2001-02-083918REPS2421302001-02-08—————Mr SPEAKER (Mr Neil Andrew) took the chair at 9.30 a.m., and read prayers.Miscellaneous242132421309:31:0024213Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALPLeader of the Opposition00—I move:That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Minister for Health and Aged Care immediately coming into the Chamber to explain whether he misled the House yesterday in relation to the conflict of interest involved in the appointment of Mr Pat Clear to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee; given—(1) Mr Clear is a director of the biopharmaceutical firm Fucell;(2) that the company is seeking licensing arrangements with pharmaceutical companies; and(3) Mr Clear's duties as director include providing contacts and assisting in the development of commercial strategies.This minister has form. He does not understand the meaning of `conflict of interest' and his arrogance—Motion (by Mr McGauran) put:That the member be not further heard.09:36:00The House divided. (Mr Speaker—Mr Neil Andrew) 72Abbott, A.J.Anderson, J.D.Andrews, K.J.Anthony, L.J.Bailey, F.E.Baird, B.G.Barresi, P.A.Bartlett, K.J.Billson, B.F.Bishop, B.K.Bishop, J.I.Brough, M.T.Cadman, A.G.Causley, I.R.Charles, R.E.Costello, P.H.Draper, P.Elson, K.S.Entsch, W.G.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.Lawler, A.J.Lieberman, L.S.Lindsay, P.J.Lloyd, J.E.Macfarlane, I.E.May, M.A.McArthur, S *McGauran, P.J.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.Ruddock, P.M.Schultz, A.Scott, B.C.Secker, P.D.Slipper, P.N.Somlyay, A.M.Southcott, A.J.St Clair, S.R.Stone, S.N.Thompson, C.P.Thomson, A.P.Truss, W.E.Tuckey, C.W.Vaile, M.A.J.Vale, D.S.Wakelin, B.H.Washer, M.J.Williams, D.R.Wooldridge, M.R.L.Worth, P.M.59Adams, 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.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.Hoare, K.J.Hollis, C.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.McClelland, R.B.McFarlane, J.S.McMullan, R.F.Melham, D.Mossfield, F.W.Murphy, J. P.O'Connor, G.M.O'Keefe, N.P.Price, L.R.S.Quick, H.V.Ripoll, B.F.Roxon, N.L.Sawford, R.W *Sciacca, C.A.Sercombe, R.C.G *Sidebottom, P.S.Smith, S.F.Snowdon, W.E.Swan, W.M.Tanner, L.Thomson, K.J.Wilkie, K.Zahra, C.J.Fahey, J.J.O'Byrne, M.A.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the affirmative.09:40:0024213Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00— This minister has no understanding of conflict of interest. He should come and explain himself— Motion (by Mr McGauran) put:That the member be not further heard.09:42:00The House divided. (Mr Speaker—Mr Neil Andrew) 72Abbott, A.J.Anderson, J.D.Andrews, K.J.Anthony, L.J.Bailey, F.E.Baird, B.G.Barresi, P.A.Bartlett, K.J.Billson, B.F.Bishop, B.K.Bishop, J.I.Brough, M.T.Cadman, A.G.Causley, I.R.Charles, R.E.Costello, P.H.Draper, P.Elson, K.S.Entsch, W.G.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.Lawler, A.J.Lieberman, L.S.Lindsay, P.J.Lloyd, J.E.Macfarlane, I.E.May, M.A.McArthur, S *McGauran, P.J.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.Ruddock, P.M.Schultz, A.Scott, B.C.Secker, P.D.Slipper, P.N.Somlyay, A.M.Southcott, A.J.St Clair, S.R.Stone, S.N.Thompson, C.P.Thomson, A.P.Truss, W.E.Tuckey, C.W.Vaile, M.A.J.Vale, D.S.Wakelin, B.H.Washer, M.J.Williams, D.R.Wooldridge, M.R.L.Worth, P.M.59Adams, 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.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.Hoare, K.J.Hollis, C.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.McClelland, R.B.McFarlane, J.S.McMullan, R.F.Melham, D.Mossfield, F.W.Murphy, J. P.O'Connor, G.M.O'Keefe, N.P.Price, L.R.S.Quick, H.V.Ripoll, B.F.Roxon, N.L.Sawford, R.W *Sciacca, C.A.Sercombe, R.C.G *Sidebottom, P.S.Smith, S.F.Snowdon, W.E.Swan, W.M.Tanner, L.Thomson, K.J.Wilkie, K.Zahra, C.J.Fahey, J.J.O'Byrne, M.A.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the affirmative.Original question put:That the motion (Mr Beazley's) be agreed to.09:44:00The House divided. (Mr Speaker—Mr Neil Andrew) 59Adams, 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.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.Hoare, K.J.Hollis, C.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.McClelland, R.B.McFarlane, J.S.McMullan, R.F.Melham, D.Mossfield, F.W.Murphy, J. P.O'Connor, G.M.O'Keefe, N.P.Price, L.R.S.Quick, H.V.Ripoll, B.F.Roxon, N.L.Sawford, R.W *Sciacca, C.A.Sercombe, R.C.G *Sidebottom, P.S.Smith, S.F.Snowdon, W.E.Swan, W.M.Tanner, L.Thomson, K.J.Wilkie, K.Zahra, C.J.73Abbott, A.J.Anderson, J.D.Andrews, K.J.Anthony, L.J.Bailey, F.E.Baird, B.G.Barresi, P.A.Bartlett, K.J.Billson, B.F.Bishop, B.K.Bishop, J.I.Brough, M.T.Cadman, A.G.Cameron, R.A.Causley, I.R.Charles, R.E.Costello, P.H.Draper, P.Elson, K.S.Entsch, W.G.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.Lawler, A.J.Lieberman, L.S.Lindsay, P.J.Lloyd, J.E.Macfarlane, I.E.May, M.A.McArthur, S *McGauran, P.J.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.Ruddock, P.M.Schultz, A.Scott, B.C.Secker, P.D.Slipper, P.N.Somlyay, A.M.Southcott, A.J.St Clair, S.R.Stone, S.N.Thompson, C.P.Thomson, A.P.Truss, W.E.Tuckey, C.W.Vaile, M.A.J.Vale, D.S.Wakelin, B.H.Washer, M.J.Williams, D.R.Wooldridge, M.R.L.Worth, P.M.O'Byrne, M.A.Fahey, J.J.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the negative.Miscellaneous2421509:49:0024215McGauran, Peter, MPMr McGAURANXH4GippslandNPMinister for the Arts and the Centenary of Federation10—I move:Excise Tariff Proposal No. 1 (2001)Excise Tariff Proposal No. 2 (2001)The Tariff Proposals, which I have just tabled, contain alterations to the Excise Tariff Act 1921.Excise Tariff Proposal No. 1 (2001) formally places before parliament changes to the way excise duty is expressed in the tariff for product excisable under the Product Stewardship (Oil) Arrangements. The change is necessary to align the treatment of these products with other excisable petroleum products.Excise Tariff Proposal No. 2 (2001) formally places before parliament changes to section 6G of the act. Under the existing system, previously paid import duties on petroleum product imported to be used in further excise manufacture in Australia cannot be set off against the final amount of excise payable.Previously paid excise duties can be set off under the existing arrangements subject to certain requirements being met.The amendments in this proposal are designed to ensure that manufacturers of excisable petroleum products will be able to set off any previously paid excise duty, whether that duty was paid as an import duty or a local excise duty.Summaries of the alterations contained in these proposals have been prepared and are being circulated.I commend the proposals.Debate (on motion by Dr Lawrence) adjourned.Privilege2421509:51:0024215McGauran, Peter, MPMr McGAURANXH4GippslandNPMinister for the Arts and the Centenary of Federation10—On behalf of the Leader of the House, I move:That a message be sent to the Senate requesting that leave be given to Senators Bourne, Calvert, Ferguson, Gibbs, Hutchins, Sandy Macdonald and Schacht, members of the Defence Sub-Committee of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, to attend before the House of Representatives Committee of Privileges for examination.The House Committee of Privileges is currently conducting an inquiry into the alleged unauthorised disclosure of in camera evidence produced at the Defence Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. As noted yesterday by the chair of the committee, Mr Somlyay, this matter is viewed very seriously by the Committee of Privileges and the joint standing committee. The chair of the committee has stated that, as part of its inquiry, the committee wishes to take evidence from members of the Defence Subcommittee, including a number of senators. If senators are to appear before a House committee it is necessary for the House to send a message to the Senate requesting that leave be given to the relevant senators to attend before the House committee. This motion is designed to achieve that end. There are a number of precedents for messages being sent to the Senate requesting that leave be given to relevant senators to attend before the House Committee of Privileges where the committee is inquiring into a matter involving a joint committee.Question resolved in the affirmative. Bills24216R25024216Debate resumed from 7 February, on motion by Mr Truss:That the bill be now read a second time.upon which Mr Martin Ferguson moved by way of amendment;That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “the House is of the opinion that the bill should not be proceeded with until:(1) the Minister satisfies this House that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has resolved all concerns raised in the Australian National Audit Office Report on Aviation Safety Compliance issued in November 1999;(2) the Minister satisfies this House that CASA has especially heeded and acted upon the ANAO warning of the need for CASA to improve the management and the prioritisation of tasks in its surveillance program, before using the proposed voluntary enforceable undertakings power proposed in the Bill; and(3) the Minister convinces this House that he has a clear and effective plan to ensure CASA fulfils their responsibility to rigorously and effectively regulate aviation in the interests of the Australian travelling public.09:52:0024216Albanese, Anthony, MPMr ALBANESER36GrayndlerALP00—Yesterday I was outlining my concern regarding aviation safety, particularly regarding the operation of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport and the fact that it is my view—and commonsense tells us and anyone travelling in and out of Sydney knows—that Sydney airport has reached its capacity. My concern is that the failure of this government to take action in accordance with its own political commitments given in its aviation and Sydney airport policy called Putting People First, announced prior to the 1996 election, has meant that that pressure on Sydney airport has continued to grow and has meant that, if that continues, the danger to safety of those people who live around the airport, as the pressure expands, is ever greater. In particular, we have seen from this government a failure to get on with building a second airport for Sydney in accordance with its own policies. It has been put off and a plan has been developed to move all regional airlines to Bankstown so that Sydney airport becomes a jet aircraft airport only. That is a disaster for the people around Sydney airport, it is a disaster for people around Bankstown airport and it is a disaster for the economy of regional NSW, and also for the economy of Australia and New South Wales in general, of which airport operations at Sydney are a major component. We know this to be the case not because of any open policy announced by the government but by the leaking of documents.Firstly, as I referred to last evening, the New South Wales country political briefing, `Transforming Bankstown to the airport of choice for regional New South Wales', was given to federal, state and local political representatives from New South Wales on 11 February 2000. I have here—and I mentioned it at the time, now almost one year ago—a 17-page proposal for Bankstown airport to become the regional airport for New South Wales. This plan included terminal facilities, operations at the airport, transport requirements and transfers between Bankstown airport and Kingsford Smith airport—indeed, a whole 17-page plan to ensure that Bankstown airport became the major regional airport for New South Wales. It concluded that: Success will be dependent upon the level of commitment and support a proposed regional airport at Bankstown receives from regional communities. Regional communities have a genuine opportunity to turn a regional airport at Bankstown into a successful aeronautical and business facility that they can call their own.Their emphasis, Mr Speaker. They then said:It is essential that the economic and political backing is in place to begin the process. The challenge is for the regional communities to commit themselves to support the transformation of Bankstown airport as their airport of choice. The commitment to a regional airport at Bankstown is a commitment to the future prosperity of regional New South Wales.Well, what an extraordinary proposition! What these people are proposing is that a discriminatory development in aviation policy, whereby people from regional New South Wales would be treated as second-class citizens, should actually be welcomed by regional New South Wales. They should welcome the fact that, if you are from a city or from overseas, you can fly into the centre of Sydney but, if you are from Tamworth or Port Macquarie or any of the regional centres in New South Wales, you will have to fly to Bankstown. And they talk about the political support being put in place—we have seen that occurring as well. The Committee for Sydney Inc. produced a document in June 2000, Sydney's gateways in the 21st century. Part 1, `The Airports', was prepared by Access Economics and Maunsell McIntyre. This is an extraordinary document. It says, quite rightly, that there are two options for Sydney's future airport needs: firstly, to build an international airport at Badgerys Creek and limit new development at Kingsford Smith airport, with Bankstown remaining a general aviation airport. That is, essentially, the same proposal that has been given the tick by the environmental impact statement—developed at a cost of some $16 million by this government and then ignored. The second proposal is, essentially, to transfer regional aircraft to Bankstown in around 2012 and then to develop Bankstown as the regional airport. When you look at who actually makes up the Committee for Sydney Inc., we should not be surprised at its recommendations. The Committee for Sydney Inc. suggests that Badgerys Creek or a second Sydney airport does not need to be in operation until the year 2020—that it can just continue to expand further. That has been picked up, including, unfortunately, by a couple of my colleagues in one of the motions that remains on the Notice Paper.Why is that not surprising? It is because the Committee for Sydney Inc. comprises, amongst others, Sydney Airport Corporation Ltd—the corporation that runs Sydney airport and owns Bankstown airport. In the lead-up to this government's privatisation of Sydney airport, it is not surprising that the owners of Sydney airport want to squeeze maximum capacity and operation from that airport—regardless of what it means for the people who live near the airport, the New South Wales regions and the Australian economy.The cost-benefit analysis of this proposal is extremely interesting. First, there is the slot system at Sydney airport. Regional airlines are currently guaranteed positions at the airport. The Committee for Sydney Inc. has suggested that the value to an airline of carrying 100 passengers per return flight is $365,000 a year, with a capitalised value of $2.5 million. It concluded that, over time, many regional airlines will occupy slots at Kingsford Smith airport that are worth more than their aircraft. That is why the chairman of Impulse Airlines, Jerry McGowan, has pointed out that the desperation to buy Hazelton Airlines is, in part, about trying to convert Hazelton's regional slots at KSA to jet aircraft slots for the major airlines. At present, Sydney airport is simply too congested to allow new market entrants to grow and compete. The second issue raised is the serious economic damage that will be done to country areas if access to Sydney airport is sought from them and they are treated as second-class citizens. Let us look at the extra costs that travellers will face if regional air services move from Kingsford Smith airport to Bankstown. We must note that Bankstown airport is some three kilometres from any rail options, so it is likely that business travellers will be forced to catch a taxi from Bankstown to inner Sydney. The Committee for Sydney Inc.—the pro-Bankstown airport group—has estimated that 60 per cent of all domestic business and leisure travellers into Sydney have inner Sydney as their final destination. They are looking at a taxi fare of some $45. It is conservatively estimated that it will take one hour to travel from Bankstown to inner Sydney and we can conservatively value people's time at $55 an hour—many business travellers would certainly put a much higher value on their time. A table prepared by the Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils shows the increased costs to regional New South Wales of moving regional airlines to Bankstown. Given that in 1999-2000 there were 472,706 passenger trips to Sydney from Albury, Armidale, Ballina, Coffs Harbour, Dubbo, Griffith, Moree, Orange, Parkes, Port Macquarie, Tamworth, Taree and Wagga Wagga, given the increased taxi fare and estimating the value of people's time at $55 an hour, additional surface travel costs alone will amount to $45,379,000. That money will be sucked out of regional New South Wales.Where has the National Party been on this issue? National Party members attended the briefing on 11 February 2000 about transforming Bankstown into the regional airport for New South Wales, but since then they have been silent on this issue—silent, once again, in defending their communities. Sydney airport is being prepared for privatisation at the time when the government committed itself to privatising the airport under legislation only when Sydney's aircraft noise problems had been solved. What has happened? The airport's noise problems have worsened. There is inadequate funding and scope for the insulation project around Sydney airport. Inasmuch as this government has rhetoric about small business, it has failed to compensate small businesses around Sydenham in my electorate that have closed as a result of the demolition of half of that community where conditions were simply unlivable. The cap has been breached over and over again but this government has taken no serious action. Curfews are breached continually. Yet the only plan the government has is more noise, more jet movements over Sydney airport and moving regional airlines to Bankstown. There are no real solutions to the aircraft noise problem and uncertainty remains for people living near the Badgerys Creek airport site. The land has been reserved, which is an acknowledgment that a major infrastructure project will take place to build a second airport for Sydney. (Time expired)10:07:0024218McArthur, Stewart, MPMr McARTHURVH4CorangamiteLP10—I rise to participate in this debate because of my activities on a number of standing committees of the parliament, my interest in the international surveillance of aircraft and ships and the comparisons we might draw from the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000, which seeks to incorporate Australia's aviation safety regime into international regimes. I think it is an interesting debate as to how this parliament might draw up a code of conduct that will enforce international regulations that are compatible with Australia's aviation laws. The previous speaker, the honourable member for Grayndler, did not address the bill. Instead he went into the age-old arguments of the Sydney airport. I do not think he made one comment about international safety regulations. The shadow minister, the member for Batman, at least addressed the bill, although I notice that the amendment, again, does not address the key issues that this bill brings before the parliament.To open the batting, I will deal with the bill in some detail. It talks about making the Civil Aviation Act 1988 compatible with international regulations and entering into article 83bis agreements with the national airworthiness authorities of other nations. It gives CASA the power to accept enforceable written undertakings from people in relation to compliance with civil aviation safety legislation in Australia. It also makes a minor amendment to the Civil Aviation (Carriers' Liability) Act. In simple terms, the bill is trying to make sure that our safety regulations are compatible with those of international regimes—that is, the International Civil Aviation Organisation. It seeks to harmonise those requirements and get the terms the same, both in Australia and internationally. The article 83bis agreements, which are dealt with under the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Chicago 1944—the Chicago convention—again attempt to make the arrangements compatible. One of the key issues is to ensure that an aircraft which is registered in one country and operated in another can be included in these regimes. It seems quite reasonable to ensure, where aircraft move around the world rapidly, that when aircraft are maintained in a country but owned in another the international authorities have some way of controlling them. The issue of CASA's ability to comply with international regulations and surveillance needs to be resolved. This bill attempts to ensure this takes place.Those fairly technical details are known to members of the parliament, but the key issue is this: how does Australia ensure that these safety regulations are enforced at an international level? I have been involved with two committees that have considered this problem. Mr Deputy Speaker Jenkins, I think you participated in one inquiry—the Ships of shame inquiry. Another—the Plane safe inquiry—looked at safety in general aviation in Australia. The Ships of shame inquiry addressed the fundamental problem of how Australia organises a set of rules and regulations that can influence international shipping operations in terms of safety, capacity and ability to look after personnel and make sure the ships are seaworthy. Originally, that was regarded as an impossible task. There are a number of difficulties with the bill before the parliament because it tries to say to other aircraft owners and operators that they will comply with Australian standards. The fundamental question is: what authority does this parliament have to force international operators to comply with our regulations?The Ships of shame inquiry demonstrated that in Australia we can enforce a certain set of regulations and standards by way of control over international shipping which, I think, serves to demonstrate the model that we might use with international aircraft. That report listed a number of deficiencies in international ships that carried iron ore in particular. There were a number of fatalities. One set of figures I have indicates that, in 1991, 19 ships sank, generally because they were old—between the ages of 15 and 24 years—and 149 personnel were lost. The question at that stage was: how can we in Australia enforce safety standards on international shipping lines and shipping companies?Following this landmark report of the committee chaired by the Hon. Peter Morris, I believe we did have an impact on international shipping—so much so that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority now puts out a ship detention list on which the deficiencies of international ships are listed and made public. It means that ship owners, classification societies and insurers are aware of such ships coming into Australia. It is interesting to note, by way of comparison, what a great job AMSA has done in organising and making sure that the ships that come to Australia are of a high quality.During December, inspections were carried out on 13 Australian ships and 231 foreign registered vessels. There were a number of identifiable defects. On each ship serious deficiencies were identified. For instance, on one ship cargo hatch covers were wasted and holed. On another ship navigation bridge visibility was impaired by containers. They could not even see out to guide the ship through the ports. Another ship had engine room ventilation fire dampers holed, which was a very serious fire risk. The list goes on. Here we have a list identifying international ships and their deficiencies. In Australia, maritime safety requirements have gone up quite markedly. We have made an impact on international regulation, not by statute but by providing port state control and a system where people know that if they come to Australia in a rust bucket the authorities will turn them around or detain them in the port. I suggest that we need to have that culture in regard to international aircraft—that if second-rate or third-class international aircraft come to Australia the owners or operators will know that under this legislation CASA will have the power to identify these aircraft and so they will be deterred from bringing them to Australia. With ships, there was not the pressure of the marketplace to keep up the quality and, unfortunately, the sanctity of human life in terms of those crews was not a great consideration by the shipowners. But, obviously, with passengers on international flights there is a tremendous pressure on the owners and operators to make sure that their aircraft are safe, that they have been well maintained and that they meet both Australian and international standards. The report of the other inquiry I participated in, Plane safe, was basically a discussion about the safety of aviation in the commuter and general aviation sectors. Similar problems arose in terms of how you organise these safety requirements. Again I say that, whilst we might have joined the Chicago agreement and are part of an international set of safety arrangements, we have to make sure that here in Australia our safety authority can implement these programs. It is not as easy as some people think. To ensure a safety strategy is difficult. First, you have to educate the operators and the owners and the safety authority, CASA, as to what is involved. You need to license the main airline operators—which goes without saying. With the smaller aircraft that is a little more difficult. You need to have a program of surveillance. I notice that members of the opposition in their amendment talk about the audit of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. That authority needs to have an aircraft surveillance regime and an ability to enforce the rules and regulations. So it is not as easy as people would imagine. Over the two years of this inquiry CASA and its officers found it difficult to have a surveillance and enforcement regime. I suggest to the parliament that at an international level this is even more difficult. Just by way of passing, one problem involved bogus parts. Again, on international aircraft that are not fully up to standard this could be a problem. We found in the Plane safe inquiry that with the smaller commuter aircraft some of the second-hand parts were a real problem. Were some of these second-hand parts counterfeited? Was their documentation falsified? Were they genuine? Were they damaged? What was the service record of these parts? This seems a comparatively small aspect of the whole aviation industry, but let me assure you that some of these parts in the bigger jets and the smaller aircraft are very costly and because of commercial pressures people can be inclined to use second-hand and bogus parts in the maintenance structure. So again we see a problem in one aspect of the industry. CASA was able to identify the parts and a strict regime ensured that there was a covering of the parts to make sure that they did not get into the chain. I am advocating that in Australia we have a culture of safety. No amount of international regulation or joining of international organisations will change an attitude of mind. In general passenger aviation, big aircraft are complex vehicles. A small defect in their maintenance can bring about a major catastrophe, as all members would be aware. In Australia we need to develop a culture of safety rather than relying on the legality of international agreements, which this bill enforces. In Australia the major airlines should ensure that their aircraft are maintained in a sound and proper way. In terms of this culture of safety again I was privileged to be part of a recent committee, which tabled a report called Beyond the midnight oil: managing fatigue in transport. We were able to go and see first-hand how the maintenance activities of the aircraft of Qantas and Ansett were undertaken. The issue at stake on this occasion was the fatigue of the licensed aeronautical maintenance engineers, LAMEs, as they are known, who have 12-hour shifts from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., during which they carry out very complex maintenance tasks for the 707 jet aircraft which move around Australia and internationally. The fundamental questions facing the parliament are these: are these tasks being executed in a workmanlike manner? Is there a culture of safety? What rules and regulations and procedures can this parliament enforce to ensure the safety of passengers on domestic and international routes? They are the ones that we are particularly concerned to adjust. When the members of the committee inspected both Ansett and Qantas we were impressed that the attitude of the maintenance engineers was first-class. They had a pride in their job. They understood the gravity of the maintenance tasks they were undertaking. I was personally pleased to see the way this was organised.Whilst there has been recent publicity about one or two minor maintenance breaches, I can assure members of the House that, in our view, those two organisations, as far as we could see, had undertaken to ensure that these tasks were executed to the best of their ability. There was a pride by those LAMEs for jobs being well executed, although there was an obvious problem of fatigue between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. and that matter was being addressed. It is interesting that in the report we made the comment that both Qantas and Ansett are addressing the problems of fatigue in these maintenance operations. Again, I draw the comparison that, whilst we have a technical bill joining an international surveillance operation, the important thing is to ensure that these fundamental maintenance tasks are executed well at the Australian headquarters of the maintenance operations.Qantas, in their operations, were going to have a good look at the controlled overtime and encourage a `no blame' culture so that, if something was wrong, nobody was blamed but they remedied the problem so that there was again a culture of safety in the whole organisation rather than one of regulation, one of concern that CASA would come and report on them and that there would be a shifting of the blame. They were going to look at a close auditing of subsidiary engineering and maintenance operations. Again, there was a fairly strict program, as we understood, looking at these various operations. The point that we were looking at was the fatigue of these operators whose good work and important contribution was vital to the aircraft maintenance and to ensuring that any particular aircraft was able to operate in both Australia and internationally.I commend the bill. It adds some international compatibility to this very vexed problem. There is no easy answer, in my view, to safety matters, especially in aviation. There is a new culture where the pressure of the marketplace ensures that the major airline carriers are paranoid—if I can use that word—about safety because, if they lose an aircraft, that would impinge upon their public record and their ability to attract passengers. So that has a tremendous pressure to ensure that they obey the regulations and maintain their own maintenance standards because it is the right thing to do rather than obeying an international covenant or regulation.Whilst this parliament can legislate and we can join international agreements, the fundamental bottom line is that we encourage a culture of maintenance, that we encourage Australians to develop an apprenticeship system where there is a developing new breed of LAMEs who will come and service the aircraft of the future here in Australia, that Australian aircraft are not serviced overseas where this culture does not exist and that we maintain our aircraft in first-class order. This legislation will encourage some of those airlines in Third World countries to adopt more stringent safety procedures. I think that will be in the interest of some Australian travellers who seek cheap fares on those airlines.I commend the legislation, I commend the attitude and I commend some of the deliberations of committees in this House who have looked at this very vexed issue of how we maintain safety, how we get a legislative regime that ensures safety is part of the Australian background and how we enforce it. Some of the evidence before these committees and some of the debate in this parliament says that it is a very difficult issue to force people, in a legislative sense, to provide safety in their operations. I suggest that it is the marketplace, it is the pressure of the people, the customers out there, that in the long run will ensure aircraft safety on both international and domestic routes. 10:26:0024222Wilkie, Kim, MPMr WILKIE84GSwanALP00—I welcome the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000. However, I have some points to make pertaining to the management of civil aviation within Australia and particularly some concerns that I have about its effects upon my home state of Western Australia. It is the responsibility of government to maintain the aviation industry and to ensure that it is sustained to a safe standard, run effectively and harmonised within the community rather than working against community interests.Let me begin by examining the general state of Australia's aviation industry. According to the Department of Transport and Regional Services, in 1998 there were 10,072 registered aeroplanes operating in this country. Nearly 70 million passengers are flown around the country each year, earning $26.5 billion in revenue for the domestic airlines. Australian aviation logged almost two million flying hours in 1997-98. In my state of Western Australia, the figures show that the number of flying hours has increased by more than in any other state. In 1992-93, 258,300 hours were flown in Western Australia. That figure has increased to 350,100 in just six years. In 1997-98, Perth airport moved 4,618,510 passengers on 55,893 scheduled flights. As these statistics demonstrate, civil aviation is of growing importance to Western Australia and particularly to my electorate of Swan, which contains Perth airport.This legislation proposes to do three things. Firstly, the bill provides for CASA to enter into article 83bis agreements with foreign aviation operators. Secondly, CASA will be given the power to enforce written undertakings concerning safety, voluntarily submitted by Australian aircraft operators. Finally, an error relating to liabilities on foreign charter operators is removed. I note that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, in his second reading speech, stated:The ability for Australia to enter into Article 83bis agreements should also benefit the Australian aviation industry and the consumer in terms of increased economic opportunities and reduced costs. For example, domestic operators would potentially have greater flexibility and more cost-effective options in operating their aircraft fleetsGiven the problems that have beset the Australian aviation industry over the term of this government, it is possible to argue that there is too much flexibility in the system at the moment. Whilst one would not argue for an inefficient and uncompetitive aviation industry, the government's preoccupation with privatisation and cost effectiveness is causing problems with regard to safety. I consider the most important factor to consider in civil aviation is the safe transportation of people and cargo. Yet this government appears to have a preoccupation with outsourcing, and I believe this only encourages the cutting of corners and a deterioration in safety standards.There have been a number of highly publicised accidents and faults reported over the past 18 months. The responses received by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau have highlighted the low level of concern this government has in relation to aircraft safety. Once aspect of the safety issue that has concerned many observers is the privatisation of emergency services at Australia's regional airports. This could very well lead to a decrease in the quality of service provision due to the expense and location of these airports. Once again the Australian passenger has come second to the government's accounting exercises.What I consider to be the most shocking example of an aviation accident over the past 18 months was seen on the runway of Bangkok airport. Here a Qantas jet overshot the runway and the end result was a $100 million refit of the plane concerned and a tarnishing of Qantas's international reputation for safety. The public's confidence in Qantas had already been dented, particularly when faults continued to occur. A further incident that attracted attention recently was the collapse of a nose wheel on an Ansett jet at Sydney airport. Whilst no-one was injured, the Transport Safety Bureau decided not to investigate as the incident did not pose a threat to passenger safety. There have been numerous other incidents and faults reported in recent times. A classic example was the incident with Ansett over the Christmas break when cracks that had developed were found in some of their 767 aircraft. There was also recently the incident of the Singapore Airlines jumbo engine exploding. But the event that has placed aviation safety into sharp focus of late was the tragic crash of a Whyalla Airlines plane into the Spencer Gulf. However, we are still waiting for the accident investigation report into that particular accident. These incidents have placed aircraft safety at the forefront of the community's mind. The consequences for the Australian aviation industry of a loss of confidence by the public would be very significant. Unfortunately, the somewhat inadequate activities of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and, by extension, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services have come under increased scrutiny due to the increase in accidents and technical problems over the past year. According to the Transport Safety Bureau, the number of incidents—that is, everything from minor mechanical faults to planes straying into the wrong airspace—reached 162 per 100,000 flying hours in 1998. That statistic stands in stark comparison to 1991, when there were just 81.9 incidents per 100,000 flying hours. In other words, the rate of safety incidents has effectively doubled in those seven years. That indicates that something is very wrong at CASA, as well as at the Department of Transport and Regional Services.What practical action has been taken by the minister to address the community's concern over aviation safety? When all the investigations and reports and recommendations are stripped away, one finds that very little is actually happening in the policy arena to staunch the spiralling number of safety incidents. To draw an analogy, it is as if the minister has fallen asleep in the cockpit, with the result that aviation safety in this country has gone into a nosedive. If that is not the case and the minister is actually awake, then the situation can be summed up by the three wise monkeys—see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil. That is precisely what the minister's behaviour has been reminiscent of over the past year in spite of CASA presiding over drastically declining safety standards in Australian aviation. I note that this bill provides for CASA to accept written undertakings from operators with regard to aircraft safety. But that system is only voluntary. Surely at a time when the public perception of aviation safety is at a low level, the appropriate action would be to require operators to give enforceable undertakings on a compulsory basis. The provisions in the bill simply do not go far enough.As I explained earlier, my electorate of Swan contains Perth airport. Statistics from the Department of Transport and Regional Services, which I also quoted earlier, reveal that the volume of traffic at Perth airport is increasing by more than at any other metropolitan airport in Australia. Passenger volumes have escalated at five per cent per annum and gross volumes in tonnage have increased by 10 per cent. There is evidence to suggest that this will be the norm over the next decade as Perth increasingly handles more traffic. Because of this, it might be expected that the minister might unclasp his eyes, ears and mouth for a moment. This may ensure safer conditions for passengers who use the airport facilities in the electorate of Swan and within Australia.I have spoken in this House on numerous occasions about the behaviour of the airport operators, Westralia Airports Corporation. On 12 May 1999 I informed the House about the consultation period offered by Westralia for the Perth airport draft master plan, the document which will set the trend for air traffic volume and movements for many years to come. Westralia Airports granted just four days for submissions to be made—four days for a document that affects thousands of people in my electorate. After I and many others concerned about this extraordinary piece of gagging protested, the minister took Westralia Airports to task over the lack of consultation. He then, with much fanfare, put out a press release claiming that the operators were on notice. Subsequent developments at Perth airport seem to indicate that the press release was yet another Howard government public relations exercise. If this is an indication of the government's greater flexibility in aviation policy, then I strongly object to it. The wave of safety breaches and faults that has blighted civil aviation in this country has sadly extended across the Nullarbor. Last year the engine of a landing jet hit the tarmac at Perth airport, leading to major structural damage to the aircraft. Having read the incident report of the accident, I believe that we were very lucky not to have an incident similar to that which occurred at Hong Kong airport when a landing 747 was flipped over and crashed in a fireball, killing a lot of people on board. When we have similar sorts of difficulties occurring at our airports around this country, we really need to look at our safety standards. Under this government's policies, these incidents are becoming far more common, and with the increasing volume of traffic at Perth airport the likelihood of such events happening again will only increase.I turn now to make two points specifically relating to Perth airport. The first is the proposed relocation of the Air Traffic Terminal Control Unit from Perth to Melbourne and the second is the issue of noise for the residents of Swan. The majority of air traffic in the Australian Flight Information Region is controlled from centres at Melbourne and Brisbane airports. Presently, Cairns, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth have terminal control units that control traffic within 36 nautical miles, about 66 kilometres. From these terminal control units, all of the airspace down to ground level is controlled. The associated control towers at the respective airports control aircraft and vehicle movements on the ground and themselves have no airspace control.Perth airport is situated between the busiest RAAF base in Australia, Pearce, 15 nautical miles to the north, and one of the busiest secondary airports in Australia, Jandakot, eight nautical miles to the south. The controllers at the terminal control unit therefore work in close association with air traffic controllers at these two airports. In some runway configurations, the flight paths of aircraft have to cross while aircraft are positioned for instrument approaches to runway 21 at Perth airport and runway 36 at Pearce. Operations such as this require a high level of coordination between Perth and Pearce.Airservices Australia, the provider of civil air traffic control in Australia, is currently studying the relocation of the terminal control unit at Cairns to the Brisbane centre and the terminal control units at Sydney, Adelaide and Perth to Melbourne. The reasons that Airservices Australia has indicated that the relocation is desirable centre on the `perceived efficiency gains'. However, I find this to be inaccurate for the following reasons. The gains are only `perceived'. Airservices Australia relocated approximately 40 air traffic controllers who controlled airspace outside 36 nautical miles from Perth to Melbourne and Brisbane over a number of years up until October 1999. No study that has been made public has been made into the efficiency gains actually achieved following the costs associated with moving these people and their functions. There is, however, still a requirement that a significant number of technical staff and associated support staff be located in Perth in order to maintain ground based equipment located in and around Perth airport. On the face of it, there do not appear to be any efficiency gains whatsoever. Then there is the industrial relations impact. About 24 air traffic controller positions will either be located to Melbourne or terminated. The average age of these controllers is over 40, and most have school aged children. There is an obvious personal impact associated with any relocation of positions to Melbourne should people make the choice to move to Melbourne or to pursue career options outside Airservices Australia. There is also the loss of money to Western Australia. Air navigation charges earned by aircraft operating at Perth airport will be lost from the economy of the state. The portion paid as salaries to air traffic controllers will be spent in Victoria—great for the Victorians but not very good for Western Australians. Furthermore, the loss to Western Australia will be exacerbated by the reduced need to invest in future infrastructure associated with this high technology environment.There is also the cost of the transfers. Any perceived gains in efficiency must surely be offset by the considerable cost of transfers, redundancies and training of replacement staff. There is also the reduction in experience. Terminal area controllers are drawn from the most experienced and competent controllers available. This is a reflection on the complexity of the job and the level of knowledge and expertise required. Most of the terminal area controllers at Perth airport have in excess of 10 years experience in air traffic control, and their average career length would be about 20 to 25 years. Each controller who does not relocate to Melbourne will cause a reduction of the experience level by about 20 years. As it is likely that the reduction of experience will be fast and a considerable percentage of the overall level, this will impact in ways not experienced under normal circumstances of natural employment attrition. There is also the issue of local knowledge. An article on the front page of the Australian, dated 1 February 2001, reported that in a draft legal opinion for Airservices Australia a high level of local knowledge is necessary for relevant terrain clearance. As the terminal control unit controls to ground level in and around Perth airport, a high level of local knowledge is required and useful when controlling traffic in this area. Assistance in the past has been provided in such situations as: aircraft crashes, aircraft making forced or precautionary landings, aircraft that are lost or in navigational difficulty, search and rescue operations, police surveillance operations and fire-fighting operations. In addition, there is Rally Australia, during which a high number of helicopters operate that need to be controlled. Every year in January we have our annual sky show; we have dozens of aircraft overhead during that event, and local knowledge is extremely important. Assistance has also been provided in events like the Avon Descent, military exercises, medivac operations, visits by foreign heads of state, road traffic patrols and media helicopter operations. All of these operations are closely associated with ground operations and knowledge of terrain and available ground assets. The current level of local knowledge will obviously diminish over time if the controllers are situated 2,000 kilometres away. This reduction in local knowledge may drop dramatically if a high percentage of current staff choose not to relocate to Melbourne. Associated with local knowledge is the issue of local contact with the local aviation industry and operators. The availability of direct contact makes the understanding of operators' requirements easier and safer.There is also the reduction in facility redundancy. With dispersed terminal control units, there is a built-in redundancy available to control air traffic in Australia in the event of a catastrophic failure of one of the major centres at Brisbane or Melbourne—that is, backup safety procedures. Even though some of the processing for Perth terminal control unit is performed in Melbourne, Perth terminal control unit can operate completely disconnected from processing in Melbourne, and it does so regularly during equipment upgrades with little impact on operations. This demonstrates the redundancy capacity currently available. After a move to Melbourne, radio, radar and intercom signals— with Perth tower, Pearce air traffic control and Jandakot tower—will have to be conveyed continuously between Melbourne and Perth to control the terminal traffic, reducing redundancies currently available and increasing the chances of failure of connections because of the increased links in the chain. There is also the issue of the time difference. During summer, Melbourne is obviously three hours ahead of Western Australia. Some airport operations are daylight-night specific, and this time difference will cause obvious problems. Additionally, one of the peak traffic periods for Perth airport is around 2100 hours or 9 p.m. This traffic will be being controlled by controllers 2,000 kilometres away after midnight.I turn now to the issue of aircraft noise. Obviously the minister feels compelled to listen to the community on this issue, as he has recently granted Adelaide residents a significant sum to insulate their homes, but he has forgotten about the people in my electorate. Of course, it goes without saying that the pork-barrelling in Adelaide was done in marginal conservative electorates. It is nevertheless relevant because of its central importance to civil aviation in Australia. For those people living in the vicinity of airports, it affects their everyday lives. Unfortunately, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services has seen fit to pick and choose over the issue, exactly as he has done with flexibility and safety concerns.I have previously made statements in this House concerning the Australian noise exposure forecast system of measuring aircraft noise. For those unacquainted with the system, the ANEF assigns a number according to how loud the aircraft noise may be. A rating below 20 is considered fine for residential development, whilst a level of 40 renders the area unfit for human habitation. A reading over 25 indicates the need for insulation of some description, including the double glazing of windows.From personal experience I have good reason to question the accuracy of ANEF measurements, which seem to bear little relation to the reality on the ground. A more suitable method of measuring the impact of aircraft noise needs to be developed urgently. In certain areas of my electorate with a supposedly moderate ANEF rating of 20, the roar of incoming and outgoing aircraft makes any attempt at communication impossible. I refer to an experience I had at the Queens Park Primary School where, during an assembly, we had four aircraft fly overhead and it was actually impossible to hear any of the proceedings. The entire school just stopped while those aircraft flew overhead, and that was going on all day. That is unacceptable.Under the Perth airport draft master plan, the ANEF of areas such as Queens Park and South Guildford is put at 35. Considering that a level of 40 is regarded as unfit for human habitation, this is very worrying for the residents in those areas and, obviously, something needs to be done to deal with that.In conclusion, this bill contains worthy elements but really does little to remedy the large problems facing the civil aviation industry in this country. The reforms attempted by the government seem to have only resulted in increased safety incidents and an alarming cost-cutting mentality that places more value on saving money than on ensuring safety levels are at the highest level. The selective blindness, dumbness and deafness displayed by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services does not help either. (Time expired)10:46:0024226Cadman, Alan, MPMr CADMANSD4MitchellLP10—In debating the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000 I wish also to pursue the topic of airports, and nothing has been more topical in Sydney for many years than Sydney's airport needs. I vaguely remember, perhaps 30-odd years ago, a very big debate reported in the press where the then Prime Minister, Billy McMahon, and other members of the parliament were proposing various sites for Sydney's airport needs, and sites in Western Sydney—strongly opposed at that time by the Australian Labor Party—and Taren Point were mentioned. No decision was made. Then with the election of the Whitlam government the most notable thing I remember was the then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, saying to the people of Galston that they would get Galston. That produced a very interesting political fallout for the Australian Labor Party in my local area. In fact, it resulted in a by-election which bought Philip Ruddock, the now Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Reconciliation and Aboriginal Affairs, into this parliament and eventually a change from the Labor Party in 1974 in Mitchell. Sydney's airport needs has been a vexed question for all political parties, and there have been shifts in attitudes. Whilst I intend to be critical of my opponents, because I think that there have been double standards from the Australian Labor Party, anybody would be foolish to suggest that this is not a difficult decision. There is the built-up conurbation of Sydney, the appropriate selection of the site—if the decision is to build a second airport—the future development of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport, and the demand by international travellers that Sydney must be the gateway to their entry to Australia, which may rankle with those citizens of other states but is just a physical factor and a demand factor that is driven by the market and the requirements of international travellers that Sydney be their first point of entry. I guess there is Sydney Harbour and the Opera House—a whole series of reasons why that may be.The airport demands and the aircraft movements in Sydney have grown significantly ahead of those in other states. One of the first things Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser did at the time was to raise these issues with the then Premier of New South Wales, Neville Wran. And the Commonwealth instigated a study called `The Major Airport Needs of Sydney', the MANS study, which resulted in a report—from which the state withdrew part way through, by the way—that concluded that an extra parallel close-spaced runway should be built at Mascot and land reserved for a second airport, and the preferred site was Badgerys Creek.Mr Wran was of the opinion that it was not within the state's interest to build the close-spaced parallel runway at Mascot but preferred to opt for Badgerys Creek. I remember Peter Morris, the then Minister for Transport, announced in 1983 that the Australian Labor Party would abandon the close-spaced parallel runway and would identify a spot for a second major airport. That was basically the position of both parties, except the coalition said that as an interim measure the close-spaced parallel runway needed to be built and that would take the pressure off the need for immediate action on a very expensive second international airport somewhere in Western Sydney, probably at Badgerys Creek. In 1982 the Hon. Wal Fife, the then Minister for Aviation, formally announced that that was the coalition's intention.Over time the then minister, Peter Morris, and the cabinet adopted the decision that a close-spaced parallel runway should be built, and in March 1989 that resulted in the resignation of Gary Punch, who was Minister for Telecommunications and Aviation Support. Mr Punch could not accept the cabinet decision and his statement in the House—and I rely on the Parliamentary Library here—accused the environmental impact study consultants of a predetermined result on the close-spaced parallel runway.I know that my friend and colleague at the table the current member for Barton will remember these issues with great clarity. I have enjoyed a similar relationship with both the current member and with Gary Punch—it was a very friendly relationship. There were political differences, of course, but there was goodwill with the differences.On 13 November 1991, the cabinet gave the go-ahead to the construction of the third runway and, at the same time, increased funding for the purchase of land at Badgerys Creek. That brings us basically to the time of the election of the current government in 1996. Before passing on to the period since that, I seek leave of the House to table a summary of these chronological events produced by the Parliamentary Library.Leave granted.SD4Cadman, Alan, MPMr CADMAN—I am very happy with that decision and the cooperation of the House. In 1996, John Sharp, as Minister for Transport and Regional Development, announced that the government of the day would fulfil its obligations and that Sydney and Sydney west would be withdrawn from the airport leasing process until there was a solution to aircraft noise issues there. The east-west runway would be opened and a full environmental impact study would be undertaken on Sydney west airport—Badgerys Creek. The coalition felt that it had been some time since an EIS had been done on Western Sydney and that it was needed. It was a commitment prior to the election. The decision to build Sydney's third runway produced some unexpected opposition after 1996. We saw members of the Labor Party who had previously endorsed a government position to build the east-west runway suddenly deciding that they would take the opportunity to change their minds and oppose it. A similar thing happened in Western Sydney, with the member for Chifley and others withdrawing support for a second airport at Badgerys Creek—a job creator, a benefit to the people of Western Sydney, a substitute for the cuts that had taken place to establishments like HMAS Nirimba and other government establishments which were really important to employment creation in Western Sydney. Those members of the Australian Labor Party suddenly decided that with the election of a new government they would oppose the building of an airport at Badgerys Creek. That change in attitude created chaos in local government through the WESROC organisation and amongst community groups. It has been my view that the people in Western Sydney have consistently felt—for all the time that I have known them, which is some time as a member of parliament but before that as well; I guess the period ranges over 30 years—that they do not want an airport dumped on their doorstep by any government. It did not matter whether it was in the days of Les Irwin and John Armitage or whether it was when Paul Keating was at Bankstown and we did not hold the seats of Western Sydney—it has been a consistent view. But somehow or other during the 1980s and early 1990s, the Australian Labor Party were able to convince their members and the local government authorities they controlled in Western Sydney that an airport in Western Sydney would be good for the people of Western Sydney. They reverted to their true views with the election of a coalition government.The coalition has had to confront some difficult issues with regard to the airport. First of all, they were historically committed to a runway, which the Australian Labor Party ultimately built at some political cost. They were also committed then to study again the need to build a second airport at Badgerys Creek, while still being committed to solving the problems of the airport needs of Sydney, a commitment originally made by Malcolm Fraser and Wal Fife. This continued as a theme right through opposition and into government in 1996. So what do we have? First we have a minister for aviation, the Hon. John Sharp, introducing a bill called the Airports Transitional Bill 1996 which opened the east-west runway, giving Sydney Kingsford Smith the use of three runways, with a full EIS undertaken on Sydney west airport. The result of that decision was to produce a report which was released finally by John Anderson as Minister for Transport and Regional Development on 30 June 1999. That is the full report and the environmental impact statement for the proposed second Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek. First of all, a site was identified from various competing sites and Badgerys Creek was settled upon as being the most suitable option for a second Sydney airport. There were a number of configurations for runways and some slight variations on site in Badgerys Creek. The EIS was finally produced in June 1999. The government was then confronted with a decision as to what they would do about the airport needs of Sydney. The minister at that time, John Anderson, said The environmental impact statement is a very detailed analysis of the environmental impacts of a major airport at Badgerys Creek. It certainly is the most comprehensive environmental assessment of any transport infrastructure proposal in Australian history. The government has fulfilled its promise to conduct a rigorous and transparent EIS into the Badgerys Creek proposal. This EIS did not satisfy the people of Western Sydney or the councils. I pay tribute to and draw attention to people such as Allan Ezzy from Holroyd City Council, who was mayor at that time and has followed this issue strongly. Mrs Kay Vella is another name I remember. They consistently opposed the construction of an airport in Western Sydney, despite the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party. It can be called nothing else because members representing Western Sydney led their constituents to believe that they were opposed to construction of an airport. Suddenly, with the election of an Australian Labor Party government, they were in favour of an airport in Western Sydney. With the election of a coalition government, again they were against an airport. So it is no wonder that the people of Western Sydney were confused and rejected this opportunism.The decision announced recently by the current government was made after assessment of all of the environmental impact statements, the future needs of Sydney and the difficulty of constructing an airport so far from the major airport in Sydney, Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport. The prospect of transporting people through Sydney traffic from one major airport to another, trying to encourage people to use Badgerys Creek, whether they be people from the regions or international travellers, the complexity of building infrastructure for road and rail transport, the provision of water services and the impact of the Western Sydney orbital have all been considered by the government. I point out to the House the consistent application of coalition governments to this difficult problem and their ability, point by point, to produce solutions. Going back as far as I can remember in political terms to the early 1970s and right through the 1980s, coalition governments have displayed a consistent application of purpose and the need for a result for Sydney which took the views of the people of Western Sydney into careful consideration.It is not the purpose of this government to construct an airport at Badgerys Creek. That decision has been made. I know that while some residents of Blacktown, Penrith, Windsor, Richmond, the Blue Mountains, Campbelltown and further south may have favoured it, generally the view was that the government should not construct an airport at Badgerys Creek, for a number of reasons. Some reasons were environmental, with additional smog and deterioration of air quality—CSIRO reports from years ago were verified by the environmental impact statement. It would not be aircraft causing a smog problem but the increase in motor vehicle traffic which would result around an airport, in an area where there are air inversion currents which would produce the sort of continuous, year-round smog typical of Los Angeles. Another reason was the disruption to their lifestyle and the noise that an airport would create. Residents realised that most of the jobs would not be created for locals, that people would have to be brought into the area and that there would be only menial jobs for local people. They were wise enough and shrewd enough to know that, on balance, no real advantages would come from an airport at Badgerys Creek.There are a number of arguments against the construction of Badgerys Creek, some environmental, some economic and some sheer commonsense transport infrastructure management decisions. The decision of this government is to maximise the use of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport. The Sydney Olympic Games indicated what our personal best at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport could be. Despite massive increases in air movements, Australia handled twice the number of passengers through Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport that we have attempted to handle ever before, without chaos and without difficulty. Before the Olympic Games, Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport had not been tested to its maximum and there is reserve capacity which can be called on. The capacity for people of Sydney to be serviced by Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport continues without breaching the curfew or creating difficulties for people living in the immediate vicinity. Down the track, perhaps there will need to be some changes. As those changes occur, the government's decision is to upgrade Bankstown airport, providing better passenger facilities and links between Bankstown airport and the CBD, upgrading Bankstown airport's links into the main road, rail and air transport grids. I am very pleased with this decision. I think it was the only commonsense decision that could be arrived at which will meet the future needs of Sydney for a predictably long time. The figures I have seen on the growth in air movements and passenger numbers through Sydney indicate that the government's decision should see a satisfactory movement of passengers, retaining Sydney as the number one gateway for Australia well into the 2020s. I congratulate the government. This has been a hard passage and was a difficult decision, but it is a good one. (Time expired)11:06:0024230Murphy, John, MPMr MURPHY83DLoweALP00—With great respect to the member for Mitchell, for whom I have some regard, on this particular topic we have just listened to a monumental triumph for double standards and hypocrisy. You were a member of the opposition before 1996, Mr Cadman—SD4Cadman, Alan, MPMr Cadman—You weren't even here.83DMurphy, John, MPMr MURPHY—No, but you were a member of the opposition and you were consistently berating the Australian Labor Party in government about when the government was going to build Badgerys Creek and give people some relief from aircraft noise. The hypocrisy of the decision that was made just before Christmas, against a litany of broken promises, to visit more environmental health and safety risks on the people of Sydney in the interests of flogging off that airport and never building a second airport is absolutely breathtaking. That just cannot be allowed to pass—it is incredible. In fact, you participated in the debate on Wednesday, 29 May 1996 and you said:Now we are going to do a study of Holsworthy. We will do a study of Badgerys Creek and Sydney will get its best airport. When the minister has finished having the best and most efficient use made of Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport, we will find there is adequate capacity for this process to go through and for a second airport to be constructed in good time.You stand or fall by your own words.The Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000 concerns the significant policy issue of aircraft safety. In addressing aircraft safety, the government seeks to draft this bill to ratify domestic law consistent with Australia's obligations under the Convention on International Civil Aviation, done at Chicago on 7 December 1994. As Bills Digest No. 164 states:The Chicago Convention makes a country responsible for the safety regulation of aircraft registered in that country, wherever in the world the aircraft is situated.The bill makes substantive changes to the mental element of offences contained in the existing act. The purpose of this bill is then explained in the explanatory memorandum, together with a supplementary explanatory memorandum and a correction to the supplementary explanatory memorandum. In a nutshell, this bill and its explanatory memoranda are designed to assist in the statutory interpretation of the act. However, aircraft safety involves much more than this bill alone. For example, the Air Services Act 1995 states, in subsection 9 (1):In exercising its powers and performing its functions, Airservices Australia must regard the safety of air navigation as the most important consideration.There is no doubt, then, that the current government is determined to amend legislation to achieve two key objectives. The first is to implement domestic legislation with respect to civil aviation safety and the second is to fulfil Australia's obligations as a signatory to an international instrument's obligations. How does this government rate in the overall strategic planning of aircraft safety in Australia? I note that the Chicago convention deals with Australian registered aircraft in Australia and abroad. A material factor in aircraft safety in Australia alone is the physical environment in which aircraft fly. The issue of aircraft safety is similar to the issue of road safety in many ways. Yes, there is the central issue of the culpability of the driver of a motor vehicle. By analogy, this bill deals with the criminality of the driver of the car, as it were. However, as insurance companies will tell you, as will the civil court administrations throughout the states and territories, liability is not restricted solely to the driver's culpability. Other factors come into play, such as the physical condition of the roads, that is, the medium in which the cars travel. Not only must good roads be physically sound and built to prescribed standards but travel along them must also be regulated in the strictest sense to ensure maximum safety. That is why this government and state and territory governments spend billions upon billions of dollars each year to do their part in minimising harm to persons and property by making our roads safer for those motor vehicle drivers. The relevance of this analogy is immediately apparent in the bill before the House this morning. We have a bill that, in its utter hypocrisy and denial, flies in the face of the strategic decision making by this government with respect to aircraft safety in Australia. No bill, no act, can be read in isolation. There is a legal maxim that states, `The law always speaks.' This rule means that all law is to be read in cognate; that is, all law is read together. There is no priority of law unless specific provision is made there, and even then there are interpretational difficulties. Bills such as this seek to overcome statutory interpretational difficulties, yet the broader related laws and this government's publicly declared decisions not only send mixed messages and conflicting laws but also are dangerous decisions in terms of aircraft safety. I am dumbfounded by the Howard government in making policies and then publicly declaring decisions that can only be described as a contemptuous disregard for this bill. This bill, combined with the current government policies on enforcement of aircraft safety management, affects the management of Australia's busiest airports, namely, Sydney (Kingsford Smith) and Bankstown airports. These two airports are by far the busiest airports in Australia. Bankstown manages 420,000 aircraft movements per year. By comparison, Sydney airport is world renowned as the premier destination airport for international travellers, and for this reason is Australia's largest international port of entry. This bill cannot be of greater relevance to the ultimate impact of aircraft safety than to these two airports.What are these government policies to which I refer? I first turn to the media statement of the Minister for Finance and Administration, Mr John Fahey, No. 03/01, titled `Appointment of advisers to conduct the Sydney airports scoping study'. Mr Fahey says:The Minister for Finance and Administration ... today announced the appointment of the investment bank Salomon Smith Barney and the law firm Freehills to conduct the scoping study into the sale of the Sydney Basin airports at Kingsford Smith, Bankstown, Camden and Hoxton Park.This scoping study is in preparation for privatisation and sale of all four airports. Further, the plan goes that Bankstown Airport is to be an overflow airport for Sydney airport. This announcement makes a mockery of today's bill. Bankstown and Sydney airports are too close to each other. I see that the member for Blaxland has just come into the chamber, and I am sure that he will have something to say shortly about Bankstown. The operation of jet aircraft from Bankstown means that the east-west runway of Sydney airport must close permanently if aircraft safety is to be preserved and not place an unreasonable burden on pilots and the aviation industry. It is an unreasonable expectation that the Civil Aviation Authority can fulfil its international obligations towards aircraft safety whilst this government is pursuing these policies of madness about Sydney, Bankstown and the other two Sydney Basin airports. By definition, those airports, once privatised, will seek to operate at maximum profit.The logical conclusion is that aircraft safety will be fundamentally compromised. Strategically, Bankstown is a worse decision than even Holsworthy was, for entirely the same reasons as Holsworthy—that is, Holsworthy was too close to Bankstown and, for the purposes of Bankstown as a jet aircraft airport, it is in turn too close to Sydney airport. So how is the government today fulfilling its international obligation towards aircraft safety? It is attempting to do so by enacting legislation whilst in environmental terms making aircraft safety in the Sydney basin a catastrophe waiting to happen. The decision to make Bankstown airport an overflow airport while simultaneously increasing the capacity of Sydney airport is the functional equivalent of the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority deliberately punching large potholes in the roads in order to induce an incident. One needs only to refer to the second reading speech on the Airports Bill 1996 made on 29 May 1996 by the then Minister for Transport and Regional Services, the Hon. John Sharp, in order to see how the priority of this government has shifted from one of aircraft safety to sheer profiteering. I hope that the member for Mitchell is listening. I quote from the minister's speech at page 1658:No sales should occur until all Environmental Impact Statements processes are completed and the future of Sydney West Airport is resolved. We are determined not to sell Sydney Mascot and Sydney West Airport until such time as we have satisfactorily completed the environmental impact studies and decisions are made in relation to that. We will not be putting on the market Sydney Mascot and Sydney West Airports until such time as we fulfil our election commitment, made by the former shadow minister for aviation, Senator Parer—and indeed reiterated by the now Prime Minister (Mr Howard), then opposition leader—that we will not do so—sell the airports—until such time as we have been able to satisfactorily resolve Sydney's aircraft noise problems.Ha, ha! The minister goes on to say:So we would say that the best way to deal with this issue is to exclude Sydney's airport from the sale process at this time, deal with the second airport problem, deal with the aircraft noise problem—which is also a factor that impacts on the potential value of Sydney's airports—and, once you have dealt with those satisfactorily, then put them on the market and you will achieve the highest possible value for those airports when you put them up for sale. So we believe that that is the appropriate approach to achieve the goal of obtaining the highest value for Sydney's airports.Ha, ha! There you have a have it: a total, complete, 180-degree backflip by the Howard government in the space of just over three years. What is this to do with the bill before us today? I will tell you. The answer is everything. Flying in the face of the Howard government's declared statements of 1996, as I have just read out, the decisions of the government in the year 2000 on the Sydney basin airports are as follows. Badgerys Creek has been shelved. The Rust PPK consultants' report and preliminary EIS for that airport are therefore obsolete, if we believe this government. There is no EIS on the impacts of Bankstown Airport as an overflow airport pursuant to the provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. A future EIS must comply with the EPBC Act, which includes substantive provisions dealing with, inter alia, location and other relevant factors as prescribed in the act's regulations. There is no EIS on the impact of Bankstown airport in its newfound role, including, for that matter, the interaction between Bankstown, Sydney, Camden and Hoxton Park airports, including aircraft safety impacts.I note that the second reading debate on the Airports Bill 1996 spanned two full days in this parliament, on 28 and 29 May 1996. There are over 50 pages of Hansard on the 29 May 1996 debate alone. I note that the minister berated the Australian Labor Party for its lack of direction in airport management when he said:What had happened by June 1995? Absolutely and utterly nothing. Not a sod had been turned, not a runway had been built and not a building had been constructed on the site that was supposed to be an operating airport by June 1995.Ha, ha, ha! Are these not the government's famous last words? Is it our turn to say to Mr Anderson that `not a runway has been built and not a building has been constructed on the site that was supposed to be an operating airport'? Are not all the government statements and promises just empty promises and vain rhetoric? I put to the government four propositions: first, I put to the government that aircraft safety is not the ultimate priority of this government. Second, I put to the government that, as I said in my speech on Tuesday evening last, the Prime Minister and the minister for transport waited until five days after the start of the Christmas recess last year—that is, until 13 December 2000—to proudly announce what everyone affected by aircraft noise and safety in Sydney dreaded, the expansion of Sydney airport and the role of Bankstown as the overflow airport. Welcome to the chamber, Mr Speaker. I know your interest in this topic because you have listened to me ad nauseam over the last 2¼ years. Third, I put to the government that they cannot draft this bill and reasonably expect to create an environment of aircraft safety by the concomitant decisions they have made on the expansion and location of Sydney's airports. Fourth, I put to the government that they have decided to sell Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport by erasing aircraft safety from the $4.5 billion sale price. Complicity is in order here. The conduct of the Sydney Airport Corporation is being noticed in the deliberate pursuit of profit maximisation at the cost of safety by erasure of its safety obligations.The bill is far more than about meeting criminal culpability criterion. This bill is consistent with its privatisation platform of leasing these airports for the highest price. This price is now being achieved by the very elimination of those environmental responsibilities that would lower the price through creating the Pareto optimum environmental limits that place caps on the movement of aircraft at these airports. For these reasons, this government is clearly uninterested in the sale of the airports without any recognised environmental impacts which may adversely affect the price.In doing so, the Howard government has relied on a fundamental misapplication of the precautionary principle of which I have spoken in this House on many previous occasions. The shadow Attorney-General, who is sitting at the table here, has also spoken on this at length. Again and again I have been required to correct this government's misapplication of this principle. The government says, erroneously, that if a link cannot be proved, then there is no risk at all and hence the precautionary principle does not apply.Rather than see the imminent link between aircraft safety and operating Bankstown and the other airports as overflow airports for Sydney airport, this government is culpably denying the existence of the problem. Instead, this government chooses to rely on the false reasoning that the absence of full scientific certainty means there is no known risk and hence the proposals, as declared by the Prime Minister on 13 December 2000, can be put into operation with impunity. How misguided the Prime Minister is. The effect on this bill is at once immediate. Those who are under the jurisdiction of the Civil Aviation Act 1988 and the Air Services Act are bound to these provisions. They are forced to drive on a road that is being torn up before their eyes and laced with every road hazard imaginable. The risk of damage to life and property is very high and increasing, thanks to this government's policies. The government chooses to ignore this risk-harm link.In any event, I understand that the Department of Transport and Regional Services is well aware of the risks associated with the use of Bankstown airport in the Sydney basin in a scenario of an expanding Sydney airport. It is sheer madness. The government have demonstrated their contempt towards the Australian people and the aircraft industry by their compounded decisions of deceit and hypocrisy, as demonstrated in their second reading speech and most of all by their recent conduct. The government, rather than increasing aircraft safety, are endangering the lives of Sydney residents in the entire basin. The cumulative impact of their decisions cannot mean anything other than a fundamental decrease in aircraft safety over the skies of Sydney.Why is the government doing this? The probable reason is that to sell Bankstown as an overflow airport for jet aircraft means more potential profitability for that airport once privatised, and hence the government is talking up the price. The same is true of Hoxton Park and Camden airports. The Sydney Airport Corporation and the airline carriers have much to be answerable for in influencing government policy in this direction. The responsibility for injury, death and loss of life will fall on their heads for the decisions made during the term of the government. With Sydney airport the Howard government is totally ignoring its own legislation in the form of the Airports Act 1996, particularly the provisions of division 3 which require the joint lease of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport and Sydney West airport to the same lessee. Again, all the provisions of that 1996 legislation are conveniently forgotten in light of the 13 December 2000 announcement. Hence my stack of questions on this topic in the Notice Paper on Tuesday last. It is a case of selective amnesia. The people of Sydney cannot but feel truly disillusioned with the government's approach to aircraft safety. The government is saying one thing but doing another. The adverse effects of aircraft safety in Australia are already being seen in so many ways: defective planes, near misses and serious faults. All these go to a plethora of diminished standards. Add to this the very inaction that the Australian Labor Party was berated by this government for in terms of its alleged inaction over Badgerys and the government's hypocrisy is complete. Not only did the now Minister for Finance and Administration and former Treasurer in New South Wales, the Hon. John Fahey, have a significant hand in preventing Badgerys Creek from progressing; he is now content to sell off Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport in violation of the Airports Act. This government has had no reason for making such statements about Badgerys unless it was committed to building an airport there. Instead, this government has totally abandoned Badgerys. It has decided on an airport at Bankstown totally out of the blue.I conclude with the words of the member for Parramatta, Mr Ross Cameron, who also spoke on the airports bill of 1996. On 29 May 1996 he said:It is very seldom that a democratic government gets 10 years to implement a major infrastructure project.Ha, ha! This government has now had five years. After being berated by the now government when they were in opposition to get on with Badgerys Creek, we have had the Badgerys Creek-Holsworthy EIS debacle, followed by the more ludicrous Kurnell Peninsula proposal and now the totally preposterous Bankstown airport proposal. This is disastrous. This government has misled the public about its intentions. It has deceived the public and, perhaps worst of all, generated false hope after false hope. It is my belief that the government is in the business of creating red herrings to distract attention from the real issue of dealing with Sydney's problems of aircraft noise. It does this to maximise its profits—that is the only real agenda.This bill is a mockery of everything this government has said it stands for in respect of aircraft safety. In light of its statements, as quoted earlier in this chamber by me, this government stands on its own record, its own words and its own actions for its betrayal and hypocrisy in its determination to expose the residents of Sydney to a level of risk from aircraft injury that is totally out of proportion with the proposed measures towards aircraft safety in the Sydney basin. (Time expired)Debate (on motion by Mr Anthony) adjourned.Miscellaneous242342423411:27:0024234Nehl, Garry, MPMr NEHLAE4CowperNP10—Mr Speaker, I have to report that earlier this morning I was required to suspend the meeting of the Main Committee in accordance with standing order 282 because of disorder arising. The honourable member for Lilley persisted in disorderly behaviour by continuing to interject after being called to order, and thus defied the chair. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I accept the Deputy Speaker's report. I have made myself aware of the circumstances to which the Deputy Speaker refers and I name the honourable member for Lilley.5I4McMullan, Bob, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I was about to indicate to the Manager of Opposition Business that I was happy to recognise him later, but at this point in time it would not be appropriate.Motion (by Mr Reith) put:That the member for Lilley be suspended from the service of the House.11:33:00The House divided. (Mr Speaker—Mr Neil Andrew) 73Abbott, A.J.Andrews, K.J.Anthony, L.J.Bailey, F.E.Baird, B.G.Barresi, P.A.Bartlett, K.J.Billson, B.F.Bishop, B.K.Bishop, J.I.Brough, M.T.Cadman, A.G.Cameron, R.A.Causley, I.R.Charles, R.E.Costello, P.H.Elson, K.S.Entsch, W.G.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.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.Ruddock, P.M.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.Vaile, M.A.J.Vale, D.S.Wakelin, B.H.Washer, M.J.Williams, D.R.Wooldridge, M.R.L.Worth, P.M.60Adams, D.G.H.Albanese, A.N.Bevis, A.R.Brereton, L.J.Burke, A.E.Byrne, A.M.Corcoran, A.K.Cox, D.A.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.Hollis, C.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.McClelland, R.B.McFarlane, J.S.McMullan, R.F.Melham, D.Mossfield, F.W.Murphy, J. P.O'Connor, G.M.O'Keefe, N.P.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.Fahey, J.J.O'Byrne, M.A.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the affirmative.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Order! The member for Lilley is suspended under standing order 303 for 24 hours.The member for Lilley then left the chamber.11:38:0024235McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMULLAN5I4FraserALPManager of Opposition Business00—Mr Speaker, I seek your indulgence to make a brief representation to you about the matters that have just occurred in the Main Committee and this chamber.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Indulgence is granted.5I4McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMULLAN—Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will be brief, although it is a matter that will need further debate later. I think we need to review the way in which the standing orders operate and are applied in the Main Committee and the way in which people can use that committee other than as it was intended—for example, to reflect upon individuals, which is entirely contrary to the way you intended to protect people yesterday. Until we do, we are not going to get much business done in the Main Committee. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Manager of Opposition Business has raised an issue that ought reasonably to be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure, if he feels the procedures in some way should be altered. I would simply stress to all members that, as they are well aware, the obligation that the occupier of the chair has in this chamber and in the Main Committee is to maintain order so that everyone can be heard. If unreasonable allegations are being made or, as was the matter of debate yesterday, the reputations of people are in some way being impugned, there are procedures of the House and the Main Committee that allow people to indicate, through points of order, that it is of concern to them. The situation that I understand arose in the Main Committee was a case where the authority of the chair was being defied; hence the action that has been taken. I should indicate to the House that the question of reconvening the Main Committee is under consideration. I expect that it will resume in the next 10 or 15 minutes. I will advise the House accordingly.FB6Thomson, Andrew, MPMr Andrew Thomson—Mr Speaker, will the Main Committee now resume its proceedings?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The matter of the resumption of the Main Committee is under consideration. I can now inform the House that, in consultation with the Deputy Speaker, it has been suggested that the Main Committee will resume at 10 minutes to 12.Bills24236R103724236Debate resumed.11:42:0024236Hatton, Michael, MPMr HATTONLN6BlaxlandALP00—I have with me a copy of the Bills Digest in relation to the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000. It outlines the Civil Aviation Safety Organisation's updated provisions. Essentially, I could take this Bills Digest, rip it into small pieces, give it to someone and say that it can be used as confetti, because the government's recent decision on Sydney's second airport means that all of the provisions in the bill are null and void. The bill will pass through this House, and no doubt the government will proceed to have it pass through the Senate, when there will be simply no operation possible because of the inanity of the decision taken in the middle of December last year.It is quite clear from a document that cost $14 million to produce—an environmental impact statement into the need for a second airport for Sydney—that that is the case. The statement pointed out that any move towards expanding Bankstown airport to take either regional aircraft or other aircraft, including possibly B737 aircraft, would be absolutely impossible. The cabinet does not say that, but the people who wrote the environmental impact statement do argue that, quite rightly. If the airport were to take regional aircraft, the provisions of this bill would stand completely null and void. The long-term operating plan for Sydney is dead as of 13 December 2000 because the relationship between Bankstown airport and Kingsford Smith goes to the heart of how that plan could operate. Effectively, what the government did on 13 December was to announce that not only would it sell Bankstown, Camden and Hoxton Park airports as a job lot, separate from Kingsford Smith, but also that Bankstown should become the new international airport for Sydney. What kind of lunacy is this? Only the lunacy that could emerge from the federal coalition cabinet, attempting to answer the question: how don't we build a second airport for Sydney?When we look at the elements of the decision on this matter, we find it is one of the most extraordinary decisions to have emerged from any cabinet at any time about any issue. In relation to transport issues for Sydney, it is simply unbelievable. A large proportion of people in Sydney just do not believe that the government is serious about this decision. They do not believe that any sane, sensible government could actually think that they could turn Bankstown airport into an international jet way, which is what is being proposed by the Prime Minister. It is not just that they might have a bit of an overflow situation; that when things get a bit difficult for Kingsford Smith they might move a few regional aircraft over there or, on a tight day when the 80 an hour is under a bit of a threat, that a B737 might roll in. `It is a big aircraft, isn't it? It is more than 60 tonnes. Bankstown can only take 50 tonnes. But, at a stretch, Bankstown is an overflow and we will just run it in, let those people alight at Bankstown and then they can grab a taxi, whip into the city and see how they go.' That seems to be the attitude informing the so-called `cabinet decision'. People naturally say, `It is not on. They cannot do it. They are not really serious about this. We should not take much notice of it because there must be a real decision coming down the track. Anyway, they said Kurnell should be a place for another runway and they said Holsworthy. They said all sorts of other things.' Bankstown airport is bang in the centre of the electorate of Blaxland. The member for Banks is directly affected as well because his electorate abuts my electorate. The electorate of the previous speaker, the member for Lowe, John Murphy, is directly impacted by the changes that are proposed for Bankstown airport. The core of those changes, and the direct effect in relation to the member for Lowe, is that there would be more jet traffic coming out of Kingsford Smith every hour. That is inexorable. That is what is at the bottom of this. Who else is directly affected? Who else is concerned to put the word directly to their electorate that there is a dramatic impact from this insane set of decisions? There is a direct impact on the member for Fowler. The member for Fowler has been very vocal in condemning the stupidity of this decision. The member for Barton is directly affected. The people in the electorate of the member for Prospect are directly affected. The people in the electorate of the member for Reid are directly affected. You would think that no-one with any modicum of sanity, with any sense at all, could actually think that the fourth runway for Sydney airport—because that is what we are looking at here—could be built at Bankstown, a fourth jet way. What has the Prime Minister said? What has the Minister for Transport and Regional Services said? They want to sell Bankstown airport but they want to make it a specific provision that the main runway at Bankstown airport is extended and that it takes jets like 737s. When I first heard it I thought, `They are just a bunch of loons. They are completely stupid. They have gone way round the twist. They just cannot do it.' Given the fact that they have been digging up information for the last 18 months out at Bankstown airport, how could they get it so wrong? I found out a few things in the last little while between that decision and this, and I think I can now work out what informed the decision they made. There is a special provision that we only found out about a while ago. There is a grandfather clause for Boeing 737 jets. That grandfather clause says that Boeing 737s can land on and use 30-metre-wide runways. Other aircraft of the same type and nature, with less weight and with less passenger capacity, cannot—but the Boeing 737s can. So it seems to me that the Prime Minister and the minister and the cabinet are reliant upon that grandfather clause to say, `At Bankstown airport there are three runways—two 30-metre-wide runways and an 18-metre-wide runway. We will take the central one. That can be expanded. The land is already there. Make them lengthen the runway. The government should not do it, by the way.' That is what they are arguing. `Let them flog it off straight away, as soon as they can. Let the private owner take the chance that they might have to go through a two- to three-year period undertaking an environmental impact statement, undertaking community consultation processes, undertaking the most detailed consideration.' We have had a detailed consideration in relation to the need for a second airport in Sydney. It was called the environmental impact statement. It related to Badgerys Creek. The former minister, John Sharp, included Holsworthy. `Just throw in Holsworthy airport; let us have a bit of a look at that and see if that can have a run as well—delay things a bit, get us beyond the last election.' That cost $14 million. What notice did federal cabinet take of that? Not one little bit, except for a couple of parts. In particular, the environmental impact statement `supplement' makes very interesting reading. It is after the audit, after everything else. It is looking at considerations. It is looking at a range of submissions that were put in by vested interest groups that want to see the dramatic expansion of Kingsford Smith airport, vested interest groups that want to see regional aircraft put over to Bankstown, vested interest groups that want to see a fourth international jet runway for Kingsford Smith operating at Bankstown airport, vested interest groups that do not care about the noise impact on more than half a million people from that kind of change. These vested interest groups do not care that the people in Bankstown Hospital would have 737 jets running right over the top of them. I know because I lived near the hospital for nearly 10 years. I lived where the general aviation aircraft banked left and right as they took off, and banked left and right coming back in to land over the top. I was about 300 metres from the hospital. If you go into Bankstown Hospital for a bit of rest and recuperation, or if you are in the intensive care unit of Bankstown hospital, I do not think that an 8 o'clock morning run through for a 737 jet landing at Bankstown directly over the top of the hospital is going to be the doctor's prescription for how you should rebuild your life in Bankstown. But I know that the Prime Minister has absolutely no concern for and no care about the impact of this dumb, crazy, insane decision.4T4Melham, Daryl, MPMr Melham—He hates Bankstown.LN6Hatton, Michael, MPMr HATTON—The member for Banks is absolutely right. He has hated Bankstown throughout his entire career. He has wandered through the joint at will, attempting to defile the place because it is a strong Labor electorate. I have seen that happen time after time after time. Since I became the member for Blaxland, what have we seen happen to Bankstown? The government have attempted to totally close down the department of taxation at a cost of about $22 million to the Commonwealth in money spent on dead rent. They could not achieve it. They had to leave 220 people in it. They could not take everybody out and now they have had to refill it with GST taxation police. But they still tried to do it. What they have achieved, of course, is to take the department of immigration totally out of Bankstown. They have sent them off to Hurstville and Parramatta—their preferred places—and the city, and they have made sure that the people of Bankstown have as little help from the Commonwealth as possible.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr Lee—Why does he hate Bankstown?LN6Hatton, Michael, MPMr HATTON—I think he has just punished us, mate, because we are too strong a Labor seat. We did produce a few Bankstown boys who have done a few things. We had a former Prime Minister—the former member for Blaxland Paul Keating—who thumped Howard, the current Prime Minister, time and time again and belted the daylights out of him. But the viciousness with which Bankstown has been attacked by this government is unbelievable. I have nothing against the people of Bennelong. I do not want aircraft ripping over the top of the people in the Bennelong funnel all the time. But I do not think it is proper for a government to make a decision that will impact directly on people's lives on the basis of the colour of the vote in a particular area. From 1942 the people of Bankstown grew up around Bankstown airport. We had the busiest general aviation airport in the entire Southern Hemisphere with more than 400,000 movements a year. The whole strength and purpose of the direct 1,500 jobs in general aviation at Bankstown are imperilled by this decision that was taken in the middle of December. There is no certain future for that entire industry—the biggest business in Bankstown. Do the government want to close that down as well as trying to close down all the other Commonwealth facilities? They have prejudiced the entire future of the airport, the biggest business in the whole of Bankstown. There are 4,500 jobs associated with that airport—1,500 directly in relation to general aviation, 1,500 at the de Havilland facility, which has just recently been bought out by Boeing, and another 1,500 jobs directly related to activity at the airport. There is a giant question mark over all of them, because a set of entirely inappropriate decisions were made about the future of Bankstown. Most people in Bankstown support the continuation of those jobs as being the central part of the way things are done in Bankstown, a central part of the economy. The airport has been there long enough. There are some who do not want it, but they are in the minority. The vast number of people—the local council and the people around the area—have said, `Those jobs are important to us.' But they are important to us the way it was before. It should not be expanded and it should not be changed. It is a vital part of the economy of Sydney and it provides for general aviation that is not provided for elsewhere, except for what is provided at Hoxton Park and Camden. You cannot take those general aviation planes out and just put them anywhere else. They closed Schofields airport years ago. There is only Hoxton Park airport and Camden airport. These activities have to go somewhere. They are major earners of income from people overseas who come to Bankstown to train—to learn how to fly aircraft and helicopters. It is a major source of foreign income for the local area and for the country.If you look at the entire set of decisions, you actually get to the position where what was adopted was the do-nothing option. This government is very good at adopting a do-nothing approach, but the environmental impact statement supplement was quite clear. There are strategic alternatives to actually making a set of decisions about a second airport for Sydney and they include the do-nothing option—that is, allowing the capacity of Sydney airport to expand under current operational and broad policy settings. That is the core of what has happened here—do nothing; reserve Badgerys Creek but do not do anything at all and advance the argument, which is a pure and total lie, that Sydney airport will not really come under pressure at all for years and years because it worked so well during the Olympics.What happened during the Olympics has zero to do with the way the airport actually works. Anyone who drove around Sydney during the Olympics would have found that the road traffic was something like we have not seen for 30 or 40 years: you could get anywhere you wanted to. Basically, people did not drive; they went off to Olympic events. Trucks were made to use the city at night, so all the deliveries were done overnight and we did not have the pressure on the roads that there normally is. They were abnormal circumstances. There was a substitution of normal passengers with Olympic passengers. So it is not a guide.But the cabinet said, `It worked really well; therefore, the Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport can be expanded—it can go on for years and years—and Bankstown can be expanded, and we'll never really have to make a decision about this. We don't think we'll ever have to have a second airport for Sydney.' One of the outcomes of that kind of approach is that every other major city in Australia could end up picking up all the economic impact that there would be if there were a second airport for Sydney. Sydney could well lose its leading place, because this government did not have the courage to make a decision, on the back of a $14 million EIS, that it should have made. This government wanted to leave the whole thing over yet there is no real pressure whatsoever on any of the coalition seats that are really the basis for the decision. We are not dealing with a transport decision here, an aviation decision; we are dealing with a political decision driven by fear of losing seats in Western Sydney. George Paciullo, the Mayor of Liverpool, has pointed out time and time again that all the evidence in relation to any elections in Western Sydney going back for a long period of time in relation to airport issues indicates that, really, there is not a substantial attack against it. But back to the key point: most people did not think this could happen, and that is one of the problems that we have. This is—and people need to understand this very clearly—a federal cabinet decision. Every department of the Commonwealth is bound to follow the instructions given by federal cabinet. The ministers have full power as a result of this decision to go out and sell Bankstown airport, to sell Kingsford Smith airport, to get the money in for this year's budget, to change the nature of aircraft usage in Sydney forever—to actually sell Bankstown airport with a rider that you have to extend the runway and that you have to put 737 aircraft in it. Two or three years down the track, when the government should be doing the EIS and should be doing the community consultations—and we actually require that the government should do that—if they get the private buyer to do it, at the end of the whole process we will be in a very interesting situation because after whatever has been done in that period of time a minister of the Commonwealth—a minister for transport and aviation—will make a decision. Despite whatever has happened during that process, that minister can simply say, `No, thank you very much, but we're not having the new master plan for Bankstown airport.'There are already precedents for this. The current ministers of the coalition have twice rejected master plans for Coolangatta airport. Have they been twice rejected on the basis of transport needs and so on? Probably not. We can probably guess that the fact that the electorate of Richmond is close by and that pressure has been put on means there has been a political decision to actually stop the expansion of Coolangatta airport. So anyone who is foolish enough to buy Bankstown airport and think they can run it as an international jet way has got something coming. Anyone who thought that they could actually upgrade Bankstown significantly would have to think twice about that situation. The people of Bankstown and the surrounding areas are entirely against a stupid, insane, ridiculous upgrade to serve the political purposes of the coalition and they demand that this be stopped. (Time expired)12:02:0024240Mossfield, Frank, MPMr MOSSFIELDMK6GreenwayALP00—I rise to speak on the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000. We have seen this bill before. It was first introduced in April last year and then withdrawn, like so many other pieces of legislation put by this government. The bill seeks to amend the Civil Aviation Act 1988 in a number of ways, firstly to introduce terminology which is consistent with that used by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. This is part of a worldwide push to standardise terminology in safety regulations and has come to us via a global rule harmonisation resolution which was passed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. The bill also seeks to harmonise some of the criminal offences outlined in the act with the general principle of criminal responsibility as set out in the Commonwealth criminal code.As the Bills Digest sets out, the offences amended by the bill all specify the mental state which is a component of the offence, namely, knowledge of recklessness. Essentially this may overturn centuries of legal precedent. Ignorance of the law is no defence: it has not been, in common law, for centuries. However, with this legislation that is wiped away. `I didn't know' now becomes a defence. If an aircraft takes off without a maintenance release and then crashes, for example, as long as no-one admits to knowing the aircraft did not have a maintenance release, it seems that under this bill CASA will have no power to act to suspend, vary or cancel the air operator's certificate. This is because the changes this bill makes mean the lack of knowledge results only in a non-compliance with the act and not a breach of the act. This is very important: the changes proposed would result in a non-compliance with the act and not a breach of the act. It may seem a fine distinction but it is a very important one from a legal standpoint.This bill also seeks to enable CASA to enter into what is known as article 83bis agreements with other national airworthiness authorities. The Chicago convention makes a country responsible for the safety regulations of an aircraft registered in that country, wherever in the world the aircraft is situated. It is a bit like the flag of convenience of ships, although with tighter controls we do not see as many rusted hulks in the aircraft industry as we do in the maritime industry. Under this convention, the country where the aircraft is registered is responsible for issuing airworthiness certificates, certifying and licensing pilots, and approving technical equipment such as radio transmitters and so forth. Article 83bis of that convention allows countries to transfer all or some of these functions to another country if that is where the aircraft is principally located and operated. This bill gives the right to CASA to engage in article 83bis agreements with other national aviation authorities. The concern with this schedule is that there are no criteria set down for CASA to follow when entering into such agreements. It gives, in effect, an unfettered power to CASA with little or no checks or balances. There is no legislative framework to check that agreements that CASA enters into will not result in a lower standard of maintenance for Australian registered aircraft. Australian standards of aircraft maintenance and safety are extremely high and we should ensure that countries given responsibility for Australian aircraft have similarly high standards. As this bill stands, that cannot be guaranteed. I believe this is a very serious deficiency in this legislation because worldwide Australia has been known for its air safety standards and I do not think we should risk our own standards deteriorating by being tied in to those of other organisations. Our reputation is worldwide. Some members of this House will recall the film Rain Man, which was produced in 1988 and starred Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. Some may remember that Dustin Hoffman made some remark that Qantas never crashes, so here was the producers of an American film recognising the value of the standards of the Australian aircraft industry.Another area of concern the opposition has with this bill is the issue of voluntary enforceable undertakings. A voluntary enforceable undertaking is a powerful regulatory tool that can be used as an alternative to prosecution. These undertakings have the full force of the law and can only be varied or withdrawn with CASA's consent, and they are enforceable through the Federal Court. We have seen such undertakings work in other industries, though we have also seen abuse. An example is the abuse of the private binding agreements issued by the Taxation Office that has created a number of tax avoidance schemes. The opposition does not have any in-principle opposition to voluntary enforceable undertakings, but we feel that CASA is simply not ready to assume that extra power. The Australian National Audit Office was highly critical of CASA's record on safety compliance. On the issue of voluntary enforceable undertakings, the audit report said, amongst other things:... for undertakings to have any enduring significance they will need to be monitored by the responsible office. In the light of the ANAO's findings ... this will require improvement in the way CASA manages and prioritises tasks in its surveillance program ... And:... an effective quality control system is in place to ensure that the evidence is reliable, and that the quality of the inspection and audits from which the evidence is derived is consistent with the standards set by CASA.In short, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority is not ready. It has no procedures or training in place for its staff and with respect to these voluntary enforceable undertakings. This is a situation that needs to be rectified before CASA can be given the power over such agreements. The second reading amendment moved by the shadow minister the member for Batman deals with this concern. The ANAO identified a number of concerns about CASA's ability to adequately cope with the increased powers this piece of legislation would give it. The second reading amendment asks the House to defer this bill until such time as CASA can demonstrate that it has dealt with the concerns raised by the Audit Office. It is important that the House take note of the amendment, so I shall read it: “the House is of the opinion that the bill should not be proceeded with until:(1) the Minister satisfies this House that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has resolved all concerns raised in the Australian National Audit Office Report on Aviation Safety Compliance issued in November 1999;(2) the Minister satisfies this House that CASA has especially heeded and acted upon the ANAO warning of the need for CASA to improve the management and the prioritisation of tasks in its surveillance program, before using the proposed voluntary enforceable undertakings power proposed in the Bill; and(3) the Minister convinces this House that he has a clear and effective plan to ensure CASA fulfils its responsibility to rigorously and effectively regulate aviation in the interests of the Australian travelling public.”In other words, wait and work on the problems that currently exist before giving CASA increased power over and above the powers it is struggling with at the moment. The bill has already been dropped once, because it was flawed and because CASA was not ready anyway. It is still not ready and so we should not proceed with this bill.The issue of aircraft maintenance and safety standards is, needless to say, a vital one. I serve on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts. A number of other speakers who have also served on that committee have used some of the reports that that committee has brought down to support their case in this debate. The committee recently released a very important and comprehensive report into fatigue in the transport industry. In that report, the issue of aircraft maintenance was raised. As I said earlier, Australia maintains a very high level of safety, but this is under threat. There are fewer and fewer apprentices being trained, and more and more we are seeing the maintenance of aircraft taking place overseas. That means less control over standards. Giving the power to CASA to engage in article 83bis agreements will simply give more control over safety to overseas authorities. Fewer apprentices and smaller maintenance crews in Australia means longer hours, more stress and more mistakes in the maintenance sector. I refer to a recommendation in the report I mentioned, Beyond the midnight oil: managing fatigue in the transport industry. Related to recommendation 9, paragraph 2.116 refers to the issue of the lack of training of apprentices in the industry. The report, which is a bipartisan report of this parliament, says:On a related matter, we are most disturbed to learn that both major airlines have dramatically reduced their intake of aircraft maintenance apprentices. This is leading the airlines to recruit engineers from overseas and to `poach' qualified staff from elsewhere in the industry. This practice, if continued, will:place at risk the strong corporate and safety cultures that the airlines have established and maintained by training their own staff;reduce Australia's capacity to be self-sufficient in this important part of the industry; andreduce the number of qualified staff in other parts of the industry, particularly in regional areas.For the first time in history, Qantas is finding its aircraft in ditches at the end of Bangkok runways, and we all recall the farcical situation of Ansett taking several aircraft out of action at the height of the Christmas rush because it failed to complete routine maintenance checks. CASA is not doing its job properly at the moment. It has been criticised by just about everybody in the industry as well as by the Australian National Audit Office, and yet this minister proposes to give it even more power through this bill. The minister also proposes to give aircraft operators an easy way out with an `I didn't know' defence when maintenance standards are not met. It gives the power to CASA to enter into agreements whereby safety standards for Australian aircraft will not be controlled by Australians but by other national authorities, whose standards may well not be as high as ours or as high as we would like. We are farming out most of our maintenance to other countries and not employing maintenance crews locally, and those we do employ locally are overworked, stressed and fatigued because we are simply not training anybody else to take over. There is a chronic shortage of maintenance personnel not only in this country but also worldwide. The shortage has been placed as high as 30,000. It is a very dangerous position for the world aviation authorities to be in when worldwide we are short of some 30,000 skilled workers in this industry. The decision to stop training apprentices in the industry here has had disastrous results, and I think it is a disgrace, because I had some close connections with the airline industry and with Qantas during the period of time that I was a trade union official and I had nothing but praise for the training of apprentices by that organisation. What has led them to discontinue this practice I am at a loss to know. As a result of this, Qantas had to travel to South Africa last year in search of maintenance personnel. In today's economy the issue of cost cutting is all-important, and the pressures on our airlines to cut their operating costs and provide cheap air fares is extremely great. Unfortunately, making sure the lights are turned off when no-one is in the room will only get them so far. But cuts are being made to maintenance and therefore to safety, and this is unacceptable. Maintenance is increasingly being contracted out, which may help with the costs but does nothing for the workers' morale or for safety standards. When the dollar becomes more important than the lives of passengers we are in very dangerous territory.Safety should come first, but with this bill the priority seems to be putting in place mechanisms whereby avoiding the blame becomes the primary focus. `It's not my problem', `It's not my responsibility', `It's not my fault' and `I don't know' are phrases we will hear a lot in the aviation industry should this bill pass. What is more, they will be let off the hook because these will be perfectly valid defences. I am afraid this is simply not good enough. I urge the House to support the amendment moved by the shadow minister and reject this bill.Finally, I did not necessarily intend to localise the debate, but a number of other speakers have raised the issue of Sydney's second airport. I believe one member on the other side spent his whole 20-minute speech talking about Sydney's second airport, and I cannot recall him, in the time I was listening to him, referring to the bill at all. However, the difficulty that Sydney airport has relating to noise problems and safety—which, of course, is being considered in this debate—is a related matter and a major problem.I have a personal involvement now. My daughter has an inner-city residence, and it is quite disconcerting, I will say, when visiting her to be standing on her front balcony and virtually see aircraft coming through the trees, as I can see the trees outside of this building. It gives you an impression that they are coming through the trees they are that low. So I relate to the concerns of the inner-city people about this problem. The problem is that the decision was made so long ago now—and this is the issue that people are losing sight of—the site selected for Sydney's second airport is now redundant, due to the rapid residential development in Western Sydney. I appreciate that some people have not actually got this message yet, but I feel quite sure they eventually will.A further development is that only within the last few months the New South Wales state government has announced a massive new residential development on what was known as the ADI site at St Marys, which is quite near, as the crow flies, to the Badgerys Creek site. And as more people move to Western Sydney there will be more electorates created, both state and federal, and the people in these electorates will be voters, and they will not want large aircraft flying overhead. It is already an issue out in Western Sydney, but there will be a lot more electorates created a lot closer to the Badgerys Creek airport site than was ever envisaged when the site was first selected, and these people will always vote against an airport on that site. So the sooner that site is put out of mind the better, and the sooner the government and others look at alternate sites and alternate solutions to what I do recognise is a major problem the better off we will all be.I put forward the solution that the safety and noise problems at KSA must involve rail. Governments over a period of time have neglected rail. We have put a lot of money into roads, we have put a lot of money into airports, but we are not putting very much into rail. I suggest the solution may well be either to improve our interstate rail system—and I was hoping, as I think other members were, that the very fast train concept would be an answer to that; and, while that project I think is off the drawing board at the moment, the government is looking at other very fast train concepts—so that there is less reliance on air travel to move people from state to state or to use a very fast train to link an international airport with an international airport outside of the Sydney basin. Perhaps a combination of those two suggestions would resolve the problems that we are all faced with. I am pleased to have spoken on this debate, and I again urge the House to support the second reading amendment moved by the member for Batman. 12:21:0024244O'Keefe, Neil, MPMr O'KEEFECE4BurkeALP00—Before I make my contribution on the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000 I would just like to state my support for the observations made at the end of the speech by my colleague the member for Greenway. I was personally deeply disappointed by the decision of the government to walk away from the very fast train project. I think the net summary of all of the decisions made on that day was that all the government did was maximise the sale price of Sydney airport. They said to whoever will be the tenderers for Sydney airport, `There's not going to be a second airport for you to deal with as competition. You're not going to have a very fast train to deal with as competition. You've got the airport all to yourself. You are the gateway to Australia.' This certainly will maximise the sale of the asset, but it does nothing to in any way address any of those transport logistical problems that my colleague has so eloquently laid out before the parliament.In supporting the opposition's second reading amendment, I want to focus on a topic that relates in particular to item (3) of the amendment, where the shadow minister has moved that we ensure that:... CASA fulfils its responsibility to rigorously and effectively regulate aviation in the interests of the Australian travelling public.In that context, I want to talk about an issue which has attained high public prominence in the last two or three weeks and that is the now undeniable link between long haul flying and the incidence of deep vein thrombosis. It is true to say that my own interest in this topic has come to light following a health incident that I had late last year when I travelled as a member of a parliamentary delegation to South America. In the plane on the way I fell ill and, although in my case it did not result in a clot, the doctors and the people who attended me told me later that all the symptoms were the same as DVT and that I was very lucky, for particular reasons in my case, it did not reach that point. Even then, there was a little penny starting to drop that, `Gee, the doctors seem to know all about this.' But it still did not dawn on me that it was anyone other than just me or the isolated traveller. It was not until I was in England five weeks later that I discovered that a British politician had developed a serious DVT in a long haul flight to New Zealand about 18 months previously and had collapsed, was taken to hospital and had almost died. As a result, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee conducted the first—as far as I know—well-based investigation into this issue, other than what had been going on behind the scenes with the airlines. The day I was flying out of London I was confronted by a headline from the London Times, reporting on the House of Lords standing committee report that was due to be released that day. The thing that staggered me was their finding that from April 1999 to April 2000 there had been 142 deaths of people from deep vein thrombosis who had come off aircraft at either Heathrow or Gatwick airports. When I saw that, I thought, `This is staggering.' Of course, a lot of medical evidence has come out since then to show that this is only the tip of the iceberg. So the cat is out of the bag. The first thing that we need to be aware of is that this is a very serious health and safety issue associated with long haul flights. As Australians we have a particular interest in it, because we are so far from anywhere else on the globe—just about all flights to Australia from the other continents are long haul flights. We have a big stake in this. That is why I have written to the Prime Minister, to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services and to the Minister for Health and Aged Care at the table putting forward some proposals that I think the government should be taking up to ensure that the interests of people flying on these long haul flights are properly taken account of. As the tourism industry now tells us, there is in the order of 20 million people a year flying in and out of Australia—so we are talking about a lot of people. I am afraid that we have a few questions to answer here that I have not said anything about until yesterday because, quite frankly, I did not want to believe it. But I am now convinced that the airlines have known about this association between DVT and long haul flying—and have known about it for a long time. I am now convinced that they have had irrefutable evidence and that they have chosen not to act on it. I cannot help but draw the parallel with the tobacco industry, in which for many years senior executives denied the link between cancer and smoking even though they had research within their own companies that was telling them that there was such a link. I have also observed a parallel with the motor vehicle industry—as it used to be—where known defects in cars were allowed to stay out there rather than the fleet being recalled and the part being replaced, even though it could potentially lead to an accident and the death or serious injury of someone driving a car with a defective part. I believe that we now have the same situation with the airlines. There are a number of surgeons and highly regarded health experts who are now coming out of the woodwork saying, `What is so strange about this? We have been writing about this in journals for 30 years. We have been putting our papers on the desks of the airline executives and saying to them, “For heaven's sake, here it is—at least tell passengers about it. At least give them some information so that they know the questions to ask.”' January this year, I have to say, was the first time that I had seen anything start to come out that you would say in any way meets that requirement. I think it is in very direct response from this report from the House of Lords published in November last year requiring, among other things, the airlines to tell passengers about the problem.The four-point plan which I have put on the table is as follows—I have set this out in a letter to the Prime Minister and to other senior ministers with portfolio responsibilities in this area. First of all, I have said that personalised advice should be given to passengers on exercise, food, drink and health issues so that, when they buy the ticket and take the flight, they are aware of the potential for health risks associated with flying. That leads to the obvious next problem: who is going to provide that information? The Minister for Health and Aged Care does not want everybody rushing to their doctor, paying—on Medicare—for a consultation about how they protect themselves on flights. Clearly, airline staff and travel agents need to be in a position to give intelligent advice. Until about two weeks ago, the majority of them probably had never heard of it because nobody had told them, let alone know with any expertise what to say to their clients.I say to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, the Minister for Health and Aged Care and the industry: for heaven's sake, you need, very quickly, an intelligent information campaign to be made available to airline staff and to the travel industry so that people can be properly advised. I do not have the slightest doubt that we need a well-funded research program to which, I suggest, the industry should contribute substantially. Also, because of Australia's particular interest in having a safe and attractive long haul flight industry, it is in the interests of the Australian government to contribute to research into the irrefutable evidence, to show what are the smart solutions and what is the smart advice. I have also drawn my own conclusion. I do not, for one minute, pretend to be a health expert or to say that my solution is the only solution, but I know two things. I have talked with the legal company handling the case on behalf of the people making the class action claim—I hasten to add that I am not a member of that class action. It would not be sustainable for me, as a member of parliament, to advocate this case if I were also part of the class action. As I have had communication with the legal firm, I am aware of the nature of the evidence and the cases. There are two common factors. One is a lack of space, but more importantly and significantly there is the lack of movement and exercise during a long flight. There have been cases of people sitting in the window seat who, because they have to climb over people sitting next to them to have a walk, out of consideration for those people stay still. Then they find they have a health problem. People can be reluctant to get up and walk around the aisles because food trolleys are coming down the aisles or they may be standing in front of other people who are trying to watch a movie. It all has to change. It is very clear that there has to be a structured way of providing for people to move around in the cabin while they are on a long haul flight.I have proposed to the airlines that they take out the back row of seats near the toilets, knowing that everybody goes to the toilet two or three times during a long flight. They could take out the back row of seats and put in a bank of walking machines so that, when people go to the toilet, they can also have a five-minute walk. On a ratio of one machine to 50 passengers, that can be done by everybody once every three to 3½ hours. The airlines are already telling me the reasons why that cannot be done. I will talk that through with them. They are also coming up with the same lines which were used in the past by the tobacco industry and by the car industry: `There's no research to prove the link between flying and DVT.' What else do we expect them to say? It is just not going to fly. The fact is that the anecdotal evidence is now overwhelming. Irrefutable evidence is coming out from medical specialists who have been putting this on the table and from former pilots who know what has gone on in their aircraft during flights.The cat is now out of the bag. People now know and are being informed that they have to move and exercise. At the moment, what is in Qantas and Ansett brochures? I am not singling out Qantas or Ansett. I have written to their chief executives and said that those airline groups are at both ends of one of the longest hauls of the lot. They fly a lot of passengers, either across to the US or over to Europe. Those airlines have a stake in being world leaders in finding solutions. So I say to those airlines, here is one proposal. Create the bank of exercise machines so that people can go down there and exercise, while not blocking up the aisles. That is part of the answer. There are lots of inventors and manufacturers now coming forward—I have had four since yesterday—with the products which they have proposed to the airlines, suggesting, `Why don't you put this in the pocket behind the seat for people to do this with their feet or that with their feet? That would help with the problem.' For the last 15 years, all these inventors have been told to go away. Now, the cat is out of the bag and there is going to have to be a response.On Friday the key participants in this issue are meeting at a summit in Sydney. I have not been invited. That is fine by me, but they know what my proposals are. I say particularly to British Airways, Qantas, Air New Zealand and Ansett: put yourself out in front of this. Do not behave like the tobacco industry did or the car industry did, or the chemical industry did with pollution. Do not run around saying, `There's no research to prove the link; we don't believe it is a problem.' Admit the problem up-front. Inform people about it. Become part of a serious research effort for long-term solutions, and in the meantime think up some smart ways to provide structured exercise or movement for passengers on planes during these flights. As I said, the cat is out of the bag. The travelling public are now aware and they are now queueing up asking how to deal with this. You can see people in terminals now doing exercises, and the flight attendants union is reporting that people are standing up in aircraft now and walking around and making a real pest of themselves. Of course they are—they are trying to stay alive. So the airlines have to take a structured approach to this, and the proposal for the walking machines or similar exercise equipment in a confined space that people can go to seems to me to be a relatively cost-effective and practical solution to the problem. I will say this: the expenditure on doing that is nothing compared to the legal costs that are going to come from doing nothing more than simply telling people about it. I do not believe that embarking on an information campaign where you give people a brochure, show them a video and stick information on their tickets is going anywhere near far enough as a quality response to this issue. We will follow that on as we go. That is the first time, to my knowledge, that this matter has been put on the table in the parliament. The Prime Minister has my letter. The transport minister has my letter. The health minister has my letter. In relation to this bill, I believe the Civil Aviation Safety Authority ought to be taking a direct interest in this issue. It is not just about whether planes are safe to fly; it is whether they are safe to fly in as well. CASA ought to be taking a measured response to making sure that the whole approach is of a much higher level than it has been to date. In supporting the opposition's amendment, I specifically draw attention to that particular phrase in our proposal. I relate it to the issue we are now all aware of, and that is the association between DVT and long haul flying. I call on the government to ensure that the response from the industry players at the summit this Friday and the follow-through are adequate and that they lead the world, which is an example I believe the airlines should be setting.12:41:0024247McClelland, Robert, MPMr McCLELLANDJK6BartonALP00—I congratulate the member for Burke on his contribution to this debate on the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000, which is certainly well intentioned and made on the basis of his personal experience. I think the contribution of members from both sides in this debate has been well meaning. Aviation safety is a crucial issue to Australians. Of course, the distance between centres in our continent makes air travel very important, and air travel also connects us, very importantly, with the rest of the world. It is important that we get it right, and my contribution today will be focusing primarily on supporting the amendment moved by the shadow minister for transport, and in particular paragraph 3, which says essentially that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority should lift its game in terms of its role as a policer of aircraft and aviation safety rather than simply being an auditor of what takes place. The focus of my contribution will be with respect to the findings of the then Bureau of Air Safety Investigation, now the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, in its report entitled The systematic investigation into factors underlying air safety occurrences in the Sydney terminal area airspace. That is of crucial interest to my constituents because my electorate of Barton abuts the southern and western rim of the airport and, if there is to be any accident, figures which I will go to in the course of this contribution show that most accidents—I think it is close to 80 per cent—occur within eight kilometres of an aerodrome. Residents living in my electorate very much have the potential to become victims in an air disaster, so I feel I have a responsibility to make my contribution to ensure that all government agencies and instrumentalities are doing their utmost in a completely objective and independent way to promote aviation safety. Looking at the role of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, I note that the report found that it had four predominant roles. The first is to promulgate safety standards. The second is to review safety standards to ensure they continue to meet current needs. The third is to satisfy itself that service providers have the capability to meet the defined safety standards—aircraft safety as well as equipment and so forth. The fourth and final one, very importantly from my point of view, is to monitor the performance of service providers against both the safety standards and the service providers' own internal performance standards. The report noted that one of the objectives of CASA is reinforcing aviation safety by regular review of safety management arrangements employed by Airservices Australia in order to monitor its safety performance, identify key risk factors and promote improvement in the system. Why I focus on the involvement of Airservices Australia and the role of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in monitoring its conduct is because Airservices Australia developed the long-term operating plan for Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport. I recall John Sharp, minister for transport at the time, saying, when he was announcing the public consultation process to establish the plan, that the government was intending to introduce a long-term operating plan for reasons which were, and I think I can quote from memory, essentially political in nature—that is, that it wanted to shift the noise away from certain suburbs. It is common knowledge that the long-term operating plan has predominantly shifted aircraft noise away from the electorates of Bennelong and Bradfield. The significant thing is that in devising this long-term operating plan Airservices Australia—because of their involvement in it, I believe, and I think history has shown—cannot be objective in scrutinising what they are doing and certainly in scrutinising what they are doing from a safety point of view.This is where the role of CASA appears to be so vitally important. As the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation report indicated:There appears to be a degree of professional reluctance for CASA to provide clear guidance on what is expected of Airservices as an air service provider. This responsibility appears to largely devolve to Airservices to determine internally.That is a crucially important finding because it is Airservices Australia that has a direct interest in or ownership of this long-term operating plan. So that reluctance of CASA to actually get in there and get amongst what Airservices Australia is doing is of real concern. I do not believe that the matters identified in the August 1998 report have been sufficiently addressed by any of the relevant agencies involved, or the government. I will go through some of these important findings to emphasise the safety consequences because the report stated:Whilst the investigation gained a general sense that concerns were held by CASA about the safety implications of the rate and complexity of change—this is changing all different modes of operation of the airport—that the Sydney TCU controllers were being subject to, there also appeared to be a degree of reluctance to be more positive in bringing this concern to the attention of Airservices and in directing that quick and positive action be taken to redress the problem.As I said, that is vitally important because unless and until the Civil Aviation Authority, with some boldness, is prepared to get in amongst what is happening at Sydney airport and the operation of the long-term operating plan, these problems will occur. For instance, the report that I have referred to focused on six instances where there had been a breakdown of separation between aircraft. In layman's terms, that means aircraft coming too close together and hence the risk of a collision.In brief terms, the report found that an important and essential part of implementing the long-term operating plan was that, before each mode of operation of the plan was introduced, there needed to be a safety case as a precondition to the mode being implemented. That makes sense. But the investigation found that the preparation of the safety cases was flawed, that it was not done systematically and, moreover, that very few air traffic controllers understood the process of the safety cases. The report stated:Three of [the] more senior controllers reported to the investigation team that the intent of the safety cases was compromised. One of these senior controllers put a similar view in writing to local Airservices Australia management. The controllers believed the LTOP safety case was flawed. They indicated that they were required to substantiate their perception of the risk of identified hazards in the safety case in response to pressure being applied by senior management for an early resolution that, in turn, was in response to the community noise lobby. That is a vitally important finding. What they are saying is that they wanted to make their contribution as to their safety concerns, the complexities of managing all these changes, and that those officers of Airservices Australia—and indeed their senior management, under pressure, I believe, from Airservices Australia—were effectively cross-examining them. They were saying, `What do you mean when you say there is a safety concern?' In other words, they were trying to browbeat them to get them to withdraw or minimise their expression of safety concerns. That is why you need a completely independent and objective safety agency such as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to step in and say, `Look, hold on, this should not be going on. This safety case should be conducted in an objective sense at arms-length.' In other words, I do not believe the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has implemented and undertaken their task without fear or favour.Importantly, on this issue of what I believe is intimidation of air traffic controllers expressing their concerns, the investigation report continued:They—that is, the controllers—considered that their arguments about the risks of identified hazards were substantially ignored. In addition, controllers claimed that some of those involved in the development and analysis of the LTOP—the long-term operating plan—including industry and community representatives, were not as familiar with air traffic control and aircraft flight principles and were therefore not as cognisant of the risks associated with the identified hazards.There you have air traffic controllers involved on the ground implementing these dramatic changes in operations saying that their arguments were not being considered. In addition, what the report found was that these safety cases were being considered in respect of each proposed mode of operation, not of the combined effect of all these changed modes of operation. The other great concern with respect to the inadequacy of these safety cases—despite the long-term operating plan safety cases for both stages 1 and 2 of the implementation of the long-term operating plan—is that the report noted the potential hazard of the extent of change of procedures. The report recommended that an independent assessment be undertaken, including human factors, to determine capacity for further change. The report noted that no such study could be found to have been conducted for the stage 2 safety case. That is outrageous if the Civil Aviation Safety Authority had not ensured that the advice of an independent objective analysis be obtained and that it occur.I have mentioned the effect of the safety cases before the implementation of the long-term operating plan at Sydney airport. The second aspect contained in the report was the effect of the frequency and number of changes to these various modes of operation. I think it is fair to say that the predominant purpose of the long-term operating plan is essentially to open up the east-west runway which cuts across two parallel runways. If you are putting in an intersection across a major highway with massive jets screaming down and being unable to stop, it goes without saying that you are going to be introducing complexity in the operation of not only pilots but of air traffic controllers. These are significant safety concerns. Aside from that particular mode of operation, the number of changes between the various modes was a significant concern. For instance, the report noted that in the period before 1995, before the current coalition government, there was an average of three mode changes per 17-hour period; in 1998, it was up to six mode changes per 17-hour period. I understand that those changes are now up to about nine per 17-hour period. The stress associated with these complexities and the frequency of mode changes was having a significant effect on morale. The report noted that once a mode change is accomplished, the ability for mental processing or the cognitive capability of a controller is reduced until such time as the new pattern of handling and directing traffic becomes familiar. These constant changes do impede the ability of air traffic controllers to function. They recognised that and, hence, morale was low. Ninety per cent of controllers interviewed said that. They specifically stated that the volume and complexity of the changes had caused poor morale. We have talked about the safety cases and the nature and frequency of the changes—all are the responsibility of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to supervise and have direct input into. They did not and they were flawed. The third area is in respect of the training of air traffic controllers. The report noted that training to prepare these controllers for the complexity of air space management, using the crossing runways and the more complex modes of the long-term operating plan, is considered to have been inadequate. Refresher training had not been carried out. I understand that that has now at least been partially addressed. Again, it was only addressed as a result of the intervention of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, not as a result of the actions of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.I can demonstrate, if you like, the lack of fortitude of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in respect of a major recommendation of the 1978 report. That recommendation was that a review be undertaken of the system that operated at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport where planes could land and take off in crosswinds of up to 25 knots and with a downwind component of five knots. It has been acknowledged that that exceeds the international standard of a 15 knots crosswind. It was reported that an incident had occurred at the Amsterdam airport, an accident involving a Boeing 757 veering off the runway whilst the flight crew was attempting to land in similar crosswind conditions of 25 knots. So it recommended that that situation be considered and further reviewed. What did we have in response to that recommendation of reviewing the crosswinds? In response to a question on notice on 17 February 2000, the minister reported to me that CASA undertook a review of the 25 knots crosswind criterion, which involved consultation with air services, the aviation industry and pilots associations. Following that review, CASA indicated that it considered that the practice of routinely operating runways with up to 25 knots of crosswinds before initiating a change of nominated runway does `not pose an unacceptable safety hazard'. That is outrageous. They are more concerned with facilitating the use of these crossing runway modes of operation than they are about achieving an international standard.It is pleasing to see that the International Airline Pilots Association marked Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport with a red spot because of concerns with the long-term operating plan and in particular the effective compulsion to use it in crosswinds of 25 knots. As a consequence of that pressure—indeed, I asked other questions about where incidents involving crosswind accidents around the globe had been revealed—the minister, again with the input of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, eventually reduced that to 20 knots. I still believe that is inadequate—I still believe that it should be reduced to 15 knots—but I give the crosswind example to show how inadequate the view of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority is to vital safety matters. (Time expired)13:01:0024250Gillard, Julia, MPMs GILLARD83LLalorALP00—It is a pleasure to speak in this debate today on the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000 and to speak in support of the second reading amendment moved by the member for Batman. I remind the House that the second reading amendment moved by the member for Batman calls on this House to express the opinion that the bill should not be proceeded with until the Minister for Transport and Regional Services satisfies this House that he is properly acquitting his responsibilities in relation to three specific areas, and I remind the House that those three areas are: (1) the Minister satisfies this House that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has resolved all concerns raised in the Australian National Audit Office Report on Aviation Safety Compliance; (2) the Minister satisfies this House that CASA has especially heeded and acted upon the ANAO warning of the need for CASA to improve the management and the prioritisation of tasks in its surveillance program ... and (3) the Minister convinces this House that he has a clear and effective plan to ensure CASA fulfils its responsibility to rigorously and effectively regulate aviation in the interests of the Australian travelling public.Mr Deputy Speaker Mossfield, I noted your contribution to this debate with interest. I think you would recognise that in the course of this debate members in this House have expressed concern about a number of other areas connected with the portfolio of the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Three issues have been specifically dealt with in the second reading amendment, but members in this place have raised other issues during the debate today.I would like to add one more area of concern and that is this government's lack of regard for proper aviation planning for the state of Victoria. Members in this House may be aware—certainly the Victorian members would be aware—that this government has had to consider two issues related to aviation in Victoria; namely, the future of Essendon Airport and the future of the Point Cook air base. Let me say at the outset that, while these are issues of a different nature, they are both centrally related to aviation. Essendon Airport is an obviously busy commercial airport and there has been a long-running debate in the state of Victoria about the compatibility of that function—being a busy commercial airport—with the nature of the urban development that has occurred around the Essendon Airport site. The Point Cook issue is a different one. Point Cook is an Air Force base which the Commonwealth has marked for disposition. The debate about its future use is not premised on commercial considerations as such. The debate about its future use is premised on its heritage value as the birthplace of the RAAF. I will say a little bit more about that later.Coming to the question of Essendon in particular, you would hope that, in weighing in the balance a major decision—like whether or not Essendon Airport should continue to function as an airport or should be closed as an airport and have the flights that currently land there moved to other locations—a government faced with a major policy decision of that nature would take the trouble to work in consultation with the state government, take the trouble to review aviation strategy generally in Victoria, take the trouble to consult with the people who will be affected by the decision, and take the time and care needed to make a rational decision premised on research. You would hope that at the end of that sort of process we would get the best possible decision about aviation strategy in Victoria and the best possible decision about the future of Essendon Airport and aviation matters generally. You would hope that that would be the process. But, of course, you would be mistaken, because that was not the process that this government undertook in making its decision about the future of Essendon.I am aware from answers supplied to me to questions on notice from the Minister for Finance and Administration that as early as 13 January last year the Minister for Finance and Administration wrote to the Victorian Premier and advised that the Commonwealth had a short- to medium-term goal of disposing of both the Essendon Airport site and the Point Cook airfield. The Minister for Finance and Administration in answer to questions from me has verified that the Victorian Premier wrote back to the Minister for Finance and Administration on 11 February 2000 advising that the Victorian government had a policy to have the Essendon Airport site closed. The Minister for Finance and Administration has also verified to me that he was aware that the Victorian government was in the process of reviewing aviation issues in the Port Phillip basin.One would have thought that, having started out on that path, the rational thing for the Minister for Finance and Administration and indeed the whole Howard government to do would have been to have continued to work in partnership with the Victorian government to resolve this issue and hopefully the issue of the Point Cook site as well and, in doing so, to allow the aviation study, which the Victorian government had commissioned, to be brought to a conclusion so it could inform the decision. As members may recall, that is not what happened. What happened is that, having embarked down a path where the Victorian government was at least consulted by way of letter from the Minister for Finance and Administration, the Howard government did not wait for that process of work with the state government to reach its logical conclusion, did not wait for the aviation study to become available. Instead, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, the Deputy Prime Minister, in answer to a question without notice during question time on 31 October last year, leapt up and, apparently not needing to be troubled with the facts, had made the decision that Essendon Airport was to stay open. In his answer, he stated:As a matter of fact, because of the lobbying and concerns that have been expressed—and in this case he is talking about the concerns expressed by the member for Corangamite, who asked him the question, on behalf of regional Victorians—I could hardly not be aware of the importance of the Essendon Airport.He then goes on to discuss the importance of that airport for country Victorians. He then announced that the Howard government had decided that Essendon Airport would remain open as an operational airport, that the government would sell its shares in Essendon Airport Ltd and that the company, EAL, which has a 50-year lease over the airport, would be sold to a purchaser who would be required to continue operating the site as an airport. Without due regard to getting the concluded views of the Victorian government and without due regard to getting the aviation study which was being undertaken by the Victorian government, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, announced to this House on 31 October that Essendon Airport was going to stay open and function as an airport for the next 50 years.It is no surprise that he specifically mentioned in the course of making that announcement that he had received a lot of representations on the question, and he expressed those representations to be from Victorian country members. The community in the country are very important in terms of making any decision. I would have suggested that those views should have been weighed against the views emerging from the state government and against the information to be gained from a rational aviation study. But, no, this government decides that it will keep Essendon Airport open, we presume, and in line with the minister's answer, because it wanted to respond to political pressure from country Victoria.Having heard the minister for transport, the Deputy Prime Minister, make that announcement on 31 October, I sought to explore the nature of that announcement with him by way of a question on notice which I placed on the Notice Paper on 8 November. I would like to specifically state that this question on notice, which was question 2146, was addressed to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services and asked him a series of questions about the announcement he made during question time. So you would have thought there could be nothing more central to his portfolio than being asked questions about an announcement he himself had chosen to make. One of the questions I asked him—question No. 4—was: Was the Victorian oppositionthat is, the Liberal oppositioninformed of the decision prior to its announcement in parliament on 31 October 2000 and, if so, on what date and at what time was the Victorian opposition informed, who made the contact with the Victorian opposition and who was contacted. To my surprise, I have received answers to that series of questions on notice that are numbered 2146, but the answers that I have received have come from the minister for finance. So I asked the minister for transport a series of questions about an announcement he has made during question time and he determines, apparently, that these questions are best answered by the minister for finance. I am advised that the questions were transferred from Transport to the finance minister on 15 November, having been put on notice on 8 November. You would have to say that that is a very curious process and one I think that the minister might care to explain to this House. Why is it that if you ask the minister for transport questions about an announcement he has made in question time he finds himself unable to answer the questions and he gives the questions to someone else to answer, in this case the minister for finance? Interestingly, in answer to question 4 about the nature of the information, if any, given to the Victorian opposition, the answer that he has received from the Minister for Finance and Administration in relation to those contacts with the Victorian opposition is, `Not so far as I or my office are aware.' So the Minister for Finance and Administration is basically saying he and his office know nothing about it. But that is not really very probative of much, because the reason I asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services about this decision is that he made the announcement. If anybody was informing the Victorian opposition about the announcement prior to this House being informed, you would think that person was in the office of the minister for transport, and the minister for transport has chosen not to answer this question. So my simple point is: in relation to this issue, which is an important issue about protocols and information, the minister for transport really ought to come into this House and let us know whether in respect of the Essendon Airport announcement made in this House on 31 October the Victorian opposition was informed prior to this House being informed. It is a question that he has been asked and I think it is a question he should answer. Moving from that point, which is one that concerns me deeply, the issue of the Essendon Airport, I turn to the issue of Point Cook. As I indicated at the outset, there are two main aviation issues in Victoria. One is the future of the Essendon Airport and the other is the future of the Point Cook air base. I indicated to you at the commencement of this speech that the future of the Point Cook air base is fundamentally a heritage issue. If I can take honourable members briefly to the heritage matters which pertain to the Point Cook air base, because it is a very important site. The Point Cook air base is in my electorate and I visit it frequently. It is, in fact, the oldest operational airfield in the world. It might seem remarkable that Australia has the oldest operational airfield in the world that is still being used as an airfield, but we do. Given that we do, one would think that it is appropriate that an asset of that nature—something that has the reputation for being the oldest operational airfield in the world, that is still functioning as an airfield—ought to be retained and continue to function as an airfield.The merits of the Point Cook site in heritage terms do not end there. Point Cook was established in 1913 as the Central Flying School and it was the birthplace of the Australian Flying Corps and the Royal Australian Air Force. I think I need to put those dates into context. Point Cook was established in 1913, and the first personed flight ever took place in 1903. So some 10 years after human beings found that they could fly with the right technology, there we were having flights taking place out of Point Cook. Point Cook was the departure point for the first north-south and first east-west crossings of the continent by air and was the departure point for the first aerial circumnavigation of the content. If members go to Point Cook today, they will find that heritage history is all around them, because some of the old hangars are there, planes still take off from there and, most importantly of all, the RAAF museum is located there and its mission is to guard the history of the RAAF. One can go to the museum and see not only static displays of historic aircraft but also, because the museum is located at a functioning airfield, historic planes take off and land. So the whole site is involved in heritage aviation activities. I should say that Point Cook is also home to the RAAF chapel, and I think that that is very important too in terms of the heritage and culture of our Air Force. The Commonwealth, having marked this site for disposal, now seems to be bereft of a plan as to what to do next. In those circumstances—where the Commonwealth seems bereft of a plan as to what to do next—as usually happens when a government stalls, the community provides the answer. There is a not-for-profit company called Point Cook Operations Ltd formed by a number of businesspeople and aviators. They have formed that not-for-profit company because they are interested in preserving the heritage of Point Cook and they are interested in taking over the management of the site. They are saying to the Commonwealth, `If you conveyed the site to us'—whether that be by way of lease or some other arrangement—`we would alleviate the Commonwealth of the recurrent costs of the site; we would preserve the heritage value of the site; we would further develop the RAAF museum and we would ensure that this place, Point Cook, with its heritage value, became an established long-term asset not only for the western region of Melbourne but also for Australia. We would have a prestige heritage aviation facility.' I raise this matter today obviously because of its relationship to aviation. It is particularly important to raise it because it seems to me that, in terms of the government picking up this very sensible idea to act and to define a future for Point Cook and to define that future based around the plan of Point Cook Operations Ltd, there is really a window of opportunity for the government to do that in a way which makes very good sense in terms of heritage issues. I am sure many members in this place would be aware that next week we have in Victoria the International Air Show 2001at Avalon. The theme of that air show is celebrating the Centenary of Federation—which, of course, we are—and celebrating the 80th birthday, if I can use that term, of the RAAF. So we have an international air show taking place steeped in the Centenary of Federation history and the 80th birthday of the RAAF.Can I suggest to the incoming Minister for Defence, Mr Peter Reith, that there would be no better time and no better place to announce that the heritage of Point Cook will be saved and preserved than at that air show. That is the moment to do it—when aviation celebrations in Australia for the Centenary of Federation and for the 80th birthday of the RAAF are under way. I raised this yesterday and I am raising it again because it seems to me that it would be a crying shame if this opportunity passed by. I am sure that the incoming Minister for Defence has a lot of issues to get across in his portfolio. I appreciate that it is a new portfolio responsibility for him and I appreciate that the Point Cook issue might not have been top of the pile. Having said that, I urge him to put the Point Cook issue at the top of the pile and to make sure that he comes to the air show at Avalon ready to make an announcement about the future of Point Cook, and that announcement ought to be one where he says to the Australian community and to the aviation community, which will be well represented at the air show, that this government is prepared to recognise the history of Point Cook, prepared to convey the site to a community-based entity, namely Point Cook Operations Ltd, and prepared to see the site preserved and developed in a way which will bring great credit to Australia and, of course, great credit to the western region of Melbourne.I return to the second reading amendment moved by the member for Batman. As I noted at the outset of this speech, the second-reading amendment calls on this House to form the opinion that the bill should not be proceeded with until the minister for transport is able to satisfy this House that he has properly addressed a number of areas of key concern within his portfolio. I would urge all members of the house to support that second-reading amendment. 13:21:0024254Scott, Bruce, MPMr BRUCE SCOTTYT4MaranoaNPMinister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence10—Acting as Deputy Prime Minister and minister for transport this afternoon is a great pleasure for me. I acknowledge the contributions by members. I am particularly interested in the opposition talking up the air show to be held at Avalon next week—a great air show.LS4Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin Ferguson—Point Cook, too. YT4Scott, Bruce, MPMr BRUCE SCOTT—I have a great affection for Point Cook. In fact, my father is a graduate of Point Cook. I was most interested in the contribution of the member for Lalor. I thank all members for their contributions to this debate. The member for Batman expressed some concern about the 83bis agreements, which are agreements which would allow another air safety authority to take over the regulation of a specific aircraft. I inform the member for Batman that, for example, CASA regulates an Australian aircraft that is based in Canada. It would make a lot of sense to give the Canadians the immediate regulatory oversight of this aircraft.There will be no change to CASA's statutory responsibilities and it will not be able to lower aviation safety standards by entering into article 83bis agreements. We are developing regulations to cover the technical and administrative aspects of these agreements which will of course be tabled for the scrutiny of the house and the honourable member. I am pleased that the member for Batman does not have an in-principle objection to enforceable voluntary undertakings. As the Auditor-General's report recognised, they are a valuable addition to the range of enforcement tools that are available to CASA. The member for Batman has moved a lengthy second-reading stage amendment. I can advise the House that CASA has improved its surveillance program dramatically. CASA has now moved to a systems approach to surveillance which has been successfully introduced initially in relation to high-capacity airline operations and subsequently for low-capacity RBT operations.The systems audit approach will raise the consistent application of safe practices in the industry. It will also help CASA assess the operators' understanding of the regulations and other safety requirements, helping CASA to: firstly, assess the intrinsic ability of the operator to comply with safety requirements; secondly, to develop better education models to improve understanding of safety requirements; and, thirdly, assess the need to review regulations to ensure that they keep up with new learning. The approach will also lead to continuous safety improvements as operators assess their processes and procedures through their own monitoring and also corrective and preventive action systems.In adopting this safety management system audit approach to surveillance, CASA is keeping at the forefront of international best practice. The world's major civil aviation regulators are also adopting an approach to surveillance which will spearhead the drive for safer airline operations well into this century. I commend the bill to the House. At the same time, I present the correction to the original explanatory memorandum.Question put: That the words proposed to be omitted (Mr Martin Ferguson's amendment) stand part of the question.13:30:00The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker—Mr F.W. Mossfield) 74Abbott, A.J.Andrews, K.J.Anthony, L.J.Bailey, F.E.Baird, B.G.Barresi, P.A.Bartlett, K.J.Billson, B.F.Bishop, B.K.Bishop, J.I.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.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.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.Ruddock, P.M.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.Vaile, M.A.J.Vale, D.S.Wakelin, B.H.Washer, M.J.Williams, D.R.Wooldridge, M.R.L.Worth, P.M.56Adams, D.G.H.Albanese, A.N.Bevis, A.R.Burke, A.E.Byrne, A.M.Corcoran, A.K.Cox, D.A.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.Hollis, C.Horne, R.Irwin, J.Jenkins, H.A.Kernot, C.Kerr, D.J.C.Latham, M.W.Lawrence, C.M.Livermore, K.F.Macklin, J.L.McClelland, R.B.McFarlane, J.S.McMullan, R.F.Melham, D.Murphy, J. P.O'Connor, G.M.O'Keefe, N.P.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.Tanner, L.Theophanous, A.C.Thomson, K.J.Wilkie, K.Zahra, C.J.Howard, J.W.Beazley, K.C.Fahey, J.J.O'Byrne, M.A.* denotes tellerQuestion so resolved in the affirmative.Amendment negatived.Original question resolved in the affirmative.Bill read a second time.24256Bill—by leave—taken as a whole.13:35:0024256Scott, Bruce, MPMr BRUCE SCOTTYT4MaranoaNPMinister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence10—by leave—I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum. I move government amendments Nos 1 to 6 as circulated:(1) Clause 2, page 1 (line 8), omit “subsection (2)”, substitute “this section”.(2) Clause 2, page 1 (after line 9), after subclause (1), insert: (1A) Item 17 of Schedule 1 commences on a day to be fixed by Proclamation.(3) Schedule 1, page 4 (after line 4), after item 5, insert:5A Subsection 20AA(2)Omit “subsection (1)”, substitute “subsection (1A)”.(4) Schedule 1, item 6, page 4 (line 7), omit “operator or pilot”, substitute “owner, operator, hirer (other than the Crown) or pilot”.(5) Schedule 1, item 6, page 4 (line 17), omit “operator or pilot”, substitute “owner, operator, hirer (other than the Crown) or pilot”.(6) Schedule 1, item 6, page 4 (line 21), omit subparagraph (i), substitute: (i) there is outstanding a requirement imposed by or under the regulations in relation to the maintenance of the aircraft;The government is seeking to make a number of amendments to the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000. The main government amendment provides that the proposed new section 31A of the Civil Aviation Act commence upon proclamation. Postponing the introduction of CASA's proposed scheme of voluntary undertakings until proclamation will ensure that CASA has adequate time to develop procedures and training for its staff in relation to enforceable voluntary undertakings.The government is committed to ensuring that CASA has addressed the Australian National Audit Office, ANAO, concerns about the implementation of the scheme and is adequately prepared. In an audit of CASA's aviation safety compliance functions, the ANAO was particularly concerned about CASA's management of its surveillance program, and there are still technical and personal issues to be resolved in relation to enforceable policy.Other amendments to the bill include two corrections and a clarification that the term `maintenance requirement' refers to any maintenance requirement imposed by or under the civil aviation regulations, including any instruction or direction by CASA under the regulation. The two corrections address a numbering error and a error in deleting owners and their hirers from the airworthiness requirements in subsection 20AA(3) and (4) of the Civil Aviation Act in the bill. The deletion was due to an error in developing the drafting instructions and would have removed the owners and hirers from the chain of responsibility for maintenance. I commend the amendments to the House.13:37:0024257Ferguson, Martin, MPMr MARTIN FERGUSONLS4BatmanALP00—At the outset, I would firstly indicate, as I did last evening, that the opposition has no particular objection to the government's amendments to the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000. We also acknowledge comments, made in response to issues raised by us last evening, that this is part and parcel of a recognition by Australia that we are part of a global aviation industry; and, for that reason, the intent of the changes sought by the government is supported by both sides of the House.The real debate from our point of view is the question of whether some of the organisations that will be vested with the responsibility of implementing the intent of this bill actually have the capacity at this point in time to do the job expected of them by the parliament. On that note, I also indicate to the House that we understand and support the intent of the amendments of the bill going to the correction of a drafting error and also the proposed modification going to the introduction of voluntary enforceable undertakings. Despite the fact that we support the intent, we have some problems as to whether they are capable of being implemented at this point in time.For those reasons, the opposition will be supporting the bill today. We have correctly divided on a second reading stage amendment, which the opposition moved last night, the object of which was to send a message to the government that, whilst we understand and support the intent of where it is going as a result of the aviation legislation before the House this afternoon, it has to have regard to the concerns raised in that second reading amendment, which will now also appropriately and comprehensively be examined by a Senate legislation committee with a view to bringing further to a head some of the issues that have been canvassed in the debate surrounding this bill. However, as I indicated in my speech yesterday, we do retain significant concerns with aspects of the bill and how it may impact on aviation safety. What concerns me is that the government has also failed to take on board some of the issues that we raised in the course of the debate, especially in my initial contribution as shadow minister to the debate last night, in that it has not given answers to the questions I posed which go to the very nature of the bill and its operation.We believe that if this legislation goes wrong it could have a major impact on the aviation industry and, more importantly, the question of aviation safety. I have already informed the House that the bill has been referred to a Senate legislation committee. I am also pleased to inform the House, and especially those who operate in the industry, that I understand the committee will conduct hearings on 2 March and will report by the end of March. I say to those who are actually involved in the industry and interested in its future and its capacity to operate in a global sense that they should take seriously that Senate reference to the legislation committee and go out of their way to make an objective and constructive contribution to consideration of this bill by the Senate legislation committee. I will briefly reiterate some of our concerns with the bill. The first relates to article 83bis agreements, the concept of unfettered power. We all understand that this empowers CASA to enter article 83bis agreements on behalf of Australia. It is an important development. It is an important power delegated by this parliament and our nation to CASA to agree to exchange responsibilities with other nations with respect to air safety, aircraft maintenance and a variety of other issues. I note the response by the minister with respect to Australia and Canada. We all understand those types of arrangements. But what concerns us is that the minister has indicated that he will introduce regulations or guidelines for this power. So be it, but I am one who actually believes that, because of the significant nature of the changes embodied in the legislation before the House this afternoon, those regulations or guidelines should have been spelt out for the industry, the general public and the parliament as part of the comprehensive consideration of this bill this afternoon, not left in isolation for further development and consideration in a future debate. What I am suggesting in essence is that it all should have been on the table and concluded through full and proper consideration as part of this debate. (Extension of time granted)For that very reason, there remains an outstanding need for a detailed consideration, following consultation with the aviation industry, of the nature of those regulations or guidelines. Perhaps the minister, who will follow me, can explain how he sees that operating and whether he proposes to facilitate consideration of this bill by the Senate legislation committee by actually placing before that committee the potential regulations or guidelines that will become part and parcel of the implementation of the changes that will no doubt be carried by the House today. If that is possible, I believe that could actually facilitate consideration by the Senate legislation committee of what is a very important bill and, in doing so, remove some of our potential fears as part of the parliamentary processes and also overcome some of the fears that exist in the industry in their consideration of where we go with the implementation of this bill.Amended items 4 and 6, which go to the issue of what happens for non-compliance in essence of inadvertent breaches and the concept of knowingly or recklessly performing certain acts, are open to debate and clarification. We want to try to bring before the parliamentary processes a better understanding of where we are going in a regulatory sense on that issue. One could argue that we are buying a pig in a poke as to, for example, what the concept of knowingly or recklessly doing such acts actually means. No-one would want to leave that open to debate, if we can possibly avoid it by stepping back for a short period and going away and developing a better understanding of these issues.The bill attempts to provide clarification in the act with respect to when a breach is a breach and not a noncompliance. As advised yesterday, the opposition believes the minister needs to now spell out a clear picture of the regulatory compliance options he intends for CASA. That is exceptionally important, because not only on this side of the House but also more and more in the industry there is growing concern, as expressed in the Audit Office report, about the capacity of CASA to do its job. I think this was even partly acknowledged by the minister today when he said in response to the debate that there are outstanding technical and personal issues to be resolved on enforcement policy with respect to the performance of CASA. That is in part an admission that not all is well with the operation of CASA at this point in time. I thank the minister for his acknowledgment that not all is well with the operation of CASA at the moment.This part of the bill, together with the proposal to introduce voluntary enforceable undertakings, goes to the heart of CASA's operation. It is therefore of concern to the operation of the bill and to the opposition that this has been done in such a haphazard manner, as the bill has been. There have been industry concerns with how CASA is enforcing the act and how it is using its resources and powers. Therefore, any change to those powers like these amendments should be spelt out in a broad context so the industry in particular can be clear about where the regulator is coming from. That is only fair to the industry and it is only fair to the travelling public. For those reasons, it is appropriate that this matter now be more fully canvassed in the Senate's consideration of this legislation. In essence, the government is also on notice as a result of my contribution today that the opposition will be pursuing this again in the Senate legislative processes. I now turn to item 33A, which raises that complex matter of voluntary enforceable undertakings. As I said earlier today, what worries us is the very vexed question of whether or not CASA is ready for these changes. I also believe that, if we go down this path, and it is part of the global development of the industry, the industry must be consulted in Australia. As the opposition said yesterday, parts of the industry and the Audit Office retain significant concerns with CASA's ability to use this power. There has been considerable debate about CASA's powers and how they are being used. Therefore, the issue is: does adding a new power without proper consultation add to the problems which surround the operation of CASA at the moment and whether or not such a proposal is wise in an environment in which there is concern about the operation of CASA? (Extension of time granted) For that reason, the opposition will again be pursuing this issue in the Senate legislation committee.I say that because the amendments do not stop the implementation of the section of the bill that introduces voluntary enforceable undertakings. They merely put the timing of the commencement of this power in the hands of the minister. I must say in passing that this is a very important aviation bill, yet I am surprised that the minister himself, the Deputy Prime Minister, has not seen fit to come into the House as the responsible minister and deal with the bill. That is not to suggest that the minister at the table, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, is not competent, but in the end he is personally not responsible for the eventual implementation of this bill. I would have thought that such an important bill as the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000 would have demanded the presence of the minister to deal with these issues.The minister has said that he will allow CASA time to do the training necessary for this power. That is all very well. But, as we said yesterday, unfortunately we do not trust the minister's judgment. He only tempered the timing of CASA receiving this power when the opposition pointed out to him the audit report of last year. In essence, he was going to bring in these changes with no obligation on CASA to address the concerns raised and the requirement that it clean up its act in readiness for this power.When you think about that in the context of the minister's response this afternoon to the debate, where he again acknowledged that there are outstanding issues arising from the audit office report, including technical and personnel issues, that contribution from the government side only adds to our concerns going to the changes in the capacity of CASA to do the job. While the opposition supports the amendment because it gives some moderation to the introduction of this power, we will be rightfully—and as is our responsibility in opposition—poring over this issue in the Senate legislation committee. As a result of consideration of this issue in the Senate legislation committee, if we are not satisfied, and following further discussions by us with the industry, we may then feel it is appropriate that more substantial amendments be moved in the Senate. I think it is fair to say that the opposition basically supports the thrust of this bill. But we are correctly raising some concerns. In doing so, we are going out of our way to cooperate with the government but urge it over the next couple of weeks to actually go away and properly consider through the department the issues we have raised in an endeavour to actually bring back to the Senate legislation committee a fuller picture of where we might end up with respect to the regulations and the method of implementation and operation of the changes embodied in the bill. The Senate legislation committee now has the responsibility for doing, I suppose, a fuller examination of the bill in a fit and proper way. I also note that there are other parts of the bill that I mentioned yesterday that will also receive attention. In some ways this bill has been a major disappointment. If we had an effective minister, he would be here this afternoon, because he would be focused on his portfolio and we would therefore not need to use the Senate to extract the information clarifying the policy changes that we have raised in this debate. I would suggest to the House, in conclusion, that we saw a sloppy version of the bill last year, a patch up job this year and a clear endeavour by the government to just get it off the legislative timetable without sufficient explanation or information to tidy up what is a very important change in a fit and proper way. Having said that, for the right reasons we will vote for this bill, but we still have concerns. In the interests of good policy, I simply say to the government: please take on board what has been raised, endeavour to do the work and finalise completion of consideration of this issue in the Senate legislation committee so as to avoid the need for us to reconsider our position and potentially move further amendments to clarify potential messes created by the minister not being properly focused on his job.13:53:0024260Scott, Bruce, MPMr BRUCE SCOTTYT4MaranoaNPMinister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence10—If I could just answer a couple of the concerns that have been raised by the opposition spokesman, can I just say, firstly, in relation to the inability of the Deputy Prime Minister and minister to be with us here for this, I know that he would have liked to have been here but he has had leave of the House. I am sure the opposition would understand that the Deputy Prime Minister does have other issues of concern today as well as this, but he will be taking and has always taken a very close interest in the concerns that have been raised by the other side of the House. I note also his confirmation of my ability to pass this through the House today. In relation to regulatory compliance, I say to the Opposition that CASA has a wide range of enforcement powers. Enforceable voluntary undertakings are not central to CASA's powers. They are an additional tool that will be useful in some circumstances. I could also advise the opposition that the government will be providing the Senate legislation committee with the drafting instructions for the regulations. I thank the opposition for its contribution and commend the bill to the House. Amendments agreed to. Bill, as amended, agreed to. 24260Bill (on motion by Mr Bruce Scott)—by leave—read a third time.Bills24260R120224260Debate resumed from 7 December 2000, on motion by Mr Hockey:That the bill be now read a second time.13:55:0024260Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr KELVIN THOMSONUK6WillsALP00—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 its treatment of Medicare and effective Americanisation of the health system and its taxation indexation policies and their effect on the community and calls on the government to get behind Labor's plans to rebuild Medicare”.This bill proposes to amend the Medicare levy low income exemption thresholds for individuals, married couples and sole parents in line with consumer price index, or CPI, movements. The shading-in thresholds, which ensure that taxpayers earning just over the low income threshold will not face the full levy, will also be adjusted in line with CPI movements. This has been done by the Howard government in each year that it has been in government, except for 1998-99. Indexation was suspended in 1998-99 with the support of Labor because the relevant CPI figure was negative. The thresholds for individuals will increase from $13,550 to $13,807 for the 2000-01 year. Individuals whose income is between $13,807 and $14,926 will be subject to the shading-in provisions yielding a Medicare levy of 20 per cent of their income over $13,807. The family income exemption threshold is being increased from $22,865 to $23,299 for couples with no children, increasing by $2,140 for each dependent child in the family. Sole parents will enjoy the same exemption provisions. The low income threshold is also adjusted in the Medicare levy surcharge legislation, which imposes a tax penalty on taxpayers who do not have private health insurance. This bill is estimated to cost $1 million in 2001-01, $35 million in 2001-02, and $20 million in 2002-03. This bill continues Labor's practice of annually indexing Medicare levy thresholds and, on that basis, Labor is supporting it. What we have done, however, in moving the amendment that we have moved is to provide the opportunity for the House to debate our concern that what this government is doing is effectively Americanising the health system. We are also signalling that what the government needs to do is get behind our plans to rebuild Medicare. Indeed, Medicare has been the object of envy of many nations around the world. It is a world-class health care system and has been a world-class health care system. Many countries have sent experts to this country to examine our health system and to endeavour to copy its most important features. But this government, rather than supporting and building Medicare, is stripping away its foundations and, indeed, leading the health system towards a much more Americanised one where your capacity to get proper health support and be looked after is dependent on your wealth—on your income and your assets. That is a situation that we regard as unacceptable. We urge the government to reconsider the sort of approach that it has been taking and try to produce a health system which will look after all Australians regardless of assets and regardless of income, but on the basis of legitimate health needs. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—It being 2 p.m., the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 101A. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member for Wills will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.Miscellaneous2426110000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I inform the House that it is my intention to issue a writ on Friday, 9 February 2001 for the election of a member to serve for the electoral division of Ryan in the state of Queensland to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Mr Moore.The dates in connection with the by-election will be fixed as follows: Close of rolls Friday, 16 February 2001Nominations Thursday, 22 February 2001Polling day Saturday, 17 March 2001Return of writ On or before Sunday, 20 May 2001Privilege2426114:01:0024261Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE9V5SturtLP10—Mr Speaker, I rise on a matter of privilege. The matter concerns attempts to intimidate me in my parliamentary function—Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Order! The member for Sturt has the call and is entitled to be heard.9V5Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE—Mr Speaker—LS4Ferguson, Martin, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Order! The member for Batman! I have already indicated that the member for Sturt has every right to be heard—and heard in silence.9V5Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE—This is a very serious matter, Mr Speaker, concerning attempts to intimidate me in the parliamentary function that I discharge as chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and as a member of this House. The attempted intimidation is, to my mind, both improper and such as to cause substantial interference with my parliamentary duties. Mr Speaker, I raise this matter with you now and, with your indulgence, I intend to provide more detail later today.Ministerial Arrangements2426114:02:0024261Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—Mr Speaker, I inform the House that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister will be absent from question time today as they are attending the Queensland state election campaign launch of the Liberal and National parties in Brisbane. I will take questions normally addressed to the Prime Minister, and the Deputy Leader of the National Party and Minister for Trade will take questions relating to the Transport and Regional Services portfolio. Questions Without Notice242622426214:02:0024262Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALPLeader of the Opposition00—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer recall making the following statement on radio 3LO on 21 September 1998:This—that is, the GST—... is going to boost the economy and create jobs.Is it not a fact that today's unemployment figures show that, since the introduction of the GST, full-time employment has fallen? Is it not also the case that the figures show that full-time employment has now fallen for four months in a row, with 87,300 full-time jobs lost? Is not a fact, too, that the total number of people in work has fallen four times in the last five months—with 58,600 jobs lost—and that, since the introduction of the GST, the participation rate has fallen, with an additional 33,400 people giving up even looking for work since August 2000?24262Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—Today's labour force figures showed a decline of 3,500 jobs in the month of January. However, over the seven months from the commencement of the financial year, employment has increased by 41,000 and, over the last year, 180,000 new jobs have been created in Australia. Since this government was elected in March 1996, 774,600 Australians have been put into new jobs. Indeed, the unemployment rate—which is today at 6.7 per cent—compares with the unemployment rate of 8.5 per cent when the government was elected. It is a full two percentage points lower than when the government was elected. Let us compare the current unemployment rate with the rate for the period when the now Leader of the Opposition was the Minister for Employment. At that time the unemployment rate was 11.2 per cent. During the entire period of his tenure as unemployment minister, unemployment averaged 10.9 per cent. Unemployment today is at 6.7 per cent. As the government has indicated, keeping the Australian economy growing is the best thing that we can do to create new jobs. That is consistent with good economic management. In addition, labour market and welfare reform will be supportive of new job creation, and the best thing that the Labor Party can do is pass the government's industrial relations reforms.2426214:06:0024262Hawker, David, MPMr HAWKER8H4WannonLP10—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Is the Treasurer aware of any recent assessments that support the government's management of the Australian economy? Can he tell the parliament the details of such assessments?24262Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—From time to time, you come across third party assessments of the Australian economy and I thought I should inform the House of one that I discovered recently, which said: The Australian economy has continued to perform strongly over the past year, with solid economic growth, moderate wages growth and improved international competitiveness. Unemployment has continued its downward trend of a year ago, with strong labour market performance and productivity growth5T4Brereton, Laurie, MPMr Brereton—Tell it to the marines!CT4Mr COSTELLO—The member for Kingsford-Smith apparently disagrees with that assessment. Also part of that assessment was the following statement:While some commentators have suggested an easing in the rate of economic growth, the fact is that Australia's growth has been sustained and consistently at the high end of expectations. Even with some easing, Australia's growth will be higher than estimates for each of the G7 countries and higher than the EU and OECD.Those are very interesting assessments. Who are they from? They are the assessments of the ACTU. In its living wage submission which it filed last Friday, the political masters of the Australian Labor Party assessed the Australian economy as performing strongly, outperforming G7, EU and OECD, and continuing its good performance. In fact, it was a remarkable endorsement of the government's economic management. All of this was done in support of the ACTU's claim, which is based on getting a wage increase in the context of current economic developments. What we do is support wage increases based on increased productivity. Because productivity has been increasing, wage levels have been increasing under a coalition government in a way they were never able to under Labor. I can remember being here throughout the early 1990s and seeing the then Treasurer and the then Prime Minister—Labor—walking to this dispatch box and boasting about how they had reduced real wages. One of their great boasts was that real unit labour costs had fallen under Labor. They said, `Isn't that a wonderful thing for the economy?' We take a different view. We think that if you have increasing productivity, living standards can increase, and if you have good economic management you will have better productivity. But you will not have it on budget deficits of $10 billion. You will not have it under a Beazley finance minister leadership. You will not have it under a monetary policy which is almost non-existent. You will not have it under a group of people that would take Australia back further than Keatingism—a group of people whose aim in life is to make Whitlam look good. Good economic management, increasing living levels—that is the policy of this government.2426314:10:0024263Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON8K6HunterALP00—My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Wasn't Robert Gottliebsen right in the Australian today when he said:In Australia, the downturn was partly caused by three blows the Government delivered to the small business community: accelerated company tax; paying uncollected GST to the Government, which slowed the credit system; and a BAS form that few business people could understand.Minister, what are you going to do about it?24263Macfarlane, Ian, MPMr IAN MACFARLANEWN6GroomLPMinister for Small Business10—That is three questions in three days. You have already used more than half your quota for last year. You asked five questions in 20 weeks of parliament.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The minister will come to the question.WN6Mr IAN MACFARLANE—The opposition well know what this government is doing about small business. We are out there and we are listening. We are looking at all the options to make the BAS easier for small business. What are the Labor Party doing? The first thing they usually do is decide whether or not their policy is any good. They have already worked out this week that they may have to roll back the roll-back or they may have to bring in a new system. When they get confused—and they confuse small business all the time—what they do is form a committee to go and talk to small business. We on this side of the House are already out there talking to small business; we are already listening to small business. All the opposition have done this week is form a committee.2426314:12:0024263Hull, Kay, MPMrs HULL83ORiverinaNP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Trade. Will the minister inform the House about what impact the latest reduction in interest rates will have on exporters in rural and regional Australia? Will the minister tell the House what the government is doing to help exporters in rural and regional Australia and in my electorate of Riverina?24263Vaile, Mark, MPMr VAILESU5LyneNPMinister for Trade10—I thank the member for Riverina for her question. As to the first part of her question, there will be a quite significant impact on the wellbeing of Australian business generally, as well as on mortgage holders and, in particular, Australia's exporting businesses. Some interesting statistics came out of the announcement yesterday to reduce interest rates by half a per cent—that is, business borrowing costs from banks alone will reduce by $1.2 billion per year. So it is a further $1.2 billion burden off business generally across Australia. Exporters are likely to receive a reduction in these costs of around $300 million per year as a direct result of the latest rate cut. The farm sector alone will benefit by over $100 million per year in reduced costs because of lower interest rates. From the time that the coalition government was elected in 1996 we have had an absolute focus on maintaining sound fiscal principles, sound economic management of the Australian economy. We have focused on keeping a stable, low interest rate regime in Australia. It is interesting that, since yesterday, the farm groups have commented on the benefit to farmers across Australia, particularly those exporting out of regions like the Riverina. The New South Wales Farmers Association point out that the direct cost savings and their flow-on effects will add over $1,000 to the average farmer's cash income. The NFF release was quite compelling, because it broadened the comment out to the economic management of Australia. They said:The ongoing focus on improving the budget finances has delivered a range of benefits to the Australian economy, most notably a low inflationary environment, lower interest rates and, importantly, scope for reinvestment into infrastructure.That is a very telling comment from the NFF. Of course it does all of those things. We have slowly but surely built ourselves into a position in this country where we can be reinvesting in the infrastructure of this country and that is absolutely beneficial to the rural community, exporters and manufacturers, including in the seat of Riverina.One of the other things that we are doing specifically for exporters in rural and regional Australia is establishing a network of TradeStart offices where we are helping facilitate more small business involvement in the export effort, bearing in mind that one in five Australians who are employed are employed in industries that rely on exports in rural and regional Australia. That is one in four Australians. Just last week I opened a series of new TradeStart offices in Western Australia: in Kununurra, in Geraldton and in Carnarvon. In fact, there is a TradeStart office in Wagga Wagga in the member's electorate. All these things are being done to help facilitate greater involvement in the international marketplace, where we have seen exports over the last three years of a coalition government go from $119 billion to $126 billion and, in the last calendar year, to $142 billion—making a significant contribution to the growth of our economy. Fundamentally, the key economic settings that our government has focused upon have provided the environment, as the NFF says, to encourage a low inflationary environment and lower interest rates, which provide benefits right across the economy and make us much more competitive. At the same time as we were undertaking all those measures, the voters of Australia, particularly in rural and regional Australia, recognise the fact that we were opposed at every point along that path by the Labor Party. Every single measure we undertook to strengthen the economy of Australia was opposed by the Australian Labor Party in this place. So there is no benefit flowing to rural and regional Australia, particularly for the broader business community, from the activities of the Australian Labor Party in the federal parliament. 2426414:16:0024264Jenkins, Harry, MPMr JENKINSHH4ScullinALP00—My question is directed to the Minister for Small Business. Is the minister aware of a report in yesterday's Diamond Valley News that the Diamond Creek Fair, a major community event in the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne which attracts up to 25,000 people, is being cancelled? Is the minister aware that, according to the organiser, Mr John Arthur, this fair is being cancelled because the stallholders, many of whom are small businesses, have pulled out because of the GST? Has the member for McEwen—Honourable members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Scullin is entitled to be heard in silence and is not being aided by members on either side of the House. HH4Mr JENKINS—Has the member for McEwen made any representations to the minister on behalf of these small businesses and, Minister, what are you going to do about it? 24265Macfarlane, Ian, MPMr IAN MACFARLANEWN6GroomLPMinister for Small Business10—I have to be honest and, for the member for Scullin's information, I do not read the Diamond Valley News, but I will have to add it to my list. I am sure the member for McEwen will tell me that it is a great read. There are some great reads in regional newspapers all over Australia and they are great little small businesses. The member for McEwen has already asked me to visit the small businesses in her electorate and we are scheduling those visits in a couple of weeks. In terms of the stallholders— Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The minister will resume his seat. Member for Perth, member for Fowler, member for Braddon! The minister is entitled to be heard in silence. WN6Mr IAN MACFARLANE—Thank you, Mr Speaker. As I was saying, there is anecdotal evidence from small business that they are at times having some difficulty with the BAS. As we have said repeatedly in the House this week, we are looking at all the options. But there is just as much anecdotal evidence from small business that they are finding the BAS easy and that they are finding quarterly returns are improving the way they operate. I had a small business on Saturday tell me—83ZIrwin, Julia, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Fowler is deliberately defying the chair.WN6Mr IAN MACFARLANE—that, because they are able to hold the GST that they take, they have paid the T2 instalment so that they can hold shares in Telstra out of the profits that they have made from the interest that they earned on their GST. So some businesses are actually enjoying the BAS.83ZIrwin, Julia, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I warn the member for Fowler. WN6Mr IAN MACFARLANE—In terms of the fair, I do not think it has got anything to do with the GST. My understanding is that the fair is closing because they are having difficulty in raising enough participants to participate on the day. I have absolute faith that those small businesses that are having difficulty with the BAS will deal with the issue by contacting their signpost officers and contacting their ATO offices as the data on the secondary return of the BAS will indicate very shortly. 2426514:20:0024265Gambaro, Teresa, MPMs GAMBARO9K6PetrieLP10—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer inform the House whether there are any additional tax reductions to occur this year and what the additional benefits from further tax reductions will be? 24265Costello, Peter, MPMr COSTELLOCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—I thank the honourable member for Petrie for her question. She would know that on 1 July 2000 the largest personal income tax cut ever in Australia was delivered by this government. If it were not for this government, if the Labor Party had had its way, we would have people on average earnings paying a marginal rate of 43 cents in the dollar rather than 30 cents in the dollar. What the Leader of the Opposition will never tell you is that he would prefer to have single income families on average weekly earnings paying up to $50 a week extra in income tax. The Labor Party opposed income tax reductions. As well as that, company tax was cut from 36 per cent to 34 per cent—a great thing for small business. In addition to that, capital gains tax was cut. You now only have to pay capital gains on 50 per cent. Again, the Labor Party could never have done it. And Labor's beloved wholesale sales tax was abolished.If GST is so opposed by the Labor Party, why doesn't it pledge to reverse it? If the member for Scullin really wants to get up and say that everything that is wrong with the world is caused by the GST, why wouldn't a Beazley government reverse it? You can go back to a wholesale sales tax system. Swaziland has one. You could abolish a GST and reintroduce a wholesale sales tax. But what does he want to do? He is so against GST, he wants to get elected and keep it. He is so against the private health insurance rebate, he wants to get elected and keep it. He is so against all of the things that this government has done that his desperate wish is to try to get elected and to try to take advantage of our policy. It is not just those tax reforms that have already taken place. There is further tax reform to come. If it had been left to the Labor Party, financial institutions duty would never have been abolished; yet on 1 July of this year, financial institutions duty will be abolished. For the first time ever, a convenience store with a turnover of $1 million could save $600 in financial institutions duty. Wouldn't that be terrific? Its savings on company tax, as it comes down to 30c, will be $1,600. I know the Labor Party is opposed to abolishing financial institutions duty. But, if you are so opposed to abolishing financial institutions duty, will you be pledging to reimpose it when you get elected? It is just another one of these taxes that the Labor Party opposes every step of the way when its ultimate dream is to try to take advantage of it.PE4Beazley, Kim, MPMr Beazley—On a point of relevance, Mr Speaker: this was a question about decisions that they were taking from the government's point of view, not from anything related to Labor Party policy. If it is $600—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Leader of the Opposition has made his point of order and will resume his seat. The Treasurer was asked a question about tax reductions and is entirely relevant.CT4Mr COSTELLO—On 1 July this year, financial institutions duty will be abolished. It took a coalition government to do it, and the Labor Party fights us every step of the way. On 1 July this year, the company tax rate will come down to 30 per cent. It never could have been delivered by the Labor Party. On 1 July this year, stamp duty on shares will be abolished, a reform which will cut nearly $700 million in the first year off taxation. It will be great news for the mums and dads who own Telstra shares when stamp duty comes off their Telstra shares or any other shares. For business, which has already had the advantage of cheaper motor cars, on 1 July this year they will start getting input tax credits as to half, and on 1 July the year after. These are the benefits of taxation reform which continue to occur under this government—lower income taxes, better family allowances, lower company taxes, lower capital gains tax, abolition of stamp duty on shares, abolition of financial institutions duty, abolition of wholesale sales tax and the introduction of a modern taxation system. I suppose the greatest flattery out of all of that is the Labor Party's desire, having opposed all of that reform, to imitate it, to keep it and to take advantage of it. On this side of the House, we want to continue good tax reductions and we intend to do so.2426614:25:0024266Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, are you aware that the biopharmaceutical company FuCell, of which Mr Pat Clear is on the board of directors, is `now seeking licensing arrangements with pharmaceutical companies and estimates the potential market for its products at over $5 billion per annum'? Minister, did you know Mr Clear's responsibilities to the company include bringing a wealth of industry experience and contacts and being instrumental in assisting in the development of commercial strategies? Minister, as a board member for a company with commercial interests in the pharmaceutical industry, isn't Mr Clear unsuitable to serve on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee? When are you going to remove him from the committee?24266Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—I can only repeat what I said yesterday. FuCell tell me they make cells and not drugs; that they do research but that they do not do research into pharmaceuticals. My department was aware of Mr Clear's association with FuCell. They deemed it to be no conflict of interest. I have a letter signed by my secretary saying:... The department advised you that it had undertaken appropriate procedures and concluded that Mr Clear had no conflicts of interest with respect to his appointment. I agree with them. I table it.2426714:27:0024267Moylan, Judi, MPMrs MOYLAN4V5PearceLP10—My question is addressed to the Attorney-General. Would the Attorney-General inform the House of any recent successes of the Commonwealth's law and order initiatives? Is the Attorney-General aware of any alternative policies?24267Williams, Daryl, MPMr WILLIAMS7V5TangneyLPAttorney-General10—I thank the member for Pearce for her question. I am very pleased to say that the Howard government's stand against crime is paying off. Over the past four years we have invested more than $300 million more than was the case under the previous Labor government. We have increased the number of AFP officers to around 2,800 and increased the number who are engaged in front-line policing duties. This has resulted in some outstanding successes under our Tough on Drugs Strategy and our initiatives to counteract money laundering and people-smuggling. Just this week a Commonwealth law enforcement task force, coordinated by the National Crime Authority, cracked an alleged money laundering syndicate. In September, in WA, a joint investigation between the Australian Customs Service, the AFP and the WA police successfully intercepted a large consignment of chemicals used in the manufacture of amphetamines and amphetamine laboratories. We are keeping billions of dollars of illicit drugs off our streets, we are putting drug dealers behind bars and we are cracking down on people-smugglers.I was asked about alternative policies. In contrast to our crime prevention policies, Labor seems to be hopelessly divided on law and order issues. Just look at the WA election campaign, for example. Two key Labor players have confirmed that WA Labor are telling the public that they are going to be tough on crime but—JK6McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClelland—Mr Speaker, on a point of relevance: if the Attorney is referring to state policy it cannot possibly be relevant to his federal portfolio responsibilities.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I will listen closely to the Attorney-General's answer, but he said nothing that was not relevant to the question asked.7V5Mr WILLIAMS—Two key Labor players have confirmed that WA Labor are telling the public one thing and behind the scenes they are concocting a different story. Julian Grill, a retiring Labor member, wrote in the Australian yesterday that the Labor leadership told the caucus that Labor's election promises on law and order were tough on crime but only because it was essential to win back government.JK6McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClelland—Mr Speaker—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Attorney-General will resume his seat. I apologise to the member for Barton. I think he is aware that he was in a disadvantageous position.JK6McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClelland—Thank you, Mr Speaker. For what it is worth, having heard the answer, it clearly is not and cannot be relevant to the Attorney's federal responsibilities.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Attorney-General has the call on the point of order.7V5Mr WILLIAMS—Mr Speaker—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Attorney-General, I thought, was in fact seeking to respond to the point of order.7V5Mr WILLIAMS—That is right. Mr Speaker, for the information of the member for Barton and other members of the opposition, crime and law enforcement are issues that are dealt with very extensively on a cooperative basis between the states, territories and the Commonwealth. The National Crime Authority itself is a state, territory and Commonwealth body and, as I pointed out in referring to successful operations, there is inevitably cooperation in law enforcement exercises. On that basis, anything that is said at the state sphere has relevance in the Commonwealth sphere.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr Lee—Mr Speaker, I take a point of order under standing order 153. I do not think it is proper for the Attorney-General to impugn other people. It is a standing order that you enforced rigorously yesterday and I ask you to enforce the same standing order on the Attorney-General today.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I remind the member for Dobell that in fact standing order 153 applies to questions, not to answers. Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Attorney-General has the call.7V5Mr WILLIAMS—Mr Speaker, I was telling the House what Julian Grill was saying.Mr Lee interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Dobell!7V5Mr WILLIAMS—He said that the Labor leadership told the state Labor caucus that they were going to be tough on crime in public—Mr Lee interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Dobell is now defying the chair and will be dealt with. I have in fact done nothing more than outline the standing order in response to his point of order.7V5Mr WILLIAMS—He said that the Labor leadership said it was essential to be tough on crime to win back government but it could be wound back when government was won. Yesterday on 6PR Brian Burke, the disgraced former Labor Premier—still pulling strings in the unions—backed up Mr Grill's comments. He said:Throughout this campaign he has provided some telling insights into the problems of a party split on important social issues.Both in WA and federally Labor are divided on the law and order issue, as they are on many other issues. Look at industrial relations, forest policy, tax reform—no-one really knows what Labor stand for. They do not have any policies and when they assert they have a plan you cannot believe them.2426814:34:0024268Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, do you agree with the following statements: `The PBS already pays pharmaceutical companies very poorly for their innovative and cost-saving medicines and this must change,' and, `Currently patients pay 19 per cent of the cost of their medicines with the government picking up the balance. The question is: should they and can they afford to be paying more? Government may need to review the balance of government versus patient contributions'? Minister, do you believe the author of these remarks is an appropriate person to be on the PBAC and, if so, why? Is this your new agenda: to make patients pay more for medicines?24268Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—No, it is not, and government makes policy with regard to the PBS, not the PBAC.2426814:35:0024268May, Margaret, MPMrs MAY83BMcPhersonLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business. Is the minister aware of allegations of slush funds and other rorts inside Queensland unions? What is the government's response to these allegations?24268Abbott, Tony, MPMr ABBOTTEZ5WarringahLPMinister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business10—I thank the member for McPherson for her question. Last week a highly respected former Labor member of this House, Brian Courtice, speaking on behalf of tens of thousands of decent Australian unionists, exposed what he called a `climate of institutional corruption' inside the Australian Workers Union and the Queensland ALP, including vote tampering, ballot rigging and secret union slush funds. He revealed that one-third of the nominal membership of the AWU comprised phantom members who were kept on the union's books for the purposes of maintaining a stranglehold over ALP preselection. Brian Courtice said of `Big' Bill Ludwig, the Queensland Secretary of the AWU:He is an embarrassment to the party, and he is an embarrassment to industrial relations and to the union itself. The problem is that he is propped up on one side within the Labor Party.So this gentleman, described as the Al Capone of Queensland politics, is propped up on one side within the Australian Labor Party. The ultimate cause of this climate of corruption is the fact that the unions—Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The minister will resume his seat. I was listening closely to the minister's answer and, because of the level of hubbub, I was not sure whether he was in fact quoting or citing— XW4Kernot, Cheryl, MPMs Kernot—He was just alleging.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Dickson will be dealt with very swiftly if she continues to think she has a licence to interrupt the chair. I was not sure whether he was quoting or citing—that is, quoting someone else who had used this particular reference or citing a particular individual in that way. If he was citing someone, I would ask him to desist.EZ5Mr ABBOTT—I am quoting Brian Courtice, a very respected former member of this House, speaking about `Big' Bill Ludwig. The basic cause of this climate of institutional corruption is the fact that the unions own and operate their own political party and the fact that union muscle translates almost immediately into political strength via the ALP. These are the real issues. Does the Leader of the Opposition support Brian Courtice in his demand that Peter Beattie change the Queensland legislation to end the AWU's monopolies? Will the Leader of the Opposition follow Tony Blair's example of real leadership and end the union block vote inside the Labor Party? Does the Leader of the Opposition have full confidence in the integrity of Bill Ludwig, with whom he serves on the ALP's national executive? And, in the light of Brian Courtice's evidence, will the Leader of the Opposition demand that Bill Ludwig resign as national vice-president of the Queensland ALP?5I4McMullan, Bob, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Manager of Opposition Business seems to believe it is his business to ensure that the Leader of the Opposition is not heard.2426914:40:0024269Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, do you recall describing the critics of your decision to place a former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist on the PBAC as:... a few people [who] have spat the dummy ... They are of no consequence.Minister, do you consider the following critics to be of no consequence: the International Union of Pharmacology, an advisory body to the United Nations and the World Health Organisation; the deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who described your changes as `a tremendous victory for a super-rich industry that wants to become richer at the public expense' and who said that it is `shameful on the part of politicians to allow this'; the editor of the Medical Journal of Australia, who described the appointment of an industry representative to the PBAC as `a slippery slope towards losing the independence of the committee because of the potential for conflict of interest'? When will you remove Mr Clear from the PBAC and restore the committee's standing in Australia and internationally?24269Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—Given that most of that criticism has been generated by one man, David Henry, who certainly did spit the dummy, I do not consider it of much consequence. He has been round there working up his little left-wing mates, and they have been having a lovely field day. What I would say with regard to Mr Clear is this: most people would consider it perfectly reasonable, in a committee of 12 people, to have one person who has some understanding of industry. We have a person with a consumer background, and that has worked well. I think it is an insult to the other 11 members of the committee to suggest that having one person who can add to the deliberations and provide another perspective is a danger. I have no difficulty with Mr Clear. He is a decent man, and he is an honourable man. He is also a man that Labor was happy to have put on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority when it was in government. I am happy to have him on the PBAC.2426914:43:0024269Neville, Paul, MPMr NEVILLEKV5HinklerNP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Would the minister advise the House of the government's success in expanding New Apprenticeships opportunities for young people in Australia? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches in this area, and what is his response? 24270Kemp, 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 Hinkler for his question, and I would like to acknowledge the tremendous contribution that he made to the development of apprenticeships in his area in Gladstone over 15 years as a director of Abacus. He has a quite remarkable personal record.I am pleased to report to the House of the continuing success of the government's New Apprenticeships system. As of 30 September last year—the most recent figures—there were an estimated 290,000 new apprentices in training across Australia. This is 290,000 people in real jobs getting real skills. It is more than double the number of places that Labor could create while it was in office. In fact, in Labor's last year in office, the numbers of apprentices and trainees as a proportion of the work force were the lowest for three decades. The real question is: has the Labor Party learnt anything since then?We have the Leader of the Opposition's plan for our country—the size of a postage stamp—and the answer is: apparently they have learnt nothing. It is not surprising that this booklet is the sum total, the net result, of five years of Kim Beazley as Leader of the Opposition. It followed 13 years of failure as a minister. Kim Beazley never stood for anything; there are no ministerial achievements. When you think back, you can think of the Collins class submarines but where are the ministerial achievements of the man who is now the Leader of the Opposition? When he was the minister for training, there was a loss of 20,000 traditional trade apprenticeships in one year. In one year, he destroyed 20,000 apprenticeships. Youth unemployment rose to over 34 per cent. People remember the Leader of the Opposition for big deficits and record youth unemployment and for motherhood statements. This postage-stamp plan for Australia is not going to hide his 13 years of failure in office and five years of policy laziness in opposition. It is the Howard government that has the plans that are producing the skills that Australians need, innovating for Australia and for jobs for Australians.2427014:45:0024270Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, is it correct that under the National Health Act the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee is required to take into account economic factors, including cost effectiveness, for a drug before it can recommend listing on the PBS? Minister, doesn't your admission yesterday that you were forced to list Celebrex on the PBS at a price that was not cost effective—because you said `Had we taken the price of the PBAC ... the drug would never have been listed'—set an appalling precedent and threaten the viability of the PBS? Minister, why did you buckle under industry pressure and list Celebrex in a way that is on track to cost the budget $600 million?3K6Cameron, Ross, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Before I recognise the Minister for Health and Aged Care I would remind the member for Parramatta of the courtesy he is expected to extend to the chair. I would also encourage him to refer to the statement I made in the House on 8 December.24270Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—I thank the honourable member for her question. It is, like most of her questions, full of inaccuracies. The Labor Party cannot seem to understand the respective roles of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority. I in fact have a letter from the Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority, Mr Graham Glenn. I am a bit ashamed to admit I did not know what his name was until yesterday; I have had so little to do with the committee or with him. He points out a number of things in the letter, which I will be happy to table. Firstly, he points out that yesterday the member for Bruce did not correctly quote from the PBPA's annual report. Labor does have a habit of doing that. Secondly, he points out the process with regard to pricing. In terms of the first one, he says: Mr Griffin in a question to you referred to part of the PBPA's Annual Report. He indicated that it says “that the main mechanism to determine initial prices for newly listed drugs on the PBS is the advice from the PBAC.”This is not what the report actually says. He says:I must point out that the report actually states:“The main mechanism to determine initial prices is the advice of the PBAC arising from the cost-effectiveness information supplied by the sponsor and evaluated by the PBAC”.He goes on:This is one of nine—VU5Griffin, Alan, MPXS4Lawrence, Dr Carmen, MPDr Lawrence—That's what he said.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The minister has the call.8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—Honestly; just listen, and you might learn something:This is one of nine factors the PBPA considers in making recommendations ...Here we have the Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority saying there are nine different factors involved in making a decision, and you are suggesting that only one of them is all they should take into account. PE4Beazley, Kim, MP8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—You silly man. You cannot understand, even though you were Minister for Finance. He goes on—JK6McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClelland—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I think it would be appropriate for the minister to withdraw the imputation he made against you.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Barton makes a point that is relevant to answers to questions from both sides of the House when people do not direct their questions through the chair. I am sure the Minister for Health and Aged Care is conscious of that. I call the Minister for Health and Aged Care.8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—I am sorry, Mr Speaker. It was actually the Leader of the Opposition interjecting, and not you. He goes on to say:There may be some misunderstanding—you bet there is—about the responsibilities of the PBPA and the PBAC. It is a role of the Pricing Authority to recommend to you, prices for items listed as pharmaceutical benefits or recommended by the PBAC for listing. The role of the PBAC on the other hand is to provide advice on clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness which is taken into account ...In the case of the drug celecoxib, the PBPA certainly took into account the advice of the PBAC. You subsequently approved the price recommended by the PBPA.PG6Macklin, Jenny, MPMs Macklin—Not the PBAC; that's the point.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Jagajaga has asked her question.PG6Macklin, Jenny, MPMs Macklin—That's the point.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Jagajaga is now defying the chair.8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—The PBAC has no right to recommend a price; the PBPA does. Further, the question went on to suggest that I had somehow overruled or got involved in this process. I have a note here from the department that again I would be happy to table. I notice this complete blatant untruth is being repeated by the Leader of the Opposition, who in a doorstop this morning made the allegation:He has gazumped the PBAC, and there is a major question mark over why he did it. He then intervened in an unprecedented way. The fact is there was no intervention whatsoever, in any manner or form. The letter from the First Assistant Secretary of the Health Access and Financing Division makes several points. I am happy to table this too. She says at the end:While there is of course no requirement for the elected Government to follow exactly the recommendation of its official advisers, the Minister's recommendation to Cabinet and Cabinet's decision in this particular case followed the Department's advice to the letter.I am happy to table that as well. So this was a case of perfectly normal procedure where the appropriate committees had input and the appropriate body to decide a price, the PBPA, made a recommendation. Government took that—there was no intervention in the process before the decision or after the decision—and the great thing is that a lot of Australians are benefiting. Had we done what the Labor Party seems to be suggesting, pensioners would still be paying $60 a month for this medication. The only logical conclusion of what Labor is proposing is that, as a party, it would want to keep pensioners paying $60 a month for an anti-arthritis drug. I am not prepared to have that happen. This has been a great boon for consumers. It is a breakthrough medication; it is a whole new category of pharmaceutical. Quite frankly, we are very happy that we are able to provide it to consumers. 2427214:53:0024272Nugent, Peter, MPMr NUGENTUT4AstonLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation. Would the minister inform the House of any information that shows how Australians have benefited from the new tax system?24272Hockey, Joe, MPMr HOCKEYDK6North SydneyLPMinister for Financial Services and Regulation10—I thank the member for Aston for his interest in this matter. There are three sources of information that give us a bit of a picture of the impact of the new tax system on prices. The first and most comprehensive data of course comes from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in the form of the regular CPI. The second comprehensive report comes quarterly from the ACCC. They do price monitoring surveys, and that gives us a snapshot of the impact of the GST on prices. Then there is a third survey: Wayne Swan's price watch, which gives us a snapshot of the impact of the GST. I am forever thankful to the member for Lilley, who must be off updating his web site now; I am forever thankful to the member for Lilley for his very comprehensive data.Members of the House will remember that we had surveys from the member for Lilley for February 2000, March 2000, April 2000 and June 2000—and then they stopped after the introduction of the GST. Members of the House will recall that it was like extracting teeth from a goose trying to get the other data out after 1 July. We saw that August survey, which comprehensively proved that prices in supermarkets in the Labor electorate of Lilley were cheaper after the introduction of the GST. I was perusing the web site again and, lo and behold, the member for Lilley has now put up some more data, and we are forever grateful. He has put up data for October 2000 and November 2000.In his survey the member for Lilley covers 28 supermarkets, such as Franklins at Deagon, Bi-Lo at Chermside, Franklins at Quantong, Bi-Lo at Aspley, Woolworths at Deception Bay, Coles at Redcliffe and so on. When I perused these figures from the member for Lilley—and they are Labor Party figures; you have to question them—I discovered that, after the introduction of the GST, prices went down, and they still remain lower today than before the GST. In fact, the prices in supermarkets in November last year were lower than those in February last year. So, according to the Labor Party, prices actually fell for 12 months during 2000, and prices today are still lower at supermarkets in Brisbane than they were before the introduction of the GST.These are not our figures—these are not figures concocted in my office or in any other electorate. They are figures collected by the Labor Party. So it is a legitimate question to raise. If the Labor Party wants to roll back the GST, that means higher prices in supermarkets. If the Labor Party wants to roll back the GST, that means the average price of a basket of goods at the supermarket is going to go up. How else is the Labor Party going to pay for its policies? How else is the Labor Party going to unwind what it calls `the GST'? The classic words of deception come from the member for Lilley when he says that the average price of a basket of goods in June this year—that is, 2000—according to the Lilley price watch team, was $99.14 and less than six months after the GST was introduced the average basket price returned to close to its pre-GST price of $98.53. I am happy to table the contribution. If the Labor Party was not so policy lazy, we would actually have a snapshot of what roll-back really means. But the only thing Australian consumers can understand about roll-back is that it is going to mean higher prices at their local supermarket. 2427314:58:0024273Griffin, Alan, MPMr GRIFFINVU5BruceALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. During any conversation that you have had with the Prime Minister regarding appointments to the PBAC, did he at any time confirm that late last year he met with a group of pharmaceutical company executives from his electorate who were known within the industry as the Bennelong Group? Did he confirm that the Bennelong Group had lobbied him regarding the appointment of an industry representative to the PBAC?24273Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—The PM has never raised that issue with me. It was never raised at the dinner with me—I did hear about it indirectly, after the event.Opposition members interjecting—8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—Sorry, I meant that I had heard that it had occurred. I know nothing of the content of that meeting. The PM has never raised anything with me, and nor has anybody else raised anything with me, about that meeting.2427315:00:0024273Washer, Dr Mal, MPDr WASHER84FMooreLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Forestry and Conservation. Has the minister seen recent reports on different views on logging in old-growth forests in Western Australia? What is the minister's response to these reports?24273Tuckey, Wilson, MPMr TUCKEYSJ4O'ConnorLPMinister for Forestry and Conservation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister10—On 4 May 1999, the Commonwealth government concluded a regional forest agreement under the principles of the 1992 National Forest Policy Statement on scientific assessment and CALM reserve systems which, among other things, had the approval in terms of sustainable yields to retain and maintain jobs for workers in the Western Australian Environmental Protection Agency. Later, some reductions were made by the Court government, but I was able to identify where federal funding would maintain a process of no net jobs losses. Two announcements were imminent: building a brand new furniture factory in Manjimup based on resource from the Manjimup mill and a purchase agreement for the Nannup mill with a group of people who were prepared to not only keep the Nannup mill open but also expand its activities. Otherwise, the Nannup mill would have been closed with significant job losses. I had been awaiting final agreement on guarantees of a wood resource over an acceptable period from the Court state government to make sure that people's jobs were protected.Recently, the Gallop Labor opposition in Western Australia released their forest policy. They propose, over and above the circumstances scientifically assessed, of which I have advised the House, to take another 340,500 hectares of resource out of an area of 346,000 hectares. They say in their document that they are going to try to sustain the industry on 5,000 hectares of forest. If that were even possible, you can imagine the destruction that would occur. Talk about clear-fell! They would have to dig up the roots of the trees to have enough wood.As a consequence, some interesting remarks have been made. Firstly, Mr Bob Pearce, a Labor state minister under the Burke, Dowding and Lawrence governments and, to the best of my recollection, the environment minister under the Lawrence government, has been highly critical of these statements. He was quoted in the media as saying that this initiative will cost 737 direct jobs. He says nothing about the tyre replacer and nothing about the small business Retravision operator. He goes on to say that it will cost the state $84 million in revenue from royalties. I bet that is not in Dr Gallop's financial statement, which he got some mate over here to say is feasible. Furthermore, Pearce is also saying that even existing contracts—signed, sealed and delivered crown contracts—could not be honoured under this arrangement. Mr Tim Daly, president of the Western Australian AWU and an ALP state executive member, has also criticised this and was quoted in the West Australian on 23 January 2001 as follows:How can you tell your members this is a (Labor) government fighting for workers when he— Geoff Gallop—is giving a kick in the teeth to a significant number ... There will be massive job losses ... in the South-West.Both Pearce and Daly directed timber workers at a public meeting reported in the newspaper article I just mentioned to vote against the Labor Party and to make sure that they got defeated. That message has to get through to the regional town of Bunbury. There are not too many sawmills in Bunbury, but I have visited the factories that rebuild the tractors and the bulldozers. I have visited the tyre sellers who have a huge business based on the timber industry, the people who service trucks, many of whom are in Bunbury and then, of course, there is that highly environmentally friendly Sincoa plant which makes silicon from jarrah charcoal and, one might wonder, even from the scraps. Where might they be able to continue their business which employs 123 residents of Bunbury?It goes further than that. We find that a one-time senator of this parliament and a one-time national secretary of the Labor Party are going to vote for a Liberal in this electorate—that was by personal advice to me. They are so fed up to think that they were members of a party which no longer puts workers first. Daly also said that Labor had abandoned grassroots workers for the chardonnay set. The only interest that Gallop has in forest industry products is a few ballot papers. I am pleased to hear the Leader of the Opposition say, `This will get us a few votes.' The Labor Party is prepared to drive their own constituency into the ground. The member for McMillan will not ever come to me. Nobody does. The shadow minister has not complained to me about these job losses. The Labor Party does not care. Jobs can be sacrificed any time for a few preferences.2427415:06:0024274Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Is it not a fact that Mr Pat Clear was proffered to the Prime Minister by the Bennelong Group as a preferred industry appointee to the PBAC? Was it your idea or the Prime Minister's idea to appoint Mr Clear?24274Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—On the first question, or assertion, I have no idea whether or not his name was proffered by industry to the PM. I would actually guess not, because I have to say that the only representation from industry I have had on Mr Clear was someone ringing me up and telling me not to appoint him; they would rather have had someone else. So I would guess not, but I have no idea. In terms of how his name came up, it came up at a roundtable session with my department in mid-January when we were looking at a range of names.2427415:07:0024274Thompson, Cameron, MPMr CAMERON THOMPSON84CBlairLP10—My question is addressed to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Would the minister report to the House the finding of the ABARE report into the dairy industry? What has the report discovered about the impact of the state governments' decision to deregulate the dairy industry? How should governments respond to the findings?84HZahra, Christian, MPMr Zahra—You frauds.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for McMillan will withdraw that remark. The member for McMillan reflected uncharitably on the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and I ask him to withdraw the remark.MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr Lee—I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You did not intervene to require the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation to withdraw the remark that the member for Lilley was involved in some deception. Deception was the allegation made against the member for Lilley. You took no action whatsoever. He referred to Deception Bay and used that in a way to impugn the member for Lilley. Yet you require the member for McMillan to withdraw. That is not fair. You are meant to be fair in that chair.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Dobell will withdraw that last remark or excuse himself from the chamber. Any reflection on the chair is highly disorderly. MG4Lee, Michael, MPMr Lee—I withdraw, Mr Speaker, and I wait for your decision.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Dobell draws my attention to the fact that a minister suggested that someone was deceptive, or involved in deception. I am not aware of that having been deemed unparliamentary in the past, but I would remind the member for Dobell that I did intervene and in fact asked the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business to desist from the line that he was taking.XW4Kernot, Cheryl, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Dickson will exercise the courtesy of being silent while the Speaker is speaking. I am trying to indicate the requirement for some sort of restraint to be exercised by government members. The member for McMillan has been a persistent interjector, and I simply ask him to withdraw the reference he made to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.84HZahra, Christian, MPMr Zahra—Mr Speaker, to assist you, I made no reference at all to the minister. I said that for the federal government to say that the states drove deregulation was a fraud, because it is well known that it was the federal government that drove dairy industry deregulation.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for McMillan will resume his seat. I will check the Hansard record. I accept, as I do from all members, an assurance that the reference made was not personal. If the Hansard record does not prove that to be the case, I will raise the matter with the member for McMillan, but I take his word for what he has said. I ask him, too, to exercise more restraint. I call the minister.24275Truss, Warren, MPMr TRUSSGT4Wide BayNPMinister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry10—I thank the honourable member for Blair for his question on deregulation. I will first perhaps comment briefly on the interjection. Whilst I leave to you, Mr Speaker, entirely a judgment on whether or not what the honourable member said was unparliamentary, I can certainly confirm to the House that what he said was false. It is simply untrue, as members opposite would know, that the Commonwealth drove dairy deregulation. Opposition members interjecting—WU5O'Connor, Gavan, MPMr O'Connor—You said it.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Corio! There seems to be a general conviction by some members that the chair will not act. They are about to discover that that is not the case.GT4Mr TRUSS—The reality is that it was state parliaments that passed legislation to deregulate their industry—WU5O'Connor, Gavan, MPMr O'Connor—You forced them to do it.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Corio will excuse himself from the House, under the provisions of standing order 304A.The member for Corio then left the chamber.GT4Mr TRUSS—The truth is that it was state parliaments that passed legislation to deregulate their industry. The Commonwealth parliament took no such action because there were no regulations for us to repeal. The regulations have always been put in place by the state parliaments. However, the industry itself went to governments, both state and federal, and asked for assistance to deal with the market forces which were inevitably leading to a breakdown in the regulations that existed around the country. They went to both state and federal governments for support. They came to the federal government and asked us to put in place a $1.8 billion restructuring assistance package. We have delivered on that package in full—UU5Horne, Bob, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Paterson! Members are anxious for the chair to be even-handed.GT4Mr TRUSS—The coalition government delivered on the industry's request for assistance in full; we delivered everything that was asked of us. However, at the same time as the industry went to the Commonwealth for assistance they also went to state governments, particularly in those states where there was a quota system for the supply of market milk. Those states are Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia. They asked, as part of this restructuring assistance, that compensation be provided by the states to assist the loss of value of those quotas and the serious impact on incomes of those producers. Of course, the states with one exception failed to respond. The question I was asked was specifically about the ABARE report on the dairy industry which was commissioned to look at the impact of deregulation on dairy farmers around Australia. The report I think confirms very much the predictions that were made about deregulation prior to the decision being made. It confirmed that in states like Victoria—which is, after all, close to two-thirds of the entire national industry—because of higher world prices this year, dairy incomes will actually be higher than they were the previous year. It indicates, however, that there are some parts of Australia where dairy incomes have fallen very substantially. Some of the worst affected areas are in the electorate of the member for Blair and indeed in my own electorate. The other particularly seriously affected areas are in northern New South Wales. In northern New South Wales and in southern Queensland in particular, and in other parts of those states as well, there has been a very significant drop in farm income. It is perhaps significant that the biggest trouble is in those states where the state governments failed totally to respond to the industry's request for assistance in relation to their quota values. That loss of quota value has massively affected the debt carrying costs of those farmers and is the key factor identified in the ABARE report as to the reason why those farmers are facing such difficulties.I understand that the Leader of the Opposition is going to take the boondoggle bus up into New South Wales next week and that he is actually going to meet a dairy farmer. I hope that when he goes to dairy farmers he will explain to them why Labor governments around Australia have done absolutely nothing to respond to the industry's request for assistance through this crisis. Perhaps he could explain why the coalition government in Western Australia provided a package to support their quota holders through difficult circumstances. Perhaps he could explain why the New South Wales government ignored exactly the same request. Perhaps he could explain why the Queensland Labor government ignored the request for compensation assistance. He might also like to explain why the Labor government, even in an election campaign in Queensland, has not matched the coalition parties' promise to provide assistance to dairy farmers in Queensland. It is pretty obvious why there are serious problems in some sections of the dairy industry. Sadly, those farmers are represented by Labor governments that do not care about dairy farmers and ignore all their requests for assistance. I will be looking to the Leader of the Opposition to explain clearly to the dairy farmers of northern New South Wales why Labor has done nothing to support their producers.2427615:18:0024276Beazley, Kim, MPMr BEAZLEYPE4BrandALP00—My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Isn't it a fact that you issued press releases on 1 June 2000 promoting the Pfizer drug Celebrex and on 21 December 2000 promoting the Pfizer drug Aricept but, apart from one about Exelon, made no similar public statements about the many other drugs listed last year on the PBS? Isn't it also a fact that you publicly claimed that the listing of the Pfizer drug Celebrex was the most important decision in the 52-year history of the PBS, even though the previous chair of the PBAC, Professor Don Birkett, has described Celebrex as a drug `with small, if any, benefits over existing arthritic drugs'? Minister, is it also true that in September 1999 Pfizer took out a full-page advertisement in the Economist magazine to promote a speech you gave to a drug conference in 1998? Is this your quid pro quo relationship with Pfizer—they promote your speeches, you promote their drugs?3K6Cameron, Ross, MPMr Ross Cameron—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I refer to your statement to the House on 8 December, specifically relating to the issue of imputations in questions. There is a clear imputation that this appointment was somehow improper. This House is capable of considering that imputation but not in question time. I ask you to rule it out of order. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Parramatta is right, that there is an imputation in the question, as there is in almost all questions that are asked. The chair is seeking to intervene where it feels that individuals have been in some way unfairly impugned in the question. The Leader of the Opposition's question was close to the mark, I concede, but I allowed it to stand.24277Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The two press releases were put out because they are the only two occasions in four or five years that cabinet has made a consideration on a drug. In the case of Celebrex, we made a $215 million decision. Why would you not put out a press release when government has made a decision to put out $215 million of spending? It is absolutely ludicrous. With Aricept, we had made a decision that I think, off the top of my head, was of the order of $60 million over four years. Why wouldn't you put out a press release when you had made a decision for new government spending? No other items have gone to cabinet in that period of time, and that is why no other press release has been put out. If you have a look at the press releases, they are actually pretty flat and pretty bland. And, as I did say yesterday, Pharmacia is the lead company in relation to Celebrex, not Pfizer.5T4Brereton, Laurie, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Kingsford Smith!8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—The Leader of the Opposition went on and made other allegations. It is true that Pfizer publishes regularly a series of debates on policy in the Economist.Honourable members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The cross-parliament exchange is most unhelpful to the minister and to the reputations of the people involved in the cross-parliament exchange.8E4Dr WOOLDRIDGE—As I recollect, other people who have been in the Pfizer Forum are Kofi Annan, head of the United Nations, and a pretty distinguished bunch of people. They want to stimulate debate on health policy. I know they have not asked the Labor Party, which is not surprising, because we do not have any health policy from the Labor Party. No, that was perfectly proper. It was distinguished company, and I was pleased and proud to be asked.2427715:22:0024277Andrews, Kevin, MPMr ANDREWSHK5MenziesLP10—My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Would the minister inform the House of the benefits for small business of yesterday's drop in official interest rates.24277Macfarlane, Ian, MPMr IAN MACFARLANEWN6GroomLPMinister for Small Business10—I thank the honourable member for his question and congratulate him on the tireless work he does for his constituents, both in the electorate of Menzies and also here in Canberra. I also look forward to coming and seeing some of the small businesses in his electorate.Yesterday's announcement by the Reserve Bank that they would lower the cash rate by 50 basis points is welcome news for small business. The drop in interest rates means that small businesses are now able to take advantage of a business loan with a base cash rate of 5.75 per cent. It is good news for small business and it is news that small business has welcomed with open arms. In terms of their cash flow, it gives them more profit in their pockets and it gives them more cash to expand their businesses, if they so desire, which then creates more jobs.Since the election of this government in 1996, the coalition has delivered a sound economic environment with record low interest rates. That is in stark contrast to Labor. PE4Beazley, Kim, MPWN6Mr IAN MACFARLANE—You know the story. I do not have to read it. Under Labor: record high interest rates—22 per cent—high inflation, high unemployment and record high bankruptcies. Then you had a Prime Minister whose advice to small business— ET4Bevis, Arch, MPWN6Mr IAN MACFARLANE—And I will read this, Member for Brisbane, so I do not get it wrong. This is what the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, told small business:If small business is feeling the pinch, they ought to say, `Small business is not for me,' because it is never going to get any better. This is as good as it gets.Wrong, wrong, wrong again. Labor was wrong again. It was not as good as it gets—things got a whole lot better when Labor got thrown out in 1996. The Labor Party knows nothing about small business; they know nothing about running an economy; they know nothing about setting a sound economic climate. All they know about is putting taxes up, about proposing things that frighten small business—that cause confusion, distress and heartache. Things like roll-back. Yesterday's drop in interest rates was good news for small business and I am sure that small business will not forget what will happen if the Labor Party ever gets back into power.5I4McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMullan—Will the Minister for Small Business table the document from which he has so copiously quoted?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I ask the minister: was he quoting from confidential documents or from—?WN6Macfarlane, Ian, MPMr Ian Macfarlane—I was quoting confidential documents.CT4Costello, Peter, MPMr Costello—Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.Questions Without Notice242782427815:26:0024278Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—The last question from the Leader of the Opposition had several parts. I am sorry, I inadvertently failed to answer one of them. He asked me had I said Celebrex was the most important decision of the PBS. As I understand, this was reported in the Hobart Mercury. Honourable members might forgive me if I do not actually see everything written in the Hobart Mercury. It certainly was not in my press release and I doubt very much that it was said, because I do not believe it. What I probably said was that this was the most expensive decision in the 52 years of the PBS, because it was.Questions to the Speaker242782427815:27:0024278Burke, Anna, MPMs BURKE83SChisholmALP00—Under standing order 150 I would ask that you write to the Prime Minister to answer my question No. 2191—it is a fairly simple question and I do not know why it has not been answered; and also to the Minister for Aged Care in relation to my question No.2192.24278SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—I will follow up both of those questions as the standing orders provide.2427815:27:0024278McMullan, Bob, MPMr McMULLAN5I4FraserALP00—Further to my question of yesterday, I wonder if you have considered my request that you might table the answers from the Minister for Health and Aged Care to the letters that you have written to him pursuant to section 150 so the House can be advised why it is that no answers have been provided more than two years since the questions were placed in the Notice Paper?24278SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER10000PON/A10—As I indicated in my response to the Manager of Opposition Business yesterday, I will respond to his question as the standing orders provide.Privilege2427815:28:0024278Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE9V5SturtLP10—Mr Speaker, I seek your indulgence to outline a matter of breach of privilege I referred to earlier. The matter concerns attempts to intimidate me in the parliamentary function I discharge as Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and as a member of the House. The attempted intimidation is, to my mind, both improper and such as to constitute substantial interference to my parliamentary duties.Last night the member for Rankin and the member for Lilley at different times threatened and intimidated me in relation to my work as chairman of the electoral matters committee and as a member of this House. Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Sturt will resume his seat. There are some members who have forgotten that I have already warned them. I am reluctant to issue a general warning, but that sort of behaviour will provoke such action from the chair—with its obvious consequences. The member for Sturt, in common with every member in this House, has the right to be heard in silence and the House provides forms that allow those who feel they have been misrepresented to address that misrepresentation. 9V5Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE—This occurred outside the precincts of the House in the Canberra suburb of Kingston. The member for Rankin—YU5Tanner, Lindsay, MPMr Tanner—Tell the truth!10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Melbourne clearly seeks to defy the chair, and he is warned.9V5Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE—The member for Rankin approached me unsolicited while I was talking with a group of people and I was required to turn around and speak with him. He mentioned the work of the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters—particularly its inquiry into the integrity of the electoral roll—and referred disparagingly to my work on that inquiry. That is clearly a matter for him; he is entitled to his opinion. However, he went much further than that: he threatened and intimidated me, using phrases such as `You're going to pay for it' and `We'll destroy you' and a string of vulgar four-letter words too foul to repeat here. A number of people were present in the near vicinity and witnessed this conversation.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Sturt has the call.9V5Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE—The member for Rankin approached me again later and repeated much of his earlier threatening conversation—again, witnesses were present nearby. The member for Lilley approached me unsolicited about half an hour after my conversation with the member for Rankin. Once again, I was required to stop talking to the people I was with and talk to him. He, too, referred to the electoral matters committee, particularly its inquiry into the integrity of the electoral roll.ET4Bevis, Arch, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I warn the member for Brisbane!9V5Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE—He also referred disparagingly to my role in the inquiry. While that is also a matter for him, he went much further: he threatened and intimidated me using phrases such as `What goes around comes around'—LS4Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin Ferguson—Sit down, you ponce!5T4Brereton, Laurie, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Kingsford-Smith!Opposition members interjecting—5T4Brereton, Laurie, MPMr Brereton—I withdraw, Mr Speaker.LS4Ferguson, Martin, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—This is not a matter for frivolity. As the member for Batman knows, I have endeavoured to recognise an error made yesterday. The member for Batman has made a statement that should not be allowed to stand on the parliamentary record and he will withdraw it.LS4Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin Ferguson—Mr Speaker, I accept that the ledger is now square from yesterday. I also withdraw the suggestion that the member for Sturt is a ponce.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Batman will return to the dispatch box and withdraw, without qualification, both statements that he has made.LS4Ferguson, Martin, MPMr Martin Ferguson—I withdraw without qualification the suggestion that the member for Sturt is a ponce.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Batman will excuse himself from the House under the provisions of standing order 304A. The member for Batman then left the chamber.Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Batman's action was a direct reflection on the chair. 9V5Pyne, Chris, MPMr PYNE—Mr Speaker, the member threatened and intimidated me using phrases such as, `What goes around comes around, mate,' `We're going to get you' and `You're going to pay for it.' There were a number of people close by who witnessed the tenor of the conversation. Both members threatened and intimidated me; I felt that they were trying to warn me off my work as chairman of the electoral matters committee and as a member of this House. Mr Speaker, I ask you to consider the matter and determine whether there is a prima facie case of breach of privilege.Government members interjecting—Opposition members interjecting—15:33:0024280Emerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON83VRankinALP00—Mr Speaker, I seek your indulgence to make a short statement to assist you in your deliberations on this matter.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Indulgence is granted.83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON—A discussion occurred last night at a social occasion at the Holy Grail—which I did not understand to be a parliamentary function or part of the parliament—Government members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Order! The member for Rankin has the call.83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON—The discussion took place against a backdrop of attempts by the member for Sturt, as chair of the committee, to smear me during a highly politicised inquiry. I made no attempt to intimidate the chair, and I deny his lies that I threatened him in any way.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Rankin will withdraw his reference to the member for Sturt as a liar.83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON—I deny his untruths that I threatened him.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I thank the member for Rankin.83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON—I will be giving a speech on taxation legislation in a little while, during which I will point out the failure of the member for Sturt to stick up for his constituents on petrol taxation and on the business activity statements.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for Rankin is speaking under indulgence. He knows that the chair has not only a right but an obligation to withdraw that indulgence. Therefore, the member for Rankin is obliged to address entirely the matter currently before the chair for consideration.83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON—I do not consider that making such a speech will amount to intimidation. The member for Sturt is being precious: he can dish it out but he cannot take it.Government members interjecting—Opposition members interjecting—10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—As the occupant of the chair, I never cease to be amazed at the incapacity of members to hear each other in silence. The standing orders, framed over a century, are designed to allow members the opportunity to express a point of view and to respond. This afternoon is a classic illustration. Why we must have perpetual interruptions will remain a mystery to me to my dying day.4G4Downer, Alexander, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The Minister for Foreign Affairs is right. To respond to the member for Sturt, I will of course look at the evidence that he has submitted and at the comments made by the member for Rankin and report back to the House in due course.JK6McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClelland—Mr Speaker, I note that the member for Lilley is absent from the House because he was the subject of an order earlier today.CK6Hardgrave, Gary, MP10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I remind the member for Moreton of my comments made but 30 seconds ago. The member for Barton has said nothing that I would find in any way offensive. Why he cannot be heard in silence is beyond me.JK6McClelland, Robert, MPMr McClelland—I wonder whether you think it is appropriate that the member for Lilley be extended the opportunity of submitting a statement to you. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I indicate to the member for Barton that I will ensure that the member for Lilley is aware of the matter raised in the House. I am prepared to consult privately with him and I will report back to the House on the decision I make as fulsomely as I can, given the evidence submitted by those who come before me.Personal Explanations2428115:38:0024281Zahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA84HMcMillanALP00—Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?84HZahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA—Yes, again.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—Please proceed.84HZahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA—Again in question time today the Minister for Forestry and Conservation suggested that I had never raised with him any matters in relation to forestry. Four times previous to my getting up today to make this personal explanation I have had to do the same thing in relation to his misrepresentation. I again offer to table correspondence I have received from the Minister for Forestry and Conservation in response to letters that I have written to him on behalf of forest industry workers.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for McMillan has indicated where he has been misrepresented. He seeks to table documents.Leave not granted.84HZahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA—Mr Speaker, can I raise another matter with you?10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for McMillan is seeking indulgence to raise a separate matter?84HZahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA—Yes.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—He is granted indulgence.84HZahra, Christian, MPMr ZAHRA—Thank you, Mr Speaker. On the fourth occasion—as opposed to today, the fifth occasion—that I raised this matter with you, I asked whether you would consider whether it was appropriate for ministers to continue to make misrepresentations in relation to members, despite people standing up and proving that they had in fact been misrepresented. I think you undertook to respond to me in relation to that.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—The member for McMillan and all members of the House are aware that of course I do not think it is appropriate for a misrepresentation that has been addressed to be realleged. However, all members of the House have the right to assert anything at any time so long as it is within the standing orders and not unparliamentary. It is not for the chair to intervene in debate in that way. I endeavour to do what I can under the standing orders to protect the reputation of members. I cannot, however, require people not to make allegations if, in fact, they believe the allegations have foundation. The provisions of the House allow the member for McMillan to do as he has done and indicate where he has been misrepresented. I will continue to do all I can to protect the reputation of all members of the House. The member for Burke wishes to raise a matter?CE4O'Keefe, Neil, MPMr O'Keefe—Mr Speaker, I suppose this is in the form of a question to you relating to the ruling you just gave.10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I do not intend to interrupt the member for Burke but I have not, in fact, given a ruling. I can give rulings on standing orders. I have given an opinion about what I think should be the general regard members have for each other and for the word of each other.CE4O'Keefe, Neil, MPMr O'Keefe—The question I am asking is in relation to what you have said about the request from the member for McMillan. I do recall an instance earlier this year when, on a number of occasions, the Treasurer misrepresented comments that I had made in a media article. I made a personal explanation about it. You were in the chair at the time. When the Treasurer sought to do it again, after a couple of attempts like this by me, you in fact ruled in my favour—that, under standing order 85, the Treasurer desist from making these comments, given that I had made a personal explanation. I think there is a very real parallel with the situation that the member for McMillan has just raised. 10000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I thank the member for Burke. I would have hoped that my response to the member for McMillan would have indicated that I would always extend to him and to all other members precisely the same courtesy. My answer to the question by the member for McMillan was to clarify for members the simple fact that the occupier of the chair cannot simply prevent members from making assertions if members believe them to be valid. I cannot simply intervene in the manner that the member for Burke may be wishing me to do, but I will endeavour to protect the reputation of members.Documents242822428210000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I present the Auditor-General's audit report No. 21 of 2000-01 entitled Performance audit—Management of the National Highways System Program—Department of Transport and Regional Services.Ordered that the report be printed.Adjournment24282Motion (by Mr Reith) agreed to:That the House, at its rising, adjourn until Monday, 26 February 2001, at 12.30 p.m., unless the Speaker fixes an alternative day or hour of meeting.Documents2428224282Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPLeader of the House10—Papers are tabled as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. 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:Government response to the 20th Report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.Debate (on motion by Mr McMullan) adjourned.Business24282Motion (by Mr Reith)—by leave—agreed to:That the following orders of the day, government business, be discharged:employment national—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—erratum—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 30 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.family law council—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 30 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.freedom of information act—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 30 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.bringing them home—progress on commonwealth initiatives—paper—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 30 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.mid-year economic and fiscal outlook for 2000-01—REPORT—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 28 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.commissioner of taxation—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—erratum—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 28 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.employment advocate—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 28 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.health services australia—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 9 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.service charters in the commonwealth government—PAPER—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 8 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.civil aviation safety authority— REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 2 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper. department of employment, workplace relations and small business—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 1 November 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.Northern land council—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 31 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.australian institute of aboriginal and torres strait islander studies—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 31 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.anindilyakwa land council—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 31 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF AUSTRALIA AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF AUSTRALIA ADVISORY COUNCIL—REPORTS FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 31 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.australian nuclear science and technology organisation—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 31 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.aboriginal and torres strait islander commission—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 31 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.department of industry, science and resources—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 31 October 2000— Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.australia council—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 31 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.NATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMISSION—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 12 October 2000—Dr Martin) on the motion of Mr McGauran—That the House take note of the paper.PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE ADMINISTRATION COUNCIL—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 11 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION—REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 10 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.ABORIGINAL LAND COMMISSIONER— REPORT FOR 1999-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 5 October 2000—Dr Martin) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.ABORIGINALS BENEFIT Trust ACCOUNT—REPORT FOR 1999-2000— MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 3 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.BARROW CREEK (KAYTETYE) LAND CLAIM NO. 161—papers—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPERs: Resumption of debate (from 3 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the papers.AUSTRALIAN RADIATION PROTECTION AND NUCLEAR SAFETY AGENCY—QUARTERLY REPORT FOR 1 APRIL TO 30 JUNE 2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 3 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.TORRES STRAIT REGIONAL AUTHORITY—REPORT FOR 1999-2000— MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 3 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper. NATIONAL HEALTH AND MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL—STRATEGIC PLAN 2000-2003—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 3 October 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.Agreement making under the Workplace Relations Act—Reports 1998 and 1999—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 6 September 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION—REPORT—IMPACT OF COMPETITION POLICY REFORMS ON RURAL AND REGIONAL AUSTRALIA—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 15 August 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.energy research and development corporation—report for period 1 july to 15 december 1999—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 15 August 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.judge advocate general—report for 1999—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 15 August 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE—SCHEDULE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE FLIGHTS—paper—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 29 June 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.federal office of road safety—heavy truck investigation—report—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 9 May 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.productivity commission—report on progress in rail reform—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 13 April 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.un convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—paper—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 7 March 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.department of health and aged care—review of implementation of strategic plan 1997-2000—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 16 February 2000—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.SEATTLE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION MEETING AND LAUSANNE INFORMAL TRADE MINISTERS MEETING—ministerial statement—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 8 December 1999—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr M. A. J. Vaile—That the House take note of the paper.Australian institute oF health and welfare—report—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 25 November 1999—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.seafarers safety, rehabilitation and compensation authority—report for 1998-99—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 23 November 1999—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.advisory panel on THE marketing in australia of infant formula—report for 1998-99—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 23 November 1999—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.australian hearing services—report for 1998-99—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 23 November 1999—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.human rights and equal opportunity commission—report—MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER: Resumption of debate (from 25 August 1999—Mr McMullan) on the motion of Mr Reith—That the House take note of the paper.TARIFF PROPOSALS (Mr Williams): Customs Tariff Proposal No. 7 (1999)—moved 8 December 1999—Resumption of debate (Mr McClelland). TARIFF PROPOSALS (Mr Slipper): Customs Tariff Proposal No. 1 (2000)—moved 9 March 2000—Resumption of debate (Dr Martin).15:45:0024285Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPLeader of the House10—by leave—I move:That Main Committee orders of the day Nos. 1, 2 and 5, committee and delegation reports, be returned to the House.The orders of the day are shown on the list which has been circulated to members in the chamber.Question resolved in the affirmative.15:45:0024285Reith, Peter, MPMr REITHWI4FlindersLPLeader of the House10—by leave—I move:That those orders of the day returned to the House in accordance with the resolution agreed to this day be discharged.I do not propose to read the titles from the list which has been circulated to members in the chamber. Details will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.Question resolved in the affirmative.Matters of Public Importance242852428510000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER—I have received a letter from the honourable member for Jagajaga proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:The government's maladministration of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme including its failure to list Celebrex at a cost effective price on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, causing a blowout in the health budget and a lost opportunity to adequately fund public hospitals.I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—15:46:0024285Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLINPG6JagajagaALP00— This has been quite a long saga, and I think it is worth asking the question that has been constantly asked of me: why is it that we face this crisis in our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme? Why has it come to this? Many people who have been talking to me about these issues cannot understand why the government is behaving in the way that it is. I want to go back to 1999, to an article by Marion Wilkinson in the Sydney Morning Herald that I think helps to explain why we are where we are today. As Marion Wilkinson said in her article, Pfizer, the company that we have heard quite a lot about over the last few days, had a meeting with a fellow called Bill Royce, who got a bit of attention yesterday in question time. Some of you might recall that Bill Royce was the previous media adviser to the health minister. Bill Royce, as Marion Wilkinson describes him, `a canny lobbyist and public relations man for the drug industry', had a meeting with Pfizer's man Dudley Schleier, to discuss launching an extraordinary assault on the PBS by taking a legal case against the scheme's key Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, the committee that we have been talking so much about. She wrote:... Royce, who knew Wooldridge well—as he would—advised Schleier: call the minister and let him know before the case hits the court. The Pfizer call was a major signal to the Health Minister. Since the last election—and this is the critical part—sections of the industry had been lobbying to change fundamentally the processes of how drugs were listed under the scheme and attacking the PBAC. ... This week—this is back in 1999—Wooldridge's office finally admitted he was considering a major review of the PBS, in particular the PBAC and how drugs are listed. A little bit further on the article refers to a comment by the now new member of the PBAC, Pat Clear: ... “One of the issues is the low prices of certain products compared with other markets.” It continues:According to some health officials, if the industry is granted the reforms it wants, the cost of the PBS could blow out by $1 billion. We have already heard that, as a result of one decision by this minister, it has already blown out by $600 million. The article goes on: Inevitably, it would put the PBS under severe pressure, leading for calls for higher co-payments for prescriptions and even private insurance for some pharmaceuticals. Interestingly enough, Pat Clear is on the record in various speeches calling for exactly that—higher co-payments so that consumers have to pay more for prescriptions. Also, in one of his articles he has been calling for private health insurance coverage for pharmaceuticals so that the price can go up and you can go out and buy private health insurance to help pay for the cost of the more expensive pharmaceuticals. This is the sort of picture that has been developing in Australia over the last couple of years. As we know, an inquiry into the PBAC was put into place by this minister and conducted by none other than his parliamentary secretary, Senator Tambling. That report was finalised in February last year. It came out with a press release. The report was never actually released. Fortunately, we were able to get a copy of that report. One of the things that was interesting in that report was the statement that it was very important that the PBAC not be compromised by an industry person being put on it because that would present a serious conflict of interest. So it is not surprising that that report never saw the light of day. Obviously, the minister wanted to keep doing Pfizer's bidding and make sure that they did get somebody on the inside. So this has been a long-term campaign by the pharmaceutical industry to whittle away the authority of this very important committee, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, the committee that fundamentally decides which drugs are cost effective and then recommends to the government which drugs should be listed on our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. So it is an extremely important committee, a committee that we know is held in very high international repute. A number of other countries look at Australia and say, `If only we could have a scheme like yours, we could get the cost of pharmaceuticals under control. We too could make sure that our drug bill was not going through the ceiling.' Not surprisingly, the pharmaceutical companies do not want that to happen. They do not want a PBAC type arrangement to exist in other countries. Imagine if the European pharmaceutical bill looked like ours. That would be a rather frightening prospect for the pharmaceutical industry. That is really what this campaign is all about. It is about making sure that the PBAC's model is not taken overseas because that would have a very serious impact on the profitability of these companies. So that paints a picture for you of why we are where we are today—why it is that this government has gone to such great lengths to put an industry person onto this very important committee that up until now has served Australia so well in making drugs available and keeping the prices that people have to pay reasonable.We have seen this week not only the government decide to wreck the independence of this committee by putting an industry person on the inside, so that from now on any information that comes to that committee will be able to be transferred out to the industry, but also an email from Martyn Goddard—as you know, Martyn Goddard was a political supporter of the minister for health in the 1996 election; he went out there and campaigned for the minister for health in the seat of Chisholm—pointing out that quite a large number of the minister's staff have now gone to work for pharmaceutical companies. More than one of his staff have, at different times, gone to work for the very large pharmaceutical company Pfizer. The picture continues to grow of the very close relationship that this minister, in particular, has with these pharmaceutical companies—how it is that the pharmaceutical companies together have put enormous pressure on this government to whittle away the power of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee to control drug prices in this country. Today we got another piece of the puzzle brilliantly confirmed by the Minister for Health and Aged Care when he told us that the Prime Minister had a dinner with executives from pharmaceutical companies called the Bennelong Group. We are very grateful to the minister for confirming that fact and we look forward to finding out about what happened at that dinner. The critical thing is that, since we have had the introduction of the industry representative on the PBAC, we have seen a number of previously very experienced members of that committee decide that they do not think it is appropriate for them to serve on that committee any more. How has the minister dealt with these people? He asked some of them to stay on the committee. One member, Professor Aubrey Pitt, is someone whom the minister rang personally. The minister asked him to stay on the PBAC, and Professor Pitt, on a radio interview on Melbourne radio, said that, in all good conscience, he could not stay on the committee because it would now be compromised as a result of having an industry person there.How has the minister responded to these eminent people seeing it as not in good conscience to serve on a committee that no longer will be able to meet the needs of Australian people in the way that they think is right and proper? He has dealt with it in a way that we are oh, so familiar with here in this parliament. He has vilified them. He has called them dummy-spitters. He has handed out to these people a range of different insults which we, probably better than most people, know so well. He is more than capable of handing out insults to eminent people who had as their only interest the protection of the reputation of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and, in the long term, subsidised medicines in this country. These people have been vilified by this minister in a way that we can recall from the MRI experience.I am sure that all of us can recall the minister not understanding for one minute the notion of conflict of interest when it came to all the MRI issues. He did not even ask the radiologists if they had a conflict of interest, although they were buying MRI machines every time they found out a bit more information. He did not even bother to ask them to declare their interest. This time Pat Clear was at least asked by the department to declare his interest, but now we find that he is on the board of a biopharmaceutical company. As far as this minister is concerned, it does not really matter that Mr Clear is on a company that sees itself as having a $5 billion opportunity in the biopharmaceutical sector. The minister does not care about conflict of interest; he does not mind Pfizer putting his speeches in the Economist and being totally associated with them.Remember Barry Catchlove? He was another one who comes to mind in this whole discussion about conflict of interest. He was appointed to chair the Health Insurance Commission while at the same time being the Executive Director of Mayne Nickless, a main health providing company—a company buying MRI machines, even while the Health Insurance Commission was conducting the investigation into the radiologists. Eventually, after much carry-on by this side of the House, Barry Catchlove had to leave. So I suppose we can expect the same sort of thing—lots of bluster from the minister. Eventually, when we discover the true links between Mr Clear and the industry, we will see that he has to leave the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee too. But the minister does not understand what conflict of interest means, for himself, for radiologists, for the head of the Health Insurance Commission or for the industry people whom he puts on very important decision making committees.What we find now, and why the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is under such threat, is that this minister failed to take the advice of the PBAC about this very expensive drug Celebrex. The minister, in question time today, tabled a note from his department in relation to Celebrex, and it said:It is rare for the PBAC to give specific advice on price, however it chose to do so on this occasion to help convey the impact of price and usage patterns on cost-effectiveness.The question is: why didn't this minister take the advice of the PBAC, which would have made sure that we did not have this massive blow-out in cost? He did not. He decided to take the advice of the pricing authority, which decided to take whatever it was that the company wanted. The company stood over this government and said, `We won't supply the drug at the price the PBAC wants to put it on the market for. Unless you agree to our price, we will not put it on the market.' That is what happened and, as a result of that, our system of determining what drugs go on to the subsidised list is now on the slippery slope, because, of course, the cost of this drug has blown out so dramatically—$600 million extra off the federal budget because this minister did not take the advice of the PBAC. A Pfizer drug—you would have to wonder about the connections, wouldn't you? All these staff at various times going off to work for Pfizer, Pfizer puts ads in the Economist for him— 5T4Brereton, Laurie, MPMr Brereton—and hosts his speeches.PG6Macklin, Jenny, MPMs MACKLIN—That is exactly right. I imagine there is more to be found out about this yet. Pfizer is the company which led the charge against the PBAC two years ago. Pfizer is the one that made sure that this drug got listed. If the minister wants another reference for him saying this was the best decision ever taken in the 52-year history of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, he could read the Daily Telegraph, which also quoted his comment. So this minister is out spruiking for Pfizer's drugs, this minister is making decisions against the recommendations of the PBAC which would have stopped a massive blow-out in costs, and the biggest worry now is for Australian consumers who are going to have to pay as a result. (Time expired)16:01:0024288Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE8E4CaseyLPMinister for Health and Aged Care10—I welcome this MPI. It gives me a chance to try to take a bit of hysteria out of this and put the whole debate into some perspective. The PBS is far from being in crisis and, historically, no company or no industry had influence over me in terms of wanting to change the composition of one committee. It happened over a period of time. I had come to the view that from time to time advice coming to me was being influenced by the personal prejudice of certain individuals. On one occasion I believed I was given absolutely incorrect advice in an attempt to stop me doing something that certain people disagreed with. The committee was having an increasingly fractured relationship with industry, and I note former members of that committee have quite proudly gone out and said there should be conflict. I am not one that agrees with that. I would much rather work collaboratively. I would much rather try to work together to come to a good outcome.The committee had very little turnover. I have to take some responsibility for this but four longer serving members of the committee had been there between them for 68 years; so they had served the country well. Unfortunately, though, they were locked into an old way of doing things. An increasingly fractured relationship between the committee and industry, legal action and the fact that I could not always rely on the advice I was getting meant that we had to make some changes. The PBAC was appointed under legislation. The legislation had a very narrow base of where I could take representatives from—and most are representatives, although I will come to Mr Clear, who is not a representative. So that was the reason that we needed to have the legislative change late last year, which went through the parliament with, I think, unanimous support after some amendments.We have not changed the process in any sense at all. We still have exactly the same system for listing drugs. We still have the PBAC with its clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness. We still have the PBPA, which advises on pricing. So all that has happened here is that we have decided to change some members of one committee. Again, unfortunately, some of them had come to the view that they had some right to be on this committee. Some of the email traffic that was flying around the country and around the world was forwarded on to me and it was very clear at the time of the legislation change that in fact certain individuals were merely worried about their own jobs and their own positions.In terms of appointing a committee, I wanted to try to cool down the relationship, because I did not think it was in the interests of consumers to have this increasingly fractured relationship. I thought the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee would benefit from having a range of expertise. Mr Clear has a distinguished history in the industry. He is one person, he is an honourable man and I think most people would think it is thoroughly reasonable on a committee of 12 people to have one individual who has a background in the drug industry. He is in no sense a representative, and the notion as mentioned by the shadow minister that he would somehow be reporting back to industry is offensive. Mr Clear would not do that. That is not his position. We do have a consumer on the committee, and rightly so. We have had good consumer representation in the past, and that is proper because consumers are a major stakeholder in the PBAC. We have one person who is a consumer— PG6Macklin, Jenny, MPMs Macklin—Who?8E4Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE—we have one person who can put an industry perspective on it and we have 10 people who are now broadly from different professional bodies and they can provide a whole range of expertise.PG6Macklin, Jenny, MPMs Macklin—Who is the consumer?8E4Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE—The shadow minister has talked about the process. I feel I have gone through this ad nauseam but, given that she still insists on not really understanding the nature of the PBAC and the PBPA, I will say it again.PG6Macklin, Jenny, MPMs Macklin—Oh, yes, I do understand. Have a look at your department's notes.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—The member for Jagajaga was heard in silence and should extend the same courtesy.8E4Wooldridge, Dr Michael, MPDr WOOLDRIDGE—What happened in this process was absolutely routine. The government takes advice on pricing from the PBPA, not the PBAC. That is not the PBAC's role. The PBPA can take nine different things into account under their charter. We have a letter here from the head of the PBPA saying that is in fact what they did.At no stage did I attempt to intervene in the pricing whatsoever. I have never met the head of the PBPA; I do not believe that I have ever spoken to him. The fact that I did not know his name until very recently shows that I have left this committee to its own resources. It is a technical health economics issue, and I am not qualified to comment on it. So I have never sought to influence this committee in any way whatsoever.Some former members of the PBAC, because they did not get their way, are deliberately trying to cause mischief and are deliberately doing as much damage as possible. I had one person say to me, `You'll never put a committee together.' That is absolute rubbish; we have had enormous interest in coming on the new PBAC, and we have a better qualified committee than we had previously. But they were thinking that they were so indispensable that no-one else would serve if they chose to take their bat and ball and go home. They were quite wrong. But there were some people who were seriously trying to do damage.The PBAC has put out that its advice to the PBPA was not the advice that prevailed. It did not prevail because the PBPA realised that this was an important new pharmaceutical for consumers. In listing it at $1.17 per person per day for treatment, we in fact got the lowest price in the world. So to suggest that somehow the company involved, Pharmacia, stood over the government is quite ridiculous. What we managed to get out of Pharmacia was the lowest price of any country in the world for this medication. What the PBPA knew—and I must say I did not think the advice that I got from them was clouded by any personal prejudices—was that to try to list in the manner recommended would have meant that you would not have got the drug at all. I think it is unacceptable that, in this circumstance, pensioners were having to pay $60 a month, and many of the people on this medication are pensioners. I have had two members of this House in the last hour say to me that they are on the medication. I put my own mother on it at one stage, and one of my staff takes it. I cannot give any higher recommendation than to say that this is a new category of drug and it is a very positive benefit for consumers. The honourable member talks about cost blow-outs to the PBS. I was hoping that she would raise this because I have some information here on costs to the PBS. She was suggesting that this somehow was threatening the whole system of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Costs have been difficult to keep under control with the PBS, and government has struggled with this for a long time. But, in fact, we have not done too badly as a government. I took out some comparative figures over the last eight years on how this government in the last four years had gone, and how the previous government had gone in the four years before we came to government, in controlling the PBS. In the last four years, the average increase each year in PBS costs—from 1996-97 to 1999-2000—has been 10.7 per cent. That may sound a lot but, if you look at the previous four years under Labor, the average increase was 17.6 per cent per annum. So the Labor Party was able to get a 17.6 per cent increase in the PBS each year, yet it criticises us for cost blow-outs when we have averaged 10.7 per cent over four years. In terms of achieving that cost containment, one of the big measures was therapeutic group premiums—a proposal that Labor opposed.But this is very interesting: if you look back over the last eight years, you see that there has been one absolutely catastrophic year for expenditure in the PBS. There was one single year when expenditure under this multibillion dollar scheme went up over 23 per cent. That was the year 1992-93. Who was health minister in 1992-93? Brian Howe. And who was advising Brian Howe as his senior strategy adviser in the one year when the PBS nearly fell to bits because they had gone to sleep at the wheel? The member for Jagajaga. So here we are as a government bringing some cost containment into the PBS and being able to keep it to a reasonable level of increase year on year—it does go up and down some years. Compare this with the Labor Party and their 17.6 per cent increase over four years and the member for Jagajaga, as an adviser to the Minister for Health, Housing and Community Services, with a 23.32 per cent increase in 1992-93, and I probably would not say too much more about cost if I were her!The member for Jagajaga makes a lot about the cost being more than we expected—and it is, I have to saybut this is notorious with new pharmaceuticals. Many members might be aware of the drug Zoloft, another Pfizer drug that was listed by the Labor Party. I got the figures out because it was the member for Fremantle who was the Minister for Human Services and Health when this came on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The estimate in the first year, 1994-95, was that it was going to cost $2.5 million. The outcome for that year for Zoloft was $35 million—they were out by a factor of 14. I normally would not criticise the opposition for having done this in government, because it is difficult. The only point I am trying to make is that, in a whole PBS, if you want to look at cost, look at the overall cost. And we do not have a bad record there either internationally or certainly compared with the Labor Party; we have a pretty brilliant record.The shadow minister also talks about my former staff, and I would like to make some comments about this because I think this is unbelievably unwise, unbelievably cowardly and unbelievably ungracious. Our staff in this place work very hard for not enormous salaries. We could not survive without them. As a minister, you have quite a large staff and there is often a fair turnover, so you do have a large number of people who have worked for you—particularly if you have been in the job for a while, as I have been. I have former staff who work in a whole range of areas. I have former staff members who work in public health, in industry and in public relations. To single out people because they happen to work for a company is quite wrong. Both sides of politics do this. The CEO of the Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association was the chief of staff to John Dawkins. The senior policy adviser to the Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association was the pharmaceutical adviser to Graham Richardson when he was Minister for Health. So both sides of politics have people that move in and out—and I would not criticise this because I actually think it is good to have an interaction between industry and government and for people to move both ways, that is, from government into industry and, of course, from industry to government. The honourable member for Bruce, who is at the table, would know that people move from industry to government. His adviser actually worked for SmithKline Beecham, a pharmaceutical company, before coming here, and I would not criticise her for that. It is quite proper. So to impugn some motives against my staff, who cannot defend themselves, is frankly outrageous.I note that some newspapers have been talking about Ken Smith, who lives in Hong Kong. Ken Smith was my former chief of staff. The only problem is that the personal assistant to the head of Pfizer in the Asia-Pacific is Ken Smith and he does live in Hong Kong; he is just not the Ken Smith who happened to work for me and who was having a glass of wine in Surrey Hills when I rang him last night. Ken Smith actually works for Turnbull Porter Novelli, which does a wide range of work. I believe they do do some work for Pfizer, but PR companies do work for a lot of people.Dr David did go and work for Pfizer. She has now moved on to another company. But this is normal, and to impugn motives because all I have is staff who have moved from government into industry—just as Labor staffers have done, into the same industry, and just as Labor staffers have moved from industry to government—I think is outrageous and a very bad precedent. In terms of the Pfizer forum, I am informed that I am in equal company with Kofi Annan and with John Glenn, the US senator. All they are trying to do is advance the health debate. It is perfectly and utterly proper.After a week on this the Labor Party has not been able to come up with anything, because there is not anything. This was a perfectly proper and normal process that has delivered a wonderful outcome to the Australian community. All the Labor Party has been able to do is show hypocrisy. All the Labor Party has been able to do is, under privilege, cowardly beat up on people who cannot defend themselves, when it is guilty of the same thing. That is a very grubby and bad precedent.16:16:0024291Griffin, Alan, MPMr GRIFFINVU5BruceALP00—Australia's system for providing access to new medicines in a way that is affordable to all Australians is one of the best and most envied in the world. In the US people go without food to pay for medicines that cost them hundreds of dollars a month. In the UK regional budgeting means that where you live determines what drugs you access. In Australia all Australians have equal access to the most effective and cost-effective medicines available. This has been achieved through an internationally respected process, overseen by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, for making decisions on which drugs to subsidise, to ensure that while access is maintained costs are contained. An article in yesterday's English newspaper, the Guardian said:The PBAC is a model for regulatory systems world wide ... and was the first watchdog to demand cost-effectiveness from pharmaceutical companies, forcing them to justify their prices for prescription drugs on wider grounds than just their cost of manufacture.Adviser to the UN and WHO, the International Union of Pharmacology describes the Australian system as a model for drug use in developing countries. In order to maintain a government subsidised system, the cost of medicines must be controlled. The way in which controls can occur must be justifiable. They cannot be based on emotion or outside pressure. Decisions based on rigorous scientific data that not only assesses safety and efficacy but compares the benefits of a new product against those of older treatments are the only way this can be achieved. This is what the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee does, and this committee is the linchpin of the entire Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. After listening to some of his explanations for recent decisions, this is obviously a concept that the current Minister for Health and Aged Care does not understand. Just because a product is shown to be effective and safe in clinical trials does not on its own justify its listing on the PBS; it has to be measured against other subsidised medicines that are used to treat the same diseases. If a new drug shows similar safety and efficacy as currently listed products, then it should cost the government the same as the current products. If it shows improved safety and efficacy and additional benefits to the consumer, then there is a case for paying a higher price for the product. The questions then are: how much higher? What are the benefits? What are they worth? That is the decision that the PBAC makes based on information provided by the product manufacturer. That is the advice that the PBAC provides to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority, which uses it as the basis for negotiating a final price with the manufacturer. Such negotiations include capping mechanisms like price-volume agreements: a price is set for the product based on the amount the manufacturer believes it will sell and if sales are greater than agreed the price is decreased. Under such agreements the price agreed by the PBPA can be higher than that recommended by the PBAC. However, the price-volume agreements mean that in the long run the price evens out to reflect the PBAC advice. One of the only things that the minister got right yesterday and today was the fact that the PBAC is not responsible for setting a final price. It is, however, responsible for advising the PBPA under which conditions a product is cost effective. If the PBPA then goes ahead and negotiates a price higher than that without setting conditions that ensure that the overall cost to government is the same as the PBAC recommendation, then the product is obviously no longer cost effective. Our system says that if a product is not cost effective as well as safe and effective then it should not be subsidised through the PBS.I will not go through the case of Celebrex in detail today; that has been covered by others. But the Australian public needs to know whether the minister's decision to agree to list a product that is not cost effective is a one-off appeasement of the industry or whether he will continue to ignore those processes that have ensured all Australians have and should continue to have access to subsidised medicines. Is evidence based decision making and cost effectiveness no longer the standard by which decisions will be made? Will Australians now have to get used to losing other products like the nasal sprays that were removed from the PBS in November last year to pay for expensive drugs that show marginal benefit when compared with cheaper and equally effective products and blow out the budget by $600 million? Or will this behaviour lead to the PBS becoming unaffordable so that we end up with an American style system where only the rich and those who can afford private health insurance can access medicines? Or perhaps now that the Minister for Health and Aged Care has been able to compromise the PBAC through his appointment of an industry representative he is now confident that he has effectively removed the teeth in the PBS tiger. With a toothless tiger there will be no need to continue to ignore the advice of the PBAC and list drugs that are not cost effective, cost the Australian taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars and make the pharmaceutical industry the same sorts of profits.From that there are a couple of other issues I would like to go through today. The minister made a point of saying that it had been a dummy spit by members of the committee and there had been virtually no other criticism of the decision that had been made. I would like to quote from an article by Ray Moynihan in the Australian Financial Review. He quotes a number of people who have actually raised concerns and who are not on this committee. For example: Speaking from Oregon in the United States, a deputy editor of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association said that the world had looked to Australia as a model of how to assess new drugs for subsidy. Dr Drummond Rennie was alarmed by the changes to the PBAC. “This is a tremendous victory for a super-rich industry that wants to become richer at public expense,” he said. “It is shameful on the part of politicians to allow this.” Medical Journal of Australia editor Dr Martin Van De Weyden also opposed a PBAC seat for industry, predicting it would become an election issue. “This is a slippery slope towards losing the independence of the committee, because of the potential for conflict of interest.” The Australian Consumers' Association's chief executive, Ms Louise Sylvan, and the president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Kerryn Phelps, agreed that industry representation on PBAC was extremely inappropriate. According to Ms Sylvan: “The last thing we want to see is prices going up because an industry person is sitting on this board.” From the Guardian article that I referred to earlier, the International Union of Pharmacology, which advises the UN and the World Health Organisation, has written to Canberra in protest at the appointment of Mr Clear.So, if it is a dummy spit, it is a pretty big dummy. The fact of the matter is that it is dummy spit that goes international. This story has international coverage because it is an international scandal. What this minister is doing here is something that we should be ashamed of. What he is doing is taking a system and endeavouring to very much undermine it in a way that is going to be to the detriment of Australian consumers and the Australian health industry.Also while I am on my feet, during question time the minister read a letter from the head of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority which was suggesting that I had not fully told the truth regarding this issue in a question that I asked yesterday. I will go to that question that I asked yesterday:My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, is it not the case that the pricing authority itself says that the main mechanism to determine initial prices for newly listed drugs on the PBS is the advice of the PBAC? Is the minister aware that the most recent annual report of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority states:... the Authority has increasingly recommended the use of price/volume agreements.Why in the case of the Pfizer drug Celebrex was the PBAC's advice ignored and a higher price, without a price-volume agreement, approved?I have the report with me and, like yesterday, I am happy to offer to table it one more time at the conclusion of my speech. You might like to read it, and I think the minister should. The minister referred today to the fact that there were nine factors considered by the authority. It is there in chapter 2.PG6Macklin, Jenny, MPMs Macklin—What is the first one?VU5Griffin, Alan, MPMr GRIFFIN—The first one is:(a) Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee comments on clinical and cost effectiveness aspects of items ...PG6Macklin, Jenny, MPMs Macklin—Funny that.VU5Griffin, Alan, MPMr GRIFFIN—That is exactly the point that I was making. To go on from there, on the following page—and I quote directly:The main mechanism to determine initial prices is the advice of the PBAC arising from the cost effectiveness information supplied by the sponsor and evaluated by the PBAC.The fact is that it is a direct quote. Let us go to some of the other factors that are raised here:(b) the prices of alternative brands of a drug ...Again, that is an issue that is considered in this process.(c) comparative prices of drugs in the same therapeutic group ...That is not quite effective in this case as it is a new drug, but the fact of the matter is that it again goes to that question of comparison.(d) costs information, when provided by the supplier or estimated by the Authority ...Again, the supplier provides that detail to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee with respect to them considering the matter in the bloody first place.(e) prescription volumes, economies of scale and other factors such as expiry dating, storage requirements, product stability and special manufacturing requirements ...We all know that that is minor in context of the first four. It goes on down the list. Of course, the interesting one is (i):(i) any directions of the Minister.The minister says that there weren't any. I guess we have to believe him. The fact is that if you take that one out there are only eight. Then you go to some of the other ones, like (g): (g) prices of the drug in reasonably comparable overseas countries ...It is clear from the report that the PBAC is the key to this system. It also makes it very clear that what the minister did today—and, frankly, what the head of the pricing authority did in his letter—was to misrepresent what was said yesterday by the opposition and what was said by me in the question. That is to their detriment in the consideration of this issue in this parliament. The fact is that they are not going to get away with this. There is an element here that is still to be explained and they will have to learn to live with what they have done. (Time expired)10000Jenkins, Harry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—Does the honourable member wish to seek leave?VU5Griffin, Alan, MPMr GRIFFIN—Once again, I seek leave to table the report that the minister sought to misrepresent.Leave not granted.16:27:0024294Southcott, Dr Andrew, MPDr SOUTHCOTTTK6BoothbyLP10—Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this MPI. What we saw in question time yesterday and today is the Labor Party drawing a very long bow with a series of questions, most of which were backed up by poor research and most which were factually incorrect. First of all, to go to the topic in the MPI and the issue of Celebrex, Celebrex is an anti-arthritis drug which is a new class known as cyclo-oxygenase-2 inhibitors. Cyclo-oxygenase is an enzyme which lives everywhere in the body. It is known as the `housekeeper enzyme' and maintains the stomach mucosa—that is cox-1. Cox-2, an isoenzyme of cyclo-oxygenase, is induced by inflammation. So there is benefit in having a drug which specifically targets cyclo-oxygenase-2 and it is used for the relief of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, an insidious and often crippling disease.I am not sure where the Labor Party are going with this. Are they suggesting that Celebrex should not have been listed? Are they suggesting that it should have been listed at the lower price recommended by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee? As we heard, that was not an option. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority got the lowest cost that they could and it is believed to be the lowest cost anywhere in the world. This drug was created using advanced molecular technology. It does not inhibit cox-1, which maintains the stomach lining. Most anti-arthritis drugs have a lot of gastrointestinal side effects. People get peptic ulcers and stomach bleeding. It does not have the gastrointestinal side effects of those nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories which are used for arthritis. It has been available in the United States since early 1999. In the United States, phase 3 pre-release trials show a clear reduction or even no gastrointestinal side effects. In Australia, Celebrex was available from late 1999 and was listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme on 1 August 2000. I want to set out very clearly what happened and why it was appropriate. Before it was on the PBS, this drug was costing consumers $63 a month. Since it has been on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, it costs $3.30 for health care card holders and $20.60 for others. Had the government accepted the suggestions of the Labor Party, this drug would not be available on the PBS. It would be available only to people who could afford to pay the $63 a month but not at the subsidised price.When considering whether drugs should go on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, firstly, the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee advises on the quality, safety and efficacy of new drugs. Then the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, an independent statutory board, recommends to the minister the listing and delisting of drugs. They take into account comparative effectiveness, comparative safety and comparative cost-effectiveness. Then the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority makes recommendations to the minister on the pricing of the drugs. They take into account the advice of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee—again, this is an independent body. In the process that occurred here, you see that the recommendation from the department was to support the recommendation of the pricing authority. Consistent with the recommendation of the department, the Minister for Health and Aged Care took advice from both but, for reasons explained earlier, there was no option to go with the recommendation of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. The pricing authority agreed with the company to a price of $1.17 a day and advised that it was not possible to list at the lower price recommended by the advisory committee. It is unusual for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee to recommend a price. That is not part of their brief, although they are welcome to offer it. It is believed that $1.17 a day is the cheapest price of any publicly subsidised drug in the world. The MPI is accusing us of a blow-out in the health budget—that is something new. The Labor Party is actually accusing us of spending more money on subsidised drugs. I have heard a lot from the shadow spokesman for health over the last two years, but she has never accused us of spending more money. She likes spending money. Had we listed it at $1 a day, the drug would not have been available to health care card holders. The Labor Party have found that there is no evidence of interference. There has been no interference in this decision. This decision has been appropriate and consistent with the recommendations of the department.Regarding the blow-out in costs on this drug, the estimate of the costs came from the department on advice from PBAC and PBPA. I understand those estimates were higher than the estimates from the company. Estimates of volumes of drugs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme are difficult. Labor was not great, as we have heard, in estimating these drugs. Zoloft—sertraline—was estimated to cost $2½ million per annum. In the last year, it cost $35 million. Labor was not great at containing costs. In Labor's last five years, the cost of the PBS increased by 15 per cent. In our first five years, the cost of the PBS has increased by 11 per cent. In the whole health budget, the PBS is the thing, which grows the quickest. On the issues of managing the economy and managing budgets, Newspoll shows that the Labor Party are not well regarded. They usually start about 20 points behind.The reason for the higher than estimated cost is that volume was four times greater than estimated and there were also more prescriptions at a higher strength. The international experience with this drug has been that there was incredible consumer awareness and there was pent-up demand prior to this drug being listed. There was also higher usage among patients over 60 years of age and higher dosages which contributed to the greater expense. Some of the things that are happening are that the sponsor is going to provide data to PBAC about cost-effectiveness and will also adopt systems which will lead to more appropriate and efficient use.In question time over the last two days, a lot of names have been bandied about of people who are not members of parliament and do not have the opportunity to defend themselves. Broadly, the general assertion has been that, if someone came from this group, they would carry a certain set of values which would mean that there could be a conflict of interest if they were to sit on another body. There has also been an assertion that, if people go from the minister's office to work for a company, there is some problem with that. We do not want to go down that track. As we have already heard, the previous Speaker's chief adviser went from a multinational drug company to working for the Labor Left. That is a bit unusual, but I do not think it is improper.We have heard a lot about people's background. When the Labor Party were in government, the member for Jagajaga was doing a review of the Australian health system for the minister for health and we heard nothing about her background. We do not like to kick the communist can and the socialist can on this side of the chamber, but I am indebted to Robert Browning who tells us in his book The Health Activist Network: Exploiting Health that in 1984 the member for Jagajaga organised meetings to establish a new broad left coalition committee to develop effective strategies for socialists in Australia. The 10 in that group included three former members of the Communist Party of Australia. Speaking at the 1983 Marx Centenary Conference, the member for Jagajaga said: What does the dismantling of capitalism and the building of socialism involve? It is all too clear that spontaneous uprising is not around the corner ... the essence of this is that it is a strategy for a war of position where we can gradually make incisive interventions into the sovereignty of capital.That is what we see today. That is what we saw on the 30 per cent private health rebate. For someone who worked as a researcher in the parliament, the member for Jagajaga was wrong on this drug. It is not from Pfizer; it is from Pharmacia. PBAC should dictate the price and she—(Time expired)10000Jenkins, Harry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—Order! The discussion is now concluded.Committees24296242962429616:37:0024296Lieberman, Lou, MPMr LIEBERMANXU5IndiLP10—I present the 23rd report from the Publications Committee, sitting in conference with the Publications Committee of the Senate.Report—by leave—agreed to.242962429616:38:0024296Sercombe, Bob, MPMr SERCOMBEQK6MaribyrnongALP00—On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Securities, I present the committee's report, incorporating a dissenting report, on fees on electronic and telephone banking, together with evidence received by the committee.Ordered that the report be printed.QK6Sercombe, Bob, MPMr SERCOMBE—by leave—I hope that this report serves as another way of promoting wider understanding of and debate on the issues surrounding banking services. Such services are really an essential service, that is, they are fundamental to normal economic and social activities. They have significant influence on the functioning of our society and hence it is vital that the social obligations of banks be emphasised. These social obligations include an obligation to ensure that all Australians are able to access affordable banking, and I think both those words need emphasising—both `access' and `affordable'.This report deals with a number of aspects of this issue. It is quite clear that banks generally are concerned to downgrade branch banking, as many honourable members are only too aware from their own electorates, and to promote electronic banking. This is often at the social and economic expense of some of the most vulnerable members of our community, including the elderly, low income people and people not comfortable with the English language as their first language. Similarly, bank charges fall disproportionately and regressively on those least able to afford them. There is also a lack of transparency in many aspects of banking and in some areas evidence of market failure to ensure the best outcomes for consumers. For example, with ATM interchange fees, banks may earn fee revenue that is double the cost of providing the service, with no incentive to negotiate on fees. Similarly, the promotion of credit card transactions is not justified to the extent that it is promoted, on either efficiency or equity grounds. Also considered in this report is the need for disclosure of fee information before transactions are made. In the United Kingdom, for example, the banks have committed to providing free information on an ATM on fees before a transaction is made. This issue needs to be more vigorously pursued in Australia, as the report makes clear. I hope the government, in considering the report, will direct the ACCC to formally monitor bank fees and charges and that the government will take a much more active role in ensuring that banks do in fact address their fundamental social responsibilities. I move:That the House take note of the report.I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned.242972429716:42:0024297Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLPParliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration10—by leave—I move:That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Construction of new law courts building, Adelaide, South Australia.The government has approved the provision of $73.7 million for the development of new Commonwealth law courts in Adelaide, subject to the normal Public Works Committee processes. In 1987 the government endorsed a program to provide clearly identifiable and purpose designed Commonwealth law courts buildings in each capital city of Australia to accommodate the courts and their associated staff and facilities. Adelaide is now the only state capital without such a building. In Adelaide, the Commonwealth jurisdictions, other than the High Court, operate from leased office premises which have been adapted for court purposes. The High Court does not currently have dedicated premises in Adelaide and uses the Supreme Court of South Australia. The leased accommodation does not adequately provide for the operational and growth requirements of the courts. In addition, the level of security achievable in the building does not provide acceptable protection for judges, staff and the public. Investigations have been undertaken into the options to resolve the long-term accommodation needs of the court, including the availability of alternative replacement space and potential development sites for a purpose-built Commonwealth courts building. These investigations conclude that there is no existing building in the Adelaide legal precinct which would permit the conversion of space to establish a facility that would meet the long-term accommodation criteria of the court, and the Angus Street site is the most suitable site for a purpose-built Commonwealth courts building. The site for the proposed development is adjacent to the Magistrates Court on Angus Street in Adelaide. It is subject to a land swap agreement with the government of South Australia. The existing improvements on the site will be demolished by the government of South Australia as part of the agreement. The proposed work comprises the development of a purpose designed Commonwealth law courts building with a net area of about 12,000 square metres to accommodate the High Court of Australia, the Federal Court of Australia, the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Magistrates Service of Australia. The building design provides for flexibility in court operations and the increasing use of new technologies. Following the demolition of existing improvements on the site and the transfer of the site to the Commonwealth, subject to parliamentary approval, it is planned to commence construction of the new Commonwealth law courts in early 2002 and be completed by the end of the following year. I commend the motion to the House.Question resolved in the affirmative. Bills24297The following bill was returned from the Senate without amendment or request:International Monetary Agreements Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2000Bills24297S28024297Bill received from the Senate, and read a first time.Ordered that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Bills24298R120224298Debate resumed.16:47:0024298Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr KELVIN THOMSONUK6WillsALP00—I did move in relation to this bill that: “whilst not declining to give the Bill a second reading, the House condemns the Government for its ... taxation indexation policies ...”I guess the tax indexation policy that has been vexing people most in recent times is that which relates to petrol. Everyone here will recall the Prime Minister's pre-election promise that petrol taxes would not rise as a result of the GST. In fact they have risen, and some estimates within the automotive industry suggest that the additional windfall revenue is of the order of as much as $1.5 billion per annum. One of the elements of significance of that windfall is that the Commonwealth government, the Howard government says, `Oh, but this is okay because we are compensating people with a roads funding package.' In fact, if you examine that roads funding package you will find it is only $400 million per year as against a $1.5 billion windfall through additional petrol taxes.Indeed, their taxation indexation policies are such that this is the fourth rise in petrol taxes in seven months. We had the GST come in on 1 July. That exceeded the drop in excise by a good 1½c a litre. We then had the August round of petrol excise indexation. Later in the year there was an increase as the general price of petrol increased. The goods and services tax kicked in. It is a retail tax that kicked in to increase the level of petrol costs still further. Then we had the 1 February excise rise of the order of 1.7c per litre. So now we have a situation with petrol taxes of the GST and excise, a tax on a tax, each feeding off the other in a vicious inflationary spiral. For the first time we have country petrol taxes higher than city petrol taxes, and we have a situation with a retail tax where, every time the international price increases, the tax increases still further. That is the reason Labor has sent out its petrol inquiry around Australia into the rural and regional areas, and that is the reason we have moved a private member's bill. I hope the government will change its mind and start supporting that bill instead of opposing it. That is the reason we moved our amendment here condemning the government for its tax indexation policies. I hope that that will be supported here as well. As I indicated earlier, we are not opposing the bill before the House. It simply continues policies which Labor embarked upon in government, and we have no objection to this legislation. 10000Jenkins, Harry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins)—Is the amendment seconded?8T4Ferguson, Laurie, MPMr Laurie Ferguson—I second the amendment.16:51:0024298Lieberman, Lou, MPMr LIEBERMANXU5IndiLP10—The Medicare Levy Amendment (CPI Indexation) Bill (No. 2) 2000 seeks to amend the Medicare Levy Act which was passed by this parliament in 1986. As members know, that act exempts low income individuals and families from the levy. In addition, an individual member of a couple who does not have adequate private hospital cover is exempt from the Medicare levy surcharge where the total of that person's taxable income and reportable fringe benefits is below the individual Medicare levy low income threshold. The bill—which of course I strongly support, and I know it is supported by the opposition—provides for increases in the low income threshold to further protect those individuals and couples because of the fact that the thresholds have not had the benefit of the CPI indexation which has occurred. This bill will increase the thresholds for the 1.9 per cent CPI increase for the year to 31 March.So the bill, while relatively simple, is an important one. The member for Wills—and I thank the member for Wills for his courtesy in advising me of the length of his speech so that I was aware of that and ready to speak now—has confirmed that the Labor Party's policy is in fact to support the principle of indexation, in this case to protect low income people and ensure that the threshold is at the appropriate level so that low income people do not get themselves into a position where they are required to pay the levy. Incidentally it also highlights the fact that the Labor Party's posturing and stunting this week and in previous weeks leading up to this parliament about fuel excise are of course a lot of humbug. Why? Because the Labor Party introduced indexation for petrol excise in Australia. It is their own idea; it has been part of their policy for years and years. The reason for this is based on the sound principle that, even though an excise is an unpopular tax—and I concede that; people do not like paying taxes and excises; I know that—the revenue streams of the Commonwealth go to pay pensions, to pay the states the agreed amounts for Medicare so that public hospitals and Medicare can be maintained, to ensure that the states receive an appropriate additional amount from the Commonwealth so that services for disabled people and their families can be maintained, and to enable the states to receive extra funds from the Commonwealth so that public housing provided by the states is maintained at a real level, taking into account inflation. That is the reason. So the purpose of fuel excise indexation introduced by Labor governments of bygone days is to ensure that the amount collected for excise, even though it is an unpopular thing, maintains its value compared to the performance of the economy in relation to inflation. If it were otherwise, the income stream of the Commonwealth would be so affected—because it did not have indexation—that the Commonwealth would not be able to honour its obligations and deliver additional moneys as part of the revenue stream to maintain pensions.Let me give you an example, one that I am sure all members would embrace and would not want to see undermined. The Howard government, when it put tax reform to the Australian people at the last election, said that by reason of tax reform and the introduction of the GST there would be a disadvantage to low income people and people on pensions and social security allowances. That was a core promise by John Howard, and he has honoured that. He ensured that when the tax reform package eventually went through—and I think it was supported by Labor and the other parties in the Senate as a basic core issue that should not be eroded—pensions would increase by an additional amount of four per cent, because of that once-off introduction of GST, to ensure that more than adequate extra pension payments were made.I think that is common ground; I think I have given an accurate summary of what occurred. Prior to that, the Howard government made a historic decision and introduced legislation, which is now law, that also said that the rate of pension payable to pensioners in Australia, to further protect them against inflation, should be based on a formula where that rate should not ever be less than 25 per cent of average male wages in Australia. That was a historic move by the Howard government, one that is applauded and appreciated by many families in Australia. It was the first time ever that a government had made sure that pensions would at least be maintained at a level which would relate to average male weekly wages in Australia.Of course all of us would hope that one day the economy and the Commonwealth and society would be able to afford to further increase pensions for our seniors who helped build this country and for other people who need a helping hand under the social security system because they are going through difficult times. I am not for one moment suggesting that this should always be frozen in time, but I think it was a terrific initiative of the Howard government to get pensions up to the level where they can never fall below that rate of 25 per cent of average male weekly wages. That was a fantastic breakthrough.If the country is well managed and continues to prosper, and people work together and accept mutual responsibility, there is no reason to suggest that Australia's wealth and resources will not enable us—I know I will not be in the parliament, because I am retiring, but other future parliamentarians—to further increase the percentage of average weekly male earnings, because we will be able to afford to do so. In the meantime it is terribly important that members of parliament have the courage to explain to the community that, where the revenue dependency of governments of whatever political colour is based on a system of collection of revenue under a tax system which includes excise, then, because petrol excise is a volumetric excise—it is not based on the price at the pump, contrary to suggestions by some of the Labor members in the community— 83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr Emerson—The GST is.XU5Lieberman, Lou, MPMr LIEBERMAN—No, it is not. The GST is, but I am talking about the excise—please understand, I am not misrepresenting the position. The excise is based on the volumetric sale at the pump, so it is always frozen and fixed. Unfortunately the world price of petrol is forcing up Australian prices at the pump, from around 80c to over $1 at one stage. Thank goodness in Wangaratta yesterday the price was 89.5c due to Howard government policies and good retailing—smart retailing—by new independent competitors.My point is that the excise on fuel needs to be indexed because it does not increase along with the price at the pump. The value of the 10 per cent GST take increases as the price of petrol goes up, but the excise—which is 40-odd cents per litre—is frozen. That is why the indexation system applies. The debate rages about whether the Prime Minister should reduce excise on a one-off basis, but, in reality, that would take about $500 million or $600 million from the revenue stream. The revenue from the indexation of excise is used to honour our promise to pensioners and to the states under the Medicare public hospital system that they will receive regular, agreed, real term amounts from the Commonwealth.The Labor Party stands condemned for its approach. If it does not like the rate of excise for whatever reason, it has a duty to advocate that dislike by all means, but it also has a duty and a responsibility to explain what new tax or reduction in services—in health, education, defence or whatever—it will propose instead.83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr Emerson—There is ample windfall.XU5Lieberman, Lou, MPMr LIEBERMAN—No, Labor has a duty to spell out either its ideas for some new tax to replace the revenue stream or its intention to cut a service—albeit an essential service—to do that. We have not had any such revelation from the Labor Party; instead we have had much waffle and stunting. This week the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer conceded during their speeches on matters of public importance that they could not reveal the position of the alternative government. I think the Leader of the Opposition said, `I'll have to wait until I get the budget papers and then I'll make up my mind'. Intellectually, that means that the Leader of the Opposition might not do anything or he might do something. In the meantime, he is going around Australia saying, `The excise! The indexation! Howard should give it back'. That is nonsense; it is an insult to the Australian people.The Australian people do not buy it. Opposition members might think they are gaining ground on this issue. Of course there is an adverse public reaction initially because no one likes high fuel prices—it is an emotional issue. However, the people of Australia will not forgive Labor at the ballot box. During 13 years in government, Labor increased excise—the rate of excise not just indexation—by 450 per cent. The Prime Minister has not increased the rate of excise. During his term of office the rate of excise has increased only as a result of indexation. The Australian people will have that fact well and truly in their minds—mark my words. Those Australians listening to this broadcast know the truth: the Leader of the Opposition has not told them what he will do to replace the revenue stream—in fact, he has said, `I can't tell you and I won't tell you'. He has put all sorts of caveats on his failure to respond. Judging Labor on its past form, it will use excise as a means of extracting income to pay for recurrent expenditure and other capital works. That caused great financial problems during Labor's 13 years in government: it drove up interest rates and inflation and left us with a $10.3 billion deficit. Government debt rose to $70 billion. That is the contrast.The debate on this legislation is unique because the Labor Party has pulled all sorts of stunts this week. The opposition says, `Yes, we support indexing the thresholds of Medicare levy exemptions'—it must do so because it is Labor policy and it is important to protect low income earners. Today's debate about the exemption highlights Labor's humbug, hypocrisy and stunting on the difficult, emotional issue of high fuel prices. Fuel prices are high—we regret that. However, not once this week have I heard a single opposition member explain that the real reason for high fuel prices—thankfully, they have decreased a little recently—is the increased world price, which rose from $US11 a barrel eighteen months ago to more than $US30 in the past few months. Not once did Labor members say, `Look, you have to take account of the real reason for fluctuating fuel prices: the problem with OPEC'. That is the main issue. We all do our best internationally. I hope that the new President of the United States and leaders of other countries will continue their efforts to persuade OPEC to adopt a more reasonable policy in respect of world parity pricing. I understand that the ALP—the alternative government—does not resile from its long-held policy of supporting world parity pricing. I have not heard Labor members say that they will change their stance. That is the truth of the matter: the high price of fuel in Australia is due largely to high world oil prices. Of course the price of fuel is too high; we want it to be lower. However, that revenue stream from the Commonwealth must pay for the indexation of pensions and public hospitals under the Medicare system. The opposition wants to see that funding threatened. We must draw that conclusion because Labor members have not given a reason—other than stunting—for their position or explained it. Opposition members have spoken a lot of waffle. I support the bill.17:07:0024301Emerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON83VRankinALP00—Since the Medicare Levy Amendment (CPI Indexation) Bill (No. 2) 2000 indexes the threshold for the Medicare levy and since that indexation is Labor Party policy, begun by the Labor Party, naturally we support the legislation, just as we support the second reading amendment to the legislation. I particularly wish to speak, as did the previous speaker, the honourable member for Indi, about that part of the second reading amendment which condemns the government for its taxation indexation policies and their effect on the community.The latest increase in petrol taxes occurred on 1 February. It was the fourth increase in petrol taxes in just seven months and it was a result of the indexation of the excise on petrol. Incidentally, the same indexation policies have led to an increase in the price of cigarettes and alcohol. The overwhelming proportion of the indexation increase is directly attributable to the GST—that is, on 1 July last year the GST came in and became a major contributor to inflation over the six months to the end of December. That inflation has led to an automatic increase in the indexation of excise for petrol, alcohol and tobacco.What we have now is an insidious policy of the GST and the excise being a tax on a tax—something this government said would never happen. It said that it would not have a tax on a tax. But, worse than that, the GST itself is forcing up inflation; the inflation is then forcing up the excise. So we have the GST and the excise acting as a tax on a tax, each forcing the other up in a vicious inflationary spiral. Our argument has been that this excise increase on fuel should be abandoned. To that intent on several occasions we have sought to introduce a private member's bill that would have abandoned that fuel excise increase.As I foreshadowed, I wish to make some remarks about some members opposite in respect of their attitude to that legislation—that is, the legislation that would have given some relief to struggling motorists all around Australia. One of the members who have voted against the introduction of that legislation is the member for Sturt. In his own area, as a result of the excise increases on fuel that occurred on 1 February, motorists in suburbs such as Northfield, Norwood, Kensington and Glenside are now paying 48.2c a litre in petrol taxes. That means that an average motorist in the electorate of Sturt using a 50 litre tank of petrol a week is now paying $24 a week in petrol taxes, or $1,250 a year. As I indicated, this is the fourth increase in petrol taxes in just seven months under this government. The government is kidding when it says that the GST has played no part in raising petrol prices. The government pretends that it has all been due to world oil prices going up and the very weak Australian dollar. But, as I said, most of the February excise increase was due to the inflationary effects of the GST. Yet, when announcing the GST before the last election in his address to the nation, the Prime Minister made this pledge to the people of Australia:The GST will not increase the price of petrol for the ordinary motorist.The people of Sturt and the people of Australia know that the Prime Minister has broken his promise. I call on the member for Sturt to explain to the people of his electorate why he has failed to represent their interests and support our position, which was not to proceed with the excise increase on 1 February.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! The honourable member for Rankin will resume his seat. I feel it incumbent on me, in view of my need to observe and support the standing orders, to point out that we are debating the Medicare Levy Amendment (CPI Indexation) Bill (No. 2) 2000 and his comments must be related to the content of the bill. There is no way that comments about petrol taxation can be taken into the Medicare bill. I invite him to continue but to restrict his remarks to the content of the bill.83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON—Mr Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the second reading amendment to the bill, which states:... whilst not declining to give the Bill a second reading, the House condemns the Government for its treatment of Medicare and effective Americanisation of the health system and its taxation indexation policies and their effect on the community ...The previous speaker was speaking to the second reading amendment as well because he spent most of his speech talking about petrol taxation. Mr Deputy Speaker, I ask only that fair treatment be given. If the government member wishes to speak to the second reading amendment, which is about the indexation policies of the government, I have the right to speak to that same second reading amendment.What I am saying is that the taxation indexation of excise should not have proceeded on 1 February. The fact that it has means that not only the member for Sturt but all of those members of parliament on the government side who in their electorates have said that they are very concerned about rising fuel taxes and about the excise increase proceeding—and who believe that some relief should be given to motorists—are tigers in their electorates but cowards when they come to Canberra. In the last two days we have given government members ample opportunity to support our private member's bill, which would abandon the fuel excise increase.We should at least be able to ask the government to be consistent on these matters. If it is going to index thresholds like the Medicare levy, with which we agree, and if it is going to proceed with the full indexation of excise on fuel, alcohol and tobacco, it should also index pensions. The next pension rise occurs on 31 March. But what is going to happen on 31 March? Whatever the CPI increase is for the relevant period, the government will be taking two percentage points off it. So it is going to discount the pension rise. We are only asking for fair treatment. We are saying, `Discount and, in fact, abandon the fuel excise increase.' The government says, `No, we won't do that. We won't discount our tax rises, but we will discount pension rises.'What is fair about that? Did the people of Australia, when they voted at the last election, understand that pensioners would be facing a discount on the indexation of their pensions on 31 March? When you ask the government why it is going ahead with a discount on the pension indexation rise, the answer is, `Because we have over-compensated pensioners.' There are plenty of pensioners in my electorate to whom I have spoken, and when I say to them, `The reason you are going to have a discount on your pension rise on 31 March is that the government has decided that you have been over-compensated for the GST', those pensioners get very angry. The pensioners in the electorate of Rankin, particularly in areas like Woodridge and Kingston, Slacks Creek, Marsden and Crestmead, do not believe for a moment that they have been overcompensated for the effects of the GST. They have not been overcompensated. They are struggling and they are very unhappy. They are very unhappy because they are now worse off already as a result of the so-called `streamlined new tax system for a new century'. The debacle of the savings bonus has made them even angrier. Many pensioners in my electorate got a bonus payment that they thought—and were told before the election—would be $1,000 and they got just $1. The next insult to pensioners in Australia is coming on 31 March, when the government is going to discount the pension rise. So, if the pension rise were to be four per cent, it is only going to be two per cent. Once pensioners realise the betrayal by this government of their living standards, they will be very angry indeed. So I call on the government to be consistent in its treatment of the GST and to be fair in its treatment of this so-called `streamlined new tax system for a new century'. I have just been advised that the Liberal backbencher and member for McEwen is calling for a general review of petrol taxes. She has said on Perth radio that we need to look seriously at the whole question of the excise. So here we have more breaking of rank by government members. But when the same member comes into this parliament and has an opportunity to be a tiger not only in her electorate but in Canberra, that member is not a tiger. The member is a coward in Canberra and a tiger in her electorate. What we have been doing is exposing the duplicity of those members who say one thing in their electorates and do another thing here in Canberra. The whole impact of the GST was supposed to be to create jobs to foster economic growth. It has been quite the opposite. The unemployment figures today show that the GST is destroying jobs. It is destroying jobs, as predicted by Professor Peter Dixon. When he was asked in evidence before the Senate inquiry into the GST he said that the GST is `job destroying'. Professor Dixon, with today's figures, has proved to be correct. Let us understand this. Let us make no mistake. The slowdown in the Australian economy is self-inflicted. It is remarkable that when economic growth is going ahead the government claims credit for it, but when economic growth starts to slow, the government says it is international factors—that it is the American economy, or high world oil prices. The economic slowdown in this country is self-inflicted by one large internal shock—and that is the GST. Mr Greenspan's support for the Bush administration's income tax cuts will thrill the Howard government because the Treasurer is a great fan of cutting the highest marginal rate of income tax. He has declared himself an income tax cut man who would want to see the income tax threshold for the highest rate of tax pushed out to multiples of average weekly earnings. No doubt he will try to cloak his plan with the respectability of responsible macro-economic management. But he cannot. The government had an opportunity to provide a bit of stimulus to the slowing economy on 1 February by not going ahead with the fuel excise indexation increase, but it did not. What is happening in the economy is that the GST is operating in conjunction with the Australian business number to collect much larger amounts of revenue than the government had forecast and than the government is prepared to admit. As a result of the operation of the GST and the Australian business number, there is a fiscal contraction going on in this country. We have had a monetary contraction until recently, with progressive cuts and increases in interest rates, all of which to try to ensure that there were no wage flow-ons from the GST; that is, effectively, that wages were not indexed for the GST. The government does not want wages to be indexed for the GST, so it screwed down the economy with tight monetary policy and, because the GST is collecting a lot more revenue than the government is prepared to admit, we have had in the last few months both a tight monetary policy and a tight fiscal policy. As a result of that, the government itself has engineered an economic slowdown. That slowdown will be compounded by the rapidly slowing American economy but that external shock has not yet fully arrived in Australia. Australia's economic slowdown, therefore, is directly attributable to the GST. The celebrations of a smooth transition have turned sour, as small businesses struggle with their second business activity statement. Small businesses try to hold enough cash in reserve to cope with a rainy day. Many of them used those reserves to pay their first quarterly GST instalment. But, fearful of losing market share if they jacked up prices to meet their GST liabilities, small businesses have taken a cut in margins instead. That helps explain the 0.3 per cent December quarter CPI rise. With those cash reserves depleted and GST liabilities mounting, not to mention the paperwork associated with the business activity statement, small businesses that have operated close to the margin are at risk of going under. Many businesses are going under. I was amused to read in the member for Sturt's first speech, in 1993, that he said:I was responsible for helping to establish new businesses and trying to save existing firms from bankruptcy.It is a pity he does not try to save a few firms from bankruptcy now, because firms are going bankrupt because of the operation of the GST. He, along with other members of the government, has done nothing to try to relieve the GST paperwork burden, the business activity statement. I call on the member for Sturt and all other government members to simplify the operation of the business activity statement. We have opened that agenda. It is a Labor agenda that the business activity statement should be simplified, and the government is saying, `We might make one major simplification: we might take out the box for the wine equalisation tax and we might take out the box for the luxury car tax.'0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr Slipper—Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. The member addressing the chamber is straying very widely from the subject matter of the bill and also from the amendment currently before the House. I would ask you to ask him to bring himself back to the subject matter.10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—I thank the parliamentary secretary. He should be aware that the chair has already canvassed this with the member for Rankin and that the amendment which is under discussion does include the words `and its taxation indexation policies', which broadens it to virtually allow anything.83VEmerson, Craig, MPMr EMERSON—Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. That was the intent of the second reading amendment, and it is a pity that the parliamentary secretary had not read it. He should do his homework. The GST is causing a contraction in this economy. There was an opportunity for the government to provide some relief on 1 February by not going ahead with the fuel excise indexation increase, but it failed that opportunity and, in so doing, it failed the people of Australia.GST receipts for the current financial year were revised upwards in the midyear outlook by $2.25 billion. There will be more coming. I suspect it is raining money. I suspect it is raining GST money and that that is causing the contraction that we are now experiencing in the Australian economy. As a result of this, there will be bankruptcies. There already are bankruptcies—they are on the rise—and, as we go further through the year, there are going to be even more. What will happen, I fear, is that, in the May budget, when it is too late, the government will say, `Alan Greenspan got it right in America. He gave some support to the Bush administration's income tax cuts. We had better provide a little fiscal stimulus too. We will announce a new round of income tax cuts for high income earners.' That is the Treasurer's agenda: not income tax cuts for all but income tax cuts for high income earners. He will cloak this in this respectability of sound macroeconomic management. When the Prime Minister was repeatedly asked in this parliament and in the media towards the end of last year why he would not support an abandoning of the fuel excise indexation increase on 1 February, the answer he gave was that it would force up interest rates. How quickly times have changed. It was not a valid explanation then and it is a disastrous explanation now because, as the Prime Minister would know, the direction on interest rates is down. The American Federal Reserve has cut interest rates in a very short space of time by two lots of 0.5 per cent, by half a percentage point; and, similarly, the Reserve Bank of Australia have now cut interest rates because they are so concerned about the fiscal contraction in this country from the wound that has been inflicted on this country by the GST and by this government's economic mismanagement.Debate (on motion by Dr Stone) adjourned.Bills24305S2452430510000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Mr Speaker has received the following message from the Senate:The Senate returns to the House of Representatives the bill for An Act to establish the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, and for related purposes, and acquaints the House that the Senate has considered message no. 612 of the House relating to the bill. The Senate has agreed to amendments nos 1 to 3, 11, 12, 14 and 15 made by the House; and has agreed to amendments nos 4 to 10, 13, 16 and 17 made by the House with amendments as indicated by the annexed schedule.The Senate desires the concurrence of the House in the amendments made by the Senate to amendments nos 4 to 10, 13, 16 and 17.Ordered that consideration of the message be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Bills24305R11512430510000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Mr Speaker has received the following message from the Senate:The Senate returns to the House of Representatives the bill for An Act to amend the law relating to taxation, and for related purposes, and acquaints the House that the Senate has agreed to the bill with the amendment indicated by the annexed schedule, in which amendment the Senate requests the concurrence of the House of Representatives.Ordered that consideration of the message be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Bills24305R11502430510000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Mr Speaker has received the following message from the Senate:The Senate returns to the House of Representatives the bill for An Act to establish an Australian Research Council and to provide for the funding of research programs, and for related purposes, and acquaints the House that the Senate has considered message no. 617 of the House relating to the bill. The Senate does not insist on Senate amendments nos 1, 2, 8 and 9 disagreed to by the House; insists on Senate amendments nos 3 to 7, 10 and 11 disagreed to by the House; and has made amendments in place of Senate amendments nos 1, 8 and 9, as indicated by the annexed schedule.The Senate desires the reconsideration of the bill by the House in respect of amendments nos 3 to 7, 10 and 11 and requests the concurrence of the House in the amendments made by the Senate in place of Senate amendments nos 1, 8 and 9.Ordered that consideration of the message be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Bills24306R11492430610000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Mr Speaker has received the following message from the Senate:The Senate returns to the House of Representatives the bill for An Act to repeal or amend certain Acts as a consequence of the enactment of the Australian Research Council Act 2000, and for other purposes, and acquaints the House that the Senate has considered message no. 616 of the House relating to the bill. The Senate insists on its amendments disagreed to by the House. The Senate desires the reconsideration of the bill by the House in respect of the amendments.Ordered that consideration of the message be made an order of the day for the next sitting.Adjournment2430610000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! It being 5.30 p.m., I propose the question:That the House do now adjourn.2430617:30:0024306Irwin, Julia, MPMrs IRWIN83ZFowlerALP00—The Minister for Transport and Regional Services announced on 13 December last that the government has decided to make Bankstown airport `available as an overflow airport for Sydney'. He added:The operator—of Bankstown airport—will be encouraged to extend the main runway so it can handle jet aircraftThe announcement, as you can imagine, has caused quite a stir among residents of the electorates of Blaxland, Banks, Fowler and Hughes, which surround Bankstown airport. But what exactly does the announcement mean? Will this be another diversion like the Holsworthy proposal? One person who is in a good position to know is the member for Hughes, Danna Vale. She was reported in the Liverpool Champion of 24 January as saying that `she was astounded when she learned of the government's proposal to allow 737s to use Bankstown airport'. According to the Liverpool Champion:She wrote to Mr Howard to say, “Large jets will not be accepted by my constituents nor by me.”She added:“I will not relent on the matter until we have an agreement from the government that 737's will not fly into Bankstown.”Fighting words! From the tone of those statements, we could expect the member for Hughes to join with residents and action groups, such as the Bankstown Airport Community and Environment Forum, to oppose the government's plan. But it seems the member for Hughes is a bit selective about which action groups she listens to. In the same Liverpool Champion article, the member for Hughes is quoted as saying:Most residents she had spoken to agreed that an overspill of original—I take that to mean `regional'—flights from Sydney Airport would be acceptable at Bankstown, but only if the government tightened air traffic controls.The Champion also reported:Mrs Vale said that she felt encouraged by the positive response from residents to her letter and she would take the most reasonable and logical stance on this very vexatious issue.She added:“I am forming a resident action committee to work with me on this issue.”From the response to the article in the Champion and her letter to constituents, the member for Hughes could hold meetings in a telephone booth. The same Champion article reports that one Chipping Norton resident took offence at Mrs Vale's letter and said he was appalled at her support of any expansion at all at Bankstown airport. He was quoted as saying:“We are astounded that you can seriously entertain any proposal to expand Bankstown Airport. It is plain stupidity and not supported by any residents to whom I have spoken.”The following week the Liverpool Champion reported that more than 500 residents had signed a petition to oppose large jets and regional airlines using Bankstown airport. Residents from Lansvale, Chipping Norton and Moorebank signed the petition organised by the Bankstown Airport Community and Environment Forum. The article went on to say: ... BACEF members also said they were disappointed by the response of Federal MP Danna Vale last week. She suggested residents in her Hughes electorate would accept regional flights from Sydney to Bankstown if her government tightened air traffic controls.The one thing that is clear about this issue is that the member for Hughes is being very selective about which residents she listens to; either that or she is testing earplugs for her constituents to use if jets are allowed into Bankstown airport. If the member for Hughes, who I notice is in the chamber, is interested in hearing what residents living around Bankstown airport really feel about allowing jets to use Bankstown, she should take herself along to the protest rally being held at Bankstown Paceway at 11 a.m. this Sunday. While the member for Hughes is at the rally, she might like to explain her true position on this very important issue.2430717:35:0024307Bailey, Fran, MPFRAN BAILEYJT4McEwenLP10—The opposition's claim that they want to cut petrol taxes and roll back the GST is nothing more than a political stunt. I say that because, in spite of countless opportunities, the Leader of the Opposition will not give a guarantee to the Australian public that if he were to become Prime Minister he would cancel the indexation of the fuel excise. In fact, the complete opposite is the case. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition confirmed this on ABC radio when he said:We're not proposing to make any changes to the fuel excise regime.Not one member of the opposition will make a commitment to reform the indexation of the excise and, even worse than this, their candidate in McEwen went on the public record via ABC radio just last week that he will not even fight against any future excise rise on petrol. He will not even raise a whimper of protest and yet at the same time they expect people to believe they are sincere about cutting petrol taxes and rolling back the GST. The opposition have sat back for five years and they have not developed any policy at all. They say in here, where they know that they will not succeed, that they want to cut this petrol tax but outside this place—UK6Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr Kelvin Thomson—Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: I draw your attention to standing order 82, that no member `may anticipate discussion of any subject which appears on the NoticePaper'. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition has a private member's bill which deals with exactly this issue and is seeking to remove this round of petrol excise.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—There is no point of order.JT4Bailey, Fran, MPFRAN BAILEY—They say in here, where they know they will not succeed, that they want to cut petrol tax, but outside this place they say they have no plans to change the fuel excise system. On the one hand, they say that they want to provide relief of 1.4c on a litre of petrol but, on the other hand, they say that they will cut the 1c and 2c country fuel subsidy. They cannot have it both ways. Their stance on fuel is the height of hypocrisy, and that is why what they are doing is nothing more than a stunt—a stunt that I would never support. I want relief for the people I represent who are struggling: the pensioners, who are on low, fixed incomes; families who are trying to balance their budgets on $30,000 a year; the self-funded retirees who worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes and now find it tough living on tight budgets. If the fuel excise system cannot be changed in the short term because the revenue raised from the excise is paying for a range of services including health, education and roads, then I want to see some relief for those struggling through both our welfare and taxation systems.Another aspect of this whole fuel debate which is not being highlighted is the role of the oil companies. Prior to the February indexation adjustments of 1½c per litre, across my electorate fuel was selling for around 84.9c a litre. After the 1½c indexation, it has been selling for around 97.9c a litre. A difference of 13c a litre is not the result of an increased indexation of 1½c per litre. I have to say that obtaining information from oil companies is more difficult than extracting teeth. However, industry sources have advised me that the average wholesale price per litre of fuel in early 1999 was 14c a litre. That has risen to a high of 40c a litre in 2001 because of OPEC policy and the value of the Australian dollar. Even if petrol were purchased at this high wholesale figure—and this is not consistent—and with the excise currently at 39.6c a litre, there certainly is a very big gap, and it is the motorist who is paying that gap—a gap which cannot be explained by transport costs, distribution costs or the GST. It is just impossible to believe that the oil companies are working on wafer-thin profit margins, and it certainly is not the service station owners who are the ones making the big profits. I have always believed that the fuel excise system lacks equity, because those who live and work outside metropolitan areas pay a disproportionate amount of the excise simply because they need more vehicles per household, they use more fuel and they do not have access to regular public transport. While acknowledging the importance of how the revenue raised by the excise is used, I do believe that there is a need for a full inquiry into the excise. (Time expired)2430817:40:0024308Kerr, Duncan, MPMr KERRRH4DenisonALP00—I have, on a number of occasions, raised my concerns about the growing trend towards the privatisation of policing, law enforcement and detention facilities in Australia. In that context, I want to raise my concerns about the decision of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to extend the contract for the management of Australia's detention centres of the company Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd, or ACM, by an additional 12 months, notwithstanding the series of very serious allegations that have been directed against its existing management. I have a number of questions that I think need to be answered in this parliament. Firstly, the minister has said:... [although ACM] is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, it is an Australian company operating in the Australian environment and according to Australian laws ... [and] according to Australian management principles and practice.But three out of four of ACM's directors are Americans, based in Florida along with Wackenhut Corrections. That is the parent organisation, and, when ACM was sued for negligence over unsafe work practices in the Arthur Gorrie correctional facility in 1994, it was not the Australian director but one of the Florida directors who was sent to Australia to defend its management practices. The first ACM general manager of Arthur Gorrie was a former US marine colonel, who had to be replaced following a prison riot in 1993. The man behind the Wackenhut organisation and essentially the management controller of ACM is a man called George Wackenhut, a former FBI agent who has been described as `a rightist of the old blood who selected as his directors an assortment of ultras prominent in the John Birch Society and other right-wing groups'. George Wackenhut has been reported as saying:Australian operations are very important to us ...And:They're really starting to punish people the way they should have done all along.The minister really has to answer how he can assert that ACM is an Australian company operating according to Australian management practices and principles.Worse than the matters that I have raised is the issue of its management and its control as an overseas corporation. That overseas corporation has a poor record. The American company that fully owns ACM has had to surrender the contract to run a prison in Texas following investigations into allegations of criminal activity and sex between guards and inmates within the prison. It has had to settle out of court with the family of a 14-year-old girl who was raped almost every night by a security guard in a Wackenhut run juvenile justice centre. That girl subsequently committed suicide. At a work release facility run by Wackenhut in Fort Lauderdale, it has had to fire or punish five guards for having sex with inmates last year. Most importantly in the Australian context, Wackenhut Corrections, which is the sole owner of the contractor in control of the Woomera Detention Centre, was sued by the US Department of Justice on the grounds that Wackenhut security officers in a juvenile prison in Louisiana repeatedly sexually and physically abused minors in that facility and that Wackenhut Corrections subjected juveniles to corporal punishment, excessive force, gas grenades, chemical restraints and inadequate medical and mental health services, with the result that Louisiana has now been prohibited from placing any more juveniles in the prison run by Wackenhut Corrections. It is in that context that I am extremely concerned by the proposal put forward by the minister to give security staff in the ACM facilities the power to chemically restrain asylum seekers. This is not a matter which I treat lightly. It would be a disturbing power even if it were given to those with direct accountability to a parliament through a minister, but when it is being conferred on a private organisation under the direct ownership of a company with that kind of record I regard it as a very serious and disturbing matter indeed. I think that all Australians were concerned when we heard reports from Russia where a woman was allegedly forcibly sedated after showing her distress at the death of her former husband in a submarine that sank. Whilst no-one in this House would wish to condone illegal or difficult behaviour by people in detention in any facility, it is inappropriate that those models of detention are utilised in Australia. (Time expired)2430917:45:0024309Jull, David, MPMr JULLMH4FaddenLP10—The Courier-Mail today reports that a wind-up application has been applied for in the Brisbane Supreme Court against a building firm by an electrician who has not been paid for work completed on a home being constructed at Sovereign Island in my electorate—not an unusual occurrence perhaps—and the sum is $55,000, although four other subcontractors and suppliers are allegedly owed another $112,579. It would appear the action was taken as a last resort, after the electrician failed to receive a written guarantee of payment from company directors.The wind-up application, according to the Courier-Mail, comesas the Building Services Authority is seeking to impose a condition on the firm's licence banning the firm from carrying out building work until it can prove it is solvent. However, this is not a company with a bit of a cash flow problem. A search of court records shows that the company and its related entities have been defendants in more than 60 cases filed in the Brisbane supreme, magistrates and district courts since 1994.The court search report of the Supreme Court of Brisbane shows four damages for breach of contract writs and a company winding-up petition as well as four writs for money owing, as well as one writ for declaratory relief. Another four money-owing cases are found in the District Court, and the rest are listed in the Magistrates Court. Obviously, this is a very sleazy company.However, the Dun and Bradstreet search done as recently as 29 January of this year shows that sums of $567 to $9,416 were placed with Dun and Bradstreet for collection there. Dun and Bradstreet have registered another seven cases, involving sums of $235,640, $53,663, $13,234, $46,804, $80,897, $802 and $101,782—a very sleazy operation indeed. (Quorum formed) The principal of this company, the Jezer Construction Group—RH4Kerr, Duncan, MPMr Kerr—I move that the member be not further heard.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! The member for Fadden's time has expired. Therefore, such a motion is no longer relevant.2431017:50:0024310Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON8K6HunterALP00—Earlier in the adjournment debate the member for McEwen stated a total mistruth that many members of this government have been peddling for months—that is, that Labor would abolish the fuel grants scheme— CK6Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr Hardgrave—Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. The member for Fadden was attempting to name Mr Michael Choi as being the principal of the company involved.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—What is your point of order?CK6Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr Hardgrave—The points of order taken by the Labor Party were simply an attempt to shut down his attempt to name Michael Choi.10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—No, what is your point of order? Resume your seat.JT4Bailey, Fran, MPFran Bailey—It is with great regret that I rise—10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Order! You have not got the call yet.JT4Bailey, Fran, MPFran Bailey—Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order, and not with ease, because I would not normally do this in the adjournment debate.10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Please get to the point of order.JT4Bailey, Fran, MPFran Bailey—The member for Hunter accused me of not telling the truth in the adjournment debate, and I take exception to that.10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—I thank the member for McEwen. I did not hear precisely what the member for Hunter said, but if he did accuse the member for McEwen of not telling the truth I ask him to withdraw.8K6Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON—I did not say that. The point is that—10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Are you going to withdraw or not?8K6Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON—I will withdraw. This claim that Labor will abolish the fuel grants scheme is totally untrue and is based on a total misrepresentation of something I said in this House in my attempts to highlight the fact that this government has failed in its promise that the GST will not cause fuel prices to rise and has failed to ensure that the fuel grant is passed on to motorists.RW5Nelson, Dr Brendan, MPDr Nelson—Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Hunter is in fact on the record himself describing his own party as wanting to remove this scheme.10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—There is no point of order.8K6Fitzgibbon, Joel, MPMr FITZGIBBON—That is untrue. Labor is committed to two things: retaining the scheme but, more importantly, ensuring that it is passed on to motorists to assist them in the burden that they have incurred as a result of the GST impact on petrol.2431017:53:0024310Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr HARDGRAVECK6MoretonLP10—Tonight I wish, lamentably, to report— 10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! The honourable member for Moreton will resume his seat. I call the honourable member for Denison on a point of order.Government members interjecting—10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—The member for Denison will either make his point of order or sit down. Resume your seat!CK6Hardgrave, Gary, MPMr HARDGRAVE—Tonight I wish, lamentably, to report the demise of Mount Gravatt Sporting and Workers Club in my electorate, chaired by—Motion (by Mr Kerr) agreed to.That the member be not further heard.2431017:54:0024310Ellis, Annette, MPMs ELLIS5K6CanberraALP00—Tonight I want to talk about the Commonwealth Bank and its actions within my electorate. On 1 December I had a letter delivered to me by the Commonwealth Bank regional management who look after the area of my constituency to notify me that the Wanniassa branch was going to close on 12 January. The letter from the Commonwealth Bank referred to the fact that they were planning to close the Wanniassa branch of their bank in my electorate as from 12 January 2001. The decision to close the bank was outlined to me in the letter from the management of the bank, and I would like to refer to that if I may. They said to me: On Friday, 12 January 2001, the Commonwealth Bank's Wanniassa branch will cease operations. The decision to close this branch was taken only after a thorough investigation of many factors, including both current and future business trends, customer usage and the alternative services.What they did not mention in that particular letter were the needs of their customers—a bank that made $2.7 billion profit in the financial year just ended, just under twice the profit of $1.422 billion of the previous year. Do they have a responsibility to their shareholders? They certainly do. But do they have a responsibility to their customers? I believe that they absolutely do. I wrote back to the bank immediately outlining why I believed the closure should not go ahead. I got a letter back from the bank, and I would like to share some of the contents of that letter with the House:The decision to close this branch was taken only after a thorough investigation of all factors affecting the Commonwealth Banks business. ... I realise that our decision will inconvenience some clients, despite the availability of alternatives outlined in my letter of 1st of December 2000.The writer of the letter went on to say:People who still use passbooks for over the counter withdrawals may be impacted by the branch closure. Card access to accounts is a viable and greatly enhanced economic alternative to our customers. The pricing of our product range is geared to offer substantial savings to our customers who use card based electronic mechanisms and there is genuine financial gain and convenience for our customers.What they do not mention is the inconvenience to customers who, in fact, cannot use those forms of banking. They go on to say:... all banking business can be conducted by telephone, Internet, or through a branch Network ...and so on. But what about those customers who cannot use those facilities: the young boy who came to a rally outside the bank—in fact, it was the last day of sitting of this House and I went down and met them that morning; he was enjoying the experience of learning the business of banking from the local manager—or the woman who came up to see me that morning who is visually impaired and finds it very physically convenient to be able to go to a local branch? The social obligations on banks must be recognised. If banks will not do it, in government we will make them do it. We do not want to re-regulate banks, but we certainly want to make sure that banks understand fully the responsibility they have to their client base. As a Mrs L. from Wanniassa said to me in a letter dated 8 December 2000:One of my major concerns with the branch closure is the effect the news has had on my elderly parents-in-law. They cannot walk well now, can no longer drive and have relied on our local branch to do their banking.A woman sent me a note on 7 December 2000:I feel the closure of the CBA Wanniassa branch is another nail in the coffin for small community shopping centres. Small businesses, school canteens and other industries which still conduct cash businesses need personal service not a “hole in the wall”—or a phone on the desk. It is about time the banks—and I could pick on all of them, not just the Commonwealth, but it is the Commonwealth in this instance that I am referring to—were forced to realise the social obligations they have to the people of the Australian community who have made banks what they are; that is, their normal customers. There is a very big move in my community to try and establish a community bank as a result of this decision and I wish that community committee well. (Time expired)2431117:59:0024311Gambaro, Teresa, MPMs GAMBARO9K6PetrieLP10—I cannot believe the Labor Party wants us to stop—10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—The honourable member for Petrie will resume her seat.Motion (by Mr Kerr) proposed:That the member be not further heard.XT4Ronaldson, Michael, MPMr Ronaldson—Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: this is the most disgraceful attack from the Labor Party on democracy in the 11 years I have been in this parliament. You don't like it. You go at it night and day— 10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Order! Resume your seat. 7T4Crosio, Janice, MP10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—The member for Prospect!Honourable members interjecting—10000DEPUTY SPEAKER, MrMr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Order! It being 6 p.m., the debate is interrupted.18:00:0024312House adjourned at 6.00 p.m. until Monday, 26 February 2001 at 12.30 p.m. in accordance with the resolution agreed to this day.2001-02-08—————Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl) took the chair at 9.51a.m.Statements by Members243132431309:51:0024313Swan, Wayne, MPMr SWAN2V5LilleyALP00—Today I urge locals in Brisbane's northern suburbs to get behind Golden Circle's anti-dumping action against imported and artificially low priced pineapple products from Indonesia and Thailand. Queensland's pineapple growing and processing industry is under threat and it must be saved. This government must act. Golden Circle is now a world leader in pineapple processing, yet finds itself under threat from the importation of foreign product, in contravention of Australian law.As a local community, we need successful enterprises like the Golden Circle Cannery, which is internationally competitive, to export more and to replace imports. Dumping occurs when a company sells a product or an export material at a price that is either lower than that charged in its home market or at a price that is less than the producer's full cost. In the longer term, Australians will pay more if Australian producers like Golden Circle are forced out of the market. Golden Circle directly employs over 1,600 people and is responsible for the employment of many thousands more in local small businesses. The artificially low prices of imported solid pack pineapple and pineapple concentrate are undermining fair trade and threatening the future of the pineapple industry in Queensland.Golden Circle has lodged a submission with the Australian Customs Service, which will bring down an interim finding by 24 April. I urge the Minister for Justice and Customs to take seriously Golden Circle's case and to put an end to the importation of this dumped product. By signing my petition supporting Golden Circle, local residents can take a positive step in assisting the company by demonstrating the strength of our local support as well as sending a clear message to the minister. Four years ago, Golden Circle was under threat from the Howard government's changes to tax legislation and 4,000 locals signed petitions supporting the company. Let us see whether we can demonstrate that depth of support again. Golden Circle is essential to the social and economic fabric of the northern suburbs and to the livelihood of thousands of local families. Much of that success is now under threat, so let us get behind them. In particular, I call on the members for Longman, Fisher and Fairfax to support Golden Circle and its farmers.As the Golden Circle anti-dumping submission says, as a result of their reduced gross profits over the last four years, there has been a reduction in the number of active pineapple growers from 310 to 268—a 14 per cent reduction, and a further reduction of 15 per cent is projected by 2002. Furthermore, the submission says that, after applying the multiplier, the number of Australian jobs destroyed through Thai and Indonesian dumping of pineapple products between 1998 and 1999 was 724, based on Golden Circle's job losses. Further losses have occurred, and will continue to occur, if this government does not act. (Time expired) 2431309:54:0024313Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER0V5FisherLPParliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration10—At the outset, I want to place on record my very high regard for the Golden Circle Company and for the growers of pineapples, both in the electorate of Fisher and elsewhere in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. For well over six months we have heard a constant flow of allegations about vote rortings within the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party. 2V5Swan, Wayne, MPMr Swan—Why don't you talk about jobs?0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER—During this time, we have seen the resignation of three Labor MPs, including headkicker, Jim Elder, who was the Deputy Premier.2V5Swan, Wayne, MPMr Swan—Why don't you talk about jobs?2210000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—The member for Lilley, order! 0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER—No less significant has been the untimely fall of the wunderkind, or as someone once unkindly referred to him, the `blunder kid', ALP state secretary and state member for Woodridge, Mike Kaiser.2V5Swan, Wayne, MPMr Swan—Why don't you say something positive?10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER—The member for Lilley.0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER—Mike Kaiser was elected to Woodridge following the resignation of another ALP member, Bill Darcy, who is now serving a prison sentence for child sex offences.2V5Swan, Wayne, MPMr Swan—Why don't you get out of the gutter? Why don't you talk about jobs at Golden Circle?10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER—The member for Lilley, for the last time, order! 0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER—The downfall of Mike Kaiser was precipitated by his signature on a fraudulent electoral enrolment form which was used to allow him to vote in a 1986 ALP plebiscite. 2V5Swan, Wayne, MPMr Swan—Why don't you talk about jobs?0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER—Since the activities of Mike Kaiser became known, we have heard a range of allegations indicting his successor as state secretary to the ALP, Cameron Milner, on a similar range of offences. 2V5Swan, Wayne, MPMr Swan—Why don't you get out of the gutter?0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER—Cameron Milner is the spouse of Victoria Newton, the Brisbane city councillor for the ward of Deagon, who is also associated with the powerful ALP faction of the Queensland ALP.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER—Order! The honourable member will resume his seat.0V5Slipper, Peter, MPMr SLIPPER—Mr Milner is the brains behind Premier Beattie's election campaign.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER—In view of the gross disorder of the member for Lilley, this sitting is suspended, and he will be reported to the House for further action.Sitting suspended from 9.56 a.m. to 11.50 a.m.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! There being no quorum, the chair will be resumed at 11.55 a.m.Sitting suspended from 11.50 a.m. to 11.55 a.m.10000Nehl, Garry (Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER)Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—Order! There being still no quorum, the sitting is adjourned until a day and hour to be announced by the Deputy Speaker.Main Committee adjourned at 11.55 a.m.Answers to Questions in Writing24315The following answers to questions were circulated:24315(Question No. 1640)164024315Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr Kelvin ThomsonUK6WillsALP00 asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 19 June 2000.(1) At how many of 1,000 seminars conducted around Australia as part of the Australian Tax Offices GST communication and education campaign was there a capacity to translate questions or answers into languages other than English.(2) How many staff are available to translate or answer questions in languages other than English during the 159 000 calls to call centres made each month in 2000.(3) How many of the 9 million booklets sent to every household and business in Australia have contained information in languages other than English.(4) How many of 27 different print advertisements that appeared 81 times across 9 rural newspapers, 542 times across 31 metropolitan papers, 4866 times in 394 regional papers, and 1266 times in suburban metropolitan papers, have been in languages other than English.(5) How many television advertisements which have run on 15 metropolitan and 22 regional stations and radio advertisements for 29 metropolitan and 193 regional radio stations, have been in languages other than English.(6) How many of the 34 million hits on the ATO website could have accessed information in languages other than English.(7) How many of the 2.4 million new tax system registration kits posted out to businesses contained information in languages other than English.24315Costello, Peter, MPMr CostelloCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The Assistant Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) In recognition of the significant proportion of non-English speaking background (NESB) and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) businesses and individual taxpayers with limited English language skills, a NESB/CALD communication strategy has been developed to assist businesses and individual taxpayers understand and comply with The New Tax System. Both qualitative and quantitative research has been undertaken with NESB communities to understand their needs and assist with the development, implementation and on-going refinement of the communication program.In April 2000, the ATO and the GST Start-Up Assistance Office launched their NESB/CALD strategies to Chambers of Commerce, Business Enterprise Centres, Ethnic Community Councils and Ethnic Press in each State.Core activities complement those conducted for the mainstream community. For example, `in language' seminars have been conducted at community request in Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Arabic, Korean, Thai and Japanese. `In language' seminars have also been conducted for non-profit groups and one-to-one advisory visits to NESB businesses have been conducted by members from the ATO's GST field teams who speak languages other than English.(2) Call Centres are able to assist callers who do not speak English through the Telephone Interpreter Service. Generally callers who do not speak English call the Telephone Interpreter Service first, then they contact the Call Centre number and have a conference call. (3) In recognition of the need for `in language' materials, the ATO has produced a number of translated publications. These include: Essentials 1 and Essentials 2, ABN fact sheet, PAYG fact sheet, Simplified Accounting Methods for Food Retailers, Be ready for business from 1 July and GST basics for retailers fact sheet. Products have been translated in up to 26 languages.(4) The ATO has run advertisements in the ethnic press covering up to 25 languages. To take account of the frequency of distribution of publications and other government activity, not all mainstream advertisements were translated for the ethnic press. However, to ensure that messages were received by this audience, messages were carried as public relations in the ethnic media; for example, through the provision of information kits and translated media releases. (5) Although no television advertisements have been translated, mainstream advertisements have been placed on SBS television, an important information source for the ATO's bilingual clients. Also, where possible, mainstream television advertisements include images of culturally and linguistically diverse business operators - making the television advertisements relevant to this client group.Advertisements placed on ethnic radio have covered up to 33 languages. Delivery of messages on radio is through advertising and public relations activities. For example, during 2000 the ATO has run monthly shows in eight languages on SBS Radio. The shows included an element of talkback where listeners' questions were answered.(6) Access to translated materials has been available since March 2000. The Tax Reform website (www.taxreform.ato.gov.au) has a number of key documents which have been translated into many languages. The website is linked to the Department of Family and Community Services which also has information in many languages.(7) All of the registration packages for the New Tax system issued to businesses and other entities were in the English language. There was, however, reference at the end of each Guide to Registering for the New Tax System issued, to the availability of the Translating and Interpreting Service on telephone number 13 14 50. As noted in (6) above, an introductory fact sheet about ABN has been translated into a range of languages other than English. Translations of the fact sheet are available on the website, as well as in the printed form. Each translated fact sheet makes reference to the availability of the Translating and Interpreting Service for further assistance. 24316(Question No. 1881)188124316Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr Kelvin ThomsonUK6WillsALP00 asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 29 August 2000.(1) Has his attention been drawn to any businesses that have not paid employees the tax cut that they were meant to receive after 1 July 2000.(2) If so, (a) how many businesses are you aware of in this situation and what do you believe the total loss to employees may be, (b) what opportunities do employees have to pursue unpaid tax cuts, (c) what action is the Government taking to pursue unpaid tax cuts on behalf of workers.24316Costello, Peter, MPMr CostelloCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10The Assistant Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:(1) and (2) The ATO is aware of a very small number of instances where it is alleged there has been failure to pass on the 1 July 2000 tax cuts. There are no details of the impact on employees, but it is expected to be minimal considering the small number of cases reported to the ATO.Employees can approach their employer to pursue unpaid tax cuts. If this is unsuccessful, the employee can call the ATO for assistance. Upon receipt of a complaint, the ATO makes contact with any non-complying employers as appropriate.Given the ATO is currently dealing effectively with the cases reported to it, no Government action is required.24316(Question No. 1882)188224316Thomson, Kelvin, MPMr Kelvin ThomsonUK6WillsALP00 asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 29 August 2000:(1) Of the 137 registered software products on the registered software facility, (a) are all of these products `GST ready' (b) what testing procedures or standards must they meet and (c) who assessed the products.(2) If approved products are used in incorrect business activity statements due to software error, will the users, the ATO, or the producers be liable for any fines or penalties associated with lodging incorrect returns.24317Costello, Peter, MPMr CostelloCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The Assistant Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: (1)(a) The Registered Software Facility (RSF) is a self-compliance model allowing software developers to check their products against ATO scenarios. Once a software developer is satisfied that a product meets ATO requirements, he or she may submit an electronic Declaration of Compliance to the ATO and register or list the product.As at 14 December 2000, there were 175 products listed on the RSF, however not all of these products were listed as having met all the requirements for GST. The RSF has four GST sub-categories developers may list products against provided they have produced correct results when tested.As at 14 December 2000, the number of products listed for each sub-category were as follows: GST Free:115Input Taxed:109Mixed:134Taxable Only:116(1)(b) and (c) It is the responsibility of software developers to run the scenario or test data to check their products.The ATO maintains a quality assurance program that considers intelligence received regarding the performance or non-performance of registered software products. Where a product is found to contain errors, the software developer is contacted and the product is usually voluntarily de-listed until the problem is rectified.In general, the application of fines or penalties would depend on the individual circumstances of each case. However the Commissioner of Taxation has stated that if a taxpayer has made a genuine error in relation to the new tax system, for example due to a possible defect in software used, discretion would be exercised and no fines or penalties would be imposed.Where the facts indicate that a developer knowingly made a false or misleading statement in regard to a product, consideration would need to be given to possible legal action under prosecution guidelines.24317(Question No. 1985 - Replacement)198524317Tanner, Lindsay, MPMr TannerYU5MelbourneALP00 asked the Minister for Finance and Administration, upon notice, on 3 October 2000. (1) What were the key findings of the valuation of Telstra in the Commonwealth's balance sheet referred to in Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee Budget hearings (Senate Committee Hansard, 23 May 2000, pages 157-8). (2) Were forward estimates of the sale cost, net income and underlying budget impact of the sale of the Commonwealth's remaining two thirds share of Telstra provided at page 2-39 of Budget Paper No.1 in 1998-99; if so, why cannot this same information be provided with respect to the sale of the Commonwealth's remaining interest in Telstra on the basis that it is commercially confidential.24317Fahey, John, MPMr FaheyHQ5MacarthurLPMinister for Finance and Administration10—The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (1)The Government has decided not to change the valuation of its investment in Telstra under AAS31:· Firstly, valuing Telstra at historical cost - as the Government has always done - complies with the Australian Accounting Standards. This has been confirmed by the Auditor General. · Secondly, valuation at historical cost in the GGS Financial Statements is consistent with the treatment in the Whole of Government statements. - This is because the Australian Accounting Standards do not permit Telstra to be valued to market value within the Whole of Government Consolidated Financial Statements (CFS). · Thirdly, reporting investments at historical cost is the common commercial practice of large private sector organisations, which must also report under Australian Accounting Standards. (2) Yes. It was deemed appropriate to include this information in the Budget papers for 1998-99 on a one-off basis. The Government decided that it would not be appropriate to provide this information in the papers for 1999-00 or 2000-01, as was the case for the Budget papers for the period up to 1997-98.24318(Question No. 2114)211424318Latham, Mark, MPMr LathamK26WerriwaALP00 asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 2 November 2000:For the most recent financial year for which statistics are available, (a) what proportion of Australian taxpayers made capital gains, (b) what proportion of wage and salary earners made net capital gains and (c) what proportion of capital gains was accounted for by (i) property development; (ii) mining; (iii) agriculture; and (iv) trusts and partnerships.24318Costello, Peter, MPMr CostelloCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The Assistant Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:The Australian Taxation Office publications Taxation Statistics 1997-98 and its supplement Taxation Statistics 1997-98 Detailed Tables contain the most recent statistics available on capital gains.24318(Question No. 2150)215024318Andren, Peter, MPMr AndrenKL6CalareIND00 asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 9 November 2000:Has his attention been drawn to concerns expressed by financial planners that the New Business Tax System (Alienation of Personal Services Income) Act 2000 unintentionally applies to their activities when they operate similar business structures to other professions such as accountants and lawyers; if so (a) does the Government view the concerns as justified and (b) what steps will be taken to address the concerns?24318Costello, Peter, MPMr CostelloCT4HigginsLPTreasurer10—The Assistant Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:The Government is aware of the financial planners' concerns. The Assistant Treasurer, Government advisers and Treasury and Tax Office (ATO) officials have met with representatives of financial planners to discuss the legislation.The personal services income legislation applies where a person obtains 80% or more of their personal services income from one entity unless the person obtains a personal services business determination from the Commissioner of Taxation. The grounds for a determination include engaging someone to perform 20% or more of the principal work and maintaining business premises that are separate from private premises of the worker (and their associates) and premises of the service acquirer (and associates). The ATO is continuing to work with the financial planners to make their transition to the new tax system as smooth as possible.