the basis for economic and, ultimately, social progress—entrepreneurship or capitalism in the framework of social responsibility. Globalisation in the form of free trade, access to technology, access to new ideas and innovation, open markets and access to new markets can lead to incredible opportunities not only for developed countries but for developing countries—opportunities for jobs, for investment, for sustained economic growth and for better living standards. The facts cannot be ignored. As the Prime Minister said in his keynote address to the summit in Melbourne on 11 September, `Globalisation has been a ticket to prosperity for many nations.' Contrary to the claims by critics of globalisation, all of the benefits of economic growth do not immediately accrue to the wealthy. The opening up of an economy to world trade raises the income of the poor by raising overall growth and incomes. (Time expired)2095017:37:0020950Irwin, Julia, MPMrs IRWIN83ZFowlerALP00—In the past few years, much has been written and spoken about the stolen generation. I have been moved by so many stories I have heard and read, but I have found none so moving as one which recently came to my attention. The story of Valerie Wenberg Linow, who is now living in the Fowler electorate, is one of the many that can be told. Valerie shared her early life, tragic as it appears to us now, with many hundreds of other members of the stolen generation. One of nine children, she was taken from her home near Grafton in New South Wales at the age of two. Her early years were spent at the Bomaderry Children's Home. Later, she was taken to the Cootamundra Girls Home, where her three elder sisters had been taken earlier. Her three brothers had been taken to Kinchela Boys Home near Kempsey.From Cootamundra, Valerie was placed in domestic service, from which she fled after being raped and beaten by her employer. She has spent much of the time since then unable to reconcile her removal from her home, the tragic consequences for her brothers and sisters, and her at times brutal upbringing in the institutions responsible for her care. Valerie felt that she could not take part in the National Sorry Day earlier this year. She believed that healing was impossible for her. With the support of friends, she was persuaded to make the bridge walk on the day. The event affected her greatly, and she says:I looked up at the `sorry' in the sky and around at the thousands of people. Tears flowed down my cheeks and I have found healing.Since then, this remarkable woman has told her story to many people, and her involvement with the National Sorry Day Committee led to my meeting with her recently. At our meeting, I was moved by the depth of the tragedy which had struck her and her family. In reconstructing her life, Valerie has put together a folio of documents and photographs which confirm the details of her early life. Among the class photos of Cootamundra Primary School is a photograph of a couple and a young baby. Valerie has no memory of her parents and the photograph is her only link with them. The picture, taken in the early 1940s, shows Valerie's mother dressed neatly and wearing a sunhat, as if she had attended her baby's christening. Valerie's father stands holding the baby. He is dressed in the uniform of a soldier of the Second AIF—his slouch hat worn proudly, as it is in so many photographs of that era. When you look at the photograph, you cannot help but wonder how her father felt. Valerie can recall two occasions when she saw her father as he attempted to contact her. Both times he was taken away by the police. While he served his country in time of war, his own family was taken from their home. His young children were split up and subjected to years of abuse and torment in institutions.Valerie Linow's story shows the hypocrisy of those who cannot bring themselves to say sorry to the stolen generation. We show great respect for those men and women who served our country in time of war. While they take pride in their heroic deeds and express gratitude for their sacrifice, they refuse to acknowledge the hurt and suffering caused by the misdeeds of others acting in the service of government. They cannot say sorry for the misdeeds of the agents of government who were responsible for the stolen generation. The process of reconciliation has helped Valerie Linow to begin her healing, but it is a long process. Valerie beautifully expresses her sorrow: No wind or dust could dry my mother's tears as we were torn apart ...Yes, I know today if she was here she would say: `My daughter we made the rivers you see todayOur tear drops are proof of the flowing watersNo wind and dust can dry my tears.'Valerie Linow and her husband, Warren, are in the gallery this evening. I understand Valerie has today told her story to the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. Valerie, I admire you, I respect you and I say to you—as my parents, Alan and Lois Welsh, have always said to me—never, ever give up the good fight. Very shortly there will be a Prime Minister who can say sorry for the wrongs of past governments.2095117:42:0020951Lloyd, Jim, MPMr LLOYDIK6RobertsonLP10—I rise tonight to add my congratulations to the millions of people who have offered congratulations to the athletes and the organisers of the Sydney 2000 Olympics—and particularly to the over 40,000 volunteers that made the games such a success. I am privileged in that my electorate is only some 40 minutes away from the Olympic site, so I had the opportunity to visit the Olympics on a number of occasions. I see the Minister for Finance and Administration at the table: the Hon. John Fahey had a great deal to do with getting the Sydney Olympics and I am sure he was heartened as well to see that they were so successful.I was impressed with the transport arrangements. I drove from the Central Coast to the Hornsby railway station, caught the train in and walked the 20 minutes to Concord West. It was a great opportunity to meet many people from all over the world—in fact, I think I met more of my own constituents there. Certainly the city of Gosford was quite empty for those two weeks as many people made the journey. It was a great success. It was a great opportunity to profile what is good about Australia. One of the lasting successes of the games and one of the great achievements will be the reinforcement of the positive feeling for people in Australia who sometimes like to knock their own country. I have never seen so many Australians so proud and so happy to recognise that they are Australians and that we have a great country. I would also like to pay tribute to the Paralympians. On this the day the Paralympic torch was lit in Canberra—and it will be travelling around Australia—I would urge all Australians to make the same efforts to visit the Paralympic Games that they made for the Olympics, to have an opportunity to watch these magnificent athletes compete on the world stage.I would also urge many people to get out, have a look at and support the Paralympic flame as it travels around Australia. I am certainly urging the people of the Central Coast to come out and support the Paralympic flame as it travels around. It will be travelling to many areas that the Olympic flame did not travel to. Certainly it will be in the Woy Woy peninsula area—Woy Woy, Adelong and the Umina area down to the village of Patonga. They missed out on seeing the Olympic flame travel around the coast. The Paralympic flame will be travelling to those areas over the next couple of weeks and I would urge all the residents of my electorate, particularly those in those areas, to make an effort to come out to support the Paralympic flame as it travels around and then heads to Homebush for what I know will be the best ever Paralympic Games.I mentioned earlier in my speech the efforts of the volunteers that made the games so successful. In fact, volunteers in our community and other people who give up their time freely make Australia what it is. The level of services that we have in this country could never be provided by any government without the contribution of volunteers. I would also like to raise tonight the recent efforts of some volunteers on the Central Coast. There was a netball match organised to raise money for Childflight, the helicopter rescue service that is so valuable to our community. It was organised by two young ladies, Corinne Garland and Monique Kassi, obviously netball players, who wanted to do something to raise money for Childflight, so they organised a six-hour marathon netball game. I went along to the game and I thought they would probably play 40 minutes on and have 40-minute rests, but I can assure you they did not. They had 40-minute games, had about a five-minute rest and then kept playing. Throughout the day they actually scored 382 goals between the two teams, which were made up of netball players from the Central Coast and also volunteers from the Childflight organisation who competed in the game. There was also a charity netball game in which I was a participant over the lunchbreak, and I can assure you that was some sight. Our mayor, Chris Holstein—who is no small figure—was also a participant. The local coroner was also involved, as was Steve White from radio station 2GOC/Sea-FM. The Express Advocate's promotions coordinator, Michelle Van den Brock, was also a participant in the charity game. All in all, it was a great day. They raised over $17,000 for Childflight. I would like to add my congratulations to the girls who organised that game and to everyone who participated in it. Again, it is an example of volunteers making a difference to our community. (Time expired)2095217:47:0020952Byrne, Anthony, MPMr BYRNE008KOHoltALP00—One of the responsibilities of being a member of parliament is to raise your voice on behalf of constituents who have suffered an injustice and have a grievance. I would like to raise an instance of that tonight, representing particular people who have been maltreated by some of the shoddiest, most duplicitous, shonkiest criminal behaviour that I have read about for some time. I would like to raise the case of Samuel and Corazon Cerio, two people who came to this country some four to six years ago. They are people who basically wanted to participate in the Australian dream, to purchase their own home and land package in a growth belt that exists within my electorate; people whose ambition—and dream—has been cruelly frustrated by duplicitous, criminal behaviour by a company that has been investigated by the Department of Business and Consumer Affairs on four separate occasions. The conduct of this company's principal agent, Mr Nick Pastras—and I have read the brief on this—can only be described as disgusting.This is a case of two people who were basically induced to sign a house and land contract which they did not fully understand and about which they had no legal advice to assist them. The agent, Mr Pastras, continued to dissuade Mr and Mrs Cerio from seeking proper legal advice and continued to mislead them throughout the negotiations as to when building would commence and finish. The subject property is on lot 204, The Parkway, Hampton. As I said, this particular company have been investigated by the Department of Business and Consumer Affairs on four separate occasions. They are neither a real estate agent nor a finance broker. They do not fall under industry controls. They are considered to be marketing agents.In April 1999 Mr and Mrs Cerio saw an advertisement in the paper marketing the house and land package that I have mentioned for $184,000. Mr and Mrs Cerio then went to the agent, Mr Pastras, and asked to sign a contract. In signing the contract they were not told that this price of $184,000 did not include legal and brokerage fees, for which, as the Cerios subsequently learnt, they incurred a cost of another $2,400. They were not given this information, notwithstanding the fact that they were invited into the office on two separate occasions—on 19 June and on 23 June—to actually put in the deposit to get a loan of $170,000. They met Mr Pastras on several occasions and were asked to pay a deposit on a building job, which I might add has never actually been completed. They signed that contract in June 1999. In August 1999, Mr Cerio was told that they would be okay and that they would have the house by Christmas. In January 2000 Mr Pastras was contacted just to see where the land package was. This had been identified as a project. The problem was that the land could not actually be identified. The block of land that was identified was not in fact the actual block where the construction was supposed to commence. In late January the Cerios were brought into a house where they were asked to sign further contracts with respect to this particular property. Mr Pastras asked Mr Cerio to sign blank sheets because he needed more paperwork; he had lost it. He maintained that the supposed solicitor conveyancing group—not solicitors—had said this was okay. He said that the building would start in two or three weeks time. I know it will not surprise you to learn that in fact building has not actually commenced yet. In February Mr Pastras rang Mr Cerio and asked him to sign further contracts for the building to start `next week'. The contract was in fact a new master builders contract which contained the new GST clause. Although the Cerios did not have to sign it, because they already had a binding contract, they were persuaded to sign, incurring a cost of an extra $10,000. At the end of the signing, Mr Pastras said he would send a copy of the contract. This came on 3 May 2000, months after the cooling-off period. The week after signing the contract, Mr Cerio rang Mr Pastras and asked him why the building had not started and why the pegs that he had pointed out were in a different spot. Mr Pastras said it was nothing to do with him and Mr Cerio should now ring the builder. Mr Cerio rang the builder. What has happened as a consequence of this is that there is a loan that was approved, for $184,000, on Mr Cerio's salary of $32,619 which, on the surface, would appear to be outside normal lending guidelines. The security offered was a house and land package of $124,000 and Mr Cerio's existing house in Noble Park, worth some $70,000. As I said, the actual house construction has not started. People come to this country with an expectation that they will be given a fair deal. This is particularly so of newly arrived migrants. In this particular case quite clearly this has not occurred. (Time expired)2095317:52:0020953Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr HARDGRAVECK6MoretonLP10—The question of a fair deal is hot on the lips and certainly firmly in the minds of so many Queenslanders tonight as they start to see the very basis of democracy in that state under strong scrutiny by the Shepherdson inquiry into allegations regarding electoral fraud involving the Australian Labor Party. It is indeed a sad set of circumstances for any of us who practise democratic values in this nation and expect that matters, such as the electoral roll, at the heart of our democracy are always above and beyond any sort of reproach. But from the way things seem to be unfolding in Queensland currently, there will soon be a time when seriously we should consider getting the election observers used by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in developing democracies and an unstable democracies to actually look at the next Queensland state election. We have also a committee of this parliament that is undertaking its own review of matters in connection with these allegations, and so it should. The importance of that federal inquiry cannot be emphasised enough.We were told originally that these were internal matters, that there had been some defrauding of electoral enrolments because it is a requirement of the Australian Labor Party in Queensland that to be eligible to vote in preselections you actually have to be eligible to vote and on an electoral roll in the area involved. It is a matter that, therefore, only occurs and impacts upon the Australian Labor Party, because it is the case in the Queensland division of the Liberal Party—and I am certain it is the same for the Nationals—that no such requirement of enrolment exists in order to participate in party activities. So what the Australian Labor Party have been prepared to do in order to have their internal battles between the Left and the Right is to commit fraud and to allow people to fraudulently enrol others onto the electoral roll. But those people stay there for elections, and we are hearing now in the Shepherdson inquiry about matters related to the Mundingburra supplementary election that was ordered as a result of a court decision about the original poll in that seat in the 1995 state election.But it is not simply a Townsville matter alone; this week two of my constituents, Mr Warwick Powell and Mr Lee Bermingham, Labor Party activists, have been named in the Shepherdson inquiry as two of the key people involved in this sort of rorting. These are people who have called around the state of Queensland looking for people who are happy to have their names put on the electoral roll in Townsville even though they were not resident in that area. It is not just an internal matter. What is happening in Townsville, what is involving the Labor Mayor of Townsville, the state member for Townsville and others in the Townsville area will be repeated in the Brisbane area. I am certain that we will see Brisbane city councillors and more state members in Queensland named in connection with these allegations. It leaves one concerned about members in this place too, but we will let matters rest there. We will let the inquiry run its course and we will see what occurs. I must say that the last time we saw anything like this in Queensland was back in the days when I was a member of the press gallery in the Queensland parliament, a reporter for the Seven Network. We were part of the process that led to the Fitzgerald inquiry being convened, which unearthed some very distasteful and dishonest practices 15 and 20 years ago. We are seeing that same sort of dogged style of reporting now from the Courier-Mail, even though it is the only newspaper in the market. I must say the Courier-Mail is proving its worth as a publication. It has not been afraid to take on the dreadful conduct in the Queensland parliament this week, reporting that simple questions were banned by the Speaker in that place, questions such as the one to Deputy Premier Jim Elder:Can you inform the House if you ever employed Lee Bermingham and, if so, in what capacity?And from Liberal MP Joan Sheldon to the Minister for Tourism and Racing, Merri Rose:Did you give your Currumbin electorate officer Craig Wallace leave to move to Townsville for five months in 1995-96?And from opposition leader Rob Borbidge to Premier Beattie:Can you confirm that as Parliamentary Leader of the ALP you have served on the administrative committee of that party since early 1996 and during that time have taken part in the approval of corrupt membership applications?And from Lawrence Springborg, the deputy National Party leader, to Mr Beattie:Did you telephone (former Labor MP) Ken McElligott before the ALP disputes tribunal hearing into the 1996 Thuringowa preselection and inform him that Karen Ehrmann's candidacy was safe because a factional deal had been done that would ensure the tribunal did not find against her?The Speaker in that place ruled those questions out of order, even though they had nothing to do with the matters before the Shepherdson inquiry. It is a disgrace. (Time expired)2095417:57:0020954Murphy, John, MPMr MURPHY83DLoweALP00—Media reports this week are unambiguous that the Howard government has already made decisions in respect of the Western Sydney orbital motorway and the Speedrail proposal that will have direct impacts on the viability of sites other than Badgerys Creek for the location of Sydney's second airport. As a result, I have asked further questions on notice of the minister today. The government's procrastination and prevarication in relation to a decision on Badgerys Creek as a second airport for Sydney has reached catastrophic proportions. Like cancer, the longer you leave it untreated the more painful the remedy becomes, until it reaches a point where it is impossible to save the patient.I represent the residents of Lowe in the heart of Sydney's inner west, and my constituents have had to endure some of the worst noise from aircraft. The evidence is now incontrovertible that Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport, like Heathrow airport, has now exceeded its pareto optimum in every sense, economically and ecologically. The failure of the government to announce a decision on a second Sydney airport is unacceptable. Moreover, if the government is about to abandon Badgerys Creek, that would be yet another in a long line of broken promises on aircraft noise made by the government to the people of Sydney's inner west, particularly my constituents.Sydney airport's continued growth beyond its economic and ecological limits has created diseconomies of scale as well as an ecologically unsustainable development way beyond the life of the airport and affects hundreds of thousands of residents within the Sydney basin and Sydney air shed. The government must act now to avert an environmental catastrophe in the Sydney basin and air shed. Aircraft noise, air quality, safety risks and social impacts are now getting dangerously worse and must be addressed by the Howard government now. The long-term operating plan is at risk of imminent collapse due to its mid-air collision with the government's wrongful and immoral introduction of the precision runway monitor system. This collision of totally incompatible and contradictory policy directions—that is, increased aircraft movement capacity whilst attempting noise sharing and respite—is demonstrable proof of the collapse of this government's management of Sydney airport.During my first two years here the government has demonstrated the utmost contempt for the public interest, particularly the unanimous aspirations of the more than 20 members of the Sydney Airport Community Forum. SACF has called for the abandonment of the PRM and was denied. We repeatedly urged the government for a management plan for implementation of the long-term operating plan. Again we have been repeatedly denied. We have begged for the two new modes—6A and 8—to be implemented. Again we are denied.These are all basic facts that underlie the truth inherent in the assertion that this government has failed in its management of Sydney airport and its environmental impacts, especially in respect of aircraft noise and aircraft safety. The failure of these two areas has further exposed this government to a breach of its statutory obligations, particularly section 9(1) of the Air Services Act 1995. For these reasons, we must have a decision immediately from this government on a second Sydney airport, and to fully implement the long-term operating plan.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Order! It being 6 p.m., the debate is interrupted.18:00:0020955House adjourned at 6.00 p.m.Notices20955The following notice was given:UK6Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr Kelvin Thomson—to present a bill for an act to amend the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992.2000-10-05—————Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl) took the chair at 9.40 a.m.Statements by Members209562095609:40:0020956Mossfield, Frank, MPMr MOSSFIELDMK6GreenwayALP00—Recently I attended a national day of mourning organised by HOPE—Helping Our Pedestrians Everywhere—at Blacktown Civic Centre. This day of mourning was designed to draw public attention, particularly that of young schoolchildren, to the number of children who die as a result of traffic accidents each year while travelling to and from school. This particular service involved children from four local public schools; choirs from Doonside, Blacket and Bidwill primary schools paid homage with their voices; students from Colyton Public lit candles in remembrance. HOPE was formed by local resident, Val Moorhouse, in 1991, after she witnessed a student's death while travelling to school. HOPE experienced early successes, with branches being established at Springwood, Tweed Heads, Queenscliff and the Gold Coast. One of the earlier programs of HOPE was to promote the use of distinctly coloured school buses. With the support of St Lukes Grammar School, Dee Why, Lindisfarne Anglican College, the Lakeside Christian College at Tweed Heads which supplied their buses, Wattyl Paints, Heckla Lights, 3M Australia and Newfema Pty Ltd which provided the materials, there are now three yellow safety buses being used to transport children to school each day. Mrs Moorhouse is hopeful of setting up a national register which would provide information to governments designed to eliminate accidents involving schoolchildren. Information sought would include the names of deceased children and all details relating to the accident. Mr Brian Evans is another person directly involved in the organisation of HOPE. Brian suffered a personal tragedy when his son was killed alighting from a school bus. Brian has campaigned vigorously for a number of Staysafe committee recommendations, such as vehicles permitted to pass school buses in either direction at a maximum of 40 kilometres per hour, buses able to run ahead of schedule without statutory control and adequate enforcement of road rules around schools and along school travel routes. Statistics do not give a true picture, because one fatality is one too many. While there has been a drop in fatalities in the nought to 16 age group over recent years, the figures show how serious the problem still is. Total pedestrian fatalities during 1996 nationally in this age group were 196; in 1997, there were 162; in 1998, there were 40; and in 1999, there were 42. These figures show a significant drop in fatalities in the age group; nevertheless, 40 or 42 schoolchildren killed on our roads is still 42 too many. With the assistance of organisations like HOPE, we aim to have a nil figure in the nought to 16 age group in the near future. I have been asked to raise this matter in federal parliament in the hope of achieving a wide national approach to prevent road fatalities of this nature. (Time expired)2095609:40:0020956May, Margaret, MPMrs MAY83BMcPhersonLP10—In 12 days time, thousands of talented athletes will again descend on Sydney for the 11th Paralympic Games. The Paralympic Games embodies the triumph of the human spirit over physical disability and I am proud to be part of a government that is supporting this important event in so many practical ways. As a parliamentarian for the Paralympics, it is enormously satisfying to know that Australia will be represented at the games by the strongest and best prepared Paralympic team ever. The Australian Paralympic Team 2000 is the biggest in our history, with 393 athletes qualifying to compete in all 18 sports that are on offer. One of these athletes, in particular, has overcome enormous odds to reach this pinnacle of sporting achievement, and I would like to put on the parliamentary record my admiration and respect for him and his ability. His name is Shane Walsh and he is a Paralympic swimmer from the Gold Coast. Although only 23 years old, he is truly a world-class athlete, ranked third in the world in the 50-metre freestyle, fourth in the world in the 100-metre freestyle, and sixth in the world in the 400-metre freestyle. Shane is a real medal chance when he dons the green and gold for Australia in the 50-metre and 100-metre freestyle and medley relays at the end of this month. Shane Walsh is a true Paralympian, in every sense of the word. Although born with cerebral palsy, he has not let his disability interfere with his dream of representing Australia—and he has done it all on his own. He receives no sponsorship of any kind. As a quiet achiever, Shane would not ask for help and, in fact, I only found out about him after picking out his name from a lengthy list of Paralympic athletes in a recent newsletter. But, once I found Shane, I knew that his determination would inspire all Gold Coasters, and the community has not disappointed. A fortnight ago, I launched a fighting fund dubbed `Help Out Our Home-Grown Hero' to ensure that Shane was given the best chance possible in Sydney. The first priority of this fund was to get Shane's mum, Marion Walsh, to Sydney, so that she could fulfil her dream of watching her son compete in the Paralympic Games. Sadly, Shane's mum passed away suddenly last week and will not have the chance to see Shane fulfil what he has worked so hard for. Never one to be defeated, Shane remains determined to compete at the Paralympic Games in memory of his mother. His siblings and a close family friend will now be there to give him as much support as possible and to celebrate his triumph. However, it meant an enormous amount to Marion Walsh to be given the chance to see her son compete at the Paralympic Games, something she described as `a dream come true'. That is a priceless gift that the Walsh family will forever be grateful for and it embodies the sense of community and warm-hearted generosity that the Gold Coast is so proud of. I would like to add my thanks to the Gold Coast community at large, particularly the residents and local businesses who have contributed to the `Help Out Our Home-Grown Hero' fund. We have raised a very satisfying amount to make sure Shane has the support he needs in Sydney from family and friends when he swims for Australia.2095709:46:0020957Snowdon, Warren, MPMr SNOWDONIJ4Northern TerritoryALP00—Today I rise to celebrate the performances and contributions of a number of Northern Territory athletes in the recently completed Sydney Olympic Games and to also highlight the contributions that will be made by Paralympians from the Northern Territory. Seven athletes from the Northern Territory competed in the recent Olympics. Three of them were medal winners. Jaime Fernandez, from Nhulunbuy, was a member of the silver medal winning men's eight rowing team. Kerry Dienelt, of Darwin, was captain of the bronze medal winning softball team, Aussie Thunder, and is a veteran of two Olympics and a total of 153 international appearances. Stephen Holt was a member of the bronze medal winning Kookaburras—the men's hockey team which trounced Pakistan. Kerry has since retired from the sport, I am told, and Stephen has shown his true Territorian roots by going fishing as a way to relax, now that the fuss has died down. Being an Olympian is not just about winning medals—it is about competing and participating on behalf of this country. There were five other Territorians who competed in the recent Olympics. One was Nova Peris-Kneebone from the Northern Territory, the first Territorian to win a gold medal as a member of the victorious Hockeyroos in Atlanta. She switched sports to run in the track team and anchored the 4 x 400 metres women's relay team that broke the Australian record in their heat and made it through to the finals. She and the others are magnificent role models for Territorians and for the whole community. Boxer James Swan—a great bloke—was also in his second Olympics appearance. Another boxer who competed was Henry Collins. Both James and Henry are from Alice Springs. Both, I imagine, will be thinking about what they will be doing over the next few months. Pistol shooter Christine Trefry—a quiet achiever with six gold medals from the Victoria, Canada, and the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games—slipped out of Alice Springs days after the Olympic opening ceremony to compete and, after competing, returned home before the closing ceremony. This morning, I was privileged to be at the lighting of the flame for the Paralympic torch relay, just in front of this building. A number of Territorians will be competing in the Paralympics. They are: Hamish MacDonald, a shot-putter and discus thrower from Alice Springs; athletes Mark Davies and Sam Rickard; swimmer David Rolfe; table tennis player Bill Medley; basketballers Melissa Dunn and Nadia Romeo; and swimmer Judith Green. These people show all Australians what it means to be part of competition. It is important that we try to win but it is also important that we set examples for our fellow Australians. Those people from the Territory who competed in the Olympics and those who are competing in the Paralympics are fine role models for us all. They are to be congratulated.2095809:49:0020958Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLPParliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration10—At the outset, I would like to associate myself with the comments made by my good friend and parliamentary colleague the honourable member for McPherson. In recent weeks, many Australians have made commendable contributions to the Olympics, involving the cooperation of thousands of people. The Olympics came together. We had a tremendous sense of unity of purpose from right around the nation, and we showcased ourselves to the world. We showed that we were able to have planning and infrastructure that ensured the games went like clockwork, and, as Juan Antonio Samaranch said, the Olympic Games in Sydney were the best Olympic Games ever. In the years building up to the games, there were people who doubted our capacity to be a successful Olympic host nation. Those doubts, of course, evaporated. I felt a very great sense of pride when I saw the participation of Australian athletes and when many of those athletes won a total of 58 medals—16 gold, 25 silver and 17 bronze. As a nation with fewer than 20 million people, that of itself is an outstanding effort. We were well up on the medal tally, and when we looked at those nations ahead of us they certainly had very much larger populations from which to draw their Olympic champions.We clearly had world-class training facilities. I am pleased that the Sunshine Coast was able to play an important role in Australia's Olympic success. Obviously, the Australian women's water polo team were outstanding. They snatched a gold medal victory in the final seconds of their match, and I was particularly pleased and proud that they trained on the Sunshine Coast. I would also like to recognise Regan Harrison of Caloundra, who was a member of the silver medal-winning men's 4 x 100 metre swimming medley. Right across the nation we saw athletes stand up and proudly represent their country. Many were successful and many were not, but Australia was able to display itself to the world. We were able to prove the doubters were wrong and obtain the recognition and the flow-on benefits from holding what will undoubtedly be considered for many years to be the most successful games ever. I would like to salute the members of the Australian Olympic team and to wish those in our Paralympic team every success in the forthcoming games. 2095909:52:0020959Gibbons, Steve, MPMr GIBBONS83XBendigoALP00—I am delighted to inform the House of a great Bendigo success story. I refer to a local artist named Paul Boromeo who has exhibited by invitation at the world's largest contemporary art show, the prestigious International Biennale of Contemporary Art. Paul was born and raised in Bendigo and became interested in drawing at an early age. At school he always preferred art and manual subjects, and later took an art and design course at a tertiary level. After completing his course, he gained employment as a technician at the Bendigo Art Gallery. His duties included hanging and arranging other works, both local and international, as well as general handyman duties. He continued to develop his own style of drawing whilst employed at the gallery.His work was featured in Florence amongst some 500 works by painters, sculptures and print makers from 16 countries. In January this year, he was elated to be notified that he had been awarded first prize in the works on paper category. The medal of the International Biennale Exhibition of Contemporary Art awarded to him carries a portrait of Lorenzo de Medici, while some 80,000 visitors viewed his work at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence. The drawings that achieved this enormous recognition of his talent are portraits of his parents, Glenice and Bill.Paul's work could be described as super realist. He takes dozens of photos of his subjects and then attempts to penetrate beneath the superficial external appearance to find the core of the individual and tease out the essence that is an internal expression of the character of the subjects, which can include his family, his friends, the famous and even some of the farm animals that inhabit his modest property on the outskirts of Bendigo. The work shows a breathtaking realism, using graphite on paper—Paul being probably one of the few artists using that particular method. I believe the most striking example of his work is a superb portrait of the AFL legend Tom Hafey. At first glance you would swear it was a photograph because of the detail in which Hafey was captured. This unassuming Bendigo artist has a great future and will no doubt go on to be one of Australia's most talented artists. All of Bendigo is very proud of him.I had the pleasure of hosting a visit by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts to Bendigo recently, and the committee viewed an exhibition by this artist. All members of the committee were very impressed with his work. My own particular favourite work is a superb drawing of a chicken through a piece of chicken wire. When you look at this work, you would swear it is an actual photograph of a chicken, such is the detail. I am delighted that Paul is a good friend of mine. We often enjoy a local ale on a Friday night at the Rifle Brigade Hotel in Bendigo where Paul relaxes. As I said, this artist has got a huge future. He will undoubtedly be one of Australia's finest as he pursues his exceptional talent.2095909:55:0020959Barresi, Phillip, MPMr BARRESIZJ6DeakinLP10—Recently we have heard various pronouncements by the Leader of the Opposition and members of the Australian Labor Party about how they will help small business and make the GST fairer for small business. For small business to believe this they would have to ignore the current policy positions of the Australian Labor Party on things such as unfair dismissal and also the actions of the Bracks government in Victoria on WorkCover changes that were recently introduced. I say this because recently I conducted a survey of businesses based in the Deakin electorate with my Barresi Business Report. At the outset of my remarks, I wish to say that the responses were both informative and encouraging. I thank the numerous business owners who took the time to respond. As a local member, I keep in regular contact with Deakin's small business owners. While a one-to-one discourse with all of them would be impossible, I appreciate the opportunity to listen to and to act on their concerns. It is often said that small and micro businesses are important for the economic health of our nationand nowhere is this statement truer than in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, which I am proud to represent. Although small business people have disagreements with governments at both state and federal level, it is my assertion that the coalition government is best able to represent their views. This has been proven time and time again by the policy positions that this government has introduced since 1996, and the fact that a lot of our policy positions have been thwarted by the Australian Labor Party and the Democrats in the Senate. Our political opponents, on the other hand, offer a lot of rhetoric and little, if any, understanding of the small business issues. If the recent actions of the Bracks Labor government are anything to go by, there is absolutely no chance of future positive reform.In the Business Report survey—which was well responded to by local small businesses—issues of greatest importance to respondents and, by assumption, to most business owners, are those such as WorkCover premiums. Sixty-seven per cent of small businesses said WorkCover premiums was the biggest issue. Fifty per cent certainly are concerned about the business activity statement, more in terms of not knowing what the new world would look like. I share that level of apprehension, but I am sure that after the first or second business activity statement their level of concern will pass. One-third of all small businesses in my electorate are very much concerned about the unfair dismissal laws, reform of which has been thwarted by the Labor Party and the Democrats, as I said earlier, in the Senate.The Bracks government's decision to dramatically increase WorkCover premiums is obviously a huge local issue. Many of the small businesses in my electorate are saying that the cash flow and profitability of their businesses are being affected and that, in fact, is causing them not to hire new staff. This is a tragedy when one thinks of all the good work this government has been doing to increase employment.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! In accordance with standing order 275A, the time for members' statements has concluded.Bills20960R113220960Debate resumed from 4 October, on motion by Dr Wooldridge:That the bill be now read a second time.09:58:0020960Lawler, Tony, MPMr LAWLER834ParkesNP10—I would like to continue briefly with a few remarks following on from those yesterday when we were talking about the difficulties faced by rural communities and why this bonded scholarship is one of several strings to the bow of the government to address that. Rural communities, for their part, must forgo some expectation of the tireless local GP working long hours in a lifetime of commitment that has been asked of them above and beyond the call of duty. Patients will, of course, no longer be able to expect to be treated by the same well-known GP for the whole of their livesalthough it must be said that for many communities such expectations became the stuff of dreams years ago. For the vast majority, the prospect of having a doctor for at least six years represents a dramatic improvement and a tangible boost to the peace of mind and quality of life these people enjoy. The dividends from this long-term approach will be reaped in the years to come, although the accolades and political advantage in the short term will, of course, be in much shorter supply. I commend the Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, and Michael Wooldridge for having the courage to spend so much time—they have committed much of the Commonwealth's moneylooking at the long-term problems and accepting that some of this political advantage will be in short supply. This courageous initiative has really suffered at the hands of city based critics, I believe, who talk about living for a time in a country area as if the experience would be similar to serving time in a Siberian gulag. What this alarmist and elitist attitude indicates clearly is the dire need for these precious urbanites to allay their hysteria about leaving the comfort zone of a major metropolitan city. The doctors' shortage aside, the quality of life in regional Australia is second to none in my opinion, blissfully free of the dreaded Four Horsemen of the Metropolis: traffic snarls, pollution, overcrowding and stifling pretence. In the country you can own your home for a fraction of the price, enjoy a sense of community, be routinely greeted in the street, savour the great outdoors, be home from work before 6 p.m., breathe clean air and see the stars like never before. Six years in this type of environment hardly seems a dreadful penalty to pay. Further, let us not forget that this opportunity to use $20,000 in taxpayers' money annually to acquire a valuable career in medicine is a voluntary one. No-one is being compelled to do anything whatsoever. These are extra places; no-one needs to be disadvantaged compared with the options that they have today. Those who choose to accept thousands upon thousands of dollars from the public purse to become a GP are being required to return something in kind to the community members who stock that purse.Critics have also decried the 12-year ban on Medicare benefits to GPs who get their qualifications under the scholarship but do not fulfil their obligation to serve outside the big cities. But the community expects some safeguards on its money, particularly when the amount will be in the vicinity of $120,000. Imagine the public outrage if money that was supposedly allocated to provide more country doctors was instead simply being spent subsidising trainee GPs to waltz into a lucrative city practice and all that goes with it. To ask the public to pay to train GPs on the off-chance that they might set up in a rural area will be less like a mutually appealing solution and more like a grossly irresponsible handout. At least the RAMA scholarships are targeted for rural students who come from rural areas and are much more likely to go back to rural areas.Put simply, the deterrent against skipping out on the scholarship deal must be seen to be sufficiently unappealing to be effective and, of course, holds no fear for those who do not intend exploiting the scholarship scheme. Having said that, those who for various reasons do not receive their Medicare number still have a variety of choices: they can work in hospitals, in industry, in research, in academia or join the armed forces, for example. Each year of a successful carer's training in the armed forces must be matched with a year's enlisted service with an additional year on top for good measure. So the obligation is not unlike that required for people who are trained through the armed forces.We should not allow ourselves to be distracted from what these initiatives mean to the lives of people throughout regional Australia. Imagine what it is like for those people who are ill, anxious about some aspect of their health or have sick children and cannot get a doctor's advice. This government is seeing to it that those days become a thing of the past for the people who live outside the nation's major cities. This is truly a reversal of the fortune of country people, because adequate health services are so intrinsically linked to the living standards and the appeal of country towns to potential newcomers looking to relocate. This government rightly views improved health services as the key to improving the prospects of towns in rural and regional Australia right across the board. Not only has the coalition identified health as the circuit-breaker to end declining regional services; in the case of rural GPs it has also now identified a realistic solution. 10:04:0020962Sidebottom, Sid, MPMr SIDEBOTTOM849BraddonALP00—The bill that we are discussing this morning, the Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Bill 2000, is very important. I commend any initiative that seeks to improve the services and the quality of health in rural and regional Australia. I note that a very similar plan was proposed on 10 December 1998 by the then shadow minister for health, the member for Dobell. He advocated the introduction of a scholarship worth $20,000 per year. In return, graduates would be required to practise in an area of need for the same number of years for which they received the scholarships. That, of course, is at the heart of the contractual agreements contained in the present bill. Unfortunately, because of the `tit for tat' which takes place in politics, the current Minister for Health and Aged Care rejected that proposal as being unconstitutional. I noted in the Bills Digest that there was a question about the unconstitutionality of the proposal. I do not profess to be a lawyer, but I would hope that that is not the situation and that it does not affect the offering of scholarships, particularly in this instance. I suspect that it may affect the offering of scholarships in other professions. It may well be the case if we decided to offer similar scholarships in the areas of pharmacy, nursing, or even teaching. In the past we had a wonderful incentive program called the Commonwealth scholarship program which contained both incentives and penalties. I hope the proposal is not unconstitutional and that there is no `tit for tat' involved in the issue.My good friend the member for Parkes mentioned that this is one of a raft of current proposals to support rural health. I would expect that to be the responsibility of government, whether it be a government comprised of those on this side of the House, the present government or others. When you look at the assessments of some of the programs that the member for Parkes mentioned, for instance the clinical assistantship program, which cost over $200,000 to promote in 1997-98, not one young doctor participated in it. I cannot vouch for those figures at the moment, but I suspect that it did not work as well as people anticipated. The register of medical availability attracted only 25 people, the bulk of whom are not residents or are not currently qualified to practise. The John Flynn scholarships have been in demand, but I believe there is a mismatch between where students want to go and the areas of need. These issues were raised by my colleague the member for Jagajaga yesterday. The rural surgical training program attracted only four new participants in 1999 rather than the 10 that had been planned. So we hope that the government, with its hurry-up mentality, will continue to promote these programs and do everything it can to get medical and health workers into rural and remote Australia.I think it is very important to outline the extent of the existing need. A variety of statistics are available which show that there is a great need in rural and remote Australia in terms of health services. We are talking about medical practitioners at the moment, but we all know that health and social wellbeing are integrated issues and that we need an integrated health care program which involves more than just medical practitioners. It should also involve nurses, psychologists, health workers, counsellors and so forth.I refer to some statistics released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare this year. Compared with the national average of 260 doctors per 100,000 population in 1998, the figure for my home state of Tasmania was 247. The figure for the Northern Territory was 262; Victoria, 258; and New South Wales, 272. The ACT and South Australia had the highest figures, with 310 and 293 respectively, while Queensland and Western Australia had 236 doctors per 100,000 population.In terms of my home state and my electorate of Braddon, which is on the beautiful north-west coast of Tasmania, which includes King Island—and I hope you all have the opportunity to visit us there, particularly those interested in health issues—I have some good news stories to tell about rural health, which is supported presently, and from way back, by Commonwealth funds. You now have an excuse to come and check some of these things. An article in the Australian Journal of Rural Health—and its title is rather apt: `Inequitable Distribution of General Practitioners in Australia'—showed that there is a great need for more rural GPs in my home region of Mersey-Lisle. For instance, in the Mersey-Lisle region, there is a full-time doctor for every 1,300 people. In Circular Head, to the far north-west of my electorate, with a population base of around 8,000 people, there should be at least five, and probably, ideally, six, doctors. At present, there are three. In addition, I am informed that the Smithton Hospital has eight full-time equivalent nursing staff vacancies which are proving very difficult to fill. That is not unique to Tasmania—and I do not wish to make it sound as though there is a massive crisis. For instance, I have read with interest in newspapers throughout the mainland that there are nursing shortages. We know that is going on because we now have state after state trying to attract nurses with greater dollars, greater incentives and so forth. What it is really saying is that it is a bit like some of the other professions—maybe teaching—where we are saying, `It's tough going these days. It's a tough job. It's very rewarding but it's a tough job.' The numbers are not there; the incentives are not there, perhaps, and we have got to do everything we can to get them.I notice that in my electorate there is a difficulty in getting a sufficient number of nurses for our hospitals, so we have got to work hard at that. I note, however, that here in the ACT there is a full-time doctor for every 870 people. This can be compared with the state average in my own state of a full-time GP for every 941 people. I suppose that if I am sick on the job I will have a greater chance of seeing a GP here than I will at Smithton—but that is no reflection on the quality of care that I would receive in Smithton. The Bills Digest points out—and I think this is very significant:In 1998, 60 per cent of general practitioner trainees elected to work in capital cities compared to 31 per cent in rural and regional areas. The turnover of general practitioners in rural areas is also greater—not surprisingly—These trends might be attributed to a number of things—the digest goes on to argue—including the facts that the average number of hours worked by rural practitioners is higher, the proportion of general practitioners on call is lower, and the number of hours on call is higher in rural areas, and there is a higher proportion of small practices in rural areas (with corresponding low profitability).It is important that we state this because, in terms of the scholarship scheme—which I will arrive at—it is not just a question of financial incentives attracting people to rural and remote areas to practise a great profession; it is a widespread social fabric issue and the attraction of wanting to live there. So money incentives, in terms of training and having a position when you leave that training, are important, but it is also where you live. We are, after all, people before we are doctors, and we are people before we are politicians—I hope. The digest goes on to say:Other major factors for physicians' choices—I am sorry if it seems like I am plagiarising this, but it is very well put and it is put much better than I could—against rural practice will include personal background, family and spousal considerations—which are absolutely crucial— professional education/support/practice factors, and community factors.I think the professional education, support and practice factors really are a major key in supporting people in rural practice. That is something I would like to talk about in Tasmania in particular.In terms of the bonded scholarship scheme, many comments have been made on both sides. It is tit for tat about who thought of it first and so forth but the point is that, if you are interested in practising in regional or rural Australia and your heart is set on being a medical practitioner, you would rub your hands together and say, `Terrific. This is something that is going to help me fulfil that dream.' Evidence would suggest that those people most attracted to this idea would not be in it for the loot, because practising in rural Australia is not just in the clinical office; it is where you live, who you live with and how you live. Evidence would suggest that growing up in a rural community and experiencing rural health care as a student are the greatest attraction for people to go into rural health practice and, in particular, to be medical practitioners there.I note that the AMA have said that we have a crisis in rural health in Australia, and they make their points in their various extracts on it. But the one thing that comes out about the bonded scholarship scheme is that perhaps—and I think the word `draconian' was used—it could do with a little bit more flexibility instilled in it. It should be given the old flexibility syringe, so to speak.Maybe those details are a little clearer in the contractual arrangements that people go into. I do not know what they are. I think they have just been released and, unfortunately, maybe I am remiss for not knowing all the details. But I think the common theme that is coming through—even though those on the other side do not say it outright, because they are supporting this measure—is that we need to look at the flexibility of it. Sure, there are occasions when we take into account certain circumstances where people, for whatever reason it may be, are unable to fulfil the continuous side of their obligation. I do not know what happens when people, for various reasons such as maternity or paternity reasons, are unable to fulfil the continuous side of their business. Maybe we should look at some flexibility.I note that we have an amendment to make to this bill. I would ask all those on the other side to look at it fairly and squarely. If we can come to an arrangement where we have that flexibility, I think that will be terrific because, after all, we are talking about providing a service to rural and regional Australia. So I hope we will be able to do that. The questions of unconstitutionality and so forth will be dealt with.What I would like to do is relate to you some of the positive things that are occurring in Tasmania, particularly in relation to the partnership that has been developed between the Tasmanian Department of Health and Family Services and the University of Tasmania with its Department of Rural Health, which was set up in 1997 under the terrific leadership of Judy Walker. I hope those people involved in health, if they have not already met Judy, will meet her in the future. She is a most enthusiastic, effusive, dedicated person. She is dedicated to rural health, and she comes from Penguin, which is in my electorate. I had the privilege and pleasure of teaching her son, who was just as enthusiastic and effusive.The Tasmanian departments have set up this terrific partnership, in essence effectively creating teaching centres throughout Tasmania. So rather than concentrating on one centre, they have a series of them. I think she is looking at the grand plan of 10 or 15. Two of them are already in my electorate—one at Burnie and one at Smithton, which I mentioned earlier. The idea of those teaching centres is to do perhaps three things. The first is to provide support for people in rural practice. I reckon if I was in rural practice that would be fantastic. There would be that incentive for me to say I feel supported collegially and I feel supported in terms of professional development and ongoing training. The actual facility itself and the technology that can go with that facility would be helpful as well. Allied to these are telehealth centres—these telehealth provisions with technology—so I can get collegial support literally down the line. I reckon that would be fantastic and it must be a very positive program. The second thing is to support other health care workers. When you support other people, you generally create this network of collegiality, which means that you talk. In sitting down and talking as professionals, you start to develop an integrated health plan for your region. It comes from the ground up. That is working pretty well, and I think that is a terrific thing.The third thing is to provide a base for young people who are going through medical studies—whatever aspect of health studies it may be—to actually come out to a region, to a centre, and receive training and, at the same time, be able to move out and network in that community. I think that is a terrific idea. If we are talking about putting funds and moneys into rural health then this scheme is to be applauded. We must continue it and expand it, because I think all indications are that it is working pretty well.What I found interesting is a program that lets students become involved in rural health projects. So you can see the city slickers making their way into these rural health and training centres, moving up there amongst some of their country cousins who come down to the universities. And isn't it interesting how the country people start to radiate when they get back home? The city slickers start to say, `What is going on here? This is a healthy looking lifestyle we have around here. They seem to be having fun. They do not need to be down at the pub every day enjoying themselves at the uni bar and so forth.'It is interesting that 20 of these projects have been completed by this rural health scheme. Young trainees come in, form a group and start to work out a health aim for the region. They work on a project, and then they are actually let loose on the community. One of the great things about that is that, no matter how naive or enthusiastic you are, there is nothing better than young people moving amongst the community and the community asking what they are doing there and being told that they are actually there working with the community to help them. I think that is terrific. We will help them, because that is the country way.The trainees have done some terrific projects, and I would like to mention three. They did an emergency care project on the actual outcomes for people with head injuries sustained in road accidents in rural areas. They did a major study of that and tried to work out for the emergency services and the government departments involved if there were any things they could recommend from their study that might assist in the treatment and the avoidance of head injuries in rural areas. It was very interesting. If the trainees came away with anything, it would be to say, `I have been out in the rural areas. I did not know this side of life, and I do not mind it.' What better way to get the taste than to do that?They did an occupational health and safety project—and I am raising these projects because they are relevant to my electorate; that is where they were—on the timber industry. How many people in general practice or seeking to be in general practice would know anything about the timber industry if they did not come from that area? Yet you can get a terrific interest in that type of thing. They made some very sensible recommendations to that business which employed 150 people in my electorate. The recommendations were taken on board and improved that situation.The other project was on assessing rural teenagers' understanding of conception and contraception. No doubt that would have been an interesting survey on its own. Of course rural people need assistance in that area, just like city slickers, and no doubt that was an important program. I do not mean to trivialise it. What I am saying is that these are really positive, integrated health programs for trainees who go out into rural Australia. I think these bonded scholarships will assist that, as long as we get the injection of flexibility. I would ask the government to take on board our amendments in this important area, as proposed by our shadow minister. 10:24:0020966Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSONXT4BallaratLP10—I thank the member for Braddon for his support of the government's initiatives in relation to this matter and, indeed, in relation to other matters. I thank him for his dissertation to the House on issues that face his constituents in the island state of Tasmania. I suspect they are not entirely different from the problems faced by the constituents of the honourable member for Page, who is sitting beside me, or by my constituents in the electorate of Ballarat.The honourable member for Page told me that almost 1,000 people have already expressed interest in the bonded scholarship scheme. I think that is a fair indication of the strong level of commitment from those who want to practise medicine, those who represent regional and rural electorates and from the government to addressing an issue that is significant for many Australians. I do not use the expression `in the bush'—although I know that there are some in Queensland, and perhaps in New South Wales, who do not mind that term. I prefer to use the expression `country Australia' or `country Victoria'.4K6Causley, Ian, MPMr Causley—Because of the size of the state.XT4Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSON—I suspect that probably has something to do with it. My constituents prefer the word `country' whereas I know that the constituents of some honourable members from Queensland do not mind using the word `bush'. Whatever the term—irrespective of how we describe the area—the problem remains the same. This is not only a health issue but a regional development issue regarding access to appropriate GP medical, health and allied services. The fundamental point is that in 2000 all Australians should be able to expect to gain access to reasonable health services.No-one is suggesting that people should have access to a heart specialist within 10 minutes. That is obviously simply not feasible—although some of the measures that we have introduced, and to which I will refer later, will certainly reduce the distance between country people and specialist practitioners. I do not think it is unreasonable for anyone to expect to have easy and quick access to a general practitioner. Yet that has not been—and is still not—a reality for many Australians. The most basic of health services is access to a general practitioner.I noted the contribution of the honourable member for Bradfield. He has an intimate knowledge of this area: he was a practising doctor and head of the AMA and, while in that role, spoke to many of his country colleagues. He outlined some of the more challenging aspects of rural practice. I guess that we were all amused to hear the tale about rural GPs being called out in the middle of the night to see a cow because the farmer claimed that it was cheaper to get a GP than a vet. I assume that that story is true; I have no reason to believe that it is not. While it is amusing, the background to that story is not at all funny for two reasons: first, because it is cheaper to employ the services of a GP than a vet; and, secondly, because the poor GP is being used in the role of a vet. However, that is the life of a country GP: the expectations are enormous. It is a bit like the poor country copper who is expected to play a variety of roles. The country GP is not just a deliverer of medicine and advice but a pivotal part of the community. I know that the honourable member for Braddon—the honourable member for McEwen has now joined us also—is acutely aware of the fact that, if a town can say it has a GP, a great multitude of things will flow from that. This will probably be news to those from the city who read this speech, but regional development is as much about the variety of services offered as about one particular service. It is about things such as having access to a general practitioner. If a family is making a choice about whether to move out of the city to the country, the first question they ask—I ask the honourable member for McEwen, who is a very fine member, to confirm this—is whether medical services are available.JT4Bailey, Fran, MPFran Bailey—Absolutely. It underpins small towns.XT4Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr RONALDSON—It does—it totally underpins them. Look at health in the context of what is happening from a communications point of view. We are seeing quite dramatic increases in the access of country people to the telecommunications advantages that our city cousins have been enjoying for a long time. The Networking the Nation program that the government introduced has been of great assistance with that. We are now seeing access to telecommunications. As honourable members have heard me say before, it should not matter whether you live in Avoca, Ayers Rock or Ashburton—which is a suburb of Melbourne—you should have the ability to access state-of-the-art communications, telecommunications and information technology.We are finally getting some advantages and taking some steps forward and we are narrowing the gap in relation to that access. But that will be meaningless in a regional development sense if we are not able to have those basic health services. If we get the two of them together, we are going to see some very serious growth in country Australia. We will get to the stage in this country where, no matter where you live, you can conduct a business; where you can conduct your business wherever you live in regional Australia not constrained by the cost of telecommunications or by lack of access to telecommunications and information technology. As the honourable member for McEwen said before, if we can underpin that with basic health services we are going to kick some very significant goals. The carrot and the stick have been needed to encourage those health services. We are talking very much about carrots today—about these bonded scholarships and a variety of other areas.The regional health strategy was announced in this year's budget, with $562 million over four years, and it is amazing the impact that has had on country Australians. The significance of the message coming out of Canberra with that was that it was absolutely pivotal to their belief that Canberra actually cares about what happens outside Canberra and what happens in regional Australia. That is not talking in a party political sense. That is talking about a fact of life, that, irrespective of which party it is, there is a very general view that there is a significant lack of understanding of what the real issues are in country Australia. There is an assumption that you can ring up and in 15 minutes a doctor who is on call will be at your home, which is a service provided to metropolitan people. It is simply not there in country Australia. Many country Australians do not have that. That is why that package was so important, because it provided a number of bases for change. It can be broken up into the variety of packages: the strengthening of the rural health professional work force, $102 million to increase the number of GPs in regional Australia, $48.4 million for greater specialist access, $50 million to increase allied health services, $10 million towards supporting GPs who are starting out in a rural career, the establishment of new university departments of rural health, additional funds for the Rural Australian Medical Undergraduate Scholarship Scheme, medical graduates having the opportunity to work off their HECS debt, and the $32.4 million regional health strategy scholarship program that we were talking about before. These are huge changes and of course they have been welcomed, I am pleased to say, by my honourable colleague opposite, the member for Braddon, because they are significant changes. It is not just putting one finger into a 10-hole dyke, because that has never worked, and it certainly cannot work in relation to rural health. It is actually about putting 10 fingers into 10 significant holes that have been sapping the energy out of rural Australia for a long time. It is about putting in place a variety of packages that, although they are stand-alone, are part of the overall picture about where change can be made in the overall service that is provided. And it is about allowing and encouraging specialist health services to go out of those major centres into smaller centres.It is not about having a brain surgeon in every town. None of us expect to have a brain surgeon in every town in Australia. That is not going to happen—we are realists. But we also believe that it is appropriate for a brain surgeon to be visiting country areas at various times. This budget put $10 million into radiotherapy services in Ballarat, Bendigo and Gippsland to stop that appalling sight—I get very upset about this—of people vomiting on the side of the road when they are returning from Geelong or Melbourne to Hamilton, Horsham or Stawell or somewhere because they could not have access to radiotherapy services in country Victoria. It is an absolute disgrace that in the year 2000 that is happening. Fortunately, those services will be up and running, I hope, by early next year.No, we are not putting a radiotherapy service into Ouyen—it is not in my electorate, of course; it is in the member for Mallee's electorate—and we cannot put a radiotherapy service into every small town in Australia either. But we can certainly put those sorts of services into those larger regional towns where (a) it is a lot easier to get to and (b) you will have country people staying in a country town. It is a big deal for someone from country Australia to have to go to Melbourne or Sydney for three, four, five, six, seven or eight weeks or three months while a member of their family is having treatment. It is a big deal: they are uncomfortable; they often do not have that family network in those metropolitan areas. It is a lot easier for them to go to regional centres where they are going to be a lot more comfortable, for starters, and there is a far better chance they will have some support there as well.These budget changes and this legislation are about addressing something that is of enormous concern, not just to my constituents but to country people right throughout Australia. We are not asking for everything, but I think we deserve some basic access to health services and I very much support this bill.10:39:0020968Gerick, Jane, MPMs GERICK83WCanningALP00—I am pleased today to be able to speak on the Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Bill 2000. If it is properly implemented, this bill is going to ensure improved medical access for many rural Australians.Like many members, I have a large rural component in my seat. Today I want to talk about two issues in particular. The first one is that there is a village, Serpentine, about 20 minutes drive from Perth, from my electorate—if you go from the city, it is an hour's drive. Serpentine are very fortunate in that they are classified as both rural and city depending on what government service they are about not to get! If it is a medical service, they come under the metropolitan city board, which means that they have been struggling to get a doctor now for a number of years and cannot do so. When they approached the federal government they were told it was a state issue; when they approached the state government, they were told, `Oh no, you are close to metropolitan services. It is not our place to provide a doctor for you.' So they went to their local council and the local council, quite fairly, said: `Well, we can't provide the infrastructure for a doctor to come. We have a doctor who wants to come to Serpentine, but we can't do that; it is not part of our role.' So we still do not have a doctor in Serpentine. The population in Serpentine is about 2,000. The primary school is full. But Serpentine falls into that category now where it has a lot of older citizens and a lot of kids—two of the groups that need lots of medical services or the potential to need them. As I have already said, there is no doctor in Serpentine. One of the community groups in Armadale, which is 20 minutes drive away—the Armadale Home Help—provides a bus once a week to try and help the Serpentine people, because obviously there is no public transport: when it comes to public transport, Serpentine moves back to the rural component! This means that, if you do not have car, you do not get to go anywhere—you have to rely on your neighbours or the Armadale Home Help group. Those home help groups are facing a lot of problems, because legislation has just gone through in WA which means that volunteer drivers have to pay to get a special licence. So there is a lot of pressure on getting enough volunteer drivers. It seems that it doesn't matter what the rural communities try to do, there is no way that they can get that little bit ahead.The other area that is struggling somewhat is the town of Pinjarra, which is about 1½ hours drive from the city. They have a hospital, but it has been continuously downgraded. The justification of the state government has been, `Well, if you drive to Mandurah',—which is a further 20-minute drive—`you have access to a full hospital.' But the problem is that the South West Highway runs through my electorate and it is, sadly, one of the roads that has the most fatalities in WA—we have lots of road crashes. The emergency services at Murray Hospital have been downgraded, which means that if you have an accident you have to be taken on a further 20-minute drive. We all know that, if you have been in a car accident or any sort of accident, the quicker you get the treatment, the better chance you have of survival and of minimising your injuries. We also have a number of mine sites in my electorate and, unfortunately, mine sites often have accidents as well. So we have been arguing strongly that we need those emergency services. The Shire of Murray does not have the moving backwards and forwards between metropolitan and rural—almost everyone agrees that that is a rural area. But the argument is kept up: `Well, you're really close to the city, so you should be able to manage.' Just keep hanging in there while they keep downgrading our services. A lot of people nowadays want to make that lifestyle choice though: they want to be able to move to Serpentine, Jarrahdale or Pinjarra, which are beautiful communities. But, as previous speakers have said, if you are going to move, you want to make sure that there is a school for your kids to go to, you want to make sure that there is a doctor that you can get to, that there is a hospital within a reasonable distance, that, if there is an accident, you are going to be able to get the care you need. Hopefully, the Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Bill 2000 is going to move some way towards making sure we get those services. If we can get families moving back into these areas, we all know that that is going to be the lifeblood of regional Australia. Regional Australia has been through a really rough time. Those who have lived in the country—I spent the first 12 years of my life in the `real outback', as we called it, not just rural areas—know that if the bank closes you lose the bank manager and a clerk, if the school downgrades you lose a teacher; every person is vital to that community. If we are going to build communities, which is what we all should be about, we should be making sure that the basic services are there. I encourage the government to make sure that they carry through on their promises. There is not much consolation in the short term for the people of Serpentine. We just have to keep fighting and hope that doctors are going to spend the money of their own free will and move down there—but we have to be able to make sure that we can. The other problem that we face in WA is that we have the rather worrying distinction of having had the highest number of medical practices bought out by corporate bodies in Australia last year. The problem is that—as we are faced with frequently—if you are a private enterprise, your sole purpose is to make money, otherwise you would not be tempted into private enterprise. If you move into a rural community, you are not going to have the means to make lots of money. Therefore, those medical bodies are making the obvious choice not to move into regional Australia. That is another area that we need to have a look at and see what incentives we can give for doctors to move out there. I know that a scheme is operating in WA—and, I assume, nationally—where we are giving scholarships to kids from rural areas to get into medical school. One young lad in Pinjarra missed out by one mark on getting into med school last year. The local doctor put in a plea and said, `This kid has grown up in Pinjarra. He will go off and do his med training and he will come back and live here.' And they said, `Pinjarra is only an hour and a half from the city—it is not worth considering.' You get that situation of a kid missing out by one mark, even though he is committed to the country people, he is obviously smart and he has the skills. If we are going to have these schemes, perhaps they should not be quite so arbitrary whereby they decide that one mark or five marks is going to be the cut-off point. Those of us who have lived a country lifestyle know that it is a great lifestyle, and there is always the temptation that you are going to want to go back to it. So we should be encouraging young people to go to the city and get their training and then come back to the country, because there is nothing sadder than seeing your country town die because young people have to move away because there are such limited opportunities there for them. Again, that is an area we need to look at to make sure that people are getting what they need.From personal experience, I know how awful it is when a member of your family has to move away to get treatment for cancer. We went through that when I was fairly young, with my father needing to go away for six months on and off because there was no radiology centre in Geraldton, where I spent my teen years. We need to make sure that, when families go through this trauma—and quite often there is not a happy outcome—they have the support they need and that they can stay together while they are going through that treatment process. Anything we can do to get the treatment centres to regional areas and to make sure that there are support systems there, so that whole families—or as much of the family as possible—can be together, will certainly be a great improvement.It can also happen in cities. Until recently, children on dialysis who lived in Armadale had to catch the train into Royal Perth Hospital, which is about a 25- or 30-minute train ride, so that they could get treatment. We managed to get a dialysis machine, because—by coincidence—the Premier was on a train coming out to a function and he met a woman taking her child in for dialysis. Until then, there had been no realisation that there was no dialysis machine in my electorate. We now have one, so a certain amount of pressure has been removed.If we are going to get doctors into country areas, we all know that they are going to need some sort of support and encouragement because, if you live in a country area, you do not just do your job. We all know that it is a much greater commitment and is part of your life. The average number of hours worked by a country GP are going to be higher. They are going to spend more time on call because they cannot share it. The doctor in the Shire of Murray has not had a holiday for over 18 months because he cannot get anyone to come down and be a locum for him. Doctors can suffer burnout. There is a realisation that, at the end of the day, if you move to the city, you are probably going to make a lot more money, and everybody has to make those considerations as well. I support the government in its goals. I encourage it to work hard to achieve them because, certainly in my electorate of Canning, we need more doctors and we would like them as soon as possible. 10:49:0020971Lindsay, Peter, MPMr LINDSAYHK6HerbertLP10—I would like to thank the House for the opportunity to speak on the Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Bill 2000 today, and I thank the previous speaker, the member for Canning, for her support for the bill. It is certainly something that has been generally widely welcomed across the Australian rural community. The question of doctors in rural areas has been one that has been very close to my heart. Although I represent Australia's largest tropical city—in fact, the twin cities of Townsville and Thuringowa, where we have good medical facilities—it is not too far outside of Townsville and Thuringowa that the problems began to show. All those towns out along the Barkly Highway—starting with Charters Towers and moving to Hughenden, Richmond, Julia Creek, Cloncurry and so on—have had problems in attracting and keeping doctors. In the gulf area—the Mornington Islands, Currumbin, Normanton, Millaa Millaa, Malanda, Atherton and right across rural areas in northern Australia—there have been significant problems in attracting doctors to practise.There has been some opposition to this particular legislation from medicos. I have had some representation from medicos, and I acknowledge that. They are opposed to the bonded nature of these particular positions that are provided for in this bill. They are opposed as a matter of principle. I guess they see that an Australian government—of whatever colour—down the track may make further decisions about bonding or directing doctors where they shall or shall not practise. But that is not what this bill is about. Doctors are free to go where they choose, but if they choose to take up these bonded scholarships when they are young people—or indeed older people—entering medical school, then so be it; it is a free choice. Because it is a free choice—it is not something that is universally applied across the medical profession—I do not think that the current opposition from the Australian Medical Association does have a valid basis in fact.This bill is certainly of interest to me as well in relation to the impact it will have on James Cook University in my electorate. James Cook University has Australia's newest medical school, and it has been a quantum leap forward for James Cook in obtaining that. Part of the government's strategy in allowing the medical school to be established and to fund a medical school at James Cook was the underlying strategy that we see in this bill today: to get building blocks that produce more doctors in rural and regional Australia—and that is a good outcome. In addressing these sorts of things, the philosophy at the James Cook medical school was that doctors trained locally would stay locally and there is a body of evidence that indicates that that actually happens.Incidentally, you will be interested to know that when the James Cook medical school started this year there were 60 places available and, without advertising, the university got over 800 applications for the places. You will also be interested to know that it is an undergraduate school, and that has been widely applauded by the kinds of people that the university wants to attract. Entry is not by what your OP score is; it is not by your academic merit. The university has sought to take people into the course who would make good doctors, and a person who happens to be a fantastic academic does not necessarily make the best doctor. I think we all have had experience with that. So entry was by interview; the 60 places were chosen and filled by a very rigorous interview process, which has developed a very good student body. More than that, there were some places reserved for indigenous students—and what a wonderful outcome, because that is getting indigenous doctors right into the areas where they truly are desperately needed. I think there are about five places reserved for indigenous doctors. The particular students have been outstanding. When they graduate, they will be a great asset to the indigenous people of Australia, particularly those who are in remote areas of Australia—and this initiative is all coming through the new medical school at James Cook University. The scheme that we are considering today encourages students to go into regional Australia and to take up the bonded scholarships. I think that there has been an overwhelming response to the 100 positions that are available. Incidentally—I do not know whether this is public or not—it is very likely, I believe, that James Cook University will get 10 of those positions; I am certainly hoping that that will be the case. I would like to have seen more. I put in a bid for 20 but I think that fell a bit on deaf ears—but you can always try and stand up for your electorate. I think that is the role of all of us who are members in this place.This scheme provides—and I am pleased to see it—the financial support and the ability for those who meet the criteria to embark on a career in medicine. As a return of service, basically, for having that support provided, they will be asked to work in regional and rural Australia. I think that that is a small price to pay for a lifelong career. When a student accepts a bonded scholarship, they will need to enter into a contract with the Commonwealth government. They will be entitled to $20,000 per annum for each year of the medical course, the time frame depending on whether they are on graduate or undergraduate entry. There are some penalties, of course, and so there should be if students do not meet their obligations. Again, the medical profession has said that they are pretty draconian, but I think it has been explained very carefully that we cannot have a situation where students take advantage of this scheme and then do not meet their obligations. Even if, for some reason or other, they cannot meet their obligations, the scheme is not all that draconian because they can still practise in the public hospital system and in other areas—so it is not a matter of these penalties taking away the future job prospects of students who go through the scheme. The scheme allows for, and expects, these new doctors to work in rural areas for six continuous years. Often, when doctors work out in rural areas for that time, they get accustomed to the area and they become part of the community. But a concern that I do have—and it was articulated by the previous speaker—is in relation to burnout. Often these single-practice doctors have an enormous workload and work the hours, dare I say, of members of the federal parliament and are on call all of the time. It may well be that burnout is a factor in how many years people continue to work in rural areas.Dr Wooldridge is to be complimented for introducing this scheme because it certainly does address a very definite need in rural Australia. We are going to deliver the much needed medical practitioners to rural areas and I think that people in rural Australia will certainly be pleased to see this. It is a win-win outcome for Australia, and it is a win-win situation for the majority of scholars who will fulfil their bonds and work in the rural areas. It is a much needed service to rural Australia. I am certainly strongly supporting this. I wanted to speak on this legislation because it certainly does have an impact in my part of the country and it is very pleasing to have the opportunity to be able to support it. I am also very pleased to see that this is non-controversial legislation which is being supported by both sides of the parliament. A little bit more of that would go a long way in making this great country even greater.11:00:0020973Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLEKV5HinklerNP10—The need for more doctors in regional and rural Australia is widely recognised. In this year's budget the federal government unveiled a $562 million regional health strategy, which represents the largest effort by an Australian government to address the historic imbalance between rural and city health. One of the key features in this package was funding to further the training and educational needs of doctors and medical graduates. In total, about $162 million will be spent on a range of medical training and education initiatives. More than $32 million will be spent on 100 new scholarship places, each of $20,000 per annum, to new medical students to undertake their training in return for a commitment to undertake a minimum of six years postgraduate work in country areas. The scheme is known as the Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme, and many of my colleagues have referred to it yesterday and today. This bill sets up the legislative backdrop against which these scholarships will be introduced. It amends the Health Insurance Act 1973 to enable the Commonwealth to restrict access to Medicare benefits for medical practitioners who breach a contract with the Commonwealth to work in rural and remote areas. In essence, the bill will be used to enforce the contracts of medical practitioners participating in the Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme. The scheme will deliver an extra 100 doctors annually to work in rural communities for a six-year period once the first group of students complete their fellowship training.Under the provisions of the bill, the provider number of bonded scholars will be restricted to rural areas for the period of their six years of rural work. Those who break their bond will have to endure a 12-year ban on receiving their Medicare provider number and will be required to repay the scholarship funding with interest. I listened to some of my opposition colleagues yesterday bleating about some of these provisions. We know that there is a tragic shortage of doctors in rural areas. We heard some of them say that the opposition itself proposed a similar scheme in 1998. Then they started to bleat about how draconian these laws were. But let me put this to you: if you get $20,000 a year for six years the total is $120,000—more than the state lottery. If you get that sort of money you should be required to undertake certain obligations. Do we know of any other country in the world that would be silly enough to put that investment into a student and then at the end of the day say, `So you do not want to go to the country; you can go back to Sydney'? Of course we do not.Universities will select the scholarship holders through the normal admission processes so that students will have to apply for the medical rural bonded scholarships through the normal admissions process. These scholarships are in addition to another initiative the government has introduced this year, the Rural Australia Medical Undergraduate Scholarship Scheme. RAMUS provides scholarships of $10,000 a year to students from regional and rural areas of Australia currently enrolled in a medical course. Funds are payable annually to assist scholarship holders with ongoing accommodation, travel and living expenses during the period of study. RAMUS is another component of the government's strategy to boost the number of GPs in the bush and improve access to health services for regional and rural communities. It is about giving country students access to the same opportunities as city students to pursue medical careers. That is not just some mumbo jumbo from the government. There are figures that demonstrate very clearly that we are not getting the same proportion of medical students from country areas.I was recently advised that a former Bundaberg student, Tyson Reeve, has been successful in obtaining one of these RAMUS scholarships, and I would like to congratulate him on his achievement. It is heartening to know that these schemes are benefiting country students and it will be good to hear the feedback at the local level. Almost 400 students a year will benefit from RAMUS, and when you add to that the Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme, you have 500 students a year receiving assistance for their education. I think that is very generous. As these people flow through the six-year system, there will be quite a marked impact in regional and rural areas. In my electorate, Bundaberg and surrounding rural communities suffer from a shortage of general practitioners. Bundaberg is certainly not the end of the earth. Bundaberg is quite a beautiful city, with beautiful facilities and a population of 45,000 people, yet we are seeing a shortage of doctors in a community like that. At the other end of my electorate, in Gladstone, which has a population of nearly 30,000 people, there is a similar problem. It is important not only for the government but also for the medical profession itself that we address this issue.In that regard I would like to take the opportunity to praise the Bundaberg Division of General Practice, which has identified the challenge of attracting and maintaining an adequate practitioner work force as its top priority. I recently attended a meeting with the division and other stakeholders and local government officials to examine these issues. Within the Bundaberg division—which includes the city of Bundaberg and the shires of Burnett, Isis, Miriam Vale, Kolan and Mount Perry—the total GP population is a ratio of one GP to every 1,292 people. In total, there are 22 practices with 70 general practitioners in this wider area. These are concentrated mainly in the city of Bundaberg. There are very few doctors working outside the city. The division states that the ideal GP work force for the region would be to increase the current levels by 12 GPs. If in a city the size of Bundaberg you need another 12 GPs, just imagine how difficult it is in a country town, and it is more difficult again in a rural or remote area.Some of the identified recommendations of the Bundaberg Division of General Practice include developing linkages with local stakeholders—such as councils, employers and government departments—and developing recruiting strategies such as links with universities. I do not think we do quite enough of this. We just take it for granted that these links will occur. There needs to be an active participation from the community to the medical community and from them to the universities to try to concentrate on attracting students. We should be bold enough too to forget state boundaries.This problem is all about getting people to adopt a country lifestyle. I do not know for the life of me why it is that so few young people want to serve in regional and rural areas. I heard some of the opposition say yesterday that it is because people from the capital cities marry these students and they therefore find it easier to make their lifestyle in a capital city. I have heard others say that the problem is the remoteness—for example, the doctors are unable to get upgrades in medical practice and are not able to get to seminars and workshops and the like—and others say that it is because they have no relief. There is an element of truth in all those. Doctors in rural areas tell me the thing they want most is to be able to get relief. Sometimes it is as little as one weekend a month, where they know that for three or four days they do not have any demands. They need to know that they are not going to be rung up in the middle of the night on their day off to come in and deliver a baby or something like that. They do not mind working 28 or 29 days straight, but at the end of that time they need a break. They want to know if they want to upgrade their skills in some form of radiology or obstetrics or something like that that they can get to a workshop or an in-school training facility and have someone cover them in their practices. In some of these country towns, they are the only doctors for 50 and 60 kilometres around.The Bundaberg Division of General Practice has initiated a scheme which will start in February next year where specialists at the local base hospital will train GPs through 20-week clinics funded by the National Health Development Fund. The GPs will receive training in such areas as dermatology, orthopaedics, emergencies, paediatrics, obstetrics, gynaecology and general medicine. The initiative is not about getting GPs to become specialists but to increase the skills of local GPs and to ensure they have a better understanding of the hospital system, the overall health scheme and the skills that they might be called on to use in emergency situations in country towns. The government has moved in a similar direction in terms of linking stakeholders to the announcement that the delivery of education and training for GPs will move towards a regionalised approach over the next 18 months to be overseen by the new Board of General Practice Education and Training. Regionalisation of the delivery of training and making it more contestable will provide a range of key players, with the opportunity to be involved in the development and delivery of vocational training to the medical and associated professions. This draws together the key stakeholders, including the Division of General Practice, new clinical schools being established by the government in regional areas and university departments of rural health. This government has also established the James Cook University Medical School at Townsville at a cost of $10 million and the University of New South Wales Clinical School at Wagga Wagga at a cost of $13.2 million. In addition to this, $117.6 million will be spent establishing nine more clinical schools in rural and regional Australia as well as three new university departments of rural health. That means that for the first time in Australia we will have a rurally focused network of training and positioning of students. On top of these initiatives aimed at improving general practice education and training, the government's regional health strategy will allocate $185 million over four years to provide restructured and more flexible services to support GPs and respond to local community needs. The Regional Health Services Program will expand and 85 new services will be established. This program has been very successful in establishing and maintaining practical, high quality health services like child care, aged care and mental health services in around 100 communities throughout Australia. By 2003, it is expected that there will be more than 250 of these programs.An example of an area that has already benefited from the work of this program and, indeed, that of the Bundaberg Division of General Practice is the Agnes Water community in Queensland in my electorate. The government is currently funding, as a first step in this process, a health and aged care needs analysis. Agnes Water is part of the Miriam Vale Shire and that is the fastest growing shire in Queensland. Not only has it grown in terms of the population of residents; it also has a burgeoning tourist industry. It is relatively isolated in terms of health services, with the nearest hospitals about 90 minutes away in Bundaberg and Gladstone. It is an interesting point that a person 100 kilometres west of Longreach is actually closer to medical services than someone in Agnes Water who is an hour and a half from either Bundaberg or Gladstone. We think sometimes of remoteness as being west of the Great Dividing Range, but often remoteness can be in a coastal environment. Another important part of this regional health strategy has been the strengthening and supporting of the regional health professional work force with incentives for specialists, funding to increase allied health services like podiatry, physiotherapy and other forms of assistance and to try to get those into country areas.Under the RAMUS scheme and under the new scholarship scheme, we have 500 places. If you look at the new university campuses at Townsville and Wagga, the nine new clinical schools and the 250 areas of Australia that will be covered for the first time by the Regional Health Services Program, you start to see a fabric of putting things back into regional and rural areas. We are not going to see the real benefits of this for another five or six years, but the foundation has been laid very thoroughly. We will have these new graduates, some of them bonded under the first scheme and some of them coming under the RAMUS scheme. Some of them will have done their training in places like Townsville or Wagga, found that they liked the rural or regional lifestyle, and decided to marry people and stay in those areas. If we give these young doctors support through ancillary services, so that they know that psychologists, podiatrists, physiotherapists and all the other associated health workers will come through periodically, and if we put that whole fabric together, we will start to genuinely address the problem of regional health. The bill that we are considering today is an integral part of that process. I therefore commend it to the chamber. 11:16:0020976Kelly, De-Anne, MPMrs DE-ANNE KELLYFK6DawsonNP10—The origins of the Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Bill 2000, which gives effect to a major budget initiative, can be traced back to the highly successful regional and rural summit in October last year. In fact, it could be said that the significant boost in the number of medical practitioners has been a major priority for the coalition since it came to office in 1996. Certainly, within my party, the National Party, the desperate need has been spelt out for a very long time.In early February this year, the Prime Minister undertook his listening and learning tour of regional areas. Certainly, the need for improved medical services in these areas was conveyed to him. His promise that there would be no further erosion of these services pointed the way to a major initiative. The Chairperson of the National Rural Health Alliance, Dr Steve Clark, in a media statement dated 6 February, acknowledged that progress was being made. He said:It has been an encouraging four months for rural affairs, from the Regional Summit in late October to the Prime Minister's tour of selected regional areas last week. What is needed now for success is a decade of commitment from the Federal Government, and concerted and collaborative action from the State and Territory Governments as well.Dr Clark, in his February statement, made the point that the words of the Prime Minister's commitment had to be matched by sustained policy and program action and that a decade of commitment to rural affairs was needed, not just a week's. Reflecting now on Dr Clark's statement, it is clear that the government took to heart his concerns. In February he said:The level of commitment will be expensive but if we start investing seriously in non-metropolitan areas and other disadvantaged regions now we will not have to pick up the tab every year in the future through targeted programs to meet serious need. Also, we will have a much more even and fair society, which ought to be a primary goal for all governments.Dr Clark plainly threw out a major challenge to the government. When the budget was presented in May, it was clear that this challenge had been met, and met in full. In fact, Dr Clark issued a statement dated 9 May which began as follows:The National Rural Health Alliance has warmly welcomed the range of initiatives and enhanced programs for rural and regional healthservices announced in Budget 2000. Dr Clark in fact announced in his statement that he had written to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon. John Anderson, and the Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon. Dr Michael Wooldridge, to congratulate the government for the rural and regional health care package. Again, I quote from Dr Clark's May statement:“Three announcements in particular stand out for us. First, the Alliance is delighted that there will be nearly $50 million over four years for allied health professionals and nurses to be available through Divisions of General Practice to help build multi-professional health teams in rural and regional areas. The Alliance has long argued for the Commonwealth to show national leadership on allied health and nursing workforce issues and this is a major step forward ...He continued:“Secondly, we are particularly pleased that there will be three new University Departments of Rural Health and nine Clinical Schools located in rural and regional areas. With these initiatives the health sector, through the Federal Department, is leading the way in re-establishing physical and social infrastructure in country areas. The results will be beneficial to the fabric of country regions in the long-term, as well as to the training and support of health professionals for country areas.” “And thirdly, we welcome the relatively small but significant program to prevent and better manage chronic disease in rural and regional communities. This is a good signal to give, focusing as it does on health promotion and illness management, and recognising that certain chronic diseases (including coronary heart disease, asthma and diabetes) are proportionately more prevalent in country areas.”Dr Clark went on to list the other six programs in the budget 2000 health care package that the National Rural Health Alliance welcomed. Of course, one of those is a program that is going to be delivered through this bill. The National Rural Health Alliance is no lightweight body, nor is it some sort of general apologist or defender of the government. It comprises 22 organisations—all of which are national bodies in their own right or are the rural special interest groups of national bodies. The alliance includes organisations such as the Association of Australian Rural Nurses, the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia, the Australian Council for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Rural Pharmacists Australia, the Country Women's Association and ATSIC—the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. It covers a broad field of those concerned about medical services in rural and regional areas. It is extraordinary that they should all unanimously endorse the budget 2000 package, and that reflects great credit on the government.In this bill we will see each year 100 new medical students who will receive $20,000 annually to study medicine on the condition that they agree to work in a rural community for six years once they have completed their basic medical training and GP or specialist fellowship. It is a long-term strategy and it recognises the principle of mutual obligation. It is entirely fair and reasonable that students, as my colleague the member for Hinkler has said, who receive somewhere in the order of $120,000 should recognise their obligation to the community, particularly those who are most disadvantaged in Australia with regard to medical services. There are penalties for breaches of this obligation, although, of course, the minister has the right to waive such penalties in exceptional circumstances.This scheme neatly dovetails with the government's other regional and rural health initiatives, including the Rural Australian Medical Undergraduate Scholarship Scheme and the establishment, as we have said, of the nine new clinical schools in regional and rural areas and the additional university departments of rural health. There has been a call for the scheme and the bonded scholarships to start virtually immediately. The Minister for Health and Aged Care, I think, quite rightly has noted that this would merely result in an inundation in rural and regional areas of barely qualified doctors. The minister is right when he says that rural Australia deserves better and the government would be negligent if under this scheme it permitted doctors to practise in a rural area before they obtained their fellowship. Under this scheme, the doctors that go to rural and regional areas will be fully trained and qualified to work unsupervised, and that is the way it should be.The demands of a rural practice, as I know from many of my doctors, are extraordinary. They could be delivering a baby one minute and then the next they could be racing out to a severe car accident because they are the only doctor in the area. They have to be an anaesthetist, a surgeon and an obstetrician. Their skills go right across the spectrum of medical practice. As my colleague the member for Hinkler said, the greatest impost upon them is often the lack of relief. I can recall last Christmas one of my doctors in Proserpine ringing and saying that he had been trying to get assistance in his practice, a locum, for 12 years. That is a long time. He was hoping to go away to the beach for two weeks with his children over Christmas, but because he had been unsuccessful in getting assistance in his practice, he would have to forgo the beach holiday with his children. He was understandably very upset, as we all would be. I shared the distress and the weariness that was obviously his lot. If in some small measure this bill goes towards providing backup for those doctors that work so hard in small country towns and regional centres, then I think the government will have done a very fine thing, not only for the doctors in those towns but for their patients as well. I would like to dwell for a moment on the statistics that reveal the low standard of service in rural and regional Australia, despite the enormous commitment by the doctors who currently work in those areas. I will quote from the report of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on rural health that assessed the standard of service in various areas of Australia in 1996. Frankly, the record is appalling and unforgivable. In 1996 almost double the number of medical practitioners provided services in capital cities per head of population compared with other areas. The study states:The supply of primary care practitioners per head of population falls sharply in rural areas. In large rural centres, the supply rate was 13% below that of capital cities, whereas small rural centres and other rural areas had supply rates 23% and 35% respectively less than capital cities. Distances travelled to visit practitioners in the more sparsely settled areas may add further to the rural and remote zone disadvantage.In the critical area of medical specialists, the study concluded:In 1996, the number of specialists per head of population was fairly similar in the metropolitan zone and large rural centres but substantially lower in small rural centres, other rural centres and the remote zone. Compared with capital cities, small rural centres have less than half the supply per capita of specialists. Other rural areas and the remote zone have less than 10% of the number of specialists per capita in capital cities.The report continues:Of all specialists, surgeons have the highest numbers per capita practising in rural and remote zones. However, the supply of surgeons in small rural centres, other rural centres and the remote zone was still only 59%, 11% and 17% of the corresponding supply in capital cities. Those cold, hard statistics reveal the legacy of total disinterest in rural and regional health care and abject neglect of this responsibility by the previous government. Research compiled for the National Health Labour Taskforce by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, entitled Medical labour force 1998, made some other deductions about the distribution of medical practitioners nationally. In 1998 there were 7,757 medical practitioners working in their main job in rural and remote areas—or 15.6 per cent of all medical practitioners. This contrasted with the overall population distribution of 28.7 per cent living in rural and remote areas in 1998. There were 143.6 practising medical practitioners per 100,000 people employed in their main job in rural and remote areas compared with 142.8 in 1996 and 144 in 1997. This compares with 306.3 per 100,000 people in capital cities and other metropolitan areas in 1998—almost double the number—and 306.2 per 100,000 in 1997 and 308.2 per 100,000 in 1996. While these figures are undeniably depressing, the report revealed a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. It went on to say:It is expected that in time an increase in the proportion of medical students with a rural background will result in an increase in the proportion of Australian medical graduates willing to practice in rural areas. In 1999, 11.9% of students commencing initial medical degrees were from rural and remote areas compared with 9.5% to 11.6% for the nine-year period from 1989 to 1997 and 13.3% in 1998. The figures are certainly moving in an encouraging upward trend, although there is still a great deal to be done. This study and that quoted expectation were made well before the government announced its trailblazing regional and rural health care package in budget 2000.I could not conclude without mentioning the Townsville medical school at James Cook University. It is going to train predominantly young people from rural and regional areas. The expectation is that, having trained in a regional setting, those doctors will opt to work in a rural and regional setting. As my colleague the member for Hinkler has said, the difficulty with young medical students is that they have a long period of training. They meet their future partner in the city, and generally that partner is a city based professional as well so they stay in the city. So there is a difficulty, for family reasons, in moving to rural and regional areas. However, if one trains in a rural and regional area in North Queensland, the likelihood is that many of them will opt to work in a rural and regional area. A young lady from our area, Ms Mather from Mackay, has been successful in gaining entry to James Cook University. She lives at The Leap, north of Mackay, and we are all very proud that a young rural person is going to go through JCU in its first intake of medical students.I have to pay tribute to Peter Lindsay, the member for Herbert, who, against the sandstone universities in the south, put in an enormous effort to get this medical school. I think it is going to make a great difference for us in North Queensland. He has worked extraordinarily hard to wrest the student numbers from the sandstone universities in the south and make this a reality. We are all pleased to support him, but credit has to go to the member for Herbert, bearing in mind that this has been spoken about by successive governments since 1975. It is a tremendous achievement, and I am so pleased that I was a member of parliament when we saw a medical school go up in the north where it is so badly needed.To return to the bill, the government in introducing this measure has offered 100 young Australians each year the chance to train as doctors in return for what is a very reasonable six-year service in a designated rural and regional area. I hope to see some of those young graduates in time in the mighty seat of Dawson, as I do in other rural and regional centres around Australia. It is part of the ongoing addressing of concerns of those who live in the rural and regional areas of Australia, and it underscores the coalition's commitment to those living in those areas. I commend the bill to the House.01:00:0020979Hull, Kay, MPMrs HULL83ORiverinaNP10—It gives me great pleasure to be here to support the Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Bill 2000. This bill has the qualities that rural Australians need in order to address the shortage of rural medical practitioners. I applaud Minister Wooldridge for his action in assisting rural, regional and remote Australians to access the health care that they are entitled to. The decline in rural health did not happen overnight; it happened over the last 20 years. I am very proud to stand here as a member of a government that has been vigilant in its efforts to arrest that decline and decidedly, determinedly, improve the standards of health for rural Australians. As the member for Bradfield reported in his address on the bill, the life of a country medical practitioner is difficult, with long hours and little time to spend with their families. These medical practitioners face isolation from assistance in diagnosing illnesses, and they face isolation from access to high technology diagnostic services to assist them in their decision making process on their patient's care. Generally, a country doctor must be equipped to handle a range of duties which may arise day or night. This must indeed be a daunting thought for those practitioners who are considering locating to rural, regional or remote Australia.Having said that, I would now like to take time to record some of the thoughts of new practitioners in the Murrumbidgee Division of General Practice in my electorate of Riverina. Direct from The Pulse, the newsletter of the Murrumbidgee Division of General Practice, I quote the following comments of the new recruits on being asked the question, `How are you finding working in the Murrumbidgee area?' Dr Nick Dreyer said, `Very fulfilling. It's very busy with very good support from the division.' Dr Pirooz Poursoltan indicated it was very good. He was enjoying it and getting busier all the time. Dr Ashraf Moursi said, `I love it.' A division having been called in the House of Representatives—Sitting suspended from 11.35 a.m. to 11.46 a.m.83OHull, Kay, MPMrs HULL—Before the suspension, I was quoting the comments of the new recruits on being asked how they liked working in the Murrumbidgee area. The quote from Dr Karin Jodlowski-Tan said that she was busy and `had good collegial support from doctors in the region'. Dr Martin Jodlowski-Tan said that he had a `heavy workload' with `very little spare time', and Dr Charles Lew said that he was `busy on and off' but `it will be good when theatre in Finley finally opens'. Then you have specialists, such as a fine friend of mine Gerard Carroll. Gerard is a consultant physician cardiologist who has devoted his enormous reserve of energy and enthusiasm to delivering an equity of care for the people of the Riverina. I am so fortunate and proud to have the services of Dr Carroll in my electorate. He is constantly seeking ways of improving our system. At the moment he has devoted himself, in his very limited spare moments, to ensuring that we have a radiotherapy unit in Wagga Wagga that will service areas of Hume, Farrer and Riverina. The one thing in common for all of these practitioners is that I am sure they would all agree that being a citizen of rural, regional and remote Australia is a rewarding and fulfilling experience.The Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Bill 2000, though carrot and stick in nature, will encourage recent graduates to spend time in rural Australia and, hopefully, after spending their six years there, they will make rural and regional areas their home. I am sure members are aware of the limited access rural people have to adequate medical facilities. However, our communities have spirit and commitment—for example, look at the communities around the Riverina. On 18 August 1999, we held a public meeting to determine whether the communities wanted to raise the funds necessary to build a radiotherapy unit that would service our residents. The meeting determined that we would raise the $3 million required to build this unit. Every village, town and city in the region has raised money for this appeal, and that spirit has now attracted the amount of $2.7 million to its trust. We are awaiting the building works, with a possible opening early in the year 2001. This is what practitioners experience in country areas: a generosity beyond belief from those who can least afford it but who will give it anyhow. Is it any wonder that I am always a proud and parochial member for Riverina? How could I not be? According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the estimates of the number of general practice consultations per capita certainly decline with remoteness. Those estimates support the fact that medical access is a problem in country Australia. Even in Wagga Wagga, the largest inland city in New South Wales, we have a ratio of 2,700 patients to every one doctor.In supporting this bill I can see the potential in expanding the medical rural bonded scheme into other areas of the health professions. Along with the shortages of medical practitioners, there are also chronic shortages of nurses and other allied health professionals. Nurses in country areas have an incredible workload and a significant amount of responsibility over and above that of their city counterparts. Mostly the hospitals that they work in have very few of the ancillary benefits of lifting equipment and patient care assistance. The workload is heavy and painstaking, and they often have very little access to support staff, as the shortages are widespread. Many country hospitals have had to close down wards with as many as 10 urgently needed beds, simply because they have no available nursing staff. Health services are constantly advertising for nurses. However, until we begin to provide benefits for young men and women to train in this admirable profession it will suffer even further decline. The nursing profession must get the credit due to it. I urge the Minister for Health and Aged Care to continue his excellent leadership in the delivery of rural health and to continue his efforts in the critical area of nursing as well. I am sure the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs will see the very valuable role that he could play in assisting the delivery of fully trained nurses back into rural, regional and remote Australia.Mental health and social welfare graduates could also benefit from such a program. We are all well aware that suicide rates in regional, rural, and remote Australia have increased dramatically in recent years. A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia has indicated that male suicide rates trebled, increasing by up to twelvefold in towns with fewer than 4,000 people. If, at a later stage, this bill or its associated scholarship scheme could encompass other health professionals then we would be well under way to even further improving the mental and physical health facilities in rural Australia.In addition, it may become prudent to offer funding to established rural health professions so that they may be able to take on interns in rural areas. I particularly draw attention to rural psychology graduates who must undertake a two-year internship under a qualified psychologist before they are allowed to operate their own practice. A number of students, on completing their four years studying, are unable to find the necessary supervision to complete their training in rural areas. This means that many are forced to leave rural areas to train in cities with a strong risk that they may not return.However, I would like to also highlight some successes in the rural health sector and the ways that this health insurance bill could complement existing training programs. The Greater Murray Clinical School, under the directorship of Professor Mohamed Khadra, is making an outstanding contribution to clinical training in rural areas. The aim of the clinical school is to provide diversified educational offerings in rural health and medical practice and it will play an important role in assisting to deal with the recruitment and retention of medical practitioners to work in rural and remote areas of Australia. The Greater Murray Clinical School is developing curriculum for medical students which is specific to rural settings yet is still equivalent in standard to urban clinical schools. They are active in enlisting the local medical community to become teachers in this new curriculum.The Greater Murray Clinical School develops support and infrastructure for learning and research at all levels so that there is a specific culture and habit for these activities. A key feature in the learning programs is its patient scenarios which are predetermined by teaching physicians. A student is introduced to the consenting learning patient and will follow them through the health system. The students will go to various appointments with each of their patients. Students keep a learning diary of this experience. If the patient should have to undergo surgery, then the student will be in the theatre, will follow the patient recovery in the ward and will then make home visits to the patient's living environment. This hands-on experience will enable the student to understand first-hand the differences in the recovery needs of a rural farmer, for instance, who has undergone perhaps a hernia operation. This patient will have differing needs from one that may be from the city with daily access to a doctor's surgery, a desk job and little travelling. The farmer may have to be on his feet quickly, tend to heavy lifting and physical workload, need to travel on rough roads in a four-wheel drive, open and close countless gates, and be anything up to 12 hours drive to the nearest doctor. Recently, in a small town on the outskirts of Wagga Wagga, a young farmer had his arm ripped off, severed in an auger accident. He was on his own out in the fields and he had to get into a four-wheel drive, drive many kilometres and get out and open and close many gates—as we all know the consequences of leaving the gate open. To a farmer, losing the herd is as bad as, or worse than, losing his arm. All of this he did whilst carrying his severed arm. This aspect of understanding rural life is being addressed by the clinical school by organising a number of excursions during the teaching term to highlight specific aspects of the rural experience.The Greater Murray Clinical School is set to make a real difference in the short and long term for the recruitment and retention of health care workers in the country. In the short term the very presence of the Greater Murray Clinical School has influenced the decision of four doctors in the last 12 months alone to relocate to the area to practise. Through such learning programs the clinical school hopes to produce doctors who are sensitive to, and caring and understanding of, the needs of rural patients. The programs, because they are set in rural context, illustrate the difficulties of practising in rural areas and instruct on methods to best deal with a rural or regional practice.In the long term, the clinical school will train a large number of doctors who have spent their clinical years in rural and regional areas. We owe this to the dedication and commitment of the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Dr Michael Wooldridge, and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services, John Anderson. It was through their commitment and vision that this coalition government funded the Greater Murray Clinical School in Wagga Wagga. I give them my sincere thanks on behalf of all rural and regional people across Australia. This is just the beginning. Because of the success of the Greater Murray Clinical School, the 2000-01 budget saw the commitment to another nine of these clinical schools in rural and regional Australia. It is in the long term that I see the health insurance amendment bill working hand in hand with the programs and teaching strategies of the Greater Murray Clinical School. With the allocation of scholarships to medical students supported by the bill's legislative framework to enforce the bond, coupled with the opportunity to study at the clinical school, I believe we are moving in a positive direction in overcoming the shortage of health professionals in rural and regional Australia. I commend the minister and the bill and offer it my wholehearted support.11:56:0020982Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—in reply—I thank honourable members for their contribution to the debate on this important piece of legislation, the Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practititioners) Bill 2000. I will make some general comments first and then I will make some specific comments about the matters raised in the legislation. The need to get more doctors into rural areas is widely recognised. Many communities have identified having a local doctor as just about the highest possible thing on their list of health priorities. The scholarships will provide $20,000 a year to medical students in exchange for an undertaking to work in a rural and remote area. Those awarded a medical rural bonded scholarship will be contributing to meeting the health needs of rural Australia. By the end of their six years of rural practice, doctors will have gained an understanding of their local community and developed valued skills in rural medicine. It is expected this will provide a solid grounding for any future career direction.The legislation to underpin the bonded scholarship scheme is necessary and sensible. It protects the medical students as well as the Commonwealth. It ensures that all parties know and understand the extent of their obligations from the beginning and that the goalposts cannot be moved. Should a scholar breach the contract of the Commonwealth then they will be required to repay their scholarship with interest and there will be a ban of up to 12 years on practising in urban Australia with a Medicare provider number. The point of this scheme is to add 100 doctors annually to an area of work force shortage—and that is country Australia. The ban provision is to ensure that extra doctors do not end up adding to areas of work force oversupply; that is, practising in urban areas. It would completely undermine the Commonwealth's intention if this were to happen. I will talk about this a bit more because this is a novel idea and the central underpinning of this proposal. Previous proposals for a bonded scholarship, such as the one proposed by the Australian Medical Association and taken up by the Labor Party in their 1998 election platform, were completely unworkable. It is foolish to think that a bond of $120,000 is going to be sufficient to make someone go to the country if they decide they wish to do cardiology and receive $500,000 to $600,000 a year practising in the city once they finish their medical training. Some medical specialists can earn enormous remuneration by community standards and it is reasonable to think a great number of these people taking the scholarships may be tempted to in fact break them if the penalty is simply a financial one. We are not saying that people who take these scholarships need to be general practitioners. Country Australia needs all sorts of doctors. Just about any medical specialty can be practised in regional Australia; probably the only exceptions are neurosurgery and cardiac surgery. But just about any other discipline of surgery and any discipline of medicine, imaging or other areas is actually in undersupply in regional areas.The other point about this scheme that is unusual and novel is that we are actually providing additional places in medical school. The number of medical students in fully funded places will go up from about 1,200 to 1,300 next year. We are saying to a young person, `You can take one of these scholarships and you will get a place in medical school that you would not have otherwise been entitled to.' That is an enormous prize. In return for that, we are going to take those 100 people from people who are committed to practising in country Australia.In my experience, a lot of people who apply for this will probably not be straight out of school. I meet many young people in their late 20s in country areas who are working as nurses or pharmacists or in other areas who say to me, `I would love to do medicine. I am committed to this community. I would come back to rural Australia. There is no mechanism for me to get into medicine.' Having discussed this recently with the deans of medicine, we believe such a process is workable. Medical schools will have their normal intake and then an additional intake on top of that.Despite the ban, if a student finds they simply cannot or are unable to work in a rural area, there is a way out. They can repay the money, with interest, and they can work as a doctor. We are not stopping them from being registered. They can work in a public hospital, in education or in biomedical research. So there are many options that they could still undertake. All we are saying is that you cannot go into clinical practice in a city when you have promised to go to the country. There will be some people, a few very bright young people, who might choose to go into biomedical research. I would not want to stop them from doing that. Australia needs young doctors in biomedical research and, under such legislation, if they paid back their bond, there would be nothing stopping them from doing that.The penalties, I believe, are not harsh. All we are doing is asking people to fulfil the obligations that they contracted to do in order to get a place in medical school that they would not have otherwise got and that would have been taken by another person who was prepared to give a commitment to rural Australia. If a scholar breaches, the debt they have accrued would not be for six years from the point of breach. The interest would be calculated only from the point of breach itself, and so the scholar would not be forced to repay the debt if their study turned out to be in another area. The contract provides for the minister to defer the obligation to work in a rural or remote area. This is sensible, as some people will want to have children and some people will have an extended period of illness. So there is the capacity for people to have a life, but not to have a life and break the very serious obligation they have given to help us in country Australia. The conditions of the scholarship will be made very clear to applicants. They will be counselled beforehand and, in an informed way, they will be signing a contract.I have to say that there has been an extraordinary amount of interest. In the first three weeks after we announced this, we received over 1,000 inquiries. Given that there are only 100 places, we suspect there is going to be an enormous demand for these places. It is not our intention to implement a scheme that is onerous and unsustainable. The scholarship scheme is a very significant initiative, and I think it will end up achieving its aim. It will take a long time. I fully concede that. If you look at the range of measures in this year's budget, there were some short-term measures, medium-term measures and long-term measures. This is one of the long-term measures. I wish one of my predecessors had done it 10 years ago. I would not have the difficulties I am having today had that happened. The scheme provides very generous financial incentives. That is quite reasonable because, in the end, the outcome is one that is very important to the Australian community.I have a few words to say on some of the comments that have been made during this debate. The shadow minister quoted at length from a number of people who have an interest in this area and who have been critical of it. You would expect the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Medical Students Association, which is funded by the AMA, to be critical of this. There is a small element in the medical profession that believes it is an imposition on doctors to tell them to do anything whatsoever. I am very surprised that the Labor Party should be listening to this or giving it any credence. I certainly do not.Let me point to some specific things. I am pleased that the shadow minister thinks she can take credit for the scheme but had we done in 1998 what Labor had proposed, which was just a straight lift from the Australian Medical Association's policy, it would have been a complete flop. It was not about providing additional places in medical school and it was not about providing a hook by the way of enforcement through a Medicare provider number to actually get people to undertake their obligations. Those were things that have not been thought of previously in Australia and that make this an enormously different scheme. I know the shadow minister is calling this a backflip by the government, and I can understand that. She more than anyone should know about backflips, given her recent humiliation on the 30 per cent rebate.The shadow minister has quoted some statements made by the Australian Medical Students Association, and I think I should put on the record a counter to these quite erroneous allegations. She says I have completely failed to win the support of the profession for this version of the bonded scholarship scheme. I have completely failed to win support of the AMA, and that probably tells me I have got it right. But that is not the case with the 11 deans of medicine around Australia who, I think, are a more significant, important and relevant interest group in this. They are cooperating with the government, even though some of them have some real reservations about the nature of selection and entry. I very much thank them for their willingness to work with the government to try to sort this out. It has not been easy for some of them—I understand that and I appreciate it. The shadow minister has quoted some statements made by the Australian Medical Students Association. I remember what it was like to be a medical student, so I do not want to be too critical of them. I can understand some of their concerns. They are certainly having these concerns fed and whipped up by others quite mischievously, I believe, and quite without foundation.The first comment is that it forces someone to be certain of their career when they are 16. I am sorry, but that is just ridiculous. I was not like that. I did not get into medicine at 16; I got in as a mature age student. As I have said previously, I think a lot of people who will be attracted to this will be people in their early to late 20s who have done another allied health career. The only thing they have to be certain of is that they are committed to country Australia, and I have met many young people who are so committed.The second comment from the Australian Medical Students Association, via the Labor Party, is that this scheme carries with it punitive measures, by denying a student a provider number. I do not concede at all that it is punitive. There are a lot of things you can do in medicine without actually billing Medicare in capital cities. I am an example of one of them, having chosen another career. There are doctors in journalism and, as I have said previously, you can practise in a public hospital, in a health clinic and in a variety of salaried jobs in biomedical research and education. All of these things can be done without a Medicare provider number. All of these things provide a very useful benefit to the community and, in many cases, a much more useful benefit than practising clinical medicine in an oversupplied area. There is no punishment whatsoever if someone merely undertakes to carry out what they are contracted to do in getting a place in medicine they would not have gotten otherwise.The third comment is that we are probably awarding scholarships to those students who would practise in rural areas anyway. This is not accurate. That would have been accurate if we had followed what the Labor Party proposed in 1998 and offered it to existing medical students. But the key to this is giving new places, additional places, over and above the normal medical student selection. Given that, you will get the normal students that you would have into medicine through the normal intake and then you will get your 100 additional students. So it is quite different. We have thought of that and they are just not accurate on that.The fourth comment implies that a lucrative pecuniary incentive is required to attract medical students. This could not be further from the truth. Kids coming from the country actually do have higher costs. We believe the majority of people under this scheme will come from the country areas, and this is meeting some of their higher costs that have not been recognised previously.Finally, there is the argument that it is potentially deleterious to students continuing education after postgraduate training, given that the bulk of this occurs in urban areas. The logical implication of that is that you can really only practise in a city after your postgraduate training. Clearly, that is absolutely absurd.The shadow minister asks a few questions that I am happy to try to answer. She says these might be called `Wooldridge contracts'. I am absolutely delighted with that, and I would be happy if every one of these additional 100 doctors a year were also called a `Wooldridge doctor', because I am about trying to deliver for country people. She asks about how it would interact with existing scholarships—the RAMUS scholarships-HECS remission arrangements. These would be complementary in a sense. We would not expect anyone applying for this to get a RAMUS scholarship. They would not be additive in that sense. The HECS remission arrangements are an additional shorter- to medium-term proposal, whereas this is a long-term proposal. So they are separate, and they target different people. The shadow minister also legitimately asks what will happen if someone wishes to take time off to have a family. Being a medical doctor myself, I understand that more than 50 per cent of people who go through med school are women and some of them will want to have a family before 33 years of age. There is the capacity here to defer once you have started your six years but not a capacity to get out of it. If someone wishes to defer a period of their six years because they want to take a year or two off to have kids, there is no difficulty with that at all. The contract allows for that. The second thing is what would happen in the case of serious illness. There would be a capacity for ministerial discretion in the case of serious illness. It would have to be pretty serious though. We want to be sensible and compassionate. If either the person concerned or a member of their immediate family contracted an illness that could only be treated in an urban area, that would be legitimate grounds to not serve out the period of the bond. But this is going to be extraordinarily unusual; it is not likely to happen once a year. It does not need a large and unwieldy bureaucratic structure to decide something on compassionate grounds. As Minister for Health, I do this all the time with medical treatment overseas and the special programs that we already have for treatment of leukaemia. I have significant discretion on compassionate grounds across a variety of areas. The shadow minister, if she is ever lucky enough to have the position I occupy, will find that she exercises that discretion as well. This is no different from that, and any minister could be expected to deal with that sensibly and humanely.The Health Insurance Amendment (Rural and Remote Area Medical Practitioners) Bill 2000 is a bill for rural Australia. It is an innovative idea. It has not been tried anywhere else in the world; it has not been thought of anywhere else in the world. We are proud of it, we think it is going to make an enormous difference and we think that particuarly those in the medical profession who are speaking against it are doing so out of self-interest. Country Australia is going to be very grateful in 10 years time that we made the effort to do this.Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.Bills20986R97020986Debate resumed from 8 December 1999, on motion by Mr Williams:That the bill be now read a second time.12:13:0020986McClelland, Robert, MPMr McCLELLANDJK6BartonALP00—I would like to move a second reading amendment which sets out the position of the opposition. I move:That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the Bill a second reading, the House condemns the government for: (a) not proceeding with the NVE classification; and (b) delaying the implementation of classification reform restricting the availability of violent and demeaning material currently permitted within the X classification”.The bill was listed for debate in this chamber on 8 March; indeed, the opposition was ready to agree to its passage, as we are today, but it was withdrawn after a series of intriguing events, including the display one evening during that week in March of some pornographic video material in one of the rooms within this parliament, including the viewing of a video which had been regarded as being unfit for classification in New South Wales and which had no record of being classified in any other state. Indeed, despite inquiry as to where the outlet marketing this video may have been, there was no evidence of any outlet selling this video. So how this illegal video came into the hands of government members is intriguing, to say the least. In any event, the display of these videos apparently caused some backlash within the government and caused a protest, not about the substance of the legislation, but about the use of the term `NVE' or `non-violent erotica' instead of the X classification. Surely, we as legislators have to look at substance, not simply at labels, particularly when you realise that the classification scheme in this country exists as a cooperative scheme. It is a scheme involving all relevant ministers from the Commonwealth, the states and the territories. Obviously, there is considerable public interest in the existence of that scheme. It is futile, for instance, to have inconsistent classification regimes applying around the country. It would simply mean that people would transport across borders to get hold of material that had been classified differently in different states. While it is appropriate for politicians to be involved in taking note of community concerns, when we start getting into judging the material rather than having an independent tribunal judge the material, we are at risk of overstepping the mark in terms of separation of powers.Coming back to the substance of the cooperative scheme that exists between the Commonwealth and the states, under the scheme, any changes to classification categories must have unanimous agreement. Indeed, the changes to the classification categories contained in this bill have been worked on for over three years at the Commonwealth and state level. A lot of work has gone into it and there has been a lot of goodwill to reach that unanimous position. So the bill that we are considering now, because the government has not yet moved its amendment, contains this NVE classification to replace the X classification. The advantage of the replacement of the X classification is that it will remove offensive and belittling material. The bill talks about material of a fetish nature, any depiction of violence whatsoever, the use of sexually aggressive language and, perhaps of more concern regarding this material, the portrayal of persons over 18 years of age as minors. Clearly, that sort of material is undesirable. I think the feedback we will all get from our electorates will be to that effect. The bill that is before the Main Committee removes that from the classification, and it has the full support of the opposition.On 30 May 2000, the Attorney-General, according to media reports, after being requested to do so by the Prime Minister, withdrew the bill and unilaterally announced that he was abandoning the NVE classification. This is despite the fact that the scheme operates in a cooperative fashion around the nation, as I have said, involving all states and territories. The fact that mere labelling was being relied upon to threaten the goodwill that has existed in the scheme was tremendously short-sighted.As it has turned out, in the course of events the state and territory attorneys-general have agreed to the amendments that the government has proposed. In other words, they have said, `Why make a drama of this? Surely the substance is to remove that offensive and belittling material from the classifications. If it is a question of labels, we are not going to get up on soapboxes as some people have wanted to do. We are all about getting the substance of the bill through.' That is the position that the opposition takes.The point I want to make is that surely we, as legislators, have to look at substance rather than at opportunities to get up on our soapboxes. In any event, what is going to be proposed in the government's amendments—which we will ultimately support because of the issues of substance—will involve the abandonment of the non-violent erotica video classification. While that is disappointing, as I have said, we are prepared to agree to that, given the previous agreement. Australia's system of classification depends on this national approach, agreed to by the federal government in consultation with the censorship ministers from each state, and it requires Commonwealth legislation to be backed up by changes to the laws of each state and territory. To unilaterally proclaim a position in the context where this legislative backup had to take place was, with respect, quite arrogant and offensive to those states and territories that have cooperated.The Attorney-General's unilateral decision to shelve the NVE classification and then present that decision to the state and territory censorship ministers as a fait accompli can only be regarded as placing at risk the integrity of the national approach that we have. It is more the action of a bungling, incompetent and insecure government that has been captured by people wanting to get up on soapboxes than the action of a government which is more concerned about getting the substance of the job done in consultation and in cooperation with the states and territories. Once again, dogma and ignorance prevailed over balance and reason in this matter.In any event, as I said, in early July the state and territory governments agreed to these further changes. I believe it was fortunate for the government that that meeting took the cooperative spirit that has prevailed in the state and territory governments in respect of this issue and that objection was not raised. While the government's handling of this issue has been incompetent, Labor will not oppose the amendments that the government will move to retain the current X classification. It will have that offensive and belittling material removed, and the opposition fully supports this.The bill contains a number of other minor amendments, including the expansion of the current range of films exempt from classification—typically those with a limited market and those on specialist subjects. It will also allow for the revocation of classifications for interactive films or computer games that contain material not brought to the attention of the censors in the initial review. The opposition fully supports that, as it does the streamlining of the classification process by allowing the Office of Film and Literature Classification to issue and revoke serial classifications for certain publications.The amendments will also include an expansion in the range of persons and organisations that may be considered as persons aggrieved for the purpose of challenging a decision. The proposed provision will also allow organisations or persons with a particular prior interest and involvement in the contentious aspects of the subject matter to seek a review of the film. This is the first time the act has been substantially amended since it was enacted in 1995. The opposition fully supports the need to review important pieces of legislation such as this to ensure that any loopholes are closed and that it continues to reflect community norms and values.In conclusion, there are a couple of points I would like to make on the importance of the independence of the Office of Film and Literature Classification. I think most people in Australia would agree that our classification system has functioned relatively well. I think that is because we have an independent office in the Office of Film and Literature Classification.It is important to realise that, while most of the sensationalism regarding classifications has been in the area of sexually explicit material, the board also performs a valuable role for parents in identifying material that is or is not appropriate for children of particular ages. It also has a range of other important public interest responsibilities. In 1998 community panels conducted a survey by examining classifications against what they perceived to be community norms. It is refreshing to note that the panels found that the classifications were substantially consistent with those norms. I understand that reports regarding similar surveys in Perth, Adelaide and regional Victoria will be released soon. Last year the OFLC was severely short-staffed. At 30 June last year, there were only six permanent classifiers—which was nowhere near the statutory maximum of 20—and in September last year the Attorney-General finally appointed 12 more classifiers to the board. The board must deal with an increasing amount of material, and it is imperative that it be resourced properly if it is to carry out its functions in a timely and efficient manner. It is also important that board members are appointed on merit. The last time that appointments were made to the board, the process stalled as a result of improper political interference by the government in the merit selection process. The government rejected a list of names put forward after applicants were screened and called for a new list. After sifting through more than 500 applications, interviewing candidates and requiring short-listed candidates to sit a screen test, the selection panel put to the government a list of 20 names recommended for appointment as censors. However, the government rejected that list and added to it people who had not passed the merit selection process. The government's interference in the merit selection process for censors can only undermine confidence in Australia's independent system of classification. It is reminiscent of the government's appointment to the High Court of individuals whom it perceived to have capital `c' credentials.The public expects the government to be fair in its selection of censors, to select them on merit and not allow its political agenda or ideology to diminish the independence of the OFLC. It goes without saying that the government must base selection criteria on merit rather than allowing improper political motivations to intrude. Public confidence in its classification decisions clearly depends on that perception of impartiality.My final point is about the leadership of the OFLC and, of equal concern to the opposition, the government's failure to appoint a new director of the OFLC promptly despite the position becoming vacant in September last year. Unfortunately, that vacancy occurred as a result of the untimely death of the former director, Kathryn Patterson. A new director, Mr Desmond Clark, was not appointed until April this year. While I commend the work of the acting director, Simon Webb, during the interim period, everyone knows that when an organisation lacks a permanent leader morale can suffer, as can the quality of the organisation's performance overall.Recent debate about the role of our censors has highlighted a number of problems, including the need for more streamlined procedures and better communication and explanation by the board of its processes and decisions. Good leadership will be required to ensure that the board addresses these community concerns properly. These are matters of substance rather than labelling that the government should consider addressing in cooperation with the state governments. Having made those points, I believe the substance of the bill is sound. It should have been introduced in March and we should not have had this delay regarding offensive and belittling material remaining within the X classification. Be that as it may, the legislation is before the Committee today and the opposition commends it to honourable members. 10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Is the amendment seconded?83WGerick, Jane, MPMs Gerick—I second the amendment.Debate interrupted.Adjournment2099010000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! It being 12.30 p.m., I propose the question:That the Main Committee do now adjourn.2099012:30:0020990Rudd, Kevin, MPMr RUDD83TGriffithALP00—I rise to speak on a matter of considerable importance to the people of Brisbane and, in particular, those 50,000 to 100,000 residents in the city of Brisbane likely to be adversely affected by the impact of the implementation of the Brisbane Airport Corporation master plan. Members may be aware that during 1999 and 2000 a Senate inquiry was held into this matter. The committee reported on 30 June 2000 and contained within its report were a number of adverse observations in relation to the manner and method through which the Brisbane Airport Corporation master plan was approved by Minister John Anderson.On 4 July, I lodged an appeal with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal against the minister's decision to approve the Brisbane Airport Corporation master plan. That matter was subsequently heard by the AAT on 10 August and, as a consequence of that hearing, Deputy President Breen of the AAT in Brisbane found in my favour, providing an extension of time so that I might be able to argue the substantive case on the matter in terms of whether the minister should or should not have approved the Brisbane Airport Corporation master plan.However, come early September, I received notification from the Australian Government Solicitor, that now Minister Anderson had decided in turn to appeal to the Federal Court the win which I secured in the AAT. That, of course, is the minister's and the government's prerogative. However, what concerns me in particular is the statement in the application of claims contained within the notification from the Australian Government Solicitor; namely, application claim number three, which seeks costs of, and incidental to, this application. The implication of that, of course, is that not only am I faced with the prospect of fighting a substantive case against the Commonwealth through the minister on this matter, but now I have hanging over my head the threat of financial intimidation from Minister Anderson. Should I lose this matter in the Federal Court, the Commonwealth, through the minister, will seek to obtain costs from me personally. Having obtained advice on this matter, it seems that the personal exposure which I would have on this matter would be in the range of $5,000 to $20,000 for a single day's hearing before the Federal Court. I cannot but interpret this as being a substantial act of legal and financial intimidation.As a consequence of that, I have written a letter dated 25 September to the Australian Government Solicitor, who is acting on behalf of his client, seeking that the minister withdraw this particular claim for costs. I have simply argued the case that in a matter of public importance of this nature we simply argue it on its merits. The Commonwealth has at its disposal the formidable legal resources of the Attorney-General's Department. I will be arguing my own case, as I have, in fact, argued it already before the AAT. One should not have hanging over one's head the threat of personal costs against one in a matter of this nature. Surely it should be argued and determined on the merits not which of us happens to have the deeper pockets—and plainly that is the Commonwealth and not me. I would simply ask the question: why is the Commonwealth through the minister going to such extraordinary lengths on this matter? 10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! I am loath to interrupt the member but, not being cognisant of the full information that he has, the thought that this issue may be sub judice has crossed my mind. I urge you to bear that in mind as you continue speaking.83TRudd, Kevin, MPMr RUDD—Thank you for your intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have taken advice on this matter as well and I plainly have not gone to the substance of the matters which are currently before the courts; I have simply gone to the question of the application of costs. The substance of the matter is a matter for the courts, and I fully respect the independence of the judiciary and their integrity on that question.But what concerns me is this question of cost. It relates to the broader point which I would also bring to the attention of the parliament, which is the coordinated campaign at a local level in Brisbane orchestrated by the Liberal Party of Queensland on this matter. On the south side of Brisbane, we have a takeover of the branches of the Liberal Party by the Santo Santoro faction of the party. Mr Caltabiano, who is now the leader of the Liberal Party in the city council, is a member of the Santoro faction; Senator Mason is a member of the Santoro faction; the entire Griffith division, I now understand, is under the control of the Santoro faction. It was the Santoro faction which, of course, was responsible for negotiating the deal with One Nation in the 1998 Queensland state election which had that extremely unsettling result.Now what is the link between all of that and the Brisbane Airport Corporation? The link is simply this: that the chief public spokesperson for the Brisbane Airport Corporation is Ms Lee Crombie, who is the former senior adviser to Santo Santoro. So we have a plain link between the corporation pursing its commercial interests and the Liberal Party seeking to pursue its political interests. My single challenge to the Liberal Party and to the Brisbane Airport Corporation is this: as we approach this next election, will you be contributing to the campaign against me through a Liberal candidate? (Time expired)2099112:35:0020991Billson, Bruce, MPMr BILLSON1K6DunkleyLP10—I rise today to pay tribute and pass on the thanks of the Dunkley community to the State Emergency Service. Some members are probably aware that the Greater Frankston and Mornington Peninsula area was hit by a violent windstorm on the night of Saturday, 30 September. Worst affected areas were between the Frankston and Mount Martha corridor and on the west coast of the Mornington Peninsula.Wind gusts were recorded at between 100 and 110 kilometres an hour. The SES responded brilliantly to the concerns and to the difficult situation faced by many members of the community that I represent. I was attending a friend's wedding at the time, and witnessed the concern that overcame the bridal couple and the families when the power went out—everyone was standing there in complete darkness, wishing them a happy life together. At the time, you could see along the Nepean Highway, from the country club in Mornington, that trees had fallen and emergency services vehicles were everywhere, so that the health and wellbeing of local constituents could be attended to.Those most affected were those who had their houses and property damaged by the wind gusts. Homes were unroofed; a lot of trees fell down and had to be cleared from roads and private property; cars were damaged. The SES responded magnificently to the calls and concerns of the local community. Three hundred and eighty-six tasks were recorded by the SES on that evening of Saturday the 30th and into the morning of Sunday the 1st. Three hundred and eighty-six members of our community were looking for help at a time when they were faced with particular difficulties created by the violent windstorm. Responding to that were 19 units and 196 SES volunteers. The SES units came from Frankston, Sorrento and Hastings, as well as others from Chelsea, Springvale, Moorabbin, St Kilda, Altona, Broadmeadows, Eltham, Glen Waverley, and as far afield as King Lake, Alexandra, Benalla, San Remo and Warragul. So it was quite a significant effort in order to respond to our local difficulties. The tasks that were carried out by those volunteers mainly included clearing trees from roads, houses and cars, temporary roof repairs, and the cordoning off of homes. One in particular had collapsed, which featured in some of the national newspapers and television reports. It was a difficult time for many people in that community. Not only were the SES volunteers there to support those who were in need; it was brilliant how the community itself helped their neighbours. I am aware of a number of cases where neighbours saw their friends, and also people down the street that they had not even met before, in some difficulty and offered their assistance. I am aware of examples of elderly and frail people being supported by neighbours who saw that they were in difficulty and responded to what was a fairly horrific evening.The crews worked through until 11 p.m. on Sunday night, in order to respond to all of those 386 tasks, and did a magnificent job. Behind the SES, a number of other volunteer organisations made sure that the volunteers were fed and had a brief break between their tasks. They make a great contribution to the community. I am very happy to acknowledge that work of SES members not only in the Dunkley community but also those from farther afield. I say to the member for Indi that some tourists from up his way came down to the Mornington Peninsula. I hope that those who did travel a long way saw what a great community it is and come back for a more relaxing visit to our electorate at some time in the future. John Howe, the regional duty officer at the SES, kindly provided me with this information.K26Latham, Mark, MPMr Latham—Who?1K6Billson, Bruce, MPMr BILLSON—John Howe. I am sure that if the boss had been about, he would have got involved in that as well. The chief is like that; he is keen to get involved in these community activities. But this was John Howe, the duty officer. He provided me with this information when we contacted them to see whether there were some unresolved issues that we could assist with. On behalf of the Dunkley community, particularly those residents who were affected by that windstorm on Saturday, 30 September, I say a sincere thank you to the SES. We are a stronger community because of their presence and their involvement in the community. It was fortunate that they were there for people in their time of need. I am sure that those who benefited from the work of the SES will recognise that they are a volunteer organisation and may choose to get involved themselves or get behind that activity, because they make a very meaningful contribution to the Dunkley electorate.2099212:39:0020992Latham, Mark, MPMr LATHAMK26WerriwaALP00—Surprisingly this week there has been no parliamentary debate on the release of the official documents concerning the Indonesian incorporation of Portuguese Timor. Perhaps, like Malcolm Fraser, the pro-Fretilin faction has lost its memory. What they need to do, of course, is to read Greg Sheridan's opinion piece in the Australian newspaper of 15 September. It is simply superb. Most journalists, especially in the Fairfax stable, have used the book of documents to justify their long-held prejudices and vendettas. Sheridan, by contrast, has allowed the facts to inform his conclusion. He writes as follows:The truth is the documents disclose that Gough Whitlam never gave the green light to the Indonesians for an invasion of East Timor. His policy always had two strands—support for the integration of East Timor into Indonesia and support for an act of self-determination by the East Timorese without the use of force by the Indonesians. It also had a third strand: to try to avoid getting Australia deeply involved in what was almost inevitably going to be a mess. And, further on, he writes:Australia has nothing to be ashamed of in its policy towards Indonesia in the mid-70s.Like thousands of politicians and diplomats before and since, Whitlam set out both his preferred outcome and his preferred process. By any test of logic, this was entirely reasonable. He favoured a particular outcome—Portuguese Timor's inclusion in Indonesia—but also a particular process—an act of self-determination.With the end of Dutch colonial rule in 1949, West Timor became part of Indonesia. With the end of Portuguese colonial rule in 1974, the same option was open to the people of East Timor. Self-determination at this time would not necessarily have produced an independent state. It has always been an arrogant view of history for the anti-Indonesian lobby to have automatically associated self-determination with independence. In reality, Fretilin consistently opposed proposals for a referendum in 1974 and 1975. In fact, it had a very different technique in mind. As Jose Ramos Horta wrote in the Australian on 20 September:Some of us were stupid, immature and irresponsible enough to start a war on each other in 1975. The Indonesian army did not cause the first casualties in East Timor.The criticism of Whitlam's stance is mischievous and misguided. There was no ambiguity or secrecy. His position was well known both to the Australian public and the Indonesian government. There was no attempt to mislead or deceive. How can a nation run a sensible foreign policy if it has not put forward preferred outcomes as well as preferred processes? This is the bread and butter of international diplomacy. It should be seen as a matter of fact, not as a matter of regret.I have never been able to understand why so many commentators have been so jaundiced on this issue. Perhaps, if not for the death of their colleagues in Balibo, the Australian media would have been more open-minded. At least Greg Sheridan has been able to maintain his objectivity. He has exposed the mythology on the question of East Timor and debunked the mischief of those who seek to discredit a great Labor Prime Minister and what I regard as an entirely honourable period in the history of Australian foreign policy.2099312:43:0020993Lieberman, Lou, MPMr LIEBERMANXU5IndiLP10—I would like to pay tribute to the Victoria Police and to the hundreds of men and women serving in the Victoria Police who were unfortunately required in the course of their duties to intervene in the S11 protest debacle outside the Crown Casino at the time of the World Economic Forum some weeks ago. We would have seen some of the scenes on television, read about them and heard about them on radio. In the Benalla Ensign of September 20 there is a report written by Natalie Robertson paying tribute in a way, but certainly depicting very graphically the experiences of some of the police. I will read part of it:At the end of a 15-hour shift outside Crown Casino during the World Economic Forum, Benalla Police Constable Wade Spokes and Senior Constable Richard Cameron experienced the worst violence from S11 protesters in the three-day event.Although Const Spokes said “more than half of the protesters” were not violent, some even apologising for the violent ones, he said it was little consolation for the cuts and bruises that he and his colleagues suffered. Of the seven male and one female police officers from Benalla assigned to the event— Obviously with many hundreds of other officers—one was badly injured and had to take time off from work—I hasten to say that was apparently because a police horse caused damage to his foot, so I am not saying one of the protesters did that, but in the melee, of course, it is relevant. The report goes on: “The media made sure to show the protesters being hit by police but they didn't show much of the violence from the protestors,” Senior Const Cameron said. “We had lots of things thrown at us including bottles, marbles and sticks from their protest signs.I understand that urine-filled balloons were also thrown. The article continues:“It got a bit scary when we were trapped between the cars and the horses,” he said. Not only was the work very physical, the shifts were long—15 to 16 hours a day. And although none of the officers got much sleep, Const Cameron said they were well fed by the Crown Casino and received a debriefing on the second day by Chief Commissioner Neil Comrie. “We were well looked after by the Police Department and Crown Casino,” Const Cameron said.I personally abhor what happened. Police should not be subjected to this. I support the right of people to demonstrate in our democracy—and we are a robust democracy—but I think it is wrong for protesters to stop people making lawful passage on roads, for example. People trying to get in and out of conferences should be allowed to do so. They should not be impeded. Even worse, our police should not have to put up with the type of violence, filth and abuse that came from some—but not all—of the protesters.It is appropriate that, on behalf of the people of my electorate, I thank very much the police officers, men and women, who served their state very well in the most difficult circumstances. I am alarmed and concerned that they were injured and that they were exposed to this sort of behaviour. I pay tribute to them for their professionalism and the way they coped in the most difficult circumstances. However, I make the point that, if people have the right to protest—and I defend to the utmost their right to do so—they do not have the right to stop others going about their lawful business. The media did not cover that issue at all. The issue of people being able to go in and out and having reasonable access to go about their business was not raised or canvassed very much, if at all, by most of the media. It is about time that there was proper public scrutiny and media coverage of all those elements, good and bad, so that a proper balance can be obtained.In conclusion, I am very proud of the work of police officers throughout the community. They do a very difficult job in very trying circumstances. I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl, would join with me in expressing our sincere appreciation and the hope that their recovery from injury is speedy and they are able to return to normal life without too much trauma as soon as possible.2099412:48:0020994Livermore, Kirsten, MPMs LIVERMORE83ACapricorniaALP00—I want to put on the record my concerns, and the concerns of families, family law practitioners and community organisations, about the apparent threat to our Family Court services in Rockhampton. I cannot believe that, less than a year after the Prime Minister's Nyngan declaration that there would be no more reductions to government services in regional Australia, I am here trying to defend people in my electorate from just such a withdrawal of an important service. Right now, the Family Court is looking to reduce the hours of our Family Court subregistry office in Rockhampton. It is also assessing new ways to deliver Family Court counselling services. Those new ways involve the Family Court withdrawing even further from its responsibility to provide those services, instead lumping the job onto local community organisations. In the registry, we currently have one full-time employee, Stacey Vea Vea, to do the reception and filing work. From all reports, Stacey does a very good job for the practitioners as well as for the many self-represented applicants that we have in Central Queensland as a result of the federal government's squeeze on legal aid funding. The proposal from the Family Court is to reduce the opening hours of the registry office to two days a week, and full-time during court sitting weeks. The family law practitioners in Rockhampton are not impressed, but they can work around that reduction.The real concern is for the many self-represented applicants and people who have just found themselves in a relationship crisis and turn to the Family Court registry for advice and information. I will quote from Stacey Vea Vea's report to the Family Court on her duties. Among others, she lists:Answering client queries by telephone and counter ...Clients attend the counter daily and require:* blank court documents ...* my assistance with correct completion of Court documents ...* confirmation or rearranging of counselling appointmentsShe also does a lot of work supporting solicitors' inquiries. About court ordered counselling she says:Clients acting in person will usually ring and ask why they have to attend. I then explain the benefits of the counselling/mediation and advise the purpose of the Memo to the Court.You are not going to get those things from a closed door or an empty desk. This is what the Family Court hierarchy and, in particular, the minister have to understand. You cannot measure the value or the work of an agency in a regional centre like Rockhampton by the number of documents it processes or reports it writes.Having a place where people can get information and advice is vital. In a regional centre, let alone a small rural community, there are not too many options for people. If the Family Court registry is closed, what other agencies are going to fill the gap left? A phone call to the registry in Townsville is not good enough in a lot of cases. We are not talking about people trying to conduct a business transaction. It is usually a time of distress when they just do not need to be messed around. It is important to give people information quickly and to give them back some sense of control over the terrible things that are happening to them and their family, and to try to dispel some of the myths that can cause so much fear and confusion in these relationship breakdown situations. That is definitely my experience from my work in family law.What happens when a person in a relationship breakdown goes up to the Family Court and sees a closed door? It is going to set them back and set back any hope of a quick and amicable settlement. The Family Court have said that the registry can be expanded again if the demand is demonstrated. But they are making it so difficult for people to use the service that the statistics are going to just decline and decline and they certainly are not going to provide a case for expanding the service. This is the thin end of the wedge, and the legal practitioners in Rockhampton definitely know it.When it comes to counselling, the thin edge of the wedge appeared a couple of years ago in Rockhampton and now the Family Court is attempting to ram the rest through. We have gone from two full-time Family Court counsellors working from the registry to one private counsellor working under contract from the Family Court to provide two days of court ordered counselling a week. That contract ends at the end of this year and I can tell the Family Court that it will be watched very carefully. The Family Court is holding talks with community organisations to get them to take on the counselling work. That all sounds great in theory. Yes, we have a number of extremely hardworking and competent community organisations in Rockhampton with experienced counsellors who, in a perfect world, could do the Family Court work. But they are flat out and working in a sector that, over the past four years, has had the demands on it increased at the same time as funding has been decreased. I have to ask the Family Court and the Attorney-General: what organisations in Rockhampton are going to do this work and who are the counsellors? I work with these people week in and week out and I know that they are absolutely stretched to the limit. That was confirmed in a phone call to Anglicare, for example, this morning. They already have a waiting list of families and children at risk needing help from their counsellors so they cannot see the scope for expanding their services without a big increase in funding.The Family Court is a few years too late in Rockhampton. Everyone who has pulled out of Central Queensland has said that the community agencies will fill the gaps, everyone has said that for four years until there are now more gaps than services, but the community organisations cannot stretch their resources any more to meet this latest flick pass from the Family Court of its counselling responsibilities. The Family Court and the Attorney-General need to listen to the people who deal with these issues on a daily basis in Rockhampton. They need to listen to their concerns and needs and stop this bean counting reduction in the services. (Time expired)Main Committee adjourned at 12.50 p.m.Answers to Questions in Writing20997The following answers to questions were circulated:20997(Question No. 1255)125520997Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MacklinPG6JagajagaALP00 asked the Minister for Health and Aged Care, upon notice, on 13 March 2000: (1) What are the addresses of each Medicare office operating on 1 March 2000 and in which electoral divisions are they located. (2) How many, and which, of the offices are open (a) for less than normal business hours of 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and (b) on Saturdays. (3) What are the current criteria for closure or relocation of Medicare offices used by the Health Insurance Commission. (4) How many Medicare offices have been closed since May 1997 and where were they located before they were closed.20997Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr Wooldridge8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) See Attachment A. (2) (a) Western Australia - All (hours are 9am to 4.30pm) South Australia - Most (hours are 9am to 4.30pm except for Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Marion which are 9am to 5pm) Queensland - All (hours are 9am to 4.30pm except for Brisbane City Plaza, Wintergarden which are 8.30am to 4pm) New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory - All (hours are 9am to 4.30pm except for Martin Place, Miranda, Australia Square, Town Hall Arcade which are 8.30am to 4.30pm) Tasmania - All (hours are 9am to 4.45pm except for Launceston and Hobart which are 8.45am to 4.45pm) Victoria - All (hours are 9am to 4.45pm). (b) No Medicare Offices are open on Saturdays. However, extended trading hours are currently being investigated by the Health Insurance Commission. (3) The criteria used when considering Medicare Office closures are: . cash service workloads; . claiming patterns: this includes trends in the volume of services claimed by residents in the immediate area and the nature and level of the different types of billing by doctors in those areas; . the capacity to redeploy staff; . proximity to other Medicare Offices; . transport arrangements in the area; . leasing and other property considerations.One or more of the following factors can influence the relocation of a Medicare Office: . increased security; . leasing costs; . lease expiry/suitable alternative accommodation; . improved facilities including wheelchair access; . improved customer service by relocating to a popular shopping area with ample parking. (4) 43 Medicare Offices have closed since May 1997. All were in metropolitan areas as follows: NSWAuburn, Belmont, Cabramatta, Campsie, Corrimal, DeeWhy, Erskine Street, Leichhardt, Marrickville, Merrylands, Mt Druitt, North Rocks, Randwick, Rockdale, St Ives, Sylvania, WarrawongQLDCannon Hill, Coorparoo, Queen Street, WynnumSABlackwood, Eastwood, Glenelg, Ingle Farm, Kilkenny, Rundle Mall, Salisbury, Sefton ParkTASMoonahVICBoronia, Clayton, Croydon, Deer Park, Footscray, Heidelberg, Keysborough, ReservoirWACloisters, East Victoria Park, Innaloo, Maddington, MirrabookaATTACHMENT AMEDICARE OFFICE DETAILSas at 05.04.2000StateBranch NameShop NumberShopping Centre NameStreet AddressTown/SuburbPostcodeElectorateACTBelconnenShop 170, Level 3Westfield ShoppingtownBelconnen MallBelconnen2617FraserACTCivicShop Cg05 & Cg06Canberra CentreCity WalkCivic2608CanberraACTTuggeranongShop T74Ground FloorTuggeranong HyperdomeTuggeranong2900NamadgiACTWodenShop 2, Level 1Bonner CourtWoden2606CanberraNSWAlbury489 Dean StreetAlbury2640FarrerNSWArmidaleShop 1AK-Mart Plaza201 - 203 Beardy StreetArmidale2350New EnglandNSWAustralia SquareShop 6Gourmet Circle Australia SqGeorge StreetSydney2000SydneyNSWBallinaShop 7Ballina FairCnr Fox & Kerr StreetsBallina2478RichmondNSWBankstownShop 126 - 128Old Town Centre PlazaBankstown2200BlaxlandNSWBatemans BayShop 4Fenning PlaceOrient & Camp StreetBatemans Bay2536Eden-MonaroNSWBathurst51 William StreetBathurst2795CalareNSWBega145 Auckland StreetBega2550Eden-MonaroNSWBlacktownShop 26GPatrick CourtWest PointBlacktown2148GreenwayNSWBondi JunctionShop 501A, Level 5Bondi Carousel Shopping Centre530 Oxford StreetBondi Junction2022WentworthNSWBowralShops 3&4Commonwealth Bank BuildingWingecarribee StreetBowral2576MacarthurNSWBroken HillShop 9-11Exchange ArcadeArgent StreetBroken Hill2880ParkesNSWBrookvaleShop J1, 121Warringah MallPittwater Road & Condamine StBrookvale2100WarringahNSWBurwoodShop 63Burwood Plaza42 Railway PdeBurwood2134LoweNSWCamdenCapitol Arcade89 Argyle StreetCamden2570MacarthurNSWCampbelltownShop 4-5City Centre171-179 Queen StreetCampbelltown2560WerriwaNSWCasino97 Walker StreetCasino2470PageNSWCastle HillShop 460Castle Towers Shopping CentreCastle StreetCastle Hill2154MitchellNSWCessnockShop 1BCooper StreetCessnock2325HunterNSWCharlestownShop 122Charlestown Shopping SquareCharlestown SquareCharlestown2290ShortlandNSWChatswoodShop 28Lemongrove Shopping Centre427-441 Victoria AvenueChatswood2067North SydneyNSWCoffs HarbourShop 83Park Beach PlazaCoffs Harbour2450CowperNSWCooma53A Vale StreetCooma2630Eden-MonaroNSWCowra111A Kendall StreetCowra2794HumeNSWDubboShop 33Dubbo City CentreMacquarie StreetDubbo2830ParkesNSWEastwoodShop 25 Eastwood Centre160 Rowe StreetEastwood2122BennelongNSWEngadine61 Station StreetEngadine2233HughesNSWErinaShop 55Erina FairTerrigal DriveErina2250RoberstonNSWFairfieldShop 20Fairfield ChaseCnr Smart & Spencer StreetsFairfield2165ProspectNSWGosfordShop 132-133MImperial Centre171 Mann StreetGosford2250RobertsonNSWGoulburnShop 9AArgyle MallAuburn StreetGoulburn2580HumeNSWGraftonShop 322 King StreetGrafton2460PageNSWGriffith352-354 Banna AvenueGriffith2680RiverinaNSWGunnedah238 Connadilly StreetGunnedah2380GwydirNSWHornsby145 Pacific HighwayHornsby2077BerowraNSWHurstvilleShop 218BWestfield Shopping CentreCnr Cross Street & Park RoadHurstville2220WatsonNSWInverell166 Byron StreetInverell2360New EnglandNSWKatoomba194 Katoomba StreetKatoomba2780MacquarieNSWKempseyShop 3BKempsey Mall19-26 Belgrave StreetKempsey2440CowperNSWKotaraShop 1/13AGarden CityCnr Park Ave & NorthcotKotara2289NewcastleNSWLake HavenShop 103Lake Haven Shopping CentreLake Haven DriveLake Haven2263DobellNSWLismoreShop 4Lismore Central36-42 Carrington StreetLismore2480PageNSWLithgowShop 3Eskbank StreetLithgow2790CalareNSWLiverpoolShop 18Liverpool PlazaGeorge StreetLiverpool2170FowlerNSWMacksville10 Wallace StreetMacksville2447CowperNSWMaitlandShop 3XPender Place Shopping CentreCnr Ken Tubman & Elgin StreetsMaitland2320PatersonNSWMartin PlaceShop 6A, Level 6Mlc CentreMartin PlaceSydney2000SydneyNSWMerimbulaShop 211 Princess HighwayMerimbula2548Eden-MonaroNSWMirandaShop 1006WestfieldsThe KingswayMiranda2228CookNSWMoreeShop 12Vm Building Arcade96 Balo StreetMoree2400GwydirNSWMudgeeShop 6The Mortimer Centre90-96 Mortimer StreetMudgee2850GwydirNSWMuswellbrookShop L01AMuswellbrook Market PlaceSowerby StreetMuswellbrook2333GwydirNSWNaroomaShop 3 And 4Centre ArcadeWagonga StreetNarooma2546Eden-MonaroNSWNarrabriShop 2153-155 Maitland StreetNarrabri2390GwydirNSWNewcastle301 Hunter StreetNewcastle2300NewcastleNSWNorth RydeShop 46, Level 2Macquarie Shopping CentreHerring RoadNorth Ryde2133BennelongNSWNorth SydneyShop C12AGreenwood PlazaMiller & Pacific HighwayNorth Sydney2060North SydneyNSWNowraShop 2Nowra MallKinghorn StreetNowra2541GilmoreNSWOrange153 Summer StreetOrange2800CalareNSWPagewoodShop 131B, Ground FloorWestfield Eastgarden152 Bunneranong RoadPagewood2035Kingsford-SmithNSWParkesClarinda Court207 Clarinda StreetParkes2870ParkesNSWParramattaShop 11 & 12The Connection Arcade162/172 Church StreetParramatta2150ParramattaNSWPenrithShop 4Riley StreetPenrith2750LindsayNSWPort MacquarieShop 7113 Horton StreetPort Macquarie2444LyneNSWQueanbeyanShop T5City Link Plaza24 Morrisett StreetQueanbeyan2620Eden-MonaroNSWRaymond TerraceShop 21The Terrace PlazaCnr Sturgeon & Glenelg StRaymond Terrace2324PatersonNSWRichmondShop 17Magnolia MallWindsor StreetRichmond2753MacquarieNSWRoselandsShop 92/93 Lower Grd FlrRoselands Shopping CentreRoselands2196BanksNSWShellharbourShop 109Shellharbour SquareBarrack HeightsShellharbour2529ThrosbyNSWSingletonShop 19Singleton Town Square159 John StreetSingleton2330HunterNSWSpit JunctionShop 23Bridgepoint CentreCnr Military & Brady RoadsSpit Junction2088WarringahNSWSpringwoodShop 5-6Macquarie Centre125 Macquarie RoadSpringwood2777MacquarieNSWTamworthShop 22Tamworth ShoppingworldBridge StreetTamworth2340New EnglandNSWTareeShop 9Manning Mall Manning StreetTaree2430LyneNSWThe EntranceShop 16Lakeside PlazaCnr Denning St & Entrance RdThe Entrance2261DobellNSWToronto56 Victory ParadeToronto2283CharltonNSWTown HallShop 30Town Hall Arcade464-480 Kent StreetSydney2000SydneyNSWTweed HeadsShop 45Tweed Mall Shopping CentreWharf StreetTweed Heads2485RichmondNSWUlladullaShop 13The Pavillion ArcadeGreen StreetUlladulla2539GilmoreNSWUminaShop 2261 West StreetUmina2257RobertsonNSWWagga Wagga70 Baylis StreetWagga Wagga2650RiverinaNSWWallsendShop 13+13AWallsend PlazaCowper StreetWallsend2287CharltonNSWWarriewoodShop 20Warriewood Shopping SquareJackson RoadWarriewood2102MackellarNSWWollongong152 Crown StreetWollongong2500CunninghamNSWYoungShop 3Mill CourtLynch StreetYoung2594HumeNTAlice SpringsShop 37Yeperenye Shopping Centre34 Hartley StreetAlice Spings870Northern TerritoryNTCasuarinaShop Gd30Casuarina SquareTrower RoadCasuarina810Northern TerritoryNTDarwinShop 14 & 15The GalleriaThe MallDarwin800Northern TerritoryQLDAitkenvaleShop 1Sunvale Shopping CentreElizabeth StreetAitkenvale4814HerbertQLDAshmoreShop 23Ashmore City Shopping CentreCnr Nerang & Currumburra RdsAshmore4214MoncrieffQLDAtherton30 Mabel StreetAtherton4883KennedyQLDAyrEast End CentreParker StreetAyr4807DawsonQLDBeenleighShop 6Beenleigh MarketplaceGeorge StreetBeenleigh4207FordeQLDBowenShop 1Centrepoint PlazaRichmond RoadBowen4805DawsonQLDBrooksideShop 57Brookside Shopping CentreOsborne RoadMitchelton4053DicksonQLDBundaberg47 Bourbong StreetBundaberg4670HinklerQLDCairnsShop 16Stockland Cairns Shopping Ctr537 Mulgrave RoadCairns4870LeichhardtQLDCaloundraShop 43Sunland Shopping Centre46 Bowman RoadCaloundra4551FisherQLDCapalabaShop 95Capalaba Park Shopping CentreCnr Mt Cotton Rd & Redland Bay RdCapalaba4157BowmanQLDCarindaleShop 1027, Level 1Carindale Shopping CentreCreek RoadCarindale4152GriffithQLDChermsideShop 87Myer Shopping CentreGympie RoadChermside4032LilleyQLDCity PlazaShop R5City Plaza69 Anne StreetBrisbane4000BrisbaneQLDClevelandShop 5 & 6Village SquareCnr Doig & Queen StreetsCleveland4163BowmanQLDClifford GardensShop 3Clifford Gardens Shopping CtrJames StreetToowoomba4350GroomQLDDalbyShop 12Dalby Central Shopping CentreCnr Marble & Patrick StreetsDalby4405MaranoaQLDGarden CityShop 1023Garden City Shopping CentreCnr Kessells & Logan RoadsUpper Mt Gravatt4122MoretonQLDGladstoneShops 7 & 8Palms Shopping Centre172 Goondoon StreetGladstone4680HinklerQLDGympie212 Mary StreetGympie4570FairfaxQLDHervey BayShop 19Fraser Shores Shopping CentreCnr Boat Harbour Dve & Nissan StPialba4655Wide BayQLDIndooroopillyShop 1030, Level 1Westfield Shopping Centre318 Moggill RoadIndooroopilly4068RyanQLDInghamIngham Shopping PlazaHerbert StreetIngham4850KennedyQLDInnisfailShop 30The Central Shopping Centre20 Edith StreetInnisfail4860KennedyQLDIpswichShop 618 & 619, Level 1Trustee Hse. Ipswich City Sq.Nicholas StreetIpswich4305OxleyQLDKawana-WatersShop 325Kawana Waters ShoppingtownNicklin WayBuddina4575FisherQLDKingaroyShop 2Mckechnies BuildingAlford StreetKingaroy4610Blair/Wide BayQLDKippa-RingShop A3Peninsula Fair Shopping CityAnzac AvenueKippa-Ring4021PetrieQLDMackayShop 125Caneland ShoppingtownMangrove RoadMackay4740DawsonQLDMaryborough385 Kent StreetMaryborough4650Wide BayQLDMorayfieldShop 85Morayfield Shopping Centre165-175 Morayfield RoadMorayfield4506LongmanQLDMt IsaK-Mart PlazaSimpson StreetMount Isa4825KennedyQLDNambourShop 231 Short StreetNambour4560FairfaxQLDNth RockhamptonShop 1Kmart PlazaMusgrave St.North Rockhampton4701CapricorniaQLDPacific-FairShop 321Pacific Fair Shopping CentreHooker BoulevardeBroadbeach4218McphersonQLDRockhamptonShop 20ACity Centre PlazaCnr Bolsover and Fitzroy StreetRockhampton4700CapricorniaQLDSmithfieldShop 6 & 7Smithfield Shopping CentreCook HighwaySmithfield4878LeichhardtQLDSouthportShop 303Australia Fair Shopping CentreMarine ParadeSouthport4215MoncrieffQLDStrathpineShop 126Westfield Shoppingtown295 Gympie RoadStrathpine4500DicksonQLDToombulShop W1, Ground FloorToombul ShoppingtownSandgate RoadToombul4012LilleyQLDToowoombaShop 57Grand Central Shopping CentreCnr Clifford And Margaret StreetsToowoomba4350GroomQLDTownsvilleShop 1Northtown On The MallFlinders StreetTownsville4810HerbertQLDWarwick84 Palmerin StreetWarwick4370MaranoaQLDWintergardenShop 47-48, Level 1WintergardenQueen StreetBrisbane4000BrisbaneQLDWoodridgeShops 8 & 9Triplecee Logan CentralCnr Kingston & Wembley RoadsWoodridge4114RankinSABerri22 Vaughan TerraceBerri5343WakefieldSAColonnadesShop 75Colonnades Shopping CentreBeach RoadNoarlunga5168KingstonSACurrie Street30 Currie StreetAdelaide5000AdelaideSAElizabethElizabeth Town Centre85 Sydney WalkElizabeth5112BonythonSAGawlerShop 4103/107 Murray StreetGawler5118WakefieldSAMarionShop 1036Westfield Shoppingtown297 Diagonal RoadOaklands Park5046BoothbySAMt GambierShop 4Savings & Loan PlazaCompton StreetMt Gambier5290BarkerSAPort AugustaShop 16 Church StreetPort Augusta5700GreySAPort LincolnShop 113 Bligh StreetPort Lincoln5606GreySAPort Pirie118 Ellen StreetPort Pirie5540GreySATea Tree Plaza (Modbury)Shop 94Westfield Shoppingtown976 North East RoadModbury5092MakinSAWest LakesShop 13/14, Upper LevelWest Lakes Shopping CentreWest Lakes BoulevardeWest Lakes5021Port AdelaideSAWhyallaShop 251 Playford AvenueWhyalla Playford5600GreyTASBurnieShop 1&2Cnr Mount & Wilmot StreetsBurnie7320BraddonTASDevonportShop 1&2Hub ArcadeRooke MallDevonport7310BraddonTASEastlandsShop U19Eastlands Shopping CentreBligh StreetRosny7018FranklinTASGlenorchyShop 55Northgate Shopping CentreMain RoadGlenorchy7010DenisonTASHobartShop 7Trafalgar Centre112 Collins StreetHobart7000DenisonTASKingstonShop 23Channel CourtChannel HighwayKingston7050FranklinTASLaunceston90 St John StreetLaunceston7250BassVICAirport WestShop 77Westfield ShoppingtownLouis StreetAirport West3042MaribyrnongVICAltona GateShop U9, Level 2Altona Gate Shopping CentreMillers RoadAltona North3025GellibrandVICArarat135 Barkly StreetArarat3377WannonVICBairnsdaleShop 15Riviera Plaza80-88 Main StreetBairnsdale3875GippslandVICBallarat11 Armstrong Street NorthBallarat3350BallaratVICBendigo56 Queen StreetBendigo3550BendigoVICBentleigh440 Centre RoadBentleigh3204GoldsteinVICBourke StGround Floor460 Bourke StreetMelbourne3000MelbourneVICBox HillShop 4031, Level 4Whitehorse PlazaWhitehorse RoadBox Hill3128ChisholmVICBroadmeadowsShop 42Broadmeadows Shopping CentrePascoe Vale RoadBroadmeadows3047CalwellVICCamberwell527 Riversdale RoadCamberwell3124KooyongVICCentrepointShop 130A & 131ACentrepoint MallBourke StreetMelbourne3000MelbourneVICChadstoneShop B91, Lower LevelChadstone Shopping CentrePrincess HighwayChadstone3148HigginsVICChirnside ParkShop 713Chirnside Park Shopping CentreMaroondah HighwayChirnside Park3116CaseyVICCoburgShop 16-17Walkers Arcade471 Sydney RoadCoburg3058WillsVICColac137 Murray StreetColac3250CorangamiteVICCollins StreetShop 2Bhp Petroleum Plaza120 Collins StreetMelbourne3000MelbourneVICCorioShop 13Corio VillageBacchus Marsh RoadCorio3214CorioVICDandenongShop 115 & 116Dandenong Palm PlazaCnr Walker & Mccrae StreetsDandenong3175HoltVICDoncasterSuite 1001Doncaster ShoppingtownWilliamsons RoadDoncaster3108MenziesVICEchuca189 Hare StreetEchuca3564MurrayVICElsternwick384 Glenhuntly RoadElsternwick3185Melbourne PortsVICForest HillShop T142Forest Hill Chase Shopping CtrCanterbury RoadForest Hill3131DeakinVICFrankstonShops 213 & 214Bayside Shopping CentreBeach StreetFrankston3199DunkleyVICGeelongShop 60-66, Level 1Market Square Shopping CentreMoorabool StreetGeelong3220CorioVICGlen WaverleyShop 1/40The Glen Shopping Centre235 Springvale RoadGlen Waverley3150BruceVICGreensborough10A, Level 1Greensborough Plaza25 Main RoadGreensborough3088ScullinVICHamiltonShop 9Thompson'S PlazaBrown StreetHamilton3300WannonVICHighpointShop 37, Level 2Highpoint City200 Rosamond RoadMaribyrnong3032GellibrandVICHorshamShop 2Horsham Plaza Shopping CentreDarlot StreetHorsham3400MalleeVICKnox CityShop 1091-1091AKnox City Shopping CentreCnr Burwood Hwy & Stud RdWantirna South3152AstonVICMeltonShop R13Woodgrove Shopping Centre533-555 High StreetMelton3337BurkeVICMildura129 Eighth StreetMildura3500MalleeVICMoonee Ponds122A Puckle StreetMoonee Ponds3039WillsVICMorningtonShop 105 & 106Village Shopping CentreMain StreetMornington3931DunkleyVICMorwell246 Commercial RoadMorwell3840McmillanVICNorthcoteShop 17Northcote Central Shopping CtrCnr High & Separation StreetsNorthcote3070BatmanVICNorthlandShop F21Northland Shopping CentreMurray RoadPreston3072BatmanVICPortland112A Percy StreetPortland3305WannonVICPrahranShop 53, Level 1Prahran CentralCnr Chapel St & Commercial RdPrahran3181HigginsVICRingwoodShop L3, North GalleriaEastland Shopping CentreMaroondah HighwayRingwood3134DeakinVICSale301 Raymond StreetSale3850GippslandVICSheppartonShops 3-9City Walk ArcadeWyndham StreetShepparton3630MurrayVICSouthlandShop 310A, Level 3Southland ShoppingtownNepean HighwayCheltenham3192HothamVICSwan HillShops 5 & 6Safeway ArcadeCampbell StreetSwan Hill3585MalleeVICTraralgon66 Seymour StreetTraralgon3844McmillanVICWangaratta28-30 Murphy StreetWangaratta3677IndiVICWarragulShop 237 Smith StreetWarragul3820McmillanVICWarrnambool156 Liebig StreetWarrnambool3280WannonVICWaurn PondsShop 702Town & Country Shopping WorldPrinces HighwayWaurn Ponds3221CorangamiteVICWaverley GardensShops 58 & 59Waverley Gardens Shopping CtrCnr Police & Jacksons RoadsMulgrave3170BruceVICWerribee72 Watton StreetWerribee3030LalorVICWodongaShop 4123-125 High StreetWodonga3690IndiWAAlbanyShop 3Dog Rock Shopping CentreMiddleton RoadAlbany6330ForrestWAArmadaleShop 1Armadale Shopping CityJull StreetArmadale6112CanningWABooragoonShop 18Commercial CentreMarmion StreetBooragoon6154TangneyWABunburyShop 1Centrepoint Shopping CentreCnr Blair & Stirling StreetsBunbury6230ForrestWACanningtonShop 1044AWestfield Carousel1382 Albany HighwayCannington6107SwanWAFremantleShop 27/28The Woolstore Shopping CentreCantonment StreetFremantle6160FremantleWAGeraldtonGround FloorTown TowersCatherdral AvenueGeraldton6530O'ConnorWAHillarysShop 44Whitfords City Shopping CentreCnr Marmion & Whitfords AveHillarys6025MooreWAKalgoorlieGolfields Medical CentreSuite 12/126 Egan StreetKalgoorlie6430KalgoorlieWAKarrinyupShop 152, 1st FloorKarrinyup Shopping CentreKarrinyup RoadKarrinyup6018StirlingWAMandurahShop 109Mandurah ForumPinjarra RoadMandurah6210BrandWAMidlandShop 20/21Midland Gate CentreBrockman RoadMidland6056PerthWAMorleyShop 85AThe Galleria Shopping Centre13 Collier RoadMorley6062PerthWARockinghamShop 64Rockingham City Shopping CtrRead StreetRockingham6168BrandWASubiacoShop 1Subiaco Village531 Hay StreetSubiaco6008CurtinWAWesley CentreFirst FloorWesley Arcade93 Williams StreetPerth6000Perth21008(Question No. 1280)128021008Burke, Anna, MPMs Burke83SChisholmALP00 asked the Minister for Health and Aged Care, upon notice, on 16 March 2000: (1) In 1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000, what sum was allocated from the Federal budget specifically to assist children with a mentally ill parent. (2) What programs does his Department administer specifically to assist children with a mentally ill parent. (3) Are programs planned by his Department specifically to assist children with a mentally ill parent; if so, (a) what programs are planned, (b) what was the consultation process used to develop the policy to guide the programs, (c) which groups and individuals were consulted while developing the policy to guide the program and (d) was the National Network of Adult and Adolescent Children who have a Mentally Ill Parents (Inc) consulted; if not, why not. (4) Will the Government provide funding to any individual or group in 2000-01 to specifically meet the needs of children with a mentally ill parent, if so, will the Government provide funding to national Network of Adult and Adolescent Children who have a Mentally Ill Parents (Inc). (5) Are federally funded respite care programs available specifically to meet the needs of children with a mentally ill parent; if so, what; if not, when will they be made available. (6) Has his Department conducted a survey on the specific needs of children with a mentally ill parent; if so, (a) which individuals and groups were surveyed, (b) when was the survey concluded and (c) when will the survey results be publicly released.21008Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr Wooldridge8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) No sum was specifically allocated in the budgets of 1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-1999 to assist children of parents with a mental illness. In the 1997-98 Federal Budget, the Government announced $28 million over three years for national reform initiatives as part of the National Mental Health Strategy. $300 million has also been allocated over five years (1998-99 to 2002-2003) to States and Territories under the Australian Health Care Agreements to continue service reforms initiated under the previous phase of the Strategy. (2) The provision of services for children of parents with a mental illness is a State and Territory responsibility. (3) Under the Second National Mental Health Plan children of parents with a mental illness are identified for selective prevention strategies in order to lessen the risk of developing mental illnesses. (a) The Commonwealth Government is currently funding the Australian Infant Child Adolescent and Family Mental Health Association (AICAFMHA) to undertake a project that will outline major activities, identify gaps and make recommendations regarding the future work in this area. The project is nearing completion and a final report will be submitted by mid 2000. (b) A questionnaire was dispersed widely to government and non-government agencies that were likely to have contact with or a role in supporting the children and parents/families where one or both of the parents have a mental illness. (c) A wide variety of organisations at State and Territory level that were involved in providing programs and services to children of parents with a mental illness were consulted. (d) Yes. (4) The Commonwealth will consider its role in the provision of funding to provide support for children of parents with a mental illness once the final report of the study on children of parents with a mental illness, conducted by the Australian Infant Child Adolescent and Family Mental Health Association (AICAFMHA), has been considered. (5) No and none are planned. However, the National Respite for Carers Program (NRCP) contributes to the support and maintenance of caring relationships between carers and their dependent family members and friends regardless of the age of the carer and regardless of the disability of the care recipient. (6) (a) to (c) No21009(Question No. 1366)136621009Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister for Health and Aged Care, upon notice, on 5 April 2000: Further to the answer to question No. 1054 (Hansard, 4 April 200, page 14689) concerning doctors working in regional Australia, what action is the Government taking to implement increases in training numbers in the disciplines of radiation oncology, orthopaedic surgery, and ear, nose and throat surgery.21009Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr Wooldridge8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: The 2000-2001 Budget provides $48.4 million so that rural and regional people can receive specialist services in their own communities, rather than having to travel long distances. Prime responsibility for implementation of the Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee's recommendations lies with State Governments and the Specialist Medical Colleges. AMWAC has provided detailed reports on these specialties, with recommendations on increased training numbers and the distribution of these further training places across States and Territories. My Department has been working with the Colleges and States to encourage implementation of the recommendations. AMWAC has recognised that the creation of training positions in regional areas is contingent upon the existence of the necessary infrastructure such as teaching staff, equipment, sufficient operating sessions and educational resources. The provision of these is the responsibility of the States. I am pleased to note that there has been an increase in training numbers for Ear, Nose and Throat specialists. The Royal Australian College of Surgeons has also advised that it is working towards meeting the recommended target for Orthopaedic Surgeons for 2000. In relation to radiation oncology, a complex interplay of factors including specialist and trainee numbers, the number of megavoltage machines and best practice in cancer treatment must be considered. It should be noted that the AMWAC review linked the need to expand the workforce with an anticipated increase in megavoltage machines which has not occurred.21009(Question No. 1445)144521009Theophanous, Dr Andrew, MPDr TheophanousQJ4CalwellIND00 asked the Minister for Aged Care, upon notice, on 13 April 2000: (1) Did she write to a number of residential aged care providers in October and November 1999, including Robert and Dorothy Stone of Jowett Holdings in the electoral division of Calwell, informing them that she will be making decisions on the GST free status of aged care services shortly, and that she will be informing them accordingly. (2) Is she aware of anxieties on the part of aged care providers as to the impact of the GST on their services and their desire to receive her explanation in these matters. (3) When will she be making determinations about the GST free services and when will she inform the Parliament and the providers of her decisions.21010Bishop, Bronwyn, MPMrs Bronwyn BishopSE4MackellarLPMinister for Aged Care10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:In accordance with the question without notice I answered in the House on 29th June 2000“The new tax legislation clearly sets out which aged care services will be GST free. I would refer the honourable member to sections 38(10), 38(25) and 38(30) of the Act. Section 38(10) sets out very specifically that nursing services and 20 other specific health and allied services will be GST free and require no determination by me to be effective. Section 38(25) establishes that, where any individual in a residential setting requires and is receiving the sort of care that is set out in schedule 1 to the Aged Care Act, that will also be GST free. That is because we wish to treat people in a like manner. Section 38(30) establishes that all HACC and state funded services and payments under the HACC are provided GST free. It provides that where any individual requires personal care, then that personal care will be provided GST free. The determinations that I have made - I confirm that I have made them; they will be gazetted tomorrow --will activate the provisions of the legislation, but I may not override the legislation, alter the legislation or extend the legislation.”21010(Question No. 1499)149921010Price, Roger, MPMr PriceQI4ChifleyALP00 asked the Minister for Health and Aged Care, upon notice, on 9 May 2000: (1) Are Health Insurance Funds required to keep reserves; if so, (a) what is the quantum of the reserves required to be held and (b) are they determined by statutory or prudential means? (2) What sums were held by each fund in 1998-99?21010Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr Wooldridge8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) (a) and (b) Yes. The National Health Act 1953 (the Act) specifies the amount of reserves required by private health insurance funds. Section 73BAB establishes the reserves at $1 million or two contribution months, whichever is the greater. The Act was amended in 1999 to establish new prudential standards for the industry. Divisions 3A and 3B of the Act detail the purpose of the new standards. The exposure draft of the standards has been developed and industry comments are being sought. The new standards must be established by 1 January 2001 in accordance with the Act and the Australian Government Actuary has oversight of the new standards. Reserves as determined by section 73 BAB remain in force until the new standards are promulgated. (2) The information is available from the Private Health Insurance Administration Council's Annual Report tabled in the Parliament on 7 November 1999.21010(Question No. 1577)157721010Lawrence, Dr Carmen, MPDr LawrenceXS4FremantleALP00 asked the Minister for Health and Aged Care, upon notice, on 30 May 2000: (1) Comparing the annual death rates attributable to high-risk industries in Australia, what have been the fatality rates since 1997 in (a) the airline industry, (b) industries using high levels of radioactive substances and (c) health care services, including hospitals. (2) Are adverse medical events (iatrogenesis) among the top ten leading causes of death in Australia; if so, where does iatrogenesis list among the top ten; if not, what does the Government estimate to be the total number of deaths due to iatrogenesis. (3) Can he advise how many citizens die per year or require further medical treatment, due to (a) adverse reactions to correctly prescribed medication, (b) adverse reactions to incorrectly prescribed medication, (c) medical errors during surgery, (d) incorrect medical diagnoses and (e) hospital infections. (4) How does the Government keep account of the fatalities arising from the medical treatment it funds. (5) Is there a national inventory of fatalities arising from iatrogenesis. (6) Do the States and Territories maintain inventories of fatalities arising from adverse iatrogenesis. (7) When a patient dies because of medical error, does the (a) Federal Government or (b) State or Territory Government legally require the medical practitioner or hospital concerned to report the death; if not, why not.21011Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr Wooldridge8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) (a) This falls outside the portfolio responsibility of the Minister. (b) There have never been any deaths reported in Australia attributable to occupational exposure to ionizing radiation. (c) See response to (4) below for information available for health care services including hospitals. (2) No. (3) (a) 153,000 since 1970. (b) Not specifically recorded (c) Not specifically recorded. (d) Not specifically recorded. (e) Not specifically recorded. Information on all deaths including some relating to adverse events is available through the Australian Bureau of Statistics from the Causes of Death Collection. These deaths are classified by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9) which include codes for misadventures to patients during surgical and medical care (ICD-9 870-876) and surgical and medical procedures as the cause of abnormal reaction of patient or later complication (ICD-9 878-879). It should be noted that these codes might include cases where the patient had died during surgical attempts to save their life as well as those in which the death occurred due to misadventure. Because the classification is by disease, incorrect prescribed medication, medical errors, incorrect medical diagnosis and hospital infections are not specifically recorded, although each hospital would have records of errors that occurred. The Quality in Australian Health Care Study (QAHCS) suggest that although infection and medication related errors accounted for a significant proportion of adverse events, it was not possible to determine the additional treatment or increased length of stay required for particular types of adverse events. (4) Any sudden or unexpected death that occurs in a hospital is a `reportable death' for the purposes of each State and Territory's coronial legislation. Therefore these deaths should be reported to the relevant coroner's office for investigation as appropriate and the coroners' courts hold records/files of such deaths. (5) There is no specific national inventory of fatalities arising from iatrogenesis. A national reporting system for errors that result in serious injury and death has been identified as a priority area for action by the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care. (6) Yes. (7) The duty to report a death is covered by State and Territory law, not by Commonwealth legislation. The duty is set out in the Coroners Acts in each Australian jurisdiction. The circumstances in which a death is a reportable death vary between jurisdictions, but generally a death in `unusual circumstances' (which could include adverse medical events) and a death following the administration of an anaesthetic are reportable deaths. The Coroners Acts do not specifically require the reporting of `deaths because of medical error' as whether or not a person has died because of medical error is a matter for the coroner to determine.21012(Question No. 1608)160821012Evans, Martyn, MPMr Martyn EvansN36BonythonALP00 asked the Minister for Health and Aged Care, upon notice, on 6 June 2000: (1) Has his attention been drawn to concern by members of the medical research community that grants from overseas based funding bodies such as the National Institutes of Health in the US and the Wellcome Trust in the UK will be subject to the GST and that no comparable refund will be available, effectively reducing the grant by 10%. (2) Is this concern justified; if so, will he act to ensure that Australian researchers in receipt of overseas sourced grants are not disadvantaged by the GST.21012Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr Wooldridge8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) I was made aware of the issue. (2) Initial advice from my Department was that GST would apply to the grants but could be claimed back as an input tax credit by an agent of the company residing in Australia. I am aware that this has now been confirmed formally by the ATO. The Government Issues Log, which has the status of a public ruling, states: “Any GST payable on a taxable supply or taxable importation made by a non-resident through a registered agent is payable by the agent. Also, if a non-resident makes a creditable acquisition or importation through a registered resident agent, the agent is entitled to the input tax credit on the acquisition or importation.” This mechanism will ensure that Australian researchers in receipt of overseas sourced grants are not disadvantaged by the GST.21012(Question No. 1642)164221012Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin FergusonLS4BatmanALP00 asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, upon notice, on 20 June 2000:(1) How many separation breakdowns in controlled airspace have occurred in each year since 1990.(2) Is each separation breakdown in controlled airspace investigated.(3) Which authority or organisation investigates separation breakdowns in controlled airspace.(4) Who makes the decision to investigate or not investigate separation breakdowns in controlled airspace.(5) From those investigations, what factors were found to contribute to separation breakdowns in controlled airspace.(6) Are other categories used for the measurement and recording of airspace incidents, if so, what are they.(7) Are incidents in uncontrolled airspace recorded and reported; if so, by which authority or organisation.21012Anderson, John, MPMr Anderson4K4GwydirNPDeputy Prime Minister10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has provided the following statistics concerning the breakdown of separation occurrences reported to the ATSB for airborne aircraft in Australian controlled airspace. 1990199119921993199419951996199719981999898910010298114121124131124 (2) The ATSB advises that it is not required to investigate all air safety occurrences. Selective investigation is undertaken to concentrate the Bureau's resources on in-depth investigations that offer the greatest potential to enhance air safety. For breakdowns of separation in controlled airspace, each initial report is carefully reviewed to determine what level of ATSB investigation would be appropriate. Airservices advises that its practice is to investigate any occurrence, including separation breakdowns, that on the basis of preliminary information could be attributed to Airservices' personnel, procedures or systems. (3) See question 2. (4) The ATSB advises that the decision to investigate a separation breakdown in controlled airspace is made by Investigators dedicated to processing initial reports of these occurrences. Where there is any doubt as to the appropriate level of ATSB investigation, the views of the Team Leader, the Deputy Directors or Director of Air Safety Investigation are sought. Airservices advises that all incidents reported by Airservices' staff are reviewed by Airservices' management from the operational and safety divisions. The operational line management, responsible for the reporting unit, make a decision based on preliminary evidence, as to whether any Airservices' personnel, practices or system were attributable to the occurrence. If Airservices is thought to have contributed, an investigation is initiated. The Airservices' Director of Safety and Standards may also: . require line management to undertake an investigation of an incident which they had previously decided not to investigate; or . undertake an investigation independent of the area responsible for the provision of the Air Traffic Service. (5) The ATSB advises that the factors contributing to separation breakdowns in controlled airspace may include, but are not limited to: . aircraft crew failure to comply with instructions; . air traffic control operator errors; . navigation aid malfunctions; . aircraft equipment malfunctions; . air traffic control equipment malfunctions; and . adverse weather resulting in aircraft diversion from planned track. (6) Yes - The ATSB advises that other categories used by the ATSB to classify airspace incidents include: . violations of controlled airspace; . altitude infringements; . turbulence related events; and . wrong track flown by the aircraft. (7) Yes - The ATSB advises that incidents in uncontrolled airspace are required under the Air Navigation Act 1920 to be reported to the ATSB by: . an officer or employee of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA); . an officer or employee of Airservices; or, . a responsible person as defined in the Act (eg a pilot)who becomes aware of an incident.21013(Question No. 1735)173521013Bevis, Arch, MPMr BevisET4BrisbaneALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 14 August 2000: Has the Minister received any communication or advice, either written or oral, from the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, his office, Department or anyone acting under his instructions or advice in relation to the payment of union fees by payroll deduction; if so, (a) what was that advice, (b) when was it provided, (c) was that advice communicated to Telstra; if so, what was the nature of that communication and when was it provided; and (d) was that advice communicated to any other Government instrumentality; if so, to which instrumentality and when. 21014McGauran, Peter, MPMr McGauranXH4GippslandNPMinister for the Arts 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: The Minister is unaware of having received any communication or advice, either written or oral, from the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, his office, Department or anyone acting under his instructions or advice in relation to the payment of union fees by payroll deduction.21014(Question No. 1736)173621014Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr Kelvin ThomsonUK6WillsALP00 asked the Prime Minister, upon notice, on 14 August 2000: (1) Does his letter to me and other Australians of 20 June 2000 state that some people who have money can afford to minimise their tax through schemes; if so, what action is the government taking to crack down on these schemes. (2) Does his letter say that the old system discriminates against country Australia; if so, will a 10% GST have a more adverse effect on country Australia than metropolitan Australia because prices on many items are already higher in country Australia, and that adding 10% to the cost of the item will increase the city-country price differential. (3) Does his letter state that the old tax system contains hidden taxes; if so, did he expressly reject Labor amendments which would have required the GST to be shown on price tags, and that as a result the GST will itself be a hidden tax. (4) Does his letter describe capital gains tax concessions as a benefit for older Australians, small businesses and farmers; if so, (a) has his government elsewhere described the capital gains tax changes as revenue neutral and (b) if the capital gains tax changes are not revenue neutral, what is the cost to revenue of them.21014Howard, John, MPMr HowardZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) The New Tax System will help ensure that everyone pays a fair share of tax but no more. It cracks down on people who avoid income tax by using loopholes and dealing in the cash economy. The government has also acted on a number of other fronts to remove tax minimisation opportunities formerly available to high wealth individuals, including specific measures to address: . dividends disguised as private company loans; . misuse of charitable trusts to distribute funds overseas; . trust losses; . creation of artificial capital losses; . franking credit trading and dividend streaming; . tax minimisation through luxury car leases; . exploitation of infrastructure borrowings; . abuse of R&D syndication; and . taxation of foreign source income. The New Business Tax System announced by the government will address other flaws in the current tax law that high wealth individuals are able to exploit. (2) Country Australia will benefit greatly from the New Tax System through: . lower transport costs in rural and regional areas; - Input tax credits will effectively reduce fuel costs by 9% for registered businesses. - Extension of the Diesel Fuel Rebate Scheme to rail and marine transport. - Introduction of the Diesel and Alternative Fuels Grants Scheme which will significantly reduce the cost of road transport. . reduced business costs of between $7 and $8 billion annually for all Australian businesses, allowing them to compete more effectively with imported goods; . GST-free exports, with the costs to exporters to be reduced by over $3.5 billion (around two thirds of rural produce is exported); and . tax cuts worth some $12 billion a year and a 4% increase in government pensions and allowances. (3) My letter does state that the old tax system contained hidden taxes. The multiple-rate wholesale sales tax was set at the wholesale level, therefore there was no way for consumers to determine how much tax they were paying on their retail purchases. Under the wholesale sales tax system, necessities such as toothpaste were subject to 22% sales tax, while expensive restaurant meals were tax-free. The GST, on the other hand, is set at a single low rate of 10% for taxable items. Retailers are able to identify for consumers those taxable items. Therefore, requiring the GST to be shown on price tags is unnecessary and would increase compliance costs for businesses. The tax on most goods and services can be easily calculated as it is simply one-eleventh of the retail price. (4) The capital gains tax (CGT) concessions announced by the government will result in these taxpayers who are eligible for the concessions paying, on average, a lower rate of tax on capital gains. This results in a cost to revenue in relation to the transactions that would have happened under the old CGT regime. That is, as these transactions would have occurred without the lowering of the CGT rate there is a loss of revenue on these transactions. However, there is a strong body of evidence that suggests that in response to lower rates of taxation on capital gains there will be an increase in the realisation of assets. The increase in the realisation of assets results in more transactions taking place under the new regime than would otherwise have occurred under the old regime. These additional transactions are subject to CGT, resulting in revenue being collected that would not have been collected under the old regime. It is estimated that the increase in revenue from the increase in transactions results in the changes to the taxation of capital gains being mildly revenue positive from 2000-01 to 2004-05.21015(Question No. 1770)177021015Hatton, Michael, MPMr HattonLN6BlaxlandALP00 asked the Minister representing the Minister for Family and Community Services, upon notice, on 14 August 2000: (1) Is the Minister's Department and agencies within the Minister's portfolio compliant in respect of the Goods and Services Tax. (2) What action did the Minister's Department and agencies within the Minister's portfolio take to ensure that they were GST ready by 1 July 2000. (3) Is the Minister able to guarantee that no agency within the Minister's portfolio will suffer negative impacts on its budget or services due to the GST; if not, or if the guarantee was subsequently proved incorrect, would the Minister be prepared to resign.21015Anthony, Larry, MPMr AnthonyXJ6RichmondNPMinister for Community Services10—The Minister for Family and Community Services has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1) The chief executives of all agencies within my portfolio provided me with written confirmation in June 2000, that they would be able to comply with The New Tax System from 1 July 2000. (2) The Department of Family and Community Services; Social Security Appeals Tribunal; Child Support Agency; CRS Australia; and Centrelink each established an implementation team, generally involving external consultants to oversight and assist with the process of implementing the Goods and Services Tax. Extensive consultation occurred with the Australian Taxation Office and the Department of Finance and Administration throughout the implementation process. Changes were made to systems, policies, procedures and structures to ensure compliance with The New Tax System and GST. The Australian Institute of Family Studies developed and implemented action and contingency plans which involved external and internal training for staff and consultant assistance to upgrade systems, policies and procedures. (3) The implementation and ongoing management of tax reform by agencies is the responsibility of their respective chief executive officers. While the Government will continue to monitor the impact of the implementation of The New Tax System, the reforms are not expected to reduce the level of funding of agencies in this portfolio in real terms.21016(Question No. 1946)194621016Roxon, Nicola, MPMs Roxon83KGellibrandALP00 asked the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, upon notice, on 6 September 2000: (1) Have some organisations received Commonwealth Jobs Network grants from his Department that have been grossed up by only 7.2% following the introduction of the GST; if so, why. (2) If a Jobs Network organisation in receipt of a Commonwealth grant was a registered charity and able in the past to claim a wholesale sales tax exemption, is a gross up of its grant of only 7.2% following the introduction of the GST an effective funding cut.21016Reith, Peter, MPMr ReithWI4FlindersLPMinister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1) No organisations receive grants from the Government for delivering Job Network services. Job Network providers are remunerated for outcomes achieved as determined by tenderers submitting bids in an open tender. The most recent tender closed on 30 July 1999. In submitting prices for this tender, tenderers were asked to bid post GST prices and to include with their bids their estimate of the percentage impact of the Government's tax reforms. (This estimate was used to adjust prices paid prior to implementation of the New Tax System on 1 July 2000.) (2) At the time of the tender the Government estimated that, on the assumption that cost and price effects are fully passed on, the price impact on the broader industry sector `Other Business Services' - which includes employment services - was expected to be an increase of 7.2 per cent. This information was conveyed to tenderers in the Request for Tender documentation and tenderers were also strongly encouraged to seek professional advice on how the taxation reform package would affect their individual circumstances. The estimates of percentage impact of the Government tax reforms submitted by tenderers varied according to the individual circumstances of tenderers.21016(Question No. 1961)196121016Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr Kelvin ThomsonUK6WillsALP00 asked the Prime Minister, upon notice, on 7 September 2000: Did he fly to the UN in order to boycott it; if so, why.21016Howard, John, MPMr HowardZD4BennelongLPPrime Minister10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: No.