Wednesday, 30 November 1983 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: A petition signed by 71 citizens of Australia, electors of Western Australia pray that: During the forthcoming amendments to the Social Security Pensions Assets/Income tests, consideration be given to young disabled persons on Invalid Pensions who are handicapped to the extent that they cannot enjoy a normal life style. Financial support can be forthcoming during the lifetime of the caring parents but there is constant worry that the continued assistance they afford may be threatened by the very normal process of a parental bequest. This ordinary family procedure could in some cases deprive the very basic pension entitlement to those who are unable to help themselves. Your petitioners therefore pray: That consideration be given to the following: (1) Separate asset/income test for invalid/handicapped pensioners and (2) Financial limits be set higher. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Robertson (from 71 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully shows: We the undersigned citizens of Australia believe that there is no justification for increasing the size of the Parliament, and therefore humbly petition the Senate to reject the proposed Representation Act 1983 which provides for 36 more federal politicians. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Martin (from 294 citizens). To the honourable President and members of the Senate assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That the Rates Ordinance for the Australian Capital Territory needs to be amended so that the burden of rates for the Australian Capital Territory is spread more equitably amongst all the rate payers of the Australian Capital Territory. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate: An inquiry be initiated to inquire into the ACT rating system. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Ryan (from eight citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens, teachers and parents working in and for the interests of the pupils in government schools and colleges throughout Australia respectfully showeth that: 1. We fully support the Federal Government's actions in reducing funds for the wealthiest private schools, and in breaking the nexus between government and non -government school costs. 2. We endorse the Federal Government's principled opposition to the provision of 'base grants' to all non-government schools, as a positive step towards fulfilling their commitment of primary obligation to Australia's government schools. 3. We call upon the Federal Government, however, to recognise that its failure to create an adequate general recurrent resource base for government schools through providing increased recurrent grants, will undermine its own special programs and thus frustrate its own stated educational objectives of greater equity and participation. 4. We support the Federal Government's stated policy of entering into direct negotiations for joint agreements on these grants with State/Territory Governments, to ensure a planned programme of improvements in government schools throughout the coming decade. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Coates (from 42 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens, teachers and parents working in and for the interests of the pupils in government schools and colleges throughout Australia respectfully showeth that: 1. We deplore the unprincipled and self-interested attacks being orchestrated by minority sects and groups against the policies and person of the Commonwealth Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, the Hon. Senator Susan Ryan. 2. We fully support the Federal Government's actions in reducing funds for the wealthiest private schools, and in breaking the nexus between government and non non-government school costs. 3. We endorse the Federal Government's principal opposition to the provision of 'base grants' to all non-government schools, as a positive step towards fulfilling their commitment of primary obligation to Australia's government schools. 4. We call upon the Federal Government, however, to recognise that its failure to create an adequate general recurrent resource base for government schools through providing increased recurrent grants, will undermine its own special programs and thus frustrate its own stated educational objectives of greater equity and participation. 5. We support the Federal Government's stated policy of entering into direct negotiations for joint agreements on these grants with State/Territory Governments, to ensure a planned program of improvements in government schools throughout the coming decade. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Robertson (from 34 citizens) and Zakharov (from 507 citizens). The Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition from parents representing the government schools in New South Wales respectfully showeth that: 1. They call on the Federal Government to re-affirm publicly that its primary obligation is to government schools. 2. They support the Federal Government's policy decision which have reduced funding to wealthy private schools and which have broken the nexus between government and non-government school costs. 3. They endorse the Federal Government's opposition to the provision of a 'base grant' to all non-government schools. 4. They ask that the Federal Government create a general recurrent resource base which is adequate for government schools through the provision of increased recurrent funding. 5. They call upon the Federal Government to negotiate agreements with State/ Territory Governments which will ensure a planned program of improvements in government schools throughout the coming decade. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Ryan (from 76 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That every child in Australia is entitled to government financial support for their education whether they attend government schools or non-government schools . Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that urgent consideration be given to a favourable decision for the continuation of Federal Government per capita grants payable in respect of all children in non-government schools at a rate calculated as a percentage of Government standard costs at a level not less than that prevailing in 1983. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Peter Baume (from 681 citizens), Scott (from 11 citizens) and Sibraa (from 24 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth: That the Sex Discrimination Bill 1983 contains provisions inconsistent with principles of justice and equality which could be used to undermine civil liberties and religious freedom. It could also be a means of undermining the traditional family structure of our nation. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled, should- Delay the Bill and ask: That the Government set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to examine: (a) The implications of the United Nations Covenant for public policy, the extent of Australian commitments, responsibility and accountability in terms of the Covenant, (b) The full effects of the Sex Discrimination Bill 1983 for public policy in giving effect to the United Nations Covenant. The terms of reference of the Joint Parliamentary Committee to be widely publicised and oral and written submission sought from interested organisations and individuals. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Archer (from 14 citizens), Walters (from 147 citizens) and Watson ( from 42 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth: That the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Bill 1983 could be used to support the provision by the Commonwealth Government of funding, counselling, etc., for deliberately procured abortions. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled: should amend the Sex Discrimination Bill so as to prevent it from being used in support of deliberately procured abortions. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Peter Baume (from 30 citizens), Bjelke-Petersen (from 370 citizens), Boswell (from 335 citizens) and Robertson (from four citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth: That the Sex Discrimination Bill 1983 contains provisions inconsistent with principles of justice and equality which could be used to: Undermine civil liberties and religious freedoms; Entrench abortion funding and render liable to action hospitals, doctors and nurses, who conscientiously refuse to become involved in morally objectionable operations; Deny to parents their rights to insist that the school 'community' provide an environment condusive to the development, including moral development of their children. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled; should amend the Bill so as to prevent the possibility of its use in the manner stated above and urge, because of the importance to society of all principles involved, that a conscience vote on the Bill be permitted to all members of Parliament. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Peter Baume (from 12 citizens), Bjelke-Petersen (from five citizens) and Robertson (from 181 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth: That there is grave cause for concern in the Australian community at the continuing sensationalist media and political campaign directed against the humanitarian and socially just effects of the welfare state (most recently exemplified by the frontpage article 'One in 4 get Welfare Hand' in the Melbourne Herald of Monday, 3rd October 1983). That, whilst enlarging public awareness of the critical social problems facing our community, such articles tend to paint the victims of our social system as worthless parasites living off the work force. 1. We believe that the 635,000 persons receiving unemployment benefits at the end of June 1983 deserve full support from the Commonwealth, and that the 85,104 persons receiving sickness and special benefits deserve society's sympathy rather than castigation. 2. We also believe that the 2,011,542 persons receiving age, invalid, wife and widow pensions, supporting parent benefits and sheltered employment allowances at the end of June 1983 deserve help from the Commonwealth. 3. We affirm that it is the time-honoured and moral right of Australians to receive assistance in times of distress and hardship, and we remind the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia of its profound responsibility to safeguard and enhance the dignity and well-being of its citizens. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Robert Ray (from 126 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of certain elected representatives and officers of local governments in Australia shows that: General revenue grants to local government under personal income tax sharing entitlements have increased by 8.2 per cent in 1983-84 over 1982-83, The inflation rate over the same period was 11.2 per cent, The increase in grants to State governments over the same period was 11.8 per cent, Increased demands are being made on local government authorities to participate in Federal Government programs e.g. Community Employment Program, The Labor Party made a pre-election commitment to allocate not less than the real value of the previous year's allocation in general revenue grants to local government. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Government will amend the Local Government (Personal Income Tax Sharing) Act of 1976, to provide a real term minimum guarantee to local government general revenue sharing arrangements in 1983-84, and in future years. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Archer (from 14 citizens) and Lewis (from 11 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That in November 1978 more than sixty-two per cent of the voters of the Australian Capital Territory in a referendum rejected the introduction of territorial government or local government in the Australian Capital Territory. That until the findings of the Commonwealth Grants Commission Inquiry into Australian Capital Territory finances have been made public and there has been a Referendum of the voters of the Australian Capital Territory as to their attitude to territorial or local government. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Government take no further action or legislation in respect of territorial or local government in the Australian Capital Territory. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Lewis (from 96 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament House. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth our complete opposition to any stage of the nuclear industry. We wish to inform you of our support for union bans aimed against the uranium industry. We look forward to a society that respects life, opposes violence and recognises our total dependence on our global ecosystem. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Parliament take action to halt mining, milling and export of Australian uranium and put people before profit. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Chipp (from 22 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows: That, with the exception of the Northern Territory, all State Parliaments have enacted chiropractic legislation. That chiropractors provide a safe, effective and economical health care service that is complementary to medicine. That the introduction of a Federally funded health care system restricted to the services provided almost exclusively by the medical profession restricts the freedom to select the health care practitioner of one's choice. That a financial disadvantage will be incurred by those citizens utilising chiropractic care, many of whom find that their health complaints do not respond satisfactorily to traditional approaches. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled ensures that chiropractic services are included in Medicare when it is introduced. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Bjelke-Petersen (from 79 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows. That, with the exception of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, all State Parliaments have enacted chiropractic legislation. The chiropractors provide a safe, effective and economical health care service that is complementary to medicine. That the introduction of a Federally funded health care system restricted to the services provided almost exclusively by the medical profession restricts the freedom to select the health care practitioner of one's choice. That a financial disadvantage will be incurred by those citizens utilising chiropractic care, many of whom find that their health complaints do not respond satisfactorily to traditional approaches. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled ensures that chiropractic services are included in Medicare when it is introduced. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Jack Evans (from 21 citizens), Foreman (from 20 citizens), Maguire ( from 20 citizens) and Robertson (from 42 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. This petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that the reduction in the subsidy to tertiary student residential colleges of twenty-five per cent announced in the Federal Budget will: 1. Increase the financial hardship already being experienced by Australian students. The cut in subsidies to colleges will undoubtedly increase fees for that accommodation in 1984. Many students will be forced out of tertiary education as they will not be able to meet these increased costs particularly as the Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme only gained a maximum increase of $2.80 per week in the Federal Budget. 2. Decrease access to education for country students. Many country students live in college accommodation either to attend tertiary institutions in the metropolitan area or in regional centres. The cut in the subsidy to residential colleges will even further disadvantage this group of students who already have comparatively low participation rates in tertiary education. Your petitioners therefore call upon the Senate to ensure. (1) That the full subsidy to student college accommodation is immediately restored. (2) That the Federal Government assume financial responsibility for all student college accommodation to prevent the planned closures of colleges in Victoria. (3) That two student representatives are appointed to the committee of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission reviewing student housing. (4) That new forms of college accommodation are investigated which would be more appropriate to the needs of the current student population, i.e. accommodation appropriate for students with dependant children. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Ryan (from 28 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth: 1. That Australia's meat exports are being placed in an uncompetitive position by the imposition of substantial Export Meat Inspection Charges whilst Australia 's competitors receive free inspection plus considerable subsidies. 2. These charges are causing substantial loss of business for export abattoir operators and loss of jobs for their employees due to the disparity in inspection costs of export and non-export works arising from a 200 per cent increase in Federal Government charges at export works. 3. That immediate steps should be taken to end serious injury being done by these charges to export abattoir operators, their employees, livestock producers and all others dependant on the Australian Meat and Livestock industry. Your petitioners therfore humbly pray that the Federal Government will act to immediately suspend all Export Inspection Charges for a period of three years And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Coates (from 279 citizens) and Scott (from 668 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: 1. That we are deeply concerned for the well being of Mr Arnold Tatarenko, a member of the unofficial Pentecostalist congregation of the Dnepropetrovsk region of the Ukrainian SSR. 2. That Mr Tatarenko has been imprisoned for the non-violent exercise of his religious beliefs. 3. That the Australian Government lend its support to initiatives by Amnesty International, which has adopted Mr Tatarenko as a prisoner of conscience. 4. That we urge the Australian Government to make representations to the Government of the Soviet Union to promptly release Mr Tatarenko, all representations made by individual citizens through the embassy of the USSR in Canberra having failed. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Ryan (from 41 citizens). Petitions received. Notice of Motion Senator GIETZELT(New South Wales-Minister for Veterans' Affairs) —On behalf of the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, he will move: That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act to reform and modernise the law relating to certain contracts of insurance so that a fair balance is struck between the interests of insurers, insureds and other members of the public and so that the provisions included in such contracts, and the practices of insurers in relation to such contracts, operate fairly, and for related purposes. Motion (by Senator Gietzelt)-by leave-agreed to: That Senators Chipp and Crowley, having been duly nominated in accordance with the resolution of the Senate dated 17 November 1983, be appointed members of the Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs. Debate resumed from 16 November 1983, on motion by Senator Grimes: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(10.07) —The Senate is debating the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill. This Bill will have a very significant Committee stage as numerous amendments are to be moved. The Opposition is concerned with electoral matters, electoral justice and representation. We are aware of the ways in which an inadequate electoral system can operate to the disadvantage of any party in politics, or any group of citizens. I am reminded that in New South Wales in 1965 we won government but we had to get 54 per cent of the popular vote at that stage to do so because of the distribution of seats and the way population was distributed. We want to see a system which is fair, equitable and free from any kind of corruption or undue influence of any party; we want to see a system which is efficient and which people can understand. The electoral Bill before us now represents a significant review of the Electoral Act. In broad terms, the Opposition supports the objectives of this legislation, the objectives of improving electoral practice, and the Opposition recognises the very valuable work that has been done by the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, on the recommendations of which much of the Bill is based. I put on record again our appreciation of the work of that Committee. It worked in Canberra throughout the winter. It produced a very significant first report. It has attracted much bipartisan agreement as to recommendations. Although we will concentrate in this debate on some areas of difference, that should not be allowed to obscure the fact that there has been agreement between parties in this Parliament on many significant matters, and that many joint recommendations have come forward. The Opposition is anxious to assist in any attempts to arrive at an electoral system that encourages maximum participation by voters, which leads to voters being able to cast valid votes, and which enhances the fairness in the system. To this end, those amendments of the Act which seek to simplify the process are welcomed by the Opposition. This legislation is by no means a departure from many of the long-established features of our electoral system, many of which will be retained. For example, the legislation endorses: single member electorates for the House of Representatives, numbers in each division varying by 10 per cent from the average quota, proportional representation for the Senate, compulsory voting and a preferential system of voting. These features, which we believe to be important, will still remain. In addition, the legislation establishes an Australian Electoral Commission and creates deputy electoral commissioners. The Bill seeks to codify certain Acts of the Parliament. For example, the private member's Bill which went through this place a year or so ago dealing with the divisions of Queensland, for that State to vote as a single State for the purposes of Senate elections, will be codified within this Bill. This is something that is supported by all parties to this debate, certainly by the Opposition. To the extent that the Government is seeking to tidy up legislation, it will attract support. Before identifying some areas where we have concerns and perhaps flagging some of the areas in regard to which we will, in Committee, offer amendments which we think in many cases will improve the legislation and which in several cases will set out a different view, a view held differently on principle, which we hope might attract the support of the Committee at that stage. I should say that we are not satisfied that what is put up by the Government is the best possible set of amendments to achieve the best possible electoral result. It is for that reason we will be moving a number of amendments. Because of some of our concerns , we are putting forward an amendment to the motion that the Bill be now read a second time. We set out our concern that the Bill will not be in the best interests of democratic practice. I now move: At the end of motion, add ', but the Senate, whilst acknowledging that the passage of this Bill will improve the efficiency of the electoral system- (a) deplores those aspects of the legislation which attack individual freedoms, threaten the continuation of the preferential system of voting and introduce public funding; and (b) requests the Government to withdraw those clauses which require the registration of political parties, the introduction of the list system of voting , the public funding of political parties and the disclosure of political donations'. Quite apart from these housekeeping aspects of the legislation there are, as set out in the amendment, some fairly insidious moves by the Government to impose an ideological view on the electoral system; a view which might favour a list system of voting; a view which does favour the public funding of political parties. The Opposition objects to these on principle and wants its objections made known in strong terms. In particular, the proposal to take taxpayers' money and pay it to political parties to help fund their election campaigns is something which not only the Opposition but also the majority of Australians do not support. It might be worth while identifying in broad terms what the Bill does contain. It sets out to establish changes in voting systems; it seeks to reduce informal votes by allowing errors in voting papers not to disqualify votes; it seeks to allow people to vote for reduced numbers of candidates and still cast valid votes in Senate elections; it seeks to use the list system; and it seeks to permit the use of ticks and crosses in the recording of votes. They are all changes to voting systems. The Bill also seeks to change voting procedures. It seeks to close the polls at an earlier hour and it seeks to allow voting by an elector not only in his or her subdivision but also throughout the electoral division. It seeks to permit the display of how to vote cards in the polling booths and it seeks to make it more difficult for people in certain hospitals to apply for and obtain postal votes. In fact, I think certain people would be denied the possibility of getting postal votes. The Bill seeks to introduce provisions for mobile booths and electoral visitors, and it introduces a whole block of changes in relation to postal voting. The Bill seeks to set up automatic registers of postal voters. It seeks to establish postal votes for those who, while not disabled themselves, are caring for people who are disabled . It seeks to make new postal voting arrangements for remote divisions. It seeks to allow formal errors to be corrected by the person receiving a postal vote. We are going to move amendments to many of these provisions. The Bill seeks to allow oral applications for postal votes. It seeks to restrict witnesses to postal vote applications. It seeks to alter voting qualifications and it seeks to make changes in relation to certain Aborigines. It seeks to make changes in relation to certain convicted prisoners. It seeks to make it more simple for people at the age of 17 to enrol for a vote. It seeks to make new arrangements for itinerant voters. The Bill, in another major swag of amendments, seeks to alter redistribution procedures -to alter the timing and the criteria. It seeks to remove from Parliament the capacity to have any review of proposals. The Bill also seeks to set up the possibility of what it calls 'mini-redistributions'. Therefore, redistributions are another major area in this legislation. The Bill also seeks to introduce a number of provisions in relation to public funding and disclosure . We will discuss this aspect of the Bill during the Committee stage. However, this proposal covers such matters as gifts to political parties. It talks about the valuation of gifts and the writing of regulations to do this. It talks about the levels of public funding which will require disclosure. It talks about enforced disclosures and enforcement procedures. This whole area gives the Opposition considerable cause for concern. The Bill seeks to deal with a number of other miscellaneous things. I would like to say a few words about the issue of public funding because that is one of the matters on which the Opposition has concerns in principle. We think there are still undesirable features about public funding. We think the public does not have high regard for politicians or political parties. Of course , as politicians we are sorry about that. But we think public funding will lower public regard even further. Australians might well resile from the prospect of having to fund political parties which themselves are not willing to fund their own election promises. We will have to give them money to go to an election in respect of which they will make promises which they will not keep. The advent of public funding will entrench support for established parties irrespective of their performance. They will be entrenched in terms of their support on the basis of the votes they receive at the preceding election. We think this represents the first move to marry political parties in the electoral system, a system which traditionally has dealt with individuals rather than parties. This is the first attempt to bring parties in as entities and we do not believe this will be either healthy or wanted. We do not believe it will be to the benefit of the electoral system. We think it will lessen the influence of the individual voter. It is a concept that the Liberal Party does not support. Of course, we are a party that believes in the rule of law, and if the will of the Parliament is that certain things should happen, we are not saying that we would not, with reluctance, make use of the provisions. Our colleagues in New South Wales have done so. But let there be no mistake: As a matter of principle we think this proposal is wrong; we do not think it will benefit the electoral system; and we do not think the voters want it. We urge the Senate to use its review capacity to look again at this proposal. We think it is automatic that Labor's move to public funding and the list system, if successful, will require the official registration of political parties. We think if that happens those parties will begin to possess power and authority just by virtue of their having been registered. We think that someone who possesses that registration will be in possession of a powerful asset. We think people should examine very carefully what the long term implications of that might be. The Opposition is also concerned about the aspects of the legislation which require disclosure of donations. Senator Robertson —I bet you are. Senator PETER BAUME —I am interested in Senator Robertson's comment that he bets we are. It illustrates a very interesting difference in approach. We are aware that the Australian Labor Party receives massive support from trade unions. I mention one circumstance involving people I know who are school-teachers. They have told me that donations were forced out of them by the New South Wales Teachers Federation and that the money was then used during the election campaign. These were donations which they did not want to make but which they were forced to give or they would be faced with direct retaliatory action within their union. We are very concerned about some of the ways in which funds are raised from reluctant unionists for funding political parties. We are concerned that the requirement for disclosure, unless sensitively framed and carefully applied, will abrogate a fundamental right of privacy. It could result in many people withdrawing completely from activity in the political process and withdrawing even modest support because they are fearful of retribution if it were to become known publicly that they were involved in helping the political process and in trying to see that one of the parties remained viable. Let me be quite clear about this: Many people on our side of politics fear that there will be retaliatory action from the union movement if it is known that these people are funding a political party. That is the reality, and if Senator Robertson finds it distasteful, so be it. That is an accurate recitation of the concern which many people have. I want to say a few words about the list system of voting. It is true that the voting process in the Senate can be simplified, but the use of the list system will reduce the effectiveness of the whole concept which lies behind a preferential system of voting. The preferential system is designed to allow voters to exercise an individual preference for candidates or for parties and to express their choice by moving from candidate to candidate. The choice will remain for the elector to go through the process of full preferential selection but by putting a simple tick in a box-if that is what the Parliament decides should happen-one could in a stroke just accept the full how-to-vote instructions of a party. It will entice many people to take up this form of voting. If this list system is applied to Senate voting, it will introduce disparity between the voting process for the House of Representatives, which is not subject to a list system, and for the Senate which will be. We think that is unfortunate. We think it is far simpler for people to know that when they vote, the process they use will be to follow a full preferential listing of numbers and that that will occur whether they are voting for the House of Representatives or for the Senate. It is very difficult to ask people to use ticks or crosses on one of their voting papers and to write numbers on the other voting paper and not to expect that some inefficiency or unavoidable error will occur as a result. While this might minimise informal votes in one respect, it could well encourage them in another. The fact is, of course, that at present 90 per cent of all electors are able to cast formal votes. That is a credit to the voters. It just puts out of court the claim by the Government that the community cannot handle a full preferential voting system. Clearly, the community can handle it. The fact that 90 per cent of votes are formal indicates to us that the task should be rather to increase that number of formal votes than to try to change it and move to a list system which carries at least as many problems as it does advantages. The main part of our contribution to the debate will come during the Committee stage. We have some 20 or so amendments to clauses which we will move in the Committee. I hope the Government will be receptive to these Committee stage amendments. Many of them are designed to do things more efficiently. We think there are some better ways than the Government has proposed. Some of the amendments are designed to express a difference in principle, but we hope it will be possible, when the Bill reaches the Committee stage, to improve the legislation. I go back to my opening comments. If our goal is an electoral system which is fair and efficient, which avoids certain corruptions and which is not open to misuse, we will be well satisfied. I ask the Government to give careful consideration to the amendments which we offer. We for our part will try to argue them with appropriate brevity and clarity. I hope that during the Committee stage we can make some progress on a bipartisan basis. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(10.26) —I rise to support this very important piece of legislation, the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill, which, I believe, effectively enfranchises many Australian electors for the first time, including many Australians who have voted for many years but have never been able to record a formal vote because of the system. Australia has been crying out for these electoral reforms for decades. Our electoral system is among the most complex in the world. I believe it is unnecessarily complex. These reforms will bring Australia back to being among the world leaders in electoral reform. The Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill will help us to re-establish one vote one value as a principle of electoral procedure in Australia. History will record in years to come that these reforms will rank with the great reforms in our electoral history. Australia once led the world in electoral reform. In 1856 Victoria and South Australia introduced secret ballots . In 1894 South Australia enfranchised women. In general terms, Australia was among the first places in the world to abolish the property vote, with perhaps the exception of my State where it lingered on for many years into the twentieth century. Australia was among the first countries in the world to provide salaries for members of parliament. Effectively that meant that many working people could participate in parliament. At the time of Federation our electoral boundaries for the House of Representatives were among the fairest in the world. Certainly, they were fairly close to the one vote one value principle. The unfortunate thing is that in Australia we have allowed ourselves to fall well behind other countries in electoral reform. Basically our laws in Australia in this area are nineteenth century laws. They are not laws about mass society with large electorates. They are not laws about political parties forming governments. They are not laws about the modern influences on voting behaviour, for example, large scale advertising. The electoral laws in this country, when one really boils them down , are more about the practices which could influence votes in the small electorates of the past. For example, the laws in some States still refer to the practice of treating, of buying food and drink and of bribing. The laws still refer to the practice of exercising undue influence. Some States' laws also refer to the practice of intimidation. Those practices could really affect results in only very small electorates, as in the past. The last major consolidation of the Commonwealth Electoral Act was in 1918. In 1974 and 1975 the former Whitlam Government tried repeatedly to reform Australia 's electoral laws, but was frustrated in this place. It is interesting to note that some of the proposals in the Bills of 1974 and 1975 are included in this Bill. It is part of an electoral reform package which has been introduced by the current government. There are proposals for two electoral referenda to be held in February next year. Yesterday we passed the Representation Bill reforming the size of the Senate and the House of Representatives. There is a $3m education and enrolment program for voters and also a specific program for Aboriginal electors. All this activity on the electoral front is a pleasant change from previous decades. There was certainly one review, at least, of the Electoral Act by the former Government, but no action on it was taken. The report of the Harders Committee of Inquiry into the Disclosure of Electoral Expenses did not see the light of day until this year under the present Government. I congratulate the current Government for moving to appoint the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. I congratulate the Select Committee for its tremendous effort in making recommendations to reform Australian electoral laws and the bipartisan spirit in which it conducted a great deal of its activities. The report comes to terms with the existence of political parties. Indeed, the Select Committee report recommends the registration of parties. That proposal is incorporated in this Bill. Political parties are a key element of our political system. They are the basis for forming governments in a mass society. The recognition of political parties in electoral legislation is long overdue. I was pleased to be one of four members of parliament who actually sent submissions to the Electoral Reform Committee. In my submission I called for a list system of voting for the Senate following my experience in South Australia where we have had such a system for some time. I called for improved voter education activities to better inform people how to cast formal votes. I called for the placing of party affiliations on ballot papers next to candidates' names , among other items. I am pleased to say that these recommendations in my submission basically were adopted by the Select Committee. I believe that Senate informals are a blot on our political system. It is shameful that for decades we have been faced with a situation of having very high numbers of informal votes in our upper House elections. Quite a disgraceful example occurred in my State in the Senate election held this year when, at two polling booths in the Port Adelaide division, the Senate informal vote reached 27 per cent. That is a real indictment of the system. It shows that the system is too complicated, is unnecessarily complex and that many Australians are frustrated in trying to cast valid votes. When we look at the election results around Australia for the 1983 Senate election, we find that the informal vote for the Senate was, in fact, the third largest block of votes nationally for the Senate. The informal vote for the Senate actually exceeded the vote for the Australian Democrats around Australia. That is the dimension of the problem. It is even more starkly highlighted by the fact that the number of informal votes in New South Wales and Victoria this year exceeded one electoral quota for the Senate. So, the informal vote could have elected one senator in both of those States. Who votes informally is a very important question that has to be faced up to. We carried out an investigation in my State some years ago. We found that, in many suburbs where there are large numbers of senior citizens, where migrants have arrived recently from certain countries or where there are citizens with low levels of schooling, we got high informal votes. The key finding that came out of the study was that most of the people who vote informal in the Senate are able to cast valid votes in the House of Representatives. So, clearly something can be done about the number of informal votes cast at a Senate election. I believe that informal votes have been at high levels in recent decades in Senate elections because the voting system is unnecessarily complicated. I defy anybody to say that they walk around with 30 or 40 preferences in their heads ordered for candidates. It defies the imagination that people can actually rank 30 or 40 or more candidates in some order of preference. Since we have had a preferential voting system in Australia, informal votes for the Senate have been at high levels. Under the original system introduced for the Senate at the time of Federation, the informal vote averaged only 4 to 5 per cent and not the 9 per cent or more that we have now. In the present system there is also the danger that it can be exploited by unscrupulous people trying to increase deliberately the number of informal votes. Certain allegations were made in 1974 in New South Wales to that effect. The Australian Electoral Office conducted a study of all informal ballot papers at the 1977 Federal election and the report showed uniformly in all States that the errors which caused informal votes were basically of two types: Incorrect numbering sequence and cases where people had left some squares blank. It was quite striking that in virtually every State about 77 per cent or 78 per cent of informal votes could be put down to those two types of errors. So clearly people were trying to fill in their ballot papers. People were trying to cast formal votes, but they were just frustrated by this system which required 30 or 40 preferences to be placed on a ballot paper. This Bill proposes several measures which I believe would have the effect of reducing informal votes, particularly for the Senate. Firstly, a proposed simplified Senate voting system is provided for in the Bill. Under this proposal electors have the choice either of using the present system of expressing preferences or of using a radically new approach which involves simply placing a vote in only one square on the ballot paper and in that way electing an entire party's how to vote card. That is a radical departure from past practice in Australia and one which I believe will have the effect of maximising the number of formal votes in our upper House elections. The proposed voting system also allows electors to place a tick or a cross on the ballot paper and that will be regarded as having the same effect as placing a No. 1 in the square on the ballot paper. I believe that this reform of allowing ticks or crosses will particularly help migrants. Many migrants in Australia are used to voting overseas under systems where voting was by means of ticks or crosses. Certainly scrutineering in Australia has shown that there is no doubt that many informal votes at present are caused by ticks or crosses being placed on the ballot paper . There is also a new definition of the formality of votes so that more votes can be made formal. For example, where there are more than nine candidates on a ballot paper in a Senate election, if 90 per cent or more of the squares are filled in the votes are classed as not informal. The votes are in fact valid and the preferences will be counted as long as the numbers on the ballot paper are consecutive. Preferences will count up to the point where the consecutive sequence of numbers ends. The proposal to allow voting on the basis of supporting an entire party's how to vote card is simply a further refinement or extension of the list system of voting. I believe that the list system of voting is a very effective system of maximising the number of formal votes cast in an election. In South Australia a list system operated for our upper House at the 1975 and 1979 elections. In 1979 the results were quite outstanding. In fact, across the whole of South Australia at the 1979 elections there were less informal votes for the upper House than there were for the lower House. That is quite an unusual result in Australian electoral experience. Upper House informal votes normally are well above those in lower House elections. In the South Australian system, placing a No. 1 on the ballot paper meant a vote for the party list. It did not go to the extent of the proposal in this Bill of voting for an entire party's how to vote card. It simply voted for a party's candidates. It was very striking that, when the Liberal Government in South Australia changed the system in 1982 to require, instead of one number being placed on the ballot paper, 11 numbers equal to the number of vacancies, there was a marked increase in the number of informal votes . So I think the lesson from that experience is that to reduce informal votes it is very important to keep the number of figures required to be expressed on the ballot paper very low. There is nothing wrong with the proposal in the Bill to enable voters simply to cast a vote for one particular party's how to vote card, that being all that they are required to do. After all, under the present system of proportional representation, the parties still issue how to vote cards and suggest to voters that they follow those cards. It is quite striking that in respect of all of the major parties-the coalition parties, the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Democrats-very few voters stray from following those how to vote cards. For all of those parties that I have mentioned, only between 2 and 3 per cent of all voters strayed from the how to vote cards. About 97 to 98 per cent followed how to vote cards exactly. Unfortunately, the corollary of the preferential voting system is that 5 or 6 per cent more voters cast informal votes as a result of the preferential voting system, yet only 2 to 3 per cent of voters take advantage of the system to change their numbering sequence. A basic objective of the electoral system should be to maximise the number of formal votes. Certainly it is not the only objective, but it should be a major objective. Electoral systems are more than just about enabling people to express preferences. This proposal of simplifying the Senate voting system will effectively enfranchise many Australians for the first time and is long overdue. It should do this, too, because after all, the Senate is a most powerful upper House and the greatest number of Australians should be able to express formal votes in Senate elections. One of the important reforms contained in the Bill-although some would say that it is minor, I believe that it is important-is the proposal to enable party names to be printed on ballot papers alongside candidates' names. That is provided for in the new section 106C. This proposal, although simple, will reduce the extent of voter confusion. After all, to put party names on ballot papers is only a very small step from the reality of the grouping of Senate candidates on ballot papers. After all, that has been in force since 1922. It is only a small step further to enable candidates to have their party affiliations printed on ballot papers alongside their names. That proposal will bring us into line with a number of overseas countries, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Norway, which all provide for party names on ballot papers. I think you are aware, Mr Acting Deputy President, of the case in South Australia in 1977, when the former President of this place, Sir Harold Young, got an extraordinary number of votes at the second position on the Liberal Party Senate ticket in the Port Adelaide division. He got about 1,600 first preference votes in that division, whereas in all the other electoral divisions in South Australia he received only 500 to 600 first preference votes. It is more than likely that many voters in the Port Adelaide division confused Sir Harold Young with the Federal member of the House of Representatives for Port Adelaide Mick Young. About 1,000 votes were probably switched as a result of that confusion and countless others would have been made informal by voters putting two ones on their ballot papers. A very important reform proposed in the Bill is to have posters at polling booths to display group voting tickets for the Senate. This will apply only in respect of Senate elections, but electors will be able to see the actual candidates for particular parties displayed in a group in poster form at booths. This is a little like the system in South Australia which has operated for two or three elections whereby party how to vote cards are placed in the voting cubicles. This system works very well in South Australia and the electors of that State have become used to being able to go into the voting cubicle and see the how to vote cards for their parties displayed in the cubicles. I think the new section 7A proposed for the Commonwealth Electoral Act is very important. It provides for expanded voter education activities in Australia. In fact, voter education is to be a clearly delineated function for the new Australian Electoral Commission. That makes a bit of a break from the past focus of the Australian Electoral Office which has basically been concerned with the enrolment and registration of voters. I think there is a great need for voting instruction activities in Australia. There is no doubt that a number of people in the community would benefit from the availability of voting assistance, and I believe such assistance can be very effective in improving voting in Australia. In South Australia in 1980 the Australian Labor Party conducted its own voter education program. It identified suburbs with very high informal votes. It identified areas where people could be given assistance by means of party canvassing, by members actually door knocking and providing special literature. I think the results of that program speak for themselves. During the 1980 Senate election in South Australia there was a reduction of 11,000 in Senate informal votes, equal to a 1.7 per cent fall in Senate informal votes, and that was despite the fact that there was a vastly increased number of candidates on the ballot paper. In general in Senate elections the more the candidates on the ballot paper the higher the level of informal votes. So that program indicated that informal votes could be reduced against the trend. We found that in the suburbs where canvassing occurred, where people had voting explained to them, the number of informal votes actually fell by 7 or 8 per cent or more. So it can be effective, but the point that must be made is that voter education should be a government responsibility and not that of an individual party. I hope the Australian Electoral Commission, when it is constituted, will look at this whole model of door knocking and canvassing and provide street by street explanations of voting activity. Mr Acting Deputy President, I now turn to the proposals in the legislation concerning public funding of elections. Australia stands virtually alone among the democracies of the world in that it has, with the exception of New South Wales, virtually no laws on money in politics. Up until a few years ago we did have at the Federal level expenditure limits on candidates but they were abolished by the Fraser Government. That abolition occurred at the time when most of the other democracies in the world were moving in the direction of more regulation of the flow of money into politics and its expenditure. Public funding is a key question. The public financing of elections is a key question and most of the other democracies with which Australia normally compares itself have public funding and/or disclosure laws about the flow of money into politics . It has been estimated by some commentators that Australian elections are possibly the most expensive in the world on a per capita basis. One estimate I have seen is that the 1983 Federal election may have involved outlays of the order of $12m, and it has been suggested that $10m of that was contributed by the coalition and about $2m by the Australian Labor Party. I believe that the flow of money into politics should be in the open; it should see the light of day. There are real dangers of hidden money in politics. There is the risk of buying favours and the risk of corruption. In a country such as Australia where, for example, we have relatively high levels of tariff protection for industry there is a risk that some people might draw the conclusion that by supporting certain parties they might be able to gain some protection for their products, and I believe that is one area of real risk. Also electoral success in modern elections should not depend on the amount of money available to particular parties and candidates. Democracies simply cannot exist where electoral success depends on the amount of money available for expenditure by a particular party. I think also that doubts in the community about the current uses and sources of money flowing into politics have some impact on the public standing of members of parliament. The proposed system of government assistance for the costs of elections provided for in this Bill would be of the order of $8.5m every three or four years, depending on the term of parliament. I think that is a modest amount of money to pay for a vital and vibrant political system in this country at a national level. The proposal is that parties will be reimbursed for election expenses up to a limit. The limit for House of Representatives elections will be 60c per elector and at the moment that is equivalent to the cost of two postage stamps. With a joint House of Representatives and Senate election the amount of money involved for each voter would be 60c for the House of Representatives and 30c for the Senate. So the total cost per elector of this proposal for public funding would be 90c. At the moment it is equivalent to the cost of three items of postage for each elector on the roll. I think that is a very small price to pay for a significant boost to democracy in this country. The system would involve parties claiming for actual expenditure incurred after the event. The proposal will require parties to be registered and only parties which obtain 4 per cent or more of the formal vote will actually qualify for government funding for their electoral costs. The payments for the cost of elections will be made to parties rather than to candidates. I think one of the important aspects of the Bill is that the period looked at will not be simply the period of the formal election campaign after the issue of writs but will encompass any expenses incurred in relation to an election whenever those expenses are incurred. That is very important because so much political science research has indicated that a lot of the activity which really does change votes in our political system occurs many months before the actual formal election campaign. Certainly those sorts of findings were put forward in respect of the 1972 Australian election when it was felt by many commentators that many of the votes were actually changed months before the formal campaign began. The other key reforms in this legislation include assistance for certain electors. From my experience this is a very important area. The proposed new section 120 would involve treating illiterate voters in the same way as voters with eyesight problems and those who suffer physical incapacities. Illiterate voters would be put on a consistent basis with those people and all three groups of people could have the assistance of the presiding officer at a polling booth in marking the ballot papers for them. In fact, they could simply show to the presiding officer a how to vote card of the of their choice and ask him to mark their ballot paper accordingly. I think that is a very important reform. There is no doubt that the area of voter assistance in Australian elections has been in need of upgrading for many years and I think this particular reform will go a long way towards cutting informal votes, particularly in Senate elections. I think the proposal to provide a seven day minimum period between the calling of an election and the closing of electoral rolls is a very major reform. We saw the disgraceful action earlier this year by the former Government in closing the rolls immediately after the issuing of writs and effectively disfranchising many of our fellow citizens who as a result were unable to cast votes in the Federal election. All in all, this Bill is very comprehensive. It is the most major reform of Australia's electoral laws since 1918. I hope that in the next few years we can see some reforms in other areas which were canvassed but left open in the report of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. For example, we need to look at computerised voting in Australian elections. It is a long overdue reform. Computerised voting will work with Australian preferential voting and the Committee has acknowledged that that is the case. It would also like to see the next step in the public funding area being the funding of party research. Policy formulation by political parties is of vital importance to democracy. Good policies make better government. We should follow the lead of overseas countries in providing funds for party research activities. This is a long overdue reform. The Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill will bring Australian electoral law into the twentieth century and, most importantly, will effectively enfranchise many Australians for the first time. Senator SCOTT(New South Wales-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(10.56) —I address myself briefly to some of the major features of the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill. It is the result of an inquiry by the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. The inquiry was necessary and the Committee has come down with some very worthwhile recommendations. It has also come down with some recommendations which are incorporated in this Bill with which, as Senator Baume said earlier this morning when outlining the Opposition' s attitude to the Bill, we do not find it possible to agree. Consequently, again as foreshadowed by Senator Baume, a number of amendments will be put which we hope will be seen as being constructive and may well, at least in part, be agreed to by the Government as this debate continues. I said that there were areas of this Bill with which I found disagreement, but before I look briefly at those, I mention two very significant achievements and recommendations. One of those relates to the determination of the Committee not to reduce the margin of tolerance in electorates from the current 10 per cent to a proposed 5 per cent. I think that the Committee is to be congratulated on having refused to accept that proposition and having maintained the tolerance of 10 per cent which some years ago and for many years before that was 20 per cent in the vast extra-metropolitan areas of Australia. I am still of the view that there is a strong case to be made for that sort of margin in such a vast land, because in spite of all the rhetoric about communications there is no shadow of doubt that the vast distances of this country provide a great difficulty for members of parliament to establish and maintain a close personal contact with their electorates. That is perhaps the basic requirement of an effective democracy. No matter how well the postal system works and no matter how many telegrams and telephone calls are made, in the final resort there is no real substitute for the capacity to meet in one's area with one's representative in the Parliament and to talk specifically with him or her. Another recommendation that I believe is extremely important is the virtual refusal of the Committee to accept and recommend an optional preferential system of voting. The optional preferential system is really just an over- simplification. It is almost an insult to the intelligence of the Australian voter that such a thing should be considered as necessary. More than that, it is the first step, perhaps the only step, towards a first past the post system. The results of first past the post systems, where they exist around the world, are such that anything between 37 or 38 per cent and 40 or 42 per cent of the voters can, in effect, elect a government. That does not seem to be good enough. The other reason for the need for preferential voting is that it is crazy to assume that all matters in political philosophy, all matters referable to the way a society, a community, lives are confined to areas that can be defined as either black or white. Clearly, there are shades of opinion. These shades of opinion are often expressed politically by individuals or various political parties. To negate the opportunity for the electorate to reflect on those shades of opinion and to indicate their preferences is certainly no service to the democratic system. I believe it is time that the Electoral Act was reviewed and brought up to date in many fields. That is the basic objective of this Bill. In a number of areas it has been very successfully addressed. However, there are one or two areas, or perhaps more, with which I do not find any measure of agreement at all. The first of those has been referred to, and I guess will be referred to on many occasions. That is the area of public funding. My Party, the National Party of Australia, and I have been opposed to public funding on a range of grounds since it was mooted in this country. It seems totally unreal and unnecessary that the Australian taxpayer should be called upon to finance political individuals or parties. There is no possible way in which a taxpayer should be seen to be responsible for the promotion of philosophies with which he has nothing in common. Consequently, the determination that taxpayers should provide the funds for those who promote a range of attitudes and philosophies is a crazy and totally unacceptable proposition. Public funding makes yet another adverse contribution to democracy in our country. It seems to me that when people recognise that what can be described as 60c from each voter, in actual terms is millions of dollars coming from the taxpayers' purses to promote and advertise the views and attitudes of a political party, clearly there will be a lessening of interest at the grass roots level and at branch levels. There will be a lessening of interest in the community in general in those very political, economic and social matters that concern everybody. The strength of a democracy is surely the capacity and determination of the people in that democracy to identify their attitudes, to identify the directions in which they wish to travel and to seek to promote them of their own volition, amongst their own people and amongst a whole range of people in the community. That sort of determination, a determination to be financially able to do that sort of promotion, will be severely jeopardised by a reliance on the taxpayer. After all, as I said originally, the strength of any party in a democracy relates to the responsible debate that occurs at grass roots level. That is where basic policy is formed, and that is where it should be formed. That sort of institution should not be dependent upon the taxpayer as a whole for its finances to such a degree-indeed, to any degree at all-and the result of that sort of dependence can only be, in my view, a lessening of the active participation in debate and policy consideration amongst those hundreds of thousands of people who ought to be concerned in a free society to establish the circumstances, to establish the views and policies, that they seek to promote. Mr Deputy President, I wish to raise a number of other matters-for instance, ordinary voting within a division, which was a recommendation of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform and is a proposition of this Bill. Clearly it has the advantage of simplification but I believe that it may well be an oversimplification. It may well resolve itself into multiple voting which, of course, is a major step that should be avoided. Though this suggestion that we should allow ordinary votes within a division is attractive from the point of view of its simplicity, it may well be a problem in practice. I think that, naturally, people will live with 6 p.m. closing of the polls; they do in a number of places in Australia already. But I believe there is a quite strong argument to suggest that it is not really a step forward. Closing at 8 p.m. has a great attraction to a significant number of people on religious grounds. It has a great attraction for people involved, as often they are on a Saturday afternoon, in a whole range of sporting activities, and to people involved in work which normally takes them well past sunset at certain times of the year. So , whilst the reduction in hours from 8 p.m. closing to 6 p.m. closing would have , I suppose, some technical advantages from the point of view of the convenience of a whole range of voters, it certainly cannot be described as a step forward. On the other hand, the implementation of mobile booths is a step in the right direction. I make brief reference to the proposition of the list system of voting. Again the significant point about this is that of course it is a simplification and it may reduce the number of informal votes, but perhaps it is an over simplication and perhaps it would not permit people to exercise properly their optional preferences. I believe that the list system, as I said, is too simple. There is an argument-a strong argument-that suggests that there should hardly be the sorts of numbers on a Senate ticket that we were once confronted with in my own State of New South Wales. I think there may have been 73 or 74 candidates. That seems to be a rather crazy situation. On the other hand, I think it is something of an insult to the intelligence of the average Australian voter to assume that he cannot fill in a significant number of squares to indicate the preference of which he is aware. I believe he can and indeed as the situation stands the number of votes not correctly filled in is under 10 per cent. That could well be improved by reducing the numbers on the ticket but I do believe that to make it so simple that one has the option of just ticking a team is making it too simple altogether. I was interested to note that Senator Maguire, in summing up this legislation, said that it was a significant boost to democracy. I do not believe that that is so on a number of counts and particularly with reference to public funding. As I have already said, I do not think that is a significant boost to democracy at all. It is just putting a responsibility on the taxpayer to promote all sorts of philosophies which he should not be expected to do. The apparent significant boost to democracy by making voting so simple again could be described as either a boost to democracy or as an insult to the intelligence of the people who form that democracy. There are matters of principle and philosophy, and some technicality, which we believe should be improved and could be improved in this legislation. Again, there are areas with which I find absolute agreement. I was pleased indeed about two matters-that optional preferential voting was not accepted and that the tolerance was not reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. I still believe that there is an excellent argument that maintains that it should ultimately be restored to its 20 per cent level. In closing, let me say that the Joint Select Committee itself clearly has covered a very wide range of investigation and has come down with some very important observations and recommendations. Many parts of this Bill would improve the electoral system and I believe that the amendments that the Opposition has to this legislation would, if accepted, improve it still further. Senator COLSTON(Queensland)(11.14) — Mr Deputy President, the Senate is debating the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill. This is a comprehensive Bill and it will make a significant revision of Australia's electoral laws. I mention at the outset that this must be a Bill of some note. Some honourable senators will recall that in 1981 I brought forward a private member's Bill which was eventually passed by this Parliament in 1982. This Bill became the Senate Elections (Queensland) Act. That Act is now going to be incorporated in the electoral legislation, upon passage of the Bill now before us. Prior to the passing of the Senate Elections (Queensland) Bill the Constitution allowed Queensland to be divided into electoral divisions for Senate election purposes. I refer any honourable senator who wishes to recall what I said at that time to page 832 of the Senate Hansard of 26 March 1981. In that speech I outlined the need for some legislation from this Parliament to close what was perhaps a loophole in the Constitution. The legislation before us seeks to repeal the Senate Elections (Queensland) Act and the provisions of that Act will be incorporated in section 16 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act. There will be many speakers on this Bill both during the second reading stage and the Committee stage. Therefore I intend to mention only certain features of the legislation. First, I would like to mention the Senate ballot paper. Senator Scott, who spoke before me, made some reference to this and in some respects I disagree with what he said. The number of informal votes that are cast in Senate elections is totally unacceptable and this Bill tackles that problem. Given the complexity of the ballot paper and the voting system it is understandable that we have so many informal votes. It is worth while looking at the number of candidates at Senate elections in each State and each Territory in recent years. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table which is headed 'Number of Senate Candidates 1974-1983'. This table, which has been compiled for me by the statistics section of the Parliamentary Library, has been shown to the Opposition. Leave granted. The table read as follows- NUMBER OF SENATE CANDIDATES 1974-1983 19741 19751 19772 19802 19831 N.S.W. 73 53 35 33 62 Vic. 48 38 28 34 50 Qld 25 40 23 33 42 S.A. 38 37 19 27 35 W.A. 29 53 19 23 30 Tas. 32 28 10 13 17 N.T. . . 10 8 10 6 A.C.T. . . 12 8 9 9 Total 245 271 151 182 250 Notes: 1. Full Senate Election 2. Half Senate Election Senator COLSTON —I thank the Senate. The table indicates that in 1974 there were 245 candidates for the Senate election in Australia. This is a fairly typical number. In 1975 the number was 271; in 1977 there was a drop to 151; in 1980 the number was 182; and in 1983 it was 250. It is perhaps more pertinent to look at the numbers in each State rather than the total number. Senator Scott mentioned that in 1974 there were 73 candidates in New South Wales. This meant that electors in New South Wales who went to the polls were obliged to fill in numbers from one to 73. I can recall a story about a lady who picked up her ballot paper, took it out of the polling booth, which I suppose is against the electoral legislation, took it home, made a cup of tea and while she was drinking her cup of tea filled in the numbers from 1 to 73. She took it back and put it into the ballot box. That was probably a long-winded way of filling in a ballot paper. However, many people made errors when confronted with that number of candidates. I really wonder when one has to list 73 candidates how one can determine one's preference between the fifty-eighth and fifty-ninth candidates. It seems to me to be taking the situation to an absurd length to continue with the same system of voting when we have so many candidates. There were 62 Senate candidates in New South Wales in the election in 1983, which was almost the same number as the record number in 1974. In Victoria there were 50 candidates and in Queensland there were 42. Despite what we might say about the intelligence of voters-most of the electors are intelligent and know the way in which they are going to vote-electors are going to make unintentional errors if we have so many condidates. Those of us who have scrutineered in Senate elections know full well that many people who want to fill out the ballot paper are unable to do so because of the complexity of the ballot paper itself. It is worth while comparing the number of informal votes in the Senate with those in the House of Representatives. Since 1974 we have had Senate elections at the same time as House of Representatives elections. In 1974 10.8 per cent of votes for the Senate throughout Australia were informal. Over one in 10 persons cast an informal vote. By comparison 1.9 per cent of votes in the House of Representatives election were informal. If one took the argument, and I do not think one really can, that all of the 1.9 per cent of informal votes were deliberately informal, one could say that 8 per cent of people unwittingly cast an informal vote for Senate candidates. If we look at the figures for elections held between 1974 and 1983 we find a consistent difference of about six or seven percentage points between the House of Representatives informal vote and the Senate informal vote, the Senate informal vote being higher on every occasion. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table compiled for me again by the statistics section of the Parliamentary Library and headed 'Percentage of Informal Votes Federal Elections 1974-1983'. Leave granted. The table read as follows- PERCENTAGE OF INFORMAL VOTES FEDERAL ELECTIONS 1974-1983 1974 1975 1977 1980 1983 % % % % % House of Representatives 1.9 1.9 2.5 2.4 2.1 Senate 10.8 9.0 9.0 9.6 9.8 Senator COLSTON —I thank the Senate. This table clearly indicates that there is something drastically wrong with the Senate ballot paper and the way we have to vote. For instance, in the 1983 election 9.8 per cent of Senate ballot papers were spoiled because the voters could not fill out the ballot paper in a way that was acceptable. Almost one voter in 10 could not fill out the paper correctly. Something is drastically wrong when one elector in 10 spoiled his ballot paper. When discussing this matter in this place some years ago I suggested that it would be an easy task for those with a mind to do so to sabotage a Senate election. For example, it would have been possible to put a large number of candidates on the ballot paper. By paying the then deposit of $200 for each candidate a thousand candidates could have been put on the ballot paper for a particular State at a cost of $200,000. The consequence of electors having to mark their preference from one to 1,000 or from one to 1,023 would have been chaotic and would have thrown the whole electoral legislation into disrepute. Voters would have rebelled. A strategy like this will be far less likely and perhaps will be negligible with the passage of this Bill. First, a candidate's deposit will be increased to $500. I suppose this will deter some candidates although I do not think it will deter many who have nominated in the past. I am not of a mind to try to deter people by using financial considerations, but at least the deposit has been increased and if anybody were to make a serious attempt to sabotage the ballot paper by putting on so many candidates it would cost that person a lot more. Perhaps even more importantly, with the list system of voting, the informal vote is likely to be far lower, irrespective of the number of candidates. So if we have a very large number of candidates and people want to use the list system of voting, they will be able to do so without really being concerned about the number of candidates. Under this legislation, an elector may cast a vote using the list system and that vote will be deemed to be cast according to the preferences registered by a party on its how to vote card. It should be mentioned that individual choice of candidates will still be possible using the current preference system of voting. So if people do not want to use the list system, they can still do their own thing and put down preferences according to however they want them. I recall that in a recent Senate election in Queensland a great many people did their own thing. They did not always follow the order of the candidates set down on a party's how to vote card. There will still be people who will want to do that. They will still be entitled to do so, but those people who want to use the list system will be able very readily to cast what they know to be a valid vote. If we allow people to cast a vote and have it counted in the way in which they would like to have it counted, we will be getting closer to what we want to do-that is, to allow every person who has the right to vote to be able to do so and to have that vote counted. We must bring down the informal vote for the Senate. The informal vote is not an indication that the voters' intelligence is at a low. It is an indication of the fact that our system is much too difficult and much too complex to place before the voters. I would like to move on now to mention some matters about the House of Representatives ballot paper. A sample ballot paper is shown in Schedule 1 to the Bill. There are two changes in the actual format of the ballot paper. I will dwell on the first one and will mention in short detail something about the second change. The first change is that candidates' names will no longer necessarily be in alphabetical order. Under clause 80 of this Bill, proposed new section 106 (2) (a) will make it mandatory for places on the ballot paper to be determined by lot. Of course, this measure has been adopted to counter what is often called the donkey vote. It is a poor reflection on our society that the donkey vote can have a decisive effect on who will represent us in Parliament. But donkey votes do occur and I suppose that they will continue to occur. It seems unfair that a person's chances of success should be increased because his surname starts with a letter close to the beginning of the alphabet. For persons with a surname such as Colston, I suppose it is not too bad, but for my colleague in the House of Representatives, Mr Young, it is not too good. Senator Grimes —What about Senator Zakharov? Senator COLSTON —Senator Zakharov would certainly not be enamoured of the present situation. Apart from individual members, it is also unfair to the institution of Parliament that those who collectively make up that Parliament may be there by chance. Donkey voters, of course, are people who number their ballot papers in numerical order straight down the ballot paper without considering the merits of respective parties of candidates. Estimates of the value of the donkey vote vary. However, Boyce and his co-authors in the Dictionary of Politics suggest that a donkey vote is worth 2 to 4 per cent of the vote. They suggest that 2 to 4 per cent of the electors cast a donkey vote. Jaensch and Teichmann in the Macmillan Dictionary of Australian Politics suggest that the donkey vote may be worth between 2 and 3 per cent of the total vote. Recently, I was associated with a situation wherein the donkey vote was, with little if any doubt, decisive in determining the successful candidate in one State electorate in Queensland. We had State elections in Queensland on 22 October this year. In the electorate of Maryborough there were three candidates. Mr Alison was the National Party candidate, Mr Bailey was the Liberal Party candidate and Mr Nightingale was the Australian Labor Party candidate. So the ballot paper was listed Alison, Bailey, Nightingale. Bailey, the Liberal candidate, was eliminated when preferences had to be distributed. After the distribution of preferences the result was that Alison received 7,648 votes and Nightingale received 7,640. So Alison was elected by eight votes. I do not wish to detract from Mr Alison's success, but if his name had been Yalison, it is highly doubtful whether he would have been elected. If the donkey vote were worth only one per cent-it might be recalled that I quoted authorities who said that it was worth between 2 and 4 per cent-it would have been worth 150 votes to Mr Alison. It should be recalled that he won by only eight votes. Even if the donkey vote were worth only 0.1 per cent, it would have been decisive in having Mr Alison elected, because 0.1 per cent would have been about 15 votes, and honourable senators will recall that Mr Alison won by eight votes. Again, if I may use an example from Queensland, it is worthy of note that one character changed his name by deed poll from Smith to Asmith. His aim was to be the first on the ballot paper. Now it would be a nice twist to be able to inform the Senate that he was beaten by a person called Aboud, but that did not happen. In that situation, he was decisively beaten by everybody. But a person changing his name by deed poll in order to get on top of the ballot paper makes a mockery of the democratic process. In this Bill, we have at least gone part of the way to overcoming that by providing that positions shall be balloted for. So those whose surnames start with a letter close to the beginning of the alphabet, such as A, B or C, will not necessarily have an electoral advantage. As I have said, we have only gone part of the way. Those who are fortunate in the ballot will be advantaged by the donkey vote. So someone will still receive an advantage. Therefore, I do not believe that we should regard this as the final step, significant though it may be. By issuing ballot papers which have candidates' names in different orders, it is possible to counter completely or almost completely the donkey vote. This system is in use in Tasmania and there is no reason why it should not work in Federal elections. The second alteration to which I referred in relation to House of Representatives ballot papers is the printing of names of political parties on the ballot papers. With the passage of this legislation, this will occur, and it is a measure which is long overdue. There are also alterations in relation to the way in which completed ballot papers may be regarded as formal. However, I should not dwell on this matter but instead turn my attention to a clause dealing with enrolment. Many Australians remember how thousands of potential voters were denied the right to vote at the Federal elections in March this year. In February the then Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Fraser, announced that there would be an election for both Houses of the Parliament. He made the announcement on 3 February. The rolls closed on 4 February. Thousands of people did not have an opportunity to enrol. Not thinking that an election was imminent , they saw no immediate need to place their names on the electoral roll. Mr Fraser's haste denied them the right to vote. Of course, all eligible persons aged 18 years and over should ensure that they are on the roll, but not everyone in the community is as politically aware as all of us here. Often electors do not see a need or any urgency to enrol until an election is about to occur. The situation which occurred in relation to this year's election in which many people were denied the right to vote will not occur after the passage of this legislation. At least seven days' notice must be given before the rolls close. Under clause 45 of the Bill that we are discussing the date fixed for the close of the rolls shall be seven days after the date of the writ. No longer will potential electors be ambushed as they were earlier this year. Of equal importance is the amendment which will allow for provisional enrolment for 17- year-olds. After provisionally enrolling, which will not be compulsory, people will automatically become enrolled on their eighteenth birthday. I can foresee that provisional enrolment will become a routine task for those in their last year of secondary school. Before concluding, I wish to offer my congratulations to the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform which worked with diligence to present a report to the Parliament in September this year. The proposed legislation which is before us is heavily dependent on the Committee's report. I have mentioned but a few of the contents of this Bill. However, I do mention that it is a comprehensive Bill and one which is to be commended to the Senate. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(11.38) — The Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill is a major achievement for the Government. It is an extremely important Bill and one which seeks, for the first time since the original Commonwealth Electoral Act was introduced, to reform the system and give it a thorough workover. Many elements in this Bill probably will not even be raised at the Committee stage, but many of those aspects will be extremely important to many people in the community. I give but one example which might show the flavour of such amendments. Total paraplegics effectively would not have been able to vote under the current Act. Under the proposed legislation they will be able to do so. Such amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act take account of the many and various problems that electors in Australia face. The amendments take account of the fact, for example, that many Australian citizens serve the interests of this country overseas. They may be Australian delegates or may serve in other capacities. While servicemen overseas were able to vote, their wives and children who were living with them could not. This situation has now been rectified. Australians who serve in the Antarctic were deprived of a vote under the previous legislation. This has now been rectified. So it goes on. I wish to put on record the fact that this Bill picks up and seeks to overcome a multitude of problems, indeed hundreds of problems, that have plagued the Commonwealth Electoral Act over that period. I think that the Government is to be congratulated for being the government which has brought forward such a far- sighted and useful reform in this area. But when any such Bill comes into this Parliament which deals with the really crucial element of a democracy, that is, how the representatives of the people are elected, it will necessarily contain within it matters of high political controversy. Likewise, this Bill does. The fact that the consideration of the Bill at the Committee stage will be concentrated in those areas ought not to take away from the fact that all honourable senators in this place, I am sure, support the vast bulk of the reforms that are contained in the legislation. I turn to the major elements of the Bill. Firstly, an independent Australian Electoral Commission is to be established. That Commission will be responsible for all the matters within this electoral legislation. Probably the most important reform in this area deals with the way in which redistributions are handled. Many technical reforms have been introduced regarding when redistributions will take place. There have been some reforms in relation to the criteria by which electoral reforms shall take place. I believe the most important change is that for the first time the electoral commissioners will be totally independent. We have been lucky in the Federal Parliament that by and large our redistributions have been fair. Very little can be said at the Federal level about gerrymanders or malapportionments. Under governments of both political persuasions we have been very lucky that the major parties have taken very seriously their role in government to maintain, as far as possible, an impartial and independent electoral system. I believe there should be very little dispute about the move now to recognise that independence in formal legislative form and to require that the redistributions, once made and once objections have been lodged with and considered by the Commission, stand and that the Parliament will no longer have the power to alter such redistributions. I think that this provision will really enhance the standing of parliament and the standing of the political process within the community. The next major set of reforms deals with the voting systems, particularly in relation to the Senate counting procedures. There are some problems in this area . I will be moving amendments at the Committee stage to rectify those problems. These changes have sought to overcome some of the anomalies about which Senator Colston, who spoke previously, has written and which he experienced in his political career. Those changes are of a highly technical nature, nevertheless they are important. However, a reform is missing from that section of the legislation. It is a reform which the Australian Democrats believe would be the major reform that could be undertaken in Australia's political life. It concerns the introduction of proportional representation to the House of Representatives. I believe the fact that this is missing from the Bill effectively means that the Bill has not really grappled with the last major task of reform in the electoral process. I believe that is a bitter disappointment to many people in the community who feel that that is a necessary move that we must take. I hope that in the future it will be seen to be a necessary reform and that eventually it will be taken. However, I do not propose to move any amendments at the Committee stage in relation to that item. The Liberal and National parties have indicated that they would oppose any such amendments as would the Labor Party. Therefore, it would be a fruitless exercise. But I would not like the fact that I will not be moving any amendments to try to introduce proportional representation to the House of Representatives to be taken to mean that the Australian Democrats, nevertheless, do not still dedicate themselves to that ultimate reform and that ultimate task. The next set of reforms are those that I referred to in the beginning and are likely to raise very little discussion in the Committee stage. They are the range of reforms which attempt to overcome the problems of enrolment and voting. By and large I think everyone in this chamber is supportive of hundreds of those reforms that appear in this electoral legislation. I think it is important for those people in the community who have an interest in these matters actually to gain a copy of the Bill to understand the full extent of the reforms that the Government is quite rightly proposing in 1983 to take us into the year 2000 to meet the peculiar problems of this country and its citizens. The next series of reforms deals with areas which are of high political controversy; that is, the problems of funding and disclosure of donations and electoral expenditure. I wish to raise some matters in relation to those problems. I will be moving some amendments in this area in the Committee stage. Indeed, I will propose in excess of 30 amendments in the Committee stage on a range of items. I understand that the Opposition will be moving a number of amendments also. The Government, of course, has already moved a series of amendments in the House of Representatives. I put on record my appreciation of the extremely co-operative and helpful discussions I have had with the Special Minister of State (Mr Beazley) and his staff to clarify many of the matters in the Bill. Indeed, the Minister moved a number of amendments in the House of Representatives that the Australian Democrats in discussions recommended to the Government and which the Government, in reviewing the legislation, had seen fit to accept. I believe that the attitude that the Government has taken to this Bill and its willingness to consult on this matter are very much to its credit and show, I think, the spirit in which it has engaged in reforms in this area. Public funding is necessarily an extremely controversial matter. I refer first of all to page 146 of the report of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. The public funding which is already available for electoral purposes is detailed on that page. Unfortunately, it is a misconception in the public debate that, for the first time, we are introducing public funding of elections. We already have had massive public funding of elections. This Bill seeks a different method of public funding. It does not introduce public funding for the first time. Senator Haines —It is a fairer system. Senator MACKLIN —As Senator Haines has interjected, a fairer system is proposed here, not an innovation in that sense. Some of the areas for which money is already provided by the taxpayers to political parties and candidates running for public office include: The continuing payment of staff for members of parliament during election campaigns; the payment of members' telephone accounts for all purposes; the provision of travel within Australia for members during election campaigns; the provision of staff to the Opposition front bench, party leaders and Ministers; the provision of limited free time on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; the provision of Royal Australian Air Force No. 34 squadron aircraft to certain party leaders during election campaigns, not to the leader of the Australian Democrats unfortunately; access for members to parliamentary research facilities; the provision of offices for members; election related advertising by the Australian Electoral Office and the Australian Information Service; the provision of material such as 'Guide to Candidates and Scrutineers' by the Australian Electoral Office; and last, but not least-it is extremely important-tax deductibility of individual election expenses. That amount, by the way, is undetermined; it is an open cheque. We have no idea how much elections currently cost the taxpayer by direct financial assistance to candidates. We cannot have an idea because of the confidentiality of the taxation system. Indeed, it is not unknown for that to be used to pick up the totality of the amounts of money which are expended. Under the law, that is legal and perfectly permissible. It is a matter of the ways in which money is expended and on whose account it is expended. If it is expended on a personal matter and, indeed, every expenditure could be a personal matter- Senator Haines —Including how to vote cards. Senator MACKLIN —How to vote cards, advertising in newspapers and the whole works could be claimed under that tax deductibility provision. At the moment we have no idea how much it costs. The list goes on to page 147. It includes tax deductibility of union dues. Evidence was given to the Committee that many of the donations made by companies might also be tax deductible by using them in certain ways. One example of that was that a company could pay a certain amount, say $10,000, for an advertisement in a political newspaper when in fact the going rate might be $200 and thereby receive a tax deduction as a legitimate company expense for advertising purposes. Of course, there are many other ways because of that tax deductibility framework whereby money is able to be made available for election purposes. I think it is important at the outset to make sure that when we talk about public funding we talk about a differing system and one which seeks to provide fair and equitable funding based on the popular support that candidates have within the community. Indeed, this system is a vast improvement on the bureaucratic system of public funding which operates in New South Wales. This system is a much simpler, clearer and, I believe, much more easily understood system for the ordinary voter than the system in New South Wales. I believe it will lead to far fewer problems than we see occurring in New South Wales if we read the various reports of the relevant authority in New South Wales. Many candidates, including candidates who belong to the governing party in New South Wales, have had money taken back from them because of their inability to fulfil the requirements set down in the law. The simplicity of the approach in this Bill has very much to recommend it because in simplicity comes accountability to the electorate. The electorate will be able to understand very clearly the amounts of money that political parties receive and, in further elements within the Commonwealth Electoral Act itself, it will be able to see how that money is expended. The disclosure items within the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation amendment Bill are not necessarily linked to funding. It is important to realise this because there is a distinction between making disclosure and public funding. Often they are lumped together. It is not necessary, for example, to have any disclosure of public funding. However, there is a disclosure provision in this Bill. So the funding is based not only on the number of votes that one has received, provided it is in excess of 4 per cent, but also one has to be able to show that the amount of money to which one is entitled has been spent for election purposes. So accountability is built into this legislation to enable the electorate to see clearly where that money has gone and how it is being used. I hope that for the first time that may raise the public debate about the way that moneys are spent on elections. It is the hope-indeed it was expressed by members of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform from all political parties-that into the future we may see saner and more responsible election campaigns, and better campaigns in terms of the way that the matters are discussed. Essentially, the matter of funding must be looked at; but there is no such thing as a free lunch. At the moment, ultimately the people who pay for elections in Australia are the taxpayers. They may pay through their taxes-this has already been raised-or they may pay through the cereals that they have for breakfast. The money comes from somewhere; it does not come from out of the air. The money is paid ultimately by the taxpayer in some form or another. I hope this is certainly not the last reform in this area because I would like to see a thorough-going movement much further than we have here. But at least it is a first step. Funding will be much more open and will be seen to be open by the electorate. The electorate will be able to see where it is spent. Another contentious area which is not necessarily connected to this aspect but is included in the Bill is the disclosure requirements in relation to donations to political parties. The Australian Democrats, since the formation of our party , have required donations to our party over a certain amount to be publicly disclosable. I am quite happy to admit that that has almost wiped out any donations over that amount. That raises a very interesting point. There is an old saying in English that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Quite frankly, I find it very difficult to understand why a person puts $100,000 into a political party as a purely altruistic act. But, of course, that is the political fiction-that it is done through pure altruism. It is very nice to know that altruism has been growing in Australia because the amounts of money have been accelerating, not in arithmetic terms but in geometric proportion to the cost of living. It is very heartwarming and uplifting to know that altruism has grown so rapidly in this country. But if one wants to be a bit more cynical about the situation I think we must admit that the problem of funding and elections is a crucial and integral problem of the whole democratic process. I was very interested to talk to visiting members recently from the United States of America about their State legislatures and to hear them say that the single main political problem in the United States revolves around funding. Indeed, one member from a State legislature went so far as to say that the problems of funding could sow the seeds of destruction of the American democracy. I believe that it does do that. Whereas many of the propositions contained in this Bill may not meet the direct political objectives of all parties in the Senate, I think we may be as one on the fact that this whole area is one which must concern us greatly and one which we must continually probe. We must be concerned with an attempt to reform to make sure that we are not overcome by the problems of costs. One way of confronting that in the future may be to seek a severe limitation of costs for election campaigns. I for one would support that very strongly. But in the meantime we have to do what we can and one reform in this legislation is to make such donations publicly disclosable. I do not believe that in a democracy people ultimately will be concerned with that aspect. I know the arguments on both sides. I know the arguments about the right of an individual to dispose of his money as he sees fit without disclosing it publicly . I accept that that certainly is a principle. However, in this situation we have a conflict of principles. The overriding principle must be the health and the continuation of our democratic system. I believe it is as important as that that the money element connected with political parties and the enormous costs that are involved in election campaigns must not be such as to get us to the point where people can buy governments. We are not at that point. We have not had that in the past. But I see it in the future and I see it because that is what is occurring. It is readily acknowledged as occurring in places such as the United States. I hope that this will be our first step to prevent our falling into problems such as are occurring in other democracies. The Australian Democrats support very strongly the regularisation of public funding operations and we support strongly the disclosure mechanisms contained here. But we say that they do not go far enough and hope that we may see in the near future further reforms in this area not only in relation to funding but also in relation to where it is expended and how it is expended. We run into problems of principle here also. No doubt we will run into conflicts of principles again by going down those paths. But I believe it is necessary for us to take a very hard headed view and to push in that area as strongly and as rapidly as we can. Another area which is dealt with in the legislation concerns the registration of political parties. This has become necessary because of a series of reforms, long overdue reforms, that are contained in this legislation. For example, I refer to the placing of the names of political parties on the ballot paper. I understand the problems involved and the Australian Democrats sympathise very strongly with them. It is not our intention as a political party to seek to entrench strong party systems in this country. However, I point out that this Bill does not actually do that. How parties operate is not determined in any way by this Bill. Once this Bill becomes law, parties could operate as political parties do in the United States, with a very fluid operation. That is not outlawed or ruled out in any way by this legislation. We believe that the actual operations of political parties could be freed up enormously. It is our political view that the operation of political parties should be freed up enormously. One case in point was the recent discussion that we had in this chamber on a private member's Bill moved by the Australian Democrats in regard to uranium mining. That showed very clearly the failure of the political party system to be able to deal adequately with that problem. It is our hope that into the future the party system which has served Australia well and which has given much to our democracy will not become more and more rigid but will allow itself to be opened up to new movements within the community and new forms of association such as we have seen with companies over the last 30 or 40 years and with trade unions over the last 30 or 40 years. I believe it is important that political parties do not shut off those possibilities of evolution and development. What we have in this legislation is a reform to have names of political parties , which are a fact of life in the Australian electorate, on the ballot paper because we have to know the parties concerned. It follows from the reforms which are proposed that we need to have political parties registered. I am sure that we shall have debate in the Committee stage as to the best way in which that might be done and as to the finer points of tuning. I imagine that Senator Harradine will raise some of the points regarding fine tuning. I hope that in Committee the Government will be amenable to movements in that area if it sees that they are necessary. Nevertheless, by and large, the registration provisions are fair and adequate to the task which is necessary. They are not intrusive any more than they need to be to cover those reforms. They could have been much more intrusive. I think that they have been as intrusive as is minimally necessary. That is probably a good thing at this stage, to get the feel of the matters and to see what types of problems might emerge. The Government has been quite open in seeking amendents to the Bill and has also suggested, which suggestion the Opposition and the Australian Democrats have supported, that the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform remain as a committee of this Parliament to look at the implementation of this legislation and to report back to the Parliament in due course if problems arise as a result of the changes that we are making. That is a thoroughly sensible and reasonable way in which to approach these types of reforms. I hope that it marks a period of constructive work on legislation, not only in this area but in many others as well, and that we can see that not all wisdom resides with the Government and that the Parliament has a larger and larger say in the legislative forms by which this country is run. In summary, the Australian Democrats are very pleased that the Bill has come forward. We support its basic thrust and basic principles. Many of the amendments which we had wanted have already been picked up by the Government in the Committee stage in the House of Representatives, and probably all but three or four of the amendments made in the House of Representatives were originally suggestions from the Democrats. We shall be suggesting another batch of 30 to 40 amendments in Committee, which I hope the Government and the Opposition will be able to support, as further refinements and further developments of what we are all seeking. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(12.07) —The Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill 1983 is the first attempt at a major and comprehensive review of the Commonwealth Electoral Act for quite some years. It is therefore, in that respect, overdue. It is also a Bill which draws heavily, but not totally, upon the report and recommendations of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, a committee of which I was privileged to be a member. I say at the outset that electoral laws in Australia have served the people well at the Commonwealth level over the 82 years since Federation. Senator Georges —You have benefited from them. If you look at the representation , you will find an imbalance. The Liberal Party of Australia has been in power much more often than the Australian Labor Party. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —That interjection simply shows the good sense at the ballot box of the voters, in that, for about 60 of the 82 years, they have chosen non-Labor governments. My intention is to deal with the Bill as objectively as possible, but if the Australian Labor Party is interested in an exchange, let us have it. What I was saying was that in my judgment and in the judgment of the majority of people, the laws that have prevailed in the conduct of elections federally over the generations have been honest laws which have worked well and which have produced majority rule. In the overwhelming number of cases, the parties that got the majority of votes were those that formed the Government. That has been the basis of democratic rule. I acknowledge that, not to say that nothing better can be achieved but to pay tribute, incidentally, to the officials and the many people who have taken part over the years. The redistribution systems have been essentially honest and essentially a true reflection of majority rule. That is not to say that they cannot be improved. I want to acknowledge that we do not start from any sense of grave imperfection, of corruption or of gerrymander. We start by looking at a review, seeking to improve upon what has been solid and sensible over the years. I know of no situation in the whole of my time in public life where outside influence, involving money, has influenced governments, of whatever colour, to make judgments. I know that governments are influenced by all sorts of democratic pressures, from their parties, their ideologies, trade unions, interested groups, and all sorts. I know of no clear indications of corruption, although it was alleged by a Labor Party member in the Select Committee that the Iraqi breakfast may well have been such as indication. I would have believed that the Labor Party would have triumphed over that. I start on that basis and by saying that the first amendments to which the Bill directs itself are largely machinery amendments that the Australian Electoral Office has brought to the Committee's attention by saying that their adoption would be beneficial to the democratic and electoral process. I commend those many amendments that are in the Bill. The Committee made 132 relatively significant recommendations, most of which have been adopted and it made many other minor ones, many of which have been incorporated. The first thing to do in regarding the Bill is to recognise that a series of overdue machinery amendments , largely coming from the Electoral Office, are incorporated in the Bill. I commend them. There has been an attempt to improve the methods by which people can become enrolled and can receive a vote. In general terms, as with the Aborigines and others, they are to be commended. A large part of this legislation concerns improvements of machinery. It deals with significant matters. For example, it deals with the methods of redistributing boundaries. Depending upon its implementation, it could be an improvement. It sets up statutory bodies for redistributions and stautory timetables, giving the membership of those bodies to people by reason of their position-to a person because he is a surveyor-general, to a person because he is an auditor-general, to a person because he is a judge Those ideas and ideals are excellent in themselves, but, without any reflection, they will be strong only if all governments ensure that the people who reach those positions get there by their natural abilities and the evolution of time, and not by any government decision that they would, in a partisan sense, make good people for committees. So one must keep in mind the fact that the principles are fine but that the practice itself can have its imperfections. I commend the general principles in the Bill concerning redistribution provided that, as I say, principles are not bent by governments of the future to achieve what they hope will be their own self-interests. The Bill contains a number of other matters, the benefits or otherwise of which will be proven only by time. Over the past 30 or 40 years there have been repeated suggestions of the registration of political parties, the provision of party names on ballot papers and the facilitation within the electoral process of identification of the candidate by the elector. It was not for any insidious reason that these suggestions were not incorporated over the years. Time and again the Electoral Office advised about the complexities that arise from an attempt at registration, an attempt to protect the name of a political party and an attempt to stop people exploiting the names of political parties. Time and again, therefore, these were examined and put aside even though obviously the ideas had merit. The Electoral Office has gone to a very great deal of trouble, as have the law officers, to try to devise a system which will be workable. I can say only that I hope the system will work but that I think it will take years to evolve a series of safeguards which will stop deceptive practices and which will allow for flexibility, bearing in mind that political parties are not immutable and should not be. They are not there forever. For instance, even if the name Australian Labor Party has been common over many years there have been very many different Labor parties in Australia. It is very difficult indeed in terms of a legal judgment to decide what is the Labor Party. There has been the Beazley Labor Party and the Lang Labor Party, just to call two to mind. There has been a whole range of different parties all of which in their day contended for their place in the sun and contended that they were the rightful successors and therefore the rightful users of that title. Make no mistake that as time evolves there will be splits in particular political parties. This has happened in the Australian Labor Party a number of times over many years. So the question of whether registration is the right thing and the question of who is entitled to a name will be extremely difficult ones. Attempts have been made in this legislation to improve upon the handling of postal voting and in many ways it is beneficial to improve upon the facilities for people to get postal votes, to speed up the process and to provide a register of postal voting. All of this, on the face of it, is good, and all of this is aimed at trying to stop exploitation and trying to stop any kind of corruption within the system. When we come to the Committee stage my colleagues and I will be making comments on some of what we regard as the imperfections, some of the overrigidities that have been built into this system. I want to dwell for a moment or two upon the difficulties that I particularly have faced-and I am sure others have too-in confronting this whole matter of electoral reform. There seems to me to be a necessity to get to the philosophy of what we are seeking before we invent a mechanism. There is a tendency to start off by saying 'Let us invent a mechanism which will be the most simple mechanism we can possibly devise' instead of saying 'This is my goal. This is the goal I want to reach, and the mechanism or the vehicle for getting there will be described by me now'. The fact is that when one comes to the question of preferential and proportional representation and of informal and formal votes one needs to ask oneself: 'What comes first-the protection of the philosophy of the voting system or the methodology of collecting a formal vote?' One can of course so simplify a preferential vote or a proportional representation vote to enable total formality that the vote is no longer preferential or no longer proportional in itself. So in fact in my series of dissenting reports I posed a series of problems. I said: Preferential and proportional representation systems depend for their success upon an educated and motivated electorate which will seek to ascertain the backgrounds and affiliations of candidates and groups and will make a conscious effort to allot them a considered order of preferences. Some may be willing to follow a particular how-to-vote card. Others will want to be free to move freely over the ballot paper. Then I said this: The question to be asked is: What is more important, the character and integrity of the voting system or the maximum reduction of informal voting? The two are not readily compatible. What are we seeking to do-to protect the voting system or simply to reduce informal votes? I think this has been a dilemma in the journey of time, because rightly or wrongly-I, as a minority, believe wrongly-the Australian community has over many years accepted compulsory voting as part of its religion in terms of election processes. It is as though it were absolutely fundamental. We seem to have a belief that this is common to democratic systems. The fact of the matter is that compulsory voting is the exception rather than the rule. It does not exist in countries such as America or the United Kingdom. Once we start on the principle of compulsory voting we force a whole series of sanctions into the system. The enforcement of enrolments, the enforcement of getting people to the polls and the enforcement of virtually compelling them to vote. What a strange thing it is. We have a system which forces people, whether they are willing or not, to go to the polls. It cannot pick up the pencils and mark the ballot papers. It cannot force them to do a variety of things, yet it does-it compels. In my dissenting report I gave judgment-and it is purely mine; my political party believes in compulsion but I do not because I think it alters the whole system to the great disadvantage of democracy. I said: The compulsion of an apathetic, reluctant or even hostile person to vote may well produce an ill-considered and irresponsible vote. Indeed, those of us who know the extent of the donkey vote, that is the vote as I have described it, know that it is in the order of 2 per cent or more. It is worth pausing to remember that most elections are decided on a margin of less than 2 per cent-that is, the marginal seats are decided by that much. Have we come to a situation in which we are willing to allow the results in an election to be determined by the compulsion of the apathetic, the reluctant or even the hostile? The more one looks at what happens in voting, the more one comes to the conclusion that a considerable number of people go to the polls but do not want to vote. In the summary in the report we see that 32.4 per cent of the informal ballot papers for the House of Representatives were blank, 14.99 per cent of them had writing, lines or scribbling only and 21.24 per cent had symbols only. So something like 65 per cent of the people were determined that they were not going to cast a formal vote in the ordinary way. Thirty-two per cent of voters who voted informally put in blank ballot papers. Senator Sibraa —What was the total informal vote? Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —The percentage of informal votes for the House of Representatives was 2.52 per cent. For the Senate 8.67 per cent of the ballot papers were blank, 4.82 per cent had only writing, lines or scribble, and 7.01 per cent had only symbols. A very significant number of people had no intention of trying to cast a formal vote, as distinct from those who made an honest attempt. Senator Sibraa —Some of them must have been terrified by the size of the ballot paper. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —I accept what Senator Sibraa says. In fact, the Labor Party and the Labor Government are now to invent a Senate ballot paper under the list system which will terrify everybody. The logic of what I am now saying precludes acceptance of a list system. I will describe the list system because it follows on from informal voting. Everybody is aware that a Senate ballot paper in one or two States only, mainly New South Wales and perhaps Victoria, is a very large and formidable ballot paper. All sorts of devices have been suggested to simplify that ballot paper. One such device was that it should be circular; another was that we would have a lottery to decide who should be in the left-hand corner so that the donkey vote could be accidental. It is an interesting proposition because the list system makes the donkey vote non- accidental in the end. Now we have come up with an extraordinary recommendation, one that I believe defies anybody's rational outlook. I ask the Senate to reject it. It is proposed that each of the parties and groups register their names on the Senate ballot paper. With the registration they can register the order of preferences on their how to vote card. Any group, however small or ineffectual, can register its name and its how to vote card and then, in the lottery of fate, it can be in any position, including the left-hand position, on the how to vote card. By that lottery or Lotto method it can then distribute its vote across the paper, not by random but by its predetermination. Thus in the future quite clearly many will struggle to get the left-hand position. The major political parties will have a vested interest in lobbying strenuously all groups on the ballot paper to register how to vote cards giving them the preferences ahead of their opponents. There will be a tendency for self-interested political parties to have more phoney groups on the ballot paper, because the luck goes to whatever group wins the left-hand position and can transfer the preferences. This is put forward by those who interject about the formidable size of the Senate how to vote card. Now they will make it much more formidable. It is also put forward by those who say that we need to make sure that preferences can be properly allocated. I say to the Senate that the list system as proposed in this legislation would be an outrage to our system of democracy. In due course I will make a number of other comments on some of the fundamentals, but I deal with two or three other matters. I have said that in general terms the redistribution process seems to be sensible and independent, one that can give a sensible judgment. But the Government has decided that the decision on the boundaries shall be made outside Parliament and without any kind of debate within the Parliament. I reject that decision. Parliament is the sovereign body. In the end, those statutory bodies which do its work ought to have a responsibility to table their work here. A debate should be held in the Parliament. I am not advocating a debate which rejects, delays or has any part in altering the final boundaries, but I stress the need for the right to scrutinise what is put forward. There should be the right to make suggestions within a rigid time-table so that there will not be any delay. Parliament should be able to question the electoral commissioners as to whether they had thought of various points. The commissioners could then make their final judgment. I reject the proposition of those who continually say that an honest situation can only come about by putting it into the hands of someone outside Parliament and that to put it in the hands of the Parliament would lead to a dishonest situation. I totally reject that proposition. The institution of parliament was built and evolved as the finest expression of democracy and human values in the temporal scene. If we downgrade ourselves we deserve all we get. But I have never believed that honesty can be created or enshrined. Honesty is in the hearts of men. In my dissenting report I said, and I say now, with respect to statutory bodies, that independence in itself conveys no particular magic or virtue. Virtue emerges if independence is used for its sole purpose, that is to enable full objectivity and integrity of action. Since we are all human and capable of fallibility of judgment, whether members of independent tribunals or not, there is no substitute for full public scrutiny of those to whom we have given particular powers. Every statutory body has a responsibility to table its reports in the Parliament and to be subject to examination as we are day by day. Those who have a view that members of parliament have some lesser amount of honesty than those outside do a grave disservice to this Parliament. I reject the proposition totally. This Bill enshrines the principles of public funding and disclosure. There is some tendency to think that because the Liberal Party does not believe in public funding or disclosure it is hiding something and is the party of big money and big business. It is felt that it is a huge public machine compared with the poor helpless Labor Party. There can be no greater nonsense than that. The huge industrial infrastructure of the Labor Party through the trade union movement, shop stewards and trade union officials selling their philosophy in the boss's time day by day, cannot compare with the more amateur effort on the other side. Money in itself has been demonstrably a much larger part of the organisation of the Labor Party, including its infrastructure of finance from the trade union movement. To try to compare the amount of money spent by parties in the last two or three weeks of an election campaign, and to say that because the Labor Party in recent years has spent less that it is necessary to have some kind of equaliser and that it should be given more money is nonsense. Let us therefore equalise over the whole journey. Let us look at the whole of the infrastructure. The fundamental of a political party is that it is a voluntary organisation. It gets its energies from the grass roots base by striving and by drawing upon the physical and financial energies of people. Thus it should remain. I reject any suggestion that one can by public funding legislate for honesty. In my time I have never heard anything more cynical than that kind of proposition. As I said in my dissenting report: It is not possible to legislate for honesty. To erect a facade which cannot work and to represent it to the community as a reform to strengthen the integrity of the democratic system is to do the community a grave disservice. If a candidate, member or political party has an inherent tendency to dishonesty or a weakness to yield to temptations or pressures for a reward, no public subsidies towards Federal election campaigns will strengthen the integrity of the individual or the organisation, nor will disclosure of election funds be any deterrent. What nonsense it is for anyone to believe that with this kind of system suddenly we will create honest people where, by implication, there was a tendency to weakness or dishonesty. That is the first thing I want to reject. I have a higher opinion of my fellow parliamentarians and my fellow men than that proposition implies. I do not believe that history shows that parliamentarians have been corrupted by money and that decisions have been made in Parliament as a result of corruption by money. They have often been made by corruption of ideas and by corruption by other pressures; they have been made honestly; and they have been made by bungling. But in any case I have to say that it is a quaint proposition indeed. As I have said, it is a cynical view of mankind, and one which I do not share, to somehow suggest that integrity can be bought by a public payment which may alleviate the financial pressures of election expenses. That is absolute nonsense. Those who say 'Look, overseas they have public funding; they do this, that and the other' have not told us the consequences. They have not disclosed to us whether suddenly overseas the system has become more honest, whether the politicians have suddenly developed halos. It is a nonsense situation. What they should tell us is that the result of public funding has been that every kind of trick has been devised to get funding privately, by back door measures. Every kind of device has been invented and used to dodge disclosure. What we are doing here is a sad thing indeed. In a Bill which contains many useful things, this provision, the list system, the hours of polling and one or two other things are, in my judgment, major defects. It would be wrong for us to go to the public and say that we are self-cleansing, that we will make something honest, when, in the first place, there has been no disclosure in the past of major dishonesty and, secondly, when we are really saying that we will keep potentially dishonest people honest by giving them money. I think that is the very reverse of the truth. I reject it. I believe that a political party should be a voluntary organisation. In the past we have basically had a system which has worked. I believe that we get a vibrant organisation when volunteers give their physical and financal efforts to a political party, and I am sorry indeed that the Bill should have been constructed to include such, I think, grave imperfections. Senator SIBRAA(New South Wales)(12.38) —I welcome the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill. In 1977, in 1979 and again in 1980 when the Australian Labor Party was in opposition I moved that a select committee of the Senate be appointed, firstly to inquire into and report upon all provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and associated regulations and procedures and, in particular, changes that should be made to parts XIII to XV of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, which deal with methods of polling and the present system of counting returned votes, and changes that should be made to parts XVI and XVII of the Commonwealth Electoral Act so as to determine the best means of ensuring the public disclosure of the sources and amounts of donations to political parties and candidates and to prevent abuses of existing limitations on electoral expenses; and, secondly, an appropriate method of allotting proportional subsidies by the Australian Government to political parties and candidates. We did not have the numbers in the Senate at that stage and the committee was never established. Therefore, I am extremely pleased to see that one of the first acts of the Labor Government was to set up the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform-which is very similar to the select committee that I proposed, as I said, in 1977, 1979 and 1980-to see it reporting to the Parliament only six months later and now to come in here and see the legislation introduced. There has never been a complete overhaul of the Electoral Act and therefore the report and legislation are long overdue. When Senator Withers and Senator Chaney , who are now in opposition, were the Ministers concerned with the Electoral Act they both promised a full review. Both Ministers publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the electoral laws. They were followed as Ministers for Administrative Services by Mr John McLeay who, in answer to a question in the House of Representatives, also said that our electoral system needed review. But what was done? Absolutely nothing. I intend in the time available to me today to make my main remarks on the issue of public funding. We have just heard a speech from Senator Sir John Carrick, who spent the majority of his time opposing the concept of public funding. We have to ask ourselves why the Opposition is worried about public funding. Why have Opposition members of this Parliament and also of the New South Wales parliamentary Opposition called public funding corrupt and why did a previous Liberal Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, call it corrupt, especially when it can be argued that the most democratic of countries-for example, France, Holland, the United States, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, West Germany, Italy and Canada, to name but a few-have some form of public funding? In fact, Australia is one of the last democracies to install a system of public funding. Public funding has been in existence for over a decade in a number of countries. These countries have working parliamentary democracies at a time when the number of parliamentary democracies around the world is declining. It could be argued that public funding has made those countries more democratic. My interest in this subject goes back to 1973 when I was a delegate on an Australian Labor Party and Australian Council of Trade Unions delegation that went to the Federal Republic of Germany. One of the issues we were interested in was public funding. We were guests of the Social Democratic Party's political education foundation, the Friederich Ebert Foundation, and the Christian Democrats of course also have their foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. I, along with the other members of that delegation, was amazed at the work of these foundations not only within the Federal Republic of Germany but also elsewhere because, in fact, their work was international. For example, the Social Democratic Party's foundation has offices in places as widely dispersed around the world as Lusaka in Zambia and Bangkok in Thailand. They are all publicly funded. In West Germany and Sweden the parties receive funds not only for educational purposes but also for party newspapers and research, and I believe that there is certainly a role in Australia for political funding of educational and research work for the major parties. It has been a very barren area indeed for the major Australian political parties. What is involved in the public funding legislation? Public funding is to be provided to registered political parties and to registered groups and candidates who are not endorsed by a registered political party on the following basis: Firstly, 60c per vote in a House of Representatives election or by-election and, secondly, 30c per vote in a Senate election that occurs simultaneously with a House of Representatives election and 45c per vote in a half Senate election. To qualify for public funding a party representative, or team group in a Senate election, or an individual non-party candidate must poll 4 per cent of the formal vote. My personal opinion is that it should be higher, but the Committee has come down with 4 per cent and the legislation includes that figure. Amounts available for public funding are paid up only to the level of proved electoral expenditure. The amounts to be paid per vote are to be indexed each six months in accordance with the consumer price index. Donations of $200 or more to a candidate or $1,000 or more to a party or group must be disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission. Anonymous donations above the disclosable level are to be forfeited to the Commonwealth. The agents of candidates and parties must disclose the name and address of the person making a donation. All electoral expenditure incurred by candidates, parties and other participants in electoral campaigns must be disclosed to the Electoral Commissioner. Furthermore , all radio and television stations, newspapers and printers must disclose electoral expenditure and indicate the source of the expenditure. I note, Mr Deputy President, that former Senator Puplick, a Liberal senator, in his maiden speech in the Senate on 20 September 1978, said that he looked forward to the days when we would have public funding of political parties, disclosure of donations, some register of pecuniary interests, fair redistributions, one vote one value, a revised Federal Constitution and real popular participation in government. Debate interrupted. Sitting suspended from 12.45 to 2 p.m. Senator DURACK —I refer the Attorney-General to the answer he gave me on 3 November in relation to access by the New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry to Australian Federal Police transcripts when he said that, if it was necessary to amend the Commonwealth law to do so, he would be prepared to introduce legislation to that effect. In view of the inability of Mr Justice Cross to proceed with the investigation of some of the allegations that have been referred to him until he has this information, does the Attorney now agree that prompt action is required by the Commonwealth? Has the Attorney been able to process the matter which again seems to be in difficulties with the Labor Caucus over the proposed amendment to the Telecommunications (Interception) Act? When does he expect to be able to bring forward the necessary amendments to the legislation? Senator GARETH EVANS —It is necessary to pass legislation to enable the material in question to be passed to Mr Justice Cross for the purposes of inquiry. Yes, I have been able to process the matter through the Parliamentary Labor Party and I expect to be able to introduce the necessary remedial legislation tomorrow. Senator COLSTON —Can the Attorney-General advise what High Court challenges the Queensland Government has instituted against the Commonwealth Government since 1972? What have been the results of those challenges and what legal costs have been incurred by the Queensland Government in relation to those challenges? Senator GARETH EVANS —There have been six High Court challenges by Queensland since 1972 to Commonwealth legislation. The only successful one was in 1975 to the validity of the Petroleum and Minerals Authority Act 1973 on a narrow technical ground. I do not have the information as to the cost that may have been incurred by the Queensland Government in the conduct of those matters. I will make available to Senator Colston the full detail of the cases in question. However, briefly, they were: Queensland against Whitlam, which was the challenge to the Bill being put to a joint sitting; Queensland against the Commonwealth, which was the challenge to the validity of the Seas and Submerged Lands Act; Queensland against the Commonwealth, which was a challenge to the validity of the Senate (Representation of Territories) Act; Queensland against the Commonwealth, which was the successful challenge to the Petroleum and Minerals Authority Act based on the technical question about Senate procedures; Queensland against the Commonwealth, which was a further challenge to the Senate (Representation of Territories) Act; Queensland against the Commonwealth, which was the challenge, of course, in the Koowarta case to the validity of the Racial Discrimination Act. So the batting average has not been all that sensational. Senator ARCHER —I ask the Attorney-General a question. I refer to an article by Marion Wilkinson in the National Times under the heading 'Big shots bugged'. Has the Attorney-General noted the article and particularly the serious allegations made in regard to a Sydney solicitor, a former New South Wales magistrate, a judge and a Liberal politician? Will the Attorney-General assure the Senate that these allegations have been or will be fully investigated to determine whether there have been any breaches of Commonwealth law and, if so, that appropriate action has been or will be taken? Senator GARETH EVANS —For reasons relevant to the date of commencement of the Telecommunications (Interception) Act, phone tapping by the Australian Federal Police could not have been involved in relation to the subject of this particular story. For similar reasons, I can assert with some confidence that there was no use by the Federal Police of the listening device provisions in the Customs Act. To the extent that the story has any foundation, it is possible that the source may have been a listening device authorised under New South Wales law which could have been used by the Australian Federal Police or the New South Wales police. The Australian Federal Police, I am advised by the Special Minister of State, are investigating whether the leak came from any information supplied by them. I am awaiting further information on this aspect from the Special Minister of State. We will see what it might be possible to put on the public record when we have that information. Senator TATE —Has the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs recently received a letter from me passing on the concern of some Tasmanians in the non-government school sector concerning consultations being undertaken by the Schools Commission with the non-government school community in regard to the evolution of a new method of distributing funds to that sector of education? Is the Minister satisfied with the extent and timeliness of any such consultation? Will she ensure that consultation takes place at the lowest feasible level closest to the actual school communities? Senator RYAN —I am aware of Senator Tate's representations on this matter. I share his concern that consultations about a new formula for funding of non- government schools should be as extensive as possible. I have instructed the Schools Commission to commence these consultations and to ensure that all major and legitimate spokespersons for the non-government sector will have an opportunity to discuss these matters with the Commission. The Commission, of course, has an ongoing program of consultations around Australia. It meets with non-government school authorities, as I do. I have had the opportunity in every State and Territory in Australia except, I must say, Senator Tate's State of Tasmania, to have discussions with the major organisations representing the diversity of non-government sectors. However, the Commission is aware of the urgent need for it to be able to answer my invitation to advise us on a new equitable formula of funding which will accommodate our concept of the community standard. The consultations have begun. The Schools Commission has already had a meeting in Tasmania in the last couple of months and has written to non- government school organisations and authorities in all States advising them of the timetable for the development of the new formula and of the schedule for consultations which will take place early next year. I share Senator Tate's concern that consultations should be as close to the grass roots as possible. But I am sure Senator Tate and all non-government school authorities will understand that it is not possible for the Commission to visit every non-government school in Australia. There are 2,200 non-government schools in Australia and obviously there is not the opportunity for individual consultations with each school. I am confident that the non-government schools authorities in each State-bodies such as State planning and finance committees on which already there is wide representation from the non-government sector- will be able to put into our development policy in this area all the concerns and the requirements that they have. Senator CHIPP —I ask the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs whether she has seen advertisements in this morning's newspapers calling on me by name and my colleague Democrat senators to 'vote in favour of an amendment to the '' States Grants (Schools) Assistance Bill 1983'' which calls for the restoration of the right of all children to receive guaranteed government financial support for their education'. Senator Macklin, our spokesman on education, last night telephoned Elizabeth Hart, the person who authorised the advertisement, to ask her what the advertisement was referring to. She told him that she did not know. Following that, I ask: Can the Minister tell me whether it is possible to amend this Bill along the lines suggested by Mrs Hart and the group supporting her? Can the Minister confirm that the only amendment that I know of-namely, that moved by Senator Peter Baume-is only in fact an expression of opinion and in no way can it amend the Bill or change its contents? Senator RYAN —I am aware of the advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning which is attempting to bully the Australian Democrats into adopting a course of action which is technically not feasible. Obviously, this advertisement is part of a campaign conducted by some supporters of those schools which have had their Commonwealth recurrent grant reduced modestly to try to force the Government to change its mind. The suggestion in the advertisement represents a complete misunderstanding, deliberate or otherwise, of the powers of the Senate in this regard. Certainly, I have seen no amendment which would attempt to change the allocations of money in the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Bill and I am not surprised that I have not, since such a course of action is not possible. I have heard of, though not seen, a second reading amendment which I gather Senator Baume intends to move, which expresses his opinion about the appropriations for education. We have actually heard his opinion before, but apparently he will attempt to append his opinion to the motion for the second reading of the Bill. I have seen no draft amendment which would accommodate the demands made on the Australian Democrats in the advertisement which I saw this morning. Honourable senators ought to be aware that the powers of the Senate in relation to amending laws, appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation are based on section 53 of the Constitution. The relevant part of that section states: The Senate may not amend any proposed law so as to increase any proposed charge or burden on the people. The grants to these 41 schools were reduced by 25 per cent. As the restoration of that 25 per cent to the 41 schools concerned to the level operating in 1983 would clearly require additional funds, it would therefore represent an increase on the burden of the people. It is therefore quite inappropriate for the Senate to attempt to amend the legislation in the way suggested by the advertisement concerned. I point out to honourable senators that, contrary to what the advertisement maintains, all children in non-government schools will continue to receive a basic grant in 1984. For the 41 schools which have attracted so much attention, the grants will be $270 for each primary student and $428 for each secondary student. These 41 schools, I must stress, will in fact attract nearly $13m in recurrent grants from the Commonwealth alone in 1984. I point out again for the information of the Senate that the most needy schools , those at level 3 which represent 85 per cent of the non-government schools, will receive $741 for each primary school child. That is a $21 increase over last year in real terms. The sum of $1,177 will be given for each secondary student. That is an increase of $34 in real terms over what was received last year. So the implication in the advertisement that there has been an overall reduction in funding for the non-government sector is quite wrong. There has been an overall increase. There has been some redistribution which, together with extra allocations from the Government, has brought about those increases for the vast majority of non-government schools. The 41 schools are still receiving a per capita grant at the levels I have mentioned. I remind the Senate that the $13m in Commonwealth recurrent funding to the 41 schools is a very significant proportion of additional funds which were made available in the education budget. Senator REYNOLDS —Is the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs and Environment aware that the Queensland Cabinet this week gave permission for the development of a coastal road through the Cape Tribulation National Park in far north Queensland? As this area contains unique rain-forest recognised as part of the National Estate, can the Minister comment on the role of the Department of Home Affairs and Environment in protecting this area? Furthermore, is the Minister concerned about the development occurring in close proximity to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park? What liaison is proposed between State and Federal authorities to ensure the protection of the nation's unique rain-forests in north Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park? Senator RYAN —I am aware of the proposal by the Douglas Shire Council to construct a road through the Daintree National Park between Cape Tribulation and Bloomfield River. The Minister for Home Affairs and Environment discussed this matter with local shire officials during his visit to north Queensland last week . While I recognise that this proposal falls within the responsibility of the Queensland Government, both the Minister and I deplore the destruction of the rain-forest which would result if this type of construction were to proceed. I am also concerned about the harm which would be done to the fringing reefs along the coastline. Accordingly, the Minister has asked his officials to work on this matter with all dispatch and to come up with an alternative which will enable the preservation of this outstanding rain-forest area while at the same time taking into account the development needs of the people of north Queensland . Senator COLLARD —My question which is directed to the Minister for Industry and Commerce refers to an article which appeared in the previous edition of the National Times concerning the Colorshield Tile Co. of Brisbane. Is the Minister aware of the serious difficulties facing this company, which is now said to be producing at only 25 per cent of capacity and facing closure because of a drawn out investigation by his Department of a complaint about dumping by a New Zealand company? Is it true that in October last year a prima facie case was established that Colorshield was suffering from dumping by AHI Decrabond? Is the Minister satisfied with the conduct of the matter since that time? Does he plan any personal intervention to assist the company? Does he believe the case has demonstrated the need for any change in procedures? Senator BUTTON —I did see the article in the National Times. I am not sure that I read it, but I looked at the picture. I think it was in the issue before last. I am certainly aware of the complaints of Colorshield. I have met with the proprietors of that company on two occasions. I certainly cannot answer in terms of the exact dates on which events were alleged to have occurred, but let me say this: Last year there was a complaint and an investigation about dumping. The company, AHI, made certain voluntary undertakings, as it was able to do under the dumping procedures. These undertakings were consistent with our obligations under the closer economic relations agreement and under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In June of this year a price undertaking was proposed by the importer and general agreement was reached on that matter. I accepted those undertakings. Since that time, the complaints of Colorshield have rather been directed towards the very large supplies of the competing product from New Zealand which it is alleged were imported into Australia before the undertakings were given. The supplies were stockpiled and directed specifically to the Queensland market. That is the essence of the complaint. That matter is still the subject of investigation. It is the subject of correspondence between AHI and me. I received a letter on the matter from that company a few days ago. That issue is not resolved. Whether a solution is available to the Government in the circumstances as described is doubtful, but officers of my Department have been in Queensland investigating the matter in the last few days. Senator FOREMAN —Has the attention of the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations been drawn to an article in last Thursday's Australian Financial Review in which it was revealed that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard, had called for changes to the industrial relations framework which would allow companies and workers to opt out of the arbitration system? Does the Minister believe that this type of approach is desirable in the present economic climate? Is it consistent with the views expressed by employers at the National Economic Summit Conference? Would such an approach be destabilising and could it lead to an upsurge in the level of industrial disputation? Senator BUTTON —The Government's position on the question of wage fixation is, I think, abundantly clear. It has been the subject of discussion at Question Time in this chamber on a number of occasions. The Government is committed to a centralised wage fixation system. That commitment was approved at the Summit and has since been approved again and again by a number of prominent industrialists and industrial relations practitioners. So there can be no doubt about the Government's view. There is a lot of doubt, of course, about the Opposition's view, because the Opposition speaks with a forked tongue on this matter. Senator Coates —Many tongues. Senator BUTTON —It has been suggested that it speaks with many tongues. I am not a tongue expert. In answer to previous questions I have drawn attention to the views expressed by Mr Macphee in relation to these matters. I want to make one or two observations about the suggestions raised by Mr Howard. I am not criticising them, but they are far from being fully developed. Certainly, the public has not had the benefit of understanding a full exposition of Mr Howard's views. While it is suggested that unions and particular employers could opt out of the conciliation and arbitration system, it is not at all clear whether they would be able to opt in again if it suited them. That is a consideration which I think would very likely arise. Secondly, if the opt-out provision is followed, it is quite clear that those unions which do agree with employers to opt out will be those unions which have very powerful industrial muscle. The implications of such a process of the strong unions opting out of the system would certainly lead, I think, to higher levels of industrial disputation and would not be in the interests of the overall system. I think Mr Howard has directed a lot of attention to the concept of comparative wage justice. The extent to which he attributes failure of the wages system to that concept would not be modified by his proposal, because that proposal, insofar as it is historically and perhaps incorrectly fixed into the wage fixation system in Australia, would remain. There are other concerns about Mr Howard's view. One intellectual basis for the view seems to be that as a result of the existence of the so-called comparative wage justice system wage levels fixed in a particular industry automatically flow to other industries. In the past that has not been so in terms of the resource based industries, which have paid very high wages compared with other industries. Those wage levels have not automatically flowed to other industries. There are a number of criticisms of this kind which simply reveal that it is a proposition which is full of sound and fury in the market-place, but at this stage it signifies nothing. Until it signifies something it is probably not advisable for even an Opposition party in Australia to be peddling the view very widely until there is some serious intellectual underpinning of the viability of that view. Senator REID —My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate because of the close interest he took in matters of Government information when he was in opposition. What was the cost of producing the first edition of the Record of Government, which, complete with portraits of Ministers , purports to inform the public of the Government's achievements in its first few months of office? How many copies have been printed and what has been their distribution? How regularly are we likely to suffer this exercise in blatant political propaganda? Does the Minister agree that the Government is guilty of gross hypocrisy, given its previously sanctimonious approach to Government information activities, in launching this entirely new publication and through its other decisions which have resulted in an increase from 17 to 33 in the journalistic staff working in close contact with Ministers to promote this Government's activities? Senator BUTTON —I congratulate Senator Reid for remembering my diligence on this topic when we were in opposition. I am glad that I made some impression in that role. Let me say that the burden of the criticisms I made was that the Fraser Government, by its vast expenditures on these matters, was setting new and lower standards. The assumption in Senator Reid's question was, of course, that a Labor Government would inevitably set higher standards. I am very grateful to her for making that assumption. I think that it is true of most of the things which we do. It was an interesting assumption underlying the question. Having made that comment, I am unable to answer any of the questions which Senator Reid specifically asked. I do not know how many copies of the Record of Government were printed. I do not know what the cost was. I do not know how regularly the publication will come out. If Senator Reid likes it, we can arrange for it to come out every month. I will provide details as soon as possible. Senator ROBERT RAY —I direct my question to the Minister for Social Security. I preface it by saying that the Minister will be aware that many retired members of our community invest their life savings in non-interest bearing accounts. In the light of that, will the Minister's Department publish a series of comparative tables so that retired members of our community can establish how best to maximise their incomes? Senator GRIMES —I thank Senator Ray for the question. Many retired members of the community in recent years-certainly since the introduction of the income test, as distinct from the means test-have been putting their money into non-interest bearing accounts, such as cheque accounts, in order to avoid the income test. Frequently this has been most unwise. This has been demonstrated in particular by figures Senator Gietzelt has released regarding applications for service pensions. The great tragedy of this situation, of course, is that people have been investing large amounts in interest-free deposits. The capital amount is eroded year by year by inflation, particularly by the sort of inflation rate which we have had in recent years. Banks and other organisations have taken great advantage of this. The people have been able to receive a pension and fringe benefits which they would have been better off not receiving. It would have been better for them to invest their money in a sensible way to their advantage and to the advantage of the country. We intend to introduce the assets test. We are introducing tables to show how that assets test will affect pensioners. I will certainly take up Senator Ray's proposal that we put out tables to assist people on how to invest, and invest wisely, within the pension system. I believe the investment industry in this country, as has been said in interviews on programs recently, is now anxious to concentrate on providing proper investment advice to people rather than merely advice on how to avoid the income test or taxation. I hope that in the future the combination of that advice and new initiatives brought out by the Government will result in more sensible investment and a better and more adequate income for all retired people in this country. Senator JESSOP —I refer the Attorney-General to the extraordinary and unprecedented commitment by the Government to spend $1.25m of taxpayers' money on the promotion of the Yes case at the referendum to be held on 25 February, this amount, of course, being over and above the $21m cost of the referendum. I ask the Attorney-General whether in previous referenda equal opportunity for the presentation of both Yes and No cases was provided through the Australian Electoral Office and whether equal time was provided to both sides to present the cases to the people through the then Australian Broadcasting Commission. Is it also a fact that in previous referenda funds were provided for promotional purposes by organisations, political parties and individuals interested in supporting either side and that no Government finance was provided for publicity , apart from through the Electoral Office and the ABC? Can the Attorney-General say who authorised Government expenditure of $1.25m on the promotion of the Yes case? From what appropriation will this amount be obtained? Does the Attorney- General recognise the democratic fairness of equal presentation of cases for and against referendum proposals so that the electorate can make an informed decision on 25 February? Will he acknowledge that it is unfair that these government funds should be earmarked for expenditure on a Yes campaign to the exclusion of the No case? Senator GARETH EVANS —It would be quite irresponsible for the Government not to provide positive support for constitutional changes which would provide this country with more efficient and stable government, particularly when the changes in question have support, not just of one party, but from all the major parties in this country. The Australian Labor Party, the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party of Australia and the Australian Democrats support the matters being put to the public in this way. It is the case that the No case gets ample treatment at taxpayers' expense through the equal time provisions that Senator Jessop has referred to and, of course, through the distribution of the referendum pamphlet containing the Yes and No cases. We still await with interest what Senator Jessop's No case will be on the removal of obsolete provisions. It is the case that the No case gets ample air time. It is also the case that opponents of referendum proposals in the past have generally embarked upon quite active paid advertising campaigns of their own, supported as they have been by various interest groups. I readily concede that it has been very rare indeed for governments of the day to do anything other than rely simply on ordinary campaigning and the formal Yes and No cases going into the post boxes. The absence of strong campaigning on the Yes side must be seen as contributing to Australia's record of failed referendums. When one is spending $21.5m on the conduct of the referendum, the additional one and a bit million dollars that is proposed for this, by comparison, seems eminently worth spending. I make one final point. The Queensland Premier has indicated his enthusiasm for embarking upon what he describes as an election style No campaign against the referendum proposals. I have no doubt that the Tasmanian Premier will do the same. I will be very interested to know whether either of those gentlemen will give undertakings as to the non-utilisation of any government or taxpayers' resources in those States in the conduct of their contributions to this campaign . Senator JESSOP —I ask a supplementary question, Mr President. The Attorney- General very effectively evaded the question. I asked him, among other things, who authorised the expenditure of taxpayers' money for this purpose? From what appropriation will this money be obtained? Does the Attorney consider it fair that the Yes case should be supported by taxpayers' money, whereas the No campaign apparently is not considered worthy of support although many people in the electorate would want that to be presented on an equal basis? Senator GARETH EVANS —The last part of Senator Jessop's supplementary question is simply idle reiteration of the rather feeble rhetoric with which he commenced his question. I do not think it demands any further answer. In relation to the first part of the question and who authorised the expenditure, a committee of Ministers on government advertising, chaired by the Special Minister of State, is responsible for dealing with things such as authorisation of Medicare advertising or Commonwealth Electoral Office enrolment drives and matters of that kind. That committee has formally endorsed this proposal. The appropriation in question will come out of, as I understand it, the appropriation for the Department of the Special Minister of State. The honourable senator is welcome to pursue this matter with as much vigour as he can muster when it comes to the next round of Estimates. Senator ZAKHAROV —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Aviation. What plans does the Government have in the short or long term for the future of Essendon Airport in Melbourne? Senator GIETZELT —The future of Essendon Airport, of course, is a matter of considerable importance to the residents in the area and in Melbourne generally. I am led to believe that a study was commissioned by the immediate post-coup Government led by former Prime Minister Fraser back in 1976. He indicated that a study would be carried out about the future of that airport. I think the words he used were that it had a future until about 1985, and he gave that Government' s commitment to review the future use of the airport. This review is currently being carried out for the Commonwealth Government by the Department of Aviation. It is due to be completed by mid-1984. Following completion of that review the Government expects to announce its decision on the future of the airport, that is, to retain or close Essendon Airport by mid-1985. The Government, however, in addition to continuing the review of that decision and to help it formulate its opinion, has determined that we should look at the likely effects. A committee has been commissioned to look at the future of the airport. To allow the widest possible participation in the review, a public liaison group has been commissioned. That liaison group, chaired by the Department of Aviation, comprises representatives of State and local government, community groups, industry, employee groups and other individuals. The Government is intent that there should be public participation. This will be achieved through a series of public opinion polls, through a public awareness campaign which includes paid advertisements in the local Press and audio-visual display in local shopping centres and community centres, and information leaflets delivered to approximately 44,000 local inhabitants within five kilometres of the airport. So we are setting out very deliberately to seek the opinions of those who will be affected by any change in the present status of Essendon Airport. Conditional upon that review, the Government will make a decision within the next year or so. Senator MACKLIN —Is the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs and Environment aware that the Douglas Shire Council of Cairns is about to commence construction of a road through the magnificent coastal rain-forest wilderness between Cape Tribulation and Bloomfield? Is it not a fact that this area is listed on the register of the National Estate? Is it also not a fact that the Minister for Home Affairs and Environment said in Queensland on 23 November that this area would be suitable for world heritage listing? Can the Minister confirm that the Government has proper and responsible legislative powers under the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 and the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983 to prevent this act of destruction against the National Estate? The PRESIDENT —A similar question has been asked, but this one is a little wider in its terms. Therefore I shall allow it. I call the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs and Environment. Senator RYAN —I answered a question about this proposed road which would destroy the rain-forest region in the Daintree area. I informed the Senate that my colleague the Minister for Home Affairs and Environment is having discussions with Queensland officers to seek to provide an alternative whereby the rain- forest can be protected and the development needs of north Queensland addressed. In relation to the specific powers which the Commonwealth might have, either to list the matter on the World Heritage List or to take action, I will refer those matters for more detailed response from the Minister, Mr Cohen. Senator ELSTOB —My question is directed to the Attorney-General. It refers to the recent report that nearly 50 per cent of the country's racial discrimination complaints came from residents of Queensland. Can the Attorney indicate when an office of the Human Rights Commission will be established in Queensland? Does the Federal Government anticipate receiving full co-operation from the Queensland Government in the setting up and the operation of the Commission in that State? Senator GARETH EVANS —It is the case that Queensland accounts for far and away the largest proportion of complaints made by Aboriginals under the Racial Discrimination Act. The figure is not quite half; 60 out of 160 complaints were made in Queensland last year as revealed in the figures given by the Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Mr Peter Bailey, last week. The Deputy Chairman announced that it was the intention of the Commission to open an office in Brisbane as early as possible in the New Year. I have indicated to the Human Rights Commission that I view the matter as one of very high priority. I will be having discussions with the Commission shortly about resources to allow the opening of that Brisbane office. As to the last part of Senator Elstob's question, discussions with officials in Queensland as late as last week indicate that there is no likelihood that Queensland has any intention of passing anti- discrimination legislation of its own. Whether we will have any co-operation from Queensland in the operation of the Commonwealth Human Rights Commission in that State remains to be seen. I would not want to have my shirt on it. Senator MARTIN —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs and Environment. Is the Government considering a proposal to move the Australia Council from Sydney to Canberra? Does the Government have an opinion on whether such a move should take place? Will the Government make an announcement on the subject? If so, when will the announcement be made? Senator RYAN —I can assure the Senate that the Government is not considering a proposal regarding the future situation of the Australia Council. I am very well aware that there is debate within the arts community about whether the Australia Council is appropriately placed in Sydney, or whether it ought to be moved either on an alternate basis to Melbourne or permanently to Canberra. Many people are now voicing opinions on these matters. There have been a number of conferences recently at which these matters have been raised. I am aware that my colleague the Minister for Home Affairs and Environment has attended some of these conferences and heard the points of view of people who believe that the fact that the Australia Council is in Sydney means that there is some sort of bias in its funding decisions towards people living and working in New South Wales. I am not aware of any formal proposal regarding any change in the situation of the Australia Council. Should such a proposal come on the agenda, obviously it would be a matter that the Government would be aware of. However, I will ask my colleague Mr Barry Cohen whether he has any ideas or views that may be of interest to Senator Martin on this subject. Senator GILES —My question is directed to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. It relates to the claim in last Saturday's Four Corners program on Australian Broadcasting Commission television that the Vietnamese Government has undertaken a detailed study of its war veterans which reveals a strong link between service in areas likely to have been sprayed with chemicals such as agent orange and major health problems such as cancer and an abnormally high level of birth defect among veterans' children. I ask the Minister: Will the Royal Commission on the Use and Effect of Chemical Agents on Australian Personnel in Vietnam investigate this study as well as any other available evidence of a link between chemical spraying and health problems amongst the Vietnamese population? Senator GIETZELT —It is true that the Four Corners program dealing with the problems facing those who served in Vietnam made a number of allegations and drew a number of matters to the attention of both my Department and myself. Naturally, it has drawn to our attention the matters that Senator Giles has raised with me. The program indicated that information was provided to Ministers of conservative governments which certainly was inadequate and may well prove to have been incorrect. However, so far as the Royal Commission is concerned, when the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Hayden, was in Vietnam in June of this year the Vietnamese Foreign Minister, Mr Thach, indicated his Government's willingness to co-operate in the Royal Commission's inquiry and to make available evidence such as the study to which the honourable senator referred. Similarly, the American Government has offered to make available to the Commission such information as would assist it to reach some definite conclusions. As I understand it, the Vietnamese study shows that the children of North Vietnamese veterans are four times as likely to suffer from birth defects, if their father served in the south of Vietnam prior to their birth, as is the case if service was confined to the north where no chemical spraying took place. In addition, I am informed that the Vietnamese have undertaken scientific investigations which also claim to substantiate this particular link. Obviously, the Commission will examine these claims very closely. If the claims are soundly based they will be of central importance to the Commission's deliberations. As a result of that, the Royal Commissioner has required the junior counsel of the Royal Commission, Mr Max Kimber, to leave Australia on 5 December for a one-week trip to Vietnam to undertake a preliminary assessment of this evidence. Early next year the Royal Commissioner, His Honour Mr Justice Phillip Evatt, plans to go to Vietnam to investigate the evidence thoroughly. However, Mr Kimber's role will be to advise the Commissioner on the basis of his investigations on how long the Commissioner's trip should be and the type and number of support staff, such as scientific experts, who should accompany him. It will depend upon the initial trip as to what evidence is of particular value to the Commission. I emphasise to the Senate that the Government is concerned to constrain costs in conducting the inquiry. We have accordingly sent a junior counsel to prepare the way for the eventual visit of the Commissioner. Senator MISSEN —My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Trade and it relates to the recent disclosure by the Department of Trade involving the Government stand on the Arab League boycott of Israel and, in particular, a letter sent out by regional offices of the Department of Trade which created the impression that the Australian Government indeed condoned the boycott. In the light of this disturbing disclosure I ask the Minister: Firstly, what action has been taken by the Government to rectify this situation and to make it clear that the conditions required by the Arab League governments for companies to trade with them in no way reflect the Australian position? Secondly , I ask him to reaffirm the sentiments expressed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in answering my question without notice on 21 October, which was directed to the Minister for Social Security who represents him in this chamber, that: The establishment of an Arab League office in Australia would be conditional on assurances that an office would not be involved in promoting boycotts of Australian firms. In view of this recent departmental blunder, how can he now assure the Senate that the activities of any such Arab League office will be carefully monitored so as to ensure that it does not engage in any trade boycott activities directed against companies and individuals trading or wishing to trade with Israel? Senator BUTTON —I am not sufficiently familiar with the details as to enable me to provide a full answer to Senator Missen. I think I am able to reaffirm the undertaking given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in answer to an earlier question from Senator Missen on the conditions upon which the office would be established. But I will obtain the necessary information on the actions of the Department of Trade and provide Senator Missen with an early answer. Senator ROBERTSON —My question is directed to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and it follows Senator Coleman's question of 18 November relating to the status under the Repatriation Act of Australian personnel serving in overseas peacekeeping forces. The Minister advised Senator Coleman on that occasion that members of peacekeeping forces are covered under the Repatriation Act provided that he designates by notice in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette that such a group is participating in a peacekeeping force. I ask the Minister: Is it a fact that a number of long-standing Australian peacekeeping forces have not yet been gazetted and therefore the members of these forces are denied repatriation benefits as things stand? What action will the Minister take to remedy this oversight? Senator GIETZELT —The honourable senator's observation that a number of the outstanding peacekeeping forces have not been gazetted to date is correct. The net result of that is that the Australian members of those forces are not yet eligible for repatriation benefits. As I indicated on the previous occasion, it is a requirement of the Act that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs shall gazette that information when the Government makes a decision to send overseas such peacekeeping forces. There are currently four such peacekeeping forces which I am taking urgent action to gazette in order that those Australian members, past and present, may be covered by the Repatriation Act. They are the United Nations Emergency Force Two, which served in the Suez Canal area between the years 1976 and 1980; the Commonwealth Monitoring Force in Zimbabwe, in which 150 Australians served for about six weeks in 1980; the Sinai Multinational Peacekeeping Force, the Australian contingent of which departed Australia in February 1982; and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force which went to Cyprus following Australia's involvement, which dates back as far as 1964. As regards the Cyprus force, I indicated in answer to Senator Coleman's question that those persons were not covered under the Act. I undertook at the time to check on that information and to investigate that apparent anomaly, and it appears that they come within the jurisdiction of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. So I can now inform the Senate that, after gazettal, the members of the Cyprus peacekeeping force will meet the provisions of the Repatriation Act for entitlement to repatriation benefits. The point that I have to make concerns the gross negligence of previous conservative governments and their incompetence in not taking the next step. They made the decision to send Australians to the four corners of the globe in peacekeeping activities. No steps were subsequently taken to ensure that those members, who were all perceived at some stage to be likely to be involved with hostile forces, were adequately covered for repatriation benefits and treatment on their return. I draw the Senate's attention to the fact that, in the case of the Cyprus contingent, that negligence stretches back almost 20 years. It is a disgrace to the previous conservative Government. I have taken urgent steps to see that those matters are addressed immediately, so that any person eligible for repatriation benefits will be covered by the existing legislation. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to Senator Button, as the Leader of the Government in the Senate and as the Minister representing the Minister for Industrial Relations. I preface my question by noting that a strike by members of the Electrical Trades Union in Western Australia, now in its seventh week, has seriously delayed the start up of the Worsley alumina refinery in the south- west of the State, resulting in direct project costs of about $20m a month plus losses incurred by major suppliers of materials, such as coal, fuel oil and lime , due to the forced deferral of orders. I also mentioned that the company, which had been taking on new staff at the rate of about 100 a month, has now suspended all recruitment and has advised its 550 permanent employees that it cannot guarantee work after Christmas. Is the Minister aware that the dispute concerns the suspension in February by the Western Australian Industrial Commission of a $38 a week pay rise because of the wages pause, and that the union has been in defiance of a return to work order for more than three weeks and that its registration has now been suspended by the Commission? Does he share the concern of the Western Australian Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Dans, who has described the strike as 'the most serious threat to the prices and incomes accord since its inception', and who has called on the union to take a wider view? In view of the crucial importance of the accord to the national economic strategy and the concern expressed recently by the Minister for Resources and Energy about the effect of strikes on Australian resource projects, not to mention the personal hardship and threat to hundreds of other jobs, what influence can the Federal Government bring to bear in an atempt to resolve what appears to be a totally deadlocked situation which is causing hardship to hundreds of Western Australians? Senator BUTTON —On the assumption that the facts indicated in Senator Chaney's question are correct, it sounds awful. I was not personally aware of the duration of the strike or the consequences, as they have been suggested in the question. The Government deplores industrial action of that kind which, in view of its implications, can only be described as selfish. I shall speak to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations and see what steps the Government can take in relation to this matter. Senator COATES —I address my question to the Minister for Social Security. What are the implications of any delay in the planned reintroduction of the pensions assets test for the Government's program of improving the levels of assistance to pensioners and beneficiaries generally? Secondly, is he aware that the so- called investment adviser Bruce Bond, who conducts what might be called tax avoidance and income test avoidance sessions on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio in Tasmania and, I think, in other parts of the country, has been inciting pensioners to oppose the assets test? Is it not a fact that people such as Bruce Bond are part of the problem that has forced the Government to act to prevent the avoidance of the income test? Will the Minister seek an invitation to appear on Mr Bond's program so as to put the whole issue in perspective and to explain, in particular, the implications to which I referred earlier in my question, for the vast majority of his listeners? Senator GRIMES —The implications of the delay in introducing the assets test are understood by everyone. The aim of the assets test is to redistribute income, which is at present going to those who are not in need, to those who are in greater need in the pensions system. Any delay will delay that redistribution and delay the capacity of this or any government to increase those base rates of pensions and the allowances available to people-for instance, pensioners with children. As for Mr Bond, I have been informed that he is using his program to campaign against the introduction of the assets test. I believe, with Senator Coates, that this is one of the problems. As I understand it, Mr Bond receives a considerable fee for conducting these programs. As a result of his public appearances on these programs, he receives a considerable increase in his private business as an investment adviser. In fact, he largely relies on the people's desire to avoid either taxation or the income test, or both. Therefore, a lot of his time is spent advising people about schemes. These are legal schemes, but they are schemes which are aimed at avoiding the income test, avoiding paying taxation through capital gains schemes, et cetera, and therefore are distorting both the taxation system and the social security system. Because Mr Bond makes his money in this way, and because of the considerable fees that he gets from the ABC for conducting the programs, he has a vested interest in this area and cannot be considered a disinterested observer or a disinterested campaigner in this way. I would be happy to go on Mr Bond's program. I only wish that the ABC would pay me the same money as it pays him to conduct the programs. But, even if I were not paid a fee, I would be happy enough to go on the program to put the other side of the story. It is a pity that people such as Mr Bond abuse their position and take advantage of it to feather their own nests in this way. Senator WATSON —I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry. Given the fact that the Tasmanian Government is negotiating with Australian companies for the use of fishing resources in Tasmania, what are the advantages of opening up Tasmanian fishing waters to overseas fishermen? Has the Federal Government conducted negotiations with representatives from overseas countries for overseas boats to fish in waters off the Tasmanian coastline? Senator BUTTON —I am not able to answer the question with great precision, although I am aware that the Commonwealth Government has knowledge of discussions which have taken place regarding the opening up of Tasmanian fishing waters to foreign fishing fleets. Where there is a resource such as fish in the seas contiguous to Tasmania, it is inevitable that there will be discussions of that kind. As I understand it, the principal discussions have taken place between a very large Australian company and representatives of the Soviet Union. The Government is aware that those discussions have taken place. I am also able to say that over a long period there has been discussion about the use of the porting facilities at Hobart for various foreign fishing fleets. That matter was the subject of a decision on rather narrow political grounds by the previous Government at the time of the Afghanistan incursion by the Soviet Union. On behalf of the Government I say that there is certainly no damage to any interests, perceived or otherwise, in Tasmania by discussions about these matters taking place. I am sure they will continue to take place and I think it is desirable that they do. Senator WATSON —Mr President, I have a supplementary question. Have these negotiations with representatives of overseas countries taken place without reference to the Tasmanian Government? Senator BUTTON —I cannot say whether negotiations between a private company, a very substantial Australian company, and representatives of the Soviet Union have taken place with or without the knowledge of the Tasmanian Government and I do not, with the greatest respect, regard it as any of my business or anybody else's to see that the Tasmanian Government is aware of everything that takes place. I would have thought that it was its obligation to see that it is aware of these things. The Commonwealth Government is aware, but I am not sure how that awareness comes about. Senator Watson —Can you find out? Senator BUTTON —I will certainly try to find out in relation to the Commonwealth Government. I hope the Tasmanian Government will find out. We would certainly be prepared to assist, because any decisions which are made on the basis of such discussions have to be decisions made by governments and particularly with the concurrence of the Tasmanian Government. So it is not a question of the content of the discussions; it is a question of what conclusions are arrived at on the basis of those discussions and how they are implemented. Senator RYAN —On 12 October 1983 I answered a question without notice by Senator Mason on the subject of wind energy. Senator Mason sought supplementary information which has now been provided by the Minister for Science and Technology. I seek leave to incorporate the supplementary information in Hansard . Leave granted. The document read as follows- Megawatt scale wind generators are being developed in the US, Canada, UK, Denmark, Germany and Sweden and have reached the demonstration stage in some of these countries. In Australia there has been no research as yet on megawatt scale generators, but the Australian Government has not abandoned wind energy research. It is funding a modest program of wind energy research under the National Energy Research, Development and Demonstration (NERD&D) Program, which supplements investigations by State Governments aimed at evaluating the prospects for wind power. My colleague the Minister for Resources and Energy has advised that under the NERD&D Program a total of $428,000 has been committed to wind energy research since 1978. Areas of research supported have included site specific wind resource assessments, wind generator technology, the feasibility of integrating wind generators into State electricity grids, and performance monitoring of wind systems for homestead power. I also refer honourable Senators to Senator Walsh's reply in the Senate on 14 September 1983 to a question from Senator Coates concerning wind energy in Tasmania (Hansard, page 660). Senator BUTTON —On 17 November Senator Missen asked me a question relating to the historic news film archives of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Further to the answer which I gave I wish to advise the Senate that in giving my answer on that day I was speaking in somewhat broad terms regarding the situation of archival film generally in Australia because I did not quite hear Senator Missen's question, and I am not sure anybody else did either. I am able to add that in regard specifically to archival film held by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation it has two film vaults at its studios at Ripponlea in Victoria. The older vault which was completed in the mid-1950s and which currently holds more than two million feet of black and white film has been disturbed by dampness in recent years. The new vault which was completed in November 1978 has humidity and temperature control and contains all film shot in colour since the mid-1970s. This amounts to over five million feet of film. To move the film from the old vault is a time consuming task as all film is cleaned by hand and checked against a catalogue. The ABC advises that there is no evidence to suggest that film has been damaged due to storage conditions in the old vault and it hopes that all films will have been relocated in the new vault by December 1984. Senator GRIMES —Yesterday at Question Time Senator Lewis asked me whether it was a fact that Medicare enrolment forms had been considerably underestimated and that forms were not available at post offices. He also asked me about an alleged Department of Health paper advocating an increase in the health care levy to 4 per cent. I have sought information from the Minister for Health and his Department. As to the first part of the question, certainly in post offices the Medicare enrolment forms had run out. This arose from the fact that the Health Insurance Commission asked Australia Post as the experts for an estimate of the number of households in Australia and the number of people in those households. The estimates given by Australia Post were considerably under the real number. In fact some of those forms originally intended for post offices had to be used in the household drop. Extra forms have now been printed and will be available in post offices throughout Australia this week. As for the second part of the question, it appears that there is no Department of Health paper advocating an increase in the health care levy to 4 per cent. Neither the Minister nor anyone in the Department has ever heard of it. Senator GARETH EVANS —For the record may I correct a statement I made as part of my answer to a supplementary question from Senator Jessop today. It was my understanding that the appropriation for the Government's Yes case advertising, which is now coming from the Advance to the Minister for Finance, would ultimately be attributed to the Department of Special Minister of State. I am now advised that agreement has been reached for it to come from the Attorney- General's Department. I accordingly advise Senator Jessop to pursue the matter further in that Estimates committee. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN(Queensland) -by leave-Mr President, I claim to have been misrepresented. When I was not in the Senate yesterday Senator Crowley asked a question based on an item in the National Times regarding what I was reported to have said at the Gold Coast recently. I would have thought Senator Crowley would have been a member of the Senate for long enough now to know that one does not believe everything one reads in the papers. Senator Withers —Do not read newspapers. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN —That might be a thought too, Senator Withers. I do not believe there was a representative from the National Times at the Rotary Club function when I was asked a question about women demonstrating at Pine Gap. I inform the Senate that I have never used a strap in my life, and neither has Joh ; not that I have hesitated to use a walloping hand just the same. So I cannot see any reason why it should be suggested that I would tell husbands to use the strap on their wives. However, I did say at that meeting that I felt the actions of some of the women at Pine Gap did reflect little credit on womanhood in general. If I may be permitted I will make a few remarks about the comments of the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans). I think when one becomes a member of the Senate one does need to have a good sense of humour. That has been my experience from time to time. I have listened on many occasions to rude remarks made in the Senate about various people. I feel that the type of remark made by the Attorney-General yesterday, such as 'The picture is that of the Premier shuffling in and out of the family cave', is not very nice from a person in the Attorney-General's position. I feel sure that if the Premier challenged him or some of the other people on the other side of the House to a brisk walk or a game of squash, he would beat them hands down. He would be right out in the lead just as- The PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator is straying from her personal explanation. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN —Thank you. I just want to say, Mr President, in bringing my remarks to a conclusion, that the Premier would be right out in the lead in the same way as he is right out in the lead in Queensland. He showed the people that at the election on 22 October. Discussion of Matter of Public Importance The PRESIDENT —I have received a letter from Senator Chaney proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely: The lack of any reliable basis for the Government's restrictive policy on the development of Australia's uranium resources. I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition)(3.10) —We have had a good number of debates in this chamber and in the other place on the question of Australia's uranium policy and the policy of the present Government. The matter of public importance today is: The lack of any reliable basis for the Government's restrictive policy on the development of Australia's uranium resources. In bringing it forward, the Opposition wishes to highlight a matter which did not receive very much attention and on which we believe there are grounds for concern, namely, the failure of the Government to establish a reliable basis for a decision which has cost Australia very dearly indeed. I do not think I need stress in this debate the widespread dissatisfaction there is about the Government's uranium decisions. That dissatisfaction ranges from the left wing of the Australian Labor Party, as has been readily evidenced by its Victorian Branch over this last week and by other branches, through to would-be miners of uranium, many of whom have committed very substantial funds to the process of exploration, discovery and development. The sorts of remarks made by Mr Tony Grey at the annual general meeting of Pancontinental Mining Ltd are simply one example of the criticisms which have been made so widely. Mr Grey referred to the dark shadow of confusion and obstructionism descending on the uranium industry which has frustrated our sales and development efforts. In fact, that sort of criticism of the Government's uranium policy reflects the sort of criticism admitted to by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Button, who has admitted that one can take quite different meanings from the policies laid down by the ALP. Of course, now that some attempt has been made to clarify that and a great deal of harm has been done, there are critics from both left and right. There is no doubt, as the matter of public importance states, that the policy of the Government is restrictive. It provides that there are to be no new uranium mines apart from Roxby Downs. That means that projects for which the promoters had very great hopes have been aborted in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The decision is selective and is seen to be unfair all around Australia, but particularly by those States which have been excluded from the substantial development prospects by this very partial decision. It is important to note that the policy is not based on concern about nuclear weapons or waste disposal. Whatever honest concerns might be expressed about those areas and whatever action might be taken very properly by government in policing these areas, it cannot be said that one can justify being in the export market to the extent of, say, 7,000 or 8,000 tonnes per year. It cannot be said that that is in some way different, as far as nuclear proliferation or safe waste disposal is concerned, from being in the export market to the extent of another 5,000, 6,000 or 7,000 tonnes. It is quite clear that we do not have a decision on principle. We have a decision which is based far more on political trade-offs. The Government has committed itself to remaining in the uranium market to a significant extent, probably to the extent of some 6,000 to 7,000 tonnes per year. It could be higher if the Energy Resources of Australia Ltd mine at Ranger is allowed to expand to its full capacity. But we have no moral or strategic argument from the Government to justify the partial decision which it has taken. Instead, we have an economic justification which has been trotted out by the Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Walsh) on numerous occasions. He has tried to dress up in economic clothes what is really a multilevel political trade-off. I will not refer to all the times that Senator Walsh has made this argument in justification of the Government's decision, but I will refer to a few. In the Senate on 8 November, he said: The reason for that-not the entire reason, but the chief reason-is that, in the judgment of the Government, for the next 15 years and possibly to the end of this century, existing mines plus Roxby Downs, if it proceeds, will fill the room which is likely to be available in the world market place for uranium delivered from Australia. In New York just a few days ago he said: The accuracy of demand projections into the 1990s for yellowcake is dependent on the accuracy of assumptions made about consumption and stock accummulation or run down. Both are subject to wide margins of potential error. I heartily agree with that comment. He went on to say: The Government's judgment was that the likely commercial demand for Australian yellowcake up to the late 1990s could be supplied from the two existing mines and Roxby Downs. Again in the Senate on 8 November, in another passage, he made that position quite clear. In the debate at the Committee stage on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) on 9 November we find the justification on which the Government has based its whole policy, namely, that once Roxby Downs is approved and allowed to go ahead we will have the ability to fill completely any demand that there might be for Australian uranium and that one cannot, therefore, admit any other miners into the field. In response to a question from Senator Sir John Carrick, Senator Walsh tried to set down on what basis the Government had made this judgment. He said: The Government has made a judgment on evidence provided from a variety of sources, importantly from the interdepartmental committee report on the likely commercial global demand for yellowcake from Australian sources. The Government has taken account of an admission-if that appears to be a loaded term I shall use another one-or a statement by Mr Grey of all people, the Chairman of Pancontinental Mining Ltd, who acknowledged only last month that for the first time in very many years we were approaching a situation in which the production of yellowcake was likely to come to balance with consumption . . . Senator Walsh went on to say: We have also taken account of a statement by Mr Townsend of the Central Electricity Generating Board of the United Kingdom that not until 1995 would the product of a new mine or new mines be required on the world market. They are the bases on which the Government has made this critically important assessment that it can permit only Roxby Downs and the sales from existing producers. That is a very significant decision which has resulted, as I said earlier, in the effective aborting of a whole range of other projects on which people have spent substantial amounts of capital. In one case up to $100m was spent on a single project, a project with which the company is not now allowed to proceed. The Opposition believes-for that reason it brings forward this matter of public importance-that the fundamental central point which has been made over and again by Senator Walsh is not sound and is not a sound basis on which such an important decision should be taken. A little later in the debate I will make available to the Senate-they are too bulky to be incorporated in Hansard-a couple of documents which will help to explain the Opposition's scepticism about the views which have been put forward by the Government to justify its decision. In fact, we believe that Senator Walsh has quoted people out of context and has put very doubtful interpretations on the material to which I have referred in the last few minutes. What Senator Walsh did not say when he referred to Mr Grey's comments was that those comments can also be read to say that the world is moving towards a situation where consumption will be more than production, where stockpiles will fall and where there will be need for more new contracts and, therefore, new mines. Mr Grey's company has supported the judgment that there is room in the market for more new mines with a planned $500m investment at Jabiluka. The second person who has prayed in aid, Mr Michael Townsend, is a person whose total remarks again cast a rather different light on the situation. The statement which Senator Walsh quoted came from a paper entitled 'Some Aspects of the Outlook for Uranium Supply and Demand' which was presented by Mr Townsend at the Eighth Annual Symposium of the Uranium Institute in London on 24-26 August this year. Like Mr Grey, Mr Townsend has been selectively quoted or rather misquoted by Senator Walsh. What Mr Townsend said was not that new mines would not be required until 1985, but that under some assumptions new mines might be needed by 1988-89, but that under other assumptions the most likely scenario was that they would be required by 1983 and that under the assumption that there is a greater redistribution of stocks between users, some overproduction from existing mines, some further cancellations and delays at power stations, new mines might not be needed until 1995. In fact, if honourable senators examine the graphs attached to Mr Townsend's paper, the most probable scenario paints a picture not unlike a recent study which has been prepared as an official company document for internal use by a leading West German company involved in the uranium fuel cycle, namely, that the demand for new mines is likely to arise in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The third document on which Senator Walsh and the Government have based their views is the interdepartmental report which Senator Walsh has mentioned in debate in this chamber. He has refused to produce that report; he is not prepared to make it available to the Australian public who have paid for its production, and of course he has hindered the ability of both the public and the Opposition to make a judgment on the assessment which the Government has made about the future uranium market. Because of that failure of Senator Walsh to publish the document, my office and I have made a number of checks and have found that in fact there is a series of quite different projections for world demand for uranium. They show widely differing results, and some show a reasonably optimistic picture while others are pessimistic. The projection made by the West German company involved in the nuclear fuel cycle-to which I have referred-suggests that there will be no unfilled world demand for uranium until 1988 but from there on it will grow quickly. While Mr Townsend's paper is a little more pessimistic, he does suggest that the most probably situation is that new mines will be needed by 1993. I seek leave to table the two papers to which I have referred. Leave granted. Senator CHANEY —I thank the Senate. The major difference between the papers is in their assumptions about stockholdings. Mr Townsend's paper assumes that less stocks will be required as strategic reserves, especially in the United States than the other paper. The rationale behind the use of the higher stock figure in the United States than in the German paper is that until recently the United States was self-sufficient in uranium supplies. Now it is only 50 to 60 per cent self-sufficient and consequently will require larger stockpiles than previously for strategic purposes. It may be that it requires the three to three and a half years forward supply that the Japanese generally require and more than the European countries, which currently require about two years forward supply. That change in the United States situation is very important because the United States currently accounts for some 35 per cent of the total free world use of uranium. So quite clearly, in the view of the Opposition and I think in the view of any impartial observers, the authorities quoted by Senator Walsh simply do not back up the point which he has tried to establish-namely, that there is room in Australia for only one new mine if Roxby Downs is allowed to go ahead. I refer to the figures produced in the German paper which I have tabled. Those figures were prepared for the company to make its own investment decisions. The unfilled demand-that is, that part of future use of uranium which is not covered by existing contracts-shows that adjustments to stockpiles will mean that there will be no more uranium needed, apart from what is already contracted for, until 1988; that is, all needs can be met from stockpiles. In 1988, unfilled world demand will be 12,300 tonnes and this rises rapidly to 21,100 tonnes in 1989, 23 ,600 tonnes in 1990 and up to 40,700 tonnes in 1995 and 56,000 by the year 2000. We can say that at least the demand figures up to 1992-93 will be reasonably accurate as they represent known quantities. We know the reactors in operation and we know those that are scheduled to be completed by that time. Of course there may be some slippage but there again there may be greater economic growth requiring more electricity and more uranium and so on. Although I stress that there are real uncertainties in all of these estimates, we do not know how much demand will be met from stocks and we do not know the validity of some of the assumptions about the sort of stocks people will want to keep. What we do know is that people who are making decisions based on their assessment of the market are making assessments which are totally different from the assessments being put forward by Senator Walsh as justification for the Government's decision. Part of the problem for Australia is that one of the variables is Australia's own reputation as a supplier. We have reached the sorry stage where countries like Gabon and Niger are seen by the European market as being more reliable than Australia because no matter what sort of government those places have, they will continue to supply uranium. Australia stands alone among suppliers as having a bad reputation in that regard. Estimating what will be available as a market for Australia is difficult because if we had a better reputation it may well be that we could supply up to a third of the world market. The advice which I am able to get from the industry suggests that we may be able to get 25 per cent, given our current stance, but in fact we could get as little as 20 per cent. Clearly, the amount of the world market that we can command will affect the amount of uranium which can be sold by Australia. The Government is in the business, of course, of making, in effect, self-fulfilling prophecies. If it imposes restrictive provisions then of course Australia will take a smaller share of the market because it will be excluded from seeking the sales which would give it a larger share. I have had a table prepared which shows the figures from the study I have tabled in its complete form. It shows the estimated total demand for uranium which is not yet covered by contract and what Australia would provide if it provided 20 per cent of the market, 25 per cent of the market or a third of the market, which I think is the realistic upper limit. I seek leave to incorporate that table in Hansard. Leave granted. The table read as follows- AUSTRALIA'S SHARE OF UNFILLED DEMAND FOR URANIUM ('000 tonnes U) 1984 1988 1989 1990 1991 1993 1995 2000 WOCA total 0.0 12.3 21.1 23.6 26.1 34.6 40.7 56.0 Aust. 20 per cent 0.0 2.46 4 .22 4.72 5.22 6.92 8.14 11.2 Aust. 25 per cent 0.0 3.08 5.28 5.90 6.53 8.65 10. 18 14.0 Aust. 33 per cent 0.0 4.10 7.03 7.86 8.69 11.52 13.55 18.65 (WOCA: World outside centrally planned economic area). Senator CHANEY —That table shows quite clearly that very different scenarios are possible from the view which has been put forward by the Government, that one might look to as little as another 3,000 tonnes or so on the Australian market. It shows, for example, the possibility that in 1990, with as little as 20 per cent of the uncommitted world market, we could be selling another 4,700 tonnes of uranium. At the high end of the estimate we could be up close to 8,000 additional tonnes per year. By the time we get to 1995, at the low end of the scale we have the possibility of over 8,000 additional tonnes per year and, at the high end, over 13,000 tonnes per year. By the year 2000, at the low end of the scale the amount will be perhaps over 11,000 tonnes per year and at the high end, over 18,000 tonnes per year. The concern of the Opposition is that very variable forecasts are available. There are differences among the experts but this Government has chosen to justify its policy on the basis of a quite restrictive view of Australia's possibilities in the market and to dress up its decision as being justified by that sort of certainty. I believe that even the limited material I have been able to make available in this short speech indicates that that is a very dangerous assumption for the Government to have made. The fact is that there is no such thing as our share of the world market. There is no way that anyone can calculate with precision what Australia's share of some future market will be. What our share will be in actuality will depend at least in part on the way we go about seeking to supply the market, how our relative costs compare, what our reputation is as a supplier-it is a very bad reputation now, due to Government decisions and because of political interference-and it will depend of course on the presence of Australian companies in the market and on their ability to sell. The Opposition wants to stress the importance of our continued presence in the market, a factor that the Government does not appear to understand. That factor is highlighted in a statement made by the now disbanded Uranium Advisory Council in the report that the Government tabled yesterday. That report states: Whether new projects obtain contracts to underwrite developments is likely to depend mainly on the operators being able to maintain a market presence over the coming years, and the perception by purchasers as to the reliability of Australia as a source of supply. The Government, through its actions, is trying to destroy whatever chance we may have to become a major supplier in the uranium market and to make the uranium industry a major source of wealth for the country. I believe the decisions taken by the Government are narrow and based on political exigencies, on political prejudice and bias. They are not in the national interest and the Government has sought to base its policies on a premise which I do not believe it is capable of establishing. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Leader of the Government in the Senate)(3.29) —Mr Acting Deputy President, what Senator Chaney said in his last remarks is not correct. The Government has not sought to base its decisions in relation to uranium mining on a set of very confused predictions about the state of the market into the future. Certainly the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Walsh, and others have said that that is a relevant factor which the Government had to take into account but it has not been the basis for decisions which have been made by the Government. At a later stage I will mention that basis because Senator Chaney specifically raised that question in the course of his remarks. The Uranium Advisory Council, in its last annual report-the members of that Council were, of course, appointed by the previous Government-had this to say: . . . there may be disagreement about the likely extent of the market for uranium. I do not think Senator Chaney retreats from that proposition at all. In fact, the burden of much of his speech was to point out that there will be disagreement about the likely state of the market, particularly beyond the year 1990. The simple point I want to make at the beginning of my remarks is that forecasting future demand of uranium for nuclear electricity generation is a very hazardous enterprise and that statement is borne out by what happened during the 1970s. The projection of future demand depends on a wide range of factors to which I wish to refer. First of all, it depends on the future levels of overall economic activity. It depends upon the share which electricity has in total energy consumption. It depends on the share of nuclear electricity within total electricity consumption. It depends particularly on a capital intensive industry such as the nuclear power industry. It depends very much on the future levels of interest rates. It depends on the future prices for uranium relative to prices for other energy fuels. It depends on the present and future levels of commercial uranium inventories and national stockpiles. It depends on technical matters such as the future optimal tails assay levels in the uranium enrichment process. It also depends on nuclear regulatory requirements and future restriction lead times. It depends on future technological developments affecting reactor burn-up rates which also affect the quantity of uranium feed stock requirements. Therefore, I do not think there would be any disagreement between the parties that many variables are involved in trying to estimate or forecast the future demand for uranium. It is not surprising, given the number of variables involved , that the Government has received conflicting advice from various sources as to future levels of demand for uranium. I am grateful that Senator Chaney tabled or had incorporated in Hansard various documents which provide yet a further assessment, I gather, of future demand prepared by various entities with a particular interest in the matter. As I said at the beginning, the Uranium Advisory Council summarised in the passage I quoted the likely disagreement about the extent of the market for uranium in the future. I said that in those circumstances the Government had received conflicting advice. I can give some examples of that. The Government has received advice concerning the future levels of uncommitted demand for uranium, that is demand not already committed under existing long term contracts . It has been suggested that cumulative uncommitted demand for the non-communist countries for the next ten years could be of the order of 100,000 to 112,000 short tonnes with the bulk of this demand occurring towards the end of the decade. But even if one-third as distinct from the 25 per cent projection of which Senator Chaney spoke, were to be directed to Australia it would clearly be insufficient to support all of the Australian projects that have been proposed to be developed in the 1980s. That is not just a judgment of this Government; it is a judgment shared by the Australian uranium industry and overseas nuclear analysts. The Opposition seems to be saying, I suppose, that in respect of uranium mining it is advisable as a matter of resource allocation to let the market sort it out and let 100 flowers bloom. Senator Chaney —At least half a dozen. Senator BUTTON —'At least half a dozen' says Senator Chaney. I think that is a very pertinent interjection because the estimates about how many flowers should be allowed to bloom are about as ad hoc as the estimates about likely future demand. I am simply making the point that it is a judgment of the Government and , as I said, of the industry and overseas analysts that even if one-third of world demand were directed to Australia, the market would not support all the projects which have been talked about. Senator Chaney said a lot about uncertainty which has been generated in the market by the actions of the Government. Let me say one thing quite clearly right at the beginning: The International Atomic Energy Agency and other regulatory bodies have expressed a concern that Australia remain in the market within their knowledge, within the confines of the policy which the Labor Party enunciated prior to the election and within the knowledge that the industry will not be allowed to develop in the same way as it has in the past. While there is a lot of talk about uncertainty in the market-certainly one can understand that talk coming from Mr Tony Grey of Pancontinental Mining Ltd-I think references to other comments about uncertainty created by the Government's policy have to be a little more substantiated than they were by Senator Chaney. I said that if one-third of world demand were directed to Australia the market would still not be sufficient to support all the Australian projects that have been proposed in the 1980s. I think there is an important qualitative aspect to this, namely that the prices and other terms and conditions on which Australian uranium should be sold have to be considered. If all uranium projects were given the go-ahead, the ensuing overproduction would depress prices and prejudice market stability leading to lower levels of returns from, amongst others, the existing mines at Ranger and Nabarlek and the projected mine at Roxby Downs. This would be so notwithstanding the fact that there is bipartisan support for the maintenance of some sort of uranium floor price policy. It has been the long standing practice of governments not to disclose details of the ways in which that policy is applied at the commercial level and this practice will continue under the present Government. Senator Walsh, in answer to questions in this place, has made it quite clear that he will continue that policy. Notwithstanding that policy, however, the chances of a recovery in market prices to levels exceeding floor price levels would be impeded if the Opposition's preferred course of unrestricted development of uranium mining were to be adopted. This is one of a series of, I suppose, a baker's dozen matters of public importance that have been brought forward in the last three months by the Opposition in this place in relation to uranium mining. I can understand the basis on which the earlier matters of public importance were brought forward in the Senate. I think an objective observer would be pardoned for thinking that there was some confusion about the Government's uranium policy because it was a subject of long discussion within the Labor Party, within the Government and in the public arena. Following the announcement by the Government of its decsion on 7 November, the policy is clear. It has been articulated in answers to questions in the Senate and in the course of discussion in the Senate. The policy, firstly , is simply that if a commercial decision is made to proceed with the development of the Roxby Downs project the Government will permit that development to go ahead subject to the safeguard requirements which apply generally to uranium at the time of exports from that mine and exports from Australia generally. With the exception of Roxby Downs, if it is commercially feasible, the Government will not permit the development of any new mines. Secondly, an inquiry is to be conducted by the Australian Science and Technology Council under the direction of its Chairman into Australia's role in the nuclear fuel cycle. The Council is to report to the Government no later than mid-May of 1984. Some of the matters which that inquiry has to examine will include Australia's nuclear safeguard arrangements, the opportunities for Australia through the conditions of its involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle further to advance the cause of nuclear non-proliferation, the question of the adequacy of existing technology for the handling and disposal of waste products by consuming countries, and so on. Of course, Senator Chaney will say that the Government's policy is being dictated by political considerations. Surprise, surprise! I think everybody who spends time in this chamber and earns a living as a senator would recognise very quickly that the Government has to take a number of political considerations into account. Senator Chaney —But Walsh says the main reason is the limit on the market. Senator BUTTON —Senator Chaney is interjecting to say that Senator Walsh says that the main reason is the state of the market. With respect, I do not think that that is correct. A number of reasons is given for the policy. Senator Chaney —He calls it the chief reason. Senator BUTTON —Senator Walsh may have said that. Senator Chaney —Many times, but I refer to Hansard, page 2250, of 8 November 1983. Senator BUTTON —I understand that Senator Walsh may have said that on a number of occasions, but I am putting to Senator Chaney, who is interrupting, and to anyone else who is listening, that everybody in this place is aware that the Government decision was dictated by a number of political considerations. Senator Walsh in answer to questions has said that the market question is a chief consideration. Senator Chaney —'The'. Senator BUTTON —That may be so. I think it is very important that the market situation be taken into account. As has been said on previous occasions and by me in the last few minutes, the Government received advice about the projected situation of the market and, of course, that was taken into account. I was going on to say that the matters I just mentioned in relation to the type of inquiry which is to be conducted by ASTEC are certainly political. The Government does not retreat from that fact. They involve political decisions about the circumstances in which the nuclear industry should develop and the circumstances under which the Australian Government and Australian industry should be involved in the nuclear industry. There is no retreat from the fact that they are matters involving political considerations. I was enumerating the major points of policy which were announced on 7 November because I think if they have not been made clear by now, they ought to be. The third point I was coming to was that all future exports of Australian uranium will be subject to stringent supply conditions which will be determined by the Government following the inquiry to which I referred. Fourthly, a permanent commission will be established to examine on an ongoing basis the full range of issues relating to the nuclear fuel cycle, and that commission will report regularly to the Government. Fifthly, no new contracts will be approved from existing mines until after the inquiry, with the exception of the two contracts, which have been the subject of some discussion, already negotiated for the supply from the Ranger mine to the United States utilities. The conditions attached to exports under these contracts will be determined after the inquiry. Sixthly the existing suspension of uranium exports to France will be further considered in the light of the report of the inquiry or on any progress being made towards the cessation of the French nuclear testing in the Pacific. With regard to other aspects of the policy, I will just add that the Government has decided that it does not wish to facilitate or be otherwise involved with the Uranium Enrichment Group of Australia's study into the feasibility of establishing those operations in this country. The decision to abolish the Uranium Advisory Council was taken some time ago and was announced at that time. I said that the Opposition's attitude is that there should be much greater freedom for anybody wishing to develop uranium mines in this country. I said earlier that neither on nuclear industry grounds nor on economic grounds does the Government agree with the view which has been expressed by the Opposition. It is that sort of attitude which has got this country into tremendous economic difficulties in a variety of industries over the last 20 or 30 years. It is the sort of attitude which should be challenged in relation to this matter and to developments in any other industry in the 1980s when Australia has to have a much more rational look at resource allocation issues than it has in the past. The Opposition asserts that the market for uranium should be exploited by anyone wishing to have a go; we do not agree with that. Not only do we not agree with that for the reasons which I have enunciated but also do we not agree with that for some of the reasons, which were accepted by the previous Government, in relation to the ownership of particular companies and their commitment to acquiring the required level of Australian ownership. As I said, even if one were to accept the argument of the Opposition that anybody should be able to participate in this industry-and the Government does not-it is the Government's view- Senator Chaney —It is not the Opposition's view, and you well know it. Senator BUTTON —Senator Chaney says that it is not the Opposition's view. I am not clear as to what the Opposition's view is, if that is not its view. Opposition senators have been asking questions. Senator Chaney —No one suggested that foreign investment rules do not apply. Senator BUTTON —I do not know. For example, there have been a number of questions in the Senate from Opposition senators about the Ben Lomond mine. Senator Chaney —That is subject to foreign ownership requirements. Senator BUTTON —All of these questions have been asked on the basis: 'Why does the government not allow that mine to go ahead?' None of those questions has been directed on the basis that the Opposition suggests that it has the view that that mine should not go ahead. They have all been put on the assumption that the Government was doing something wrong in not letting it go ahead. I was making the point that it is the Government's view that there would not be a market for the uranium mined if the Opposition's apparent policy were followed. I stress that that view must be seen in the light of the Government's decision in relation to Roxby Downs. I make the point that in the view of this Government , to deny the opportunity for Roxby to go ahead, would be to prevent the establishment of a major project capable of producing large quantities of other minerals as well as uranium. In addition, in relation to additional mines it is the preferred choice simply because of the employment implications and the implications for the State of South Australia, which are very important. Those are the Government's views on the topic. We are grateful to Senator Chaney for making available a further set of projections for the uranium market in the late 1980s and beyond. We think that the general sentiments expressed by the Opposition should be rejected. But it is all part of an ongoing and important debate about the future of this industry and we do not in any sense suggest that it should not take place. Senator KILGARIFF(Northern Territory)(3.49) —The matter of public importance that the Senate is now debating is in these terms: The lack of any reliable basis for the Government's restrictive policy on the development of Australia's uranium resources. In speaking on this matter, I agree with the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Button) that it is a continuing debate. It is a very necessary one when one sees the manipulation of uranium development policy which is taking place in Australia now. It is the responsibility of the Opposition in the Senate to continue to bring this debate before this chamber and to support those outside the Australian Parliament who are endeavouring to have their views put forward. No matter where one looks nowadays one finds the mining industry which is endeavouring to put over its point of view and the Aboriginal people who feel that they have been wronged. The people of Australia as a whole are very concerned at what one can only describe as the antics-call it political judgment , political manoeuvring, whatever one wishes-which are taking place within the Australian Labor Party now. I refer to the battle between the left and the moderates as to what will be the future of the uranium industry in Australia. Whatever the result, the Government and the fragments of the various groups within the Goverment can be assured of one thing: The stance they have taken towards the development of uranium will certainly not go away. The question of uranium development will be like the albatross; it will be around their neck forever. Senator Button gave the reasons why the Government made the decision that uranium mines should not be developed. One should point out once again that there are differing views within the Government. In the Senate on 8 November the Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Walsh) spoke of the reason why Roxby Downs had been allowed to proceed. Senator Walsh said: The reason for that-not the entire reason, but the chief reason-is that, in the judgment of the Government, for the next 15 years and possibly to the end of the century, existing mines plus Roxby Downs, if it proceeds, will fill the room which is likely to be available in the world market place for uranium delivered from Australia. Senator Chaney asked: That is the chief reason? Senator Walsh said: That is the chief reason. I suggest that quote from Hansard is quite contrary to what Senator Button has said in the debate today. Perhaps this point has not been put: The bureaucrat and the politician are making decisions on behalf of the uranium industry as to what its future will be. One has only to review the situation over the last few years to see the immense amount of work that has been done by way of exploration and the amount of money that has been invested. For example, Pancontinental Mining Ltd has invested $50m-odd and Denison Mines $100m. Vast amounts of money have been invested. Surely the decision as to the viability of its markets should be determined by the people who invest the money. Do honourable senators imagine that those companies would have invested $150m plus, with many hundreds of millions of dollars yet to be invested, before a mine was ready to sell its product if they did not believe the project was viable? Do honourable senators think these amounts would have been invested so haphazardly if the companies did not think they would have the market for their produce? What rot. The mining industry is a very capable industry. Of course, it has to be when so much money is involved. If Australia is prepared to invest the amount of moneys that it has to date and will in the future, one must have the assurance and must accept the assurance that there are markets. Therefore, why do the Government and the bureaucrats not allow the mining of uranium to continue and let the market itself find the level? One was quite taken with the arguments put forward in the last few days. Of course, the name Tony Grey comes to the fore to quite a degree. Tony Grey is the Managing Director and Chairman of Directors of Pancontinental. Surely his knowledge and his ability must shine forward much more than that of the bureaucrat or the politician. Is he not the man who should know all about it? Is he not the man who has been prepared to put these millions of dollars forward to allow Jabiluka to proceed? Of course, the viewpoint has been lost. Let us look at the argument of the Australian Labor Party regarding the Kakadu National Park project. That project has been planned for a long time, but it has been known also for a very long time that this area is highly prospective yet undeveloped. Recently the area has been subject to radiometric surveys which have reinforced the belief that the area is extraordinarily rich in a variety of minerals. The area is rich not only in uranium but also in a variety of minerals . A variety of minerals means copper, gold and others. I understand that some 250 radiometric anomalies have been found, many of which could lead to the development of important mines which could make a major contribution to the economy. Yet, despite the necessity to have a national stocktake of the minerals which Australia will have for its future use, it is the intention of the Government to lock in uranium forever. This decision has been made for a political reason. It is a political judgment. That decision has been made as a result of the argument, the fight, taking place within the Labor Party. It is not an argument in the Australian arena. The argument is within the Labor Party. It is an argument between the Left and the moderates. The Left wishes to close down uranium mining and development forever. Roxby will not be completed in time to take up the shortfall which will occur at the end of the century. Senator Button —Century or decade? Senator KILGARIFF —At the end of the decade. Of course, it will continue to the end of the century. Jabiluka and Koongara would be able to meet this demand. At the end of 1982 there were some 294 nuclear power stations in operation around the world and another 215 plants under construction. The Chairman and Managing Director of Western Mining Corporation Ltd, Sir Arvi Parbo, has said that by 1995 more than 25 per cent of all electricity will be generated from uranium. The General Manager of the Uranium Information Centre has stated that the United States of America needs an estimated 200,000 tonnes of uranium for use by the end of the century. None of this has yet been covered by contracts. The estimate is based on existing nuclear reactors only and does not include supplies needed by new reactors. So Australia's failure to supply will not stop nuclear power from being used. Already two other major uranium suppliers, South Africa and Canada, as the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Chaney) has mentioned, have snatched up contracts that were previously being negotiated by Australian companies. The pity of this indecision, this instability of the Australian Government, is these contracts have been snatched away. Further, I would suggest that uranium in the ground, as the Australian Government would wish to see it forever, will ultimately be a risk to Australian security. There will be a time-the decade, the year, will come-when world energy supplies will dwindle. Perhaps people do not realise the vast resources of energy that have been locked away by the Australian Government. I refer particularly to the uranium in what is referred to as the uranium province in the Northern Territory-the Jabiluka, Koongarra and other deposits. The uranium in the ground there is estimated to far exceed the amount of energy in oil that is now in the Arab states. Someone, perhaps, can give some picture of the incredible amount of energy that is being locked away there. Eventually, when energy becomes scarce in the world-one day it will-countries that have no energy will look hungrily towards our vast uranium reserves. Who will we in Australia be to say, just because a government says that uranium will not be developed, that if it is not developed by us it will not be developed by somebody else? In 1982-83, Australian uranium exports were worth $354m, putting uranium in fifth place among our mineral product exports. Pancontinental Mining Ltd Chairman, Tony Grey, predicts that the Northern Territory, which I represent, will lose about $230m per year in export revenues with the loss of Jabiluka alone. Northern Territory Government documents show that if all current and proposed mines in the Territory-that is, Ranger, Nabarlek, Jabiluka and Koongarra-are allowed to continue, conservatively about $9,000m will come into Australia by the year 2000 and $1,600m of that will stay in the Territory. This would be helpful for a Territory that is now emerging as a State. Senator Walsh, by the way, confirmed these figures in an answer to a question which I asked on 8 November. The figures also show, that if the proposed mines of Jabiluka and Koongarra are not allowed to proceed, the loss to Australia will be around $6, 300m and the loss to the Territory will be $1,300m. I have already referred to the vast amount of investment that has taken place in the Northern Territory. Surely the Australian Government is morally bound to allow these developments to take place when one sees the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been invested, not only by the big investors, but also by many small investors in Australia who are looking for a return through the mining of Australian uranium. Senator Georges —Or the non-mining. Senator KILGARIFF —There is no return to Australia from non-mining, but there will be a return to the Australian investor when once again the Opposition goes back into government. It will be only a short while before the factions within the Government cause the Labor Government's downfall. The internal wrangles that are already taking place within the Labor Party over the development of uranium will, in the near future, cause the defeat of the Labor Party. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator CHIPP(Victoria-Leader of the Australian Democrats)(4.05) —The Senate is debating a matter of public importance raised by the Liberal Party which states: The lack of any reliable basis for the Government's restrictive policy on the development of Australia's uranium resources. The Australian Democrats passionately believe that there is no reliable basis for any uranium mining in Australia at any time for any purpose. We are the only political party in Australia now to hold that view. We are very proud to be in that situation. Those of us who argue against uranium mining do so, not on the basis of the left or right of politics, but on moral grounds. We should not sell something simply because if we do not someone else will sell it. That argument could well be used to advocate the peddling of heroin. We should not sell something simply because it might be good for the economy. Slavery was often defended on those very grounds. We should not trade in a commodity that threatens those who work with it. That can risk the health of the innocents who are unknowingly surrounded by it. I do not want to be theatrically demonstrative when I use the phrase, but I use it advisedly: nor should we sell the foundation stones of Armageddon. I say that for his reason: Perhaps the greatest mind of our century, Arthur Koestler, before he died, said: Because man's emotional and logical responses have not kept pace with the rate of technological developments he has caused, the self-induced extinction of life on this planet is now approaching a statistical certainty. They are chilling words. The reason he said that we were approaching our self- induced extinction was one mineral, uranium. As we talk today and debate the mining of Australia's uranium I remind the Senate that there are 50,000 nuclear weapons on this planet ready to be fired. That is enough to destroy the world and everything in it in about six days many times over. Every single one of those weapons came from the subject of today's debate, uranium. The economic myth that nuclear energy is cheap can be dismissed. Uranium produces electricity at about seven times the cost of oil. So it is now a myth to say that the world needs electricity from uranium. On that basis the cost of nuclear power is causing bankruptcy in wealthy nations, even the United States of America. How then will it be the answer to the energy needs of the impoverished Third World, whose countries are already saddled with massive foreign debts? There is no reliable basis for the Government's pro-uranium policy and there is no basis for mining any uranium. I would be grateful if, in one of these debates that occur in this place, normally at the instigation of the Liberal Party, someone would tell me what is the present difference between the Liberal Party's policy on the mining of uranium and the Australian Labor Party policy on the mining of uranium. I would be pleased if someone would point that out. This Government's greatest error, other than breaking its election promise, is its ignorance of the links that exists between the nuclear industry and nuclear weapons. Only a blind fool would deny the greatest need the world has today is for disarmament. The chilling words which we have read in the newspapers over the last two weeks indicate a significant acceleration in the nuclear arms race. Why we need more weapons of mass destruction and therefore more uranium is a complete mystery to rational human beings. As we stand here debating this matter in this deserted chamber this afternoon- Senator Georges —I am here. Senator CHIPP —I wonder whether the Democrats and the Liberals were wrong in opposing the Government's Bill, which the National Party of Australia supported, for more senators, because the whole afternoon while we have been debating an issue upon which the very future of the human race depends, there have been about five or six senators here. Maybe we need more senators to be able to get a few more into the chamber for these sorts of debates. As we stand debating this matter, I repeat in this virtually deserted chamber this afternoon, the United States has 12,000 warheads pointing at the Soviet Union and its satellites. The Soviets have 8,000 warheads pointed at the United States of America and its allies. Senator Georges —And us. Senator CHIPP —And us, indeed-or at least one of them at us. They have such accuracy as would land some of them within 100 feet of a target after travelling thousands of miles. The total destructive power of this arsenal is equivalent to one million Hiroshima bombs. My mind finds it very difficult to comprehend what we, the human race, have created with uranium. But I repeat that the total destructive power of the 50,000 bombs in existence now-honourable senators should remember that we are building more-is equivalent to one million Hiroshima sized bombs. At Hiroshima 130,000 people were killed. That means that the destructive power that we now have in existence could kill 130 billion human beings. There are four billion people in the world. We now have the destructive power to kill each human being some 30 times over. An average-sized nuclear bomb is one megaton. That is 80 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb but the fact I am about to cite is more mind boggling and more incomprehensible than any: Some of the bombs are 50 megatons. I ask the Senate and those listening to try to imagine and to add up in their minds the total destructive power of every bomb released during the six years of World War II. Add to that the killing power, the maiming power, the destructive power of every shell from every gun that was fired in the six years to get the total of the destructive power. One 50-megaton bomb is more powerful than 20 times that total . Such a bomb would fit under the dining table of the normal suburban home. Despite these mindboggling facts the United States has now started to deploy 572 Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles in Europe. I say with great respect that these weapons are not needed in response to the Soviet's SS-20 missiles. Those who say that they are should be aware that without the cruise and Pershing missiles the United States and the powers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation already have 6,000 nuclear warheads to match those of the Soviets, including the SS-20s. So the score now is even. Both powers, the Soviets and the United States, have 6,000 each in Europe and yet Ronald Reagan and those who support him in this place say: 'Ah, but the Americans and NATO need the cruise and the Pershing to balance the SS-20'. That is a pack of lies. It is not so. The facts that I am quoting are not from the imagination of some dupe of the Kremlin, as some people tend to call me these days. They are from the Centre for Defence Information in Washington, which is hardly a radical left wing body. It is a prestigious think tank run by retired senior American military officers. It recently concluded: On closer examination, the SS-20 seems more an excuse for the U.S. missiles than a genuine threat. That was in 'Defense Monitor', volume 12, No. 6, 1983. The deployment of the cruise and Pershing missiles is not only unnecessary but also brings the prospect of nuclear war even closer. We have now reached a phase where human beings no longer will determine the fate of the world and every human being in it. The day of the hot line is over as soon as these missiles are deployed. With six minutes from launch to hit, there is no time for Andropov to get on a telephone or for Reagan to respond. The computer will fire the buttons on both sides. Already to my knowledge there have been red alerts on the American side at least-only God and the Soviets know how many red alerts there have been on the Soviet side-through computer errors. It is madness for somebody to leave a war game to a computer in Washington. Add to that the possibility of a flock of geese hitting a scanner in Alaska or some other incomprehensible stimuli which put the computer on red alert with three minutes and counting. With a six minute launch to hit there will be no time for human intervention. The Soviets have made the deployment of the cruise and Pershing missiles an excuse for them to put more of their nuclear bombs in eastern Europe and near the United States. Yet we are spending more. The United States is planning to spend an incredible $450 billion on new nuclear weapons over the next six years. That will add 17,000 more warheads to its already massive stockpile. No doubt the Soviets will match those with new bombs of their own. So the insanity goes on. But we are not playing some game of glorious battles. This insanity endangers the future of all human civilisation. Something needs to be done now to protest to all nations with nuclear weapons that such weapons are unacceptable to human beings and that their numbers must be reduced. I am not stupid enough to suggest that the United States should unilaterally disarm. That would be crazy. But as I have said in this House, the United States could for example make a unilateral gesture by reducing its stockpile of 30,000 nuclear weapons by, say, 25 per cent. That would radically improve superpower relations. It would be a start or a gesture. Even with the weapons it had left it could destroy every city in the Soviet Union many times over. Australia has a great role to play. We must remember that nuclear weapons could not exist without uranium. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute-again, a very prestigious world organisation-has recently stated: The peaceful and military aspects of nuclear energy are intrinsically linked and it is impossible to separate them. So long as Australia continues to mine uranium we tacitly condone these nuclear stockpiles. The great risk of war posed by the nuclear industry is that it enables some of the world's most unstable nations to develop bomb capability. I will read out some of the crazies that can get bombs from our uranium: Argentina , the Philippines, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and others. Most analysts recognise that nuclear war is most likely to result from the escalation of a regional conflict. By supplying Australian uranium to such countries, namely Korea, as the Hawke Government proposes to do, we will provide them with the tools to manifest their fears and to ensure our destruction. We must end uranium mining immediately. If we Australians forgo some monetary gain in the short term by ending uranium mining immediately, we will enhance our status and we will gain more credibility if our domestic actions are totally in accord with our international concerns. Australia as a small but respected democracy can give the vital lead to all people, no matter which side of the arms race they happen to live on, that we do not want nuclear weapons and that we are prepared to make a sacrifice to demonstrate our resolve. To do nothing about the growing risk of nuclear war is as good as contributing to the risk. No matter how small our effort, to be true to ourselves and to human life in general, we must do all we can. Australia has a great opportunity. The Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, should not sell us out. Senator TATE(Tasmania)(4.19) —The Government rejects the charge made by the Opposition in today's matter of public importance that our uranium policy lacks a reliable basis in its restrictive character. The fact is that the Australian Labor Party's policy is a sure, reliable and certain one. We take a certain stance in relation to Ranger and Nabarlek, and in relation to Roxby Downs if, in the judgment of those venturing funds into the enterprise, it appears to be commercially viable if allowed to develop and to seek markets. We take a very sure and certain stand in relation to those three mines, two of them existing and one in the course of being set up. We say very definitely and absolutely that all other proposed mining ventures for the development of Australia's uranium resources are not to proceed. So there is a very reliable and certain basis there for the judgment of those who wish to consider investing in Australia's various and varied mineral and energy resources. There is no question or subterfuge there. The Opposition seems to be saying that we ought to adopt its policy on the development of Australia's uranium resources, and, of course, the Australian Democrats have an absolutely different proposal to put to the Australian people. Each of them, in a sense, wants a more absolute stance. The Democrats want, as incorporated in Senator Chipp's Customs (Nuclear Materials and Hardware) Prohibition Bill, introduced two weeks ago, an immediate cessation of imports or exports of uranium or nuclear hardware. The Opposition, the Liberal and the National parties, want us to start from their basis, which is an ideological commitment to the operation of market forces and the exploitation of these resources for commercial profit. The Labor Party attempts to steer a course between the two different propositions put by those parties before the Australian people. The Democrats' proposal, was rejected two weeks ago by the Senate on the basis that to embargo immediately the exports of the product of the existing mines at Nabarlek and Ranger would be to put in jeopardy, indeed, to destroy the livelihood of many hundreds of Australian workers, not only those associated with the sites but also those in associated transport operations, and it would also have an impact on the Aboriginal communities which have entered into agreements with those mines. Of course, it would also have an impact on the importation of nuclear hardware for Lucas Heights, which has such a vital role to play in the provision, amongst other things, of medical isotopes to the many tens of thousands of Australian who depend on a form of treatment, particularly for cancer. So for very good reasons we oppose the absolute approach of the Democrats. I am getting irritated by the constant analogy drawn by Senator Chipp between those who promote, to even the most modest extent-'promote' is perhaps too strong a word; I will say those who permit, to the most modest extent-the thought that uranium might find its way into the world's energy fuel cycle and the heroin pushers. We grow opium poppies in my area of Tasmania. It is a legitimate industry. But a choice has to be made between processing those poppies, which are at present in full bloom-many acres and many hills are covered in the light mauve, very large flower of the opium poppy-to alleviate human distress and suffering, and allowing them to find their way into the streets of many of our major cities and, with the dirty needles used by addicts, bring about destruction of human life. There is a choice as to the use of those opium poppies. There is a choice between life and death; enhancing human welfare, and devastating it. We are responsible, as human beings, for making the best possible and most stringent choice to try to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards to let the product of the opium poppy alleviate human distress and suffering and not cause it. The analogy is there, rather than with the heroin pusher, in relation to this whole question. The Liberal Party and the National Party want us to start from the basis of allowing market forces to determine the issue; commercial profit should be the guiding factor. But even when those parties were in government, I never heard a Federal Minister say that the recommendation of the Fox Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, that there should be sequential development of mines, was a wrong approach. It has always been acknowledged that to have contemporaneous multiple development of Australia's uranium resources by many entrepreneurs would simply lead to a misallocation of Australia's financial resources, our physical resources, our social infrastructure and the use of our work force. Indeed, it would create the very situation that confronted us, when we came into government earlier this year, in the coal industry. The Japanese were absolutely dominating the situation in regard to bargaining with Australian producers of coal because they had created, very skilfully, a false impression in relation to the estimated market. Many mines had been opened in Australia and, of course, that put the Japanese in the box seat when it came to bargaining with us. But Senator Chaney-and this was echoed by Senator Kilgariff-said, 'If we do not take our share of the world market and get some export income for Australia, the South Africans and the Canadians will'. Indeed, Senator Chaney said in the Estimates debate that the Canadians applauded the Australian Government's cautious attitude because it allowed them into the market. Further, in today's debate, we hear that Niger is a possible model for Australia's attitude to the world market. Senator Sibraa —And Gabon. Senator TATE —As Senator Sibraa says, following a recent excursion there, Niger is utterly at the mercy of the French Government and is nothing more than an impoverished military dictatorship, maintained largely in order to ensure uranium supplies to France. Senator Chaney —Is it safer for the world to have them in the trade? Senator TATE —No. We take the attitude that neither an absolute embargo nor the unhampered, unimpeded flow of market forces should determine the development of Australia's uranium resources. We say that, in relation to the product of the Ranger and Nabarlek mines, it would be intolerable to create havoc in the existing communities of both Australian workers and Aboriginals by closing down those mines immediately. In relation to the mixed, mineralised deposits at Roxby Downs, whilst it must be conceded that the Australian Labor Party, in identifying and grappling with the issues and values at stake, produced a policy in mid-1982 which is subject to some differing emphases, nevertheless, two elections, State and Federal, were fought in South Australia on the basis of the interpretation that that policy was intended to embrace and permit the development of the Roxby Downs deposit. That conclusion flows in good faith from the wording of the policy. The tension is developed by our great concern, as has been very eloquently put by Senator Chipp, that the world should not be brought to the brink of nuclear Armageddon, as he put it. The nuclear holocaust which hovers over the whole of humanity's future history, is something with which we are all deeply concerned. I think that most of us in this chamber would be committed to taking whatever steps are necessary and within Australia's power to reduce the risk. The appointment of an Ambassador for Disarmament, Mr Richard Butler, by Mr Bill Hayden, the Foreign Minister, is a symbol of our good faith in that regard. But it is not only symbolic; it is practical. Richard Butler has been given as his first major task the putting of Australia's case in relation to the reaffirmation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1985, when it comes up for international review once again. But within that very Treaty- Senator Chipp —That is at risk. Senator TATE —It is at risk. But within that Treaty, the tension which is within our policy and our attitude is present. As Senator Chipp will know, Article I states clearly that each nuclear weapon State party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer any material to a third party which would enable a nuclear explosive device to be devised. On the other hand, Article IV reads: Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes . . . That tension is something with which one has to try to come to grips in the real world. The only way to resolve the tension is, as I indicated by analogy with the growing of opium poppies in Tasmania: One has to subject the movement of this energy resource into the world fuel cycle to the most stringent safeguards in order to ensure that the use of this material, once it is received in the recipient countries, is such that it cannot find its way into the manufacture of explosive devices. It is this particular tension which I acknowledge and therefore I have to acknowledge that indeed, while Senator Chaney uses it as a rather miserable adjective, in fact we see the restrictive policy of the Labor Party as really something of a decent and honourable adjective. The fact is that we see our policy as being restrictive in order to secure ends with which the whole of this chamber ought to agree. In fact, the view that we take is such that, when a country indulges in behaviour which leads it to be properly ostracised in relation to that behaviour from the world community, we cut off trade in uranium with that country. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) did exactly that in relation to President Mitterrand, a fellow member of the Socialist International, a person with whom one would normally have the most cordial relationship. The particular shipment due to go to France was suspended. Indeed there will be no resumption of such shipments while France continues its testing in the Pacific. In that we are joined with all those signatories to the South Pacific Forum held here in Canberra under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister in late August, which issued a communique that amongst other things, having acknowledged Australia's role and desire to create a nuclear free zone in the Pacific, stated that it would continue to make the strongest protests and condemnations so long as nuclear testing by France or any other country continued in the South Pacific region. They also reaffirmed their opposition to proposals for the dumping and storage of nuclear waste in the Pacific area. The Australian Labour Party shares with those people-with all those varied people throughout the Pacific-a different view as to the responsible course which governments should follow in relation to the use of this great natural energy resource. We say that it ought to be for the benefit of humanity. That requires the most stringent safeguards, the most stringent channelling, of that particular resource to a very confined band of recipient countries for very strongly safeguarded use. This leads us to be cautious; it leads us to be restrictive. We believe that that particular approach is one which commends itself to most ordinary Australians, and we believe that it ought to commend itself to this chamber. Bill returned from the House of Representatives with an amendment. Motion (by Senator Gietzelt) agreed to: That consideration in the Committee of the whole of the message received from the House of Representatives be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting. The following Bills were returned from the House of Representatives without amendment: Director of Prosecutions (Consequential Amendments) Bill 1983 Companies and Securities Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 1983. Bill received from the House of Repre- sentatives. Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay. Bill (on motion by Senator Gietzelt) read a first time. Senator GIETZELT(New South Wales-Minister for Veterans' Affairs)(4.33) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- The purpose of this Bill is to provide funds for the major new Participation and Equity Program which will commence in 1984. Programs for schools will be administered by the Commonwealth Schools Commission while the TAFE program will be administered by the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission. The Department of Education and Youth Affairs will exercise a strong co-ordinating role. Because this Program will be administered by both Commissions the Government has decided to provide the funds separately from the States Grants (Schools Assistance) legislation and the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) legislation for which the normal Bills are being introduced today. The Participation and Equity Program is designed to encourage a significant increase in participation by young people in education and training, to provide a useful and fulfilling education, and to encourage the achievement of more equal educational outcomes. The Program is directed towards bringing about wide ranging changes in schools which will enable them to give all students, and especially those from a disadvantaged background, a rewarding, useful education through to the end of secondary schooling. The program will be directed particularly to secondary schools with low retention rates. The Program will provide support for courses and activities in TAFE colleges which positively enrich and expand the range of options available to youth, particularly for those less academically inclined and those currently unemployed . Courses should meet community needs, individual needs, and the national need for an adequately educated and adaptable skilled work force. Funds will also be available for approved projects conducted by other State authorities, community organizations and other non-institutional bodies. As announced earlier this program will be funded on a triennial basis and the funds provided will be adjusted retrospectively for relevant cost increases. The amounts in this Bill are at levels reflecting the latest available data for the relevant cost indexes. For 1984, the Bill appropriates grants to the States and the Northern Territory totalling $73.408m. This comprises $40.043m for government schools, $4.523m for non-government schools, $28.188m for TAFE, and $ 654,000 for projects and programs of national significance. The Bill also provides grants of $73.408m p.a. for 1985 and 1986. Both Commissions have now submitted supplementary reports on the structure and scope of this Program and these will be tabled shortly. The Participation and Equity Program will be a central part of the overall framework of youth policies that the Government is developing. Its twin objectives of increasing participation in education and of introducing greater equity in our overall provision for young people reflect the Government's basic priorities for meeting the needs of young people. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Reid) adjourned. Bill received from the House of Representatives. Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay. Bill (on motion by Senator Gietzelt) read a first time. Senator GIETZELT(New South Wales-Minister for Veterans' Affairs)(4.35) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- On 18 October 1983 the Report of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission recommending the distibution of funds for 1984 for tertiary education programs funded by the Commonwealth was tabled in the Parliament. This Report responded to the Government's Guidelines for financial assistance for capital and equipment programs for all tertiary education sectors, and recurrent programs for technical and further education institutions. The purpose of this Bill is to amend the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Act 1981 to provide for the Government's 1984 tertiary education program in the States and the Northern Territory. The distribution of these funds accords with the recommendations of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission in its Volume 4 report. I would remind Honourable Senators that at a time of economic difficulty and budgetary constraint, it is an indication of the high priority that the Government has given to tertiary education that funds have been increased by 1.5 per cent in real terms for 1984 which is the last year of the current funding triennium. The 1984 program represents the first and significant step towards greater participation in higher education and towards more equal participation by disadvantaged groups. It provides evidence of the Government's recognition of the vital contribution tertiary education can make to economic and social well- being. The Bill before the Senate provides for the appropriation of $10.5m to assist universities and colleges of advanced education in meeting expenditure incurred in increasing enrolments in 1984. The Government's immediate objective is to provide for at least an additional 3,000 student places in universities and CAEs in 1984 under this program. The Government will look to institutions for a positive response which will lead to a wider range of opportunities for young people and special efforts to attract those social groups at present under- represented in higher education institutions. The Commission has now submitted its supplementary report providing detailed advice on the implementation of this initiative for 1984 and I will be tabling this report shortly. Because of the time constraints arising from the timetable for the Commission's supplementary report and the Government's legislation program, the Bill enables the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs to distribute the special allocation between institutions. Funds for the Government's other major initiative, the Participation and Equity Program, will be provided under a separate Bill being introduced for this purpose. In accordance with the Government's policy of encouraging equal opportunity in education for both male and female students, the Bill provides that, as far as practicable, the benefits and opportunities created by Commonwealth expenditure should be equally available to male and female students. The condition does not apply in relation to payments to student residences or affiliated colleges, to single-sex non-government business colleges or to special assistance provided to students of one sex in order to ensure they have equal opportunities with people of the other sex. The Bill currently before the Senate includes $173.3m for capital grants, of which $46m is for universities and colleges of advanced education. This includes $3.8m in 1984 for the Graduate School of Management at the University of Melbourne. $64.1m is appropriated for the 1984 equipment program for universities and colleges and $11.1m for TAFE equipment. 1984 recurrent grants for TAFE contained in this Bill amount to $112.6m. Grants for 1984 programs in the Bill are expressed in price levels reflecting the latest available data for the relevant cost indexes. These amounts will be adjusted retrospectively for further cost increases in subsequent amending legislation, in accordance with the Government's announced policy for the re-introduction of retrospective cost supplementation. Funds for Commonwealth institutions (that is, the Australian National University, Canberra College of Advanced Education and the Australian Maritime College) are not appropriated in this Bill. They are included in annual appropriations for the Commonwealth Department of Education and Youth Affairs. In line with the Government's policy on enforced amalgamations, it has already been announced that the University of Newcastle, Newcastle College of Advanced Education, the University of New England and the Armidale College of Advanced Education will continue as separate institutions rather than be forced into the amalgamations envisaged by the previous Government. These institutions will be expected however, to plan co-operatively for increased participation based upon the joint use of available resources, including the technical and further education facilities in their regions. This Bill amends the Principal Act to permit funds to be provided directly for each of these institutions and, at the same time, removes the coercive sections of the Act for all amalgamations. Orange Agricultural College also will be funded from 1984 in its own right, as recently announced. Consistent with the Government's concern for the educational needs of those sections of the community who have had limited access to tertiary education, capital funds have been provided for a new science/engineering building at Wollongong University, the commencement of Stage 1 of the Campbelltown campus of the Macarthur Institute of High Education, a new multi-purpose academic building at the Footscray Institute of Technology and a resources centre and teaching facilities at Carseldine campus of the Brisbane College of Advanced Education. Other major capital projects will be commenced at Deakin University, Murdoch University, the University of Tasmania and the Canberra College of Advanced Education. As announced in the Guidelines, the Government decided on a 25 per cent reduction in grants for collegiate residences in 1984 to be applied pro-rata to all residences currently in receipt of Commonwealth grants pending the Commission's review of future arrangements for support for student accommodation . The reduction will result in an estimated saving of $1.7m in 1984. Similarly the grants to Special Research Centres included in this Bill take account of an estimated saving of $0.5m resulting from the closure of the Nerve Muscle Research Centre at the University of New South Wales due to movement of key staff. Funding for advanced English language instruction for migrants in TAFE is to be continued at the same level in real terms as in 1983, but funds will now be appropriated from the TAFE special purpose grants rather than from particular purpose recurrent funds as in 1983. Special purpose grants are directed to areas of national concern to TAFE where substantial action is required by all States. Particular purposes recurrent grants enable States to undertake programs of quality improvement which reflect the particular priorities of individual States . TAFE capital funds have been increased by 7 per cent in real terms. This level of funds will allow all on-going commitments to be met and twenty one new projects to be commenced. This means that new projects for TAFE will be undertaken in each State and the Northern Territory in 1984. Consistent with the Government's decision to re-introduce retrospective cost supplementation arrangements for the Commission's programs from the beginning of 1984, this Bill amends the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Act 1981 by replacing the previous Government's unsatisfactory system of prospective allowance for wage increases with retrospective adjustments to the grants. These adjustments take account of both the wages pause and the recent National Wage Case increase and result in a net saving of $15.1m. This adjustment is reached after taking account of the decision by the Government to fully supplement the grants for 1983 as a result of the National Wage Case. A total of $17.6m extra is being provided for that purposes. Provision for this increase was included in the Budget. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Reid) adjourned. Bill received from the House of Representatives. Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay. Bill (on motion by Senator Gietzelt) read a first time. Senator GIETZELT(New South Wales-Minister for Veterans' Affairs)(4.37) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- On 18 October the Report of the Commonwealth Schools Commission containing its recommendation for the calendar year 1984, in response to the Government's Guidelines to the Commission, was tabled in the Parliament. This Bill gives effect to the Government's decisions on the Commission's recommendations on the distribution of funds for 1984, all of which have been accepted. At a time of economic difficulty and budgetary constraint, it is an indication of the high priority which the Government gives to education that it is providing for a significant increase of 2.8 per cent in real terms in expenditure on schools in 1984. The Bill before the Senate provides for the appropriation of some $1,290m in 1984, including $573m for government schools and $679m for non-government schools with $38m for joint programs for all schools. The Bill appropriates $6m p.a. for the new Computer Education program for the triennium 1984-86. This will enable school authorities to plan the implementation of this new initiative with confidence in the continued support of the Commonwealth for the first three years. Funds for the Government's other major initiative, the Participation and Equity Program, will be appropriated under the separate Bill which has been introduced for this purpose. Grants for 1984 programs in the Bill are at levels reflecting the latest available data for the relevant cost indexes. These amounts will be adjusted retrospectively for further cost increases in subsequent amending legislation, in accordance with the Government's announced policy for the re-introduction of retrospective cost supplementation. The Bill also contains a number of changes in specified areas in line with the Government's policies. To promote the economic use of resources and to provide for better planning and improved coordination in relation to the development of new non-government schools, new conditions have been included in the Bill for general recurrent grants for new systemic and non-systemic non-government schools. These schools will no longer be automatically eligible for Commonwealth grants following registration by relevant State or Territory authorities. Schools will also be required to show that they have reasonable prospects of long-term viability and, in the case of proposed operation in established areas, that there will not be a significant negative impact on existing government and non-government schools. Proposed new schools in developing areas will be asked to provide evidence of adequate consultation with State education authorities. It is the Government's intention to ensure appropriate planning and consultation which will benefit all students in all schools. The Bill implements the Government's decision to direct the limited additional resources that are available to the neediest non-government schools. Schools in Group 3 will receive a three per cent real increase in per capita grants for 1984. This means that these schools will receive $5m more than they would have received under the previous automatic nexus funding arrangements. In this way the Government is re-distributing resources between schools on the basis of need and is assisting on closing the gap between low resource schools and those operating at high resource standards. The Bill also implements the Government's decision to reduce general recurrent per capita grants by 25 per cent in 1984 for a small number of non-government schools. These are schools which have the capacity from their cash income from private sources alone to operate at 95 per cent or more of average government schools standard costs. When Commonwealth and State grants are taken into account, these schools will still be able to operate in 1984 well above average government schools standard costs. The savings resulting from this decision amount to some $4.5m. Capital grants programs for both government and non-government schools will now include a designated Secondary Facilities element to complement the recurrent grants being provided under the Participation and Equity Program. In addition, separate grants are being provided for each of the other elements of the capital programs to meet specifically identified national priority areas such as the upgrading of existing schools serving disadvantaged communities and capital facilities for schools serving predominantly Aboriginal communities. Eligibility under the government schools capital program will be extended also to hostels serving country children. This Bill incorporates Government decisions that accountability conditions attached to grants for both sectors will require educational as well as financial information, with satisfactory arrangements to be made in advance of payments for the year. This is necessary if we are to ensure that educational objectives and priorities to which these grants are directed are being achieved. School authorities will be required to certify that all students, regardless of their sex, are being given equal access to Commonwealth funded programs, subject to a qualification to allow for single sex schools. The Bill also includes a requirement for State Ministers and systemic authorities to consult the Commonwealth Minister on the composition of committees administering Commonwealth programs. Provision has been made for both the Ethnic Schools Program and the general support element of the English as a Second Language Program to be extended in 1984 to allow access for Aboriginals. The Short Term Emergency Assistance Program is being extended to allow grants to be allocated where a school's local community suffers a significant economic decline which affects the school. Other amendments are the availability of grants for capital purposes under the Education Centres Program, and the restriction of the use of funds under the Professional Development Program for teacher replacement to in-service activities supporting Commonwealth specific objectives or programs. Consistent with the Government's decision to re-introduce retrospective cost supplementation arrangements for the Commission's programs from the beginning of 1984, the Bill amends the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Act 1982 by replacing the previous Government's unsatisfactory system of prospective allowances for wage increases with retrospective adjustments to the grants. These adjustments take account of both the wages pause and the recent National Wage Case increase and result in a net saving of $48 million. This adjustment is reached after taking account of the decision by the Government to fully supplement the grants for 1983 as a result of the National Wage Case. A total of $10.3 million extra is being provided for that purpose comprising $4m for government school programs, $5.8 million for non-government schools and $0.5 million for joint programs. Provision for this increase was included in the Budget. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Reid) adjourned. Senator GIETZELT(New South Wales-Minister for Veterans' Affairs) —Papers are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable senators. With the concurrence of the Senate, I ask that the list be incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The list read as follows- 1. Export Development Grants Board-Annual Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 41 (4) of the Export Market Development Grants Act 1974 and section 20 (4) of the Export Expansion Grants Act 1978. 2. Export Finance and Insurance Corporation-Annual Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 88 of the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Act 1974. 3. Department of Employment and Industrial Relations-Annual Report 1982-83. 4. Commonwealth Employmet Service-Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 22 of the Commonwealth Employment Service Act 1978. 5. International Monetary Agreements Act 1947-Annual Report 1982-83 on the Operations of the Act and the Operations of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development-pursuant to section 10 of the International Monetary Agreements Act 1947. 6. Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs-Annual Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 49 (4) of the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs Act 1979. 7. Independent Air Fares Committee-Annual Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 33 of the Independent Air Fares Committee Act 1981. 8. Australian Postal Commission-Annual Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 102 of the Postal Services Act 1975. 9. Overseas Telecommunication Commission (Australia)-Annual Report 1982-83- pursuant to section 53 (3) of the Overseas Telecommunication Act 1946. 10. Western Australian Local Government Commmission-Report on Recommendations for Grants to Councils for 1983-84-pursuant to section 10 of the Local Government Personal Income Tax Sharing Act 1976. 11. Family Law Council-Annual Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 115 of the Family Law Act 1975. 12. The Commissioner for Employees' Compensation-Annual Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 122 (3) of the Compensation Commonwealth Government Employees Act 1971. 13. Repatriation Review Tribunal-Annual Report 1982-83-pursuant to section 107VZZA of the Repatriation Act 1920. 14. Attorney-General's Department and Office of Parliamentary Council-Annual Report 1982-83. 15. Symposium on Statutory Interpretation-report-together with the text of a statement relating to the report. Report Senator GIETZELT(New South Wales-Minister for Veterans' Affairs) —I seek leave to make a statement in connection with this paper and to have the statement incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The statement read as follows- The Policy Discussion Paper on Extrinsic Aids to Statutory Interpretation tabled in the Parliament on 14 October 1982 formed the basis of the Symposium. That Paper examined the extent to which, in interpreting an Act of Parliament, regard can properly and usefully be had to Hansard, explanatory memoranda, reports and other ''extrinsic'' materials that do not themselves form part of the Act. It also examined whether the use of extrinsic materials should be further developed and, in particular, whether there is scope for the use of specially prepared explanatory memoranda approved by Parliament as an aid to the interpretation of Acts and possibly as leading to the simpler drafting of Acts. The stated intention was that there should be discussion both inside and outside Parliament before any decisions were made on legislation on the matter. My Department has received submissions on the Discussion Paper and there have been several commentaries in journals. The Symposium, however, was the major forum for debate, and it served to crystallize thinking on the topic. The Australian Law Journal of April 1983 noted that there can seldom have been such a searching review of the problems involved in the employment by Courts of extrinsic aids to statutory interpretation as that which occurred in the course of the Symposium. Those reponsible for arranging the discussion-my predecessor, Senator Durack, and my Department-are to be congratulated. It followed an earlier initiative by Senator Durack to insert s.15AA in the Acts Interpretation Act requiring Courts to adopt a purposive interpretation of Commonwealth legislation. A similar provision to s.15AA is now being inserted in the national companies and securities legislation. That particular intitiative was strongly supported at the time in Parliament by my side of politics. I hope and trust that the constructive bipartisan support we offered in Opposition is continued by the present Opposition in relation to this important topic. The Symposium brought together a large number of distinguished participants, including the Chief Justice and four other Justices of the High Court, members of the Federal, State and Territory Courts, Parliamentarians, practitioners including senior counsel, academic legal scholars and senior public servants. Lord Wilberforce, until recently a Lord of Appeal in the House of Lords, delivered the keynote address. The debate was vigorous and wide-ranging. In summing up at the conclusion of the Symposium, Sir Anthony Mason of the High Court made the following points (pp .81-5); the law as it presently stands in relation to extrinsic aids is neither clear nor convincing; it was generally agreed that cautious use should be made of extrinsic materials and that their potential to assist was restricted to cases of ambiguity; there were perhaps some misgivings about the use of Hansard, and greater reservations about the use of the old style explanatory memorandum and also the proposed specially prepared and approved explanatory memorandum which would impose an additional load on top of the heavy burden Parliamentarians and Parliamentary Counsel already carry; if, as the proposals in the Discussion Paper indicated, the new style memorandum was to be used only in association with some selected statutes, its scope would be very limited; there was a case, however, supported by the authors of the papers and by a number of commentators and speakers, for action by the Parliament giving the Courts a judicial discretion to look beyond the four corners of the Statute when its seems appropriate to do so; a draft of an amendment to the Acts Interpretation Act prepared by one of the working groups of the Symposium and to be found on p.76 of the report was extremely helpful in that regard; it was so expressed that it did not stifle any initiative that the Courts would have displayed in the absence of such legislative provision. That was the thrust of the summing up by Sir Anthony Mason. It is fair to say that the Symposium generally did not support the particular proposal in the Discussion Paper for specially prepared explanatory memoranda that would be specifically approved by the Parliament. On the other hand, there was strong support for the view that Judges should be able to have regard to any materials they think are relevant to the resolution of the problem before them. Also, there was strong support for the view that a statutory provision was desirable to encourage those Judges who at the moment feel they are bound by rules which prevent them from achieving that end. On these points I refer honourable senators to p.77 of the proceedings. In the light of the discussions at the Symposium and the other commentaries on the Discussion Paper, my Department is examining legislative proposals in this area. I expect that those proposals will be ready for Parliament's consideration during the Autumn Sittings. Without committing the Government or myself at this stage I should now say something on my own assessment of the direction in which the Symposium points us. I begin by referring to the view vigorously expressed by Mr Justice Murphy that the problem the Discussion Paper and the Symposium sought to address represents 'an acute problem that no longer exists'. He illustrated that problem by referring to the widely held view that certain members of the judiciary were interpreting legislation, in particular the Income Tax Assessment Act, in a way which Parliament could not possibly have intended. Mr Justice Murphy referred to s.15AA of the Acts Interpretation Act as legislation which, whether necessary or not, reflected the attitude of the representatives of the people. Further legislation was, however, unnecessary. As to extrinsic aids, Parliament should do nothing at all about them. His Honour considered that the matter was progressing in a sensible way-there were different views, but there was no real need for any legislation (p.39). It certainly is true that, as far as the High Court is concerned, there is no longer any rule of complete exclusion of reference to extrinsic materials, including Hansard in the case of some of the Justices. In the Federal Court, it has been laid down in TCN Channel 9 v. Australian Mutual Provident Society (1982 ) 42 ALR 496 that the Hansard report of the second reading speeches of the relevant Ministers and the explanatory memoranda accompanying Bills can be looked at for the purpose of ascertaining the mischief that legislation is intended to deal with. Senators will be interested to know that in the more recent case of Harris v. ABC, decided on 4 October 1983, Mr Justice Beaumont of the Federal Court, in interpreting the Freedom of Information Act, derived assistance in understanding the meaning and intended operation of s.36 (1) of that Act by reference to the explanatory memorandum circulated with the Bill. He also referred to the 1979 Report on the Freedom of Information Bill 1978 by the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs. That reference illustrates another type of extrinsic material to which Courts can already refer -namely, reports leading to the passing of legislation. Such reports were endorsed by the Symposium as a legitimate aid to interpretation (p.82). At the same time, judicial approaches in this area differ considerably. Some Judges refer to Hansard while others do not. Some Judges believe that they are not free to look at extrinsic material under the present law, while others do not feel so constrained. As I have already indicated, the Symposium discussions identified a possible role for Parliament in this regard. Specifically, Parliament could enact legislation to give the Courts a judicial discretion to look beyond the four corners of the statute where it seems appropriate to do so. Another difference in approach is that many Judges limit the use of reports, or Hansard where that is referred to, to ascertaining the mischief intended to be dealt with, and not as direct evidence of legislative intent. This view was followed by Justices Mason, Wilson and Dawson of the High Court in the recent case of Sanofi v. Parke Davis Pty Ltd (6 October 1983). Other Judges do not accept the view. A case in point is Mr Justice Murphy's judgment in Sillery v. R (1981) 35 ALR, at pp.232-3. I tend to think that this limitation on the use made of reports and Hansard is difficult to observe in practice and, in any case, wrong in principle. As he pointed out in his paper at the Symposium, Lord Wilberforce originally supported only a limited use of reports (Black-Clawson case (1975) AC 591) but now believed the limitation to be wrong and the attempt to distinguish mischief and intent illogical. In his view (p.8 of the Symposium proceedings): Mischief and the intended remedy are the obverse and reverse of a single coin. Acts of Parliament are passed with one indivisible objective, to cure an evil and to create new rights and duties. The argument that, even where the report sets out a draft Bill, you may not look at the commentary in the report to see what the draft Bill means, because it does not follow that Parliament approved it-a feeble argument anyway-can have no validity whatever if the draft Bill is enacted without change. The argument that to look at the report or commentary involves construing two documents instead of one is specious. You are only construing one document-the Act-with such help as you get from the other documents. If that other document is not clear, it is no help. If it is, why not use it? I find Lord Wilberforce's views highly persuasive. At the same time, I think it is important that any legislative intervention in these areas should be carefully framed so as not to place an undue burden on litigants and their advisers and on other users of statutes. As I observed in my comments delivered at the Symposium, there are limitations to the kinds of materials to which even the most conscientious citizens and their advisers can get access. There is also an obvious 'price tag' in the form of added costs that may result from lengthier litigation, though undoubtedly in some cases extrinsic material, where it is clear and convincing, may shorten or foreclose argument. There is no easy or comprehensive solution to this problem. The reaching of a satisfactory accommodation will depend, I suggest, on the good sense of both the Judges and Parliament combining to produce a situation in which the range of available materials, and the way in which they are used, are reasonably defined and confined. In this regard, it must be acknowledged that, even if it were felt desirable to do so, it would not at this stage be feasible to exclude totally the use of extrinsic material by a Judge who decides that he or she is entitled to look at it for the purpose of discharging his or her judicial duty of expounding and applying the laws of the Commonwealth. What can Parliament do to help on this particular problem? This seems to me to be the final matter to be considered. Can something be done to more readily define what materials may be looked at? Even if Senator Durack's idea of a specially prepared explanatory memorandum is rejected as not being of general utility, it can be of use in special cases. Also, as I mentioned in my remarks delivered at the Symposium, the possible use of such specially identified material should not be limited to explanatory memoranda. Use can also be made in appropriate cases of reports on which Bills are based and the Second Reading Speech of the Minister. I have in mind, in particular, reports of the Law Reform Commission. Complicated procedures for specific approval of the material by Parliament would be neither desirable nor necessary in such cases. A simple provision in the Act declaring that the report or memorandum or speech in question may be taken into account for the purpose of interpreting the Act would suffice. I said as much in my remarks delivered at the Symposium. I propose, in appropriate cases, to include in legislation within my portfolio a provision specifying relevant extrinsic material to which regard may be had in the interpretation of that legislation. We could also consider a general provision for insertion in the Acts Interpretation Act that would facilitate this practice. Certainly we have to consider the deletion or amendment of sub-section (2) of s.15AA of the Acts Interpretation Act. That was simply a holding provision that was intended to preserve whatever the existing law was in relation to use of extrinsic materials , pending the examination of this topic. The provision no longer serves any useful or rational purpose, since many Judges obviously now feel free under the existing law to refer to extrinsic materials. Annual Report 1982-83 Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(4.38) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. It is a pleasure to get a report from an instrumentality such as the Export Development Grants Board which so completely covers the functions that are carried out by that body. I was very pleased to receive the 1982-83 report because it does traverse the full operation of the Board. I see the export development business as being one of the most important items that this Government should be associated with at present. We have to remember that Australia's geographical disadvantages relative to our major trading markets makes real difficulties for our exportees. It puts us at a considerable disadvantage to many of the countries which are engaged in similar pursuits. Besides that, of course, we have our system of extraordinary shipping costs which makes them even more disadvantaged. I wonder why Australia, probably more than any other country in the world, has decided to create all the various taxes , costs and charges that go with persecuting our exporters. I think it all started as part of The Lucky Country syndrome. We believed that there was plenty for everybody and that we were able to export things that somebody else wanted. In fact it started off being a tax on the purchaser, but before very long it became a tax on the supplier. It is certainly not the case that the markets that we supply can no longer get the various goods only from Australia. I hope that perhaps later in the week we will be able to discuss certain aspects of this a little more. I also find it rather extraordinary that we charge massive export levies, yet allow export incentives. I think it is about as expensive and as silly a way to spend public funds as one can imagine. There is positively no future and no profit in just shuffling public moneys. Australia's future positively lies in its export capacity and the development of avenues that provide encouragement. These have to be pursued. I am very pleased to be able to comment on the performance and the standing of the members of the Board. I particularly mention Mr Daly, the Executive Member, and Mr Paltridge, the Chairman, both of whom I know very well. With their co- Board members, the wisdom, experience and knowledge that they present to this Board are highly respected and greatly appreciated. The report itself has to be a tremendous impetus to the many individuals and companies which are listed in it and to others which may be considering going into the export business. The very voluminous tables of the companies and individuals of every size show that it is possible to participate. I ask only that the Government press on with its logical extension and simplification of the principles of assisting our export industries. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Annual report 1982-83 Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(4.42) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. I see the operations of the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation as being a necessity for assisting Australian business. As is normal, the report sets out the objectives and powers of the organisation. The objective is to encourage Australia's export trade in goods and services by providing a specialised range of insurance, guarantee and financing facilities, not normally obtainable from the commercial market. That is very important and I am glad that once again the objects and powers have been carried out. As with the previous organisation to which I referred, the Export Development Grants Board, one has only to look at the experience, calibre and strength of the Corporation to see that these attributes are to be admired and commended. The fact that since 1976 the Corporation has provided protection to the extent of $526m speaks for itself. I hope that the powers, the functions, the involvement and the increases provide more encouragement, inducement and protection not only to those currently engaged in exporting industries but also to many new businesses. I urge that all people who wish to participate in overseas projects or sales be fully coversant with all the services that EFIC can provide. As business, particularly with the developing nations, becomes more involved, it will become more necessary for Australia to provide the sorts of fringe benefits to exporters that enable them to compete with many of the likely competitors whose governments place a very high and supportive emphasis on export. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Reports Senator CROWLEY(South Australia)(4.45) —by leave-I move: That the Senate take note of the papers. I want to make a few comments about the annual report of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations. I have not adequately gone through the descriptions of all the matters to which this Department addresses itself. However, from the brief reading I have given the report, it seems to provide an extensive description not only of the many things that have taken place in the Department but also of the considerable changes that have been made in the Department's structure over the 12 months to the end of the year 1982-83. Some of the descriptions pertain to time under the previous Government and some to that under the current Government. There were considerable changes when the Australian Labor Party Government took office. The Office of Youth Affairs was transferred to the Department of Education and Youth Affairs in March of this year. On 1 July 1983 the Melbourne Industrial Relations Unit took a new title to coincide with the re-establishment of the Arbitration Inspectorate Division within the Department on that date. There are other references to changes and different emphases of programs within the Department. In particular, much time and effort have been put into the establishment of the community employment program which was introduced into legislation on 19 May this year and was operating under the Community Employment Act which was proclaimed on 23 June this year. That program will be reviewed prior to 30 June 1986. I was pleased to read, in particular, that the Department has an evaluation of employment generation programs for both the wage pause program and the community employment program. The Commonwealth and State Ministers agreed that the Bureau of Labour Market Research should conduct a full evaluation in consultation with the States. I think this is particularly to be applauded. Quite often thorough evaluation is missing from the introduction of programs. This cannot lead to the most efficient or effective outcome. The evaluation is regarded as integral in assessing the performance of programs and providing a basis for further program and policy development. Further, it is hoped that the evaluations by the Bureau of Labour Market Research will encompass both the objectives of the programs and the broader effect of what happens to people who have the opportunity of participating in subsequent employment experience. Its evaluation looks not only at the effectiveness of the program but also at the outcome for people who have been able to participate in that program. I was particularly interested to look at the work of the Women's Bureau. I found it has a particular function to research and develop policies on women's employment, including equal opportunity of employment for women, and to provide advice on these matters to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. I was pleased to notice further that it has the aim, if not the established brief, to increase community awareness of labour market issues, particularly by publication and dissemination of information and the presentation of employment, educational programs, seminars, workshops et cetera. In fact, it has a twofold brief. One is to provide the information and research within the Department; the other is the important one of extending that information to the people in the community who need to know not only what the Department is doing in providing information to the Minister, but also what is available to people in the community, particularly to women. During the year the Women's Bureau produced two video tapes, Women in Engineering and Technically Speaking. Technically Speaking is a set of two complementary video tapes, one aimed at young women and girls in schools to encourage them to consider looking at other than standard or traditional employment prospects for themselves, the other designed to inform parents and career advisers about other than the usual areas of employment for young women. Those tapes are now available. Anybody in the community can apply for those tapes and use them for parent education nights and information sessions for people in the community, particularly for young women. In addressing the needs of young women, it is also very important that those people in our society who shape attitudes need to be informed of those possible changes. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator SIBRAA(New South Wales)(4.50) —I have the opportunity now to speak on the report of the Commonwealth Employment Service and also to talk about a local CES project in the area in which I live, the Manly-Warringah district of Sydney. The project was called Operation Job Hunt and I had the pleasure of launching it on behalf of the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, the Hon. Ralph Willis, at a large public meeting at Dee Why, chaired by the District Governor of Rotary. The operation was launched by the CES and supported by various agencies and organisations including Inter-agency, Rotary and the Manly Daily, the local newspaper with the largest circulation of any suburban newspaper in Australia. The Northern Beaches Community Youth Support Scheme provided valuable backing and I am pleased to say that because of representations made by the local State Labor members of parliament-Tom Webster, the member for Wakehurst, and Alan Stewart, the member for Manly-along with me, the Northern Beaches CYSS was recently upgraded and this year will receive $90, 000 as opposed to the $60,000 it received last year. The CYSS provided posters advertising Operation Job Hunt and the Brookvale Technical College made thermometers which were located throughout the district including the Manly wharf area, the Warringah Mall shopping centre, Warriewood Shopping Square, Manly Daily offices and the Manly and Warringah councils. These thermometers gauged the progress of the job hunt and made the community aware of the project, encouraging its participation. The Manly Daily ran full page advertisements for people seeking work. It ran editorials and human interest stories, and gave continuing publicity to the project worth many thousands of dollars. The purpose of Operation Job Hunt was to counter growing unemployment in the Manly-Warringah area, which now stands at 8,000, with 70 per cent of those unemployed being between the ages of 20 and 44, and to bring home to people that the people out of work in the area were not just kids on the beach whom some people had called dole bludgers, but were the family next door, like themselves, with children and a mortgage. They happened to be mainly professional people in the district. It was a timely project as young people are now leaving school, and in bringing into focus the plight of the unemployed in the area the project was and is trying to localise unemployment and find local solutions to the problem. This is an important aspect of Operation Job Hunt. The operation officially ends today, 30 November, and so the Commonwealth Employment Service report is timely. The success of the job hunt is shown by the fact that, on the first official day of operation, 55 jobs were offered by employers in the Manly-Warringah district and, in the first week, nearly 200 were offered. The target for jobs was 500 by the end of November and the number of jobs so far created by local employers totals 804 of which 658 have already been filled. The rest are still being processed. In November last year only 398 job vacancies were received at the Brookvale and Manly CES offices. The 804 jobs created have been a great result and I congratulate a number of people, including John Martin, the manager of the CES at Brookvale; Paul Collings, a CES officer; Jill Muddle, the area project officer for community employment programs ; Tom Barry, the manager of the Manly CES; Kathy McVay from Brookvale CES; and all those others associated with the campaign. I am informed that many other CES offices have taken a keen interest in Operation Job Hunt and there are plans for similar drives which will follow the lead set by the Manly and Brookvale CES offices. The community response to this project has been magnificent. Members of the community pulled together and worked to make the project a success and showed that they were willing to meet the challenge and provide valuable jobs to the unemployed in the Manly-Warringah district. I am aware that the Minister concerned, Mr Willis, has shown a great interest in this pilot project. We hope, along with the local people, that he will be able to visit the area in the near future and see at first hand for himself the excellent job that has been done by CES officers in this important pilot project. Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition)(4.55) —Mr Deputy President, I was pleased that honourable senators opposite suggested that items 3 and 4 on the list, the report of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations and the report of the Commonwealth Employment Service, should be debated together. I think it is desirable, after the five-minute bursts that are allowed today under the sessional order and after the relatively brief treatment that the reports are likely to get tomorrow, that this matter be adjourned and that we come back to it in the new year. I have little doubt that however much there might be signs of improvement in some sectors of the economy we as a Senate, when we return next February, will need to address our attention to the continuing problem of high unemployment. We do have at the moment some predictions, including some which have been referred to recently following debate in the other place, emanating from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet which suggest a risk of not only high but also continuing and rising unemployment. Of course the Government's own Budget suggested that there would be further growth in unemployment during this financial year. We have had comment in the Senate over recent weeks on the apparent unreliability of current statistics. There is an extraordinary variation in the figures which have been put before us by the Australian Bureau of Statistics over recent months, including very substantial variations in the participation rate and hence in the apparent unemployment rate. But none of that really takes anything away from the sorts of facts which Senator Sibraa referred to in his comments, because we all know that a very substantial number of Australians, young and old, are unable to find a job in 1983, and that will be the position in 1984. That is a matter which I think has to cause us concern on a lot of different levels. The fact is that since the war Australian society has been based on the proposition that for those who wish to seek work a job will generally be available. We now have people telling us that a quarter of our young, would-be work force are unemployed and that that figure may rise to a third. I do not think that anybody can be very relaxed about the potential social consequences of that. It is a point which was made very forcefully by some honourable senators opposite when they were in opposition and I know they will continue to be concerned about the matter now that they are in government. I hope that within this chamber we can find some opportunities for an analysis of that problem and for some serious and not necessarily partisan debate on a problem that obviously will be with us for some time. I do not believe that we have had enough opportunity in the current session to address our minds to that very considerable issue, and I hope that this will provide an opportunity for us to do it in February. I want to touch on one specific matter in the minute or so which remains to me. I have raised this matter before in this chamber without any response from the Government. Under the Government's Budget we will be expending something like $3 billion this year on the unemployment benefit. Honourable senators will recall that when we introduced the wage freeze in December of last year and allocated savings of some $300m to the creation of work in one form or another a couple of million dollars was set aside to experiment in the field of providing some constructive work at award rates for people who would otherwise be on unemployment benefit. There has been a great deal of interest around Australia in the proposition that some parts of the Australian economy and administration, and in particular local government, might be able to provide worthwhile work in lieu of unemployment benefit. I believe that, with the likely continuance of high rates of unemployment, some experimentation in that area is warranted. It could be done on a voluntary basis ; it could be done with appropriate protection for those involved in that award rates could be required. We must do something to examine the possibility that we can, for the individuals involved and for the country, get better value for the $3 billion or so which will have to be expended on the unemployment benefit this year. I do not believe it is a fair start to life to spend years on unemployment benefit and I think we must try to pool our collective minds to find better solutions than we have at present. Senator COOK(Western Australia)(5.00) —I wish to make a few remarks on the 1982 -83 annual report of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations. In reading the report one is struck by the consultative arrangements that the Department, through the Government, has entered into with various parties in the industrial relations area. The report sets out what has been done in this field during 1982-83. Under the heading 'consultation' on page 13 the report states: Significant consultative machinery indirectly affecting the Employment and Industrial Relations portfolio has been developed since the April 1983 National Economic Summit Conference. The report makes reference to the consultative arrangements. At page 86, under the heading 'Industrial Relations Calendar July 1982 to June 1983', the report tabulates our industrial relations performance over the last 12 months. It is significant to look at both the consultative changes and the industrial relations calendar for the period July 1982 to June 1983. The calendar reveals that the previous Government was concerned with some 47 major industrial disputes up until 11 March 1983. Since then there has been only one major dispute and that was inherited from the former Administration. I think that the facts tell a very important and interesting story, namely, that the style of government that we have chosen to adopt-that of consultation rather than confrontation in the industrial relations field-has in part led to a tremendous reduction in the number of disputes. The evidence in this report reveals that our style of government has led directly to far less need for government intervention or for government intervention at all in the industrial relations area. That record has improved our performance remarkably and one must sheet this home to the consultative arrangements that typify Labor's approach to this issue. The prices and incomes accord, of course, underpins the fundamental understanding of the Government in the industrial relations area and that arrangement has been backed by the National Economic Summit Conference. It is important that the accord be supported not only by unions-and in that sense the Australian Council of Trade Unions along with other unions has a heavy responsibility to ensure that any union that wishes to maverick upon the accord is brought to book-but also implicitly by employers. There should be co- operative consultation to manage this economy out of the recession and to obtain the levels of economic and industrial growth that are necessary to put people back into full employment and to provide them with meaningful careers. I think that the role the Government has played-that is, one of not moving to accuse or trying to find someone to blame for the effects of industrial disputation but rather of finding out what the problem was that gave rise to industrial disputation and resolving that-is directly responsible, through the consultative process, for the improvement in our record. That record must stand us in good stead when it comes to getting the economic growth we need and answering the expectations, if not the anxieties, of our trading partners in terms of how they will be affected by our industrial relations position. I think that the report in that respect is a most important document. I commend it to the Senate and seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debated adjourned. Annual Report 1982-83 Senator CROWLEY(South Australia)(5.05) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania) —by leave-I simply want to make the comment that the annual report of the Family Law Council was delivered to my office at four minutes past five. It is a somewhat lengthy report which I want to have time to study. I also want at a future stage to take the opportunity to comment on the new appointments that have been made to Council committees. Under section 115 of the Family Law Act the report is required to be in the hands of the Attorney- General within 60 days after 30 June. I only regret that it was not in the hands of honourable senators prior to it being listed for discussion today. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The honourable senator cannot do that. He has made a statement by leave. Senator Robertson —Could it be pointed out to Senator Harradine that this matter will be listed for debate tomorrow. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The paper will not be listed for discussion tomorrow. The debate has been adjourned until the next day of sitting. Senator Robertson —It will be able to be discussed during General Business on Thursday. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Only by agreement. Senator Robertson —That agreement will be arranged. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The time under Sessional Orders for the consideration of ministerial papers has now expired. There does seem to be some misunderstanding about what will happen in regard to General Business tomorrow. Papers to which motions to take note of the paper have not been moved-this today applies to papers Nos 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 15-may be raised tomorrow during discussion of papers under General Business. I think the Senate should be clear about that. There is no need for motions in regard to those papers. Debate on papers in regard to which consideration has been adjourned will not be resumed unless a special arrangement is made. Senator ROBERTSON(Northern Territory) —On behalf of Senator Tate I present the fourteenth report of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills concerning the Bank Account Debit Tax Legislation Amendment Bill 1983, the Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1983, the Director of Public Prosecutions Bill 1983, the Health Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1983 and the National Crime Authority Bill 1983. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator ROBERTSON —On behalf of the Committee, I lay on the table Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest No. 15, dated 30 November 1983. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria) —I table the additional information received by Estimates Committee A and seek leave for it to be incorporated in the Hansard record of the Committee's proceedings. Leave granted. Senator WATSON(Tasmania) —I present the 215th report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator WATSON —by leave-The 215th report of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts contains the Department of Finance minute on the Committee's 190th report which reviewed the procedures used for the collection of petroleum royalties and excise. The Department of Finance minute is the formal documentation of the Government's response to the Committee's recommendations, as contained in the 190th report which was tabled on 27 October 1981. The Committee's inquiry commenced as part of its examination of the Auditor-General' s 1977-78 report. As a result of this examination, the Committee decided to examine separately matters concerning the off-shore petroleum royalties and excise, which were again referred to in reports of the Auditor-General in 1979- 80 and 1980-81. The Committee's decision to inquire into this matter was influenced by the significance of the Commonwealth's receipts from petroleum royalties and excise. These receipts were of the order of $3,000m a year. The Committee's concern, as expressed in the 190th report, was that even a small percentage error resulting from inaccuracies in the back allocation procedures which are used to verify the amount of crude oil produced could lead to errors of plus or minus millions of dollars. The report also highlighted some of the many complex legal issues in this area involving both Federal and State governments as well as oil producers. These issues arise because of the many different Commonwealth and State Acts covering off-shore matters and the difficulties in resolving those areas and activities which should come under Commonwealth rather than State jurisdiction. The Committee recognised that the issues identified in its 190th report were complex and involved policies and administrative procedures at both State and Federal government level. As a result, the significant delay in the finalisation of the Department of Finance minute on this report was anticipated, but the Committee has been kept informed of progress in the interim. The Public Accounts Committee is pleased to note the considerable effort which has been directed towards carrying out most of its recommendations. Overall, therefore, the Committee is satisfied with the timing and content of the response to its 190th report. Mr Deputy President, I wish to incorporate in Hansard the Committee's recommendations Nos 1 to 6 and the Department of Finance minute responses in summary form. Leave granted. The document read as follows- Recommendation 1: . . . the terms of the 1980 legislation be discussed with the States with a view to having the legislation amended prior to being proclaimed, to empower the Joint Authority established under the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Amendment Act 1980 to function in relation to the territorial sea as well as the adjacent areas. In response the Committee was advised that the Government is reviewing the operation of the Commonwealth and State legislation covering offshore petroleum and mining activities. The issue raised by the Committee will be a matter for consideration in the context of that review. Recommendations 2 and 3: Discussions take place between the respective Commonwealth and State authorities and between Auditors-General to ensure that royalty collection procedures compatible with the requirements of both Governments are implemented under the existing legislation and under the 1980 Commonwealth legislation when proclaimed; the Department of National Development and Energy and the Auditor-General's Office should be involved, in co-operation with the Victorian Auditor-General, in ensuring the correctness of the procedures to arrive at the royalty payments. In response an independent firm of consultants was commissioned to undertake a review of the sampling techniques employed for obtaining compositional data for the material balance program used in the calculation of royalties and excise payable to the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments. The recommendations resulting from that review have been implemented. Also, the following four sets of detailed procedures for the collection and verification of royalties and excise for the Bass Strait producing fields either have been developed, or are being developed: Producers procedures, State procedures, Customs procedures and Department of Resources and Energy procedures . Recommendation 4: Arrangements be made for the Commonwealth share of royalties to be paid immediately it is received by the State, with any adjustments being made in the following month's payment. In response legislation has been amended to ensure the immediate payment to the Commonwealth, of its share of royalties. Recommendation 5: Officers of the Department of National Development and Energy , and the Auditor-General's Office actively participate in the final verification of royalty calculations which should be completed as soon as possible. In response audit, by the Victorian Department of Mines and Energy, of royalty payments, on the basis of wellhead values, is progressing in consultation with the Department of Resources and Energy. Recommendation 6: The Department of National Development and Energy and Business and Consumer Affairs treat finalisation of the documentation of (excise ) procedures as a matter of urgency and the Committee will expect to see substantial progress in this area in the near future. In response the Department of Resources and Energy advised that the procedures adopted to allocate and verify production from the various Bass Strait fields for excise purposes are the same as those used in the royalty calculation. Senator WATSON —Thank you, Mr Deputy President. The final recommendation in the 190th report concerned the need to simplify the royalty procedures and the Committee referred to the United Kingdom experience wherein procedures have been revised so that well-head value is no longer used as the basis for royalty payments. The Department of Resources and Energy responded to this by indicating the Government's intention to consider this issue in the context of its current review of taxation arrangements for resource projects. Consequently, the Committee intends to review progress in this area in approximately 12 months time. I commend this report to honourable senators. Debate resumed. Senator SIBRAA(New South Wales)(5.14) —Before the suspension of the sitting for lunch, I was pointing out to the Senate that public funding is a normal procedure throughout most of the Western democracies and that in fact Australia is one of the last democracies to install some system of public funding. I noted that former Senator Puplick, a Liberal Party senator, in his maiden speech in the Senate on 20 September 1978 said that he looked forward to the days when we would have public funding of political parties, disclosure of donations, some register of pecuniary interests, fair redistributions, one vote one value, a revised Federal Constitution and real popular participation in government. It is no wonder that he has not been re-elected to the Senate, and no wonder that Senator Sir John Carrick is staying firmly nailed to his seat, because what he said today is in complete opposition to what Senator Puplick said in his maiden speech. I suggest that if members of the Liberal Party were to read that statement, many of them would think that Senator Puplick is some dangerous radical. A contrary view of the Liberals was put by Senator Peter Baume in a speech to the Senate in which he said: To seek or to accept a public subsidy is a political party's admission of failure. That it should need to look to public funding is an admission that it cannot get support from those who should be attracted by the force of its ideas and its ideology. The need for public funding reflects a lack of confidence in the acceptability of the party's objectives, a lack of confidence in its policies, a lack of confidence in its performance and an unwillingness to make the necessary efforts to raise its own funds. Senator Grimes —Does not the Party in New South Wales accept public funding? Senator SIBRAA —I was getting to that. He continued: It is an assertion by an unsuccessful and failed party . . . I wonder whether Senator Baume thinks that his own Party in New South Wales has failed now that it accepts public funding. On the one hand we have Senator Baume , who is still in the Senate, making his statement and on the other hand we have the statement of former Senator Puplick, who is no longer in the Senate. I think therefore that we would accept that the view of the Liberal Party would be the view put forward by Senator Sir John Carrick today and by Senator Baume on a previous occasion. The reason, I believe, that this Opposition is terrified of public funding is that it will have to account for where the money comes from for its election campaigns. We know that millions of dollars-$5 or $6m in the 1980 election, and more in 1983-came to the Liberal and National parties and that money was completely unaccounted for. We do not know where one cent of these millions came from. Public funding has already been an issue in an election in Australia. In New South Wales that issue was one of the Liberal-National Party coalition's main areas of criticism of the Labor Government leading up to the 1981 election. Full page advertisements in the Sydney Morning Herald, costing $7,000 a page, attacked the Labor Government's proposal for public funding. That proposal did not hit the deck as an issue and the Labor Government in New South Wales increased its majority. The New South Wales Opposition parties asked for a referendum on the issue and a referendum was held except that it was called a general election. In New South Wales the Liberals have gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal the identity of their corporate donors, but occasionally information gets out. I refer to an article on page 7 of the National Times of 14 to 20 October which is entitled: 'Whose money backs NSW Libs?' The article states: The NSW branch owed $2 million in March last year-- that is 1982- when Valder launched his fund-raising campaign. By the end of 1982 the branch was out of the red-Valder had raised $2.9 million. He set a target of a further $2.5 million in 1983 and is already comfortably close to that with around $2 million in party coffers. I seek leave to have that article incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The article read as follows- The NSW Liberal Party goes to extraordinary lengths to conceal the identity of its corporate donors. But The National Times has obtained a copy of the party's latest corporate appeal list. Colleen Ryan reports Whose money backs NSW Libs? John Valder's talents extend beyond his penmanship of the Liberal Party's recipe for future electoral success. In addition to the Valder Report, unveiled at the Liberal Party Conference in Sydney earlier this month, the former Sydney Stock Exchange chairman can take the credit for leading the NSW branch of the Liberal Party out of virtual bankruptcy. The NSW branch owed $2 million in March last year when Valder launched his fund -raising campaign. By the end of 1982 the branch was out of the red-Valder had raised $2.9 million. He set a target of a further $2.5 million in 1983 and is already comfortably close to that with around $2 million in party coffers. As the accompanying list reveals, just over half of that amount has come from the corporate sector. This is a marked change from previous years when around 80 per cent of funds raised were donated by business. The 20 regional fund-raising committees set up by Valder to tap local business and individual Liberal voters raised $700,000 in 1982 and have already exceeded that amount in 1983. On the corporate side, Valder's impeccable connections have undoubtedly assisted the fund-raising effort as has his method of skating around the NSW Elections Funding Act. This legislation, passed by NSW Parliament in 1981, stipulates that all donations to political parties of more than $2,000 must be publicly disclosed. Valder announced that the Liberals would be defying the Election Funding Act when he launched the fund-raising campaign in March 1982. This would be done by channelling campaign donations interstate, where no such disclosure laws existed . Valder told The National Times this week that the policy of avoiding the provisions of the Election Funding Act still stands. ''We have made no bones abut it,'' he said. An existing Liberal Party foundation in Canberra has been resurrected for the purpose and many of the corporate contributions to the NSW branch are channelled through this foundation. The separate category on the accompanying list titled Monies in Canberra presumably refer to funds still held by the foundation. The accompanying list is the Corporate Appeal list for the month ended September 20. The list for the month ended August 14, 1983, also in the possession of The National Times, lists nine company contributions under Monies in Canberra. These were contributions from Lend Lease, Arnotts, Stocks and Holdings, Australian Agriculture, A. F. Albert, Waugh and Josephson, Tooth, 2UE and McPhersons. In the September list these Monies in Canberra had been incorporated into the master list. As the accompanying list reveals, BHP has lived up to its slogan as the Big Australian, being the largest corporate donor listed. It is followed by CSR and G J Coles with contributions of $30,000 each. CORPORATE APPEAL Moneys Received: $ Abignano 500 Arnotts 5,000 Aust. Agriculture 2,000 A F Albert 2,000 Adelaide Steam 3,000 Agrow 500 Alico 8,000 Allied 15,000 Alto Ford 950 AWA 15,000 ACI 25,000 ADC 5,000 Aust Oil & Gas 1,000 Aust Gas 7,500 Bisley 500 Blue Circle 2,000 Boral 10,000 Brambles 2,500 Brickworks 20,000 BHP 50,000 CSR 30,000 Capel Court 2,000 Choiseul 500 Coal & Allied 5,000 Commercial Union 4 ,500 Davis 500 Goninan Platers 500 Gowings 500 Hooker 5,000 Hymix 5,000 Jennings 1,000 Koitaki 2,500 Lend Lease 5,000 Martin Bright Steels 100 McPhersons 3,000 McPhersons 2,000 Milton 500 National Aust Bank 15,000 National Nederlanden 5,000 North Broken Hill 750 Ord Minnett 500 P&O 1,000 Perpetual Trustee 1,000 Plessey 3,000 QBE 4,000 2UE 2,000 Remington 200 Renison 1,000 Rheem 6,100 Ross McGlynn 15,000 Rothmans 3,000 Stocks & Holdings 2,000 Tooth 3,000 Washington H Soul 20,000 Waugh & Joseph 1,000 York Motors 5,000 331,600 Moneys in Canberra: G J Coles 30,000 Speedo 1,000 Davids 5,000 36,000 367,600 September 20, 1983 Total corporate collection for the year now stands at $1,215,150 Senator SIBRAA —Thank you, Mr Deputy President. Mr Valder in a recent article said, I believe, that since the State campaign in 1981 the New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party has raised $5m. I think we are entitled to ask who they get it from and what was the price. I make the point that trade unions have always published their donations. They have to do so under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. I know that the Opposition parties complain about undue influence on the Labor Party whenever they see the unions making a large donation. By 'a large donation' I mean about $20,000 or $30,000. Every time we have an election campaign and a photograph appears of the Amalagamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights Union handing over a large cheque to the Leader of the Labor Party, the Opposition parties complain bitterly about it. But we have to depend on newspaper leaks to find out that one of the traditionally poorer branches of the Liberal Party has been able to raise $5m since the last election campaign. Senator Watson —That is dedication. Senator SIBRAA —I congratulate the branch, but it is a large amount of money. If individuals want to make private donations running parallel with the system of public funding established under this legislation, they can, and they should be out in the open. In 1962 President Kennedy, the then President of the United States, said that some form of public funding was inevitable because of the way that costs are rising in the United States. He proposed a commission to investigate campaign costs. The proposal was not acted upon until after Watergate, which made public funding possible in the United States. In the last United States presidential campaign, President Reagan received $21m in public funding. Does the Opposition think that President Reagan is corrupt because he accepted $21m in public funding? In the 1980 Federal election, $2.76m was spent by the major political parties on electronic media advertising. In 1983, $4.3m was spent. I wonder what will be the cost of one minute on television during the next Federal election campaign. I believe that it is better that we act now and not wait for an Australian Watergate to occur. As was said earlier today, the Australian Labor Party has had the experience- Senator Peter Baume —Like the Iraqi breakfast, eh? Senator SIBRAA —Of the Iraqi loans affairs. As Senator Peter Baume would be aware, I am on record condemning that whole situation. The Liberal Party has not been free of trouble. Three former Ministers, Mr Garland, the then Mr Lynch and the late Mr Eric Robinson were all in trouble. Two of them were sacked over electoral matters or election funding. As I said, public funding is a reality in much of the democratic world. Australia is just bringing itself up to date. I now wish to deal with some other aspects of the legislation. I am particularly pleased that the legislation provides for polling booths to close at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. I have been calling for this change since my election to the Senate in 1975. Personally I have good reasons for wanting this change which relate to my experience on the last election day, 5 March 1983. I was broadcasting the election results and giving commentaries that evening for the Sydney radio station 2KY. I expected to be out of the studio at midnight, but it was not until the early hours of Sunday morning that I could conclude my broadcast, still not knowing the results from Western Australia and Queensland. Even at that late hour, I still had only the preliminary figures for a number of vital electorates around Australia, although the general pattern was reasonably clear. The studio received many phone calls from people wanting to know what the results were before they switched off their radio for the night and went to bed. That two hours makes a lot of difference when results are coming through. The problem was magnified by the fact that daylight saving was in operation. Consequently there was a three-hour difference between Sydney and Perth. I am pleased to say that the Labor Government which was elected in Western Australia has brought in daylight saving in that State, so there will be a difference of only two hours at the next election. The consequence was that the first results from Western Australia were not received until well after 11 p.m. Even the first figures for Queensland were not available until nearly 10 p.m. Had the 6 p.m. closing requirement been in force, the vast extent of the Labor victory would have been known by 10 p.m. at the latest and the former Prime Minister would not have had to wait until 12.55 a.m. before admitting to his Government's defeat. New South Wales brought in 6 p.m. closing and it has made for a much more efficient operation on election day. It is unreasonable to expect Australian Electoral Office staff to remain efficient and competent from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., 11 p.m. or midnight. Furthermore, one simple mistake could have very grave consequences. I believe that my experience in the recount of the Senate vote in 1975 shows the sorts of mistakes that are made when people have been working for that length of time and are hurrying to get results through on election day. There was a complete recount of the Senate vote in New South Wales in 1975. The winning margin of the last candidate, who happened to be me, went from 854 to 2, 016, which really was not a great increase, but when we were able to go through the ballot papers with a reasonable amount of time available to us we found an additional 12,000 informal votes. Another change which I have been advocating to the Senate for a number of years has been that the deposit should be increased for candidates standing for election to the Senate. This legislation proposes that deposits for candidates for the House of Representatives will increase from $100 to $250. In the case of an election for the Senate, the increase will be from $200 to $500. Those deposits will be forfeited if less than 4 per cent of the formal vote is obtained. I have argued time and time again that a number of people who stand for election to the Senate do so for a joke. In New South Wales, we have seen disc jockeys and rock stars-- Senator Georges —And for tax gains, too. Senator SIBRAA —As Senator Georges said, unfortunately, some people have stood so that they can claim their election expenses as a taxation deduction. Unfortunately, the results have shown that the higher the number of candidates the higher the level of informal votes. Earlier today Senator Colston said that it would be possible under the old Commonwealth Electoral Act to sabotage deliberately the Senate result. I am still not sure that in 1974, when 73 candidates stood in New South Wales, some people were not deliberately encouraged to put their name on the Senate ballot paper to bring about a high informal vote. As I said, 73 candidates stood for that election. The informality rate was 12.3 per cent. In 1975, 53 candidates stood and the informality rate was 9.7 per cent. In the 1977 and 1980 elections, the number of candidates was 35 and 33 respectively, with the informal voting component being 9.6 per cent and 9.4 per cent respectively. The 1983 election saw an informal voting level of 11.1 per cent with 62 candidates standing for election. The number of candidates who stood for the 64 senate positions throughout Australia in the 5 March election totalled 250. In New South Wales, there were 18 groups of candidates on the Senate ticket. They included the new Party, the Peace on Earth Party, the Australia First Movement and the Integrity Team. John Campbell wrote an article in the Australian on 24 February 1983 relating to these joke candidates. The article reported: Excited radicals fairly leapt from their closets waving $100 deposit cheques . . . frantically arranged meetings spawned a whole new line-up of off-beat and esoteric aspirants. Some abandoned causes were quickly revived as the potential of March 5 clarified. Out sprung the DSPA-Deadly Serious Party of Australia, the EAPP-the Engineered Australia Plan Party, the IBCP-the Imperial British Conservative Party, the NAP-New Australia Party, the WAM-White Australia Movement, and the PTETPC-Party to Expose the Petrov Conspiracy, and more. Actually, I believe that the level of the deposit should have been increased even further, but at least this goes some way to improving the situation to which I have referred. In relation to the joke candidates, one of the most important aspects of this legislation is that it will be easier to cast a formal vote in future Senate elections. Provision has been made for a voter to mark just one box on a Senate ballot paper indicating the adoption of a registered how-to-vote ticket. No longer will a person have to struggle through a long and complicated ballot paper in order to cast a formal vote with the prospects of making just one mistake very high. I have been particularly concerned that some of the Labor Party's traditional supporters-that is, the aged, the infirm, migrants and Aborigines-have been prone to make mistakes on the ballot paper invalidating their voting intention. I believe that the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform had statistics which showed that the vast majority of informal voters at least tried to fill in their ballot paper and to cast a formal vote. Some of them did not make mistakes until they got as high as No. 28, No. 32 and so on in the ballot paper. That vote was then out of the count. As I have already mentioned, the higher the number of candidates the higher the rate of informality. One improvement that has been made is that the count of the Senate vote will be taken up to the point at which a mistake is made. This system operates in the New South Wales Legislative Council. The informal rate there is only 3 per cent to 4 per cent. It is not the 10 per cent average that we have been getting for the Senate. Further assistance is provided for voters by the fact that help will be provided for handicapped people who vote at polling booths, including the right of the voter to request a polling official to follow a particular how-to-vote ticket. I believe that this is extremely important for migrants who are illiterate not only in English but also in their own language. Those people have been put at a severe disadvantage in the past. Another major change will be that each polling booth will be allowed to exhibit a poster displaying registered how-to-vote tickets. This provision may go some way in allowing the parties to cut down on their enormous printing bills caused by the large amount of how-to-vote tickets which are distributed outside polling booths. I would have liked to see the party's name on the ballot paper, but that is something that the Committee-- Senator Robert Ray —It is in the legislation. Senator SIBRAA —I am pleased to see that it is in the legislation. Another improvement will be that a person will be able to vote at any polling place within his or her Federal division. We will not have the complication of people being asked to vote in their sub-division. It is a relic of the past, especially given today's transport systems. I now wish to deal with some of the remarks which were made by Senator Sir John Carrick for the Opposition who put in a minority report to the Select Committee. Senator Sir John Carrick said that he supported non-compulsory voting. When his friend Sir Robert Askin was the Premier of New South Wales, I think that Senator Sir John Carrick was the General Secretary of the New South Wales Branch of the Liberal Party. I think he was, but I am not sure of that. Certainly, he would have been a close adviser to the former Premier of New South Wales, Sir Robert Askin. The Askin Liberal Government introduced non-compulsory voting for local government elections in New South Wales. What happened was that, in general elections for municipalities and shires throughout New South Wales, the vote dropped to as low as 7 per cent. In some municipalities the vote was 11 per cent . I remember a by-election in Strathfield which is a very conservative part of Sydney, where the total vote was 7 per cent. Of course, what happened was that the Labor Party organised just over 50 per cent of that vote, or just over 3.5 per cent of the total vote, and was able to win what had been a very conservative council in what was Sir William McMahon's electorate. The councils could be manipulated by very small numbers of voters. Of course, this system did not work and it was changed. I do not think there would be such a low voter turnout in State elections or Federal elections. We had that experience in New South Wales. It was not a very good experience. Senator Sir John Carrick pointed out that the United States and Great Britain have non-compulsory voting. Frankly, I am terrified to think that a minority of voters are able to elect somebody as powerful as the President of the United States of America. Senator Sir John Carrick attempted to link a large donkey vote with compulsory voting. He pointed out that the donkey vote in the last Federal election was 2.5 per cent. I put to the Senate that that is a low figure in a democracy with compulsory voting. Of course, in the Senate it was 10 per cent. I believe that the complicated ballot paper terrified a number of elderly voters. That was one of the main reasons for that Senate informal vote of 10 per cent. Therefore, it should have been approximately 2.5 per cent, the same as that for the House of Representatives. Senator Georges —It was almost a quota, wasn't it? Senator SIBRAA —It was almost a quota, as Senator Georges said. Many could not complete the ballot paper even though they tried. I believe that a list system will work because the vast majority of people who will be voting for the Labor Party, for the Liberal-National parties and for the Australian Democrats will follow a how-to-vote ticket. Senator Maguire made some points about voting machines and about the computerisation of the results. I certainly support his remarks. In conclusion I wish to congratulate the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. It had a massive task. It completed that task thoroughly and efficiently. I believe this legislation brings Australian electoral laws into the twentieth century. I believe it should be passed as quickly as possible. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN(Queensland)(5.33) —Much has been said in this debate on the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill. I would like to make just a short statement-it will not take too long-about some of the changes that have been incorporated in the legislation. I cannot support public funding of election campaigns and neither can the National Party of Australia, which I represent. Such a concept is an attempt to ensure bureaucratic regulation and, ultimately, nationalisation of the political party system. From a purely commonsensical approach, why should the public have to provide additional taxpayers' money to help politicians get elected? I read in the Morgan gallup poll of 19 July that 56 per cent of people in Australia opposed this concept. I believe the public funding of election campaigns would lower public regard for political parties even further. Senator Georges —Keep reading. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN —Thank you very much indeed, Senator. If political parties do not have sufficient public support without this form of enforced support, of course, they should not be in existence. It appears to me that the Australian Labor Party is seeking to trample on the rights of individuals and companies which wish to support an economic philosophy of the political party of their choice. It does not want to allow people to choose whom they want to support. Taxpayers will have to give money to parties which they do not support. The Labor Party obtains its hold from workers. Workers pay union fees, but lots of workers do not support the Labor Party's policies. Yet the money from the union fees goes into Labor Party Funds. I feel that union members are being conscripted financially. The Labor Party, on one hand, is paranoid about the supposedly undue influence of private or corporate donations to parties. Yet, on the other hand, it is the recipient of quite large donations from some of those companies. Furthermore, it certainly does not see its affiliation with trade unions as being in the same category. That, to me, is quite inconsistent. I also place on record my opposition to the list system of voting. I feel that this will mean that we do not give too much credit to people for being able to vote the way they want. Not everybody wants to start at No. 1 on the ballot paper and do exactly what the party tells them to do. I think a list system would encourage people to go into the polling booths and make ticks. I think that, perhaps, too, bogus or dummy groups could be encouraged to contest Senate elections simply to collect preferences which they can then direct through the list system. I think this could lead, in some ways, to substantial informal voting. In my opinion this concept, as I said, questions the intelligence of the average Australian and reduces this idea to a pick a box idea, a bit like the Pick a Box that we used to see on television in the early days. I certainly believe that the Australian voter has far greater intelligence- Senator Chipp —Did you like Barry Jones in those days? Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN —I did like Barry Jones. I thought he was a rather clever man. I liked what he did on television, perhaps more than what he does in Parliament. That is by the way. The Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform made one or two recommendations which I was pleased to see. It resisted optional preferential voting. That is very important. It also resisted the move to reduce the 10 per cent tolerance to 5 per cent. I think that is something that deserves commendation. Those are only a couple of areas in this very complex legislation that is before us. Many amendments are to be introduced later. We will be interested to hear what the different speakers have to say. However, I do not agree with many clauses. I will support the amendment moved by the Opposition to the motion for the second reading. I wanted to put my thoughts on this Bill to the Senate. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria)(5.38) — The Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill is, as other colleagues have pointed out, well and truly overdue. The last major consolidation of the Commonwealth Electoral Act was carried out in 1918. In spite of many promises over recent years we have seen no movement at all in this area. The Australian Labor Party Government of 1974 and 1975 introduced many electoral Bills that passed the House of Representatives only to meet their doom in this chamber. Once the Labor Government went out of office in 1975 there were many promises made by honourable senators opposite that they would reform the Commonwealth Electoral Act, but no Bill came forward. Labor has been in power for eight months. We have managed to hold an inquiry into the electoral process and to produce a Bill and have it in this chamber in eight months. I think that is a tribute to the Ministers concerned, both Mick Young and Kim Beazley. Senator Chipp —And to the Committee. Senator ROBERT RAY —And to the Committee, but especially to those Ministers for getting this complex legislation through the House of Representatives and into this chamber in eight months. It is a tribute to them. The first thing I want to comment on in this Bill is the introduction of an independent electoral commission, which I think is well overdue. The problem with electoral laws in this country is that they have been subjected to partisan interference. This Bill seeks to have the running of the electoral process put in the hands of an independent commission. We are not talking about setting up a commission and putting a few Labor stooges in charge of it. If we read the fine detail of this Bill, it becomes quite clear that what we are about is a truly independent commission. I guess the one area in which one has to be independent is in drawing up the electoral boundaries. This Bill proposes that four individuals will carry out each redistribution in a State and later another two will be added to the appeal process. I would like to mention the appeal process because in the past what has happened if people have been dissatisfied with a redistribution is that they have been able to write to the commissioners appealing against certain provisions. No one else got to see what appeals had gone in. There was no interchange or discussion of them. Whoever appealed simply wrote to the commissioners and their appeal was either upheld or dismissed. This led to interference in the redistribution process. It was quite strange that when the commissioners brought out their proposal on one redistribution affecting the seat of Lowe the then member for Lowe, Sir William McMahon, wrote to them and for all different reasons, pointed out that the seat was wrong. Two or three very strong Labor voting subdivisions were removed and two or three very strong Liberal voting subdivisions were inserted. That was all done without anyone else knowing about it. I do not criticise the fact that it was done but everyone should have known and had the right to appear before those redistribution commissioners and to say: 'Look, the real reason for these three subdivisions coming in and the other three coming out is not the shape of the river or the community of interest; it is the survival of the member'. If the redistribution commissioners had wanted to go ahead and continue to save Sir William McMahon, that would have been fair enough. But we should have had a debate about it. The next area-this is an area of disagreement with the Liberal Party of Australia-is that this Bill does not provide for redistributions to come back to this chamber. It provides, as does the South Australian and Victorian legislation, for the decision on the boundaries to be made independently and to be gazetted without reference to this institution. People ask why, because Sir John Carrick and others claim in this debate and elsewhere that there has never been a crook redistribution. I must say that, in the last 21 years, twice redistributions have been rejected. In 1962 all six States were distributed, and the proposals were knocked back in the other chamber by a combination of the Australian Labor Party and the National Party of Australia. The other night I had a sense of deja vu about that. Those parties knocked it back simply because they were getting a bad deal out of it. That was when the whole move to break the nexus started. It was not for any reason of principle that the National Party and the Labor Party combined to knock over the 1962 redistribution. Menzies, whose speech was a masterpiece, ended up by simply saying 'This Bill is dead' and sitting down. In 1975 six redistributions were completed. Every one of those was knocked back in this chamber for different reasons. If they were genuine redistributions-and people say there has never been a crook one-why were there reasons for all six to be knocked back on that occasion? I interpolate here that the Victorian boundaries were knocked back and two years later the Fraser Government had them redrawn. I can tell honourable senators which set of boundaries I liked. It was the 1977 set. It was far more favourable to the Labor Party than the 1975 set. But as long as parliament is allowed to interfere with electoral boundaries there will be crook boundaries and political interference. When self-interest is involved politicians cannot resist minor tampering with the boundaries. Indeed, one of the most capable members of this chamber could not resist trying to tamper with the names of certain seats and he has been in political exile ever since. If anything, this Bill is designed to save him, our current Special Minister of State (Mr Beazley), and maybe a potential Special Minister of State, from the temptation of trying to interfere in redistributions. Once the distribution commissioners make their decision it will be final after the appeal process. Some people may be suspicious of independent commissioners. I will relate very quickly the Victorian experience in the last few weeks. There has been a move, which was agreed to by the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, to have an independent commission in Victoria. That commission has redrawn the boundaries. All parties profess to be happy with them. Probably the result of the distribution will be that Labor gains three seats and the Liberal Party four . The Labor Party would have been much happier picking up the whole seven new seats but we went through the independent process and we have copped the results even though they are not as favourable as some people in the Labor Party would have hoped. The next area of the Bill on which I want to touch-no one else has done so yet but I will not spend long on it-is the problem of elections at large. There is a problem in our Constitution that, if States get out of kilter in terms of their representation, we have to have elections at large. No one really went into the details of the consequences of that. There are two basic propositions if we do not legislate on it. One is that in any State affected there could be a proportional representation system one-off. I do not think the Australian Democrats, who support proportional representation, would want a one-off exercise when it does not exist in any State in Australia. Alternatively, we could have a winner take all situation. That would be like the old Senate block voting system where every candidate of a particular party would win or lose. That is a system we would favour in Victoria when the ticket is headed by Bob Hawke, but I am not so sure that we would always be in favour of that system. So to avoid a major constitutional crisis we have written into this legislation at least some temporary provisions that provide for a very temporary quick redistribution in the case where an election at large could be needed. I do not purport to say that it is a perfect solution. It is a temporary patch-up solution that will at least head off any future disaster. I am pleased to say that those measures have received bipartisan support. We are really talking about unknown waters that everyone wants to avoid. Another aspect that has caused some controversy is our recommendation for 6 o' clock closing of the polls. I do not want to anticipate debate on an amendment later today other than to say that objections to 6 o'clock closing have always been voiced when it has been brought up. But the fears have never really come to fruition. In 1979 the Liberal Party in Victoria introduced six o'clock closing and people said: 'This could be a disaster. Hundreds of people will miss out on votes and it will discriminate against a whole range of people'. I did not receive one complaint about it. I am usually the one who is given the task of educating scrutineers across the State. At every one of the meetings I went to to educate the scrutineers I said: 'I want it reported to me if any one tries to vote after 6 o'clock'. I wanted to see whether it was a problem. I did not get one piece of feedback to suggest that any person missed out on a vote in 1979, or again in 1982, through the bringing about of 6 o'clock closing. It has been in existence in Queensland for 50 years and it has operated well in New South Wales and Victorian State elections. It is cost effective. It reduces the cost of elections and I know that those opposite are so anxious to do that. They did not want more parliamentarians or anything else. They should be very anxious to support that measure. I move to another area which has always been almost an obsession of mine; that is, postal voting. In this Bill we make three major provisions to get around some of the problems of postal voting. In my view the major problem with postal voting has been the perverting of the electoral system by political machines that go out and garner postal votes irrespective of the wishes of the persons concerned. I pay tribute in this chamber to the Liberal Party's postal vote machine over the years. In Victoria it has taken us years to build up a comparable machine. I am pleased to say that we have finally done it. But why should we have to? Why should the old people be preyed upon for their vote with the methods that have been used in the past? I do not believe that they should be pressured into voting in a particular way, especially those in nursing homes. The alternatives we have put up are threefold: Firstly, we provide for the automatic dispatch of application forms for postal votes to people on a register , that is, people who regularly apply for postal votes; secondly, we provide for mobile polling booths in hospitals and nursing homes; thirdly, we tighten up the restrictions about witnesses going to homes in order just to witness postal vote application forms. Of course, these will be subject to debate at the Committee stage, but we must take action to stamp out abuses of postal voting. I note that the point about witnesses not being able to attend an elector's home unless given written permission was put into the Electoral Act in Victoria by the Liberal Party. I note also with interest the division that again occurs, that what is good for the Liberal Party in Victoria does not seem to be good for the Liberal Party nationally. I just comment on the question of party names on ballot papers, because that is a reform that we are introducing. It is not one that advantages the Labor Party, incidentally, but it helps the electors to determine which candidates they are voting for. We have a capacity basically to man every booth in Australia, barring some very small rural booths. So our how to vote cards are there and the electorate finds out who our candidates are. It does not really help the National Party, because that party mans all its booths, and the same applies to the Liberal Party; but it will help minority parties. I am not known as one to go around pressing the case for minority parties, but it is the electors' right to know who they are voting for and which party those candidates represent; so if anything, this is one of the bonuses in the legislation for the Democrats and for other minority groups. But it is really not derived out of any inherent sympathy that we have for minority groups; it is just that the electors have the right to know which party they are voting for. While I am on the subject of candidates' names on ballot papers, I should mention that we have introduced a long overdue reform-a draw for position on the ballot paper. This is not the perfect solution to eliminating the donkey vote. Maybe the perfect solution is the rotation of names on ballot papers throughout the whole voting process. But the problem with that is that it would introduce far too many informal votes. Therefore, we go for a draw for position. All that it really does it prevent parties from cashing in on the positions, because they do not know the outcome beforehand. It would be no use running Senator Boswell in Wide Bay, for instance, because it would not be known whether he would get the donkey vote. Much analysis has been done of the House of Representatives and of legislative assemblies to prove that a disproportionate number of people whose names start with the letters A, B or C get endorsed for seats. I have used before, and I must use again, the classic example in my electorate, where I live . The sitting Liberal member between 1975 and 1980 had a name which started with A. He was chosen because the name of the incumbent candidate started with C. It took us five years to dig him out of that electorate, but lo and behold, there was a pre-selection for Bruce, a key marginal seat, and he wins again. I am sure that it is because his name starts with A. If anyone can think of any other reason for his pre-selection, would they please let me know, because I have seen no other quality and no other ability exhibited that would possibly suggest to me that he should be picked above other candidates. I qualify that statement by saying that I am not attacking the Liberal Party for cashing in on the donkey vote. Every party does it. But if one does not know beforehand where a candidate's name will be on the ballot paper, one will tend to pick the best candidate and take one's chances. Senator Chipp —What do you estimate that it means as a percentage in a doubtful electorate? Senator ROBERT RAY —It is very hard to estimate. It varies between about 0.5 per cent and one per cent. It is most noticeable that where an Australian Democrats candidate runs. When there are no how to vote cards in terms of absentee votes one will find that Democrats can poll up to 20 per cent of the vote, double their normal vote in the absentees. That proves that there is a donkey vote, especially in the absence of the how to vote cards. I now comment on the closing of the rolls and the problems that that caused in the last election. The rolls were closed about 24 hours after the election was announced. In this legislation it is proposed that the rolls cannot close until seven days after the issue of the writs. Again, that is attracting bipartisan support. It will be there and it will not disadvantage any group in the future. For five working days people will be able to enrol at their convenience. We know that people do not think in advance. If they have moved, they think of getting on the roll only when an election is announced. We shall never have again anything up to a couple of hundred thousands people excluded from voting. We also try to include more people on the roll than have ever been on it previously. Itinerant voters have never had a chance to be on the roll because they never have an address from which to enrol. This legislation gives them the chance to come on to the roll, either at their last place of abode or in the electorate in which they were born. As well as that, people who are overseas will have a far greater opportunity now under this legislation to stay on the roll and not be debarred from voting. Automatically they can stay on the roll for three years after they have left this country, and then, if they apply to stay on the roll after the three years, still being overseas, they are automatically granted the ability to remain on the roll. Finally, at long last we have made voting compulsory for Aboriginals. This is long overdue. It was a form of inverted racism which allowed them to have the luxury of deciding whether to be enrolled. If we are to have equality in our society, we should have equality of responsibility, and compulsory enrolment for Aboriginals is long overdue. I come to some of the more substantive parts of the legislation which have caused some disquiet amongst the conservatives. The first one is the question of disclosure. This legislation requires that donations to political parties be disclosed if they are over $1,000 to the central party or $200 to candidates. It is interesting that this matter has aroused such opposition from the Liberal Party. The Liberals have always taken the attitude that donations are a private matter. I believe that the public has a right to know who is donating to political parties. I do not allege that there is undue influence over political parties, but as long as the prospect is there for that to occur, there should be disclosure. Setting the figure at $1,000 was not easy. The National Party's federal submission suggested $10,000. It suggested, in writing, that it should be $10, 000 because one could not buy any influence for anything less. I do not know what the National Party judges that on, but it is there in writing; maybe it is based on experience, maybe just speculation. I must say that the various State directors of the National Party were somewhat shocked when they read that statement. We have set the figures at $1,000 and $200. In some ways it is guesswork. We shall see how it works. The Act will be amended if it does not work or if people can get around it. There is no foolproof way of ensuring that all donations are declared, but this will act as an inhibitor. Senator Harradine —You exclude all donations. Senator ROBERT RAY —Yes, there is no way in which all donations can be declared in our view. Senator Harradine —Why not? Senator ROBERT RAY —Because there are ways around it, by using front organisations and everything else. There will always be a way round it, but what the legislation does is to set down at least what the moral principles are in politics, and if people want to break them, they can take the consequences if they get caught. Senator Peter Baume said that one of the problems with this is that retaliatory action can be taken against the donors. It occurs to me that in a certain political party, unnamed, retaliatory action is taken if one does not donate. I am not referring to the Liberal Party and I am not referring to the National Party in any other State but Queensland. The question of public funding is related to disclosure up to a point. Some honourable senators opposite have said, 'You should not dip into taxpayers' money to fund election campaigns'. What do they think they do already? What about the VIP planes? They are paid a salary throughout the election period. They use their telephones for electioneering. Let them not tell me that they do not do that. There are heaps of government resources that are marshalled behind political parties. All that this legislation is doing is making it very honest. We are saying: 'We shall allocate so much money to campaigning'. It will probably double the amount spent by government on campaigning, because already probably $8m, $9m or $10m is spent in supporting political campaigns in this country. I believe that it is necessary to fund political parties, because that lessens the chance of corruption. It lessens the dependence of political parties on donations and on donors. It frees political parties from having to go out and sell their soul because they simply need the money to compete in the system. Secondly, it enables political parties to compete on a more equal level. There is a cut-off point above which political parties can survive out there, even if they do not have equality of funding; but if they fall below that, they have no chance. The beneficiaries in this competitive thing will clearly be the Labor Party and the Democrats, because we have not been able to compete with the amount of money spent by the conservative parties. It has not been a fair electoral process since 1972. Just occasionally the system reverses itself. In 1981 the Liberals in the State elction in New South Wales were disadvantaged in the spending, I think, and they got steamrolled in that election. The Labor Party absolutely murdered them and spent a lot more money. That was not fair, either. Elections should be made more competitive. Also, we have this rather remarkable thing that the Liberals are opposed to public funding in principle. I must say that the National Party went one step further. It said it was opposed not only in principle but also morally. But both groups will accept the money. 'What price principle'? I ask honourable senators. What the Liberals are really saying is that for $3m they will sell out their principle. We have established what the Liberal Party is and what its price is. I also mention a related matter which is the declaration of expenditure. The Harders Committee of Inquiry into the Disclosure of Electoral Expenses, which the Liberal Party commissioned to look into that matter, has reported and this Bill basically encompasses most of its recommendations. Nearly all expenditure should be stated by candidates and political parties, and I think that is long overdue. I have some sympathy with Senator Macklin's point that we should also be looking at limiting campaign expenditure, but in the time frame that the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform had it was a matter that we could not tackle. It is a very difficult problem to try to contain electoral expenditure via legislation, to put ceilings on it, because it is almost as easy to dodge as paying taxes in this country, or it has been up to this time. But it is a matter that we will have to look at in future. No one, no political party, wants campaign costs to spiral any higher than they are at the moment. I move on to the question of list voting, because that has excited some comment , especially by Senator Bjelke-Petersen who preceded me. I suggest to her that out of self-interest the Opposition look at that because one of the great problems between the coalition parties in Queensland is the lack of tightness of preferences. If there was list voting all that squabbling between the Liberals and the Nationals could go on but at no cost because they could register their how to vote cards and tighten up the exchange of preferences. Senator Chipp —And belt hell out of each other. Senator ROBERT RAY —And belt hell out of each other. They could entertain the whole country and not at a cost to themselves. But, unfortunately, for once the Nationals are not perceptive enough to see where their own self-interest lies. I must say that it is a first for me. Why introduce list voting? I think Senator Maguire has outlined the reasons and I will therefore be brief in putting my reasons forward. It is clear to us from the 1977 study into informal voting at Senate elections that 77 per cent of those who vote informally have tried to fill out their ballot papers to some extent. They have put a '1' in a square and then the system has beaten them. That effectively means that the complexity of the system is defeating them. Senator Peter Baume comes in here and says: 'I'd like to pay tribute to the Australian people in that 90 per cent of them can get it right'. I suggest to the Senate that it is a function of his profession that a 90 per cent success rate is fair enough. But I think we should try to make the system 100 per cent successful. If we can make it 100 per cent right we must go for it. I think the list voting system will probably be 97 or 98 per cent right. The other study that was interesting was the 1983 study that the Electoral Committee commissioned to show where the mistakes occurred. In many cases people were putting down two No. 44s or two No. 45s and were having their votes declared informal. Their intention was clear. Their immediate set of preferences was clear. It was only when they got right to the tail end of the vote that they were excluded. I think list voting will go a long way to fixing that up, as will the other amendments to the definition of what is a formal or informal vote. I will not go into any detail on them because a Liberal amendment and a Democrat amendment relate to when a vote becomes informal. Unfortunately, at this stage, there is no uniformity of view between the three parties here as to what constitutes a formal vote. I also add that in a spirit of consensus we allow in this legislation for a split vote to occur, for a political party to register its vote to go either way. There is some doubt constitutionally about that particular clause so we have put in another clause that says that the vote will remain valid to the point at which it becomes unconstitutional. In effect it will have the same result as splitting the vote. I will mention three or four very minor points that are in the Bill before I finish. Firstly, we tackled the question of the death of a House of Representatives candidate. At the moment if a House of Representatives candidate drops dead five minutes before the close of nominations the election proceeds. If he drops dead five minutes after the nominations close, there is a new election. We propose that if a candidate who is actually nominated dies, the nomination period will be extended by a day. I think that solves the problem for political parties in getting a new candidate into the field. We would have liked , of course, to have tackled the problem of the death of a Senate candidate. That is a very difficult problem because the Constitution says that candidates shall be directly chosen by the people. There is no constitutional way we could come up with a solution other than merely to suggest that parties should run an extra candidate in case one of their candidates drops dead. A second area that runs right through this legislation-it has attracted bipartisan support and we are grateful for that-is the extra aid for the handicapped, the identification of polling booths that are accessible to the handicapped and allowing quadriplegics to vote by post by just making their marks. All those sorts of reforms are in the legislation and they have attracted support from all parties. We have allowed for voting in Antarctica in a very complicated way. It takes about eight pages of this Bill, unfortunately, but at least the 100-odd people in Antarctica will be able to vote. Probably through all the effort we have made they will vote 50:50 and no one will get any benefit out of it. Nevertheless, they have felt very frustrated being stuck down in Antarctica and not being able to vote. I want to repeat a point about the Territories that I made the other day by way of interjection. No one is in favour of rorting Territory representation in this place or the other place. The Electoral Reform Committee at some stage will look at legislative measures to prevent any expanding of seats in the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory or anywhere else. That is essential because that would create a constitutional and political crisis in this country that we do not need. Another point that I suppose has created some controversy is the ability of people to vote anywhere in their own divisions. Senator Sir John Carrick and I have had many arguments over that. I suggest that the reason we introduced it was not to rort the system-I do not think that accusation has been made-but to do away with the problem of absentee voting within a division. It creates enormous clerical problems during elections and it creates a cluttering up of the polling booths. In this day of computer technology there should be no problem at all with people voting anywhere within a division. The argument is put up that that allows multiple voting but I am afraid the opportunity is already there for that and it has not been exercised. No evidence of multiple voting in any electorates in Australia at a Federal level has come to anyone's attention. For instance, in my own subdivision where I live there are seven polling booths, so I presume someone could go around to each one of them and- Senator Chipp —Those early voters. Senator ROBERT RAY —Yes, they could vote early and vote often, but they get picked up in the reconciliation and there is no evidence that they do it, where there are, say, seven or eight polling booths within a subdivision. So I think the assertion that it will occur in a division is ridiculous. We have also outlawed multiple nominations. There is some disputation about this but I think people have to make up their minds which seats they want to run for. Changing their names by deed poll, like Mr Aussie-Stone did and then nominating over 13 electorates seems to me ridiculous, especially as in a spirit of consensus we have all agreed not to put up the level of deposit to a horrendous level. I say in conclusion that this legislation is the most comprehensive introduced since 1918. I think it deserves the support of every member of this chamber. Again, I compliment the Ministers responsible for this Bill. Senator HILL(South Australia)(6.08) —I join in the debate in the second reading debate on the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill 1983. It is a pleasure to follow Senator Robert Ray. This Bill has obviously been a labour of love to him and his contribution today to the debate has been most worth while. Mr Deputy President, there can be little argument with the proposition expressed by the Minister for Social Security (Senator Grimes) at the end of his second reading speech that Australia needs an electoral system which serves the people well. For a democracy to function properly those who live in that democracy must perceive the political process as one in which their participation has some meaning and purpose. Changes to our electoral system which have as their objective the maintenance or enhancement of that confidence in the electoral process are therefore deserving of support. In this broad sense the general thrust of this Bill has my support. As the Minister has noticed, this legislation represents the first major overhaul of Australia's electoral laws in 65 years. It has given an opportunity to tidy up the Commonwealth Electoral Act through the consolidation of some disparate electoral legislation, the updating of a number of outmoded provisions and the removing of certain anomalies. The Bill also makes changes to enrolment and voting procedures which will hopefully improve the accessibility of certain disadvantaged groups to vote and facilitate greater access to voting rights. It makes many other changes which I refer to as administrative and mechanical, most of which have been outlined by Senator Robert Ray in the preceding speech. I commend them, but will not go through them again. In one sense this Bill is a response to the perceived need for the political process to be more responsive to the electorate. Over recent years it has become increasingly apparent that a growing section of our society has lost faith in its ability to influence the political life of this country. To the extent that this Bill meets such an important objective and to the extent that it will encourage greater confidence in our electoral system, it has my support. However, the Bill is inherently contradictory in its approach to seeking wider public confidence in the system. There are provisions which, if implemented, will in fact discourage interest in and increase cynicism about our political system. The most notable of these and the area which I wish to concentrate upon in the short time available is the Government's intention to institute a system whereby political parties will be registered and through that registration become eligible for public financing of their election campaigns, subject to the requirement that private donations over certain amounts are disclosed. Such a system will have a dramatic and negative impact in achieving the Government's laudable objective of widening people's access to and confidence in the political process in Australia. Debate on the issue of public funding is now no stranger to the Australian political system. Public funding has been introduced in New South Wales in the past few years and has been part of the Australian Labor Party's electoral reform subject matter for the past decade. The issue was canvassed by the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. I note the view of the majority that: The financing of political parties and elections has become a worldwide issue of major political concern in recent years. Most democracies have adopted schemes to fund publicly the political process without the dire consequences predicted by its opponents and a commission in the United Kingdom has recommended in its favour. The argument for a system of public funding in Australia-in some ways I think it could more fairly be called an argument for additional public funding-appears to have been presented on the basis of four propositions. The first is that political parties form the focus of political life in Australia and, therefore, are deserving of public financial support. Secondly, the decline in confidence in the political system has been brought about by a perception that political parties rely too heavily for their support on too few people and organisations with the capacity to influence political decisions through financial donations. Thirdly, because some parties are able to command greater access to provide funds than others, unequal opportunities exist, it is said, for parties to present adequately their policies for public scrutiny and decision. Fourthly, systems of public funding of political parties and candidates operate in a number of democratic systems and Australia, by adopting a like system, would merely be following an established trend. I wish to answer each of these propositions in the course of my contribution. The first point which needs to be addressed is the question of public funds flowing to political parties as they form the focus of political life in Australia. Certainly, in examining the question of political funding, the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform pointed, correctly I believe, the central role played by political parties in the democratic process. The Committee noted: . . . that political parties play a vital role in the working of democratic governments. Indeed, one of the central characteristics of democracy is that there should be parties competing for the right to govern. It is then asserted that, as parties are essential to democracy and as money is essential to parties and given the massive escalation in campaign costs, political parties are not receiving sufficient money to carry out their functions effectively. Such an argument was, for example, a principle line of reasoning in the report of the Houghton Committee in Britain. It is also an argument which often includes the assertion that political parties, while essential to democracy, are declining in public esteem, a trend which could be reversed only by the provision of subsidies, a position I would have thought particularly difficult to maintain. It is true that campaigns have become expensive and that, as the Minister in his second reading speech said, public funding would help: . . . counter the problem created by the mounting costs of political campaigning due to the increased use of television as a medium of communication. But is that how the public purse should be spent? Assistance for political campaigns involves politicans subsidising their election expenses at the taxpayers expense. What is more, the allocation of funds requires the assigning of priorities. It is unlikely that the public respect for parties will therefore increase by a decision of politicians to assign their parties a higher priority than other obvious social needs. Respect for political parties will not be helped if other organisations with some claim to serve the public interest are denied government assistance with the parties receiving their subsidies. Furthermore, it is quite possible that the popular status of parties will be weakened by a party's greater reliance on public funds which has the potential to undermine the historical dependence of parties upon voluntary support. One of the great strengths of the system we have, I suggest, has been that our parties are essentially voluntary organisations which have on the whole remained dependent for support provided by voluntary donations and voluntary manpower, particularly at election time. As voluntary organisations, political parties in Australia existed on their ability to attract support for the perceived merits of their respective policies. People have been accorded the same freedom to offer their personal support in the same way as they have been accorded their freedom to cast a vote. One of the great dangers inherent in the system of public funding for political parties is that such a system contains the potential to detract from the essentially voluntary nature of political activity . Furthermore, access to public funds will move political parties to a greater association with the state than with their supporters whose views the party ostensibly represents. Consequently, public funding has the potential not only to isolate the party from traditional support but also to institutionalise it within the structure of the State. I move to the second argument put by the Minister, namely, that public funding and disclosure can be justified in that they will help to eliminate corruption by removing an election, and thus Parliament itself, from being seen as a commodity which can be purchased by the highest bidder. Such arguments were, in fact, used in setting up public funding schemes in places such as Quebec, Italy and to some extent the United States, all of which were established in the wake of scandals involving campaign activities. Those who lean heavily on this argument rely, in particular, on analogies with the Watergate scandal. Another argument connected with this put the proposition that access to public funds makes political parties or candidates less dependent on big subscribers and interest groups. Coupled with the requirement of public disclosure, political parties would therefore not have to trim their sails to the demands imposed by large contributers to party funds seeking their quid pro quo. However, nowhere in the Minister's second reading speech or in the report of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform is convincing evidence provided that clearly demonstrates that subsidies can eliminate or minimise corruption or that they have done so. In fact, it could be argued that subsidies and the availability of large amounts of public money may open up new means to pursue corrupt activities. Moreover, surely the Government could have looked at alternative means of weakening the influence of interest groups which could have encouraged greater individual involvement. I refer to such measures as limited forms of aid based, for example, on the United States practice of tax deductibility, or the provision of matching grants for money raised by small donations which would not only help limit the power of interest groups but also encourage parties to seek out greater numbers of individual supporters. It is a disappointment that the Government has not proceeded in that direction. The third argument concerns the need to equalise political opportunities between those parties and candidates that are successful at generating private financial support and those that are not. Without that, it is said, there will be unequal opportunities for parties adequately to present their policies to the electorate. The Minister said in his second reading speech: Public funding ensures that different parties offering themselves for election have an equal opportunity to present their policies to the electorate. That is, of course, nonsense. There is no suggestion that, for example, the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Democrats will receive the same funding out of this proposed system. The Minister continued: Without it, worthy parties and candidates might not be able to afford the considerable sums necessary to make their policies known. The most worthy might be an independent candidate who obviously will get very limited financial support because he is not attracting the vote that is automatically attracted to a party. So there is no link with worth as such. Contrary to the Government's assertion, it might also be said that the provision of assistance in order to equalise the opportunities of the successful and unsuccessful fund raisers discriminates against the successful and subsidises ineptitude. In any event, where is the evidence that equal funding will give equal electoral opportunity? I believe it can be argued that incumbency of political office is just as decisive to an election campaign and result as financial resources. As has been said by others in the debate, members of Parliament enjoy significant advantages over rivals due to our entitlements of office. If the argument of political equality of opportunity is taken to its logical conclusion , advocates of public funding would first need to look at providing political rivals with equal access to such advantages. What of the role of such massive interest groups as the union movement? Media control in too few hands might also be just as decisive as any provision of funds. I have no doubt that editorials are more influential in moulding public opinion than paid advertisements. Fourthly, it appears from both the Minister's second reading speech and the majority conclusions of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform that the operation of public funding schemes in other democratic countries provides a major reason for Australia to adopt public funding. The Minister mentioned a number of countries such as Austria, West Germany, France Israel, Japan, Canada, the United States and others, all of which operate an electoral system based on public funding and disclosure. However, the fact that similar systems may exist elsewhere does not automatically transpose any real apparent advantages of such a system to Australia. Australia, it should be remembered, has a proud tradition of progressive electoral reform. It led the world in the establishment of the secret ballot, parliamentary elections, the abolition of the property vote and the granting of female suffrage. I suggest that, given such a tradition, it appears passing strange that we are now asked to adopt a system justified in part because other countries are doing it. What is apparently overlooked by those who argue the case for political funding based on its prevalence overseas is the major difference between the role of political parties in Australia and in other democracies. As voting is not compulsory in practically all countries now operating under a system of public funding disclosure, political parties are provided with public financial support to help get the vote out. Public funding is justified in this regard as direct assistance to the democratic process of voting. Australia, having a system of compulsory voting, remains rare among democracies. Political parties, therefore, serve no formal civic function similar to that of, say, West German political parties whose role as political educators has been recognised and paid for publicly since the 1950s. In Australia, voting at elections will result in 90 to 95 per cent of eligible voters casting votes. The vote in Australia is assured. Why should the public subsidise political parties to convince them that they should vote in a certain manner? I must briefly make a comment about the corollary of public funding, that is, disclosure of financial donations. As has been said by others, this Bill provides that a donation of $1,000 to a party must be disclosed. The only possibly valid argument for this is that with such sums of money it may be possible to buy support. Anyone who has been around Australian politics for a while knows that is ridiculous. The minimum estimates for the last Federal election, according to the Minister's speech were $12m. If the major parties must raise $4m or $5m, it is therefore obvious that if political control or influence is to come through donations one must be talking of very big sums of money. I think there is an argument that it is in Australia's best interests to deter very large payments to political parties. I have some sympathy with the political disclosure of such sums, but for comparatively small to medium sums I find the arguments against disclosure far more persuasive. Public disclosure is a deterrent against the right to contribute financially in support of one's political beliefs. I believe it is a right to be preserved and encouraged. Those who wish so to contribute should not have to run the risk of having their names appear on what has been referred to by others as hit lists. Failure to contribute to both sides should not incur risks and, similarly, failure to contribute at all should not be made public and certainly should be no business of parliamentarians. Whereas I believe a need exists to restore public confidence in the political process, on the major question of public funding I regret that my analysis is that it will not positively serve the objective of increasing public confidence or serve to widen public participation. Rather, I suggest the causes of the currently accepted public cynicism might better be found in such areas as broken promises by political leaders and the standard of behaviour of parliamentarians. Although they are not too bad in this chamber the personal abuse that one witnesses in the other place at Question Time and the turning of the Parliament into a circus to which the crowds gather for entertainment can lead only to this growing cynicism of the political process. Additionally, the political process appearing too distant from people is relevant and we can contribute to overcoming that with our Senate committee system. The discipline of political parties has all but destroyed the concept of representation by individual members, and there are obvious answers in that area. Another cause is Prime Ministers appearing to base decisions on purely opportunistic grounds, for example, holding double dissolutions on deadlock Bills with no intention of reintroducing those Bills, or going to the people a year before the completion of a full term for reasons purely of perceived electoral advantage. They are a part of the reason politicians and the political process are held in low esteem. Clearly the mechanics of the electoral system are imporant, and this Bill improves such mechanics. They are matters identified, as I indicated earlier, and I commend the Joint Select Committee on its work in that area. I commend the Government for introducing remedies to these accepted mechanical matters. The Government's attempt to justify public funding as another major reform to rank with secret ballots, the abolition of the property vote and female suffrage, is to mislead the public again and will serve to build upon the disillusion already too evident in the community at large. Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 8 p.m. (Quorum formed) Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(8.02) —The Senate is debating the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill 1983, which is the result of an inquiry and report by the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. First, may I pay tribute to the work of that Committee and its Chairman. The Committee worked very hard during the recess and came down with a report. Although many of us may not agree with some aspect of that report, most of us agree with most aspects of it. The Chairman, Dr Klugman, quite obviously tackled his task with the view that electoral reform should, as far as is possible, reflect the various disparate views of practising politicians as well as other groups and individuals in the community who are most interested in our democratic system of parliament. Subsequently, a great deal of work has been done by the Special Minister of State (Mr Beazley) and by his officers in preparing the Bill that we are now debating. Much of the debate, of course, has concentrated on some of the perceived defects in this legislation. Because of the time constraints that apply at this time of the year that approach has probably been necessary. One need not repeat in glowing terms the comments of those who support the legislation. Indeed, all of my remarks tonight will relate to some of the defects in the legislation. However, I do not wish that to be interpreted as meaning that I am opposed to the bulk of this legislation and to the many needed reforms that are contained in it. I want to correct a suggestion that was made by an earlier speaker-I am not sure who it was-that the Senate had not passed motions seeking to establish a joint select committee to look at electoral matters. I can recall that in 1981 in a vote of 28 to 27 in this chamber I made up the twenty-eighth vote in support of a then Opposition motion to have an inquiry into the electoral system . I believed then that such an inquiry was necessary and I am pleased that it has been undertaken. Mind you, I supported the establishment of such a committee on the basis that its terms of reference included not only the question of funding but also the question of free time for the broadcasting of election material on the then Australian Broadcasting Commission. Unfortunately, the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform apparently did not have the time to address itself to those aspects and has sought the authority of the Parliament to consider matters such as that. I will be most interested to see its report on such matters. My concern about this measure is that it will really entrench the party system in this Parliament, particularly in the Senate, at the expense of Independents. I suppose that in that sense I am the odd man out because I happen to be the only Independent in the Parliament. Senator Hill, who was the last speaker before the suspension of the sitting for dinner, also made that point. I recognise that in our system of government-in the Westminster system, if one likes to call it that-parties are essential. Parties go to the people with platforms, and the people, it is hoped, consider those platforms and make their judgment. It would be a most difficult thing in a democracy to run the Parliament and particularly to run the Government with a bunch of Independents. However, having recognised that, I believe-I would be foolish not to-that there is a place for Independents, at least in the Senate, or if not a place for Independents, a place for independent thought in the Senate. After all, we are a House of review. We are supposed to be a States House. However, I feel that a number of provisions in this legislation are designed to entrench the party system at the expense of the Independents-either those of independent thought or those elected to this place as Independents. I do not say that this has been done deliberately. Senator Missen, who will follow me in this debate, suggested in the debate on the Representation Bill 1983 that one of his concerns about an increase in the size of the Parliament was that, say, seven or eight years hence, there could be a tied situation in this place, with perhaps an Independent holding the balance of power. I do not know whether that would be good or bad for the country. Such a situation might be a bit difficult for the Independent. I do not suggest that Senator Missen's support or opposition-I am not sure what he intends to do in regard to this legislation-will be determined by the point that he made when speaking on the Representation Bill. Nor do I suggest, far from it, that the inquiry did propose the measures I will refer to in order to disadvantage Independents. Let me just deal with those matters, as I think they ought to be dealt with. I think that the areas in the Bill which will disadvantage Independents, particularly in the Senate, are those provisions dealing with the list system of voting, with putting the names of parties on the ballot paper and those provisions of the legislation which deal with funding and the amount of deposit required. I will speak briefly and calmly on this matter and situate my remarks against my recognition of the fact that there need to be parties and there needs to be some balance when discussing the matter. I will deal first of all with the list system. Honourable senators will know that in the appendices to the Bill, part of Schedule 1 outlines the new ballot paper with which every elector will be presented if this Bill becomes law. That new ballot paper provides for either a list system of voting or the system which has been traditionally used. To explain the list system of voting, it is a system whereby a voter simply registers a tick in a box which has underneath it the name of a political party. That is all that the voter needs to do. Senator Crowley —That is not how it is done in South Australia. Senator HARRADINE —That may not be how it is done in South Australia, but that is how it is proposed to be done here. Senator Crowley —No. The parties will be bracketed; the names will be listed. Senator HARRADINE —I am talking about the list system. Of course the names will be listed if the electors choose to vote in the way which they have done from Federation until now, but the first option will be-I am sure that the party propaganda will be designed to ensure this-that the voter will simply mark a tick in the box above the words 'ALP', 'Liberal Party', 'National Party' or ' Australian Democrats', and that vote will be deemed to be a vote strictly in accordance with the preferences shown on the party how to vote card, as it was registered with the Australian Electoral Commission. Nobody around here will deny that 80 or 90 per cent of people will do that. Instead of marking 27 figures on the ballot paper, they will go in to the polling booth and mark one. They will go back to the pub, to the races or home, and that will be the end of that. What will the result of that system be for Independents? Obviously, judging by the figures from the last election, it will not affect me because I got a quota in my own right. Senator Kilgariff —Was it not about 1.9 of a quota? Senator HARRADINE —It was 1.9 or whatever, but voters change; perhaps people even change, and I may not get that quota on the next occasion. That is not particularly worrying me. I am genuinely concerned about the possibility of other Independents or people of independent mind being elected to this House of review. What the list system does is plug the party leaks. Senator Crowley —It reduces the informal vote. Senator HARRADINE —Senator Crowley says that it reduces the informal vote. If honourable senators are worried about the question of invalid voting, another option could have been considered, and I believe it was considered; that is, optional preferential voting. I believe that the list system locks the voter into following the how to vote card which the party executive has decided upon. That also would have a very significant effect on persons of independent mind within the parties, because such persons will be aware that about 80 per cent of the people will use the list system and they will be locked in. They can appeal over the heads of the party system to try to get a higher preference vote, but they would have little success. I feel also that naming the parties on the ballot paper is not really appropriate in regard to Senate or House of Representatives elections. However, the Bill will go through, and I suppose there is always the possibility of utilising the provisions of the Bill to ensure that one can obtain a group. I have been able to obtain a group over some years, in the group system, and I have not had my name on the list of names at the end of the ballot paper. I am just wondering whether I can go out and campaign as an Independent, because there is a provision in the Bill which says that if one wants to become part of a group and be placed on the ballot paper in the group so as to take advantage of that system, one cannot use the word 'Independent'. I can understand the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Labor Party being concerned about somebody using the words 'Independent Labor', 'Independent Liberal' and so forth , but it does place me in a slightly awkward position. Nevertheless, I am not overfussed about that, and a lot of water will flow under the bridge between now and 1988. Senator Robert Ray —1990? Senator HARRADINE —1990 or whenever. We can overcome that question in one way or another, but the question of funding is one which really entrenches the party system. The proposition of funding of political parties has been put up to keep everyone honest. I can understand that argument if one is talking about disclosure. I cannot quite see the argument if one is talking about political funding. If one is talking about disclosure, and I am not against the proposition on disclosure, everyone will know who has contributed to the funds of the parties or the individual candidates, and that is quite open. I do not see why in the legislation a party does not have to declare or disclose a donation of less than $1,000. An individual candidate has to disclose amounts of less than $200. Some have spoken before about people having their price of $10, 000. Why is it that the amount is $1,000? Does it mean that the price is $1,001 for a vote? I suggest that we ought to be saying: 'Let us have a complete disclosure of donations to political parties or individual candidates. Let us not have any arbitrary limit as to when the disclosure should start and when it should finish. Let all donations be disclosed'. I would be quite happy with the proposition. Briefly, I turn to the question of the deposit. The Government proposes to increase the deposit paid by a candidate in a Senate election from $200 to $500. I can tell honourable senators that that will really concern me and probably, if anybody wants to run on a ticket with me, as has occurred before, it will also concern that person. It is all very well for me. I could go along to the Commonwealth Bank and ask for an overdraft. The bank would have no worries about giving me an overdraft. It would be no skin off the bank's nose. If I won the seat I would have a fat salary to pay back the loan over the next six years and, if I lost, the bank would get half my superannuation. It would be good business. But what about a person starting off as an Independent? I believe $500 is a bit rough. I acknowledge that there are arguments to support an increase in the deposit. Those arguments are designed to keep out the nuisance candidates. Who is to say who is a nuisance and who is not a nuisance? If the Government were minded to establish the list system or the optional preferential system it would overcome the problem of the nuisance candidates. As time is going on, I mention a couple of minor points, which are major points to me. One of the big problems with this funding aspect is that it does not include all the support from public sources that candidates and parties receive. If all public funds were in the barrel it would be a different question, but they are not all in the barrel. Honourable senators know as well as I do that a great amount of public money is utilised by the major parties in particular in their election campaigns I refer, of course, to the VIP fleet for the Government and the Leader of the Opposition, all the apparatus, including staff. In addition, an enormous amount of public money is expended per the medium of free time on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I had a very bad experience with the ABC in respect of the question of free time. In the election previous to the last election, I received 21.4 per cent of the vote in my State. I am not criticising the Australian Democrats, because they are welcome to what they get, but the Democrats in my State received, I think, 4 per cent of the vote in the 1980 election. They received something like 10 times the amount of free time on the ABC in my State than I did. From memory, I received five minutes. I believe that is something we ought to be considering in this legislation. If we are to have public funding, let us put all public funding into the barrel and see who gets what. As I mentioned, I really do not think that public funding will overcome the problem which it was devised to overcome, that is, the problem of parliamentarians being bought. Australia seems to be remarkably free from that sort of situation. Somebody said 'Let us make sure that we are kept free of that situation; let us not have a Watergate-type situation before we have to do something about it'. As I said, the disclosure provisions could very well overcome that problem. I would be happy to see the Bill amended to ensure that every single dollar donated to a party or a candidate is put in a register. I now turn to the hours of polling. I feel that reducing the hours of polling from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. could very well deny some people the opportunity to vote. Of course, there are provisions for postal and absentee balloting. Mr Deputy President, I refer you to what seems to be in a number of States the practice of the retail industry to operate all day on Saturdays. Shop assistants work in the stores from 8.30 or 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. When will they vote? That is something we ought to consider when we come to the Committee stage. I just raise the matter. I have not done any study of it. Maybe the Minister for Social Security (Senator Grimes) will give that some consideration. I just mention it as a possible problem. Another problem I wish to mention for consideration is the establishment of the Australian Electoral Commission, which is dealt with in clause 7 of the Bill. It will consist of a Chairman, the Electoral Commissioner and one other member. The clause states: The Chairman and the non-judicial appointee shall be appointed by the Governor- General and shall hold office on a part-time basis. I wonder whether those appointments will be totally independent. Perhaps there should be some parliamentary consultation about those appointments. The clause continues: The person appointed as Chairman shall be a person whose name is included in a list of the names of 3 eligible Judges submitted to the Governor-General for the purposes of this section by the Chief Judge. I would be interested to know why there should be a panel of three judges presented to the Government for that purpose. I would also like to know whether the decisions of the Electoral Commission in respect of redistributions and other matters will be able to be the subject of open debate in the Federal Parliament. I feel that, in the interests of open democracy, it is important that its reports on any matters should be the subject if not for determination in the Federal Parliament certainly the subject of debate in the Federal Parliament. I conclude by repeating what I said at the outset. I congratulate the Committee and its Chairman, Dr Klugman, on doing a very worthwhile job. I also congratulate the Minister, Mr Beazley, and his officers for preparing, quite quickly, what must have been a most difficult Bill to prepare. I do not want any honourable senators to take what I have said to be total objection to the Bill. Far from it. I support the general thrust of the Bill but I had, by reason of the time, to concentrate on some of the defects that I saw in the Bill. I will be supporting the Bill and will vote for the second reading. I will vote for appropriate amendments in the Committee stage to remedy some of the defects that I have observed in the legislation. (Quorum formed) Senator MISSEN(Victoria)(8.34) —I rise to speak to the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill. I do not propose to speak for long on this subject although, of course, the Bill covers a great mass of amendments and alterations to the electoral law. By and large I think it does that task very well. I have already spoken on the report presented by the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform when it came down. The Bill is, to a very large extent, a mirror of the report. In the speech which I made on 19 October, I expressed views about a number of matters that are in the report and which are now in the Bill. I do not propose to repeat those remarks. I believe that the major work to be done on this Bill is to be done in the Committee stage where there are still a number of matters that are controversial and should be examined at length. Therefore, any speech on a Bill like this must be a fragmentary one dealing with only a few aspects that strike an honourable senator as being important in consideration of it. I believe the Bill contains a great number of useful improvements for a number of citizens. It clarifies a lot of problems which have arisen over a number of years. I think that the Committee which produced the report is to be greatly commended for the enormous work which it did and which it is probably continuing to do on items which have not been completed. I feel that, perhaps, the most important thing about the Bill is the creation of the Australian Electoral Commission. I think it is high time that we took out of the hands of Parliament the responsibility of dealing, in minute detail, with matters such as electoral redistributions and things of that sort. I think it is important that the Commissioner be given that independent status to make his own decisions. I think , unfortunately, the Bill goes a little bit too far. Reference has been made today by Senator Sir John Carrick and others to the fact that Parliament will, apparently, not even consider redistributions or make comments under the proposals in the Bill. It seems that matters such as redistributions should still be exposed to the light of day and Parliament should be entitled to express its views upon redistributions as they come down. But, of course, the final decision ought to be made by the Electoral Commission. I believe that amendments that would restore to the Parliament at least an opportunity to see and to comment on aspects of redistributions would be a preferable option. This has not been taken up in the legislation as it stands before us. Another major criticism which I make and which I have made previously of the proposals in this Bill relates to the creation and adoption of the list system. A number of honourable senators have expressed their fears about the invalid substitution of a list system. There is also no doubt that, if people are asked to tick a square, most people will do that. That will therefore take away any likelihood that members of the public will make their own judgment because it will be so much easier for them just to vote and tick for the system. There are more major objections to the proposal than that. What this list system will do is affect the donkey vote. There will be those who happen to be lucky enough to draw a list on the left hand side of the paper and who have registered their preferences. It might be a group of two people who have an interest and who want to stand for election and who have drawn the lucky lottery to be on that end. So instead of the donkey vote, which is something which we rather deplore, being accidentally gained by some party at present, the new system will direct preferences according to the directions of those people who have registered themselves. It may not be a party; it may only be a group of people. They will gather up, if they are on the left hand side of the ballot paper, all the donkey votes. I fear that this will be a disadvantage to our system of election. I think it can be said, therefore, that there is grave defect in the adoption of the list system. This is not a valid way of overcoming the problem of informal voting. In regard to informal voting, I think the system by which votes are counted up to the stage where someone makes a mistake is a very sound proposal. That will save a lot of votes being declared informal in the future. The result of this system will mean that very often, in the future, some ballot papers will expire and not be used to the whole extent up to the end of voting. The quota will have to be changed for some of the later candidates to be selected in the Senate in particular. That system has some inherent defects. I draw attention-I do not know whether anyone in this Parliament has seen this-to a representation, dated 14 November 1983, made to me by the Proportional Representation Society of Australia. I seek leave to have the letter and the half page of calculations incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The letter read as follows- 14 November 1983 Senator A. J. Missen,Parliament House,Canberra,A.C.T. 2600 Dear Senator Missen, I wish to draw your attention to some features of the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill 1983 that are unsatisfactory and, in my view, should be amended. I am referring specifically to the clauses that would amend section 135 of the Electoral Act although there are other shortcomings in the Bill, particularly its failure to provide for the use of a quota-preferential method for elections of the House of Representatives. So far as the proposed new sub-sections of section 135 are concerned, calculation of the quota as proposed in sub-section 135 (7) would lead to unnecessary loss by exhaustion and the preferable procedure would be to divide the number of surplus votes of an elected candidate by the total number of ballot-papers showing first preference for him and a further preference for another continuing candidate. The effect of this would be to leave the papers without a further preference in the quota of the elected candidate and transfer the surplus by means of those papers with further preferences indicated. The provisions in sub-sections (8), (9) and (10) for the transfer of surpluses of candidates elected with first preferences and other votes received in transfers from previously elected candidates would have the effect of giving equal weight to all ballot-papers of the elected candidate, whether they were received by him as first preferences, with value 1, or as transferred papers with transfer values less than 1, and in some cases, with very small values. The provision for recalculation of the quota when papers have become exhausted could allow the development of a situation in which there were more quotas than places to be filled. How this could happen is shown in the example enclosed. Obviously, this provision must be changed. There is also a deficiency in the proposed section 140A. which provides for a second scrutiny of Senate ballot-papers following a double-dissolution election. It would be possible, though unlikely, that a candidate who was not elected in the first scrutiny could be one of those chosen in the second scrutiny. This possibility could be avoided simply by specifying that only those elected in the first scrutiny should be considered as continuing candidates for the second scrutiny. I understand that the Australian Democrat Senators intend to introduce amendments to the Bill to deal with these problems and I hope that you will support them. Yours sincerely, J. F. H. Wright President Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill Recalculation of quota according to proposed sub-section 135 (24) Consider an election to fill seven seats with 3 000 000 formal votes. The quota will be 3 000 000/8 + 1, which is 375 001. Suppose that six vacancies have been filled, one of these by a candidate who has 375 101 first preferences, that is, who has a surplus of 100, and that 50 of the ballot-papers on which he is shown as first preference have become exhausted before the last seat is filled. The transfer value of each of his 375 101 papers will be 100/375 101, and the value lost through the exhaustion of 50 of these is that fraction x 50. This works out to 0.013 of a vote, which must be disregarded. The six quotas each of 375 001 that have elected the six candidates have taken 2 250 006 of the original votes, leaving 749 994 with the continuing candidates. The new quota is calculated under sub-section (24) by deducting the number of exhausted papers, ie 50, from the original number of formal papers, 3 000 000, dividing the resulting number, 2 999 950, by 8 and adding one, after discarding the fraction. The new quota is thus 374 994. The votes remaining with the continuing candidates, 749 994, now amount to more than two quotas (749 988) although there is only one remaining vacancy. Clearly, an unacceptable result of this kind is possible even with a very small number of exhausted papers. Senator MISSEN —Without going into the details of the letter, it suggests that, because of the using up of votes, we may well reach a position, as the Bill is presently phrased, whereby we will come to a last quota for election 10 and have two people who are qualified each obtaining a quota. Senator Harradine —There is an amendment to cover that. Senator MISSEN —I hope there is an amendment to cover that because it seems highly necessary to overcome that problem and not to leave it to a matter of chance. Another matter of which I make short mention is this: I am glad to see that the names and the order of candidates on the ballot paper will be done by lot. This was proposed some years ago. I have a suspicion that, in the course of party discussions on this matter, my praise of this system might well have led partly to it not being supported by my colleagues. Whether that be so, the fact is that I am glad to see that this random element in the selection of ballot positions is to be entered into the legislation. It will not matter whether one's name begins with A or B or if one's name is Zakharov, which is the name being used today as being at the end of the poll, one will have an equal chance with everyone else. Likewise the names of parties on ballot papers is desirable. There is no reason why people should be confused and why they should not know which party a person represents. We know that most people vote very largely according to party preferences. The reason I am speaking on individual items at the second reading stage rather than at the Committee stage is that an amendment has been moved by the Opposition which would attach certain words to the second reading motion. It would not affect the second reading, but it is an expression of views. I am afraid there are a couple of aspects of it with which I certainly do not agree. I will vote for it because it is the decision of my colleagues that these are their major concerns, and with most of them I agree. One aspect to which there is objection is the registration of parties. I believe that the need for registration of parties applies not only to the list system but also to the putting of the names of parties on the ballot paper. It is desirable, and long overdue, that there be some registration of parties so that people cannot come forward with a name similar to another one and thereby confuse the electors at the time of an election. I have not been able to see the real objection to the registration of parties, except insofar as it may relate to the objection which I take to the use of a list system. The other matter of importance which has been adverted to by a number of my colleagues today is the public funding provisions. I have no doubt that this will pass tonight and that we will join with most other democratic countries in having a form of public funding. As one who has advocated publicly and privately for many years the desirability of a form of public funding, I cannot see major objection to this. I listened today to a number of my colleagues express objections to it, particularly Senator Sir John Carrick who said that things like this do not make people honest. I agree with that. I would never have thought of that as an argument to be advanced in any serious way for public funding. Of course, if people want to be dishonest, they will be dishonest under whatever system applies. They will find ingenious means of getting round it. I have always felt and still do that there are sounder grounds for having public funding in this country. I think Senator Hill said that we have generally led the world with our recommendations for electoral reform, but this provision comes from elsewhere. If we have fallen back in our electoral reform zeal over the years, I do not think that is any reason why we should not now follow other countries if their ideas are sound. It is not a very radical proposal when one realises that it is adopted in one form or another in most of the democratic countries of the world. I believe the really major reason for public funding and why the parties will accept it if it goes through and will accept the moneys-to me there is no problem of principle-is the fact that the costs of elections have grown. I refer to the extent to which television advertisements have dominated election campaigns, the cost of those advertisements and the extent to which therefore wealthy interests can naturally have important dominance in the parties. There are wealthy trade unions on one side and wealthy businessmen on the other, and of course some in different categories. No doubt there were wealthy businessmen who supported the Australian Labor Party in the last campaign. Their influence is too great and their support is too much needed when one considers that very little money is actually brought into party coffers by individual party members. So much of it has to come from business concerns and inevitably, without being a matter of honesty or dishonesty, this must increase the influence which such people have on the direction of a party or the care with which a party might act so as not to offend interests that they know may support the party. Senator Harradine —That is an argument for a ceiling, though, is it not? Senator MISSEN —It may be an argument for a ceiling, too. It is also an argument for disclosure. It is also a reason why a proportion of moneys going to parties through public funding gives those parties some form of independence, some partial independence, from the great demands which modern electioneering seems to involve. On that basis, I have always felt that there is a sound case for it. The matter is perhaps somewhat academic because it is fairly clear that this proposal will be in the legislation in the near future. Leaving the Bill for a moment, one thing that concerned me this afternoon was a reference in the speech which Senator Sibraa made in this chamber to three Liberal Ministers who had been in trouble over election funding or other electoral matters. As I heard him, I understood him to refer to the late Eric Robinson, Senator Withers and Sir Phillip Lynch. To my mind this was a statement in extremely poor taste and certainly not justified by the facts. It perhaps reflects Senator Sibraa's too close association with the New South Wales Labor machine and the influence which it has. Normally he is a man of reasonable common sense. To put the record straight, with relation to the late Eric Robinson, there was some argument brought by another member and some consideration by a royal commission which completely cleared him of any such suggestions. Senator Withers was accidentally picked up in that royal commission as having suggested a name for an electorate and a grossly disproportionate punishment was visited on him. I know that a number of us would have like to have challenged it in the Parliament but the decency of Senator Withers did not allow us to do it. In my opinion it is a gross distortion to talk about them and problems with election funding. The same comment applies to Sir Phillip Lynch. As far as I know, there were no suggestions relating to election funding, although I know that the Opposition did make great efforts to attack Sir Phillip Lynch on other grounds from time to time, with no justification. I am glad to see Senator Sibraa is back in the chamber. Senator Sibraa —I never mentioned Senator Withers. Senator MISSEN —You didn't? Senator Sibraa —No, I mentioned Mr Garland and it concerned postal votes in the Australian Capital Territory. At another time I will say more about that. Senator MISSEN —He was acquitted also. Well, I got the wrong person. Senator Sibraa was wrongly abusing someone else instead. I am glad he has corrected me if I misheard his use of people's names. The facts stand, but I regret that these sorts of snide allegations were made in the course of this debate which otherwise has been of a high standard. The Opposition has moved an amendment, part of which acknowledges the value of the Bill in improving efficiency. It deplores certain aspects of the legislation which attack individual freedom and pose a threat to the continuation of a preferential system of voting. With those parts of the amendments I entirely agree. It also suggests that the Opposition is concerned about registration of political parties and public funding and on these matters I do not agree with the amendment. It rightly attacks the list system of voting and the disclosure provisions. Disclosure does justify some criticism. There are great fears that the form of disclosure may well lead to victimisation. I have seen this happen in the past in elections and I fear that this may happen again. We will have to look at it very closely in the future. Although I will vote for the amendment which, if carried, will be annexed to the second reading motion, I have some doubts, as I have said, about two of the proposals in it. On balance the Bill which the Government has brought forward is one that generally deserves support. Those members who were on the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform have shown a great deal of wisdom in reaching compromises and particular arrangements which I think will lead to a great improvement in our electoral legislation. Senator JACK EVANS(Western Australia)(8.49) —I wish to join with other senators in congratulating the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform which has done a magnificent job. As a relatively new chum to this chamber I feel that it is appropriate to comment on the need as perceived by people outside the Parliament for electoral reform and the bipartisan approach adopted by this Committee in much of its work. The majority of its recommendations reflect very favourably on the Parliament and particularly on the committee process. Congratulations are also due to the Government for picking up and adopting the majority of the recommendations from the Committee, to the Special Minister of State (Mr Beazley ) for the way in which he has handled the matter, and to his representative in this chamber, the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans), for the acceptance at this early stage of some suggested amendments which it is felt will improve the legislation. The Committee's work is an ongoing process. There is still quite a deal to be done, but if it comes through in the same quality and with the same virtually bipartisan approach as is the case with this Bill, we shall see a much better parliamentary and electoral process as a result. The first point on which I comment is the removal of the power of the Parliament to interfere with the electoral processes and the electoral redistribution. That is a step in the right direction which is to be commended. It takes away any possibility of interference by this Parliament or by the Government with the redistribution process. It is important that that be done and be seen to be done impartially. The fact that political parties are recognised openly in this legislation is a realistic recognition of a fact of life. It was necessitated, I believe, by the new party funding system, but whatever the reason for it, it is good for it to be there and for everybody to recognise that political parties are a vital part of the electoral and political process. We will probably never all agree on the design of a ballot paper, but the Government has come up with a very fair and very sensible ballot paper design. The compromise, which gives what will probably be the great majority of voters the opportunity to vote on their Senate ballot paper by just putting a tick alongside the party name to indicate that they want to follow that party's how to vote card, will help many voters, because, let us face it, when scrutineering one recognises that the great majority follow or endeavour to follow a party how to vote card meticulously. I think it is fair to say that the Labor Party voters are even more meticulous in their endeavours to follow the how to vote card than the supporters of any other political party. So maybe there is a mild advantage from the point of view of the Labor Party; but it is a genuine attempt to ensure that we get a higher proportion of valid votes in each election and, in particular, with those sometimes difficult Senate ballot papers which can run into scores of candidates and can be a bind, and which can also be quite upsetting to people who have difficulty, for whatever reason, in coping with that sort of task. It has already been mentioned but it is worth repeating, that it is a step forward balloting for the positions on the House of Representatives ballot papers rather than using the old alphabetical system. Whilst that will not eliminate the donkey vote, it will at least give a fair opportunity for all candidates for the House of Representatives to benefit from the donkey vote. I have heard some criticism of the possible disadvantages to a few groups of a 6 p.m. closure. Frankly, I think that the advantages of closing the polling booths two hours earlier will far outweigh the disadvantages. There will be minor inconveniences. Senator Harradine referred to people who may be working through the whole of the period of the balloting process. I guess that those people probably have a lunch hour or will in some way be able to register their votes. If they are not able to do so, if they are absolutely precluded from getting out to a polling booth on election day, they can, of course, make arrangements in advance to record their votes. I do not see this change as an insurmountable difficulty. I see it as an advantage not just for candidates, who will have two hours less in which to sweat it out, but also to those who work as the voluntary scrutineers and the people in the Australian Electoral Office whose responsibility it is at the end of a pretty tough day to set to and start to count the votes. This gets them under way two hours earlier and takes the pressure off them a couple of hours earlier. The proposal to display group voting tickets on a poster in each polling booth is to be highly commended. The situation that we have imposed in the past on voters and on party helpers and candidate helpers has been an unnecessary hardship brought about by the fact that, first, we have not accepted the legitimacy or the legality of how to vote cards within the polling booth itself, and secondly, we have seemed in this country to portray people recommending a voting sequence as being less than acceptable people, and we keep them at a vast distance from the ballot boxes. We also make life very uncomfortable in some coses for those who are handing out how to vote cards. I am aware of a number of instances in which they have been kept out of the shade on a very hot day simply because the nearest tree or shady wall happened to be a metre inside the limit. The fact that these voting tickets are to be shown inside the polling booth area will help considerably and will also ease a lot of the pressure on political parties and Independant candidates when they are not able to muster enough people to hand out the how to vote cards. At least voters will not go in there unable to find out which party is represented by which candidate. This is helped even more by the adoption of the practice that the Australian Democrats have implemented for some time of showing on their how to vote card the names of the parties. It is good to see that under this legislation the ballot paper itself will show alongside each candidate's name the name of the political party that that candidate represents, if the candidate is representing a party. I just make the comment as an aside that the Australian Democrats' how to vote cards have proved to be very popular with the thinking voters, with the people who want to work out for themselves how to vote instead of just following a party's how to vote preference system. This is aided when the party's name is shown either on a how to vote card or, even more importantly, on the ballot paper. I have run out of compliments and I must now make a couple of minor criticisms. There is one deficiency which we hope will be taken up in the future. Perhaps it was asking too much in the short time available to the Committee to take it on board and to go through all the ramifications. The one major deficiency in the Bill is that it does not introduce proportional representation, so that Australia continues with the very lopsided, winner takes all system of having governments elected. Winner takes all follows automatically from a system under which there is a single candidate elected for an electorate and a candidate has to attract only 50 per cent of the vote plus one to win. There is no justice and no fairness in that kind of system. I think most people in Australia are now aware that the newer countries which have been formed since this country was federated and since we have had the single member electorate imposed on us from the turn of the century, have opted for proportional representation. Let us just be quite clear what is meant by proportional representation. It does not mean we have more members of parliament and it does not mean that we have fewer members of parliament to represent a certain number of constituents. It means that we have the same proportion of members of parliament to represent the number of constituents that we have. What does change is that a group of electorates are banded together and from that group-a suggested number is five- five candidates are elected in proportion to the support that they get from the new enlarged electorate. Now the probability is, as a result of that voting system, that more than 95 per cent of the electors in that new electorate will have a member of parliament with whom they can relate politically, and that is important. At the moment in most electorates if more than 40 per cent of the electors have a problem which they want to refer to their member of parliament, they have to go to a candidate that they voted against, a candidate whom they did not want to represent them in the Parliament, a candidate for whom they had no empathy or sympathy. Under proportional representation that changes and nearly everybody has a member of parliament with whom he or she can relate politically because they have voted with the number '1' for that member of parliament. A bonus follows from that. I believe that probably somewhere around the same number, about 90 per cent in my opinion, would also have a member of parliament which whom they can relate socially. In other words, it is very probable that there would be both male and female members of parliament elected out of such a system in most electorates. So those people who want to relate or appeal to somebody of the same sex to help them would be able to do so. They would also have someone who would be able to relate to them socially in the other sense in that they would in all probability find that in a larger electorate and with a larger number of members of parliament from whom to choose they would have somebody with whom they could relate from a similar socio-economic group. Once more that is important. Not everybody in Vaucluse is a multi-millionaire and not everybody in some of the run-down suburbs, for instance Redfern, is on unemployment benefits. Therefore, it is not possible for everybody to be able to relate to a single member of parliament from each of those electorates. So I appeal to this Government and to the Minister, who has already done a great job in my view, to look again at the potential for introducing proportional representation to this Parliament and make it in fact a truly democratic and representative Parliament. I refer to one of the difficulties which are obviously bothering honourable senators in this debate tonight, and that is the proposal for public election funding and for the disclosure of financial support to political parties. There is no question in my mind that both the objective and the result of these measures will be to keep political parties honest and to increase the perception of our constituents that political parties are probably honest. The increased cost is infinitesimal in comparison with the costs that will be incurred due to last night's decision. Two political parties in this chamber, the Labor Party and the National Party-I know it is hard to believe that those two would become political bedfellows-voted together to increase the number of parliamentarians in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. It should go on record that both the Liberal Party and the Australian Democrats voted against that proposal. Now that is going to increase the cost per year of running this Parliament by $9 .3m. The cost of political party funding is a fraction of that. I believe the benefit of political party funding is vitally important to the political process in this country. I think that the amount going to the respective candidates needs adjusting, and I will talk more about that in the Committee stage. But I think that the fact that public funding is already practised in most countries has the effect of removing the pressure on political parties to accept private funds with a hook attached. That is the reason why I support very strongly the concept of public funding. In my State, if one can believe what one reads about one or two other States of this Commonwealth, the malodour of political party funding, of behind the scenes, closed door deals made between political parties and organisations which need a favour done by that political party in government or in opposition is starting to become frightening. In my State a very bad odour is still hanging around the halls of Parliament as a result of an accusation made by a Liberal member of parliament that another Liberal member of parliament had been approached by the tobacco industry to vote in a certain way on behalf of the tobacco industry in regard to legislation to ban tobacco advertising in that State. Now whether that is true or false I would have no idea, and I do not make an accusation now. My accusation is that the smell is there and that smell will remain until we take away the opportunity for vested interest groups, be they trade unions, industry groups, corporate organisations, overseas organisations or any organisation or for that matter any individual-whether that opportunity is taken-to put unlimited funds into a political party in the hope or the expectation that that party will legislate to benefit the donor. In my opinion that is the most objectionable and most offensive thing about being a politician in this country today. Whether or not one's party is honest, the fact is that some political parties are being accused of accepting that sort of money-it cannot be called a bribe because it is still a legitimate support for the party one wants to support- Senator Martin —You are talking about a bribe. Senator JACK EVANS —I am talking about a campaign donation to a political party in the hope that the politicians will run with the bait and in the hope that they will get the message. I am not suggesting and I have never suggested that a politican has taken this money. That was not suggested even in the Western Australian instance when it was politician to politician. It was still a matter of suggesting that the money was going through to the party. As a result of that , the politicians would have pressure put on them because the party would have been able to afford its next campaign a lot more beneficially if it did the right thing by that particular industry. My point is simply that if people perceive that possibility, if they think that is happening, if they know that there is no way of discovering whether there is any link between the money going into the political party campaign fund and the subsequent vote which benefits the donor, if it is all hidden and under the counter, our integrity as politicans deserves to be held in at least some doubt. We have the cure in our own hands. It is in this legislation now before us. We have the ability to legislate to prevent that from happening. I strongly support that part of this legislation. The one other point I raise on this Bill has to do with the misleading or deceptive publications provision. It is appropriate to read the actual provision -again, this is not directed at any particular senator. I believe in this case that the political party was responsible. The fact that somebody benefitted is coincidental. Under our laws, High Court action by one candidate against another candidate was the only action that could be taken. But the fact still remains that what was considered by many people, including some distinguished Queen's Counsel of this realm, to be grossly misleading advertising in the Press and on television was ruled in effect by the High Court to be not illegal because it did not have any legislation on which it could rule it to be illegal. In other words, until this Bill is passed it is possible to mislead by advertising in the Press and on radio and television for the purposes of winning an election or causing somebody else to lose an election. I remind a few of the people in Western Australia, who may be listening, of the advertisements and the sword of Damocles that hung over the head of every Western Australian elector as we went into the 1980 election. Strings of misleading figures were given about the Australian Democrats voting in the Senate. The Australian Democrats were portrayed as Labor lackeys. No doubt in the next election we will get exactly the same treatment from the Labor Party which will portray us as Liberal lackeys because neither of them has yet recognised-- Honourable senators interjecting- Senator JACK EVANS —I am delighted to hear protests from both sides. Both sides complain that we are lackeys of the other, which is pretty sound evidence that we are lackeys of none and that we have allegiance to no political party. We are able to stand on our own feet, to represent our constituents and, frequently, the great majority of Australians who may in elections vote for other parties through some misguided notion they hold as a result of the advertising they were subjected to before that election. If the misleading advertising provision is carried it will be a great improvement to the existing legislation because the sections that are to be responsible for keeping political parties and candidates honest from here on will be able to be applied in both ways. First, it will be possible for an injunction to be taken out to prevent misleading or deceptive advertising. Secondly, it will be possible for action to be taken. If both sections in fact are contravened, the election can be declared void. I think they are two extremely good measures. One would prevent such nonsense from continuing and the other would provide for ultimate action if the advertising has brought about mass injustice at an election. I conclude by once more applauding the Committee, the Government, and this Senate for an intelligent and constructive debate on an issue which is sensitive and which is vital not just to ourselves and the continuation of the people and the parties currently in this Parliament, but also to the improvement in goodwill of the whole parliamentary process and the perception of that process by the people whom we represent in this Parliament. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE(Western Australia)(9.16) —I did not intend to enter this debate and I will be very brief. I will touch on only two points which I moot for reflection following Senator Jack Evans's observations. The first is that I get the impression from time to time that the honourable senator is trying to take on Senator Walsh's mantle in his absence. He made reference- Senator Jack Evans —Never! Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Well, Senator Evans is trying pretty hard. He should not put himself down; he might get there. The proposition was put that public funding would ensure the honesty of political parties and donors. I think that the great majority of people, including those in the Australian Labor Party, accept that proposition as being fallacious. If people are going to be dishonest , nothing in this legislation will put that right. Senator Jack Evans made reference to the fact that there was-to use his expression-a sense of odour hanging around the Western Australian State Parliament as a result of an allegation by a Liberal member of that Parliament against one of his colleagues. He said that his colleague had been offered or had received a bribe to oppose the Labor Party's legislation which was seeking to ban the advertising of tobacco. The person who made the allegation was a Dr Dadour, who was then the Liberal member for Subiaco. He was called upon by the party to substantiate that claim and to give a shred of evidence, even to provide hearsay information. Senator Jack Evans —How do you do that? Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Just to repeat gossip, just to repeat rumour would have been enough to get the thing off the ground. He could not even do that. He was called upon by the parliamentary party to give the slightest shred of evidence which led to his making the allegation. He was told that failure to do so would lead to his being disciplined. When he could not do so and he did not have the courage to turn up at the parliamentary party meeting he resigned before he was expelled. He knew that what he was saying was untrue, scurrilous and thoroughly dishonest. To make the proposition all the more absurd, the Labor Party in Western Australia happened to have a significant temporary majority in the lower House, the Legislative Assembly. The gentleman who was alleged to have been approached was not even in the Parliament at the time. He was standing for a by-election. I wonder what influence he might have had on the result of the legislation. The Liberal Party and the National-Country Party combined have a majority in the upper House. If the allegation was that somebody in that House had been approached, at least I could follow the logic. It is an absurd proposition, and I think Senator Jack Evans does himself no credit and the parliamentary system no good by making those wild accusations by way of innuendo and by suggesting that there is a sense of odour. Even the ALP did not try to beat that up in the State Parliament. I touch on another matter, namely the question of misleading advertising and, in particular, the matter you referred to. That was when you were ignominiously defeated when you stood for election the time before last and then took your defeat to the High Court to seek relief. The High Court threw out your claim. Senator Jack Evans —On a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President, I am just wondering whether I am supposed to be sitting in the chair at the moment. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! There is no point of order. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Your action was thrown out, seven-nil, by the High Court. Senator Watson —Seven-nil? Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Yes, seven-nil. Not one single justice could find any merit in the substance of the claim or the cause. In fact, the judgment was pretty disparaging of the applicant in the first place for seeking relief and on a number of occasions even Justice Murphy was frustrated and showed his agitation and annoyance at this pathetic, trivial appeal-- Senator Watson —Who paid for the appeal? Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —I will come to that-that was brought before the High Court seeking to overturn the decision. I understand on the grapevine that he wrote the judgment, and it was pretty belittling of Senator Jack Evans's pathetic attempt. To show how magnanimous the Liberal Party can be about these things, very significant costs were incurred and the Liberal Party spent months waiting for the Bills to be paid. Senator Haines —Oh! Poor Liberal Party! Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Yes, shame! When Senator Jack Evans was approached a number of times to fulfil his legal and moral obligations, he squirmed and crawled and sought to do deals to pay off the bill. Ultimately, a warrant of execution was issued against him and over his home to get him finally to pay his bill, which he knew he was going to incur before he started the case. Ultimately , of course, the money that was outstanding was handed over and so we were all relieved. He paid his bill and stayed out of the Parliament; and justice was done and was seen to be done. So, there is no suggestion at all that anything in this legislation, admirable as it might be, would have relieved him had it been in place at that time. I just put those matters on record so that there can be no misunderstanding as to the events that have taken place in recent times concerning Senator Jack Evans and the scurrilous allegations that he made in respect of there being an odour in the State Parliament. Senator JACK EVANS(Western Australia) —Mr Acting Deputy President, I wish to make a personal explanation. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Does the honourable senator claim to have been misrepresented? Senator JACK EVANS —Yes. Senator Crichton-Browne either has not read the High Court judgment or has quite deliberately misquoted that judgment. He has indicated that the High Court, comprising seven justices, spoke in disparaging terms about the litigant. I wish to correct the record. There was no criticism about the litigant. In fact, there was criticism of the lack of legislation to cover that situation. The sole reason for the appeal being disallowed was that the existing legislation only went so far as to cover handing out how to vote cards at a polling booth. It did not cover electoral advertisements, which are covered by the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill before us tonight. Therefore, Mr Acting Deputy President, the suggestion that I was in any way disparaged by the High Court is offensive to me. I hope that Senator Crichton-Browne will read the judgment; he obviously has not up until now. He will discover, as the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) knows and as I am aware, that the High Court had no criticism whatsoever of the litigant. I make one other point in this personal explanation. As I said earlier during my speech, the appeal was not taken by the Australian Democrats against the Liberal Party. They were the two parties concerned. It was a party advertisement against a party and its members but because of the processes I had to take action against the successful candidate, who happened to be Senator Crichton-Browne. There was nothing personally offensive about Senator Crichton-Browne, as far as I was concerned. I was not trying to take him down or to do him out of a seat; I was trying to remedy the situation at that time. Therefore, when the appeal was made, the Australian Democrats party took the appeal through me and I was then responsible for meeting the costs. Senator Crichton-Browne's explanation- The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Jack Evans, I think at this stage that you are starting to debate the point. You are only entitled to intimate what it is that has been said that you wish to correct. You must come to the point. Senator JACK EVANS —I am explaining why and how I have been misrepresented. Senator Crichton-Browne said that he-remember that we are talking about Senator Crichton-Browne, not the Liberal Party or anybody else-took action to pursue me through the courts and, in fact, in the event finally endeavoured to obtain my house because the money had not been found by the Australian Democrats in time. This was a process of the Australian Democrats appealing for funds through their members and getting that money in for the party; it was not a matter of Jack Evans having to find the money himself. I ask Senator Crichton-Browne to accept that explanation, which is given in good faith. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE(Western Australia) —Mr Acting Deputy President, I do not want to pursue this matter longer than is necessary but I claim to have been misrepresented. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —If the honourable senator claims to have been misrepresented, he may proceed. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —I do so claim. I just draw Senator Jack Evans's attention to the fact that I talked about the litigation, not the litigant. There is a clear distinction. I made the observation that the High Court found no substance in the claim that there was anything wrong with advertisements which said that the Australian Democrats voted eight times out of 10 with the Australian Labor Party, which they did. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General)(9.27) —Mr Acting Deputy President, I know it is a matter of great disappointment to all senators to have to turn our gaze away from this private war between Senators Jack Evans and Crichton-Browne and to refocus our attention on the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill, but the time has now come to wind up this second reading debate. The Bill we have been debating is a huge, sprawling Bill of some 187 pages and 156 clauses, and the debate has reflected that character. So many arguments have been canvassed and swapped about in the course of the debate that it would be fruitless to try to pick them all up at this time. No doubt matters of detail can be addressed at the Committee stage. However, I do think it is appropriate to rebut briefly some of the wilder assertions contained in the second reading amendment which has come from the other side of the chamber. It is even more empty than the usual rhetorical flourishes to which we have become accustomed. The second reading amendment seeks to add words, including the following: . . . the Senate . . . deplores those aspects of the legislation which attack individual freedoms . . . The difficulty about that proposition is that the Opposition has not indicated in any systematic or even coherent way any aspects of the Bill which do attack individual freedoms. The basic individual freedom in a democracy is the right to vote and the whole thrust of the Bill is to extend and to protect the franchise and to make its exercise more effective. The Bill contains provisions to enable people to vote who were previously disenfranchised. For example, it contains provisions relating to the enrolment of itinerants, to the protection of enrolment and thus voting entitlements of Australians overseas, to the special arrangements that are made for quadriplegic electors, to the voting facilities for Antarctic expeditioners and to mobile polling for electors in remote areas and hospitals. The Bill also makes provision to make the voting process easier-another thoroughly worthwhile democratic aspiration. For example, there are the provision for party affiliations to be put on ballot papers and the provisions to simplify voting at Senate elections. The second reading amendment goes on from there to request the Government to withdraw four particular matters from the whole scope of the legislation, namely registration of political parties, the introduction of the list system of voting , the public funding of political parties and the disclosure of political donations. That is, I suppose, a pretty fair representation of what such opposition there has been to this Bill in the second reading debate has focused upon. The registration of political parties is, of course, being proposed for two basic purposes. It is not only being proposed because of its association with the requirements of the public funding system, party registration being the most efficient way to administer such a public funding scheme which provides payments to political parties, but also because party registration is a necessary incidence of any scheme providing that party affiliations go onto ballot papers. It is the most simple and efficient way to implement that proposal. The party registration scheme includes provisions for registering party names and for verifying party endorsements. It will, therefore, avoid problems which could otherwise arise; for example, two candidates each claiming to be endorsed by a particular party, or two parties, each claiming the right to a particular name. Party registration is not the first instance of official recognition of political parties. I think that has been overlooked by many critics of this concept. The existing Commonwealth Electoral Act contains references to political parties and since 1977 political parties have even been recognised in the Constitution itself. There is nothing that follows so far as government or bureaucratic interference in the administration of political parties is concerned from the mere fact of their registration pursuant to these provisions. The second matter which attracted indignation of those opposite and which was reflected in the second reading amendment was the introduction of the list system of voting. Far from threatening preferential voting, which seemed to be one incidental aspect of the attack here, the proposed system of ticket voting, however, preserved it since a voter by adopting a registered party ticket as his vote automatically ensured a full distribution of his preferences according to his party's wish. The Opposition might suppose, and this was suggested at odd points during the debate, that ticket voting distracts the voter's mind from the whole motion of allocating preferences. Yet, in reality, that is exactly what the average voter already does under current arrangements when he simply copies, and nearly everyone does, a how to vote ticket onto his ballot paper. Informality and full preferential voting go hand in hand with many voters, especially when voting for the Senate, having their vote rendered informal as we all know by some innocuous and quite innocent mistake. By requesting that the voter need complete only a minimum number of squares should he choose in the case of the Senate not to use detailed count-out type voting, which is the essence of list voting, and by ensuring that his ballot paper remains in the count as long as his intention can be ascertained, the Bill seeks to make a vote count wherever possible and to reduce the informality rate. Therefore the Bill makes provision for all those sorts of contingencies that are likely to arise in practice without any detriment to the principles involved. As to public funding and public disclosure, the arguments in essence I think can be summarised as follows: The key argument in favour of public funding, to repeat, is that it guarantees the integrity of the political system. Without it, governments might fall under the unhealthy influence of clandestine economic interests either local or overseas. This is most likely to happen if political parties have to rely on such interests to provide them with funds in the conduct of election campaigns. By permitting parties which enjoy the faith of the public to receive some public funds to cover campaign expenses, we spare them the temptation of accepting funds from sources which on account of the size of the donations in question might later expect or demand some preferential treatment from the parties they have helped. It is not only the integrity of the system that is assisted in this way but also the fairness and equity with which it operates. Public funding does ensure that different parties offering themselves for election have a more equal opportunity to present their policies to the electorate. Without it, worthy parties and worthy candidates might simply be quite unable to afford the huge sums necessary to make their policies known. Public funding contributes in this way to the development of an informed electorate. Senator Chaney —Like the No voters. Senator GARETH EVANS —It lends vigour to the electoral process rather than detracts from it, as in the case of Senator Chaney who is slouching on his couch at the moment and jeering in his usual fashion. It re-inforces the centrality of parliamentary elections to our democratic system. Finally, I think it can be said that public funding obviously contributes to equity by coping, or helping to cope, with the problem created by the mounting costs of political campaigning due to the increased use in particular of television as a medium of communication. It is worth noting, to scotch at least one other canard that reappears in this debate, that in the overseas countries in which schemes have been established to provide for public funding of parties and candidates the numerous problems that have been anticipated by its opponents simply have not been realised. The other side of public funding is, of course, disclosure of political donations, and that is the last matter that gets a prominent mention in the second reading amendment now to be voted on. Public disclosure of donations, of course, informs the public about both the source and amount of finance raised and spent by respective parties and candidates seeking office or by others seeking to influence the result of the election. It highlights gross disparities . It helps to keep elections free from the taint of corruption. Donations which are contingent on the exercise of future influence are thus avoided. I believe, the Government believes and those on the other side who support this concept believe that public disclosure will restore very substantially public confidence in political parties and the party system. It is consistent with the whole approach that is increasingly quite properly being adopted on all sides of parliament to open government. It is a weapon against the promotion of sectional interests by governments. It is only political donations for Federal election purposes and not those for party maintenance purposes which are required to be disclosed. So it squarely relates to the operation of the political process. That is an endeavour to canvass in less than 10 minutes the basic arguments which do run through this debate so far as the major issues are concerned. The matters contained in this Bill are major, worthwhile, long overdue reforms. The Bill, with some minor exceptions only, is very much the product of cross-party effort on an historically unprecedented scale and that says much, I believe, about the basic health of our political and parliamentary systems. I thank all honourable senators who have contributed to this debate for their contribution. I thank in particular those who said nice things about the Bill and those who have been working on it. I commend, accordingly, this very important Bill to the Senate. Senator SIBRAA(New South Wales) —I claim to have been misrepresented. Only about half an hour ago Senator Missen speaking on the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill claimed that I had smeared three former Ministers, Sir Phillip Lynch, the late Eric Robinson and Senator Reg Withers. Just to set the record straight I would like to quote exactly what I said because I have just received a copy of the pinks. I said: I believe that it is better that we act now and not wait for an Australian Watergate to occur. As was said earlier today, the Australian Labor Party has had the experience-- Senator Peter Baume interjected: Like the Iraqi breakfast, eh? Then I said: Of the Iraqi loans affair. As Senator Peter Baume would be aware, I am on record condemning that whole situation. The Liberal Party has not been free of trouble. Three former Ministers, Mr Garland, the then Mr Lynch and the late Eric Robinson were all in trouble. Two of them were sacked over electoral matters or election funding. I believe that is the truth. I have checked files that some of our Ministers have. I will stand completely by that statement. Senator Chaney —Typical. Senator SIBRAA —It is in the Hansard. Do not tell me that any one on the other side denies that that happened. Of course, I never mentioned Senator Withers. I think Senator Missen should be aware of that and should correct that statement. Senator Missen then said that perhaps I made these remarks because I was close to the New South Wales Australian Labor Party machine. I do not know what he meant or inferred by that. I am close to the machine. I am proud of that fact. We have a record of the best election winning machine in the Labor Party at State or Federal level in Australia. I see nothing wrong with that and I will defend it any time. Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition) —by leave-Mr President, I wish to make a personal explanation. In his usual boorish way the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) referred to me as lounging back and jeering in my usual way. I wish to make it quite clear that I interjected on the Attorney-General because of the extraordinary situation that we had him talking about the virtues of the public funding of those engaged in elections when he has just authorised payments for the Yes case and no payments for the No case. The hypocrisy of that, I should have thought, warranted interjection. Question put: That the words proposed to be added (Senator Peter Baume's amendment) be added. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 29 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 6 —— Archer, B. R. Jessop, D. S. Baume, Peter Kilgariff, B. F. (Teller)Bjelke-Peterson, F. I. Lajovic, M. E. Boswell, R. L. D. Martin, K. J. Carrick, Sir John Messner, A. J. Chaney, F. M. Missen, A. J. Collard, S. J. Scott, D. B. Crichton-Browne, N. A. Teague, B. C. Durack, P. D. Walters, M. S. Guilfoyle, Dame Margaret Watson, J. O. W. Hamer, D. J. Withers, R. G. Hill, R. Bolkus, N. Grimes, D. J. Button, J. N. Haines, J. Childs, B. K. Hearn, J. M. Chipp, D. L. Jones, G. N. Coates, J. McClelland, DouglasColston, M. A. Macklin, M. J. Cook, P. F. S. Maguire, G. R. Crowley, R. A. Primmer, C. G. Elstob, R. C. Ray, RobertEvans, Gareth Reynolds, M. Evans, Jack Robertson, E. A. (Teller)Foreman, D. J. Ryan, S. M. Georges, G. Sibraa, K. W. Gietzelt, A. T. Zakharov, A. O. Giles, P. J. Question so resolved in the negative. Original question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Clauses 1 to 8-by leave-taken together, and agreed to. Clause 9. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(9.47) —by leave-I move: (1) Page 33, clause 9, proposed new sub-section 25Z (1), line 38, after ''this sub-section'', insert '', sub-section 25ZBA (2)''. (2) Page 35, Clause 9, proposed new sub-section 25ZB (2), lines 21 to 24, leave out the proposed sub-section, insert the following new sub-section: '' '(2) The Minister shall cause copies of the suggestions, comments, proposed redistribution, reasons, objections and determinations referred to in sub- section (1)- (a) to be laid before each House of the Parliament within 5 sitting days of that House after he receives a copy of them; or (b) if either House of the Parliament has adjourned for a period longer than 14 days when the Minister receives the copies referred to in this sub-section-to be sent to the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, as the case may be, or, if the President or the Speaker is not available, to the Deputy-President or the Deputy-Speaker, who shall forthwith give directions for their immediate circulation.''. (3) Page 35, clause 9, after section 25ZB, insert the following new section: Consideration of views expressed by either House of the Parliament '' '25ZBA. (1) If, within 14 days after the copies referred to in sub-section 25ZB (2) have been laid before a House of the Parliament, or have been circulated, in accordance with that sub-section, that House passes a resolution expressing any view of that House concerning any matter contained in the copies, the Minister shall forward a copy of that resolution to the Electoral Commission , which shall forthwith refer it to the relevant augmented Electoral Commission. '(2) An augmented Electoral Commission shall forthwith proceed to consider all views contained in a copy of a resolution referred to it under sub-section (1) and shall, as soon as practicable, but in any event before the expiration of the period of six weeks after it has received the copy of the resolution- (a) complete its consideration of those views; (b) decide whether or not any alteration of the relevant determination should be made as a result of its consideration of those views; (c) If it decides that any such alteration should be made, make a fresh determination giving effect to those alterations and cause a copy of the fresh determination to be published forthwith in the Gazette; and (d) record, in writing, its reasons for the decisions referred to in the foregoing paragraphs of this sub-section and, if any member of the augmented Electoral Commission disagrees with any such decision and wishes to have his reasons for disagreeing recorded, a statement of those reasons. '(3) The Electoral Commission shall forthwith forward to the Minister a copy of every record made by an augmented Electoral Commission in accordance with sub- section (2) and a copy of any determination made in accordance with that sub- section, and the Minister shall cause copies of those documents to be laid before each House of the Parliament within 5 sitting days of that House after receipt of those documents by the Minister.''. By moving these amendments the Opposition is seeking to bring the involvement of the Parliament back into the process of a redistribution which may take place in a State. I accept the thrust of much of what Senator Robert Ray said during his speech when he set out the arguments for removing the power of the Parliament to overturn a redistribution and when he spoke against the power of the Parliament to demand that a redistribution be altered. That is not at issue, and we are not returning to any consideration of that proposition. A different proposal is before the Committee. It is that after the augmented Electoral Commission has made a determination on a redistribution for a State or Territory and once it has been put forward by the Commission, the Parliament should have the opportunity in a formal sense to comment upon it. Let me say that the thinking behind the amendments is that if the Parliament wished so to do, it could make comment. But if either House of the Parliament were to do this, the Australian Electoral Office would send that amendment back to the augmented Electoral Commission, which would need to consider it, but would not be required to act upon it. I accept the argument that an independent Commission should not be subject to parliamentary direction. We have therefore, constructed amendments Nos (2) and (3) to try to establish ways in which the Parliament might be allowed, within a short time, to receive the copies of the determination of the redistribution and to have a short time to consider them, and to provide that the augmented Electoral Commission should forthwith then proceed to consider the views of either House of the Parliament if the Parliament is so disposed. What we are seeking to do is to get the determination before the Parliament if the Parliament so wishes, to have any opinion then put back before the augmented Electoral Commission and let the augmented Electoral Commission then make what determination it will. It may decide that its original determination will stand-it may reject the view of the Parliament-or it may decide to take some kind of further action. Amendment No. (3) seeks to give it a capacity, if it wanted, to take further action but it places no requirement upon it to do so. The reason that the amendments are in fact fairly long and complicated is that the circumstance might arise where the Parliament was in recess. Because considerations of time were worrying some people we had to get a mechanism by which the Parliament would first receive the new determination quickly, and secondly, the Senate, for example, might be recalled if there were a majority of senators who wished it to be recalled to consider that determination. We have attempted in these three amendments to establish a mechanism by which those processes might be carried out. It might be necessary, since this is one of the more significant amendments we are proposing, to answer any criticisms. At this stage having opened the subject up I invite comments upon it. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(9.53) —I would like to add, very briefly, to Senator Peter Baume's remarks. These amendments do not seek, in any way, to give the Parliament any right to amend, reject or delay a redistribution . That is fundamental to its consideration. They do give the Parliament the right to look at the redistribution in a very limited period and to make comments if it so desires. If the Parliament is not sitting and it is not convened, the time elapses and the matter automatically goes back to the augmented Electoral Commission. If the Parliament is sitting and it does not wish to debate the matter, the time still runs. The whole thrust of this matter is to allow a public debate if Parliament so desires and expressions of opinion. Those opinions, in due course, will come to the attention of the augmented Commission. That Commission will objectively evaluate them not being, in any way, influenced by them except by the force of argument, to accept or to reject at will. Nothing could be more common sense. The argument in the past has been that Parliament should not intervene because Parliament has, in the past, shown an ability to reject or to delay. That now is not part of the situation at all. The fundamental situation of principle is that Parliament, having appointed its statutory bodies, ought to have a report from its statutory body and ought to be able to examine that report inside the Parliament and comment on that report. I think it is fundamental to all the statutory bodies that we set up that we should be able to examine, and examine quickly, the work that they do. There is no question whatsoever that undue influence would be exerted. It is not good enough to suggest that the public is part of the debate and has an understanding of the debate during the time of any appeals in the journey of the examination because, as all honourable senators know, the Press does not give any wide publicity to appeals. In any case, under the legislation the appeals may not necessarily be heard in public. So the one chance that the public has to hear the arguments for and against before a decision is made would be in a debate and a discussion in the Parliament itself. I think that the argument has total reason to it and I strongly commend it to the Committee. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(9.56) — The Australian Democrats are not unsympathetic to this amendment. However, we are still wrestling with some of the problems that have arisen in discussions which have taken place over the days preceding the Committee stage of the debate. I say first of all that essentially legislation is not able to bind the Parliament in terms of its deliberations or otherwise in relation to any report of any committee, independent or otherwise, which means that this Parliament is not able to be bound by this or any other legislation if it chooses to consider the interim report of the Australian Electoral Commission. Therefore, if this chamber or the other place were sitting they could take up the interim redistribution, debate it, pass a motion and send that resolution to the commissioners as an objection provided it fell within the parameters of the Act in terms of time. I am not sure, but as I read the Opposition's amendment, its time frame is that time frame set down in the Act. I think the time might be 14 days longer or it might be the same. Perhaps Senator Baume can clarify whether that period is the same period as is available for other people in the community in which to object. The second point that concerns me relates to amendment No. (3) which states: If, within 14 days after the copies referred to in sub-section 25ZB (2) have been laid before a House of the Parliament or have been circulated, in accordance with that sub-section, that House passes the resolution expressing any view of that House concerning any matter contained in the copies, the Minister shall forward a copy- The clause continues. I wonder whether that wording-this might be a matter for the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans)-would require the House to meet. That is my concern. The actual wording seems to suggest that. Amendment No. (2) provides that if either House is not meeting within those 14 days or has adjourned for a period longer than 14 days, the President of the Senate would circulate such material as is referred to in the amendment to honourable senators. On reading amendment No. (3), I gained the impression that it might be possible-not being a lawyer I am not able to ascertain this fact-for the House to be given an opportunity to pass such a motion. If indeed the House has an opportunity to pass a motion doubtless it could be argued that the House has to meet. If the House has not met-going the next step down the track-I wonder whether some type of legal action might be taken to prevent the redistribution continuing. That is an initial concern in relation to those items. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(10.00) —As a number of questions may be asked I intervene now to answer those posed by Senator Macklin. First, what we are talking about is how the Parliament might comment upon a redistribution, not a provisional redistribution. I do not want in any way to mislead my colleagues. We have tried to keep the time frame as short as we can, but a redistribution will take place quite infrequently. If there were a redistribution in 1984 there would possibly not be another redistribution until 1991. The intervening period could be as long as that. The numbers of days and weeks for which we have provided in this amendment are not beyond negotiation if people think the periods specified are too long. If the full time were taken it might add eight weeks to the process. It might require 14 days for the Parliament to come together and I think a further period of six weeks is allowed. It is hoped that the process would take place more quickly, but that is absolutely the longest time it could take to allow the Parliament to make its views known and for the augmented Electoral Commission to respond. I do not want to mislead honourable senators. I think eight weeks could be added, but in terms of the importance of a redistribution and the relative infrequency of redistributions I think that time would be immaterial. In the event that a government was keen to get a redistribution through I think, that time being fixed and relatively brief, it could be worked into its planning. I think I can answer the other question asked by Senator Macklin. We have written that amendment to permit but not to require the Parliament to meet. The circulation of the documents is designed to alert senators or members of the House of Representatives to the fact that the document is available. That is why we ask that it be circulated. The mechanism for the Houses to meet when Parliament is out of session is contained in a motion which the Senate passes at the end of every session. The motion provides a mechanism by which the Senate may be called together and it requires the support of an absolute majority of senators. Of course, I wondered whether that was necessary but, upon reflection, if we cannot get a majority of senators to support a motion there is no point in bringing the Parliament together. The requirement for recalling the Parliament is that a majority of senators must inform the President, Mr Chairman or whoever is acting in place of the President at the time of their support for that action . So I do not think that the amendment as written imposes any obligation on the Parliament to reconvene and I would be very surprised if it could be construed in that way. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria)(10.03) —I am not necessarily at all concerned with the technical aspects; rather I am concerned with the main point in this matter. I make one observation: The amendment, if accepted, will add at least two weeks to the time needed for the acceptance of any redistribution. The assumption that all six redistributions will come in at the one time is wrong; they will come in like Brown's cows with, I imagine, the Territories first, then Tasmania, then South Australia and Western Australia at about the same time, then probably Queensland and Victoria with New South Wales last. In light of the conditions of the augmented Electoral Commission to hear appeals, it may well be a method that could be used-I do not say that it would be-to string out this whole process over a number of months, thereby even halting a future Federal election. It could be used to that point. Senator Peter Baume —How do you make it a number of months? Senator ROBERT RAY —We would be adding two weeks to each of the six processes. Let us remember the voting provisions of the augmented Electoral Commission to hear appeals. Of the three members-the judge, the Chief Electoral Officer and the third member-two have to be present to agree to any change. The second and more fundamental point that I make is as follows: What necessarily gives parliamentarians a greater right than any other individuals in relation to the objection process, the suggestions? Why should parliamentarians have a greater right to have made known to that Commission their views, with the stamp and authority of the Parliament, than the right of some resident who happens to live on one side or another of a creek? We have set up an appeals process. Why should we, as parliamentarians, have a greater right than anyone else in that process? We can each put our views to that Commission. I do not see why we should have the imprimatur of government. The third and, I think, the most damaging point is that we may never come to an agreement in this chamber about motions. But honourable senators can be sure that if there is anything that is not favourable to the government of the day, the other chamber will always put in a submission on this point, trying to fix it up and trying to use the imprimatur of parliament to do so. There is always a majority for one party in that chamber across the way. The Commission may well get motions on all six States trying to maximise the position of the ruling party. It is, in my view, a step that favours government rather than the parliament and should be rejected on those grounds. In some ways, I oppose this more than I did the honest action of a parliamentary veto. I think I would have preferred to have a parliamentary veto over redistributions because to me it is a lot cleaner and a lot more honest approach. To have not so much parliamentary interference but parliamentary influence in a redistribution seems to me to be totally unfair and totally unnecessary. Senator MISSEN(Victoria)(10.06) —I suggest that the latter point raised by Senator Robert Ray shows, unfortunately, that he has had little experience in this Parliament although he has a general interest in the whole subject. We have known, in the past, what happens when there is the power of veto. It causes great delays and great interference with redistributions. To suggest that a parliamentary veto is worse than having a right to comment is, to my mind, quite extraordinary. It seems to me that the proposal in this amendment is one which gives a particular right to the Parliament. Honourable senators may ask: Why should the Parliament have any more right than any individual? Of course, the Parliament has a body of experience in the workings of the electoral system and a considerable knowledge of the areas involved in these matters. It seems to me that parliamentarians should be encouraged to comment having debated the matter, which is the method used by the Parliament. It is true that any individual parliamentarian could comment and so forth. But it is desirable that there be debate and suggestions by either House. The suggestion Senator Ray also made that this would add two weeks to each of the six processes is, to my mind, quite nonsensical because it would add two weeks altogether, that is all. It does not provide, therefore, any extensive delay. I suggest that the proposal is a sensible one. I also add to what Senator Baume said about the calling together of Parliament that just as Parliament provides at the end of each session for it to be called together, one may be sure that that absolutely will be done when it is known that a redistribution is about to be completed and about to come before the Parliament. People will therefore be waiting and looking for that. I suggest therefore, that both in its drafting and in its general principles, the amendment is a good idea and Parliament should not be totally excluded from the opportunity of having a reasoned debate and commenting on proposals for redistributions. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General)(10.08) —The Government finds this amendment quite unacceptable partly, but not solely, for the reasons articulated by Senator Robert Ray with his usual formidable weight, intellectually, brought to bear on these matters. The proposed amendment would allow a House of parliament but no other person, organisation or body to make comments on the final determination of electoral boundaries. The augmented Australian Electoral Commission would be required to consider the comments thus made and, if it thought fit, could vary the determination. That is the proposal. The amendment, in the process though, would water down the principle of the independence of the redistribution process by imposing if not political control, certainly substantial political influence and would, in the process, give politicians very much more say in the redistribution process than ordinary members of the public. Moreover, as Senator Ray said, it is not just politicians as politicians, but politicians of the ruling party who will have the most clout in this respect because, in the House of Representatives, it is only with the support of the ruling party that any motion is able to be framed. In the Senate it will depend upon the party or group of parties that can construct the majority of votes. Only such a party or coalition will be able to pass a resolution. So it gives a formidable extra impetus to those arguments coming in, in a one-sided way, from the chambers in question. The result in turn is that this amendment ultimately boils down simply to something which will allow politicians who put their arguments and lost them at the comment stage of the redistribution process to attempt then to dignify those arguments by hanging on to the coat tails of the prestige of the parliamentary institution and having a second bite at the same cherry. There are other grounds for objection to this amendment. I express them in essentially technical terms rather than in those terms of high principle enunciated by Senator Ray. I put it this way. The way in which proposed new section 25ZBA is cast really leaves quite open ended the criteria to be applied by the augmented Electoral Commission in making its determination after the second round of comment has been given in the form of this proposed parliamentary resolution. The thing is constructed in such a way that it seems to me certainly very arguable that the criteria which can be put to the Commission as appropriate and the criteria which in turn can be applied by the Commission at this stage are not limited to those which are otherwise crucial in the Commission's deliberations. It does not seem to me to follow inexorably that the basic criteria to be applied pursuant to proposed new section 25Z, with all the elaborate and careful ways in which those criteria have been formulated, will necessarily be the criteria that will be applicable in this additional stage of the process now being proposed. If that is so, the Electoral Commission could start to embark, with the assistance of this pressure from, let us assume, the governing party of the day, on a process quite beyond that which the present framework of the legislation contemplates. That could go even further to the stage of producing a result which is unconstitutional. I remind the Senate that in McKinlay's case Justice Mason observed in the following terms: It is perhaps conceivable that variations in the numbers of electors, or people in single member electorates, could become so grossly disproportionate as to raise a question whether an election held on boundaries so drawn would produce a House of Representatives composed of members directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth- as is required by section 24 of the Constitution. In short, the absence of specified criteria governing this stage of the determination process could produce a situation which would throw completely at odds the basic scheme of the legislation as it now stands and, what is worse, could create a situation in which the whole legislation and the whole process could be deemed by the High Court, applying the Mason principle, to be unconstitutional. For a variety of reasons, some of them technical but the most formidable being those that have been advanced by Senator Ray, I believe and the Government believes this proposal ought to be rejected. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(10.14) —I direct my remarks to the points made by Senator Ray which the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) has said are the formidable ones and to his final remark, which I find astonishing. First of all, Senator Ray put forward the argument that somehow or other, because the redistributions would be done separately and in an episodic way with Tasmania perhaps finishing first and New South Wales last, there would be six extensions of the time for a redistribution. That is absolutely wrong, because quite clearly the length of the redistribution will be the length of time taken to do the redistribution for the largest State. The processes would be concurrent, so point No. 1 must fall down. The argument that both the Attorney and Senator Robert Ray put was: 'Why should the Parliament have a particlular right that others do not have?' Indeed, the Attorney talked about a second bite for Parliament. He did not tell us when the first form of mastication by the Parliament occurred. Clearly, it has not occurred. Parliament has no chance as Parliament of commenting before this amendment is envisaged- Senator Gareth Evans —What is Parliament other than the sum of the majority of its members in either place? Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —That interjection is almost as fatuous as the final comment of the Attorney when he suggested that this procedure might be found unconstitutional in the High Court of Australia. The fact is that Parliament has no opportunity of dealing with the proposal of the commissioners, nor indeed of any interim proposals down the way, because such proposals are done fragmentarily by individuals or organisations making submissions at the State level. The one time when anybody sees the overall plan is the time when it is suggested here that the plan should be given to parliamentarians with a time limit upon it. It is wrong to say: 'Why should Parliament be just the precious body in that regard?' The very nature of Parliament is such that if there is such a discussion there will be public discussion; there will be public contact with parliamentarians-the ordinary osmotic process which goes on with every piece of legislation, with every process in this place-and Parliament will therefore have that opportunity. To suggest that there is some kind of extra pressure by Parliament is of course to ridicule the whole basis on which this Bill is built. The whole basis on which the Attorney and others envisage this process of the Australian Electoral Commission, the redistribution commissioners and the augmented Commission, is that they will be totally independent, objective people who will be there because they are capable of resisting outside pressures, of assessing information, judging it and making a judgment. Now, of course, something new is that somehow or other the Parliament may be able to threaten them, may be able to dominate them. If this is so, all the dollies fall over because, of course, they are found to have clay feet; they are not objective. Why should people not be threatened along the way by the party in power? Why should they not be dominated? Quite clearly that is a nonsense. All that is being asked is that the one opportunity that the public or anybody has to make a comment on the proposal should be an opportunity for the Parliament, within a limited time, without the Parliament having the right to reject, amend or delay. Why the Attorney would say that this would be a watering down, I do not know. I found absolutely astonishing his final remarks, which I think I understood-he can correct me if I did not-and which suggested that, after the Parliament has made some suggestions, they might be taken up. The idea that the augmented Commission would bring about a resolution that would be considered unconstitutional must be essentially nonsense. At every step the augmented Commission, as well as the Redistribution Committee, is governed by the Act. It is governed by considerations in the Act. The final result must be put together by that augmented Commission within the framework of the Act. There is no way it could be a camel. There is no way that the augmented Commission could add something because somebody in the Parliament had said something. Let us put that argument completely out of sight. I find it abolutely astonishing that the other argument-I think the arguments are put up just for debating purposes-is that the other chamber, which has a government majority, would therefore assert a government view. That is not the purpose. The whole purpose is that it would enable debate. Various suggestions would be made. Through Hansard, the debate would be made available to the augmented Commission. But if the Government is going to suggest that the government of the day can, by debate in that chamber, threaten, dominate or use duress or undue influence on the augmented Commission why cannot the government of the day do that all the way along the process? The Government cannot have it both ways. If the government of the day has an influence it will exert that influence. If indeed, the commissions-the Redistribution Committee or the augmented Commission-at any stage along their journey allow themselves to be dominated by government they would then be dominated. The whole basis of this argument-it is one that we either accept or reject-is that these are grown people chosen because of their objectivity, because of their ability to make honest and objective judgments and because of their ability to resist and reject undue pressure. If they cannot do that they ought not to hold these positions. Let us put this in one piece. We are not asking something special at all in this situation. We are asking that the Parliament, which has set up this Redistribution Committee and this augmented Commission and which has given the Commission the statutory right, should do what the Parliament does with all other statutory bodies. The Parliament should have the Commission's report before it and, if it wishes, it can comment upon that report. In so doing it can do something that cannot be done anywhere else in the whole of this redistribution process-enable the public outside to hear the to and fro of the argument, to read it in the Hansards and to judge for itself. There is an absolute responsibility on the Parliament to do this. It is the one occasion on which the whole orchestration of the redistribution is viewed by the Parliament and the public. That happens at no other stage. At all other stages only individual segments are viewed. I think this is absolutely fundamental. There would be no undue delay at all in this situation. There would be no way of amending or rejecting. Indeed, by the very nature of the Government 's legislation, there would be no possibility of duress or undue influence by the Parliament. For the one and only time in the whole redistribution there would be a capacity for a complete look and a complete debate on the overall scene. Then it would be for the augmented Commission to pick up any views it thought were wise or to reject the lot at will. It would bring in its report without any other hinderance at all. I find the proposition to have absolute logic and common sense and I commend it. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(10.23) — I feel that there is an advantage in the proposal that has been moved by the Opposition. That is, it makes it essential for the report of the Australian Electoral Commission to be laid before each House of Parliament within five sitting days of that House after the Minister receives a copy of the suggestions, comments, proposed redistribution, reasons, objections and determination referred to in sub-clause (1). Unless I am wrong- the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) will no doubt correct me immediately if I am-I do not see anything in the legislation before us which requires the Minister to lay those documents on the table. I can see some force in the argument advanced by Senator Robert Ray in respect of the government of the day utilising this proposed amendment to put some pressure, through a vote of parliament, on the Electoral Commission. I can see that argument, although the counter-argument would be, of course, that that having been done in public debate and before the glare of public gaze, the Commission would be entitled to fall over backwards to ensure that it was objective and was not seen to kowtow to the government of the day which may use its numbers to obtain a resolution through perhaps the House of Representatives or, indeed, through this chamber. I wonder whether it would not be appropriate for the Opposition to consider the inclusion of words such as 'and the relevant Hansard debate' after the word ' resolution' contained in the Opposition's amendment, so that not only would the resolution be forwarded to the Electoral Commission but also the relevant Hansard debate. The Commission would take into consideration the views contained in the resolution and those contained in the relevant Hansard debate. That would be going further than what is normally utilised by commissions or courts in formulating their decisions. That is certainly extending, far more than is now the case, the extrinsic aids to those determinations. Therefore, I would not propose that that amendment be moved to the Opposition's amendment. If this amendment were to be defeated, I would be happy if the Government would, either by guarantee given in the Parliament or by an appropriate amendment, make it obligatory for the Minister to table in the Parliament the relevant decisions, et cetera, of the Electoral Commission so that note could be taken of them and if necessary a debate could take place on them. That would meet the point that I raised at the dying stage of my contribution to the second reading debate. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General)(10.27) —I think Senator Harradine's point is met in proposed new section 25ZB (2) on page 35 of the Bill , which states: The Minister shall cause copies of the suggestions, comments, proposed redistribution, reasons, objections and determination referred to in sub-section (1) to be laid before each House of the Parliament within 5 sitting days of that House after he receives a copy of them. So there is that formal opportunity for parliamentary debate at the completion of the redistribution process. I might add, for what it is worth, that there is in fact, as I read the Bill, an opportunity for the Parliament-the Parliament as distinct from the collection of individuals who make it up-to participate at an earlier stage in the redistribution process. Proposed new section 25V on page 31 states: A person or organisation may, within the period of 14 days after the publication in the Gazette of the notice- referred to earlier- lodge with the Electoral Commission a written objection against the proposed redistribution. That follows the notice of proposed redistribution stage of the proceedings. I believe that with the way that 'organisation' is defined at the beginning in terms of bodies corporate and at large, again it is arguable that the Parliament satisfies that description as an organisation which might have a corporate view to put to the Commission. But at that stage, where views and comments are being put by other people as well, it would not be in any way different from other people in terms of the timing or the weight given to such views. Similarly, I refer to the general preliminary suggestions and comments stage provided for in proposed new section 25Q on page 28 of the Bill, which is quite open ended in its description of the kinds of people or organisations which might supply comments in response to the initial invitation of a redistribution committee for a State. So there is that series of opportunities for parliamentary input along the way. There is the requirement for tabling at the end of the day. For all the reasons advanced earlier, I believe this is an inappropriate further extension with which Senator Baume and Senator Sir John Carrick are belabouring us. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(10.30) —I make the point quite clearly that the post facto tabling of the distribution plans is not, of course, comparable in any way to what this amendment envisages. To table the plans afterwards is only to enable the Parliament to have a debate which could have no effect at all. That is, the plans would have become operative, they would have become the law of the land, and the debate would be one that may have some relevance to some seven years hence. That in itself surely does not meet the point. The question is: Should the Parliament have the opportunity to have a debate when an overview is possible? To suggest, as the Attorney-General ( Senator Gareth Evans) does, and I acknowledge it, that it might be possible to have a debate at some earlier stage is to raise two matters. First of all, one would have to have the debate in all sorts of episodic ways, if Senator Ray's six different problems were to occur. Secondly, we could never have that debate in the knowledge of the various objections made by the community and in the knowledge of the overall proposed plan by the augmented Electoral Commission. It is the ability of Parliament as a whole to look at the overall plan and to comment on it that is the key to this matter. Therefore I feel that the two points made by the Attorney are not basically relevant to the purposes of this amendment. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(10.32) —This is one of the amendments which the Opposition believes is important to the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill. Senator Gareth Evans —Unlike the rest of them. Senator PETER BAUME —That is unnecessary. I just want to indicate that when the question is put we will be pressing this amendment. We have tried to devise a time frame which is brief. We have tried to devise a mechanism which keeps all executive authority with the Electoral Commission and not with the Parliament. We have tried to confine the role of the Parliament to one of making its views known. We have not attempted to give the Parliament any executive authority at all in this area. The criteria to which the Commission would have regard are laid down in the Act. I find it difficult to envisage how the Attorney-General ( Senator Gareth Evans) could raise that as an objection. In the same way, because the Parliament has no executive authority and the executive authority for the redistribution rests with the Commission, I cannot see any valid argument to support the view that the eventual redistribution might be open to challenge because the Parliament had been allowed to express an opinion. The executive authority clearly rests with the Commission which will determine the redistribution as it thinks appropriate. I reiterate two other points. No one has contended that parliamentarians could not have had an input earlier. We understand that, but we are seeking some chance to comment on the redistribution when it is made, to comment, but not to insist upon anything, to comment, if that is thought to be appropriate. We have all said during the second reading debate that as a matter of principle the electoral process is essential for the good functioning of our democracy. To be able to comment upon a redistribution is something that we believe can be good for the process. I indicate that the Opposition will be pressing this amendment. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(10.34) —Having followed the debate I think it would be difficult for the Australian Democrats to support this amendment, despite our initial sympathy for the proposition. In the discussions I have had with Senator Peter Baume leading up to the Committee stage Amendment Bill I made it clear that we would be willing to look at a situation which did not extend the amount of time that would be taken in relation to the redistribution. Senator Peter Baume —Did not extend it unduly. Senator MACKLIN —Yes. I think that, despite that comments of Senator Missen, Senator Ray's point is indeed correct. Because we are looking at the augmented Electoral Commission and at a situation of discrete electoral redistributions in each State, the Parliament would have two weeks to consider each discrete redistribution, which could then accelerate for each State. The Parliament could get into a debate at the stage which is suggested in the amendment only at the point at which a redistribution report became available. Therefore, it would have to comment on the Tasmanian one at the point at which the Tasmanian one became available, and it could not wait until the New South Wales one was available. It must come in at that point and cause a delay because of the fact that it must go the augmented Electoral Commission, which would have to engage in a deliberation as required in these amendments before it could proceed- Senator Peter Baume —But isn't there a separate augmented Commission for Tasmania? Senator MACKLIN —No. This follows very closely the recommendations of the Chief Australian Electoral Officer, as does the vast bulk of this Bill. There are many areas in which he is required to involve himself. Now that this Parliament has passed the Representation Bill 1983, the amount of work involved in the initial redistribution could be very large. I think in those circumstances the type of scenario mapped out by Senator Robert Ray-I do not say it always would happen- could very well occur. That is a worry to us because we are very much concerned to stay within the parameters of time as outlined in the original legislation. I must admit that the point Senator Ray made in relation to the Government struck me with more force than had registered on me previously. Indeed because of the Representation Bill, this chamber will scarcely have a majority in the future if the type of predictions we have made hold true, as I believe they will . The one chamber of the Parliament we know will always have a majority of one party is the House of Representatives. So undoubtedly that chamber, if the interests of its majority party are in any way affected, will engage in such an exercise whereas this chamber, which may have more sympathy at that point with the Opposition parties, may very well be deprived of a similar possibility. Not being terribly supportive of the ruling parties in terms of the Parliament, I must admit that is a worry. But I think probably the overriding problem is the one raised by the Attorney- General (Senator Gareth Evans) in relation to the possible legal challenges involved. While these may be far-fetched I think it is very difficult for the Democrats to support the inclusion in this Bill of propositions which may bring a redistribution under question. A redistribution, quite frankly, is at the heart of the whole exercise. If somewhere down the path that in fact occurred I think it would be probably one of the most damaging moves that could occur. Whereas in the rest of this Bill a variety of amendments could be made with very little significant damage, changes at this point can have an extremely pervasive effect on the electoral process. It is very difficult for us to support the amendments. Question put: That the amendments (Senator Peter Baume's) be agreed to. The Committee divided. (The Chairman-Senator D. J. Hamer) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 30 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 7 —— Archer, B. R. Jessop, D. S. Baume, Peter Kilgariff, B. F. (Teller)Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Lajovic, M. E. Boswell, R. L. D. Martin, K. J. Carrick, Sir John Messner, A. J. Chaney, F. M. Missen, A. J. Collard, S. J. Scott, D. B. Crichton-Browne, N. A. Teague, B. C. Durack, P. D. Walters, M. S. Guilfoyle, Dame Margaret Watson, J. O. W. Hamer, D. J. Withers, R. G. Hill, R. Bolkus, N. Grimes, D. J. Button, J. N. Haines, J. Childs, B. K. Harradine, B. Chipp, D. L. Hearn, J. M. Coates, J. Jones, G. N. Colston, M. A. McClelland, DouglasCook, P. F. S. Macklin, M. J. Crowley, R. A. Maguire, G. R. Elstob, R. C. Primmer, C. G. Evans, Gareth Ray, RobertEvans, Jack Reynolds, M. Foreman, D. J. Robertson, E. A. (Teller)Georges, G. Sibraa, K. W. Gietzelt, A. T. Tate, M. C. Giles, P. J. Zakharov, A. O. MacGibbon, D. J. McIntosh, G. D. Walsh, P. A. Townley, M. Richardson, G. F. Rae, PeterColeman, R. N. Reid, M. E. Grimes, D. J. Lewis, A. W. R. Question so resolved in the negative. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(10.45) —I move: Page 33, clause 9, line 38, leave out ''(4)'', insert ''(6)''. If one looks at page 37 of the Bill it is fairly obvious that '25ZC (4)' ought to read '25ZC (6)' because that is the reference on page 37. It is only a technical matter, but I believe the reference could not possibly be to proposed new section 25ZC (4). Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General)(10.46) —Senator Macklin is correct. We are indebted to him for his thoughtful observation on the deficiencies of the legislation and accept his amendment accordingly. Amendment agreed to. Clause, as amended, agreed to. Clauses 10 to 14-by leave-taken together, and agreed to. Clause 15 (Form of rolls). Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(10.47) —I move: (4) Page 42, clause 15, lines 11 to 19, leave out the clause, insert the following new clause: ''15. After section 31 of the Principal Act the following section is inserted: Overseas and itinerant electors '31A. Where an elector is an eligible overseas elector or an itinerant elector, the Roll shall not set out the place of living of the elector.'.''. The Opposition seeks here to express a slightly different view about what is the minimum amount of information which should be on the electoral roll. That is really all there is to this issue. Accepting the Government's intention to simplify the roll and having no objection to that, the issue is whether the information available should be more than is proposed in the clause as it has been put forward by the Government. We think that problems can arise within an electorate if residents share a common name and even an address. The amendment as we have moved it would produce the result I am talking about which would require extra information to remain on the electoral roll. I refer to the gender and the occupation of the elector. The principal Act already contains what is shown here as clause 15 (2). We seek not to interfere with that which is already part of the Act. The Government proposes to introduce clause 15 (1) which we want to take out. We seek simply to add that little bit of extra information to the roll. We do not believe that to have that information on the roll is any undue intrusion upon people's privacy, but it may assist in providing identification and it may be useful. We think, in fact, that there may be benefit in having the extra information. I could expand on the reasons why that should be so, but it is a simple point and we propose the amendment accordingly. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General)(10.50) —The point, for all its simplicity, does not commend itself to the Government. The Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill, in its original form, did involve an attempt to remove references to occupational category and sex from tagging electors on the rolls-sex for reasons of privacy and occupations for reasons, amongst others, of the difficulty of maintaining an up to date reference of this kind. It is not an amendment that either side is likely to want to go to the barriers over let alone a division, but it does represent closer conformity with the considered views of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform to keep the Bill as it is and to reject this amendment. I recommend to the Committee accordingly. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(10.51) — The Australian Democrats support the view of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform which recommended the elimination of those pieces of information from the rolls. Amendment negatived. Clause agreed to. Clauses 16 to 22-by leave-taken together, and agreed to. Clause 23 (Persons entitled to enrolment and to vote). Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(10.52) —I move: (5) Page 47, Paragraph 23 (e), proposed new paragraph 39 (6) (b), line 21, leave out ''5 years'', insert ''1 year''. The purpose of this amendment is to seek to alter the duration of sentence which will disqualify a convicted person as an elector. At the present time the Constitution provides that certain people are disqualified from becoming candidates by virtue of a conviction- Senator Robert Ray —Not candidates; members of parliament. Senator PETER BAUME —From becoming members of parliament. I thank Senator Ray. They may become candidates but if elected they cannot take their place. But they may not become members of parliament if they are under sentence on a charge which carries a prison sentence of one year or more. We have seen occasions on which members of parliament have been charged and when people have taken some care to make sure that the matter with which they are charged carried a sentence of less than one year. However, what is proposed is that such a person would be able to vote if he were under sentence for up to five years. For the first time in Australia this would create a situation which the qualifications to be an elector and the qualifications to be a member of parliament would be separated. Of course, the qualifications to be a member of parliament are constitutional qualifications. What is being proposed in this Bill is that the qualifications to be an elector should be relaxed. The Opposition believes that there should be a commonality between the standards required of a member of parliament and those required of an elector. We believe that there is logic in the situation that has existed. We cannot see the purpose of the change which is contained in the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill. We think the severity of the penalty that prevents people from holding a seat in the Parliament should be the same as that applying to people having the right to vote. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(10.54) —I would like to express first of all a purely personal view and then a view on behalf of the Australian Democrats. My view is-I have expressed it in the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform- that the criminal activities of people and sentences from which they may suffer ought not be relevant to their rights as citizens to engage in the political process. To deprive citizens of political rights because of criminal or civil activities, or crimes, is inappropriate in a democracy. I believe it smacks more of the operations that one associates with the Soviet Union. However, my Party has considered the matter and the agreement that my colleagues and I have come to is that we will support the five-year term as it is a liberalisation. It is also more in keeping with the penalties which may be imposed of a kind that may not have been envisaged, certainly not at the turn of the century. We believe, therefore, that the clause as it is contained in the Bill ought to stand, and we will vote against the amendment. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General)(10.55) —Mr Chairman, the Government takes the trendy libertarian view that things have advanced a little since the days of Sherwood Forest and that simply because someone has been convicted of an offence punishable by a year or more in gaol, that person ought not be rendered an outlaw and denied access to other civil rights normally enjoyed by Australian citizenry. In that respect we share the sentiments of the Australian Democrats which were, in turn, the sentiments of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. As to the point made by Senator Baume about the provisions of section 44 of the Constitution, I remind him that the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs, formerly chaired by Senator Missen, in fact brought down a report on the qualifications of members of parliament which made a number of recommendations including the inappropriateness of the continued application of that particular section in those terms as it affected members of parliament. So any reliance in that source of authority by way of argument from analogy or extension I think breaks down. Senator Harradine —Why not put it in a referendum? Senator GARETH EVANS —In due course, if we thought we had a chance of Senator Harradine's support, we would leap in there like a rabbit into a burrow. We suggest that for these reasons the amendment ought to be rejected. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(10.57) —Mr Chairman, I am reminded of the story about George Bernard Shaw who made a certain proposition to a lady and mentioned a sum of money, which was a penny, and she said 'How dare you make such a suggestion'. He made the same suggestion for a million pounds and she said she was interested. It turned out they were not haggling about the principle, but about the price. I remind those who have taken the trendy libertarian view that all we are arguing about is the extent to which they are prepared to deprive people of their rights. Let us not forget that they are quite prepared to deprive people of their rights as citizens-all we are arguing about is the price, all we are arguing about is the point at which they are willing to deprive them. Senator Macklin may say he does not believe people should be deprived; he may say it reminds him of the Soviet Union. He is still voting for a provision that will deprive people, it is just that it is slightly less onerous than the present provisions. It simply does not ring true to say that this is a trendy libertarian argument. All it is doing is shifting the pointer back slightly. Mr Chairman, I understand the way the vote will go. Amendment negatived. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(10.59) —I want to raise under clause 23 the fact that we still have contained within the clause the notion of unsound mind. I raised this matter with the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. It seems to me that what we have here is really an outmoded approach to mental illness, and I had hoped we might have been able to proceed beyond this. The problem, as I see it, is that we are suggesting that there is no differentiation across the board. For example, one could well be a professor of political science who may in fact suffer from a depressive disorder. That should not have any effect at all but such a person could very well be described as being of unsound mind. It seems to me that some more precise definition ought to have been attained as to what the Parliament believes we are trying to achieve with this clause. Presumably it is a person who is not able to vote or who is unaware of what he is doing about whom we ought to be concerned. That is a very difficult thing to achieve. Indeed, in this clause one set of judgments may be ascribed to people who may be, for example, in institutions and a different set of criteria to people who are not. Consideration interrupted. The CHAIRMAN —Order! It being 11 p.m., under Sessional Order I put the question: That the Chairman do now leave the Chair and report to the Senate. Question resolved in the affirmative The Chairman having reported accordingly- Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Bill 1983 The PRESIDENT —I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General) —by leave-I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act to amend the Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 11.01 p.m. The following paper was presented: Australian Bureau of Statistics Act-Australian Bureau of Statistics-Proposals 1983-No. 13-Household Expenditure Survey: January to December 1984. The following answers to questions were circulated: Question No. 410 Senator Maguire asked the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, upon notice, on 5 October 1983: (1) What has been the total number of staff employed in Commonwealth Employment Service offices in each year from 1975-76 to 1982-83 inclusive. (2) Do staff ceilings apply in respect of the Commonwealth Employment Service, if so, does the Government intend to relax the ceilings and by how much. Senator Button —The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) The total number of staff employed in Commonwealth Employment Service offices at the end of each year from 1975-76 to 1982-83 was: 1975-76 - 2,672 1976-77 - 2,977 1977-78 - 3,570 1978-79 - 3,658 1979-80 - 3,636 1980-81 - 3,833 1981-82 - 3,456 1982-83 - 4,226 Staffing levels were substantially reduced between 1980-81 and 1981-82 to take account of a loss of functions, notably those associated with unemployment benefit administration resulting from the then Government's Review of Commonwealth Functions. (2) The Government has approved an average full time staffing level for 1983-84 for the CES. The approved staffing level takes into account changes in the labour market, seasonal fluctuations, the impact of the Community Employment Program and the introduction of automatic data processing in offices of the CES. Staffing levels and workload will be continually monitored and the Government will make adjustments when considered necessary. Question No. 421 Senator Bolkus asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce, upon notice, on 12 October 1983: (1) Has the Industries Assistance Commission IAC recently found that the local production of commercial vehicles and parts have contracted substantially over recent times largely because of the general economic situation which has led to a severe reduction in market demand for these goods. (2) Did the IAC have before it details of such vehicles that had been purchased within Australia over recent years; if so, what are such details. (3) Did the Commission have any details on the number of such vehicles imported into Australia over recent years; if so, what are such details. Senator Button —The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows: (1) Yes. In its Interim Report on Heavy Commercial Vehicles, Parts and Accessories of 1 July 1983, the Industries Assistance Commission found that production and employment have fallen in both the vehicle assembly and component producing sectors. On the evidence available the IAC concluded that this fall was generally attributable to an overall downturn in demand for heavy commercial vehicles arising from subdued economic conditions in Australia, including the effects of the recent drought. (2) Yes. Purchases of heavy commercial vehicles as reflected in registration statistics were reported by the IAC as follows: 4 months to end April 1980 1981 1982 1983 1982 40,860 51,816 48,393 14,126 16,106 The IAC however noted that these figures are not fully representative of retail sales since they exclude vehicles purchased, but not registered; vehicles in this category include those for use in rural, mining and defence applications. (3) Yes. Figures in the Commission's report for imports of completely built up heavy commercial vehicles over recent times were as follows: 4 months to end April 1980 1981 1982 1983 1982 19,689 30,016 29,945 9,867 9,952 Question No. 424 Senator Macklin asked the Minister representing the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 12 October 1983: (1) Has the Bustard Head monitoring station, which monitors the North Reef automatic navigational aid in Queensland, been inoperative for some period during this year; if so, does this mean that, apart from visual evidence, there has been no means of knowing during this period whether the North Reef light has been operating or not. (2) For what period was the Bustard Head monitoring station inoperative. (3) Would the failure of the Bustard Head monitoring station be included in statistical reports prepared and/or presented by the Department of Transport on the reliability of automatic lights, or would it be necessary to ask for seperate information on the operational reliability of monitoring stations as distinct from the actual lights. Senator Gietzelt —The Minister for Transport has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) and (2) The monitoring equipment at Bustard Head was installed in 1977 as part of a developmental system to monitor the performance of the light and associated power plant at North Reef. The use of the monitoring equipment was discontinued in July 1982. Malfunctions of unattended navigational aids are normally reported to the Department of Transport by ships following sightings of irregularities. (3) The Department of Transport's performance statistics for automatic lights do not cover monitoring stations. Question No. 426 Senator Macklin asked the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry, upon notice, on 12 October 1983: (1) Why was the original information about the adulteration of Australian honey released to the Press before conclusive follow-up investigation took place if follow-up investigation into the cause of the adulteration of Australian honey indicated by analysis have generally been inconclusive. (See Hansard, 23 August 1983, page 102). (2) Why did the Department of Primary Industry decide to release this original information to the Press before discussing it with those involved. (3) Does the Minister for Primary Industry believe the release of this information was in the best interests of the industry; if so, why. (4) Has the Department received conclusive evidence that glucose had been added to Australian honey: if so, what is the evidence and if not, why were the original reports issued by the Department. (5) Is the Government investigating the possibility of replacing the export inspection system in favour of a system of limited random inspection: if so, when does the Minister believe a decision on this will be made. Senator Walsh —The Minister for Primary Industry has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) to (4) My department was not involved in the release of the information in question. Following the initial media reports, my Department was however approached by sections of the media. They were informed that further work to refine the analytical technique was necessary. (5) Yes. It is anticipated that the new export inspection system for honey incorporating random sampling based on objective, statistically based methodology, will be fully implemented from 1 October 1984. Question No. 428 Senator Hamer asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 12 October 1983: (1) Did the Department of Defence, in or about the year 1981, receive a report from the Royal Australian Navy, emphasising the importance of the maintenance of manned light-stations on the New South Wales coast; if not, is the Department of Defence aware of the existence of such a report. (2) Did the Department of Defence inform the current House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure's inquiry into lightstations, that it had no comments to make on the issue of manned lightstations; if so, why was this submission made if, in fact, the abovementioned Royal Australian Navy report was in the Department's possession. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) There is no RAN report such as described in Senator Hamer's question. Navy Office wrote to the Department of Transport in late 1980. The letter indicated that while there is no justification for lightstations to be manned in peacetime , it was considered desirable that key lightstations be manned in times of war or tension. Earlier correspondence within Navy Office recommended that the matter of automation of lightstations should be taken up with the Department of Transport. (2) The Department of Defence has not made, or been asked to make, a submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure in connection with its current inquiry into lightstations. Question No. 433 Senator Chipp asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 13 October 1983: (1) What are the details of any employment or disciplinary policies of any of the defence forces which prohibit or discriminate against the employment of lesbians and/or homosexual men. (2) Will these policies change when the Defence Force Discipline Act 1982 is proclaimed, if such policies exist. (3) Will the Minister arrange for these policies to be revoked, if there is no legal justification for such policies (and such policies do exist). (4) Will the Minister present appropriate amendments to the relevant Act or Acts to the Parliament for consideration, if there is legal justification for such policies (and such policies do exist). (5) Are homosexuals still being discharged 'On Request' on the basis of defence forces policies on homosexual conduct. (6) Was the Minister and/or either of the two previous Ministers at any time under the impression that the passage of the Defence Force Discipline Act 1982 would mean an end to formal discrimination within the forces against consenting adult lesbians and/or homosexual men. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) A common policy regarding homosexuality is applied throughout the Defence Force. This policy recognises that condonation of homosexuality can prejudice effective command relationships and the maintenance of the high levels of morale and discipline necessary for the efficient functioning of the Services. It provides that, although confirmed homosexuals are not retained in the Defence Force, their cases are treated sympathetically and with discretion. They are discharged administratively unless factors such as assault, coercion, some public display or interference with a minor are involved. When such factors are present, the provisions of Service disciplinary law can be applied and a prosecution can be initiated. (2) No. The Defence Force Discipline Act 1982 relates to action that may be taken following the detection of offences. If it is determined that disciplinary action should be taken against a Service member, then the provisions of that Act , once proclaimed, will apply. (3)No. The present policy of administratively discharging confirmed homosexuals is considered to be essential for the effectiveness of the Defence Force and for the maintenance of a cohesive ethos necessary for military discipline. That policy does not need to be backed up by legislation. (4) No. (5) See (1) above. (6) No. In respect of my predecessors, I am unable to comment. Question No. 434 Senator Missen asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs , upon notice, on 13 October 1983: (1) Is the Government aware of the decision of a number of European nations to launch a convention to provide for the facilitating of the exchange of their nationals held in prisons abroad, and that such a convention would be available for signature by Australia and the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation nations. (2) Is the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons yet in force. (3) Will Australia sign the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. (4) Will the Australian Government urge our SEATO allies to sign the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. Senator Gareth Evans —The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows: (1) Yes. (2) No. (3) Australia would be prepared to give positive consideration to the question of accession to the convention when it enters into force. However, it would first be necessary for agreement to be reached with the Australian States, because in Australia the prison system is in the hands of the States rather than the Federal Government. The absence of federal prisons in Australia means that repatriated prisoners would have to be housed in State prisons, and foreigners currently imprisoned in State prisons would become entitled to apply for transfers out of Australia under the terms of the convention. The Attorney- General in his answer to a question without notice from Senator Kilgariff on 6 October 1983 (see page 1236 of the Senate Hansard) commented on the present position as regards consultations with the States on this matter. (4) Subject to the successful completion of consultations with the States, Australia would be prepared to consider entering into prisoner transfer agreements, either bilateral or multilateral, with countries in which Australian citizens are imprisoned. It may turn out to be true that the best way of doing this with countries which find the terms of the Council of Europe Convention acceptable would be to encourage their accession to it, when once Australia had also decided that it should accede to it. Question No. 443 Senator Archer asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 18 October 1983: (1) Is it expected that the taxing of Defence Force Reserve personnel will induce some resignations; if so, how many. (2) How then will the Government seek to restore the present numbers. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: The Government is committed to ensuring that the incidence of taxation falls fairly on all citizens and considers that the present total exemption from taxation of Reserve Forces' earnings is unfairly regressive, with the greater benefit accruing to those in the higher income bracket. Those on lower incomes, or unemployed, gain the least or even no benefit from the exemption. There is much to be said for the principle that income from all sources should be subject to taxation. It is generally preferable that rates of remuneration be established on their own merits and that taxation apply to all earnings. However, in view of the concerns which have been expressed in relation to the proposed phasing out of the tax exemption on Reserve Forces' earnings, and taking into account claims which have been made regarding the fairness and effects on the Reserve Forces if the earnings of its members are fully taxable, the Government has decided that one half of the pay and allowances will remain exempt from tax, with effect from 1 December 1983. This will have the effect of restricting the rate of tax on total Reserve pay to a maximum of 30 per cent, while those in lower income brackets will have an even lower effective rate of tax. This represents a balance between the considerations of fairly imposing taxation to which I have referred and recognising the particular circumstances of part time service in the Reserve Forces. Further, the Committee of Reference for Defence Force Pay is inquiring into appropriate pay and allowances for the Reserve Forces in the light of the Government's decision to apply taxation to their earnings. The Committee has been asked to report no later than 30 June 1984. These two decisions demonstrate the Government's support of the Reserve Forces and there is no reason why members should be contemplating resigning. Question No. 456 Senator Peter Baume asked the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women, upon notice, on 21 October 1983: How many of the 30 women appointed to senior positions and referred to by the Minister in answer to a question without notice on 14 September 1983 (see Hansard, 14 September 1983, page 666) were at any time Australian Labor Party candidates for election to public office. Senator Ryan —The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows: In undertaking appointments to statutory and other government bodies it is not the practice of the Government to ask candidates whether they are or have been candidates for election to public office. There are well established procedures for selection and appointment of qualified women and men to Government bodies. Such procedures do not include an examination of a potential candidate's membership of any political party. It would therefore be improper to waste government resources attempting to ascertain whether any of the highly competent, able and qualified women who have been appointed since this Government took office were at any time previously candidates of any party for election to public office. Question No. 461 Senator Chipp asked the Attorney-General, upon notice, on 2 November 1983: (1) Is the Attorney-General aware that citizens in the Northern Territory, and particularly Aboriginal people, would have their legal rights curtailed by many provisions contained in the Northern Territory Criminal Code Act, such as: (a) the abolition of the unsworn statement; (b) the reversal of the onus of proof in certain cases; (c) the payment of costs and imprisonment until such costs are paid even though the accused has been acquitted; and (d) by making attempted suicide punishable by imprisonment for one year. (2) Is the Attorney-General aware that the substantive right Aborigines have not to be sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment for murder, and to have their customary law taken into account, has been abolished and that no provision has been made to take account of Aboriginal customary law. (3) Is the Attorney-General aware of the provisions in the proposed Act which severely limit the political rights of people under the guise of anti-terrorist measures by enabling the Executive Council to proscribe an organisation and then : (a) prohibit any meetings of that organisation including a meeting which might be called for the purpose of challenging the proscription; (b) prohibit wearing a dress or displaying a sign of the proscribed organisation; and (c) punish offenders by imprisonment. (4) Does the Governor-General, acting on advice of the Executive Council and under the provisions of the Northern Territory Self Government Act 1976, have power to disallow this legislation, even though it has received the assent of the Northern Territory Administration. (5) Has this legislation been considered by the Executive Council or by Cabinet ; if so, what action, if any, does the Government intend to take. (6) Could the Attorney-General give consideration to a reply within seven days in view of the urgency of this matter. Senator Gareth Evans —The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows: (1) I am aware that the Northern Territory Criminal Code Act: (a) abolishes the right of an accused to make an unsworn statement from the dock; (b) reverses the onus of proof in relation to intent in cases where the accused is intoxicated at the time of the offence; (c) permits, where an accused person is acquitted by reason of voluntary intoxication, a court to order the payment by that person of: (i) the cost of bringing the charge including the costs of the investigations, (ii) the cost of the committal hearing; (iii) an amount of compensation or restitution and further permits the court to ; (iv) order the imprisonment or release on bail of the person pending the assessment of costs or compensation; and (v) order the imprisonment of the person for failure to comply with any order made. (d) makes attempted suicide an offence punishable by imprisonment for one year. (2) I am also aware that under the existing law, the Northern Territory Supreme Court has a sentencing discretion in relation to Aboriginal persons convicted of murder and that the Code abolishes this and replaces it with a mandatory life sentence upon conviction of murder, regardless of the race of the convicted person. The Code makes no express provision to take account of Aboriginal customary law in determining criminal liability, although the Northern Territory Administration claims that in murder cases the defence of coercion produces the same result. The Australian Law Reform Commission has provisionally expressed doubts about this interpretation. (3) The Code permits the Executive Council to proscribe organisations subject to the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory approving this proscription within 14 days. It is an offence to arrange, to assist in the arrangement, to manage or to address any meeting of 3 or more persons knowing that the meeting is to support or to further the activities of a proscribed organisation. It is also an offence to be similarly involved in any such meeting which is to be addressed by any person who belongs or professes to belong to a proscribed organisation. These offences carry a maximum period of imprisonment of two years. The wearing in public of an item of dress or the wearing, carrying or displaying of any sign or article from which it can reasonably be inferred that the wearer is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation are also made offences, carrying a maximum period of imprisonment of six months. (4) Yes. (5) Following considering by the Prime Minister, the Attorney-General, the Minister for Territories and Local Government and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the Prime Minister wrote to the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory on 17 November, 1983 requesting reconsideration and appropriate amendment of a number of provisions in the Code in respect of which widespread concern is evident. Question No. 462 Senator Mason asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 2 November 1983: Are animals used for experiments carried out within the Defence Department; if so, under what guidelines are these experiments conducted to ensure that undue or unnecessary cruelty to these animals is prevented. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: A small number of animals is used for experiments at the Materials Research Laboratories (MRL) of the Department of Defence at Maribyrnong, Victoria. MRL complies with the provisions of the Victorian Protection of Animals Act 1966. Information on all experiments involving animals is reported bi-annually to the office of the Chief Secretary, Government of Victoria. Animals are anaesthetised prior to experimentation and are euthanised before recovery from the anaesthetic. Question No. 464 Senator Mason asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 2 November 1983: (1) Did the Australian of 11 September 1982 carry a report on the FFG frigate HMAS Canberra which attributed a number of comments critical of the ship to its Captain, Commander Wilson. (2) Did the report state that Commander Wilson had said that the ship was 'a military wreck'; that it would not be ready for battle for two years because of deficiencies overlooked by the Government; that it lacks stabilisers for its helicopter pad; that it lacks a close-in weapons system; and that it lacks a means of shooting down aircraft. (3) Did the report further state that the former Prime Minister was present when Commander Wilson made his remarks and that the Prime Minister responded to them. (4) Did the former Minister for Defence state in the House of Representatives on 15 September 1982 that Commander Wilson claimed to have been 'totally misrepresented' by the report. (5) With respect to each of the statements cited in parts (2) and (3), what was (a) the nature; and (b) the extent of the misrepresentation. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: The Weekend Australian of the 11-12 September 1982 did print an article which attributed a number of critical comments to the Commanding Officer of the HMAS Canberra. The Chief of Naval Staff clarified the misrepresentations in a letter to the editor which was printed in the Weekend Australian of 25-26 September 1982. It is significant that the editor included the following note: 'The Captain of HMAS Canberra, Commander Bryan Wilson, has also written to the Australian on this topic. He categorically denies having used the words ' military wreck' and stresses that he is intensely proud of his ship and his crew despite the vessel's acknowledged deficiencies. We never doubted it. We apologise to the Commander and the Royal Australian Navy for having emphasised these-apparently temporary-deficiencies at the expense of Canberra's many virtues.' Question No. 465 Senator Mason asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 2 November 1983: Will the Minister for Defence provide overpressure estimates for the detonation of: (a) a 130 kilogram (b) a 200 kilogram (c) a 300 kilogram and (d) a 500 kilogram charge of: (a) conventional high explosive; and (b) fuel-air explosive at distances of: (i) zero metres (ii) 5 metres (iii) 10 metres (iv) 20 metres (v ) 40 metres (vi) 50 metres (vii) 75 metres (viii) 100 metres (ix) 150 metres and (x) 200 metres. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) The following table provides overpressure estimates for bare charge high explosive (HE) and fuel-air explosive (FAE)- PEAK OVERPRESSURE (kPa) Mass (kg) 130 200 300 500 Radius (m) HE FAE HE FAE HE FAE HE FAE 0 A X A X A X A X 5 B X B X B X B X 10 C X C X C X C X 20 80 100 100 150 150 200 250 C 40 25 35 30 50 35 70 50 100 50 17 25 20 30 25 35 30 50 75 10 13 11 17 13 22 17 30 100 7 9 8 12 9 15 12 20 150 5 7 6 8 7 9 8 12 200 4 6 5 7 6 8 7 9 A-Indeterminately high B-Several MPa C-Several hundred kPa X-Inside the fuel-air cloud at this distance peak overpressures are somewhat variable and difficult to measure, but at the centre of the cloud are of the order of 2MPa, dropping to about 800 kPa near the edge. These figures are insensitive to charge size. (2) HE figures are derived using a typical military explosive; they are reliable, but are dependent on geometric effects and differences in ground reflection. Values for FAE are extrapolations from tests of 30 kilogram charges and are less reliable. Overpressures from FAE are expected to be consistently higher than for HE, although in practice this depends on dispersion of the fuel cloud, ground conditions and wind speed. (3) It should be noted that the use of peak overpressure as the index of explosive performance is unsound. Question No. 468 Senator Mason asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 2 November 1983: Did a previous Minister for Defence, Sir Allen Fairhall, say to the Press on 23 April 1969 that the station at North West Cape was a target, if so, is this view also held by the present Government; if not, why not. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: The transcript of a Press briefing given on 23 April 1969 by the then Minister for Defence, Sir Allen Fairhall, shows that Sir Allen's remarks about the possibility that North West Cape and other installations in Australia might be targets were confined to circumstances of global nuclear war. These remarks are not inconsistent with the present Government's view that in the unlikely event of global nuclear war, the joint defence facilities in Australia could be subject to attack. Question No. 469 Senator Mason asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 2 November 1983: Has the Minister for Defence received reports from his Department on the present Indonesian offensive in East Timor; if not, will the Minister give an undertaking that he will ask for such a report; if so, does the Minister's information confirm the information published in the Age of 25 October 1983 which indicates that the Indonesian Air Force has dropped cluster bombs, anti- personnel bombs and incendiary bombs during its present offensive in East Timor. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: I receive regular intelligence briefings from my Department on developments of interest in Australia's neighbourhood. It has been the practice of successive governments to refrain from commenting publicly on the content of such briefings . Question No. 493 Senator Kilgariff asked the Minister representing the Minister for Science and Technology, upon notice, on 9 November 1983: (1) Has the Minister for Science and Technology given the upgrading of Landsat a low priority. (2) Are the Department of Resources and Energy and the Department of Administrative Services both vying to take over the responsibility for Landsat. (3) What plans does the Government have for the upgrading of Landsat and will the Department of Science and Technology be given the responsibility to ensure this is achieved; if not, which Department will have the responsibility. Senator Ryan —The Minister for Science and Technology has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) The diversity of science and technology programs competing for funding in the 1983-84 Budget meant that the Minister for Science and Technology was not able to accord the upgrade of the Australian Landsat Station (ALS) the highest priority. (2) The Minister for Science and Technology considered that, as the ALS had now progressed from a research and development phase more toward an operational function, it would be better placed in another portfolio. Both the Department of Administrative Services and the Department of Resources and Energy expressed interest in assuming responsibility for the ALS. The Government has now decided to transfer responsibility for the ALS to the portfolio of Resources and Energy. (3) The Department of Resources and Energy will be responsible for planning the future operation, including any upgrade, of the ALS once the transfer has been effected. Question No. 494 Senator Chipp asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 8 November 1983: (1) Are there any rules or regulations which enable the Department of Defence to discriminate for employment purposes against civilian gay employees of the Department. (2) Is discrimination against gay civilian employees of the Department practised either overtly or covertly irrespective of the existence or non- existence of such rules and regulations; if so, what is the reason for these practices. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) No. (2) I am not aware of any instances of such discrimination. Question No. 507 Senator Peter Rae asked the Minister representing the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice, on 16 November 1983: (1) Is it a fact that there is no Federal works program in the electoral division of Bass for 1983-84. (2) When was the last works program in Bass. (3) When was this program and what was it worth. (4) What works programs are in prospect for the Bass electorate in the future. Senator Grimes —The Minister for Housing and Construction has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) There are no federal works under the control of the Department of Housing and Construction in the electoral division of Bass. However there is work being undertaken by the Department of Housing and Construction for the Australian Telecommunications Commission Launceston-Mechanical Aids Workshop-new floor and floor heating $85,000. (2) and (3) The last work under the Department of Housing and Construction's control was undertaken in the mid 1970s, within the 1975-76 program. A small project of $53,000 was carried out at Eddystone Point for the Department of Transport. The Department of Housing and Construction also undertook work for the Australian Telecommunications Commission in 1981-82 and the Australian Postal Commission in 1980-81. (4) Subject to budgetary considerations the Department of Housing and Construction may carry out work during 1984-85 for the Department of Transport on Swan Island. Further work for the area may also arise out of the Government forward Estimates exercise later this year. Senator Grimes —On 4 October 1983 (Hansard, page 1036) Senator Kilgariff asked me, as the Minister representing the Minister for Housing and Construction, the following question without notice: With respect to the Government's new First Home Owners Bill, does the Minister realise the disadvantages that the scheme's $27,900 annual taxable income limit- that, of course, includes the individual incomes of a married couple being taken together as one income-will place on people living in remote areas of Australia where the cost of living is much higher than it is in the cities and metropolitan areas? Will the Government review the scheme and, in particular, the means test so that people of the outback who are currently earning more than the income limit will be eligible to receive financial assistance for their first home through the First Home Owners Scheme? The Minister for Housing and Construction has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: In fact, the income test provisions of our First Home Owners Scheme, including the maximum qualifying levels, are similar to those set by the previous Government for its Home Deposit Assistance Scheme. The upper income limit above which no benefit is payable is set at 155 per cent of average weekly earnings. During the preparation of the new scheme, consideration was given to regional variations in income limits just as it was given to regional variations in property prices. The levels of the income test and of benefits was determined accordingly. It was noted that it was impractical to administer in a satisfactory way a scheme which had different income limits and benefits for different regions. Senator Button —On 4 October 1983 (Hansard, page 1032) Senator Townley asked me, as the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, the following question without notice: I refer to an advertisement for Telecom Australia mobile phones which says, in part: 'Of course, you'll be saving time not having to hunt for Public Phones . . .' I ask: Is this advertisement an admission by Telecom that the number of public phones throughout this country is much too low, so much so that one has actually to hunt to find one? Will the Minister ask Telecom Australia to examine the possibility of installing more public phones, particularly in remote areas, now that it has had time to analyse the increased income from such phones due to the present 20c fee? The Minister for Communications has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question, based on advice from the Australian Telecommunications Commission: No. Telecom Australia provides a network of some 30,000 prominently located, modern public coin telephones which meet the needs of the vast majority of public telephone users. In addition, there are 40,000 red phone coin telephones rented from Telecom. The costs involved in providing and maintaining the public telephone service are considerable and although the fee for local calls from public telephones was increased to 20c last year, it is expected that losses will continue to be incurred. It is therefore not practicable for Telecom to install public coin telephones in all remote area locations where the amount of usage will not offset, to a reasonable degree, the high costs associated with providing the public telephone service. Senator Grimes —On 7 October 1983 (Hansard, page 1323) Senator Reynolds asked me , as Minister representing the Minister for Health, a question without notice concerning the National Diseases Control Program. The Minister for Health has provided the following information: On 15 September 1983 the office of the Queensland Minister for Health was invited to issue a press statement, on 20 September 1983, by the Hon. A.P.D. Bertoni and myself jointly. Whilst the statement concerned the Commonwealth's offer of funding for the Queensland component of the National Diseases Control Program, it was similar to those proposed for joint release on 20 September 1983 by the States mentioned by the honourable senator and by the Northern Territory. Subsequently, on 26 September 1983 advice was received from the Queensland Minister's office that the statement had been released that day advising of the Commonwealth's offer of $164,000 on a dollar for dollar basis for control of mosquito borne diseases in Queensland. The intention is that Commonwealth and State funds will be utilised in Queensland to establish a vector control unit to co-ordinate the State's mosquito control program. The Commonwealth Government has significantly boosted its funding for mosquito control program and research from $193,000 in 1982-83 to $489,000 in 1983-84. This reflects its concern at the increased incidence of mosquito borne diseases in northern Australia, particularly dengue fever. Of all the States participating in the program, Queensland gained the most of this increased effort. It received a boost in funds from $18,000 under the previous Government to $164,000 this year. Queensland's proportion of total funds available under the program rose from 14 per cent to 39 per cent over the same period, and now receives by far the largest proportion of available funding of all States. Senator Gareth Evans —On 20 October 1983 (Hansard, page 1842) Senator Primmer asked me, as Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, without notice: Can the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs assure the Senate that a full and proper investigation will be made into allegations that the son of Sir Robert Sparkes, President of the Queensland National Party, was recruited into the Australian diplomatic service earlier this year as a result of Sir Robert's influence with Mr Peter Henderson, Secretary to the Department of Foreign Affairs? Does the Minister agree that this example of coalition harmony in Canberra contrasts sharply with the current conflict on show in the Queensland election campaign? The Minister for Foreign Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: I refer the honourable senator to my answer to his Question No. 201, of 25 May 1983. Senator Button —On 21 October 1983 (Hansard, page 1938) Senator Robert Ray asked me, as the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, on 21 October 1983, a question without notice relating to the use of telephones by illegal bookmakers, including the following question: '. . . Finally, is it practical as suggested by Special Prosecutor Redlich, that Telecom should question the purpose for which a telephone service will be used?' The Minister for Communications has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: The matters raised by Mr Redlich in his report concerning Telecom policy towards use of the network for illegal purposes are under active consideration. Senator Grimes —On 21 October 1983, Senator Archer asked me, as Minister representing the Minister for Aviation, a question without notice which included whether the Minister would review the proposed withdrawal of fire fighting services from Wynyard Airport. The Minister for Aviation has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: In an effort to reduce the costs of rescue and fire fighting services borne by the aviation industry the Department of Aviation has been reviewing the need to retain those units that no longer meet the criteria for their establishment. By way of explanation, for domestic airports the Department uses a benchmark of an annual figure of 150,000 persons on board scheduled aircraft services as the criterion for the establishment of a rescue and fire fighting service at an airport. In this context Wynyard is marginally above the benchmark but is considered likely to drop after jet services are established into Devonport, ie it is expected that passenger rates will increase at Devonport and reduce at Wynyard due to rationalisation of traffic patterns. The situation at Devonport will of course be kept under review. The final decision to withdraw the fire service will not be made until consultations with the staff and with the local community are completed. It should be made quite clear that all staff affected by the proposed closure will be offered positions at other locations. Senator Button —On 1 November 1983 (Hansard, page 1922) Senator Walters asked me , as Minister representing the Prime Minister, a question without notice concerning payments received by the Prime Minister for speaking engagements and advertisements. I undertook to provide her with answers to the following specific questions: (a) Whether the parliamentary salary paid to the Prime Minister at the time when he was receiving payments for political speaking engagements was double dipping at taxpayers' expense? (b) Is the Prime Minister remaining consistent with his previous policy by accepting payment as a bit part actor in the Medicare advertisements? The Prime Minister has supplied the following information in answer to the honourable senator's questions: (a) I refer the honourable senator to my answer on 13 September 1983 (House of Representatives Hansard, page 649) to a question from Mr Spender. (b) I am not receiving any remuneration for appearing on behalf of the Government in the Medicare advertisement. This is consistent with the longstanding policy recognised by successive governments that Ministers, because of their executive responsibilities, may derive no income from personal exertion other than that arising from their duties as a Minister and member of Parliament . Senator Gareth Evans —On 8 November 1983 (Hansard, page 2255) Senator Coleman asked me, as Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, without notice: I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It follows a question asked by Senator Richardson on 22 September relating to increased Indonesian activity in East Timor. Given that figures reporting on the situation put the number of Fretilin members at about 100, will the Minister advise on what direct action has been or will be taken by Australia to do more than express concern at the most recent reports that 10,000 armed Indonesians have been used to repress the activities of the East Timorese people in their own country? The Minister for Foreign Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: The Australian Government has been following events in East Timor closely. The honourable senator will, however appreciate that the ability of the Australian Government to influence events in East Timor is limited. The Government welcomed the reports of peaceful contacts between the Indonesian authorities and Fretilin which from March this year resulted in a virtual ceasefire throughout East Timor. Similarly, it was with regret that the Government learnt of a reported major incident on 8 August in which ex-Fretilin villagers were said to have attacked and killed 15 Indonesian soldiers and which subsequently led to a build-up of Indonesian military forces. The Government has already made it clear that it believes the resumption of hostilities will delay any chance of reconciliation in East Timor. It has accordingly, conveyed its concern to the Indonesian Government and will continue to urge restraint on all sides. The Government's primary concern is to do what it reasonably can to help the East Timorese. In this respect, Australia has contributed $6.2m to the joint Indonesian Red Cross/International Committee of the Red Cross relief program for East Timor. Also, departures for Australia under the family reunion program have been continuing. The most recent departures were on 6 November and only three agreed 'List' cases still remain to travel. Senator Gareth Evans —On 9 November 1983 (Hansard, page 2367) Senator Primmer asked me, as Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, without notice: My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Has the Minister seen the report in last week's National Times to the effect that my speech on 13 October on corruption in the Department of Foreign Affairs and my question relative to the irregular appointment by Mr Henderson to the Department of the son of Sir Robert Sparkes were cut out of the Department's magazine Backgrounder? Does this act indicate censorship by some person or persons within that Department? What was the cost, via wastage, of the exercise? The Minister for Foreign Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: The publication Backgrounder is as is set out on the cover sheet of each issue, 'part of the Foreign Affairs Department's program for disseminating information about foreign affairs and Australia's role and interests therein.' Decisions must be taken as to whether material is relevant or appropriate for inclusion on this basis. It is not a question of censorship. The allegations made by Senator Primmer, as I have made clear, are without foundation. It was therefore decided that they should not be circulated yet again. Any waste of paper which may have occurred was caused by the failure of the officer responsible to consult with his supervisor. This failure has been taken up by the supervisor with the officer concerned.