Friday, 22 March 1985 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland) took the chair at 9 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. The petition of the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully showeth: That in the light of the Labor Government's failure to act to correct the anomolies in the Assets Test on pensions, bring to its notice and due to have effect from the 21 March 1985, the Labor Government's legislation should be repealed before it has an unduly unfair impact on pensioners, and calls upon the Australian Democrats to support Senator Messner's Bill for the abolition of the Assets Test. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled should immediately seek the passage of the Social Security and Repatriation Assets Test Abolition Bill to repeal the Labor Government's iniquitous and unfair Assets Test. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Messner (from 321 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we are greatly concerned with the extent to which serious crime including murder, major drug financing and massive tax frauds have penetrated into the highest levels of Australian society as shown by the investigations of various Royal Commissioners and in particular by Mr Frank Costigan Q.C. That we are concerned that the National Crime Authority has too many restrictions and possible lines of veto placed upon it for it to be an effective successor to the Costigan Enquiry and that this will allow major criminals to avoid prosecution. And your petitioners humbly pray that the Federal Government negotiate urgently with the Victorian Government on the reactivation of the Costigan Commission and to extend its term to at least the 31st March 1985 and also to provide the Costigan Commission with whatever resources it may need to successfully conclude its investigations into organised crime in Australia. Further we believe that the issue of organised crime in Australia is so important that the Parliament should not be dissolved until at least the interim Costigan Report has been received and fully debated in both Houses of the Parliament. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Robertson (from 11 citizens) and Short (from five citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned Australian citizens respectfully showeth that: (i) The financial situation of students enrolled at Australian post-secondary institutions is already extremely difficult and any increase in the financial commitments of students would gravely worsen their financial difficulties. (ii) The imposition of post-secondary tuition fees of comparable levels to those imposed prior to 1971 would force many currently enrolled students to discontinue their studies and deter many persons willing and able at present to undertake post-secondary study from doing so. (iii) Those students and potential students from social groups currently under-represented and disadvantaged in the education system would be most severely affected by the reintroduction of fees for post-secondary education. Your petitioners therefore pray that: 1. post-secondary tuition fees not be re-introduced for any category of students. 2. any form of Stamp Duty or similar system of the ''user pays'' principle in education not be introduced. 3. emphasis should be on increasing access to education by, among other things, increasing student financial assistance. 4. the visa charges upon private overseas students be removed immediately. 5. the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs immediately clarify the government's attitude to the reintroduction of post-secondary tuition fees. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Parer (from five citizens) and Ryan (from 186 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth that: 1. They call on the Senate and the Government of the Commonwealth to reject the recommendations of the Commonwealth Schools Commission contained in 'Funding Policies for Australian Schools', concerning proposed increases in State aid to private schools and the proposed community standard for education funding. 2. They call on the Senate and the Government of the Commonwealth to declare a three year moratorium (1985-1987) on increases in State aid to private schools and on grants for new private schools and for increased private school enrolments. 3. They call on the Senate and the Government of the Commonwealth to re-affirm their primary obligation to government schools and to implement all 1983 ALP election promises for increased funding to government schools. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Robertson (from 10 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. We the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth do humbly pray that the Commonwealth Government: 1. Uphold the principle that the seeds and cuttings of plants are a public resource and a common heritage to all and that accordingly seeds should be freely available to all, freely multipliable, able to be sold, exchanged, exported and imported by anyone who wishes. This is seen as a matter of national food security. 2. Recognise that plant breeding is a highly co-operative venture often involving private enterprise at the very last stages after basic seed collection, storage, and research has been publicly funded. 3. In view of the aforementioned paragraphs, recognise that any system giving 'property' or ownership rights over seeds to individuals, organisations or enterprises is inappropriate and unjust. 4. Recognise that legislation establishing plant patenting schemes overseas has had serious adverse effects, namely: (i) a slowing down of scientific information exchange and exchanges in basic plant breeding materials, that is, germ plasm, (ii) subordination and/or curtailment of public breeding programmes, (iii) farmer unrest at seed prices, (iv) monopoly control of seed production and sales has passed into the hands of giant petrochemical and drug corporations also marketing crop chemicals, (v) increased uniformity of crop varieties leading to a vulnerability to pest and disease attack. 5. Reject any proposal to legislate for any system such as the drafted Plant Variety Rights Act, which gives exclusive ownership rights over seeds to individuals, organisations or enterprises. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Zakharov (from 43 citizens). To the Honourable the President and the honourable members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth that whereas: 1. They are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian national flag. 2. They are aware it properly reflects the immutable characteristics of Australia, namely: (a) The Union Jack, itself the creation of three Christian Crosses, represents the nation's historical origin and the source of its language and law; (b) The Southern Cross on an azure blue background signifying its geographical location on this planet Earth; (c) The large star depicting the advent of Federation in 1901. 3. They know the flag has been a source of inspiration to generations of Australians in peace and war. 4. They recall that millions of native-born Australians and newcomers to these shores from other parts of the world have become united under its proud symbolism. 5. They are certain that any change to the flag will produce division in the Australian community. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will propose and pass a motion that 'the existing Australian national flag be changed only with the approval of the nation as expressed in a referendum'. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Sir John Carrick (from 12,263 citizens). Petitions received. Senator JACK EVANS(Western Australia) —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 provide assistance and encouragement for the employees of corporations to acquire ownership of the corporations and operate the corporations on behalf of the employees, and for purposes connected therewith. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education) —by leave-In June 1984, the Government tabled two reports which concerned overseas student policy. They were the report of the Committee of Review of Private Overseas Student Policy, the Goldring report, and the report of the Committee to Review the Australian Overseas Aid Program, the Jackson report, which also considered some aspects of overseas student policy. The reports recommended different approaches to the question of overseas student policy, and a task force was established to consider both reports. The Government has now decided on a new program to be implemented, adopting basically the Goldring approach, with the following main features: There will be an annual ceiling on overseas students in all categories, to be determined by the Government, and not to exceed aggregate numbers now applying. Institutions will have flexibility to enrol overseas students up to 10 per cent of their total number, and up to 20 per cent in any course, within the overall ceiling. (Quorum formed) The overseas students charge will be increased, so that it represents 35 per cent of the full cost of a place in 1986, and 45 per cent of the full cost of a place in 1987. For 1986, this will mean that the charge will be $4,340 for students studying medicine, dentistry and veterinary science, and $3,500 for students in other courses currently attracting the charge. There will no longer be any distinction between postgraduate and undergraduate students for the purposes of the overseas students charge. All students will be charged according to the cost of their course of study. An overseas student office will be established within the Education portfolio to provide improved administration of the overseas student program. It will co-ordinate all matters relating to private overseas students, and will be a 'one-stop shop' for students themselves, institutions and others interested in overseas students. It will have responsibility for policy development and administration. It will act as a central applications centre for overseas students and carry out co-ordination with institutions and education authorities. Overseas students sponsored by the Australian Government through the Australian Development Assistance Bureau, the majority of whom come from South East Asia and the South Pacific, will remain with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Within the overall quota established by the Government, there will be separate quotas for individual countries. These will be determined by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Education, in consultation. The Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs will be responsible only for visa and entry permit matters. The Government acknowledges that there are likely to be students who wish to study in Australia but who are not able to be accommodated within the quota of students to be subsidised by the Government. To provide increased opportunities for these students, institutions will be able to offer places at full cost in courses, separate from their normal degree and diploma courses, which are specifically designed for overseas students. A steering committee will also be established to recommend guidelines under which institutions may be permitted to offer places at full cost in normal degree courses. These places would be above and beyond those places subsidised by the Australian Government. New procedures to implement the Government's decisions are being established. There will be extensive consultation with institutions, State education departments, non-government school organisations and other relevant bodies. The new program which the Government has adopted will allow for the planned provision of opportunities for overseas students to study in Australia, while safeguarding the rights of Australian students. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(9.09) —by leave-I move: That the Senate take note of the statement. We had here yesterday a debate which was characterised perhaps by its passion and by the very significant value differences which separate the two sides of the House. However, on this occasion the discussion is of a different kind. It will be a discussion as to whether we agree with the particular judgments the Government has made. I think what the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) has brought down is a very important statement, one which people have been waiting to hear and one which helps to clarify a difficult area in Australian educational administration. The Government has done some quite courageous things. In this statement, of course, it has reintroduced a form of tertiary fees into Australia. It has done it in a proper area in line with the recommendations of the Jackson Committee to Review the Australian Overseas Aid Program and has done it in a way for which I will give the Minister full credit in terms of the number of full fee-paying places that it potentially provides for certain students. It is important to identify what the problem has been in relation to private overseas students, and overseas students generally, in Australia. We have limits on access to tertiary education because the number of places in the sector is fixed. This in turn is due to tight central government budgetary control over the tertiary institutions. A large number of resident Australian students were turned away this year from our tertiary institutions. I am not sure how many, but it may have been several tens of thousands. One thing is certain: With increasing retention in our secondary schools and with an increasing desire for Australians to participate the number turned away from our institutions will increase in the years to come. Once people have been turned away there is no capacity for them to enter the tertiary system or higher education in Australia. As the system has operated, overseas students who come to this country have taken places within that total funded number and, by definition, have displaced resident Australians. That has really been the cause of the political sensitivity which has faced the Government and the Minister and which has led to this examination having to be done. There has been increasing resentment from disappointed students and parents when they see places being occupied by people who are not resident Australians. They see themselves or their relatives not being able to get places and they find no way to do anything about it because the total number of places has been fixed by administrative decree. For that reason the Government set up the Goldring Committee of Review of Private Overseas Student Policy. Professor Jack Goldring from Macquarie University and his Committee produced a very fine report entitled 'Mutual Advantage', a report which I think set out many of the problems. It just happens that I do not agree with the final recommendations. The Goldring Committee recommended that we do not change the system at all; we merely spread the students around a bit more, with a limit on the number in any course or on any campus. Nothing in the Goldring report will end the central problem, which is the displacement of resident Australians. There is a very easy way to fix that problem, that is, to provide a guaranteed number of places for resident Australians and then to admit overseas students in whatever numbers one wishes, but to admit them additional to the quota under whatever conditions of financial support one wishes. Essentially what was good about that section of the Jackson report which dealt with this problem was that it recognised that the solution lay in identifying the number of places wanted for overseas students and funding them separately from the quota. If we do that we end the displacement of resident Australians and thus end the political sensitivity which has accompanied having overseas students here. Let me be quite clear. I believe Professor Goldring got it right when he said that we derive enormous advantage from having overseas students in this country. It is not just something that the students or their home countries are deriving advantage from; it is of mutual advantage; but it is up to us to resolve the domestic political problem which we have created solely because of the way we administer tertiary education. That is not the fault of the overseas students or countries or the fault of Australian students. It is a matter for government. It is only by providing a guaranteed number of places for our resident Australians and trying to accommodate them that we can overcome this problem. As I say, the committee headed by Sir Gordon Jackson recommended an approach which would have taken us down that road. I believe that is the course which the Government should have followed. Given the fact that it had two choices before it, it has opted, as the Minister said in her statement, primarily for the Goldring approach. I wish the Minister well but I predict to her through you, Mr President, that it will not end the political difficulties which she faces. It will not end the sense of injustice which some resident Australians have or which some parents have. If that happens, and if that sense of injustice remains, I ask the Minister to consider taking further steps in this respect. The Government, as announced in this statement, has taken some quite important decisions. I will go through some of the things which the Government has announced. The Government solution will require overseas enrolments in total to be no greater than they are at present. They may, in fact, be less. The Minister has simply said that they are to be no greater than they are at present. The Government should have provided the capacity for any number of enrolments provided they did not affect the chances of resident Australians. In this country there are educational institutions that offer courses which are sought throughout the world. We could have offered our educational services as an important export industry for this country. We have institutions anxious to take more students, we have academics anxious to teach more students, and we have more students anxious to be taught and anxious to gain access. It is a tragedy that we cannot bring the consumers and that market together. I fear that merely spreading the students around will not help all that much. The Government solution has required that enrolments by overseas students will need to be diminished in some courses and from some campuses. That follows from the Minister's requirement that there be a certain maximum percentage of students in any course. We know that at present that percentage is exceeded on some campuses and in some courses. Therefore, as a result of the Government solution, it will now be necessary to displace, perhaps by attrition, the numbers on some campuses. Senator Ryan —No, they can finish their courses. Senator PETER BAUME —Sure. It will be the new enrolments. I say again that, had overseas students been seen as additional to the places available to resident Australians, it would not have been necessary to have taken up that condition or laid down that requirement. The reason the Goldring Committee actually made that recommendation was that it did not get to the central problem of ending displacement; all it wanted to do was make it cosmetically more acceptable. The Government solution will require that the overseas student charge be increased to all or most students. It is not quite clear from the Minister's statement, but it looks as if it will be increased to all students. Senator Ryan —Oh, yes, of course. Senator PETER BAUME —The Minister acknowledges that the charge will be increased to all students. The Government should have done what Sir Gordon Jackson suggested; that is, withdraw from the system the present hidden fees subsidy of $70m, because the overseas student charge pays only part of their costs, plus, I think, a $24m overseas aid subsidy. There is $94m which Jackson said could have been reapplied explicitly as part of Australia's nation to nation commitment, to its regional commitment, to its aid commitment as a high resource nation with regional duties and responsibilities. This is how our foreign aid effort should have been applied. If that had occurred, many of the students would have come here at no cost at all. It may, in fact, be the desire of the Government to provide a series of full and partial scholarships. I am concerned to know exactly what the Minister's statement meant when it said that all people will pay this increased charge. I am perfectly willing to accept that on a government to government basis it may be the desire of any Australian government to provide a number of fully funded places. The Government solution then requires that we will determine separately the quotas for each country. The Opposition throughly agrees with this requirement. I mention one nation which has quite racist student selection policies. Honourable senators will not have much trouble guessing that that country is Malaysia. In Malaysia it is very difficult for Malaysian Chinese to get any kind of a fair go. It is very difficult for them to get access to education. The Malaysian Government, as an act of deliberate policy, directs places in Australia towards Malaysians of Malay origin at the expense of Malaysians of Chinese origin. In drawing up these quotas country by country, the Australian Government should ensure, when quite racist and quite unacceptable policies are in place, as they are in Malaysia, that places we make available under that quota are made available on a fair and equitable basis in accordance with the principles we adopt in this country. The Malaysian Government is not only anti Chinese Malays, but also anti a lot of things; for example, it is also anti-Semitic. Thus I support the Government on the question of quotas. The Government solution also provides for the possibility of extra places over and above the ones which have been discussed for students who may wish to enter at full cost. I applaud this move as well. It will enable the tertiary sector in Australia to expand. If it is a sector which, judged against world standards, is a desirable place to attend and to learn; if our universities are of high quality it may attract extra students from overseas at full cost. We will be discharging our duties to our region through the other measures which the Minister has already laid down. We will discharge those responsibilities through what has been a $94m subsidy. But for the first time there now exists a capacity for people outside the quota wanting to come to Australian universities to do so at full cost. As I said before, this is the first reintroduction of tertiary fees proposed for some time and it is being proposed and put in place by the Labor Government. I think it is a proper proposal. The Minister has given an interesting costing. She has told us that students will pay 35 per cent of full fees in 1986. She then told us in dollar terms how much that represents. By simple arithmetic it is now possible to derive the full cost of a university place in Australia. The Minister told us that for medicine, dentistry and veterinary science in Australia the full cost for educating a student in 1986 will be $12,400. I take it that my arithmetic is correct. The Minister has said that for all other courses 35 per cent of the cost will be $3,500. One does not have to be Einstein to work out that that indicates a full cost of exactly $10,000 a place. Those figures are interesting, especially when one realises that the Government does not fund existing universities or colleges at anything like that level. Senator Ryan —That includes capital costs. Senator PETER BAUME —General acceptance would be that capital costs, however they are looked at, would not exceed $1,500 a year. It depends what kind of notional apportionment one makes. But even taking off the $1,500 a year, the Government provides nothing like- Senator Macklin —Four and a half thousand new places. Senator PETER BAUME —The Minister is providing for Australian universities an amount which now quite obviously is inadequate according to the Government's costing, the costing which it will apply to overseas students. I say to the Minister: By all means make some notional allocation out of that $10,000 or $12,000 for the capital cost. This does not alter in any way the fact that we can now draw these figures to the attention of the tertiary sector and ask it to come back to explain those figures to the Government because those figures simply do not add up. The full cost for an overseas student is $12,400 to $10,000 less whatever is wanted for the capital cost; however, if one is funding places on Australian campuses one can ask for only $4,500 to $6,000. The Australian tertiary institutions have claimed that the squeeze on funds is affecting their capacity to educate Australians and to operate effectively. The figures certainly seem to confirm this. I think the Government has taken some courageous steps in the report it has brought down. We applaud particularly the possible provision of extra places at full cost. However, we think the Government has continued to duck the domestic issue, which is the resentment by resident Australians who feel they are being displaced. As I said, the only way to resolve that problem is to provide a guaranteed number of places to resident Australians and allow overseas students to come in as additional to that number. The Opposition some time ago set out its position on what we should do in relation to overseas students. We had no doubt that the position laid down by Sir Gordon Jackson offered the greatest hope for Australians. It is a matter of sadness to us that the Government has not chosen to take that course. However, I accept that it was in the end a matter of judgment. Our policy, working from the Jackson document, would have achieved maximum development aid for education purposes in our region and would have made that aid explicit. Our policy would have ended the displacement of resident Australian students from places in Australian tertiary institutions, and that is the major unresolved matter. Our policy would have provided, over time, for greater entry for foreign students in Australian tertiary institutions where those institutions were seen to be of merit. Our policy would have provided new opportunities for the Australian university education system to advance and to expand. I believe still that as a matter of judgment our approach was more correct. I hope the Minister's new policy will end what has been some quite nasty racism emerging on Australian campuses. I have no confidence that that will happen. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(9.28) - The Government has put down its statement on overseas student policy. Obviously it had a great deal of difficulty wrestling with two reports which while comprehensive in their coverage did have significant differences of outcomes. The Government has opted by and large for the policy approach of the Committee of Review of Private Overseas Student Policy. I think that probably most of the difficulties I have relate to the brevity of the statement that was made by the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan). It may be that at some later stage the Minister will be able to expand on a number of the points that I wish to raise. I shall raise those difficulties as I go through the Minister's statement. Firstly, the Government says that there will be an annual ceiling on overseas students in all categories. This is very confusing and not at all clear. Does the annual ceiling in all categories also apply to that group of overseas students who pay the full cost of their education? If it does, I think that further problems flow from that. In many ways this would seem to be an odd situation if the Government's other funding policies are not improved. These problems may have to be looked at. Senator Peter Baume —It actually says that those places will be above and beyond those places subsidised by the Australian Government. Senator MACKLIN —It says that those places will be subsidised by the Government. Senator Peter Baume —It is a question of which ones are subsidised. Senator MACKLIN —I presume that the subsidy places are those mentioned in points three and five of the Minister's statement. I am not sure whether 'all categories' mentioned in point one refers to points three and five or to points three, five and eight. The next point of the Minister's statement refers to the percentage of the total number that may be overseas students and states that up to 20 per cent may be enrolled in any course. The problem there is immediately obvious. Almost every course in every tertiary institution in Australia has a quota. Is this 20 per cent 20 per cent of the quota or 20 per cent within the quota which currently exists within the tertiary institutions? Senator Ryan —Twenty per cent of the numbers in the faculty. Senator MACKLIN —In other words, it is 20 per cent within the quota which is currently set within the tertiary institutions. That goes a long way to substantiating the point that Senator Baume made. It would still be seen as an exclusion because it takes 20 per cent of those places which could be available for Australian citizens. Senator Peter Baume —It does not end the central problem. Senator MACKLIN —It does not end the central political problem if that is what the 20 per cent refers to. The Minister, by way of interjection, suggests that that is what it is. If it were 20 per cent on top of the quota we may have removed the problem. I think the political problem still exists and is as stark as it was before this policy was put down. I do not think this policy has changed it one iota. That is extremely disappointing for exactly the same reason Senator Baume expressed and that is that the incipient racism we have found on campuses in Australia will simply continue because people will perceive that Australian citizens are being displaced for overseas citizens. That has never been the intention of any government in Australia. I think it is a pity that such perceptions will be allowed to remain because the Government's policy is drawn up in this fashion. That clarifies those points in a rather disappointing way. Point three of the Minister's statement raises further problems-problems that Senator Baume alluded to-one of which is the overall cost for Australian students compared with the $4,500 allocated in the last Budget for the 15,000 so-called new places which the Government had announced. The Minister, by the way of interjection when Senator Baume was speaking, maintained that that amount was not only the recurrent amount but also the slice-up of the capital amount. If one takes, for example, the rough figures on medical students I do not see how one can say on any accounting operation that the capital amount will be almost twice as much as the recurrent amount. It is not; it is never anywhere near that figure. Hence there is a fair disparity between what is said to be a full cost for an overseas student and what is said to be a full cost for an Australian student. I do not see how the two figures that the Government has put in different places gel. They cannot gel. We are talking about two different total costs for an identical product. It does not make any sense. Either we are shortchanging one group or-I think this is much more likely because I think the costs mentioned in the Minister's statement are close to the mark-we are diddling the institutions. I think that most institutions know that they are being shortchanged to a dramatic extent and this increase in charges to overseas students will merely reinforce that view conclusively-through the Government's own document. The Government now has no leg to stand on in view of the fact that new places in tertiary institutions were woefully underfunded in the last Budget. Point four of the Minister's statement refers to the establishment of an overseas student office as a one-stop shop. I think most people who have dealt with overseas students would welcome that move with open arms. The problem has always been to try to find out where overseas students have had to go to seek information. It is a welcomed advance to establish an overseas student office, particularly as a one-stop shop. I certainly hope that the Minister will be able to impress on some of her colleagues that that type of advance which she has suggested in her statement could well be applied in a number of other areas, particularly in the immigration area. However, I have a couple of problems with this matter. I am not quite sure, again because of the paucity of the statement, what precisely the Overseas Student Office is about to take over. I am not sure how in some areas it will necessarily be seen to be more efficient. It might be that at some later stage the Minister for Education will be able to spell out what services the Overseas Student Office will offer which are not already being provided, in particular with regard to the testing of overseas students. Will the Government be sending people overseas for the testing of students? This is currently done, of course, outside the government sphere. How many people will be sent and will they be flying backwards and forwards? Presumably, this exercise is also an exercise in trying to be financially viable. I am sure Senator Walsh has made some contribution to that proposition. At the moment I for one cannot see how the costs, having put them into the Government's hands, will be any less to government than they currently are. It may be that the Government has other views. It does say in the later paragraph that the new procedures for implementing these decisions are still being worked out. Hence it may be an unfair criticism that I am raising at this time. Point four, relating to the overseas students sponsored by the Australian Government, I think follows what has become an agreed basis within the Australian Parliament on what our obligations are. The Australian Democrats have been maintaining for a long time that we should be substantially increasing our overseas aid component for a whole range of reasons, not the least of which is that our relationships with other parts of the world, particularly the Pacific and South East Asian regions, depend very much on goodwill. Hopefully, in the future they will depend on goodwill more than on the operation of military treaties. With regard to that matter I raise a point which I think is often missed in the general public debate. Overseas students do not just take from Australia; they give in two very important ways. Firstly, they actually broaden the base of our tertiary institutions in terms of cultural input and understanding. We are a relatively homogeneous nation, cut off, with no land boundaries to any other country. It has been only by the influx of overseas students that many of our young people have come into close working contact with people who are not settling in Australia but who are here for a specific purpose and will return to their country. I think the contribution overseas students make to our campuses in that regard is very large and ought to be acknowledged. Secondly, of course, one can see now at all levels of government those overseas students who undertake, and have in the past undertaken, studies in Australia. When one goes overseas one almost invariably meets people who have studied in this country and who are in medium and senior positions within government. They speak with fond memories of their student days in this country and of the welcome given to them by the Australian people. To my mind, that is a far better way of expanding our international understanding. It is a far better way of maintaining peace in the world than is spending any amount of dollars on the military, in establishing hardware and in other types of operations. Education is done at a base level of person to person. The people from other countries who are educated in Australia and who are operating at various levels in overseas governments provide us with linkages and considerable advantages not only, of course, in international understanding but also in trade and co-operation in so many other ways. For example, the drawing up of treaties such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and bilateral trade arrangments, are enhanced extraordinarily by having people who understand the Australian ethos and our people. Point five follows the line that I have taken consistently, and that is that the Minister for Foreign Affairs has the overall control in that area. I think that that is one very important way of showing that those students are part of our aid to other countries and not part of the educational allocation. I turn to point eight. Here I think there are some difficulties. The first I raise is whether point one refers to point eight or whether these students, who are outside the quota of students to be subsidised by the Government, are part of the overall, absolute numbers which are suggested in point one. If they are not, I wish to raise this scenario: As our tertiary institutions increasingly become starved of funds, they will move to increase the intake of students who are paying 100 per cent for their courses. That may be no problem, but it depends very much on the ambiguity of a couple of sentences further on-- Senator Peter Baume —They need to be above the quota, don't they? Senator MACKLIN —Yes, they will be above the subsidised quota, but we do not know what that is really because of the brevity of the statement. But here is the problem. It says here: . . . institutions will be able to offer places at full cost in courses, separate from their normal degree and diploma courses, which are specifically designed for overseas students. Could an engineering course specifically designed for overseas students be introduced? Senator Ryan —It is more likely to be an intensive English course or something like that. Senator MACKLIN —Yes, but one could just as well establish a course especially for engineering. Perhaps I could give an example. Agricultural work is highly specific in certain countries-the Philippines, for example. Senator Peter Baume —How long would it take WAITE to design a course? Senator MACKLIN —This is what I am raising. Any go-ahead university or tertiary institution will be on to this like a flash if the wording is to remain as vague as 'specifically designed for overseas students'. It would be very simple to do that. For example, a course might be in a foreign language, yet it would still be an engineering course. In other words, it all depends on two things: Whether point one refers to point eight, and whether we accept the explanation provided by way of interjection by the Minister-and that is that we would probably be looking only at English speaking courses and courses of that kind. If that is the case the problem does not arise. There are no principles enunciated here and that is fair enough, but I would be very interested to hear from the Minister what the principal base is that would exclude tertiary institutions from offering full costed places to overseas students above the quotas that are currently provided. Senator Ryan —It is provided for in the statement. There will be a possibility for such courses to be introduced above and beyond the subsidised places. Senator MACKLIN —There will, but as I was just saying, we are not quite sure what these courses are because it is stated that they will be separate from normal degree and diploma courses. I cannot see why they have to be separate. Let us say that an institution has a good course that is relevant to a Pacific country. For example, a number of the new republics in the Pacific are certainly looking for administrators. If there are some people there who want to buy our educational services, why not allow them to do so at full cost? Senator Ryan —They certainly cannot afford it. We subsidise them completely. Senator MACKLIN —I know that. I am trying to draw apart the two groups of students. There are those to whom we have an obligation and whom we fund totally; we totally support that. But there are other people in almost every one of those underdeveloped countries who have plenty of money and who would be quite happy to come here and buy our educational services. Why not allow it? Senator Peter Baume —This is precisely the Jackson approach to recognise our obligations. Senator MACKLIN —Yes, and I cannot see any argument against it. Senator Peter Baume, by sliding into one of his sentences, was being provocative and I am not quite sure whether he will buy it from the Minister. But he did buy into the tertiary fees issue and suggested that he wanted to make a link on this. I do not see the principles involved in that as being in any way comparable. I am talking about funding by foreign citizens as distinct from the obligation that this country has in terms of the education of its own citizens, but I understand the point Senator Peter Baume raised. I welcome the statement, although it may not seem from the sorts of points I have made that I am all that happy with it. I believe this is a difficult area that the Government has had to deal with. If one looks at this document in detail, it has to be seen as a half-way house. It is only on the way to a policy. This grouping will not work. I do not expect the Minister thinks it will. It is probably a softening up blow for, as is outlined in point three, rapidly increasing overseas student charges, possibly to 100 per cent and, as is outlined in point five, drawing a sharp distinction between aid students and others. I hope the Minister will look at point two because, after hearing her interjection, I am now very worried that if 20 per cent of the courses are going to be allocated within the quotas which are currently established we will have exactly the same problem on campuses as we have had in the last few years. Senator Ryan —No, many faculties have more than 20 per cent at the moment. Senator MACKLIN —I know they do, but even if the 20 per cent is still within those quotas within tertiary institutions it will be perceived as taking places of Australian citizens. That is where the problem has been and that is where it will continue to be as a result of this policy. I see no reason why we need do it that way. It is provocative and it does not help. I think those very tenuous and difficult racial relations that we have seen in the last few years in Australia could boil over at any point. I hope that the Minister will reconsider point 2 and is able to move that 10 and 20 per cent outside the institutional quotas. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education)(9.47) —I will reply briefly to some of the points that were made to assist honourable senators in their understanding of the implications of the new policy. Senator Peter Baume and Senator Macklin raised matters concerning the overall cost of courses as they infer them to be from the level of the charge that will be charged overseas students. The $3,500 overseas student charge is 35 per cent of an average full cost of a course. Obviously we will have only two levels of charges-expensive and less expensive-and they have been derived from averaging the full cost of courses which can range from a few thousand dollars to $9,000 or $10,000. I think it would be unwise to extrapolate, from that averaging, to assumptions about the cost of every course in every institution in Australia. I make it quite clear that there will still be fully subsidised students coming from our region; that is, students from places such as Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific countries will continue to have all their costs met through the Australian Development Assistance Bureau. Senator Peter Baume —Is that the $24m ADAB component? Senator RYAN —Yes, that is right. Senator Peter Baume —That still leaves $70m. Senator RYAN —Yes, so there still will be fully paid places for students from poor countries in our region. That will not be affected by the new arrangements. The possibility of institutions offering courses specifically designed for overseas students is provided for in the new policy and those courses will operate at full cost recovery. Senator Macklin —They could be engineering courses. Senator RYAN —For example, at the Australian National University there is a special Master of Arts course in development economics for overseas students. Those courses will be able to operate at full cost recovery. We are trying to balance the demands of overseas students for our mainstream courses with the demands of Australian students. As we all agree, at this stage there is an excess of demand and an undersupply of places. It is in regard to that demand for the mainstream courses that we are continuing to subsidise places, but at a lower subsidy rate than previously. Senator Macklin —If it is a full cost recovery you can add them on to ordinary courses. Senator RYAN —That possibility also is provided for. There are two possibilities outside the subsidised places which are part of the new policy. One is the possibility for courses specifically designed for overseas students, which is referred to in the third last paragraph of the statement. They will operate on a full cost recovery basis. In that paragraph we also point out that we will set up a steering committee to recommend guidelines under which institutions may be permitted to offer places at full cost in normal degree courses. These places would be over and above the normal subsidised places. Whether mainstream courses offered at completely full cost would attract students is yet to be established. I do not want to take up a lot of the time of the Senate because the full reports are available for honourable senators to read; but had we gone the Jackson route and established full cost recovery those costs would have been very high. The cost of tertiary places in Australia is high; we have a high salary structure and many other benefits go to academics. We are not in the situation, given that all our institutions are virtually full, of having to build to provide any of the extra places that are necessary. It is not the situation that prevailed in the 1970s, when the number of overseas students built up while there were empty places in institutions and consequently only the recurrent costs had to be taken into account; we now have to take into account the capital costs. Given that the full cost would be very high in relative international terms, it is not at all clear that Australian places offered in that way would be competitive. In fact, in my judgment they would not be. However, we are not denying institutions the possibility of trying to offer on a totally self-funding basis places above and beyond the subsidised places. The guidelines are yet to be drawn up, and I make it clear that those guidelines will have as one of their strongest elements the requirement that any extra places be self-funding. When those guidelines are drawn up we will see whether institutions are able to offer on a full cost basis mainstream courses for overseas students. My prediction is that that is unlikely, but we have an open mind on the matter. The ceiling we have had to establish, given the competing demands of local and overseas students, applies to the subsidised places. If institutions are able, on a self-funding basis, to offer places outside of the subsidised places, we would not at this stage envisage putting a ceiling on those numbers. So, at this stage we can say that we are maintaining the position which has developed over the years with regard to overseas students. We do recognise that Australia is an important educational resource for our region and we recognise the benefits of offering subsidised places to overseas students. The report of Professor Goldring's Committee of Review of Private Overseas Student Policy sets out in very persuasive detail the benefits that accrue to the Australian community and the Australian economy from having overseas students here even if they are here on a subsidised basis. We do wish that mutual benefit to continue. But we have had to balance the increasing demands by overseas students for subsidised places with the demands by local students, the pressure which is on our institutions currently, and which is likely to be on them in the next few years, and the budgetary difficulties that the Government is facing. Taking all those things into account, the new policy is a fair one. No country will be in a worse position than it was in previously. By the way, I think all students will have a better experience in Australia because of other aspects of the policy which have not been touched upon in the debate this morning, such as the centralising of information for students, advice and counselling. An overseas students council will advise the Government on the needs of students and improved and better co-ordinated services will be available to students. I should point out, too, that students will have a much wider range of institutions in which to study than they have had up till now. Some of the problems that both Senator Peter Baume and Senator Macklin referred to, some of the examples of racism that we have most regrettably seen on our campuses, arose partly from the fact-I do not wish to excuse it in any way-that there have been very large concentrations of overseas students, much in excess of 20 per cent, in particular faculties of institutions. Because all institutions now will be invited to participate-it will be voluntary, but they will be invited to participate-in the overseas students program and because through our central office we will make available to overseas students information about all of our tertiary institutions, we believe that we will get a much more balanced distribution of students among institutions. For example, there are universities which overseas students at this stage know very little about which may very well offer courses that are much more appropriate to those students than the ones that they typically pursue. Similarly, our colleges of advanced education, which operate at a very high academic standard-in many cases at a standard equal to universities-have courses which may suit some overseas students better than university courses would suit them. We are all conscious of the problems that have arisen because of a very heavy concentration of overseas students in particular faculties and institutions. This will be addressed by the new policy because there will be limits on particular faculties and particular institutions, and also because the information will be available to students which will encourage them and I believe result in their entering a much wider range of institutions. In conclusion, I appreciate the constructive comments made by the Opposition spokesman, Senator Peter Baume, and the spokesman for the Australian Democrats, Senator Macklin. I think it is a subject that requires a bipartisan approach. I think we are all conscious of the importance of maintaining this program and the benefits it brings to our region and to our society. I hope that the constructive tone of the comments this morning indicates that there will be a general acceptance of the program and that it will operate in the future to an even greater mutual benefit. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(9.57) —in reply-The remarks made by the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) require comment on three points. Her explanations make it quite clear that Senator Macklin was correct, I think I made the same point: Australian institutions are under-funded, by the Government's own admission, in regard to the needs of their students. I say to the Minister with the best of goodwill that once this statement is issued she will have the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee and the directors of the colleges asking her the obvious kinds of questions-the questions that Senator Macklin asked-because there is a disparity. There is a dislocation between the figures she cited in the statement and the figures on which the grants to the universities and colleges are made. That is my first comment. The second comment is that the Minister said that one of the reasons why she found the Jackson approach difficult was that its costings were very high and it would have required very high payments. It is quite clear that the Government's costings are high. To say that 35 per cent of full fees is $3,500 a year is based on a high cost figure. In fact, the Minister has offered no real criticism of the Jackson approach. The only criticism was that she thought the figures were high. But she has adopted the same kinds of figures. Both Senator Macklin's remarks and mine made it clear that we believe that the Minister has missed solving the central question. That question is that the racism and distress on Australian campuses are related only to one thing. They are not related to costs; they are related to an apparent displacement of resident Australians. The Minister is correct. Some of it was exacerbated by high concentrations of students at the Kensington campus of the University of New South Wales in the faculties of computing and architecture. All right; I accept that. I also accept that Professor Goldring was correct when he said: 'Spread them around and they will be less noticeable'. But that does not solve the problem. All that is required to solve the problem is for the Minister to say that there will be a guaranteed number of places on Australian campuses for resident Australians and there will be extra places in accordance with whatever policy the Government wants to lay down in regard to overseas students. The policy should encompass all the different categories of circumstances of overseas students to which she has just referred. I do not object to that, but it has to be preceded by an announcement that there will be a guaranteed number of places for resident Australians and that those places will not be put in jeopardy, no matter what happens. I appeal to the Minister to go back and consider that point again, because I believe she could turn what Senator Macklin called a half-way house into a better product if only she would do that. It could have been done. It has not been done, and therefore the problems before the Government will not go away. It is our desire that they should go away. It is our desire that the Government should get back to some degree of amity and harmony on campuses, but that will not happen with the solution it has laid down. I hope the Government will evolve further its solution and will look at the need to resolve that central question. It is the failure to resolve that central question which makes the Goldring approach unsatisfactory from our point of view. Question resolved in the affirmative. Motion (by Senator Jack Evans) agreed to: That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act relating to the control of tax avoaidance schemes. Bill presented by Senator Jack Evans, and read a first time. Senator JACK EVANS(Western Australia)(10.12) —by leave-I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have my second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- Tax avoidance is a cancer that has eaten into Australian society and has created hardships, inequities, and personal bitterness in the minds of thousands of Australian taxpayers. While a selfish few have profited from ripping off their fellow Australians, the vast majority of honest taxpayers have had to shoulder the resulting increased burden. The tide, however, is turning. Tax avoidance is no longer socially acceptable, if it ever was, and the person on the street is clamouring for the tax cheats to be attacked. Consequently, the past several years have seen a concerted attack upon the tax avoidance industry that blossomed in the seventies. As evidenced by the annual reports of the Commissioner of Taxation, tax avoidance as an industry is dying. The Australian Democrats welcome this development. We are utterly opposed to tax avoidance and, like other Australians, we are heartened by the success of the various pieces of anti-avoidance legislation that have been introduced. Although tax avoidance as an industry is dying, tax avoidance of various kinds still flourishes. It is for this reason that the Parliament continues to introduce further legislative deterrents, remedies and penalties. Consequently, the environment for those engaging in tax avoidance is becoming distinctly hostile. This is welcomed. There is, however, one major drawback with this ever tightening net. The complex and often ambiguous nature of the various tax Acts creates problems for the honest but diligent businessman. Every taxpayer has the right to minimise his tax liability before the law. It is the right of every business to do so and it is a commercial necessity which cannot be denied. The problem arises in that an honest but diligent business often does not know the legality of a tax minimisation scheme until it is tested in the courts. There is a very thin line between tax avoidance and responsible business practice. Consequently, the taxpayer is faced with uncertainty as to the legality of his actions. This involves cost, both in terms of legal advice and possible court costs. It is time consuming and it wastes resources. In addition, it creates artificial industries which thrive off the uncertainty. It is for these reasons that I have supported every piece of anti-tax avoidance legislation which has been introduced into this chamber. For the same reasons, I introduced the only tax avoidance Bill to be passed in the last Parliament-the Bill to outlaw the 23F cherry pickers scheme. There are two conflicting principles involved when one endeavours to catch the tax avoider with retroactive legislation. This Bill seeks to reconcile the two principles which have clashed in the past: The need to prevent tax avoidance and the wish not to use retrospectivity in tax laws. The Tax Avoidance Schemes Bill seeks to fulfil two objects: (a) To declare the opinion of the Parliament concerning the extent to which legislation for preventing the operation of blatant tax avoidance schemes can be expressed to apply retrospectively; and (b) to provide a means whereby persons can guard themselves against entering into transactions that may later be affected by retrospective taxation legislation. Under this Bill the Treasurer may, upon application, declare that a proposed scheme will not be treated as a blatant tax avoidance scheme. A person concerned in, or affected by, the scheme will be entitled to treat the declaration as a firm assurance that no government of the Commonwealth will propose or support legislation that would retrospectively alter adversely to that person the tax law relating to that scheme. The Treasurer is required to formulate and publish the guidelines concerning the manner in which he proposes to exercise his powers. Where an application is made, the Treasurer shall, within 90 days, either make a declaration or refuse the application. If the application is refused, then the reasons for refusal must be stated. Before deciding an application, the Treasurer may consult with the Commissioner of Taxation. Upon declaration, notice of the declaration, including a description of the essential features of the scheme, will be published by the Treasurer in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. If a person does not enter into, or does not carry out, the scheme in exact conformity with the particulars identified in the declaration, then that person cannot rely upon the declaration to protect them. In addition, a declaration does not affect any liability in relation to a scheme under the law as in force when the scheme is entered or commenced. This includes liability under Part IVA of the Income Tax Act. This system of prior rulings, together with the prevention of retrospective action against those schemes declared not to be blatant tax avoidance schemes, will do much to solve the anti-tax avoidance-retrospectivity dichotomy and will replace the current uncertainty in this area with some degree of stability and predictability. The Australian Democrats are united in our attitude to destroying the tax avoidance industry and the prevention of any future tax avoidance schemes arising. The line must be drawn clearly to distinguish an acceptable tax minimisation scheme from a blatant tax avoidance scheme. This legislation provides the machinery to enable that line to be drawn and for the world to know precisely where the line is drawn and to have this knowledge before a scheme is implemented. This Bill may well mark the end of the ugly era of the Australian tax bludger. Debate (on motion by Senator Kilgariff) 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 Ryan) read a first time. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education)(10.03) —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- This Bill proposes a continuation of current assistance to the heavy commercial vehicle industry in Australia until 30 June 1985 or until the Government's decision on the Industries Assistance Commission report on long term assistance to this industry is announced. Assistance for heavy commercial vehicles parts and accessories was set following the Industries Assistance Commission report, No. 169 of 15 May 1978. On 1 July 1983 an IAC interim report on temporary assistance recommended that existing arrangements remain unchanged pending the Commission's report on long term assistance. This report on long term assistance was presented to the Government in March 1984. It is the Government's view that cessation of the existing bounty assistance on 31 December 1984, when it was originally due to terminate, before the Government's decision on long term assistance arrangements for this industry could be announced, will create uncertainty in the industry with regard to the costs of locally sourced components. The extension of the bounty is intended as a holding action. Cessation of the assistance may result in losses being incurred by the industry. It would also result in an unannounced and sudden reduction in the effective rate of assistance. Moreover, it is expected that the Government's decision on long term assistance arrangements for the industry will be announced within a few months and therefore it would be undesirable to terminate the assistance before that time. Financial Impact Statement It is estimated that the cost of bounty assistance between 1 January 1985 and 30 June 1985 will be approximately $2m, depending on the level of sales. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Kilgariff) adjourned. Motion (by Senator Ryan) agreed to: (1) That, unless otherwise ordered, after questions and presentation of papers this day, intervening business be postponed until after the consideration of General Business, Orders of the Day Nos 36-96 relating to Government Papers. (2) That paragraphs 2 (A) and 3 of the Sessional Order relating to the consideration of Government Papers apply. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Gareth Evans: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator COLLARD(Queensland)(10.05) —The purpose of the Honey Levy Legislation Amendment Bill is to amend the Honey Levy Act (No. 1) 1962, the Honey Levy Act (No. 2) 1962 and the Honey Levy Collection Act 1962. The Opposition supports this Bill which will rearrange the levies on domestic sales and exports of honey. The levy is on both the producers and the dealers. The funds go to the Australian Honey Board and for research programs in the honey industry. The changes will mean no substantial alteration to the revenue which will be collected. It is interesting to note the report of the Industries Assistance Commission on the honey industry which was handed down just recently. It states: . . . the industry is relatively economically efficient and well suited to the Australia's resources endowment and trading environment. One of the main things about this Bill is that it allows honey producers to pay their levies annually rather than monthly, as is now required. The dealers, who are the major people who pay the levy, will still by paying monthly. I think that anything that cuts down on paper work by government-consequently this cut-down passes on to the private sector-has to be commended. Unfortunately, a lot of the requirements in legislation become self-generative and so we have this problem. I am reminded of a story that I read many years ago, before the days of airconditioning and screening, of a clerk who had flypaper in his office. To fill in the time each week he submitted a report on how many flies there were on the flypaper. After a few months he got sick of it. It was not long before the blueys started to come in from headquarters. They asked why the weekly reports on the number of flies on the flypaper had not been submitted. It is good to see that, in this instance, we are cutting down on paper work. On that theme, I must say that this is not to be confused with the Honey (Export Inspection Charge) Bill which was subject to review by the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations. As all honourable senators will remember, the Committee found that the export inspection was not necessary. The countries which imported our honey did not require any certificate; so the Senate Committee recommended that export investigation, inspection and the resultant certificates be dispensed with and just random sampling be done so that there was a quality check for the sake of the industry. The Opposition supports the Bill. This Bill does help the industry, the industry is on side with it and it helps cut down the paper work. It does not mean any substantive change in the amount of moneys collected; the money still goes to the Honey Board and for research. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(10.08) —It is a pleasure to speak on an important Bill, such as the Honey Levy Legislation Amendment Bill, to a packed Press Gallery. The Bill may not be terribly important to many of the people who belong to this chamber, but to the 12,000 to 15,000 beekeepers of Australia it is important and it is important to the nation as a whole. It is important that we remember the part that is played by this industry. It is not generally fully appreciated how important this little industry is to Australia. The success and health of the industry at large are absolutely vital to the various industries which are concerned in a secondary way. I refer specifically to the fruit industries, the pasture industries and all the cropping industries. They all depend on bees and on the beekeepers operating effectively and profitably. However, to those industries that I mentioned honey is only a by-product. Honey is the direct result of pollination. Over recent years beekeepers have had to become more mechanised, use better equipment and achieve higher standards. They face greater international competition from countries where pollination is taken far more seriously than it is here. As I said a moment ago, as part of the pollination we wind up with honey, the honey winds up on the international market and, as a result, the Australian beekeepers, who are doing such a fine job in the pollination program, have had difficulties in competing internationally because they produce considerably more honey than is required in Australia. We still need a far greater effort in research and even a greater care over quarantine. I was somewhat bemused recently, when taking up the question of the import of leafcutter bees from New Zealand, to be told: 'Yes, bees will be coming in from New Zealand. We have brought some in because we believe that the risks of having them imported illegally are too great if we fail to do so'. That may be all well and good but I do not think that is a right reason for bringing bees in. If it could lead to any sort of disease problem in the Australian beekeeping industry there is no reason for bringing them in and there is every reason for keeping them out. I believe that in this case it is probably in order that there is probably no problem, but I do not like the reason for allowing the bees in. This Bill reduces some of the paper work for beekeepers and as such it is to be commended. Honey is basically an annual crop. An annual return to the producer is all that has been necessary and the monthly forms that they have had to fill in have always been pretty much of a nonsense because in most cases there have been nil returns for many months. However, if reducing the producers' amount of paper work can make them slightly more competitive, it is a very good thing. They have been battling, as I mentioned, with the international market. It is interesting to note in the recently produced Industries Assistance Commission report that the average retail price of honey from a base of 100 in 1976-77 had reached an index of 162 by December 1983. Over the same period the food component of the consumer price index rose from 100 to 197, so the general average of food costs increased by 30 per cent more than the cost of honey. Going further than that, it shows that the CPI over the same period rose to 298 as against the 162 index for honey. So the honey producers have very much been caught in the cost spiral. The general costing structure has created considerable difficulties for them in competing. I go even further than that. The report, on page 18, also shows that the index of 162 for honey compares with indexes such as 319 for apples, 300 for whole milk, 266 for dried vine fruits, 294 for barley, 171 for sugar, 226 for cattle and calves, 149 for wool and 321 for wheat. The beekeepers have survived by being efficient and by doing their job. They have contained their production. In most primary industries difficulties arise from increasing production. It is interesting to note that, although the quantity of honey produced is usually governed by seasonal conditions, in 1973-74 honey production was of the order of 21,000-odd tonnes and in 1982-83 it was 22,000-odd tonnes. There was virtually no change in the amount of honey produced. In the scale of industries, it is not very large. In fact, it represents about one-quarter of one per cent of the total primary production of Australia. It concerns me that it is being dealt with here in much the same way as are many other industries of a primary industry nature. There are some industries that we could lose due to various external factors at present. In fact, there are some that we may well lose. But we cannot afford to have this one being anything other than up to date and profitable. The beekeeping industry just has to be kept at a very high level. At present, by any standards it is highly marginal. The international trade in honey is high. All the major producers of the world have large export surpluses. Very often there is dumping on the international market, in many cases large quantities of honey of what one might call highly variable quality. I found the IAC report a little disappointing in that it adhered to its 10-year policy of not looking beyond the fundamental and basic economics of an industry. That pattern has been established. But 10 years up the track it is still producing much the same sorts of reports as when it started. Everything has changed nationally as to costs of production. Everything has changed internationally as to trade and international affairs. But the reports that the IAC puts down are still virtually in the same words as they were 10 years ago. To most Australians the industry is a by-product industry. Australian agriculture and horticulture cannot do without a strong and profitable beekeeping industry. In my area, and in fact on my own property, we depend very heavily on seed and pasture crops. We need the bees to ensure the best results. In fact, we need more and more and more bees and more and more beekeepers. But we cannot expect that to happen unless their ability to operate more profitably can be assured. The export levy question has been under very strong pressure over the last few months and it seems at the moment that it may have been resolved. There has also been the question of trying to establish a two level pricing system to ensure that the return for domestic honey is at a price better than the international price. There has been much discussion on the question of contract pollination. I believe it is necessary to have a much better control of contract pollination. At present there are estimates that the pollination work of bees is worth between $100m and $400m a year to the producers of crops in Australia. This is very largely provided free of cost to the owners and producers of the crops. An extension of this service in a proper, orderly manner can be expected in the years to come. I certainly recommend that the horticultural, agricultural and fruit industries generally should remember this and more adequately consider the position of the beekeepers on whom they depend so much. Anyone who is interested in those sorts of industries has to have a much greater consideration for the beekeepers. They have to be given more consideration. I think that the Government and the IAC should give greater consideration to the double role of beekeeping. Between them they should do everything they can to assist the industry and to cut down on unnecessary paper shuffling and such matters. In that regard, this Bill is a start. I welcome it as some recognition of the part this small but vital industry plays in the economy of Australia as a whole. Senator BOSWELL(Queensland)(10.20) —We are debating the Honey Levy Legislation Amendment Bill 1985. The Bill is supported by the industry and by the Opposition. It allows the producer, as Senator Collard has indicated, to lodge an annual return; it cuts down on the paper work. The total levy payable is only $302,000 a year. The levy supports the Australian Honey Board by 2.2c per kilogram, and 0.25c per kilogram is channelled into research. The honey industry is one of Australia's smallest primary industry exporters. The only one smaller would probably be the kangaroo industry. Yet they both play a significant role in employment in small rural towns. Particularly on the coast, every rural town has its beekeepers. They, in turn, use the facilities of the schools and garages and they crank up and play a significant role in country towns. For that reason, the industry needs all the support it can get. The honey industry is a $12m earner in export commodities. It supports 15,000 beekeepers, and a number of other people enjoy beekeeping as a hobby. Honey producers are facing significant problems which are peculiar not only to the honey industry but also to every rural industry. In the last four years, costs in the farm area have risen by 39 per cent. Of course, the honey industry, like every primary industry, is hard pressed to pass on those costs. The honey industry exports 60 per cent of its production. It has to accept world prices. If the industry were not able-I suppose that 'dump' is the right word-to dump the excess produced beyond domestic requirements, the price would be forced down and this would cause a glut on the Australian market. The honey industry has unique problems which are adding on-costs to it. Honey producers are being forced to travel further and further afield to locate their hives because of land clearance and the suburbanisation of towns and cities. Heavy use of pesticides, which are being used more and more on farms, is also playing havoc with the industry. Producers are concerned about diminishing returns. For that reason, they approached the Government about a review of their industry. Unfortunately, the Industries Assistance Commission was not prepared to offer any help. The cost of production for a kilo of honey is about a dollar, but many beekeepers are receiving only 70c per kilo. There can be only one result: The industry will contract. The Minister for Primary Industry, Mr Kerin, said yesterday that the Honey Board would be reviewed. It is absolutely essential that the review provides the opportunity for all parts of the industry to be consulted. The packers, keepers and exporters all wish to contribute to the review of the Board. The honey industry is disappointed with the Labor Government's cancellation of its export inspections. It is essential that anything that represents this primary industry and goes out under an Australian label be of absolutely first quality. The Government wanted to place a $24 per tonne inspection levy on the industry, which it could ill afford because, as I have indicated, the cost of production is more than what is being received. The Government then absolutely wiped the industry, saying: 'If you cannot pay, you do not get inspections'. That is no way to increase our export earnings. The Government should be giving every possible encouragement to the primary industries to export first grade products. I take this opportunity to tell the Senate about not only the cost squeezes that primary producers, including honey producers, are going through now but also, in very forceful terms, about the fact that there is another area that Senator Button and the Cabinet will have to look at very closely. I refer to the farm Bill which is before the United States Congress at present. That Bill will lower the floor price of many commodities, which will then force the lowered floor price down to the world market price, and that will then establish a world price market. Australia will be caught in one of the greatest price wars ever between the European Economic Community and the American primary producers. Senator Jones —How will that affect wheat? Senator BOSWELL —It will very seriously affect wheat, and I am pleased that Senator Jones is expressing concern about it. Grain is one of the areas that it will affect most of all because American producers are probably the most efficient producers of grain. Once that floor price is lowered, that then becomes the world price, and that is the price at which Australian producers will have to sell. The Americans have had enough of the EEC's dumping products on world markets and enough of standing back and controlling their own production. They will be attacking the world market. They are going out now to attack the grain market and every other market. Under the Bill before the Congress, they will be offering extended terms to anyone who is prepared to buy their primary products. They will accept soft currency, and they will subsidise producers so that they can attack the market. It will concern the Australian Cabinet and Senator Button over the next three years. Senator Button —For the next 10 years, probably. Senator BOSWELL —Ten years. Certainly it will give the Cabinet and rural producers a lot of headaches over the next couple of years before it sorts itself out. I thought that I would take this opportunity to tell the Senate about this farm Bill, of which we shall hear much more in the near future. Senator Lewis —Give him a serve, Ron. Senator BOSWELL —I find it very hard to give Senator Button a serve on the honey Bill. We support the Bill. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(10.28) —I do not intend to give Senator Button a serve on this Honey Levy Legislation Amendment Bill, either. Senator Button —You are a gentleman. Senator MACKLIN —Yes. This Bill is a measure merely to reduce the amount of administration in the collection of the honey levy, which has been imposed on honey production in Australia since 1962. The major output of the levy is through the Australian Honey Board and the honey research activities. I suppose that I must express a general disappointment. I read the research report each year, and my disappointment lies in the fact that this industry, along with a number of others, has failed to develop alternative products over the years through applied research. The diversification of products is vital for the maintenance of at least the stability of most of our primary industries. There is a range of alternative products for honey, but I intend to speak only briefly so I had better not go down that track. The major point I raise with regard to the Bill is the recent report of the Industries Assistance Commission. It was an important report with regard to the honey industry in Australia and it canvassed a range of issues that have been of concern to honey producers. At the outset I point out that, although the honey industry in Australia has had significant problems in the last few years, the number of people in the industry and the quantity of the product have increased in each of the last eight years. I think that is significant because, while it is battling with its problems, it is still seen as an industry into which people can go and, as Senator Boswell suggested, it is a diversified and decentralised industry and a very important industry to a number of small towns around Australia. Incidentally, it has also been the basis of some considerable support for a variety of groups which might come under the title 'alternative lifestyle' and which have now assumed a place of some quite considerable importance in domestic production, certainly in my State. The Australian Democrats fully support the recommendations of the Industries Assistance Commission that there should be an increase in the level of research. Of course, this Bill will assist that. I was not quite sure that Senator Boswell was directly on the mark in terms of the IAC report when he said that it was not looking at any support for the industry. It held out the notion that extension funding to the beekeeping industry should be significantly increased. I think that is an important factor when one looks at the whole report. The IAC certainly did not go down the line that the industry wanted but it suggested some alternative methods. Senator Archer has already raised contract pollination, and certainly the IAC report raised that in a significant way. It would be hoped that the industry could improve its economic viability by considerably increasing its contract pollination services. If one looks at the industry in other countries one sees a much higher level of operation in that area. I think we would have the capacity to follow down that line. Another point in the IAC report to which I wish to allude is the fluctuation in prices which is significant, given the low base from which the industry is starting. The Australian Democrats would certainly look at giving support to any government proposition regarding underwriting schemes. Generally, we would be hesitant to support propositions which would increase the price to the consumer, but I believe that the underwriting schemes-certainly those canvassed in the IAC report-would assist producers in equalising the sometimes quite severe fluctuations in honey prices. That is to the good of an industry; it has been achieved in our major rural industries through orderly marketing procedures. It would be worth while looking at the ability to do that in this industry. The Australian Democrats recognise that the Government needs to take measures to introduce that stability to the industry. We hope that the second reading speech of the Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Gareth Evans) in which indications were given to that effect will bear fruit-if one can use that phrase-fairly shortly. Senator Button —It will flower. Senator MACKLIN —Possibly 'flower' would be a better word to use. We agree with the IAC that we should not be looking at increased levels of assistance to the industry which would make Australia less competitive on the international market. We do not believe that should occur in this instance because, when one makes a close analysis of the IAC report, one sees fairly readily that that would ultimately, probably in a relatively short time frame, operate quite severely against the interests of the people engaged in the industry. We have an obligation to try to maintain these people. We would of course like it to expand, but our primary obligation in any industry is to the people engaged in it. Going down the road of increased levels of assistance which put our product markedly at variance with international costs would in the long run be detrimental. I make one further point that arose in Senator Boswell's speech about the export inspection charges on honey. I do not want to go into the rather long and fascinating story about the export charges on honey. It is one of the interesting stories about the effectiveness of the Senate with regard to legislation. If Senator Boswell wants to know about it, I think he should discuss the matter with his front bench, with Senator Peter Rae who was the Chairman at the time of the Finance and Government Operations Committee which produced a very interesting report on that topic and which ultimately led the Fraser Government to drop the legislation it was proposing. I agree with Senator Boswell that we should make sure that our quality of export production is always of the highest and that the export inspection charges, not only in this area but also in others, go a long way towards that. However, in this area there are some other fascinating factors regarding the use of export inspection certificates that would give anyone pause in suggesting a wholesale reintroduction in that area. But the type of inspection that is being carried out is, I believe, adequate. Senator Boswell —There is no inspection. Senator MACKLIN —That is not quite true, Senator Boswell. There is an inspection available and the level of what is going on at the moment is, I gather from my talks with the industry, sufficient. I agree that the industry is not totally pleased, but the alternatives proposed by the Fraser Government did not make them terribly happy either. It is probably an area that can sustain some further investigation-I would go so far as to say that-but at the moment I certainly would not be willing to support a wholesale reintroduction of those export inspection charges at the level proposed by the last Fraser Government. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce)(10.37) —Honourable senators have told us quite a bit about this industry in a very thoughtful way. I take it that they have done so because there is really nothing in the Bill which would form the topic of any lengthy speech. In fact, this is in a sense a machinery Bill which is designed basically to improve the efficiency of the collection of the levy by taking the burden from producers, particularly from small producers, and also by reducing the administrative requirements of the Department of Primary Industry. There are savings in both respects-to producers and to the Government Department. It is a more efficient and very sensible piece of legislation. I note that the Bill is supported by all honourable senators for the reason that it is almost unopposable in terms of common sense. I commend its passage to the Senate. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Aulich: That the following Address-in-Reply be agreed to: To His Excellency the Governor-General May it please Your Excellency- We, the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign, and to thank Your Excellency for the Speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament. upon which Senator Chaney had moved by way of amendment: That the following words be added to the Address-in-Reply ', but the Senate is of the opinion that the Government's program outlined in the Governor-General's Speech fails to address critical problems facing Australia in that- (a) it fails to reassure the Australian people that the country's defence arrangements within the Western alliance will be preserved and strengthened following: (i) the Prime Minister's capitulation to internal party pressures on the issue of Australia providing logistical assistance to the United States for its testing of the MX missile, and (ii) increasing uncertainty as to the future of the ANZUS Treaty fuelled by members of the Labor Government, including a Cabinet Minister; (b) it contains no coherent economic strategy at a time when recovery is threatened by: (i) record government taxation and spending, (ii) continuing pressure within the Government for new taxes on assets, (iii) growing demands for higher wages and other extra cost burdens on industry, (iv) the level of public debt repayments, and (v) loss of value of the currency reflecting world concern about Australia's competitiveness and government instability; and (c) it endorses a rigid, centralised wage determining structure which imposes the same cost burdens on commerce and industry regardless of ability to pay'. Senator JONES(Queensland)(10.40) —Prior to making my main remarks on the Address-in-Reply, I take this opportunity to congratulate the new senators elected to this place. I also congratulate those new senators who have made their maiden speeches. Everyone would agree that congratulation is in order because when one listens to the speeches of the new senators, whether one agrees totally with their content, one would have to say that the new senators will certainly lift the standard of debate in the chamber. Today I pass some remarks about the industrial problem that has existed in Queensland for some time. I pass these remarks because I believe that the industrial problem in Queensland is affecting not only the workers of Queensland and the parliamentary system because of the undemocratic nature of the legislation that has been passed in the State Parliament, but also the economy in Queensland generally. It is having an adverse effect on small business and other business throughout the State. For many weeks now Queensland has been embroiled in a destructive, divisive power dispute that at last count had cost the economy of Queensland $100,000m and had affected the jobs of 1,002 electrical workers previously employed by the South East Queensland Electricity Board. The figure of $100,000m is only an estimate. Some estimates have gone as high as $200,000m a week for the term of the disputation. I hope in the course of this speech to prove that the situation has been provoked and extended by the actions of one man, the Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. He has provoked the situation for his selfish political ends. The interests of business people, particularly small business people, some of whom I believe voted for the National Party of Australia at the last election, were jettisoned to help serve his two main ambitions: The destruction of the organised trade union movement and the destruction of the State Industrial Court and the State Industrial Commission. I hope to demonstrate that the Queensland Premier clearly violated conventions of the International Labour Organisation which have been signed by Australia. The ILO conventions, ratified by Australia, have first to be seen not to cut across laws of all States. Whatever Sir Joh may wish to think to the contrary, this includes Queensland. Initially, the linesmen withdrew their labour in protest at the gradual infiltration of their jobs by contractors. They held, with some justification, a fear that in the long term their jobs were at risk. Before industrial action was taken, officials of the Electrical Trades Unions of Australia exhausted every avenue of negotiation and conciliation with the State Electricity Commission and the South East Queensland Electricity Board. It was all to no avail. No concessions were made to them. No long term guarantees of job security for union members in the power industry were given either by the employers or by the Government. It was clear to the officials from the outset that the hands of the employers had been tied by the State Government. I emphasise that only as a very last resort did the men vote overwhelmingly to strike. The Premier then reacted in two ways. Through an order of the Governor-in-Council a state of emergency was proclaimed. Some of the people in this House at the moment would remember the last time he declared a state of emergency. That was during the anti-apartheid demonstrations in Brisbane. Senator Collard —He won that one too. Senator JONES —Yes, with the police. Effectively tying the hands of the Industrial Commission, the Premier sacked the SEQEB employees. It is as well to note Senator Collard's interjection that the Premier won that battle. It is also interesting to note that it was a former union member who made that interjection. He now supports the Government's fight against the trade unions in Queensland. The Government also regulated under a provision of its Transport Act, through which the state of emergency was brought in, that anyone wishing his job back would first have to sign a contract which not only eroded many hard-won working conditions, but also included a no strike clause. The Premier advertised widely for contractors to do the work of the sacked linesmen. The linesmen were then supported industrially by other unions, notably the Municipal Officers Association which, quite rightly, reduced electricity generation flow from Queensland power stations. The Industrial Commission tried its best and twice during the protracted negotiations, as conference after conference was held, recommended to the Government that it reinstate the sacked workers. It would only recommend and not order the course of action to be taken because of the provisions of the state of emergency declaration. Under the state of emergency declaration, the rights of the Industrial Commission were taken away. There was no opportunity for it to make a recommendation. All it could do was recommend that that action be taken. Needless to say, the recommendation of the commissioners appointed by Sir Joh's Government fell on deaf ears. Regardless of the damage to the economy of his State, damage that will take many years to repair, and regardless of the suffering of his former employees in the electricity industry and their families, he stubbornly stuck to his guns and dug in his heels. The resource industries, the pride and joy of the propaganda machine conducted by the Premier of Queensland when the bottom started to drop out of the boom, were badly hit. Coal exports to Japan ground to a halt, putting further strain on the long term future of that industry. Many small traders were forced to close. Many small traders suffer economic constraints because of problems caused by the strike which was being continued by the Premier of Queensland and his declaration of a state of emergency. Under the terms of the electricity rationing order which had been proclaimed, manufacturing industries were shut down and thousands of workers were laid off. Householders suffered from ever-increasing numbers of blackouts. Electricity was supplied to houses on the basis of one hour on and one hour off. Householders were severely restricted in that they could use only two lights, two hotplates, an iron, a fridge, a television set and a radio. Nothing else, including washing machines and air conditioners, was allowed to be used, in an effort to conserve electricity. Eventually the power stations operators restored full supply. The wheels of industry and commerce began to roll again and domestic misery was ended. But it was not over for the 1,002 SEQEB workers who, although they had offered to return to work to allow further negotiations on their original job dispute thus putting an end to the needless and indeed mindless destruction of the economy by Sir Joh and his lackeys within the Cabinet, were sacked under his orders and were ordered to stay sacked. The Premier had spoken. At this stage it is worth while noting or recalling the exact terms of the recommendation made by State Industrial Commissioner Lionel Ledlie during the height of the strike. It was made on Monday 18 February, after the dispute had dragged on for 12 days. The Commissioner said: As to the Queensland Electricity Commission and its employees-that there be an unconditional return to work and a restoration of normal supply by QEC staff in power stations and depots. As to SEQEB and its employees-that the dismissal notices that have been issued to employees by SEQEB be withdrawn and that the employees concerned be reinstated in their pre-existing classifications without loss of benefit. Mr Ledlie went on: That such employees in resuming lift all bans in relation to the use of contractors and be available to resume normal work as soon as possible. That subject to an early resumption of work, intended deregistration proceedings be not further proceeded with. Lionel Ledlie, a commissioner in the Industrial Commission in Queensland, made that recommendation-as I have said, he could not make an order because of the state of emergency-in order to establish the ground to resolve the dispute not only for the SEQEB but also for the employees, the people involved in the dispute, the people throughout Queensland and the small businesses and other businesses that were suffering some economic problems because of the industrial dispute. The Premier had been constantly threatening the deregistration of the Electrical Trades Union, and he is still hell-bent on that course of action. Commissioner Ledlie continued: That S.E.Q.E.B. refrain from the engagement of any further replacement staff. That all parties genuinely accept the position of the 370 S.E.Q.E.B. employees who did not participate in the strike is in no way to be jeopardised. That all parties accept that the position of the new employees, believed to be 100 to 120 in number, engaged by S.E.Q.E.B. since February 13 1985 be in no way jeopardised. That the E.T.U. reaffirm its commitment to the conciliation and arbitration system in operation in Queensland and supports dispute resolution within that tribunal. He further stated: Implicit in these proposals is the expectation that upon resumption of normal work in powerhouses all suspensions that have been made, and all bans and limitations that have been made, and all bans and limitations that have been applied in other areas of government and semi-governmental employment will be readily addressed with a view to an early resumption of normal activities. That was a reasonable way in which the dispute could have been settled. However, I again repeat the point that I have made. Because of the state of emergency Mr Lionel Ledlie could only recommend, and not order, that those things take place. These were wise words from Commissioner Ledlie. They were words of compromise; they were words that were readily agreed to not only by the Electrical Trades Union but also by the power authorities. However, they were not agreed to by the Premier or the Government of the State. As I have said, the Commissioner was powerless to put his words in the terms of a court order because of the existence of a state of emergency. There had to be simply a recommendation, and as such Sir Joh ignored it and the strike dragged on for days with thousands of dollars flying out the window, thus affecting the economy of Queensland. The state of emergency was lifted on Thursday, 4 March, by the Governor-in-Council but not before further legislation was rushed through the Parliament two days earlier. This was the notorious Electricity (Continuity of Supply) Bill and it has had the effect of turning back the Queensland industrial relations clock to the Victorian era. As I mentioned at the start of my speech, I believe that Sir Joh, in framing this appalling document, was clearly in breach of the spirit and letter of the international labour conventions signed by Australia. Included in the Electricity (Continuity of Supply) Bill are the following clauses which I quote because I believe that they should be listed for the record: 3. Authority of Electricity Commissioner. The Electricity Commissioner is authorized- (a) to take whatever steps he considers are necessary to have work performed to provide, to maintain or to restore a supply of electricity; (b) to direct any person whatever who, in his opinion, is capable of carrying out the necessary work to provide, to maintain or to restore a supply of electricity. 4. Consequence of failure to comply with direction. Any employee of the Queensland Electricity Commission or of any Electricity Board who fails to comply forthwith with a direction of the Electricity Commissioner given to him or her pursuant to section 3 is liable- (a) to summary dismissal, notwithstanding the provisions of any Award; and (b) to a penalty not exceeding $1000. This type of legislation hits at the real basis of our democratic procedure. It hits at the basis of the fact that we believe-and people within the Federal Parliament and other State parliaments throughout the Commonwealth of Australia believe-that the trade union movement and the negotiations between the trade union movement, employers and government are part of the democratic process. But the government in Queensland, because of the legislation put forward, shows very clearly that it does not believe that the trade union movement should be part of that democratic process in which we so dearly believe. The legislation outlines the terms of contracts which must be signed by any electrician who works for the South East Queensland Electricity Board. Referring to the State electrical engineering award under which the linesmen are covered in the Industrial Commission, the legislation states: (i) Any reference in the award to hours of duty being 36 1/4 per week or 7 1/4 per day shall be deemed to read- it makes no reference to the Industrial Commission or to the legislation which has changed the weekly and daily hours of those people who will be employed- 38 hours and 7 3/5 hours respectively and any provision in the award based on 36 1/4 hours per week or 7 1/4 hours per day shall be varied accordingly; . . . . . . . . . (b) A provision that such employee shall not take part in any strike- in other words, it is a provision to take away the right to strike- within the meaning of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1961-63. The Bill goes on to remove the powers of the State Industrial Commission to reinstate such power workers and to stipulate that if fines are not paid by the employees on whom they have been imposed by the legislation they can be sent bankrupt under the legislation. The Electricity (Continuity of Supply) Bill contains only four small pages but it is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever placed before any parliament in the Commonwealth of Australia. It takes away the democratic right of allowing conciliation, arbitration, debate and discussion between employers and trade unions generally. The legislation would have done credit to Hitler or for that matter, Stalin. It is quite clear which way the Bjelke-Petersen Government is travelling; It is travelling headlong down the rocky road to fascism and it has almost reached that destination. No credit can be given to those who supported the Bill. No credit can be given to the Liberal Party of Australia, no credit can be given to the National Party of Australia or to the two independents. Only members of the Australian Labor Party in the State Parliament opposed the legislation. Clearly it is the Queensland Premier's avowed intention to use every means in his power to smash the organised trade union movement in his State. This is merely the start and I expect to see him attempt to pick off other trade unions one by one. If one reads the Press of the last few days, it is quite easy to see that he has already started that attempt. One only has to look at what he has said about the teachers union-he talks about teachers under contract and discusses the possibility of setting up a scab union. I turn my attention to the number of International Labour Organisation conventions which, in my view, have been contravened by the Electricity (Continuity of Supply) Bill. I refer to convention 29 on forced labour, which was ratified by Australia back in 1932. Article 1 states: Each member of the International Labour Organisation which ratifies this convention undertakes to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period. It is quite obvious that clause 3 (b) of the Bjelke-Petersen Bill, the one dealing with the authority of the Electricity Commissioner which I quoted earlier, is a clear violation of this. It talks about forced labour and about the Commissioner having the power to direct labour within the commission itself. Because of the shortness of time I will not quote again clause 3 of the Bill, but I will say that under the spirit of Sir Joh's legislation, one could envisage people closing their businesses down. If one looks at the Bill, one sees that it is open-ended. There is no provision in the Bill to attack people in business who will not take Sir Joh's direction. But there certainly is a provision in the Bill to fine trade unionists who fail to take a direction of forced labour by the Commissioner of the Electricity Commission. Surely this is nothing less than forced labour and, as such, a total contravention of the ILO convention which was signed by Australia back in 1932, with the support of Queensland at that time. Articles 2 to 5 of the same convention are all short and to the point. I quote them in full: Workers and employers, without distinction whatsoever, shall have the right to establish, and subject only to the rules of the organisation concerned, to join organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation. Workers and employers organisations shall have the right to draw up their constitutions and rules, to elect their representatives in full freedom, to organise their administration and activities and to formulate their programmes. The public authorities shall refrain from any interference which would restrict this right or impede the lawful exercise thereof. Workers and employers organisations shall not be liable to be dissolved or suspended by administrative authority. Workers and employers organisations shall have the right to establish and join federations and confederations and any such organisation, federation or confederation shall have the right to affiliate with international organisations of workers and employers. Convention 98, which was ratified by Australia as late as 1973 after Sir Joh had been Premier of Queensland for some five years, seems to be particularly relevant to the present position. Article 1 says: Workers shall enjoy adequate protection against acts of anti-union discrimination in respect of their employment. Such protection shall apply particularly in respect of acts calculated to make the employment of a worker subject to the condition that he shall not join a union or shall relinquish trade union membership or cause the dismissal of or otherwise prejudice a worker by reason of union membership or because of participation in union activities outside working hours or, with the consent of the employer, within working hours. This basically seeks to restate the position adopted by the ILO in the 1930s. Article 8 states: This convention shall be binding only upon those members of the International Labour Organisation whose ratifications have been registered with the Director-General. Australia ratified the 1973 convention and, as a State of Australia, Queensland is also a party to that ratification. I ask honourable senators on all sides of the chamber to agree that in view of this, the Queensland Government is in total contravention of basic international agreements signed by Australia. Some of the articles that I have quoted are at the fringe of the Queensland crisis, caused entirely by the grim determination of one man, the Premier, Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, to crush the trade union movement and have his will with industrial law in the State. He believes that it is his will that should be carried and his alone. He does not believe that any notice should be taken of or any liberty be given to a convention of the ILO signed by Australia and agreed to by the State of Queensland. Senator Cook —He is a dictator. Senator JONES —Quite clearly, he is a dictator. If one reads some of the comments made in the State Parliament yesterday one can believe that it is quite true that he is a dictator. Other articles, particularly those applying to the freedom of unions and their members to make their own rules and decisions, go straight to the heart of the matter. The blatant breaches of democracy and civil liberties by the Queensland Government surely cannot be ignored. Those great guardians of democratic rights and civil liberties, the Australian Democrats, should have a look at the legislation that has been placed before the Queensland State Parliament. They should have a very serious look at it and see what that legislation does to the ratification of those ILO agreements that were signed by Australia. I raised this matter in this place at this time because I believe it is not simply a problem for Queenslanders. I believe it is a problem which should exercise the minds of every Australian and the minds of members of the Senate, as well as members of the House of Representatives. I make this appeal on behalf of the trade union movement and the people of Queensland who have had their rights taken away by the legislation brought forward by the Queensland Premier. I appeal to members on all sides of the House to recognise the blatant erosion of democracy that has occurred and that is still occurring in Queensland. If one looks at the matter further and considers the electoral gerrymander, one must say that Queensland people have very few rights. They do not even have the opportunity to elect a government of their choice because of the electoral gerrymander promulgated by the Premier of Queensland. The sacked State Government electricity workers and their families have suffered much. They are still unemployed, still sacked and still trying to get their jobs back. While the number of 1,002 has been reduced, those who are going back to work are going back to forced labour conditions. Only when this tyrant is ousted from office will there be a turnaround in industrial relations and civil liberties in the State of Queensland. At this stage it is worth while to mention just a few of the points raised by the union in relation to a statutory declaration that had to be signed by the members who were seeking re-employment. Some of the conditions outlined in that declaration were: The signing of a no strike clause; a 38-hour week, 10-day fortnight, increasing their working hours; no bans or limitations; no demarcation; no union membership (preferred); rostered shift work, listing the rosters, which means an increase on the hours worked previously by those working in the Electricity Commission; a provision requiring that employees must be able to start or finish in the depot in the Board area, which reduces their conditions; a provision that they must be prepared to live away from home, again reducing their conditions; industrial payments deleted, again reducing their conditions; a provision that employees be treated as new employees with no experience payments, no sick leave entitlements, no annual leave, and no superannuation. The Board was prepared to re-employ 50 men under those conditions. However, no jobs would be filled until power station operators signed a no strike agreement. Unless they signed it they would not be employed. And so it goes on. The men could fill in the application for employment by the Board and wait until the Board decided that they were required. Any local conditions previously agreed to ceased to exist. There would be no six or eight hour break following call outs, thus doing away with safety conditions. This would absolutely destroy the industrial conditions won over a period, given to the workers by the Industrial Court and Industrial Commission in Queensland and agreed to by the employers. By one stroke of the pen, by the introduction of this legislation in the State Parliament, the Premier of Queensland has completely removed the conditions that applied to the employees of the State Industrial Commission. Senator MASON(New South Wales)(11.10) —Mr Acting Deputy President, in Wellington last week I was able to talk with the New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr David Lange, and the Defence Minister, Mr Frank O'Flynn, concerning aspects of New Zealand's nuclear ship bans and the possibility of closer defence co-operation between Australia and New Zealand. I would like in this Address-in-Reply debate to raise some points arising from that discussion. Before I take up that theme in any detail I want to deal with two other minor matters. The first concerns Senator Sibraa who, according to our speakers list, will speak in this debate a little later today or perhaps on Monday. However, in the Senate on 26 February he expanded on his threat to the New South Wales Australian Democrats in regard to Australian Labor Party preferences in the forthcoming Senate elections. This threat was made by Senator Sibraa, with all respect to him, rather arrogantly at the declaration of the poll in New South Wales. I understand from his remarks on 26 February that he intends to raise the matter yet again, a third time, when he speaks in the Address-in-Reply debate. I thought I would anticipate his remarks to an extent and remind him that his statement that the ALP may at some time find it reasonable to direct preferences to the Nuclear Disarmament Party, or against the Democrats, is not as simple as it may appear at first sight. On 26 February Senator Sibraa said in his speech: The NDP may by then- he meant at the time of the next election- be an established political party with an identifiable party platform and the Labor Party could well direct its preferences to the NDP . . . Let me say initially that in recent New South Wales Senate elections the ALP has been quite scrupulous in directing its preferences to parties it perceives as having ideologies close to its own. I refer to the fact that in the last two elections the ALP has directed its effective preferences to the Liberal Party, presumably in support of its fellow conservatives. To suggest that his party may endorse another with which it shares no policy items, and indeed is a proscribed organisation formed by those who disagree with ALP policy, seems to me at best entertaining. I point out what options would exist if another hypothetical situation arose-if the Australian Democrats took the attitude towards preferences that Senator Sibraa is taking. On a very conservative estimate the New South Wales seats of Hunter, Lowe, Macquarie, Barton and Eden-Monaro would change hands if the Democrats chose to direct preferences to that end. This is based on a conservative one-third shift of Democrat second preferences and a one per cent swing to the coalition. It also assumes the worst case-that the Democrats do not increase their vote share. I might add that most of the seats I have mentioned have strong Democrats organisations and it would not be difficult to organise strong organisations in the others. Senator Peter Rae —On that basis you are claiming credit for having the present Government. It is one that I would avoid if I were you. Senator MASON —It is a fact that it governs by our leave. I do not know whether anyone has thought of that; I am sure Senator Sibraa has not. I say to Senator Rae that it is not because of any action we have taken that Labor governs; as he would know, the Democrats have always taken the scrupulous action in the past of sharing their preferences equally between the two parties so that there is no particular effect. Because of that I do not think the honourable senator can say that we take the total responsibility for a Labor government being elected. The Democrats have very heavy responsibilities but I do not think we can go that far. I am saying to Senator Rae, but mainly to Senator Sibraa, who I hope will become aware of these comments, that, if we chose to direct our preferences to that end, following the next election-which I anticipate will be a fairly close thing; if the Government thinks it will not be close it is fooling itself-Senator Sibraa would probably be debating the proposition from the opposition benches. Given that Senate preference allocations are lodged long before nominal printing deadlines for lower House how-to-vote cards, I would warn Government senators to tread warily in this regard. It is charitable and reasonable to tell them that discussions on this matter have already been held by the executive of the Democrats in New South Wales and we will make our preparations according to the warning that Senator Sibraa has given us but I do not in any sense state what action we will take. I do not intend to signal our punches in any detail but it should be abundantly clear that, with a close election next time, the Hawke Government will govern then, as it governs now, by our leave. That might lead Senator Sibraa to take a more reasonable view on this matter, different from the arrogant one he has already put forward twice-once at the declaration of the poll and again in this place. The Democrats are peaceable people. We do not like to pick fights, as all honourable senators know, but we are certainly in a position to defend ourselves if others pick fights with us. I do not want to expand much more on the consequences of Senator Sibraa's continued kite flying except to remind him that another politician, Benjamin Franklin, found that flying a kite resulted in a quick and salutary response from a bolt of lightning. The second minor point I want to raise is the Opposition's circulated amendment to the motion that the Address-in-Reply be agreed to. The Australian Democrats will not support the amendment. I say to the Opposition that blunderbuss motions of this type, which evidently try to express the Liberal-National Party views on almost all the problems of the world, are totally unrealistic if they are put up in this place with any real hope of achieving success. We could live with some elements of the Opposition amendment and there are others with which we certainly could not agree, and of course that places the obligation on us not to support it. Senator Peter Rae —Why don't you propose an amendment then, if you oppose it? Senator MASON —We have looked at that but we would have to draft a complete motion of our own. Senator Peter Rae —Try, and let's see if we will support you on it. Senator MASON —I do not think that is relevant in this case. The reason for that-I was not going to say it but I will-is that the Opposition is excited about what it claims to be 'continuing pressure within the Government for new taxes on assets'. That is a bit of plain politicking because if it is so the Government seems to be giving very little indication of it. Rather, the Government has been saying in recent days that it intends to ease the effects of the existing assets test, particularly on farmers and primary producers. I do not think one can really bring forward a motion of this kind and expect us to take it seriously. It is sabre rattling of the worst type; action of the lowest common denominator. Our view is that a motion with the inadequacies of this one cannot be taken seriously, and certainly it cannot attract our support. I am pleased to say that the Australian Democrats support a call from the Australian Conservation Foundation for an organised buying campaign of New Zealand goods to support New Zealand's anti-nuclear stand. I applaud the action taken by the Foundation. It is of some interest that I discussed this matter in Wellington last week with Mr Lange and Mr O'Flynn and they indicated that support of that kind would be most welcome. Mr Lange said he did not think that there would be as much retribution against New Zealand in the trade field as has been touted in the world media. He thought that there may be some individual action in the United States where some people have a strong view about New Zealand's actions but he did make the point-I think it was a good one-that a label is not put on a lamb chop. He does not think there will be a specific attack on New Zealand in the trade sense. Nevertheless, the Democrats believe it is vital in the world scene at present that the New Zealand Government's courageous stand on this issue be properly understood and supported. We shall certainly do everything we can, in co-operation with the Australian Conservation Foundation which, I point out, is very much a respectable group of people in middle Australia and very representative of the views of enlightened and intelligent Australians. We are pleased to co-operate with the Foundation in this regard. Purchasing New Zealand foodstuffs and New Zealand holidays are obvious ways of expressing our support and there is no reason why people interested in peace and disarmament should not consider adjusting their spending patterns to favour New Zealand wherever they can and also promote this idea as far as they can to support Mr Lange's Government. The second point of interest is that in my discussions with Mr Lange I invited him, on behalf of the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Democrats, to speak at major public meetings in Australian capital cities which the two organisations are already jointly planning to organise. Here again the Australian Democrats are happy to be associated with the Australian Conservation Foundation. I asked Mr Lange whether he could do this when he comes to Australia on 17 April, I think, to have meetings with the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke. Mr Lange asked me to make it clear that he could not accept that because his visit will be a brief one at that time, with a very tight itinerary, and he will have important international commitments to meet on his return to New Zealand, so his return cannot be delayed. However, he is considering whether he will be able to meet that commitment later this year, probably in September, when he may be here for a Foreign Ministers meeting. I made the point to Mr Lange, and he agreed with it, I think, that I thought it most important that his point of view be put to Australian audiences in a mass way, because it has been widely misrepresented in Australia. We foresee having very large and highly publicised functions in the Sydney and Melbourne town halls and in all other Australian capitals, if indeed the New Zealand Prime Minister has the time and wishes to do that. That is a matter on which he has not given a final decision, but which he is considering favourably. I say that Mr Lange's views have been widely misrepresented. In my discussions with him he made it plain, as he has many times, that his view is not intended as anti-American or even anti-ANZUS. Mr Lange told me he sees the Treaty as being still in existence, and the Defence Minister, Mr Frank O'Flynn, confirmed that. The only thing New Zealand does not want is nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed ships coming to New Zealand. The reason is exactly the same as that of the Democrats, which I put to Mr Lange and with which he agreed absolutely: If we have cities with naval bases, as we have in Sydney and Perth, where those ships come regularly, and that is known to that dangerous, unstable society, the Soviet Union-I say those words deliberately because I have no brief for the Soviet Union-it is logical that the maniacal military planners in the Kremlin will put those cities on their target list. I think it is stupid and hiding our heads in the sand to believe that anything other than that could happen. The reason is, of course, that about 190 of 600 United States warships are being fitted with Tomahawk or some other form of sea cruise missiles, which are first strike weapons and which must be attractive targets in the first minutes of a nuclear war. As a senator for New South Wales, I feel this most keenly. I have said time and time again in this place that it is a fundamental stupidity to have Garden Island, a major naval base, stuck in the middle of our largest centre of population and our largest area of property value. It is insane. I remind honourable senators that when the miniature submarine attack took place on Sydney Harbour in the Second World War, it was not an attack on an Australian installation. Garden Island was attacked because the United States cruiser Chicago was there and she was the target. There is a saying that those of us who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but the repetition would be of much more serious consequence to my home city, of which I am very fond. It would mean the total destruction of the largest population centre of Australia. The area around Garden Island-Kings Cross, the eastern suburbs and the city-is the most densely populated part of Australia. If it was lunatic before to have Garden Island in the centre of Sydney and insane for the Labor Party when it came into power to continue the expansion program and to spend even more money on the place, instead of getting rid of it as it should have done, then it is even more insane-if that is possible to say that-for the Labor Government now to say, with the connivance of the National and Liberal parties, that it is perfectly okay for ships to come there and for us not to know whether they have nuclear weapons on them. I ask honourable senators of every party, especially those from New South Wales, to consider carefully these things because we are talking of the life and death of our city. If Sydney were on the Indian Ocean and Russian submarines and ships were passing every day, one might see a certain rationality to it; we could at least see that there is some reason for the policy. As it stands now, there is no reason for it whatsoever. I have tried again and again to get statements from various areas, including the United States Government, on why it is important that ships should go there. The only answer I get is that it is a convenient area for rest and recreation for United States sailors. I do not think it is good enough to put our major cities at risk so that American sailors can get around with our girls at night; and that is what it boils down to. The situation is a continually deteriorating one, as we know. The Liberal Party may take the view it does, but Mr McMahon, as he then was, a former Liberal Prime Minister, gave an assurance in this Parliament during the Vietnam war that there would never be any nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships coming to this country, and the first person to agree with him was the then United States President, President Nixon. What has changed since? What has changed is that our position has been eroded. We have allowed ourselves to be conned into allowing our major cities, such as Sydney and Perth, to become nuclear targets. I do not believe that anybody here who supports that can have thought carefully about the degree of treachery that is involved, because that is what it is. It is an old-fashioned word that means putting the interests of a foreign power grossly above those of one's own people. We are elected by those people to represent them and serve their interests. That is not an anti-American statement, far from it. It states merely that we have a reasonable case for saying to the United States that the same policy as applies now in New Zealand should be applied by amicable agreement to both countries; that we should have a nuclear free area. Co-operation, defence and the many other strong connections between Australia and the United States-a country I recently visited, which I greatly admire, and many of whose people I am very fond of-should continue in a proper way. It is a fact that that attitude is held by many millions of Americans. I was among their number when I was in that procession to Central Park in New York two or three years ago, in which nearly one million people marched. The New York Times said, the following day, that it was the biggest demonstration of American grass-roots opinion since the Declaration of Independence. That was an editorial comment by the New York Times, which is far from being a left wing publication. The discussions with Mr Lange and Mr O'Flynn indicated to me that New Zealand was anxious to co-operate with Australia, with the objective of giving both countries a strong, independent defence potential. I think that is something which both countries perceive as being reasonable and rational. The ANZUS Treaty obliges us to do that, among other things, but we have not carried out that function. I would like to look at a worst possible case and a second worst possible case. The worst possible case could well be that there is a major nuclear war. We know that all of us would be dead. I think any of us who have any rationality know that all of us would be dead. There is a slight possibility-I would not put it much higher than that-that there could be a limited nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The consequence of that-I am not at all convinced that that is possible, but let us say that it might happen-is that civilisation in Australia and New Zealand might remain reasonably intact. Where would we stand then, if we had not provided ourselves with a strong defensive capability and the capability of producing weapons here? We would be at the mercy of any South East Asian adventurer, because the United States, with the best will in the world, would not be in a position to help us. Surely, that in itself is a consideration of great importance. Senator Cook —We would be on the beach. Senator MASON —I have read On the Beach, and I tend to take Senator Cook's view that there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war, if that is what he means. I am saying merely that one has to look at every contingency, and that that is a possibility, although a slight one. It is interesting that New Zealand is considering actively a change of emphasis for its defence forces, which would concentrate much more on the defence of the country, the South West Pacific area and the Cook Islands, with which New Zealand sees itself as being closely associated. It is not considering the replacement of weapons that would allow foreign adventuring in the company of larger allies. Mr O'Flynn made it plain that the frigate replacement in New Zealand was probably beyond the financial resources of New Zealand and that it would be looking for some other kind of weapon. I put to him our view, and I think I got a sympathetic hearing, that we believe it is a reasonable thing for smaller or middle powers, such as ourselves and New Zealand, to have weapons of defence rather than weapons of aggression. There is a difference. I would like to mention a number of significant differences over the next few minutes. The first one is that the Government is providing a clear foreign policy message to the world, including our neighbours, that it is not going to go and attack them, but that they had better not come and attack us. Surely it has been a lesson of the Falklands war, if there was any lesson of the Falklands war at all, that in the modern world of smart weapons and highly diverse missile carriers it is much easier to defend a country now than to attack it. In fact, there are some very interesting intelligence reports, or leaks of them, from Britain which do indicate quite strongly that if a few Argentine bombs that should have gone off but did not go off because some Argentinian did not know how to fuse them properly, had gone off Britain would have been in serious problems and may well have had to have withdrawn from the Falklands. That is an interesting situation, looked at from our point of view because it would indicate, I think, that if we had those types of weapons in sufficient numbers we would probably, for the first time, be able to defend our lengthy coastline and be able to repel an invasion fleet from the coasts of this country. I think that ought to be the major idea of our defence potential. I was in Seattle a couple of years ago. I think I am the only Australian member of parliament to have been on the final sea trials of the American Pegasus class hydrofoil which is a very fast, lightly manned vessel which carries enormous clout. The fact that it has eight Harpoon missiles on lightweight launchers gives it more clout than any- Senator Peter Rae —Is that the Boeing one? Senator MASON —Yes, that is the Boeing one. These missiles give it more clout than any current warship afloat in Australia or New Zealand. Yet it costs under $100m and, in its present form, has a crew of only 21 men. As honourable senators will know, the major cost of big ships is their crewing. The light carrier we are thinking of would have involved us in a crew of 1,000 men. The Australian Democrats' suggestion-this is the point I put to Mr Lange and Mr O'Flynn-was that this kind of weapon should be considered because of its versatility and its great speed. In fact it is not like a Manly hydrofoil, it has a wing under the water so that when it is foil borne it is a completely stable missile platform in waves up 25 feet high, which gives it considerable clout. Senator Peter Rae —It was considered for transport across Bass Strait. Senator MASON —I gather so, yes; that is the civilian form of it. It may have been the smaller one, I think. The ship's top speed is classified. When I was on board a bit of tape had been stuck across the speed indicator so that I would not know the speed. We were operating up to half throttle on the trials and I was told that on half throttle the ship was travelling in excess of 40 knots. When it is foil borne it is very difficult to attack with torpedoes and so on. It carries a 76-millimetre Oto Melara gun which is completely self-laying and has foil launchers. It has a tremendous advantage over a slower ship in that if a missile goes for the foil the hydrofoil is well out of the way, whereas a smaller, slower ship is still there and cops a certain amount of the flak even when the foil is attacked by the missile. I understand from Boeing, only in the last few days, that the United States of America is thinking of getting four more squadrons of six of these ships built and that the whole of the Caribbean operation will probably be turned over to it. Those 24 ships will be seen as a replacement, at much lower cost, for 21 frigates. The Caribbean operation for the United States is very similar to the types of operations we need around our shores. We need patrol and surveillance operations and all that kind of thing. The other interesting thing that I have heard from Boeing over the last days is that because of the economies of scale, the Pegasus class will probably be available at lower cost than it has been in the past, which is a most interesting situation. Also, Boeing has said that it would like to have them built under licence here. The only things that would have to be imported would be the front foil-this would be an enormous thing for us to undertake ourselves; it is very expensive-and the engines which are the same turbines as in the FFG frigate. So we would have no maintenance problems looking after the engines of this class of ship. I discussed this with Mr O'Flynn who is quite interested and I have undertaken to give him what- Senator Peter Rae —They are fossil fuel guzzlers, aren't they? Senator MASON —Not particularly, Senator. When they are foil borne they have a very light use of fuel. In fact they do not have much more fuel consumption foil borne than hull borne. The point there is that they cover much greater distances. I think the honourable senator will find that foil borne-I do not have the figures-they would be a much cheaper proposition to run than the conventional displacement hull, for the obvious reason, of course, that it moves through the water more easily. The information I received from Boeing is that that is, in fact, the case. I have undertaken to give Mr O'Flynn a copy of the letter I sent to Mr Sinclair who was Defence Minister in the Fraser Government at that time. I understand this vessel has been taken seriously and is being considered by the Royal Australian Navy. I suggest that since Mr O'Flynn and the New Zealand Government apparently have a strong interest in the potential of complementary forces with Australia, which is rational and sensible for both countries, that would be, as he said to me, on the basis of New Zealand acquiring ships or other weapons built in Australia. This would be very much to Australia's advantage because it would provide an additional market for ships built under licence and help our economies of scale again. It is a fact that other small nations, such as Sweden and Israel, build their own weapons very effectively and export them. There is no reason why we should not do the same. There is, of course, another incentive for us that if we do we would avoid the huge and regular shock to our economy of spending so many defence dollars in foreign countries. Senator Cook —Be a merchant in arms, selling arms to the world. Senator MASON —I would not necessarily say that. Would the honourable senator say that it was selling arms to the world to provide, say, New Zealand with the sorts of weapons which fulfil the sort of philosophy I mentioned when I began my speech? In other words, they would be the sorts of weapons which were plainly designed to defend our country rather than for foreign adventuring. I think it is quite possible and reasonable for us, if we are going to go into arms manufacturing, to do that sort of thing. I would like, like many people, to believe that there were no weapons on the face of the earth. That would be great. Maybe in a million years time the human race will reach a standard of development in terms where that is possible. I do not believe that it will happen soon. Senator Cook —I thought your point was selling arms to other countries, not only New Zealand. Senator MASON —We could do that. These ships could be made available to other countries. There again, philosophically, the sorts of ships we build and the sorts of things we do in our own interests would reflect on what we would have for sale elsewhere. I see no objection to that whatsoever. The final point I make is that there should be some degree of sanity on the question of the New Zealand issue. Mr Lange has become a world figure because of a gross overreaction in the United States to what he has said, which I thought was a fundamentally reasonable statement and a fundamentally reasonable point of view. Mr Lange said he was rather wounded because the American reaction sort of assumed that any elected Western government would immediately break its election promises, whereas all Mr Lange was doing was keeping an election promise. That seems to me to be not entirely unreasonable. I am glad that there has apparently been some quietening down in the United States now and that the more rabid statements about commercial retaliation against Australia and New Zealand because of the ship ban and the MX missile argument appear to have disappeared. I do hope that those crazy people such as Mr Chaney from Wyoming, to whom I wrote a letter to that effect some time ago, will realise that we are their friends. If they treat their friends badly and heavily-handed that is not a very good beginning to an intelligent foreign policy. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(11.38) —The Senate is debating the Address-in-Reply. The Speech was delivered by the Governor-General but was conceived and written by the Hawke Labor Government, conceived in its own philosophy of socialism and written with more imagination than fact, as I will demonstrate. It reminded me strongly of a statement by Winston Churchill who said that 'socialism was the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy'. That indeed runs right through the lack of performance of this Government and the Speech itself. To this Address the Liberal-National Party Opposition has added an amendment which draws attention to major failures of the Government. It draws attention to the cowardly capitulation of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) to the internal party pressures of the Left in particular on the issue of Australia providing logistic assistance to the United States of America for the testing of the MX missile. No government could be more craven in its action than that. The amendment draws attention to increasing uncertainty as to the future of the ANZUS Treaty because of the attitudes of this Government. It points to the economic policies, the record government taxation and spending and the continuing pressure being exerted by the Government for new taxes on assets. That dialogue is now building up. It points to the growing demands for higher wages and extra costs to industry and it highlights the level of public debt repayments, of record size and swamping the amounts spent on other issues. It points to the loss of value of the currency of Australia and goes on to show the additional cost burdens to industry. All this can be proven. I said that there was a degree of poetic imagination in this Speech. Let me start at the beginning of the Speech. It says: . . . the unemployment rate has been drastically cut during the period. I repeat: . . . the unemployment rate has been drastically cut during the period. I sought Government evidence for this. The first thing I sought was the Prime Minister's own statement about the benchmarks for the reduction of unemployment. The Prime Minister, in his policy speech, gave this benchmark. He said: More than 130,000 jobs have to be found each year just to absorb new people coming onto the workforce-that is, just for unemployment levels to mark time. That statement was made by the Prime Minister. More than 260,000 new jobs had to be found in the past two years, by the Prime Minister's own measure, just to mark time in unemployment. So I looked at the figures. What did I find? Taking, for example, from March 1983 to December 1984, I find that employment has grown at the very best by 313,000. If 260,000 new jobs were needed to maintain unemployment levels, the Prime Minister can claim that he has created 53,000 new jobs. That in itself must be a rather pitiful boast, on my calculation. He did not say that the participation rate from which he gets his 8.3 per cent unemployment figure has fallen steadily during the Hawke Government's regime. Whereas in March 1983, the last month of the Fraser Government, the participation rate was 61.2 per cent, in the ensuing 23 months it averaged 60.4 per cent. For 19 months the rate was below the March 1983 figures. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a table prepared by the Confederation of Australian Industry showing the level and rate of unemployment assuming a constant participation rate of 61.4 per cent. I hope that has been presented to the Government. I believe that permission has been granted for its incorporation. The table shows that on a constant participation rate the unemployment rate is not 8.3 per cent but 10 per cent. Leave granted. The table read as follows- LEVEL AND RATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT ASSUMING CONSTANT PARTICIPATION RATE OF 61.4 PER CENT* Seasonally Adjusted Data Level of Rate of unemployment unemployment 000's per cent 1978: March 440.8 6.8 June 438.3 6.8 September 502.8 7.7 December 467.4 7.2 1979: March 486.9 7.4 June 483.1 7.3 September 486.6 7.4 December 457.0 6.9 1980: March 418.5 6.3 June 415.5 6.2 September 406.2 6.0 December 408.9 6.0 1981: March 414.4 6.1 June 401.8 5.9 September 401.5 5.9 December 467.8 6.8 1982: March 483.8 7.0 June 552.8 7.9 September 607.3 8.7 December 732.1 10.4 1983: March 799.0 11.3 June 828.1 11.6 September 823.1 11.5 December 768.6 10.7 1984: January 795.3 11.0 February 789.6 11.0 March 732.4 10.2 April 717.0 10.0 May 729.1 10.1 June 711.6 9.8 July 710.8 9.8 August 752.2 10.4 September 734.5 10.1 October 735.5 10.1 November 727.5 10.0 December 724.6 10.0 * 61.4 per cent was the average participation rate from 1973-74 to 1983-84 Source: Derived from Data in ABS-The Labour Force Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —I then thought that the best thing for me to do was to go to government documents. I went to the report of the Committee of Inquiry into Labour Market Programs, which has been commended by the Government. This document was produced in January 1985, virtually within weeks of the Governor-General's Speech. I read: More than 600,000 people, through no fault of their own, want work but are without it . . . It goes on to say: . . . as many again want work but have given up the search . . . That document, commended by the Government, says that 1,200,000 people are seeking work but cannot get it. Not 8.3 per cent at all but of the order of 16 per cent or more want work but cannot get it. This reveals the fallacy of the participation rate in itself. This document goes on: . . . over 100,000 young people have completed their education but are denied the opportunity, in the long accepted way, of obtaining work, further training and independence; large numbers of women are treated as second class citizens in the labour market; substantial numbers of those with disabilities and other disadvantages are left without hope of obtaining the stimulation and companionship of work; and numbers of older people are hurried into a retirement which neither they nor the state are prepared to accept. Those 1.2 million people represent a massive increase in the number of unemployed, and the Hawke Government has the gall to have the Governor-General say that the unemployment rate has been drastically cut. It knew that virtually one quarter of all the young-the adolescents, the 15 to 19-year-olds-were unemployed. It knew that there was a chronic growing of long term unemployment in that group but it went on to pretend. I draw support for what I say today from basic authoritative sources. This report is one classic example. Again, I have been told in this report that things are looking up, things are good. I turned to authoritative statements from around the world as to what was happening. The first thing I looked at was a statement from a major Wall Street bank, the Irving Trust Co., and its diagnosis of why the Australian dollar in comparison with the American dollar has come down from the high 80c to 69c or thereabouts. There is no reason why it should not state the facts. The Irving Trust Co. said: The primary reason for the abrupt slide has been a loss of confidence in the Hawke Government. An opinion poll was quoted showing support for Mr Hawke at a record low. It went on to say: The Prime Minister's flip flop on Australia's planned monitoring role in MX missile tests has cast doubts on his ability to resist economic demands from the left wing of his Labor party. Senator Cook —Why is the United States dollar falling? Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —There speaks the left wing. No wonder it interrupts. The company went on to say: Political weakness combined with economic forecasts of slower growth and widening budget and current account deficits in the year ahead imply that we have probably not seen the bottom for the Australian dollar. That is the comment of the Irving Trust Co. in contrast with the speech that was thrust upon the Governor-General. I look even further at this, to the Australian Financial Review of last Wednesday. I take it that no one will criticise unduly the value judgments of the merchant bank Morgan Stanley, because over the years all governments of all philosophies in Australia and throughout the world have used this bank for debt funding and debt servicing. The article in the Financial Review stated: One of the largest and most influential broking and investment banking groups in the US has delivered a virtually unequivocal thumbs-down to the Australian market. In a letter to domestic and international clients last Friday, Morgan Stanley says that following a comprehensive tour of Australia, 25 senior American and European institutional investors were 'hard pressed to find any stocks to buy'. Morgan Stanley then catalogues a list of problems facing Australia, ranging from a failure by management to take full regard of the interests of investors to a stifling tax regime and an economic inertia which is rooted in the enormous natural wealth the country enjoys. The article states: Australia has produced ''one of history's great examples of 'bracket creep', Australian stocks are overpriced . . .'' It continues with a damning condemnation of the present economy of Australia. In case it is thought that Morgan Stanley is not to be regarded as a judge, I looked at a manufacturing survey. I have read in a newspaper article that there has been a general slow down in output, new orders and employment in the manufacturing industry and that fewer manufacturers believe that the business climate will improve in the short term. This is the position according to the latest survey of industrial trends. A survey by the Confederation of Australian Industry and the Westpac Banking Corporation shows that the smallest number of manufacturers since 1982 believes that the industry will improve. Most expect no change in the general business situation in the next six months. The article states: The survey shows that manufacturing employment is expected to decline further, although at a slower rate than in the previous three months, and most manufacturers predict increased costs and prices. I thought I would regale myself with that and see how in fact the Hawke Government could prove that that was wrong. I looked at the figures for the growth in retail sales in the last two fiscal years of the Fraser Liberal Government. For the second last year the growth figure was 11.4 per cent and for the last fiscal year, 1982-83, it was 11.6 per cent. But the growth for the first year of the Hawke Government, 1983-84, was 4.2 per cent. Alice in Wonderland did not have the kind of imaginative creativity that has gone into this Speech. I have quoted actual figures from Government documents. What have we seen? We have a Government which came into office, railing against indirect taxation, extra charges, secret taxes and so on. This Government, which said that indirect taxes were wrong, indexed excises so that it could still collect such taxes by stealth. But people have long memories and they remember what Mr Hawke and his Party said in the approach to the 1983 election. Referring to Mr Fraser, he said: The Prime Minister is clearly committed to further increases in indirect taxes for he has justified the election on the grounds of failure to obtain approval for Bills increasing sales taxes . . . These increases will raise prices, reduce purchasing power and have yet further regressive effects on the living standards of middle and lower income earners. The first thing the Government did when it came into power was to index excises. A Mr Keating, an erstwhile great Treasurer-but not now with the dollar slipping-had magic to say about the wickedness of raising petrol prices according to import parity and the dastardly reaction of the Fraser Government in using the exchange rate to adjust those prices. He said: 'We will not do that. That is wrong'. Indeed, he said that the withdrawal of the January petrol price increase would reduce the consumer price index by a further one-half per cent. He said: 'This, together with Labor's commitment to eschew increases in indirect taxes, will set inflation on a downward trend'. Of course, Mr Keating developed state of the art attacks on import parity petrol pricing. He is now the fervent collector of these taxes because he wants more and more. It is his major source of revenue. We have the extraordinary paradox when world prices for petrol are falling all around us of the Treasurer raising prices all the time. He said in his election speeches that it would be wicked to put the Fraser Government back into power because a litre of petrol would cost over 40c. He should not be embarrassed. He has always done things on a bigger scale than us. Petrol is now at least 51c or 52c a litre, thanks to the Hawke Government. How extraordinary that a Government which was elected for having said 'The principal thrust of Labor's economic strategy will be to reject the policies of contraction and embrace the policies of expansion' now hatches a Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, who, in his reincarnation, has to eat all his previous words in opposition and who has now embarked upon an attempt to bring about the greatest contraction in government spending that we have seen. There is to be a raid on student fees, a suggested means test on the spouse allowance and so on. Wherever one looks there is contraction. There cannot be a greater confidence trick than in what this Government has said and done. As I have frequently said, Mr Hawke knows what is right but does what is wrong, and so does his Government. I will take the Governor-General's Speech step by step. We can demolish the Speech as it relates to unemployment. In fact the situation is the reverse of what is claimed. The Speech states: The Government remains committed to developing a strong and competitive manufacturing industry. What do we find? The survey shows that manufacturing industry is contracting. In years gone by, manufacturing industry employed 28 per cent of all employed Australians. Today that figure is 17 per cent and falling. Senator Cook —You were in power during that time. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —There is an interjection. I remind the honourable senator opposite that in 1974 the Whitlam Labor Government cut tariffs by 25 per cent across the board. Within that year 112,000 people were disemployed by that single paper action by the Labor Government. No doubt it is very proud of it. Let us keep in mind that this Speech states that manufacturing is expanding, yet the facts are that manufacturing is contracting. I will go on to read the valiant words stating what the Labor Party will do about trade. The Speech states: The Government is determined that Australia will be in a position to meet this challenge by targeting particular markets--- My goodness, we sent Mr Hawke overseas to target particular markets. He said that he would deal with the Japanese and save the percentage of our beef exports. Like T. S. Eliot's quote, he came back not with a bang but with a whimper. In fact, the percentage fell. Are we to be proud of the fact, talking of meat exports, that the average in recent years was 630,000 tonnes a year yet this year we will export 410,000 or 420,000 tonnes? Is that the bang or the whimper of Mr Hawke? What has been done with sugar is an absolute disaster. With wheat, we have the lowest price in the whole of the post-war years. Can honourable senators name an industry that has been helped by the Hawke Government? The Hawke Government came into power and boasted of the fact that it had rained, that the drought had been broken and that the United States of America economy had picked up. But the Hawke Government has done nothing except to put extra weight on the backs of the farmers with its excise on oil and its other duties. I could go on about what has happened to minerals and what is happening to the price of coal. Can anyone name a successful venture overseas by a Hawke Government Minister? It is no wonder that Mr Lionel Bowen was taken out of the Trade portfolio and put into the portfolio of eternal fame-that with a great precedent of failure-that is, the Attorney-General's portfolio. No wonder the Government did that because his record was immense. I then read this extraordinary statement in the Speech: The relationship between Australia and the United States under the ANZUS Treaty remains as firm as ever, and Australia's rights and obligations assumed under the Treaty are undiminished. The other day Mr Hawke used words that said virtually that ANZUS was finished. I cannot quite reconcile these things. On the one hand, Mr Lange-who now has in this Parliament a spokesman in the person of Senator Mason-made it very clear on 27 February, when he said: This constitutes an end to the US-New Zealand defence relationship. How can a tripartite treaty be in existence if that is so? It is Mr Lange saying that; and after all, Senator Mason is his surrogate spokesman on this matter. I want to concentrate on this matter because in this Parliament we now have an extraordinary situation. We have an Australian Democrats party which is pledged to oppose ANZUS, on its own say so, and which is taking a unilateral foreign affairs line and is actually putting a sense of fear into people on an entirely wrong basis. On the one hand, Senator Mason has said: 'I believe that if there is a nuclear holocaust, it will be a total holocaust, and therefore the theory of the nuclear winter must be accepted, that no matter where the nuclear missiles fall they will affect everyone'. Then he pretends that in a major nuclear exchange, somehow, by isolation, we could escape. Every Australian must come to understand the simple fact that the task of every Australian is to prevent the first missile from falling, no matter where, in Australia or anywhere else, because following the first missile will be thousands more. They will be global in their coverage and the effect on Australia will be as total as it will be elsewhere. A nonsense argument that Senator Mason goes on with today is to talk of some kind of defence force which could be somehow effective if there were a nasty near-global war. All those who understand what is going on today understand that we cannot have significant conventional wars any more and that any significant conventional war will, tragically, escalate into global nuclear war, and so we shall be in the holocaust. Senator Mason and others go on and on. Everyone who looks towards the Australian Democrats should understand that the only test of an effective peace policy is to ask one thing: Will what is being done help to stop the first bombs falling, wherever they are directed? Will it help to strengthen the deterrent so that the bombing does not begin? If it does help and if, therefore, it is an installation on Australian shores or a help to our allies in our ports, we should support it totally. That should be the test, and not the nonsense test. It is interesting that apparently Senator Mason would somehow come to grips with letting American ships come into the port of Fremantle because there may be a lot of Russians coming into the Indian Ocean-as I understood what he said-but not into Sydney. The Democrats have painted themselves into the classic illogic of those who use the emotion of fear for their purpose illegally and illicitly and who do not get to the basic facts. I want to talk of another person who knows what is right and does what is wrong-the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said that the Americans wanted to test the MX missile. We all know that that missile is the successor to the Minuteman missile and that it is to be the deterrent against the Russian SS18 and SS19 missiles, which are larger and more fearsome than the MX. The Americans asked whether we would refuel a couple of aircraft to help in the surveillance of this test, which would not involve a warhead and would be entirely benign. The Prime Minister said: 'I met with a number of my Ministers. We are men of integrity. We agreed that we ought to help the Americans. That was the right thing to do'. Indeed, so much was that so that his Foreign Minister and his Defence Minister said that, while he was changing his mind. It is interesting to see why he changed his mind. Willesee pressed him a number of times and asked him why he had changed his mind. Willesee said: How do you relate that to what was your apparent cynicism or pragmatism, if you like to use a nicer word, in your backdown on the decision to assist the Americans with the testing of the MX missile? Mr Hawke replied: Well I don't relate it to that. I mean, I simply say to you directly, Mike- I am sorry that I cannot imitate Max Gillies in this matter. Mr Hawke is out-Max Gilliesing Max Gillies. Indeed, I read today that Mr Hawke is growing more like Max Gillies every day. However, Mr Hawke said: I mean, I simply say to you directly, Mike, that I and my two colleagues who made that decision-Bill Hayden and the then Defence Minister, Gordon Scholes, were three men of integrity- I interpolate here that whenever one hears that one counts the spoons, and one sups with a long spoon. He continued: . . . who made what we believed on our assessment of all the circumstances was the right decision. Then he went on: But what was put potentially at risk was, first of all, the support that I and my Government have, not only within the Party, but more broadly for the centrality of the United States/Australian alliance and what goes with it-the hosting of the joint facilities in Australia, visits of American ships to our port. No one, except the left wing of the Labor Party, threatened the Prime Minister. The Australian community did not threaten him; no one else did. What he has said is this: 'Because I was threatened by the Labor Party that if I went on with the MX missile situation there would be a threat to the long term existence of the bases in Central Australia and the visits of ships to our ports, I gave in'. They are plain words. Here is a classic case of blackmail. It is no wonder that the Wall Street bankers said that he gave in. It is no wonder that the dollar is falling around the world because of his craven retreat on this matter. They are his words. No one can run away from that. Again I say that the Prime Minister knows and his Party knows what is right, and he does what is wrong. Senator Mason is present in the chamber now. I say to him that we face a situation in which Australia must have a peace policy whereby any action which supports a deterrent and makes peace stronger and war further away ought to have our support. Any action which weakens the deterrent, as chasing away the ships does, ought to be avoided. What a crass stupidity it is that those who support Mr Lange do not want the ships in the port but are utterly willing and eager to join them in tactical exercises on the sea, knowing that they are nuclear armed and nuclear propelled and are taking part in tactical nuclear exercises. Let the spokesman for Mr Lange here, Senator Mason, in future get up and support that kind of crass stupidity. It makes me sick. Senator MASON(New South Wales) —Mr Deputy President, I claim to have been misrepresented. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Under standing order 410 the honourable senator may explain only what he actually said that Senator Sir John Carrick misunderstood or misrepresented. Senator MASON —It is only two points, Mr Deputy President, which will not detain the Senate for long. Twice Senator Sir John Carrick referred to me as the surrogate spokesman in Australia for Mr Lange. I think that that is unfair to Mr Lange. I do not claim to be any such thing. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Mason, you must confine yourself to what you actually said that was misunderstood or misrepresented; you cannot criticise what Senator Sir John Carrick said. Senator Sir John Carrick —I withdraw that; it is unfair to Mr Lange. Senator MASON —What I said was that I had had a meeting with Mr Lange in Wellington and that I had had certain discussions with him, for only an hour or so. I suggest that that does not allow any reasonable acceptance of my being the surrogate spokesman for Mr Lange in Australia-although I would regard it as a compliment in many respects. It is clear that, in Mr Lange's interests, that matter should be made plain. The second point is that I think I said that the chances of a war which would not be major conflict were very slight. In his reply to me, I think that Senator Sir John Carrick has overemphasised my point. That is a point that needs raising. There is only one further point I should like to make. I cannot understand why Senator Sir John Carrick says that we could not have a significant conventional war in the world now in the light of the current contretemps between Iran and Iraq. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Mason, you are not allowed to discuss Senator Sir John Carrick's speech. You must confine yourself to what you said that was misrepresented. Senator MASON —Thank you, Mr Deputy President. I have concluded. Senator COOK(Western Australia)(12.10) —As a junior senator in years of service compared with Senator Sir John Carrick's lengthy and distinguished service, I start by congratulating Senator Sir John Carrick on his speech. He is indeed an old trooper, and he gave us a classic example of a conservative militant, when all the indicators are against him, ducking and weaving through a maze of statistics to patch together a case and to try to create a silk purse from a sow's ear. It was a brilliant exhibition. One ought to recognise the exhibition as good, even though the substance was thin, and congratulate Senator Sir John Carrick on his determination and militancy. If it is not bordering on patronage, may I say that Senator Sir John Carrick perhaps made one fatal slip that he will live to regret, that is, his introduction of Max Gillies as a precedent for quotation in this chamber. In many of the satirical sketches that Max Gillies has put on, one sees more than enough ammunition for those of us on this side of the chamber to lambast the Opposition with for many years to come, and that is a Carrick precedent we will perhaps draw on in the future. This is the debate on the Address-in-Reply to the Governor-General's Speech delivered on 21 February in opening the Thirty-fourth Parliament, in which the Governor-General charted the role for the Hawke Labor Government for the next three years. He did so, of course, by properly acknowledging what has been the most impressive economic recovery that any Western country has seen-a recovery engendered under the leadership of the Hawke Government, starting with the economic summit and going through the last two years-and he concluded the Speech with these words: The program I have outlined is a program for consolidation of the great gains which have been achieved in the past two years. The Government and the people of this nation have, by acting in concert, brought a new approach to solving the problems facing Australia. It is the Government's desire that the momentum which has been thus built is not lost. I assure this chamber that it is certainly the strong conviction of the Government that the momentum we have built up in the two years since coming to the treasury bench in the House of Representatives will not be lost. It is a convention when Opposition senators open their remarks on the Address-in-Reply to indicate that, of course, the Governor-General's Speech is written in the Prime Minister's office and thus it is no disrespect to the Governor-General to criticise his Speech. I want to plagiarise their words: We are proud that the Governor-General's Speech was written in a Labor Prime Minister's office, and there is much in the Speech to be commended. It is, indeed, a speech which sets out a course for the reconstruction and ongoing development of Australia, an Australia which hopefully will achieve a greater degree of peace in the world, which hopefully will achieve a greater degree of equity and a fairer distribution of the wealth of the country among the people of the country and which will play a significant role in this region while simultaneously addressing the problems of youth unemployment-something I wish to talk about later-and some of the other great wrongs in our society that we inherited. That is, after all, the purpose of government. I should like to make some preliminary points before turning to the general policy. First, I congratulate the 13 new senators who have been elected to this chamber. Some are returning for a second time, some are new and one was appointed. Most have made their maiden speeches-very good speeches too-and I look forward to hearing the opening remarks of those to come. Another thing that needs to be said by way of introduction is that the opening paragraph of the Governor-General's Speech referred to the fact that, of course, the Labor Party won the last election. It is a curious fiction which members of the Opposition seem to be wanting to develop that, while it is true that they lost, somehow they won. Of course, there is a certain honesty about the figures which make it very clear that this Government was returned with an endorsement of its policies and with a substantial majority. That issue should not be forgotten. Lest the writers of fiction in the Opposition get too carried away and believe that somehow the Opposition made improvements in Victoria in that State's election, I remind them that for the first time ever in that State a Labor government was returned for a second term and, at this stage at least, nominally with control of both Houses of Parliament, particularly the conservative upper House. One of my dearest wishes is to see the conservative upper House in my State of Western Australia, elected on gerrymandered boundaries, reformed to provide democracy-one vote one value-for the citizens of that State. We have been re-elected with a substantial majority. The Hawke Government can now govern this country, be at the helm of its destiny for five years, and set in place a series of reforms now that a decade of Labor government is firmly in prospect. It is the first time too that, in peacetime or free of recession, a Labor government has been in power at a time when the business cycle is on the upswing. It is the first time that we have not had to come to the defence of this country in wartime or to try to pull it out of a recession. For the first time, therefore, if this chamber proves not to be obstructive of the mandate we have, a Labor government has a chance to change Australian society so much for the better and so much for equality. It is unfortunate that since the election there has been some commentary, first by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Peacock), that Bills associated with tax reform would be let through; then the factional machinations of the Liberal Party took over; his deputy repudiated him; and now there is some significant doubt whether the Liberal Party will not try to find some ad hoc, populist association with the splinter Party, the Australian Democrats, and try to block legislation on tax reform. It is about time this Senate was informed by an authoritative spokesman from the Liberal Party of what its intention will be when those Bills come forward, because there will be a summit, there will be reform and the only way that reform can be carried through so as to be constructive is if we know that this Senate is prepared to hear the voice of the summit and to recognise what will come out of it as a substantial consensus that needs to be approved. As did Senator Maguire, who has now joined us in the chamber, I commiserate with those of my colleagues-John Reeves from the Northern Territory, Deane Wells of Queensland and Pete Steedman in Victoria-who lost their seats in the last election. However, I congratulate my Western Australian colleagues-if parochialism can intrude for a moment-Senator Jim McKiernan, who has been elected to this place, who is a young senator and who, I believe, will have a long service and will make a distinguished contribution, and Kim Beazley in the lower House, who has risen through the ranks of the Ministry to become at the age of 36 a Cabinet Minister with the weighty responsibility of being Minister for Defence. One of the main debates in which a Labor government is obviously concerned to participate, in fact to show the way in, is that on employment and unemployment. As I said, a moment ago we heard Senator Sir John Carrick give an old, conservative militant's view of how to interpret figures to try to make a case. However, it is important that the record of what we have achieved on the employment and unemployment front be made clear. The last Australian Bureau of Statistics figures published show that the labour market has improved dramatically. Employment, seasonally adjusted, rose by 45,200 during February 1985-the third highest monthly increase on record. After a slow-down in growth in the second half of 1984, employment is now growing at a quarterly rate of 48,500, or more than double the growth in the November quarter. On the other hand, unemployment, seasonally adjusted, fell by 11,700 or 2 per cent in February and, unadjusted, by 0.2 per cent to 8.3 per cent-the lowest rate in almost 2 1/2 years. The fall in unemployment occurred despite an increase of 0.2 per cent in the labour force participation rate and that means that unemployment has been reduced by more than 128,000, or two percentage points, since its peak in September 1983. Interesting and rewarding though those figures are, the important significant change is in long term unemployment. The number of people unemployed for nine months or more fell by 43,000, or 17.5 per cent, over the year to January 1985. There are still 202,300 people, or 30.8 per cent of all unemployed, who have been out of work for at least nine months. However, the trend in the turnaround is significant. The labour market share for teenagers also has improved. The unemployment rate, again seasonally adjusted, amongst teenagers looking for full time employment is 23.1 per cent, a fall of 4 percentage points since March 1983 and 5 percentage points since the high point in July 1983. The number of unemployed teenagers looking for their first full time job has fallen by 22,000, or 28 per cent, since the high point in September 1983. Those significant changes ought to be borne in mind when the matter of youth employment as against wage cuts is debated. It is important also to place on record the words of the Prime Minister in his speech of 14 March to the combined meeting of the Canberra Economics Society and the Industrial Relations Society. The Prime Minister, accurately, was able to say: In less than two years under our policies, 360,000 new jobs have been created. In seven years and four months, a total of 340,000 new jobs were created under the policies of our predecessors. That is to say, in two years we have achieved what the Fraser Government did over seven years and four months. We want to improve on that record. Nonetheless, those figures ought to be remembered when unemployment is addressed by the likes of Senator Sir John Carrick in an apparent effort to pretend that things have worsened. In debating unemployment a member of the Labor Party cannot be anything other than sober because, while those improvements are welcomed, the problem is still difficult and grievous. Members of the Labor Party are concerned about the level of unemployment in general terms. The area of greatest concern is that of youth unemployment. Much has been said about that. In terms of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, Australia is ranked about sixth. It is not the worst, but it is not the best either. It is a middle ranking performance by Australia in terms of its level of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. We also rank in the middle of the order with our ratio of youth to adult unemployment. I am talking there of the age category 15 to 24 years. They are not good signs. They are problems that we are concerned to address. It is a worrying problem, but we are convinced that the package of policies we have cobbled together to resolve this problem is right. In order to have a reasoned and intelligent debate about youth unemployment, one must concentrate on the facts and the detail and not on hysterics. It is unfortunate that many of the proponents of cutting youth wages have not bothered to be very accurate in their comments. They have tried to develop something we have become used to getting from conservatives, namely, a fear campaign, a scare campaign which distorts the facts to make an argument that does not exist. Only yesterday a Mr Ritchie, a chief executive of the McDonald's corporation, a company that employs many thousands of young workers, was reported in the West Australian newspaper as having said: The unions and the arbitration system want full adult rates of pay for 15-year-olds. The quotation I have given and the quotation I will give are not those of journalistic commentaries; these are the words of Mr Ritchie, as reported in the article. He also said: In 1970 a first-year apprentice was paid 45 per cent of the adult rate of pay. In 1980 a first-year apprentice was paid 70 per cent of the adult rate of pay. This is more than an 80 per cent increase. With those words Mr Ritchie was arguing for a cut in junior wages. Considering his statement independently of political bias, we see immediately that he damn well does not know what he is talking about. He has tried to argue politically something that is factually incorrect. Mr Ritchie said that the unions and the arbitration system want full adult rates of pay for 15-year-olds. That is just not true. I know of no union that seeks adult rates for 15-year-olds on any grounds, unless those 15-year-olds happen to be doing adult work as labourers and thus are doing the job of adults, and thus require the adult wage. But there is no concerted claim for adult rates for 15-year-olds and it is a travesty to say that the arbitration system wants that. The arbitration system is a system that sits in the middle of industrial relations, listens to the arguments of employers and unions, and has no policy. It brings the principles of equity and justice and the substantial merits of the case to bear on the arguments that are put to it. It then makes a decision. It does not pursue a policy. I do not know whether Mr Ritchie, like his corporation, is an American import, but if he is he certainly does not know how the arbitration system in this country works. To pretend that it has a policy and, moreover, one for full adult rates for 15-year-olds, is a complete misrepresentation. The arbitration system has the sober duty to make decisions on the cases presented. Of course, the rest of Mr Ritchie's comment is also wrong. He has omitted to note that the entry age for apprentices has gone up in the years in question so that more apprentices are entering the apprentice system at 16 and 17 years of age than did so in 1970. At that time apprentices were entering into apprenticeships at 14 and 15 years of age. Therefore, the rates of earnings of first year apprentices have changed by comparison. They have not changed because of any age relationship, but because of the fact that they came in at a higher rate commensurate with the higher educational background that was necessary. It is unfortunate that that sort of hysteria has been injected into the argument. It is also unfortunate that too often it comes from the ranks of employers. I am reminded of an anecdote, which is perhaps somewhat instructive, about the way in which employers tend to debate this issue. In 1921 an employers advocate, a Mr P. Cleak, in a wage case for junior rates argued that wages for boys should be lower than those for girls. His reasons are very interesting. He argued that if boys get a lower wage they will be taught the moral and upstanding value of thrift. They would have to learn to make do on lower wages and to squeeze the then pound much further. It was felt this would be morally instructive for them and would enhance their character. The employer was concerned about character building, not about his profits. If one goes further and asks why he supported a higher rate for girls it becomes an even more interesting argument. He said that girls rates had to be higher because if they were too low they may be forced on to the streets to perform immoral acts to earn further income. We have learnt from that description that in the 1920s the employers were concerned not about their profits or the viability of the company, but about the moral rectitude of the community, in particular, the teenage section of it. However, that is just an anecdote I put in as an aside. The point I wish to make is that the argument is highly coloured and not very instructive with reference to fact. However, let us now move to the facts and try to straighten out the record. One of the key reasons for youth unemployment is that employers in a market with a high level of unemployment choose experience and skill at the job over inexperience and youth. Employers have chosen more adult workers who have had experience in the work place, an understandable choice. The argument therefore is that if we cut youth wages we will reduce the cost to employers, so that the idea of employing younger workers becomes more attractive and they will overlook the experience aspect. This Government's response was to recognise the problem before it got to this point. Shortly after coming to government we commissioned the Kirby Committee of Inquiry into Labour Market Programs. That study has now reported that as a government we should introduce a traineeship system to make up for the lack of experience of young workers, to encourage them to be more expert and to learn higher skills so that they can compete on equal terms with adult workers in the work force. Although the youth traineeship system is only on the drawing board at this stage-it has to go through an exhaustive consultative mechanism with employers and unions and ultimately to the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission for wage levels to be decided-the point is that the Government recognised immediately that the proper course was not to blame the victims but rather to help those who need the help by adding an extra dimension of skill and traineeship or experience to their attractiveness as employees. I hope that this is a course which the Government will follow. On the other hand, in the national wage case hearing which has closed in Melbourne this week the employers concentrated their fire-with the support of the conservative Opposition in this place and in some State parliaments-on demanding a wage cut. The interesting thing about that demand is that the wage cut needed in order to create full employment for young workers has never been specified. What we have is a general assertion, backed up by no statistics. The validity of the assertion cannot be checked. Those propounding the argument that a wage cut is necessary are found wanting because unless they specify by what degree we cannot check their calculations and prove their inconsistencies. Senator Maguire —It is fairly typical. Senator COOK —It is very typical of the incentive argument; it is an airy-fairy vague thing; one feels somehow that it may be better. Members of the Australian Labor Party have never believed that if one feels it may be better it is indeed better. We have always felt that the only way to handle the matter is to go to the facts. The facts are that since this Government came to power we have had substantial economic growth. The economy has expanded and more job opportunities have opened up. Significantly too, by virtue of the wages and prices accord, we have had non-inflationary growth, a major achievement for any Western country in these decades. I understand that it is the first occasion on which Australia has experienced significant non-inflationary growth of the order that we have now experienced. Another factor that should be borne in mind is that in that time the shares of gross domestic product going to wages and salaries and the shares of GDP going to profits have changed. The percentage going to wages and salaries has declined; the percentage going to profits has increased. We are now beginning to see a growth in private investment in the economy, given that there is more profitability in businesses. That too is a significant achievement if one considers that it has been achieved in a non-conflicting way. There was virtually no industrial disputation while those shares changed. It is a remarkable comparison if one looks at the alternatives propounded by the conservatives. The Government has achieved general economic growth. The shares have been disbursed and there are now the right proportions for the economy to go further with the injection of further private investment, and this now appears to be what is happening. I come back to the problem of youth unemployment. It is the Government's concern that the problem of youth unemployment be tackled so that the stock of skills available in the community for a modern, sophisticated industrial base continue to be enlarged and be competitive on an international trade basis. Therefore, it is very obvious that the traineeship program has great merit. It has great merit in that it enables young workers to compete more on equal terms with older workers and it also has great merit on the basis that it provides some dignity for young workers who, having come through that program, are able to say: 'I now have this skill'. That is preferable to their being non-skilled entrants to the wage market. However, the proposal to cut youth wages ought to be rejected on the following grounds. The first and most overriding effect a cut has is that it does not alter the number of jobs available in the community; it merely alters who stands in the dole queue. It takes adult workers out of employment, as employers dismiss them to recruit young, unskilled, cheap labour, and puts breadwinners and family heads out of work and on the dole. It is very difficult to say who has a greater right to employment if the pool of employment does not meet the needs of all those who are offering themselves for work. Certainly one does not want any discrimination against young workers, but equally, if one looks at the health of the economy and where real consumption is necessary, one sees that it is certainly at the family level. The proposal to make cheap young labour available at the expense of older adult labour, family heads and breadwinners is a proposal which cannot by itself stand up. Another significant reason why the proposal to cut youth wages should be rejected is that it does not address the problems of skill in the labour market about which I have spoken. Another reason why the proposal should be rejected is that it is against centralised wage fixing and the accord. As I have said, we have had non-inflationary growth in this country, and that has been made possible because of the prices and wages accord. If we throw out the baby with the bath water and go back to the wages explosion, to the free market competition of wages that honourable senators opposite talk about and which they would introduce, it will militate against the whole structure and balance of the economy. I have already mentioned that the shares of GDP have changed in favour of profits and we are now seeing investment which would perhaps return to its old levels were there to be open competition and not central wage fixing. Central wage fixing is a significant factor which ought to be supported. To remove it would be socially disruptive. To make my final point I go back to the figures. Recently it was reported that there is a wages drift, that wages have increased by more than award increases. That raises an interesting point. It appears that most of the increases have occurred because over award wages have gone up or, to use a new term, 'incremental creep' has occurred with employers promoting employees through the wage classification structure more quickly than they would otherwise be entitled. That shows that the market for wages-I expect it to be a patchy result-is lifting above the arbitrated level of wages. That indicates that some particular classifications of skills are already in scarce demand. Whether that has translated through to youth wages is not known on the figures. However, if it has it means that the price of youth labour is now moving to a level above the award rate, which suggests that cutting award rates will have no effect on the price of youth labour. But if it means that youth wage prices have remained constant while adult wage prices have lifted, that suggests that informally the youth wage structure has not yet caught up and that informally a cut is occurring in youth wages in any case and that trend will continue to the point at which youth skills are available to meet the scarcity of demand there might be elsewhere in the economy which is causing the adult wage lift. On that basis the course which the Government has set itself is the proper course. It is a course to encourage greater training and skill at the youth end of the economy to make equal and greater opportunity for young workers to participate, not a course to cut wages. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(12.40) —I would like to begin by congratulating the many new senators for the very excellent maiden speeches we have heard. I doubt whether in the time that I have been in the Senate I have heard such a good collection of maiden speeches. Several of the speeches that we have heard have clearly attended to the economic issues of this country and it is extraordinary how many of these statements have differed from the public perception that we have been given. The accumulated facts and a lot of the stories that we have read and been told just do not seem to be quite the same. In the course of my speech I shall look at the productive sector of the economy and raise the whole question of where the productive sector fits into the thinking of the present Government. Before I go too far up that track it is appropriate that at the moment I should speak about the Government's attitude to the productive sector and, in particular today, to the dairy industry. My understanding is that within the last little while the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Kerin) has announced that he has rejected the dairy industry plan. I find this absolutely incomprehensible. I fail to see how any responsible Minister of any responsible government can have taken this sort of action at this time. The dairy industry is in extraordinary difficulty, not one bit of which is the responsibility of the industry itself. It is the responsibility of the nation as a whole. The nation must bear the responsibility for the cost squeeze that is on industries of this nature. To throw out this plan at this stage is absolutely ludicrous, and although it might not interest Senator Cook very much, I stress that I am not speaking about the airy-fairy or the vague, but I am resorting to facts. I have not seen any documents yet, but it is understood that the Minister for Primary Industry has announced that that ludicrous half-baked scheme that was leaked a few days ago to test the market has now been accepted as a policy of this Government. To put this out to an industry which, according to the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, has an average income of $6,548 per person per year will produce the sort of result that this Government must have already undertaken to face. Whatever transpires as a result of this decision will rest entirely with the Government. Schemes have been put together in an extremely difficult way by the various State authorities and by the industry at large and they have been totally ignored. I look back at the state of the Victorian election and the rort that was produced there when on the day before the election the various heroes in the Labor Party were given great credit for having brought peace to the dairy industry. It was a rort then, it is a rort now and I think it is an absolute disgrace. Some of us sceptics doubted what was said at the time and now a couple of weeks later it has been shown that we were totally right. I know a lot of dairy farmers in most States of Australia. I know the problems that exist with education, roads, Australia Post, Telecom, higher education and various other things for the people who live in these rural areas. They are people who work seven days a week, come rain, hail or shine. They do it because they are trying to achieve something and because it is the productive and sensible thing to do for the nation. How much tighter can a very responsive industry become? The industry is as economical and productive as any industry in Australia and as any dairy industry in the world. Here we are now just looking at it and saying that it is totally expendable and that we do not care what happens. Who will bear the responsibility for what this does in the interstate trade? Does anybody care what happens? Apparently this is all part of the plan. The Minister has had plenty of notice and plenty of knowledge of this matter and I believe that in the days and weeks to come he will have plenty of opportunity to put that plan into action. I will continue my remarks later. Sitting suspended from 12.45 to 2 p.m. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Leader of the Government in the Senate) —Mr President, I inform the Senate that the Minister for Community Services, Senator Grimes, is absent from the chamber today. Any questions which would normally be directed to Senator Grimes in relation to his portfolio or those he represents should be directed to me. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Attorney-General. I refer the former Attorney to the fact that it is now three weeks since the present Attorney-General publicly agonised over the request for indemnity from 31 members of the New South Wales Police who have been asked to give information to Mr Justice Stewart regarding tapped telephone conversations. I remind the Minister of his answer to Senator Chipp yesterday when he said that it was not clear from what Mr Bowen had said in the House of Representatives whether a final decision had been made on the indemnity question. In the light of Mr Bowen's other comments on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio and in this morning's newspapers will the Minister clear up the confusion by telling the Senate whether a final decision has been made and, if it has, whether or not the request for indemnity has been agreed to? Senator GARETH EVANS —The Attorney-General has advised me that he has not made a final decision to refuse the indemnities in question although his strong inclination at this stage is to follow the advice and reasoning of the Director of Public Prosecutions in this respect, which of course is that the indemnities not be granted. The Attorney-General has reserved a final decision until the outcome of certain further developments is known. In the first place there have been consultations in recent weeks with both the Director of Public Prosecutions and Mr Justice Stewart with a view to finding some agreed means by which relevant evidence may be tendered to the Stewart Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drug Trafficking. These consultations will continue. In addition to this, the Attorney-General has also formally requested the New South Wales Government to make strong representations to its Police Commissioner with a view to any relevant police knowledge or documentary material being put before the commission. He was advised this week that such representations have been made and that a reply is awaited. There is also some confusion on this matter because of a failure around the place to understand who actually makes the indemnity decision. It might be useful if I put something on the record in relation to that. It should be made clear that indemnity decisions of the kind in issue are made by the Attorney-General in his own right as first law officer although there is an accepted convention as to the propriety of his consulting with his Cabinet colleagues for their views on matters of particular difficulty or sensitivity. As to the role of the Director of Public Prosecutions, he has statutory power under section 9 (6) of his 1983 Act to grant so-called use indemnities; that is to say, undertakings as to the non-use of particular evidence in subsequent prosecutions. However, what is involved in the present Age tapes matter is not this but a request for a transactional indemnity; that is to say, immunity from prosecution for a particular kind of offence. This kind of immunity or indemnity can be granted only by the Attorney-General but it was formally agreed by me, in my former capacity as Attorney-General, with the DPP on 7 March last year and the practice continues that as transactional indemnity would be granted only by the Attorney-General after consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions and, exceptional circumstances apart, the Attorney-General would act on the DPP's advice and recommendations. It was in this context that Mr Temby's advice in the present matter was both sought and given. Senator COATES —My question to the Minister representing the Attorney-General concerns human rights and is in two parts. First, has the Minister seen reports of the call earlier this month by Dame Roma Mitchell, the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission, for Government action on racial defamation? She said that about a quarter of the complaints received concerned offensive statements about people merely because of their race, yet nothing could be done at present. Are there any plans to amend the law to allow an action against such statements consistent with the principle of freedom of expression? Secondly, will the Government consider establishing a fully fledged office of the Human Rights Commission in Hobart, especially because of the absence of any concern or action at all by the Tasmanian Government on anti-discrimination matters? Senator GARETH EVANS —As to the first question, in 1983 the Human Rights Commission under the chairmanship of Dame Roma Mitchell issued a report on Racial Defamation and Incitement to Race Hatred. The Commission recommended the amendment of the Racial Discrimination Act to prohibit public utterances or conduct likely to result in hatred, contempt or violence against persons of a particular racial or ethnic group; to prohibit public threats, insults or abuse of racial or ethnic groups; and to prohibit actions holding persons up to contempt or slander by reason of membership of a particular racial or ethnic group. The Government, I am advised, is still considering this difficult issue and is conscious of the need to protect Australian society from the threat constituted by racial defamation and incitement to racial hatred, but without damaging the important right of freedom of speech. I have answered a number of questions on this topic in the last 12 months, and have indicated to the Senate the difficulty of trading off those two sets of values. The problem has still been found to be no easier to resolve. As to the latter part of Senator Coates's question, I understand consideration is being given to the establishment of effective human rights machinery for the hearing and resolution of complaints in all States of Australia, including Tasmania. The hope of the Government remains that this can be achieved by a system of what has been described as one-stop shopping to ensure that no confusion or duplication of Commonwealth and State functions exists. It is hoped that it will be possible, preferably with the co-operation of the State Government but if not without, to establish a Human Rights Commission presence in Tasmania as soon as budgetary considerations enable that to be possible. Senator SCOTT —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Attorney-General. Has the Government received any report or other form of advice from Mr Justice Stewart in any of his various capacities on material referred to him from the Age tapes? If so, when was that report received by the Government? Senator GARETH EVANS —Again, there has been some confusion as to which particular hat Mr Justice Stewart may have been wearing in this particular matter. I make it clear to the Senate that it is not as Chairman of the National Crime Authority but in his individual or personal capacity as royal commissioner inquiring into drug trafficking that his present report, which is the subject of public debate, has been made. This is the royal commission for which letters patent were granted in 1981 dealing with Terence Clark and his associates, including Robert Trimbole. The Age tapes material was referred to Mr Justice Stewart in that capacity in the latter part of last year in order that he might, subject to his ability to first authenticate the material, then apply it for the continuing purposes of that inquiry. Interim report No. 8 of that royal commission dealing with this matter was dated by the Commissioner 12 December 1984 and I believe it was received by the Government either on that day or very shortly thereafter. Senator AULICH —Is the Minister for Finance aware of revelations about the gross waste of public money involved in plans for the Craigbourne Dam scheme in south-east Tasmania? Will the Minister confirm that South West Tasmania dam compensation money is not being spent by the State Government on this scheme, which would give each of 50 farmers a subsidy of $40,000 per year? Is the Minister aware that an extra $1.25m will be needed to build a Berlin-type wall around an historic home that otherwise would have been flooded by the dam? Senator WALSH —I am aware of the plans that the Tasmanian Government has had for some years for the waste gross of some $5m or $6m of public money. I was not aware until this morning of the apparent resurrection of that lunatic proposition, to which an extra $1.25m has been added to build a Berlin-type wall. As to whether any Federal Government compensation money is being used on that project, the answer is no, but with one possible reservation. When the offer to pay the final $9m was made to the Tasmanian Government about two months ago, the Government was given authority to use that money for the purpose for which it was originally designated; that is, to maintain employment levels on the west coast. The Federal Government had agreed to allow Tasmania to use that money, for example, if it chose to do so, to mine out the 40 series stopes at Mt Lyell. However, there were no strings attached to that $9m. I suppose it is possible that the Tasmanian Government will divert money which was ostensibly for employment maintenance on the west coast into the Craigbourne Dam, and indirectly into the pockets of its best supporters, the 50 farmers, who stand to gain an annual recurring subsidy of $40,000 a year under this proposal. They may be the beneficiaries of that money, rather than the people for whom it was intended. That would be unfortunate, but if the Tasmanian Government is determined to throw $5m, $6m or $7m-it will be somewhere in that range-at 50 of its pets in the Coal River Valley whether it is ultimately sourced from the Federal Government or not, I guess it will happen. It is disgraceful that such a proposition should be contemplated. I am not aware of what was described as a secret report prepared in 1983 and to which I understand Mr Lohrey referred in Hobart yesterday. Analyses of previous studies were done in the Commonwealth bureaucracy a couple of years ago and produced figures which are similar. So it is very likely that the analyses done by the Commonwealth Government are based on the same basic information as the report apparently prepared by the Tasmanian Government. Regarding the Berlin-type wall, it is proposed to construct a raised road between the dam and the Colebrook Park homestead to prevent the homestead from flooding. The road will need to be some five metres above the floor level of the homestead to achieve this objective. I am unable to verify the additional cost of constructing this levee bank and road between the homestead and the dam. In view of the high subsidy element to individual property owners involved, one would have to agree that the Craigbourne Dam is extremely wasteful of Government money. It is also inequitable that such enormous subsidies should be given to a handful of people at the expense of either taxpayers in general or, should the Tasmanian Government divert Commonwealth money into that, people on the west coast whose employment requirements were to have been taken care of. Senator Chaney —Will the Minister table the papers from which he has quoted? The PRESIDENT —The Minister has tabled certain documents. Senator CHIPP —I ask the Minister representing the Attorney-General whether the Attorney-General can confirm that Mr Justice Stewart and his National Crime Authority have been given references by the Inter-Governmental Committee, which gives the Authority coercive powers, to investigate and, hopefully, prosecute several significant Australian organised crime figures? Has Mr Justice Stewart requested indemnity for some or all of the 31 police involved in the Age tapes affair, giving as his reason that, if granted indemnities, these policemen would provide him with significant assistance in his task? Has Mr Ian Temby, the Director of Public Prosecutions, whose task it is to prosecute such criminals, given the Government any reason for his quaint advice not to issue such indemnities? I ask a question in three parts: When will a final decision be made to grant indemnities or not to grant them? Will such a decision be made by Cabinet or by the Attorney-General himself? Will the Government table interim report No. 8 by Mr Justice Stewart on the Age tapes? Finally, will the Minister convey to the Attorney-General and other House of Representatives Ministers in Cabinet that the Senate has powers of its own to obtain this information if the Government decides to cover up on the issue? Senator GARETH EVANS —Senator Chipp has asked several questions, one of them in three parts. My answer will not be short, but I hope the significance of it will be appreciated and that I will be given latitude accordingly. As to the first question relating to references on matters of organised crime, I am advised by the Special Minister of State, who is responsible for the National Crime Authority, that there have been four formal references on organised crime matters now given to the NCA by the Inter-Governmental Committee, none of which, however, arise out of matters raised by the Age tapes material. All four relate to drug trafficking. Three of them arise from outstanding investigations of the Costigan Royal Commission on the Activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union, but none, I repeat, arise out of the Age tapes material. Mr Justice Stewart, in his personal capacity, as I said in answer to Senator Scott, has had since 1981 a further continuing reference on the organised crime issues associated with the Terrence Clark and Robert Trimbole matters. It was wearing that hat that he was referred the Age tapes material, which did contain references to Trimbole, in order to establish its authenticity and, as I said again in answer to Senator Scott, if so satisfied as to its authenticity, then to apply it for the continuing purposes of the inquiry. The second question was whether Mr Justice Stewart has requested indemnity for some or all of certain people. It is the case that in his interim report of 12 December 1984, to which I earlier referred, Mr Justice Stewart has recommended that certain persons be granted immunity from prosecution for possible breaches of the Telecommunications Interception Act 1979. He has made the request on the basis that it will allow him to complete his inquiries into the authenticity of the Age tapes material and, if satisfied on that account, enable him to advance his inquiries into the activities of Clark's associates. The persons in respect of whom such indemnities have been sought are 31 present and former New South Wales police officers identified as possibly involved in illegal telephone tapping and any persons in the same category who may subsequently come forward. Senator Chipp's third question concerned the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is the case that Mr Temby has given advice that those present and former New South Wales police officers identified in the Stewart report not be granted indemnities against prosecution for breach of the Commonwealth Telecommunications (Interception) Act. He did so in a fully reasoned 12-page document dated 16 December 1984. There are two basic themes in his advice which, putting it as briefly as possible, might be summarised as follows: Firstly, in his language, there are great dangers in sanctioning breaches of the law by those whose sworn duty it is to enforce it. Secondly, he expresses himself not to be satisfied that indemnities would, nonetheless, be justified on the overriding basis that this would in all likelihood lead to the arrest and conviction of persons involved in serious criminal offences. I quote him again: I think it unlikely that the Age materials will be of much use except as a source of criminal intelligence, for which purposes they have no doubt been extensively used over the years. It is one thing to reach conclusions as to how they came into existence. It is quite another thing to authenticate particular parts of the materials so as to make them of use as evidence in criminal proceedings. The Government is giving consideration to the tabling of Mr Temby's advice, but it is not in a position to do so at this stage. The Attorney-General is, however, prepared to make the document available today on a confidential basis to Senator Chipp as Leader of the Australian Democrats and to Mr Peacock as Leader of the Opposition. Senator Chipp will then have an opportunity to make his own judgment as to whether Mr Temby's advice justifies the description he gave it. Senator Chipp —Are you talking about Mr Temby's advice or report No. 8? Senator GARETH EVANS —I have talked so far about Mr Temby's advice dated 16 December 1984. The fourth question was in three parts. The first one, I think, I really did cover in answer to Senator Chaney's first question: When will a final decision be made on the indemnity question and by whom, the Attorney-General or by Cabinet? I have indicated that while the Attorney-General has a strong inclination at this stage he has not yet made a final decision that that is, in turn, contingent on the outcome of certain further developments, that is, consultations that are continuing to take place with the DPP and Mr Justice Stewart, to see whether they can find agreement about some appropriate procedure to get evidence brought forward and, as a second route, representations that have been made through the New South Wales Government to the Police Commissioner in that State in an endeavour to encourage some further co-operation, if that is possible, with the Commission. Senator Chipp —Are those consultations including in Cabinet? Was it discussed in Cabinet? Senator GARETH EVANS —I do not propose to canvass questions of what may or may not have been discussed in Cabinet. I simply repeat, in this respect, that while decisions of this kind are essentially matters for the Attorney-General in his personal capacity as First Law Officer, nonetheless it is an accepted convention that it is perfectly proper-I said this in answer first up to Senator Chaney and he nodded in assent because this has been accepted all round the Westminster universe-for him to consult with his Cabinet colleagues for their views on matters of, where appropriate, particular difficulty and particular sensitivity. It may well be that there will be further such consultation. The second part of Senator Chipp's last question was: Will the Government table the interim report by Mr Justice Stewart on the Age tapes? As to that I am able to say this: the Government will give consideration to the tabling of Mr Justice Stewart's interim report of 12 December of last year. There will, however, need to be further close consultation with Mr Justice Stewart on this matter, as he has already expressed firm opposition to any such tabling on the basis of the confidentiality of certain information contained within it. However, as with the Temby advice, the Attorney-General has advised me, a little while ago, that he is prepared to make the Stewart report available today on a confidential basis to both Senator Chipp and the Leader of the Opposition in order that they might fully appreciate the arguments that have weighed with Mr Justice Stewart, and perhaps also responsibly evaluate the very great difficulties involved for any Attorney-General in making a decision in this matter. The final part of Senator Chipp's last question concerned the possible role of the Senate in this respect. I say at the outset, again in response to the particular language he employed, that the Government categorically rejects any allegation of a cover-up in this matter. What is involved in the present case is the resolution of some very serious questions relating to the administration of criminal justice. The Government is fully aware that the Senate has certain powers to conduct inquiries and to compel the production of certain material, subject always to proper claims of Executive privilege which may have considerable relevance in a law enforcement context. We do not believe that the present situation is one remotely justifying the exercise of such powers and we expect that Senator Chipp will come to the same conclusion after studying, fair-mindedly, the material that will be made available to him. Senator BOLKUS —I refer the Minister representing the Treasurer to the final report of Special Prosecutor Roger Gyles, QC, and, in particular, Mr Gyles's criticism of the Commissioner of Taxation for his refusal to co-operate in the task of obtaining and organising sufficient resources, in order adequately to exercise civil remedies against those involved in company stripping. In light of the comment of the Special Prosecutor, will the Minister indicate whether the Government will be moving to direct extra resources to carry out the task recommended by Mr Gyles? Senator WALSH —I was aware of Mr Gyles's report and of previous reports from Mr Gyles along similar lines. I am advised that the position was that 80 trained auditors were specially allocated by the Australian Taxation Office to the investigation of the high priority targets, 166 in number, whom Mr Gyles had identified. It is a matter for judgment as to how many auditors ought to be appointed to various tasks. It must be noted that there are a very large number of areas of tax avoidance and evasion activity. This particularly arose during the period of the former Government when outrageous tax schemes mushroomed across the country. The negative actions of members of the former Government, now in opposition, continue to aid and abet tax avoidance or evasion activity. The most cost effective way of stamping out tax avoidance entirely would be a credible threat of retrospective legislation. But of course the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party of Australia and two-thirds of the Australian Democrats and Senator Harradine refuse to give such a threat any credibility. Indeed, the difference between the Government's attitude to tax evasion and the Opposition and its sort of hangers-on's attitude to tax evasion is this: The Government says that if somebody is caught today for having plundered the public purse yesterday he has to pay back the money that he has pinched. What the Liberals, the Democrats and Senator Harradine say is that if somebody is caught today for plundering the public purse yesterday, he does not have to pay back what he pinched yesterday, but if he pinches any more tomorrow he will have to pay that back. Senator Chaney —Mr President- Senator WALSH —No wonder Senator Chaney objects. That sums up, in a nutshell, the difference between us and the Opposition. Senator Chaney —Mr President, I raise a point of order. My point of order is that the Minister, in making those remarks, is reflecting on a vote of the Senate, is out of order and should be told to desist. Senator Robertson —Of course they are not out of order. They are completely in order. Senator Chaney —The one thing that I can be sure of is that the honourable senator will never be the President of this place so his view does not matter. The PRESIDENT —Order! There is no point of order involved. I listened to the Minister for Finance. I do not consider that there has been a breach of the Standing Orders. I ask the Minister not to debate the answer to any question. Senator WALSH —This reminds me of the bush jury sitting in judgment on a guy on a charge of cattle duffing. The jury found the defendant not guilty as long as he gave the cattle back. The judge then said to the jury that that was not good enough, that they could not bring down a judgment like that. So the jury went away and came back and said: 'We find the defendant not guilty and he does not have to give the cattle back'. It is about the same sort of attitude. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to answer the question. There have been some long answers today. Senator WALSH —Yes, Mr President. Regarding the resources for the Australian Taxation Office, if the correct legislation were passed by the Senate there would be no need for additional resources for compliance and enforcement. Since the Senate will not pass that legislation, the Government has progressively, over recent years, allocated greater resources to the Taxation Office. For example, 392 extra compliance positions were created in the last Budget. Senator HAMER —I refer the Minister representing the Attorney-General to the Attorney-General's considered written answers to questions submitted to him by the Age newspaper published in the Age today where the Attorney said: 'Lesser criminals are sometimes given indemnity on the basis that their evidence will lead to the successful prosecution of major criminals. Police officers do not fall into that category . . .' Does the former Attorney-General believe that his successor is seriously suggesting that the alleged crimes of conspiracy, corruption and interference with court processes and crimes associated with drugs are lesser crimes than whatever offence the New South Wales police may have committed? Senator GARETH EVANS —It is the case that in granting indemnities it is one tried and true application of such a power that it be exercised in a circumstance where lesser crimes may be involved in order to catch a larger fish. It is a matter for judgment in the circumstances of any particular case whether that principle is applicable. A number of principles are applicable to the exercise of the discretion to grant an indemnity. I think the best telling of that tale is, as so often, the document entitled 'Prosecution Policy of the Commonwealth' tabled in the Parliament in December 1982 by the then Acting Attorney-General, Mr Neil Brown, on behalf of the then Attorney-General, Senator Durack, pages 11 and 12 of which I think are extremely pertinent to sensible consideration of the matter presently under debate. Paragraph 26 states: . . . before a decision is made to grant an indemnity or to recommend to the Governor-General the grant of a pardon, all possible alternative courses must be considered. One possible alternative which must always be considered is to proceed to conviction of the prospective witness in respect of at least some of the offences committed by him before commencement of the trial of the principal offender. In broad principle, this course is preferable to giving an indemnity in respect of all offences committed by the prospective witness that would be disclosed by his evidence. In paragraph 27, the Attorney-General of the day said: Having regard to these matters, I require information to be placed before me as to the following matters: These are again criteria which should be very definitely borne in mind by anyone opposite or in the corner on the other side who is inclined to rush to judgment on this matter: Do the interests of justice require the case to proceed against the principal offender? Is the evidence of the person in respect of whom the indemnity or pardon is sought essential to achieve the conviction of the principal offender? Whether it would be possible to proceed to conviction of this person on at least some of the charges that would be disclosed by his evidence before the trial of the principal offender? What is the degree of involvement of the person in the offence compared with the involvement of the principal offender? What is the general character of the person and his previous criminal record? Was any reward or inducement offered to the person as a condition of his giving evidence. Finally, paragraph 28 states: The ultimate decision to grant an indemnity or recommend grant of a pardon is only made after the most careful consideration of this material. Assuming a decision is made to grant an indemnity, the scope of the indemnity should be no wider than the circumstances require. I put that on the record in order to emphasise the seriousness of any decision to divert from the normal course of prosecutions where criminal offences are established or likely to be established and to grant an indemnity. It is a matter to which any Attorney-General of any stripe, colour or party must give the most anxious consideration. Some of the suggestions that are bruited about that indemnities of the kind that are in issue here and on the scale here proposed are something that should be granted casually in the context of an essentially exploratory exercise in terms of what might follow thereafter are ones that I do not think stand up very well at all with the principles so clearly enunciated by Senator Durack and Mr Brown in 1982. Senator HEARN —Has the Minister representing the Prime Minister seen the February labour force statistics? Can he say how these figures fit in with other indicators of the recovery in the economy? Senator BUTTON —The question related to labour force statistics and I assume that it was directed particularly at the matter of unemployment, which used to be a matter of great concern to the Opposition and which, of course, has always been a matter of great concern to this Government. The February labour force figures reveal again a very encouraging improvement in both employment and unemployment trends. Total employment in February was up by 0.7 per cent on January 1985-that is the monthly improvement-and 3.3 per cent on the same month in 1984; that is to say, in February 1985 a 3.3 per cent increase in employment was recorded relative to February 1984. The unemployment rate fell from 8.5 per cent in January of this year to 8.3 per cent in February of this year. These employment figures are accompanied by an increase in participation rates in the work force. I do not have the precise figures before me at the moment but they are available. The figures reveal a continuing problem in the area of youth unemployment, a matter to which the Government is currently giving urgent attention. Nonetheless, in spite of the fact that there is a continuing and dramatic problem of youth unemployment in Australia, I make the point that since the beginning of 1984 the youth unemployment rate has fallen from approximately 25.5 per cent to of the order of 23.3 per cent, which is about a 2 per cent fall. It is an improvement but, of course, it has not made a desirable impact on the total overall figures. Having given those figures, and having commented particularly on the youth unemployment figures, I make the point that since April 1983 total employment has grown by over 360,000, well on the track of the Government's promises prior to the 1983 election. I was also asked about other indicators in respect of the economy. Currently the inflation rate is just over 5 per cent in line with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average and less than half the rate we inherited when we took office from the discredited Fraser Government. Retail sales are up and the latest investment figures show a considerable improvement, albeit over a low base, on 1983 and 1984. Housing also remains strong, and recent surveys of business and consumer confidence have proved very optimistic. Mr President, I am sorry to have delayed the Senate with a somewhat lengthy answer but I think it is important that those figures be recorded because they are encouraging and, I hope, will be encouraging to all honourable senators irrespective of their parties. Senator DURACK —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Attorney-General. Does the former Attorney-General agree that, despite his personal campaign last year and the best efforts of both the Hawke and the Wran governments to block all inquiry into the Age tapes and transcripts, matters raised in that material simply will not go away? Does the Government intend to pursue the same tactics of obstruction in respect of the allegation of Mr Bob Bottom that a very senior New South Wales political figure used information from the tapes to head off a potentially embarrassing court case, or will it take steps to ensure that this claim is fully and properly investigated? If the Government is at long last prepared to investigate these matters will it move immediately to establish, in conjunction with the Government of New South Wales, a royal commission not only into the Bottom allegations but also into all other matters raised in the alleged recordings of telephone conversations by New South Wales police, of which the Age tapes are only a part? Senator GARETH EVANS —If anyone has been scraping the bottom over the last 12 months on this issue, it is the Opposition. We do not propose to encourage it in its delusions and fancies that there may be some political nourishment for it in an exercise of the kind that is proposed. Senator Chaney —How many more people have to be gaoled before you own up? Senator GARETH EVANS —The Bottom allegations remain, as so often, utterly mysterious as to their content but quite pernicious-- Senator Chaney —No wonder you were sacked. You have no idea. Senator GARETH EVANS —I repeat that the Bottom allegations that have surfaced on this occasion, as with so many other such allegations in the past from that gentleman, if he might be so described, not only lack any substantive content of a kind to which it is possible to respond at the moment at either a State or Commonwealth level, but at the same time accomplish the purpose that people like Senator Chaney, contemptibly interjecting again today as is his wont-- The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to withdraw that word. Senator GARETH EVANS —I will not withdraw, Mr President, so long as the flow of interjections of the kind that I have just been receiving from the Leader of the Opposition continue-- The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister representing the Attorney-General to withdraw the word he used. Senator GARETH EVANS —I withdraw in deference to you, Mr President. But I would appreciate some respect being shown by the gentleman opposite, if he might be so described, when one is trying to deal, as I am, with the quite serious allegations that have been thrown about in profound indifference to the truth of the matter. Senator Chaney —Farquhar, Jackson, Humphreys-a figment of the Opposition's imagination! You never did your job. The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Chaney, I ask that the Minister be heard in silence. I call the Minister. Senator GARETH EVANS —The latest Bottom allegation, as with so many others before it, serves its purpose of establishing by smear and innuendo a climate of opinion which, as with so many other occasions in the past, it is perfectly likely, when it is subsequently investigated, if it is subsequently investigated will be proved to be utterly without foundation. The Government certainly has no intention whatsoever of going down that particular path on this occasion. I remind the Senate that there have been many avenues available for particular matters allegedly arising from the Age tapes to be examined by a variety of different bodies of independence and integrity. They have been looked at by the Director of Public Prosecutions. They have been looked at by special commissions of inquiry in New South Wales. They have been looked at by Solicitors-General. They have been looked at now and are still being looked at by Mr Justice Stewart. Under the terms of the legislation that was passed last year in this place, and as a result of an amendment initiated I believe by the Opposition, or at least by the other side of the chamber, the National Crime Authority is capable of looking at this material should it be moved by the protestations and whimpering of the Opposition to so act. I am not sure that it will; that is a matter for it and for the Inter-Governmental Committee. There is no need whatsoever to establish any further muck-raking machinery of the kind that is so dear to the hearts of the muck-rakers opposite. Senator GILES —Has the attention of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs been drawn to the lead story in yesterday's Sydney Daily Mirror headed 'Assets: Home checks', with no question mark, as if that is a fact? If so, can he advise whether the headline and contents of that story accurately portray the procedures to be followed in the event of appeals against property valuations under the assets test? Senator GIETZELT —I have seen the lead article in yesterday's copy of the Sydney Daily Mirror and I am completely disgusted with the tone of both the heading and the article. It is an example of gutter journalism at its very worst. It is an article of the most gross misrepresentation and designed to cause a great deal of stress to two and a half million pensioners who obviously would be affected by the tenor and the words expressed in the article. Every time this sort of scurrilous misinformation surfaces it causes tremendous distress among pensioners. My Department, as well as the Department of Social Security, is immediately flooded with a great number of inquiries from elderly persons and infirm persons. It is indefensible that these sorts of people should be made to suffer from grossly irresponsible reporting. One can only describe the article and the heading as sloppy and despicable. It earns condemnation not only for the journalist but also for the editor for allowing this prominent expression to be placed on the front page of the paper. It is important to stress that the journalist made no attempt whatever to check his facts with either the Minister for Social Security or me which one would think was rather elementary. If Mr Gibson had bothered to check with me, I would have been able to point out how far he was off beam. I repeat-I hope it will be the last time-that there will be no inspectors from my Department, the Australian Taxation Office or the Department of Social Security entering pensioners' homes in connection with the assets test. As the Senate knows, more than 95 per cent of pensioners were not affected in any way, shape or form by the assets test, yet that article stressed that inspectors would be entering the homes of pensioners. There was no qualification; it stressed that all pensioners would be affected. This will not happen. Assurances have been given by me, the Minister for Social Security and the Prime Minister that no such persons will intrude into the privacy of those in receipt of social security benefits or service pensions. In conclusions, I wish to inform Senator Giles that the Minister for Social Security and I are so concerned about the article that we will refer it to the Press Council of Australia in view of its gross misrepresentation, the great stress it has caused to many of the most vulnerable sections of the Australian community and the author's failure to carry out the most elementary checks on the accuracy of his information. Senator TEAGUE —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Why did the Foreign Minister not ensure that he had full access to Australian and allied intelligence advice prior to making public statements accepting Vietnamese assurances concerning violation of the Thai border? It is the case that the Foreign Minister does not have confidence that his Department and the intelligence bodies answerable to him are capable of providing accurate intelligence advice to him when he is travelling in a foreign country? Senator GARETH EVANS —If the honourable senator opposite could or would read, he would have noticed that in the Hansard of 19 March in the House of Representatives, in the course of a very substantial reply to the censure motion then being debated, Mr Hayden dealt squarely with the issues that have been raised. I refer the honourable senator to page 474 and I will not burden the chamber by reading what he compellingly responded to the question. Mr Hayden expressed his perfect confidence in the quality and timeliness of the intelligence reports available to him. Senator RICHARDSON —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Attorney-General. Is the Minister aware of continuing Press reports on the financial crisis surrounding Telford Property Fund Ltd and associated trust companies. Has the Government the power, via the National Companies and Securities Commission, to investigate the trusts involved to ensure that there have been no breaches of the law and that unit holders' investments are secure. Is the Government satisfied that the new arrangements announced by the trustees will provide a solution to the problem? Further, is the Government aware of any large scale problems for other property trusts? Senator GARETH EVANS —I wish somebody would ask me a question about pipes or holes, Mr President. I am beginning to feel a bit unloved in my new portfolio. It is the case that the NCSC has the power to investigate that trust, if it is thought necessary. The New South Wales Corporate Affairs Commission, I am advised by the Attorney-General, as the delegate of the NCSC, has been keeping in very close contact with the relevant trustees of the Telford trusts and has been keeping the NCSC in touch with developments. There is a report in today's Australian Financial Review that one trustee of the various Telford trusts is perfectly satisfied that the trusts are sound and can continue to operate profitably. The trustee has taken a range of initiatives summarised in the Press today. I am advised that the relevant Corporate Affairs Commission is satisfied, as is the trustee, that these steps should allow the trusts to continue in a sound and orderly way. As to the last part of Senator Richardson's question, governments, the NCSC and corporate affairs commissions have been monitoring the industry closely. There are not, as far as I am advised, other large scale problems. This is partly because of steps taken by the Ministerial Council for Companies and Securities at its Darwin meeting in August last year. The outcome of these steps was the extensively revised guidelines released by the NCSC at the beginning of this week, in its Release 121. That release contains a wide range of measures which will ensure that investors are fully informed before and during their investment decisions. Senator JESSOP —I address my question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Is the Minister aware of statements reported to have been made by the Australian Royal Commissioner, Mr Justice McClelland, in the Australian newspaper today in which he accused the British Prime Minister of, among other things, 'turning the miners union into another Belgrano', and also referred to Mrs Thatcher as 'that silly woman'? As this is not the first occasion on which Mr Justice McClelland has attacked the British Government, does the Australian Government consider it ethical and appropriate for an Australian judge to voice blatantly political and offensive opinions about a foreign government? What would be the reaction of the Australian Government and, probably, the whole Parliament, if a visiting British judge on a similar mission were to refer to our Prime Minister as a 'silly little dwarf', or even 'the short end of the ANZUS pact'? As Mr Justice McClelland has been in the United Kingdom with his staff at considerable expense to the Australian taxpayer and as his statements are not in the interests of good international relations, will the Government consider his immediate dismissal? Senator BUTTON —I am asked whether I am aware of what Mr Justice McClelland is alleged to have said in the United Kingdom. I cannot say with any authority that I am aware of what the judge said. I read a report of some alleged remarks in the Australian newspaper this morning and, though it does not in any way suggest authenticity, I must say that they had a characteristic eloquence about them, which suggests that they may well have flowed from the judge, in one condition or another. I am asked whether I regard the remarks as being ethical. I think that my answer to that question would be yes. I am asked whether the remarks, if authentic, would be appropriate. My answer would be 'probably not', but appropriateness is not always the most valuable criterion of human endeavour. I am asked, thirdly, what the reaction of the Australian Parliament would be if a British judge in somewhat analagous set of circumstances made supposedly derogatory remarks about the Australian Prime Minister and/or others. That is a totally hypothetical question about which I can only guess. All I can say is that, if Senator Jessop is any example, I imagine that the reaction of the Australian Parliament would be incredibly pompous. Senator COOK —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Has the Minister seen the extraordinary article in yesterday's Canberra Times gratuitously headlined 'Helping hand for PM's speechwriters' and written by the discredited former Secretary to the Treasury, Mr John Stone? If so, did the Minister see the criticism of the Hawke Labor Government's economic performance? Specifically, is there any truth in the claim that 'our own economy is showing signs of falling apart'; or could the words 'showing signs of falling apart' be a perverse form of praise from Mr Stone, in that they grudgingly acknowledge that, despite his best efforts, this Government has got the economy together and going again? Would the Minister be worried if Mr Stone praised him? Senator WALSH —I do not know about praise; but I would certainly be worried if this Government's economic analysis were the same as Mr Stone's. Mr Stone's economic analyses were noted for firstly reaching conclusions and then searching around to try to find some evidence to support them, and producing different sorts of evidence at different times. With reference to Mr Stone's allegation that the economy shows signs of falling apart, it ought to be noted that employment has grown by 360,000 in the last 22 months, which is more than the employment growth recorded in the seven years during which Mr Stone presided over the Treasury. Indeed, in the last year of the joint occupation of the Treasury by Mr Stone and the discredited former Government, 186,000 jobs were lost; that is, employment actually fell absolutely by 186,000 in that 12-month period. It has increased absolutely by 360,000 in less than two years. The unemployment rate has come down from above 10 per cent to 8.3 per cent-not that the Government regards that as an acceptable figure, of course-and the inflation rate in the December quarter of 1984 as compared with the same quarter in the previous year was the lowest it had been in 13 years. Economic growth in 1983-84 was 5.3 per cent, as compared with minus 1.1 per cent in the last year of the joint Fraser-Stone tenancy of the Treasury, or the Stone-Howard occupation of it, and gross domestic product growth throughout the course of 1983-84 was the strongest in the industrial world. In that instance, as in so many instances in the past, however, Mr Stone has not allowed the facts to stand in the way of his pet theories and predetermined conclusions. Senator KILGARIFF —I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. In light of comments made on AM last week by a leading Aboriginal spokesman, Alderman Bob Liddle, expressing doubts as to whether the Mutitjulu community at Ayers Rock, which has been granted ownership of the Rock, represents the true traditional owners of the Rock, and reports indicating that the true traditional owners of the Rock were the Yunkutjijra people, who were probably wiped out by an epidemic of influenza in the early 1920s, is the Minister prepared to investigate the reliability of the anthropological studies upon which the Government has relied in determining the owners of the Rock? In view of the controversy as to which people represent the true owners of the Rock, is the Minister concerned that the Rock may have been given to an organisation which, it is to be noted, is not a tribe and may not represent the true owners of the Rock but may be the product of white man's intervention in the area of Aboriginal land rights, and which may be motivated by a desire for administrative and, perhaps, political control of the Rock? Senator RYAN —The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Holding, has provided me with some information on this matter. Mr Holding says that he has heard statements such as the statement of Mr Bob Liddle regarding ownership of the Rock, and he believes Alderman Liddle to be seriously misinformed. The former Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Mr Justice Toohey, found in his report on the Uluru land claim that Uluru is a place of enormous significance both for the Aboriginal claimants and for a wider range of Aboriginal people. The Commissioner found that there are some 23 listed sites of significance at Uluru. There are a number of tribal groups living in the area, and Ayers Rock and the Olgas form the reference points for the 'countries' of these various groups. The Mutitjulu Community Incorporated is a body corporate which represents the people in the area. Nobody, other than apparently Mr Liddle, has suggested that the name Mutitjulu refers to a tribal grouping. When considering the credentials of Mr Liddle to comment on Aboriginal affairs in Central Australia, it is worth considering the following points. In the 1983 Northern Territory election Mr Liddle, the Country Liberal Party candidate for the predominantly Aboriginal seat of Stuart, was able to attract only 35 per cent of the vote against the white Labor candidate, Brian Ede. Mr Liddle was also directly responsible for the shipment overseas of the invaluable Strehlow collection-an action that outraged the Aboriginal community. These are not the actions of a man who has the interests of his people or of anyone else at heart. Senator ROBERTSON —I direct a question to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. I refer to Senator Haines's suggestion for the introduction of a review system for pensioners who feel that the valuation of their assets is excessive or that they are in some other way disadvantaged under the test. Is there in fact no such review in force at present? Senator GIETZELT —During the debate yesterday on the Bill for the defeat of the assets test legislation Senator Haines, in a very sensible and balanced contribution, made the point that she believed that the Government should consider establishing a review system in respect of assessments under the assets test, in respect of the facts of the application as well as the degree to which the pension should be paid following a review of the assets. I have to advise the Senate that there is in fact such a review system already operating which I think is quite adequate to deal with the matters raised by Senator Haines. For example, in the Department of Veterans' Affairs we have a first level right of review by a senior determining officer conducted from Canberra so that there are no expenses or difficulties for the applicant. There is also a second level of appeal-the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. So an adequate procedure is established in my Department. In the Department of Social Security also there is a first level right of appeal by the applicant to a Social Security Appeals Tribunal. If a pensioner is not successful in that appeal he or she has a right of appeal to the AAT, as in the case of an unsuccessful appeal to the Department of Veterans' Affairs. In both cases the right of appeal extends across the full range of decisions made in respect of the facts and/or the rate of pension. I assure the Senate that the Government is well aware of the need to protect the rights of persons who may be affected by the assets test legislation. Senator PUPLICK —I seek to ask a question of the Minister for Finance. In his absence, I might direct it to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. I refer the Minister to the report of the joint working party between the Department of Finance and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, tabled in this place on 20 March. Did the original joint working party report include a three-page summary report agreed on by both parties? Was the summary report in large part critical of the Government for its cut-backs in the funding to CSIRO, for hampering CSIRO's vital role, for instance, drawing attention to 'insufficient funds' being provided for certain government-directed programs? Who authorised the deletion of the summary report from the document presented to the Senate, thus misleading the Senate both as to the facts and conclusions of the joint working party? Finally, will the Minister now give me leave to table the summary report to set the record straight, especially as the Minister for Finance will be able to vouch for the accuracy of these critical remarks in the document which were, in fact, agreed to by officers of the Department of Finance? Senator BUTTON —I am familiar with the joint working party between the Department of Finance and the CSIRO. I am not familiar with the alleged summary. From what I do know of it I suspect that Senator Sibraa, having sniffed something with great perspicacity-if that is the way one sniffs-is barking up the wrong tree, but I will get the Minister for Finance to provide an answer to Senator Sibraa as soon as possible. Honourable senators-Puplick! Senator BUTTON —Did I call him Sibraa twice? I apologise, Senator. Senator PUPLICK —By way of supplementary question: I sought leave from the Minister to table the summary report, the part which was deleted. I ask whether in fact I am to be given leave to table it. The PRESIDENT —Is leave granted to table a document? Senator BUTTON —I am quite happy for Senator Puplick to table it if he insists, but if he gives me a copy of it I will have it checked with the Minister for Finance and we can table the lot next week if we want. Would that be helpful? Senator Puplick —I am happy with that course of action, Mr President. Mr PRESIDENT —I take it, Senator Puplick, that you will withdraw your application for leave? Senator Puplick —On the basis that, after Senator Button has checked it, the whole lot can be tabled next week, yes, Mr President. Senator GARETH EVANS —Yesterday Senator Archer asked me a question about the Age tapes indemnity matter to which I undertook to seek an early reply from the Attorney-General. I honour that now by indicating to the Senate that I have received the following answer from the Attorney-General: My actions and decisions in regard to the so-called 'Age tapes' and the illegal activities by N.S.W. Police have nothing to do with allegations made yesterday by Mr Bob Bottom that a very senior political figure in N.S.W. used information on the tapes to head off legal action. I have made it very clear that I want the N.S.W. Police concerned to give evidence to Mr Justice Stewart. I believe they have a clear duty to do so. I have also made it clear that I am supported in this view by the decision of the High Court in the so-called 'ASIS case' last year, that: 'the incapacity of the Executive Government to dispense its servants from obedience to laws made by Parliament is the cornerstone of parliamentary democracy'. The Federal Telecommunications Interception Act of 1979 constitutes a fundamental protection of basic civil rights in this community. Breaches of it, particularly by police, are not matters that I can, or will, regard except as of the utmost gravity. Refusal by police officers to provide a Royal Commissioner with evidence they have of serious criminal activity is a very grave matter. I have taken steps that I hope will result in the police concerned reconsidering their position to discharge their professional duty to our community. Senator SIBRAA(New South Wales) —by leave-I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- 1. Expresses its abhorrence at the unwarranted slaughter of unarmed black Africans by South African police in Cape Province on 21 March 1985; 2. In particular, expresses its outrage that these killings should have occurred on the 25th Anniversary of the infamous Sharpeville massacre, which focused international attention on racial injustice in South Africa; 3. Reaffirms its total opposition to the injustice and inhumanity of apartheid as demonstrated in yesterday's massacre; and 4. Calls upon the South African Government to act immediately to initiate a process of peaceful transition to democratic government for all races in South Africa. Senator Peter Rae-Mr President, I should like to raise a point of order arising out of Question Time, if I may. It is in relation to a question in regard to the Craigbourne Dam scheme in Tasmania and the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh). The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Chaney) sought the tabling of the document from which the Minister had read. The document which was tabled made it quite clear that it was a question on notice and that the detail of the question had been provided in advance, as had the suggested response. The suggested response contained the information that there was nothing to do with the Commonwealth in relation to the scheme and to the expenditure. In view of that, Mr President, and in view of the many times in which we had to put up with the complaints of former Senator McLaren during the preceding seven years or so, I ask whether you have given any further thought to the situation of questions without notice, particularly where the drafted answer shows that the question has nothing to do with the Minister's responsibility and is asked for political purposes only. The PRESIDENT —I have heard what Senator Peter Rae has said. My mind goes back to the fact that the Standing Orders Committee has considered this matter at least once before in the time I have been a member of the Committee and decided to recommend to the Senate that no action should be taken in respect of the matter. Consideration resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Harradine: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(3.11) —The annual report of the National Health and Medical Research Council details matters relating to that Council. The Council provides funds for a number of areas. Many are quite important matters for consideration and funding and fall within the normal guidelines that have been determined by Parliament as being appropriate. However, I point to a particular area for which funds have been made available by the National Health and Medical Research Council. I refer to the area of experimentation. The National Health and Medical Research Council provides funds for: Further studies of the lipid composition of human and rodent gamete cell membranes and attempts to modify their composition may lead to a successful technique for inducing the fusion and incorporation of human spermatozoa into zona-free rodent ova. Putting aside all the technicalities, that means applying human sperm to animal ova. If we, as a society, not only allow this sort of activity but also provide funds for it, there will be grave and serious implications for society. I will guarantee that nobody in this chamber would be aware that that experimentation is proceeding or, indeed, that we are providing funds for such processes to be adopted. I doubt very much whether anybody in the other House would be aware of that fact. I am confident in assuming that the Government itself would be unaware of the situation, yet the National Health and Medical Research Council provides funds for such experimentation. I raise this matter now because I intend to do something about it. I give notice to the Senate of my intention to bring in a Bill to amend the principal legislation governing the National Health and Medical Research Council. I will also request that that be made an urgent Bill so that these matters can be faced fairly and squarely. Senator Peter Baume —What will you have in the Bill? Senator HARRADINE —The honourable senator will know that soon enough. The Bill will provide the Senate with the opportunity to consider the very important social issues which surround this matter. We are dealing with very fundamental questions of human rights. We are dealing with fundamental questions of the dignity of the human species. We cannot allow to emerge a situation whereby taxpayers' funds are provided for experimentation in this sort of area. Indeed, we have a responsibility, as a Parliament representing a society with cohesive values, not to allow the sort of extension of this sort of experimentation which allows for human sperm to be matched with animal ova. I do not wish to fire all my shots in answer to Senator Baume today. I have many more in my locker. I hope that by the time the next session arrives I will have a Bill ready for the Senate to consider. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator COONEY(Victoria)(3.16) —I note the remarks made by Senator Harradine. It is essential that in this field we consider ethics, as they are of great importance. It should be understood that in research matters the people who should primarily determine the ethics are the professional bodies themselves. I note that there is a National Health and Medical Research Council statement on human experimentations and supplementary notes directed to that very purpose. If Senator Harradine does not already have a copy, I am happy to provide one. I put to Senator Harradine as a primary proposition that ethics should be determined by the professionals themselves. I refer not only to professionals in the National Health and Medical Research Council, but also to those in other areas. Those in professional bodies should be the ones to put forward propositions about the appropriate ethics. Certainly there should be an overriding monitoring of that by the Parliament and the community which this Parliament represents. Senator Harradine —Surely you do not agree with item 7? Senator COONEY —I do not want to go through it clause by clause now. I am merely saying that as a general proposition we have to remember that any professional body has a code of ethics which it has to consider. I then go on to say that the Parliament and the community should oversee the adherence to those ethics. Certainly if a professional body does not give due recognition to those ethics, if it goes outside the area it should, this Parliament should step in. If Senator Harradine puts forward propositions with which I agree, I will certainly go along with him. The other matter I touch on in the time allotted is that the medical research carried out by this body is a part of the general research carried out in Australia. I note some remarks that Senator Puplick made the other day about research. It is clear that not enough funding is being given to fundamental research in Australia. It is to be hoped that this Government and those governments that come in the future will give more. All governments in the past, no matter what their colour, have not given enough to research grants. Bodies such as the NHMRC must be properly funded. That is fundamental to the development of this country and to the development of a proper system of not only medical research, but also research of a more general nature. On 20 March 1985 Senator Puplick made a remark that Mr Barry Jones, the Minister for Science, when he was the Minister for Science and Technology in the last Government, did not pursue a policy which gave a proper place to fundamental research. I do not know on what material Senator Puplick based that statement, but I suggest that that statement is not correct. If any member of this Parliament has the topmost regard for research, it is Mr Barry Jones. He has been laughed about in terms of his 'Commission for the Future' but he has certainly shown a regard for the future and the fact that research is of the utmost importance to us and should be what we are all about. In that respect it is instructive to see what has happened with DNA research. It was started off, I think, in 1952 by Francis Crick and D. A. Watson as an effort in fundamental research. By 1962 it had won the Nobel Prize and later in the 1960s the commercial attributes of that research were seen. Now, in the 1980s, it is becoming a very big part of the wealth creation finds of this century. I think it was said the other day at a meeting of a scientific body that biochemistry was- The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(3.21) —I will follow up some of the remarks that have been made by Senator Harradine. I listened to what he said with some interest and initial concern and then I thought of some of the experiments that have been carried out this century such as those that were carried out in Auschwitz by the infamous Dr Mengele. I agree with Senator Harradine to this extent: Where human beings who have civil rights and rights guaranteed by various conventions are involved, it is proper that limit be put on the experimentation that may occur. I think we would be as one on that point. I also think of a certain class of scientific work that goes on involving, say, individual cells, normal body cells, that scientists are studying; I do not think any real ethical issues arise there. The area that Senator Harradine has concentrated our minds upon is the question of experimentation in the field of human reproduction. I think it is fair to say that that is the area that has attracted the honourable senator's concern for several reasons. Firstly, it is an area where there are value differences in society, and in a pluralistic society that is not surprising. Secondly, it is an area in which technology is advancing very fast-the honourable senator seems uncertain-and is an area in which the honourable senator thinks certain ethical matters remain unresolved. The only reason I join the debate is to say this: Senator Harradine has proposed that the answer to this matter is that the Parliament should legislate. Indeed, he has foreshadowed that he will move a motion to bring in a Bill for an Act to legislate in this area. I say to the honourable senator: I can see that there is a grey area in existence. I know that the National Health and Medical Research Council thinks it is a grey area. Until a couple of years ago I served on the council of one of the large medical research institutes at one of the big hospitals and the council was concerned about the ethical issues that were coming up; it could see a number of grey areas. I put it to the honourable senator that the existence of these grey areas may require that the matters be put under study perhaps by the Senate. I wonder whether proceeding directly to legislation is the best way to go. Certainly the legislation would indicate to us what Senator Harradine's value position may be but I ask the honourable senator: May it not be a more productive route to try to use one of the committees of this Senate to investigate the matter and report to the Senate? I counsel the honourable senator. I doubt whether proceeding straight to a private member's Bill is likely to succeed. Senator Harradine —Would you call a moratorium? Senator PETER BAUME —I am sorry that the honourable senator is so distressed. I would hate to see a private member's Bill that was merely a stunt-I do not think it would be-or had no hope of success. If the honourable senator is really concerned about these areas-there are grey areas and difficult matters-I suggest that we use the expertise and skill of the Senate to resolve the matter in what I think would be a better way. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Harradine: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(3.26) —Perhaps Senator Peter Baume will be interested in the annual report of the Department of Health. It is somewhat different from the last report we debated this afternoon but it does go to the question of basic rights. I repeat my challenge to him: If he is proceeding along the lines of some sort of Senate inquiry, would he agree to a moratorium on experimentation? Senator Peter Baume —I am not proceeding; it is you who are proceeding. Senator HARRADINE —No, you are proceeding. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! Senator Harradine, address your remarks through the Chair. Senator HARRADINE —Senator Baume has been exposed because he wants scientists to go gung ho with all of these sorts of things without a moratorium. We now see that the bureaucrats in the Department of Health are dealing with another fundamental question secretly, without publicity and without decision by the Parliament. It is in an area which is of fundamental importance to every family in Australia, namely, the responsibilities of parents in regard to their children. We all know of the Gillick case in the United Kingdom. Mrs Gillick took to the courts of the United Kingdom the bureaucratic decision taken in the United Kingdom that departmental or council health practitioners could give contraceptive and other advice to underage children without the knowledge of their parents. Mrs Gillick won her case in the High Court in the United Kingdom. The case will now go to the House of Lords. What is the Australian Government's attitude on this matter? To get the Australian Government's attitude on this matter one has to go through the freedom of information legislation and tear the documents out of the Department one by one. For the past seven months I have been researching the stand taken by the Australian delegation at the International Conference on Population in Mexico in July 1984. Strangely, as a result of that investigation, I have turned up what the Government's attitude is. Maybe the Government does not know it but it is its attitude. The second collection of documents provided to my office under the freedom of information legislation only last week deals with this very question. The documents deal with the attitude that the Australian delegation would adopt, should moves be made to provide contraceptives to adolescents without parental knowledge or consent. Such a move was made and it was included in the overall population plan adopted in Mexico. The briefing notes prepared by the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, which are identical to those provided to that Department by the Department of Health, whose annual report we are dealing with now, state: The delegation should not support moves: . . . (ii) which insist on notification of parents as a condition of providing services. Those services are health related issues, including contraception. It would appear, therefore, that this is the official unpublicised position of the Australian Government and that it has been adopted without the knowledge of or consultation with Australian parents or people in this Parliament. The problem has arisen from a 1983 report to the International Planned Parenthood Federation meeting which stated quite clearly that adolescents-adolescents were defined as those between the ages of 10 and 19-should have contraceptives and other health related advice without the knowledge of the parents. Senator Peter Baume —Which age group? Senator HARRADINE —Ten to 19 years-without the knowledge of the parents. I ask the Government to stand up on this. Have the bureaucrats given certain instructions to the Australian delegation in Mexico? I ask the Government whether that is a bureaucratic decision taken on behalf of the Government and to deny it. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator WALTERS(Tasmania)(3.31) —I enter this debate just to agree in part with what Senator Harradine said about the experimentation on human sperm or animal ova. What we have done in this Parliament is push this matter into the too hard basket. It has been coming upon us for a long time and no one has attempted to grapple with it at all. It is time that the Parliament looked at this subject and debated it fully. I think it would be of great advantage to us if Senator Harradine were to follow up his suggestion and bring forward a private member's Bill. We have heard debates about cloning and all the other scientific experiments that can go on. I am not saying that they do take place, but they could. I believe that if we do not debate this, the next generation of politicians will have great problems because it will be too late. This generation of politicians has to come to grips with the matter. I do not believe it is fair for politicians to sit back and say that this is the scientists' problem. If a scientist is good, his or her mind must 'go the whole hog'. He or she must go right along the track. A scientist cannot say: 'I wonder if we did this and that with human sperm and animal ova-- Senator Peter Baume —Are you serious? Are you saying that scientists are not constrained by ethics? Senator WALTERS —I do not believe it is fair to constrain scientists by ethics in this area. The mind of a good scientist must go the whole way. Honourable senators may say that scientists would draw the line in this area and they would not conduct these experiments. But there would not be a scientist alive who would not say: 'But I wonder what would happen if I did'. I do not believe it is fair for politicians to sit back and say: 'The responsibility is totally on the scientists' side. They will not do it and we will rely on them not to go too far'. I believe that if it is too hard for politicians to come to grips with the matter-that is what we are saying because we have not attempted to touch it-we are also saying it is too hard for scientists. I defy Senator Baume to tell me that that is not happening in Australia today or in any other part of the world. I believe that scientists are only human and that they, too, will say: 'We have gone so far, right up to the brink; I wonder what will happen if we just try. Of course, we would not go any further but let us just try it and see what happens. It would never occur to any of us to let that develop but let us just see whether it is possible to start off'. I do not believe it is just to leave it to the scientists. I believe that politicians at the moment should take a stand because, if we do not debate this, it will be too late for the next generation of politicians to take any action. There could be grave problems for the human race if we do not act. Senator COONEY(Victoria)(3.36) —My remarks are prompted by the speech we have just heard from Senator Walters and by what Senator Harradine said before that. Senator Walters said that scientists are people who, as it were, invoke the Nuremberg defence on all occasions. The inference perhaps went wider than scientists. It was perhaps suggested that professionals as a whole do not have a code of ethics. I am sure that Senator Walters did not intend it that way and I do not take it that she did, but the effect of that is simply to say that professional people, including scientists, are not guided by a deeply felt sense of ethics, by a deeply felt sense that they have an obligation, not simply to the particular profession or science that they practise but that they also have a wider obligation to the community of which they are part. I repeat that I am sure both Senator Walters and Senator Harradine did not mean it in this way, but the effect of what they are saying is that the legislature should enter the field at this very preliminary point. This is what I was trying to say earlier. Of course the legislature should move in if abuses become so gross and so outrageous that something ought to happen. One could take as an example what Senator Harradine said. The inference in what he said is that there should be parental control over people in the 10 to 19 years age group. I can well imagine someone saying that parents should have control over a child of the age of 10. But what about someone at the age of 19? According to the laws of every State of Australia, that person is an adult. This is a difficulty that we face because it is a matter of priorities, and in each case of exercising judgment. The difficulty with laws intruding too early into the field is that those laws take away the judgments from people who should be properly exercising it-people who the law affects-and put it into the hands of the law makers and those who enforce the law. Senator Harradine —What about the issue as it affects minors? Would you say that government doctors should give advice to minors on contraception and abortion without parental consent? Senator COONEY —Of course, I think that parents have the right with young children to guide them. But the real problem is the relationship which is established between the parent and the child. It disturbs me that the child will go off to someone other than its parents for that sort of advice. That is a problem which arises from family relationships rather than from what the legislature does. Certainly, if that proper relationship between the parent and the child is not there and the situation arises where very young children are going off and getting this sort of advice without parental knowledge, then the legislature should step in. I simply say: Let us not rush into legislation-I adopt what Senator Baume says-without properly investigating the problems that we face and without realising the difficulties that are in our way. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Harradine: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(3.39) —I have nothing much more to say about this except that I notice that the Minister at the table is the former Attorney-General, Senator Gareth Evans. I take this opportunity to place on the record-some people will look at me askance when I say it-that, contrary to what some others have said, the previous Attorney-General was always correct in his dealings with me. I was able, as I am sure a number of other senators were, to discuss with him in depth matters of deep principle. We did not agree on many things, but at least he was a man who thought deeply on matters of vast importance to this nation. Though I may be condemned for it, I give credit to the former Attorney-General for being courteous and for treating senators from all sides of the Senate as Ministers ought to treat them. I do not want to give him the kiss of death; so I qualify that by reiterating that we hardly ever agree, and I am relatively comfortable in the knowledge that he is no longer the Attorney-General. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(3.41) —I express my indebtedness to Senator Harradine for the very gracious contribution to the debate that he has just made. It will not do me any good at all with the Socialist Left in Victoria in the present environment, but I thank him very much. If there are any obituaries from any other quarter of the chamber, I would be only too delighted to hear them before we move on. Senator COONEY(Victoria)(3.42) —Senator Harradine and I are monopolising the proceedings; but I would hate it to be thought that, as Senator Harradine made his remarks and nothing at all was said by honourable senators on the Government side-except Senator Gareth Evans himself-those of us on this side do not endorse everything that Senator Harradine said. I exclude, of course, Senator Harradine's comments about not agreeing with much that Senator Evans says. Of course, we on this side of the House pay continual court to his words of wisdom, the elucidation that he gives to the law and the grace that he brings to this place and elsewhere. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Harradine: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Harradine: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(3.43) —I simply refer to the fact that the Family Law Council has detailed the problems and stark statistics concerning children affected by divorce, custody and access applications and the problems relating to property and maintenance. I do not want to bore the Senate with what I have already repeated on a number of occasions. I simply indicate that I believe I express the view of the whole of the Senate when I say that we are most concerned about family breakdown in Australia. There is a general will around this place to do something about it. I certainly have been considering the matter, and I know that other people have. Maybe the Government and the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) will be able to see their way clear to bring in further amendments which might create a better climate within which these tragic human differences can be more satisfactorily conciliated. I refer to my proposals for required reconciliation processes. Although I have called them 'required reconciliation processes', the proposals were really designed to induce partners to the marriage to come together at an early stage for the purpose of considering the social, economic and legal effects the breakdown will have, as well as the effects of their proposed separation on any children they may have. I believe that consideration has been given within Government circles to pre-marriage guidance issues. We discussed those previously and I do not want to bore the Senate with that. I simply flag them again at this stage and hope that the Government, in its continued consideration, will bring forward amendments which will enhance the stability of marriage, which is so important for this country's future. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania) —Mr Acting Deputy President, I seek leave to have paper No. 76 dealt with out of order. I think only four of us have sat through the proceedings to date dealing with papers. This is the only paper with which I wish to deal and it is still a way off. I wonder whether there is any objection to that. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) — Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(3.47) —I wish to speak only very briefly to the Industries Assistance Commission report on frozen peas. It is a hallmark inquiry and report. This was the first reference to go to the Industries Assistance Commission in connection with the operation of our closer economic relations with New Zealand. This report is the first appraisal of the operation of the agreement and the effects that it may have. It highlights the fact that the industry is spread through five States of Australia. It is a major industry amongst the smaller industries inasmuch as it has a considerable effect on other rural commodities that are produced in those areas. It is not a high profit crop, but it is very much an integral rotation crop. Peas are a very favoured vegetable in Australia. We eat between 45,000 and 50,000 tonnes of peas a year. Of those, we import about 8,000 tonnes, and it was on account of that fact that the inquiry was set up. The growth in import has been rapid and it appears that the growth will continue and be very disruptive if something is not done. After potatoes, peas are the top processing vegetable in Australia. They are of great importance to the farmers and processors. The volume of peas, which is quite large in vegetable terms, assists both growers and processors in maintaining volume and so containing costs. Much has been said in the report about the efficiency of the industry and the protection that goes with it. I have followed the pea industry for many years and I have been a grower of peas on occasions over the last 12 or 14 years. I have seen the average crop rise from 2,700 lb of peas to the acre to about 6,500 lb of peas to the acre, and I have seen top crops of up to about 9,500 lb. There surely has to be a limit to how much more efficient the growing of a crop like this can become. It is absolutely crazy that we now look upon this industry as an industry in trouble when, by any standards in the world, nobody grows peas more efficiently than we do. So, why does our pea industry seek an inquiry, as it is low priced and efficient? This is where I wish to draw attention to the IAC's attitude, which is the same attitude as it adopted 10 years ago. It is a strictly economic approach to a very practical problem. The IAC has to realise now that everything in the world has changed in trading. Everything in Australia has changed as far as our cost structure is concerned, but the attitude of the IAC has not changed. The rules are all so different. The Committee on Industry and Trade is looking at the New Zealand aspects of CER at the moment. It has been put to us that the trend is that low priced efficient industries are probably in more trouble than the high priced inefficient ones. This is absolutely contrary to anything that was intended to be the case under the CER agreement. We will be investigating this further, to see how much that is likely to be the case. The question of currency is the other factor that was not dealt with in any significant way in the Industries Assistance Commission report. The question of New Zealand currency parity to our own is of paramount importance. At $1.20 to the Australian dollar I believe we could cope, but at $1.55 or $1.65, or whatever it may be, we certainly cannot cope. It is unreasonable that we should be expected to compete on a level basis. I suggest that the countries on both sides of the Tasman wish to see this work. It will require voluntary restraint to be undertaken to see that we do not interfere unduly with each other in some of these areas. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory)(3.52) —I want to make one comment in relation to the Canberra Theatre. There is a lot of information in an annual report, but some things are there only, in a sense, by inference. The Canberra Theatre is a very likeable theatre, but it is quite small. It was adequate at the time it was built, but the problem it faces at present is that the number of seats is far too few for it to be able to seat sufficient patrons for a large number of productions. Many functions are put on at the National Indoor Sports Centre, which is a fine venue indeed, but for many productions we do not have a theatre because of the cost of staging them. At some stage the theatre will have to be increased in size to get more people into it, or some other arrangement will have to be made. Canberra has a population of a quarter of a million people, and I do not like to think they will be deprived of theatre productions in the future. I do not want to debate the solutions, but I think it is time we highlighted the problem and looked at what can be done to make the Canberra Theatre a viable place for the sorts of productions intended. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory)(3.54) —This report deals with the activities of the Bush Fire Council in 1983-84, when it was fairly busy. Certainly, it is always busy during the summer season with spotting and monitoring activities. Recently it has had a particularly busy time. It has been carrying out spotting and monitoring activities and it has been fighting the bushfires which have threatened a lot of properties in recent weeks. The Canberra Festival awarded the Australian Capital Territory fire fighters the Canberran of the Year award for this year. I think that was something that was applauded by all of us in Canberra. Many of them are volunteers, and some of them are employed as fire fighters. Certainly for those who have been out fighting and for those who have been supporting them, it has been a very busy season indeed. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(3.58) —I rise to speak briefly, because I reflect the concern of a large number of people in local government of the danger that changes may be made to the financing of local government which will further restrict its independence. In recent years there has been a tendency of State governments, particularly State Labor governments, to put further burdens on local government and, indeed, to withdraw funds from local government, upsetting totally or partially any benefits that local governments may have had from the 2 per cent revenue sharing brought about by the Fraser Government. There is now talk that that kind of independence should be set aside. There is talk that local government should become even more fully captured by the State governments from which local government emerged. I can only say that local government in Australia has had very poor support from governments generally. Local government in Australia as a third tier of government is smaller in that third tier than in most countries. It does less and is less regarded than in most countries. I believe local government, because it is close to the people, serves a very valuable purpose. I believe it should be given as much freedom as possible. I believe it should be as accountable as possible for the money it raises. I believe it is fundamentally wrong that the 2 per cent revenue share that comes from the Commonwealth Government should be used either to offset rate increases or to replace funds given by State governments. I rise to reflect the concern I and many people have that there is likely to be a further socialist attack on local government. I remind people that during the Whitlam regime there was the forced establishment of regions, the centralised funding through regions, and the attempt to get an amalgamation of local government into smaller areas. I remind the Senate that the then Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, was on record as saying that all State governments should be abolished; that the best service a State Labor member of Parliament could do for his Party would be to work towards the dissolution of State parliaments. His concept was that Australia should be brought together in a series of regional councils-about 40-odd, I think. We should not forget that inherent in the Labor Party's policy is a desire to centralise, a desire to control. I sniff in the air a move towards a further tightening down on local government, and I rise to express the warning and my concern. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the papers. Senator COONEY(Victoria)(4.01) —This is not the time or the place to debate the issue of land rights and all the other problems which are real and tragic problems to do with the Aboriginal population of this country, but I would like to make a couple of remarks. One of the arguments against perhaps giving as much to the Aboriginals as they deserve is that they are simply part of the Australian population. That is true, but they are part of an Australian population which has a very different history, depending upon the origins of the people who make it up. Unfortunately the history of the Aboriginals has been tragic since the arrival of the Europeans in 1788. It is in that context that any debate that takes place about Aboriginal rights and what should or should not be done for Aboriginals should be remembered. They are a disadvantaged group in terms of a culture which they have and which has been much affected and much violated by a culture that has been introduced. I simply did not want this paper to go by without at least making some remarks about the matter. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(4.03) —There is a continuing and growing concern throughout the national broadcasting industry, both in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and in the Special Broadcasting Service, that the Government may be contemplating wide changes, whether by legislation or otherwise, to the industry. Some three weeks ago I asked-I direct the attention of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs (Senator Gietzelt) who is in the chamber to this matter-this question of Senator Walsh who represents the Minister for Communications (Mr Duffy): Is the Government contemplating any kind of legislation within the field of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service? He said he would get me an early answer. Three weeks have gone by. There has been no answer. They are plain words. This is a simple matter. I invite the Minister to let us have that answer. There is no doubt at all that there is a feeling that considerations have been given by the Government to some kind of new amalgamation in which the SBS would be absorbed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I know that there has been some consideration by the Government as to the working of the new broadcasting provisions of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Nothing that I say now should be taken as any indication that I want to interfere with the independence of the Corporation. Nevertheless, I believe that the Government has not done the fundamental things. It has not been able to institute a system of management which could be effective management of a commercial or business kind so that there could be adequate staff management, adequate staff promotions, talent could be promoted and initiative encouraged. I believe that there has not been the use of initiatives as used in the commercial area to employ by contract, to contract out. I believe that generally the overall structure of the Corporation is such that it has not been a total success. I know that the Government has in fact reflected much of my concern. I know that discussions have taken place within the Government as to ways of rectifying the situation. My inquiry is: If that is so, in what direction? I do not believe that one should interfere in such a way as to destroy independence. I believe that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the SBS have fundamental roles to play. I have always acknowledged that. I would fight very hard for their independence. I do not think we have achieved it. In many ways what is happening at the moment is not a good thing. I do not comment on some of the innovations. They are matters of judgment and taste. It is a matter of judgment whether, for example, as I understand it, something like one quarter of their resources are used for this new news and news commentary. Frankly, I like my news straight and undiluted by comment but that, like kissing, goes by favour. Nevertheless, I want to say that it is vital to the very democracy of this country that what we do in future with our national broadcasting should be done so that it is both highly efficient and free, that it understands that the independence it has is not a licence to libertine actions but one to carry out comprehensive broadcasting. It is for that reason that I speak on this matter. I have invited the Minister to provide the information which I think is vital to the Senate. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN(Queensland)(4.08) —I notice that an amount of $21,571,820 has been allocated for sport in 1983-84 which is, of course, a large amount, but Australia certainly appears to be a very great sporting nation. Every time one opens the paper there is always plenty to read about sport. Senator Robert Ray —You can't win the Sheffield Shield, but you won the union by kicking. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN —I want to make some remarks about the Sheffield Shield in my speech, but I just want to say that we are a good sporting nation. I would also like to think that we are a good working nation. I think that it is very important for young people to be able to get jobs, and this is a real problem at present. I think we can all be very proud indeed of Australia's sporting prowess in winning the America's Cup. We can also be proud of our athletes at the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games. The Lord Mayor of Brisbane and the Government of Queensland are working very hard to ensure that the Olympic Games come to Brisbane in 1992. I must admit that it will require a lot of effort, money and encouragement from the Federal Government as well as the State Government to ensure that this actually comes about. Queensland has excellent tennis players and footballers. One can read about them in every paper. There is no doubt about that. We have had quite a surfeit of cricket over the last number of months. I felt that one of the best games of cricket was the Sheffield Shield final that we have just had between New South Wales and Queensland. I pay a tribute to the Queensland cricketers who, although they did not win the match, certainly did their best. I like that saying that it does not matter whether you win or lose, but it is how you play the game. I feel that they played a very good game and that, even if we became a little tired of all the cricket during the World Series Cup games, it certainly was an excellent game. I turn to the tourism part of the report. Tourism is something that is vital to Queensland. It has certainly been a success story of the past decade and it is worth nearly $2.5 billion a year to our State's economy. That is a lot of money in anybody's language. If the present rate of growth continues it will only be a matter of time before tourism replaces mining as the State's most important industry. Most certainly, it is outpacing the rest of Australia as a holiday destination. I am not too sure whether other senators will agree with me but, coming from Queensland, I feel that this is so. We still have much potential to be fully tapped. I had a German television crew come to see me in Brisbane on Monday. The girl who was interviewing me asked what I thought was so good about Queensland. The crew was making a film about it to take back to Germany. I think those people knew which State was the best State to look at. I told her that there was lots for which I could recommend Queensland. We are lucky that we have the Great Barrier Reef. Senator Boswell —What about Joh? Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN —I did not claim him as a part of tourism. I think he is part of the good government that we have in Queensland. We have excellent beaches in Queensland, wide open spaces and the rain forests. Most certainly, it is an excellent State. Senator Robert Ray —What about Fourex? Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN —That might be Senator Ray's opinion but I do not use that. As our tourist industry develops it stimulates growth in other resource areas in the economy, from the primary production of timber to its use in the construction of multi-million dollar resorts. Tourism is increasingly seen as the sector of the economy most able to provide continued job growth during a time of economic slow-down. The fundamental importance of tourism to the Queensland economy becomes apparent when it is considered that the sector accounted for fully 30 per cent of all new jobs created in Queensland in the past four years. Even with modest growth, the tourist industry expects to create a further 30,000 jobs by the end of this year. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March 1985, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the papers. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March 1985, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March 1985, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 21 March 1985, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 21 March 1985, on motion by Senator Lewis: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory)(4.14) —There is a great deal of controversy about the National Capital Development Commission from time to time. Most people, I think, agree that it has done a great job in developing Canberra but, of course, people always have some intermittent difficulties. I ask the Minister for Veterans' Affairs (Senator Gietzelt), who is in the chamber and who represents the Minister for Territories (Mr Scholes), to ask the Minister for Territories to review the decision as to the restructuring of the NCDC to what he proposes. I do not think that we will get a satisfactory performance under the new arrangements. Will Senator Gietzelt please ask for the decision to be reviewed? Debate interrupted. The PRESIDENT —Order! It being 4.15 p.m., under sessional order I propose the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory)(4.16) —I must bring before the Senate the plight of the Curtin Primary School and the problem it has with its teacher numbers for this year. Firstly, I remind the Senate that there are guidelines for the numbers of teachers, for staffing levels, which apply in our schools and that the argument that is being presented at present is not on the basis that the formula is wrong or in principle ought not to be applied. I am saying that it ought not to be applied against the best interests of the school, as I believe it to be, three or four weeks after school has commenced. The agreed figure on the demographic information available for what was expected at the Curtin Primary School in 1985 was 298 students. I believe that was agreed to in November or December last year. When school commenced in 1985 there were 11 children fewer than that number and subsequently, at the census date, only 10 fewer than that number. As soon as the Principal realised that this had occurred she realised that on a mathematical formula it might mean that she would have her staff cut by 0.3 of a teacher. She contacted the Primary Staffing Officer of the Australian Capital Territory Schools Authority and was assured that it was most unlikely, in view of the difficulty of reorganisation, that she would suffer the loss of a teacher as it was inappropriate. I certainly agree that it was most inappropriate. If the situation had come about prior to school starting and the Principal, Miss Chalker, had been told that she would have one less teacher, she may have been able to reorganise her classes so as to take that into account. There are now 288 students and they are divided into 10 classes. You will appreciate, Mr President, that they are not all of the same year. The classes cover kindergarten to grade 6 and the numbers that Miss Chalker would have to have in her classrooms now if she lost a teacher are considerably higher. There would have to be mainly composite classes throughout the school. I suggest that with composite classes there should be fewer students in the classroom rather than more. As a result she would get an additional 0.6 per cent of a teacher. In a high school this might not matter because there are subject teachers. In primary schools the teachers are classroom teachers, so if the Principal loses 0.3 of a teacher and loses a classroom mistress she has to reorganise the whole school to have nine classrooms instead of 10-and this is after the school year has commenced. What horrifies me most of all about this is that it is all talked about in numbers. No regard whatever is paid to the fact that the classes cover kindergarten to grade 6. Grade 6 is a particularly crucial year. The children in that year are finishing their primary education and being prepared for high school-a very significant change. If Miss Chalker is forced to reorganise her school there will probably have to be composite classes of grades 5 and 6. I suggest that this is grossly unfair to the students in grade 6. The numbers for the three higher groups in the school would be 34, 35 and 36. I think that is undesirable. I suggest that in primary education the teacher arrangements cannot be readjusted in this manner, especially after the school year has commenced. I point out also that the Curtin Primary School is the only place in the Woden Valley with two special classes-a learning centre and a junior assessment class. The JAC students are there for special tuition but they also spend some time in the main classrooms, where they get the opportunity to intergrate. I wonder what weighting has been given to that fact. It appears to me that no weighting has been given to it. I do not suggest that the 18 students in that class could be added on to the total number at the school but I suggest that there is a lower number which represents the impact. I wonder whether, in fact, if the school had finished up with more students than the number agreed to, it would have been given extra teachers. I seriously doubt it. I say to the Minister that I think she must intervene and look at this as a problem of children and education and not just of numbers. The school has been told to get rid of a teacher. It is under great pressure to do so. There is no doubt that it has difficulties. It cannot get an answer from anybody. The Schools Commission seems to think it is a decision for the Australian Capital Territory Schools Authority. The Schools Authority says it is a matter for the Department of Finance, which deals only in money and certainly not in numbers of children. It is a matter for the Minister to look into and to resolve. It is an important primary school in the schools system. It has a good reputation. To interfere with its staffing formula at this stage of the year is irresponsible. Senator GIETZELT(New South Wales-Minister for Veterans' Affairs)(4.21) —Senator Reid has raised a very interesting problem which obviously requires attention by the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan). I will see that it is drawn to the Minister's attention and I hope that some response will be made early next week to the matter that has been raised. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 4.22 p.m. The following papers were tabled: Australian Antarctic Territory Act-Ordinance 1985 No. 1-Migratory Birds (Amendment) Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court Act-Rules of Court-Statutory Rules 1985 No. 27. Census and Statistics Act-Corrigendum to paper entitled: '1986 Census of Population and Housing: Content and Procedures' Customs Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1985 No. 26 Heard Island and McDonald Islands Act-Ordinance 1985 No. 1-Migratory Birds (Amendment) Public Service Act-Appointment-Department of Employment and Industrial Relations-W.E.E. Blucher Seat of Government (Administration) Act-Regulations 1985-No. 7-(Motor Omnibus Services Ordinance) The following answers to questions were circulated: (Question No. 32) Senator Vigor asked the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, upon notice, on 22 February 1985: (1) Does the Minister for Communications agree that, in the light of his 18 February 1985 statement, any policy designed to achieve equalisation of broadcasting services to all communities must address all three sectors of broadcasting in Australia, i.e. national, commercial and public broadcasting. (2) What provision is being made for the balanced development of broadcasting services in terms of the provision of national, commercial and public services, including both radio and television, to all communities. (3) Do draft amendments to the Broadcasting and Television Act scheduled for the Autumn Session include provision for the introduction of regional commercial television services via satellite in remote areas, but not regional public television or regional public radio services via satellite. Senator Walsh —The Minister for Communications has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) My statement of 18 February 1985 was addressed principally to the question of commercial television and radio services. The Australian Broadcasting Commission was exhaustively examined by the Dix Committee and the Government has taken both legislative and administrative action in response to that report. A similar detailed study of the operations of the Special Broadcasting Service has recently been made by the Connor Committee and I expect to release its report shortly. While it is accepted that long term planning requires all sectors of broadcasting to be borne in mind, my statement is directed towards the commercial sector, which has not been examined in detail for nearly 30 years. (2) See 1 above. The Broadcasting Policy and Planning Division of my Department is responsible for planning for the development of broadcasting services and is represented at all planning committees. It acts as the co-ordinating mechanism and advises me accordingly. (3) The proposed amendments do not yet include any reference to public broadcasting. However, in considering the provision of remote commercial radio services (RCRS), my Department is also addressing the question of public radio services via satellite. When I have had the opportunity to consider these recommendations I will make a further announcement. (Question No. 36) Senator Chipp asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 22 February 1985: (1) Was an Environmental Impact Statement prepared by the United States Government for the MX and Trident II D5 missile tests in the Kwajalein Islands which form part of the Marshall Islands of which the total population is approximately 11,500 people. (2) Was an Environmental Impact Study conducted either by the Australian Government or by the US Government before the MX missile tests in the Tasman Sea were originally agreed to, or before the Australian Government agreed to help with any tests. (3) Does the testing mission officially referred to as 'strategic offensive missile programmes' cover the MX and Trident II D5 missile tests and in the studies, have both the MX and Trident II D5 missile tests been lumped together. (4) Can the Government give an assurance that Australia has not agreed to co-operate with the US on any missile tests that form part of the US Strategic Modernisation Programme, in particular, the Trident II D5 missile tests, and if the Government cannot give such an assurance, why not. Senator Gareth Evans —The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) The Australian Government is not aware of any environmental impact statement prepared by the US for missile tests in the Kwajalein Islands. (2) The Australian Government did not prepare and is not aware of any US environmental impact statement for the Tasman Sea. The Government notes that an exclusion zone would be declared by the US to preclude risk to shipping and aircraft at the time of the tests. (3) The Australian Government has not been informed or consulted about any US plans for testing Trident II D5 missiles. (4) Yes.